Lost in the City: Tree of Desire and Serafin (6 page)

For a little while the wave rose so much and the man had so much trouble breathing, it seemed he was about to explode. On the other hand, the woman's face sank into the pillow as if it were foam, and her expression of being about to bite something, to pull it up by the roots, had changed into an ecstatic, frozen grin that made Cristina think of pain.

But she was entertained and even had to smother a laugh with the back of her hand when the man shook as if he had received an electric charge, sucked in as much air as he possibly could and then fell on the woman, sinking into her bosom while she asked for more, my Jesús, more, crying out so loudly Cristina was afraid she would waken Joaquín.

Cristina remembered the morning when Alicia told her, I saw
my parents do that thing they call making love. Love? That's what they call it. They came together and got on top of each other in bed. I didn't see it very well, but I saw it more or less. They came together? Cristina asked, pretending to know what it was about. Yes, very close together, Alicia told her.

And in a movie, when a couple went into a bedroom and were kissing and slowly falling on the bed and the light went out to change the scene, she turned to her mother and asked,

“They came together?”

And her mother answered her with a finger to her lips, saying,

“My dear.”

Cristina would have liked to see them again, in more detail, but the man immediately fell asleep on the woman's bare breast, as peaceful as a child, and the woman stroked his hair for a while, saying, my little Jesús, and suddenly dropped her hand, letting it fall as if she had no strength. She started that snoring of hers, which was more like whistling.

Cristina thought, if I could only get this cat off me, but she didn't even try, and a few moments later she, too, was asleep.

12

When Cristina awakened,
with the sun slanting through the window, Joaquín was no longer at her side. Her hand was resting in the hollow the child had left in the pillow. She looked at it as if trying to focus on it, recognize it, not really sure it was her normal, everyday hand, and suddenly, remembering everything, reacted to the absence of her brother.

“Joaquín,” she said, sitting up and looking all around.

Angustias, who was seated at the table taking small sips from a mug, answered without looking at her.

“He went with Jesús.”

“Where?”

The light was revealing things, stripping them of the halo of the night before: the rust on the metal bed, the threadbare bedspread, the stains on the mattress, the springs sticking through, the cat dung on the floor, the pile of newspapers in one corner, the damp stains
on the walls, the layer of dust that covered everything. Terror dawned in Cristina's eyes.

“I want to see my brother.”

“You'll see him this afternoon, after we get back from work.”

“No!”

Cristina jumped on Angustias, and the cats meowed. The contents of the mug—something that looked like coffee with milk—spilled on the table. Cristina grabbed Angustias by both shoulders and in return received a blow in the mouth from the back of her hand.

“Just look what you've done, you stupid brat,” Angustias said, picking up the mug and using a spoon to try to catch the liquid that was spreading across the top of the table. But Cristina came back with even more fury and seized Angustias' hair.

“I want to see my brother!” she shouted again.

Angustias gave a long moan and arched her back, letting the spoon fall. But a single jab of her elbow in the girl's stomach was enough to make her release the hair. Then she turned with enraged eyes and slapped her several times on her head and face. Cristina still managed to respond with a kick, but one blow made her fall to the floor, where she put her hands up to her mouth and nose, both bleeding profusely.

She was crying as she screamed, “Joaquín!”

“Be quiet or I'll hit you again! You'll have all the neighbors in here!”

The cats circled around them, their eyes infected with excitement.

Cristina stopped crying and begged:

“I want to see my little brother.”

“I've already told you that you'll see him this afternoon.”

“If you don't let me see him, I'll scream until all the neighbors come.”

“Before you do that, I'll break your teeth and cut out your tongue to make you stop screaming.”

Cristina was terrified by the possibility of losing her tongue. Angustias guessed it, because she repeated it, adding another threat.

“I'll cut your tongue into bits and then cut out your brother's.”

“Joaquín is just a little boy!”

“Shut up! You're going to do what I tell you. You'll go to work with me, and when we get back, you'll see him.”

“Who will take care of him?”

“Jesús.”

“Well, let me see him just once before we go.”

“Come,” and she held out a hand. “Wipe off your face with the bedspread.”

Cristina obeyed. Then they went to a room two doors away and Angustias told her to go to the window, but not to let her brother see her, so he would not make a fuss. Cristina saw Joaquín's back. He was seated on the bed, playing with some paper figures Jesús was cutting out for him with a pair of large scissors. She was going to call him, but Angustias repeated the threat in her ear.

“Remember, I'll cut out your tongue.”

Angustias took her by the arm and pushed her toward the street.

“If you say anything, anything at all, I'll go cut out your brother's tongue right now.”

A woman who was hanging up clothes said to Cristina,

“Don't go with that crazy old woman, child,” and then, when she saw her closer, “What happened to your face?”

“I fell,” Cristina said, feeling the pressure of Angustias' fingers on her arm.

By the time they got to the street, Cristina realized how much her nose and mouth were hurting.

13

Cristina burst out crying.
Angustias stopped her at a corner and squatted down so she could talk to her looking into her eyes, as she moved her forefinger and middle finger back and forth like scissors.

“You're going to be quiet, because if you're not, look.”

Cristina blinked, seeing the movement of her fingers.

“Show me your tongue.”

“No!” She was going to run, but the woman grabbed her with a hand that to Cristina felt like pliers on her arm.

“So you're going to behave now, aren't you?”

Trembling, she nodded her head and looked at the ground. A drop of blood from the corner of her mouth made a red stain on her dress, like a confirmation of her fear.

“Now you're going to take my hand and go where I tell you to, without crying or talking.”

Cristina obeyed. They walked two blocks, Cristina never raising her eyes.

“Do you have any money in that purse?” the woman asked her.

“No.”

“Let me see.”

“I have a hundred pesos.”

“Give them to me.”

Cristina clutched the purse to her chest with both hands, as if she were protecting her heart.

“They're to buy food for my little brother.”

“Give them to me, or I'll take them from you.”

Cristina slipped her fingers in the purse like tweezers. She gave the hundred-peso bill to the woman and closed the purse nervously. Angustias showed her gums in laughter.

“Stupid brat. I know you have more money.”

Cristina withdrew again, staring at the ground, and muttered between her teeth, “I hate her!”

They took a bus to a residential neighborhood and got off at a wide street with poplar trees. They walked down the street.

“Look, that's the church I usually stand outside,” she said, pointing to a cross that seemed to float above the tops of the trees, “but today we're going to do another little job.”

She took her to a house that looked like a castle with parapets, a fountain in the garden, and bare trees. They sat on the wall at the base of the high grillwork and the woman took a small jug out of her pocket, put two coins in it, and made them jingle whenever someone passed by—which was only sporadically. A woman pushing a fat, rosy baby in a carriage dropped three pennies in the jug and smiled at Cristina.

“And this little girl?”

“She's my little granddaughter. So sweet, she's keeping me company,” Angustias said.

“Is she your grandmother?”

Cristina nodded her head.

“What happened to your mouth?”

“I fell.”

“Do you live nearby?”

Cristina nodded again.

“What a pretty baby,” Angustias said, bending over to caress him, but the woman avoided that by pushing the carriage ahead. Then she left, with another smile.

“You did very well,” Angustias said to Cristina. “There are very few people on this street, but you have to be careful anyway. I brought you here so you can help me get into one of the houses.”

“Which one?”

“This one,” Angustias answered, looking out of the corner of her eye at the house behind them. “You can go in between the railings.”

“And if they see me?” and she touched the rusty metal and looked fearfully at the sharp arrows on top.

“They're not going to see you. When I tell you, you'll stand on this base, squeeze into the garden, and enter the house through the kitchen door. On a shelf above the stove there are some keys. Bring all of them.”

“Right now?” and Cristina looked at the parapets of the house as if at any moment someone might appear there.

“I'll tell you when.”

Cristina sat back down on the wall while the woman cut some flowers off the shrubs in the street and put them in her hair. Cristina leaned her head against the railing and closed her eyes.

As soon as she closed her eyes, the dream from the night before continued:

Papá, Mamá, Grandma, and she were on the bank of the river looking sadly at the place where Joaquín had gone under. The rain was covering the water with concentric circles. All four of them were watching, without moving.

“Here, here,” Cristina was saying in a very low voice. In spite of the rain and the sound of the river, she knew Papá, Mamá, and Grandma were hearing her perfectly.

Again she awoke, happy it was only a dream. She longed more
than ever to see her brother, give him a big hug, and tell him she was going to take care of him forever and ever. However, even if she could escape, she wouldn't know how to find him. The woman was still walking around in the shrubs, cutting flowers. Her head was beginning to look like the designs Joaquín drew in school. It would have amused him a lot to see her, Cristina thought. Then, looking up at the sky, “Where are you, my little brother, where are you?” although she knew where he was and was sure nothing bad was happening to him. In a low voice, she said, “I'll be with you soon,” while she clenched her teeth and frowned, as if sending a signal.

Angustias came back and gave her a flower, which Cristina put in her hair, too.

“My pretty little girl,” Angustias said with eyes that had softened. “Precious.”

14

A woman came out
of the house, smiled at the old woman, and dropped a coin in the small jar.

Angustias watched her walk away and turn the corner, “Now,” she said.

She made sure no one was coming and told Cristina to squeeze into the garden, go in through the kitchen door at the back of the house, find the key ring near the stove that she had told her about, and bring it quickly.

“How do you know about it?” Cristina asked, again beginning to feel fear in the pit of her stomach.

“I worked there for ten years.”

Cristina ran through the garden, afraid of falling at every moment, imagining that the crackling of the dry leaves she was stepping on would betray her. And if a dog should come out? Or a man with a gun? They could take her to jail and from there notify her parents. She went past the stone fountain and walked slowly when she came to a narrow passageway—between a high wall covered with vines on one side and the side of the house on the other—which took her to the back patio, with its
pirul
trees and bare shrubs. She stayed close to the wall until she reached the screen door. What would happen if she opened it? Would there be a man waiting for
her with a knife, ready to strike? And what was she doing there in that unfamiliar house? A terrifying image crossed her mind: that it was all a trick and her parents were inside (Papá with arms akimbo, and Mamá carrying Joaquín). She saw them outlined against the light without seeing their features . . . But that was absurd. They couldn't be there, and she had better make up her mind to go on in.

She took the key ring off the panel behind the stove and in a moment was back, dizzy and breathless, more from the fantasies than from the running. She passed the keys through the railing and waited for Angustias to enter. She had trouble with the keys, and Cristina kept jumping around and saying between her teeth, hurry, hurry up. She became even more uneasy when Angustias, as she entered the garden, stumbled on the edge of the tile walk that led to the main door, and Cristina had to help her get up and even hold her up because she was limping and, between moans, pointing to her beet-colored knee with its knotty veins so swollen they were about to burst.

In the house Angustias fell on a large couch covered with red silk and put her hurt knee and foot on the edge of the seat. As Cristina was walking around, very worried, someone would hear them, catch them, a policeman or Papá, and she almost knocked over a cut-glass flower bowl on a table in the middle of the room.

Angustias waved her bony hands over her injury and told Cristina to get some alcohol from the bathroom.

“They're going to put us in jail!”

“Be quiet, you wretched brat! The woman will be gone for a half hour, or longer if she's seeing her boyfriend. Go to the bathroom for some alcohol.” She shook her fist.