Toucan Whisper, Toucan Sing

by Wintner, Robert;

  But though Viorica Valenzuela is an easy match for wrongful knowing, she rights the world around her with a most extraordinary beauty. She turns a blush to radiance easy as that, displaying as well her skill at quick recovery. With simple technique she effectively allows them to back up from their dead end to begin again. “And you?” She asks, hardly ruffled. “What do you do?”

  Never in her life has Lyria Alvarez doubted what she does or why she does it. She simply does what needs to be done. But something sticks in her throat now no less than a bone in a bird’s craw. Clearing the blockage, she glances both ways as if seeking an easy crossing of this difficult thoroughfare. With eyes cast downward, she smiles sheepishly and nearly mumbles, “In a hotel. I work in a hotel. I am a maid. I clean rooms in a hotel.”

  Viorica looks quite stern now, jutting her chin and shaking her head. “This is a waste. You know this, don’t you?”

  Well, it’s another moment of knowing. Realization is harsh and sudden, arriving from the blind side and whacking a young woman square in the emotional jaw. After all, it’s been quite a day of change and reassessment. Yet in an instant Lyria must agree that much has been wasted. Her face skews to match the inverted smile recently learned, but Lyria’s is different from the charming, practiced exaggeration of Viorica’s.

  Lyria’s sad smile is that of a baby, twenty-one years after the fact. Like a baby who is cold and hungry but can’t yet verbalize her need for warmth and succor, her face contorts in failure. Finding no words to express her frustration, she fails again, reeling from the impact of the horrible truth upon her. Breathing becomes difficult, just like acceptance of what is surely true.

  She wants to contain herself, to preserve an element of dignity here in the face of a new friend. Limited success holds the big tears in the corners of her eyes. Another silence enfolds, this one far from comforting, filled with the tension and strain of growth. The picture now is not one of beauty but only sadness.

  What is ever gained in life without losing something else?

  Two lemonades warm between two beautiful women, one of whom feels her face twist like a rag until droplets rise. The other watches grimly, reflecting her new friend’s anguish.

  Viorica reaches across the table and takes Lyria’s hand in both of her own. “I want you to know something,” Viorica says. But the touch of another who has come so close so quickly to share the burden that was carried so far all alone is like a touch to a droplet hanging by sheer tenacity. Itself failing, the droplet falls with no concern for the end of its life as a droplet contained. Every droplet falls to the earth or dries up, and it doesn’t matter, because all rise like spirits do, up to the heavens where new droplets convene.

  Sometimes they gather with ebullient energy in lightning and thunder. The valley brightens and booms in monsoon. This deluge feels biblical in its torrential proportion, just as it feels unavoidable in curing the world around us. On a personal level its embarrassing nature may be the crucible of understanding between new friends.

  Afterward all is calm, with little droplets clinging again where they may. “I want to tell you something,” Viorica begins again. But again she must wait for another torrent to flood the valley.

  Lyria cries her eyes out.

  Who cares what Viorica is looking for in this shell of a town gone to tourism or what she does with investments or investors or what she has to say? Lyria squeezes her new friend’s hand and only wants to know how much longer they can be friends. She hopes it can be forever, because she can’t bear these burdens all alone with nobody to talk to but the lint and stray hairs and the high whine of a vacuum cleaner to answer her questions and pose its own.

  The sun stops in its slow, greasy slide. The breeze huffs like the idle buffoon in the bar over there. Neither breeze nor man can quite make the point.

  The two women sit, holding hands, waiting for the flat spot of the afternoon to sink in. When Lyria’s tears slow to a drip, and her breathing only trembles at the top, Viorica says, “I want to tell you. I have men following me, calling me, and begging me to be with them. Rich, powerful men.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because they want to be with me. Some have been with me and want to be with me again. Some only hope to be with me and never will, unless, well, maybe. But it’s what they want. It’s all they want. It’s how they are.”

  “No. I mean, why do you want to tell me this?”

  Viorica smiles sweetly and leans closer. “So you will know.”

  Lyria tries to smile back and nods. “I know.”

  So they sit and wait, sighing and sipping, until Lyria asks, “What happens?”

  “Nothing is what happens.” She waits for Lyria’s puzzled look, and there it is. “Nothing until I say it is okay for this to happen. And here is what you will pay. My dear, sweet Lyria. They must be made to pay. They know this in their hearts every bit as much as they know their mothers and wives are beyond payment. They must pay as much as they are able to pay, because they have nothing better to do with the money.”

  Again the more seasoned woman waits for absorption, but even a young woman with limited experience needs little time to know the meaning of these words. “You are a prostitute. The men are the investors you seek.”

  “Please. Lyria. Prostitute is such a judgmental word. What were you looking for today? You wear these cheap shoes that are no good to anyone and hurt your feet. These shoes tell me that you want something different but are afraid to commit to the right shoes that might cost more but will make you comfortable and more beautiful. What is your mother looking for today? What will the three of us have in common in a hundred years? Lyria, I’m not looking for investors. Like I told you, I’m looking for investments.”

  They sit a while longer, waiting to know more, pondering long time and short time. Lyria has heard this word judgmental in passing reference on morning TV, where the women seem to agree that it is wrong. She wonders how these TV women always know what in the world is good and what is bad. She wants to know more of such wisdom beyond her limited world.

  Viorica is serene again, relaxing in the shade, a paradigm of quick recovery to rhythm and stride. What else can a woman do in a world of hurdles?

  Lyria thinks and nods, displacing bitter tears with tart, sweet lemonade down to the sump sounds at the bottom, where Viorica brightens with an easy question. “Where do you live?”

  Lyria tells her, seven blocks over and four blocks down.

  “Well, then,” Viorica asks, “Do you want to come for a visit to the hotel? We can freshen up and visit some more and have a drink.”

  Lyria would like that very much but must be home soon or her mother will worry.

  Viorica smiles, reaching across the table for another touch, and says, “So sweet.”

  Lyria again matches her new friend’s smile and feels the elixir flowing between them. This too is sweet, and out of the clear blue sky comes another vision, more of a recollection, actually, of Antonio with his faults, which are the faults of all men, except for the single damning fault of all men but him.

  He only wanted to love her more than she deserved.

  Viorica will explain the nature of love and deserving. She will know why fault has no meaning in assessing either one. She will offer insight to happiness and its transitory nature, and when she meets Rosa she will see the mold that cast the clay.

  Rosa will see as well and nod in understanding or resignation.

  But explanation will come later tonight after more drinks and a sunset walk to the quaint hotel in town where Viorica is staying. For now the day steams at the apex of its heat. Flesh slumps on bones and most people lie back to pass this lazy time in siesta.

  Lyria feels weary enough to sleep but can only stare at the thin air and wish Antonio could learn to love her again as only a few weeks ago he did. And she cries again in a torrent over all she’s lost.

  XIV

  A Season of Growth

  Baldo is more sensitive to the cha
nging ways of loved ones than either his brother or the one who is like a big sister can imagine.

  Well, she was close as a sister, sometimes close as a mother.

  Do they think him numb to their cold indifference? Too much cold can lead from numbness to death, but that can’t be what they really want.

  Can it?

  Are they not the foundation of his days? Yet the one who makes him feel like a man and begs him not to stop until she finishes gasping like a fish out of water treats him like a stranger or worse. She is more beautiful now than ever with her new appearance and her body that is no longer too skinny, but the distance grows between them where once it was only he, Baldo, growing between them.

  Who cares if he ever grows again? Who cares if he has no place to put his love? Love is the one thing he’s learned. She taught him. He was a boy, but now he is a man.

  He loves it so much. He gets it no more. And no one seems to care.

  The other one who doubles as father and doubles again as paragon in the world of business and doubles yet again as hero in the world of life, yes, his own brother, joins her in what feels like a conspiracy of detachment. Of course it cannot be a conspiracy. That would require discussion and planning, and they no longer speak to each other or to him. What did he do that was so wrong? Did he not help those he loves by assisting each with their needs?

  These and other mysteries burden the boy who now fears the manhood upon him. If maturity puts him deeper in the wilderness, who needs to grow up?

  This question first posed by Peter Pan echoes from the dog-eared book with the fanciful pictures, the book Lyria read to him years ago. Peter Pan can fly, because he never feels this heavy. It seems a lifetime ago that he, Baldo, cuddled in her arms as she read and pointed to the pictures and explained the nature of fancy and then turned the page, sprinkling pixie dust on his otherwise barren childhood. Where now is the magic dust, under the rug with the happy thoughts?

  It seems nearly as long ago that she spoke civilly to him. Now she only beckons with frustration and need. Who can know when or why? Who can anticipate? And what about something to eat?

  Antonio is a joker. This we know. The lesson brought home time and again is that the world wants to laugh. Yet Baldo wakes to Antonio staring. Baldo gets up, and Antonio stares. Baldo drools toothpaste over the sink. Antonio stares. Baldo humps the sink for a laugh, but Antonio only stares. He won’t laugh.

  So what? What? What can he do?

  Well, the answer is simple for he who guards the most important guests in the history of the Hotel Oaxtapec. He knows that a few babies will die. This is nature’s way. He feels relief for those with the white fungus over their eyes whose struggles finally cease. With guttural lament he plucks them from the tubs and carries them to the surf in his open palms so their lingering spirits might slip into the immensity that will be denied their physical selves. He won’t throw them in any more for fear of establishing an appetite beyond the break. He rather carries them back up the beach and sets them in a smaller plastic container with no water. He covers them with sand and later takes them home, where they lie in repose while he cleans himself. Sometimes he sleeps.

  By and by he carries them to the waterfront in town, where he commits them to eternity. Appetites in a boat harbor have no rhythm, but attune themselves to the tidal flush that removes the shit and putrescence, more or less, which is also nature’s way, modified.

  In the morning he returns to the task that defines all that is left to him. It’s a substantial love remaining if you count a hundred two babies who look up in need and dependence as he once looked up with love and trust.

  Thirty days remain.

  Already they are grown too big for most beaks or bills, and they’re too heavy for most birds to carry. In thirty days they will stand the best chance. He watches them, feeding some by hand if they need help from their mother, he who speaks like a turtle.

  He doesn’t mind when they grow presumptuous as adolescents and strain to swim away in the thin air. Independence is necessary, and motivation in this early phase bodes well. He sets a particularly feisty turtle in the sand one morning, and it races headlong for the sea; it knows the direction in which life begins. It knows, just as Baldo believed it would, because such things are known as they’ve always been known. He intercepts the escape attempt and consoles, Not yet, my compadre. Soon, but not yet.

  Fed and changed, the young turtles are safe by themselves for a while. They’re too big for the phantoms of infancy, so Baldo walks up the beach to see what might align from a distance.

  He observes the morning fishermen who remain oblivious to the lanky boy behind them and the suffering nearby. Baldo can’t tell if the stranded puffers have been hooked and then flung high and dry to die slowly, or if the surf put them there. They look dead, until he picks them up. Some wiggle vigorously and need only a helping hand back to the water. Others wiggle weakly and need a supporting hand under the surface, until the water flowing past their gills revives them sufficiently so they can swim through the surf to escape the roiling that would tumble them to death.

  Some don’t move. These he lays into the water and watches them spin and roll to eternity. One has a hook and length of monofilament streaming from its mouth, but alas, no one fishes just here.

  He presses one gently, looking for life, and he looks up at the sound of girls his age giggling as they pass. He presses gently again, but to no avail. Holding the dead fish, he looks up and down hotel row as if lost, checking his bearings, seeing where he is and what comes next. Perhaps it isn’t here, even with Antonio paving the way.

  Perhaps the priesthood or something equally soft and compassionate would best suit his love of the other animals and his deficiency in dealing with his own species. But maybe not, the priests seem so rigidly bent on suffering in the here and now. Baldo wants none of that for himself or his friends. Besides, he knows now what communion he loves most, which isn’t the same at all as what the priests appear to long for.

  Baldo stares back at Hotel Oaxtapec where Lyria prepares to clean rooms on the twelfth floor and Antonio prepares for poolside games, unless Antonio is drinking liquor with his new friends and chewing on the glory just ahead.

  Like a beacon of simple wonder, he stands and stares.

  Antonio sits up, stretching his neck for a better view to the south, where his lanky brother sways like a lone weed in the breeze. But there is no breeze this early in the morning, nor is there a reason for Baldo to be that far down the beach.

  Antonio’s new friends, Sally and Thorny, watch their young protégé and crane as well to see what the eagle-eyed maestro has spotted. They ease back, seeing it’s only the little brother, and they laugh warmly over Antonio’s fatherly concern.

  Ha, ha, Antonio agrees, squinting to see if Baldo’s left arm is twenty-four inches too long and too sharp for anyone’s good. But it’s not. The wayward boy has only drifted off his moorings to play with the dead fish. He’ll drift back in due time. With no machete in hand, he’ll not likely encumber the otherwise peaceful morning with violence and death. Antonio eases down in his chair, nodding warmly now to match the lingering warmth on the table and in the excellent coffee and Kahlua.

  Ah, and here come the huevos rancheros basted to a turn with a few nice links on the side and some toast, which makes more sense than tortillas if you think about it. Mm, so good. This feels much better than chasing a crazed youth down the beach and sweating out of breath and otherwise suffering the loss of composure for an orderly evening or morning to cover for his brother’s psychopathic crime spree. This is better than jail too, with its lumpy mattress and certain torture. Mm. The taste is different. But of course it would be.

  The men eat and agree with low moans that this is very good. Soon the Mrs. will join them, just coffee and juice for her, please. Then talk will proceed to new business and further development, real progress at last, with bricks and mortar and elevators and alabaster tiles and a gift shop with T-shirts like
the toucan T Antonio now wears.

  In fact the new T-shirts for the new gift shop will be better because they will be new. Just as the hotel will be new. Well, maybe not new new, but newly remodeled, which is just as good and much, much quicker, even if the existing building is so old and small. Never mind, it will be new and, more importantly, newly open for business in less than eight months.

  “It’s like our baby,” Thornton says, causing a brief but startled reaction from Antonio, who still needs a moment to sort phraseology en inglés, where the words come so fast and so shameless, they tease an ardent listener with glistening promise.

  The new hotel will be called La Mexica, the Resort. The first part of the name is, of course, after the huge lake to the east that was filled in five hundred years ago so the conquerors could build Mexico City. La Mexica will capture an Indian essence that is no longer anathema to the spirit of the country but is rather pivotal to its mystique.

  By showing the tourists as much difference from themselves and their world as possible, you will see peripheral sales go through the roof. T-shirts are only the beginning once you let them feel something, which is anything other than what they come from.

  “We’re talking carved wooden toucans, toucan candleholders, glass toucans, toucan candles, for Christ’s sake. You want panthers, tree frogs, rutabagas or whatever they’re called, those little weasel guys that live in the sticks over there; we’ll have them. Look, we’re not saying we don’t understand the need or the niche for a few strip malls, and it doesn’t even matter if we don’t, because, let’s face it, they’re sitting across the street, and they’re not going away.” This overview is from Thornton, who is called Thorny by Sally.

  But Antonio can’t quite get comfortable past Thornton and Simón.