At Night We Walk in Circles

by Daniel Alarcón

  Mindo was not home, and Ixta was glad for this: a small mercy that she celebrated with a cigarette (she almost never smoked anymore) and a few hours of television. She burrowed deep into the couch, clutching the cushions as if they were life vests. On the other side of the pulled curtains, day turned to dusk. Like Nelson at the bus station, Ixta took in the news of the dead singer, marveling at the scandal the press seemed determined to create. Unlike Nelson, she did know who the singer was. The newscasters played old videos, showed soft-focus stills of the singer’s early days playing dusty fields at the edge of the city. Night fell, and the fans gathered in front of the murdered star’s home; with candles and bloodshot eyes, they performed their sadness flamboyantly, pushing the very limits of realism. This is what Ixta thought to herself, and then: that phrase, it sounds like something Nelson would say. She put the television on mute, and watched for a minute, in silence, to verify that it was true. It was. Yes, she could hear his voice. Yes, it was still there: ironic, wry, curious. Ixta turned off the television, and sat very quietly, listening to the room hum, and waiting for Nelson’s voice to fade from her consciousness.

  One day, when they were just starting out, they’d blown off a class on the theory of representation and gone to eat at the Central Market. It was Ixta’s idea, and Nelson wasn’t opposed. The crowds got denser as they approached, and the lovers held hands casually, letting themselves be jostled by the passersby. The shoppers and pickpockets and stray dogs and maids and businessmen and lonely hearts. A teenage boy pushed through the masses, hoisting above him a wooden broomstick strung with cartoon piñatas. Ixta and Nelson followed him, past the vegetable stands, the dozens of varieties of potatoes, the fishmongers huddled over ice chests; past the boys tending to anxious lizards, those golden-eyed marvels destined to die behind glass for the amusement of the city’s children. An old man sold shakes, made with frogs, boiled and skinned, blended with water and egg yolk. The savage little creatures crawled about in their aquariums, blissfully unaware of their fate. “For potency! For love!” the man shouted as Ixta and Nelson passed. He had the desperate voice of a faith healer, as if his primary concern were not commerce but their conjugal happiness.

  They ate ceviche served in a paper bowl, while looking up at the market’s old steel girders and the light leaking in through the high windows. There was something lovely about it, but they couldn’t decide what exactly. When they finished, they headed straight east from the market, though it was the long way, into the sleepy, run-down neighborhoods on the edge of the Old City, until they were on a narrow side street, far enough from the tumult of the market to feel almost provincial. A woman in a bathrobe sat on her balcony, elbows on the railing, watching them pass.

  And Ixta was watching Nelson. All day she’d felt it, a hazy sense of expectation, only she wasn’t sure what she was waiting for. She slowed, and then stopped. She made Nelson stop too.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  He bit his lip, and she did too, unconsciously, so that for a moment they stood on the sidewalk, mirror images of each other.

  I’d like to explain very carefully what happened next, as carefully as Ixta explained it to me: with his right hand, Nelson scratched his temple, and at that moment she felt a sudden itch on her temple as well. He covered his face, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands, and immediately Ixta’s eyes too felt a desire to be massaged. He licked his lips, and hers felt dry. With every gesture he identified a need her own body was slow to register on its own. He blinked many times, and her eyes opened and closed of their own volition. He repeated his question—“Are you all right?”—but there was no point in answering it anymore.

  I’m falling in love, she thought. That must be what’s happening.

  Years later, on the evening Nelson and Diciembre left the city, Ixta tried to get Nelson’s voice out of her head. And failed. That night and the next, and for a week after, Ixta was not the same person everyone expected her to be. Or the person she herself wanted to be. It was odd, she said when we spoke. A sense of drifting. A fondness for quiet. The city seemed alien to her, and she found herself daydreaming about going on a trip herself. For the past few months she’d been looking for new work, but set that search aside for a moment. Though she was loath to admit it, Nelson’s absence affected her, at least at first.

  She even thought of writing him a letter, she told me, only there was nowhere to send it.

  7

  THE BUS ARRIVED in San Luis at dawn, stopping at the town’s central plaza, where they were met by Patalarga’s cousin Cayetano. It was far too cold out to be chatty, and while they waited for the bags to appear from the storage compartment beneath the bus, Nelson observed his new surroundings in silence. The light was gray and thin, mist still clinging to the hillsides, but there were small houses dotting the slopes and footpaths snaking between them. Those must be the suburbs, he thought. On the western side of the valley, the terraced hills were dark with recently tilled earth and he could make out a few human shapes—farmers—moving about in the half-light. It had rained overnight and the streets were rutted and pooled with water. At the far end of the plaza, a woman in traditional dress swept her front steps with a broom that seemed taller than she was. From a distance, it was impossible to tell if the broom was overlarge or if she was very small.

  Cayetano announced that he was taking them to the market first. They needed to eat something; if not, the altitude would get to them. Everyone agreed. Cayetano wore a long, padded brown coat and reminded Nelson of a chess piece. A rook, perhaps.

  They thought about waiting for a moto taxi, but decided against it: standing still in the cold wasn’t such a good idea. “And anyway, it isn’t far,” Cayetano said. “It only seems that way.”

  The three actors ambled behind their host through the town’s mostly empty streets, Nelson and Patalarga each carrying one strap of a green duffel bag the length of a corpse, or a small canoe. It swung between them as they walked. Inside were their supplies, their costumes, the president’s long boots, his white gloves, the smock, the colorful pants, and the rubber sandals Patalarga would wear every evening (and many days) for the next two months. There was even a set of modified tent poles, and a blue tarp, which they could use as a canopy if they were called upon to perform in a light rain. Needless to say, the bag was heavy. Henry, who had fully assumed the role of president from the moment he boarded the bus, carried only his backpack, with a few books and pens, and walked a few steps ahead of the other two, gazing idly at the buildings. He wore the white eye mask raised to his hairline, like a headband. Now and then he made a comment—“What large windows!” or “Look at the workmanship on that wooden door!”—to which no one felt the need to respond.

  Everything in San Luis was wet—the gravel streets, the walls of the houses, the hills, even the stray dogs. The puddles on the empty, shadowed streets seemed bottomless.

  “It’s been pouring every night,” Cayetano said. The rainy season had started late that year, but now it had come with a vengeance.

  “Oh, the rain!” said Henry.

  They walked for much longer than seemed possible, until Nelson began to doubt—in his bones, in his gut—the very existence of a market. But it was there, in fact, at the edge of town: a squat concrete building painted blue, topped with a corrugated metal roof. The market was just opening, and it was a smaller but still inspired replica of that city market near where Ixta had realized she was in love: here, vendors unpacked boxes, sliced meat, unloaded vegetables from wooden crates; and Cayetano led the visitors through the corridors, until they stopped before a clean white-tiled counter stacked with elaborate pyramids of fruit. The woman working there greeted Patalarga with a shout, and came around the counter to welcome him properly. She wore her hair in a long braid and had a bright silver pendant around her neck. It was Cayetano’s wife, Melissa. She embraced Patalarga, greeted Henry with similar enthusiasm, and offered Nelson a somewhat formal handshake. There was a baby in a basi
net, a little girl named Yadira, asleep in the corner of the market stall. His other two children were at home, he said, preparing the house for their arrival.

  While Melissa made juice, they discussed their plans. Henry noted that he hadn’t seen any posters announcing the performance. Not on their walk, or at the market, which he found puzzling. A bus ride into the tour and already he’d acquired the arrogance of a president. Nelson was impressed.

  Cayetano’s lips stretched into a thin smile. He unzipped his heavy brown coat, and sighed. “The mayor, you see … He wanted to speak with you first, before we planned the performance. Just to be sure it was appropriate.”

  Henry scowled.

  “Appropriate how?” Patalarga said, his voice rising. “No dancing girls? No blood?”

  “So it hasn’t been planned,” Henry said.

  Cayetano shook his head. “Not yet. Not exactly. But we’ll talk to him. He’s eager to talk. He loves to talk. This afternoon. Everything will be fine.”

  Melissa served them more of the local breakfast cocktail. Henry and Patalarga muttered between themselves.

  “We’ll talk to him now,” Henry said. “The mayor—where can we find him?”

  Cayetano looked down at his watch. “But it’s only seven.”

  “The people’s work begins early.”

  “Why don’t you have rest first? Look at the boy.”

  “I’m fine,” Nelson said.

  “We’ll take him to the house.”

  “I’m fine,” Nelson insisted.

  Patalarga nodded reluctantly. Henry, however, shook his head. He patted Nelson on the shoulder, as if to show he understood, then climbed upon the stool where he’d been sitting. No one had a chance to stop him. He began shouting for everyone’s attention. He clapped his hands, asked for a moment. The market workers, along with the shoppers who’d wandered in, slowed now and looked up.

  “Dear residents of San Luis! My two colleagues and I—stand up, Nelson! Stand up, Patalarga!”

  He waited for them to climb upon their stools before continuing.

  “Together,” Henry announced, shouting, “we are Diciembre. You may have heard of us—we are a theater company! From the capital! We would be honored to perform for you this evening, at six p.m. in the plaza, weather permitting. Please come and bring your families! Thank you.”

  Then he sat down.

  Nelson stayed up for just a moment longer, surveying the market. From this vantage point, he was able to register with great clarity the muted reaction to Henry’s announcement. There was no romance associated with the name Diciembre—there would be elsewhere, in towns all across the mountain regions, but not here. Instead, there was a pause, a collective head-scratching, and then a quick return to the normal rhythms of the market. Vendors resumed their various tasks, the handful of early-morning customers went back to their shopping. Nelson quickly became invisible.

  Eventually, Patalarga helped him down. He and Cayetano received the young actor into their arms, and Melissa gave him tea.

  “Why does no one believe me?” said Nelson. “I’m fine!”

  “Good,” Henry said, without smiling. “We have a show tonight.”

  WHEN MAPPING OUT their itinerary, Henry and Patalarga had selected San Luis for three reasons. First, a matter of nostalgia: Diciembre had played a show there, nineteen years prior, on their very first tour into the interior. They had fond memories of the place: its placid river; the few cobblestone streets remaining in the center of town; and an old, pretty church with a leaky roof. Compared to the dreary mining camps they’d visit later, San Luis was positively picturesque, and therefore a good place to begin. Second: it was well located, just off the recently repaved central highway, a smooth six-hour ride from the capital. Third: the presence of Cayetano, who’d been loosely associated with Diciembre in the early days—though more as a drinking partner than as an actor. He wasn’t just Patalarga’s cousin, he was an old friend, with a rich understanding of Diciembre and its history. The years had been kind to him: he had a family now, had inherited his father’s land, and money enough to become a prominent member of the community. The war had ended, and the new highway allowed his produce to arrive in the city overnight. Cayetano had risen to the position of deputy mayor of San Luis, something unthinkable to those who remembered the bearded, poorly dressed young poet known for staggering through the predawn streets of the capital back in the early eighties.

  “But then, no one thought I’d be a science teacher,” Henry said during our interview. “And no one thought you’d be …” He frowned and looked me over with his ungenerous eye. “Well, you aren’t anything yet.”

  I let this go.

  Whatever the case, they’d counted on Cayetano to make things run smoothly. They expected to be on the road for six weeks or more; it was important to get a good start. They left Nelson at the house to rest, and the elders of Diciembre went off to speak with Cayetano’s boss and patron, the mayor.

  The mayor opened by saying he wasn’t “hostile to art, per se”; from there, things only got worse. He smiled often, but never warmly, tapping his long, slender fingers on his desk as he spoke. He described a number of killings that had taken place in the area since Diciembre’s last visit in 1982, with a tone that implied the first event was somehow related to the others.

  Patalarga later admitted that his mind wandered throughout the speech, that he found himself looking out the window, at the church with the leaky roof, and above, at the sky, only then beginning to clear. It was midmorning. His wife, Diana, was surely awake, but perhaps still in bed, enjoying the silence of an empty house. The Olympic was locked up and empty, costing him money every minute of every day. For no good reason, he remembered his childhood in the mountains, on the whole, happy memories, and his early schooling, during which he’d been subjected to long-winded harangues not unlike this one. He’d had a teacher who was a communist. Another who was a reactionary. Both were living abroad now, in Europe. In a week he’d see his mother, and as always, the thought filled him with ambivalence. He’d pressured Henry into this tour, presenting it as something his old friend had to do for himself, for his art; but as the mayor prattled, Patalarga realized that, in fact, he was the one who’d wanted it. Who’d wanted it badly. It was a way to be young again; to escape the city for a spell and relive times which, though difficult, constituted the central experiences of his otherwise uneventful life.

  “The war years,” he told me when we spoke. “It’s not that I miss them, not at all. But I remember them. Every last detail. It worries me, but sometimes I feel like everything else is a blur. Does that make any sense?”

  I shook my head. Honestly, I didn’t understand.

  “I was just a boy.”

  We were silent awhile.

  In San Luis, the mayor’s concern was the title of the piece.

  “Idiot,” he said. “If, at school, my son were to call another student an idiot, the teacher would send a letter home and the child would be punished. Would he not?”

  Cayetano furrowed his brow. “Your son is twenty-two years old.”

  The mayor glared. “As usual, my esteemed Cayetano, you are missing my point.” He turned to Henry. “Are you a father, Mr. Nuñez?”

  “I am.”

  “And would you not punish your child if he—”

  “She.”

  The mayor paused, as if having a daughter had never occurred to him. “If she said something like that to a classmate?”

  Henry thought of Ana, who was too smart to toss around insults thoughtlessly. If his daughter were to call someone an idiot, it would mean they were an idiot.

  He opted not to say this. “But Mr. Mayor, is a play subject to the same codes of behavior as a child?”

  The mayor frowned, paused, and wrapped his long fingers around a glass of water. “I don’t know the answer to that.” If he was an imbecile, at least he was honest. He took a sip of water.

  Henry felt he’d scored a point, and opted
to forge ahead: after all, he was the president, and it was his role to defend his play, his partners, their art form. He intended to be respectful, to negotiate this fine balance between the ego of a small-town mayor and the needs of a theater collective like Diciembre. What, Henry argued, is a play without an audience? Isn’t a script simply potential energy until that magical moment when it becomes something more? Isn’t alchemy like that only possible when the words are made real, when the actors step out from behind the curtain (or the tarp, in this case) and perform? Henry could feel himself gaining momentum as he spoke. Every audience is different, and every audience is a gift which can never be overlooked or taken for granted; as for Diciembre, here they were—“Here we are!” Henry said, perhaps a bit too loudly—and they’d come to San Luis for an audience. To transform the virtual into the actual. They had hoped to use the recently remodeled school auditorium, but they would perform this piece one way or another; in the plaza, in the market, in the street beneath the pouring rain. They’d do it in Cayetano’s home if they had to!

  The mayor smiled.

  “Perfect. Do it at Cayetano’s house.” He stood. “Gentlemen, have a wonderful day. I wish you much success.”

  TO PREPARE for the show, Patalarga, Cayetano, and Nelson spent part of the afternoon carrying furniture outside, and covering it with Diciembre’s tarp, in case of rain. They cleared as much space as possible in the house, making room for an audience that would sit on the floor. While they worked, Cayetano apologized for what had happened. Their play, he explained, had fallen victim to a rivalry that had emerged in recent years between him and the mayor. A dispute about land. These things are common in small towns. He began to go into the details, but stopped himself.

  “You know what? It’s not interesting, even to me.”

  Meanwhile, Henry put on the presidential riding pants, the ruffled shirt and long coat, the leather boots, the white gloves and sash, and went down to the market once more.