Tropic of Orange

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  “I bought a broom,” she said, pressing the back of her hand against the sweat of her forehead. “If things get better between us, maybe I can get one of those upright vacuums from Bobby. Actually a dry-wet vac would be best. Bobby swears by them.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Gabriel shrugged. “Did you talk to Rodriguez?”

  “Yes. He’s coming over tomorrow, maybe with some help. He’s going to put the windows in the bathroom and fix the tiles so the door will close. And I got him to come down in price.” Rafaela tried to sound professional. She wanted Gabriel to know that despite breaking his vacuum, she could be a very good housekeeper. She was also very good with money matters and managing workers. Well, she came with good experience. Hadn’t she been doing this for Bobby all along? She would have his place fixed up in no time. “Don’t worry. You’re gonna have a really nice place to retire to someday.”

  “Retire? I can’t wait that long,” moaned Gabriel. This project had already been going on for eight years. It had begun one summer when Gabriel felt a spontaneous, sudden passion for the acquisition of land, the sensation of a timeless vacation, the erotic tastes of chili pepper and salty breezes, and for Mexico. And there had been one additional attraction: the location. It was marked exactly by a sign on the highway shoulder beyond the house: Tropic of Cancer. In Gabriel’s mind the Tropic ran through his place like a good metaphor. If it were good enough for the Tropic, it was good enough for Gabriel. He put his entire savings down and every cent he could spare on top of that. In the beginning, he went every summer, every free weekend, but the cost of travel, the headache of fighting the bureaucracy to get the right paperwork, and the difficulty in finding building materials and good construction workers frayed his original passion. Even though he tried, he was not a hands-on sort of person; he didn’t understand plumbing, foundation work, masonry, electrical wiring, or even gardening. After all, he was a journalist; he just wanted a quiet place to write. Maintenance was the problem.

  And speaking the language was not enough. Everyone could tell he was green and took advantage of it. The workers, who all eventually abandoned their work, smiled graciously and wondered at this young Chicano who had a college education and whose grandfather had fought with Pancho Villa and ended up in Los Angeles. Nobody remembered the grandmother who supposedly came from right around there—a little girl who got kidnapped by the grandfather and taken away North. Some people pretended to remember or suggested that so-and-so might remember; they felt bad because he seemed so sure and proud about it.

  Still the project continued in alternating states of disarray or progress. He seemed to be building a spacious hacienda, maybe a kind of old-style ranchero, circa 1800, with rustic touches, thick adobelike walls and beams, but with modern appliances. But then again, finishing depended on having money and being able to translate his vision to others. He showed the workers scraps of photos torn from slick architectural magazines: tile work, hot tubs, wet bars, arches, decks, and landscaping. Everyone agreed his ideas were all very beautiful. Old-fashioned, but beautiful. The plans expanded, then diminished; swelled with possibility, then shrank with reality. It seemed that if he took one step forward, he would then take two backwards. After eight years, the house—the part that was finally constructed—needed painting again. The metal window insets he had gotten for such a good price were rusting and probably needed to be replaced with aluminum, and the doors were full of termites.

  Now Rafaela was there. Gabriel was doing her a favor, letting her hide with her little son until she and her husband Bobby could make up their minds about their marriage. In return, she was going to help finish what his romantic impulse had begun. Rafaela was from Culiacán, thirty miles north of Mazatlán. About the time Gabriel was buying a piece of the Tropic of Cancer, Rafaela was crossing the border North. In eight years, while his Mexican project floundered, she had learned English, married Bobby, helped start their janitorial business, borne a baby, and got a degree at the local community college. She was smart, savvy, and eager to take on the tasks at hand. Gabriel couldn’t ask for better. If this didn’t work, he was going to have to sell the place, probably to another romantic tourist, and try to at least make back what he put into it.

  “I planted more cactus and peppers today, and my herbs and sunflowers are blooming all over,” she announced. “And yesterday, I went into town to price some toilet bowls and fixtures. You won’t believe what they’re asking. Maybe you ought to check out the prices over there. I’m going to make a list, and the next time you come down—”

  “You want me to bring toilet bowls down from L.A.?”

  “Well, since you got this gigantic cistern dug and the piping is all copper, maybe, well you know what Bobby says. You get what you pay for, except that’s not really true here, but I just want to save you some money.”

  Gabriel thought about toilet bowls and his money. It sounded crazy, but he knew she was probably right. He wanted to ignore the toilet bowls and said instead, “Don’t worry about the fixtures. I ordered some from a catalog and mailed them down. You should be getting them any day now.”

  “Mail? Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “It’s the chance you take.”

  “My brother Pepe comes down all the time you know. The last time he brought me some things from Culiacán, from my mother, to dress up the house. Knickknacks.”

  “From your mother?”

  “It’s nothing at all. She wants you to have them. Just to make things pretty. Why don’t you send me some copies of House Beautiful or Sunset? I can get some good ideas.”

  “House Beautiful?” Gabriel seemed to choke on the other end.

  “Anyway, you could send stuff with Pepe. He really fills up his Chevy, but maybe he has some room. If you pay the gas, maybe he will come down this far.”

  “Maybe. How is Sol?”

  “Kid’s okay. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Forget it.”

  Rafaela hung the phone up and nodded to Doña Maria who was playing with Sol.

  “He’s such a dear,” Doña Maria cooed at the little boy. “He’s got a little of your curly hair and your coloring, but really he’s such a little Chinese,” she marveled. “A true mixture.”

  “Yes,” admitted Rafaela, pushing back the dark waves of her bushy hair, then combing her fingers through her son’s. “He really looks like his daddy.” She looked wistfully at Sol and thought about Bobby. Lately she found herself talking to an invisible Bobby, consulting the air about this or that as if he were there. Bobby was such a handyman; he would have shaped up Gabriel’s place in half the time.

  “So your mother was born in Culiacán?” Doña Maria was digging for information.

  “No. She was born in the Yucatán. And my father’s people came from even farther south. Ayacucho in the Andes. They say my great-great-grandfather brought his family across the mountains and through the jungles to get here. But that was a long time ago.”

  “The old-timers knew how to endure.”

  “They say my mother’s people were weavers, and my father’s people built the looms. They couldn’t talk to each other at first. They talked through their weaving and fell in love.” Rafaela remembered that she and Bobby couldn’t talk much at first either, but Bobby learned fast. He had already been fluent in some kind of Chicano street talk, but she herself had never bothered to learn Chinese. Maybe she should have.

  “Such pretty stories,” the old woman nodded as if they weren’t true. “But why did your people leave the Yucatán?”

  “One day the weaving stopped. The looms were old. The work was slow.”

  “Times changed,” Doña Maria sighed. “And did you learn to read palms from your mother?” she asked.

  “Oh no,” Rafaela smiled. “I don’t know why I read palms. I’ve always just done so.”

  “Lupe says you are very good at it.”

  “It’s just nonsense. Something to pass the time,” Rafaela demurred. Perhaps Doña Maria want
ed her palm read, but Rafaela had a strange intuition. She did not want to read the woman’s palm.

  Doña Maria did not press her, but commiserated. “You look a little tired today. It’s a big headache. Believe me, I know. My son went crazy building this place for us, and then Benito died, God rest his soul. He only saw the foundation. Now such a big house for one old woman. But at least when my son was building it, he was always here, back and forth, back and forth. Now, I only get phone calls. But I thank God for this telephone.”

  “Please let me know how much it is when the bill comes, Doña Maria.” Rafaela took the boy’s hand.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. My son sent me new chairs.” Doña Maria pointed to two rather ornate blue velvet cushioned pieces with shiny wood knobs and feet. “But it’s such a shame. The old chairs are perfectly new, and I wondered if they might be of any use to you. That house could use some chairs of course.”

  Rafaela thought about the old chairs that were as Doña Maria said practically new. If she remembered correctly, they weren’t much different from the new chairs, except they had brass knobs and feet. She wondered about this decorating scheme, but before she could say anything, Doña Maria offered, “I will have Lupe send them over. You will see. They are just what the house needs.”

  Rafaela didn’t want to offend the woman by saying no, and after all, chairs were needed. Gabriel had talked about leather and carved dark wood benches. Not very comfortable but then again, blue velvet was probably not his preference. Well, he could get rid of them later. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Of course. Please, any time at all. We are neighbors. Well, it’s a little far, but you are just across the highway. I have always told Gabriel, any time at all. He used to walk all the way to the hotel. I have nothing against the hotel, but then again, it’s not such a nice hotel. Well, we don’t get the tourists like Mazatlán, but that’s why my son and Gabriel, too, like it here. They say it’s quiet, away from the commotion. But I do get lonely.”

  Rafaela smiled. She knew Doña Maria preferred to stay in Mazatlán with her sister but put off her plans just to be around to check out Rafaela and this story that she was some sort of housekeeper for Gabriel. Offering the use of her telephone was a perfect way to get information. And perhaps Doña Maria thought Rafaela would be lonely in that big unfinished house on that big unfinished property, but Rafaela had been too relieved to be away from her problems with Bobby and kept too busy to feel very lonely. To be able to sweep with a broom across tile was somehow a very satisfactory thing, so much better than pushing the noisy vacuum over dull carpets from office to office. How could she explain this to Bobby? This wasn’t just dust; it was alive.

  Rafaela and little Sol crossed the two-lane highway, walked along the barbed-wire fence on the west side, passing a group of cows absently chewing their cud, big green plops of fresh dung steaming everywhere. She went to check the fencing where Gabriel’s property began. The cows had tramped over a fallen post and into the garden, destroying Gabriel’s lattice with the wild roses. Not that it had looked that beautiful, but it was a nice idea. Probably one of Gabriel’s magazine cut-outs. Now the roses were twisting along the ground and up a banana tree. The idea of having fruit trees was a nice one too, except that the soil was sandy and required a lot of dung and compost. Every day Rafaela threw kitchen leftovers and fallen fruit into the trough at the bottom of the banana tree. It knew how to make use of fresh refuse, but composting trees like peach and plum was a more delicate business.

  Over the years, Gabriel had planted an orchard full of different trees. He had a thing about planting a tree every time he came. He tried not to be discouraged when they died, telling Rafaela, “They gotta take care of themselves. Survival of the fittest.” Needless to say, the fittest were the mango and papaya trees. At this time of year their fruit rotted in steaming ditches everywhere. The sweet stench floated above the earth swirling around as Rafaela’s body cut a meandering path through the garden, wondering why Gabriel insisted on planting trees that couldn’t survive in this climate. Evidence of their dried twigs supporting creeping vines and hidden behind the now robust vegetation was everywhere. She planted cactus and sunflowers, chiles and corn, kitchen and medicinal herbs. Still, she was hoping to make some miracle happen in this orchard, just to surprise Gabriel. Produce from his exotic northern trees. A sweet gooey marmalade from his orange trees, perhaps.

  But perhaps not. The variety of citrus trees was commendable: Italian blood oranges, mandarins, valencias, Mexican limes, their green foliage spreading a rich blanket across the land. But Rafaela was only concerned about one tree in particular. It was a rather sorry tree, yellowing perhaps from lack of some nutrient or another, but for some reason, she had been watching it every day. It was the only citrus tree in the garden that had a fruit on it. Gabriel had actually brought this tree from Riverside eight years ago. It was a navel orange tree, maybe the descendent of the original trees first brought to California from Brazil in 1873 and planted by L.C. Tibbetts. This was the sort of historic detail Gabriel liked. Bringing an orange tree (no matter that it was probably a hybrid) from Riverside, California, to his place near Mazatlán was a significant act of some sort. Gabriel had taken some pains to plant the tree as a marker—to mark the Tropic of Cancer. Actually there had been two trees, one on either side of the property—two points on a line, but one had died. Rafaela didn’t think much about Gabriel’s fascination with an imaginary line, but she knew instinctively the importance of the surviving tree.

  The tree was a sorry one, and so was the orange. Rafaela knew it was an orange that should not have been. It was much too early. Everyone said the weather was changing. The rains came sooner this year. “What do they call it?” mused Doña Maria. “Global warming. Yes, that’s it.” Rafaela had seen it herself. The tree had been fooled, and little pimples of budding flowers began to burst through its branches. And then came a sudden period of dry weather; the flowers withered away, except for this one. Perhaps it had been the industriousness of the African bees, their furry feet dusted heavily in yellow pollen, that had quickly mated the flower to its future, producing this aberrant orange—not to be picked, not expected, and probably not very sweet.

  But from the very beginning Rafaela somehow felt this particular orange was special. Perhaps it was her desire to see a thing out of season struggle despite everything and become whole. As time went on, she found herself watching the orange, wandering out to the tree every day even in the rain, feeling great contentment in the transition of its small growing globe, first from green and then to its slow golden burnish.

  But there was something else. Just where its tiny bud had broken through the tree’s branch, Rafaela noticed a line—finer than the thread of a spiderweb—pulled with delicate tautness. It was most visible in the dewy mornings as the sun rose from the east; at other times, it was barely visible. But she always sensed its presence. If she could not reach out and touch it, she sensed its peculiar, very supple strength. Perhaps it was something like a thin laser beam or light passing through an optic fiber. Rafaela was not sure. She only knew that it ran across Gabriel’s property. In fact, she sensed that it continued farther in both directions, east and west, east across the highway and west toward the ocean and beyond.

  In the days when the orange was a blossom of soft petals, its fragrance surprised her. She had passed beneath the orange several times, drawn to its sweet scent before she had discovered it. The perfume could only be emanating from that curious flower. She came often then to secure the whiff that tingled her deep memory; it was as if she knew this scent intimately. It was then that she noticed the line; it seemed to shudder with pleasure, if lines could shudder with pleasure. And when the baby orange appeared, it seemed to grasp that line as its parent, if a line could be a parent. As expected, the orange did not grow to be very big or seem very succulent, but it did begin to hang rather heavily. And when the salty wind blew west from the sea rocking it back and forth like a small cradle, the
curious line—now running through the growing orange—rocked back and forth with it like a lullaby.

  Rafaela and Sol walked hand in hand past the orange tree, careful not to disturb the lizards and beetles waiting breathlessly beneath scattered leaves and brush. For three days now, it had not rained. And yet any cool surface bled the air’s moisture. Rafaela felt this wetness; it gathered in tiny molecules over her skin. It was a little before noon, and the sun was particularly bright and oppressive that day. If Rafaela had bothered to look at the calendar, she would have noticed that it was Monday, June 22. She might have also noticed the lunar signs in the corner of the calendar and the small print that said summer solstice.

  She glanced briefly at the orange with some satisfaction and hurried toward the house. “Come on Sol. It’s much too hot out here today.” His little quick steps pattered behind, dancing around the young trees, and then ran forward. She followed Sol who seemed to be following a path of his own, but upon closer inspection, he was tracing the path of a very thin but distinct shadow stretched in a perfectly straight line along the dirt and sand. There were no telephone cables or electric lines above, nothing to cast such a shadow, and yet it was clearly there. Sol danced back and forth, his little legs jumping this way and that, over the soft sand and gravel, crossing the brick paths, hopping the line cut like a sharp blade across the earth. Rafaela glanced back toward the orange tree and the single orange, suddenly aware of the only possible and yet entirely impossible thing that could obstruct the intensity of the sun’s light at this hour, slicing the heavy atmosphere with cruel precision. Indeed the sun was a great ball of fire directly above the orange tree. It seemed even to point at the tree, at the strange line, at the orange itself.