The Widower's Tale (23 page)

Feeling sorry for Robert, Celestino laughed. "No, it is not quite the same language your friend and I speak. He is coming from a very different part of my country. Life is not the same; language is not the same, either."

"But you understood each other."

"Oh yes, the words, that much. Yes."

Now it was Arturo who looked nervous. Celestino felt a small satisfaction; oddly, this boy was less clear to him. He wished that Arturo had not come along. But this was Celestino's fault, for hiding his fluency even as he had enjoyed the hours of working on the tree house.

"Okay. Well then, let's roll!" said Robert. He looked at his notebook. "So I have a list of questions, and if some of them make you uncomfortable"--edgy laughter--"well, just tell me to back off, okay? But like I said, I promise this is only for a class paper, and I'm not going to use your name. I'll call you ... Diego or Juan or something anonymous like that. Okay?"

Celestino nodded.

"Oh--but food!" Robert waved at a waitress. "You want a beer or something? Have anything. On me, of course." In a place like this, a place so popular, the staff did not have to be efficient. In New York, Celestino had washed dishes for a few months in the kitchen of such a place, a taqueria in the touristy part of Greenwich Village, where the waitresses came into the kitchen and bad-mouthed the customers loudly, not caring if anyone heard.

Robert asked about Celestino's village, his part of Guatemala, how and when he had come to leave. Had he left because of the civil war? Celestino had contemplated inventing a story, making it more like the sad, hard-luck story of his lawn-work
companeros
. But he liked Robert. And it had occurred to him that Robert might even know about the Lartigues. Senora Lartigue had taught at Harvard, too, though she had not been the esteemed professor her husband had been. She had been a French-language teacher.

"Wow, an archaeological dig," said Robert when Celestino got to that part of his story, "and from Harvard! That is wild."

"Yes, it was a ... radical change to our lives. My father saw his opportunity there, sooner than others, and he took it."

Arturo raised his eyebrows. He had said nothing so far, sitting on the sidelines, no translations needed.

Robert said, "Radical. I bet." Did it surprise him--both of them--that Celestino spoke English this well? Of course it would.

"So this--the dig--that's what got you to the States?"

"My father saw a chance for all of us in me. I was the quiet child, the one who takes things in.
Una pequena esponja
, he called me. But my father knew how to make himself important. Important to the professor who was the
patron
of the dig. Dr. Lartigue was a man who paid attention to children. A lot of Americans do not. Children are bothering them often--the children of other people."

Robert typed as Celestino spoke. "This is a fascinating story. Not what I expected. Okay, I need to shut up. So tell me about the archaeologists. Did they take your dad back to Cambridge, like as an assistant?"

Celestino shook his head. "Not my father."

He told Robert about the Lartigues--the professor and his wife, not Isabelle, not her brother. He realized that he had not spoken out loud about these people for years, and as he did, he felt the terrible, wonderful lure of longing for the past when the past is a place of safety, a place of choice. In actual words, he described his childhood beginning even before his earliest memories: how his father gained responsibility, learned to speak simple English, supervised a team of workers, many of them relatives and friends. Then he described how he had joined those workers when he was old enough, how his father had taken him along to Dr. Lartigue's tent in the evenings. He described the artifacts they had found. But behind these stories, other memories began to unfold and gleam.

He remembered his first meals with the Lartigues in their house. He remembered sitting on the couch in the study, reading his first compositions out loud to Dr. Lartigue. He remembered going to a Christmas play in a shockingly plain white church: no saints, no Virgin, no crucifixion. He sat between Isabelle and her mother, the three of them so close together that the skirts of the mother's and daughter's stiff red dresses had spilled across his narrow lap, his unfamiliar woolen pants.

Without ceremony, the waitress placed on their table a pizza as big as a bicycle tire, turned, and hurried away. The pizza was covered with sausage and many kinds of vegetables. It smelled heavenly.

"Take a break and dig in," said Robert. "But let me ask--when exactly was this? Wasn't this like when Guatemala was on the State Department list? Weren't there guerrillas kidnapping American nuns and Peace Corps workers? Wasn't it dangerous for Americans to run projects like that in the jungle?"

Celestino chewed his pizza. He had never tasted sausage like this.

"Let the dude eat, for God's sake," said Arturo. "I can answer that one. The civil war put just about everybody at risk for thirty years--but life was worst for Indians of any kind." He nodded at Celestino. "But if you were rich and privileged, or if you were some archaeologist from Hotshot U, you paid for protection." Arturo glanced at Celestino and asked him, in Spanish, if Dr. Lartigue's expedition came with protection.

Celestino looked at Robert. He answered in English. "Sometimes they had men from the capital with them, Ladino archaeologists. For this, I think they would not have been bothered. Also, we were near where the tourists came, to see ruins and temples. The famous one is Tikal."

"Tikal," said Robert. "Wow. You've seen Tikal?"

Celestino shook his head.

"Nor have I, if you can believe it," Arturo said to Celestino.

"Hey!" Robert said. "Am I writing a travelogue here?"

Arturo raised his hands. "I'll shut up! I think I'm superfluous."

Celestino told them about going to live with the Lartigues, about the Spanish program in the school, to which he took a bus each day. The classrooms were shiny and new: tile floors, large windows, sleek furniture in colorful plastics. He had loved all the light, the open green playground where the pupils played soccer. None of the other pupils, however, had come from Guatemala, so he had not made any close friends.

Celestino had not thought ahead of time how he would tell Robert what happened later, after he came back for college--how stupid he had been, how cowardly. His mother had told him it was never meant to be, his love of Isabelle becoming a match. She had urged him to return to Guatemala, join her and his sisters in the city, use what he'd learned to get a good job and a Ladino wife. Marry up, this he could do: rise to the top of a mountain, but to the moon? What had he expected?

"I quit my studies. They were too hard for me. But I did not want to go back to my country." One lie, one truth. Not that they balanced. Celestino was quiet by nature partly because he hated telling lies.

Robert typed quickly. Arturo ate, but he rarely took his eyes off Celestino, as if waiting for a particular detail in the story, as if he had heard it before--or as if he could recognize the lies.

"So you came here?" said Robert.

"I went to New York, to where I have family. I had never met them before, but there is ... a network. I had cousins. Some of them have papers, some have children born here. There is legal work for some, not for others."

To Celestino's relief, Robert wanted to know more about the "network," how it worked, whether it crossed what he called "cultural borders." He did not ask more about what happened before New York.

It was easy to talk about the many short jobs he'd had, some abandoned when better ones came along, others when it looked as if someone might want to see papers, identification. Some of the
indigenas
he met had false cards they had bought when they came into the country. Celestino had asked about the cards and was shocked to hear what they cost, for a deception that looked so flimsy.

For a long time, Celestino had found that there were always jobs he could get without showing papers. New York was a place where what kept him safe were the crowds of people like him. He was just another tree in the jungle. But things were changing fast, even there. And in a town like Matlock, Loud might decide at any moment that the money he saved by hiring and keeping these men wasn't worth the risk. Any minute, it might not matter how much Celestino pleased his boss.

He did not raise these worries to Robert as he answered questions about the lives of the workers who lived in Packard--what he knew of their lives. He could tell that Robert was disappointed to find out Celestino wasn't one of those men, part of their strange bubble of existence, a life lived parallel to the lives they'd left behind. They led what Celestino thought of as "instead" lives, substitutes for reality. Because of money, despite money.

Yet the boys who sat across from him, chewing on the last bits of crust from the pizza, were not stupid. As if guessing at some of Celestino's fears, Robert said, "Well, I'm sure you've figured out by now that Matlock doesn't live by most people's rules. Like, I'd love to see the INS march in and deprive Laurel Connaughton, who's the heiress to some bath towel fortune, deprive her of"--his voice went singsong in excellent mimicry of Mrs. Connaughton--" 'the very finest of all the gardeners who've ever tended my little patch of pah-rah-dize.' "

Celestino laughed freely for the first time in front of these boys. Robert had ordered him a second beer, and he felt relaxed--perhaps relieved, simply, that he had done what he'd promised. He said, "I have been curious to see Mr. Connaughton. He is never at home."

Robert snorted. "Oh please, that dude tucked tail and ran, somewhere back around the invention of the catapult."

Arturo said, "She lives in that place all on her own? Three stories?"

"Did you see inside? It's like the bigger, richer cousin of Granddad's house. They were actually built by brothers. Our brother was a farmer who couldn't keep up with supporting all his kids. Hers was like this bachelor who had a successful carpentry business and kept making his house larger. She keeps that place like it's a wing of the MFA. She wears ballet slippers and makes guests take off their shoes. She claims some important British general stayed there before the Revolution. Now she's getting it even more duded up so they can stage a big house tour. And she's roped in Granddad, too."

"What the F for?" said Arturo. "Show off your house to the world so you can attract future thieves?"

"It's to raise money for some architectural cause," said Robert.

"Oh, like supporting impoverished architects? Right."

Celestino sipped his beer and watched the boys banter. Their friendship was fascinating to him. They were from different but harmonious worlds. Money spoke louder than blood, language, religion--everything.

Suddenly, Robert turned back to him. "So the last question I wanted to ask is, What now? I mean, what happens next for you? Are you going to go for citizenship?"

Arturo frowned at his friend. " 'Go for citizenship'? Do you read the papers?"

"Well, if you get trained in some special skill, you can justify it to the authorities, that's what I mean."

"The
authorities,"
Arturo said scornfully. "Please. As if, since nine-eleven, since the whole flight-school fiasco, they have much sympathy for foreigners trained to do useful, productive tasks that could help them get ahead." He glanced at Celestino. "No offense."

Celestino had heard Gilberto, in the truck one morning, talk about an uncle who'd become a certified arborist, how this had earned him a legitimate green card. "I've heard it can happen," he said.

"You're just a knee-jerk cynic," Robert said to Arturo.

"I am many things, man, but not a cynic. As you know by now."

Robert turned back to Celestino. "Tell me what you do for Tom Loud. Nobody seems to know how he suddenly started hiring all these Hispanic guys. According to my mother, one day it was locals--in the summer, kids off from school--and then, wham, one day everybody's from Brazil. Or, I guess, Guatemala? What does he pay you guys?"

Celestino felt a completely unfamiliar urge to defend his boss. It was true that Loud paid better than the bosses who had picked up his
companeros
from city streets. He paid better than the fish factory. But the wages were still meager, and they came with no guarantees, no promises of any kind.

"I am paid better than many others," said Celestino.

"Because you speak English."

"No." Celestino laughed. "Because I know more than he does about gardens and trees. I know the answers to questions he does not." He began to tell Robert about the job he would have caring for Mrs. Bullard's orchids--though of course this would take just a fraction of his time--but suddenly Robert looked at his watch.

"Oh shit." He punched a key and abruptly closed his computer. "Granddad. I told him I'd help move furniture. His floors are being sanded."

"For the indigent architects' charity ball."

"Hey, it's all relative," said Robert. "It's not a McCain fund-raiser, right?" He stood and waved at their waitress. "I'm getting this. Sorry I have to split." He packed up his computer and notebook, pulled on his puffy orange coat.

Robert thanked Celestino and asked if they could get together again. "Are you staying on the same schedule at Mrs. Connaughton's?"

Celestino said he would leave a message with Robert's grandfather if anything changed. Awkwardly, they shook hands.

He finished his beer and reached for his coat.

"One more for the road?" said Arturo. "On me."

Celestino was quiet, still. If the next words to emerge from his mouth were in Spanish, they would mean one thing; in English, another. Or perhaps he was wrong. Maybe, as his mother believed, everything was written by God in some great gilded book. Maybe the choices he made were futile.

"You don't want to go with your friend?" Celestino said.

"I like it here, where it's warm. Don't you?" Arturo wore a knowing smile. The girls must go wild for this one. He had a rich boy's teeth: white and evenly spaced. His eyes were the deep brown of the coffee beans that had paid his way through life, his black hair slick as a bird's wing.