Gringa

by Sandra Scofield

  Abilene looked away. “Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked softly.

  “There has to be a reason to die like that,” Adele said. “Otherwise it could be you. I remember the girls in Vegas used to talk about their dreams all the time. They liked to say, your dream is telling you something. They dreamed about boats and trains and planes; everyone wanted to get away.

  “What are you afraid of, Abby?”

  Abilene began to cry. “I don’t know any people on lists. But I know her.”

  Tsk, tsk, went Adele’s tongue. “Don’t I know that?” she said. “Isn’t that why the lists matter so much?”

  “They’re Daniel’s lists, though, aren’t they?” Abilene said. She thought Daniel must think her very trivial.

  “Listen to me,” Adele said. She had made tea, and she leaned across the little kitchen table to pour it for Abilene in a white mug veined with cracks at the lip. “The names are just words on a page to me. I say that to you, and to nobody else. I can’t live any other way.”

  Abilene thought she understood, a little. Yannis had made violence so vivid. “But when you met Daniel, did you know he was so—”

  “Good,” Adele said firmly.

  “I was going to say obsessed.”

  “I was afraid at first, alright. I thought, another well of despair and anger. I thought, by God I won’t fall in love with a Marxist!” Adele’s laugh was rich and happy and full, a truer laugh than Abilene could remember. “I needn’t have worried. He was nothing so pat. He is a modest man. He writes down what people cannot write for themselves. A scribe. I suppose he liked me because I’m much the same, only with images.”

  “Did he like your work?” Abilene asked. She remembered seeing photographs of peasants in their bright clothes, against a dry hillside.

  “He saw more than I meant,” Adele said. “He thought I put the models next to the indios to make a statement. Does it matter where the impulse comes from? I work from intuition.”

  Abilene asked to see some of Adele’s work. “We’ve spent our time talking about things I don’t know,” she said. “You took so many photographs of Pola when we were in Zi.”

  Adele rose happily and led Abilene back to her studio. She drew out dozens of photographs from a box. There was Pola innocent, Pola seductive, Pola hurt, Pola sleepy. She went from small child at ten or eleven to budding woman at twelve and thirteen. She was immensely photogenic, with her lovely bones and eyes, her high brow and widow’s peak, the long slender limbs, her patience and affection for the camera’s eye.

  “You’re so lucky,” Abilene said in little more than a whisper. She could not imagine the connection of mother and child. She could not even wish for it; it was that remote.

  “You see these—” Adele pulled out several pictures of Pola at her sweetest, her most childlike. “These are the photographs I sent Pola’s father. I know I’ve caught only glimpses of Pola in my pictures. I know she holds things back. And Yannis writes back to me. ‘She is uncanny. Look how she shuts us out.’ I hated him for saying that!”

  Abilene helped Adele stack the photographs and put them away and then they sat, backs against the wall, on the floor.

  “Maybe I know part of why you’re here, in Mexico, I mean,” Adele said. “Because I feel it so much myself. I’ve always been a stranger, without understanding why. I’ve always loved places where no one bothers to ask if I belong: Las Vegas, L.A. Here most of all.”

  “I wonder why the American woman came.”

  “Like any of us, I suppose,” Adele said. “Because it isn’t home, and you cannot be blamed for its terrors.” She turned to look at Abilene directly. “Daniel changes everything for me, though. He asks the best from me, without demanding anything. He talks about repression and cataclysm, provocation and terror, and I could listen all night. I’m lucky. I told him a long old story about visiting Guatemala with Yannis, and we fell in love! It’s like I wanted it to be. People can come together because there is good in them.”

  Abilene saw for the first time the distance opening up between her and this Adele, this Adele-with-Daniel. She said nothing. Something in Adele’s eyes warned her to leave some things unspoken. They both understood the part luck plays in love. They both knew the important factor in the stories Adele and Daniel shared about that poor sad country Guatemala wasn’t moral fervor at all, but coincidence.

  The hotelkeeper’s son Nando called a few days later. He was working the night shift and a man was there looking for the Britton woman.

  There were people at the apartment. Daniel and Simon were arguing about a Fuentes novel. Arturo and Gilberto and another of Gilberto’s Communist friends were producing a litany of complaints against Mexican artists who, they said, had been led around like dogs on ropes for years, putting the Revolution on the sides of buildings.

  Abilene was glad to go out on the street. The evening air was fresh and cool, and Adele seemed eager for the meeting. Abilene wondered if Sylvia Britton might not be a diversion from the steady misery of Daniel’s work.

  The man who had known Sylvia was waiting in the shabby little lobby in the near dark. Adele asked if he would like to go somewhere and have a drink with them. He looked at Adele and Abilene with suspicion, and with what Abilene decided was a certain greediness of expression. Of course he will want something, she thought. “I’ll tell you what I know just now,” he said in English. “The clerk said you would pay.” He was very good-looking.

  Adele gave him some money and told him they would rather speak in Spanish. Carefully, he folded the money away into his wallet, and tucked it into his pants.

  “I knew her from the dances. I met her in Acapulco, dancing the line in the red light district.” He looked pleased with himself. “I go once a year. I am saving my money to go there and live.”

  “Was she a good dancer?” Abilene asked.

  “Oh yes, she could dance. She stood out, among all the whores and boys, and she was drunk. I told her I was going back to Mexico on the morning bus, and she said she was too. She thought it was a coincidence. So that was how I met her. I showed her this hotel. She said she wanted a hotel for Mexicans, in a safe neighborhood.”

  “Did you get to know her well?” Adele said.

  The young man smoothed his hair with his hand. “I only saw her two other times. We went to dance. I took her to a place with the rocky roll. American music.”

  “Yes,” Adele said. “You know where to go, don’t you? Did you come back and stay with her here?”

  “Oh no, not in her hotel.”

  “At your place, then?”

  He appeared to be making some decision. He stood up abruptly and said, “She was just a gringa. She was an old one, too, maybe thirty. I didn’t really like her. She laughed too much.”

  “But you came to look for her, didn’t you?” Abilene asked. The man’s eyes turned to her for the first time.

  “She borrowed money from me!” he said loudly. “I came to get my money.”

  Adele reached out and touched him. He put his hand on top of hers, lightly, on his arm. “She owed me money.”

  “I’m surprised,” Abilene said.

  He pulled his hand away from Adele. “Because I am a hardworking Indian, and she was a gringa! I tell you, she took my money. She said she was waiting for a check from home to arrive. Now I think she lied to me. She took my money to make fun of me.”

  “Thank you for talking to us,” Adele said.

  Abilene asked, “What’s your name?”

  He looked around nervously. “I go to work very early. Now I go home. That girl was no good, even if she was your sister!” He hurried away.

  “What did you expect?” Nando asked. He wouldn’t take the tip Adele offered. “He has to be hard up, to ask you for money. There’s nothing he knows, except how to make a little money from American girls. He was furious when I told him th
e woman was dead. She did owe him. I’m sure that’s why he agreed to talk to you. She owed us rent, too.”

  “Your father didn’t tell me,” Adele said.

  “Why would he?” Nando shrugged. “Who would pay it?”

  “I will. You look it up, and I’ll bring the money tomorrow night.”

  It took Nando a few moments to find the file. He wrote the figure down on a scrap of paper. “She didn’t pay her rent for the last two weeks.”

  “Why didn’t your father throw her out?”

  “She seemed desperate. She said her check was late. She had long explanations that changed with every telling. I said get rid of her, but my father said no, half the rooms were empty, let her stay. He only cut off her maid service.” Nando seemed to think that was funny. “I don’t think my father will like it if you pay.”

  “I will give you the money. By the time he knows, it will be figures in a book. And it will make us feel better. Because she was American, and she had a debt.”

  “She wasn’t worth it. She smoked grass. I told her she couldn’t do it in her room, if my father found out he would call the police. She said she was running out anyway. She wanted to know if I could get her more. ‘No money, no grass, no fucking fun,’ she told me.” Clearly, he was disgusted.

  “This is Abilene Painter,” Adele said. “She lives in the country, near Tampico.”

  Nando looked over his shoulder at the closed door to his parents’ apartment. “Señora Adele, if you want to ask so many questions, why don’t you ask about something that matters?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Right now, in this city, thousands of students are talking about their rights, and the rights of workers and peasants. Their talk is going to burst into the street. Now there is something worth knowing about! Already some students have been harassed or hurt or arrested. Some will be killed. They will be heroes, but nobody will look hard for their killers. Why don’t you listen to what the students are saying? Why doesn’t your husband publish their demands?”

  “You bring him a list and I know he’ll do what’s right,” Adele said. “He’s not afraid, you know that. As for me, I’m a photographer, not a reporter.”

  “What is she?” Nando asked, glancing at Abilene.

  “A tourist,” Abilene said quickly.

  Nando’s cheeks twitched with intensity. “Then you have picked a time to be here. You will see what it is like when young people will not be held back from hope. And you, Señora Adele. You don’t have to be a writer to listen. Let the young people speak for themselves.”

  Adele clasped Nando’s hands. “Come to the apartment with your papers,” she said. Her eyes were bright. “I’ll talk to Daniel.”

  On the street Abilene said, “Whew! I feel like I’m in on a good spy story.”

  “You mean Nando? He’s in this thing up to his ears. His father will kill him if the granaderos don’t. But I am going to talk to Daniel about it. I could take the stories, with a tape recorder. If anyone will trust me. With Nando in the middle, maybe they will.”

  “I want to give you some of the money.”

  “Money?”

  “For Sylvia Britton’s bill.”

  Adele waved the thought away with her hand brushing air. “Don’t be silly. What do you have for money?”

  Abilene’s cheeks were hot. “I have a little of my own here in the city.” She felt Adele look at her. “Tonio is going to cut me off soon, I know it,” she said in a low voice.

  “And what of Sylvia Britton? She’s dead. You heard how they talked about her. What did you think of her friend, the dancer?”

  Abilene felt pushed, and her answer was brittle. “I thought he was sexy. Nice and skinny in the hips.”

  Adele said, “I thought it was someone just like him who killed her. But not him. Not if she owed him money.”

  A few days later, Adele said Nando had come by. He was going to introduce Adele to some of the student leaders.

  “What does Daniel think?”

  “He said to do what I want.”

  “And this is what you want? To run around the city asking puffed up kids what they think of government business?”

  Adele looked at her curiously. “Why does that bother you?”

  Abilene realized with a pang that she was jealous. “It doesn’t concern me. What do I know about revolution?

  “Isn’t revolution just change? Isn’t it really just something that happens inside you? One thing dies and another is born?”

  “That’s damned vague to me!” Abilene snapped. “We aren’t all so serious, you know. We aren’t all so good.”

  “Don’t—” Adele said. She reached out and touched Abilene, and Abilene felt her hand, the way the young man in the hotel must have felt it, as pressure to stay, and to give.

  “Isn’t there anything you want a lot?” Adele asked gently.

  Abilene knew the answer so quickly it scared her. “When I’m all alone in a room, I want to know who’s there.”

  “Oh Abby,” Adele said, but Abilene fled. Later, she felt terribly sad, as if Adele had gone around a corner, and disappeared.

  Chapter 5

  FELIX came by to scold Abilene for leaving his apartment, but she suspected his was false objection. “I left word with Tonio’s office,” she said. “I knew I was inconveniencing you.” He kissed her cheek and examined her face carefully. “My brother is very fond of you,” he said. “He says your nose on another’s face would not work, but on you—” She scoffed at that. “No, truly. He says you are very strong, and he asks me—” he let her wonder for a moment—”He asks when you will leave Velez and make your own life.”

  “That’s hardly his business,” she bristled.

  “Think of it this way, chica: My brother wants something better for you.”

  “As soon as I decide what it is, I’ll take care of it myself. None of you need to talk about it further!”

  Felix kissed her nose this time. “I came to tell you that Tonio is in town. He’s expecting you this afternoon, after siesta.”

  The news was like a blow; without moving a muscle, she felt herself reeling. He had become a dream.

  “You look like you’re going to faint,” Felix said. “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Tonio.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell you about my new girlfriend. She studies anthropology and has a waist like this—” He held his hands together close. Abilene threw her arms around his neck and held on, to keep from trembling. Felix, kind Felix, waited for her to feel better. Then he fed her linguine with clam sauce in the Pink Zone and said she shouldn’t worry. Tonio had missed her, too.

  The plump maid let Abilene into Tonio’s apartment and whispered that he was resting. Then she waddled off to her own room on the roof. Abilene sat down and undid the straps of her sandals. Her cheeks burned; she tried to cool them with her fingertips, but the fingers were hot, too.

  She went to Tonio’s room. A fan rustled the satin sheet that lay over him. She closed the door and stood, watching him. The room was softly lit, a room of mauves and roses, a boudoir. Small lamps that looked like candle-lamps hung on each side of the bed. An oval portrait of Tonio in a silvery white rejoneador’s costume hung near a window. The window was shuttered with soft white slats now closed to block out the daylight; the room was illuminated by the light from the bathroom. Money lay in a porcelain dish. Tonio’s watch lay near it on a table. Abilene wanted to go and touch each object; she wanted to regain her familiarity with the man on the bed. If she had known how, she would have called on voodoo.

  He lay on his side, one hand cupped under his cheek, the other flung out from his body. He was so beautiful he might have been a marble statue. He had been sleeping. The disorder of the bed suggested that he had been restless, had dreamed, or had not been alone.
r />   At the ranch, Tonio slept behind a locked door, after he sent Abilene away at night. Now he seemed so vulnerable, she felt a surge of tenderness. He will never marry Anne Lise! she thought, nor anyone innocent; how would he fit himself to all the ritual? He would marry a Mexican woman after all, a woman who would accept the way he cut up his existence, the little space she would fill. Instead of relief, Abilene felt immense confusion, as if she had been shaken and then dumped on a wobbly bed. She didn’t know what she wanted from this man. She had for so long been his mistress, his child, his pet, she had forgotten how to think for herself. The city, and the time away from him, had shaken sleeping faculties. She remembered long ago, when she had learned so readily the ease of acquiescence. That first failure to say no had led straight to this, from those Texas boys to this man, smaller than any of them, and yet as large as a myth, a country, a dream. Where did he get his power? What gene signaled him to grow so strong? It was something more than wealth and privilege. Mickey had told her stories of Tonio’s boyhood arrogance, his assertions of fledgling authority. At ten he had scolded his mother for the way she cut her steak!

  Tonio opened his eyes and looked at her with the guarded gaze of a lizard. She felt perspiration beading under her arms and on her palms. If he is gentle, she thought, I will love him.

  “Come here, I want to see,” he told her. She went and knelt beside the bed. He reached out, as if to clear away a speck of dirt. She wondered if he could feel how hot she was. She wondered if he approved.

  “Come up here,” he said congenially, patting the bed beside him. She kicked off her shoes, the new Italian ones, and she crawled up beside him and lay on her side facing him. It was a sudden, familiar and good sensation to be so close again. She was afraid of him because she had done silly things—she pushed the thought of Sage away—but she had forgotten the pleasure of his presence. His sweetness, in moments, when he allowed it.

  “Did it hurt much?” he asked.

  “It stung. I had a reaction to the penicillin, and when I woke up after surgery there were straws in my nose so I could breathe! The worse was when Reyles took away the scabs. Now it’s only that I’m hot.”