by Roy Kesey
We return to the house, Mariángel asleep and carried by Karina, but she wakes as Karina lays her in the playpen, is furious for reasons I cannot determine. Again and again she demands to be lifted out, to be allowed to walk unassisted. Each time she is freed she begins a search for breakables. It is half an hour and a shattered coffee mug and the rubber pig thrown off the balcony into the surf before she is quiet again.
I join the others gathered on the balcony. There is a round of beer, and another, and several more. We talk of nothing and then as Mireille fills my glass she asks how it is that I do not believe in God.
I toast her question, and say that I do not remember ever saying anything of that kind to her. She says that I did not have to. I look to Karina and Reynaldo and Armando for assistance with a simple exit. They smile and have no interest in helping.
- I am the same as you, I say.
- That is not an answer, she says.
- It is. We all do what we can to beat death back.
- That is interesting but macabre and also not an answer.
- We beat death back with narrative.
- Oh dear.
- Yours was religious but there are many kinds, and you and I make use of some of the same: genealogical, regional, national.
- This is truly your answer, isn’t it.
- Look. Biologically each of us is pointless. And we cannot bear being pointless. So we create a point by placing ourselves in stories that grow ever longer.
- John, I surrender.
- You are not allowed to surrender, not yet, and death is the anti-narrative. It is the story not even ending but simply stopping. If the story never ends, death loses. Now you may surrender.
There is a silence. Then laughter. Mireille thanks me for accompanying her to the church. I say that I am glad to have gone. She smiles at everyone, stands and goes to her room. I breathe deeply, catch myself mid-exhalation when she returns. She holds up a deck of cards, asks if anyone is interested in poker.
It is the perfect question, but no one quite remembers the rules. Karina brings out a pen and paper, and we come to slow consensus on the relative order of strength of hands and suits. There is still more beer, and more. We use wooden matches as poker chips, ten céntimos per match. At first there is conversation, but it fades, and we play as if millions or lives were at stake.
It is the sudden absence of beer that in some sense wakes us. Hours have passed. Armando and Karina are out of matches and no one else any longer cares. We shake our heads, cash out our winnings, dump the matches back into the box.
We promise one another that tomorrow there will be adventure, but I know already that we will sleep poorly, the chants of mourning brought to us now and again on the wind. Karina ruffles my hair, says that she liked my little speech, kisses me on the cheek and walks away. Reynaldo and Mireille say goodnight and are gone. I am gathering strength to stand and then Armando’s hand is on my thigh.
I look at him. A moment later he withdraws his hand, looks down.
- I’m sorry, he says. From what you said, I thought we—
- What did I say?
- Our kind.
- I don’t—
- At Günther’s party. You said you hadn’t thought our kind was welcome at the university.
- Our kind as in constructivists, Armando. As in tropologists. Not as in gay.
- Oh.
- It doesn’t matter.
- It does, he says.
I pat him on the shoulder. He stands, starts to say something, walks to the door.
- It really doesn’t, I call after him. You do not have to worry. Things will be fine in the morning.
In the morning the beach is covered with dead fish. Chula, says Reynaldo, a trash fish, most likely unwanted catch, thousands of them simply dead, a foot long, more, silver with white bellies, large opaque scales. The smell makes the beach uninhabitable and so we begin: we fill garbage bags, one after another, first from in front of his aunt’s house, then working up and down the beach. It is our only adventure.
At night the wind bears away the smell, and we try to build a bonfire. We collect driftwood, spend an hour coaxing with newspaper and cardboard. The flames will not take hold in the wood.
I run to Armando’s sister’s house, and she says that he is reading on the balcony, has asked not to be disturbed. I walk around the house and down to the beach, take position beneath his balcony, tap repeatedly on a wooden beam with a mussel shell until he leans over the railing and asks me to stop. I say that everyone is waiting. He says that they are not. I say that at the very least he could lend us some floor wax or kerosene to help us with the bonfire. There is silence, and the flat slap of a book dropped on a table.
We walk together back to Reynaldo’s aunt’s house, unspeaking but not ill at ease. He goes to induce fire with the others, and I lead Mariángel to her room. I sing Los Rodriguez, and she dances, a flopping hopping dance, and at last she tires and sleeps.
Outside there is fire and rum and charades. In turn we step too close to the flames. As the first bottle of rum is emptied the charades become harder, though it helps that Mireille’s often involve mountains, and Karina’s often involve Italy, and Reynaldo’s often involve extraterrestrials.
Another bottle is brought out, and another. None of my charades are successfully guessed though I too have a theme and do not mean my movements to be mysterious. Time after time. It comes to seem unfair, even cruel. Another rum and no one guesses Diego de Almagro, and another rum and no one guesses Friar Valverde, and when it is my turn again I tell them it is a film and act out beating Pilar’s murderer to death with a flat stone.
No one attempts to guess. I perform the charade again. I wait, breathing heavily, sweating. Again no one guesses. I tell them to try. I tell them it is easy. I tell them they had better fucking guess it and they try and no one is even close and I all but tell them but then Karina. I had somehow forgotten she was here. They are all waiting.
- My father, I say.
I look at their faces, wave my hands.
- Telling me that I have conqueror blood in my veins. Juan de Segovia, my ancestor. What a load of shit. But helpful shit, yes? The very best kind. Made me strong. Made me angry and so very strong.
Karina comes and stands beside me, pulls my arm and I do not move.
- My father, I say. Can you believe that?
- So you are or you aren’t? says Mireille.
- Exactly, I say. For years I was and suddenly I wasn’t any more. All lies. The best kind of lies.
I look at Armando, and his eyes are blazing. I look at Reynaldo, Karina, Mireille, and they love me, all of them love me. Karina pulls on my arm again, and this time of course, and so we go.
34.
OUT THROUGH THE DARK TREES and I do not know why but this week my classes have been fluid and deft, my students working cleanly through prepositions of time and adverbs of manner, through the schwa and defining relative clauses, through reporting verbs and false friends. During office hours they come to me in pairs and small groups, sometimes with problems and sometimes only to chat. When there are problems I try to help. When I cannot help I invent geometric proofs to show the students that their problems are slightly smaller than they thought. Then I take the students to the empty deer pen, show them the perfect square opening, request that they ponder it.
The faint shriek of fighter jets, three or perhaps four. Again to the fork in the path. To the parking lot, again the stage and floodlights. There are far fewer moths than before. There are also far fewer spectators though just as many chairs. The verbena has already begun and I search for Armando, find him, take the empty seat beside him and he smiles.
He invited me, I believe, only to have invited me, expected me to pause before giving any answer. Instead I said that I would happily go if he would accept that there were no issues between us. He agreed, and still did not think I would come or so I suspect.
A few of the jokes this evening are at my expense—
my bulk, my gait, the size and colors of my underwear—but my likeness is jovial, is often allowed a last laugh. Less kindness is shown to the head librarian and her single eyebrow, to the dean and his limp, to Armando himself: there are puns on his alcoholism and effeminacy. All the same we laugh, the dean and the librarian and Armando and me, we laugh as is required.
From time to time I glance at the rector, and it seems that his laughter wanes sooner than that of those around him. There are many reasons why this might be, and when the verbena ends, students come running to talk to Armando and me, to assure us that no harm was meant, that in fact we are well loved, that laughter had been the only objective. Some of the students are sincere when they say this. Some only believe that they are. I tell them the truth, that I always attempt not to care. Armando says that he found each and every joke extremely amusing, claps the students on the shoulders and laughs, pretending to remember.
His posture is as always ever so slightly off center, his gait minimally unbalanced, not as if he were about to fall but as if at any moment he might bend to pick up something he has dropped. I thank him for having invited me, and he thanks me for having accepted. I shake his hand, shake the hands of the dean and rector, walk for home.
A hundred yards still from the gate, and there is a group of students gathered on the sidewalk beneath an algarrobo. They are staring, and I go to stand and stare with them. There is a fox stretched out dead at the base of the trunk. It is cat-sized and twilight-colored. Its skull has been crushed.
A car or truck, surely, and someone tossed the body to the side. I leave the students there staring. Some things cannot be helped.
Out and along. A few of the old smells are returning, plumeria and jasmine, and of course the smell of sweat never left. There is standing water only in the deepest of holes. Along and along. I catch myself scanning license plates, stop and look upward instead. There are fewer stars visible than one might perhaps guess, the desert haze building again.
Turning, the park and its trees, the Virgin under glass. She is no longer crying, has not cried in days, and my neighbors discuss the meaning of this more loudly than is necessary. Karina finds them preposterous. I wonder what Pilar would have thought of them. She was often open to this sort of possibility but did not speak of it with me, was unwilling in this and other respects to provoke my derision.
It is not that Pilar feared it, but that she hoped to save me from it. Also it angered her, and she enjoyed the sudden flush of her own anger less than most people I have known. In other moments what seemed to be anger came unprovoked and in fact was something else, a wildness, and Pilar laughed, pinned me down, magnificent. Karina is a spinning something, a knowing something, and she fits me differently: her edges are sharper, hip and wrist and jawline. Her arms are thinner, her smile slower, her eyes less easily read, and holding both women in my mind at one time like this is unjust, is a certain evil, is something for which a bill will at some point come due.
To the corner, the darkened stretch beneath the streetlight I broke, sudden movement toward me and I jump to my stoop and turn. A growl—the hairless dog. It waits, then limps away. In through my front door, Mariángel in Karina’s arms and I kiss them both, thank Karina, take Mariángel and she laughs and pokes my forehead.
- Gallum gallum? she says.
Karina kisses me again, tells me that she cannot stay tonight, that she stopped by only for the pleasure of welcoming me into my own home, that she will come find me as soon as she is able. I thank her again, ask if Socorro has already gone home, and hear Socorro clear her throat behind me. Karina smiles, waves, is gone.
I thank Socorro for her loyalty and consistency and care. She frowns. I tell her that there is no need to frown. She says that she does not need advice as regards her facial expressions, and she is right, and I say so. She nods, gathers her belongings, closes the door behind her.
- Gallum, says Mariángel.
- Precisely, I say.
She and I spent most of Tuesday and part of Wednesday visiting a series of doctors. They and their tests found nothing wrong with Mariángel’s hearing. She is physically capable of making all relevant sounds. Each facet of her intelligence was judged satisfactory. Be patient, the final doctor said, and she will form words that please you whenever she is ready to do so.
Brief singing, dancing with her light on my chest, but she is already tired, whines and cries, then sleeps. I continue to dance for a time, tango, ever more slowly. I dance my way to her crib, and lay her down.
To the living room, and I settle in with Howar-Malverde’s anthology on anthropological linguistics. There is little wrong with it but between essays and on occasion between paragraphs I am instead with Cabeza de Vaca, and the tribe says that Mala Cosa first came fifteen or sixteen years ago, wandered through the countryside, was small and bearded and hard to see clearly. A lit torch would appear in a doorway and he would charge in and take whomever he wished, slash them three times in the side and pull out their intestines, cut a bit off and toss it into the flames of the torch. Then he would slash three times at the victim’s arm, sever it at the elbow, reattach the limb and heal all wounds with a touch. And when the tribe was dancing again he would appear, sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman, would lift their huts and fly into the air with them and come crashing down. He never ate anything he was offered, and when asked where he lived would point deep into the earth, and the Spaniards laugh at these stories, laugh until they are shown the scars on the people’s arms and sides.
37.
AN ISSUE NOT OF SLOTH BUT OF DISTRACTION: my final set of midterms remains less than fully graded. The students are disappointed in me, it is clear in their faces, but the urgency of their desire to know has diminished. I promise to conclude in the course of the weekend and they nod as if believing.
The bell rings but the students do not leave. This happens often at the higher levels. I ask, and they have additional questions about the discourse markers of consequence presented in this evening’s lesson. The answers come easily to me, are mostly matters of register. At last the students file out and in truth my promise will not be difficult to keep as I now have time unspoken for: no more rain is coming, this is an obvious thing, and so I have worked late with chisel and sledge, removed the last dike last night.
I gather my texts and materials, drop them off in my office. I stop by Arantxa’s office as well, remind her that the first hand will be dealt at nine o’clock sharp. I say that she need bring nothing at all, and she thanks me for the information without altering the expression on her face or the angle of inclination of her head, provides me with no information whatsoever as to whether or not she truly plans to come.
Out and down the path, and a suggestion from my bowels. I detour to the closest restroom and put in the requisite time. As I step to the sink some small black long-winged thing blurs between me and the mirror, has skimmed the very skin of my face, circles and circles again, faster and faster: a bat of some sort. Still it circles, a tightening gyre, then a brusque landing on the back of a hand towel.
I come closer, turn the towel slightly. The thin polished leather of its wings, the upturned nose, the spiked ears and teeth—a vile, delicate animal. I turn the towel slightly more and the bat takes off, circles and circles. I retreat to the center of the room and it lands again on the towel. I wait. The window above the door is surely open but to get there one must round a sharp corner and the bat is confused, I suspect, by all this tile and mirror, its sonar signals bouncing endlessly, its messages and knowing coming too quickly and from all directions, echoes of echoes of echoes.
Also the bat is exhausted or so I believe. I step silently to the towel. I lift it and walk slowly to the door. Out onto a lit circle of grass. I shake the towel softly, and the bat flickers and disappears.
From here the straightest path to the main gate runs past the university chapel. Halfway along its side wall is a painted statue, Christ the Shepherd, beautiful and bearded, his long woode
n staff and the Germans are dead. It happened while Karina and Mariángel and I were in Ecuador. All those men likewise bearded and beautiful who came to Piura to be safe, to seem harmless and not bathe, to argue over the price of bread and survive destruction by sulfur and fire, they gathered one morning in the garage of their largest house, sealed the windows and doors, and turned on the engines of their two trucks.
It is thought that they killed themselves because they could not bear to have been so precisely wrong: destruction not by fire but by water, and principally Piura rather than everywhere else. It is also thought that most of their neighbors saw and heard, but foreigners behaving oddly is what is expected here. The police were not notified until hours too late. The men all died calmly in their seats except the youngest, whose hands and feet were bound for reasons no one yet knows but one might guess.
I called Günther as soon as I found out. He thanked me for my concern, said that there was no reason to be sorry, that the world was not worse for their absence. Then he asked me what I thought of Arantxa. I did not immediately understand his tone, said that she and I were not on the best of terms, and that he knew her as well as I did. He insisted: How did I see her? Here I began to understand. I said that she was smart and highly competent. And his final question: Did I find her attractive?
I told him the truth, that I do, in a smart, competent, large, sad sort of way. This made Günther very happy. To the main gate and out, across the Panamericana and to the store. It took several days for me to come clearly to the fact that more than one issue could be addressed at once but tonight the relevant strands will be joined: Günther, Arantxa, Karina, poker.
I ask the old man behind the counter for rum and soft drinks and lemons and ice and chifles in large quantities. I also invited Reynaldo and Mireille, but they have plans that do not, I believe, involve other persons. Additionally I called Armando, and he answered oddly, paused for lengths of time inappropriate for both the questions and the answers, said he would join us for a late drink if not for cards as such.