Faces in the Crowd

by Valeria Luiselli

  I was absorbed in the performance, deeply moved, when laughter began to break out among the guests. First timid vibrations of tongues, then teeth and spluttering lips, then explosions from bellies, pectorals, whole bodies languishing in the stridency of a guffaw prolonged beyond that house, beyond that street and that night.

  The effects of laughter are devastating, capable of destroying anything that proclaims itself to be sincere, of flipping it over and showing its ridiculous side. I looked away, toward the window, the city and its lights, the darkness surrounding every globe of artificial light. Federico went on playing to the end and Limón continued dancing. When they finished, I applauded enthusiastically and the others started dancing, with Nella again at the piano. Limón disappeared, as do ghosts or the valiant; I stayed in my place on the floor, watching them all dance, clapping obediently at the end of each song, until dawn broke and Federico got me out of there.

  So do you really not believe I see my future ghosts in the subway, you Spañolet jerk, I asked Federico on the way home. We were walking south along Broadway, dodging its giant-silver-coin puddles, our weary bodies silhouetted against the almost always sad dawn sky.

  I believe you now, Gilberto, Mexicanito, now I do: today we saw my ghost dancing.

  A little drunk and with that particularly Latin sentimentality that comes with too much alcohol, I embraced him and said I truly loved him and I hoped that one day we too would be ghosts in the subway, so we could at least wave to each other from one carriage to another for the rest of eternity. God forbid, he replied.

  *

  Or a horizontal novel, told vertically. A horizontal vertigo.

  *

  Perhaps the last thing a man loses is his vigor. Later, when that too has gone, a man becomes a depository for bones and resentment. In another time, I was a person full of vigor, capable of grabbing a Norwegian prostitute by the hand and running along a Harlem street, taking her up to my roof, pulling up her skirt. Iselin also had to be seen from below. Sometimes, I’d ask her to stand on the bed and I would lie beneath her, just looking.

  *

  I understand that stuff about recalling the future now, Homer.

  Congratulations, Owen.

  A few months ago I met a prostitute, and the other day we were on my roof terrace in amorous mode and I was stroking her hair until the sun came up.

  Double congratulations, sleeping with a prostitute.

  In some way, I knew that in a future I’d remember that instant and I’d know it was the only thing that would justify all my stories of love, and that all the other women would be an attempt to return to that roof, with that woman.

  I don’t think you’ve understood the first thing I said.

  *

  As a form of reciprocity, I suppose, Federico summoned Z and I to the same place to listen to some lines he’d been polishing around that time. I imagined that it would be a simultaneously elaborated and simplified version of another fragment that Z had read about the streets of Manhattan. Up till then, Federico had been writing childish poems about loneliness in the Columbia University neighborhood and his slightly condescending admiration for the blacks. He used to ask me to do quick-fire translations. I would obey, a little ashamed, or perhaps slightly heartened by the idea of pulling down the Spañolet’s pants and baring the mechanism of his poetry, which, to my way of thinking, would always be less rich than Z’s. But this time Federico read a brutal, beautiful, prophetic poem about a Viennese waltz. There was a museum of wintry frost, a room with a thousand windows, a forest of dust-dry doves. I don’t remember much more. “Photographs and white lilies,” ended a line I would’ve liked to have written myself.

  *

  A few months before leaving Manhattan, I sent Novo my “Self-subway-portrait,” which I’d spent months cutting and editing, as if Pound and Z and Federico were looking over my shoulder:

  Wind nothing more but redirected in

  flute channels

  with the sin of naming burning me son in a hanging

  thread of my eyes

  good-bye tall flower without fear or stain

  condemned to Geography

  and to a coastline with sex your pure

  inhuman vertical

  good-bye Manhattan abstraction gnawed by time

  and my irremediable haste to fall

  night-darkened ghost of that dreamed river

  found in a single channel

  return in the fallen night at the rise and fall of

  the Niagara

  let David throw the air stone and hide

  the sling

  and there is no forehead at the fore that justifies us

  inhabitants of an echo in dreams

  but a sleepwalking watchmaker angel who wakes us

  at the exact station

  good-bye sensual dream sensual Theology

  to the south of the dream

  there are things, Ay! that it pains us to know

  without the senses.

  *

  An invitation arrived at the consulate. José Limón and his company are to perform the ballet The Moor’s Pavane, with music by Purcell. The performance is to take place in the Robin Hood Dell auditorium in Philadelphia. In my capacity as some type of representative of Mexico, it is expected that I go to such events, even though I’m blinder than a locust. I remembered the Limón kid well, how he had so masterfully flopped in a New York apartment, then disappeared for so many years, and who now turned out to be the star of modern dance. And if truth be told, I was very pleased.

  We were sent two tickets, so I was accompanied by the consulate’s secretary: a plump woman from Oaxaca with a tongue that was never idle. The lights went down and a single spotlight came on, a luminous point in the exact center of the stage. My companion began to narrate the action in my ear (her mouth smelled slightly of rotting lettuce): Now the four dancers are on the stage with their hands linked, two men and two women, the four circling around in a single body. The two men raise one leg really high and then the women. Lovely.

  I interrupted her: You don’t have to describe every single thing, Chela, just tell me the most important bits and, if you want, I’ll imagine the rest.

  All right, sir. They’ve just taken out a really pretty handkerchief and are passing it around between them. I’ll tell you when something else happens.

  They’re raising their legs really high again. Ay, no, sorry, better you imagine that on your own.

  It’s like they’re flirting, first one couple, then another, but it’s hard to tell who’s whose partner.

  After a longer silence, Chela continued: This is important because you’re not going to be able to imagine it: the two men have just fallen to the ground but they didn’t make a sound, as if they were light as feathers. Impressive.

  The four figures who alternated at front stage were, from what I could infer, characters from Othello. The four spectral figures, it seemed to me, were much more like me than the consulate secretaries, than the owner of the supermarket where I did my weekly shop, the guards on the trains, the postmen, the barbers, than my children and their mother in some city in Europe. I suppose, in some way, I’d spent my life dancing around a handkerchief.

  The function was a success. As I was leaving the theater, a reporter took a photo of Limón, the two male dancers, and myself. I linked arms with the Limón kid and put on my best smile. The secretary also snuck in, planting herself between the two dancers, and said, Whiskeeey.

  *

  Romantic endings are never epic. Nobody dies, nobody disappears for good, nothing ever finishes finishing. But I really am dying and people do disappear. The end of my love story with the Norwegian prostitute goes like this: on October 29, 1929, Iselin and I woke up in the Hotel Astor in the Bowery and turned on the radio. Guty Cárdenas was singing “Peregrino de Amor,” which had been released in the summer and was still playing on the radio in New York. I lit a cigarette and said to Iselin: Guty Cárdenas must surely be from Sinal
oa. Iselin didn’t even know where Mexico was. She wanted to listen to the news. For some days the bulletins had been obsessed with the stock market and its imminent crash. I wanted to cry in peace: for Guty Cárdenas, for whatever. They were going to transfer me to Detroit, and I didn’t even know where that was on the map of the United Estates. Iselin remained firm. We turned the knob until we found a reporter. A few blocks from the hotel, according the incorporeal voice, the end was beginning. Enough, Iselin, I said, and tried to retune to the Spanish music station. But Iselin always won: Come on, let’s go see what’s happening outside, Gilberto.

  The streets of the Bowery were empty. We walked a long way, and as we approached the Financial District, we began to hear a desperate buzzing, like hundreds of furious bees. There were people hurrying along, as normal, but now they all seemed like those shadows of people I saw every so often in the guts of the city.

  When we were near the stock exchange, Iselin pointed to the sky: a man was leaning out of a window. At that very moment we saw him jump. Or, perhaps, only loosen himself, let himself go. The body fell slowly, at first—almost a bird suspended in flight. But before we could avert our eyes, a hat was rolling toward our feet, a shoe stuck in a sewer vent, a leg separated from the rest of its body, the ginger-haired head shattered on the sidewalk. Iselin grabbed my arm and sank her face into my shoulder. Slowly, we continued walking to get as far away as possible from the crowd, which was now forming a circle around the fallen man.

  Then I saw Federico. He was sitting on the edge of a bench, euphoric, with a small book in his hand, making notes. We went up.

  What can you be writing now, Federico? I asked.

  He looked up like an automaton.

  I haven’t been able to write anything, Mexicanito, only one line: “Murmurs in the Financial District . . .”

  So what are you doing here?

  Well, according to me, I threw myself from the top floor of that building, but it seems I was hallucinating because here I am, talking to you.

  I’d like to introduce Iselin.

  Who?

  Iselin.

  What are you talking about, Mexicanito? Are you seeing your subwankers again?

  *

  There are sweet tamales for dinner. The children’s father is upstairs watching television while the children keep me company in the kitchen. The baby plays with a saucepan in her highchair. The boy helps me lay the table (three place mats, big plate, small plate, knife, fork, two glasses, and a plastic tumbler).

  If you want, I can drink from a grown-up glass now, he says, and for the first time I let him.

  The baby is hitting the saucepan with a spoon when we start to feel it. Maybe, first, just a sort of presentiment, a very slight dizziness. Next, the internal and then external shuddering of objects. We turn to look, as if to confirm what we are all witnessing. Trembling. Everything trembles, the house creaks, the glasses fall from the shelves and break into so many pieces that the light of the only bulb is multiplied again and again throughout the whole of the kitchen. In some way, that light show is beautiful. The baby laughs. We hear books falling in the living room, first a few and then a cascade. And then nothing. An unfamiliar kind of stillness.

  I take the baby from her chair and the three of us get under the table. The electricity cuts out. We stay there, holding each other, under the laid table, silently watching the ring of the stove, where the tamales are still heating up.

  We see a Madagascar cockroach silhouetted in the flame.

  Pa-pa, says the baby.

  It’s the only thing she can say. Trembling again, this time stronger.

  Pa-pa, says the baby, and laughs.

  *

  Today the children left for Europe with their mother. It was a busy day at the office, so I didn’t manage to call them to say good-bye. I issued four passports and signed nine tourist visas. I also received a complimentary photo from the night of the ballet. I quite simply wasn’t there. It wasn’t that I was out of shot—instead of my body, there was a shadow, an empty space smiling at the camera. I marked my shadow with an X, and went over to Chela’s desk to see what her diagnosis was.

  Can you see me, Chela?

  Of course I can, sir!

  No, see me here, in the picture.

  No, you’re not there, sir!

  Was I there when they took this photo?

  I can’t remember, sir. But don’t I look horribly fat next to José Limón!

  *

  As soon as we’re sure the trembling has stopped, we get out from under the kitchen table and head toward the front door. I tug at it, but it’s jammed. Nor can we go up to the second floor. I imagine it has been blocked off by the part of the roof that fell in. My husband is there, though we can’t hear him, so maybe he’s not. Maybe he never was there. We go back to the kitchen, I’m carrying the baby, and the boy is holding my sweater sleeve. There’s no running water or gas. But there is a little water left in the saucepan in which we were heating the tamales.

  *

  I left the office a little early to go to a photographic studio. I wanted to have a professional portrait taken so I could send a copy to the children, when their mother calls from some European city with an address. And I just wanted to see whether I’m going mad or blind, or whether I had, in fact, somehow been rubbed out of the other picture. I don’t think I’m going blind. In fact, I think I’m going unblind. But at the same time, I’m disappearing and certain things are being replaced by shadows. Anyway, the owner of the studio sat me on a stool, adjusted it to my height, and asked me to choose between Italian, Swiss, and tropical backdrops. I opted for the Italian, though I’ve no idea what an Italian backdrop should look like. She made a first attempt, and a second. She readjusted the height of the stool, tried again. She changed the backdrop. At the fourth attempt, she apologized.

  I can’t take your portrait, sir, something’s wrong with our equipment. You can pay now and come back in a few days.

  Why should I pay if you haven’t given me my picture?

  I think you should pay, sir.

  Fine, I’ll pay.

  *

  We also have access to the living room, which connects directly to the kitchen through an arch. The children and I wander like three cats through the jumble of books and other objects, picking up things that have fallen, that fall, and go on falling.

  *

  After the incident at the photographic studio, I stopped off at the supermarket and bought a packet of biscuits, a can of milk for the cats, and a bottle of whisky. As I was paying, the thought crossed my mind that, the night he cracked up, Scott Fitzgerald had bought whiskey, with an e. I wasn’t going to pack a case or go anywhere; I walked home. He had packed a bag and left, driving a convertible, without any set destination. It’s easy to imagine that, after hours driving along the pitiless monotony of the highways, he stopped somewhere, anywhere. A motel. With the cash he had on him, he bought a portion of cooked meat, some apples, a packet of biscuits, a bottle of whiskey. I went into my house and double-locked the door behind me. He shut himself up in his hotel room. He knew he’d developed a sad attitude to sadness, a melancholy attitude to melancholy, a tragic attitude to tragedy. So had I.

  *

  We go into the living room. The floor is covered in books and other things. I put the baby down and let her crawl in the rubble.

  *

  As I walk into my house, the three cats come to greet me. They take turns to tangle around my legs. I sit at the kitchen table, on which the orange tree stands, dead, then lean across to the fridge, take out two ice cubes, pour myself some whisky, and unwrap the biscuits. I open the cat food and the three of them come up to lick the can fastidiously. Fitzgerald knew he had to remember, something that might have been the delayed thud of a punch, the reflected pain of one of those slow but heavy blows that don’t come from outside and cannot be foreseen. I eat a biscuit, then another, and don’t stop chewing until I’ve formed a small ball of dough, which is moistene
d and expands with every gulp of whisky.

  Fitzgerald had a presentiment. He quickly became aware of his own inevitable disintegration and, all too early, rehearsed his eventual, final collapse. I’m taking too long. I too know that the only remedy is to go on writing. But what the hell am I going to write? I know I want it to be a novel set both in Mexico, in an old house in the capital, and in the New York of my youth. All the characters are dead, but they don’t know it. Salvador told me that there’s a young writer in Mexico doing something similar. The bastard went and stole my great idea. I put another biscuit in my mouth, the last one in the packet, and call the children from the red telephone next to the fridge, but there’s no answer. My palate is burning from the whisky. I should write some notes, here, beside my orange tree.

  *

  The boy says he wants to play hide-and-seek in this enormous old house full of holes. It’s a different version of the game. His father has to be found.

  Shall I tell you what happened, Mama?

  What?

  The house got bigger, and Papa got smaller, and he has to be found and put in a jar, like a spider or a cockroach.

  *

  A small, square sheet of paper falls from the withered branches of the orange tree. I take my magnifying glass from my blazer pocket and laboriously read:

  Note (Owen to José Rojas Garcidueñas, Philadelphia, 1951): “It could be my last book. It’s going to have a title nobody has used in this century, The Dance of Death. I had friends, in the Middle Ages, who showed me how it should be written. They did it pretty well. But I burn much brighter when I write.”

  I don’t remember having written that. But it’s true that I burn when I’m writing.

  *

  We play. We search for my husband in the living room, among the debris: a Buzz Lightyear, a dummy, a foam-rubber brontosaurus, a little bell. We don’t find my husband.

  *

  If I were to write this novel, it would have this line by Emily Dickinson as an epigraph: “Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn.”