“We’ll stay,” she said with a nod. “Did everyone know this but me?”
“In the village? No, only a few.”
“But they all knew my husband?”
“Sure,” Manau said. “Adela—Victor’s mother—she told me he came three times a year.”
“Sometimes four. He was working on…” Norma trailed off. What a helpless feeling. “Oh, it doesn’t matter what he told me, does it?” she said, her voice cracking. What hadn’t he lied about? This other woman—Norma very nearly retched at the thought, some jungle tramp fucking her Rey, their bodies pressing together, their sweat, their odors. Their pleasure. She covered her eyes. She couldn’t speak.
“I’m not happy,” Manau said. “I didn’t want to tell you this.”
“And I didn’t want to hear it.” Norma peeked through her fingers.
He nodded, and bowed his head, staring into his lap. “They love you in the village, Miss Norma.”
She took his hand and thanked him. “This drawing,” she asked. “Where did it come from?”
“There was an artist who came to the village. Years ago.”
She looked back at the portrait. “His hair is so white,” she said. She couldn’t remember if he had looked this old when she last saw him.
Her head hurt. She meant to ask for an explanation, but didn’t. Or couldn’t. A muffled voice came from the kitchen.
“He didn’t make it, did he?” Norma said.
“Madam?”
“He didn’t survive. I’m asking.”
“You don’t know?” Manau said.
“Isn’t it obvious by now that I don’t know anything?” It took all the calm she could muster not to yell it.
“They took him. It’s what Victor’s mother told me.”
“They?”
“The army.”
“Oh,” Norma whispered.
WHEN REY returned from the jungle after meeting his newborn son, he had resolved to end his activities. He hadn’t seen his contact since Yerevan was disappeared. It was all too exhausting. He felt, for the first time, that he had brought home some of the forest with him, something affecting and real, a germ, a curse. His life—his lives, their carefully maintained boundaries now breached, seemed overwhelmingly complex. He found himself thinking of the child the way a father ought to: with pride, with impressive and unexpected swells of love clouding his thoughts at the most inopportune moments. More than anything, he wanted to share this illicit joy with Norma, and this shamed him. What right did he have to be happy? Still, these things cannot be helped: they are biological, evolutionary. He wished he had a wallet-sized photograph of the boy—to show whom exactly? Strangers, he supposed. On the bus, he could pretend he was a real father, that he’d done nothing wrong. On more than one occasion, after a deep yawn, he explained to a passenger in the seat beside him, always a woman, that he was exhausted because the baby had been up all night. He said it knowingly, nonchalantly, or tried to. He liked the way the women smiled at him, the way they nodded and understood. They spoke of their own young ones, then pictures were shown, and good wishes offered. At home, he and Norma made love every night; at his insistence, they returned to the debauched and beautiful rituals of the first days of their pairing: sex in the morning, before dinner, before sleeping. Norma was happy, they were both happy, until some dark thought intruded and he remembered the kind of man he was, the kind who would lie and make mistakes and one day bring home a child from the jungle to be raised in the city. It was what had to happen: his son would have to be educated. He couldn’t very well leave the boy to play in the dirt, could he? But he and Norma would have their own child first, Rey decided optimistically: the two of them, and it would be wonderful, and in this way, she would forgive him.
At the university one day, he decided to take a walk. It was between classes, an hour and a half when he might have stayed in his classroom reading or correcting papers, but it was a nice afternoon, breezy, with skies that could be mistaken for clear. There were students about in packs, and it struck Rey that he could scarcely remember his own days as an undergraduate. It hadn’t come easy—he remembered that. He spent a year trying to get in. He did three years, then went to the Moon, returned a year later to resume his studies, and the two parts of his higher education seemed altogether unrelated. He met Norma, he met the man in the wrinkled suit, and this pair had changed everything he thought he knew about his life. Now Rey wandered off campus to the avenue, and then to the corner just past the university gates. There was a newsstand there, and a crowd of young men reading the headlines with hands in their pockets. Rey bought a sports paper, scanned the headlines. A rust-colored car idled at the corner, the radio blaring through the open windows. The driver wore mirrored sunglasses and tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. There was a girlie magazine open on the dashboard. Farther along, beneath a tattered awning, a man in a green vest sold puppies. He had a half-dozen in a single cage atop a slanting wooden table: eyes shut, tiny, the puppies awoke yawning, pawed around, and fell back asleep. The little beasts were putting on a show. A crowd of children had dragged their mothers to see them. A black-haired boy nervously poked his finger through the wire cage; an obliging puppy licked it sleepily, and the boy squealed with pleasure. Rey stood to watch, newspaper under his arm. He was watching the children, he realized, and not the puppies. I’ll bring my boy here, Rey thought. Why not? I’ll get him a dog. Various images of domesticity played out before him, and he smiled. Just then, a man tapped him on the shoulder. “Uncle,” a voice said.
The man had the boyish face of a high school senior, probably didn’t even shave yet, but something in his manner of dress was wrong. “What are you reading, Uncle?”
“Excuse me?”
“What’ve you got there?” the young man asked, pointing to the newspaper.
“Sports. Why?”
The young man frowned. “Let me begin again.” He pulled a badge from his pocket and flashed it, just fast enough that Rey could see its glint. “ID, please,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t make a fuss in front of the kids.”
“Oh,” Rey said, “is that what this is?” He smiled. These undercovers were getting younger and younger. He’d become accustomed to this, and never again would he make the mistake he’d made the night he met Norma. Just show them something, that was the rule now, show them anything. They weren’t looking for you, because if they were, they’d already have you. Rey took his wallet from his back pocket, made a show of taking out his university ID. “No fussing in front of the kids. And how old are you?”
“I’ll ignore that.” The undercover looked the ID over and nodded. “I thought it was you, professor. Trini was my captain,” he said, handing the ID back. “Come with me.”
“Trini?”
The undercover nodded.
“Do I have to?”
“You should.”
They walked together a ways, down the avenue past the next intersection, where the neighborhood began to change. Rey was determined not to pay attention to the cop. The clouds had thinned, and it was nearly sunny. A child craned his neck out of a second-story window of a dilapidated tenement, gazing wide-eyed at the street. Rey waved, and the boy waved back. The building was in such disrepair, it seemed held together by the clotheslines of its unfortunate residents. The boy ducked behind a curtain, returning a moment later with a stuffed teddy bear. The bear and the boy waved together.
Rey and the officer turned at the corner onto a nearly empty, unpaved street. A woman dunked her clothes into a bucket of water. She didn’t look up at them. They were blocks from the university now. “What’s this all about?” Rey asked.
The undercover scratched his temple. He pulled out his badge again and handed it to Rey. “It’s real, you know. You might show me a little respect.”
Rey shrugged and returned the badge.
“I knew your uncle. He trained me and I served under him. Before they turned on him.”
“And?”
“And I owe him everything. I loved that man. He was good to me. So I’m doing him a favor.”
“By following me?”
“By warning you.”
“I live within the law.”
The cop was just a kid. “All the good guys do.”
“Trini did.”
“Are all of you this rude?”
“All of us?”
“You know what I mean.”
Rey frowned. “I swear I don’t.”
“Listen, I’m just telling you what I know. I saw your name on a list. I saw both your names.”
Rey looked up. “I haven’t used that name in years.”
“Good. Don’t. Some people on this list are no longer with us.”
They had come to the end of the street. They doubled back. The woman was finished washing her clothes. She coughed as they walked by, and approached meekly to ask for money. She followed them for a bit, with an extended hand, but there was no conviction in her voice, and the young detective shooed her away. When they were back to the avenue, the undercover began to turn away from the university. “You were at the Moon, weren’t you?” he asked.
Rey nodded. “Years ago.”
“It’s busy over there these days. You don’t want to go back.”
There was nothing to say to that.
“Trini deserved better,” the cop said.
“We all did,” said Rey. “The world owes us.” He thanked the young man. “See, we’re not all rude.”
“It’s good to know. Be careful, that’s all.” The young man held out his hand, and Rey shook it. They turned in opposite directions down the avenue.
“MOTHER,” MANAU said, “you’re boring him.” He stood at the door of the kitchen, arms folded. Victor had the bowl of soup at his lips. A chicken bone lay on the table.
Manau’s mother blanched. “Now Elijah, don’t be rude.”
“The soup is very good, madam,” Victor said.
Norma patted him on the head.
“Your boy is so polite,” Manau’s mother said to Norma. “Not like my son.”
“Mother.”
“Thank you, madam,” said Norma.
Manau’s mother smiled sweetly. “Will you be staying then?”
Norma said they would. Manau’s mother nodded and went off hurriedly to prepare a bed. They would sleep in Manau’s room, of course. Norma didn’t even have a moment to answer. Then it was the three of them, in the kitchen. The boy had finished eating. He hadn’t touched his spoon. He turned his chair toward Norma and Manau, and the two adults sat. What else was there to do?
“Do you want to know about your father?” Norma asked.
The boy nodded. She couldn’t recall with any certainty how much time had passed: had it been a year or a day? Had the boy aged, or had she? There was nothing of her husband in him, or nothing that she could find: he was young still, and perhaps that was it, but his thin face and dark skin didn’t seem at all like Rey’s. He had small lips and smooth cheeks. Rey’s eyes had been hazel green, and this boy’s eyes were nearly black. Was it even true? Norma took a deep breath. None of it was the boy’s fault. She wanted her voice to come out steady. “The night I met him,” she began, “he was taken from me by some bad men. They hurt him and then they gave him back to me. I always knew they could take him again. He was very handsome, I thought so, and very smart, like you. He must have loved you, if he sent you to me.”
Manau cleared his throat. “Your mother told me. It was a few months ago. She wanted you to meet Norma one day. She didn’t expect that day would come so soon.” He looked down at his feet.
Victor rubbed his face. “Okay,” he said.
“This is too much right now. Isn’t it?”
The boy had nothing to say.
“It is, it is,” Norma said. “I left the station this morning, you know. They’re looking for us.” It wasn’t clear whom she was talking to. Norma stood and turned away. She opened the refrigerator, peering inside absentmindedly, inhaling its chemical coolness, and closing it again. I should climb inside, she thought. Shut myself in and die.
Her bones hurt.
“They won’t find you here,” Manau said. “They won’t look for you here.”
“Who’s looking for you?” Manau’s mother said. She had just walked in.
“No one,” Manau said.
“It’s complicated,” added Norma.
Manau’s mother looked hurt for a second. “I can see no one is tired here,” she said after a pause. She put her hands up. “Won’t you three help me with something?”
Norma, Manau, and Victor followed her out of the kitchen and into the dining room. There was a neglected, half-empty cabinet of glassware, and a sliding door with a long, slanting crack across its face. Beyond it was a square patch of grass no more than two meters across. A light was on outside, and Norma could see the small yard was well tended. She gave Manau’s mother a smile, this precious woman. She smiled back and pointed at the table, where an unfinished puzzle was spread out on a white piece of cardboard. Dozens and dozens of missing pieces were piled in each corner. Norma leaned over the still-forming picture: there were yellow buildings and a mountain beginning to take shape in the distance. A palm tree or two sprouted in the foreground.
“What’s this?” Norma asked.
Manau’s mother handed her the box. Of course: it was the Plaza in the Old Quarter. A few shoeshine boys sat on the steps of the cathedral. A woman in a sundress strolled with a parasol, to guard against the bright sunlight, and, in the center, a brass band with trumpets raised high played what was certainly a patriotic song. Norma could have been there the very day this picture was taken. It was easy to forget that the city had been beautiful once, that its elegant plaza had once been the beating heart of a nation’s capital.
“I just love puzzles,” Manau’s mother said.
They all sat down, Victor with his knees on the chair, and each took a handful of puzzle pieces to sift through. It was brilliant, Norma thought. This woman was brilliant. Norma wanted to weep. She stared down at the table. The puzzle suddenly absolved them of the need to speak, and they fell quickly into the rhythm of it: examining a piece, its colors and textures, scanning the box to see where it might fit. Her city as it had been once, the city where she’d fallen in love with Rey.
Manau’s mother took the box. “I grew up here,” she said to Victor, pointing with her pinky, down a side street that came off the plaza. “Just three blocks away.” She smiled and ran her fingers through her white hair. “It was just a village then.”
Norma’s mother had always called it a village, too, as in, “Your father has slept with every tramp in this village…” But so much had changed. As a girl, Norma had walked the four sides of this plaza. It didn’t exist anymore. For most city residents, its name evoked not this image from the not-so-distant past but something more recent: a great massacre that had occurred in the final year of the war. On Sundays, as a girl, Norma would go there with her father to watch the marching bands. It was a tradition in those days: a casual crash of a cymbal, and the city dwellers looked up from their reverie, and everything was put on hold. A half-dozen musicians and a conductor, quite presentable in a black suit, passing a hat through the crowd. Once, after a particularly rousing number, a conductor had taken the flower from his lapel and placed it delicately behind Norma’s ear. With a broad, gap-toothed smile, he announced the next song, and dedicated it to “a princess.” He said those exact words! She was nine years old, with pale skin and pretty eyes. She wore a dress with yellow flowers on it, and they were all looking at her. Then her father whispered that she should curtsy, and she did, to the appreciative applause of the gathered crowd. Even now, nearly forty years later, she was nodding to the crowd, thank you, thank you, color gathering in her cheeks.
BACK HOME, they had played games, too. Different kinds: they ran into the forest and hid there. They imitated the frantic music of the jungle animals and frightened the girls. Those were h
appy memories. The kids took turns reinventing the stories the old people told: about fires and wars, about rivers that changed course in the middle of the night, about Indians who spoke a language even older than their own.
These were strange times. Victor was among strange people. He had never asked his mother about the city, and there was no one else he would have trusted. Plenty of people told stories about it, but they had no way of knowing. Once, Nico returned from a trip to the provincial capital with his father and said he had seen a magazine from the city. Some of the younger kids didn’t know what a magazine was; Nico used the word for book. “But with more pictures,” he explained. “Pictures of the city,” he said, and everyone wanted to know pictures of what exactly. Describe it. Tell us—they were all dying to know. Nico said little. He was coy, almost smug. It was the way he drew a crowd to him, with a sly smile, always holding back, and he began his list: photos of wide streets, shiny cars. “Asphalt,” he said importantly, and the children nodded. Powerful factories, noisy machines, crowded parks—wait.
“Noisy machines?” Victor asked. He couldn’t help it. “What does a picture of a noisy machine look like?”
Nico grabbed one of the smaller boys by the shoulders and shook him. “Like this,” he said. Everyone laughed, even the boy. He was just happy to be included.
“What else?” Victor asked.
Nico frowned, and continued his list: churches, plazas, trains. These were just words, and they were all impatient for something more, something exactly right, something new. By the time Nico said “tall buildings,” the children, Victor first among them, groaned. Of course there were tall buildings—wasn’t it a city? Everyone had heard of those.
Nico laughed. “Oh, yeah, you know all about the city, don’t you?” He looked right at Victor. Nico picked up a stick. “Draw it then.”
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