The Infinite

by Nicholas Mainieri

  “You have to ask for it, you know.” The man folded the newspaper into his lap. “She won’t bring it otherwise. She doesn’t want to be rude.”

  The next time she passed, the man made eye contact with her and said, “La cuenta, por favor.” She came back with his bill and he said something else to her that made her look at Jonah and grin. “Now you try,” the man said. “Go on. It’s all right.”

  “Uh. What was it?”

  “La cuenta,” the man repeated, “por favor.”

  Jonah smiled at the waitress and did the best he could. She said something, laughing, and walked away. “Attaboy,” the man said. He put the newspaper under his arm and got up.

  “Hey,” Jonah said, “will you wait a sec, tell me how much I owe?”

  The guy raised his eyebrows but he came over to Jonah’s table. “You eat cheap.”

  “Well—” Jonah held up his American money.

  “For future reference—now, understand, I’m just trying to be helpful—you want pesos. Some places can’t make you change. For now, just leave that five.” Then the man walked out into the square.

  Jonah skinned the bill out from what he had left and folded the rest into his pocket. He jogged after the man, caught up with him, and told him thanks.

  The man looked at him sidelong for a moment. “Glad I could help. You take care.”

  “Hey,” Jonah said. “You said you were driving west—think I could get a ride?”

  The man only glanced at him.

  Jonah held up his hands. “I’m sorry to ask, but if I’m on your way I’d really appreciate it. I mean, my bus doesn’t leave for hours, and I’m getting anxious to see my girlfriend. That’s what I’m doing—I’m visiting her. And it seems lucky that I ran into you. You know what I mean? Isn’t it crazy we’d both be sitting there?”

  The man shrugged. “It’s the twenty-first century.”

  2

  HIS NAME WAS VICTOR AND HE WAS FROM DALLAS, BUT HE WAS in graduate school for history in Austin. He told Jonah to wait for him in the square while he went to say good-bye to his grandparents, whom he’d been visiting for the Easter holiday. He returned in a green, old-model Land Rover with Texas plates. It smelled like coffee inside, and the leather upholstery was cracked. They passed a warehouse, walls striated with rust. A gas station with one pump sprawled on the concrete like a dead tentacle. A small cantina, facade painted green and yellow into an advertisement for a beer called Indio. Victor turned on the radio and let the Spanish music play real low. The country highway stretched on ahead, into the hills.

  “Thanks again,” Jonah said.

  Victor waved it off.

  After a while Jonah spoke up. “You come to Mexico a lot?”

  “A few times a year, yeah, to see family.”

  “You said you’ve got research to do, too.” That face stitched onto the soccer ball.

  “For my dissertation.” Victor nodded. He continued in a different timbre: “You see, history won’t allow itself to be separated from violence. Regardless of place. It’s true in Mexico, it’s true in Texas, and I’m sure it’s true wherever you’re from.”

  Jonah thought about that. He recalled Davonte’s shooting at Colby’s game. Other things one heard about daily, and other things he’d seen. All of it commonplace. Kids from school, murdered or convicted of murder. A backyard barbecue—a child’s birthday party—strafed in a drive-by, all because the birthday girl’s uncle had some kind of feud with the gunmen. It had happened right around the corner from Jonah’s home. There were shootings at second-line parades, at memorial services. Luz’s father getting mugged, and the fact that it wasn’t surprising. Jonah thought of the drugs sold at school, and Colby, a good guy, who had his own role in that. Jonah sat in the Land Rover and watched Mexico slide past, and he felt slightly untethered—Mom and Pop and Bill, Dex who preferred to be alone, and Luz. He couldn’t untangle any of them from the violent place he came from. Where we all came from, or where we met. This coupling with violence, it was a truth that had always existed, just beyond Jonah’s periphery.

  “It’s easy to think it’s all out of control,” the graduate student continued, clutching the wheel. “Too easy, which makes me think that’s not the right way to look at it. Still, it’s difficult to remain positive, to feel like you can have an impact. One man, when El Narco’s got such inertia.”

  “You get worried coming down here?” Jonah asked. “I mean, scared. People are, like, rolling faces down streets.”

  “That kind of stuff just looms so large. It’s all you hear about. But, sure. You try to be as smart as you can, but sometimes it’s not up to you.”

  “Shit just reaches out and finds you.”

  “Precisely.”

  Jonah exhaled. “I don’t get why there’s a drug war at all.”

  “Well.” The graduate student sounded like he’d begin a lecture. “We can start with the nineteenth century, when the Chinese brought the poppy to Sinaloa. Or let’s start with the hemispheric vacuum after the Colombian cartels fell to pieces. Something had to fill it. We can even make the argument that Mexico’s move toward democracy let it happen, because if there’s one thing an autocratic regime can do, it’s suppress a drug trade. But then what other freedoms have to be surrendered? A ridiculous option. And let’s not forget our American appetites. There’s money behind it all, man. Lots and lots and lots of money. An infinite engine drives this thing. Some of the cartels recruit Guatemalan commandos to join them, for instance. We’re talking about killers just as bad as they come. They’re here only for this—” Victor rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

  “What I’m more interested in academically,” he continued, “is what Mexico will become. What new shape will emerge.”

  Jonah looked at him.

  “From the violence, and from the idea of it,” Victor explained. “Because, don’t get me wrong, Mexico is still here—generous people and good food and the beauty of it all. You know?”

  “I guess I do,” Jonah said. He knew Luz, and Luz was beautiful.

  “The violence, okay,” Victor said. “We’ve got a new war on our hands; the CDG and the Zetas have turned on each other. The violence can be extreme. But what’s so unusual about that? The thing is, periods of really widespread violence eventually run their courses and peter down to the stream we won’t ever be rid of—what’s natural to us being us, if you follow. Of course, we could be talking about years and years, but that’s how it works when you look at great big whacks of history. Rampant violence regenerates its place of origin into something new. The shedding of blood doesn’t come cheap or easy, but it eventually creates even as it destroys. It’s terrible right now, no doubt. And when I say terrible, I mean worse than you can imagine. That’s why a face on a soccer ball gets a joke headline, for Christ’s sake. But Mexico will survive, and what will it become? What will it be?”

  Jonah watched some flying insect flicker against the windshield. Something was off-putting about the graduate student’s opinion, and Jonah decided it was because the man had overlooked an important distinction. It was weird to think of violence as merely an idea. He thought about his brother Dex again, and Luz, and even her father. He thought about himself. And that was it: violence didn’t make over places; and it wasn’t structure or order, whatever those words meant, that got rearranged, either. The real changes happened inside, Jonah thought. Violence changed people, not places. He asked Victor: “So is that what you’re writing about or something?”

  The graduate student seemed suddenly sheepish. “Yeah.”

  3

  VICTOR DROPPED HIM AT LUZ’S GRANDMOTHER’S ADDRESS AND drove away. The street was incredibly steep. Dim lamps coming on in the dusk. A few lights twinkled out on the plain, beyond the rim of the neighborhood. The cobblestone was uneven and hard beneath his soles. Jonah felt the urge to let Colby know he’d arrived, then remembered that his cell had been dead for days. He looked at the iron gate in the wall and opened it.


  Four doors in the courtyard. Nothing else to do—Jonah went to the first one and knocked. He was tired. He smelled bad. His heart bounced against his ribs like something caged, like something hitched to her and invigorated by proximity. The door never opened. He waited and it never opened and he went to the next door. No one answered there, either. The third door did open, creaking slowly.

  A surge of nerves.

  A little old man looked out, a pungent smell wafting from within the apartment.

  “Luz?” Jonah said. “Is Luz Hidalgo here?”

  The man wheezed, bringing a fist to his lips, as he backed away and shut the door.

  Jonah walked to the fourth and final apartment. A hummingbird feeder hung from the eave, lazily rotating. There were no birds, but while he watched, a monarch butterfly wobbled into sight and rested on the lip of the feeder. It was there for a moment, and then it fluttered away. Jonah breathed deep. He raised his fist and knocked.

  INTERLUDE

  They rinse the earth with shadow. They blanket oak and cling to milkweed. They gather and rest with slow and metronomic wing beat. By some secret do they lift and surge again. Thousands of miles yet to go. The destination is the north, the destination is the south. The journey ends nowhere, and this is their part in it. If they do have a purpose on this earth, it is the fulfillment of this act. This migration. The necessity of it is born into each of them. The shape of it is perpetuated and honed through the generations it serves, and their resting places will each be found along the way. They are always arriving, a circle without escape. As it was and as it will be. They are travelers and must keep going.

  XII

  Es común, pero no es fácil.

  1

  THE DOOR OPENED. IT WAS LUZ, AND HE SAW HER AS HE FIRST had. He saw her as he had that day when they went out to the Mississippi, when she held his hand and shared the beginning of her story. Her hands rose to her face, and she questioned, “Jonás?” Hardly above a whisper. The sound on her lips made him smile even as it sapped him of his last energy.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She said something in Spanish. Then she said, “You are really here.”

  She stepped through the doorway onto the step. She wore drab sweatpants and a white T-shirt. He could imagine her figure and he wanted to gather her to him, hold her, inhale her. She was looking at him and the question was on her face but she didn’t ask it and Jonah threw his hands up: “I needed to talk to you. I wanted to see you. I didn’t hear from you and I couldn’t take being in New Orleans anymore. Colby was with me.” He stopped. She neared and there was a certain puffiness around her eyes and the yellowing of a bruise creeping out from her hairline. She must have seen the worry cross his features because she lowered her face. He reached and took her hands and saw the healing scrapes on her fingertips. The bruising around her wrists and forearms. “Luz. What happened.”

  “I’m okay.” She raised her eyes now. “I can’t believe you are here.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story, but everything is fine.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “Okay.” She came to him now and laid her cheek against his breastbone and he put his arms around her. Then she said, “You stink.”

  “I know. Sorry.” He grinned.

  “Luz?” Her grandmother peered around the doorframe. She was short and industrious looking, squinting through spectacles.

  Luz pulled quickly away from him, turning toward her. “Jonás, Abuela.”

  Her grandmother stared.

  “Sí.” Luz laughed, clipped. She shrugged. “Estoy tan sorprendida como tú.”

  “Hi,” Jonah said, thinking he’d been introduced. “I’m Jonah.”

  Her grandmother waved, one slow movement with her hand. She looked perplexed. Then she said something to Luz, chuckled, shrugged.

  “What did she say?” Jonah asked.

  “She says to bring you inside.”

  Her grandmother was beckoning with her hand as she turned.

  “I,” Jonah tried, “I woulda told you I was coming if I could. I even tried to see your pops—”

  Luz was shaking her head. “I’ve only been home a few days, Jonah.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told you. It’s a long story. I tried calling you.”

  “You didn’t leave me a message.” He tried to meet her eyes, but they fled. “Are you okay, Luz?”

  “Come inside,” she said.

  “I want to kiss you.”

  “I know. Just come inside.”

  2

  HER GRANDMOTHER GAVE HIM A GLASS OF WATER AND SHOWED him to the bathroom. She was saying things to him in Spanish, but he was grateful for her friendly tone. He tried telling her thanks, but she waved it away and shut the door behind him. He heard their muffled voices through the door. He couldn’t understand any of it. He turned on the shower.

  When he came out, they were sitting at the table, having finished eating. Her grandmother got up and brought him a plate. She gestured for him to sit, and he said, “Thanks.” Beans and rice, some sautéed vegetables. “This looks great.” Her grandmother smiled at him.

  He took a bite and they watched him in silence, and then he set his fork down. He looked at her grandmother and figured she wouldn’t understand him anyway. To Luz: “How have you been feeling?”

  Luz’s face fell. Jonah just caught it. A deeply sorrowful expression. But she lifted her eyes and looked at him so quickly that he thought maybe she hadn’t heard the question.

  “I mean, you been getting sick or anything? What can I do to help?”

  She said his name, quiet.

  “I’m not, like, an expert or anything,” he said, chuckling, “so I don’t really know how it all works, being pregnant. But I’m gonna read up on it and learn. I know I can’t stay long, but I wanna help however I can. Okay? I wanna help. And I’ve got a plan for the future. I need to talk to you about it. We’re gonna do it together.”

  “Jonah,” she repeated. Something wrestling behind her eyes. A deep breath. Her face went calm, as he was accustomed to seeing. She said, “I lost the baby.”

  A soundless, thoughtless, breathless pulse. He blinked.

  “I had a—”

  “A miscarriage.”

  “Yes.”

  “Luz.”

  “While I was trying to get home.”

  He got up and went around the table and dropped to his knees next to her. He clutched her hands with his own. He looked at the scrapes on her fingertips. He wanted to understand. He wanted to comfort her.

  Her grandmother made an inquisitive noise. Luz replied, “Le dije que perdí el bebé.”

  After a moment her grandmother said, “¿Jonás?” Short in her chair, eyes large in her lenses. “Lo siento,” she said. “Es común, pero no es fácil.”

  Jonah looked to Luz.

  “She says she’s sorry. She says it isn’t easy to go through this.”

  Luz squeezed his hand, and Jonah knelt there. And then he realized that they were the ones trying to console him. He hurt for Luz. He wanted to do something, be helpful to her in some way. But there was a bitter taste in the back of his mouth and he was knotted up with his own uselessness. His anger toward her father crackled underneath it all. How pointless this had been. How goddamn pointless.

  3

  AFTER HER GRANDMOTHER RETIRED FOR THE EVENING, THEY SAT in the living room. Luz lit a few of the candles in the window. Somebody laughed out in the street as they passed. Jonah told her that he had missed her. She smiled—sadly, he thought—and said she had missed him, too.

  He waited. He could hear the candlewicks burning. “What happened,” he finally managed, scooting a little closer to her.

  She glanced at him. “I don’t want to talk about it just yet. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah. Of course.” His desire to understand roiled within him, but he told himself that he was here. He was here, and he would be here. “I’m sorry.”

>   “It’s almost funny,” Luz said, but there was no humor in her voice. “What it took to leave Mexico, when I was little, was hard. Really hard. I didn’t think coming home would be harder. I never thought I’d be back at all.” She paused. “Colby was really with you?”

  “Yeah. All the way to the border. He turned back there, though.”

  “Why?”

  “They had the bridge closed because there’d been, well, there’d been a car bomb on the other side of it. Colby didn’t want to cross. I mean, I’m glad he didn’t. I couldn’t make him come with me after that.” He watched her, but she didn’t flinch or react in any way. “He should be home by now, I guess. Back in school tomorrow.”

  Luz smiled, but her eyes were distant.

  “We stopped to see Dex, too.”

  “Oh?” She patted his hand. “That’s great, Jonah.”

  “Luz,” he said, “I been real worried. About you. I mean real worried.”

  “I know.” She let go of his hand and got up. “I’m sorry. I’m exhausted.”

  “Okay,” he said, and followed her through the apartment to the bedroom. He knew he wouldn’t be going in with her, because she stopped and faced him in the doorway. “Listen,” he began. “I know I can’t stay that long. But I want you to come back with me. Or . . . or if that doesn’t work, just hang tight, and once I make some money I can figure out a way to bring you back and we will work everything out. I’m enlisting with Colby and—”

  “Tomorrow, Jonah,” Luz said. She rose and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I’m happy to see you, I promise, but let’s talk tomorrow.” Then she went into the room and shut the door.

  Jonah stood in the dark hall and listened to her footfalls, just on the other side of the door. He returned to the living room and lay down on the couch and closed his eyes while his mind raced. He did not understand a single thing.