Lost in the City: Tree of Desire and Serafin (15 page)

Serafín asked:

“Why does your Papá want two wives in his house?”

Alino just raised his shoulders until they almost touched his ears. That was in July. By September, a rumor was going around that Alino's mamá had murdered the other woman while her husband was on a trip, because neither woman was ever seen outside the house, and one night somebody saw a terrible, fearful silhouette outlined on the tattered curtains, with a knife held up high. That was how the rumor was born, and since neither woman left the house, they believed it. It grew, passing from mouth to mouth, but Alino's papá came back and to show it was not true took both women by the arm and walked them around the plaza on Sunday, even buying them ice cream.

One day Alino told Serafín:

“My mamá is going to leave home. She says now she can't stand my papá's other wife one more day.”

“What does your papá do with two wives?” Serafín insisted.

“Things,” Alino answered, as he shot a marble with his thumbnail.

On Christmas morning Alino's household awoke to a white cross painted on the door. There was a huge commotion that day because Alino's papá insulted everyone in the village right in the middle of church, making obscene gestures toward the altar. They started beating him up and Serafín's papá ran to help him because, he said, he also hated crosses and above all if a coward painted one on someone's door. Outside the church they got into a fistfight and shouted the worst insults, Alino's father and Serafín's against all the other men in the village. (Between his deafness and concentration on the Mass, the priest hardly noticed.) When Serafín's papá returned home, with his nose the color of a beet, he said that Alino's
family, including the new woman, were going to move to another village close by, because they could not stand the people of Aguichapan anymore.

“That's what your filthy crosses did!” Papá yelled in Mamá's face. She just set her teeth as tightly as possible and continued fanning the coals again with a fan made of
petate
.

Now he had one of those crosses that Papá hated, crucifying the palm of his hand—maybe the very one Mamá used to hide in Papá's knapsack, with a Christ figure so poorly made, it did not seem human, just a rough shape. And he did not know what to do with it, because if he put it in his shirt or in the bag, he was sure to lose it. And what if he threw it away right now, here, into some underbrush?

12

“You couldn't do it,
could you, Mamá? And anyway Cipriano's daughter is very young and very pretty and maybe she would be the one who couldn't live with us. What would she think of you? And what would you think of her? And what would the two of you think of me? Or my papá? What am I going to do if he's really living with her? Why didn't you ever talk to me about that?”

.   .   .

Serafín still had the traces of lost sleep in his eyes as he looked be-seechingly at the very tall, skinny man who was standing on the corner, absent-mindedly smoking.

“Señor, could you dial this number, please?”

The man almost doubled over to gaze into the misery in his eyes.

“I'll give you the money, look.”

He took a coin out of his pants pocket and, with a quick, magician's movement, put it in the man's hand.

“But the money isn't the problem. Here, keep it.”

“I don't want it. If you don't dial the number, I don't need it.” It was a trick that had not worked, because they usually let the coin fall to the ground and at times even added a couple of pesos. “Everybody says they're in a hurry. But I'm also in a hurry—to talk.”

“The problem is the telephone.”

“There's one right there.”

“Then, let's try.” But that one was not working, and they had to find another one. They talked about Aguichapan, the trip, the accident on the highway.

The man dialed the number and asked for Serafín's papá. Serafín stood on tiptoe and stretched his neck, almost climbing up the man's back.

“He doesn't work here anymore. This past week he went back to his village with some relatives, but we don't know the names of the village or his relatives,” a voice like sandpaper said.

The man told Serafín what was said, but Serafín became so distressed, the man dialed the number again. While he was doing it, he asked him:

“Who is the person you're asking for?”

“A friend of my Papá's, who lives here. My Mamá told me he'd offered Papá some work and he would be with him for sure.”

“But that man doesn't live there anymore.”

“Maybe he does.”

The man gave Serafín the phone so he himself could hear the harsh voice: “That's right, I already told you, he went back to his village this past week, and good riddance.” He hung up.

Serafín seemed to collapse completely, his arms hanging at his sides like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don't know,” Serafín answered, looking at the worn tips of his shoes, with dust on them that seemed more than ever like dust from far, far away.

“Do you have anywhere to go?”

He shook his head, his firmly shut lips holding back a sob.

“How long has it been since you've eaten?”

“Yesterday . . .”

“Come on, let's go get something to eat.”

.   .   .

“Sometimes I heard your voice, Papá. I was going down the street and heard your voice so clearly, calling me: Serafín, Serafín. I turned
around but you weren't there. It was just plain air, carrying your voice from wherever you might be. Sometimes I would hear your voice again, even stronger. I would crouch down low in order to hear it, but I didn't hear it anymore or heard it from far away, like the echo of your voice. I even hugged a man, I was so sure he was you, like in that game of tag when we would always bump into the one who wasn't it, the one who was just standing still, because the voice bounced around from the walls and corners. I was sure you were calling me, since maybe you heard I was already here in the city.”

.   .   .

They went to a small restaurant with neon lighting. The man crossed his long legs, lit a cigarette, and asked Serafín what he wanted to eat.

“Whatever you say.”

“You're the one who's going to eat, not me. What do you want?”

“I don't know.”

Under the very bright light, his misery was obvious.

“Some eggs and an orange juice?”

“Yes,” he answered, without looking up.

When the waitress left, he seemed more at ease, but his eyes were still far away. There was a moment of silence and he slowly returned until he was there again and put the bag on the table.

“Put it on this chair,” the man said, and was going to do it, but Serafín stopped him, holding it up against his chest and then placing it himself where the man had indicated. His blinking showed his distress.

“Yes,” the man said lightly, smiling, “If you don't put it down yourself, you'll forget it.”

“I have some things my mamá gave me.”

Serafín felt desperation churning inside him, like a part of the sea within the walls of a port.

“You can cry if you want to, that always helps.”

“No, no, I don't want to cry. I'm all right. Here, take it, look inside if you want to,” and he held out the bag to him.

The man said he was not curious about seeing what was inside, but Serafín looked at him in such a way that he had to do it. He glanced into the bag.

“You have an apple here. Why haven't you eaten it?”

“I was waiting until I was hungrier.”

He was going to return the bag, but Serafín stopped him.

“Look at the letter.”

“What letter?”

“The one my mamá sent to my papá. It's at the very bottom.”

The man had to take everything out before he came to the letter.

“Read it to me.”

The man realized why Serafín had trusted him with the bag. It was the same trick as when he'd put the coin in his hand.

“You don't know how to read?”

“No.”

The waitress brought a plate of fried eggs and beans with cheese sprinkled over them and a large orange juice.

“I think you saw her even though she wasn't right in front of you, like me . . . You saw her because you only saw what you had within you . . . The way your eyes were when you'd been drinking . . . How could you turn out to be so bad? . . . Pretty soon the rumor began and Serafín heard it . . .”

“Is your name Serafín?”

“Yes.”

“Someone even said that you killed Cipriano to get his daughter. It's lucky no one cared or wanted to investigate it. What devil got into you? . . . Are you going to let us die of hunger? . . . If I don't matter to you, think of your children . . . Who else can help us? . . . By now not even Flaviano wants to lend us anything . . . Some days we eat nothing but tortillas . . . What are we going to do without you? . . .”

“Do you want me to go on?”

“Yes.”

“Being alone has made me think at times about how you were before, when we first met, when Serafín was born and when you kissed me, you were kissing
me
. . . I saw you clearly in those days and I longed for your return . . . I don't know what it is, I don't know why . . . Now that you're far away, I can tell you that even if you were here, I wouldn't feel that way now . . . Now you're not like that and there's no way to make you go back in time . . . All I ask is
that you send me some money with Serafín . . . The poor child has missed you more than you can imagine . . . Or get him a job, so he can send me something regularly . . .”

Serafín used a piece of bread to wipe up what was left of the egg yolk. The bread was black where he had touched it, but the man did not dare suggest that he go wash his hands.

“That's what it says.”

“Thanks,” and without the slightest change of expression, he took the letter and put it in the bag.

“I think we didn't really have to read it. You probably had an idea of what it said, didn't you?”

“More or less.”

“To tell the truth, the one who annoys me most is your mamá. We're friends by now, so I can say that, can't I?”

The man noticed something passing across Serafín's eyes, moving as if among shadows in a forest, almost blindly. He asked him if he would like to have something else to eat and Serafín said, two more eggs and another orange juice. The man suggested a nice, juicy piece of meat, but Serafín insisted on some eggs exactly like the others.

“How are you going to get back?”

“I'm not going back.”

“What are you going to do if you don't find your papá?”

“I'm going to find him.”

“Where?”

“Around here.”

And then, unhappily:

“He goes to cantinas a lot.”

“So you're going to look for him in all the cantinas in the city?”

“I don't know.”

With the back of his hand he wiped away an unexpected tear, and rubbed his eyes with both hands until the desire to cry went away.

“I'll give you the money to go back. Look, there's no place for you to stay. Nobody's going to help you, and the ones who may want to help you are the worst, because they'll only abuse you.”

There was a long silence that seemed to form ice around them.

The man tried to look at him gently.

The waitress brought another plate of eggs and beans and another orange juice. When he had finished, he asked,

“Would you really give me the money to go back?”

“That's what I said.”

“OK.”

They left the restaurant to look for a taxi, which was not easy. When they found one, the man gave him some money and saw that he was seated in the back, his bag held before his chest like a shield. The man told the cab driver to take him to the bus station and here was a good tip; if possible, buy a ticket for him.

The man waved good-bye with a smile that was sideways because of the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The cab stopped at the next corner and Serafín got out. He looked all around as if dazed and started running. The man was going to catch him, but it seemed absurd. What for?

13

“Why did you deny
the talk about Cipriano's daughter if I was going to find her here? Were you ashamed to confess it in front of me? That my papá had another woman? Then why did you let me come, if in the end I wouldn't want to?”

.   .   .

Serafín ran aimlessly, gasping for breath, sure by now the man could not catch him, but impelled by a strange, autonomous force. He tripped on the edge of a median and found himself seated on the grass, rubbing an elbow and gulping mouthfuls of air. The contents of the bag were scattered all around.

A woman came over.

“Little boy, did you hurt yourself very much? Why were you running so hard? Here, stand up so I can look at your arm.”

She was a tall woman, very tall, dressed in white. Seen from below like that, foreshortened, in the blinding light of the sun, she seemed unreal, a product of the running and fall.

“No,” Serafín said.

“Your things have fallen all over,” and she made a motion as if about to bend over and pick them up.

“No, let them be,” and he threw himself on the bag, covering it with his body and squirming around to hide the spilled contents.

When the sun hit him squarely on the neck, he realized the woman had left.

“Old busybody,” he said between his teeth, hugging his things even closer.

Turning, he had only the sun above him, so low it seemed he could touch it. He opened his mouth but could not breathe. Cars were going past noisily on both sides, and he had the feeling of being on a raft on a full-flowing river. With his eyes on the sun and the deafening noise surrounding him, it was as if he were somewhere else, maybe on one of those days when he went to work with his papá. Had he looked at the sun like that then?