The Man With No Borders

by Richard C. Morais

  I nod.

  “Then lift your right foot.”

  Bertha and John are hosing me down with the bathtub’s showerhead, while down below, Lisa and my other sons are scooping brown slop into a bucket.

  “Perdóname, perdóname, perdóname,” I whimper.

  They get me out of the bathtub and move me to the glassed-in shower on the other side of the bathroom, where they wash me again, everywhere, even shampooing my head.

  I am wrapped in a hot towel and shuffled out of the bathroom.

  I am shivering.

  “He is not going downstairs,” Lisa says in a steely voice. “I am putting an end to this nonsense. Put him in our bed. Where he belongs.”

  Lisa pulls down the top cover and I slide, with effort, into that familiar depression of the mattress. It perfectly envelops my body and I begin to cry. It feels so good to be back in the old dip of the mattress, to smell my wife again.

  What was I thinking?

  Lisa lies down next to me, wraps me in her arms, and whispers, “It’s OK, José. We love you. We’re here. Your family is here.”

  “Forgive me, please. Such a bad husband and father and brother.”

  There are protestations, they say the right things, but I know the truth. I feel Lisa’s breath, her little kisses, her hand stroking my cheek. Sister Bertha has drifted to the back of the room, to give us privacy, while my sons stand at the end of the bed.

  Rob is wiping away tears. Sam looks grim, gripping his arms across his stomach, and John has a wry smile on his face, the sign, ever since he was a boy, that he is completely overwhelmed. I have trouble speaking, because I am trembling so much, but I get the words out.

  “Boys, please, a favor . . .”

  “Anything, Dad.”

  “Take me home.”

  Lisa sits up. “Home?”

  “Yes. Home. To Spain.”

  “The house in San Sebastián? It was sold long ago.”

  “No. To Ribadesella. Please. I beg you. I need to see the Sella River again. In the time I have remaining. I need to go home.”

  SIXTEEN

  Strange, bearded men are in my room.

  Before I understand what is going on, they are hoisting me off my bed and onto the stretcher, strapping me in and taking my vitals. “Who are you?” I ask.

  “We are your medical escort. I am Dr. Habib.”

  Sister Bertha looms over me. “Now, I leave you, Herr Álvarez. You are going on and I must go help another family.” Sister Bertha tugs at my tracksuit, straightens me up, and speaks gently. “I will pray for you on your final journey.” She shakes my hand. “Goodbye, Herr Álvarez. Schöne Reise. I wish you a good trip.”

  She leaves the room and I stare dumbfounded after her.

  “But where am I going?”

  I am suddenly boiling angry and yell. “Coño! No one ever tells me anything!”

  Everyone in the room tenses. I feel it.

  “Remember, José?” Lisa says, standing next to me. She has materialized out of nothing. “We are taking you back to Spain. Like you wanted.”

  “Oh. That’s all right, then. Will be nice. Mamá and Papá haven’t seen me in a long time. They will be relieved to see me.”

  I am not sure why, but the news we are going to Spain makes me talkative, and I tell the doctor and the male nurse about our summerhouse, Miramar, in Ribadesella; about Felipe del Toro, my friend and ghillie, grandson of the Sella’s famous head ghillie, Ignacio del Toro; and about how Felipe’s father used to beat him when drunk. But I am not sure if I am actually saying what I am saying, or just imagining I am speaking, because the doctor and nurse are looking blankly at me.

  “What is it you want?” the nurse asks. “Water?”

  We are on the private-jet tarmac of Zürich’s Kloten airport. The captain and a steward stand below the Dassault Falcon’s nose and solemnly shake Lisa’s hand and take our luggage. The EMT team expertly hauls me from the helicopter and up the short set of stairs into the back of the jet. We pivot into the cabin. Rob and John are sitting upright, with forced smiles, in tan leather executive seats.

  “Hey, Dad. We’ll be on our way soon. Hang in there.”

  My beloved Alfredo is at their feet and instantly stands, whines, and licks my hand dangling from the passing stretcher. I am so moved by this. I try to speak, pet him, but the stretcher won’t stop and continues to roll toward the front of the plane.

  In the jet’s forward compartment, behind the bulkhead, the stretcher is snapped into place and secured via floor clips. Lisa collapses next to me, in one of the executive seats under the windows, complaining how stiff she is after the cramped helicopter ride. The EMT team makes sure the stretcher and drip are secure, and checks the wires and metal box monitoring my vitals. The doctor is about to inject something into the bag.

  “What is that?” I say.

  “Morphine.”

  “No. I need to talk to my family. I cannot on morphine.”

  “I don’t recommend that. The pain could come on very strong and very quickly. You must, at the first sign of pain, tell me—please.”

  “All right.”

  Sam strides through the cabin and sticks his head into the cockpit. “We’re ready to go.”

  I hear the captain’s voice. He is behind and to the left of the cockpit door. But I catch a glimpse of the copilot, her sinewy green arm reaching up to fiddle with a dial. She turns and winks at me, smacks her lips.

  The Frog Queen.

  I point and make alarmed squeaks. Our fate is in her hands.

  Lisa jumps out of her chair.

  “What is it, honey? What’s bothering you? Do you need to pee?”

  I keep on pointing at the copilot. But no words come out.

  I wake up. Engine roars fill my ears. I am in darkness. All the blinds are down, the cabin lights dimmed. I smack my parched lips, try to wet them with my tongue.

  “He’s awake,” says the nurse.

  Lisa comes over with a bottle of Evian and pours me a cup. She carefully lets me sip from it, like I am a wild animal lapping up water on the shores of a river.

  I look at her, pleadingly. She bends over.

  “There is little time left. I need to talk to you. Send them away.”

  Lisa pulls back, looks at me for a second.

  “Dr. Habib, Sam, young man—all of you. Please leave. I want to talk to my husband. Alone.” I gesture that I want them to pull up the porthole shades, before they leave. They do so, one after another. Shafts of white light pour into the cabin.

  Lisa follows them out past the bulkhead and returns with a cold towel.

  “You’re clammy and a little feverish.” She gently wipes my brow. “Now, what is it you want to tell me?”

  “I have sinned.”

  “We have all sinned, José. You’re not that special.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  All the secrets I have held in silence for so long come tumbling out of me: I tell her about how my sex-obsessed father introduced me to prostitutes when I was a boy and how he humiliated my mother. I tell her I have other secrets, terrible secrets, about my mother and uncle, but that I promised Juan I would never reveal them, so I cannot, even now. But she should at least know the most terrible secret of all—that I killed my beloved brother with a push into the road.

  Lisa backs away, almost like it is too much, and drops herself into the padded chair. She listens from across the aisle, grave, her face half in shadow. I can see she is bewildered by my confession, almost like she doesn’t fully understand it, like it is too much for her to take in. But my need to confess, my need to unburden myself of all my secrets, it’s overwhelming, and I proceed to tell her about Miguel, every sordid detail.

  When I am finished, finally emptied of all, a searing pain shoots up from my stomach, my legs scrabble, and I double over. Lisa’s defensive stance, her body language, instantly changes. She is up, out of her seat.

  She soothingly strokes my forehead, whispers in my
ear. “Try and be calm, honey. Know that I have always loved you. Know that. We stayed together, through our bad years, and made it through to the end. I love you. Now, hold on. I am going to get the boys.” And she is true to her word, because soon after my sons are huddled around me, like they are at a séance for the dead. She is right. They must hear my confession, too. “I need to tell you something, hijos. I am just like my father. Selfish. Please forgive me . . .”

  We hit turbulence and they hold on to the stretcher’s metal rails, raise hands, and press them against the cabin walls for support. I bring my secrets into the light, how I catastrophically and fatally failed my brother, the person I loved most on this earth. They are blinking, visibly shocked, for all their life they have heard only glowing accounts about my brother and me and our relationship. And then I say I am sorry beyond words that they saw me with that young man, Miguel, but that they must know, I have no regrets. Miguel gave me something I needed at that time. I cannot explain fully what happened then. I am not sure I know myself. But I am sorry, so sorry, for all of my failings as a father and a man.

  I grasp the closest hand I can find, John’s, and say, “Don’t live in the shadows like I did. Be better than me. Be brave. Secrets waste a life.”

  John’s eyes reveal, I am sure of it, he knows exactly what I am talking about, but before he can respond, the captain announces we are approaching Bilbao International Airport and everyone must be seated. So they bend down, each in turn, and kiss me on the lips—even Sam—before returning to their seats. I notice then, for the first time, that Sam is clutching a rosary, its mahogany beads dangling from the sweater pocket where his fist is clenched and buried, a tense clutching of beads that I remember my mother similarly kept up for hours. I did not know Sam had found the Church. But this is a painful truth, too—there is a lot I never bothered to learn about my boys.

  The doctor is next to me. I point at the center of my chest. “The pain. It is here.” He nods and pumps me full of morphine. I sigh as the rush comes in. But just before I go under, and my wife and sons step behind the bulkhead, Sam’s voice reaches me through the ether of the cabin.

  “Mom, can you tell me what the hell that was about?”

  “No idea. But he has done that before. That was Basque he was speaking.”

  The smell of Spain is in the air. They haul the stretcher down the jet’s steps. I feel featherlight. Spain fills my lungs and makes me whole again—the smell of rosemary and diesel fuel and hot tar and fried olive oil and of sage baking in the sun. The sky is so blue, bluer than anywhere else in the world. It is a Spanish-tile blue, dotted by rolling clouds that look like meringue. I am in morphine heaven.

  “La patria.”

  “Sí, Papá,” says John. “La patria.”

  I am my father. Back in my homeland.

  Lisa and John are on either side of me, each holding a hand. Rob is off to the left of the stretcher, red-eyed but smiling and holding Alfredo’s leash tight. Sam is slightly behind us, watching closely as the captain and steward pull our luggage from the hold and pile our bags into the trailer attached to a BMW SUV.

  Dr. Habib hands me over to the local EMT team. It is too much, this constant relay.

  “When will this journey end?” I say. “I am so tired.” But I must be talking too low for anyone to hear, because no one responds.

  Lisa bends down and kisses me on the lips. “We’ll see you at the house, darling.”

  There is a throbbing sound. It’s the ambulance engine.

  I am heading home.

  As we drive off, I recall a memory from long ago. Papá was reading El País around the table bedecked with coffee urn, toast, and a silver pot of quince jam. We were having breakfast on the first-floor terrace of the San Sebastián house. Mamá was looking dreamily out across the garden, dressed for church. She was sitting next to Juan, asleep in a pram, rocking him slightly with one hand as she traveled elsewhere in her imagination.

  I stood on my four-year-old legs and made my way to the powder-blue bassinet resting atop the pram’s heavy steel chassis. Mother turned her head, smiled, as I looked down at my brother. “Don’t wake him,” she whispered.

  Juan’s long eyelashes.

  They were closed tight against the pain of this world.

  I return, am full of ache. I look up to see pine trees, telephone poles, mountains going by the window. The doctor has his arms crossed and is dozing on a clap-up bench at the bottom end of the stretcher. John is sitting up front next to the driver, his head cocked to the side, listening to Rob, who is sitting behind him on another clap-up bench.

  “Did you hear yet whether ESPN took the deal?”

  “Not yet. They said they needed more time to respond to our proposal. Should hear by the middle of next week.”

  “Ugh. I hate the waiting. It sucks.”

  “Yup. So, how’s the restaurant?”

  “Honestly? I’m struggling. Remember how shitty the neighborhood was when we first moved in ten years ago?”

  “Never saw so many happy-ending massage parlors in one place.”

  “That’s all changed. The New York Times recently published an article about how our block has become a dining mecca, and they credited me as the pioneer that made it all happen.”

  “That’s so cool. Congratulations.”

  “Yeah, well, no good deed goes unpunished. The original lease on the restaurant is now up, and my landlord is raising my rent a hundred and sixteen percent. Can you fucking believe it? There’s no way I can make money paying that sort of rent.”

  “Ouch. That’s rough.”

  “I’m the only Álvarez who’s a failure.”

  John says this lightly, with a self-mocking laugh, and Rob airily waves the remark away. “I bet you’ll find a much better place,” he says.

  John looks out the ambulance window and then quietly says, “Securing and refurbishing a new location will mean another five to seven million dollars down the hole. I’m so ready to give up on New York. It’s become impossible.”

  “Nooooo—I love visiting you there!”

  “Ha. Yeah, we have fun.”

  I am distracted by something in the air.

  It is the smell of sea and salt and fish.

  “Help me sit up,” I croak.

  There is a flurry of arms, grunting, as Rob and the doctor prop me up with pillows. I stare out the back window.

  Ribadesella, the Roman town on the river bend, comes into view. I can see the old stone wall, the steel bridge, the Picos des Europa standing jagged in the background. There is a familiar noise, the sound of the ambulance’s Pirelli tires rolling over ancient cobblestone streets, and I remember that sound from the Hispano-Suiza.

  I know then I am not in a drug-addled dream. I am truly back in Ribadesella.

  The air gains a phosphorous luminescence, like we are in some portal to heaven, and it is beckoning me to step through that frail curtain, separating the two worlds. In that moment, I know that I have very little time left, and that I am disappearing beyond the borders of consciousness ever more frequently and deeply.

  I pray, from a deep place, that I might fight the best fight I can to stay lucid a little while longer, that I might savor and cherish and use wisely the last moments of consciousness I still have in me.

  Please, God. Please.

  I turn back to the view, breathing in the town: the indigo-blue houses and the low-rises with glassed-in staircases. I marvel that the orange awnings still exist, dropped and giving shade to the green tables of the fish restaurants, while down in the river, the gray-green Marisqueria fishing boat is tied to the old wall, unloading white plastic tubs of flounder and hake, just as I remember it.

  We cross the bridge, drive for some time up the river, and then turn onto a narrow farm lane, through a pasture full of yellow dandelion and purple thistle. Border hedges cinch our way, scrape the side of the ambulance, and the sound is magnified in my diseased head. We turn sharply, again, this time onto an earthen drive.
The ambulance rolls to a stop.

  Sheep’s Corral.

  My heart surges. It is smaller than in my imagination, but otherwise the same—the whitewashed walls, the green shutters, the lichen-covered terra-cotta roof tiles. There is the old bench we used to sit on when taking off our fishing boots. The only new detail is the swoop of small pink and white carnations exploding from a mossy basket hanging under the front-door eaves, and a large outdoor metal rack that appears to be a place to stack kayaks.

  I look up. Smoke is pouring from the chimney, just as in the days when Conchata ruled the kitchen, and, as if on cue, a housekeeper comes out of the front door, drying her hands on her apron, smiling and ready to greet us.

  “Is this where we are staying?”

  “Yes, Pops.”

  “Oh Dios mío. Gracias. I am home.”

  The back door of the ambulance opens. The blue BMW is already there, and Sam is waiting for me, making sure I am properly carried out and everything is in order. He looks at me with concern, trying to read my state, as they pull me from the back of the ambulance.

  I touch his hand. “Don’t hate me, Sam.”

  He can’t help himself. He recoils at my touch. “Jesus, Dad. Give it a rest.” But he catches himself and I can see in his stance the struggle that is raging inside of him. His face suddenly softens. He puts his hand on my forearm.

  “Dad, I want you to be at peace. I love you.”

  I grip his hand, fiercely. “I am so ashamed you saw me with Miguel.”

  This time I know I am not speaking Basque. Sam looks out across the field for a while and then quietly says, “It’s OK, Dad. It was what it was. Maybe seeing you that day gave me the courage to finally take you on about the bank and strike out on my own. Everything happens for a reason.” He strokes my face, kisses my forehead. “Now be at peace, Dad. Rest. I love you.”

  I am about to respond, but the Spanish medical team wants to take me inside, to my deathbed where the lambs were once born.

  “Por favor.”

  I point to the oak trees where we used to tether the horses and where you can still see across the field of wildflowers to the river. “Let me rest there a while.”