Lost in the City: Tree of Desire and Serafin (3 page)

She was there for more than an hour, almost motionless, stroking the child's back, watching the people go by, thinking over what to do. She asked what time it was and awakened Joaquín. They crossed Insurgentes again, carefully but running, her heart leaping up in her throat. He wanted some water, and they stopped at a stand to get some pop.

“I want some candy, too,” he said.

Cristina asked for a few pieces of gum and took the money out of her purse. They went up a narrow, endless street. The child got tired every few moments, and Cristina tried to carry him, but he was too heavy, so she decided to stop and sit briefly on the sidewalk. Joaquín took advantage of the time to open another piece of gum and share it with Lucas. Finally, after walking for more than half an hour, they saw the two-story house with a huge door, a bronze knocker, and a number at the side. With the tip of her fingers, Cristina reached the knocker and let it fall. A girl with a white apron opened the door.

“Please tell Alicia I'm here. She knows why.”

The girl lifted a permanently crimped lock of hair and looked at her with expressionless eyes.

“And your Mamá?”

“We came alone. But . . . we're going soon.”

Still without expression, the girl disappeared down the hall and a moment later Alicia came running, still wearing her blue school uniform.

“We left home. I need you to lend me that money from your allowance.”

Alicia opened her eyes so wide they filled her face.

“You told me whenever I might want it . . . Remember . . .”

At a distance a demanding voice sounded: Aliciaaa.

“I'll go get it.”

Cristina looked into the house curiously, trying to hear. But nothing could be heard, and she only managed to see the two chairs covered in a floral pattern, the sofa, the small table in the center of the entryway, and the hall with columns and paintings of pastoral scenes. Alicia returned panting.

“Here it is,” and she gave her three hundred-peso bills. “Mamá changed it for me.”

“Did you tell her?”

Cristina saw the tall shadow behind her, like a big black bird with open wings.

“She asked me, and I had to tell her. But she says she understands. And she promised me she won't tell your parents.”

Cristina was afraid, and scenes crisscrossed inside her. If she tried to run, the woman would come from behind the door to grab them with hands like claws.

“Come on, let's go,” she said, taking Joaquín's hand.

“Really, she promised me.”

Then the woman came out from behind the door and Cristina let out a cry that startled Joaquín.

“Cristy.”

The woman smiled with very white, sparkling teeth. She wore her hair piled on top of her head and had fat hands with long, red nails.

“Come in, Cristy. I promised Alicia we wouldn't tell your parents.”

“That's why I told her,” Alicia added as they went down the hall.

They passed by a long dining room with mahogany furniture. There were blue plates on the walls. Alicia's father was seated at the head of the table, his expression solemn, unchanging. When the children entered, he stopped eating, holding his spoon in front of his plate. In the center of the table was a bowl with bananas, apples, and mameys. At the side was a porcelain soup tureen.

“It's Cristy and Joaquín,” the woman said, smiling even more. The man picked up the napkin from his lap and dropped it on the table. He got up and went over to Cristina. Alicia explained, she left home with her little brother. I told her you and Mamá promised not to tell her parents. She's my best friend, Papá. The man squatted
down and looked at Cristina over his horn-rimmed glasses with that cold, unchanging look.

“Now, Cristy, tell me what happened.”

“Well . . . once Alicia told me she could lend me some money if I needed it . . .”

“But what was it that happened? Why did you leave home?”

Cristina looked down at the scuffed tips of her shoes.

“I woke up in the morning and . . . my parents weren't there. They went away.”

“They're coming back, Cristy.”

“Yes, but it's not that . . .”

“Do they scold you very much?”

“No, they're very nice.”

“Then?”

“They yell.”

“That's all? All the parents in the world do that, Cristy.”

“At night?”

“Yes, at night. And sometimes during the day. It's normal.”

“You promised not to tell them.”

“Of course we did. We promised . . . Have you and Joaquín eaten?”

“No.” Cristina kept her gaze trained on the tips of her shoes and crossed her hands behind her back.

“Come,” the woman said, leading them to the table. The cat was on the patio drinking some milk.

“I have to peepee,” the child said looking at his sister almost as soon as they were seated.

“I'll take him,” the woman said, indicating Cristina should stay seated. But the child turned trembling lips toward her:

“Keetee.”

She got up and, guided by the servant, took her brother to the bathroom. When they got back, there were two steaming bowls of soup for them. They ate it in silence. Cristina answered the woman's questions in monosyllables. What do your parents talk about? And how late? Didn't they leave you a note? Does your mother cry a lot? Does your father yell at her? But the man only watched them very closely as he cut pieces of meat and put them
in his mouth to chew slowly, pushing out his jaw. Seeing him there, so serious, at the head of the table, Cristina was reminded of her father and had trouble swallowing her food. If she could have run away . . . When they finished dessert—ice cream with a slice of mamey—the man told them to go play on the patio, Alicia had some beautiful skates.

“We need to go,” Cristina said.

“For a while. Then you can go,” as if it were an order.

It was no use trying to leave at that moment. Better to pretend to play happily and find a way to escape later. But first Cristina looked steadily at the man, stood up, and confirmed what she already knew, what she suddenly knew to be already inside her (even though that particular morning, it was different), a kind of morbidness, a pleasure in what could only increase the pain of the decision.

“Do you really promise?” she asked, standing in front of him, biting her lip while waiting for the answer.

“Of course,” he said more with his lips than with his cold eyes, pinching the girl's cheek.

He's lying, Cristina told herself, and he knows I know he's lying.

For several delightful hours Cristina felt a strange happiness that she hadn't experienced for a long time. Perhaps since the vacation she spent with her grandmother—the two of them alone for two weeks in the big house in Puebla.

They skated around the patio fountain while Joaquín amused himself with Lucas and made triangles and cubes out of building blocks. Then they played with puppets in Alicia's bedroom. She kept suggesting one game after another, tirelessly, and Cristina responded, waving her hands and dancing around. It all brought on a special feeling when she remembered the events of the morning. The columns in the hall provided ideal hiding places, and they could also hide in the dining room or on the patio. They ran from one place to another, shrieking whenever they found each other. And during one of those moments Cristina seized the chance to escape. Alicia's mother had invited them to spend the night (nobody will know, trust us), and Cristina pretended to accept with a smile. Now they wouldn't see the lady again. Everything seemed calm
when Cristina grabbed Joaquín's hand and ran with him to the door. Alicia was coming behind them:

“They promised!”

The boy sobbed because Lucas had stayed behind, but Cristina thought only of the door to the street (and what if they had locked it with a key so they couldn't get out?).

6

With Joaquín crying constantly for Lucas,
she didn't stop until they reached Insurgentes. A motorcycle almost ran into them crossing the avenue. All thoughts and images had fled: Cristina felt her body was being pushed by a strange, independent force, something that seemed to surge up from the earth, from far below the earth, or from the cold wind that burned in her chest.

“You're mean!” Joaquín said to her. “I hope you die!” and then, in a voice full of pleading, “Let's go get Lucas!”

But Cristina was more concerned about the coats, which she had also been unable to rescue.

Joaquín seemed to calm down briefly as he breathed in big gulps of air, but as soon as he looked up at the sky—as if his cat were there—he began again, even louder.

“You're bad!”

“We can't go back for Lucas. You have to understand that,” and Cristina held the bag tighter against her side.

When his sobbing seemed to engulf the child, she said,

“Alicia will take care of him. And some day we'll go back for him, I promise you.”

They took the first bus that passed by. It didn't matter to Cristina where it went, as long as she got as far away as possible from that house. They were exhausted. As soon as they got seats, Joaquín fell asleep, and soon she did, too.

She dreamed she was still in Alicia's house, playing hide-and-seek. Only in the dream, the thing she feared happened. Coming out of a bedroom, she bumped into the overwhelming, brutal presence of Papá, who smiled at her and opened his arms. Cristina felt
something break inside her and screamed. As if continuing the game, she ran down the hall and into a corner to hide. In her dream, the time she stayed there, curled up, trembling and holding back a sob, seemed interminable. But Papá was already coming down the hall, calling her, Cristy, my little girl, and behind him came Alicia's parents and Mamá, who was carrying Joaquín, and she knew her cries of I don't want to, I don't want to, no, were useless because Papá knew how to control her, carry her, press her against him, hold her legs with one hand and make her strength slip away little by little.

She woke up and felt happy to realize her freedom. But how long would it last? She imagined Papá notifying all the police patrols, all the radio stations. Once she had heard them looking for runaway children on the radio. “They left their house this morning . . . You will receive a reward . . . If you have any information, call telephone numbers . . .” Would they be able to escape? It was so easy to identify them—a ten-year-old girl with a four-year-old boy. From that moment on, she felt a thousand eyes watching them. She started to pray “Our Father, who art in Heaven” to ask Him to help her, but stopped. It amused her to look out the window and see faces disappearing, being left behind as if they'd never existed. She calmed down—Joaquín was sleeping peacefully, and it was a beautiful afternoon with a brilliant sky. Where could they get the out-of-town buses and trains? And would the three hundred pesos in her purse be enough? She thought about asking the driver, but was terrified by the idea that he would suspect something and call the police, or take them to the police station himself. With strangers you never know.

When they entered a neighborhood with taco stands and gray houses, as if the sun had suddenly darkened, she became fearful and thought it would be better to get off and take another bus. It was difficult to awaken Joaquín, who insisted on going back for Lucas and cried for Mamá.

“You have to understand, Joaquín!” she told him in a sharp voice, shaking him by his shoulders.

Joaquín seemed to realize the gravity of the situation because he became very serious and let her pull him along. They got off in a
crowded street of houses with paint peeling off the walls and shops surrounded by clouds of smoke heavy with the odor of barbecue. Hungry dogs with begging eyes roamed the area. Cristina held Joaquín's hand tightly as they walked around the block on the edge of the sidewalk. A fat, dark man leaning against a wall followed them with a look that was like a searchlight. Cristina felt an overwhelming urge to run, but felt sure that if she attracted his attention, he would catch up with them very quickly.

“Walk straight ahead, Joaquín. Don't turn around.”

“Why?”

And the first thing the child did was turn around. Cristina dug her fingernails into her palms.

“A policeman might come, Joaquín.”

It frightened the child. Cristina was obsessed with the police. She looked for them everywhere, fantasized seeing them come around the corner or out of the next doorway, like in those haunted houses when just as when you fear it most, a hand comes up to wring your neck. So she preferred walking slowly. She turned after a moment to be sure the man by the fence was no longer watching them. She felt a sea of eyes watching her.

At the corner she stopped to ask where the international bus station was and how much a ticket would cost. After asking the question, she noticed the fixed expression of the man in front of her, like on a wax figure.

“Huh?”

For a minute they kept looking at each other in silence, the man swaying and Cristina fearing he would fall on her with all his weight.

Cristina and Joaquín were moving away, but the man followed them a few steps and even put his hand out toward them. To Cristina it seemed like the hand in her fantasy.

“Wait, little girl . . .”

Her resistance gave way to uncontrollable fear, and Cristina ran as hard as she could, making Joaquín fall. He started to cry again. They reached the end of the block and stopped before turning. Cristina had a pain in her side and Joaquín shrieked:

“Mamá!”

“Be quiet, Joaquín, or I'm going to hit you!”

“I don't want to run! I want to go home!”

“We're not going home. We're never going home! Understand? You're always going to live with me. I'll be with you always.”

From the child's lips came a bubble that seemed to contain a strangled cry.