No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  “Can I ask you something, Daddy?” she said, smiling at Billy across the table, not the least bit unsure even though it was only the second time she was addressing him as her father.

  “Sure,” he said, shyly. “What is it?”

  “How many brothers and sisters do I have?”

  “Oh, right,” he said, relieved that it wasn’t anything about how he’d lost his fingers. “Three sisters and one brother. Hortense who’s ten, Cliff who’s nine, Fawn who’s seven, and Caitlin who’s going to be a year old in September.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really,” Billy said, smiling at her enthusiasm. “You want to meet them?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “We’ll have to see if your mother’ll let you come to New York.”

  “Maybe next weekend,” Vidamía said. “I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

  “We’ll see.”

  After they rose from the table Vidamía helped Maud clear the table and scrape the plates before they were put into the sink for washing. She volunteered to do the dishes but Maud tapped her lightly on the bottom and told her to scoot.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said. “Out of the kitchen.”

  Maud then went into her bedroom and came out with two large albums. One contained photos of Billy Farrell as a baby, a boy, and a young man. Vidamía oohed and aahed, calling her father the cutest baby and the cutest boy and a very handsome young man, unabashedly commenting on his good looks. The display of flattery, predictably, embarrassed Billy, but, as it was coming from his daughter, he allowed himself to privately enjoy the praise. Toward the end of the album there were some pictures of Kevin, and Vidamía asked who the man was.

  “That was your grandfather, Kevin Farrell,” Maud said. “He was a policeman who got …”

  “Shot?” Vidamía said, completing Maud’s sentence.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m very sorry, Grandma.”

  “That’s all right. I’m sure he would’ve also been very happy to meet you.”

  And then she closed that album and opened the other one. This one had every conceivable picture of her siblings, taken at play, at birthday parties, in the park, at dinner, and playing musical instruments. This last detail fascinated her.

  “Do they really play?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Billy Farrell said. “Pretty well, too.”

  “You should hear them,” Maud said. “Very talented. Just like their father.”

  “Do you play, Daddy?”

  “A little,” Billy said, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “What?”

  “A little guitar,” he said, almost in a whisper, his mind fading rapidly, his thoughts disappearing and being displaced by memories of the battlefield.

  He closed his eyes, then realized that doing that would attract her attention and excused himself to use the bathroom. When he came out a little while later, he said he felt better, but Vidamía knew something was wrong. She watched him as he sat down on the couch and smiled at her.

  “Daddy, you were starting to tell me about my brother and sisters.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’ll like them,” he said. “They’re good kids. Like you. I’ll call your mother and see what we can do.”

  “Thank you, Daddy,” Vidamía said, coming over and sitting next to him. He sat motionless, wanting desperately to put his arm around her shoulder to let her lean against him but unable to do so. Maud looked at her watch and said that it was getting late, and that Vidamía had promised her mother she’d be back before eight o’clock.

  “Let’s go, big fella,” she said, mussing Billy’s hair. “Mike’ll drive Vidamía home and you can ride with him back to the city.”

  “That’s okay,” Billy said. “I’ll walk across to the Bronx and take the subway.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

  “I guess you’ll have to see where I live next time,” Vidamía said, not displaying her disappointment and handing her father a piece of paper and then withdrawing a small address book and a pen from her pocketbook. “Could you give me your phone number?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Billy said and recited the number slowly. “I’m home most of the time.”

  And then she rushed to him and put her arms around him and reached up to kiss his face. He kissed her and patted her head, telling her to take care of herself and that he’d see her soon.

  Vidamía watched as he walked out the door and into the summer evening, his thoughts weighed down by she knew not what. Worried about him, she looked out the window as his silhouette receded into the darkness, reappeared again in the light of a streetlamp, and was gone.

  “Is he going to be okay?” she asked, looking from Maud Farrell to Mike Sanderson.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mike said. “He’s a strong fella. He’ll be okay. Don’t you worry.”

  “Sure,” Maud said. “He’ll be fine.”

  And then Vidamía hugged Maud, seeking reassurance. Maud reciprocated by kissing Vidamía and pressing her to her big bosom so that Vidamía could smell the soap and powder and perfume and the special smell she associated with respect.

  When Vidamía got home, her mother was waiting, her face tight and troubled the way it got when she was overwrought. Vidamía ran immediately upstairs to her room to change into more comfortable clothes. Elsa followed her, speaking rapidly and betraying her fears, demanding to know what had happened.

  “Well, was he all right?” she said.

  “Sure, he was fine,” Vidamía replied. “Why?”

  “Nothing,” Elsa said. “It’s that … sometimes he used to have these moods, and I was wondering if he was still the same.”

  “No, not that I could tell,” she said, knowing instinctively that it was necessary to lie.

  “One minute he was there—and the next minute ten thousand miles away, his eyes looking glazed.”

  “No, nothing like that,” Vidamía replied. “I have three sisters and a brother.”

  “Oh, really?” Elsa said. “How old?”

  She recited the names and ages of the children and watched her mother, her face a mask of forced composure.

  “Well, he certainly didn’t waste any time,” she said.

  “He wants me to meet them,” Vidamía said.

  “Oh, really? What did he do, invite himself here?”

  “No, he wants me to come and see him in New York City. He lives in the East Village.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be possible. This was a one-time thing and that’s it.”

  “Mami, stop it,” Vidamía said. “How can you talk like that? He’s my father.”

  “He abandoned us, and now he wants you to come down and see him? I don’t think so.”

  Vidamía thought for a moment and was disturbed by the notion that it could be true that her father had abandoned them. She was silent while her mother went on talking about irresponsibility and lack of commitment, explaining that she was just a young girl full of dreams when he came along and simply manipulated her emotions with stories about his friendship with her brother, saying that Billy had used the death of a loved one in order to take advantage of her sorrow.

  “I was fifteen years old, honey,” she said, playing at being wounded. “Fifteen years old. Three years older than you. Going to high school. Poor as a church mouse and here comes this slick-talking young man, filling up my head about his friendship with my brother, whom I loved. About a year and a half before, we had mourned and cried over Joey when we got the news that he’d gotten killed. Now here he came, unearthing those memories in order to get at me. This is very painful for me to tell you, but I’m being absolutely honest.”

  “I should get his side of it,” Vidamía said, suddenly dubious about her mother’s version.

  Elsa said that it was out of the question, adding that if Vidamía attempted to establish contact with him, or lied as she had done previously, then she would have no alternative but to place very severe restrictions on her, and she
hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Rarely at a loss for words, Vidamía sat stunned. A feeling of rebellion rose up in her and she vowed silently to see her father again as soon as she could.

  “Do you understand that, young lady?” Elsa said.

  “Yes, mami,” Vidamía said.

  “Good. Try not to abuse your privileges.”

  Vidamía didn’t answer her mother, but as soon as she left the room and Vidamía could hear her going down the stairs, she felt a profound sadness for both her mother and her father. How unhappy they both seemed. Their sadness made her wonder what they had done to each other, or if it was all because of something they had each manufactured on their own. Whatever was the case, she had to figure it out. She’d call him tomorrow when her mother and Barry were gone. And then, once again, as she changed clothes, she thought about how her mother never called her by her name. The only time she spoke her name was when she was introducing her, although lately she had taken to asking her to introduce herself, or asking her to provide the name when it was required on documents such as school records, or when they had to get airline tickets.

  When her mother was in a good mood it was honey, baby, sweetie, darling, dearie, or, in Spanish, mijita, little daughter, corazoncito, little heart, amorcito, little love. Never Vidamía. The thought angered her. When she was eight years old her mother had even asked her if she’d like to have her name changed. She had shaken her head. “I like my name, mami,” she’d said. And she did, especially the way her grandmother and her aunts and everyone who spoke Spanish pronounced it. Vidamía. Vee-tha-MEE-ah, the final A lingering, then fading. Her name was made up of beautiful sounds, and there was no one she knew who had a name like it. In any case, her name meant “my life” in Spanish and that was the best part of all.

  Now, as she unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk in order to write in her diary, she wondered if her father had named her. She didn’t dare ask her mother, since it was obvious she didn’t like the name. She brought her small trunk down from the closet and set it on her bed. She locked the door to her room, went into the bottom drawer of her desk and from beneath a stack of papers she retrieved the key to the trunk. When she had opened the trunk, she removed her diary. She opened the treasured, private book, sat at her desk, and smiled as she wrote the date on the fine blue paper.

  August 1, 1984

  Today, I met my father. He is approximately 6′1′′ tall and very strong. His eyes are very blue and his hair is blond. He has a beard with some gray hairs in it. The middle and pinkie fingers on his right hand are missing. I thought I would be disgusted by the hand, but I was not and was very proud of myself. I told him that I wanted to study medicine and he said that was a very fine thing to want to study. He plays the guitar and he is very handsome. I think I look more like him than I do my mother. Speaking about my mother, she was insupportable. I have always known this word in English because in Spanish everyone always uses it to describe the behavior of unruly children. They say: Ese muchacho es insoportable. I am very glad that I speak Spanish, because the more advanced the English language becomes the closer it resembles Spanish. Mr. Echebarren, who is a friend of my stepfather and teaches at a college in New Jersey, says this is because as English gets harder it becomes more Latinate (sp?). Anyway, since Spanish comes from Latin, it’s understandable. Insoportable! That’s how the mistress of the house was tonight when I got back. I’m not bragging, but the word is only used by Mother when referring to me, because, as much as possible, I try to stay away from having problems with other people unless absolutely necessary. But insupportably is the way my mother behaved today. Like a spoiled child and definitely insupportable.

  I must figure out a strategy for seeing my father again. I feel like a character in Roots, held in slavery and separated from her relatives. I must be brave and smart and not allow anything to interfere with seeing him. Why did he leave us? Didn’t he care for us? I’m not angry, but I’d like to know. I have so many questions for him.

  That’s all for now, my dear diary,

  Vidamía Farrell

  11. Jamming

  Billy walked in the summer evening the fifteen or so blocks from his mother’s apartment to the elevated subway station trying to figure out why in the middle of a happy occasion his mind should start acting up to trigger such awful thoughts, memories so vivid and frightening. Inside the bathroom, the door locked, they had attacked him with compassionless fury so that he was there again, lying on his stomach in the jungle, firing burst after burst from his machine gun, the steady rat-a-tat-tat lost in the din of the artillery above him ripping at trees in the distance and the exploding mortars that whined as they approached. They made you a machine gunner because your aim with a rifle was bad. But being a machine gunner made you an even more important target for the enemy.

  He had grasped his head in both hands and attempted desperately to shake the thoughts out of it, as if it were a gourd and he was trying to extract the last drops of liquid from it. When his attempts met with failure, he stood looking at himself in the mirror, hating what he saw and pulling at his beard with such force that he caused tears of pain to burst from his eyes. He pounded his head with his fists until he saw stars and his skull ached. Then he poured cold water on his head, and when the water was even colder he took a big gulp and let it go into his bad tooth and the pain hurt him so badly that he nearly blacked out. He heard his mother banging on the door and calling him and he saw Albert T. Zorich’s sad face after he came back from the war.

  Still, the thoughts wouldn’t stop coming, and with them the overwhelming feeling that he was responsible for Joey’s death; whenever the subject of his hand came up he was immediately transported back to the incident that had caused the tragedy. Lately, he had become convinced that he had directly caused the fatal injury. The feeling lingered so that when he first awoke in the morning, or at different times during the day, he felt that he’d been the one who had shot Joey or tossed a grenade but was too cowardly to admit it back then and turn himself in, fabricating a lie about crossing the corner of that rice paddy and suddenly being attacked by the VC.

  “No, sir, we didn’t see them.”

  “Are you sure they were Viet Cong?”

  “Yes, sir. We heard them talking.”

  He had said this, lying on his hospital bed nearly two months after Joey’s death, trying to figure out why they were still asking him questions. He tried recalling why the captain investigating the incident had been so insistent, but couldn’t remember his reasons. Everything was foggy, as if he were looking at the details of that day with Joey through mosquito netting.

  On his way to the subway Billy Farrell was forced to recall the last time he walked out the door of the Santiago apartment, knowing he was leaving behind his broken heart just as Joey had left his own mangled one back in that rice paddy. Stunned by the loss of Elsa and expecting never to see the baby that would link him to Joey, he returned to his life of desolation. As if in a trance, he went back to Grandpa Buck Sanderson’s place in Yonkers and stayed in his room for five months, not talking or playing the guitar, just thinking about life and trying to remember who he was and where he’d been.

  At the end of his self-imposed monastic exile, Billy Farrell finally emerged, haggard and thin—his body aching from sleeping fourteen to eighteen hours a day—and moped around, relearning the guitar, reading novels about noble animals, books like the Lad and Lassie series, and some Jack London, his father’s favorite author. Eventually he regained some weight and began playing the guitar more frequently, so that in time he started toying with the idea of playing publicly, in the street, to see if the pain of not being able to play the piano would leave him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried, because Grandpa Sanderson had guided him over to the Wurlitzer upright where Billy had practiced scales as a boy over and over as if he were storing the notes within him to someday lay them down in beautiful lines of melody. But once there, with the yellowing keys in front of him, all he could feel wa
s an unbearable pain in his head where he had been wounded and where the diminutive tin plate now resided, so that his head throbbed and he could hear, instead of triplets and chord changes, mortar fire and the pinging of bullets hitting metal.

  So it was the guitar: sitting for hours in a rocker, fingering the chords with his intact left hand, hearing the harmonies, mesmerized by his three-fingered claw as it picked at the six strings. But something else was missing besides his two fingers, and he was convinced that what he had lost was gone forever and nothing could bring it back.

  There were times when he sat on the porch of the big house and stared in cold or warm weather at the air and saw it change color and saw in it battles being waged in slow motion by men vastly different from one another who never bled or fell but continued crawling and running and firing; sitting there, hour after hour, feeling the cold in winter and not caring. And when the sun disappeared and night came, his grandmother Brigid came and brought a blanket and draped it over his shoulders and told him dinner would be ready in twenty or so minutes. And when she came to get him, all she needed to do was touch his arm and he came quietly, the colors of the air and the pictures in his mind remaining as he cut the meat and fed potatoes and vegetables with gravy into his mouth mechanically and buttered his bread and ate it, without tasting anything, because none of it seemed important.