The Revolutionaries Try Again (30 page)

myself before calling him I hadn't talked to my father in six / seven months Alma don't tell him about your ribcage hurting whenever you step down from the bus Líneas El Pajorreal my father answering the phone hello it's me Dad / Alma he said / Alma / Alma he said / Alma corazón / Alma / ya corazón / Alma / Alma he said / Alma corazón / Alma he said and I crying and listening to him inside a phone booth in that long distance phone place on Mission Street with the ashen walls decorated with flags from Panamá / Honduras / Chile / the Colombian owner didn't say much to me didn't charge me for that first call she had tissue boxes in her booths for us can you imagine profe one day after the meeting of the women's collective Estela and I strolling along Valencia Street people gathered on the corner of Sixteenth Street an accident I thought / no / an accordion Alma / a tuba / a drum / a dance song from the Middle East maybe / a clarinet look / a young man with a trumpet so handsome Estela saying he wants to look like a gypsy look at his rumpled vest I'm sure he spent the afternoon rumpling it by hand the other gypsy next to him ready for a parade with his portable drum a young blond girl in the crowd arranging her polka dot skirt on top of her wide flower pants sitting on the sidewalk crossing her legs closing her eyes resting her arms on her knees touching her index fingers with her thumbs what is she doing I said she looked so serene there receiving the music as if it were a serenade from the galaxy meant only for her she's trying to impress the trumpeter what else do you think how do I look I'll show that trumpeter a move or two Estela said quick let's switch I'll be the audience you'll be the kitten Rolando / again / here we are / the crowd growing around the gypsies who weren't gypsies the drummer beating the wooden edge of the drum so quickly my father preparing breakfast and I next to him sixteen / seventeen years old tapping a Guns N' Roses song on the kitchen table my school uniform ripping after a soccer match / we won I scored twice Dad / my father mending my uniform playacting at not knowing how to mend clothes this pin prickles my thumb Alma the trumpeter singing without words someone in the crowd clashing his cymbals out of sync Estela saying I think that policeman over there is watching us / which one I said /
don't look at him let's go she said / I didn't want to leave didn't see any policemen the streetlights flickering to life people dancing on the sidewalk her nails on my forearm grabbing me a little too hard okay fine let's go Estela hurrying along Valencia Street people waiting outside restaurants smoking laughing at us / not laughing at us he's following us don't look Estela said and I thinking about the good things / bad things we've done in our lives was it our turn / that's not how the math works Alma / tell me how it works Rolando or I'll tell everyone how you used to play with my dolls / no one was following us profe / please stay the night Estela said of course I said sleeping next to her in her narrow bed I couldn't sleep her blanket didn't have owls / penguins / returning the orange that was supposed to be what was it supposed to be Estela's room as big as a closet Estela talking in her sleep a language I didn't understand along Valencia Street before the meeting of the women's collective I said Estelita are you going to sign up for an interview with our profe / yes she said / for what I said / I don't know for what the woman at El Centro said it would be therapeutic / thera what / peutic / chanfle / I don't think it would be thera anything she said our profe needs help I help him / what are you going to tell him / about how much you love pupusas / be serious tell me / I was born too soon by a river of catfish / fine don't tell me / don't blame me I'm not Salvadorian / pupusas / pulpos / medusas / again / awakening the kitten by tapping Rolando on the shoulder two times the same emphasis every time / again / canvassing the horizon the orange purposefully unattended behind his back / again / the kitten swiping the orange from the princess's hand / again / the princess is sobbing look / Rolando returning the orange to the princess / a starfish look / that's not how it goes / Rolando raising his hand offering the orange to the princess he didn't say please take back the orange princess he didn't talk much yet so tiny returning the orange to the princess my little brother looked so sad profe he thought the princess was really sobbing because he'd taken the orange from her do you understand profe I didn't feel jealous / did feel jealous that I hadn't thought about returning the orange to my father my father kneeling to embrace my little brother thank you
Rolando / again / I wish I would've been the one who returned the orange to my father homeless people transients like me our profe alone on a bench in Dolores Park looking down at his hands as if he was reading from them / wasn't reading from them / good afternoon profe what a coincidence to see you here I was just on my way to class / no class today Alma / everything okay what's happened I said he didn't want to say anything he knew he would cry if he said anything didn't want to look at me there was a raid Alma he said / where I said / a construction site in Reno / Carmen / Anita / that's not possible I / Elena / Renata / Estela / the attorney at the Centro Legal said he was looking into it not much he could do doesn't like me Alma I'm sorry / the attorney from Oaxaca with the gray ponytail wasn't at El Centro Legal that day he liked me nobody could tell me anything about Estela where she was what could we do calling the attorney again that day / the next day the attorney picking up the phone we don't know where she is he said / there must be something we can do I said / we don't know where she is they won't tell us where she is please take care Alma our profe alone on a bench in Dolores Park not reading from his hands saying to me please don't think I think I'm a good person just because I'm worried like this / angry like this is so useless to be indignant no one here cares / Estela's from Guatemala I said / her English had improved so much he said / yes I said leaving him sitting there on that bench without saying goodbye I didn't show up at El Centro Legal week / after week avoiding him / leaving him sitting there without screaming at him / without protesting didn't want him to think I was one of those hysterical women who pretend they're not hysterical until a doorbell / newsflash derails their performance of peace screaming at passersby don't just stand there you monsters my best friend has been deported / my life here will not include / will include me screaming at you in Dolores Park profe of course that Ecuadorian woman's hysterical haven't you heard the terrible things they do to these poor women who try to cross the border / go pity your goddamn mother / why share with you these terrible things profe you'll no longer think of me as your cheerful student from El Centro Legal who gives you a hard time for not wearing those
padded motorcycle jackets when you ride your motorcycle take care of yourself profe / I just don't like the way those bulky jackets fit me Alma / you'll think I wasn't strong enough to avoid misfortune hey everyone Alma's just like all the other unfortunate women who cross the border into the United States year / after year I was so proud when I decided to leave Guayaquil profe / didn't want to leave Guayaquil I was twenty years old deciding my life for the first time / anything I'll do Alma / I still like to think proudly of me deciding to leave Guayaquil as if that moment didn't lead to me leaving Guayaquil / Guatemala / México / El Paso / Estela in a detention center couldn't stop thinking of what Estela must be feeling was she relieved at last to return to her village / terrified to return to her village where the paramilitaries were waiting to ambush her embarrassed to return to her family empty handed please forgive me Dad I have caused you all this pain and I return to you with nothing / you're back Alma that's all that matters to me / Estela in a detention center thinking of all the good things / bad things she's done in her life screaming / protesting dear god who doesn't exist my arithmetic doesn't add up recasting her arithmetic so her misfortunes don't seem so arbitrary a cold wind sweeping me to Estela's detention cell I'm here tell me everything Estelita / please let me die in peace / no don't say that / why isn't it over already Alma / tell me about the water truck that wanted to be an elephant / running after the water truck falling on the gravel scraping my knees the driver plugging a black hose to his truck an elephant's nose swooshing my legs / arms / hair the sun drying the cold water from my skin I'm not going to tell you anything profe all those copies of that interview book with terrible fragments of my life that is not my life in bookstores across the United States diffusing me maybe that's not so bad / we've delivered all of you there's nothing left Alma / thank you so much / Estela's village doesn't exist anymore Alma / sometimes I wake up my body as tense as the night when the armed men barged in our camp in the mountains of Guatemala / pretend you're asleep Alma / couldn't see if they were wearing wrestling masks so dark their boots stomping on the floorboards / my body tensing for no reason once / twice a month no
doorbell needed can't eat solids Almita let's go for humitas / again / Bruce Lee ha ha / Estela thinking / not thinking week / after week the not thinking adding up to me no longer existing for Estela / for Dad / everyone not existing for me / for them / omitting everything in the world / avoiding you profe until I ran into you at El Centro Legal you were making photocopies of an English manual good afternoon I said / hi Alma do you need the copy machine / no I said / why was I trying to talk to you / hello good day / today's my last day of class he said ashamed of himself I didn't need to ask him why he was quitting he seemed ready to justify himself / one hour a week of English lessons doesn't help anyone except me who feels better look everyone I'm helping my fellow immigrants he said / so quitting or pretending to help are the only two choices I said / what could he say except I don't care enough about you people to dedicate more than one hour every week of my life to teaching you English / how's your book of interviews I said / it's not mine he said I was just assisting them / are you still looking for people to interview I said / I don't think I'm doing more of those interviews anymore do you want to participate I'll put you in touch with them / why aren't you doing them anymore I said / I don't see the point Alma / I didn't say anything he thought I was expecting an explanation from him / I was / wasn't / so pointless Alma what's the use nothing will change because of these interviews / I should've kicked you / I should have screamed at you until my intestines strangled you / I did raise my voice / I did say you're an imbecile of course everything's pointless we're all going to die doesn't matter we're still here / I'm still here / why did I yell at you if I agreed with you everything's more or less pointless I don't want to talk about Gracias a Dios profe you didn't know what to say to me saddened worried that someone at El Centro Legal had heard me the attorney from Oaxaca did show up is everything okay Alma / yes I said I was just telling him about you know the soap opera / which one / María Mercedes / the one with Thalia / a rerun yes / shout if you need me careful with this asshole / I don't know why he doesn't like me Alma / I want to sign up for an interview I said / I'll put you in touch he said / I don't want to talk to just anybody / some good people are putting
this together you'll like them / no you hear what I have to say / he didn't reply hoping I would go away maybe / you're our profe I said / Alma / Alma corazón / pretending I was about to yell at him again laughing at him / okay yes he said / I'm sorry I shouted at you profe / you don't need to apologize for anything Alma / I was desperate at Gracias a Dios profe I had to promise a smuggler money from my uncle in New Jersey please help me out of here the smuggler with a glass eye his other eye swimming from side to side hiding us in the back of a truck filled with lettuce delivering us at night by a black river instructing us to take off our clothes I didn't want to take off my clothes what's inside a black river profe tell me that please / do you call your father often? / sleep Alma / a terrible thing to want to talk to my father / not want to talk to my father profe / no / not terrible that's what's terrible about it you don't notice that day / after day someone scrubs out your loved ones in your sleep calling my father and afterwards someone / something inside of me complaining we've scrubbed away your father for nothing Alma why did you request it / I didn't request it go away please / my father slicing a breadloaf into small triangles for breakfast a black river what's inside a black river wave / after wave Estela's room like a closet picking up Estela's things the week after she was taken away a blanket without owls / penguins / a framed photograph of Estela and two children bouncing on her lap pulling her curly hair Estela ten / fifteen years younger the children's hair curly like Estela's hair beautiful girls I didn't know she had daughters profe I didn't want to imagine what had happened to them in Guatemala sometimes I wish every river was a black river then we'll all be alone Estela and her two daughters by my bed I couldn't keep their picture there awaking at night couldn't sleep / Alma corazón / here we are / again / please take care Alma / along Valencia Street people waiting outside restaurants everything so quiet people laughing / not laughing at us a safehouse in El Paso the doors bolted women waiting for their money like me I didn't have any money couldn't reach my uncle didn't have papers the men in charge forcing us to be their servants shackling us at night terrible things profe don't blame me I'm not Salvadorian and Estela interrupting herself
or something inside / outside of her interrupting her how can a human being do that to another human being to children the interim president of Ecuador appearing on television informing the nation that he'd met with the international agencies and had agreed that another package of austerity measures was needed the price of everything shot up we could barely afford to eat profe my father slicing a breadloaf into tiny triangles blue marmalade on top preparing our breakfast how do you console a father tell me that profe please my father bunched on the floor sobbing we'll make it work Alma please stay my father mending the sleeves of my uniform my father over the phone saying please stop sending us money we're okay here please take care Alma awaking at night thinking the money from my uncle in New Jersey hadn't arrived Almita let's go for humitas the money did arrive I did make it here sleep Alma putting away the picture of Estela and her daughters couldn't go on waking up next to them every night floating on a black river holding on to a tube my clothes inside a Ziploc bag tied around my waist black night black river someone behind me screaming father I'm drowning please take care Alma how can a human being do that to another human being to children tell me profe please what do you want to hear from me maybe you interviewed Estela before she was taken away let's listen to her before our interview tomorrow profe I was born by a river of catfish hello good day maybe one day your daughter will listen to us profe she'll speak Spanish with you she'll think of me she'll ask you about the orange that was supposed to be what was it supposed to be doesn't matter think of us Lilia Klara / Carmen / Anita / Elena / Renata / Alma corazón / Mercedes / Maria / Cecilia / Estela / por favor cuídate Alma / think of us Lilia Klara / cuídate.