The Revolutionaries Try Again

by Mauro Javier Cardenas

  Silvio Rodríguez.

  That one soccer game when Antonio received yet another yellow card and tossed it at the referee’s face . . .

  Flashed him a red card right after.

  I walked him off the soccer field and tried to calm him down. He cried like he always did when we were losing and I told him to put his head under the faucets. I stood there watching the water pouring on his head and you know I think my wife must have understood something or maybe she didn’t want any trouble at home because she . . . why don’t you invite your friend to stay with us for two or three days, she said. I called Antonio immediately. You know him. He joked around as if nothing had happened.

  Why are you telling me all this?

  I don’t want you to think I don’t . . . I wouldn’t have minded if you had asked me to be part of your administration even though I know we would’ve failed or one of you would’ve succumbed to backdoor deals with El Loco or León. No one we know has done anything to change anything. Can we still call Antonio the son of El Loco?

  His monster zits are gone.

  Terrible timing now that El Loco’s finally our . . .

  El Loco messing with you at the Polytechnic?

  Watch it. I think Marta voted for El Loco. I don’t anticipate it. El Loco’s too busy recording his rock album and ransacking the country.

  El Loco Who Loves.

  I wonder if Facundo applied to be his backup singer.

  I bet you have to bribe your way to even that position. Listen, Bastidas, I wanted to ask you . . .

  Anything for you, professor.

  You know those scholarships in . . .

  Indiana University?

  Doctorate in economics, yes.

  Certainly.

  Any chance you might . . .

  I know the pool of applicants is daunting and the selection process problematic.

  Wondering if you . . .

  –Those scholarships are for students without means!

  She’s back.

  Don’t tell her you work for León.

  I don’t work for León anymore. He fired me after hearing that I was thinking of running for office. You know I’m qualified for those scholarships so I’m not asking for . . .

  Of course, Leo.

  Thought maybe you knew someone who could . . .

  I’ll definitely look into it.

  —

  El Loco, Facundo says into his tape recorder, aha, I see my fans have decided to forfend their spirits from steep malaise and show up today, let me guess, fellows, early this morning, before or after the roosters you don’t have hornswoggled you with their squalls, before or after you dreamed of onion crowns and lycanthropists, you wambled out of your indurated mattress, folding your mosquito net equidistantly, without toothpicking it, because your net feels more alive with those sibilant insects embrangled in it, and after you equipped your daughter with the free school backpack she never received, courtesy of El Loco, a free school backpack that contained, as announced in the announcements, one fresh towel, one bar of soap, one translucent soap container, one pocketsized comb, one toothbrush, one tube of mentholated toothpaste, a box of crayons, one pen, one pencil, one eraser, one pencil sharpener, one ruler, and five notebooks of fifty pages each, hey, whosoever brings me one of those collectable bars of soap with El Loco’s initials engraved on it wins another round of songs about la de la / mochila azul / la de ojitos dormilones, and after your daughter swallowed a bowl of free milk that wasn’t fit for human consumption, courtesy of El Loco, and after you proudly stepped out of the free house you never received and hauled the bus your daughter couldn’t take because the latest Paquetazo quintupled the bus fares and quadrupled the price of lentils, courtesy of El Loco, you stumbled upon an immense national protest against the leader of the poor, and although you had nothing to protest against, especially after all the toys your daughter never received during El Loco’s Christmas Telethon, you joined the protest anyway, because who doesn’t need the occasional singalong to Down with El Loco, or rather, Down with All of Them, banging on the casserole you didn’t bring, thousands of pots and pans entuning Down with Everything, and after everyone silenced their farrago of cataclysmic tunes to intake the news that congress had ousted El Loco because of his excessive heteroclitude, no lewd free associations, folks, respect for the deranged man, please, and after you heard we, at last, had scored one luxury, the luxury to choose between three presidents, and by choose I of course mean not choose between the vice president, an elegant lady from Cuenca who does not sip tea from a tea bag, the president of congress, an encultured crapulence from Quito, and El Loco, our brand new leader of the poor, and after you heard your choices were narrowed by one because El Loco had escaped from the presidential palace through the window of the presidential kitchen, rucksack of discretionary funds in tow, you thought to yourself, hey, let’s stop by La Ratonera and ask the fat one to sing us a happy song for a change, let’s demand that he sing us a happy song for a change and you know what, compatriotas, despite the sign here that says today I don’t take requests but tomorrow I will, I will comply and, for you, tonight, on our first Loco Less Night, before the interim president bombards us with more packages of encultured economics, I will sing you a happy song for a change.

  XVII / ANTONIO EDITS HIS BABY CHRIST MEMOIR

  And if all our actions, from breathing to the founding of empires or metaphysical systems, derive from an illusion as to our importance, the same is true a fortiori of the prophetic instinct. Who, with the exact vision of his nullity, would try to be effective and turn himself into a savior?

  — CIORAN

  The baby christ wept soon after we reached my Uncle Fernando’s house. I had never seen his house before, but I had advocated it as a Christmas location because I knew it had been built in the newest and most exclusive neighborhood in Guayaquil, L’Hermitage, which was not far from San Javier and Ciudadela Los Ceibos. Since no one came to open the gates immediately, my grandmother aired her frustration about how hard it was to find good service. From a narrow cement booth the guard rushed out, desperately trying to tuck his uniform shirt in and appear less asleep. He waved at my uncle, bowing repeatedly, then pulled the gates open. My grandmother rolled her eyes, just as she had done earlier with Maria. After finishing the kitchen, Maria had reported that she was done and had asked for permission to leave. My grandmother had rebuffed her, clinically explaining that there were still the floors to mop, the bathrooms to disinfect, and plenty of garbage to take out. But señora, Maria had pleaded, it’s Christmas Eve.

  —

  What does it matter if his memoir about the night the baby christ cried lacks a singular style, Antonio thinks (and here Antonio searches online for Proust’s notion of style as quality of vision — the revelation of the particular universe that each of us sees, Proust wrote, and that other people don’t see —), or rather what does it matter if he’s so dispirited about his lack of a singular style in the one short story that’s really a memoir that seemed to him salvageable from the morass of overwrought sarcasm he’d written before rushing back to Ecuador so he could fail to save the natives or, as it’s becoming apparent to him, not that salvageable because if what remains of the night the baby christ cried is mostly an impulse to revisit that night, then what shouldn’t remain of that night in text is these drab sentences and their cargo of fabrications, because years from now he will have forgotten even more about that night so he’s likely to return to this text about that night and what will remain for him will be these drab sentences in English, and so perhaps this whole text about the baby christ should be crossed out and he should start again, or he should not start again until he figures out how to perform in text his impulse to revisit what he has mostly forgotten instead of trying to fill in with narrative fabrications what he has forgotten (a performance of an impulse meaning an exhaustion of an impulse as a way to dramatize that impulse?), in any case what does it matter if he feels compelled to revisit the night the b
aby christ cried if on the patio of the Belgian café in the Hayes Valley district of San Francisco, where he’s editing this memoir about the baby christ, three tall women in sundresses are asking him where’s he from, what’s he writing about, what’s his name, and perhaps he’s writing about crying figurines so he can impress tall, hot women in sundresses like these — I write so I can impress hot young boys, Foucault said — but the less cynical side of him, which he hasn’t been able to transcribe into text yet, knows that he’s revisiting what he’s revisiting because that’s where he still exists, where he finds solace despite the disheartening contents, although one day he will have lived among the sundresses long enough that perhaps he’ll also find solace in revisiting his life among the sundresses (and here Antonio searches for a passage from Faulkner contradicting what he’s been thinking — the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, Faulkner wrote, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided for the old by the narrow bottle neck of the most recent decade of years —), but before he revisits his life among the sundresses he’s likely to revisit his short stint failing to run for office with Leopoldo, which will allow him to feel useful without having done anything to be useful, or perhaps revisiting his short stint failing to run for office with Leopoldo will be his lamb’s blood, forcing him to confront his uselessness on a daily basis and ask himself how are we to be humans in a world of destitution and injustice, and yet if his eighteen years in Ecuador are his huge meadow that no winter can touch, Antonio thinks, if San Javier and Leopoldo and the baby christ and Cajas and the hospice Luis Plaza Dañín will never vanish from him completely, can he at least attempt to reinterpret those years so that he isn’t so susceptible to run off with whatever caravan of change reminds him of the intensity he felt during those years, no, forget reinterpretation, Drool, encumber yourself with enough comforts and you’ll never leave San Francisco again.

  —

  L’Hermitage is one of the many gated communities in Ecuador, which I was to see again many years later in the moneyed areas of Venezuela, Colombia, and Bolivia. The neighborhood was so new that the lampposts were still headless, illuminating nothing. The houses on this hill must have been as long and wide as their pools and tennis courts, but because it was dark and because these houses were probably fortresses surrounded by white concrete walls it was difficult to tell how big they really were. There must have been no more than twenty houses total. Some of them, the dark ones without flickering Christmas lights, were obviously empty. Others, mounted with cane and rope structures, were still under construction. Three years later, Stephan Bohorquez, a classmate at San Javier, was to move from the other side of town into one of these houses soon after his father had been appointed to an important government post, and when his parents were out on official business, Stephan would splurge on prostitutes and whiskey and throw parties for us and eventually, when his allowance ran out, he would steal his mother’s dresses and use them to barter with his favorite prostitutes. None of us brought up the obvious question of where the money came from. Stephan’s pool was refreshing and the Chivas was free and we knew where the money came from in any case.

  —

  To search for the source of his impulse to return to Ecuador by revisiting the night the baby christ cried was pointless, Antonio thinks, just as it’s pointless for him to teach English to immigrant women at El Centro Legal for one measly hour a week, photocopying pages from an ESL book at the last minute and hoping they would smile at him in gratitude, knowing he was fooling himself into believing he was being useful — if all the NGOs and nonprofits of the world ceased their activities, Antonio had asked a British art critic during their first date, would anyone notice? — just as it was pointless and childish for him to imagine the possibility of deforming American English as revenge for Americans deforming Latin America with their interventionist policies, and if he continued in this vein there would be nothing left, everything’s pointless, congratulations, Antonio, now what?

  —

  As soon as we entered his house, my Uncle Fernando said so very sorry. I should’ve mentioned it before. Most of our furniture is still in transit, on some ship in the Atlantic, I suppose. My sincere apologies. He nonetheless gave us a proud tour of his house, which looked like a vacant museum of modern art. We gathered in his living room. My grandmother placed the baby christ by the cemented chimney. Before Christmas, she would always arrange a nativity scene for us at her house. On top of wooden fruit boxes, she would place a grass green blanket, reserving the topmost spot for the baby christ, which was not to take its place until after Mass, and then she would populate the rest of her valley with Mary, Joseph, the three magi, and below them bushes and trees and the earless donkey I used to play with when I was five years old. But my grandmother did not bring any of it to my uncle’s house, so by the fake chimney the baby christ looked out of place. My Uncle Fernando brought two garbage bags bloated with gifts wrapped in jingles. I do not remember what happened next, or how much time passed between my grandfather bringing us kitchen chairs so we could all sit in the living room and then someone yelling the baby christ! The scream had the authority of panic. Everyone congregated around the baby christ, several steps removed. Tears were materializing beneath both eyes, falling in urgent succession, as if an actual child were trying to burst out from the immobility he had been condemned to. His eyes stared at us, or past us, and the urgency of his tears, combined with the indifference of the clay, consigned him to an eerie sadness.

  My grandfather stepped forward. It seemed so natural for him to be there, alone with his baby christ, that none of us followed. I can still see the back of his ample suit jacket, light brown and checkered, as he bowed a bit. To me, at that moment, or perhaps later, my grandfather looked like an apostle humbly accepting his gift, the gift of revelation.

  My grandmother shrieked and sobbed. He’s crying for my Antonio’s return to the faith, she said. This was to become the official version.

  My grandfather turned and glared at my grandmother with a disdain I did not think him capable of. Maruja, he yelled, and as he realized his disdain had staked a place in his words he stopped and calmed himself by raising his left hand as if about to dictate silence to himself. He then softened his voice and said come. Let us kneel. He guided my grandmother to the front by putting his arms around her, and as they knelt my aunts knelt, too.

  My Uncle Fernando did not look surprised by what the baby christ was doing. He must have felt entitled to witness this sort of thing. Soon he, too, would have to flee.

  I waited for my father to kneel, but since he didn’t I eventually knelt and joined the others in hymns and prayers. I turned and glanced back at him, although sometimes I think I did so not then but later, in memory, trying to remember what he looked like by turning and glancing back at him across the years. He was still standing, red eyed and stiff, a mixture of terror and shame in his face. I wanted to make him kneel with the same force he had used to thrust his stiff drinks at me. If he saw me staring at him, he did not acknowledge me. He tightened and untightened his hands as if trying to shake them off his arms. Then he walked away.

  —

  The double bill on Sundays at the Cine Maya, Antonio thinks, watching Rambo I and II, or Rambo III and Conan the Barbarian, one man against the world, carajo, his father picking him up at the apartment on Bálsamos Street and taking him to the Cine Maya every Sunday for the double bill, Antonio visiting the Cine Maya by his house before returning to San Francisco and finding it shuttered, longing to feel strong emotions like nostalgia instead of just the plain passing of time, the houses in his old neighborhood wrapped in high voltage fences and angry warning skulls: and this nothing, Cioran writes, this everything, cannot give life a meaning, but it nonetheless makes life persevere in what it is: a state of nonsuicide, okay, sure, Cioran, I don’t disagree with you, and yet too much would have to be expunged from my life in Ecuador for me to ever consider exiting this state of nonsuicide, all these impulses
to return again and again, to change something for someone, to become the one who could’ve changed Ecuador.

  —

  After a solemn hour or two, the tears did not ebb. We must have expected that the end of our prayers would coincide with the end of the baby christ’s tears, so the continuing torrent started making us uncomfortable. Finally my grandmother announced she had to go to the bathroom, and then everyone stood up and scattered.

  Alone with the baby christ, I did not make any promises of faith or love or anything. I was not Lucia or Francisco, promising the Virgin of Fátima to endure all suffering as an act of reparation for the sins of the world. Perhaps I was paralyzed by the knowledge that as this moment passed its veracity passed, too. Or perhaps I was already steeped in desolation, the kind left behind by a miracle that changes nothing. Even so, when I see myself there, still lanky at thirteen and quite sweaty, I am always surprised at my coldness. Seeking explanations, I inspected the baby christ as if it were a malfunctioning toy. I picked up the wicker basket and checked underneath. I lifted its purple and gold shawl, checking the white ceiling for leaks. With my fingertips I prodded the figurine’s cheeks, trying to unearth a hidden mechanism. I did not find one.

  Sometimes, when I revisit that Christmas night, I wish it were all true. I wish that the baby christ had not been crying for the corruption being perpetuated back then — the same corruption that continues to sink my country further — but was really crying for my father. I like to think that, while he was alive, someone was able to cry for him.

  XVIII / THE NIGHT BEFORE ALMA’S FIRST VOICE OF WITNESS INTERVIEW

  Or my brother Rolando returning the orange that was supposed to be / what was it supposed to be / our father was the princess you’re the princess Dad I’m the purr asleep in the forest hide in the kitchen quick / the princess hides in the kitchen / the princess enters the forest with an orange in his hand / on tiptoe Dad go back / the princess reenters up on his toes / uff / waking me by tapping me on the shoulder two times the same pattern on purpose so I would remember him maybe my father once told me if you set the same song on repeat before bedtime you’ll feel as if time hasn’t passed when you awake tap / tap as if giving life to a door / reloj no marques las horas / no / our profe will not want to hear about tap / taps on my shoulder or an orange that was supposed to be what was it supposed to be our profe said he was volunteering for a book of interviews about undocumented immigrants please share your terrible experiences with me he didn’t say terrible experiences he just said stories / experiences / lives / of course he meant terrible experiences nobody wants a book of wonderful immigrant experiences I didn’t say yes to him when he asked wasn’t even in his class / was in his class / wasn’t there to learn / my friend Estela was there to learn basic English phrases every Wednesday before the meeting of the women’s collective at El Centro Legal one day I arrived early none of the women were there usually Estela was there to talk to / how did you and Estela meet? / we’d been assigned to the same address two housecleaners were needed when we were done Estela said let’s find us pupusas for dinner Estela sharing casual anecdotes about her life in Guatemala as if she’d practiced how to be amenable company at home look I’m okay / hello good day / a water truck in Estela’s hometown had a horn that howled like an elephant Estela interrupting herself or something inside / outside of her interrupting her how can a human being do that to another human being to children the driver of the water truck a funnyman who mounted plastic elephant fangs atop his water truck elephants don’t howl what do they do / Estela interrupting herself and I holding Estela’s hand what else could I do she was crying / not crying / hello good day / would Estela have been comforted if I’d shared with her that in the mountains in a camp in Guatemala / no / she wouldn’t have been comforted how do you comfort a mother tell me that profe please in the mountains in a camp in Guatemala I’d been waiting to cross the border into the United States armed men barging inside abducting some of the men in our group who were sleeping on the floor around me I was asleep / wasn’t asleep / scared / can’t remember any sounds how is that possible barging inside with machine guns combat boots wrestling masks the men on the floor who were taken away didn’t scream / I did / didn’t / pretend you’re asleep Alma / the men on the floor resigned to anything happening to them I wasn’t resigned how can you not be resigned to anything happening to you when you haven’t been able to wash in a week / twenty days a foul smell that turns out to be you is that what you want to hear in our interview tomorrow profe all the terrible things that I’ll remember tonight you’ll record from me tomorrow / not everything Alma / I’ll never find comfort in this bed this room away from you and Dad Rolando / that’s not true Alma / I know that Rolandish / our first interview tomorrow what will I share / not share with you profe the mold under my fingernails after not washing for a week / twenty days in the mountains of Guatemala how cold I felt the coldest I’ve ever felt in my life like being submerged in ice / no / like a wind from Antarctica sent after you / wherever she is find her / didn’t know where I was we’d been hiding inside a bus Líneas Los Pajaros couldn’t see the patrolmen searching for us / a cold wind descending on your skin staying there I can get used to this you think then across the earth another wind finds you wave after / wave a remote beach in Salinas where my brother Rolando and I are strolling into the sea the water not even reaching our knees little waves chasing one another / don’t tell him about our beach Alma / quick hide in the kitchen Dad / why can’t I tell him about our beach Rolando you think sharing our beach invalidates our memory somehow that’s silly what if one day I forget about our beach we need a record maybe / a starfish look / find a tape recorder and record yourself instead Alma / Estela crying / not crying during our pupusas dinner nobody at the tables nearby in that Salvadorian restaurant hidden behind a storefront on Mission Street thought it odd that she was crying an old man in a checkered gabardine suit approaching us he looked like one of those singers from Los Panchos with a raspy voice from a lifetime of cigarettes my father saying to our chainsmoking neighbor Don Pascacio even the drool on your pillow smells like smoke / what does your drool smell like Dad / ewww / an old man in a checkered gabardine suit approaching us so solemnly he probably has been starching his checkered suit every morning since before I was born holding up his soup plate placing it in front of Estela like a birthday cake saying here we are my dear / that was it / and Estela drank the old man’s soup? / yes the whole thing profe / the waiter who hadn’t starched his guayabera apologizing don’t mind him he’s a veteran from the ouster against Somoza / here we are / in the mountains in a camp in Guatemala avoiding the men in our group some of them had tried to abuse the women I was relieved when some of the men on the floor were abducted / they were trying to cross the border just like you Alma / I’m sorry / you don’t know if they were the ones trying to abuse the women it was probably the ones in charge don’t you think those men bunched on the floor were as scared as you / I’m sorry / arriving early for the meeting of the women’s collective at El Centro Legal none of the women were there usually Estela was there to talk to / Estela is from Guatemala profe she didn’t want to tell me what had happened to her in Guatemala the librarian at the San Francisco Library who spoke Spanish handed me four volumes from a report called Guatemala Never Again I didn’t want to open Volume I / The Impact of Violence / Volume II / The Mechanism of Horror / maybe you were right to not tell me anything Estela what’s the point of telling anybody anything profe / come listen to the remarkable story of Alma Alban Cienfuegos who pretends to endure in the end / The End / uff your story made us feel better thank you so much for pretending you’re okay for us have a good one Alma / here we are / please take care Alma / the librarian who spoke Spanish smiling at me pushing a book cart with crosseyed wheels I couldn’t leave without at least opening Guatemala Never Again the librarian had looked so proud of me when I’d asked him about Guatemala finding the name of Estela’s village in Volume I what’s the point of repeating tho
se atrocities here profe how can a human being do that to another human being to children arriving early for the meeting of the women’s collective at El Centro Legal all the women were there twenty / twenty five of them inside the conference room a young man in a business shirt with stripes no starch talking in Spanish to them he’s our brand new English teacher his name’s Antonio José a volunteer nice one eh Estela said joining his class for the last five minutes no place to sit he removed the motorcycle helmet from his chair offered the chair to me holding a photocopy of a page from a study book with drawings of people at work the women repeating with him broom / bucket / chair I knew some of the women there already knew these words what were they doing there he said let’s go around the room now Estela at least twenty years older than me fifty / sixty years old maybe ashamed of her English she’d been a schoolteacher in Guatemala she’d arrived to the United States alone didn’t look so ashamed in front of you profe / broom / bucket / chair and you correcting her in Spanish her pronunciation a crossword they could solve together very good Estela you see bucket is tough for us Latin Americans that u sounds like a moo let me write it on the board how it sounds in Spanish boquet see / bo instead of bu / boquet / rolling up the sleeves of his business shirt with stripes above his elbows embarrassed that his shirt was too tight on the chest that his shirt probably cost more than the chairs / stacks of legal encyclopedias in that conference room he was about my age younger maybe please don’t tell him I’m from Guayaquil Estela what if he knows Julio Esteros Guayaquil is so small for months I didn’t think of him I was busy caring for an elderly woman who didn’t look like my grandmother didn’t like me claimed her sons were going to care for her berated me for not understanding most of her mumblings about a shameless waiter who’d sniffed a cocktail before serving it to the couple next to her table at an Argentinean steakhouse arriving at El Centro Legal the women older than our profe by twenty / thirty years surprising him at the end of class with gifts Estela was there too she hadn’t said anything to me about gifts I hadn’t seen her that week we tried to see each other at least once a week / Almita let’s meet for / Estelita I have a confession to make I can’t stand those pupusas from your native country / don’t blame me I’m not Salvadorian / oh ha ha / my brother Rolando and I watching a miniseries about aliens while my father hauled crates to the Isla Santay past midnight / my father putting us to bed flipping a coin whoever wins picks the bedtime story / me / me / me / my brother Rolando demanding we use the same coin every time / why is that? / couldn’t say profe hey Rolando why is that / I told you that’s between us Alma / if you don’t tell me I’ll invent something / don’t believe you / my brother demanding we use the same coin every time because he loved fabricating useless talismans of luck / that’s not why Alma / because he snuck it under his armpit when we weren’t looking so as to bias the outcome somehow / ugh / can’t remember even one of my father’s bedtime stories anymore profe how is that possible / Rolando and I with a flashlight sneaking into the living room after hearing my father’s snores searching for flying saucers out the window / growl / zzz / growl / I’m so sorry Estela I thought pupusas were from Guatemala whenever I complained about something Estela said don’t blame me I’m not Salvadorian / here we are / the women at El Centro Legal surprising you with gifts Estela was there too she didn’t tell me anything about gifts she was caring for a toddler who dragged his pink umbrella everywhere the tip of it leaving behind a trail of doodles on the gravel our profe unwrapping his gifts a tiny bodysuit with a tulip / rainbow mittens / a beanie hat with antlers / white bibs with owls / his girlfriend from Poland was having a baby how did the women know about the baby he thanked the women stunned you could tell he didn’t want to say much he knew he would cry if he said anything Estela asked him if he’d picked a name / Lilia Klara he said / think of us Lilia Klara / thank you for being so patient with us profe the women said tomorrow’s our first interview what do you want to hear from me profe tell me please / here we are / tap / tap / the kitten awakes in the forest / on tiptoe Dad / my toes can’t handle the weight / shhh no talking Dad / the princess holding the orange in his hand canvasing the horizon the orange purposefully unattended behind his back the kitten swiping the orange from the princess’s hand the princess sobbing / like a mime Dad no noises go back / the princess sobbing noiselessly / quick exit the stage Dad / The End / again / you’re the audience Rolando / again / my brother Rolando must have been two years old so tiny didn’t speak can’t remember much of anything anymore profe what if I omit the terrible does that increase the chances of forgetting year / after year these memories dissipating from me that’s not how it works Alma / how does it work Rolando tell me how it works or I’ll share more than just our beach tomorrow / I’m sorry Alma / descending from a camp in the mountains of Guatemala patrolmen capturing us interrogating us one of them poured his glass on my head not much rum left melted ice one ice cube hadn’t melted yet bounced on my head like a coconut isn’t that funny the sawdust on the floor cut marks on my wrists the rope smelling of manure the policeman saying we can’t waste our resources sending you back to Ecuador Luis Alberto dump this mongrel in Gracias a Dios with all the rest of them a forsaken place homeless people refugees transients like me I didn’t want to feel the backwash of rum in my hair flattened carton boxes for Hitachi televisions on that sidewalk with bloodstains / food stains didn’t have money for food scared of everyone rows of destitute refugees sleeping on every corner reclined against brick walls / fences like spiderwebs from those futuristic movies my brother Rolando and I used to watch past midnight the thick layers of dust on my face making me feel safer / that’s silly Alma / I’m invisible look / someone rolling down from the sidewalk to the road like a caterpillar asleep immobile there embalmed there couldn’t tell if he was alive / cover your face Alma / against a wall I slept / no / I’m sorry ask me about something else profe / do you call your father often? / something else profe please I / the night before I was to leave Guayaquil my father on the cement floor of our bedroom pleading / a smaller place / a loan from the priests / anything I’ll do please stay Alma / Rolando didn’t stir you could spork a saucer by his ear and he wouldn’t stir my father bunched on the cement floor sobbing could barely hear him how is that possible / please Alma / like a tortoise shell my father there / Alma corazón / Rolando returning the orange didn’t speak so tiny no hair on his head one curl on his forehead my father in our room with scissors shhh cutting a piece of Rolando’s curl placing it inside a Ziploc bag / growl / zzz / growl / quick let’s switch I’ll be the audience you’ll be the kitten Rolando / a band of military men in Gracias a Dios drinking from the same two liter bottle blindfolding the shortest one with what looked like a white sheet too long the ends dangling behind his head Rapunzel ha ha the men spinning him once / twice on the sidewalk a game of kicking whoever the blindfolded one stumbled upon golazo Trujillo the military men strolling and kicking homeless people refugees transients like me and I thinking of all the good things / bad things I’ve done in my life was it my turn look at that female swine they said lifting me shouting at me mocking each other’s broken English slapping me to wake me I was awake / resigned / I’m sorry / open your eyes mongrel / something else profe / Alma corazón / look at this dwarf here he’s a graduate from the School of the Americas isn’t he ugly / that’s not what your mother said / my mother’s a Catholic she wouldn’t date a priest killer / look who’s talking machete boy / my mother wouldn’t date her own son you imbecile / viva la puta de tu madre / the blindfolded one removing his blindfold examining me disgusted at me / remember fellows if she’s not green doesn’t crawl she’ll do / blindfolding himself again his breath their breath crabfish onions rum throw up spitting at me / missing / burro ha ha / again / spitting at me / missing / frío frío / punching me on the stomach good one chino de verga ha ha / laugh you wench / Bruce Lee ha ha / disinfect her down there first Trujillo / don’t spill the rum and Coke I’m next / esophagus breath ha ha / here we are / Rolando answering th
e phone in our house in Guayaquil didn’t know what to say to me his voice too businesslike how are you / where are you / can barely hear you / come back if you don’t adjust to that accursed country Dad’s not here I’ll tell him you called that wasn’t the first time I’d called home after leaving Guayaquil profe the first time I called home I couldn’t contain myself what’s the use of worrying my father I told myself before calling him I hadn’t talked to my father in six / seven months Alma don’t tell him about your ribcage hurting whenever you step down from the bus Líneas El Pajorreal my father answering the phone hello it’s me Dad / Alma he said / Alma / Alma he said / Alma corazón / Alma / ya corazón / Alma / Alma he said / Alma corazón / Alma he said and I crying and listening to him inside a phone booth in that long distance phone place on Mission Street with the ashen walls decorated with flags from Panamá / Honduras / Chile / the Colombian owner didn’t say much to me didn’t charge me for that first call she had tissue boxes in her booths for us can you imagine profe one day after the meeting of the women’s collective Estela and I strolling along Valencia Street people gathered on the corner of Sixteenth Street an accident I thought / no / an accordion Alma / a tuba / a drum / a dance song from the Middle East maybe / a clarinet look / a young man with a trumpet so handsome Estela saying he wants to look like a gypsy look at his rumpled vest I’m sure he spent the afternoon rumpling it by hand the other gypsy next to him ready for a parade with his portable drum a young blond girl in the crowd arranging her polka dot skirt on top of her wide flower pants sitting on the sidewalk crossing her legs closing her eyes resting her arms on her knees touching her index fingers with her thumbs what is she doing I said she looked so serene there receiving the music as if it were a serenade from the galaxy meant only for her she’s trying to impress the trumpeter what else do you think how do I look I’ll show that trumpeter a move or two Estela said quick let’s switch I’ll be the audience you’ll be the kitten Rolando / again / here we are / the crowd growing around the gypsies who weren’t gypsies the drummer beating the wooden edge of the drum so quickly my father preparing breakfast and I next to him sixteen / seventeen years old tapping a Guns N’ Roses song on the kitchen table my school uniform ripping after a soccer match / we won I scored twice Dad / my father mending my uniform playacting at not knowing how to mend clothes this pin prickles my thumb Alma the trumpeter singing without words someone in the crowd clashing his cymbals out of sync Estela saying I think that policeman over there is watching us / which one I said / don’t look at him let’s go she said / I didn’t want to leave didn’t see any policemen the streetlights flickering to life people dancing on the sidewalk her nails on my forearm grabbing me a little too hard okay fine let’s go Estela hurrying along Valencia Street people waiting outside restaurants smoking laughing at us / not laughing at us he’s following us don’t look Estela said and I thinking about the good things / bad things we’ve done in our lives was it our turn / that’s not how the math works Alma / tell me how it works Rolando or I’ll tell everyone how you used to play with my dolls / no one was following us profe / please stay the night Estela said of course I said sleeping next to her in her narrow bed I couldn’t sleep her blanket didn’t have owls / penguins / returning the orange that was supposed to be what was it supposed to be Estela’s room as big as a closet Estela talking in her sleep a language I didn’t understand along Valencia Street before the meeting of the women’s collective I said Estelita are you going to sign up for an interview with our profe / yes she said / for what I said / I don’t know for what the woman at El Centro said it would be therapeutic / thera what / peutic / chanfle / I don’t think it would be thera anything she said our profe needs help I help him / what are you going to tell him / about how much you love pupusas / be serious tell me / I was born too soon by a river of catfish / fine don’t tell me / don’t blame me I’m not Salvadorian / pupusas / pulpos / medusas / again / awakening the kitten by tapping Rolando on the shoulder two times the same emphasis every time / again / canvassing the horizon the orange purposefully unattended behind his back / again / the kitten swiping the orange from the princess’s hand / again / the princess is sobbing look / Rolando returning the orange to the princess / a starfish look / that’s not how it goes / Rolando raising his hand offering the orange to the princess he didn’t say please take back the orange princess he didn’t talk much yet so tiny returning the orange to the princess my little brother looked so sad profe he thought the princess was really sobbing because he’d taken the orange from her do you understand profe I didn’t feel jealous / did feel jealous that I hadn’t thought about returning the orange to my father my father kneeling to embrace my little brother thank you Rolando / again / I wish I would’ve been the one who returned the orange to my father homeless people transients like me our profe alone on a bench in Dolores Park looking down at his hands as if he was reading from them / wasn’t reading from them / good afternoon profe what a coincidence to see you here I was just on my way to class / no class today Alma / everything okay what’s happened I said he didn’t want to say anything he knew he would cry if he said anything didn’t want to look at me there was a raid Alma he said / where I said / a construction site in Reno / Carmen / Anita / that’s not possible I / Elena / Renata / Estela / the attorney at the Centro Legal said he was looking into it not much he could do doesn’t like me Alma I’m sorry / the attorney from Oaxaca with the gray ponytail wasn’t at El Centro Legal that day he liked me nobody could tell me anything about Estela where she was what could we do calling the attorney again that day / the next day the attorney picking up the phone we don’t know where she is he said / there must be something we can do I said / we don’t know where she is they won’t tell us where she is please take care Alma our profe alone on a bench in Dolores Park not reading from his hands saying to me please don’t think I think I’m a good person just because I’m worried like this / angry like this is so useless to be indignant no one here cares / Estela’s from Guatemala I said / her English had improved so much he said / yes I said leaving him sitting there on that bench without saying goodbye I didn’t show up at El Centro Legal week / after week avoiding him / leaving him sitting there without screaming at him / without protesting didn’t want him to think I was one of those hysterical women who pretend they’re not hysterical until a doorbell / newsflash derails their performance of peace screaming at passersby don’t just stand there you monsters my best friend has been deported / my life here will not include / will include me screaming at you in Dolores Park profe of course that Ecuadorian woman’s hysterical haven’t you heard the terrible things they do to these poor women who try to cross the border / go pity your goddamn mother / why share with you these terrible things profe you’ll no longer think of me as your cheerful student from El Centro Legal who gives you a hard time for not wearing those padded motorcycle jackets when you ride your motorcycle take care of yourself profe / I just don’t like the way those bulky jackets fit me Alma / you’ll think I wasn’t strong enough to avoid misfortune hey everyone Alma’s just like all the other unfortunate women who cross the border into the United States year / after year I was so proud when I decided to leave Guayaquil profe / didn’t want to leave Guayaquil I was twenty years old deciding my life for the first time / anything I’ll do Alma / I still like to think proudly of me deciding to leave Guayaquil as if that moment didn’t lead to me leaving Guayaquil / Guatemala / México / El Paso / Estela in a detention center couldn’t stop thinking of what Estela must be feeling was she relieved at last to return to her village / terrified to return to her village where the paramilitaries were waiting to ambush her embarrassed to return to her family empty handed please forgive me Dad I have caused you all this pain and I return to you with nothing / you’re back Alma that’s all that matters to me / Estela in a detention center thinking of all the good things / bad things she’s done in her life screaming / protesting dear god who doesn’t exist my arithmetic doesn’t add up recasting her arithmetic so her misfortunes
don’t seem so arbitrary a cold wind sweeping me to Estela’s detention cell I’m here tell me everything Estelita / please let me die in peace / no don’t say that / why isn’t it over already Alma / tell me about the water truck that wanted to be an elephant / running after the water truck falling on the gravel scraping my knees the driver plugging a black hose to his truck an elephant’s nose swooshing my legs / arms / hair the sun drying the cold water from my skin I’m not going to tell you anything profe all those copies of that interview book with terrible fragments of my life that is not my life in bookstores across the United States diffusing me maybe that’s not so bad / we’ve delivered all of you there’s nothing left Alma / thank you so much / Estela’s village doesn’t exist anymore Alma / sometimes I wake up my body as tense as the night when the armed men barged in our camp in the mountains of Guatemala / pretend you’re asleep Alma / couldn’t see if they were wearing wrestling masks so dark their boots stomping on the floorboards / my body tensing for no reason once / twice a month no doorbell needed can’t eat solids Almita let’s go for humitas / again / Bruce Lee ha ha / Estela thinking / not thinking week / after week the not thinking adding up to me no longer existing for Estela / for Dad / everyone not existing for me / for them / omitting everything in the world / avoiding you profe until I ran into you at El Centro Legal you were making photocopies of an English manual good afternoon I said / hi Alma do you need the copy machine / no I said / why was I trying to talk to you / hello good day / today’s my last day of class he said ashamed of himself I didn’t need to ask him why he was quitting he seemed ready to justify himself / one hour a week of English lessons doesn’t help anyone except me who feels better look everyone I’m helping my fellow immigrants he said / so quitting or pretending to help are the only two choices I said / what could he say except I don’t care enough about you people to dedicate more than one hour every week of my life to teaching you English / how’s your book of interviews I said / it’s not mine he said I was just assisting them / are you still looking for people to interview I said / I don’t think I’m doing more of those interviews anymore do you want to participate I’ll put you in touch with them / why aren’t you doing them anymore I said / I don’t see the point Alma / I didn’t say anything he thought I was expecting an explanation from him / I was / wasn’t / so pointless Alma what’s the use nothing will change because of these interviews / I should’ve kicked you / I should have screamed at you until my intestines strangled you / I did raise my voice / I did say you’re an imbecile of course everything’s pointless we’re all going to die doesn’t matter we’re still here / I’m still here / why did I yell at you if I agreed with you everything’s more or less pointless I don’t want to talk about Gracias a Dios profe you didn’t know what to say to me saddened worried that someone at El Centro Legal had heard me the attorney from Oaxaca did show up is everything okay Alma / yes I said I was just telling him about you know the soap opera / which one / María Mercedes / the one with Thalia / a rerun yes / shout if you need me careful with this asshole / I don’t know why he doesn’t like me Alma / I want to sign up for an interview I said / I’ll put you in touch he said / I don’t want to talk to just anybody / some good people are putting this together you’ll like them / no you hear what I have to say / he didn’t reply hoping I would go away maybe / you’re our profe I said / Alma / Alma corazón / pretending I was about to yell at him again laughing at him / okay yes he said / I’m sorry I shouted at you profe / you don’t need to apologize for anything Alma / I was desperate at Gracias a Dios profe I had to promise a smuggler money from my uncle in New Jersey please help me out of here the smuggler with a glass eye his other eye swimming from side to side hiding us in the back of a truck filled with lettuce delivering us at night by a black river instructing us to take off our clothes I didn’t want to take off my clothes what’s inside a black river profe tell me that please / do you call your father often? / sleep Alma / a terrible thing to want to talk to my father / not want to talk to my father profe / no / not terrible that’s what’s terrible about it you don’t notice that day / after day someone scrubs out your loved ones in your sleep calling my father and afterwards someone / something inside of me complaining we’ve scrubbed away your father for nothing Alma why did you request it / I didn’t request it go away please / my father slicing a breadloaf into small triangles for breakfast a black river what’s inside a black river wave / after wave Estela’s room like a closet picking up Estela’s things the week after she was taken away a blanket without owls / penguins / a framed photograph of Estela and two children bouncing on her lap pulling her curly hair Estela ten / fifteen years younger the children’s hair curly like Estela’s hair beautiful girls I didn’t know she had daughters profe I didn’t want to imagine what had happened to them in Guatemala sometimes I wish every river was a black river then we’ll all be alone Estela and her two daughters by my bed I couldn’t keep their picture there awaking at night couldn’t sleep / Alma corazón / here we are / again / please take care Alma / along Valencia Street people waiting outside restaurants everything so quiet people laughing / not laughing at us a safehouse in El Paso the doors bolted women waiting for their money like me I didn’t have any money couldn’t reach my uncle didn’t have papers the men in charge forcing us to be their servants shackling us at night terrible things profe don’t blame me I’m not Salvadorian and Estela interrupting herself or something inside / outside of her interrupting her how can a human being do that to another human being to children the interim president of Ecuador appearing on television informing the nation that he’d met with the international agencies and had agreed that another package of austerity measures was needed the price of everything shot up we could barely afford to eat profe my father slicing a breadloaf into tiny triangles blue marmalade on top preparing our breakfast how do you console a father tell me that profe please my father bunched on the floor sobbing we’ll make it work Alma please stay my father mending the sleeves of my uniform my father over the phone saying please stop sending us money we’re okay here please take care Alma awaking at night thinking the money from my uncle in New Jersey hadn’t arrived Almita let’s go for humitas the money did arrive I did make it here sleep Alma putting away the picture of Estela and her daughters couldn’t go on waking up next to them every night floating on a black river holding on to a tube my clothes inside a Ziploc bag tied around my waist black night black river someone behind me screaming father I’m drowning please take care Alma how can a human being do that to another human being to children tell me profe please what do you want to hear from me maybe you interviewed Estela before she was taken away let’s listen to her before our interview tomorrow profe I was born by a river of catfish hello good day maybe one day your daughter will listen to us profe she’ll speak Spanish with you she’ll think of me she’ll ask you about the orange that was supposed to be what was it supposed to be doesn’t matter think of us Lilia Klara / Carmen / Anita / Elena / Renata / Alma corazón / Mercedes / Maria / Cecilia / Estela / por favor cuídate Alma / think of us Lilia Klara / cuídate.