The Distance

by Zoë Folbigg

  Hector lifts the cigarette balancing dangerously between her thin lips and concedes to take a puff before resting it on the overflowing ashtray on the bedside table. He slips his hand inside her white-satin dressing gown and strokes her shoulder, his eyes less flirtatious than usual.

  ‘You didn’t steal them from Lazaro’s, did you?’

  Pilar tuts and changes the subject. ‘Wanna surprise?’ she asks with a mischievous smile.

  The robe drowns Pilar’s slight frame and her black backcombed hair looks three-days tousled, even though she just spent half an hour doing it while she watched her lover sleep. Pilar loves watching Hector sleep. When he sleeps, his long lashes sweep down over earthy brown cheeks, kissed with a pink hue from the heat he works up while he’s dreaming. His small straight nose that looks like it was carved from clay is perfect and still, and his usually loud mouth is poetically plump and sealed in silence while he breathes rhythmically. Everything is peaceful and harmonious when Hector Herrera is in one of two states: sleeping or sketching in his notepad. There are no exuberant gestures or loud laughter, just serenity. His silence calms Pilar’s rage, and with a haughty nose she gazes down at him and wonders how she ended up with a man as beautiful as Hector.

  ‘More surprises? I’m still traumatised by that crash.’

  ‘That was an accident, baby. I planned this one,’ she says with a naughty wink as she sips more cava from the glass.

  Hector pulls Pilar in closer, waking his dry mouth to place a kiss on hers. His Cupid’s bow lips are small but full and Pilar imagines the same mouth when she pictures their son in a far-ahead future. Hector tastes the cava on Pilar’s tongue and it takes away the stale remnants of vodka and excess on his. She slips her robe off her shoulder.

  ‘Look!’

  Hector gazes at Pilar’s chest. Past the dents above her left breast he sees a blue heart with his name etched across a ribbon in a swirly script. It is too big for such a small space. Hector’s eyes widen and he is lost for words among the famine of her sternum.

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘A blue heart? For our wedding?’

  ‘Yes. You make me sad,’ Pilar says matter-of-factly. ‘I thought it could be my “something blue”. I thought you’d like it. You don’t think it’s cool?’

  Now Hector understands why Pilar had been so unusually coquettish for the past few days. He thought she might be saving herself for their wedding night, or might feel uncomfortable that her parents and sisters were in town when she wanted to give off the aura of a virginal bride, despite the fact she was straddling him in a bar in front of thirty friends last night after her three prudish sisters had returned to their hotel to get some sleep before the big day.

  ‘You didn’t want me to see it,’ Hector says, piecing together the jigsaw puzzle around her heart, distracting her from his dislike.

  ‘I was saving myself for you too,’ she says, taking another drag of the cigarette from the ceramic ashtray. ‘Imagine how great I will taste tonight, mi amor.’

  The bell on the cathedral clock chimes twice, meaning it is half past the hour. Hector must get up.

  Pilar hands the glass back to Hector to finish the warm dregs as she swigs the remnants from the black bottle and puts it on the bedside table. She winces from the hit of bubbles and alcohol and gives Hector a quick double clap to move him along. ‘Right, let’s get moving,’ she commands, as Hector stretches his body into his yawn. ‘I’m so excited, baby,’ she adds with wide eyes.

  Hector, usually the giddy one, always the life and soul, the person people gravitate towards, is finding it hard to galvanise himself this particular morning. He doesn’t feel excited right now. He just feels sad.

  Three

  On the steps of the Spanish colonial cathedral, Hector’s swarthy skin is lit by the building’s yellow façade, intensifying his morning-after pallor. From all around him, people are shouting offers of congratulations, cheer and suerte. Taxi drivers, the men who drop Hector home in their green and white Beetles when he can barely speak at the end of a night out, beep their horns in solidarity. The women who work in the old department store, where they worked alongside Hector’s mother thirty-five years ago, and still clutch him to their hearts sympathetically when he pops in, walk past and blow Hector a kiss. Volunteers who work at the Villa Infantil De Nuestra Señora orphanage hurry along with a wave as they head back to tidy up, while the nuns who run it, and all of the children who live there, are in the cathedral awaiting Hector’s arrival. Barmen pass on scooters on their way to open up cantinas Hector frequents, for the start of a new day’s trade, although they don’t expect to see Hector in there later. Most people in the town of Xalapa know Hector Herrera, and if they’re not filing into the cathedral right now to support their compadre, they’re tooting their horns or raising their hands to wish him well.

  A more austere party approaches, as Hector’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, Mari-Carmen, and her other three daughters, Federica, Beatriz and Julieta, walk around the corner and up the steps of the cathedral. Hector greets them with a single kiss each to the left cheek. The youngest two girls, still teenagers, give each other a sideways look. Only last night, in their hotel bedroom, Beatriz and Julieta were wondering how on earth Pilar snagged such a hot husband, so they wrote their names next to Hector’s to work out what percentage the strength of their love with him would be in a little letters-and-numbers experiment that wasn’t entirely scientific (Beatriz was 72%, Julieta 98%, but she cheated). Hector’s grandfather, Alejandro, stands at his shoulder and nods sedately to Mari-Carmen and the young women.

  ‘Mari-Carmen, you look wonderful! The New World air suits you,’ says Hector, with a vivacity that attempts to disguise his hangover.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Hector,’ she scowls with thin, immaculately made-up jowls. ‘We’re all still jet-lagged, we look awful. Poor Federica’s eyes are still puffy.’

  Sullen Federica, the eldest of the four Cabrera sisters, rolls swollen eyes in embarrassment; Beatriz and Julieta stifle a giggle.

  Alejandro nods, he can’t help agreeing.

  ‘I don’t know why we couldn’t do it in Spain,’ Mari-Carmen gruffs. ‘It’s tradition to marry in the bride’s family home; and there are only two of you in your entire family. Eighteen of us have travelled all this way and there are hundreds of friends and family back home who are upset to miss this. She’s the first Cabrera to get married.’ Mari-Carmen, hat to toe in oyster, shoots Federica an exasperated look and her puffy eyes shrink even further back. Much to Mari-Carmen’s indignation, Federica has never had a suitor, which makes it even more inconvenient that their unruly second daughter found one first, all this way away, in the third world. Her small, eagle-like eyes measure the men standing in ill-fitting suits before her. Hector is taller and broader than his grandfather, who has sunken into his suit through years of labour in the gardens of the Museum of Anthropology on the outskirts of the town.

  Only two of you.

  Seeing the lines around his mother-in-law’s acerbic mouth makes Hector realise, for the first time in his life, that being only two of you might not be such a bad thing. He didn’t want the travelling circus from Spain. The Gallegos and their ridiculous lisps. This all seemed completely unnecessary to him.

  When Pilar told Hector at Christmas that she wanted to get married, and that she would hurt herself if they didn’t marry soon, it was the first Hector had heard of it. They had never once discussed marriage in the six years they had been together. So he assumed she wanted a quick and quiet wedding; perhaps on a beach on the Mayan Riviera. Maybe she was ready to consider children, although Hector knew they’d need to make some life changes first. But the eighteen-strong Spanish armada? No, gracias. At least Beatriz and Julieta looked happy to be there.

  ‘Well this is what Pilar wanted, Mami, and I’m sure you and I only want the same thing, for your daughter to be happy.’ Hector nods his most charming smile and Pilar’s three sisters try not to slide down the ste
ps of the cathedral on the crest of their sighs.

  Mari-Carmen frowns at Hector, as if she can’t understand his slow and well-meant diction, then turns her head in a look of relief to see her sister approaching.

  She almost smiled.

  ‘Ah, there’s Teresa, go help her up the steps, Hector, and show her to her seat, this is all too much for her.’

  Hector dashes down the cathedral stairs, his head thumping with each double step he jumps, to help the stately woman with a puff of white hair combed into a cloud behind her. Elephantine ankles are squeezed so tightly into beige court shoes, she can barely lift her feet to shuffle up each stone notch.

  ‘Doña Teresa, encantado…’ says Hector, not in the least bit charmed, but the half bottle of Freixenet followed by the three shots of tequila he and Pilar did before they went their separate ways to the cathedral are helping him see the funny side.

  Pilar made no ceremony of putting on her dress in secret. She had no qualms about Hector seeing her on the morning of their wedding or that it might bring bad luck. When her father Leonel came to the apartment door to collect her, broken glass was still shattered on the bedroom floor, but she knew he wouldn’t see it. He didn’t want to acknowledge that his daughter lived with ‘The Mexican’, let alone enter their bedroom and see the well-worn sheets.

  ‘Papi, come!’ Pilar shouted, as if she was an excited teenager, dressed up and ready for prom or her quinceañera, not her own wedding. Only the white satin dress and the plastic calla lily in her backcombed black hair were telltale signs.

  Leonel Cabrera, an unexpressive man, silenced by a life surrounded by women, didn’t know what to say to his daughter. This was a new experience for the both of them.

  ‘You look beautiful, cariña,’ he said stiltedly, as if he were reading it from the back of his hand.

  Pilar and Hector rushed around, trying not to bump into each other but sneaking tequila shots from the kitchen counter behind Leonel’s back as he sat on the sofa staring into space. Then, Pilar, in her white dress and red lipstick, said she was ready.

  Leonel looked away uncomfortably as Pilar jumped up and locked her legs around Hector’s waist and slipped her tongue in his mouth, her palms pressing into the back of his head. He held her easily but self-consciously, under her father’s gaze.

  ‘Don’t make me blue,’ Pilar whispered romantically. ‘Or I’ll slit my veins so deep that every last drop of my blood pours down the cathedral steps.’ She gave him a loving smile.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Hector assured her. Then he unwrapped Pilar’s arms and legs from their grip around his neck and waist, kissed his bride goodbye and went to the bathroom to throw up.

  Four

  ‘I’ll show you to your seat inside.’

  ‘I don’t know why you didn’t marry in Spain,’ says Tia Teresa, her voice even gruffer than her sister Mari-Carmen’s. With a wobble on a thick ankle, she concedes to take Hector’s arm.

  Alejandro, smaller than his grandson but as solid as an ox, stabilises Teresa by her other arm.

  ‘I’ll take Doña Teresa inside, mijo,’ his grandfather says quietly. Alejandro is a man of few words, but he is astute and perceptive, and he can see the lingering look of sadness in Hector’s eyes.

  Alejandro and Teresa pass Sister Miriam as she comes out of the cathedral, searching for Hector from behind tiny spectacles.

  ‘Ah, there you are! The children are all settled and can’t wait to see you, Hectorcito,’ says the tiny woman in a grey and white habit, as she rubs her wrinkled palms together.

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ Hector says warmly, taking her hands in his. Sister Miriam’s face wears the first bit of real cheer Hector has seen all morning, and it lifts his sallow shadow a little.

  Sister Miriam looks around to check they are alone amid the traffic noise, cheers and chaos of a Xalapa morning.

  ‘You know, Hector, I understand this must be a bittersweet time for you, it must be hard doing this on your own.’

  ‘I’m not on my own, Sister. I have Abuelo, and you, and the children…’ Hector squeezes Sister Miriam’s hands tighter. ‘And now I have a new mum and dad from Spain!’ he says, with a roll of his eyes.

  Sister Miriam gives a cheeky smile back. She couldn’t help but notice the grandiose women with big hats and big hair, and Hector sees the mischievous sparkle behind Sister Miriam’s glasses, before her eyes become sombre.

  ‘Your mother and father would have been very proud of you, Hector,’ she says.

  ‘Thank you,’ Hector mumbles, looking down at the floor.

  ‘You have become a fine man. A fine man with lots of friends and people who care about you. Look at how many people are inside there rooting for you. The children haven’t slept properly all week, they’ve been so excited about today.’ Sister Miriam releases a hand from his to wipe a faint smear of red lipstick from the collar of Hector’s shirt, but it won’t come off. ‘Thank you for inviting them.’

  ‘They’re my family,’ Hector says, as he looks beyond Sister Miriam’s spectacles, then down at his shoes with a smile. He wears brown lace-ups that look as if they are as old as Hector, even though he’s only worn them twice.

  ‘And you are theirs,’ she says, looking up at him. ‘You give them hope, Hector.’

  A wave of nausea washes over him again and he feels terrible. He inhales a deep breath and then takes, and kisses, Miriam’s remaining hand to release her. Amid the beeping horns and shaky engines, the faint sound of unabashed, uncontrollable child laughter trickles out of the cathedral.

  ‘I had better get back to them…’ Sister Miriam smiles warmly, then she turns on her heel. ‘Oh, Hector, please don’t be a stranger to them after you’re married. They’ve missed you these past months.’

  Wretched guilt that was fizzing away in Hector’s stomach since he woke now rises like bile in his throat.

  ‘Sorry, Sister, it’s been a busy time planning all this,’ Hector gestures his hands towards the cathedral. ‘I’ll come visit next week when we’re back from the coast.’

  ‘Do. And bring your paintbrushes, your mural needs a bit of work. The children can help you this time.’

  Hector smiles and remembers the summer spent breaking his back, painting the entire façade and ceiling of Sister Miriam’s orphanage; the smell of the thick syrupy cacao Sister Juana made for his rest breaks; the mousy English girl who came out to volunteer and help with the refurbishment but ended up unwittingly changing Hector’s life; the unusual eerie silence in the old hacienda as the kids were shipped off to stay at an orphanage in Coatepec for the summer; the tales they told Hector about lazy days at the waterfall when they came back.

  It must have been ten years ago already. No, twenty.

  Hector smiles to his shoes again, thinking about how, at eighteen, he was painting walls, frescoes, ceilings – his canvas and his imagination had no limits. Now he is a political cartoonist for the local newspaper, La Voz de Xalapa, his art limited to a 10cm x 5cm box; pressurised into being witty and sardonic about the day’s news before the sun goes down and the paper goes to print; before Hector can relax and go out to a cantina, or to find Pilar in a bar.

  ‘Good luck compadre!’ yells a thick, deep voice that makes Hector’s heart sink and the contents of his stomach curdle. It’s a voice that travels up Hector’s spine and climbs inside his brain, and each time he hears it he wishes it were the last. He looks out onto the street but can’t see sinister eyes smiling back at him; he can’t see the sun beaming off a gold tooth. He scans the park opposite for a bare arm, slashed and scarred, giving a jovial, menacing wave from the tight constraints of a black leather waistcoat. He puts his hand to his brow to look towards the brightness of the day but can’t see the figure he’s looking for, and hiding from. The voice comes again, accompanied by a frantic wave of an arm. This time the voice seems softer. Less menacing. Hector exhales a sigh of relief. He sees a newspaper seller standing on the corner, leaning on the exterior wall of a colonial arch
of the Palacio de Gobierno, shouting and waving again. ‘Suerte!’

  ‘Gracias, Chava!’ Hector shouts back, flushed with relief that distracts him from the heaviness of what’s ahead. It’s Salvador Mendoza, Chava to his friends. Hector remembers everyone’s name in Xalapa, from all the women who work in Lazaro’s, to the tellers at the Post Office, to the boy who gets the coffees for their editor at work, to the guy who sells the newspaper on the street corner. And they all know Hector.

  Hector looks out at the view from the cathedral steps. In the distance, beyond the stalls selling candy floss, churros and plastic toys in the tree-lined terrace of Parque Juárez, he sees the Pico de Orizaba, snow-capped and mighty, looking back at him with a look of disapproval.

  Hector glances back down towards his hands, and sees the Spanish flag rubberised in a band on his wrist. A gesture of love for Pilar and the culture he’s marrying into. Or was it just because her football team was better than his? Hector can’t even remember the night he put it on, but the blood-red stripes that encase a golden centre remind him of the sangre Pilar promised she would shed for Hector were he to let her down. He puts his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Always the extranjera, always the foreign girl, cabrón!’ is what Hector’s friend Ricky said when Hector told him he had met a cool schoolteacher who had come over from Spain. It stuck in his mind so much that he remembers the off-the-cuff comment from six years ago. But Ricky was right. Hector fell in love with foreigners very easily; perhaps it felt safer if things were lost in translation; and it was mostly easy to find a reason to end it when the time came.

  There was the quiet English girl at the orphanage that summer, who he’s surprised he sometimes thinks about; the long-limbed Australian who was in town for a year learning Spanish at the university; the sincere American who managed to get Hector to visit her in Oregon; her best friend who he fell for on his first – and last – visit there; Pilar all the way from Spain…