House Arrest (21 page)

I had no idea why I was having this conversation with her. Why I was even toying with this idea. But there was something about Isabel—that look in her eyes, her hair pulled back like a refugee’s. “If it was just me,” I told her, “I’d help you, but I have my family to think of …” I thought of the tuition payment I had not made and all the responsibilities that I had assumed for myself. Everything suddenly seemed to weigh heavily on me.

Isabel was silent, staring at the table. “You’ll be fine. I have people who will make sure …” I saw that familiar sadness settle over her features. A kind of fatigue, as if she had been through this so many times before. As if she knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere.

Now she took out a cigarette and I stared at the pack. I hadn’t even had the urge for one in years, but I reached across the table. She tipped the pack my way and I took one as
Isabel extended a match. Taking a drag, I was surprised at how good it tasted. How it seemed as if I’d never quit at all. It would be so easy to go back to this, I thought. Together we sat, smoking, without speaking. Soon my mouth tasted dry and a slight wave of nausea came. Slowly I put the cigarette out after a few drags. “I’m sorry,” I told her, “but I don’t think I can help you.”

“No,” she said, “of course you can’t.” The sadness like smoke wrapped itself around her again. “I didn’t think you would.”

M
ANUEL lived down a few winding streets from my hotel, in the old city where laundry hung across the road. He led me along a narrow alleyway to a crumbling building that smelled of cooking oil and urine. The stairway had cats milling about, sucking on bones. His apartment was dark but Manuel pulled up the shade. He had a cot, two chairs around a card table, a sink, and a burner for cooking on the floor. The walls were decorated with fading posters, Miss Marimba 1984, Calle Ocho, the Esmeralda Band, Tito Puente.

Manuel opened the refrigerator, which contained a pitcher of fruit punch and a bottle of fifteen-year-old dark rum, and he began mixing tumblers with half of each, dropping in dirty ice cubes.

Despite the dinginess of the apartment, he had a decent record player and records and he was a natty dresser, with a closetful of silk suits and polo shirts, jeans and leather shoes. Never mind how he afforded them, he had what he needed.

He handed me a drink and motioned for me to sit beside him on the cot, which I was reluctant to do. I sat at the table and chair. “You gringas are all alike. You like to flirt. You tease, but you never really want anything.” With a wave of his hand, he said, “Look at this dump. You have no idea what we have to do to live.” He patted the place beside him on the cot, but I just stood in the center of the room.

“I don’t think I can …” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I can help her.”

“You can do whatever you want,” he said.

That night he took me to the Flamingo Club, for which he wore a lime green suit. We sipped planter’s punch and danced every number. It was hot in the club, but under the strobe light I watched his feet move. They glided, changing as the music changed, and I did the best I could, following clumsily along.

A tango came on and he swept me up from the stool on which I sat. Bracing me with his hand, he led, taking long smooth strides, making sudden spins. Then he dipped me and I bent back farther than I thought I could bend.

“I know someone who can help you decide,” Manuel said.

The Santero’s house was hard to miss because it was freshly painted pink. On the lawn sat a huge carved statue of Santa Barbara and a satellite dish. Lesser saints with amulets, bouquets of dead roses lined the path. Manuel did not knock, but simply opened the door.

The service would not begin until midnight, when the gods change their sexes and Santa Barbara becomes Changó, the
santero
’s male god of war. Men and women dressed in
flowing gowns, strewn with flower petals, sat before dishes of water, honey, egg yolk, and blood. They had sacrificed goats, chickens, and doves for the ceremony and the animals’ remnants lay on the kitchen floor.

Ángel, the
santero
, would take his seat soon. Space was made for me and Manuel. A woman in flowing purple began to chant and the
Babalao
appeared. He was dressed in red and his teeth shown gold. His skin was yellow and his hair a mass of greasy curls.

In the center of the room was a stool surrounded by candles. On the stool sat blood-filled plates, plastic dolls, carved wooden ships, statues of the Catholic saints, a crucifix, a bowl of passion fruit, mangoes, and tamarinds. Ángel asked the gods if enough coffee, alcohol, and blood had been offered to satisfy them. He threw four square coconut chips on the floor. If two or more fell white-side up, then the answer was yes. The gods wanted brandy. A bottle was placed in the center of the room. Then Ángel said he was ready.

“Ñangaré, ñangaré, ñangaré,”
he chanted. Then the dishes with the swirling liquid were passed and I sipped from the water, the honey, the egg yolk. The blood swirled in front of me in the dish and I glanced at Manuel, who frowned, then gave me a nod of his head and I drank from that dish too, reeling as I felt the warm blood go down.

Ángel dropped sixteen palm seeds into a powder-covered tray and studied the prints they made. For hours he tossed the palm seeds, studying the prints. The women swayed, chanting, and my head was spinning, as if I would faint. I tried to sit upright, but my legs ached and I longed to sleep.

The sun was coming up when Ángel broke his silence and began to speak. Elegún, the god of destiny, says that you are to help Ochún, the goddess of rivers. This will enrage
Obatalá, the son of God, and he will bring Changó upon you, fire and war; Orisha cannot protect you from what you do.

What does this mean? I asked Manuel because I had no idea.

It means that you will help the girl, he told me, but there will be a price to pay.

Y
OU CAN’T underestimate the importance of shuttle buses. The traveler needs to feel that someone is waiting on the other end. Like children, we want a parent there when we race out of school. It is, of course, best when the hotel takes care of everything—the luggage, immigration, the transportation. But having the shuttle bus is what’s most essential for me.

It is shuttle buses I am thinking of the morning Major Lorenzo does not show. I have grown accustomed to his punctual visits. The promise of him waiting for me on the other end of the night. The expectation that this day he will have my papers, my documents, an explanation in hand.

But this morning he does not arrive. I am surprised as I sit at my usual table. With every sound of footsteps, the door of the hotel opening, and the breeze blowing in, I look up and expect it to be he. Enrique is there that morning, but he does not wait on me. In fact, he appears to be ignoring me, because this is his usual table but he sends someone else over. I
try to catch his eye, but he looks away and I think perhaps it is better if I do not bother him at all.

The usual crew is in the lobby. The Dutch boys are already drinking beer and cavorting with Flora and Eva. The dwarf sits, despondent, in a corner. Why do people want to go where they go? I wonder as I watch them all. I can understand taking the gourmet walking tour of Switzerland or the scenic cruise of the Nile. But why do they need to go to Vietnam after we tore the country to shreds, or to Romania? Do we really need to tell people that while the former Yugoslavia is no longer a possibility, Slovenia is? I grow despondent as I contemplate
Jungle Magazine
, sending their writer with a machete through the last stretch of virgin forest in the world. Kurt says his readers want to go everywhere, but I think to myself as I sit, waiting for Major Lorenzo, will they really want to come here?

The ceiling fans churn the sultry air as the tables begin to fill up. By eleven Major Lorenzo still has not appeared and all the tables are taken. Perhaps he is getting my papers in order. Perhaps he is just getting the necessary seals of approval, the required stamps, and then he will put me on the next plane. My plane will take off in a day or two and I’ll be home that night. This misunderstanding will be cleared up at some embassy or another. Kurt will say it will make a funny article in a travel magazine. Or a sidebar in a “best/worst travel experience” column. Or he’ll feel guilty and put me on the next plane to France.

The prostitutes spot me now and they wave. María arrived and for a moment the dwarf perked up, but she ignored him and he put his head down on the table, like a schoolboy at his desk. All three of them walk toward me together, María, Eva, Flora—I feel more and more certain these were the names of
the birds on my dentist’s drill. They pull over chairs and sit down. “So,” María says, “we want to know everything. About New York. Miami. We want to get a VCR. I’ve got a sister up north. Once a year she sends me underwear, nail polish, and perfume. What’s it like walking about with a Walkman on your head? Here people have got nothing to do so they fuck all day long. The problem is the natives can’t pay us. No business there.” She says this with a wide grin, revealing the space between her front teeth. Eva remains embittered about something and Flora keeps looking for customers. Since they have come to talk to me, business must be slow.

“You know,” María goes on, “I didn’t always do this. I used to be a secretary for a respected cabinet minister. And Eva, she worked for the airlines. Flora, well, Flora’s got kids. I had this real good job, typing, pouring coffee during meetings. That sort of thing. Then my brother goes to the States on a hijacked plane and I have to take care of my mother and all the other kids. She had a bunch of them. So one day the minister tells me he knows all about my brother and I can keep my job if I wear short skirts to work. I don’t know what to make of it, but I wear a short skirt the next day. Then he tells me if I want to keep working, I have to sit with my legs apart. I think who needs this. If I’m going to earn a living this way, I may as well really earn a living.

“There’s really no point in being a prostitute here because what can you buy? On the black market, a few pairs of jeans, some gold jewelry. You see, what we really want—well, it’s very simple—is someone who will get us out of here.”

“Get you out of here?”

“Yeah, you know, marry us. Take us home with them.”

“Do you really think …” I am astounded that they believe this could happen.

“We heard about a girl. She lived in Santiago and a German businessman took her back to Berlin. Foreigners love us. We are very exotic to them. And they tell us we treat them better than the girls back home.”

“Well,” I say with a smile, “if I could, I’d take you home with me.”

We are laughing at this thought when Major Lorenzo walks in. The girls seem to sense him approaching and scatter like pods to the wind. He gives them a knowing smile, then nods my way. But I can see right away that something is wrong. There is no lilt to his step. His eyes are dull, as if he has eaten pig’s fat or hasn’t bicycled ten miles today.

“Well, Maggie, I am frustrated …,” he tells me as he sits down, “but there seems to be little progress with your case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I just can’t get this paperwork through.” Major Lorenzo seems embarrassed by this, sorry that he must disappoint me again. “And I’m afraid Jamaica is out of the question. The only place you can go is back to where you came from.” As I contemplate the thought of being flown back to the frozen north, I notice once again that Major Lorenzo does not look me in the eye and I wonder if it is because he is ashamed or because he is lying. I almost would prefer it if Major Lorenzo were mean, not kind. At times it seems it would be easier with the colonel with the dead eyes, but he is long gone. Now, however, as I look at Major Lorenzo and realize that he too will not look at me, he reminds me of the colonel from the airport.

“Of course,” the Major says, “it will straighten itself out.
We are looking into various solutions.” But I am no longer listening to him.

“I think,” I speak hesitantly, “that I really must contact my lawyer or an embassy official. I need to let someone know what’s going on …”

Major Lorenzo frowns, looking hurt, as if I have doubted him. “Oh, that isn’t necessary. Not at all. We’ll have this matter cleared up in just a few days.”

“But I still think …”

“Oh, you Americans.” He throws up his hands. “You are in such a hurry to get things done.” He rises to leave and smiles now, shifting his tone. “By the way,” he says, “how is your daughter? Have you spoken to her?”

“She is fine,” I tell him. “She wants me to come home.”

“Yes, well, probably you will see her soon. They grow up so fast, don’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I tell him. “She’s only five.”

“Oh, you’ll see, you blink and they’re gone.”

He looks wistful, as if he is remembering something far away, then says he’ll be back in the morning, hopefully with my passport and plane ticket home. For the time being I remain like the people of
la isla
. With no passport; with no way out.

Later, when I go upstairs, I stand on the balcony of my room and I see the lines—people queued up for rations, for pizza, for ice cream, for the cinema. A throng waits for a bus and when it arrives they swarm like ants. For a while they hover, buzzing, while a few manage to shove their way on; then the bus drives away. The throng remains on the street, bewildered, and slowly I watch it disperse.

R
OSALBA sat chain-smoking in the lobby of my hotel, waiting in a yellow dress, prim and starched. When she saw me, she clasped my hands. “I don’t have many options left to me now,” Rosalba said. She had called to say she needed to meet with me. I had planned to finish my walk of the old harbor that day, which would complete my update for the city, but when Rosalba phoned she sounded so nervous and distracted that I agreed to meet her that afternoon. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said when she saw me. “I know how busy you are.”