Lost in the City: Tree of Desire and Serafin

by Ignacio Solares

  Doña Luz showed her the yellow snapshots, with edges eaten away by time, of a blonde woman with gentle eyes in full skirts and a man with hair slicked back, posed as if looking over his shoulder.

  “Me. My husband.”

  “What a handsome couple!”

  In one they were in the leafy garden paths near the stone fountain, which Cristina recognized and pointed out, saying, “It’s down below!” to Doña Luz’ smile of agreement and enthusiasm; in another they were seated on a small stone bench looking at the sky; in another he was smoking a cigar behind a huge rolltop desk; in another she, with a listless air as if she were about to faint, by the trunk of a eucalyptus tree; in the breakfast room on the terrace, he with a forced smile, she pouring from an elaborate teapot; in the country, hand in hand, their heads leaning together and, behind, the wavy profile of some high mountains.

  Doña Luz’ eyes found the stability they had seemed to seek, and she pressed her lips together so her tears rolled slowly over her cheeks. Cristina looked at her, she herself almost crying, and went a little closer.

  “Now, now, Doña Luz. Don’t cry. I know how you feel.”

  But the picture at which both had paused thoughtfully was one in which the woman appeared much younger, in a batiste dress, and seated on the lap of a gray-haired gentleman with a stern look.

  “My Papá,” said Doña Luz, pointing to it with a wrinkled finger.

  Cristina’s heart skipped a beat. The young girl—how old was she, seventeen, eighteen?—had her arm around his back and her glowing face on her father’s shoulder, as if holding him close, softening his apparent firmness, with a security of possession not reflected in the other pictures, and without that languid air that seemed to have overcome her.

  “My Papá,” Doña Luz repeated, outlining his profile with her finger.

  Cristina put herself in the photograph, and it was she who was clinging to her father’s shoulder, putting her face near his to gain from his strength, and with that peaceful expression that says all is well here beside you. She burst out crying openly, like Doña Luz, with a corollary cry, ageless, equally old.

  16

  Doña Luz closed the album suddenly, raising a light cloud of dust in which Cristina thought she saw memories and pain depart.

  “I don’t want . . . pictures,” Doña Luz said. She sighed, picked up the ends of the blue ribbon, and began to tie them. “I’m crying.”

  “I cried, too.” Cristina said and passed a hand in front of her eyes as if brushing away a spider web . . . She had not wanted to cry. One night she had sworn she would never cry again in her whole life. Papá had finished a long argument with Mamá by slamming the bathroom door, and Cristina felt a wave of anger rise to her lips, and she clenched her fists. Then she swore, no matter what happened, she would never cry again.

  Doña Luz rested her limp hand on the album’s leather cover and let her heavy eyelids close slowly.

  “The . . . notebook . . .”

  “You want me to get the notebook?”

  “Yes,” Doña Luz answered without opening her eyes.

  Cristina went to get the notebook with the blue cover and took it to the bed.

  “Would you like me to read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?” She leafed through the pages: it was written in blue ink and small, tight handwriting with heavily marked commas and crosses on the T’s, and some of the paragraphs underlined.

  “Stories . . . She wrote them . . . Luisita.”

  “Luisita, your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which would you like me to read?” Tiny stains had diluted the ink and turned it to a very pale blue.

  “It doesn’t . . . matter.”

  “They’re very long, Doña Luz. We won’t have time.”

  “Some of it.”

  “Well, but I can hardly make out the writing. Let’s see the end of this one. Wherever . . . she went she asked for it. And nobody . . . knew what to tell her. What kind of tree? And she kept on asking . . . I can’t understand it here, Doña Luz. It says something about . . . I don’t know. Then she traveled . . .”

  Cristina heard Angustias’ voice calling from the first floor and it was as if her mind came back to reality. What was she doing there? She left the book open on the bed and stood up, tense.

  “Señora is calling me. We have to go. It’s late.”

  Doña Luz seemed not to understand and reached toward the place where the child had been, stroking the air. The shawl fell off her shoulders.

  “Stay here . . .” Her sad, trembling smile was meant to be an invitation.

  “I can’t, Doña Luz. Really.”

  “The end . . . of the story.”

  Cristina looked toward the door with anxious eyes.

  “Well, quickly.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and fixed the shawl on Doña Luz’ shoulders. Angustias was yelling at the top of her lungs downstairs, calling her. Cristina picked up the book and continued reading.

  “Let’s see, where did I stop? Now I’ve lost the place. Anyway, I’m just going to read the very end. By herself . . . she traveled through the world. I don’t understand very well what it says here, either. Something about rivers. Many years passed . . . and she found it . . . in the deepest part of a forest . . . and she said to herself, I knew the tree of desire, of desires . . . that they told me about when I was a child . . . existed here. And . . . the child was no longer a child, but an old lady, tired of . . . I think it says searching, Doña Luz.”

  Angustias’ shrieking could be heard closer. Perhaps she was coming up the stairs. Intermittently, Cristina looked toward the door.

  “She had searched for so long that . . . I don’t understand anything clearly here at all, Doña Luz. Then, among the other trees . . . she recognized it immediately, as if it had . . . always been near . . . And she was . . . very sorry . . . because the tree was as old as she was, about to die . . . as if it had been aging . . . at the same time . . . and she said . . .”

  Angustias exploded into the room like a tornado, screaming and waving her arms around. Cristina and Doña Luz shrank back, looking at her, terrified. The notebook fell to the floor.

  “You stupid brat! Do you think you can ignore me? Didn’t you hear me calling you? Do you want them to find us here? Get downstairs right this minute!”

  “Angustias,” Doña Luz said.

  “I’m going to take my doll.”

  “You’re not going to take anything! And least of all that filthy doll that’s so bulky.” And she grabbed her by the arm before she could pick up the doll from the rocker.

  “I want my doll!” Cristina cried in a voice that was almost a moan as she dodged away.

  “See what I’m going to do with this worthless old thing,” and Angustias tore off the head and threw it through the open window, letting the decapitated body fall on the floor. Cristina stared as if she could not believe it, and Doña Luz bent forward in the bed, trembling so hard her lower lip seemed to come loose.

  Then Cristina screamed a muffled, “Nooo!” and attacked Angustias, her hands whirling like windmills. Angustias seized one arm, pulling her hair until the child began to cry.

  “We’re leaving here right now if you don’t want me to pull out your hair!”

  “Angustias,” Doña Luz said, her eyes jumping from one object to another.

  17

  Angustias stole silver place settings, candlesticks, porcelain figures (which broke along the way), linen napkins, jewels (very few), a portable radio, a cut-glass centerpiece (which also broke along the way), a white silk dress, and a leather suitcase in which she put everything, which Cristina had to carry on their flight and even on the bus that took them back to the alley. Twice she dropped it—with a crash of breaking glass—and said she could not carry it anymore, her arm was asleep and her hand was cramping. But Angustias’ blows on her head were so violent and her threats—opening and closing her fingers—so unbearable, sh
e had to draw on strength from who knows where. During the ride, Cristina sighed deeply, thinking about the doll she had lost, which she immediately considered among the favorites of her whole life. She felt such hatred for Angustias that the idea crossed her mind to speak to her father to have Angustias put in jail—they might even torture her. But it was an absurd solution because Cristina would also be punished, and—even worse—she would have to go back home. It was better to wait, rescue Joaquín, take advantage of the first opportunity she had to escape and, before leaving, see what dreadful thing she could do to that horrible old hag.

  Joaquín was not in Angustias’ room, and while the woman was opening the suitcase and repeating her vulgarities upon discovering the broken porcelain and cut glass, Cristina ran to Jesús’ room. Before she got to the door, she heard her brother’s muffled cry like the final wail of a siren.

  The boy was alone, tied by a rope around his waist to the latch of the bathroom door. He had bruises on his cheekbones and mouth, and he held up his arms when he saw his sister, with a cry that was like a delicate thread caught in his throat.

  Cristina knelt down, hugged him, and cried too.

  “I’m not going to leave you alone again, little brother. I swear I’m not going to leave you alone, even if they kill us.” She held him close to her, ran her fingers through his hair, kissed his neck and the bruises on his face. Feeling safe again, the child regained strength and cried even louder.

  She could not untie the rope, and Joaquín did not help her. He clung to her tightly, motionless. Then she heard the noise of bare feet on the floor and when she turned around, she saw against the light the man called Jesús, standing in the doorway, his hands on his hips—a foreboding image that no longer astonished her or brought on such fright that she could not even move, and from that moment on she was certain that anything could happen. Cristina guessed he was drunk again from his body’s unsteadiness and his brutal look, which she could hardly see but could feel above her. Her anger for what he had done to Joaquín was transformed into sudden fear and the overwhelming need to get her brother out of there.

  He took a few steps into the room. Cristina felt that, barefoot, his presence was even more violent.

  He sat down heavily on the cot and searched for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. He lit a match and held it in front of his eyes, looking from behind it with a damp smile at Cristina, as if through a wall of fire. Then he lit the cigarette and took a long drag. He exhaled, watching the smoke blow out and disappear above.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Cristina.” She stood like a wide-eyed doll.

  “Ah, Cristina. Your brother is a nuisance. I had to go out for a while. But we played.” And, turning to Joaquín, “We played, didn’t we?”

  “Stupid,” said Joaquín without looking at him.

  “He called me stupid. Did you hear him, little girl? He called me stupid.”

  There were sparks in his eyes. His cheeks, in contrast, seemed to dissolve, as if they were of wax and were near a fire.

  “Why did you hit him?” Cristina asked, her voice softened by fear.

  “For being a nuisance, what else?”

  “He’s very little.”

  “That’s the reason I tied him up. I had to go out for a while.”

  “And you hit him.”

  “He didn’t want to stay by himself. He’s a stubborn child.”

  If Joaquín had been untied, at that moment Cristina would have grabbed his hand and run away with him.

  “Help me untie him.”

  Jesús opened his mouth again in a broad smile, like a half-moon.

  “Brat,” he said showing her the end of the cigarette, “I didn’t come to untie him. I came to tie you up. You hear me, brat? That’s what Angustias told me—go tie up that brat while I buy a couple of things.”

  “I’m not going to escape. If my little brother is tied up, I couldn’t escape.”

  Rounding his lips, he exclaimed, “Oooh,” and leaned back against the damp wall. In addition to the cot, there was only a chair and a small table with a plastic cover and an almost empty bottle of tequila. In some spots the tiles had come up and you could see the loose earth. Above the bed, an ostentatious Christ figure with a heart in flames.

  “You’re a smart kid. That’s for sure. You could untie him while I sleep, and escape. Right?”

  “I can’t untie him, really,” she said holding her hands open. “I tried to, but I couldn’t.”

  “Let’s do something better. Come lie down with me here,” and he smiled wider and patted the pillow. “OK?”

  Cristina gulped as much air as she possibly could and held her arms out from her body as if she were about to fly. But she only let her arms fall to her waist and again breathed with difficulty.

  “OK?” He looked as if he were spying through a keyhole.

  “All right,” Cristina said with a fleeting smile that took away the air she was breathing.

  “Come here, then.” He smoothed a place on the bedspread with an open hand. “Beside me.”

  “Sissy, I’m hungry,” Joaquín said.

  “My brother is hungry.”

  “Later! Come here now.”

  “Go to sleep for a little while, Joaquín.”

  “I don’t want to sleep!”

  “Go to sleep for a while!”

  “No!”

  “Joaquín . . .”

  The child sat down on the floor, curled into a ball, with a look of resentment that made him seem even smaller. The rope wasn’t long enough for him to lie down.

  Poor Joaquín, Cristina thought.

  “Come on now,” the man said in a tone that was both demanding and suggestive.

  Cristina went over hesitatingly, as if minimizing the importance of the event. She stood in front of him and watched him half-close his eyes and make his lips round, simulating a kiss. Repulsion was concentrated in the taste of her saliva. Then the man winked an eye and held out his hand.

  “You right here on this side, little girl.” The “little girl” increased her fear until it was unbearable, and she thought of running away, even though she would have had to leave Joaquín there. But she only retreated a few steps and buried her chin slowly in her chest.

  “Come on, little girl. On this side.”

  Cristina lay down on the side by the wall, with the feeling that she would die if the man touched her. She kept her sight fixed on an undefined spot on the ceiling, her fingers clasped over her abdomen and her heels together. She was very pale, and her posture made her seem close to death. But when she felt the warmth of his wet kisses on her neck and his alcoholic breath, what happened in her body was a prolonged shudder that raised goose bumps on her skin.

  Jesús’ hand went down to the child’s waist smoothly, his fingers playing as if on a keyboard, and stopped at her knee, communicating a blind, brutal desire.

  “Little girl.”

  Cristina bit her lips until the pain overcame her fear and the heat of the man’s hand on her skin.

  “No,” Cristina said.

  She heard his weak laughter as his hand moved up to her thighs in a slow, wavy caress, as if on the surface of water, making her close her eyes, squeezing the lids closed. White lights like doves crisscrossed inside her.

  “No,” Cristina said. She expected an unbearable pain, but did not know why or when. Tears seemed to flow because she was closing her eyes so tightly.

  Then he saw the tears and said, “Ahh.” His mouth was close to her ear, and he only had to raise her face a little to wipe them off.

  “Poor little girl.”

  The tip of his forefinger ran over her cheeks and lips as if outlining a new shape. Cristina opened her eyes and felt the fear leave her stomach when she heard Jesús weeping too, with a guttural cry that went deep inside and seemed to drown him. She saw his hand twitch in front of her and fall to his chest, losing strength in blows like the final beats of a large heart, until it fell still
, the fingers spread wide.

  “Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord,” casting his eyes backward to see, foreshortened, the face of Christ above.

  “Would you like for us to pray together?” Cristina asked in a low voice.

  Jesús turned his back on her without answering. Then there was a silence that buzzed in Cristina’s ears, and was broken when he began to snore.

  18

  Angustias burst out laughing like a gust of wind that blew the curtains and stirred up the dust in the corners. A fresh geranium was in her hair. She was carrying a bag with groceries, a bottle of rum, and, over her arm, the dress she had stolen from Doña Luz.

  Hearing her, Cristina dreamed the devil was blowing on her with his offensive breath that burned like fire—tall, with skin of redness incarnate, standing in the doorway, just the way Jesús had been.

  She awakened suddenly, sat up in the bed, and looked all around. The presence of Jesús at her side renewed the fear in her stomach, mixing with the discomfort of hunger. Joaquín was sleeping, seated on the floor, so peaceful, with his head resting on his crossed arms and his legs drawn up, like a small animal resigned to its fate, finding refuge in a deep, anonymous sleep.

  “Get up, you lazy bums. We’re going to have a party.”

  Angustias put the things on the table and gave Jesús a slap that startled him but did not quite awaken him. He changed position, and his snores became a weak gurgle.

  “My brother is hungry.”

  “I brought ham and cheese and juice for my beautiful children.” She threw a kiss with the tips of her fingers.

  Changing position again, Jesús let his hand fall on Cristina’s thigh. It revived in her the feeling of having him caress her. She looked at the hand carefully as if she could find in the rough knuckles, the dirty fingernails, the thick, black hair on the dark skin, an explanation for what she had felt. She threw her head back and frowned, sure that something was beginning to clear up. But after touching her, he wrinkled his nose and pulled back his hand as if getting rid of an attached animal. He drew in a deep breath that seemed to find obstacles on its way to his lungs.