NOTHING TO DECLARE

by Mary Morris

  I come from the Midwest, from the bluffs along the shores of Lake Michigan. It is not an exotic place, though it is very beautiful. You might stumble on an arrowhead, and there are a few trees, bent and tied to the ground a century before by Indians, which mark trails. But other than that, there is nothing remarkable about the part of the world I come from. Nothing extraordinary ever happened to me in the years that I was growing up, except once.

  One day as I was coming home from school, I spotted a bird, larger than myself, sitting in the lower branches of a tree in a wooded area I passed through every day. It was huge and peered down with dark, curious eyes. It appeared weary and a bit confused, surprised to find itself in a tree in the Chicago suburbs, yet it stretched its wings and fluttered them with tremendous dignity. I spent the better part of an afternoon watching until my mother, half crazed, came searching and found me entranced by a bald eagle.

  The eagle, off course from its home in the wilderness, had somehow landed in my neighborhood. Though lost, it seemed sure of itself. I wondered then as I wonder now what led it to suburbia, so far away from where its nest should be. At times I have thought it just wanted to get away, to go somewhere else. I knew it would find its way.

  It was the first traveler I ever encountered and it made me thirsty to take a trip. Whenever I find myself somewhere I don't think I belong, I remember the confidence of that lost wanderer. I have tried to imitate it.

  SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE IS NOT A DANGEROUS place, not a threatening place. It is true that there is no doctor you can trust to give you a shot. It is true that if you are in an accident or have a heart attack, you are probably a goner. That there are few phones or televisions or viable communications with the outside world. But it is not a place of upheaval, beset with soldiers, disease, or crime. Yet it does have its share of poverty, which most Americans who come here do not see.

  I have been to dangerous places and San Miguel is not one of them. I have seen men plucked off buses in Guatemala and carted off by soldiers. In hospitals in Nicaragua I have seen boys with half their stomachs blown away. I've spent an evening with terrorists in the old city of Jerusalem and been in blackouts orchestrated by Shining Path in Lima. In Manhattan I have had a knife put to my throat while a trembling boy said he was going to kill me for my bicycle.

  These are the average dangers that happen to those who move through the world. But San Miguel de Allende is not like those other places. It is a beautiful town which has been declared a historical monument by the government of Mexico in order to preserve its colonial style. Set in the high reaches of the Mexican desert, it has perfect weather, perpetual spring; the so-called winter consists of a bit more rain and colder nights. The days are always warm and dry, the shade cool. There is no humidity. Mexico City is five hours away by bus. There is no reason to go there and be afraid.

  And yet I can say that I have never been more afraid in my life than I was in San Miguel. Camus has written, "For what gives value to travel is fear. It breaks down a kind of inner structure we have. One can no longer cheat—hide behind the hours spent at the office or at the plant (those hours we protest so loudly, which protect us so well from the pain of being alone)." I was afraid in part because of what my neighbor, Trevor Helstrum, told me, but mostly I was afraid because of what I carried in my heart.

  San Miguel was founded in 1542. The name Allende was added later, to commemorate the hero of the independence, Ignacio Allende, who was born here. Facing the broad sweep of the Laja River and the distant blue of the Guanajuato Mountains, the town sits at six thousand feet above sea level, on a steep hillside.

  Most of the sixty thousand inhabitants of San Miguel are Mexicans—campesinos, workers, shopkeepers, children (there seem to be millions of children). The Mexicans work in the fields, on ranches and haciendas. They work in construction or in the small shops in town. Most are extremely poor.

  But perhaps a thousand of the inhabitants are Americans. Expatriates can live well, a mere ten hours from Laredo if you drive fast and don't break down in the desert heat. There are writers and painters, or so they call themselves. There are the former school teachers and moderately successful real estate brokers who come to live out their retirement days. There are the alcoholics, the Vietnam veterans, sixties burnouts, gay divorcees, people with a little pension.

  There are the losers. Seth, the soldier who lost his leg in Vietnam, who said he was the only person in the history of the United States Army to refuse the Congressional Medal of Honor. (Later, when I did some checking, I learned he had never received the Congressional Medal, let alone refused it.) Irene, who had ten children and had left them all; she said she'd never been happier in her life.

  Clifford Irving has a house in San Miguel. He went to live there after the scam of his Howard Hughes book. There was the gorgeous fashion model (we knew she was gorgeous because of the pictures of her all over her apartment) who had become a vegetarian fast-foot junkie, living on avocados and doughnuts. The wealthy widow from Manhattan carrying on a "serious" relationship with a campesino. Melanie, who had been having a long love affair with a prominent Catholic priest who had a political career; he had paid her way to San Miguel to keep her quiet. And Sam, the bitter black man who laughed when I sat on his toilet and came out screaming, my pants full of giant roaches.

  Here were the mediocre Americans, the would-bes, the has-beens, the might-have-beens, with their meager pensions. The dollar is always strong and the peso always weak. There is no border with greater economic discrepancy in the world than the border between the U.S. and Mexico. First World meets Third World. The discovery of oil in 1978, the projected rise of the petropeso, did not help. Americans can always do well in Mexico. Life is cheap. For a hundred dollars a month we could live like kings in castles, away from it all.

  Many times at the bus station in Queretaro, where I often had to change for the bus to San Miguel and where I could get a good, quick lunch of avocado and coriander salad and tortillas, I just sat and looked at the destinations on the buses headed north. The names of border towns—Laredo, El Paso, Nogales, Tiajuana—made me think how close I was to home. In truth I couldn't have been farther away. Sometimes I thought I'd hop on a bus and stare out the window, and in a day or so, I'd be there. But I never did.

  I HAD BEEN IN SAN ANTONIO ABOUT A WEEK BEFORE I laid eyes on Trevor Helstrum, and when I did I found there was something about him that I disliked immediately; that feeling would only grow. There were four town houses where I lived, and Trevor, photographer, lived in the second one. One day he opened his door and introduced himself. He was a powerful man—tall with enormous hands and cruel, empty blue eyes. He wanted to know where I was going and when I told him to market, he asked me to pick up some vegetables for him. "If you bring me these vegetables," he said, "I'll have you over for dinner."

  Trevor came from Pecos in West Texas. When we sat down that night to dinner of rice and beans and a shredded beef stew with green olives, he said, "The only thing I like about Mexico is that it's got a lot of fireflies, like Texas." I was going to comment that I hadn't noticed any fireflies, but Trevor went on. "I hate this place. I hate the flies. I hate the corruption, the poverty, the sickness, the way of life, the stupid Mexicans."

  I cannot say I was enjoying myself much with this conversation, but the stew was good. "So," I said, "why bother staying?"

  He ran his hand through his thick copper curls. "Why? Because it's cheap. That's why. No other reason. Cheap place for an artist to live." Trevor never struck me as being much of an artist and I don't remember a single piece of his artwork that I ever saw, but for whatever reason, he stayed in a place he said he hated.

  After a few minutes Trevor took me under his wing. "Listen," he said, "you need to know the ropes. First"—he began before we'd finished our stew—"don't forget to check your bed at night and your shoes in the morning for scorpions. I woke up with one hooked to my backside the other night. It crawled right into bed and stung the hell out of me. The
re's two kinds. The black kind and the white kind. Mostly they got the black kind. They don't do nothing more than sting, but they also got the white kind and they'll work their poison slow into you and pretty soon you won't be moving so good, if you know what I mean."

  "I get the picture," I said.

  "I don't know why you moved into San Antonio," he continued. "The Mexicans, you know, they're pigs and you've moved into the poorest section. Over there, beyond the wall, that's the rich section." He pointed toward the wall that ran along the road to San Antonio. "Here it's the poor and it's all pigs. There's a hole in the wall by the rich section. Have you found the hole yet?" I told him I hadn't. "Well, it's a big short cut. You can come through it at night, but they're gonna block it up soon."

  "They are?"

  "The rich people hate the people from San Antonio. Like I said, we're living with pigs. If I were you, a woman alone like this, I'd move to another part of town. The police, they don't care what happens to you. They don't care what happens to the gringas. There was a woman, Sarah, who was murdered, got her throat slit, just taking a stroll in the sierra." He pointed toward the hills near the edge of town. "Don't ever go up there by yourself. And I've got a friend named Cory. Some Mexicans tied her to a bed and raped her for three or four days. She says she lost count." Trevor opened another bottle of wine and poured me an eight-ounce glass. "Don't ever trust a Mexican. They'll rob you blind. They'll rape you. They'll toss you into a drainage sewer without a thought. Just be careful."

  As I was leaving, he gave me his final piece of advice. "And get yourself into some kind of a routine or else you'll go crazy."

  When I got home, I turned on all the lights and ran through the house, making sure no thieves or rapists were hidden in closets or underneath beds. I locked all the windows and the door to the roof terrace. I barred the front door with a chair. Then I checked every inch of my bed for scorpions. I'm not sure when or how I fell asleep, but I woke at four in the morning with terrible stomach pains and my Swiss army knife open at my side. My body was covered with dozens of welts and I was scratching at my arms. The room was filled with mosquitoes which I smashed frantically, my own blood popping out of them as they were crushed with a magazine into the wall.

  By the time the mosquitoes were dead and the pains had subsided, the white rooster next door was crowing. I looked at the clock; it was five-thirty. I went up to the roof terrace. In the east the sky was a glazed turquoise; the moon was full in the west. Lupe had turned on her radio and I heard the scrubbing sound of her washing clothes. In the distance, on a neighbor's clotheslines, I saw white loons, brilliant like newly washed sheets in the moonlight.

  I decided to follow one piece of Trevor's advice and begin a routine. I'd write in the mornings. In the afternoons I'd go for walks, take pictures, do watercolors, write letters, and meet with the friends I was going to make.

  I went to my typewriter that morning for the first time. Sitting down at my desk, I flicked on the switch. Nothing happened. I flicked it on again. Still nothing. I thought perhaps something was wrong with the electricity in my apartment, so I went next door to Lupe's to ask.

  I had not yet been to her house. Lupe had a small wooden door with a string through it for a latch. I knocked and at first there was no answer. I knocked again and the door opened. A large man, bare chested, with strong arms and a muscular torso, stood in front of me. He had dark, deep-set eyes and a square jaw. He was very handsome and seemed to know it. From behind him three or four children played, some of whom I recognized. Others I'd never seen. He stepped back and motioned for me to enter.

  I walked into a narrow cement vestibule filled with sheep droppings, bits of tortilla. He pulled aside a curtained doorway and I walked into one of Lupe's two rooms. It was a large, airless, cement-and-brick room with one tiny window. The room was dark and the air heavy with the smell of bodies and mildew. But it was tidy and clean.

  The man, who I'd later leam was the father of Lupe's younger children, introduced himself as José Luis and sat down. He said that Lupe was not home. I told him there was no electricity and he laughed. "There never is," he told me, "after it rains."

  "Oh, and how often is that?"

  "Oh, every day for the next two or three months." I groaned, thinking of my electric typewriter and the work I'd planned to do, but he just shrugged. "This is the season. The lights go off all the time."

  It had taken my eyes some time to adjust to the room around me, but now I could see the walls. They were covered with pictures of naked women—women with giant breasts, women with their asses in the air, women coyly hiding their pubic hair. Wanda, the Sex Goddess, her gold hair covering her nipples, stared at me. Margarita, the Nympho, and Isabel, the Nurse, revealed all. The Wonders of Feminine Beauty were on display—mostly from pin-up magazines, and they were tattered.

  José Luis had papered the room where he and Lupe slept with these pictures. Now he looked at me oddly. In the dim, smelly room, surrounded by naked women, his deep breathing filled the dark.

  A few hours later the lights came on and I sat at my desk to work. I flicked on the typewriter and was happy to be working until I noticed the stucco walls around me, which were black and seemed to be moving. The molding of the window I faced was black and crawling. I ran screaming from the house, calling for Lupe to come and help me.

  That was when I met Jerry, knocking on Trevor's door. "Please," I said, breathless, "it's grotesque. It's horrible."

  "Now, baby," he said, "just stay cool." He had a weathered face and a graying beard. He wore a T-shirt with a big rainbow on it, and a peace sign around his neck.

  "Please, can you help me?"

  Jerry, a writer from Maine, had gotten an NEA grant about ten years before and had been living in Mexico since then, trying to finish his novel. "It's a cross between Kerouac and Henry James," he told me in my apartment, as he swatted the walls with a rag. "With a little Dos Passos thrown in."

  "Can I read it?" I said, not knowing what else to say to that description.

  "Sure, when I'm done." I had a sense that that wouldn't be very soon. He told me he'd spent five years working on this one. He'd spent ten years before that writing another novel about impotence which nobody wanted to buy. "They all said it fell flat," he said, laughing.

  I laughed, too, not because it was funny, but because it was ridiculous and because I had not laughed in a week. I watched as Jerry swatted flying ants. Soon carcasses lay all over my floor. After the ants were killed, he sat down to talk. I made him coffee and eggs. I thought about my promise to make a routine for myself. I would begin tomorrow.

  Jerry was smart and would have been smarter if he hadn't smoked marijuana every afternoon in order to "get started." He was thrilled to meet "a real writer." When I invited him for dinner that night, he said, "Groovy." He said he'd bring Trevor and Trevor's girlfriend, Eleanore.

  Lupe came by in the early afternoon. Her compañero, José Luis, said I'd been looking for her. I told her about the electricity and the ants. She nodded as if she knew all of this. "The ants come out of the cracks in the walls," she said, pointing. "It's the rain. I'll get you some spray."

  "Why don't we go to market together?" I asked her. "I've invited people for dinner."

  Lupe ran off and came back wearing a cotton minidress, black sandals, her hair combed and pulled up. She had Polio and Lisa on her arm. I found the hole in the wall where Trevor had described it to me and we took the short cut through the rich people's neighborhood. Then as we trudged up the hill, I told Lupe I had met José Luis that morning. "He is a very handsome man," I told her.

  "The worst kind," she said with a laugh. "All the women want him."

  I said I'd seen the pictures of naked women in their bedroom. "Doesn't that bother you?" I asked. "You don't mind?"

  She smiled. "There are worse things to bother me," she said. "They are his artists. He keeps them because they are artists."

  "Is he your husband?"

  Lupe shrugged
. "He is the man I am with now. I had a husband, but he left for El Paso ten years ago with another woman. I haven't seen him since. He is the father of my three oldest children." I had seen three grown women near the house and these, she told me, were her older daughters. "I've been with José Luis a few years. These other children are his. Except for Agustín. He has another father."

  "Oh," I said, wondering if I felt judgmental. I decided I did not.

  "I had some birth control but it fell out. I don't know what it was. I told the doctor I didn't want more children and he gave me something, but it never worked." She paused and looked at me. "Do you have a husband or children?"

  "No," I said, "but I'd like both."

  "It is very difficult for men and women to get along," Lupe said. She tugged on Polio and Lisa, dragging them along with her. "It is all very difficult. José Luis gives me fifty pesos a day to feed my children. It is not enough. I barely make do. That is why I work for the Señora of the Blue Door Bakery. Still, it is not enough. But I keep the apartments nice for her and she gives me a little money and the house to live in."

  Lupe helped me pick out a good chicken and nice avocados. She said she would help me make my dinner. We walked down the hill in silence, and when she saw I was having difficulty with my parcels, she took them from me. When we got to the house, she said, "I'll make José Luis something to eat. He cannot eat unless I feed him. If I did not feed him, he would die. It is better," she said, "not to depend on anyone."

  I WAS READY FOR DINNER AT SEVEN, BUT NOBODY showed up until eight-thirty. The first to arrive was Jerry, who apologized for being on Mexican time. He said, "How ya doing, baby? Had any more plagues?" He kissed me on the lips.