The Book of Unknown Americans: A novel

by Cristina Henriquez

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “My notebook.”

  “You’re doing homework now?”

  “I’m writing.”

  “About what?”

  She shrugged. “The doctors told me to write.”

  “Like, stories?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I just finished the new Percy Jackson book, The Titan’s Curse. Have you heard of it?”

  Again, nothing. I couldn’t even tell if she was listening to me, but for some reason now I wanted her to. I wanted her to pay attention to me.

  “I write sometimes,” I went on. “Like, I might write, ‘Note to self: Do not touch a habanero pepper, even if your best friend dares you to.’ ”

  Unexpectedly, she smiled. “Habaneros are hot,” she said. It was the kind of smile that could wreck a person.

  “No kidding,” I said. “I learned the hard way.”

  I couldn’t see her eyes because of her sunglasses, but I had the feeling she was staring straight at me.

  Then I heard a voice calling her name. Screaming it in panic.

  “My mom,” she said. She dropped her notebook in her bag and the two of us grabbed our things and walked out to see Sra. Rivera darting across the parking lot like a wild animal.

  “Mari!” she said when she laid eyes on us. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail and her face was flushed. She ran to Maribel and put her hands on Maribel’s cheeks, turning her head from side to side, examining her.

  “She’s okay,” I said. “I saw her when she got off the bus. I was just talking to her for a little while.” I figured there was no reason to tell her about Garrett. I had taken care of it, hadn’t I? And she would only freak out if she knew. That’s how parents were.

  “Maribel?” Sra. Rivera said, looking for confirmation of my story. “You’re okay?”

  Maribel nodded, and even though Sra. Rivera looked skeptical, she took Maribel by the wrist, leading her up to their apartment while I stood there in the spitting rain and watched them go.

  After that, something between Maribel and me changed. I felt this weird protectiveness over her, so on Sundays after church, instead of hiding away in my room like I used to, I made it a point to sit next to her on our brown couch, attempting to have quiet conversations with her and telling stupid jokes in an effort to make her smile again like I had that one time.

  One Sunday, while our parents debated the meaning of Father Finnegan’s homily that morning, the doorbell rang. When my mom got up to answer it, Quisqueya was standing at the door with a coffee cake in her hands. Ever since the Riveras had moved in, my mom hadn’t shown as much interest in Quisqueya as she used to, preferring instead to spend her time with Sra. Rivera. I didn’t blame her. I’d never understood why my mom hung out with Quisqueya at all, except that my mom craved friends—any friends—as a way to keep her from feeling lonely here.

  “Oh,” Quisqueya said, peeking inside, “I didn’t know you had company.”

  “Did you tell me you were coming over?” my mom asked.

  “No, but … Well, there was a time when I didn’t have to make plans to see you.”

  “I didn’t know if I’d forgotten.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you want to come in?”

  Quisqueya peered into our living room. Sra. Rivera waved.

  “No,” Quisqueya said.

  “Maybe tomorrow morning?” my mom offered. “I’ll be here if you want to stop by.”

  Quisqueya shrank a little and twisted her lips. “Maybe,” she said.

  My mom was still standing with one hand on the doorknob. When neither Quisqueya nor my mom said anything else, my dad yelled, “Have a good day, Quisqueya!”

  “Yes. Well,” she said and walked away. I watched her pass by our front window on her way back to her apartment.

  My mom closed the door and said to my dad, “You’re so bad.”

  My dad said, “You’re lucky I didn’t ask her to leave the coffee cake!”

  The conversation turned to politics after that, which was all anybody had been talking about lately. The elections had happened a few weeks earlier and everybody we knew had been pulling for Barack Obama. Since she’d become a citizen, my mom had voted in every election—local and federal. She never missed a single one. She would come home and say, “Well, I did my duty. May the best man win.” This year, she’d been the first in line at her polling place. She’d worn her American flag sweater, and I’d seen her praying before she walked out the door that morning. “A little extra insurance can’t hurt,” she’d explained, crossing herself. “En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.” When she came home she said, “Well, I did my duty. May Obama win, because if it’s McCain, I will shoot myself.” And then she glued herself to the television all day long to watch the returns.

  Even my dad, who, whenever politics came up, usually dismissed the entire topic with his patented line, “All politicians are equally corrupt,” showed an interest this year. A few times I even caught him watching the news segments about Obama in the evenings, after he got home from work.

  It seemed like everyone in our building was excited. I’d seen José Mercado totter outside one day and plant an Obama/Biden sign in the grass bordering the parking lot, and Fito, who usually had a thing against signs (he’d taken down Benny’s Phillies banner at the start of last year’s baseball season), let it stand. Micho made sure that all of us who were documented were registered to vote, talking about how important it was that Obama, a black man who looked like no other U.S. president and who had family that came from different places, could possibly lead our country. It meant that we, who also resembled no other U.S. president and who also had family from faraway places, could one day rise up and do the same thing.

  “I don’t think his ears are so big,” my mom said.

  “His ears?” Sra. Rivera asked.

  “He keeps saying they’re big, but I think he’s very handsome.”

  “That’s why you voted for him?” my dad said. “Because you think he’s handsome?”

  “Yes, Rafael. That’s why I vote for one politician over another. Because he’s handsome. Are you crazy?”

  My dad glared at my mom for a second, then emphatically put his feet up on the coffee table, something that my mom hated. “We’ll see,” my dad said.

  “We’ll see what?” Sr. Rivera asked.

  “We’ll see what he does for us. I like him, okay? But I don’t know if he’s going to be who he said he would be. Politicians will say anything to get elected. For some reason with this guy, I believed what he said. I believed he believed what he said. But we’ll see. The first thing he needs to do is get the economy out of the sewer. No one comes to the diner anymore. No one has money to eat out.”

  “And now there are pirates,” my mom said.

  “Pirates?” Sra. Rivera asked, alarmed.

  “From Africa,” my mom said. “Black pirates.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said.

  “They’re hijacking ships!” my mom said.

  I pictured guys with beards and eye patches and peg legs. I still thought it was pretty awesome.

  Sr. Rivera said, “But here? It’s safe, no?”

  “It’s not as safe as it used to be,” my dad said.

  “But it’s safe,” Sr. Rivera pressed, like he wanted to be reassured.

  “Yes,” my dad said. “Compared to where any of us are from, it’s safe.”

  I WAS LESS than a year old when my parents brought my brother and me to the United States. Enrique was four. He used to tell me things about Panamá that I couldn’t possibly have remembered—like about the scorpions in our backyard and the cement utility sink where my mom used to give us baths. He reminisced about walking down the street with my mom to the Super 99, the dust blowing up everywhere, the heat pounding down, and about looking for crabs between the rocks along the bay.

  “It’s in you,” my dad assured me once. “You were bor
n in Panamá. It’s in your bones.”

  I spent a lot of time trying to find it in me, but usually I couldn’t. I felt more American than anything, but even that was up for debate according to the kids at school who’d taunted me over the years, asking me if I was related to Noriega, telling me to go back through the canal. The truth was that I didn’t know which I was. I wasn’t allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn’t feel the thing I was supposed to claim.

  The first time I heard my parents tell the story about leaving Panamá, my mom said, “Our hearts kept breaking each time we walked out the door.” They tried to give it time. They assumed conditions would improve. But the country was so ravaged that their hearts never stopped breaking. Eventually they sold almost everything they owned and used the money to buy plane tickets to somewhere else, somewhere better, which to them had always meant the United States. A while after I was old enough to understand this story, I pointed out how backwards it was to have fled to the nation that had driven them out of theirs, but they never copped to the irony of it. They needed to believe they’d done the right thing and that it made sense. They were torn between wanting to look back and wanting to exist absolutely in the new life they’d created. At one point, they had planned to return. They’d thought that with enough time, Panamá would be rebuilt and that their hearts, I guess, would heal. But while they waited for that day, they started making friends. My dad got a job as a busboy and then, later on, as a dishwasher. Years passed. Enrique was in school, and I started, too. My dad was promoted to line cook. More years slid by. And before they knew it, we had a life here. They had left their lives once before. They didn’t want to do it again.

  So they applied for U.S. citizenship, sitting up at night reading the Constitution, a dictionary by their side, and studying for the exam. They contacted someone at the Panamanian consulate in Philadelphia who helped them navigate the paperwork. Then they woke up one morning, got dressed in their best clothes, caught a bus to the courthouse, and, while my mom held me in her arms and my dad rested his hand on Enrique’s shoulder, took an oath along with a group of other men and women who had made living in the United States a dream. We became Americans.

  We never went back to Panamá, not even for a visit. It would have taken us forever to save enough money for plane tickets. Besides, my dad never wanted to take time off from his job. He probably could’ve asked for a few days of vacation time, but even after years of being there, making omelets and flipping pancakes, he knew—we all knew—that he was on the low end of the food chain. He could be replaced in a heartbeat. He didn’t want to risk it.

  Because of that, we’d missed my tía Gloria’s wedding, which she’d had on a hillside in Boquete. She told my mom that her new husband, Esteban, had gotten so drunk that she’d convinced him to dance and that therefore the whole event was a success. We had my aunt on speakerphone and my mom had said, “Take it from me, hermanita, they dance at the wedding and then they never do it again.” My dad had said, “That’s what you think?” and clutched my mom by the wrist, sending her into a small spin in the middle of the kitchen. She squealed with delight while he swayed with her for a few beats and then he broke out into some goofy merengue moves, kicking his leg up at the end and shouting “¡Olé!” My aunt started yelling through the phone, “Are you still there? Celia! Rafael!” And my parents laughed until my mom dabbed the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. I’d never seen them so happy with each other, even though it was just for those few seconds.

  We almost went back for my dad’s high school reunion, which my dad somehow got into his head that he didn’t want to miss. The reunion was on a Friday, so maybe, he told us, he could fix his work schedule so that he was off on Friday. We could fly there, go to the reunion, and then fly back Saturday night. He was usually off on Sundays, but if he took off Friday instead, he’d have to be back and work Sunday to make up for it. So one night would be the longest we could stay, but one night would be enough. He had decided. And it looked like we were going to try.

  My mom was as excited about the trip as I don’t know what. She went to Sears to buy a new dress and had giddy phone conversations with my aunt about seeing each other again and what they would be able to pack into our eighteen hours on the ground. She started laying out her clothes weeks in advance even though my dad kept telling her she only needed two outfits—one to go and one to come home. “And why the hell do you have ten pairs of shoes here?” he asked, pointing to the sandals and leather high heels my mom had lined up along the baseboard in the bedroom. “Ten!” my mom scoffed. “I don’t even own ten pairs of shoes.” My father counted them. “Fine. Seven. That’s still six too many.” He told her that he intended to take only a duffel bag for our things because that would make it easier to get through customs. My mom said, “I’ll check my own bag, then.” My dad kicked the row of shoes my mom had lined up and sent them flying into the wall. He walked right up to my mom and held his index finger in front of her face. “One bag, Celia. One! For all four of us. Don’t talk to me about it again.”

  A few weeks before the reunion, my dad called the number on the invitation to RSVP. The guy who answered had been the class president. He and my dad joked around for a minute and then my dad told the guy we were coming. According to what my dad told us later, the guy said, “We’ll roll out the red carpet, then.” When my dad asked him what he meant by that, the guy said that my dad would have to forgive him if the party wasn’t up to my dad’s standards. “We didn’t know the gringo royalty was coming. We’ll have to get the place repainted before you arrive.” When my dad asked again what the guy was talking about, the guy said he hoped my dad didn’t expect them all to kiss his feet now and reminded my dad how humble Panamá was. It didn’t take long for my dad to slam the phone down. He stormed over to my mom, who was washing dishes, and said, “We’re not going. If that’s what they think, then we’re not going.”

  My mom said, “What?”

  “They think we’re Americans now. And maybe we are! Maybe we don’t belong there anymore after all.” My dad went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette, which he did whenever he was really upset.

  My mom stood in the kitchen, a soapy pot in her hand, and looked at me, baffled. “What just happened?” she asked.

  When I told her everything I’d been able to gather, she walked out to the balcony and closed the door behind her. At the commotion, Enrique came out of his room.

  “We’re not going anymore,” I told him.

  “Huh?”

  “On the trip.”

  “Are you serious?” Enrique asked.

  My brother and I huddled together, listening through the front door. I heard my mom say, “Please, Rafa. He doesn’t know anything about us. We can still go. You’ll see. Once we get there … All your friends … And everyone will love you.” I imagined her reaching out to touch his shoulder, the way she did sometimes when she was asking for something. “Don’t you miss it?” she asked. “Can’t you imagine landing there, being there again? You know how it smells? The air there. And seeing everyone again. Please, Rafa.”

  But my dad wasn’t swayed.

  The following year, we talked about going back, too. My dad’s anger over being cast as a holier-than-thou gringo had finally simmered down, and my mom, who couldn’t bring herself to return the new dress she’d bought and who hadn’t gotten over the disappointment of not being able to see her sister after all, had been dropping hints ever since that she would still like to go even if the trip was only for one night again. She’d become a genius at turning any and every little thing into a way to talk about Panamá. She would get a mosquito bite on her ankle and point out the welt to us, reminiscing about the bites she used to get in Panamá and wondering aloud “what the mosquitoes there looked like now,” as if they were old friends. She would make rice and start talking about the gallo pinto at El Trapiche, which was her favorite restaurant, saying things like “I wonder how Cristóbal—wasn’t that the owner’
s name?—is doing. Wouldn’t it be nice to find out?” We would drive over a bridge and suddenly she was talking about the Bridge of the Americas near the canal. “Do you remember, Enrique? That time we took the ferry back from Taboga at night and it was all lit up? It was so beautiful. Mayor, I wish you could have seen it.” She sighed. “Maybe one day.” And my dad would sometimes shake his head at her melodrama and other times would just stay quiet, like he’d fallen into the haze of a particular memory himself.

  My mom’s birthday was September 22, so my dad finally gave in and made plans for us to go to Panamá. The Toro Family! One night only! Put it in lights! My mom worked herself into a froth all over again, conferring with my tía Gloria on the phone. My aunt apparently said she wanted to take my mom to the new mall and for a drive through Costa del Este, which used to be a garbage dump but now had been transformed into an up-and-coming area of the city, and out for sushi on the causeway, and afterwards they could hit the clubs along Calle Uruguay and yes, she realized they weren’t twenty anymore but it would be so much fun! Besides, she and my tío Esteban weren’t doing so well, she told my mom. He was never home. He spent the night at friends’ apartments. So she could use some distraction and someone to talk to. “Not a divorce!” my mom gasped. To her, there could be nothing worse. “No,” my aunt assured her. “Just problems.”

  Then, less than two weeks before we were scheduled to go, two planes flew into the World Trade Center in New York City and another one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The country went into shock and we went right along with it. My dad called my mom from the diner, where, on the television above the counter, he had just seen the second plane hit the second tower. “They’re blowing it up!” he apparently told her. “It’s just like El Chorrillo. They’re destroying it!” And my mom, in her nightgown, rushed to the set and stood in front of it, watching with her hand over her mouth. I had been eating cereal in the kitchen. I carried my bowl over and stood next to her and kept eating, which, when I thought about it later, seemed kind of messed up, but at the time we didn’t know what was happening. The world hadn’t stopped—just stopped—like it would later that day and for days after. Everything was still just unfolding in front of our eyes and we had no idea what to make of it.