by Mary Morris
She had her scholarship, of course. Otherwise how would she have gotten to New York? And she was good. For a time she was very good with those sinewy legs, that lithe body. One of her teachers, an older man who was famous and with whom she had a brief, insanely passionate affair, told her the sky was the limit. How could she explain to him that when he said the sky it meant to her that big blue sky that domed her village in northern New Mexico? How could she explain to anyone that place of Hispanics and hydraulic suspension, way too much booze, and a mother who raised two children alone, how can she explain what it was like to come from there? She did not go back. Even after she crushed the bone in her ankle, she returned for holidays and funerals, but never for more than a few days.
It was a routine spin. Her partner stood behind her, his hands on her waist. Something she’d done dozens of times, but this time when her body moved, her foot didn’t. Perhaps he’d spun her too quickly or she’d resisted his move, but by the time Elena hit the floor her tibia was shattered. The minute she saw her twisted foot, she knew she’d never dance again. A racehorse, her surgeon told her, is put down for less. For a long time Elena thought the horse was lucky.
At last a tagine is placed before her. The waiter lifts the clay lid and the steam of the lamb stew fills Elena’s lungs. As she breathes it in, she begins to swoon. The scent of cinnamon and ginger, turmeric and cumin rises to greet her like some genie that has come out of a bottle. Dipping in her spoon she tastes the sweetness of apricots, the savory of the broth. And there is a smell she recognizes. Cilantro. She gazes into the bowl of lamb, swimming in juices with chickpeas.
She closes her eyes and finds herself going away. She dips once more into the hot broth that burns her tongue. Blowing on the spoon, she waits for it to cool, then sips again. Suddenly she is crossing vast deserts and sailing across the sea. She is moving not only in space but also in time into a past she has never known. Where is this dish taking her? Elena thinks that she must be hallucinating. Or sampling an alchemist’s brew. Or perhaps it is what barely sleeping for twenty-four hours does to you. Still it does not seem possible. No, it isn’t impossible. Yet there it is. Elena almost drops her spoon, and then she catches her breath.
Derek glances at her, concerned. “Is it all right?”
Elena stares at him, a glazed-over look in her eyes as if she were just waking up from a long nap. “Yes,” she says, “it’s fine. May I taste your chicken?”
He makes a gesture with his hand. “Be my guest.” She reaches over and samples his chicken couscous with its hint of turmeric and cumin, raisins and almonds. And mint. Then she puts her spoon down. This must be some form of déjà vu. Some temporal-lobe glitch. Her mind playing tricks on her. She’s read that people with epilepsy sometimes experience a deep sense of euphoria just before a seizure. But she doesn’t have epilepsy. Perhaps this is a mini-stroke. Or a psychotic break brought on by fatigue? Except for bringing her spoon to her mouth, Elena is certain that she cannot move. She doubts that she’ll ever get up from this table.
The musicians are playing faster and faster. The drumbeat is quickening. They are shaking their gourds, blowing into their reed instruments. It is all too fast. Her mind is spinning like some dervish, endlessly twirling on a small stage. She is aware of families talking, laughing. Around her people are eating. Derek makes soft moaning sounds as he tastes the chicken that has fallen from the bones. Elena dips once more into her lamb with garbanzo, and then puts the spoon down.
It has been more than twenty years since she’s tasted her grandmother’s sweet lamb stew with garbanzos. After her grandmother passed away, it seemed as if the recipe died with her. It was one of the few things she yearned for the most when she left home. How is it possible that here in this North African restaurant hidden in a maze of streets she is tasting what she has been missing for so long? How can she even begin to understand what the Torres family, who live in an obscure valley called Entrada de la Luna, can have to do with desert nomads who settled in the medinas and souks of Tangier?
Finally she turns to Derek and says, “My grandmother made this stew.”
He nods. “You mean she made some kind of lamb stew?”
Elena shakes her head. “No, actually, she made this stew.”
Derek smiles, his gray eyes squinting. “What do you mean?”
“It’s her recipe. It’s very odd. I can’t really explain it.” Tears are welling up in her eyes. “I think I’m just very tired.”
“Well, let’s head back then.” They finish their meal, pay the check, and walk slowly to the hotel. Somehow the way back is clearer than the way there and they don’t get lost again, which disappoints Elena somewhat. Now she wants to lose herself because a part of her, it seems, is already lost. But the way back feels less ominous. They are exhausted as they trudge up the steep hill that leads to their hotel and enter the old Moorish structure with its decaying ceiling.
They climb the four floors to their room where Elena opens its French doors. The white lace curtains blow in the wind and the breeze is salty. It has been an incredibly long day and they are at last able to rest. Derek lies down, gives a great yawn, and stretches. Within moments he is asleep. But Elena will not sleep that night. She goes to the window. Below she can see the lights in the homes of Muslim families.
On rooftops caftans and djellabas and scarves flap in the breeze. In dimly lit windows, couples are bedding down for the night. Overhead a thin sliver of a moon, like a tiny cup, is rising. As the curtains rustle and the ocean laps not far below their window, Elena leans out on the small balcony with the distinct feeling that, despite herself, she has come home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM—1992
As he drives to his babysitting job, Miguel is thinking about the three-body problem. It has been on his mind for a while. How is it that the Earth, sun, and moon exert gravitational forces on one another? Sir Isaac Newton accepted the lunar theory. He believed that the movement of the moon was determined by the pull of the Earth and the sun. For the past few days, as he gazes into the sky, Miguel has been trying to determine if this explains the orbit and phases of the moon.
If the moon controls the tides, what else does it control? Of course Miguel has never seen the ocean. Few people he knows ever have. His parents certainly haven’t, though his grandfather Rafael Torres, who died when Miguel was seven, did. His grandfather sailed across it when he went to fight in the war in Korea. He told Miguel many stories of when he was a medic. How he crawled on his belly through the mud to save the lives of wounded soldiers.
Miguel sat on his lap as his grandfather recounted how bullets flew over his head as he crawled through the muck and blood and shit. How he gave injections of morphine to dying men and dragged them from the battlefields. He raised his finger and went pow pow pow to show Miguel what it was like when the bullets came flying by, how it felt as if they were grazing his flesh.
But Miguel was more interested in what his grandfather told him about the ocean. How it had been icy blue and endless. How the waves had risen and fallen alongside the ship, sometimes soaring above their heads, crashing onto the deck. In those seas all the men had gone below and been sick for days. How day and night for weeks on end they could see nothing but water and sky. When his grandfather told this to Miguel, he rocked him back and forth on his knees so that Miguel could imagine what it was like to be at sea.
His grandfather read books about science, and he liked to talk to Miguel about the ocean. “Scientists know more about the universe than they know about the sea,” his grandfather said to him not long before he died. “No one has ever been to the deepest part of the ocean. I know guys who were stationed in Guam. There’s a place called Challenger Deep. It’s in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. It’s only six miles deep but the pressure is too great. We can travel a million miles in space, but nothing on Earth has been able to reach that depth.” His grandfather would just shake his head. “Try to imagine. You can never get to
the bottom of it.”
Still, even now, Miguel cannot imagine being in a place where all you see is water. Lake Abiquiu is the only body of water he’s ever seen and he can see across it. He wonders if the ocean is like the desert. He’s been to White Sands once, where there was nothing for miles except white sand that he and his father jumped into and rolled down as if it were a giant bed, but even in White Sands there are roads and places to get gas and buy a Coke, so it isn’t the same as the ocean where there is nothing for weeks at a time. Is it like the sky? If it is so big, then the moon must be very powerful to exert any force on it at all.
Miguel knows from his science class that there are high tides and low tides and that at times the tide comes rushing in so that you have to be careful and at other times it goes so far out so quickly that fish are left flapping on the beach and you can walk among the tidal pools and pick up starfish that wiggle in your hand. He can imagine such things but he’s never seen them. He’s heard stories of people stranded on desert islands and spits of land. His teacher told them that Ireland used to be connected to the continent of Europe by a land bridge and the people went back and forth until one day the sea rose up and the people who were in Ireland were stuck there forever. That was how the Irish came to be. Miguel wonders if that is how his own people became stuck in this “godforsaken place,” as his father likes to refer to Entrada. Is there some land bridge they crossed? Did a giant wave blot out their path of return?
He turns onto Colibri Canyon Road. He does this automatically, not even thinking. It just happens, the way many things happen in Miguel’s life. Miguel often feels different pulls. There is the pull of his mother and of his father’s world of airbrushes and booze and lowriders. The world in which Miguel is expected to remain. And then there is the tug of another world. The one Mrs. Rothstein inhabits. The one that is the few cities where he’s traveled, like Albuquerque, when his father took him along on a job.
And the world beyond that his aunt Elena lives in. A world he knows only through postcards and some phone calls and a flurry of visits that never last more than a day or two, though his father keeps a picture of her framed above his workbench. She is in her ballerina costume and another dancer holds her high above his head. Her dark beauty haunts Miguel. A couple of times a year he receives a postcard—always from somewhere else. The last one came from Spain and on it she wrote, “Greetings from Granada.” That is all she ever writes. Not “I rode a camel” or “We took a train.” Not even “Dear Miguel.” Sometimes she doesn’t even scribble her name. But it is enough to draw him into her world.
There is a third tug in Miguel’s life. He cannot see it, but he knows it is there. Like a black hole it exerts a strong pull. Miguel is not sure he is who he thinks he is. In those superhero movies, he always identifies with the hero who doesn’t know he has special powers and only realizes it when suddenly he can see through the closed door or climb up the side of a building. Miguel wonders if such a secret is not his as well.
He passes houses he recognizes. Large adobes with thick walls set back against the arroyo. The houses he knows because on a job his father drove him through these winding canyon roads and pointed to the houses that belong to Hollywood stars and famous artists. People who are rich and sought the solitude of being alone. At last he comes to Mrs. Rothstein’s house. He glances at the sky. He hopes it will not rain. He doesn’t want to end up in another ditch. He doubts that he can keep this job if it rains. He doesn’t dare think as far ahead as winter.
As he pulls up the drive, Mrs. Rothstein is waiting for him by the door. This sends a pang through him. It is rare that anyone ever waits for him like this. If his mother is at the door, it means that he is late or that he’s done something wrong. Nobody ever waits because they want to see him arrive.
* * *
“So here’s our list of emergency numbers.” Mrs. Rothstein is showing him a greasy piece of paper with numbers typed on it, others scratched out and written over, taped to the refrigerator. “This is Nathan at the hospital. Here’s the phone line out in the studio. Here’s poison control. I should put your number up here as well.” She starts riffling around for a pencil or pen but can’t find one in the congestion of drawers she opens and closes. Drawers that seem filled with screwdrivers and tape and kitchen utensils and bandages. “I’ll do it later. Anyway I’ll pick the boys up today. You can come with me so you can see where the school is. Then we’ll bring them home and if you can just play with them until six or so, that will be perfect.” She stares up at him. “My god, you’re tall.”
“I’m almost six three.”
“Well, you’re a giant compared to me. Ha, that’s funny. Davie and Goliath. You know the giant in the Bible…And you’re taking care of Davie.” Miguel stares at her with a puzzled expression. “Never mind. I bet you’re still growing too. I don’t think I grew an inch from the time I was twelve. I hope my boys take after their father. Not that Nathan is as tall as you are, but he’s taller than me.”
It seems to Miguel as if Rachel Rothstein never stops talking. A steady stream of words comes pouring out of her mouth. Miguel isn’t sure he’s ever heard anyone talk this much or this quickly. It is as if she has some kind of a battery and she is on high speed. And he has a feeling that she will just say anything that pops into her head. He makes a note to be careful what he tells her. And she does not seem relaxed. Quite the contrary; she seems very tightly wound.
When he was young and got into trouble, he’d talk a blue streak to try and get himself out of it. He’d just blah blah his excuses until his mother gave up. But what can she be in trouble for? She needs something to calm her down. Maybe she needs someone to screw her. He tries not to chuckle, imagining being in bed with a woman Mrs. Rothstein’s age. His mother’s age. The mere thought of it grosses him out. Yet he glances at her body. There’s something buoyant about her. She’s like a cloud. He can’t help wondering if her husband loves her. Maybe she needs more to do.
“It’s time to get the boys.” Rachel motions for Miguel to follow her into the darkness of her garage where a red Jeep Cherokee is parked. He’s disappointed. Not the fancy car he was hoping for. But she’s got four-wheel drive. She flicks a switch and the garage door lifts. As they head out of the driveway, she points to a small adobe hut out back. “That’s where I’m supposed to make art.” She laughs under her breath. “When you’re watching the kids.”
“Supposed to?”
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, Manuel, to be honest with you.”
“It’s Miguel,” he says softly.
Rachel shakes her head and laughs. “I’m so bad with names.” She flings her hands into the air in a way that makes him fear she’ll lose control of her Jeep. “I’m supposed to be a sculptor, but at the moment, honestly, I have no idea what I am. I used to make all these little heads. Well, they were only of my mother. Some people liked them but other people thought they reminded them of those shrunken heads you used to get as tourist souvenirs in Borneo or some place like that. Lately I’ve been doing hands. You have nice hands. Maybe I’ll do yours. Basically, I’m not really doing anything now, but I feel as if I’m getting ready to do something and that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
Miguel nods. “Yeah. I guess so.”
Without really looking, she makes a sharp right turn onto the highway, forcing Miguel to brace himself against the side of the car. An oncoming car has to brake and honks. Mrs. Rothstein makes a motion as if she’s going to flip him the bird but catches herself. Miguel has never met anyone like Rachel Rothstein. The way her white hands and those long red nails flutter, the way she talks in one long stream of words. Though if he speaks, she listens intently as if what he is saying is the most important thing in the world.
Miguel turns to Mrs. Rothstein. “You should check out the sky this week. There’s going to be a supermoon.”
“What’s that?”
“The moon is in perigee,” he tells her. “It’s the closest to Ea
rth that it’s been in a while and it’s also going to be full. The boys will love it.”
It is useful, Rachel thinks, to have someone around who knows something and will talk to her about it. Even if the thing they talk about—the universe—doesn’t impact directly on their lives the way, say, the weather does. Rachel is surprised he doesn’t talk about baseball or the things that she imagines other boys do.
They pull up in front of Magical Years and the boys come screaming out. Jeremy races ahead, holding a clay imprint of his hand that he then thrusts against the window of the car the way a hand is pressed to the glass in a murder mystery. Davie stumbles behind him, shouting, “Jeremy, wait up, wait up.” He has his books clutched to his chest and there is something sad and cloying about the boy. Mrs. Rothstein gets out and holds them to her. She clutches her boys as if she has been separated from them for years, as if they are the victims of a custodial kidnapping and at last they are being reunited.
The boys pile in the backseat. “Buckle up,” Mrs. Rothstein tells them. “Come on, Jeremy, seat belts.” Even before they drive off, Miguel can hear the boys bickering. It grows louder until just as they are about to make the turn onto the highway heading home, Davie bursts out crying. “Oh, for god’s sake, can’t you two get along for five minutes?” She glares at them in the rearview mirror. “I mean it. Manuel won’t be your babysitter if you are bad.”
“It’s Miguel. My name,” he tells her, “is Miguel.”
Rachel throws her hands into the air and off the wheel. “Of course, Miguel.”
