Hallie walked near the edge and stood looking down on broken temple ruins. In a perky voice she said, “Don’t you think the Aztecs are terribly overdrawn? I much prefer the art of the Mayans. It is elegant, where the Aztec is bulky—”
Isabel was near laughter. “Come on, ladies,” she said, leading them to her car. Her suppressed laughter gave her voice a percolated quality. “You have been to your lectures, haven’t you?”
Hallie was unperturbed. “Oh yes, and to the museums. And—” she gestured back toward the project—”to your real life, or some part of it. But now what I’d really like is to go to Benny’s and have a hamburger!”
At that Isabel smiled, kindly.
“My father would crap if he knew what’s going on down here,” Hallie confided when she had eaten her cheeseburger. Abilene, expected at Adele’s at eight for dinner, settled for Hallie’s discarded potato chips.
Hallie twirled a straw in her glass. “He’s so uptight lately. One night I came upon him reading, and he had tears in his eyes. He looked at me so sadly, and he said, ‘Hallie, neo-Marxism is dead.’ God! You look up to your father as somebody who has matured into, well, if not wisdom, at least equanimity.”
Hallie was in motion as she spoke. She fiddled with the straw, refolded her napkin and then opened it again, used her fork to move a pickle around on the platter. She fingered the buttons on her blouse.
“My poor dad. He’s just out of step,” Hallie continued. “All my life we’ve eaten beans on Friday night, to think about the hungry, and we’ve sent off our family checks to charities. I grew up on the word liberal. But that’s a joke! Liberal is absolutely right of where it’s at. I mean, Johnson is a goddamned liberal! And he thinks he can buy off the Vietcong with Texas cows! Well, we’ve had it! We want a government that doesn’t lie to us, doesn’t take away other people’s right to choose for themselves.”
“I’m surprised your father let you come down here. I’d think he wouldn’t want you out of his sight.”
“He thinks I’m studying Spanish and making ceramic pots. It was his idea. He didn’t want me to spend the summer in Berkeley. The movement there is getting very bad press.”
“You aren’t making pots, though, are you?”
Hallie made a face. “How could I? There’s so much going on! I do go to the museums, I’m taking art history. But it’s the streets that have the real art. You know, in Berkeley when we had a demonstration they’d always say, oh they’re just spoiled brats. It was hard to argue, even if it wasn’t true. But these kids, what can anybody say about them except that they’re pure and brave and smart. I love them.”
She pushed her dish toward the edge of the table. “My friends would barf to see what I just ate. Are you vegetarian?”
Abilene said, “I eat whatever is set in front of me.” Hallie seemed befuddled by the answer. Abilene thought only how true a thing she’d just said.
It was six, a time when nobody was out. Shops were closed; clerks sat on folding chairs and napped. In their homes, wealthy women lay on beds with clean sheets, waiting to dress for the evening. Impulsively, Abilene asked Hallie along to Adele’s.
They went to Claude’s apartment to wash up. As they went out again, Hallie said, “It’s been an amazing year. I used to think history was what had gone by. Now I know it’s as recent as this morning, and it hauls you with it, scraping you across stones. It’s been a shitty year, really.” Then she brightened. “But it’s only half over. Anything could happen. Wait to see what happens in Chicago, at the convention. God I wish I could be there, but my dad would kill me first.” As they walked, Hallie’s step lightened, grew almost bouncy. “I feel it, I swear I smell it.” She took Abilene’s hands and swung her around like a schoolgirl. “Life!” she cried. “Change!” She slipped her arm into the crook of Abilene’s and drew her close “It’s like a warm wind. This is the best of all places to be.”
A thousand street lamps suddenly came on.
“You see!” Hallie exclaimed. “You see!”
Hallie was welcome at Adele’s. Dinner was informal: piles of sopa seca, ropes of sausages, hard rolls and fruit. The playwright Simon Augusto was there with an actress from the Belles Artes, Elena Ybarros. Soon after the two women arrived, a professor and writer came in within moments of one another. The writer, Arturo Reza, sometimes worked with Daniel; they often referred, in a kind of shorthand, to their shared experiences.
Abilene ate little and fed on talk. The room had the disjointed sound of an orchestra warming up—tension, crescendo, but no melody. The actress Elena tossed her hair when Simon looked her way, and laughed at his sarcastic jibes at God, the Revolution, Art. When they had drunk several bottles of wine and cleared away the food, the talk became more intense. They rambled among topics: the deterioration of the Mexican film industry into cheap, banal mass entertainment. Rumors of a lynching in a northern state. The pervasive “Americanization” of Mexican culture through Televisa. The chaos of sprawling migrants’ slums. The price of coffee. Minor but frequent student commotions. In Spanish, so many words of disconsolation had the mournful sound of a gypsy song, and they came easily, like verse.
Pola sat at one end of the high-ceilinged room with her handwork on her lap. She had a sulky, dusky look to her, dark eyes that looked you over and rejected you, thought you too common. Though she smiled at Abilene when Abilene first arrived, she never said anything to her. She didn’t speak to anyone until just before she went to bed. She said, “If you change the world, don’t wake me until morning. I want to be surprised.” Daniel looked unhappy. Adele rose to go to her daughter, but Daniel pulled her back.
The actress, always flirting with Simon, freshened drinks and made a great occasion of each walk across the room. She had a modest bosom and a shapely waist, but her buttocks were very large, and she swayed from side to side so that they moved provocatively under her clingy dress. When she thought she knew something pertinent, she stood perfectly still and recited bits of dialogue, once a speech of several minutes. No one reacted, except for a muffled giggle from Hallie. Abilene did think Simon was especially alert when Elena was near; once when she stood near him he pulled her to him and planted his face into the flesh of her buttocks. Hallie jabbed Abilene in the thigh and stifled a laugh with her hand. Abilene thought ashamedly of how it must have looked to others, all those times Tonio touched her so intimately in front of others, pinching or fondling, and always so casually, not even bothering to look. On a boat in Acapulco, she had seen someone Tonio knew put his hand down into a girl’s bikini bottom and hold it there while he ate shrimp with his other hand.
When Elena turned, Abilene saw her eyes were bright, saw how Elena had liked the vulgar affection.
Simon’s “kiss” had come at a moment’s silence; now everyone sat awkwardly with nothing to say. When Hallie realized this, she seized center stage. She had been interjecting remarks all evening, with more and more aplomb. At first they had all spoken Spanish, but as so often happens when the languages are mixed and everyone is bilingual, they switched to English after a while. Hallie talked on and on. The Berkeley scene. Girls with flowers in their hair and their breasts loose under gauzy blouses, music and theatre in the streets, demonstrations and protests.
“There’s such an appetite for revolution there!” she said, as if revolution were a particularly spicy curry. “It’s not enough to go around without a bra!” Elena burst out laughing, and Abilene felt herself blush. Hallie went on. “It won’t be enough until it means something to peasants in Vietnam, to black mothers in Oakland, to the migrants, the poor—”
“A revolution,” Simon began in an arched tone. “It does clean out the intestines.”
Hallie quickly challenged him. “Isn’t it our business? Isn’t it serious business?”
“To do what?” Simon asked lazily.
“To speak for those who have no power.”
“It
depends. Have you asked them what they want?”
“We’re talking about food, shelter, civil rights!”
Arturo Reza spoke softly, like a mother to a child. He said they knew something of such things in Mexico. “Though we are bored with our poor. They need so much, and they are so many.”
Hallie was undeterred. “You’re—intellectuals—aren’t you? Educated men? Lucky men? You can’t squat on your education, your good fortune—” She paused to breathe noisily.
Simon interrupted before she could speak again. “Arturo here was in prison almost three years, after the railroad strikes. He was a nuisance, worrying about the rights of workers. In the prison the workers told him his hands were soft. What do you think of that?”
Hallie was young, without cynicism. She turned to Arturo with a gaze of admiration and pleading. “So you know what I mean! And now it’s our turn. The young. We’ve got to stand up for the oppressed who can’t stand up for themselves.” She pointed at Abilene, whose barking laugh expressed her surprise and dissent. “The world is unfair!” Hallie cried. “Your fight—” this was when she pointed—”and my fight, they’re part of the same thing, the reshaping of the world.”
Abilene raised her eyebrows comically. “Who, me?” she said.
Simon laughed. “Once they thought a play had to have three acts.” He had been drinking heavily. “One big stage. Anything goes. A theatre of the absurd.”
Elena went into the kitchen. Simon trailed behind her, cupping his hands low, a few feet behind her bottom.
Hallie sat down, put her chin on her hands for a moment’s reflection, and then jumped back up. She paced back and forth across the large room. The wood floor resounded sharply under her steps. “It’s not absurd! Not what we’re trying to do! What’s absurd is the establishment. We’ve got to make them all back down. We’re responsible for one another. I can’t buy the world the way my parents did—the militaristic, capitalistic, chauvinistic world, hanging out there like a rotting fig.” Simon, returned, now stood near her. He jiggled the fresh ice in his drink. She glared at him. “And I tell you this, I accept the responsibility, because my country is the worst of all. It stinks with its rotten politics, stinks with the stench of lynched niggers and clubbed workers. Everything is for money and power. I’ve got to make my own definition for love and work, for family. I want to be a member of the true human race, of a world nation. What’s going on, here, in Mexico—I’m concerned. Didn’t my nation help your politicians build progress on the backs of workers? Isn’t that what I heard you making speeches about a couple of hours ago?”
Daniel spoke quietly. “You’re speaking for the underclass, and no one can accuse you of not caring. But sometimes the oppressed have their own spokesmen, and they say nothing will change except through violence. They say people like you have to die, Hallie.”
Dismay flickered across Hallie’s face, but she recovered. “Nonsense. They need us.” Her face was screwed up in great earnestness. “We can choose sides.”
There was a general recess while a jug of wine was found and opened. Simon pressed money into Adele’s hands. Hallie stood transfixed (by the possibilities of Daniel’s suggestions?).
Abilene was relieved that no one was intent on putting Hallie down. Daniel’s exception to her rhetoric had been gentle, though Abilene could see it had affected Hallie. She might have been sport for this cynical circle, with her right ideas, her high purpose, her resolve, but it was her beauty they had attended to. She was lovely in a way that never went out of fashion: long legs, high breasts, strong lines, and that healthy hair that moved like cloth. She walked with the long, hearty stride of an athlete, and sat with the grace of a dancer. She was something Abilene had seen from a distance in school: a secure child. She had always had what she needed, had had enough to give some up. Now she was outraged that others had so little. Abilene thought that Hallie looked down from too far up to see how many layers there were below her. She took too many people in with her, made her class occupy too broad a space, made too many people responsible. Had Abilene been privileged? Hardly! Had her father perpetrated oppression? The idea was ludicrous; even his death had been petty. Abilene found that she liked Hallie, despite the differences in their backgrounds, but she also found that she was edgy with resentment, to be accused in Hallie’s silly assessment of Abilene’s place in the world. Abilene thought: She should know what my world is like! She should watch who she hangs around with!
Simon consulted with Daniel and put on records. The jazz they chose made Abilene nervous. It too keenly reflected her own emotional tenor. She didn’t want to be in the middle of all this disconnected discussion. She wanted to talk to Adele.
Simon pulled Elena to her feet and tried to dance with her. They touched each other lightly, like blind people, and then suddenly clasped and began dancing without moving their feet. It was quite a display. Gilberto, the professor from the university, rose and gathered glasses off the floor. “It’s past midnight,” he said in Spanish. “I’ve got classes in the morning.”
Hallie whirled toward him. “Oh, God, me too!” she said. “Art History at ten. Do you have a car?”
They consulted. Gilberto lived in an old section not too far from the university. Hallie was boarding with a family in the elegant Pedregal colonia, built on a lava bed, a little beyond. Gilberto said he would take her home.
Hallie wanted to make a date with Abilene for the next day.
“I don’t know what I’ll feel like,” Abilene said weakly. Hallie ignored her. “Museum of Anthro, the fountain, two p.m.,” she said. “We’ll eat something, and I’ll take you to meet some of my friends. It’ll be fun.” She looked at the others. “It is all very exciting, you know, the consciousness of the students.” No one laughed; in fact they looked solemn and approving. Simon said, “Gilberto is an economist.” Hallie took Gilberto’s arm as they left.
As soon as the door shut after them, Simon said, “Think what she would be like in harness, or in bed.” Abilene was a bit shocked. The actress snickered. Adele said, “Really, Simon, even from you.” He defended himself ardently. “I only meant her energy! Her youth and vigor! Really, Adele. Is it only pain that provokes you? Only tired old Indian eyes?”
Adele, surprisingly, smiled. “Actually it’s enthusiasm that wears me down. When I’m not working, I fidget. When I do work, I’m tense. It’s all very tedious.”
“Certainly you can’t suggest that Adele’s sensitivity is over-focused, rolled too tight?” Daniel said. He too was annoyed with Simon. Simon put his hands up to stave off more comment, but Daniel said, “How could that be true, when she’s an artist? An artist with ties to the real world, as you must surely know?”
Abilene thought someone hateful could say a lot about that. What was real about high fashion?
“Everyone can’t use art for political purposes,” Simon yawned. “How boring to always think about what’s right.”
“Theatre has its own rules, nothing to do with politics,” Elena said. “It has only to do with truth and art.” She looked smugly toward Simon, who laughed.
Daniel laughed too. “And that’s how we sound! Like a cocktail party on stage. In one of Simon’s plays we would be undressed, or dead by now. Go home, the lot of you—”
What had seemed a coming quarrel dissolved in embraces and promises for a quick reunion. As Abilene reached for her things, Adele caught her elbow. “But not you, please! Wait.” She locked the door and leaned against it. Daniel kissed her forehead and said goodnight.
When he was out of the room, Adele asked, “Are you too exhausted to talk? Really talk, I mean?”
“I’m tired. The evening took—a lot of energy, I guess.”
“Oh, them. You’re not used to it. It doesn’t amount to all that much. That’s the way Mexican intellectuals are. Blah blah. They’re close to Daniel, you see. They’re important to him. We see them all several ti
mes a week, it’s more like family. Listen, if you can stay a while, you can sleep here. There are cushions and quilts in Pola’s room.”
“It doesn’t matter much where I sleep,” Abilene said.
They huddled over cups of cocoa Adele had made them in a bowl in the Mexican way, whipping the chocolate to a froth. Adele kept chewing at her thumbnail.
Abilene asked, “What did you think of Hallie? I only just met her today, you know. It’s not like she’s a friend—”
“Oh, she’s okay. She’s probably good for you, all that verve. There are lots of girls like her in Mexico. They say the whole Department of English is made up of fluffy rich girls who like to spend time in the U.S. But these girls—they can work very hard. They have to have something to believe in, just like anyone else.”
“Is that what you want to talk about?” Abilene knew she couldn’t hold up her own end in a conversation about meaning. She’d been long enough away from the Tecoluca, it was like she didn’t have a life at all. Like a battery running down. And if she didn’t go back to Tonio—Oh, she wished Adele would tell her what she would do instead! Wasn’t that why she’d looked up her old friend, and not just to pass time? It was like the time she raced around Lubbock with her sister-in-law, looking for her dead father’s mistress: she’d gotten caught up in the rushing, she’d had a reason for the next hour—
“—Daniel thinks what’s going on will be very important.” Abilene realized she hadn’t heard what Adele was saying. “But that’s not what I’ve got on my mind, not right now. I’ve been thinking of that American girl, Sylvia Britton—the one who was murdered.”
“It happened so close to your house. She was American. It seems natural enough to worry.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Now that you ask, yes. It does.” Maybe there were things she could tell Adele, she thought. Adele would know what to do. Somebody had to know.
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