Names on a Map

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  to get a knot in your stomach. You do not repent from sending

  your children to see their brother to the border. They had always belonged to one another more than they had ever belonged to

  you.

  You wonder what they said to one anther as they parted, the

  words they used, these children of yours who could be so articulate and could be so silent. You try to picture them, all of them, trying to be brave, these children of yours. One day you will ask them how it was and what was said on the day their brother went away. And they will be hungry to tell you the whole story. But

  390 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p today, when they come back to you, you will not ask. And they

  will be too spent to speak.

  You will take them in your arms and tell them they were

  brave.

  You see that the sun is beginning to set and the knot in your

  stomach is beginning to tighten. You made them promise they

  would be back before dark.

  They will come.

  They will come.

  You sip on your coffee, which is getting cold, and you listen to the voices in the house. And you think that the house will be different now without her, Rosario, and without your Gustavo. The house will be empty and hollow for a long time to come. Gustavo will come to you in your dreams. And he will come to Xochil and Charlie—and on those mornings, when they wake, his name on

  their lips, they will wear tired, haunted looks.

  The house will grieve for those who have left, for those who

  will never return.

  You begin to think of what you will tell your husband and

  you repeat over and over to yourself, “He is gone, amor. He is not coming back.” You know he will be angry when you tell him

  the whole story. He will be angry for days. He will be angry for weeks, for months. He will want to know why you did not tell

  him. Because you would have stopped him. Because you would have taken him bodily to report for duty had he opened his mouth— no, you will not tell him that. Whatever you say, you will not ac-cuse him of anything. He will be angry for months. Perhaps for years. You tell yourself that he will either keep his anger or let it go. But you will not take the blame—though you know he will

  blame you forever.

  He will take that blame to the grave.

  He will tell you that Gustavo has shamed his house and that

  you were an accomplice to that shame. You know he will say this.

  lourde s l 391

  And you will say: Yes, I was an accomplice to this great shame. And he will know that you are mocking him. You must not mock. He

  is sincere in his beliefs. But you are sincere in yours.

  He does not understand you. It is too much work for him. But

  you, you understand him.

  There is nothing to be done but live in the aftermath of Ro-

  sario’s death and Gustavo’s leaving.

  And then you see them. Your Xochil, your Charlie.

  You see them walking toward you, Thank God, thank God. You run to greet them. Charlie sobs into you, “Mom, Mom, Mom, our

  Gus is gone.” And then he looks up into your eyes and confesses.

  “I howled like a coyote. I did, Mom. The whole world heard.”

  You place your hands on his face. “But look at you—you did

  not break.”

  He shakes his head. “I did. I broke.”

  “No, amor, you did not break.”

  xo ch i l

  That evening, in our house, the knowledge of Gustavo’s absence was the largest presence I had ever felt.

  Everything was strange and unsettled. I kept telling myself

  that all this was good. My brother would be alive. He was starting a new life in Mexico. That knowledge made everything bear-

  able for me and for Charlie and for my mother. My mother had

  given us a large and lonely and devastating and lovely gift: she had made us a witness to Gustavo’s self-imposed exile. She had allowed us to say our good-byes, and in the end we had said so very little. But we had parted with as much grace as we were

  capable of.

  Charlie and I helped my mother pick up the house and bring

  some order to it after the guests had left. There was that word again, order. That harsh, impossible word.

  There were paper plates and napkins and cups everywhere

  around the house and the yard and after filling up several bags

  xo ch i l l 393

  of trash, Charlie began to carry the bags into the alley where we kept the garbage cans. I offered to help him.

  “But you don’t like alleys,” he said.

  “I don’t think I mind them so much tonight.” I think I did

  some kind of strange and illogical math in my head. In my figur-ings, if my brother could leave the country of his birth because he refused to believe that the war was noble, then the very least I cold do was step foot in an alley.

  I helped Charlie throw out all the trash that night.

  I thought of the time we missed the bus and how safe I felt

  sitting next to Gustavo on the bus. Gustavo. The other half of my heart. When he was Charlie’s age, he told me about a theory he had. He said that twins had only one heart. He said that half of the heart we shared was made of stone—his half. My half, it was made of the same thing that clouds were made of. Rain. Gustavo loved the rain. Gustavo, my brother, you never understood. You could never see that you were grace. You never could see that, could you?

  I remember Charlie putting his head on my shoulder in the

  kitchen as we finished cleaning up. “He’s gone,” he whispered.

  In grief, the vocabulary of our house was reduced to those two words.

  lourde s

  Lourdes put the dishes away wordlessly. The whole world had

  lost its ability to speak. And what of that, anyway? What were words in the end?

  The house felt tired and empty, as if the knowledge of Gus-

  tavo’s absence had filled the atmosphere with a kind of poison.

  Not the kind of poison that killed, but the kind of poison you were forced to breathe in every day. The kind of poison that destroyed you slowly.

  She dried her hands on her apron.

  “How are you going to tell him?”

  She looked at Xochil. “I’ll find a way.”

  “He’s going to be angry.”

  “I suppose he will be.”

  “What if he doesn’t forgive us?”

  “Forgive me, you mean?”

  “No. I mean us. I mean all of us.”

  lourde s l 395

  “He doesn’t have much of a choice, does he?” Even as she spoke the words, she heard the harshness in them, the lack of repentance.

  Well, what exactly did she have to be sorry for? Gustavo had elected not to tell him. That was his choice. He would have to live with that. She, too, had elected not to tell him. She, too, would have to live with that. She forced a smile. “That sounded mean, didn’t it?”

  “I want to be there when you tell him.”

  She shook her head.

  “Mom, you’re not God.”

  Charlie watched them. “Mom, we should be there—when

  you tell him.”

  “No. I don’t want you in that room.”

  “So you just want us to go hide, is that it?”

  “No. It will humiliate him, if you’re there. Don’t you see? And what do you mean, I’m not God?”

  “You’ve been directing traffic in this house for a long time.”

  “That makes me more of a cop than a god.”

  “You can’t control everything, Mom.”

  “That would be your father’s sin.”

  “Yours too. It only plays out differently.”

  “I’m not playing God, Xochil. I’ve just tried to intervene when I thought—”

  “W
hen you thought what?”

  “When I thought—”

  “Oh, Mom, what would we do without your interventions?”

  The sarcasm, the rage in her daughter’s voice. It was so much

  like a slap. On another day in her life, she might have been hurt.

  She might have been angry. She might have lashed back, might

  have even cried. But she was too tired and too numb to analyze her daughter’s anger. “Your brother left,” she said. “Go to your room and grieve.”

  “I’m not a girl, anymore. A girl you can just dismiss and send to her room.”

  396 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p

  “I have never dismissed you, amor. Not ever. I just think you’re in pain.”

  “Don’t be so condescending, Lourdes.”

  “You want to watch? Is that what you want?” She shook her

  head, and walked into the living room. She had a few things to say to her husband.

  He was sitting quietly on his chair, his head down.

  Lourdes watched him for a moment. He looked up at her and

  nodded. “Would you like a drink?”

  She nodded. “I’ll get it.”

  “No,” he said, getting up from his chair. “Let me. What would

  you like? Brandy?”

  “Yes. A brandy’s fine.” She watched him pour. Gustavo had

  his hands, almost too big for their bodies. She took the drink from him.

  “Gustavo?”

  She took a sip of brandy, felt the burning in her stomach.

  “Where is he?”

  She was relieved it was he who asked. It made it easier.

  “He’s gone, amor.”

  “Gone? What do you mean he’s gone?”

  “I mean, amor, he’s gone.”

  e pi lo g ue

  SI L E NC E

  Let the Gods forgive what I

  have made

  Let those I love try to forgive

  what I have made.

  —Ezra Pound

  charl ie

  Xochil always said my problem was that I was too sincere. I

  don’t think she meant that comment as a compliment. The word

  sincerity went along with another word she always associated me with: optimism. Those words were a sure sign of my American identity.

  I really was the most un-Mexican member of the family. Well,

  no, not really.

  This was my family’s theory: I was the youngest child. I was

  the optimist looking at the future. I was free to imagine all the beautiful possibilities while Xochil and Gus and Mom and Dad

  were condemned to contemplate all the ways in which the past

  had bound them to an ungiving, ungenerous earth. Their only

  legacy was the tragedy of Mexico. But my legacy was the beatific vision of America.

  The thing is that optimism has never been the exclusive prop-

  erty of America. And the other thing is that, in 1967, every-

  400 l si lenc e

  one was too sincere. Sincerity wasn’t the exclusive province of thirteen-year-old boys. In 1967, I wasn’t the exception—I was

  the rule. Xochil and Gus? They thought they were intellectu-

  als—ironic and cynical. But they weren’t. They were the most

  sincere people in the world. Along with my mother and father.

  Along with Jack Evans. Along with Conrad García. Along with

  the all the soldiers and Marines who went to Vietnam.

  It may be true, what Xochil said, that some guys just ma-

  nipulated the system. I think that was probably true. But I didn’t know those people. Among the people I knew, sincerity was the drug of choice. That was the world I knew in 1967. The music

  we listened to, the books we read, the movies we watched, the

  clothes we wore. Sincerity was everywhere—all the way around.

  You know, I don’t want to fall into a mindless and pathetic state of nostalgia—but sincerity wasn’t so bad.

  Sometimes, sincerity beats the hell out of irony. Sometimes

  sincerity is irony.

  I remember everything about those last few days. Those last

  few days Gustavo still lived here. At home.

  When he disappeared over the bridge, something happened to

  me and I became like an animal with no use for human speech.

  I howled. Like a wild animal with a broken heart. Like a coyote.

  I thought I would never stop howling. Right there, on the

  street, hundreds of people walking over to Juárez, watching me.

  Xochil had to pick me up. And even then, she had to slap me.

  God, my sister knew how to slap.

  And then she kissed me.

  So these are some of the things I have on my list, the list in my head, the list from that afternoon:

  My mother pulling us into Xochil’s bedroom in the middle

  of my grandmother’s wake, giving us instructions, the look on her face (serious and sincere).

  charl ie l 401

  Me, trying to memorize every word she said (serious and

  sincere).

  Gus sitting on the curb in front of the Sunset Grocery Store and waving at us.

  The silence as we walked to the bridge. The three of us. The silence.

  The last cigarette we had together (I never smoked again).

  Xochil holding my hand as we walked home (in silence).

  The silence. (There would be a lot of silence.)

  One Saturday morning, some time after Gus left, some men in

  military uniforms came asking about him. I answered the door.

  My father was working that morning like he often did. And I

  was glad he wasn’t in the house. He and my mother were in the

  midst of a cold war.

  I went to get my mother.

  Xochil and I stood behind her as the men asked her some

  questions.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. He just left. One day he was just gone.”

  “Did you know he had been drafted?”

  “No,” she said. My mother, she was an excellent liar. I greatly admired her for that trait at that particular moment.

  “Do you know anything about your son’s attitude toward mil-

  itary service?”

  “I can speak only for myself.”

  “He said nothing to you about that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re sure?” His voice was hard, challenging, and it was ob-

  vious he did not believe her. It was also obvious that my mother was not intimated by the gentlemen in uniforms who were standing on her front porch.

  402 l si lenc e

  “Would you like to come in?” she asked. “I have coffee.”

  “No,” one of them said. “We didn’t come here for a cup of

  coffee.”

  “You’re more than welcome to come in,” she said.

  “We came to arrest your son. He failed to show up to serve

  his country.”

  “His country,” my mother repeated. “If you find him, would

  you tell him his mother misses him?”

  They looked at each other, shrugged, walked to their car, and

  drove away. My mother looked at Xochil and me, and I couldn’t

  tell what that look on her face meant.

  “You think they’ll come back?”

  She nodded.

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They didn’t believe you. And they didn’t like you.” I don’t

  know why Xochil said that.

  My mother laughed. “Good. Why don’t we go to a matinee?

  Wouldn’t it be nice to go and see a movie?”

  During the movie, all I could think of was Gus.

  I would
never know, not ever again, where his name was on

  a map.

  xo ch i l

  I was angry with my mother.

  I blamed her for everything.

  That first night, I slept in Gustavo’s bed. It smelled like him.

  Charlie said it wasn’t good to keep everything inside. He

  wanted to know why I was mad at Mom.

  “Because she thinks she can fix everything.”

  “She did her best.” It was such a quintessential Charlie re-

  sponse.

  “Let’s not talk about Mom,” I said

  “Are you going to forgive her?”

  “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you mean it.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m going to forgive her.”

  “Good,” he said, “Because she didn’t do anything wrong.”

  He was right, of course. I didn’t admit it, then. But he was

  right.

  404 l si lenc e

  Later, we spoke about that night, my mother and I. We weren’t

  like Gustavo and my father. Things between us would never be

  broken.

  That night, Charlie told me about his first memory of Gus-

  tavo. “I fell on the porch. I was about three years old, I think.

  Something like that. And I started to cry. I think I was crying more because I was embarrassed. And Gus, he picked me up and

  sat me on his lap. And he said: Hey, hey, it’s okay, little guy. Even Jesus fell. He fell three times, did you know that?” Charlie talked and talked and talked all night. Most of the stories he was telling, I already knew.

  I fell asleep listening to his voice.

  The next day, I felt hollow and numb. It was a Friday. I didn’t go to class. The house was completely and utterly silent when I woke.

  I left a note for my mom and went for a walk.

  I was gone for hours. I walked passed Benny’s Body Shop on

  Texas. I wondered if I should tell Mr. Ortega that Gustavo would never be coming back to work. But it didn’t seem the right thing to do. He would find out soon enough. I walked through the

  streets of downtown for a long time, sat on a bench at San Jacinto Plaza, and then finally decided to go back home.

  Jack Evans was waiting for me on the front steps.

  “Your mother said I could wait for you here.”

  I was glad he came. Everything could end all at once. That’s

  what I said to myself. Let the world as we knew it come to an end.