Desert Flowers

by Paul Pen

  “I was coming to do exactly that,” Rose whispered. “I don’t want him asking questions. I don’t want to have to talk about it.”

  Elmer sent a kiss out into the darkness, through the glass.

  “Me neither.”

  He turned the handle that closed the slats of the venetian blinds, hiding Edelweiss’s cross from view. He unhooked the guitar from the wall and hid it behind an armchair, then put an arm over his wife’s shoulder as they returned to the kitchen. When they passed the stairs, Rose whispered to him that she’d go up and pay Daisy a visit, so she wouldn’t be mad.

  Husband and wife danced in the middle of the room. The little girl copied them, holding an invisible partner. Melissa was in charge of changing the records. Her stone with eyes was beside the player. Iris occupied one end of the sofa, her feet up on the seat and her elbows resting on the arm. She kept looking at Rick, who was sitting in an armchair, his backpack between his legs.

  The little girl slipped when she stepped on a rug. While her mother helped her to her feet, addressing her as Lily, Rick noticed the uninjured arm again.

  “Careful, Lily. You know how slippery it is.”

  Rick wanted to be rid of the effects of the beers and the worm liquor so he could think more clearly. He concentrated on the sound of his fingers drumming on the arm of the chair. What he really needed to do was to go back over his cuttings.

  “Would you like to dance?” Iris asked from the sofa. “I’m a really good partner.”

  “Iris!” her father scolded her.

  “I can’t dance,” Rick answered.

  He could dance, but he didn’t intend to do anything that would complicate matters with Elmer.

  “But it’s easy!” Lily, or whatever the girl with the unharmed arm was called, spun around until she was dizzy.

  Rick picked up the backpack from between his legs.

  “What I’d like to do is take a photo of you all.” He took out the Polaroid. “I make an album of all the people I meet on my travels.”

  The force of Elmer’s footsteps sent the needle on the record player off course, and a screeching noise interrupted the song. Before Rick could react, he had the father in front of him.

  “Put that away.”

  Elmer’s frame, as wide as a truck’s cab, filled Rick’s field of vision.

  “The camera?”

  “Put it back in your bag, will you?”

  “But I—”

  “Don’t make me say it again,” Elmer cut in. “Put it away.”

  Rick felt the man’s beer breath on his face. He obeyed the order.

  “Are you Mennonites?” he asked as he returned the camera to the backpack. “I’ve heard there’re lots in Mexico. But I thought you didn’t use electricity or dress like everyone else.”

  “We’re nothing like that, kid. But we don’t like photos. Have you seen any in this room?”

  Rick pretended not to have noticed that detail. He looked around the room as if for the first time, as if he hadn’t spent three entire songs inspecting it.

  “I draw pictures of us,” Melissa said.

  She ran to the kitchen and returned with a sketchbook. She showed one of the pages to her father. When he gave his permission with a nod, she showed it to Rick.

  “See? This is my parents last month.”

  A pencil portrait reproduced the couple’s faces to perfection, their features lifelike thanks to a skillful use of shadows. The work on the eyes, which were full of personality, was exceptional.

  “Hey, this is really good. I’m not surprised you don’t want to have photos.”

  “The trouble is that I’m in almost none of them, as if I wasn’t part of the family,” Melissa said.

  Rick tried to turn the page to see another portrait, but Elmer stopped him.

  “I think it’s time for you to go now.”

  “But I’ve barely had a chance to speak to him,” Melissa complained.

  “I want to dance some more!” yelled the little girl.

  “We’re all going to bed.”

  Iris left the living room.

  “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” Elmer asked his daughter. Receiving no answer, he turned back to the young man. “Come on, I’ll show you to the pickup.”

  Rick got up from the armchair and slung the backpack over his shoulder. Melissa said goodbye, her rock in her hands.

  “Good luck on your travels.”

  “Thanks. If I get bored”—he gestured at Natalie—“I see now that I can talk to all those rocks and cactuses that are out there.”

  “Or talk to people,” she said. “I’m sure it’s more interesting.”

  Rick didn’t know how to interpret the mixture of feelings Melissa’s words conveyed.

  “Thanks for washing the dishes.” Rose held out her hand.

  “Thank you for dinner.”

  “Goodbye, sir,” said the little girl.

  “Goodbye . . . Lily.” He struggled to vocalize the name because he no longer believed in it. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  Iris returned from the kitchen. She was carrying a book. She stopped in front of Rick.

  “Look, it’s A Streetcar Named Desire.” She showed him the cover. “I’m going to read it again.”

  Elmer exhaled deeply as he opened the screen door. Iris stayed leaning on the banister. She bit her thumbnail with a smile.

  “Can I put on another song?” Melissa asked from the living room.

  “Just until I get back,” said Elmer.

  They left the house as the music filled the living room again. In the dark, it was as if the porch steps disappeared into nothing. Rick heard the wind whistle between the boards. Dry bushes crackled in the breeze. In the background, just a single bulb glowed on top of a post. A defective current turned it on and off, made it palpitate, as if the desert had a pulse.

  Elmer put an arm over his shoulder. They walked, without saying anything, to one of the two trucks, the Dodge that Rose had suggested. Elmer leaned on the side mirror, looking back at the living room. In the orangey square of the window, Rose and his daughters appeared and disappeared, dancing to the rhythm of the music.

  “Do you have children, kid?”

  “It’s getting a bit late for that. I’m twenty-five and there’s no girl in sight.”

  “Late? I didn’t have my eldest till I was thirty.”

  Rick looked at Iris through the glass. He didn’t think she could see him from there, but her movements changed. They became more sensual.

  “People who don’t have any children miss a lot of pleasures,” said Rick, “but they also avoid a lot of suffering.”

  Despite the lack of light surrounding them, he could see Elmer frowning.

  “Balzac,” he explained.

  “You’re a reader. Like my daughter.”

  Rick nodded.

  “Well, do you know something? A man without a family”—Elmer wrote in the air, as if remembering another famous quotation—“is a desert without cactuses.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Me, kid. I just made it up.”

  Rick forced a smile.

  “Take it from me, son. A man without a family ain’t a man. He ain’t anything. What’s the point in a life without children? What was I going to do? Work hard every day for me and my wife to dine alone at night? Without the laughter of a little girl?” He opened his arms as if unable to fathom the sheer stupidity of the idea. “Humanity’s going to have a tough time if youngsters like you start giving up on the idea of making a family. Without those girls dancing in there, I’m worth less than a coyote skull drying in the sun.”

  “You have a very beautiful family,” Rick said. “All girls.”

  “Nature does what it wants with us.” His voice was toneless, as if affected by some somber thought. “I devote my life to those women. It’s the only thing that gives it meaning.”

  Elmer stood watching the window. Rose was spinning around in the living room in a whirl of white fabric
, her broad smile gleaming. To bring her dance to an end, she stretched out her arms and unfolded her fingers like a fan. Her laughter could be heard at the truck.

  “It all started with wanting to make the most wonderful woman in the world happy.” Elmer closed his eyes. “I’d do anything to hear her laugh like that all the time.”

  He was silent for so long, savoring his memories, that Rick felt uncomfortable. A coyote howled in the distance.

  “I sincerely hope you’re lucky enough to feel the happiness I feel”—Elmer slowly opened his eyes, returning from some pleasant memory—“and that you make your own family soon. You said before you would’ve liked to have had brothers and sisters. You can still make that happen for your children. Except”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“don’t have five, it’s too many.”

  Rick stopped breathing.

  “You have three.”

  “I’m including my wife, I mean the women in my family.”

  “That’s four, isn’t it?”

  “Family of five, kid. Or am I not part of this family? Family of five. Four women. Are you trying to mess with my head or something?”

  It was Elmer who was twisting his words to make them mean something different from what he’d initially said.

  “Some muddle you’ve got yourself into, kid. That shot of mescal’s left you weak in the head. I think it’s time for you to get some sleep.” Elmer opened the vehicle door. Discovering the keys in the ignition, he took them out. He put them in the front pocket of his denim overalls, clearing his throat. “Don’t be offended.”

  “Of course not. Take them. That way I won’t be tempted to start up the truck and finish my route in two days instead of three months.”

  Elmer gave the seat a slap.

  “All yours. If you lie like this across it, you’ll be comfortable. You’re not tall, so you’ll fit easily. I don’t fit in this one even sitting—my knees touch the steering wheel. That’s why my wife uses it. If you prefer, you can sleep in the cargo area, but I see you don’t even have a mat.”

  “I”—he thought of an excuse as quickly as he could—“I lost it yesterday.”

  “Good night, kid. And what I said about frying as soon as the sun comes up: best not to find out for yourself. Get walking before it happens. I’ll tell my wife to put a bag out on the porch so you can have something for breakfast.”

  “Don’t worry, there’s no—”

  “I’m not worried, I just feel bad about throwing your can in the trash. Good luck, kid.”

  Elmer went back to the house.

  “Leave the windows open!” he yelled from the porch.

  Rick heard him close the screen door and bolt it. He also shut and then locked the main door.

  “You don’t want me coming in?” he asked the darkness.

  The breeze shook the dry bushes.

  The sound was like rattlesnakes.

  At Mom’s request, Iris went to return Edelweiss’s guitar to its nail on the wall. She had to dodge Dahlia, who was spinning all around the room with her arms outstretched. Dad got back from showing Rick to the truck. He locked the door with the key from the inside.

  “Is he dangerous?” Mom asked.

  “He’s a stranger.”

  “How’s he going to be dangerous when he’s that good-looking?”

  On tiptoes, Iris struggled to hook the wire around the instrument’s headstock. Dad snatched the guitar from her hands. He looked at her with his lips pressed together.

  “Can’t I say he’s good-looking?”

  He snorted. He hitched the wire at the first attempt and centered the instrument with little taps on each side of the sound box. “I said just one more song.”

  “You were talking to him for so long . . .” Melissa lifted the needle to interrupt the music, put the record back in its cover, and closed the device’s lid. “I would’ve liked to talk to him some more. He could have told me lots more things. I had so many questions for him.”

  “You’ve asked him plenty already,” said Mom.

  “Truth be told”—Dad scraped two fingers against his chin—“the only one asking a lot of questions was him, don’t you think?”

  Iris caught her parents exchanging a series of looks. They went from worry to calm, from calm to concern, from concern to serenity. It was impossible to interpret their meaning.

  “Can I go get Daisy?” asked Dahlia.

  “Go see her, but stay up there. Don’t come down here, because of the window.”

  Iris picked up her copy of A Streetcar Named Desire to take it back to the kitchen. She stood and gripped the doorjamb before she went in.

  Rick had left his dirty T-shirt on the back of the chair.

  Something resembling an electric shock ignited in her stomach again. She turned to make sure the rest of the family was still in the living room. Nobody could see her. She left the book on the shelf without bothering to put it back in its place. She took the T-shirt, feeling an urge to smell it. She filled her chest with Rick’s scent. A tingling ran through her, from her knees to her belly button. She didn’t feel it on her skin, but inside.

  “Iris?” Dad called.

  She swiveled, looking for a place to hide the T-shirt. Her mother could find it in any drawer, cupboard, or shelf. She put it under her dress. The damp feel of the material between her legs made her shiver. She used the elastic on her bra and panties to keep the garment pressed to one side of her body. She smoothed down the outside of the dress, flattening the lump.

  Dad appeared in the door.

  Iris breathed in.

  “I thought you were in the bathroom,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “Can I use it?”

  Iris nodded without saying a word. When Dad went into the bathroom, she checked the back door in the kitchen, the one Mom used to go out to the vegetable garden. They hadn’t locked it. She smiled. She escaped upstairs without anyone seeing her.

  In her bedroom, lying face up on the bed, she pulled out the T-shirt. She covered her face with it and felt Rick’s warm sweat on her forehead, her nose, her lips. She took deep breaths under the moist garment.

  Sitting on the truck’s passenger side, Rick saw the living room light go out. And the one in the kitchen. Then the upstairs windows lit up, revealing the family’s movements inside. He inspected the dashboard and sun visors, rummaged through the glove box, put his hands in all the compartments he found. Nothing. In the space behind the backrest his fingers felt tools, coarse rags, some kind of cleaning product, and a long metal cylinder. Two long metal cylinders. He ran his hand along them until he found a trigger, a butt. It was a shotgun. He snatched back his hand as if it had been burned.

  Rick dipped his hand in his backpack, on the driver’s side. He recognized the feel of his wallet and his flashlight, which he turned on, keeping the light close to his body to avoid attracting attention. The cab was illuminated with a faint blue glow. In the notebook he wrote the names Iris, Melissa, Lily, Rose, and Elmer. He noted their physical descriptions, their ages, his supposition that they were from the Midwest. He also wrote details of the kitchen, the living room, the medications he’d seen in the bathroom. Their refusal to have their pictures taken. From the name Lily, he drew an arrow to the words 6-YEAR-OLD TWINS. He underlined them and added a question mark.

  His hand was moving at a furious rate.

  On the last page of the notebook, protected by the back cover, was a map. He unfolded it with a rustling of paper. It showed all of North America. A thick line marked the route he was following, a winding path down the southwestern United States that would end at the very bottom of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. On the way were fifteen destinations circled in pen. Twelve of them were crossed out. Of the three remaining circles, one indicated the area where he now found himself. The other two, farther south, were the last places left to visit.

  He took a deep breath, exhausted from looking at the distance he had traveled, remembering the suffering th
at was behind that simple line cutting through part of the United States and Mexico.

  He folded the map, closed the notebook.

  There was still light in one of the bedrooms.

  “Ain’t it about time you went to sleep?”

  He turned off the flashlight, rested his head on the window frame.

  He closed his eyes just for a second.

  Laughter woke him up.

  It was still dark, with no trace of light on the horizon. He was unable to calculate how long he’d been asleep, but the saliva that had gathered at one corner of his mouth confirmed he had been. He wiped it off with the back of his hand. He hadn’t let go of the notebook.

  There was laughter again.

  It wasn’t coming from inside the house, but from outside, from among the rocks. Rick stuck his head out the window. In the darkness, the cacti seemed to him like beings that roamed the desert, ghostly shadows that groaned whenever the wind howled.

  More giggling.

  Rick moved over to the driver’s side and leaned out that window. He saw a cloud of orangey light in the same place where he’d found the family for the first time. The glow quivered, as if produced by a candle. He thought he could see some pants floating in the air. The shine of blonde hair. A face in the night. It was Melissa, sitting on the ground in front of her clothed cactuses. The pants weren’t floating, they were stuck to the spines. Rick heard whispers, more laughter. The girl was gesticulating, turning her hand, opening and closing it, the gestures typical of a conversation. There were more whispers. Another contained giggle.

  Rick brought his head back in.

  “Sure, living in cities is unnatural.”

  He sighed, rubbing his eyes. Now he’d have to wait for Melissa to finish talking and go back to the house. He looked at the notebook on the passenger’s side.

  The handle on that door shook.

  “What the hell?”

  He checked that Melissa was still in the same place. There she was, in her bubble of orange light. The handle moved again. Someone was pulling on it from the outside. The attempts stopped suddenly. Until a hand slipped through the window, searching for the lock. It released the mechanism. Rick had just enough time to grab his notebook before the door opened.