Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer

by Jamie Figueroa

  Three. When the angel appears, as she always does, there will be an answer for Baby. Rufina will not surrender to the feeling that burns within the center of her as if she had choked down a live coal, which instead of cooling, only intensifies in heat. Instead, she will dress herself, tug the little red wagon, claim their section of the plaza, unleash her noises, perform, collect money.

  And he will live.

  Two

  By 11 a.m. a densely packed circle has formed around the brother-sister duo. The tourists are disoriented by the time change. Is it still breakfast? How long until dinner? Have we missed our guided tour? Is it too early to drink tequila? The heels of their shoes strangle the life out of the grass. It’s shredded, bent into dirt. They shift and kick, unaware as trail horses. They stare as if the world exists for their viewing alone, objects arranged for their pleasure. The crows have returned as well. Hopping from one tree limb to another, gossiping about the ravens’ takeover of all the flat-topped roofs. Never mind how endless the sky, and the moon—almost complete—now ghosted by the sun.

  Twenty foreheads shine in the late morning light. Shifty hips. Small, pale children. Fingers, reaching for mother, father. To Rufina, the ring of tourists does not consist of people, breathing beings; rather they appear to her as a painted set design. Poorly constructed at that, all of it one-dimensional, especially what she sees in their eyes when they look at her. We could say she is guilty of seeing herself this way as well. She fixes her gaze beyond them, on the mountains anchored in every direction—thirty miles, seventy miles, one hundred miles away—feels how deliberate their evolution, how stubborn they are in their magnitude. Somehow this reminds her of Baby, and the burning panic inside her ignites again, shifts her breathing to panting.

  Rafa concentrates on the guitar, specifically, on the place where the strings should be. Wonders how to summon sound. Only an hour ago, he’d stumbled behind his sister as she screamed at him, “You promised. You fucking promised.” He holds the guitar up high, as if it were a rifle he were aiming at the stars. There, for him to contemplate, is the hole in the middle, a portal into emptiness. He considers the notion of belonging.

  At one moment, following Rufina into town, through the patch of woods next to the river, he’d glimpsed the back of the mother. Her rope of braid. Her small hips. It was as if she were real again, not a mirage confined by the walls of the house, but still existing in the world at large and everything around him flushed into its full animating force. There were his feet on the ground. The weight of his steps. He could hear a variety of sounds. Birdsong, water moving, leaves shushing. Then it was gone as fast as it came.

  Now, as he grips the guitar, he stares into the hole. Inside him, his own portal, he can feel it, an exposed opening that nothing can properly fill, aching and inept, like a mouth that has recently lost all of its teeth. He wears the same thing he wore the day before, smelling of rancid creases, the crowded, unkempt kitchen, Rufina’s floor, the mother’s bedroom, and the peppermint oil that Rufina insisted on as she pulled him out the door and down the lane. He grips his hat, lowering it. The feathers littering the rim fan out in all directions. He scans the ground on which the tourists are standing. Images shimmer in the shadows. He squints. Tries to bring something in all the darkness into focus, wonders about the possible translations. Feels himself dissolving in the concentration of this act.

  Above, the crows continue to call, settling into tree limbs. A tide of day laborers passes by in pickups—the front seats thick with bodies—on the way from one side of town to the other, the living side to the working side. “Did you see the way . . .” their stories begin. “If I had that compound . . .” their stories continue, ending with “Even the dog was giving orders! Chingada!” And there are those on foot scrambling from one restaurant to another, fingers pruned, hands chapped, endless buckets of water, which surround them even in their dreams. They slip into back doors as customers marvel at centerpieces made of fry bread. Foreign shop clerks stand amid clouds of cologne in front of their adobe storefronts selling genuine handmade jewelry from China. Meanwhile, the Original Enduring Ones shift on their lawn chairs, rearrange the goods on their blankets, explain a design for the hundred thousandth time, speak of the symbols. This one means thunder. This one means rain. This one means spider. A joke starts at one end of the line of vendors, tumbles down nearly forty yards to the other end. You can listen for the wave of laughter as it moves and chart the joke’s success. Note the intensity. The flute deity decorates every possible wearable item. Notice he is missing his bundle and his erection. He is no longer holy. The tourists are unaware of this castration of his power. The tourists are unaware of power lost. How will they ever care enough to learn? And who will teach them?

  Three

  Around the periphery of the plaza, the angel lurks with those legs of hers. Her wings are snug, one on top of the other, and resting against her back. They continue past her hips, tapering off at her upper thighs, not unlike a feathered cape. Here and there, a row of spines quiver as if shot through with electricity. Tips curling and uncurling. She pauses behind the man who twists balloons into animals, a mouse, a giraffe, a bear. Watches the faces of the children as they try to guess what creature will appear, which one will be theirs to take home. All of their small hands extended, expectant. Palms facing up.

  “I like it,” one child says about a balloon that could be a snail.

  “Me, too,” says another.

  “You can give it to me,” says a third. “It’s my favorite.”

  The parents, both mothers and fathers, attempt to rein in their children, discourage them from overtly begging. They flash awkward smiles meant to apologize while the man twisting the balloon skins tight with air says, “Not to worry.” A nose appears, ears, a tail. The friction of his manipulations cause a series of squeaks that excites the children even more. “Not to worry,” he repeats.

  It’s quite the trick. Turning one thing into another. The angel scans the plaza. There is Rafa and Rufina, straining against the expectations of the crowd, straining against the uncertainty of the bet.

  On the angel’s wrist, digital numbers read:

  10:37 am

  Sat. 5.30

  Four

  The husband and the wife are back. They are the kind of people who mean what they say, for better or for worse. The husband in his long shorts. The wife in her new matching turquoise necklace and earrings, her other beige summer blouse. No matter how hard he searched, the husband never did find his wallet. What he cannot imagine: It is still propped open like a miniature book on the kitchen floor of the house, untouched overnight even by the mother. Before the couple left their room and made their way to the plaza, the wife had listed all the significant things the husband had lost since they’d been married. Gone were their matching monogram slippers, and the garage door opener, his, hers, and the spare. Gone was the fancy wine bottle opener his brother gifted them for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The husband had continued to search for his wallet as the wife lectured him. It had been better than sitting still. He preferred to be a moving target. The wife blamed the husband. When it was his turn, the husband blamed the wife.

  They have not spoken yet today. He follows her and her purse around, careful not to strike out on his own. Cursing her in his mind but afraid to leave her side. Today is not nearly as enchanting as the day before in Ciudad de Tres Hermanas.

  Upon spotting Rufina, the wife says, “Look. There.” To the wife, Rufina is the kind of woman who is not the least bit concerned with how others perceive her. A woman who clearly hasn’t tamed her own hair into some kind of style, let alone brushed it, who is in need of shaving her armpits and her legs, whose clothes don’t match. It both frustrates and excites her.

  The husband sees Rufina and blushes. To him, Rufina is the kind of woman who would never exist in his reality. A woman who would no doubt bite him, given the chance, who doesn’t cross her legs when she sits, who he imagines could make h
im hard or limp on command. It both frustrates and excites him.

  “Are you turning red?” the wife asks him. She can see the way her husband is tracking Rufina, a kind of stalking men do with their eyes and think is unnoticeable, harmless. “Still embarrassed from the stunt you pulled yesterday?”

  “Your breath,” he says. “Smells like mustard.” He clearly is avoiding the wife’s question. “It stinks,” he continues. “Why do you have to eat everything?”

  She has a tin full of mints in her purse, but does not reach for them. She says, “It’s not mustard. It’s Southwest spice-flavored piñon nuts. You could at least try being adventurous while we’re here. It’s only temporary.”

  “Please don’t breathe with your mouth open,” he says. “It’s intolerable.”

  At a forlorn hour the previous night they had lain awake, back to back, beneath the blanket arguing about how much to pay the duo, thinking they were married, not siblings. The husband insisted on no more than fifty dollars. The wife wouldn’t hear of anything less than eighty, two twenties for them each.

  “Did you see how badly he needed to bathe?” the wife had argued. “Did you not notice how scrappy her dress was? It’s the least we can do.”

  When the husband would not agree to her donation price, she switched to another battery of insults, a list of all the things the husband should’ve felt guilty about since they’d been married. The last words he heard as he held the pillow over his head were “You ought to be ashamed.”

  Now, he huffs and puffs as if preparing to shout at her, then shrinks. The air inside him escapes, makes a sound not unlike the smallest squeak of a balloon being stretched into shape. “It’s not my fault you don’t like me anymore,” he says.

  Not replying is a kind of forgiveness she gives him every time he behaves this way.

  “She looks like she’s going to collapse,” the wife says, routing the attention to Rufina.

  Rufina has yet to sing. The broken microphone is ornamentation, a convincing prop. She’ll have to force the amplification of her voice without assistance. The red dress she’s wearing scallops her neck, hugs her lumps, grabs her thighs, and falls two inches past her knees. A pattern of pink and yellow rose embroidery, the size of Baby’s palms, presses down her chest and around her waist. She wears sunglasses, two ovals cut from dark purple plastic. Her lips are naked and splitting from the dry heat. Her hair—countless curls—frizzes loose down her back. Her right foot stomps a rectangle cookie sheet. When the block of her wooden heel strikes, another universe explodes. Strung around her left ankle, bells. In her left hand, castanets; in her right hand, finger cymbals. There is a kind of rhythm, but only if you listen closely. Her earrings drop past her shoulders, thin strips cut from hide. They curl away from her collarbones at the tips. Tourists mistake her for a fairy tale. The wandering maiden cursed to roam forever, lost in the woods. She has no magic wand, no godmother willing to turn her life into the best version possible, and no prince trapped in the body of a toad, or an old white man, or any other creature.

  “That clanging is hideous,” the husband says.

  The couple does not move. In their matching short pants, they stand as if waiting for their punishment. The husband wants Rufina’s dress to split. He wants her exposed so he can truly measure her, uninterrupted, against what he pictures in his mind.

  On Rufina’s tongue, “Oh, my baby, return,” but she will not part her lips. Her eyes, each one, a puddle filling. Her jaw has locked. She tries to imagine where Baby has gone. Her body won’t hold the rhythm steady. It fights against her will. The crowd seems to collectively tilt its head, curious whether she can maintain her calculations, but the way their mouths are pursed, and the palpable shrinking of attention, suggest it’s unlikely. The basket is empty except for the crystal Rufina put there and some coins.

  Rafa continues to watch shadows. He sees different combinations in the images. The sage, the outlaw, the child, the royal figures, the magician, or the lover, all of whom might be accompanied by a goat, a skunk, a snake, a hummingbird, or a spider, placed in or near a tree, a field, a pond, an orchard, a hut. There was usually weather and possibly other signifiers he might or might not detect given how clearly he could see on any particular day. As the husband and wife approach, he sees in her shadow that the goat from the day before dangles from the lowest limb by its hind legs, the drizzling rain has transformed into a deluge, and the crown hangs from a branch just out of her reach. In the husband’s shadow is the outlaw, knife drawn, bare feet, bare hands in a fog-veiled field overrun with skunks under a waxing moon. Rafa cannot remember what skunks en masse means.

  Speakers pulse from open windows. Cars roll at 15 m.p.h. around the plaza. Chicano Kings. Norteño Kings. See how low they can go. An all-girls mariachi band spills out of a convertible, yipping and wailing—hair slick, crimson-rimmed mouths, hands furious on instruments. The sign advertising their next show is marked on poster board and fixed to the driver’s and passenger’s doors. The man driving the car wears black sunglasses and a gray felt fedora. The woman next to him lifts her chin and chest, stares out above the heads of those standing on the street, as if she, too, were about to break into a storm of gritos. The tiniest of papel flores booths is overturned by the direct hit of a poorly aligned stroller. A father on his cell phone texting a mother, “Where are you? How much money are you spending?”

  Officer Armijo had considered unlocking his bicycle from the trunk rack of his cruiser, but at the last minute decided against it. His balance isn’t the strongest, and then there’s his gun, and the cell phone which he’d used earlier to call an ambulance after he came upon a heap, facedown, on the sidewalk next to the Santuario. In a few minutes, he was able to gather the necessary information. It was breathing. It was a woman. Passed out on the cement below the feet of the Virgin de Guadalupe on the side facing the river. It could have been any one of his sisters-in-law. Now, he combs through the crowd on the plaza. Waiting. He needs to blow his nose but won’t do it when he’s on duty, making his rounds. It feels like a sign of weakness to him, a distraction that makes him vulnerable. He continues to wait. The tipping point is sure to present itself. The moment just before it all gets out of hand. How to know when it will happen? How to predict where? How to be ready? His fingers trace hat, badge, gun. He is in control.

  Rufina’s hands wilt. Which is to say, her drive has left her; the urgency for her brother’s life is now eclipsed by her missing baby. Her foot keeping time on the tin is more of an accident than a commitment to rhythm.

  Baby. Baby. Baby.

  The angel reclines on a park bench, her boots propped up on the edge of a planter crowded with pink geraniums. She taps her heel on its edge. In her lap, her palms rest facing up. Empty. She’s thinking about the children and their parents on the plaza, the balloons. The yearning. In the front pocket of her jean jacket, from the night before, Baby’s two shells.

  Rufina spots the angel on the bench, sees her staring into her hands as if reading them. She leaves the microphone, fisting her cane, pushing her way through the crowd. When she is among them, they no longer see how exotic she is. No longer see the fairy tale. They see the stains under her armpits, the dried skin flaking on her cheeks, the chipped polish on her nails, her limp, the cane. She is a waste of their time.

  When Rafa sees a shadow, if he chooses to, if he concentrates, he can see what’s there, waiting to be included: The lover sitting outside a hut in a strong wind. A snake coiled around her ankles. Or, perhaps, the healer riding a llama backward through a snowy orchard. He hasn’t done this for years. Not since he tried to impress a potential boyfriend in Naples. His efforts were met with an explosion of insults. “You freak! You Latino faggots and your fucking magic. Reading shadows! Read my fucking asshole. Figlio di puttana!” The scowl on his love interest’s face took some time to forget. The humiliation still pricks his skin.

  The crowd in front of Rafa begins to scatter. He sees Rufina and the angel. Could he get
the angel’s attention? Could he manage something impressive? He steps up to the microphone, but is unsure of what to do next. The crowd stops dispersing and takes notice of him. He takes a wide stance. He will never be a man of any real height. On the ground, he sees a mess of figures, feathered, four- and two-legged, hooves, sees all kinds of weather, sees a river, a firepit, forests. He knows it won’t be enough to call out the images he sees, if he can bring himself to focus. He’ll have to do more. He’ll have to convert the shadow arrangement into the question. The question, like a drawing salve, as Rosalinda would do.

  As the crowd begins to disperse again, he locks on to the shadow of the couple closest to him and says, “It’s too bad she won’t let you touch her after dark anymore.” The man he’s speaking to wears a bolo tie with a Zia T-shirt. The woman tucks her thumbnail between her two front teeth. In her shadow, Rafa sees a child studded with raindrops sitting in a puddle.

  “What the—” the husband says. “You talking to me?”

  “You going to seduce her or not?” Rafa says.

  “What the hell?” the husband says. “You’re not talking—”

  The woman says nothing. Curls her shoulders in; they slope toward her concave belly.

  “You’re not talking to me,” the husband finishes. It’s less of a statement and more of a string of words he seems to eat. They break apart on his tongue.

  He turns to his wife. Pets between her shoulder blades, the place behind her heart, as if he’s trying to wipe something off her. She turns her head away from him, then back. Clearly, they are both confused by this dose of directness. Clearly, it will take time.