Midnight Cactus
Page 27
‘And if you don’t make it to the water tank?’
‘Well . . . then you pray for a miracle.’
‘Why do people cross here if it’s so dangerous?’
‘Why do people move to a different country in the first place? Why do they leave their families behind only to end up being exploited or victimized, and why do they still decide to stay even then? For a Mexican with no money and no work in his own village, that “Help Wanted” sign is pretty hard to ignore. The paradox is that there comes a point when the desire for a better life far outweighs the instinct for survival.’
I go on staring at the horizon. In spite of everything there’s something compelling about it, seductive almost, as though it’s willing you to cross.
Duval touches my cheek. ‘You weren’t scared back there with those army kids, were you?’
‘No . . . yes—’ I break off, unwilling to answer. I had been scared, but I’d been excited too, close enough to danger to feel the living, pulsing heartbeat of it.
‘You weren’t scared that day Winfred found you either. I saw it in your face. You don’t care if the cholla shreds you, or you drive a dozen nails into your leg. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? The blind step in the dark and the freedom to take it. You came because you felt nothing any more, and feeling nothing is scarier than any number of Mexican soldiers with guns.’
‘Yes.’
He takes me roughly by the shoulders. ‘And now?’
I want to tell him that so much of my life I’ve felt numb, but that now I feel everything. I want to tell him that if he asked me to take off my shoes and follow him barefoot through the desert, I probably would. I want to tell him I’m in love with him, but then I look into his black eyes and I see he already knows.
*
In Nogales we drive back into the US and leave the truck in the car park opposite Burger King, where an ancient-looking Mexican attendant accepts Duval’s $20 bill to keep an eye both on it and Taco. We cross back into Mexico on foot, along the wall, past the officer on duty, through the turnstile of the port of entry and into town. No one takes the slightest notice of us. No one asks my nationality or demands to see my passport, zippered safely into my combats. On the Sonoran side, the white concrete channel is daubed with bright religious graffiti, as if someone has bought one of the street vendors’ more lurid velour towels on their way out and iron-transferred it onto the wall on re-entry.
‘It was a school project,’ Duval says, ‘supposed to make the border look all warm and welcoming, not that anyone’s actually fooled.’
Nogales by day – a different town from Nogales by night. Gone is the unease of that night with Emmy, but the crackle of energy is still there. The main strip of souvenir shops acts like a welcome mat for tourists beyond which the goods on offer become more functional: clay pots and copper pans, multi-coloured Tupperware in every conceivable shape and size and an astonishing number of shiny bridal gowns displayed in dusty boutique windows. Duval stops to look at some pot-bellied plastic figures with shanks of orange hair in the window of a toy shop. ‘That’s the Mexican interpretation of a typical tourist.’ He points at the USA stamped on their foreheads. ‘So who says bigotry isn’t alive and well and on both sides of the border?’
It’s close to six-thirty by the time we reach the plaza and the light is softening. The fierce char-grill burn of the afternoon has dissipated into a more benign warming-oven kind of heat. We sit down on the bench nearest the church and wait.
Nogales is a people-watching town. You watch them. They watch you. A solemn group of school children pass by in grey kilts and bright red sweaters. A couple of prostitutes are loaded into the open back of a cattle truck by the police. A boy with a club foot makes his way across the square in a T-shirt so baggy it drops almost to his ankles. On a neighbouring bench a woman in a striped reboza, sitting with her child, dictates in short animated bursts to a man with pen and paper next to her.
‘He’s a public letter writer, an evangelista,’ Duval explains, then smiles when I come over all dreamy at the idea. ‘It’s nowhere near as romantic as it looks. Her husband has probably been seduced by the extra green-backs and decided to stay in el Norte. He’s written to tell her that he has a brand-new American family and he’s never coming home, and she’s writing to tell him to rot in the hottest part of hell; but yes, I like it too.’ And I look up to find him smiling down at me.
‘I love this town!’ I say. ‘I love the border. I may easily live here forever.’
Duval takes a strand of hair and tucks it behind my ear. ‘And you wouldn’t be bored?’
‘I’d have my three wishes, remember? I’d be painting giant masterpieces or composing symphonies.’
‘And you wouldn’t be lonely?’
‘I’d have a lover.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘What kind of lover?’
‘An elusive one. One who’d turn up from time to time, when I least expected him.’
‘Wouldn’t that be very inconvenient?’
‘Not at all.’
‘What if he turned up at a bad moment – say, when you hadn’t washed your hair or the house was untidy?’
‘My lover would have impeccable timing.’
Duval smiles. ‘And what would he be doing, this elusive and punctilious lover of yours, when he wasn’t with you?’
‘Oh, you know, riding across the land, a fugitive, an avenging angel, doing what he had to do to feel free, but from time to time he would dream of hearth and home and then he would come to me and he would take me riding at night and instruct me in the curious ways of cacti.’
‘But what if he is doomed always to be a fugitive?’
‘Then he risks being lonelier than I ever could be.’
‘Poor man.’ He takes my hand and examines the end of each finger. ‘If only he had the memory of last night to live on, he might never be lonely again.’
I smile and I think of all the things I want to say to this man and I try to work out why I feel the way I do about him, but it just seems easier to sit there, our shoulders touching, his hand heavy over mine, as the light deepens then fades and the shadows lengthen.
It’s well after eight o’clock when a wiry little Mexican of incalculable age sidles through the encroaching dusk towards us. He sits down on the far end of our bench, bouncing his knee up and down with such vigour it looks as though he’s in danger of pogo-ing off across the square again.
‘Reuben,’ he announces finally, packing so much nervous intensity into the one word I worry he might have no energy left to speak ever again.
‘How are you doing?’ Duval asks him.
‘Así así.’ Reuben shifts his legs on the bench, and risks a look in our general direction. ‘Listen, we can speak English, you know; Reuben speaks great English.’
‘Okay,’ Duval agrees.
Reuben makes a sucking sound between his teeth. ‘This is not a good place.’ He jumps off the bench and heads down a succession of side streets, ducking and diving, hugging the walls and checking over his shoulder to see if we’re following him. Finally, he rounds a corner and disappears.
Duval stops. ‘Where’d the bastard go?’
There’s a low whistle from a doorway. Reuben beckons us close. ‘Look, I know the man you’re looking for, sure.’ His eyes flick this way and that. ‘But first I have to give some money to a friend.’ He unfurls his fist. Two dollar bills are screwed up in his damp palm like spent tissues. ‘I’m short. Eighteen dollar.’ He turns out his pockets to prove he’s in good faith and I notice he’s a little deformed with arms unusually short for his body and a monkey head too swollen for the emaciated frame it’s perched on. ‘Help me out, okay, man?’ His eyes are ancient in a youngish face.
Duval hands him a twenty. Reuben’s mouth splits into a grin. He claps Duval on the back. ‘You’re a good guy! I knew I could trust you! You can wait here for me.’
‘How long?’
He shrugs. ‘Maybe one hour, but no m
ore than two.’ He attempts to break through us, but Duval catches his arm.
‘We’ll wait, but not here. Give us the name of a bar.’
Reuben runs his tongue round his mouth. ‘Okay, dude, sure. Why not?’ He cocks his head to one side. ‘Go to the Alubia. There is a chica there who likes Reuben. Tell her I sent you.’ Then he ducks out of reach and scurries off.
The Alubia is on the east side of town where the houses are built on the steady incline of a hill. Down at the bottom stands the wall. A double layer of corrugated green steel which slices the rival citadels of Nogales Sonora and Nogales Arizona and their inhabitants into two halves. Those with the jam, and those without. I want to go down and take a look at it but before we even get close we’re surprised to run into Reuben again. This time he’s coming up the hill towards us, dancing on the toes of a rasta dressed in a sleeveless camouflage vest with body mass to equal a submarine and great muscled arms hanging by his sides like polished black torpedoes. Undaunted, Reuben talks animatedly up at him but the rasta merely flicks his dreads in irritation and lengthens his stride, causing Reuben to redouble his efforts not to be trampled underfoot. He passes us like this, apparently unaware of our presence, and we’re staring after him unsure whether to laugh or race to his rescue when he shoots back round the corner and blags another $3, explaining that someone, though of course not the guy he’s with right this second, is hassling him to repay a debt and will surely break his legs if he doesn’t show.
‘He’s not the only one,’ Duval says, handing over the money.
‘Hey, man, relaaax,’ Reuben wheedles. ‘I’ll show up, don’t worry, you can count on Reuben. Everybody can count on Reuben.’
The Alubia turns out to be a reasonably civilized place. Dark and atmospheric with a narrow bar down one side and a band playing to an audience of largely middle-aged men and their women, who are dressed to kill in leopard skin and heavy lip liner. Three old men in black suits and fedoras stand absolutely motionless and unsmiling as they sing. We find a table near the back. A waiter brings an ice bucket full of beer bottles and places it on a stand next to us. The three old men troop off and are replaced by a group of mariachis resplendent in burgundy and gold outfits. First out is a Mayan-looking guitarist, with cheekbones sharpened into scythes and a long sloping forehead, followed by four Mexicans who sing a medley of songs from exuberant to soulful, conceding the microphone to each other in order of seniority and all equally adept at singling out the women who seem to crave their attention the most and crooning just for them. The Mayan doesn’t sing but instead makes eyes at a pretty girl with a long plait and a chipped front tooth, who stands at the bar shyly fingering the frilled sleeve of her red blouse. At the table next to ours, a woman strains towards the youngest mariachi, a sultry baritone. A single tear coasts down her cheek then rolls onto her neck. Her husband puts his arm round her shoulders and squeezes her mournfully.
‘What are they singing?’ I whisper.
‘I am still a man ... I am a free man . . .’ Duval translates, ‘I still have the stars above me.’ He looks down at me and his eyes are laughing and I laugh back at him, feeling heady from beer and happiness and overcome with a fierce longing to lay my head on his shoulder, to slow the world down to a crawl and stay forever here in this muggy, smoke-filled room with its murmur of Spanish, the smell of cigarillos, with the tears and passions of the women and the splendid pumping of mariachi trumpets.
A hand appears on Duval’s shoulder. Reuben, grinning, bumptious. Much of his nervous energy seems to have dissipated but that might be because he’s taken a huge hit in the eye. Beneath his swollen lid an eyeball peeps out, bloodshot and weeping. Nevertheless he seems in excellent spirits and waves away all enquiries as to what happened with a contemptuous flick of the wrist. ‘This? Oh this is nothing, not important.’ He edges onto the spare seat and looks hungrily at the melting bucket of beers. Duval hands him one along with a cigarette which Reuben fumbles into his mouth, veering into tourist patter as though he’s completely forgotten why we’re here.
‘So how long are you in Nogales for?’ He sucks on the cigarette. ‘I can show you plenty of things, take you anywhere you wanna go. Nogales is a great little town.’ He leans into Duval. ‘Listen, bro, I mean it, whatever you want. Drugs, scrips, a clean hotel, Reuben is the guy to get it for you.’
‘I’ll settle for the information, thanks.’
‘Sure, and I have your information so relaaax, but I also have Prozac, Valium, Phenterime.’ He sends a sly look in my direction. ‘Viagra too . . . very good prices, you know? Just tell Reuben what you need.’ He swigs expansively on his beer.
Duval just waits, a muscle working in his cheek.
‘Okay, okay.’ He caves in grudgingly – ‘So how much information do you want?’ – as though preparing to whip out a pair of scales and weigh it by the kilo. Duval lays two $20 notes on the table and Reuben’s good eye flickers greedily. He looks quickly round the tables then back to us. ‘El Turrón is a powerful man, many men work for him,’ he begins.
Duval listens expressionlessly.
‘He was born in Nogales, but he works mostly in Tijuana. He has a lotta business there. He has not been working here in Nogales for many years.’ He fingers the ceramic medallion around his neck. ‘He has been in prison in the US.’ He looks at Duval expectantly. ‘For the drugs,’ he adds, somewhat put out by our lack of reaction.
‘I know all this.’
‘Okay, so you know that, fine, fine.’ Reuben adopts crafty expression. ‘But did you know El Turrón has a brother?’
‘I couldn’t be happier for him.’ Duval puts his fingers on the edge of the dollar bills.
‘Wait, my friend, wait.’ Reuben is breathing hard now. ‘His brother is a man with authority. A powerful man. More powerful even than El Turrón.’
‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘He has many contacts. He helps Turrón but Turrón is afraid of him. It was the brother who sent Turrón to Tijuana because he didn’t like the mess he was making here.’
‘Why not?’
‘It was very bad for his business.’
‘What is his business? Drugs? Who is he?’
‘This I don’t know.’ Reuben’s eye is now sealed together with a yellow caterpillar of mucus. ‘No one knows, but if you find him, I guarantee you will find Turrón.’ He leans even closer. ‘But let me warn you too, amigo, if you get too close to Turrón, the brother will make it his business to find you first.’ He puts his hand on the other end of the twenties and Duval releases them. In a shot, he’s up and out of his seat, zigzagging his way through the tables to the door and out into the shadows.
We walk slowly towards the edge of town. It’s late and there are fewer people around. A couple kiss languidly in a doorway. A bunch of kids run across the street. Duval stops, his eyes passing fleetingly from one to the other. I watch his face, suddenly overcome with sadness for him. ‘You’re still looking for him, aren’t you?’ The boys disappear round the corner and Duval stares after them down the empty street.
‘I must have looked into the face of every child in Nogales and wondered whether it’s him.’
‘But he’d be older, right? Eighteen or something?’
‘Twenty-one ... if he made it that far. If the street has been his life he might be consigned to Reuben’s fate, living some totally predatory existence in the shadows, ending up face down in a ditch because he can’t pull together the five bucks to pay off a scam.’
I want to offer some comfort but there is nothing to say that doesn’t sound completely fatuous. ‘Maybe he’s been brought up by a Mexican family, gone to a good school.’
‘He’s almost certainly dead,’ Duval replies bluntly. ‘And maybe that was the best escape for him.’
He sees my expression. ‘Alice, I tried everything. Social services, Border Patrol, the Mexican authorities—’ He breaks off. ‘I got the feeling they could have helped but they weren’t that interested. For a while I h
ung around with the tunnel kids in the hopes of the older ones remembering something but . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘I had very little to go on.’
I’ve read about the tunnel kids. The two Nogales might be separated by the wall, but they are forcibly linked by a sewage system, a great long metal pipe that snakes underneath the two cities. It’s a route to the other side for pretty much everyone, coyotes and smugglers alike, but it’s also home to the vagrant kids of the town who consider it their patch and exact a pretty heavy toll from anybody trying to pass.
‘And nothing?’
‘I followed a few breadcrumbs. Got hopeful once or twice, but nothing led anywhere. It was always going to be impossible.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s not like they put missing Mexican kids on the back of milk cartons.’
‘I’m sorry. Really.’
‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘It’s the mundanity of life everyone tries to escape from but it was the ordinary stuff I wanted for him. The-sit-at-a-table-and-do-homework stuff.’
I think of Jack and Emmy with Benjamín, how I wouldn’t be there when they came home from school. I think how easily I’d deserted them at the merest whiff of adventure.
‘And this El Turrón? What would you do if you ever found him?’
Duval’s face is impassive. ‘Kill him.’
We’ve rounded the corner now and the kids are still loitering at the end of the street, kicking a rolling beer bottle to and fro across the road. A Border Patrol vehicle cruises slowly into view and a guard jumps out. The kids split and swerve round either side but the last one is too slow and, like a seasoned mountain lion picking off a baby goat, the officer pounces.
What happens next happens fast. The guard gets the boy down on his back, whacking him round the legs and letting loose a stream of ‘goddamns’ and ‘stinkin’ beaners’. Then a boot cracks into a rib and before I know it Duval’s over there.