The Affairs of the Falcóns

by Melissa Rivero

  She could not debate such things. In Lima, she was plainly a woman, dark-skinned at that, from some mountainous province, with only a couple of decades left before she’d be considered too old to hire. She hid her accent and tried her best to remove from her everyday speech any words from Santa Clara that could cloud her Spanish. She didn’t have the luxury of debating a salary, and when she got that job as a receptionist, it was as though she’d won el premio mayor. She didn’t care to preserve anything tangible from the past. It was enough that the house of her childhood still lived in her memory. She was always willing to adapt, something he didn’t need to do back home. She wondered if that, and not his disdain for this new country, was at the heart of his frustration.

  “I don’t feel like we’re fucked,” she said. “Things here were good in the beginning. We had work. That’s all we ever really wanted, right? To work and provide for the kids. To support our families. We had that. We’ve never had to worry about food. We can buy groceries without worrying that some lunatic might blow us up. And the kids! They speak two languages, Lucho.” The thought alone filled her with pride. “They can do so much more here,” she whispered. “We can be so much more.”

  “I’m nothing here.” He turned onto another street and pulled into the Lexar Tower parking lot. “I’m doing all I can, Ana. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Can you ask Rubén if we can stay a little longer?” she asked, but he was already shaking his head. “Just until we’ve saved up some more money?”

  “No,” he said emphatically. “I’m tired of living like arrimados. If we’re not living with Carla and Ernesto, we’re living with Valeria and Rubén. And that’s the thing about this place. You always need help. It’s not enough that we work hard. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  She looked out her passenger-side window. She promised herself, when they left Peru, that she’d never complain. That no matter how difficult it was to live and work in another place, another tongue, she wouldn’t lament the hardships that came with it. She’d look forward, always. “We can’t go back,” she said.

  He pointed to Lexar Tower’s entrance. “We can’t stay there either. And we’re not going to move into a place like that. Don’t expect neighbors who look or dress like the people who live here.” He pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. He left the music playing. “We can afford that apartment. I don’t know for how long, but if you want to stay here, Ana, then that is the next step. Or we can send the kids back. Because that’s the only way we’re going to make things work here.”

  “So you’d send them back?” she said. “You’d take my children away from me? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “It’s not taking them away from you. It’s doing what’s best for us. Be reasonable. If you lose your job or if this cab driver thing doesn’t work out, then we should send them back. And if the two of us still can’t make it work here then we can’t make it work and we’ll go back.” He tilted his head against the headrest, indulging in whatever memory he thought they could return to. “We can always go back.”

  * * *

  UPSTAIRS, SHE HEARD VALERIA URGING THE CHILDREN TO EAT THEIR dinner. She was waiting for a friend to pick up a package she’d brought back from Peru, which gave Ana and Lucho a window in which they could see the apartment. Valeria’s trips to Peru had not only become more frequent; they’d grown more voluminous, and Ana expected more visitors in the days to come.

  The children forgot their meal as Ana and Lucho walked through the door. “Mami, mira,” said Pedro as he jumped from his seat with Michael’s game console in his hands. “Look what I can do.”

  “You have to eat!” shouted Valeria.

  Victoria, meanwhile, grabbed ahold of her father. “Papi, can you help me with this?” she asked him in English as she handed him her workbook.

  “Háblame en español,” he said, holding the workbook out in front of him for an instant then handing it back. “This is easy, Victoria. Start and I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.” She slumped over like a marionette. “I wouldn’t tell you to do it if I didn’t think you could,” he said “and you can. If there’s one language that’s more important than any other, it’s math. Give it a try.”

  “You’re not going to eat?” asked Valeria.

  He spun his hat in his hands. “No, thank you, Prima, I don’t have much of an appetite at the moment.” He walked into the bathroom, swapped his sweater for a new one, and left for his shift without saying goodbye.

  Once Ana was certain he was gone, she pulled the canary envelope from underneath her mattress. It carried part of their journey: birth certificates, diplomas, and what was left of the money they were able to save since Lucho started working again.

  It wasn’t enough.

  She heard his words over and over. Ellos pueden regresar, he’d said. Podemos regresar. He had no qualms about sending the children back, and he held on to some romanticized notion about what life in Peru could be, not what it was. He could never truly see it with her eyes.

  She searched the top bunk of the bed, where Victoria slept. The doll wasn’t there and she wasn’t on Pedro’s bottom bunk or on the floor. Ana’s own bed was empty.

  She called Victoria from the hallway, and when she came into the bedroom, she asked, “Where’s Liliana?”

  Victoria ran back to Michael’s room. When she returned, Ana reminded her daughter, “She stays here.”

  Victoria rolled her eyes and pouted.

  “Don’t make that face,” said Ana. “She stays on your bed y punto.”

  “Sorry, Mami,” she muttered in English.

  “Don’t give me ‘sorry.’ Se dice ‘perdón.’”

  She told Victoria to go then shut the door behind her. The doll’s squishy blonde head popped easily from its body. Inside it, was Ana’s money. It was money she’d siphoned away from Lucho. People always left—it was a fear she carried with her ever since her father disappeared and one that only became more pronounced with time. Her and Lucho’s work schedules never overlapped, and she often wondered, on her nights alone, if he’d come back. Would he be tempted away by a memory of Peru, by the escape of a drink or two, or even another woman? When he began driving the cab, it was the fear of an accident or a robbery that kept her up. Now, it was simply the stillness of the night she feared, with its power to drown one in an ocean of thoughts.

  It was this fear of his imminent departure that made Ana put money away, a little every time she got paid, in five-dollar bills, tens, occasionally a twenty. She kept the money inside the doll’s body, a doll she’d purchased at a discount store only months after they arrived in New York and that Victoria protested smelled funny. She instructed her daughter to leave it on her bed always and, when they moved in to Valeria’s, that it should never leave the room. She didn’t use the money when Lucho was unemployed, and she wasn’t going to give it up now. Not for the new apartment; not after he said he’d consider sending the children back. If it ever came to that, she needed enough money to leave him. She needed to find another source of money for the new apartment, and she had another problem now, one that she needed to fix as soon as possible.

  And so she called Mama.

  9

  THE SUN CLUNG TO THE DARKENING SKY AS ANA TURNED THE CORNER onto Mama’s street the following afternoon. She had stopped by a Polish bakery, picking up a loaf of the woman’s favorite cake to help her cause. She suspected Mama would say no to another loan, but she was going to ask anyway. There was always the chance the woman might say yes, and if she did, Ana could avoid dipping into her own money. Asking Don Beto for help wasn’t an option. Once she realized she missed her period, she knew whatever it was they had simply had to end. There was too much already at risk. She had no plans to return the money he’d given her. It was hers now.

  When she arrived at Mama’s, her skin bristled at the sight of Don Beto’s black loafers sitting on the shoe tray. She placed her sneakers be
side them, making sure they didn’t touch.

  Inside the apartment, she searched the living room for any signs of the man, but it only had Mama’s indelible imprints. The faint scent of Jean Naté emanated from the bathroom. The radiator hummed its familiar tune along with the woman’s labored breaths. The issues of Vanidades were piled on the table as always. Still, he came back to her all at once. The scent of rum under her nose, the sound of his fingers fumbling her belt buckle, his breath heavy in her ear. The skin on her stomach retracted, and she folded her arms across her chest to steady herself.

  “Take your coat off,” said Mama.

  Ana shuddered at the command and held her coat closer. “I’m cold,” she replied.

  “Then make some tea.” Mama turned and headed toward the sitting room. “I already have water in the kettle. Bring the babka too.”

  Minutes later, Ana set a pot of tea and slices of babka on the coffee table. She sipped her tea as a Cuban judge on the television screen debated whether one neighbor owed another money for a dog bite.

  “You’re quiet,” said Mama, as she brought a slice of babka to her mouth. “You just paid me so I know you’re not here for that. Tell me what it is you came here to say.”

  Ana looked straight at the television screen. “We found an apartment.”

  “That’s good,” replied Mama, her eyes widening. “That cab business must be going well then.”

  “Not as well as we’d like,” said Ana. “See, we found an apartment. Close to the children’s school. Not too far from the factory. The landlord’s painting it. Fixing it up. The rent’s reasonable. The neighborhood is real quiet too.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” said Mama, tapping her fingers on the armrest.

  “The landlord wants an extra month’s rent,” said Ana. “We’ve only got enough for two. I was hoping you could lend us the rest.”

  Mama threw her head back and let out a sound, a single “ja” that was meant to be anything but a laugh. “You’re behind on payments, Ana. Why would I give you more money?”

  “Because I can pay it back,” she said. “Lucho’s going to work longer hours. He’s worked it out with the car owner already. He’s signed up with two bases now. I’m going to work overtime. I know we’re still catching up, but the rent is affordable, and we can move in by the end of the month.”

  “I think it’s better for me,” said Mama, “if you stay at your cousins’. You don’t pay rent there. You can pay me back faster. Then maybe, once you’re caught up, we can talk about another loan for you to move out.”

  “But we’ll lose that apartment.”

  “There’ll be others. I can make some calls for you when the time is right.”

  She was taken aback by her response, but Ana didn’t want Mama’s help either. If she lived in one of her buildings, or in one that belonged to a friend or a client, then what? She’d be far from cutting ties with the woman or Don Beto.

  “I appreciate the help, but this apartment is good for us, and the timing is right. I can pay you back, I promise.”

  “Why the rush to leave now anyway?” she asked. “You’ve been at your cousins’ for some time, I know, but what difference does another month or even two make? Have you worn out your welcome already?”

  She had, though Mama didn’t need to know that nor how much Ana actually wanted to stay at Lexar Tower. But Lucho was right—it was Valeria’s home, and while she was away, Ana could pretend and play house all she wanted. Now that Valeria was back, she had to face reality. She was homeless, and that put her in a precarious spot. She suspected that in the moments she wasn’t looking, Valeria was whispering to Lucho, filling his head with doubt about her, about their lives here, and how much easier it would be if the children were in Lima. Lucho’s threat to send the children back, or go back altogether, was real enough that Ana was prepared to move into a cave if it meant keeping her family in New York and intact.

  She didn’t want to appear ungrateful, however, especially toward her own family, and so she said, “My cousin has been very good to us. Generous and patient, like you. But it’s not easy, finding a place to live. Especially when you tell these landlords you’ve got kids. If we don’t get this apartment, Mama, then who knows when there’ll be another one like it.”

  “You’re right in that sense,” said Mama. “You’re going to be undocumented for a long time. Unless there’s some sort of amnesty, you might never get your residency. Your kids might never have their papers either. You’re better off settling somewhere.” She became quiet, eyeing Ana for several seconds, then asking, “Have you thought about going back?”

  “Everyone in our situation thinks about it,” she said. “But there’s nothing for my kids there.”

  Mama set her cup down on the table and folded her hands over her belly. She fixed her eyes on Ana, digging. “You know, I never did ask why you left. I assumed it was the same story as always. No work there, better future for your children here. It’s like a script. But I never got that impression from you. I always thought maybe there was more.”

  “We did come for the kids,” she said quickly. It was the first time she heard herself say it so unconvincingly.

  Mama thrusted her lower lip as if to sputter. “You’re a terrible liar, Ana.”

  She blushed, suddenly exposed. Is this what she needed to do? she thought. It seemed unfair, that she had to give—to show—more than she wanted to in order to get what she wanted.

  “I came here because there really is nothing for me in Peru,” she said. “Nothing. I lost everything I had back in Santa Clara.”

  “Because of the terrorists,” said Mama.

  “Not just Sendero,” she said, “although that’s why we can’t go back now. I mean the soldiers. From the capital.” She pulled her legs up on the chair. “Sent in to save us.”

  She recalled how her mother used to sit on her father’s lap, sweeten her voice, hold his face in her hands as she kissed him in his rocker, when they thought they were alone. Ana used to crane her neck, peer from the kitchen or bedroom as she swept, and watch.

  After her father and uncle disappeared, it was her mother and Colonel Mejía whom she watched from outside her mother’s bedroom window. Unlike her father, the Colonel would grab her silent mother’s face with his broad fingers and press his lips onto hers even as her mother kept her mouth shut.

  Then one day, the Colonel saw Ana at the window. She tried to hide, but her mother found her in the coop and beat her, weeping as she smacked her. She promised to break her teeth if she ever said anything to anyone about what she saw. Even now, just hinting at the truth so many years later, felt like a betrayal.

  “I could’ve had a brother or sister, if it hadn’t been for the soldiers.”

  Mama crinkled her brows. “What are you saying?” she asked. “Was your mother pregnant?”

  It was on one oppressive afternoon, months after Colonel Mejía’s visits had begun and as the sun bore through the kitchen window, that Ana heard her mother wailing in the bedroom. She called out to Ana and asked her to bring an olla. The big one, Doña Sara had said, and Ana brought the largest pot they had to her mother’s bedside. Doña Sara drew up her skirt, told her daughter to leave, and to pull down the curtain behind her.

  That evening, Ana watched her mother amble toward a corner of the huerta where she patiently dug a hole with a small shovel. Beside the hole was the pot, its metal skin reflecting the light from the star-drenched sky. She shook the pot, and whatever was in there slid into the hole. When she was done burying it, Doña Sara knelt beside the mound and wept for only seconds, but even now, her whimper was as blue as the heavens had been on that cool summer night.

  “No, no,” she said, reprimanding herself for hinting at her mother’s secret. “I just think, if the soldiers were really trying to protect us, then they would’ve done more to protect her. She’d still be alive.”

  Weeks after the burial, when the mound had nearly flattened against the rest of the earth
in the huerta and as Ana returned from school, she noticed that her mother was not waiting for her at the door, as she always did in the afternoons. She tiptoed inside, unsettled by the hush that filled the dim shack. A hen cackled, and she followed the sound to the huerta, gleaming under the cloudless sky. She walked toward the coop, where the cackling had grown louder. Behind it, almost obscured by the wood and leaves, was her mother’s dead body. Her eyes bulged from her face; her underwear was at her ankles.

  “But she was a poor woman and she was alone,” Ana continued. “And then I was.” It was only with the passage of time, with motherhood in particular, that she began to see her mother for what she was. She did what she had to do to keep them alive. She adapted—to her father’s work and absence, his disappearance, to Colonel Mejía. Her mother began to reveal herself in unexpected ways. Whenever Ana rubbed an egg over her children’s bodies after a nightmare in an effort to pull away their fear, just like her mother had done to her. Or during her morning walk to la factoría, when the air still held on to the coolness of the night, so reminiscent of their quiet walks to the market. Or those late evenings when she sat on a fire escape, wondering if her mother was finally at rest among the passing clouds in that starless sky. “Anyway, they didn’t care enough to protect her, why would they care about protecting me?”

  “You feel unsafe there?” she asked.

  “That, and because unless you look like that judge or have a last name that sounds nothing like Ríos, you don’t matter much,” she said. “And I come from nothing. My father cut down wood and planted crops. My mother washed the neighbors’ laundry for a living. What your name is, who your parents are. What you look like. Where you come from. Those things matter more in some places than where you actually want to go. And I can’t go anywhere there.”