Stranger (6 page)

F
OR A TIME AFTER HIS DEPARTURE SHE SURVIVED ON MEMORIES.
The trips to the pueblos, the sound of his motorcycle approaching, a glimpse of him walking along the paths at the clinic. She heard his motorcycle everywhere, but especially in the evenings as she sat inside the tienda and the traffic moved up the street towards the market. Always, when she heard the sound of his motorcycle, she would look up and wait for him to walk through the door, but of course he was gone.

She had his contact information, which he'd given to her before the accident, and one day she sat down and typed up a message and sent it. She kept everything simple. She talked about the clinic, and the staff, and she said that he was missed. She said that she was still studying on Saturdays, and that she was reading Shakespeare. She didn't understand it very well. She said that her work was regular,
and the women were all the same. They were still
hungry
. He had used that word to describe the women at the clinic, and she imagined that the word might spark something in him. She said that she hoped he was recovering. Tell me about yourself, she said. And say hello to your wife.

She added the last part because she was certain that the doctor's wife would be screening his mail. She waited for a response, but nothing came.

Three months passed. She felt wild and hollow. And then she did something she had not thought possible: she spent some time with Illya's cousin Roberto, who was from Argentina and was living in Panajachel during his school break.
Íso
had first met him at Illya's wedding. There were two weddings, one in Buenos Aires, and a second, smaller version in Panajachel. Íso was invited to the second wedding, which was a dinner and dance. She bought a dress that was loose and teal blue and quite modest—the hemline fell to her knees—and she wore a necklace of her mother's, and blue pumps. The day was windy and she had to hold her hair in place as she rode the boat across the lake.

At the reception she danced with Illya, and she danced with two or three boys whose bodies felt immature. Their minds were empty. It was not their fault. She had been spoiled.

Roberto was slightly older, in university studying law, and he found her near the end of the evening and they talked in a back corner at a small table. He talked about himself mostly, and she listened to him and she did not listen. He was very good looking, with a convincing jaw and beautiful eyes and delicate hands. He
went out to smoke, and she walked out with him and they stood in the shadows as he smoked and talked about the differences between their countries. He said that the poverty was more evident here. The politics are backwards, he said. Though we have our own despots as well. They were speaking Spanish, of course. He showed her a tattoo on his shoulder. Unbuttoned his shirt and pulled down the shirt and told her that this was his mother's name. Alejandra. He said that it had been difficult to find space on his shoulder for the number of letters in his mother's name, but it was okay. What do you think? he asked.

It's good, she said.

And you? he asked. Do you have a tattoo?

She laughed and shook her head.

Illya does, he said.

Of course.

He put out his cigarette and touched her face. You're unhappy, he said.

No. I'm happy, she said.

I don't think so.

She shrugged.

What would make you happy? he asked.

She said the answer to that was impossible.

He bent to kiss her and she let him. She was curious, that was all. He tasted of cigarettes and she smelled a perfume on him. He did not put his tongue inside her mouth, though she wouldn't have minded. She held the back of his head and was aware that he was shorter than Eric.

He pulled away and said, Happier now?

I'm happy, she said.

They went back inside and they danced, and then Illya appeared and she danced with them as well, and then Illya and Roberto danced and Íso sat down and watched them.

It is over, she thought.

She saw Roberto again, and was free with him, and slept with him two times, even though she was constantly thinking about Eric. She had not yet told anyone about the baby. One evening, a few weeks earlier, she had stopped at a farmacia where she did not know the owners and they did not know her, and she had purchased a pregnancy test. She went home and locked herself in the bathroom and took out the tester and peed. It verified what she already knew. She sat for a long time in the bathroom and tried to think logically about what she must do, but then she thought of Eric and she felt sad for what might have been. She pushed these thoughts away, because what good could come of them, and what purpose might they serve other than to make her wilder in her sadness? She wrapped the tester in a piece of tissue and she put it in her pocket. She would discard it later, away from home.

She took to wearing looser clothing, but then she was with Roberto and she could not hide it from him. He said that he had always wanted to make love to a pregnant woman. He was like an overgrown adolescent. He had no sense of consequence. After a few more occasions she said that a relationship wasn't possible.

Illya met her one day after work and said that Roberto had told her, and how was it that Roberto knew before she did? God,
Íso, she said. Look at you. And she touched
Ís
o's belly. When? she asked.

In sixteen weeks.

It is Doctor Mann's?

Illya. She said this sharply, in annoyance or shame, or both.

Have you told him?

Why? He's gone.

Has he written?

Nothing.

Because of his wife. Or perhaps he's still sick.

Íso said that she didn
't want to think about it.

Will you have the baby at the clinic?

Yes, but in a regular room. I couldn't stand knowing there were people behind the glass watching.

Í
SO
began to make plans. She took the bus to the city one Saturday and she picked up an application for permit papers for herself. And then she went to the US embassy and inquired about registration for a child who was born outside the country.

The woman she spoke with wore very large and round glasses on a very narrow face that looked like a machete. The woman asked if she was a United States citizen.

No, Íso said, but the father is.

The woman said that then the father would have to apply for the passport and for the citizenship papers after the child was born.

I cannot?

No, ma'am. You cannot. She appeared to be mocking Íso's speech. Then she said that Íso might want to let the father know.

Íso was startled and she looked down. I will, she said.

But she didn't. She imagined that the doctor's wife was reading his mail, and she didn't want the doctor's wife to know anything. She put aside her permit application. She tried to forget about him.

And there came a time when she could no longer hide what was real, and so she told her mother, who said that she already knew. She had been waiting for Íso to tell her. Her mother saw the world as a place you walked through in your own way, and as long as you cared for others and yourself, no matter what difficulties you encountered, you took what was given to you, and you accepted it. She asked if Doctor Mann knew about the baby.

He doesn't, Íso said.

Her mother asked if she would tell him.

If he wants to know, I'll tell him.

How will you know what he wants?

He'll let me know.

S
EÑORA
Perdido had never spoken to Íso of her life between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, when she walked away from her home on the shores of the lake. But one evening, she closed the tienda early, and she sat across from Íso at the table in their small kitchen, and she said that she had a story to tell her. It was an important story for Íso to hear, because it would reveal to her something about the ways of the world, and it would give her
information with which she might make her own decisions. Señora Perdido said that some of it Íso had heard before, but that now she would tell Íso everything, even if what she said might sound too intimate or even wrong and unfortunate.

At that time, she said, I was a few years younger than you are now. She said that her own father had been very handsome and tall, and her mother pretty and short. They were quite a sight walking side by side. Her father had come from Catalonia, in Spain, and he had fallen in love with the people of the country, and of course he had fallen in love with his bride. The civil war had gone on for many years and her father was very political and very strong in his views and he spoke out against the taking of land and the killings and the disappearances. He didn't carry a gun, he wasn't violent, but he was known to have fervent opinions, and for this reason he wasn't liked by those in power. And her father was killed. And her mother was killed. And then her brother, Íso's uncle, left to fight with the rebels. He was gone, and so she was alone.

One day a boy came to the village and told her that her brother was dead. The army had killed him. They had taken out his eyes and cut out his tongue and then shot him and hanged him from a ceiba tree. The boy told her to leave. And so she put some clothes into her bag and she left.

I was eighteen years old, she said.

Because the army was everywhere, and she had no one to trust, she walked around the lake rather than taking the public boat. In Sololá she took a bus north, and two days later she crossed over into Mexico at Tapachula. For three weeks she travelled up
through Mexico by foot and by bus and entered the United States at Laredo. She said that in those days the border was not yet sealed, and so those without papers were able to find a way across. At first she felt lost in the United States of America, but what was the point of feeling lost? Or lonely? She was safe. Her father had visited San Francisco and he had talked of its beauty, and not knowing where else to go, she asked a man how to get to San Francisco. He told her about Greyhound, and so she rode a bus called Greyhound and arrived in San Francisco. She walked the streets. She learned that there was food in the garbage bins behind the supermarkets. She slept in parks and discovered the outdoor children's pools, where she could wash herself. One afternoon, in a park, a man introduced himself. He spoke some Spanish, but not very well, and so he spoke English and she spoke Spanish, and this was how they talked. Henry was a good man in some ways, but he wasn't good in other ways. He was generous with ideas and conversation, but he was also greedy and jealous. Like all men, he offered one thing in order to take something else. And that something else was usually the soul of the woman. And so, Henry took her by the arm and said, Come. He bought her breakfast at a small café.

This was the first time she ate a waffle, which was like a pancake, but not the same. Two days later, or maybe it was longer, he found her a job washing dishes at a hotel. So now she had a little money. She was sleeping on the streets at the time, in a cardboard house under a bridge, and Henry said that was far too dangerous and he said she could move in with him. Señora Perdido said she was happy enough under the bridge. Which wasn't completely
true, but she knew that she hadn't run all this way to America to end up in the arms of a man she did not love. She was also aware of her mother and father and brother and how they would see her if they were still living. She knew a girl, called Lan, who worked at the hotel and was always smoking on her breaks. Her voice was like a ringing bell. Lan had some space in her apartment, and invited her to live there. On Saturdays, when they were not working, they walked along the wharf and watched the boats and talked about which boat they would buy.

She still saw Henry and on Sundays they walked over the Golden Gate Bridge and sat on a wooden dock and Henry fished while she read. She was learning to read English and Henry had many westerns. She liked them. She wanted to ride a horse. Meet a cowboy. Henry was not a cowboy. He painted houses for a living. She washed dishes at a hotel. Life was very different, but she was still Luisa. This is what happens, she told Íso. Nothing happens. You are who you are.

One day she signed up for an English course. She met people like her. People who didn't speak English. People who were strangers. People from China and India. There was a girl from Africa who was very thin and very tall.

She wrote her assignments in a journal that she handed in to the professor, an older man named Lewis, who, when he read her writing, said that she had more to say than any of the students he had taught over the past ten years. She didn't quite understand his enthusiasm, but when she told Henry, on one of the Sunday afternoons on the wharf, all Henry said was, He wants you. She had no
interest in her professor. She had no interest in Henry. Lan, with whom she was still living, thought it was great, all this romantic interest, and she asked which of the two men had more money. This was how Lan saw the world.

One night after class, she went out with several classmates and the professor joined them. He sat beside her and talked about his life. For a time he had lived in Canada, in Vancouver, where he married and had a child. And then he moved back to San Francisco and settled in and he was now alone. He said the word “alone” with great gravity and she wondered if it was true that he wanted her. It concerned her that he had a child out there somewhere, because if it was true that he couldn't take care of a child, then what did that say about the other rules in his life.

The kitchen in which Íso and her mother sat had one light that hung from the ceiling, and at this point Íso stood and found a candle and she lit the candle and turned off the overhead light. Now her mother's face was darker, and the flame flickered and threw shadows, but it felt safer. She took two glasses and poured water in both, and she handed her mother a glass and sat down and took her own glass and drank. Thank you, her mother said. She took some water, and continued to speak.