by María Ospina
She still has half an hour, so she decides to walk to the spot they agreed on. She puts on a brand-new pair of silver shoes that she bought at the superstore with her second paycheck, though she suspects she’ll be limping after a few blocks. City shoes are no match for feet forged on dirt paths. She chides herself for wishing she had her rubber boots again.
Maybe she should use the diminutive, like she always had, to make things less formal. Zenita, kiddo. A hug? Start off by giving her the gift? Tell her about the book? Promise her that everything will make sense when she reads it?
In the café she orders an herbal tea and sits down at a table facing the door. She blows hard on the liquid in her cup, making little whirlpools. She watches two men in cycling gear and a woman with a girl fresh from the bath come and go. She tries to focus on the game show playing on the TV, but her eyes keep drifting back to the door. She orders a roscón and breaks the pastry into pieces that she eats hastily, to finish before Zenaida arrives. She pulls the plastic sheet from the face of her new watch and folds it into a tiny square.
What if she doesn’t come alone? What if Nubia is with her?
She waits for an hour and a quarter, staking out the door from her seat, alert to every bus that stops nearby. She stares at an old tree across the street and is moved by the way its swollen roots break through the sidewalk, contained and patient but also unruly. Does the tree miss the dirt, or does it go through life ignoring its absence?
She turns back several times as she walks away from the café, hoping that maybe Zenaida had just been delayed and she might catch her heading inside.
That night, Marcela stays up late going through the five approved chapters. On the manuscript’s pages, she marks things she wants to ask her editor to change. But before going to bed she burns them in the shower and scatters the ashes from the window like an offering.
When we took off in the army plane that brought me here I couldn’t believe the view. Seeing the trees and the countryside, the mountains, all from above really blew me away and I started thinking about the birds, and how they see the world different from us. The first time I saw My first glimpse of Bogotá was from the air. I was amazed how long the streets looked and how big the city seemed, even from way up high. I was also, I’m not sure how to explain it, I was dying to see up close what they’d always told us about class divisions in Bogotá, about the inequality in big cities. I’d always thought things would seem so clear from the air, but then I realized nothing was easy to understand from up there, you know? It’s hard to explain the feeling I had. Down here, the streets seem to have so little to do with what I saw from up there. It surprises me each time I think about that damn landing my arrival, and by that I mean every day. Then I thought about my sisters, too, and wondered if they were somewhere in that giant maze, had they forgotten me or did they still remember? and whether they still remembered me. I sent them a message from up there, with my mind, to say I was there, to wait for me because I’ll see them in no time flat letting them know that I’d arrived and that we would see each other very soon. Since I moved to Engativá here, I hear lots of planes flying overhead, and the noise scares the crap out of startles me sometimes. Right away, I get, like, an instinct to make a run for the nearest hideout shelter. That’s what it’s like when I’m walking down the street and there’s one of those truck bang things a motor backfires: my reflex is to get ready for an attack and I reach for the rifle I don’t have anymore. And sure, sometimes I hear a bird singing and that brings me right back there, in my memory. I mean, I know these are different birds and that there are less of them here, but at the same time I figure some of them might be the same, that there must be some birds that stop here on their way there, or the other way around. I should find out. Sometimes I think that if I still had my notebook, the one with the drawings, I could compare the birds I drew there with the ones here, but too bad a couple army grunts took it from me when I turned myself in, supposedly because it might contain valuable information. I get so mad when I think about it. But yeah, I miss lots of things from there. The trees, for starters, it’s crazy how much I miss them. I can’t see a single one from the window in my room and that really brings me down and the psychologist tells me I should go explore the city’s beautiful parks. Then there’s my friends, and my dog … you have no idea. Of course, there’s plenty I don’t miss too.
“All right. We’re going to need to expand this part a bit to share what you like about the city, what’s surprised you, and also to include a few details about your family situation as it stands now. You said you didn’t visit anyone you knew when you came back.”
“No. But I’ve seen my sisters a few times now, and they’ve told my mother I’m here. I’m even going to move in with Zenaida in a few months.”
“That’s wonderful news. I’m so glad. Why didn’t you say anything about all this?”
“Because I don’t want it going in the book. If you’d like, you can put in that I saw my family, but that’s all. No details.”
“Think about it, Marcela. It’s absolutely crucial to round out the story. Imagine how excited your readers will be. At our next meeting, we’ll need to record the last leg of your escape and what happened when you turned yourself in. The climax of the story. Take your time deciding how you want to narrate the part about your family.”
“This is the climax.”
Silence. Marcela tells her editor that she’ll miss their next meeting, she’s planning to visit her mother in Teorama. They agree to pick up again when she returns. She leaves the office completely sure that she’ll never set foot inside it again, that she’ll never again pass her new ID to the guard in the lobby or try to avoid his pawing when he takes it, that she’ll never again read pages with words crossed out or list her experiences into a tiny recorder that promises to safeguard them all. She knows she won’t be the author of a book. And that she won’t be paid. She is relieved, in advance, that she won’t need to scan the barcode of her own story when someone grabs it from the stands adorning the checkout lines at the superstore.
“The person you have dialed is not available. Please leave your message after the beep.”
“Zena, it’s me again. I guess you got tied up the other day and that’s why you couldn’t make it to the café. That’s too bad. It’s okay, though, don’t worry. When I finally get a cell phone, I’ll give you the number so you can call me directly, since I always have to call you from the street and you’ll never reach me that way. Or I’ll give you the address of where I’m living so you can have it and maybe stop by one day, whenever you can. Whenever you like, Zenita. Sundays I’m always there, I’m there all day because that’s my day off. Anytime, sweetie, I’ll be waiting for you.”
She feels strange for having said sweetie. Kiddo would have been better, that’s what she used to call her back in Teorama. She recites her address.
“Okay. I’ll be waiting for you. Talk to you or see you soon, I hope. Bye. Take care, bye.”
She dials again.
“Kiddo, I forgot to say that I work at the Carrefour in La Floresta. Monday to Saturday from seven to four thirty. You can find me there for sure, if you’d rather stop by there. Okay. This time for real. Bye.”
After the morning applause, Marcela finds Diana and they walk to the registers together.
“So? I was thinking about you yesterday. Did your sister show up?”
“No, but I left her a message with my address. She’ll come, I know her. This morning I had a feeling that today was maybe the day. But like you said, I have to be patient. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be able to introduce you to her soon. You’ll love her.”
Diana squeezes her arm encouragingly.
“Whoa, Marcela, you’re pretty built! I don’t know how you stay in that kind of shape. Don’t tell me you’re spending your paychecks at the gym.”
Marcela feels a viscous urge to cry rising in her throat and is relieved Diana can’t tell.
“How was the christening,
Di? What did you end up giving your godson?”
“It was awesome. I got him a mobile with wild animals, and Daniel even found someone to cover for him, so he came with me. I introduced him to the whole family.”
“That’s so great. When do I get to meet him?”
Marcela immediately regrets saying this. What if Diana thinks she’s being pushy? They’ve never actually hung out. The women step into their booths under the watchful eyes of their supervisor. He spends his days reprimanding them for chatting.
Marcela’s first customer is an elderly woman accompanied by a young man who helps her empty a small shopping basket.
“You don’t happen to sell books on dream interpretation, do you, hon? I thought I saw one here once.”
Marcela replies that she doesn’t know. The woman tells the young man about her most recent nightmare. She’d woken up one morning and her house was full of red fish. There were so many she could barely walk, so she decided to share them. But just as she was filling a bag to bring to her neighbor, the doorbell rang and there was the neighbor, who had come by to offer her some of the same fish because they’d taken over her apartment too.
“I didn’t know what to do, dear. And to think, abundance is supposed to bring happiness.”
Marcela scans a bag of rice, a few bananas, an enormous bottle of bodywash, glass cleaner, and a biography of the president. Nothing really worth noting. She watches as they leave the abundance of the superstore. Her neck cracks when she looks up at the ceiling. She stares at its tubes and pipes as she drops her head to one side, then the other, to get at the pain lodged there. She notices signs of a leak in a far corner. She makes a face at the security camera that’s always trained on her.
A woman walks toward her along the center aisle, holding a little boy’s hand. Marcela notices the bright lettering on her low-cut T-shirt: SPECIAL BEAUTY. Underneath, an eagle in flight like something out of a military insignia. She wants to recognize that long black hair, the freckles on those full brown cheeks, those eyes—fearful and happy, happy then fearful, in constant flux the way Zenaida’s always were. She’s thrown off by the woman’s ample body, which is neither as slender or as nimble as she remembers.
Without nausea this time, she tears the name badge from her chest and whips open the door of her booth like when her cash drawer snaps out to spew a customer’s change.
OCCASION
And if only I knew she’d come back; and if only I knew what morning she’d come in to hand me my laundered clothes, my own that laundress of the soul. What morning she’d come in satisfied, tawny berry of handiwork, happy to prove that yes she does know, that yes she can
HOW COULD SHE NOT!
blue and iron all the chaoses.
César Vallejo, Trilce VI (tr. Clayton Eshleman)
Zenaida ignored the metallic taste of her thirst and the nausea surging inside her, determined not to let her symptoms get the better of her. She wrapped her hand around the pencil, disregarding her employer’s advice about how to position her fingers when writing.
The occasion arises and decides what occurs.
Her crooked letters stained the notebook paper like a scandal. She copied the words again on the next line, paying attention to the spelling of the original phrase written in the woman’s perfect penmanship.
The occasion arises and decides what occurs.
Her apron strings came undone behind her with a tug. Isabela had been untying them lately, delighting in the repetition.
“Zena, why is your handwriting so bad?”
The girl grabbed a plastic cup and tried to slip it into her pants pocket.
“Making trouble out on the terrace, kiddo? Don’t come crying to me when you get worms again.”
Zenaida had heard it a few times already, the shout that reached the kitchen from the second-floor bathroom, announcing the arrival of another worm. Ever since the girl’s mother was promoted at the bank and started coming home later and later, the cries had been directed at her. Isabela could feel the worms slide between her cheeks with the urgency of someone searching for light. Then they would fall angrily into the toilet and the girl would shout and flush, victorious. She imagined them being sucked through the vortex of Bogotá’s sewers, passing from whirlpool to whirlpool until they reached the Magdalena River. Her mother had explained to her that all the bathroom pipes emptied out there. On a trip to the lowlands, she had shown her the river winding through the valley from above, and it had been so dazzling that Isabel could hardly believe she was looking at the final resting place of the entire sewage system. Zenaida intuited that the worms living inside the girl came from the thick shake she drank every afternoon on the balcony. She’d seen Isabela’s secret ritual of mixing dirt from the geranium pot into a glass of water with a spoon she would later retrieve from under the planter. But she’d decided not to say anything to the girl’s mother.
“Zena, why do you write your boyfriend so many letters?”
Into Isabela’s pocket went one of the shiny spoons from the dining room table, the good ones her mother didn’t let Zenaida wash with steel wool. The ones she used secretly at daybreak to eat her breakfast while everyone else was still asleep.
“Not one of those, sweetie, the dirt will scratch it all up and your mother will kill me.”
She handed her a dull spoon from the drawer of ordinary cutlery meant for the two of them, sealing their complicity.
Isabela drank her dirt juice in slow gulps, with the sadness of beginning something that will end. She let the glassy pebbles scratch her molars and passed the lumps through her front teeth to break them up a bit before swallowing them. She felt that mix of horror and ecstasy she always liked to finish off with a long, deep shudder.
Zenaida went on copying her employer’s neat script, which spelled out a sentence meant to help her write better. A perfect sentence for practicing the difference between c and s and k. A confusing sentence taken from a book. She had explained to Zenaida that it was good to get in the habit of looking up unfamiliar words in the dictionary. She had left one for her in the kitchen.
Arise:
ə- 'rīz ; arose ə- 'rōz ; arisen ə- 'ri- zən ; arising ə- 'rī- ziŋ
Intransitive verb
1a: to come into being or to attention
1b: to originate from a source
2: to get up or stand up: RISE
3: to move upward: ASCEND
Her spelling had gotten much better than it was when she’d started working there two years earlier. But she still confused c’s with s’s and k’s. Okasion. Deside. No. So when she couldn’t make up her mind, she thought about Marcela’s name. Marcela is with a c because it sounds like an s but comes before an e. As part of her spelling lessons, her boss would correct the messages she would jot down when someone called the house during the day. When Isabela spent afternoons hovering around the kitchen, keeping her company as she trimmed peas and ironed shirts, the little girl would find scraps of paper with Zenaida’s clumsy handwriting crossed out in red pen by her mom. Please call Miss Claudia at the offise, with the right letter announcing itself on top. She would tuck them into her pocket for her collection. “Why is it so hard to spell good?”
Isabela wanted to know why Zenaida’s writing was so bad, since her mom said she had all her papers right.
“I write like this because I only got to fifth grade. But you’re going to go all the way through, kiddo, so you’ll be able to teach me plenty.”
Zenaida once told her that her father had pulled her and her sisters out after fourth grade, saying that women who knew too much ended up on the streets. That all they’d learn in school was how to write letters to their boyfriends. What she didn’t say was that when his poncho got caught in the wheel of his motorcycle, strangling him, his death had felt like a liberation. Zenaida and Nubia left Teorama to find work in Bogotá. A cousin got them jobs with decent people who paid on time and respected their days off. Marcela left home around then, supposedly for
Bucaramanga, and they hadn’t heard from her in a long time. When the rumor reached them that she’d joined the guerrilla, Nubia and Zenaida made a pact never to talk about her to anyone else. Their mother never said her name again. Now that Isabela had started asking so many questions about her family, Zenaida was tempted to tell her about Marcela. One day, she’d even thought of the sentence, I have a sister I haven’t seen in a long time who I think about always, and even though she’s playing dead, I know she’s alive. But like the vomit that kept announcing its presence and never arrived, she’d held the words back. That was around the time the whole story had almost come out. The girl had asked what a guerrillero was and she hadn’t known how to explain it.
“Someone who goes into the mountains looking for work and gets caught up in things.”
Every morning, once they seized control of their respective homes and could play vallenatos full blast to rattle all the objects that surrounded but didn’t belong to them, Zenaida and Nubia spoke on the phone. Temporary owners of carpets and formal place settings, they talked about the small humiliations of their days and made plans for the weekend. Sometimes they speculated about Marcela. They’d made a ritual of imagining her brave and agile in faraway wars, surviving in huts, sleeping in a hammock somewhere in the mountains.
The occasion arises and decides what occurs.
Zenaida filled the last line on the page. The wristwatch the girl had given her for Christmas said it was four o’clock. She needed to go buy milk and eggs and get dinner started before Robby came home.
“Okay, Isa, turn off the TV and come with me quick to the store.”
Isabela was busy ignoring her mother’s double prohibition against going into the servants’ quarters and watching soap operas.
“Look, Zena, this lady’s husband died and she fell in love with his twin brother because he looked just like him.”