Quesadillas

by Juan Pablo Villalobos, Rosalind Harvey, Neel Mukherjee

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Oreo.’

  ‘Like the biscuits?’

  ‘No, my name’s Orestes, but they call me Oreo.’

  ‘No shit. Are you Greek?’

  ‘No, I’m from Los Altos. My dad has a thing about the Greeks.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Thirteen or fourteen?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Thirteen or fourteen?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘Are you sure? When were you born?’

  ‘In ’73.’

  ‘And how would that make you sixteen? Were you going to move time forward by two years?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘How long have you been on the street?’

  ‘Six months.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘San Miguel.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw your teeth. Why did you run away from home?’

  ‘I didn’t run away, I got lost.’

  ‘No one gets lost if they don’t want to. Did your dad get drunk? Mess around with you?’

  ‘No, no. I got lost, honest, and I didn’t want to go back.’

  ‘Where did you get lost?’

  ‘In the ISSSTE shop.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘It was really busy, because the shop had been shut for several days.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the Little Rooster’s supporters had occupied the town hall …’

  ‘Now you’ve blown it. You can’t be from San Miguel. Start again. Where are you from?’

  ‘La Chona.’

  ‘Lagos.’

  ‘I’m from Lagos.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw your teeth.’

  The waiter came back from his excursion empty-handed. He hadn’t lost his defiant attitude, because his failure could be blamed on technical reasons. It was precisely to communicate this kind of news that he wore the little bun: a smart appearance is appreciated when you are making excuses.

  ‘There’s no orange juice. The juicer’s broken.’

  ‘Oh, is that right? Well, two Coca-Colas, then.’

  ‘It’s eight hundred thousand pesos.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For going to get the juice.’

  ‘But you didn’t bring shit.’

  ‘But I went. I fulfilled my side of the deal.’

  ‘No way. That’s a risk you take in business, my friend, no fucking way.’

  The waiter went to avenge his defeat in the kitchen. I was left wondering if he would spit in the quesadillas or mix some of his snot into the melted cheese in the chilaquiles. I wouldn’t eat anything we were served here, in the hypothetical scenario of us one day being brought our food.

  ‘Why did you leave home?’

  ‘Because we lived on the hill and it was boring as hell.’

  ‘That’s a circumstance, not a reason. It’s not valid.’

  ‘I was hungry, we were poor and I’ve got lots of brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Very good. How many?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘No. Six isn’t very many. Eleven’s better. How many?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘Eleven. Who did you run away with?’

  ‘I went on my own.’

  ‘You’re lying. At your age you need someone to give you a push. An older brother.’

  ‘No, my twin brother.’

  ‘You have a twin brother?’

  ‘Uh-huh, but we don’t look alike.’

  ‘What the fuck do you mean?’

  ‘We’re pretend twins. We’re twins but we look nothing like each other.’

  ‘No. That doesn’t work. Don’t fuck me around. What kind of fucking confused story is that? Better make it an older brother.’

  Apparently Aristotle had fucked with my life enough now and it was Socrates’ turn, only a Socrates in reverse, one who, instead of drawing the truth out from within you, would present it to you ready-made: this was a proactive Socrates.

  The drinks arrived and the waiter opened them in our presence, as if to let us know we shouldn’t worry about this part of the meal, that he was saving the best for later. I held the bottle up to the light, remembering that my grandmother had once swallowed a cockroach while confidently drinking a Coca-Cola. The tie man didn’t bother verifying the quality of his drink, on the surface of which there floated a thin film that grew denser towards the bottom. Actually, this description isn’t valid from a scientific point of view. The position of the film in the liquid depended on its density; at the bottom it was denser than the Coca-Cola and so it was sinking. This was Archimedes’ field, but back then I was yet to be introduced to him. Being such a distinguished person, the tie man had been assigned the cask-aged Coca-Cola, which he began drinking in long gulps.

  ‘Who did you run away with?’

  ‘My older brother.’

  ‘Where were you trying to get to?’

  ‘Mesa Redonda.’

  ‘The hill? What for?’

  ‘To wait for the aliens.’

  ‘OK, damn it. Do you want to learn or not? Where were you trying to get to?’

  ‘Learn what?’

  ‘What do you mean “what”? To speak!’

  ‘I already know how to speak.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Well, you speak total shit that’s no good to anyone.’

  ‘And I can recite poetry too.’

  ‘Seriously? Go on, then.’

  And I began:

  ‘Patria, I love you not as myth

  but for the communion of your truth

  as I love the child peering over the rail

  in a blouse buttoned up to her ear-tips

  and skirt to her ankle of fine percale …’

  ‘You’re fucking kidding me! Let’s just leave it there, shall we? So, where were you trying to get to?’

  ‘To Disneyland. We wanted to go to Disneyland.’

  ‘At your age? Don’t lie. Where were you trying to get to?’

  ‘Poland.’

  ‘Poland is nowhere. Don’t fuck with me.’

  ‘To Guadalajara.’

  ‘That’s more like it! Why?’

  ‘To live.’

  ‘To study.’

  ‘To study.’

  ‘What did you want to study?’

  ‘High school.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, after that. What do you want to be when you grow up?’

  ‘A teacher.’

  ‘And starve to death? Don’t you want to stop being poor? Why not say a doctor.’

  ‘A doctor, I want to be a doctor.’

  ‘Very good – but you’re not studying.’

  ‘No. I left my brother behind and now I have to beg.’

  ‘Why did you leave him?’

  ‘We had a fight.’ I pointed at the scar criss-crossing my cheek; the vileness of the gesture brought a few little tears of shame to my eyes.

  ‘Very good! Now you’re getting it. People love this sort of thing. What was the fight about?’

  ‘A quesadilla.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We only had money for one quesadilla.’

  ‘And didn’t you share it, like good brothers?’

  ‘We beat each other up to see who would get to eat it.’

  ‘Excellent. Do you want to work for me?’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a politician.’

  ‘Do you earn money?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘My dad says politicians are stupid.’

  ‘That’s part of the deal, letting people think we’re idiots. Where’s our damn food? That bastard’s fucking with us.’

  At the same time as the tie man was preparing to end all relations with the waiter, the supreme creeper blossomed: on the TV a photo of my parents appeared. It was a recent picture, as you could see quite clearly that their sadness had acquired an aristocratic look, as if they’d been sad for generations. The sound on the TV w
as turned down, but at the bottom of the screen you could read the headline: PARENTS LOSE 7 CHILDREN.

  I pressed the red button and picked up the tie man’s Coke to show him the shit he was drinking. The movement was complicated enough in itself: putting my right hand into my pocket to press the button, while at the same time picking up the bottle with my left. There was an additional difficulty: I was the one performing the movements. Our motor coordination might not have been genetic, but my mother was right: it was real, it existed. The Coca-Cola traced a somersault in the air and hit the tie man on his jaw, the creamy dregs splashed on to his lapels, his shirt and – oh, too bad – his tie. I ran out into the street this time without looking back, or forward; I ran across roads without looking, knocking into people as I went, I ran between cars and buses, upsetting bicycles and motorbikes.

  I ran as if I were a stray dog fleeing from the blandishments of the town dog-catcher.

  ‌Bovine Eroticism

  ‘Tell me the truth.’

  This was why I’d come home: to be forced into sincerity. I explained what had happened to me, but to every story I told them, my parents always responded the same way.

  ‘Tell us the truth.’

  I insisted on telling them the same thing once more, with more details, and then they would interrupt me.

  ‘Don’t tell lies.’

  ‘Lies?’

  ‘Lies,’ my father confirmed. ‘If you say that something is what it isn’t or something isn’t what it is, you’re lying.’

  They asked one of my uncles to pay us a visit. He was an electrical engineer and worked in a factory that made crop dusters. I had to tell them about the red button again.

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ said my uncle. ‘What you’re telling us is impossible. How can an audio signal interfere with a blender?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just pressed the little button.’

  They switched on the TV and I pressed the button: nothing happened. They turned the blender on: nothing. The radio: still nothing. The little gadget didn’t even work on audio devices, and the third time wasn’t lucky: in my parents’ house logic always prevailed over popular belief. They abandoned the experiment because we didn’t have any other electrical appliances at home.

  ‘Tell us the truth.’

  ‘It must have been a miracle – maybe it was the Virgin,’ I argued, just to say something that was the tiniest bit related to what had happened. They were pestering me so much I didn’t know what to say any more.

  That story interested no one because it didn’t really fit the established pattern. Tales of miracles had been codified since the Middle Ages and had to obey certain rules of which I was unaware. What’s more, with so much on her plate, the Virgin had to establish a few priorities, performing spectacular and necessary miracles that served to spread the faith and encourage worship of herself. She wasn’t going to waste her time helping some idiot get hold of a few quesadillas.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. The Virgin doesn’t know about analogue signals,’ my uncle said firmly, based on the conjecture that the Virgin lived a long time ago, before the advent of electronics, and suggesting, heretically, that celestial beings are not omni-know-it-alls.

  They were also most intrigued to know what had happened to my face. And they didn’t believe my explanation of that either, this time not due to technical reasons (they were prepared to accept the tin of tuna) but rather due to paternal and emotional flaws of discrimination.

  ‘Your brother can’t have done that to you,’ they repeated. ‘Who attacked you?’

  They didn’t tell me what they wanted me to confess; they were genuine passive Socratics, trying to extract the information from within me. What they were asking me to do was to start making up some lies that tallied with their ideas of the world, damn it. But I hadn’t come home to tell the truth, or to learn to lie. I had come back because the class struggle had worn me out and I wanted to eat quesadillas for free. In the end, for whatever reason, one always comes home, or one never really leaves, and everything ends up being about settling old scores with memory, or, rather, with language.

  I’d had a terrible disappointment as soon as I’d arrived home. It was Electra who opened the door. As if that weren’t enough, behind her were Archilochus and Callimachus. Hadn’t they all gone missing? The little fibbers. Theirs had been a fake disappearance, invented by a reporter from León who wanted a good story to tell. So the sadness my parents had accumulated, which I had sensed in the photo on the telly, was all my fault, and Aristotle’s, who still hadn’t shown up, stubborn in his mission to make contact with the aliens and bring back the pretend twins.

  This was my parents’ other big concern: ‘Where’s your brother?’

  And I returned to the story of our fight, of the tuna tin cutting my face. I showed off my wound again and told them it had been then that we had separated. And they told me again not to tell lies.

  But let’s not get distracted from the really big news: now I was the eldest brother. Look out, punks.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t like the prodigal son. My parents didn’t forgive me unconditionally, they hadn’t given me an inheritance to squander and on top of this I still had a shitload of brothers and sisters. The only thing we agreed on was that I’d fallen on hard times and come home with my tail between my legs, stinking like a stray dog. If I wanted them to accept me again, if I really wanted to belong to this family – I swear this is what my mother said to me and you wouldn’t believe the look on her face – I would have to pay the price for my parents’ dignity: I’d have to say sorry to the Poles. Sometimes dignity is achieved by humiliating oneself. It seems confusing, but it’s not: it’s the life we poor people have to live.

  ‘You have to tell them the truth,’ my mother demanded again; we were starting to sound like a stuck record.

  I had to make a list of the things we’d stolen. We went to the ISSSTE shop to buy the replacements, including two packets of María biscuits that I put on the list instead of the Oreos. Get this, Jarek: screw you, arsehole. After paying the bill, my father showed me the total on the receipt: it had seven figures. He told me I was going to pay him back this amount, that I would have to find myself a job. I’d missed a year of school and ever since I’d come back my father had been goading me with the threat that I’d have to find something useful to do. Since he didn’t mention indexing the balance for inflation, it was a steal. All I had to do was wait a couple of weeks for the currency to be devalued 8,000 per cent and then I’d pay him back.

  My mother and I went to the neighbours’ house at a time we were sure Jaroslaw wouldn’t be home. These things are best sorted out between mothers, my mum must have thought, perhaps fearing that Jaroslaw would call the police. Heniuta stood in the doorway, blocking the entrance and ignoring my mother’s apologies.

  When my turn came, I had to say, ‘I’m sorry, forgive me.’

  Heniuta said nothing, just stood there, communicating an eloquent silence. My mother was expecting recriminations. She thought her neighbour would shout in my face for being a traitor – what did we ever do to you? We’ve always been good to you! This was the complaint my mother assumed would be directed at me. She was prepared for it, to defend her son, who deep down was a good boy, just a little confused, but she had failed to understand something fundamental. The neighbours were not going to react like that; they had cable TV and were accustomed to foreign fiction. Jarek came out from behind his mother’s skirts to look at the contents of the rucksack we’d brought with us. He took out the packets of María biscuits and held them out to me.

  ‘There, you can have them.’

  Heniuta embraced him, not out of any tenderness induced by this humanitarian gesture but simply relieved to know that at last her son was prepared to face adulthood. My mother apologised again, this time, however, for the inconvenience of having rudely awakened them from their peaceful, leisurely afternoon to initiate them into the awkwardness of class conflict. They shut the door in o
ur face, discreetly, with a naturalistic gesture, which instantly set my mother off crying because we weren’t even worthy of having the door slammed in our faces properly. She made use of the ten-metre walk to our front door to go from indignant weeping to hysterical hiccups. She managed to repeat six times, ‘Never have I felt so humiliated.’

  It was not, however, the time to feel sorry about my mother’s hurt feelings. There were more important things to do. She would have to stop distracting herself by suffering over my minor faults and start suffering due to sorrows that were actually worth it. Weren’t three of her children still missing? I had to take advantage of the opportunity destiny had awarded me on becoming the eldest brother.

  For my reign of terror I chose a hard-hitting slogan intended to stifle any possible rebellion by my younger siblings: ‘You guys don’t know anything, arseholes.’

  The slogan allowed for a few variations, depending on the circumstances: ‘You guys haven’t seen anything, arseholes’ and also ‘You guys haven’t lived, arseholes.’

  Callimachus was the most curious to discover what the world was like beyond La Chona. Archilochus was too busy channelling his frustration at no longer being the second eldest, and Electra was too small to be interested in anything other than working out why her dolly and her little classmates’ dollies were so different.

  ‘Tell me!’ Callimachus begged me.

  ‘Pegueros is imposing,’ I told him. ‘There are some really tall buildings, a hundred storeys high, and all the houses have swimming pools. The problem is the crocodiles.’

  ‘Crocodiles?’

  ‘Yeah, there are crocodiles everywhere.’

  In exchange I made him my slave. He fetched me things that were far away; I demanded he address me formally – sir, yes, sir – and he did the chores I was meant to do around the house, which weren’t many, or particularly difficult, due to my mother’s compulsive cleaning, but I had to keep my slave busy all the time, so he didn’t have a moment to think and rebel. Archilochus bided his time, exuding an exaggerated indifference stripped of any idleness; it was a most interested indifference. When it was time for the quesadillas, he would try to expose me as soon as he got the chance, in the relative tranquillity we’d achieved with the deduction of thirty fingers from the teatime machinations.