There was always duty. Mind-bogglingly dull duty. Duty without rhyme nor reason. Why, for example, must they go to church on Sunday and then endure the same company, the same food, the same conversation and the same game of dominoes? Week after week, month after month, out came the good tablecloth, the white linen instead of the plastic, and the beer and the snacks. Chicharrones and Japanese peanuts and a bunch of “hello compadre” and “hello comadre” as the people assembled themselves around the table.
Viridiana’s mother never played, she was going back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room or minding the children. Her stepfather, on the other hand, always played and had too many beers. So did the pharmacist, who was her godfather, and the town’s doctor. The postman, whose brother served as their part-time notary public, preferred a glass of ToniCol—they were from Sinaloa, after all—and the priest, who stopped by once each month, drank sherry. Most of the women did not join the game. They remained in a separate sphere, sitting on the chairs set against the wall, conversing, or at the table but often immersed in their own chatter.
That Sunday was the first one when Manuel and Brigida rejoined the afternoon game. Viridiana kept her promise: she sat at the table, she exchanged a few words with Manuel. But that was it. She was grateful that he didn’t want to speak and she didn’t try to coax him into conversation.
Once the jingle of dominoes had gone on for about an hour, Viridiana excused herself, thinking she might make a quick escape. But her mother wouldn’t have it.
“Come into the kitchen, I want to give you a snack for you to take back,” Marta said.
“I’m fine. I didn’t bring my backpack anyway.”
“I’ll get a plastic bag.”
Viridiana couldn’t make a fuss, and refusing would be futile, anyway. She followed her mother into the cramped kitchen. The refrigerator was plastered with drawings made by her siblings and on a counter sat two bags of Sabritas chips which must go out soon now that the peanuts were beginning to run low.
“What snack?” Viridiana asked.
“Come with me,” her mother said brusquely, opening a door and heading out, to the interior patio bordered by bird cages and strewn with laundry set to dry. The canaries chirped noisily while the parrot opened one eye to stare at the women, then slowly closed it.
Viridiana crossed her arms, leaning against the wall. Her bicycle was next to her, hat dangling from one of the handles, and she wished she could jump on it and ride away without a word.
“They saw you the other day in town, with a man. One of the Americans you work for.”
“Who saw me?”
“They say he’s handsome, that American. That he looked no more than thirty.”
They. It could be Memo Medosabal, who tended the register at the tiendita. He had a big mouth. But half a dozen other gossips also came to mind. Viridiana kept her arms crossed and her chin up, shrugging. Her mother would have found out at some point that Gregory existed, that he was indeed a good looking fellow. She had only hoped it might take a while longer.
“I see you, Viridiana. You think I don’t, but I do.”
“Mama.”
Marta placed a hand on Viridiana’s head, smoothing her hair back. “I was a lot like you when I was young. I went out with Ignacio in high school.”
Viridiana had heard the story before. Childhood sweethearts. An aborted romance which ended when Marta went to university in Mexico City. Then, a relationship rekindled after the divorce papers arrived.
“I had big dreams. I wanted to see the city, to meet people. All kinds of people. Exciting ones. Your father was quite the catch back then. Smart, good looking, charming. He was exactly what I wanted.”
“So you married him and it didn’t work out. What else?”
“What you want and what you need are two different things,” Marta pointed out.
“What are you saying? That we should all marry our high school boyfriends? I’m not interested in Manuel.”
Viridiana stepped away from her mother, pretending she was peering at the bird cage which held half a dozen canaries.
“You think you’ll be young forever, Viridiana.”
“I’m eighteen. Why do I even need to figure this out if I’m eighteen?”
“Because Manuel won’t wait for you like a fool.”
“Fine.”
“It’s very easy to ignore what true love really is.”
“What is true love? Five kids with Ignacio?” she asked, defiance in her voice.
When she had been small, Viridiana insisted she wanted a sister, but her mother always said small families were better. She remarried and immediately changed her tune. Viridiana suspected her mother had always wanted kids, but not with Viridiana’s father. She suspected Marta had recognized the mistake she made and did not wish to add more anchors to her life. She suspected, no, she knew, Marta had never wanted Viridiana in the first place. Or if she had, Marta had changed her mind after a few years, just as she had changed her mind about her first husband. He turned out to be a colossal disappointment.
It must have been a relief when Viridiana’s father never came back from Mexico City. Marta could finally continue her life.
“Six months ago you were not thinking this way. We were practically discussing wedding dresses, places for nice honeymoons. Here you are now, hating Manuel.”
“I don’t hate Manuel,” Viridiana said. “Besides, I never talked about wedding dresses, you did.”
“That’s not true.”
It was almost entirely true. It was Marta who had bought the magazines with wedding dresses. Viridiana had gone along, nodding when she felt she must nod. She later realized she shouldn’t have done this. Marta must have spoken to Brigida, Brigida must in turn have told her son that a proposal would be welcomed. But it was an innocent mistake, she was only playing pretend. It was like dress-up or changing the outfits of a Barbie. A folly of the moment and she had confessed as much to her tape recorder immediately afterwards.
She had not, in any case, accepted the proposal. Why must her family make an extended drama out of that?
“Was it something your father wrote? Did he put ideas in your head? Did he say you could move in with him?”
“No,” Viridiana said. At one point her father had mentioned she could live with him and his family if she went to university in Mexico City. To be more precise, Viridiana had suggested this and her father had said okay. But he had never brought it up again.
“Then?”
Viridiana felt flustered, she moved to stand by the parrot cage and picked up a peanut that had fallen on the tiled floor, pressing it between the bars of the cage. The parrot opened its eye again but did not take the peanut. In its water dish there floated bits of soggy Bimbo bread.
“I want to try something different,” Viridiana muttered.
“I know. That’s what worries me. Hanging out with those people on your own—”
“I’m not doing anything bad,” Viridiana protested, turning around, the peanut still in her hand. “They’re alright.”
“And the man you were walking with the other day, how alright is he?”
Thankfully Viridiana did not flush. If she’d flushed she knew her mother would not have let her be, but she managed to keep her composure, tossed the peanut away and grabbed her bicycle, despite the thumping of her heart. She put on her hat.
“You worry too much, mama.”
“I worry enough,” her mother said dryly.
Viridiana opened the door which led to the street and mounted the bicycle. She was wearing a simple yellow print dress since it was a church day, but it did not impede her movements, she clutched the hem between her thighs. She was used to this and she rode fast, sweat trickling down her throat. She sped up, breezing out of town, passing the gas station, riding past the road which led to the house on the cliff, riding past the lighthouse where kids sometimes went to drink. Farther yet.
She rode a ways, and then stopped.
The road was empty of cars, empty of anything. It would be dark soon.
She took a deep breath. The desert air kissed her temples; it smelled of salt. Insects buzzed in the brush, there was a soft noise, something stirred awake. Perhaps a snake. But she did not fear snakes. Not even rattlers. Like sharks, it was ridiculous to fear them. They ought to be respected, not feared.
She surveyed the land and waited. For some reason the sun dawdled by her side instead of following its descent. Had she worn a watch, she was sure it would have shown her hours and hours had passed since she’d stopped pedaling.
Before Jesuit missionaries built their vast churches and kindly tried to “civilize” the Cochimí, the indigenous people of central Baja California had measured time by the harvest of the pitahaya. They would say “this ambia” or “three ambias ago.” Viridiana did not think this odd. Time dilated in Baja California. It made more sense to speak of ambias than of months or years.
Dreams were different here, too. Or so she thought. Once, someone told her there was a cave in the sierra where all dreams are born. Perhaps it might have been where dreams die, or both. It was, in any case, a land plagued by restless dreams, by dark dreaming, edged by salt and strange cirio trees, which—and here someone else had told her a different story—make evil winds blow if you touch them.
Viridiana dreamt too much. She knew it. Her father had dreamt too. Dreamt himself into pity and exhaustion. When she looked at the land like this, in the purpling dusk, she wondered whether Baja would crush her like it had crushed him, whether that cave was waiting to swallow her every dream. The land was hungry, it had always been a place of hunger. Until the pitahaya season came and the Cochimí feasted and the Jesuits were affronted by their orgiastic joy.
She spoke to her tape recorder so it would save those dreams of hers, but she knew this was only a brief delay.
If the land didn’t eat Viridiana’s dreams, then her family would.
Chapter 6
Daisy said they should go swimming. Ambrose, Daisy and Gregory had visited the beach a few times already. She had not thought they’d invite her.
She demurred.
“I don’t have a bathing suit with me,” she told the blonde woman.
“I have an extra,” Daisy said.
Viridiana felt this was a bit too personal, too casual. They were supposed to be her employers. The people she guided around the town were never this cordial. She did not know whether it was appropriate to agree.
“You want to spend the afternoon hearing Ambrose snore?” Daisy asked.
Ambrose was indeed snoring in his room, the ceiling fan spinning above his head. Viridiana had planned to lock herself in her room, record a few words for her diary, and spend the evening reading the paperback with a broken spine that she’d borrowed from Reynier and had yet to return.
The beach was an exciting thought, especially because Gregory would be there, frolicking in the water. She did not want to spend her time thinking about a tourist, especially when she was working for his brother-in-law, but he smiled at her too often for Viridiana to ignore him. He smiled and he made jokes and he moved close to her. Nothing obvious and in fact, if you’d asked her, she wouldn’t be able to pinpoint what she meant by “close.” She merely felt that he was drifting in her direction. That the space between them was rapidly diminishing.
“What’s the bathing suit like?” Viridiana asked. Daisy took her by the hand and guided her to her room.
The bathing suit was a white two-piece made of yarn. Daisy wore a yellow bikini and golden sandals. They grabbed some towels and met Gregory downstairs, who bestowed on Viridiana an appreciative smile.
He had with him a striped beach umbrella and a cooler. He had also tucked in there a bottle of rum and three glasses.
“Don’t tell Ambrose,” he said with a wink, showing them his bounty.
Viridiana carried a towel wrapped around her shoulders. It was a shield, something she could grip as she nervously looked at the ocean while the others opened the umbrella and lay down their towels. Gregory unlocked the cooler and took out the booze, pouring everyone a generous amount of rum.
Daisy held her glass with two fingers, her lipstick leaving a mark on the rim. Gregory was smoking a cigarette and Daisy took it from his lips, smoking for a minute before Gregory snatched it back. Viridiana turned her glass between her fingers.
“Time for a swim,” Gregory said when he was done smoking, tossing the stub in his empty glass. “Come on, let’s go.”
Viridiana slowly put her towel down, smoothing it, but did not move closer to the water.
“What?” Gregory asked.
“I think she’s shy,” Daisy said.
“Nothing to be shy about.”
But she did feel shy. Her bathing suit at home was a one-piece, black, simple, modest. She’d never worn a bikini before. And the bikini, since it was made with yarn, had revealing gaps. It would absorb water quickly. It would sag. It would fall off.
“Come on, Viridiana,” Gregory said, unbuttoning his Hawaiian shirt and dumping it on the ground. She’d been right and the days stretched out in the sun had quickly turned his skin golden.
“Leave the kid alone,” Daisy said. Viridiana did not like the way she said the word “kid.” She spit it out, like you spit a seed and her face seemed suddenly rougher. It was not said in jest.
Very well.
“Fine. Put away your camera,” Viridiana said, because Gregory had the camera dangling from around his neck, and he had already taken a snapshot of Daisy.
“Don’t want to be immortalized?”
“Not today.”
“Alright.”
He left the camera under the umbrella and the three of them walked to the water. Gregory splashed Daisy and Daisy shrieked. She sounded like a girl. She sounded very young. It was odd, Viridiana thought, that people that age should be that carefree. After all, her mother already had several children by the time she turned thirty. How old was Daisy? Thirty-five? But no, Daisy was ageless. Daisy had never had to struggle with duty, with a cartload of children, chores and the running of a tiny store.
That might be Viridiana’s life one day, too.
She was no Daisy.
“The water is fantastic,” Daisy said.
“You’re lucky,” Viridiana told them. “Not all beaches around here are good for swimming. Some have strong undertows.”
“Which ones?”
“Playa Ensueño, a couple of other places. Santa Caridad is the worst.”
“There’s sharks,” Gregory added.
“Don’t say that! He’s lying, isn’t he?” Daisy asked, gripping Viridiana’s arm.
Viridiana clasped Daisy’s hand, gently. “There’s shark hunting, but not this close to land.”
Gregory smiled. “What about that man who had his leg chewed off? Or were you telling a tall tale?”
“No. But I didn’t tell you the whole tale.”
“What’s that?”
“They said he deserved what happened to him.”
“People deserve to be bitten by sharks?” Daisy asked. Her eyes were luminously blue, like the sky above their head.
“They say he killed a pregnant shark. When you catch a shark like that, and you eat the pups, the meat is delicious. But some say it’s also bad luck. If you catch a pregnant shark, you need to toss it back in the ocean.”
Viridiana wasn’t sure if she quite believed that, or if things had really happened the way Carlos told them, but she had sat next to the fishermen at the beach as a kid and listened to their tales, and absorbed some of their superstitions. It might not have been scientific, but who wanted to find out, right? Like the carcasses left on the sand. Some things you didn’t probe too deeply.
“Don’t say anything else,” Daisy frowned and ran her hands through her hair. “You sound like that awful man on the ferry.”
“T
he ferry?”
“Mazatlán to La Paz,” Gregory said. “We flew to Mexico City, to see Ambrose’s nephew, then went to Mazatlán for a few days.”
“Mazatlán was a waste of time.”
“We did pick up the car there.”
“That silly car! The air conditioning doesn’t work, it gave up on us before we got into town. I thought we’d die with this desert heat! But it seems getting anything close to a decent car when you’re in a hurry is impossible in this part of the world. And the luxury ferry to La Paz…” Daisy muttered. “The cocktail lounge was a piece of shit and that man sitting next to us kept telling us to watch out for poisonous snakes.”
“On the other hand, they did offer pancakes for breakfast,” Gregory said.
“There are poisonous snakes in the peninsula. Rattlers. Don’t stick your hand under rocks.” Not that she thought Daisy was the type to take hikes where she might stumble upon a rattler, but it never hurt to mention it.
Daisy frowned, those blue eyes fixing on the horizon.
“It’s horrible. This place is horrible,” Daisy muttered.
“You’re not used to nature,” Gregory replied.
“And you are? Going camping twice in your life doesn’t count,” Daisy said, snappish. “I’m going to work on my tan.”
With that, Daisy got out of the water. Viridiana looked at Gregory, who shrugged. Viridiana shrugged back and began to swim. She loved the taste of salt on her lips, the waves whipping against her skin, the wind raking her hair when she bobbed up to the surface. She could not fear the ocean. It had held her in its embrace longer than her mother. Even if she believed Carlos’s story of the shark, even if they’d told her the waters by her town were infested with great whites, she wouldn’t have feared it.
Untamed Shore Page 5