Mouthful of Birds

by Samanta Schweblin

  SANTA CLAUS SLEEPS AT OUR HOUSE

  The Christmas when Santa Claus spent the night at our house was the last time we were all together. Mom and Dad stopped fighting after that night, but I don’t think it was because of Santa. Dad had sold his car a few months before because he’d lost his job, but he said a good Christmas tree was important that year, and he bought one even though Mom was against it. The tree came in a long, flat cardboard box, along with an instruction sheet explaining how to fit the three parts together and spread the branches open so they looked natural. Once the tree was assembled, it was taller than Dad, really huge, and I think that’s one of the reasons why Santa slept at our house that year. I had asked for a remote-control car for Christmas. Any would do; I wasn’t after any model in particular. The problem was that almost all the kids at school had them, and when we played at recess, the remote-control cars did nothing but crash into the regular toy cars like mine. So I had written my letter to Santa, and Dad had taken me to the post office so I could mail it. And he told the guy at the window:

  “We’re mailing this to Santa Claus,” and he handed him the envelope.

  The guy at the window didn’t even greet us because there were a lot of people and you could see he was tired from so much work. The Christmas season must be the worst time of year for those guys. He took the letter, looked at it, and said:

  “Zip code’s missing.”

  “But it’s for Santa Claus,” said Dad, and he smiled and winked. You could see he was trying to make friends, but the guy said:

  “Won’t go out without a zip code.”

  “Now, you know Santa Claus’s address doesn’t have a zip code,” said Dad.

  “Won’t go out without a zip code,” said the guy, and he called the next person.

  And then Dad climbed over the counter, grabbed the guy by his shirt collar, and the letter went out.

  So I was worried on Christmas Eve, because I didn’t know if my letter had made it to Santa or not. Plus, we hadn’t been able to count on Mom for almost two months, and that had me worried, too, because the one who took care of things was always Mom, and things worked well that way. But one day she stopped caring, just like that, from one day to the next. She went to see some doctors; Dad always went with her and I stayed next door at Marcela’s house. But Mom didn’t get better. Then there were no more clean clothes, no more cereal and milk in the mornings. Dad dropped me off late wherever I had to go, and then he’d be late again to pick me up. When I asked for an explanation, Dad said that Mom wasn’t sick and she didn’t have cancer and she wasn’t going to die. That something like that could very well have happened, but he wasn’t such a lucky man. Marcela explained that Mom had simply stopped believing in things, and that that was called being “depressed.” It made you not have any desire for anything, and it would take a while to go away. Mom didn’t go to work anymore or get together with girlfriends or talk on the phone with Grandma. She just sat in her robe in front of the TV and flipped through channels all morning, all afternoon, and all night. I was in charge of feeding her. Marcela left food in the freezer with the portions labeled. I had to combine them: I couldn’t, for example, give Mom all the potato casserole and then the whole vegetable tart; I had to combine the portions so her diet would be healthy. I thawed out the food in the microwave and brought it to her on a tray, with a glass of water and silverware. Mom said:

  “Thank you, dear. You stay warm now.” She said it without looking at me, without taking her eyes from the television.

  When I got out of school it was Augusto’s mother, who was beautiful, who held my hand and waited with me. That worked as long as Dad came to pick me up, but later, when Marcela started to come instead, neither of the women seemed very happy, so I waited alone under the tree on the corner. Whoever came to pick me up, they were always late.

  Marcela and Dad became very good friends, and some nights Dad stayed with her next door, playing poker, and Mom and I had trouble going to sleep without him in the house. Sometimes we’d run into each other at the bathroom door and then Mom would say:

  “Careful, dear, don’t catch cold.” And she’d go back to the TV.

  Marcela spent many afternoons at our house, cooking for us and straightening up a little. I don’t know why she did it. I guess Dad asked her for help and since she was his friend she felt like she had to, because the truth is she didn’t look too pleased about it. A couple of times she turned off Mom’s TV, sat down across from her, and said:

  “Irene, we have to talk, this can’t go on . . .”

  She told Mom she had to change her attitude, that things couldn’t go on like that, and that she, Marcela, couldn’t keep doing everything. She begged Mom to react and make a decision or she’d end up ruining our lives. But Mom never answered. And finally Marcela would leave and slam the door, and that night Dad would order pizza because there was nothing for dinner, and I love pizza.

  I told Augusto that Mom had stopped “believing in things,” and that she was “depressed,” and he wanted to see what she was like. We did something really bad that sometimes I’m ashamed of: we jumped up and down in front of her for a while, but Mom only moved her head a little when we blocked the TV. Then we made a hat out of newspaper, and we tried it out on her in different ways. We left it on her all afternoon, and she didn’t even move. I took the hat off her before Dad got home. I was sure Mom wasn’t going to say anything to him about it, but I felt bad anyway.

  Then Christmas came. Marcela made her baked chicken with horrible vegetables, but since it was a special night she also made french fries for me. Dad asked Mom to get up off the sofa and eat with us. He carefully moved her to the table—Marcela had set it with a red tablecloth, green candles, and the plates we used when company came—sat her down at the head of the table, and took a few steps back without taking his eyes off her. I guess he thought it might work, but as soon as he was far enough away, she got up and went back to her sofa. So we moved the food out to the coffee table and we ate in there with her. The TV was on, of course, and the news had a story about a place with poor people who had received a ton of presents and food from people with more money, and so now they were really happy. I was nervous and I kept looking at the Christmas tree the whole time, because it was almost midnight and I wanted my car. Then Mom pointed at the TV. It was like seeing furniture move. Dad and Marcela looked at each other. On TV, Santa Claus was sitting in his living room, one arm hugging a boy sitting on his lap, and the other around a woman who looked like Augusto’s mom. The woman leaned over and kissed Santa, and Santa looked at us and said:

  “. . . and when I get home, I just want to be with my family.” And the logo of a coffee brand appeared on the screen.

  Mom started to cry. Marcela took me by the hand and told me to go up to my room. I said no. She told me again, this time in the impatient tone she used when she talked to Mom, but nothing was going to drag me away from that tree. When Dad tried to turn the TV off, Mom started to fight with him to get him away. The doorbell rang and I said:

  “It’s Santa.”

  Marcela slapped me and then Dad yelled at her. They started to argue. And though Mom managed to turn the TV back on, Santa Claus wasn’t on any of the channels.

  The doorbell rang again, and Dad said:

  “Who the hell is it?”

  I hoped it wasn’t the man from the post office, because Dad was already in a bad mood and I didn’t want them to fight again.

  The doorbell rang again, a bunch of times in a row, and then Dad got sick of it and went to the door, and when he opened it, I saw it was Santa Claus. He wasn’t as fat as on TV, and he looked tired. He had trouble standing up, and he leaned for a second against one side of the doorway, then the other.

  “What do you want?” asked Dad.

  “I’m Santa Claus,” said Santa.

  “And I’m Snow White,” said Dad, and slammed the door in hi
s face.

  Then Mom got up, ran to the door, and opened it. Santa was still there, trying to hold himself up, and she hugged him. Dad had a fit:

  “This is the guy, Irene?” he yelled at Mom, and he started to say bad words and try to separate them. And Mom said to Santa:

  “Bruno, I can’t live without you, I’m dying.”

  Dad got them apart, and then he punched Santa and Santa fell backward and then just lay there on the stoop. Mom started screaming like crazy. I was worried about what was happening to Santa, and also because all of this was delaying the car, but I was happy to see Mom move again.

  Dad told Mom he was going to kill them both, and Mom told Dad that if he was so happy with his friend Marcela, then why couldn’t she be Santa’s friend, which seemed logical to me. Marcela went up to Santa, who was starting to wake up on the ground, and reached out her hand to help him up. And then Dad started to say all kinds of things and Mom started to yell. Marcela was saying, “Calm down, let’s go inside, please,” but no one listened. Santa Claus brought his hand to the back of his neck and I saw he was bleeding. He spat at Dad and Dad said:

  “You fucking fag.”

  And Mom said to Dad:

  “You’re the fag, you son of a bitch.” And she spat at him, too. She gave Santa her hand, brought him into the house, led him up to her room, and closed the door.

  Dad stayed there like he was frozen, and when he finally woke up, he realized I was still there, and he yelled at me to go to bed. I knew I was in no position to argue; I went to my room without Christmas and without a present. I waited in bed until everything was silent, watching the plastic fishes of my nightlight swim on the wall. By then I knew I wasn’t going to get my remote-control car, but Santa Claus slept at my house that night, and that meant a much better year for all of us.

  THE DIGGER

  I needed a rest, so I rented a big house near a coastal town far from the city. The house was ten miles from the town on a gravel road that led to the sea. The final stretch was just two dirt tracks, almost impossible to see in the tall grass; soon they disappeared entirely and I couldn’t go any farther in the car. I could see the upper floor of the house in the distance, so I steeled myself to get out, take the essentials, and continue on foot. It was growing dark, and though I couldn’t see the ocean, I could hear the waves crashing on the shore. I hadn’t walked far when I tripped over something.

  “Is that you, sir?”

  I started backward.

  “Sir, is that you?” A man stood up with difficulty. “I didn’t waste a single day, eh . . . I swear it on my own mother . . .”

  He spoke hurriedly while he smoothed the wrinkles in his clothes and arranged his hair.

  “The thing is that just last night . . . You can imagine, sir, that being so close I wasn’t going to leave things for the next day. Come, come,” he said, and he climbed down into a hole amid the scrub, just a step away from where we were.

  I knelt down and put my head in. The hole measured over a yard wide, and I couldn’t make out anything inside. For whom could this worker be working, when he couldn’t even recognize his own boss? What was he looking for, digging so deep?

  “Sir, are you coming down?”

  “I think you’ve made a mistake,” I said.

  “What?”

  I told him I wasn’t coming down, and, as he didn’t answer, I went to the house instead. Only when I reached the front stairs did I hear a distant “Very good, sir, as you like.”

  The next morning, I went out to get the luggage I’d left in the car. The man was sitting on the veranda of the house, nodding off, a rusty shovel propped between his knees. When he saw me, he put the shovel down and hurried to catch up with me. He carried the heaviest luggage, and, pointing to some packages, he asked if they were part of the plan.

  “I’m sorry, but I need to get organized,” I said, and when we reached the door I took what he was carrying so he wouldn’t come inside.

  “Yes, yes, sir. As you like.”

  I went inside. From the kitchen windows I could see the beach. There were hardly any waves; the water was ideal for swimming. I crossed the kitchen and looked through the front window: the man was still there. He alternated between looking toward the hole and studying the sky. When I went out, he corrected his posture and greeted me respectfully.

  “What are we doing, sir?”

  I realized that one gesture from me would have sufficed to make the man run to the hole and start digging. I looked toward the fields, in the direction of the pit.

  “How much is left, do you think?”

  “Not much, sir, not much at all . . .”

  “How much is not much, in your opinion?”

  “Not much . . . I wouldn’t know for sure.”

  “Do you think it’s possible to finish tonight?”

  “I can’t promise anything . . . You know: it doesn’t depend only on me.”

  “Well, if you want to do it so badly, do it. Finish it once and for all.”

  “Consider it done, sir.”

  I saw the man pick up the shovel, go down the stairs from the house toward the field, and disappear into the hole.

  Later on I went to town. It was a sunny morning and I wanted to buy bathing trunks to take advantage of the sea; when it came down to it, I had no reason to worry about a man who was digging a hole at a house that didn’t belong to me. I went into the only store I found open. When the clerk was wrapping up my purchase, he asked me:

  “And how is your digger doing?”

  I was silent for several seconds, maybe waiting for someone else to answer.

  “My digger?”

  He handed me the bag.

  “Yes, your digger . . .”

  I handed the man the money and looked at him, surprised. Before I left I couldn’t help but ask him:

  “How do you know about the digger?”

  “What do you mean, how do I know about the digger?” he asked, as if he couldn’t comprehend what I was saying.

  I went back to the house and the digger, who was waiting asleep on the veranda, woke up as soon as I opened the door.

  “Sir,” he said, getting to his feet, “there’s been great progress, I do believe we’re getting closer and closer . . .”

  “I’m going down to the beach before it gets dark.”

  I don’t remember why it seemed like a good idea to tell him. But there he was, pleased at my comment and ready to go with me. He waited outside for me to change, and a little later we walked toward the sea.

  “There’s no problem with you leaving the hole?” I asked.

  The digger stopped.

  “Would you rather I go back?”

  “No, no, I’m just asking.”

  “It’s just that if anything happened”—he seemed poised to go back to the hole—“it would be terrible, sir.”

  “Terrible? What could happen?”

  “Just got to keep digging.”

  “Why?”

  He looked at the sky, first to one side, then the other.

  “Well, don’t worry.” I went on walking. “Come with me.”

  The digger followed me, hesitant.

  Once at the beach, a few yards from the sea, I sat down to take off my shoes and socks. The man sat next to me, put his shovel aside, and took off his boots.

  “Do you know how to swim?” I asked. “Why don’t you come in with me?”

  “No, sir. I’ll just watch, if you don’t mind. And I brought the shovel, in case you come up with a new plan.”

  I stood up and walked toward the sea. The water was cold, but I knew the man was watching me and I didn’t want to back out.

  When I returned, the digger wasn’t there.

  With a doomed feeling, I looked for footprints heading toward the water in case he had followed my suggesti
on, but I didn’t see anything and I decided to go back. I looked in and around the hole. In the house, I made an uneasy tour of the rooms. I stopped on the landings of the stairs and I called to him from the hallways, a bit embarrassed. Later, I went outside again. I walked to the hole, looked in, and called to him again. I couldn’t see anything. I lay facedown on the ground, stuck my hand in, and felt the walls: this was a meticulous job. The hole was approximately three feet wide and seemed to go down toward the center of the earth. I entertained the possibility of getting in, but right away I ruled it out. When I put one hand on the ground to push myself up, the edge crumbled. I held on to the scrub, and, paralyzed, I heard the sound of the earth falling in the darkness. My knees slipped on the edge and I saw the mouth of the hole break apart and disappear inside it. I stood up and observed the disaster. I looked fearfully around me, but I didn’t see the digger anywhere. Then it occurred to me that I could fix the edges with a little damp earth, although I would need a shovel and some water.

  I went back to the house. I opened the closets, went through two back rooms that I was entering for the first time, and searched the laundry room. Finally, in a box with other old tools, I found a trowel. It was small, but it would be a start. When I went out of the house, I found myself face-to-face with the digger. I hid the trowel behind my back.