The Invention of Exile (10 page)

But there it is. The box beside him. A significance in that, Austin knows. Gifts that, in the giving, were to him a kind of burden now a relic he has come to love, the border of cross-hatchings pleasing, humming of home, soil and snuff, incense and icons. And could he not still smell the clove and camphor each time he opened the box?

Out the window of his shop, he can see that the evening has moved on without his realizing it. Cars with their lights on now, streetlamps glowing in fanned skirts, men and women walking at a more relaxed pace, digesting dinners. He's set out the drafting papers, considering the whys and reasonings for the lack of a letter. Perhaps the designs he'd sent had been lost in the mail. It is something he knows is liable to have happened. The country's postal system is a precarious one at best. His work may be stuck in a mail processing plant—in the state of Sonora or across the border. Stranded. The designs could be sitting at the bottom of a burlap mailbag in the Midwest or left on a sidewalk where pedestrians may now be trampling upon his envelopes unaware, leaving footprints of street dust or gutter rain, he thinks, all the while watching the passersby on the sidewalk.
Watch where you step,
he suddenly shouts out to them, as if they are representative of all pedestrians and so bear a responsibility, are culpable, for his besmirched drafts. Oh, but there is no way to be quite certain of any of this. As a reassurance he decides that he will simply send his designs again. He will mail them tomorrow because while he does not have any verifiable proof that these scenarios have in fact occurred, they do remain possible. He will vary the probability. Tip the balance in his favor and send them again. It will not hurt, he thinks, though he also understands that he could never really know, be certain of, anything. One could be certain of nothing.

He runs his hand along the drafting table's surface, scraped and worn from use. A piece of blue felt lies over one end. His tools arranged in a neat line. A few splinters of iron sit near the table's edge. He does not like to be gone from his work area for long. After dinners, he returns, looks everything over. Tonight is no different, though it's later than usual. The clocks are arranged on the bookshelf to the left. Alarm clocks, squat and round with bulbous bells, flat and large wall clocks, a cuckoo clock. All sit still and silent, their hands frozen as if in shock. On the shelf above are the transistor radios—knobs and tuners like eyes, watchful and reticent. Across the counter and along the back wall stands the honey-colored rolltop desk. The curtain of red and amber beads that separates the small back room from the workshop sways and clicks in the breeze.

His first strokes are always mere scribbles, half-rendered tracings. A few fragments of an equation. Several erasures before he can fully see how the propeller should be shaped. The propeller could tilt according to the ocean's currents, gain more power and speed and work with the current rather than against it. It is a rough sketch, repeated until he can begin the full depiction. Then, the different views. From above. To the sides. A cross section. A semi–cross section. He is working out the number of blades, the full diameter of the propeller, the blade angle and curve, the velocity of rotation, the pitch of it.

An hour has passed. He isn't sure. The street noise is ambient, not invading. He steps outside now into the colder late evening. He lights his cigarette and takes drag after drag, contemplating the sky and clouds of this particular evening—silver gray. He wonders what the children remember of Mexico.

This time of day is his own, free from disturbances so that he can enter a space in his mind, create a mental image of how steam might flow more efficiently through a pipe, or what torque might provide enough resistance for his tilting propeller. How to calibrate the copper wiring to send currents of electricity along coiled springs. When he is stumped, he returns to the fundamental questions: What is light? What is energy? What is force or ether?

There is an agitation across the street, and he can see a flurry of movement through the trees of the median. On the opposite sidewalk, a woman is running. It is not something he sees often and he turns his focus, reluctantly, abruptly from the sky and thoughts of his children to this woman. It is a light step, but apprehensive nearly, and her steps clomp evenly and then sputter, slowing to a hurried walk, then run again. He moves from the doorway and sits hidden in the alcove window, watching as she dashes down the sidewalk. She slows and the flounce of her burgundy dress settles and then, as she begins to run again, swings in one great swath from side to side. She crosses the street, and moves into the median, cutting through all its green. Soon, she is running down his sidewalk, running toward him, and in a moment she will pass right in front of him. He watches as she continues to alternate between running and walking.
Whoever it is, he'll wait, he'll wait,
Austin thinks, when suddenly she draws to a halt before his storefront, her shoulders rise and fall, she throws her hands down to her sides so that they ricochet off her hips; it is the gesture of a spoiled child. And now, who exactly is this here? he wonders. He does not reveal himself. Maybe she'll go away. She turns on her heel, walks to the curbside, pivots once again, ducking her head fast beneath the lowered gate of the shop's front door.

“
Buenas tardes
,” she calls.

Austin sits forward in the alcove of the front window. He presses his hands against the adobe walls, which offer a coolness despite the all-day sun that floods this side of the building.

“Out here,” he says, walking to the door, eyes on his shoes. He is annoyed by her impudence. To come at such an hour. He sees her flinch, spring back, and, in her surprise at a voice behind instead of in front, outside rather than inside, she swings around to exit, but not before banging her forehead on the lowered grill as she steps out to the sidewalk.

“¡Ai!”
she says, wincing, her hand raised to her forehead, walking back and forth, as if in the walking the pain might go away.

“Keep pressure on it,” he says. He looks the other way.

“Why do you have that down so low? You could hurt someone.”

“I'm closed.”

“I dropped off a radio here—”

“A good one too.” He remembers. He remembers writing down her name: Anarose, 1
P.M
. “You're late.”

“Is it fixed?”

“I believe I told you in a couple of hours,” he says.

“It works?
Funciona?
” she says, abrupt, almost curt.

He walks to the door, passes in front of her close enough to have brushed the starched cotton of her dress, inhale the citrus, astringent scent of her hands. He raises the grill and it clatters upward, clicking into place. He watches as she furrows her brow from the sound.

“I would be here earlier, but the day—” She is tripping over her English. “We're having guests this evening. It was my fault. By accident. I lost my balance and it broke.” Her words are disjointed. They don't seem to fit together. He is looking for the radio, which sits on his workbench. She is still talking. She has followed him inside.

“I forgot. It was so quiet. Very quiet. And then I remembered. And they wouldn't let me go with so much to do. Imagine? So, I climbed out the back. Through the window.” He is gathering his drafting papers, placing the pile on the shelf behind him. He turns back to her.

“You climbed out the window?”

She shows him proof—a small scrape like skid marks along her upper shin, just beneath her knee.

“And now you've bruised your forehead,” he says, his hand rising, outstretched fingers drawing an arc in the air, as if tracing her brow with a touch, a questioning stroke.

“Have I?” She raises her hand to the red spot above her eyebrow.

“Un poco,”
Austin says. It is the longest he has ever spoken to a customer, he realizes.

He sets the radio on the table. He reaches down for the cord and plugs it in. He is moving too slowly for her he knows. Static blares through the shop and they both jump, his forearm grazing the back of her hand, a delicate but calloused hand adorned with a tarnished silver ring.

“Perdón,”
he says, lowering the volume, moving the dial through first a man's voice, then more static, guitar, drums and horns. His cigarette is still burning and the ash now drops on the smooth top of the radio. He wipes it off and then looks at her.

“It works.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“¿Se puede?”
She picks up his pack of Faros, leaning against the counter, using her arms for balance. She sighs and reaches down to rub her shin. He can smell a waft of orange blossom. A bright, slightly sweet scent.

“I am closed. So, if you don't mind,” he looks outside to indicate that she should leave. He does not like when someone lingers. It's not a rudeness, though some have mistaken him for that; his evasion is his protection. He keeps an arm's length lest they ask questions, figure him out, bring the Soviets or the FBI to his door. He cannot have come this far only to be sent back. That would not happen to him—kidnapped, questioned, killed. The dirty Soviets with their questions, these men and their power, the Americans too really:
What is your name? Where were you born? What is your country of citizenship?

“No, no,” she says, frowning, arms at her sides, a little dumbfounded, looking to the right, then left. “I will take the radio and go.” She gives him the ten pesos for his work.

“A light though?” he says. He feels bad suddenly as if he could himself feel the sting of his unspoken rebuke.

“
Sí
. That would be nice,” she says, the radio under one arm. She brings her cigarette to her lips and he strikes the match, lifting his hand to hers, hovering for a moment as the light flares and then settles.

“Gracias,”
she says, turning to go. She carries the radio under one arm, balanced on her hip. He watches her leave, his gaze drawn to her waist, the curve of her upper back.

He lights another cigarette, gathers up his satchel, and closes the door, pulling the grill down and locking the padlock. He can feel the city at his back, hear the far distant sirens, the subtle whir of evening traffic. He double-checks the lock and then turns to find her still, smoking in front of the next storefront, the radio set at her feet. She takes one drag of her cigarette, her other arm wrapped around her waist. Like him, in those moments just before her arrival, she is staring up at the sky, the shifting clouds, immense and laden in all their now cobalt and gray hues. He walks up behind her and he can nearly hear her exhale, the anxiousness that she'd come with has disappeared.

“I thought you were late,” he says, stopping next to her on the sidewalk.

“Ready to go back,” she says, throwing her cigarette to the ground. They both watch the last of its embers fade.

“You sound like it's a performance.”

“Isn't it?” She faces him.

“Life?”

“No. A party.” She sighs, then reaches for the radio at her feet and sets it on her hip once more. Her eyes meet his, somewhat startled, he thinks, pulsing and pleading in a way Austin finds, in spite of himself, alluring.

“Here. I will carry this for you,” he says, taking the radio from her.

“Gracias,”
says Anarose. “I am just down here. Thank you,” she says again, nodding. He follows a half step behind her.

“Don't thank me. Just practical,” he says.

“Thank you,” she repeats. This time it is a retort, her hint at defiance. “Thank you. Au-stin,” she says.

“Yes. Anarose.”

“You remember it?”

“I try to learn names. When they are offered.” He keeps his gaze straightforward.

The streets are filling up again. People are on the sidewalks ambling through the night. Cars pass. Some with headlights on. Others waiting for real darkness. They walk by homes with doors the color of violets—deep purple and blue.

“I am just here. See. Look.
Mira
,” she says. They have stopped now beneath a stucco wall behind which sits a kind of hacienda—a fine large home of wrought iron and glass, limestone. “They're all arriving,” she says, peering around the edge of the building. He steps out to the corner to look, but she stays behind, hidden.

He knows the house. He has passed this corner several times. He knows all the houses, all the buildings in this
colonia
, but none of the occupants. Until now. He watches as the cars pull up. Fords mostly. A few Cadillacs in their colors of evergreen, cornflower blue, opaque canary yellow. Some park, others drop off men and women, each carrying a gift. The older women are in black skirts, pumps. The younger women wear flowered dresses, large skirts of crinoline and taffeta, scarves over their heads, bags like small pill boxes. He can hear their distant laughter.

“Nice. What is the party for?”

“Petición de mano.”

“Who's getting married?”

“Me,” she says, and then begins to laugh. “No. I am only teasing. It is the daughter of the family.” She peers around the edge of the wrought iron railing and then pulls back again to stay out of sight. Austin remains at the corner, watching the guests arrive.

“Come. We will need to go around.” She waves for him to follow as she approaches a narrow passageway between this home and the row of homes that sit behind it.

The alleyway is dark. Water and grease combine to stretch lengthwise like a black vein. It smells of soap, onions, and gasoline, lemon and orange peel. Water is running somewhere. He follows her, stepping around box crates, a withering bed of pachysandra, stacks of terra-cotta tiles. The 7
P.M
. sky is a rivulet of sapphire between the buildings. They stop in front of a dark window under which sit two wooden crates.

“I will go in. You pass me the radio,” she instructs, placing her hand on his upper arm for balance.