The Caregiver

by Samuel Park

  He started moving toward the door when I saw my mother extend her arm toward him.

  “Wait!” she called out. “My fee . . . we never discussed my fee,” said my mother. “When do I—when do I get paid?”

  Octopus looked at her as though she’d spoken in Greek.

  “Nobody here gets paid. We’re all doing this to help our friends who are in jail.”

  “Yes, but those men are not my friends,” my mother said, firmly.

  “They’re being tortured,” Octopus said, “and when they’re done being tortured, they’re going to be killed. Unless we get them out.”

  My mother did not blink. “I understand that. But Raul told me I was going to be paid.”

  “We fed you, didn’t we? You ate our food.”

  My mother looked at him incredulously. She then did something I did not expect. She lunged at him and hit him in the chest, in the arm, with her never-used fists.

  “I have a little girl to take care of!” she yelled.

  Octopus backed away from the rain of punches, none of which seemed to bother him very much. He had something akin to a smile on his face—a smile on the verge of being born, and I understood that he admired the fact that my mother had used violence. He was in the business of collecting information. A little girl to take care of. He stared down at me. Flashed his teeth.

  “It was a joke,” he said. “Of course you’ll be paid.”

  “Some people don’t like jokes about religion. I don’t like jokes about my money,” said my mother, still fuming, combing her hair back into place with her fingers.

  “You enjoyed hitting me, didn’t you?” teased Octopus. “I can tell you did.”

  “I didn’t,” my mother protested.

  “It’s because I’m small,” said Octopus, who oddly didn’t have a single hair or piece of fabric out of place. “If I were bigger, it wouldn’t be as much fun.”

  “How much am I going to get?” my mother repeated.

  “It’s only a day’s work,” said Octopus, dismissively.

  My mother shook her head. “You’re not going to pay me based on time. You’re going to pay me based on risk. I’m well aware of what happens to folks who get caught.”

  Octopus held her gaze. “Really? So you know that after he’s done with his ‘interrogations,’ Police Chief Lima always lets them go.” Octopus paused for effect. “I’m free, the person thinks, and starts running. And then Lima shoots him in the back.”

  My mother closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath.

  “Pacifier has your money. He’ll give it to you today after he drops you off. The first installment now and the second half you’ll get after the plan is over.”

  “How much?” my mother asked.

  “Five thousand before. Five thousand after.”

  My mother seemed pleased by the sum. Octopus smiled, as though glad he’d met her expectations. “You know, I hesitated at first when Raul told me about you,” he said.

  “Why?” my mother asked, looking stricken.

  “He said you were desperate. Desperation isn’t a good quality in this business.”

  chapter four

  THE SOUND THAT WOKE ME, I was sure, was something innocuous, like the wind rustling, or a finch taking flight outside our window. I opened my eyes slowly, adjusting to the blazing morning light. It was strangely tranquil—no buses roaring, no construction workers drilling, as though everyone had agreed to sleep in after Carnaval.

  Rolling over, I remembered sounds I’d heard the previous night, sounds that I had assigned to either a dream or to one of our neighbors. Female voices—sharp and intense—followed by the sound of a woman grunting. Banging. On a neighbor’s door, I was sure. I knew it must’ve happened to my neighbor, because who could possibly want to break in our home? Their lives could contain all kinds of terrors, but surely ours couldn’t.

  Or it had been a dream, surely, a dream with made-up sounds and made-up grunts, and no real consequences of any kind.

  When my drowsiness finally left me, I got up and I could tell that my mother wasn’t at home.

  My mother always slept in, and I was the one to awaken her. I glanced toward the bathroom, the only other logical place she might be, but it was empty. Was I still dreaming, still asleep? I immediately stepped into the living room, where there was no sign of my mother. She wasn’t in the kitchen, either. I could not remember ever waking up and not finding my mother in bed, much less not finding her in the apartment.

  Panic rising, I continued to ping-pong from room to room, rushing from the bedroom to the kitchen to the living room to the bathroom, waiting for a different result each time. I patted my mother’s mattress, over and over again, as though my eyes were tricking me. I’d been alone in the apartment numerous times while my mother was at work, but I’d never been alone when my mother was supposed to be there. A crucial difference. Calm down, I told myself. She had just stepped out to get some fresh bread, or she was at a neighbor’s, or some other explanation that sounded utterly implausible. Because she never got bread for us, and she’d never go to a neighbor’s that early in the day. I tossed my mother’s pillow on the ground and pulled at her mosquito netting until it fell off the ceiling and lay splayed on her bed, creating no protuberance where her body should be.

  I decided that my mother was coming back, she was coming right back, and I just had to find a way to pass the time. I rushed to the heavy window blinds and undid the locks that kept them open, shutting them rapidly, keeping out the sun and the breeze.

  I walked back to the living room and I spotted the front door, with its three locks—a night latch, a deadbolt, and a chain lock. I set them closed, in rapid succession. If my mother had gone out to run errands, she would have locked the door behind her. She hadn’t. I suddenly had too much energy and couldn’t stand still. I unlocked the door and stepped out. I had not planned on what to say when I knocked on Janete’s door.

  Janete did not answer. The hallway was completely empty, which was not unusual but it was also completely silent, which was. I could typically hear the radio from my neighbors across the way, always tuned to the sermons on the religious stations. Or the sound of the couple down the hall having fights, throwing things at each other. I couldn’t even hear the mice today.

  I knocked again and the sound echoed through the bare hallway, ricocheting from wall to wall. I felt like ants were crawling over my back. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking.

  “Janete!” I called out. There was desperation in my voice. “It’s Mara.”

  Janete did not open the door. My panic grew, pulsing outward from my stomach.

  I knocked again, my knuckles announcing my persistence. Janete finally opened the door. She was not wearing her wig, but her scalp was covered by some kind of sheer fabric, and she still had full makeup on. She wore a bathrobe that was too small for her frame and that had visible holes near her armpits. She looked almost too tired to be irritated, and looked at me as though I was and wasn’t really there. She did not invite me in, and it became clear our conversation would take place right there at her door.

  “My mom’s gone,” I said. I could hear my voice crack, the tears that were about to well up. “I don’t know where.”

  “What do you mean she’s gone? What happened?” asked Janete, adjusting the belt of her bathrobe through its loop.

  “Can you find her? Can you go and find her?”

  “She’s still not home? What time is it?”

  I thought of Octopus and his men. “I think she’s somewhere she shouldn’t be. Somewhere dangerous . . .” I felt like I couldn’t tell Janete any more.

  “I think you’re overreacting a little, don’t you think?”

  “I’m scared. I think something happened to her.”

  “What could possibly happen to a woman as kind and prudent as your mother?” she asked with benign sarcasm.

  My shoulders sank as I openly cried.

  Janete sighed and lowered herself so she was
sitting on her ankles and could look at me eye to eye. She put a hand comfortingly over my shoulder.

  “Listen, I have a friend with me right now, but as soon as I can, I’m going to come check on you, okay? Now go back in, turn on the TV, and watch some cartoons.”

  I refused to budge, and shook my head harder.

  “Do you know where she is? Did my mother say anything to you?”

  Janete waved her arms helplessly. “She didn’t say where she was going, but she said she’d only be gone for an hour. Now, there’s nothing you can do except go back to your apartment and wait.”

  I could tell she didn’t understand the severity of the situation. I leaned closer to her so that my body almost fell on top of hers. Something inside me told me to make myself feel solid to her. “Can I stay here with you? Can I stay here until she comes back?”

  Right then, as if on cue, I was startled by a sound from inside her apartment. It was the growl of a man’s voice calling out for Janete. The way he said her name, not asking for her, but demanding her, made me dislike him right away.

  “No, you can’t, I’m sorry,” said Janete. She shifted her position so that one knee was on the floor and the other knee became a stool where she could delicately rest her hands.

  “Why not?” I pleaded.

  Janete thought for a moment, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Tears continued to fall down my cheeks. Janete turned her face away, but I could see a hint of sadness in her eyes. The man inside called for her again, his voice even more impatient than before. Janete got up.

  “You are such a brave little girl,” said Janete, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, and closing the door.

  As soon as she was gone, I ran back to the apartment, shut the door behind me, and locked all the bolts. Because that wasn’t enough, I hid inside the closet, not my section, but my mother’s. I could barely fit there, my back pushing against the panel of wood, and wrapped my arms around my legs. I made sure to close the closet door, though it was hard to do it from the inside, without a hinge to pull. It was completely dark, with only bits of light peeking through the corners. I had pushed all my mother’s hung shirts to the side to make room for me, but one of them kept sticking out toward my face. The top was one of her nicest—light blue, made out of silk, with a giant collar and sleeve cuffs. It smelled just like her. I reached for the sleeve and held it, my fingers wrapped tightly around the fabric. I stayed like that, wrapped in her scent, in the darkness, for hours.

  There was a knock. I sprang out of my container and flew to the front door. It was just Janete. She came as a boy, which meant without her magical powers. She could see the deep disappointment on my face and, as if to compensate, she held me tightly against her arms.

  “Your mom’s not back yet?” she asked me, leading me to the sofa. “Already half the day’s gone. What could be taking so long?”

  What was taking her so long, or who? We sat down. I buried my face against her arm, wetting it with tears. Time and space were the enemy: accomplices, villains.

  In between hiccups, I said, “I want my mom. I want her back.”

  But as the day dragged on, I realized I knew exactly where my mother had gone. She should never have agreed to help those odd, awful men.

  “Come on,” said Janete. “Come wait for your mother in my apartment. I’ll fix you some food. No one took your mother. She’s fine and will be home soon.”

  I hesitated. I did not follow Janete. Leaving the door open, I sat down on the floor right by the line that separated our carpeted apartment from the concrete hallway. Janete, on the outside, tried to lure me, but I stayed inside, inside where I belonged. Where my mother would find me.

  “Mara!” Janete insisted, but in vain.

  I stayed like that, sitting on my butt, with my arms wrapped around my legs, my head staring at the imperfections on the floor. Lived-in scratches, resilient dots, nicks and cuts that no one ever noticed. Janete stood by me exasperated, but her patience eventually ran out and she dragged herself back to her apartment.

  I did not budge; neither hunger nor thirst could stir me. If I remained on that spot, performing the act of waiting, the universe would have no choice but to produce my mother.

  Over the course of the afternoon, neighbors stared as they passed by. Two kids younger than me, who I’d seen but never spoken to, stood and stared, curious, as though I were putting on a show for them. They pointed a few times, before going off on their adventures. Their mother, a plump, short woman in a housedress, looked over at me and beyond, into the empty apartment, and asked if my mother had left me there as punishment. I did not answer.

  Another neighbor, a man holding a toolbox, his shoes grimy and torn, muttered something to himself, as though I had personally offended him. I looked like a problem he wouldn’t be able to solve.

  A few minutes later, a neighbor with a gleamingly bald head who didn’t know me or my mother told me, very authoritatively, to go back inside and shut the door.

  I ignored him. I refused to speak to anyone. They had nothing to do with this. This was between me and my mother.

  And I was good at waiting.

  I had waited for my mother through the long, long grocery store lines that sometimes took up to an hour. I had waited for my mother at the bank while she paid our gas, water, and electricity bills. I had waited for my mother to finish haggling with salesgirls, to charm bus drivers into making unscheduled stops, to read her favorite magazines at the newsstands instead of buying them. I had waited for my mother to cook for me, before I swallowed my own tongue out of hunger. I had waited for my mother to get up in the morning after getting through the seven mystical stages of awakening—enchantment, disbelief, stupor, denial, bargaining, anger, and acceptance.

  My mother finally arrived shortly after twilight. She found me on the floor, the door open, and immediately whisked me away and rushed in, like a kangaroo mother tossing me back in the pouch.

  She looked disheveled, her hair stringy. I could sense the molecules in the room changing color, changing shape, into something entirely new and dark. I looked at her face for signs of where she’d been—a haleness, or a hollowness—and found none. All that mattered was that she was back.

  “What were you doing with the door open like that?” asked my mother, as we got inside and she closed the door behind her. She was nearly whispering, a hiss.

  “I was waiting for you,” I whimpered.

  “Where’s Janete?”

  “Back in her apartment,” I mumbled.

  “She didn’t stay here with you? What a puta. I’ve had such a day. I’ve had such a terrible day,” she said, and I noticed how she could barely stand still. Her eyes were bloodshot, as though she’d rubbed them after crying.

  “Where were you, Mommy? Where were you all day?”

  My mother shook her head, as though I’d asked an impertinent question. She sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette. She looked at me with cold eyes, like I wasn’t her daughter but instead some hoodlum she’d run across in her living room.

  “I was afraid to come home in case anyone was following me. So I rode in buses all day. All the way to Madureira, then back.”

  “Why would someone follow you?”

  “Because I’m so goddamn beautiful. Why do you think?” she snapped, raising and lowering her arm in frustration. She was as prickly as a pinecone. “Don’t ask me these questions. You’re like an interrogator. Did you join the police force while I was gone?” My mother put out the cigarette she had just lit—she’d normally smoke each all the way to the tiniest stub, nearly burning the tips of her fingers.

  Now I could practically see where she’d been all day. I could see her leaning over me in the still dark morning, watching me sleep, right before she left, and heading to Janete to drop off her key and ask her to watch me. I could see Janete—sleepily, tired from sex and booze—agreeing without agreeing, and shutting the door, and heading back to her man, making a calculation in her head that eight-ye
ar-olds are old enough to be alone at home. After all, hadn’t Janete assumed even greater responsibility and risk at that age? My mother then heads out, nervous but determined, following Octopus’s instruction to take a cab to the police station in case the bus drivers went on strike, as they threatened to. My mother rides the cab, uncomfortable in her janitor’s clothes, hoping the driver doesn’t notice her or comment on her, as that might break her concentration, or slow her momentum. She arrives at the police station a few minutes before expected, and sees La Bardot in the corner, vamping, her legs wrapped expertly around the fortunate man cast as her boyfriend. She has a blond wig on, and giant sunglasses that she removes at the sight of my mother. My mother makes eye contact with her, and she sees La Bardot reach for her purse and drop it on the ground. I can practically feel my mother’s heart threatening to jump out of her throat, like a nervous frog that she has swallowed. She walks into the station; asks, and then demands, to see the Police Chief, who initially refuses to see her, I’m sure, but then agrees once she promises information about the student terrorists. As she enters his office, something clicks inside my mother, I’m certain, something I’ve seen happen in the recording booth. The actress in her, awakening—she comes alive—then shifting into another person entirely. A concerned janitor. A humble citizen reporting a threat. Her performance to the Police Chief is convincing, engaging—I know it is—not doing too much, not doing too little. Police Chief Lima listens, and it is both easier and harder to perform in front of him, in his actual office, with his actual physical body in front of her—he is a large, hulking man with salt-and-pepper hair and a suspiciously well-trimmed mustache, a mustache that, my mother will later say, hinted at power and ambitions far greater than the 13th Precinct of Ipanema. Easier because her acting is fed by the reality of the office and of the desk in front of her, with its contents—the small globe, the maps of the city, the anonymous folders and binders, the portrait frames whose backs face her so she can catch no glimpse of his family. Harder because the stakes are so, so high, and there are gaps that she must force herself to be comfortable with, gaps that, as a novice actress, she used to feel the need to fill, awkwardly and uncomfortably. But she doesn’t, and she allows the Police Chief to take in her information, as she offers it piecemeal. As she pretends to forget, or misremember. Then suddenly another load of information, to keep him interested. He has drive, she can tell. Ambition. This information can be useful to him, to the locked desires of torture, of punishment, that she can glimpse in his glasslike, dark eyes. He wants to destroy the terrorist groups. For fame and for opportunities. For the power it will deliver. She wonders how much a public employee, even at his exalted level, gets paid. But this is when my knowledge of my mother, however well-married to my imagination, gets stuck. Because something failed, clearly, something did not go according to plan, but I do not know what it is. And I realize that my access to my mother is not omniscient, and that though I’ve observed her intently and loved her intensely, there are parts of her personality I am not privy to. I can see it in the new way her brow furrows, the way smoke lingers in the air around her half-smoked cigarette. It pains me to realize the truth: that she is ultimately as unknowable to me as I am to her.