by Lucia Berlin
Dear Conchi,
An old couple work as janitors in the journalism building. One night they took us up on the roof for a beer after work. The roof is overhung with cottonwood trees and you can just sit under the trees and look at the stars. If you want you can look over and watch the cars on Route 66, or on the other side, into the windows of the dorm where I live. They gave us an extra key to the broom closet, where the ladder to the roof is. Nobody else knows about this place. We go up there between classes and after work. Joe brought a grill and a mattress and candles. It’s like our own island or tree house …
* * *
Dear Conchi,
I am happy. When I wake up in the morning my face is sore from smiling.
When I was little I think I felt peace sometimes, in the woods or a meadow, and in Chile I was always having fun. I felt joy when I skied. But I had never felt happiness like I do with Joe. Never felt that I was me, and loved for that.
I sign out for the weekends to his house, with his father responsible for me. Joe lives with his father, who is very old, a retired schoolteacher. He loves to cook, makes awful greasy food. He drinks beer all day. The only effect it seems to have is to make him sing things like “Minnie the Mermaid” and “Rain on the Roof,” over and over while he cooks. He tells stories too, about everybody in Armijo, the neighborhood. He had most of them in school.
* * *
Dear Conchi,
Most weekends we go to the Jemez Mountains and climb all day, camp out at night. There are some hot springs up there. So far nobody has been there when we have. Deer and owls, big-horned sheep, blue jays. We lie in the water, talk or read out loud. Joe loves to read Keats.
My classes and job are going fine, but I always can’t wait until they are over so I can be with Joe. He’s a sports reporter for the Tribune, too, so it’s hard to find time. We go to track meets and high school basketball games, stock car races. I don’t like football, miss soccer and rugby games.
* * *
Dear Conchi,
Everyone is unreasonably upset about me and Joe. The housemother gave me a talk. Bob Dash was horrid, lectured me for about an hour, until I got up and left. Said Joe was vulgar and common, a hedonist with no sense of values and no intellectual scope. Among other things. Mostly people are worried because I’m so young. They think I’m going to throw away my education or career. Or that’s what they all say. I think they are jealous because we are so in love. And no matter what their arguments, from ruining my reputation to risking my future, they always bring up the fact that he is Mexican. It never occurs to anybody that coming from Chile I would naturally like a Latin person, someone who feels things. I don’t fit in here at all. I wish Joe and I could go home to Santiago …
* * *
Dear Conchi,
… Someone actually wrote to my parents, told them I was having an affair with a man much too old for me.
They called, hysterical, are coming all the way from Chile. They will arrive on New Year’s Eve. Apparently my mother started drinking again. My father says it’s all my fault.
When I’m with Joe none of this matters. I think he is a reporter because he likes to talk to people. Wherever we go we end up talking to strangers. And liking them.
I don’t think I ever really liked the world until I met him. My parents don’t like the world, or me, or they would trust me.
* * *
Dear Conchi,
They arrived on New Year’s Eve, but were exhausted from the trip so we only talked for a little while. They didn’t hear that I’m making straight As, that I love my job, that I was chosen queen of the Newsprint Ball that night. I have become a fallen woman, a common tart, etc. “With a greaser,” my mother said.
The dance was wonderful. We had dinner with friends from the department before the dance, laughed a lot. There was a ceremony where I got a newspaper crown and an orchid. For some reason I had never danced with Joe before. It was wonderful. Dancing with him.
We had agreed to see my parents the next day, at their motel. My father said he and Joe could watch the Rose Bowl game, that it would break the ice.
I am so dumb. I saw that they had been drinking martinis already, felt they would be more relaxed. Joe was great. At ease, warm, open. They were like stone.
Daddy relaxed a little when the game came on, both he and Joe enjoyed it. Mama and I sat there silent. Joe just drinks beer, so he really loosened up on my father’s martinis. Every time there was a field goal he’d holler “Fuckin’ A!” or “A la verga!” A few times he punched Daddy on the shoulder. Mama cringed and drank and didn’t say a word.
After the game Joe invited my parents out to dinner, but my father said that he and Joe should go get some Chinese food.
While they were gone Mama talked about the shame I had caused them by being immoral, how disgusted she was.
Conchi, I know we promised to tell the other about sex, the first time either of us made love. It’s hard to write about. What is fine about it is that it is between two people, the most naked and close you can get. And each time is different and a surprise. Sometimes we laugh the whole time. Sometimes it makes you cry.
Sex is the most important thing that ever happened to me. I could not understand what my mother was saying, that I was filthy.
Lord knows what Joe and Daddy talked about. They were both pale when they got back. Apparently my father said things like “statutory rape” and Joe said he would marry me tomorrow, which was the worst thing, for my parents, that he could have said.
After we had eaten, Joe said, “Well, we’re all pretty tired. I better be going. You coming, Lu?”
“No, she’s staying here,” my father said.
I stood there, frozen.
“I’m going with Joe,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
I’m writing you now from the dorm. It’s eerily quiet. Most of the girls went home for Christmas.
Except for briefly telling me what my father said, Joe didn’t talk while he drove me home. I couldn’t talk either. When we kissed good-bye I thought my heart would break.
* * *
Dear Conchi,
My parents are taking me out of school at the end of the semester. They’ll wait for me in New York. I’m to go there and then we’re going to Europe until the fall semester.
I took a taxi to Joe’s house. We were going to Sandia Peak to talk, got into the car. I don’t know what I thought he would say, what I wanted.
I hoped he’d say he’d wait for me, that he’d still be here when I got back. But he said that if I really loved him I’d marry him right now. I reacted to that. He needs to graduate; he only works part-time. I didn’t say more of the truth which is that I don’t want to leave school. I want to study Shakespeare, the Romantic poets. He said we could live with his dad until we had enough money. We were crossing the bridge over the Rio Grande when I said I didn’t want to get married yet.
“You won’t know for a long time what it is you’re throwing away.”
I said I knew what we had, that it would still be there when I got back.
“It will, but you won’t. No, you’ll go on, have ‘relationships,’ marry some asshole.”
He opened the car door, shoved me out onto the Rio Grande bridge, the car still moving. He drove away. I walked all the way across town to the dorm. I kept thinking he’d pull up behind me, but he never did.
Fool to Cry
Solitude is an Anglo-Saxon concept. In Mexico City, if you’re the only person on a bus and someone gets on they’ll not only come next to you, they will lean against you.
When my sons were at home, if they came into my room there was usually a specific reason. Have you seen my socks? What’s for dinner? Even now, when the bell on my gate rings it will be Hi, Ma! let’s go to the A’s game, or Can you babysit tonight? But in Mexico, my sister’s daughters will come up three flights of stairs and through three doors just because I am there. To lean against me or say, Qué honda?
Their mother,
Sally, is sleeping soundly. She has taken pain pills and a sleeping pill. She doesn’t hear me, in the bed next to hers, turning pages, coughing. When Tino, her fifteen-year-old son, comes home he gives me a kiss, goes to her bed and lies next to her, holds her hand. He kisses her good night and goes to his room.
Mercedes and Victoria live in their own apartment across town, but every night they stop by even though she doesn’t wake up. Victoria smooths Sally’s brow, arranges her pillows and blankets, draws a star on her bald head with a felt-tip pen. Sally moans in her sleep, wrinkles her brow. Hold still, Amor, Victoria says. About four in the morning Mercedes comes to say good night to her mother. She is a set designer for movies. When she’s working she works day and night. She too lies against Sally, sings to her, kisses her head. She sees the star and she laughs. Victoria has been here! Tía, are you awake? Sí. Oye! Let’s go smoke. We go into the kitchen. She is very tired, dirty. Stands staring into the refrigerator, sighs and closes it. We smoke and share an apple, sitting together on the only chair in the kitchen. She is happy. The film they are making is wonderful, the director is the best. She is doing a good job. “They treat me with respect, like a man! Cappelini wants me to work on his next movie!”
In the morning Sally and Tino and I go to La Vega for coffee. Tino carries his cappuccino with him as he goes from table to table, talking with friends, flirting with girls. Mauricio the chauffeur waits outside, to take Tino to school. Sally and I talk and talk, as we have since I arrived from California three days before. She is wearing a curly auburn wig, a green dress that enhances her jade eyes. Everyone stares at her, fascinated. Sally has come to this café for twenty-five years. Everyone knows she is dying, but she has never looked so beautiful or happy.
Now, me … if they said I had a year to live, I’ll bet I would just swim out to sea, get it over with. But Sally, it is as if the sentence had been a gift. Maybe it’s because she fell in love with Xavier the week before she found out. She has come alive. She savors everything. She says whatever she wants, does whatever makes her feel good. She laughs. Her walk is sexy, her voice is sexy. She gets mad and throws things, hollers cusswords. Little Sally, always meek and passive, in my shadow as a girl, in her husband’s for most of her life. She is strong, radiant now; her zest is contagious. People stop by the table to greet her, men kiss her hand. The doctor, the architect, the widower.
Mexico City is a huge metropolis but people have titles, like the blacksmith in a village. The medical student; the judge; Victoria, the ballerina; Mercedes, the beauty; Sally’s ex-husband, the minister. I am the American sister. Everyone greets me with hugs and cheek kisses.
Sally’s ex-husband, Ramon, stops in for an espresso, shadowed by bodyguards. Chairs scrape back all over the café as men stand to shake his hand or give him an abrazo. He is a cabinet member now, for the PRI. He kisses Sally and me, asks Tino about his school. Tino hugs his father good-bye and leaves for class. Ramon looks at his watch.
Wait a little bit, Sally says. They want so badly to see you; they are sure to come.
Victoria first, in a low-cut leotard on her way to dance class. Her hair is punk; she has a tattoo on her shoulder. For God’s sake, cover yourself! her father says.
“Papi, everybody here is used to me, no, Julian?”
Julian, the waiter, shakes his head. “No, mi doña, each day you bring us a new surprise.”
He has brought us all what we wanted without taking an order. Tea for Sally, a second latte for me, an espresso, then a latte, for Ramon.
Mercedes arrives, her hair wild, her face heavily made up, on the way to a modeling job before going to the movie set. Everyone in the café has known Victoria and Mercedes since they were babies, but stares at them nonetheless because they are so beautiful, so scandalously dressed.
Ramon starts his usual lecture. Mercedes has appeared in some sexy scenes for Mexican MTV. An embarrassment. He wants Victoria to go to college and get a part-time job. She puts her arms around him.
“Now, Papi, why should I go to school, when all I want to do is dance? And why should I work, when we are so rich?”
Ramon shakes his head, and ends up giving her money for her lessons, more for some shoes, more for a cab, since she’s late. She leaves, waving good-byes and blowing kisses to the café.
Ramon groans. “I’m late!” He leaves too, weaving through a gauntlet of handshakes. A black limousine speeds him away, down Insurgentes.
“Pues, finally we can eat,” Mercedes says. Julian arrives with juice and fruit and chilaquiles. “Mama, could you try something, just a little?” Sally shakes her head. She has chemo later, and it makes her sick.
“I didn’t sleep a wink last night!” Sally says. She looks hurt when Mercedes and I laugh, but she laughs too, when we tell her all the people she slept through.
“Tomorrow is Tía’s birthday. Basil Day!” Mercedes said. “Mama, were you at the Grange Fête, too?”
“Yes, but I was little, only seven, the time it fell on Carlotta’s twelfth birthday, the year she met Basil. Everybody was there … grown-ups, children. There was a little English world within the country of Chile. Anglican churches and English manors and cottages. English gardens and dogs. The Prince of Wales Country Club. Rugby and cricket teams. And of course the Grange School. A very good Eton-type boys’ school.”
“And all the girls at our school were in love with Grange boys…”
“The Fête lasted all day. There were soccer and cricket games and cross-country races, shot-put and jumping events. All kinds of games and booths, things to buy and to eat.”
“Fortune-tellers,” Carlotta said. “She told me I would have many lovers and many troubles.”
“I could have told you that. Anyway, it was just like an English country fair.”
“What did he look like?”
“Noble and worried. Tall and handsome, except for rather large ears.”
“And a lantern jaw…”
“Late in the afternoon was prize-giving, and the boys my friends and I had crushes on all won prizes for sports, but Basil kept getting called up to get prizes for physics and chemistry and history, Greek and Latin. Tons more. At first everybody clapped but then it got funny. His face got redder and redder every time he went up to get another prize, a book. About a dozen books. Things like Marcus Aurelius.
“Then it was time for tea, before the dance. Everyone milling around or having tea at little tables. Conchi dared me to ask him to dance, so I did. He was standing with his whole family. A big-eared father, mother and three sisters, all with that same unfortunate jaw. I congratulated him, and asked him to dance. And he fell in love, right before my very eyes.
“He had never danced before, so I showed him how easy it was, just making boxes. To ‘Siboney.’ ‘Long Ago and Far Away.’ We danced all night, or made boxes. He came to tea every day for a week. Then it was summer vacation and he went to his family’s fundo. He wrote to me every day, sent me dozens and dozens of poems.”
“Tía, how did he kiss?” Mercedes asked.
“Kiss! He never kissed me, didn’t even hold my hand. That would have been very serious, in Chile then. I remember feeling faint when Pirulo Diaz held my hand in the movie Beau Geste.”
“It was a big deal if a boy should address you as tú,” Sally said. “This was long, long ago. We rubbed alum rocks under our arms for deodorant. Kotex wasn’t even invented; we used rags that maids washed over and over.”
“And were you in love with Basil, Tía?”
“No. I was in love with Pirulo Diaz. But for years Basil was always there, at our house, at rugby games, at parties. He came to tea every day. Daddy played golf with him, was always asking him to dinner.”
“He was the only suitor Daddy ever approved of.”
“The worst thing for romance,” Mercedes sighed. “Good men are never sexy.”
“My Xavier is good! So good to me! And he’s sexy!” Sally said.
“Basil and Daddy were good in a patronizing an
d judgmental way. I treated Basil horribly, but he kept coming back. Every single year on my birthday he has sent roses or called me. Year after year. For over forty years. He has found me through Conchi, or your mother … all kinds of places. Chiapas, New York, Idaho. Once I was even in a lockup psych ward in Oakland.”
“So what has he said, in those phone calls all these years?”
“Very little, actually. About his own life I mean. He is president of a grocery chain. Usually asked how I was. Invariably something terrible had just happened … our house burned down or a divorce, a car wreck. Each time he calls he says the same thing. Like a rosary. Today, on November 12, he is thinking of the most lovely woman he ever knew. ‘Long Ago and Far Away’ plays in the background.”
“Year after year!”
“And he never wrote to you or saw you?”
“No,” Sally said. “When he called last week to ask where Carlotta was I told him she would be in Mexico City, why not have lunch with her. I got the feeling he didn’t really want to meet her tomorrow. He said it wouldn’t do to tell his wife. I said, why not bring her along, but he said that wouldn’t do.”
“Here comes Xavier! You are so lucky, Mama. You get no sympathy from us at all. Pilla envidia!”
Xavier is at her side, holding both her hands. He is married. Supposedly no one knows about their affair. He has stopped by, as if by chance. How can everyone not feel the electricity? Julian smiles at me.
Xavier has changed too, as much as my sister. He is an aristocrat, a prominent chemist, used to be very serious and reserved. Now he laughs too. He and Sally play and they cry and they fight. They take danzón lessons and go to Merida. They dance the danzón in the plaza, under the stars, cats and children playing in the bushes, paper lanterns in the trees.
Everything they say, the most trivial thing like “good morning, mi vida,” or “pass the salt” is charged with such urgency that Mercedes and I giggle. But we are moved, awed, by these two people in a state of grace.
“Tomorrow is Basil Day!” Xavier smiles.
“Victoria and I think she should dress up as a punk, or as an old old lady,” Mercedes says.
