At Night We Walk in Circles

by Daniel Alarcón

  For a moment, Henry was left alone with Mrs. Anabel. Her friendliness had all but vanished, and she seemed to cringe in his presence, as if she were afraid he might attack her. He closed his eyes against the bright sun, and tried to remember everything Rogelio had ever told him about this woman. His mother.

  He came up blank.

  Instead, he said this: “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  She raised her eyes to look at him, but didn’t respond.

  Just then Noelia returned with a photo, one of the framed images that he’d been too frightened to look at before. She thrust it at Henry.

  “Is this him?”

  He bent his head toward the photo, using his sleeve to wipe the glass clean. He sat back with a start. It was the face of a young man, a boy. A miracle of a human being. The image was faded and old, but those were the same dashing brown eyes, the same narrow face and high forehead. The same Rogelio. He rubbed the glass some more, and smiled. He had to withstand the urge to jam the frame into the pocket of his coat and flee with it.

  Mrs. Anabel and Noelia were waiting.

  “No, this isn’t him,” Henry said. “I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake.”

  Noelia let out a breath.

  “See, Mama? He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “I’ve upset you both. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Call Jaime,” said Mrs. Anabel. “I don’t trust this one.”

  Noelia stood. “Don’t worry, Mama. He’s going now. Say good-bye.”

  Henry met Noelia’s stare, and felt ashamed. He handed the photo to Mrs. Anabel, who accepted it without comment. There were tears welling in her eyes. With one hand she took hold of her daughter’s arm, and was gently tugging at her sleeve, like a child demanding attention.

  “Where is Rogelio?” she said. “I want to see Rogelio!”

  “He’s coming, Mama.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Of course he’s not dead!”

  Henry stood. There was nothing left to be done. He bent forward in a formal and exaggerated bow, drawing his hands behind his back so that Noelia and Mrs. Anabel wouldn’t see them shaking.

  “I beg your pardon,” Henry said. “I’m very sorry to have disturbed you both. I’ll see myself out.”

  HENRY HURRIED BACK to the hotel in a state of alarm. “I wanted to leave town right away,” he told me later, but that was impossible. The bus that had brought them to T— that morning had already returned to San Jacinto, and there would be no way out until the next morning. T— felt menacing to him now; a place where people died and were never mourned. He’d thought a great deal about Rogelio in the previous weeks, thoughts which had only intensified since coming upon that map in the window in San Jacinto. He’d imagined many different versions of this encounter, wondering all the while if attempting to make this kind of peace with his former life was a sign of maturity or selfishness. I believe him when he says none of what came after was what he intended. It simply hadn’t occurred to him that Rogelio’s family would not know that their son was dead.

  Henry went directly to the Imperial, where he convinced the owner to open the second floor veranda, and bring him a drink. There was only beer, but that was fine. It would do. Henry sat at a table overlooking the plaza, while the owner kept his distance, huddling in a far corner and listening to his transistor radio with the volume down low.

  When Patalarga and Nelson appeared an hour later, Henry was halfway through his third beer. He wasn’t exactly happy to see them, and would’ve preferred to be alone for a while longer. Still, he stood to greet his friends, and when he did, his glass tipped over. No one moved to catch it. The three of them watched it roll slowly and stop at the edge, while the beer spread over the surface of the table and then tumbled over in a long thin line.

  “Graceful,” said Patalarga.

  Henry righted the glass, shook his fingers dry, and called for a towel.

  “Leave it,” the owner shouted from across the bar.

  Henry wiped his hands on his jeans. It was midafternoon; the sun was high. The entire valley was bathed in light, and the streets of T— looked like an unused stage set. It all gave him a headache.

  “Well, what is it?” Henry said.

  Nelson was fully recovered, or seemed so. He beamed with satisfaction. “We have a show tonight. The mayor is going to open up the auditorium for us.”

  “Tonight?”

  Patalarga frowned. “Yes, tonight. This is good news, Henry.”

  “It was,” he answered. “Two hours ago it was great news. But I’m not sure it’s so good now.”

  Nelson and Patalarga waited for an explanation, but Henry had no idea where to begin. If he were just quiet long enough, he thought, maybe they could avoid the show altogether. His friends stared.

  Finally he relented. “I went to see the family of an old friend of mine who died in Collectors.”

  “Okay,” said Patalarga.

  “That’s why we’re here. Why we came. But my friend’s family, his mother, his sister—they had no idea he was dead. I upset them. They accused me of lying. They threw me out.”

  “They threw you out?” Nelson asked.

  “Sort of.”

  The three friends were quiet for a moment.

  Nelson seemed unconvinced. “And?”

  It seemed so simple to Henry, so obvious.

  “And I feel bad.”

  Nelson laughed in spite of himself, and turned to Patalarga. “He feels bad?”

  Patalarga didn’t answer, just shook his head and turned away.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” Henry said.

  Nelson glared. “Why’s that exactly? What don’t I understand?”

  “That I can’t do the show.”

  “You’re canceling?”

  “Henry, you can’t cancel,” Patalarga said.

  Henry crossed his arms over his chest. “I am. I just did.”

  What happened next surprised them all: Nelson pushed Henry with two hands, sending the playwright tumbling backward. One of the chairs tipped over with a crash, and the empty beer glass toppled over once more, this time landing on the floor.

  Nelson stood over Henry, his face red with fury. Perhaps he was a fighter, after all.

  Patalarga forced his way between them, as best he could, trying to calm Nelson down. It wasn’t easy. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you bring us here?” Nelson shouted. “What do you want from us?”

  “I’d never seen him like that,” Patalarga told me later.

  He managed to push Nelson back, enough for Henry to get to his feet. The playwright stood, straightened his shirt, and raised a hand to the startled owner. Then he faced Nelson, glaring. He took a deep breath. There was some swagger to him.

  “Patalarga,” he said. “Did I deserve that?”

  “Honestly?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Henry looked puzzled for a moment, then deflated. That flash of vigor vanished as quickly as it had come; he considered his friends, the empty veranda, the plaza before them, and felt small.

  “You’re wondering why,” Nelson said, still scowling. “I’ll tell you. You’re being selfish. For a change.”

  Henry slumped into a chair. “Is it true?” he asked Patalarga, with searching eyes.

  Patalarga nodded.

  Henry rubbed his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “You win. We’ll do it.”

  AT ROGELIO’S CHILDHOOD HOME, the situation was deteriorating, and Noelia had begun to worry. This was the story these two women had been told, the story they knew: their beloved Rogelio had gone first to the city for work, then immigrated to the United States in 1984 at age twenty-one. Jaime told them all this, in broad strokes, with just enough detail to seem true. Rogelio had braved border crossings and skirted civil wars in Central America, negotiated Mexico by bus, and passed into the United States through a tunnel in Nogales. Eventually he made it to the city of
Los Angeles. As far as they knew, that’s where he remained; and he hadn’t returned to visit only because he had no papers. Jaime claimed to speak to him roughly once a year, and they believed him. Noelia had never doubted it; and as for Mrs. Anabel, she held on to the idea with fierce resolve. Every year for her younger son’s birthday, she’d baked him a cake.

  If Mrs. Anabel’s gullibility on this count seems far-fetched, remember this was T—: the rows of padlocked houses are all the context one needs. In another place it might strain credulity, but here nothing could be more normal than Rogelio disappearing for seventeen years, and still being thought of as alive. My father still speaks warmly of people he hasn’t seen or heard from in forty-five years, and by the tone of his voice you might expect them to appear tomorrow and renew their unbreakable friendship. Time means something very different in a place like T—. As does distance. As does memory. Almost every family had a son who’d gone off into the world. Some sent money; some vanished without a trace. Until proof to the contrary was offered, they were all to be thought of as living. It was the town’s unspoken credo.

  The truth about Rogelio’s fate, the story Henry shared, had upset this balance. Mrs. Anabel was the most affected, naturally; even on a good day, dementia made her subject to mood swings she was unable to control. But that afternoon, the very thought of Rogelio dead threw her into a panic, and not long after Henry had gone, she was weeping with rage and helplessness.

  “She kept calling for Rogelio, for her baby,” Noelia told me later. “I didn’t know what to do. If he was dead, why had no one told her? Shouldn’t a mother always know these things? Why had no one told me?”

  A few minutes before three, she managed to give her mother a sedative and coax her back to bed. This was not easy. She deflected all questions about Rogelio until the old woman was asleep, then Noelia pried open the door to the street and hurried into town. If Henry, Patalarga, and Nelson had not been caught up in their own discussion, they might have seen her rushing across the plaza, one hand clutching the hem of her skirt so as not to drag its edge across the cobblestones.

  It was a little after three in the afternoon when she finally got her brother Jaime on the line. She tried to explain it as best she could, but she herself didn’t quite understand what had happened, why this stranger had appeared out of nowhere, talking about their Rogelio. Jaime didn’t seem to get it either, or pretended not to, and finally Noelia lost her patience. She changed tacks, stopped trying to explain.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The sound of her own voice startled her. Her hands were shaking. She hadn’t shouted in years.

  On the other end of the line, there was silence. Then: “About what?”

  “About Rogelio,” she said.

  She could hear Jaime’s long sigh. “Does Mama know?”

  “She’s in terrible shape.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said. A moment later he’d hung up.

  Jaime got in his car and arrived by early evening, just as the yellow lights in the plaza were flickering to life, and just as Diciembre was preparing to go onstage before a few dozen audience members in the municipal auditorium. Nelson had won the argument, perhaps the first time in the history of Diciembre that Henry had lost one.

  It was June 12, 2001. As it turned out, this would be the troupe’s last show together. Though they didn’t know it yet, Diciembre’s first tour in fifteen years was over.

  13

  THE PREPARATIONS for Diciembre’s performance in T— began around five, when the mayor’s deputy, a cheerful high school student in his last year, unlocked the municipal auditorium. The deputy’s name was Eric. He was young and fresh-faced, and he’d be leaving T— within a few months.

  “This is it!” he said brightly.

  “This is it,” repeated Nelson, whistling a long, fading note to himself. He dropped his end of the heavy duffel bag, and considered the space before him.

  The auditorium was one of the town’s newer buildings, a charmless and impractical metal box that stayed cold in the rainy season and hot in the dry. It had been underutilized for years, suffering from a neglect that reminded Diciembre of their spiritual home, the Olympic. Eric left them just inside the door, and slid along the wall to the raised stage. There, he disappeared behind a curtain and began to turn on the lights, first one row, then another, then a few at once, and so on. Henry, Patalarga, and Nelson stood with arms crossed, watching the fluorescent tubes above hum on and now off, in various combinations. None cast a particularly pleasing light on the dank space, but the young man finally settled on the arrangement that was the least offensive.

  “How’s this?” he called out from behind the curtain.

  Henry held his hands out in front of him, fingers spread. His white presidential gloves were a grayish yellow.

  “It’s terrific,” said Patalarga.

  They carried their things backstage, and began to unpack and then change, each man floating to different corners of the dressing area, hardly speaking. Henry was brooding; Nelson seemed distracted; Patalarga fretted about his costume. Somehow his clothes didn’t feel right, he said to no one in particular. Had they shrunk, or had he put on weight? There was no mirror, so they had to rely on each other, which might have worked if they’d been in a different collective mood. But they weren’t. The three of them dressed sloppily, and scarcely spoke. At six-thirty, Henry convened a brief meeting to go over some rough spots in the play, but this was entirely unnecessary, of course. What rough spots was he referring to exactly? What surprises could the performance hold at this point? Still, Nelson and Patalarga listened to Henry’s rambling instructions out of respect and a sense of duty. He might have gone on longer, but soon the people began shuffling in, and the three men fell into a reverent silence. It’s a sound every actor loves, and, in a sense, lives for: the murmur of a crowd, the patter of feet, hum of strange voices. You perk up in excitement, anticipation. You begin to imagine who your audience will be, what they will look like. Before you ever cast eyes on them, they are real people. Before you ever see them, you are connected.

  Around seven-fifteen, Eric appeared again. He poked his head behind the curtain and announced it was about time to begin.

  “How many are out there?” asked Henry.

  “Thirty or so,” the young man said. “Thirty-five, I’d guess.”

  Henry shook his head. “Don’t guess. Go back and count them.”

  Eric bowed his head, and returned a few moments later with downcast eyes. “Twenty-five. I’m sorry. But there may be more coming.”

  Patalarga grinned, and thanked the boy. Eric’s disappointment was touching. He’d played for audiences far smaller. “We’ll begin in a minute.”

  Eric nodded, and just as he was turning to go, Henry stopped him.

  “Just one more question,” the playwright said. “Do you know everyone in this town?”

  “Just about.”

  “Good. So, is Noelia out there? Or her mother, Mrs. Anabel? Do you know who I’m talking about?”

  The young man looked confused. “Yes. Why?”

  “They’re old friends,” said Nelson. Until that moment, you wouldn’t have guessed he was listening at all. He and Henry locked eyes.

  Eric nodded, as if he understood. “Well, Mrs. Anabel doesn’t really leave the house much.”

  “So she’s not here?”

  “I haven’t seen her. Not Noelia either.”

  Henry thanked him, and the deputy disappeared on the other side of the curtain.

  “Are you expecting them?” Patalarga asked. “Do you want them to come?”

  “I don’t know.” Henry looked genuinely puzzled. “I really don’t know.”

  A few moments later, the curtains parted, and the show began.

  THE DRIVE from San Jacinto to T— is roughly four hours. You can shave a little off that, but not much. The road is narrow and the consequences of misjudging a turn in the high mountains are fatal. Still, Jaime made good time
. Of the protagonists in these events, he’s one of the few that has refused to speak to me, but I can imagine what he was thinking as he drove along those narrow, twisting roads. He was thinking of his brother, Rogelio, and the facts of his death. Whether Rogelio was angry when he died, or scared. Whether Rogelio blamed him, or felt abandoned. He was thinking how often he’d made this trip, and how it never changed. The scale of the mountains. The smallness of everything else. He’d known about Rogelio’s death all along, and kept his younger brother’s imprisonment a secret, just as he kept the nature of his business a secret. This was easier than you might expect. In T—, the riot and subsequent massacre at Collectors had never made much of an impact.

  Jaime arrived around the time Diciembre was coming out onstage. At this point, the story of that night moves along parallel tracks: Patalarga appears beneath the pallid yellow lights, before a small but expectant crowd. He opens with a monologue about loneliness, delivered on this particular night with greater feeling than ever. The mayor’s young deputy stands at the auditorium’s back wall, wearing a dark suit and watching the proceedings with relish. He reports that the crowd was entranced. (“We’d never had a theater company in town before,” he told me later.) At the same time, Jaime rushes to the home where he was raised, embraces his sister, and hurries behind her to their mother’s room. Brother and sister stand in the doorway and watch their mother sleep, listening for her shallow breaths. Without exchanging a word, they marvel at her fragility, the way one might contemplate a newborn. Jaime steps forward, to her bedside, and places a palm on his mother’s forehead. He strokes her hair.

  “She was very upset?” he asks Noelia.

  His sister answers with a nod.

  By the time Henry steps out onto the stage, looking slightly less presidential than usual—by then, Jaime and his sister, Noelia, are sitting in the living room, going over the details of a very well-kept family secret. Not much is said about Rogelio’s unfortunate arrest. Collectors is described in shorthand—hell, Jaime says. And everything after that can be reduced to a single sentence. Their little brother was dead. He’d been dead so long now it felt almost dishonest to mourn him.