The Infinite

by Nicholas Mainieri

  The globes of streetlight standing on the fence over the lane were a pale yellow. Not much automobile traffic this late, but a fair number of walkers. The line bunched and slowed as they neared the border station.

  “Things been pretty wild here lately,” the climber said, turning to Jonah. “Must be why the wait. The customs dudes will be turned up to Max Hard-Ass, I’m sure.” He slapped Jonah on the shoulder. “But with our luck we shouldn’t complain, eh?”

  Jonah said, “Yeah,” but he couldn’t recall the unreal occurrence on the bus as vividly as he wished. More detail would equal fear, and more fear would engender gratitude, and more gratitude would mean that the experience had been useful to him in some way. But the memory was too hazy. What he needed just wasn’t there.

  Jonah gripped the bridge fence and tried to imagine how harrowing Luz’s crossing might have been. He waited in line with the others returning to America and it struck him that the ease with which he could return was part of the problem, that it was one of the things that kept the border between him and Luz. What might Jonah discover if he simply turned around, went back to Mexico, and tried to find a place to swim across?

  He could imagine it. Willows thrashing in the wind. The wet mud smell of the river. Moonlight fragmenting in the gentle chop. The current tugging at his jeans. Is it shallow and slow and easy? Is it deceitfully lethal, like the Mississippi? He could reach the American bank and identify with Luz anew, based on their shared experience. This would be the hope, that the risk alone might rend the veil from all he couldn’t understand. And, perhaps, she might still want him then.

  Shoes scuffled forward. The American bank passed beneath the bridge. The first dark treetops. The river looked swollen tonight.

  Luck, the climber called it. Jonah had never thought of himself as a lucky person, but depending on his vantage point there was luck to be found in his life. Meeting Luz when he did and where he did—that had to be luck of some kind. Looked at one way, it had been a good conclusion at the end of a long, unlucky sequence of years.

  Before entering the border station he glanced back at the river, one last time. No, he thought. Swimming across wouldn’t help him understand Luz any better than he already did. Her crossing had been necessary, as had been the method. There was no separating those facts from the experience itself. To extend himself into harm’s way for personal proof—well, that offered just another false promise.

  But. He could create something, build something, restore something. The revelation filled his lungs. These were actions made of meaning. These were endeavors with which he could vindicate his own existence. He walked into the air-conditioned border station with visions of McBee Auto in his mind. The old place renovated, repainted. Doors open, all personal automobiles welcome. McBee Auto would be a business for the neighborhood to rally around. There was pride there, for him and for others. He would be responsible for all of it.

  There, Jonah saw, was something earned.

  He walked forward, bolstered with purpose.

  5

  THE AGENT WAS A YOUNG MAN WITH WHITE-BLOND HAIR closely shorn around his ears. He wore a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. A patch on its crown read in gold script:

  US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION

  He chewed gum behind thin lips, the muscles in his temples bulging, as he examined the identification of the travelers who passed through the lane alongside his kiosk.

  The climber stepped forward and handed over his passport.

  Jonah heard the agent’s question: “Are you an American citizen?”

  “Yes, sir,” the climber replied.

  The agent flipped through the pages of the climber’s passport, handed it back, and waved him through. “Welcome back to the United States,” he said.

  The climber turned and nodded a farewell to Jonah.

  The border agent held his hand out and Jonah rummaged in his pack for his passport. Finally he located it and placed it in the agent’s hand. The man had blue eyes deep within the shadow of the curved bill of his hat.

  “Are you an American citizen?”

  “Yes.”

  The agent turned the passport photo toward Jonah. “How old are you in this photo?”

  “Uh. I don’t know.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. It’s not expired yet, I checked.”

  “Is there anything in your backpack you wouldn’t want me to find, Mr. McBee?”

  Jonah stuttered. “What? No.”

  The agent pursed his lips. Sweat trickled down Jonah’s sides. The agent’s blue eyes swiveled. Jonah was aware of the wrinkled, dirty clothing he wore, the sleepless circles beneath his own eyes. He had a vague sense of guilt, as though he had a secret.

  “Where do you live, Mr. McBee?”

  “New Orleans.”

  “Did you leave your automobile in Mexico?”

  “No—no, I walked across.”

  “What was your business in Nuevo Laredo?”

  “I passed through on my way to Las Monarcas. To visit a friend.”

  “In Coahuila state?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you return your FM-T at customs in Mexico?”

  “My what?”

  “Your tourist visa.”

  “I didn’t know I needed one . . .”

  The agent frowned. He set the passport down and rested his fingers on the keyboard of his computer. “What is your friend’s name? The one you were visiting.”

  “Luz Hidalgo,” Jonah said.

  Keys clacked. The agent looked from the screen to Jonah to the line waiting.

  “Mr. McBee, did Miss Hidalgo accompany you to the border?”

  “What?”

  “Is she with you?”

  “No.”

  “She remained in Las Monarcas while you returned to the border?”

  “Well, no, but she didn’t come with me.”

  “Okay, Mr. McBee.” The agent pointed toward the wall. “I need you to step over here and wait a moment.”

  “What?” Jonah’s hands went cold. “Why? What did I do?”

  “Please do as you are asked, sir.”

  “Come on, man. I’m just trying to get home.”

  The agent came around his kiosk and held his hand toward the wall. “Step aside and wait here, Mr. McBee. Please remove your backpack, as well.”

  Jonah turned and glanced at the travelers waiting in line behind him. White and Latino faces alike, they averted their eyes, as if connecting with him might tempt fate.

  XV

  Tú nunca hablas.

  1

  THE DRIVER DID NOT WISH TO SPEAK WITH LUZ. IT WAS JUST AS well. A bright, hot day, and Luz hadn’t slept. She leaned her temple against the window glass and watched the town crawl past. The Honda slowed around a bend, and there alongside an open-air café was Cicatriz’s sign—the red C with the slash through it. This was the same street, the very same spot, but no evidence suggested the cross fire. The graffito was like a fish skeleton in a cliff face, an insignificant artifact. Luz saw the old woman die, felt the tires leave the blacktop, and she remained calm. The horror of that day no longer seemed like an occurrence that had merely happened to her—to think of it in that way would be to enslave herself to fear and worry. Instead, that day and those following had become something interwoven with her being: I am the woman who crawled from the ditch; I am the woman who escaped in the night; I am the woman who has survived.

  On her lap she held a grocery bag tied shut and packed with a change of clothes and a few of her mother’s dresses. Her jean leg fit snugly over the silver knife, which she’d strapped to her calf. The hilt started just below her knee and the point came to just above her ankle. She thought the bulge was only noticeable if one really looked for it. She had considered leaving the knife behind, but what was the difference? Discarding it wouldn’t rid her of the memories associated with it. And should this new path reveal itself to be another circle without escape, she
figured she better be able to sting.

  In the Las Monarcas bus terminal the night before, she had replaced the bus-company pamphlet on the ticket counter and then gone to the pay phone. She had the card with Oziel’s phone number in her pocket.

  Somebody had picked up after the first ring but uttered no greeting.

  Luz said, “Señor Zegas?”

  A man demanded, “Who is this?”

  “Luz Hidalgo.”

  Silence. She was going to hang up, but then he was on the line: “And here you are.” The sound of a cigarette burning quietly to ash. “I had hoped to hear from you. In truth, I feared I would not. Tell me—was I right in what I said to you?”

  Luz sighed. “I need to get out of here, that’s all. I want to go somewhere else, and the buses are too expensive.”

  “I can bring you here. To me.”

  Luz looked over the bus depot. All the travelers. “Where is ‘here’?”

  “Perhaps you can understand my trepidation in telling you, over the phone, where I can be located.”

  “Well. I can go somewhere else from there. Yes?”

  “We will work out an arrangement. I have great respect for you, Luz.”

  The seconds had ticked. Her guts had fluttered. She had squeezed the receiver and shut her eyes and pressed her forehead against the wall. “Okay,” she had told the capo.

  In the car, Luz looked at her driver. He wore sunglasses and didn’t smile. Every now and again he rolled open the window and quickly smoked, as if there was no enjoyment in it. He was doing a job and wished to be done with it. He looked young, but he had a family—a wife and three small children. Luz knew because Oziel had given her the driver’s Las Monarcas address over the phone. The driver’s wife, a smiling and round-faced woman, had answered the door even though it was the middle of the night. She held a slumbering baby. There were two other children in pajamas, sitting on the couch and watching cartoons; they’d been woken up simply to greet Luz. The mother was uncomfortably nice, sitting up with Luz for most of the night. She had asked if Luz worked for señor Zegas as well, but Luz didn’t know how to answer. She slept on the couch eventually, only briefly. The man returned home late in the morning—from whatever task he’d been assigned last night—kissed his wife, and waved for Luz to follow. Then they got in the car and hit the road. Luz surmised that today was supposed to have been his day off, a day with his family.

  On the way out of Las Monarcas, Luz was thinking about Jonah. She had watched him during supper, after they talked in the street. He didn’t touch his food. Luz felt wretched, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t know what else she could say to him. When it was time to go to bed, she looked at him a last time, where he stood watching her with his hands in his back pockets. She knew that this would be the last time she ever saw him. She acknowledged it, and she understood that she would think about him for years to come. For maybe all her years. But she also knew that there was nothing new about this kind of feeling. She smiled at him sadly, tucked the image of him away, and went into her room and shut the door.

  She could hear her grandmother snuffling in her sleep. She listened for something to indicate Jonah’s slumber, but he had never snored. Sometimes he mumbled, little frightened utterances—she’d heard him when they napped on slow afternoons and on the few nights they’d managed to stay together. She heard his footfalls while he paced, but eventually there was nothing, and she waited until all was quiet for a long time. When she crept through the dark front room, she could only see his vague form on the couch. Could just hear the sound of his breath.

  Good-bye, Jonah. Good-bye.

  She walked then down the empty street, looking for the driver’s address. A dog threw itself, snarling, against the bars of an entry gate. She jumped. Then she resolved to stand there and watch the source of her fright until it held no power over her. Soon she moved on.

  2

  THEY CAME TO A CHECKPOINT CROSSING INTO NUEVO LEÓN, A neon orange arm lowered over their lane. Off on the shoulder stood a small particleboard hut and a sandbag bunker. As the Honda rolled to a stop, a young soldier with dark circles beneath his eyes and sweat standing out through his fatigues came to the window and told them to get out of the car. The man glared at the soldier but opened his door, so Luz followed suit. The soldier ogled her. Luz smelled marijuana, smoked in the small hut, perhaps. The soldier looked away when she glanced at him. He bent to peer into the car. He opened the door and searched the footwell.

  Another three soldiers had stopped a white passenger van going in the other direction. Its doors were open and its passengers stood around, looking unsurprised. The soldiers separated an old man in a flannel shirt from the group. A bulging plastic bag dangled from his fist. One of the soldiers poked at it with the barrel of his rifle.

  Luz’s driver pulled a cell phone from his pocket and punched a number and held it to his ear. The soldier straightened and shouted, “What do you think you are doing?” hefting his rifle and striding around the hood. Luz slid a step away.

  The other soldiers were laughing, but not at them. One grabbed the plastic bag from the old man, reached in, and withdrew an orange.

  “Did I say you could make a call?” the young soldier demanded, blowing past Luz. “Put that fucking thing down. Now.”

  The driver didn’t acknowledge him and spoke quietly into the phone.

  Across the highway, the soldier with the orange crow-hopped and hurled the fruit. The others broke up laughing when it landed. The next one seized an orange.

  “I will make you sorry,” the soldier said. He raised a palm as if he’d slap the phone from the driver’s hand, but the driver turned and presented the phone: “He wants to talk with you.”

  The soldier halted. He cocked his head. “You think you—”

  The driver reached with the phone. “You must listen.”

  Across the road, the second orange arced through the air. They waited for it to land. The old man’s shoulders drooped.

  The soldier reached and took the cell phone from the driver and placed it to his ear. He seemed about to speak, but then he stopped and turned while he listened. Luz watched his eyes jump back and forth. Then he held the phone out, looked at its screen, and ended the call. He never said anything. He tossed the phone back to the driver.

  “Okay,” he said. “On your way.”

  He whistled in the direction of the hut and twirled a finger. The security arm over the highway rose. They pulled through the checkpoint and accelerated. Luz watched through the rear window. The young soldier crossed the street toward the others with the oranges. “Fucking snakes,” the driver said, eyes flashing to the rearview.

  3

  NIGHT CAME ON AS THEY PASSED THROUGH THE MONTERREY suburbs, and then the city was there in its crown of mountains. A flash of memory: Luz and her father, on their way into New Orleans for the first time, had passed by the chemical plant out in the marsh. All the yellow and orange lights marked the shape of the stacks and the scaffolding. A world burning in the darkness. This was how Monterrey looked to Luz from afar.

  The highway took them alongside an industrial gulch built around a swampy waterway. To the south the lights climbed the hills, and the city sprawled to the north. They crossed a bridge and sat in traffic, moving in fits and starts. The avenue was named for a long-dead general and bordered a plaza, one illuminated monument after another rearing up. A palatial construction of marble and columns anchored the end of the plaza. They turned onto yet another street named for a general and came to an old quarter of town. The narrow, bisecting cobblestone streets were blocked off against vehicles. Crowds were out. Street artists and vendors had set up on the sidewalks. The aged facades of the buildings wore neon signs, and competing rhythms pumped from the clubs.

  The driver pulled over to the curb. He dialed someone on his cell, said, “We’re here,” and hung up.

  He rolled down his window and lit a cigarette. They sat. Luz wanted to ask what they were waiting for but was
nervous, and a moment later someone rapped on her window. Startled, she turned and found Cecilia, Oziel’s niece, looking at her through the glass. The sicaria wore all black, as Luz had seen her before, and her hair was done into one long braid. She beckoned with her hand.

  Luz glanced at her driver, whose eyes rolled toward her. “Good luck, girl.”

  Luz clutched her belongings to her chest and followed Cecilia down the street, through the crowd. A man whistled. Luz glanced out of reflex, then felt a mild and confusing regret when she noted that Cecilia ignored the catcall altogether.

  The woman produced car keys, and a black Durango chirped on the curb. Wordless, they got in and Cecilia drove them out of the neighborhood. No radio, just the hum of the engine. Luz asked where they were going but received no answer. Cecilia drove through the city to a parking garage. They got out and went down a couple of flights of stairs into the lobby of a chain hotel. Cecilia blew past the check-in and the concierge to the elevator. Their room contained two large beds, soft and welcoming. Cecilia’s bag was already unzipped at the foot of one bed. She swept an arm over the room. Make yourself at home. Then she went into the washroom.

  Luz set her bag on her bed and crossed to the window. The room was several floors up. Black mountains shouldered the starless sky. Down in the city a neon cross glared blue atop its steeple, branding the shadow. Luz stared at it long enough that she could still see it when she blinked.

  Cecilia reentered the room in a white nightgown. It was peculiar, this killer in her pajamas. Luz went to the washroom herself, unbuckled the scabbard from her calf, rolled the knife in a dress, and hid it in the plastic bag. She splashed some water on her face and used one of the complimentary toothbrushes. When she came out, Cecilia was in bed, already sleeping on her side, rolled away from Luz.

  Luz lay in her clothes in bed for a long time. She felt sick, thinking about Jonah. His kind eyes and his sincere attempts to listen. The way she ran when the time for it came. She did love him. I did, I do—there was no difference. Luz needed to speak, to hear the story in her voice. It boiled inside her, this need to own the truth. The red numerals in the digital clock ticked toward morning. She wanted to talk to Cecilia, but the sicaria’s sheets rose and fell gently as she slept. Luz could not put her finger on the reason she thought the woman might understand, but she wanted to talk to her.