Pacazo (21 page)

I was at the deer pen, remembering. When I returned to my desk I saw the messages and called and told Casualidad to tell them that I would be home in five minutes and that if they were still there or ever came back I would hurt them. I went, and they had gone. To my knowledge they have not tried again. Many things about this are wrong, yes. There are still worse things.

It would be nice to sleep like those at the niches to either side, but there are more like me than like them, more who do not sleep but sit and stare or walk. Those who walk come and go in their hundreds. They are generally not outwardly unhappy. They observe the quantity of flowers around me, and nod, and smile. This helps or seems to.

An hour, two. When the bells ring for midnight Mass, I take out the birthday cake, set a candle deep in the frosting, light it, and wake Mariángel in order to sing to her. There is a lovely custom here. The night before a birthday is called the quema, the burn: at midnight one’s friends gather in order to sing. They sing “Las Mañanitas,” and they sing “Happy Birthday” twice, first slowly and solemnly in English, and then vigorously in Spanish. It is incomprehensible and splendid.

Éstas son las mañanitas

que cantaba el Rey David,

a las muchachas bonitas

se las cantaba así:

Despierta, mi bien, despierta,

mira, que ya amaneció.

Ya los pajaritos cantan,

la luna ya se metió.

The words lie: there are no birds singing, and the moon has not yet set, is still razor-like above us, and none of this matters. The first line I sing alone, but as I begin the second I am joined by other voices. Only a few at first, then many, the song gathering strength as those to my left and right wake and join in, and still others come, twenty or thirty people, there are harmonies slipping up and down and it is impossibly beautiful.

When the song ends they draw even closer, a rough circle around the pillows that hold Mariángel. Someone starts in with “Happy Birthday.” We plod together through the English version, and sprint through the Spanish.

Mariángel leans to the candle, and I blow lightly past her. The flame gutters and goes out, and there is applause from all over the cemetery, rippling through the clusters of tombs, echoing in waves around us. Mariángel applauds as well and I lift her. We are both kissed by each woman, patted on the back by each man. I break the cake with my hands, tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces until there are only crumbs in the box, and I give a crumb to each person, and they take it on their tongues like communion.

When this is done they smile, nod, wander off. I sit back down and rearrange the pillows. Soon around me there is snoring, a new sort of chorus. Mariángel and I hunch together to await first light.

VIGILS END WHEN DAWN IS UNAMBIGUOUS. Mariángel still sleeps. The night has left me riven. I gather our things and lift her. The walk home through the hot wet air feels slower than it must actually be.

Casualidad is waiting in the kitchen and Fermín is in the back yard watering the almond tree. Their presence confuses me—I did not ask or want them to come so early, did not ask them to come at all except as guests for the party, and even then only if Casualidad was feeling well. My mouth is slow to get words in the correct order, and halfway through my question Casualidad laughs loudly. It is the first time I have heard her laugh, or very nearly so. I ask how she is, and she says that she is feeling much better. She asks how our time at the cemetery went, and her eye is mainly clear.

There is a large cake now on the dining room table. It has nothing to do with the larger of the two cakes I made. This cake is still larger and much more beautiful, with hard smooth white frosting, and yellow rosettes of icing around the upper edge. It is not leaning in any direction, and my first thought is that Casualidad has somehow encased the cake I made within this other, better cake. Of course that cannot be true, and I try to ask how it happened that my cake is gone and this cake is here. She laughs again mid-question and as answer this will have to suffice.

Casualidad takes Mariángel, and I ask her not to let me sleep for more than an hour. When I wake it is almost noon. I shower and dress and walk to the nearest store, return home with what I should have bought days ago: ice cream and plantain chips, beer and varied soft drinks, plastic cups and plates and forks, paper napkins and cardboard birthday hats.

Here plantain chips are called chifles, and while similar to potato chips they are superior in every way. I pour a bag of them into a large bowl, and at the bottom of the bag are two glassine packets, one filled with dried and shredded beef, the other with massive corn nuts. I sprinkle these across the top of the chifles and already Arantxa arrives.

I present her with the largest and finest hat, the kind a cardboard corsair might wear. Her gift is an orange shirt that should fit Mariángel by late in the year after next. I pass Arantxa the bowl of chifles, and as she chews we examine the arguments for and against each English professor erasing the words and drawings and schematics from his or her chalkboard at the end of each class, and I promise to do better in the future.

The doorbell rings again. On the stoop now is a crowd of an unlikely size, and I ask Casualidad to arrange for the delivery of more chifles, more soft drinks, more cardboard hats, and also a good deal of beer. The delivery charges will not be negligible, but there is no other clean option. I had thought that not many of my English Section colleagues would come—only the good-hearted, the best-hearted, and those few with nothing better to do. Instead all seventeen have come, and their gifts for Mariángel involve prominent ribbons and knitting, and there is a shortage of chairs.

After a time the doorbell seems done, and then it rings again. At the door is Reynaldo. Instead of congratulating Mariángel immediately as did all the other guests, he first says that he is sorry for last night. I tell him the truth, that it was nothing, or nearly nothing, and that to the extent it was more than nothing it was at least two-thirds my fault. He smiles and hands me a bottle of good pisco.

I ask how his research is going and he says that the deer are shitting cleaner seeds than ever, but that he doesn’t know if he has enough pods in stock to last until harvest. His face appears suddenly fuller than I remember, the flesh of his neck straining at his shirt collar. I ask if he has been putting on weight, and he seems to become afraid or something like it, and punches my arm hard in a friendly manner as though practicing for American citizenship.

Everyone is now present and hatted and I ask Casualidad if she knows where the birthday candles are. She nods, takes up the cake and is gone for some time. I go to the kitchen and find her crying. The cake holds perhaps thirty candles, their layout apparently random. In her hand is an empty matchbox. Dozens of used matches have been stacked like miniscule cordwood on the counter.

- I got confused, she says, and all these matches, I can’t remember why I kept them.

I tell her not to move, and after a small amount of searching I find Fermín standing alone in the front yard. I ask what he is looking at, and he says that there is nothing. I say that his mother is ill, and he nods. I say that she needs to see a doctor, not tomorrow but today, and give him a hundred soles.

He takes the bill and hides it in his underpants. Then he follows me into the kitchen, helps me to remove the candles and to convince Casualidad that I want her to rest for a day or two.

- But you will fire me if I don’t come to work, she says.

- No. I will fire you only if you do come to work.

- You will fire me?

- Yes. I mean, no.

- So I am fired.

- No, but I want you to see a doctor. I will take care of Mariángel today and tomorrow by myself, and you will visit the doctor and rest. On Tuesday, if you are feeling better, you can come back to work.

- And if I’m not feeling better?

- Then you will rest for another day. You will rest for as many days as you need. And when you feel better you will come back, and we will be waiting to welcome you.

She does not believe me, but when Fermín repeats everything I said word for word, she allows us to walk her to the front door. Fermín runs to the corner for a mototaxi, and they are gone.

I attempt to repair the cake but the hard smooth frosting will not spread in any direction. After a time I desist, place a clean candle at its center, find a new box of matches and light the wick. I bring the cake in, locate Mariángel where she sits on Arantxa’s lap, carry the cake to her. Again there is singing, only “Happy Birthday” now but as always in both languages.

I walk Mariángel around the room to kiss and be kissed by all the guests, and she falls asleep halfway through. I take her to her crib and close her door. Back in the dining room, Arantxa is cutting the cake in fancifully shaped and roughly equal portions, and Reynaldo is serving the ice cream. When all of it is gone, humming begins and the cardboard hats come off.

These are two of many ways in which Piurans intimate that it is time for the dancing to start. The music alternates, rock and salsa, as is one possible custom here. I take a turn with each of the female professors, and two turns with Arantxa. Too sweaty to be comfortable close to anyone, I walk out onto the patio, and a moment later Arantxa comes with the bottle of pisco and two shot glasses.

- It’s from Aránzazu, she says.

Pisco is made from grapes, is something of a brandy; this bottle is from the region that gave the drink its name and I have no idea what Arantxa means.

- My name, she says. Haven’t you ever wondered?

I try to remember whether I have or not. It does not seem likely. She fills the glasses, hands me one, we drink and she pours again.

- Aránzazu, I say, just to try the word in my mouth.

- It’s Basque.
You, among thorns.
One of our Virgins.

She moves her chair closer to mine and begins to speak of distance, mentions an article she has read, quotes it on cultural differences as regards personal space: a Brit at arm’s-length and a Zambian’s breath on one’s cheek. The phrasing is familiar. Perhaps I have read the same article.

- I could stay tonight and help you with Mariángel, says Arantxa.

It is a proposition to be considered, and I do. But, Pilar. And something else also, something wrong and vicious in some way: a thought of the chilalo. I thank Arantxa, say that I will spend the evening looking for someone who can take Casualidad’s place until she is well. Then I ask if, should worse come to worst, I might take Mariángel to work with me tomorrow. It takes two more shots of pisco and a large amount of conversation, but at last Arantxa agrees that there are certain circumstances under which that would be the best of several bad options.

She stands, walks out onto the lawn, rests her hand on the trunk of the almond tree. From inside the house comes the screech of furniture being moved, surely the table slid to one side to provide more space for dancing. From the stereo comes a song of Rubén Blades. Here he is known as the Intellectual of Salsa. This may well be the same as speaking of the Intellectual of Codfish or Paste, but his music is smartly arranged and his lyrics often tell stories of social and other injustices.

Arantxa circles the tree but her hand never leaves its trunk, her fingers trailing lightly across the bark. Then she flinches, stops, looks at her forearm. She smiles. She looks at me, holds her arm up. I see nothing new, ask if it is an insect bite or allergic reaction of some kind.

- It’s started, she says.

- What?

And then I hear the sound.

Oquendo says for example we will make another sky, and here in Cossto the muzak is live. The organist in the balcony sways as though he were blind. The chords come in bunches like berries, like blackbirds, like flies.

Cossto is the only supermarket in Piura. There was another, once, slightly closer to our house, called Éxito, Success. The floors there were unclean and the selection was meager and the vegetables were not appealing. Cossto is small as supermarkets go, but it is among Mariángel’s favorite places as there is so much to grab and chew and throw.

Yesterday’s sky went dark, yes, and Arantxa and I danced again, and the raindrops chattered and chucked on the roof. The storm did not last long, but that is not the point. The point is that here it has no business raining so early in November, and Fermín came back in the evening to tell me that Casualidad had been to see a doctor, was following his orders carefully and was already feeling better, would rest for a day as suggested and be on time for work Tuesday morning. This did not seem likely but I thanked him for the news and asked if he had bus fare home. He nodded and said that he didn’t. Mariángel woke crying just then, and I became confused, told Fermín that we all looked forward to seeing his mother again soon and closed the door.

The Humboldt Current’s upswell gives northern Peru the richest sea in the world. The fish department here at Cossto is accordingly magnificent: sea bass and Conger eel, grouper and shark, flounder and salmon and drum and this morning Mariángel fought against me at first, became entangled, but I worked her free, told her of what was to come, worked her back in more gently and soon had her secure on my back, all straps known and in place. The roads were damp and thinly puddled and smelled of rot, but there was no rain falling. This is fortunate, as the nearest thing I have seen to preparatory action for El Niño is a flyer advertising a conference regarding sewage and dengue and shrimp.

Throughout my morning class Mariángel rode on my back, and each time I turned to write on the board, my students lost concentration and laughed. For my latter two classes she rode on my chest, facing inward when she wished to sleep and outward when not. Because of her many facial expressions my students think that she is a genius and will grow up to be an economist or prophet.

My Pre-Intermediate students filled in their worksheets, bottle diaper booties earache teething heartbreak rash, and there are many fish whose English names I do not know: cabrillón, cachema, lisa, ojo de uva. Every so often a rack is over-filled and fish slide to the floor. They are always cleaned up promptly and with much grace by young men in clean red uniforms.