Lost City Radio

by Daniel Alarcón

  “You don’t sound like a scientist; you sound like a poet.”

  Rey smiled. “Can I be both?”

  “But you’d rather be a poet.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” he said.

  They walked on, and Norma only wanted to talk about love. The sidewalks were dirty, and the gutters and the streets, and she was imagining the jungle as he described it: its vastness, its astonishing impurities, its beautiful people and their customs. She didn’t want to see the city, not this part of it, not the ugly part. She was tired, and her feet ached, and on the other side of town, there were cafés and restaurants and parks where people wouldn’t rob you. “Were you always like this?” she asked. “Don’t you know how to treat a woman?”

  “This is where we lived,” Rey said, ignoring her, “when we first came to the city.” He pointed at the second-floor window of a green house. “Don’t you want to see it?”

  “No,” she said. “Not really.”

  His face fell into a sad smile. He was hurt.

  “You look tired, honey,” Norma said. “Let’s go home.” By home, she meant the room he rented near the university. She slept there some afternoons, into the early evening, then took a bus to her parents’ house, crawled into her own bed, and stayed up thinking of him. Now Norma pulled close to Rey, stood on her tiptoes to kiss his temple. “Are you still having the nightmares?”

  “Not so bad.”

  “When are you going to tell me,” she said, “when are you going to tell me what they did to you?”

  Now Rey frowned, then caught himself. “When we’re married,” he said.

  NORMA HELD Victor until his breathing slowed. He looked at her with needy eyes, then shut them tight. “Are you okay?” Norma asked, but Victor didn’t want to talk. He wanted to sleep again, he said, if he could. “Do you want me to stay here?” Norma asked, and the boy said he did. She lay beside him on the couch, he was thin, after all, and the two of them fit snugly. He buried his face in her side, and she let him be. After a while, Victor was asleep again. She’d wanted to ask him what he had dreamed, but somehow it seemed wrong. In a strange place among strange people, he had the right to private nightmares.

  She rose again at daybreak. Without waking Victor, Norma made her way to the kitchen to brew some coffee. She turned on the radio, just low enough that she could hear the crackle and hum of the signal, the morning host’s raspy voice reading the news. They would have to be at the station in a few hours, she and Victor, and God knows what would be waiting for them. Not for her, she was safe, for the boy. Elmer had promised a tearjerker. She looked back into the living room. The boy was still asleep. Even at this early hour, they were planning things for him, even as he slept. It’s no wonder he was having nightmares; it must not be hard to sense your own helplessness. He must have known yesterday at the station, and later, when he darted off the bus. Poor boy, poor family, poor friends that had believed the lie of her affection and sent him here, sent him to her. How do you tell them it’s a show? Lost City Radio is real, but not real. That honey-voice wasn’t something she controlled, it simply was. The morning newsreader, her replacement, droned. He had no charisma. An emergency landing in Rome without casualties, a tropical depression threatening to erupt into a hurricane, the findings of a study about the causes of diabetes. She couldn’t help but think of the ways her reading would have been different, better. Locally, there was nothing: potholes filled with great fanfare, ribbon-cutting ceremonies planned for newly painted buildings, a famous writer caught with a prostitute down by the docks. In Miamiville, an overnight fire had destroyed a house, leaving seventeen people homeless. Faulty wiring, the newscaster read. Then he cleared his throat, moving on—had she heard right? Norma was struck with the image of a smallish house in that district, expelling seventeen people from its flaming shell. Seventeen people? she thought. She sipped her coffee and counted them on her fingers: a father, a mother, four kids, a grandmother who spoke only the old language, an uncle, an aunt, four more kids, a cousin just visiting with his sometime girlfriend, a distant great-aunt’s favorite nephew and his pregnant wife, and how many more? An entire village would be on the sidewalk now, on the streets, Norma thought. They would sleep in the park, all of them, or on the rocky beaches with whatever blankets they had salvaged, with whatever trinkets to remind them of the life they’d once had. It made Norma shudder. They’d shake off the ashes and stay together, they have to: once separated, a family can never be made whole again, not here. They’d disappear like trash scattered in the breeze.

  Norma’s own family wasn’t like that, no extended lineages or childhood memories crowded with cousins. No one to disappear on her. Her recollections of family were oppressively small: just her and her parents. She could count their dislike for one another as a separate person, a monster that stalked them, or she could count them each twice: the people they were together—disfigured, unhappy, resentful—and those they might have been if they had not married each other. Or, if she were really intent on expanding the family tree, she could count her father’s mistresses as well. There were a dozen of these well-dressed, dark-haired women Norma’s mother hated and envied, and Norma simply hated. They came and went, changed names and faces, but Norma was aware of them always: their perfume, her father’s guilty grin.

  Only Rey had a smaller family: he was the only one left. His mother had died so young Rey scarcely remembered her at all, and Rey’s father, he’d told her, died a few years after they moved to the city. No brothers or sisters. Rey had lived with his uncle Trini after that. But who knew really? He played tricks with the past; he always had. If he is alive, she thought, he might still be at it, even now. That cold, dreary day at the door of his first home in the capital, Rey had insisted they knock, just to see. Norma hadn’t been so sure.

  “Do you remember anybody from the block?” Norma asked. “Will they remember you?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll tell them I used to live here. It’s no big deal.” He seemed sure that it would be enough. “That, plus my smile, plus this beautiful young lady.”

  Norma blushed. The steps creaked as they climbed to the second-floor landing.

  Rey made her knock. The door was old, made of wood that had swelled and shrunk and aged with decades of summer heat and humid winters. It was somehow illicit, her being there, on the wrong side of town, knocking on a stranger’s door, visiting the museum of her lover’s early life. She kissed Rey; she knocked again. On the other side, Norma could hear a slow shuffling of feet and the metallic click of a few locks. It seemed the door was about to open, but there was a pause. “Yes?” a voice called out. It was the airy, weak voice of an old man. “Who is it?”

  There was silence. Rey grinned, but he didn’t say anything. Norma elbowed him. “Come on,” she whispered. Hadn’t he dragged her up here?

  “Who is it?” the old man repeated, confusion in his voice. Rey made a show of zipping his lips. Norma could feel herself turning red, aghast at the rudeness of it. She wanted to laugh. “Say something!” she hissed, but he cupped his hand to his ear as if she were calling him from far away.

  She cleared her throat and was about to speak, but Rey covered her mouth with his hand.

  “Father,” he said. “It’s me, Rey.”

  MIDMORNING FOUND Norma and Victor in the control room, wearing ancient headphones, listening to the sounds of actors straining to imitate the jungle accent. A string of them had come and gone. They had plied Victor with candy and pastries and toured him around the station as if he were royalty. Everything else seemed to have been quickly forgotten. Still, here they were, the red lights on the console rising and falling to the rhythms of the actors’ voices, Len in the sound booth, furiously typing out his inimitably melodramatic scripts. Elmer surveyed the room the way a duke might observe his duchy. Behind the smudged glass, a sad-looking man read about leaving his village to work on the dam, only to have it destroyed in the war. He was an actor, of course. “Bombs!” he shouted. “The sound dro
wned—” He stopped and coughed into his hand. “Is this right?” he asked. “It doesn’t sound right. Who wrote this?”

  Norma cringed. They were on the fifth or sixth take. The actor had Shakespearean training, or so his résumé claimed. Each time he finished, he looked up hopefully at Len, who looked at Elmer, who shook his head. Next take. Norma took her headphones off and sighed. Elmer let the smoke filter from his open mouth. He looked bored. His brown suit was worn to a dull sheen at the knees and elbows. Victor seemed to be enjoying himself though, laughing and even correcting the actor when he mispronounced a word. Now, with her headphones off, Norma felt the true absurdity of it: the actor dove into another take, looking down intently at his text, reading soundlessly behind the glass. Halfway through, Elmer was already shaking his head no. Len tapped the feckless actor on the shoulder. The man put his paper down, and left the sound booth, dejected. Victor laughed.

  “The promo’s on in thirty,” called Elmer on the intercom after the actor had been shown out. Len clapped twice. Victor had been told not to touch anything, but he’d never seen a place like this, and obviously his own curiosity was strangling him. He interrupted a few takes by pushing the wrong button. He apologized, everyone except the actor laughed, and then a few minutes later, Norma caught Victor staring at another blinking light, as if daring himself to touch it.

  “It’s like a helicopter,” he’d said over and over when they first showed him in. He’d seen them floating in the skies above the village, he said. Drug eradication programs, Norma supposed. He’d drawn a picture and asked his teacher what they were. “There’s an Indian word for it, but I wanted to know the real word.”

  “What was the Indian word?”

  Victor thought for a moment. “I can’t remember,” he said.

  Now the boy played. She could see it in his eyes: the station was a chopper, this control room speeding around the nation, over valleys and rivers, along its coastline and over its deserts. She was dreaming with the boy, and it made her happy to see him distracted. He seemed suddenly young for his age—or was it only that yesterday he had seemed so old?

  Len tuned in the station. A commercial for detergent faded out, the sounds of children playing. They all settled in to listen. There was a crackle as it began, then the plaintive sound of a violin emerging from a low, gravelly rumble. The voice-over began:

  This Sunday on Lost City Radio…From the jungle comes a boy…To tell a story you won’t believe…It will touch your heart…Bring you to tears…Bring you joy and hope…Hear the harrowing tale of his journey…By foot to the city…And the dreams that brought him here…Can Norma help him find his loved ones…? This Sunday, on a very special Lost City Radio…

  Here the violin gave way to nature sounds, birds chirping, water bubbling steadily over smooth stones, and then, the boy’s trembling voice, saying simply: “My name is Victor.”

  Len clapped. Victor beamed.

  “Bravo!” said Elmer. “Norma?”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “Are you kidding? He did it in one take! The boy’s a natural.”

  Victor fiddled with a knob on the console, and a wave of sound streamed from the speakers, then disappeared. They all turned to the boy. “I didn’t walk,” he said.

  “Of course you didn’t walk.” Elmer scratched his forehead and lit another cigarette.

  Norma stood up and pushed her chair to a corner of the small control room. “It’s not even possible, is it?”

  “It sounds fine,” said Len.

  Elmer cleared his throat and sent the boy out with the promise of food just beyond the door. Victor rose without complaint. Len turned the volume down and followed the boy out. The door swung closed behind them.

  “What’s wrong, Norma?” Elmer asked once they were alone. There was a low buzz from the speakers, like the sound of a balloon deflating. Elmer ran his fingers through his hair. Norma didn’t say anything right away. He loosed his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “Talk,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m tired.” Norma slumped back into her chair. “I’m no good at this. He woke up crying this morning.”

  “Children cry, Norma. What can you do?”

  “That’s it exactly. I don’t know.” She bit her lip. Rey used to cry the same way, used to wake up in a sweat, a fever, a fit. Those nightmares.

  “This show bothers you?” Elmer said. He pulled off his suit jacket and draped it over the console, burying the little red lights.

  “He didn’t walk, Elmer. And we can’t send him back. We can’t trick him.”

  “Norma, you know how this works.”

  “Promise me.” She looked him in the eye. In spite of it all, he had a kind face, round and pudgy, an almost featureless softness to it. When he smiled, as he did now, his cheeks bulged, his eyes shrank to a squint. He’d aged, but they’d been friends. Once, on a day when her sadness had been so profound she could scarcely speak, Norma had even allowed him to kiss her. It was after the prison, when everything was lost. This was years ago and so far in the past she could barely remember it.

  “I’ll try,” Elmer said.

  “Thank you.”

  He stood up, fumbled through his pockets for a cigarette. “What will you do with him?” he asked. “Does he talk?”

  “A bit,” Norma said. “He seems nice enough.”

  “Careful he doesn’t steal anything.”

  Norma smiled. “What is there to steal? You don’t pay me enough.”

  “Complain to the government, not to me,” said Elmer, cigarette dangling from his lips. “I can’t do anything, Norma, you know that.” He offered her a smoke, but she shook her head.

  “Let me look for his people,” she said. “I’ll take the list and go.”

  Elmer looked up. “Why?”

  “He ran off last night. Got off the bus and ran into a neighborhood down by The Cantonment. Can you imagine how scared he must be?”

  “He didn’t seem scared in here.”

  “Elmer, you’re not even listening to me. He woke up screaming this morning.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Elmer scratched his head. “What did I promise you? A day off?”

  “Two.”

  “Have you looked at the list?”

  “No,” she said. “Have you?”

  “Haven’t had time.” He sighed. “We have nothing on these people, you know? Not even districts. Just names. I could guess that they’re scattered somewhere in Newtown, but beyond that, who knows?”

  The city was an unknowable thing, sprawling and impenetrably dense, but there were nearly sixty names on the list, and some of them must be alive.

  “I’ll have to run it by legal, of course. Vet all the names first,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  They were interrupted by a rap at the window. Victor had entered the recording booth through the side door. Len stood behind him. The boy waved. Elmer and Norma waved back.

  Elmer pressed the intercom button. “How you doing there, kiddo?”

  Victor grinned. Len gave a thumbs-up. His voice crackled back a few moments later. “He wants to know when we can leave.”

  Elmer smiled at Norma and hit the intercom. “Where does he want to go?”

  The boy gave a soundless answer, and then Len was back on: “Every-where. He says he wants to go everywhere.”

  “Isn’t that something?” Elmer said to Norma.

  “It’s great.” She could see the boy was happy. “It’s wonderful.”

  “It’s progress,” Elmer said. “Go on, Norma. Do what you want. It’s not what I had in mind.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I’m tired of seeing you sad. That’s all. I thought this might be good for you. You’ve been in a rut.”

  “It’s not like giving me a puppy, Elmer. He’s a child.”

  “I know he is.” Elmer leaned closer. “I thought it might shake y
ou up a bit. I saw 1797 and I thought of you. What can I say?”

  “Nothing. You can’t say anything. You never can.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She stopped. “I don’t know.”

  He threw up his hands. “Norma, can I tell you something?” He sighed. “When I say I care about you, it’s because I do. That’s all. Now, you want to look for his family, that’s fine. Live your life.”

  “Thank you.”

  Then Elmer asked for the list. She had it, didn’t she? While she searched her pockets for the scrap of paper, Elmer turned back to the intercom. “Bravo,” he said. “You’re a good boy.”

  In the recording room, Victor flexed his biceps.

  IT WAS Rey’s own fault if she had a hard time letting go. He was into disappearing acts. Before her very eyes, a gun-wielding soldier pulls him off a bus. He resurfaces a year later; “the Moon” is all he says when she asks where they took him. And then, at the door of a second-floor apartment in a squat, green building at the western edge of downtown, Rey resurrects his own father, whom he had perversely killed off, just like that. Why? These things stayed with her, formed into solid structures in her mind: My husband can venture into a war zone and return unharmed. He can, he has, he does, he will again. The dead come back to life. He exists outside death. A strange faith to have, certainly, but was it Norma’s fault?

  Rey’s father opened the door and looked his son up and down. Norma stood at one side, feeling uneasy. “Is that you?” the old man whispered. “Is it?”

  “It’s me, Father,” Rey said, and the old man seemed not to believe it, seemed not to trust his eyes at all. He reached out and touched Rey’s face, the slightly crooked nose, the dimpled smile, the heavy brow. Rey pushed into his father’s touch the way a housecat might. Norma turned away, suddenly embarrassed, focusing instead on the water-stained wall.

  The apartment seemed hardly big enough for one. Everywhere there were stacks of papers rising from the floor, each crowned optimistically with a palm-sized stone to hold everything in place. There were dictionaries everywhere, on the desk, on the coffee table: French-Wolof, English-Russian, Spanish-Hebrew, Quechua-Catalan, German-Portuguese, Italian-Dutch. Norma and Rey sat on the sofa, its springs poking uncomfortably through the fabric, and waited for the old man to bring water. Norma listened to the complaints of the old pipes, a gurgling, groaning sound from deep within the walls. She turned to Rey. “You’re a piece of shit,” she said.