The Invention of Exile

by Vanessa Manko

  “Shall we have a tequila?” Leo says.

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Take the edge off. We’re all about to jump out of our skins.”

  Vera turns to the window in her habit of looking elsewhere when searching for an answer, as if her words lay not within her mind, but beyond her—across the street, whispered amid the couple that just strolled by the open door, or within the store, lying patiently between sacks of coffee beans, or sealed inside the cars creeping by, these traveling vessels of glass and metal—and, upon finding them, returns proudly to present her found, much-sought-after words.

  “Why not?” Vera says. “And then we will go.”

  The bartender brings the tequila and he places the glasses down with a kind of reverence, pausing with a hesitation in his presentation as if he knew their gathering was not one of merriment. He must see lots of people at the outset or returning from back and forth across the border, Vera thinks. She finds herself wondering now about how many others before them have stopped before crossing—other families, illegal immigrants unsure of return or reunion.

  • • •

  THE MUSIC STAYS WITH HIM, has impressed itself upon his memory so that as they leave the bar, the last song, almost without his realizing it, lingers. The tequila has worked itself through him so that instead of a singed dryness within his heart and throat, he now feels a rounded, soothing sense like a kind of balm. He was sweating, felt the wetness seeping through his shirt. He took off his jacket, following Vera and Leo out on the porch, in the shade, scorched by one lengthwise rectangle of sun.

  The car sat in wait. Its pistachio green somehow brighter so far from the colored cacophony of the city, out here, where all is the color of almond. Something about it breaks his heart, sitting waiting for them—the curve of its fenders gleaming silver and streaked white from the sunlight. He hears Leo saying something about the time, and he repeats the hour, 3 P.M., and he feels his words fall like stones. Except for that exchange there is no more talk, only a bubble of anxiety seems to work across his body and he is fighting to catch his breath, seems unable to get enough air, his thoughts, voice blanched.

  Hope for this moment had carried him through twenty years of the country’s two seasons—dry and rainy. It had passed along from one day to the next, a circled gleaming glass like a water droplet, brimming, about to burst. It had moved from the dry season’s days of whiteness and heat—orchids blooming, withering—to the rainy, when even the drying leaves were replenished by the torrents of rain that would gather and then slide in sheets across the city or the Sonoran countryside. It pervaded his rooms so that it was there among his drafting papers, within the curve of a pencil stroke drawn in the coolness and shadows of his boarding room while the sun blazed whiteness over the city. It was in his path as he walked out hours among the parks of Mexico—Parque Alameda, Chapultepec, Parque México, Xochimilco. It was even in the clouds that gathered heavy and violet and full, baring the rain that pummeled the willows and ash trees, and caused the branches to hang low and burdened, sodden and dank with, first, the June rains and then all the downpours of July and August.

  And now it was here.

  • • •

  WHAT WAS IT THAT he had said to her, that phrase that etched itself within? Here it was now, blooming. She was hearing it again. Something about separation. Her father had been talking about when they’d first returned to the States. Without him. Ah, yes, here it is, the sentence complete: “Separation comes quite suddenly.” He had said it once when they were walking in the Alameda. Yes. That was it. And here it was—separation, only this time they were leaving together. It felt like a slow dropping of a string. First, one inch, then another. Here, we walk to the car. Here, we open the doors. Here, we sit, turning on the car. Ten. Nine. Eight. Vera seated in the back. Her father in the passenger seat. Leo walking at a painfully slow pace to the driver’s side. She got angry at that, how he was demonstrating that he was calm and collected. He even taps the hood of the car as if part of some ritual. He smiles, but it’s a wan smile as if he too will soon brace himself like Vera, like her father, who are holding themselves together. But one has to do that. One has to summon up all the atoms, make them line up, these little things we are made up of, line them up and drop oneself into the moment. See it through. After all, they’d come this far. They were not going to turn back. He was going with them. They were nearly already gone, across the border, and she felt it like the switch of some internal knob. It was the same certainty of instinct that she’d come down to Mexico City with—something silver, knife sharp, shining. These little slivers of—one glimpsed them if one listened carefully enough maybe only a handful of times in life—clarity. It was so simple suddenly. After all this time, a simple yes, no; a going toward, a moving away from; life, death; crossing the border, not crossing; the United States, Mexico; the past, present. So much of the rest was a constant state of hesitation, preoccupation, decision making, analysis of thought and feelings, action. Only—and this she felt was one of those moments—when she sat as if hovering above herself, above them all in this car, watching, listening, pulling back to take it all in, this moment, did she get in and around the emotions that flashed, vibrated, and trembled within her. They were leaving Mexico. They were taking their father home.

  The car keys clink in Leo’s hands. The car starts. A grumble of gears, ignition, sparks before easing to a low and steady motor purr. How many years she’d wished, how tightly she’d clung and clutched to the hope of bringing him back. She thought of all the years they’d had to endure without him and it seemed a shame to her that there ever needed to be any such thing as leaving, as parting. The car was pulling away. A simple, basic image. One car now driving away, she still imaging it from above, taking it all in—the taillights red through a haze of billowing dust. It was so simple. One sees such images all the time.

  • • •

  “THIS IS HOW IT’S going to be,” Leo begins after a silence. The car is creeping forward, he’s pressed his foot on the gas pedal and he can see Vera seated, settling into the backseat.

  “It’s a white booth, no larger than a cottage really,” Leo explains. “The line of cars might be long. We’ll see. Maybe, maybe not. But we drive up and stop. The two border guards will step out of the booth. They’ll ask for our passports. It is absolutely imperative that you do not speak. If you speak, they’ll hear the accent and then it’ll be all over. So, not a word. They might inspect the car, look in the trunk, but mostly they just let the cars go through. And like I said, they’ll smell the tequila and beer. They’ll figure we’re just some gringos crossing back over the border after a good time—simply on our way back home. Okay? And if it doesn’t work, there’s always the mordida, a little bit of money never hurts these fellows.”

  “Yes.”

  Leo is driving slowly as he talks, making sure his father is grasping each word, the full scenario, outlining it all for him so that there’ll be as few surprises as possible. He can feel the heat of the steering wheel beneath his hand, with his other hand he is gesticulating, pointing.

  “You ready for this?” he asks, though his own heart is pounding in his chest, the sweat beginning in a line across his forehead.

  “Yes. Nervous.”

  “Don’t be nervous,” Leo says, feigning composure.

  “All right.”

  “We turn down here and there’s no going back.”

  “I know.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  They creep forward. The sun is in his eyes, and he pulls his visor down. In two seconds, his father does the same, and out of the corner of his eye he can see the pack of Wrigley’s tumble into his father’s lap, the slim compact rectangles the color of nopal leaves. His father has jumped in his seat and Leo reaches down to help, all the while steering.

  “Sorry about that,” Leo says, laughing, bending forward to pick up some packs that have fallen on the
running board.

  “Well, take a piece,” Leo says. “And leave a pack out in the open? Leave it right here,” he says, patting the dashboard. “Make you look like a true American.” Vera laughs, Austin too. He watches his father fumbling with the packs of gum, gathering them and placing one after another back under the visor, arranging them in a neat row beneath the red rubber band Leo had used to secure them into place. He readjusts the visor. Leo reaches over and removes a pack of gum. He hands it to his father.

  “Go ahead and open it,” he says, holding it before him, watching as his father takes it in his hands, opens it, the red string breaking through the thicker green wrapper. The pleasure of the silver sheen and scent of spearmint. He unwraps the foil and folds the gum into his mouth, chewing. He places the pack on the dashboard, on a straight line. Leo moves it a bit, sets it on an angle, on the diagonal to look more casual, he doesn’t know why, just makes him nervous otherwise. He puts his arm out the window, banging the outer door with his palm.

  “All right now, all right,” he says as he turns the car around the corner and toward the border crossing. “You ready for this?”

  “I think so,” his father says, offering a half smile.

  • • •

  AUSTIN’S WINDOW IS OPEN. He can hear the tires on the road, the gentle idle of the engine at rest, then the sputter of gas and the idle again, back and forth—time enough for thought, an action of reversal. The border patrol shack is white. A freshly painted white. Black trim. A hand-painted wooden placard announces the current exchange rate: twelve pesos to the dollar. The border guards stand outside the customs house, disaffected and bored. Their badges and buckles glint gold and white under the 3:30 P.M. sun and the wide sky hovering like a dome, the same sky he’s stood under all these years. He can hear Leo telling him to be calm. He adjusts his neck collar and feels the tightness at his mouth, the way his jaw moves up and down over the gum, tasteless and growing stiff, brittle. That, and his heart, full and constricted as if struggling with all the fear and doubt and hope and guilt wrangled inside of him. All the while he can hear Leo saying, “easy enough,” “easy enough to cross.”

  They drive past signs. Principia Región Fronteriza/You are entering border region. Mercancías Generales/General Merchandise. The searchlights are dead during the day and he can see the other cars go before them, stopping at the window, an exchange of words, a quick once-over of papers before passing through. It was easy for them—one, two, three had been allowed admittance. He can expect the same. What were the chances of being stopped? He quickly works out an equation of probability, but knows now that he will have to leave it all to chance or to have some faith and that faith will have to carry him across the border, yes, but also the many miles through, and once again on the train trip, and even more so when walking down Main Street, searching out the old street, a right and then left, two blocks down, stepping through the gate and up to the front door. Would it last? He already feels faith waning. He is tiring. He does not know if he has the strength to see it through. It is a lot to ask of one man.

  He sees some Mexicans at the pedestrian crossing—women with their mesh bags of yellow and green, handwoven, their low-heeled black shoes are covered in a film of chalky dust. He watches their faces burst into smiles, an ease coming over them as they entered their side, their country, free to giggle at some complicity, remarks about the border guards no doubt, he thinks, their white shirtdresses and bobby socks, hair cropped short, clipped to the ear or held back with barrettes. They come together and disperse, walking in single file now, their silhouettes thrown into relief against the flat barren fields that stretch to the dry brown foothills in the distance—a terrain that seems to shame the meager customs house, which sits tiny as a toy beneath all the austerity, blatant, serene.

  “Identification.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The guard’s sunglasses, cracked and fixed with tape, hang from a rope around his neck.

  “Where you people headed to?” he asks, his voice a low growl. He turns one passport over in his hands, examines the paper, looks at the picture, back to Leo and back to the picture again. He does the same with the other two. Flips through the pages, runs his fingers along the front embossed seal.

  “California,” Leo lies. The border guard places his hands on the hood of the car and hangs down so that his face is framed by his forearms. His sunglasses hit the top of the open window.

  “Which way you headed?” he asks, talking to Leo, Austin’s eyes on the dashboard as he feels the guard’s gaze make a once-over of the car.

  “Eight-nine,” Leo says. “ Then the Pacific Coast highway.”

  “You may have some trouble then,” the guard says. Austin cannot move, his hands are suddenly shaking, his mouth parched, but he keeps chewing the gum, finds it a welcome distraction, chewing in a series of threes—one, two, three, one, two, three. He can see the guard standing to take a step back from the car, pointing across the border.

  “Accident,” the guard says. “You can take your chances, but you might be backed up there for miles.”

  “Thanks. We’ll see what happens,” Leo says.

  “All right. Go on ahead,” he says, waving them through. Austin’s heart is beating, and they sit in silence, a bit stunned, as Leo maneuvers the car through the crossing point, driving a few yards before speeding up onto the highway. Austin is unable to speak. The sun in his eyes. He shakes his head, rubs his forehead, brings his warm hand to his neck, cracking it a bit as he turns it left and then right.

  Leo is laughing, Vera sits forward, her hands resting on the seat back. She is talking to him, asking him if he is okay, joining in Leo’s laughter.

  Austin knows he should be thankful, that he should be flooded with relief, that soothing balm, and not with what he feels now. A tenseness along the shoulders, in the chest as if he’d stored up all this energy to cross and had not yet felt its release. From the interstate Austin can see the scalloped outline of a general storefront, the rounded cupolas of restored missionary churches, whitewashed and pristine, colored by the amber light of the setting sun.

  “Stop the car for a minute,” Austin says.

  “What? Here?” Vera looks around.

  “Stop the car. A minute, please.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “I just need to step out for a moment.”

  Leo presses on the brakes, the car slows as he pulls it gradually to the side of the road, but not slow enough so that the car skids a bit on the gathered gravel. A cloud of dust encases the car, some coming through the windows. Austin closes his eyes, feeling the car roll to a stop. He places his hand on the warm silver door handle, clicking it open and stepping out to stand at the side of the road for a moment before making his way down the embankment—four strides and he’s in the field. From behind, he can hear Leo and Vera talking, getting out of the car now, doors slamming shut and the certain sound of someone sitting on the hood, the tin dented with a little popping.

  The cacti are scattered before him like pieces on a chessboard. Some of the crown cacti rose to his height, their late-day shadows long and slanting, like his own.

  “Hey,” Leo shouts. “How does it feel to be in the U.S.?”

  “Good,” Austin calls over his shoulder, waving a hand up in the air. He walks about twenty paces, stands still for a moment, dragging his sole along the ground, disturbing flies from their dusty slumber. They flitter up and loop, coming to rest on some safer surface.

  He is in the United States. No voices, no sudden arrest, no men to take him, no guns or bayonets, blackjacks or clubs, no tumult of questions. What had he expected, now safely across? An onslaught of something—joy maybe. But he doesn’t feel that. Some change in the weather at least as if all the minutes, years might gather and fall back to him like the distinct drops of a sudden rain, heavy and laden in descent, spattering the dry fields and mountain ranges, the
parched cacti, soon soaking his clothes, his skin.

  That did not happen.

  Instead, the sun sits above the horizon like a bored and discontented child who will not go away. He puts his hand to the back of his neck, squeezing the tightened tendons, staring at the random scatter of cacti along the hillocks in the distance and those closer to him.

  He could have crossed years ago, kept on walking that night when he’d found his Sonnie in that field, so much like this one here, sweeping him up so that the boy could hang off his neck. He’d moved then amid that open field as if wading into the dark, unknowable ocean. That was when they would have needed him—then—when he could lift him, throw the boy over his shoulder, when they were all just little tikes. And now? To go back he wonders if they can forgive him his absence. It had all been for them. I love . . . I miss . . . I pray for health . . . years . . . time. . . . What did it all mean, all those years? He’d once been the young man who’d written so ardently, “There is nothing in the world stronger than love of heart and soul for only in it there is life and happiness.” He thinks of Leo’s and Vera’s efforts, but he knows he is right, this will not be a reclaiming of those lost years. He is in the United States; he’s never felt more foreign. He had tried. He had succeeded and yet he had failed. He turns to Vera and Leo, thinks of Julia and feels loss and gratitude and then remorse and guilt and the bitterest of sorrows, regret—he could not be the man they wanted him to be.

  He picks up a stone, can feel its coarse warm skin. He tosses it up and down in his palm and then throws it like a discus toward a crown cactus. He misses. He picks up one stone after another, watching each hit the earth so that a little cloud of dust billows up from the impact, butterflies now scattering in their anxious flights. He throws the last stone, and it is like throwing down a gauntlet. He looks back to the car. Leo and Vera sit waiting, silhouetted by the curve of the horizon. How they’d grown. Two adults. They’d come for him, to bring him here, to bring him home. He pauses. Looks around. It is as still as any winter he has known.