Names on a Map

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  “It was Gustavo,” my mother said.

  “It was Gustavo,” I repeated.

  My mother sat on the bed, not in any hurry to leave the room.

  She was wearing a simple black dress and a string of pearls. My father had given her those pearls when she came home from

  the hospital with me and Gustavo. She hardly ever wore them.

  She wasn’t much for jewelry, didn’t need ornaments, but wearing those pearls in that particular slant of light, she looked as soft and lovely as anything I’d ever seen. I felt like a camera trying to capture her image. In that instant, she was all there was, this woman who was my mother, still young with hardly any wrinkles, and

  soft hazel eyes and a streak of white against her otherwise raven hair. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered.

  She laughed, such a soft and kind and fragile laugh. And then

  suddenly I knew where Charlie had gotten his kindness. I don’t know why I’d never noticed that before. “Beauty isn’t worth as much as people think it is. It won’t keep me from dying.”

  “And it certainly doesn’t keep you safe from men.”

  “That’s an interesting thing to say.”

  “Aren’t you glad—that your daughter says interesting

  things?”

  She smiled at me. “I hope he loves you,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked. I was afraid she was referring to Jack.

  “Whoever marries you—I hope he loves you enough to know

  who you are.”

  “Does Dad—does he love you enough?”

  “He tries.”

  “Is it enough?”

  She nodded.

  I nodded too. I didn’t know whether I believed her or not. It

  wasn’t that she didn’t love my father. And it wasn’t that he didn’t

  364 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p love her. But, well, I wasn’t sure if my mother was happy. I wanted that for her. And I think that’s what she wanted for me. The

  pursuit of happiness, baby. That’s a joke Gustavo and I had. Only it wasn’t a joke. I wanted that—happiness—wanted to be with

  someone I didn’t have to fight for every inch of understanding.

  Understanding was not in my father’s lexicon. It wasn’t in Jack’s lexicon either.

  I watched my mother as she walked to the dresser and reached

  for my grandmother’s favorite perfume. She dabbed a little on her finger and rubbed some of it on my wrists. “There,” she said. She kept looking at me. As if she knew something about me. That

  almost scared me. “I hope you don’t marry him,” she said.

  “Who?”

  She shook her head. “Jack.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “No. Your father likes him. But not me.”

  “I’m not going to marry Jack Evans.”

  She looked at me. It was as if she could see right through me.

  “Mom, I—”

  “Shhh.”

  Later that morning, after I’d gotten dressed, she put her pearls on me. “There,” she said, “now you look perfect.”

  Before we left for church, we all posed for a picture in front of the house. On the steps of the front porch. My father looked less weathered, and the sun on his face made him look almost shiny.

  He was still fit and thin—and I could almost see the young man my mother had fallen in love with. But I could also see the old man he was turning into. Charlie looked like he was beginning

  to turn into a man, leaving that little boy behind. God, when I saw him on the steps, for a minute, I held my breath. He looked older, looked as if he’d learned how to carry his body with grace overnight. But when he smiled at me, the boy came back. And

  I could breathe again. And Gustavo, he seemed more handsome

  xo ch i l l 365

  and dangerous in a black suit than in a pair of jeans. I think every man in our world envied him, his thick, untamable hair falling over his eyes, his poise, his ability to control his gaze. Of course, no one could appreciate the price he paid for that control—except those of us who loved him.

  g us t avo. o c t avio.

  I suppose it didn’t occur to you to get a haircut—out of re-

  spect.”

  “Grandma Rosie loved my hair.”

  “She was just being kind.”

  “It’s not something she passed on to me and you, is it?”

  “No. Kindness isn’t one of our great assets.”

  Gustavo nodded. “And she did love my hair.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “I’ll wear it short for your funeral, Dad. Out of respect.” Gustavo turned away from his father and moved toward the front

  door.

  “They’ll take care of that when you get drafted.”

  Gustavo turned around and faced his father. Right, Dad, they shave us before they put a fucking rifle in our hands. He wanted to shove those words down his father’s throat, but it didn’t matter, not anymore. In a few hours he would be gone and his father’s

  g us t avo. o c t avio. l 367

  voice would disappear. A part of him wanted to smile. And then he remembered that rifle, the one his father had put in his hands when he was ten. He saw himself, standing in the middle of a

  pecan orchard, looking up at his father, who was waiting for a response. Don’t you think it’s beautiful? “No, I don’t think it’s beautiful.”

  “What did you say?”

  He hadn’t realized he’d said the words out loud. He felt ex-

  posed, embarrassed. “Nothing.”

  “What’s not beautiful?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Sometimes, I talk to myself.”

  “Well, you’re better at talking to yourself than you are at talking to your father.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Look, Dad, let’s not—” He looked down at his shoes, then

  looked back at his father. “I loved her. Grandma Rosie wouldn’t like this.” As soon as he spoke those words, he wanted to take them back. Not because he didn’t mean what he said, but because he’d sounded so soft when he said it. He hated being soft around his father.

  Octavio nodded. He felt the weight of Gustavo’s words. He

  couldn’t remember the last time he had heard his son admit that he loved anyone, confess it so openly. In the moment that he

  spoke the words, he looked so much like Charlie. “Will you run a comb through your hair? Or a brush? Or whatever you run

  through it? Can you do that?”

  charl ie

  Me sitting on the porch, trying to imagine myself in a coffin.

  Underground.

  Gustavo and my dad trying not to argue.

  Xochil wearing my mother’s pearls.

  Me sitting on the porch trying to decide if the breeze was go-

  ing to turn into a wind. I hated the wind. When the wind came

  to El Paso, it always threatened to tear up the sky. My mother looking at me and nodding her approval and telling me for the

  millionth time that I was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

  My father taking out his camera and photographing all of us

  standing on the steps to the front porch. My mother and I, in the center. Xochil on the right and Gustavo on the left. My father’s orders that we shouldn’t smile. “In Mexico, you don’t smile for pictures.”

  My father reprimanding me for ruining the first two pictures

  by smiling.

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  The smell of Grandma Rosie’s perfume on Xochil and my

  mother.

  The fact that my father refused to ride in one of the limou-

  sines—even when they offered to pick us up at home.

  The fact that I was disappointed that I would not be riding in a limousine. The fact that I felt mea
n and small and stupid and shallow for being disappointed.

  Arriving at the church early, Monsignor La Pieta waiting for

  us at the door so we could say our private farewells to Grandma Rosie.

  Me wondering why people said things about the dead, things

  like “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”

  Xochil weeping into Gustavo’s shoulder when they shut the

  casket.

  I think I know why I kept lists when I was young. They kept

  me from falling apart.

  Maria del Rosario Espejo Zaragosa’s funeral was a sad and formal affair, the church so full that there were people standing in the entry to the church. Latecomers stood on the steps, all of them holding that look of stoic resignation on their faces. Every family from Sunset Heights whose presence in the neighborhood could be traced to the Mexican Revolution was represented. She was the last of the old dispensation.

  It was right in the middle of the monsignor’s sermon that I

  first started trying to write about my grandmother’s death—her death and everything else that happened to our family during

  those six awful days. Maybe it was a way of putting everything into a container that I could handle. I don’t know. We’re all writers of a sort in our family. All of us. In our family, we just couldn’t leave anything alone. Everything had to be poisoned with words.

  That’s how Xochil put it.

  So right there, in the middle of my grandmother’s funeral

  Mass, I started writing. I wrote and rewrote those first few lines

  370 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p until I committed them to memory. I kept repeating old dispensation to myself. It was a new phrase I’d borrowed from a poem I’d read. I kept wondering which dispensation I belonged to—the

  old one or the new one. I knew Xochil and Gus, they definite-

  ly belonged to the new dispensation. And even though I was

  younger, I think I was much more in love with everything that

  was so much older than me. I thought that maybe I would always belong to the old.

  I always see myself as a boy sitting in front of his grandmother’s piano—playing the songs, the old songs she’d taught me to play.

  When we got to the cemetery and I touched my grandmother’s

  casket for the last time and placed my white rose on it, I didn’t have any tears left inside me. I didn’t. Something had changed since the Saturday that she died. I had changed, my family had changed.

  I stared at my father, who seemed numb and far away. And I

  thought he was beginning to disappear.

  g us t avo

  I sat next to Charlie and my uncles in the front pew because we were selected as pallbearers. We sat in the middle of a sea of men dressed in black.

  I saw the look on Xochil’s face when my father announced

  that Charlie and I were among the pallbearers. As I sat there in the crowded church, all I could think of was my sister’s hurt.

  I was only half listening to the old monsignor’s sermon, my

  mind wandering to memories of my sister and grandmother. I

  half remembered her being angry once—at my father. What had

  he done to make her angry? Because he was aloof ? Unkind? Be-

  cause he was impatient with his wife? Had he done something?

  I tried to think back, but the memory wouldn’t come—just the

  image of my grandmother standing over my father as he sat in

  his chair, an angry look on her face—but the words, I couldn’t remember them, oh, yes, but I remembered how my grandmother

  had grabbed the book he was reading from his hands and flung it

  372 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p across the room. Xochil and I had watched from the dining room and as the book flew across the room, Xochil grabbed my hand

  and whispered, “Wish I could do that.” I smiled to myself and

  was suddenly self-conscious. What if one of my relatives caught me smiling at my own grandmother’s funeral? Smirking. Smart-ass, cocky kid. That’s what they would think. But what the shit did it matter?

  When we were at the cemetery, I kept thinking that I should

  have asked her. I should have asked her what she thought—about the war, about what I should do. Why hadn’t I asked her? She

  was the keeper of all secrets, my grandmother. Why hadn’t I said anything to her?

  If I went back to Mexico, if I went there, would I be blessed?

  Would it be a return? Would I be cursed?

  Is it true that the dead look after the living?

  lourde s

  There was a breeze in the air that was almost cold and certainly bitter. The sun was out, the sky was cloudless, but there wasn’t any calmness or sweetness or beauty in the day.

  The house was full of people after the burial.

  The murmur, the laughter, the whispers of all the guests

  spilled out into the street. There were people in the front yard, on the porch, in the living room, in the dining room, in the kitchen, even in some of the bedrooms. Uncles, aunts, cousins, friends

  were eating and drinking and talking, an afternoon party, a discussion in the kitchen about a cousin’s pregnancy—another Es-

  pejo in the world and wasn’t it all too beautiful?

  I decided not to direct traffic that afternoon. I’d had enough of that. Instead, I kept an eye out. Wherever Gustavo went, I followed close behind—but not close enough for him to notice.

  I had a feeling.

  I’d woken up with that feeling.

  g us t avo

  He changed into a pair of jeans, kept his white shirt on, tucked it in, took off his black tie and his black coat, replaced it with a sports coat. He went into the bathroom and looked himself

  over. He stared at his face. He didn’t seem to look the same. He felt like he was someone else now. He could feel his heart beating. He saluted himself, pretended to be a soldier, shrugged,

  laughed—then castigated himself for the mean and stupid joke

  that had come out of him. He noticed he couldn’t keep him-

  self from trembling. He went into the front yard and looked

  around. He lit a cigarette. He saw Charlie talking to his cousins. His hands were flying through the air, making signs, and

  he knew he was describing something to them, telling them

  a story. He was good at telling stories, had inherited that gift from their grandfather.

  He let himself be lost in the listening.

  He finished his cigarette, looked at his watch. If he didn’t

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  leave soon, he would lose heart, stay, delay. He had to do it now.

  Fuck this limbo he’d been living in, fuck it, fuck it. He had to leave right fucking now.

  He walked into the living room where his father and all his

  uncles were talking. He watched them just as he had watched

  them the night before. He kept his eyes on his father as he listened to them, noticed all his reactions.

  “ . . .the truth is, Papá came here with more than just a few

  pesos. You think we swam over?”

  “Of course we didn’t.”

  “He bribed his way into this country, and had enough left

  over to buy a house—”

  “It wasn’t a mansion.”

  “It wasn’t a shack.”

  “Well, we weren’t rich.”

  “We used to have standing.”

  “Standing?”

  “Yes. And here, what do we have?”

  “Mortgages and kids. Goddamned revolutions always getting

  in the way.”

  Suddenly the whole room was laughing.

  Gustavo laughed with them—with his uncles and his father

  and all these addicts of familial history. He wondered what it was about them that clung to their exile. And yet they didn’t love M
exico. They didn’t. Mexico. He repeated the country to himself.

  First in English, then in Spanish.

  “Well, in the end, the old man didn’t give a damn. He said

  every country was the same. Every country would betray you. Put your faith in a good woman. That’s what he said. And that’s what he did. Happiest man I ever met.”

  “You know, Octavio, your Charlie, he’s just like him.”

  The whole room nodded. Yes, Charlie, just like his grand-

  father. Too happy. Too forgiving. Not a real man. A real man

  376 l a n d t h e w o r l d d i d n o t s t o p knows how to hold a grudge. That’s what Gustavo put in their

  thoughts.

  He walked out of the living room and looked for Xochil.

  Xochil, who had always been everything. And damn it to hell,

  wouldn’t this all be easier if he hadn’t been born a twin, if he’d just been born by himself, alone, like most other people in the world. He found her sitting in her grandmother’s bedroom, surrounded by five cousins and three aunts. She was giving them a tour of their grandmother’s jewelry. He wondered if she had told them that the really good stuff was in a vault. He smiled as she put a bracelet on their aunt Sofia. “It’s the first piece of jewelry she bought for herself in this country.”

  He smiled at her as he stood in the doorway.

  “Is that true?” Sofia never believed anything anyone ever told her.

  “It’s absolutely true,” Xochil said. “Let me show you some-

  thing.” She took out an old shoe box from under the bed, shuf-

  fled through it, then took out an envelope with a note on it. She handed her aunt Sofia the note. Sofia read it—then smiled. “She paid a hundred dollars for it in 1919.”

  Xochil smiled at her aunt. “I think you should have it, don’t

  you?”

  Sofia stared at the bracelet on her wrist and smiled. “What

  about your mother?”

  “My mother doesn’t like jewelry.”

  Sofia smiled. “Yes, that’s right. She likes art and books.”

  “Yes.” Xochil smiled.

  He watched her for a moment longer as she took out another

  piece of jewelry and began to explain its history. She’d paid attention. She could tell all the women in the room the story of their grandmother through the jewelry she’d collected in her eighty-seven years of living.