Borderlands (13 page)

For her part, she had told him even about the whoring. Only women who were ashamed, she said, lied to men, or women who were afraid of them.

And then, three nights ago, as they lay contentedly entwined in her bed after making love, she had kissed his ear and said he ought to give up his cot at that awful flophouse where he lived and move in with her, since he was with her almost every night anyway.

He had declined her offer with the explanation that such an arrangement would put at risk her welfare payments. She said she was willing to take the risk. If she lost the welfare she would go to work, maybe at the Farmers Market as a sorter, maybe even as a picker in the fields. Lots of women worked in the fields, she reminded him. He said that was true, but she had two children not yet of school age to care for at home, and even if she found someone to care for them while she was at work, she should not, for their sake, take the risk of losing the welfare money.

She narrowed her eyes at this suggestion that she lacked sufficient maternal concern, but she held her tongue and tacitly deferred to his reasoning and had not brought up the matter since. And thus had he kept his cot at the Ross Hotel and returned to it every night after leaving her bed—and after stopping at the Corazón for a beer or two with his friends.

But now, watching her at the stove, he thought of the real reasons for his refusal to move in with her. Here was a woman who openly admitted to him that she had prostituted herself—and yet she was raising three well-disciplined children in the ways of the Church, teaching them proper behavior even as his own mother had tried to teach him, praying alongside them every night before they went to bed. Here was a woman who kept a clean house and cooked wonderful meals and showed him respect and fidelity. Here was a woman who had told him frankly and without shame that she could live without a husband—though she would prefer to have one—but not without the comfort of a good man in her house. What was a man to make of such a one? He saw her by turns as fragile and hard, guileless as a child and mysterious as a cat, sometimes saintly, at times beyond redemption. She confused him—and therefore frightened him—more than he cared to admit.

And there was still more to it than that. He sensed that to move in with her would be somehow to surrender something he could not even begin to define, and this feeling only deepened his confusion.

She ladled beans into two bowls and then paused to brush a strand of hair from her eyes with the back of her wrist. The gesture struck him as that of a little girl, and his chest suddenly ached with his affection for her. And then he was abruptly seized with guilt as he remembered the events of the previous evening, a sequence that began when the field bus arrived back at the Farmers Market and his friends asked him to come with them to Corazón for a beer. Although he had not told Esperanza he would join her for supper, he had eaten his evening meal there every night for more than a week, and he knew she would have something prepared for him. And so he’d told his friends he could not go with them now but would join them later, as usual. One of the men had laughed and raised his hands in front of him with the hands bent down at the wrists in the manner of a begging dog, and the gesture drew laughter from the others. They glanced sidelong at Chuy, and among themselves exchanged a look bespeaking humorous pity for one too fearful of his woman to join his friends for a beer before going home. Chuy felt his face go hot with anger—more at himself than at them, for he sensed they were right to ridicule him. “Hey, what the hell,” he said. “I
do
feel like a beer. Let’s go!” His friends had cheered and clapped him on the back.

But at the bar of the Corazón he had felt stupidly childish for having come for the reason he did. And then felt angrier yet because he did not think he should be feeling stupid for doing as he pleased. And then wondered just
what
it was he pleased to do. He gave hard thought to the question for the next few hours as he drank one beer after another.

He but vaguely remembered leaving the Corazón and making his hazy way to Esperanza’s house. He could remember nothing of what followed until he woke in her bed this morning, woke with an aching head to her insistent shaking of his shoulder and her exhortations to hurry or he would miss the bus to the fields. It was the first time he had spent the entire night in her bed and his hangover was weighted with guilt. He evaded her eyes as he hastened into his clothes, then rushed to the Farmers Market and got there just in time to catch the bus.

VI

Tonight she fed him a stew of turkey in a spicy chocolate sauce—together with steaming bowls of beans and rice, platters of warm tortillas and fried green chiles. She opened two more bottles of beer, one for him and one for herself, an sat across from him and watched him eat. The little radio on the shelf over the kitchen sink was tuned to one of the Spanish language stations, which tonight was playing a succession of tunes from the Revolution—“Adelita” and “Valentina” and “Jesusita de Chihuahua” and “Las Mañanitas.” “La Cucaracha” was the children’s favorite and when it came on she turned up the volume so they could hear it in the living room and sing along with it. They had finished their game of Chinese checkers and were now busily occupied in scissoring pictures out of magazines, photos of models and movie stars and palatial estates and automobiles. Esperanza permitted them to tape the pictures on any of the unfinished walls except the ones in the living room, which she reserved for crucifixes and framed paintings of the Sacred Heart and of the Blessed Mother.

“I have the medicine for you,” Esperanza said, taking a small brown bottle from her apron pocket and pushing it across the table to him. “I’m sorry it took Irma so long to get it, but her friend has had to be very careful.” Irma was a friend who had a friend who worked in a pharmacy and was sometimes able to get certain medicines for those in need of it—for a price, of course, but a much better price than one would have to pay to the pharmacy even if one had a prescription. “She says this is very strong. She says to take one pill every morning, one at noon, and one at night when you go to bed. The burning should stop in just a day or two, but Irma says to keep taking the pills until they are all gone, even after the burning has stopped.”

“Do you have to take such pills?” he asked.

“No. The doctor is giving me injections.”

“Does he think you are … seeing men again?”

Esperanza shrugged.

“I don’t like for him to think that.”

He had not risked going to the clinic himself because it was widely believed that la migra had posted agents there disguised as patients. The radio made daily announcements that such rumors were completely false, that anyone needing medical attention could come to the clinic without fear of being arrested, that no one in the clinic would question any patient’s immigration status. Such announcements were also believed to be tricks of the immigration service.

He had a second helping of everything and drank another bottle of beer. As he finished mopping the mole sauce off his plate with a tortilla, Esperanza excused herself and went to put the children to bed. Raul called goodnight to Chuy from the kitchen door and Maria dashed in to give him a quick hug and kiss. Joselito peeked into the kitchen from behind his mother’s skirt and Chuy winked at him and the boy giggled and ran off down the hall.

While she led them in their prayers he smoked a cigarette and finished his beer. After she tucked them into bed and turned out the lights in the rest of the house, she returned to the kitchen and poured coffee for them both. They sipped in silence but for the music from the radio. After a time she got up and turned down the volume and refilled their cups.

“You are very quiet tonight,” she said.

He smiled at her and shrugged.

“Last night you were not so quiet.”

He felt his smile dissolve and he stared down into his coffee cup. “I am sorry about last night.”

“Do you remember what you said?”

He felt a sudden tightness in his belly and recognized the feeling as alarm but had no idea why he felt it.

“I am told it can be difficult to remember things when one has been so drunk as you were.”

“I am very sorry I came to your house in such disgraceful condition,” he said, glancing at her and then looking into his coffee again. “Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Esperanza said. “A man sometimes gets drunk with his friends. What is more natural?”

Chuy sipped at his cold coffee.

“A man gets drunk,” Esperanza said, “and he says things. You said you love me.”

Chuy glanced at her. He could not read her face. He lit a cigarette and looked into his empty cup and exhaled a long plume of smoke.

“You said you want to marry me,” Esperanza said.

She got up and took their cups to the sink and washed them and dried them and hung them on little hooks under the cupboard. She sat down at the table again and took a cigarette from his pack and lit it.

“Oh, Chuyito,” she said with a small smile. “Don’t look so sad, my son. I will not ask you anything about love. Questions about love are always so foolish. No one truly understands love.”

Chuy looked at her and said nothing. He told himself to think of nothing. It was a trick he had learned. If you thought of nothing, nothing could bother your mind.

“But I want to know,” she said. “Were you telling the truth? Do you truly want to marry me?”

His cigarette burned his fingers and he quickly snuffed it in the ashtray.

“If an illegal marries a legal citizen of this country, then he too becomes a legal citizen. That is the law. Did you know that, Chuy?”

He had heard that such was so, but had not known if it were true. One heard so much that was not true. “Yes,” he said.

“You would no longer have to live in fear of la migra.”

“No,” he said. Think of nothing, he told himself.

“I can be a good wife, Chuy. I would be, for you.”

“I know.” It was not so hard to think of nothing.

“The children love you and respect you. I believe you would be a very good father for them.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then you truly want to marry me as you said?”

He looked at her. There was no pleading in her voice or her eyes, nor the slightest show of fear. She blinked slowly and waited for his answer.

“Yes,” he said. And she smiled.

They smoked in silence for a while. He studied the palm of his hand, its lines, its thick scars, the marvelous manner in which it obeyed his silent commands to open and close.

“I am very happy, Chuy,” she said. “But I want you to know that it truly makes no difference to me about love. I give myself to you, Chuy. I give you my family. I give you citizenship in this country. I give you my house where you will always have a home and always be safe. All I want is a good father for my children and a good man in my bed. I ask nothing more. You have my love, of course, but I do not demand yours in return. I can live without love. I have learned to live without it.”

VII

They lay on their backs, their shoulders touching, and smoked in the dark. The sheets smelled of their lovemaking.

“Your sleep last night was troubled,” she said. “You spoke names. Calles. Muria. Others. Tell me: who are those names?”

He watched the tip of her cigarette flare and cast her face in red light and shadow. The names were of men with whom he had sneaked across the Río Grande into the United States one night several months ago. In another lifetime. Calles had been barely more than a boy. Coughing with sickness in the back of the truck bringing them to Florida, coughing until blood gushed from his mouth, and still coughing until he died. They had buried him at the edge of a swamp in a place called Alabama. And Muria. The tough guy from Culiacán. He had punched a field boss who cheated him on his pay and the boss loosed the big dogs on him and the animals ripped his arms open to the bones and tore his crotch bloody before the other bosses got them off him at last and took Muria away—to a hospital they said—and nobody ever saw him again. That had happened two months ago.

“Nobody,” he said. “I don’t know. Who can say why he has the dreams he has?”

They put out their cigarettes and she turned on her side so that her buttocks pressed against him. He reached around and held her breast, then slid his hand down her smooth belly. She worked her hips and in a moment they were joined. Joselito began to whimper in the other bedroom. The child was a poor sleeper and given to frightening visions in the dark. By the time Chuy spent himself and rolled away from her, the boy was crying loudly, and Esperanza got up quickly to tend to him. After a time the boy quieted and then she came back to bed and snuggled against him and murmured endearments against his neck as he caressed the curve of her hip. She soon fell asleep.

He lay awake. The wind had come up and he heard it rushing through the trees. Moonlight swept in and out of the room through the open window above the bed. She lightly snored once, smacked her lips and moved in more snugly against him, and breathed deeply once again. A dog barked persistently in the distance.

The moonlight vanished behind the closing clouds. He could smell the rain coming. He wondered what time it was. They had come to bed around nine o’clock, maybe a little later. The wind-up clock was ticking on the small table on her side of the bed but it was too dark to see it.

Maybe you are no different than good-hearted but foolish Esteban, he thought—damned to living on the thin air of stupid dreams. Maybe you will be poor as always, even here, in this country of milk and money. Maybe there is nothing ahead but defeat and more defeat and still more defeat until you are dead. Maybe.

The dog went silent for a moment and then renewed his barking more furiously than before. Chuy gently disengaged his arm from under Esperanza, paused to see if she would waken, then eased out of bed and scooped up his clothes and carried them to the living room.

He dressed quickly. The wind was stronger now, and he could hear the trees tossing. He groped along the sofa in the dark until he found the shoebox, and then took it into the kitchen and flicked on the little light over the stove. He cut the cord binding and removed the top. The box held a deck of playing cards, an empty key ring, a pair of wool socks, a few seashells, a blue bandanna, and a large jackknife he had won from Muria in a dice game two days before the dogs got him. He took out the socks, bandanna and knife, then closed the box and retied it tightly and set it on the shelf over the sink. He emptied his pockets and placed his money on the counter, spread out the bills and coins, made a quick count and then re-pocketed two dollars. He rolled the bandanna into a rope and tied it around his neck. He picked up the knife and admired the clean feel of its onyx grips, then opened it as he had been taught by Muria—with a hard backhand snap of the wrist, so that the blade appeared almost magically. It was six inches long and honed as finely as a shaving razor.