by Miriam Toews
C’mon, you’re writing something, said Sebastian. What is it? A love letter? Is it about us?
No, said Wilson. Fuck off.
C’mon, said Sebastian. What are you writing? Tell us.
I’m writing about how dreams are like art and how both are sort of a conjuring up of the things that we need to survive.
That’s why I always dream about sex, said Elias.
Even if it’s an unconscious or subconscious act, said Wilson. Art, of course, is a more wilful act than a dream, but it comes from the same desire to live.
I once had a dream that I was fucking the world, said Elias. Like, I don’t know how old I was but I was in Montevideo in a house somewhere and I was bored so I wandered around and then I got this idea so I went to the back door and I opened it and stepped outside and took my dick out and started banging the night. Like, I was just banging away at the night. But the night was dark, obviously, so there was no stopping it. I mean I couldn’t see where the night ended, because of the horizons or whatever, so it was like the night was the whole world and I was fucking it.
You weren’t fucking the world, said Sebastian. You were jerking off in the dark like every other night.
No, man, said Elias. It seemed like that but it was different in my dream.
I’m talking about dreams of guilt and dreams of redemption, said Wilson.
We don’t know it but we direct our own dreams, said Sebastian. A restructuring or an un-structuring of ideas and experiences that allow for our own salvation.
Give that to me, said Wilson. You’re an asshole.
Our dreams are little stories or puzzles that we must solve to be free, Sebastian said. He was reading out loud from Wilson’s notebook. My dream is me offering me a solution to the conundrum of my life. My dream is me offering me something that I need and my responsibility to myself is to try to understand what it means. Our dreams are a thin curtain between survival and extinction.
Sebastian, said Wilson. Can I have that, please?
I like it! said Sebastian. No, seriously, that’s heavy shit that clarifies a thing or two for me.
Sebastian, said Wilson. Please?
Sebastian handed over Wilson’s notebook and apologized for reading from it. Wilson waved it all off and smiled at me as if to say, would you help me blow up the universe?
Well, said Elias, my dream is me telling me to fuck the world. That’s my art. What can I say.
Wilson stared out the window and Elias and Sebastian went back to listening to their music. I looked at Marijke. She was still sleeping. Then she opened one eye halfway and looked at me as though she was incorporating me into her dream and closed it again. I drove slowly, trying to relate everything to a dream, hoping to see my Tarahumara family again before the dream ended.
THREE
IT WAS LATE WHEN WE GOT BACK to the filmmakers’ house. Wilson invited me in for coffee and I said no, I couldn’t. Then I changed my mind and said yeah, okay. He told me he wanted to show me something. Marijke had gone to her room and closed the door—we could hear her laughing or crying—and Diego was busy talking on the radio. Wilson asked me if I would come into his bedroom. I stood still and quietly panicked and then he said that it was okay, he didn’t mean it in that kind of way, he just wanted a little privacy from the others. So I followed him into his room and he closed the door and I went and stood by the window and he sat on his bed.
I’d like to read you something if you don’t mind, Irma, he said. He opened his notebook and read a story, half in Spanish, half in English, about an angry circus clown who was going through a divorce.
All the people in my stories are awful, he said. I agreed with him.
Why don’t you write about people who aren’t such assholes? I asked him.
Because, he said, that would be too painful.
I looked around the room. I remembered playing with my cousins. I remembered trying to climb out the window of this room and breaking the window frame. I got up and went over to the window and it was still cracked and crooked.
I used to play here all the time, I said.
Really? said Wilson.
Yeah, my cousins lived here.
One family? said Wilson. There are so many bedrooms in this house.
Lots of kids, I said. A soccer team.
Or a film crew, said Wilson.
They didn’t make movies, I said.
I know, said Wilson, I was just kidding. They probably didn’t play soccer either.
Of course they played soccer, I said. That’s mostly what we did all the time.
Oh, said Wilson. Are you any good?
Not really, I said.
Do you want to kick a ball around sometime? said Wilson.
Well … I don’t know, I said. I’m a married woman now.
So? said Wilson.
I could see Elias and Sebastian standing on the road talking to each other and passing a cigarette back and forth. Elias was waving his arms around and Sebastian was perfectly still. Corn was behind them. Endless corn. Then Elias crouched down to the ground and picked up some stones and threw them at the corn and there was a dark explosion of crows.
Why is it so painful to write about people who aren’t assholes? I asked Wilson.
Because I would start to love them, he said.
I was still looking through the broken window. I didn’t know what to say. I heard Wilson sigh. Can I show you something now? he asked. I went over to the bed and stood beside him and he lifted up his shirt. There were scars all over his chest and stomach, some of them looping around to his back.
What happened? I asked him.
I’m dying, he said. I sat down beside him on the bed.
From what? I said.
My veins won’t stay open, he said. They sometimes just collapse. The doctors have cut me open so many times to work on a vein but after a few months another vein quits and they have to go back in. Then they gave me this super-industrial-strength medicine that I had to squirt into my body through a tap in my stomach. They drilled a hole right here above my belly button and stuck a little faucet in there that was attached to a long cord and a pump which I could hold in my hand and every hour or so I’d have to squirt another drop into my body and it would go through the long cord and then through that little tap into my gut. It was basically like TNT blasting through my veins trying to wake them up so the blood could move.
You don’t have the tap anymore? I said.
No, said Wilson, because I kept getting infections from the incision and they had to replace it every three weeks and that was excruciating. So now it’s just a matter of waiting. But I try not to think about it.
Are you afraid? I asked him.
He told me he was scared shitless, actually, who wouldn’t be? And then I told him about all the stupid things I’d done in that room when I was a kid and a little bit about my old life in Canada, how we couldn’t recognize even our own mothers in the winter because we were so bundled up trying to stay warm, which he thought was funny. And I told him about the hockey rink that my father built for us little kids in our backyard by first of all clearing away tons and tons of snow and then using that snow to build towering walls around the rink and then by packing down the surface until it was as smooth as glass even though it was only rock-hard snow and how once I woke up in the middle of the night and the yard light was still on which made me wonder what was going on so I looked out the window at the glistening hockey rink in our backyard and I saw my father on his hands and knees in the middle of it next to a perfect red circle and he was all hunched over and concentrating, painting lines, red ones and blue ones, on the hard snow to make the hockey rink official and the lines were so even and perfect and bright against the white snow. I watched him paint for a long time and finally he stood up and put his hands on his hips like this and stared at his circle and his lines and he had this huge grin on his face.
Did he see you in the window? said Wilson.
No, I don’t think so, I
said.
Was it supposed to be a surprise for you guys? said Wilson.
Yeah, I said. The next morning we went downstairs and we went outside and he was there with new hockey sticks for all of us too. We had to make up names for our teams and sing the national anthem.
Beautiful, said Wilson. Did you play on it?
Yeah, we played forever, I said. Not with skates or anything, just in our boots. Sometimes, my older sister, Katie, would referee for a while before she got bored and went off with her friends. Every night until way past everyone else had gone to bed. So it was me and my mom against my dad and Aggie. She was little and he made sure she got a shot every once in a while and me and my mom would fake trying really hard not to let it in.
But somehow it got in, said Wilson.
Yeah, I said. And then she and my dad would do their victory dance.
Do you think it’s still there? said Wilson.
Well, I said. You know what happens to snow, sometimes, right?
Two things happened when I got back to my house. Somebody was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. I thought it was Jorge and I was about to jump on top of him but then I realized it was my father.
That was the first thing. And the second thing is that he spoke to me. But not until after a long period of spooky silence. Just sitting there and looking at me or looking around the house.
So what’s up? I asked him finally. Is mom okay?
You’re involved with the filmmakers? he said. I didn’t say anything.
And Aggie is also spending time with you? he said.
She’s my sister, I said.
She’s my daughter, he said. I’m thinking of selling your house.
Well, where will I live? I asked him.
He suggested I talk to God about that and reminded me that the house belonged to him and that he had only allowed Jorge and me to live in it because we were also taking care of his cows but now I was getting Aggie to do the work and running around with artists, and my husband should be the one to take care of me and now I was humiliating everyone, my mother, my father, my relatives, the entire campo, the church and God.
What about the cows? I said. You forgot to mention.
You’re not funny, Irma, he said.
Well, you’re not either, I said. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
What apple? he said.
Me, I said. I’m the apple and you’re the—
You’re a lunatic, he said.
Jorge hasn’t left me, I said. My father looked around the house pretending to search for Jorge like it was a joke. I stood up. I wasn’t afraid of him for myself, only for Aggie, but I was going to leave.
Irma, said my father, what do you want from this life?
I sat down next to him and touched his arm for half a second. It was a surprise and he didn’t flinch. He didn’t expect an answer. It was a kind gesture for any man from around here to ask a question of his daughter. I felt like touching his arm again but I knew he’d be prepared this time and pull away.
You don’t have light in here? he said.
Sometimes, I said. I can’t get the generator to work. I had a flashlight but I lost it. He didn’t say anything. For a second I was sure that he would promise to come back to fix the generator. I knew he wanted to. I waited for him to say the words. Then he got up and left. It felt like a scene in the movie. I imagined my father saying hey, how was that? Was I okay? And I’d say well, it wasn’t bad, but let’s do it one more time.
We were in an apple orchard with an old, slimy swimming pool in the middle. An ancient Mexican woman in a Nike T-shirt had opened up the wire gate for us and led us to the pool. I had wandered off into the trees to pee and while I was squatting in the dappled sunlight a huge horse appeared out of nowhere and tried to push me over with its nose. Fuck off, I said, and then apologized. I picked up a rotten apple that had fallen onto the ground and tossed it gently at the horse and it moved a foot or two away from me and snorted like it was planning to charge and then changed its mind and came back and stood next to me, over me really, while I finished peeing. If I could only interpret my dreams I would know what I wanted from this life and then I’d be able to explain that to my father. I felt sleepy, so tired. I thought about having a short nap while the horse watched over me. Horse, I said, what are you doing here? He let that question dangle between us and I left.
It was another shot of the family, this time swimming together but with undercurrents of tension. On the surface the shot was supposed to be serene and warm and show the hard-working family having a nice little break. Diego was having a heart-to-heart conversation with Alfredo about the necessity of him taking his clothes off in the abandoned change room.
Marijke doesn’t have a problem taking off her clothes, said Diego.
She’s European, said Alfredo.
It will be a long shot, Alfie, said Diego. You’ll be this big. He held his fingers up an inch apart. And it’s dark in there. It will be one brief second in the film.
Marijke was lying in the sun reading a book called You Are Not a Stranger Here and smoking and Miguel was running around with the Mennonite children, trying to keep them from getting bored while the others set up the shot. A crowd of people from the nearby campo, including the mothers and siblings of the kids acting in the movie, had found out where we were shooting and were standing around watching.
One of the mothers came up to me, her name was Tina, and she asked me how my mother was and I said I didn’t know really but that she was going to have another baby and then Tina asked me if I knew that Aggie had quit school to help out at home.
When did that happen? I said.
I think today, she said.
I thought of my father making a long slit in the stomach of a hog and draining its blood and guts onto the ground in minutes. In seconds. In one second. Which was the length of time it took for news to spread around here.
I wasn’t surprised at all and I wanted to talk to Tina some more about Aggie just to be able to form the shape of her name with my lips and my tongue, Aggie, but Diego called my name and I had to go.
Tina, I said, will you ask Abe to talk to my father about Aggie staying in school?
What would I say? said Tina.
I don’t know, I said. But my father has always liked Abe and maybe he can say something.
Tina nodded and touched my shoulder. She told me she would pray for our family. She told me that Abe liked my father too, but didn’t like how strict he was. She said that she and Abe were grateful to my father for not involving the police when their son shot one of our cows just for fun.
Thanks, I said. Can you please tell my mother hello and how are you.
Diego called me again and Tina and I said goodbye. He was still trying to convince Alfredo to get naked and Alfredo was sitting on a rock enjoying another vampiro and smoking and shaking his head and Diego told me to tell Marijke that when Alfredo told her what a good mother she was, in the scene, that she should tell him that he was a good father, too. And that when Alfredo commented on her soap-making abilities that she acknowledge him gratefully with something appropriate.
I began to walk over to where Marijke was and Diego began yelling at Alfredo that okay, fine, he’d take his clothes off too, for the shot, no sweat. And then he told the crew that they should take theirs off too so that Alfredo could see that he wasn’t the only man in the world with a cock and balls and they said sure, no problem, and began to strip down to their underwear and Marijke was looking at them all calmly, smoking, and I started to panic and ran over to Diego and told him that they couldn’t do that, that all the Mennonites watching would seriously freak out and the crew would be herded up and shot and left in a field to rot and their faces sewn into soccer balls.
All right, said Diego, we’ll shoot that part another time when nobody is watching. He put his pants back on but by this time Elias, Sebastian and Wilson were all in the pool in their underwear trying to keep the camera f
rom slipping off the inner tube that they had tied it to. Some of the women watching had taken their kids away and a few of them were standing with their arms folded laughing at the half-naked crew and whispering. I ran back to Marijke and sat down with her in the sun and she put her arms around my shoulders and asked me how things were going.
Life is a bitter gift, no? she said.
So, now, in this shot, I said, when Alfredo tells you that you’re a good mother you smile softly, like this, and look at him and say thank you, but how would you know? And when Alfredo tells you that you make good soap or whatever his line is you nod and say yes, but you’re sick of making soap and thinking of just buying it in the store from now on. And again, I said, try not to look directly at the camera. Marijke nodded and got up. Thanks, Irma, she said.
No sweat, I said.
We smiled and I told her she was beautiful. Radiant. I told her I thought her neck was as long if not longer than my forearm, like Nefertiti. She told me she felt like shit in the dress she was wearing and then looked at mine and apologized and said that it was weird that her dress was a costume and mine was just a dress even when they were virtually identical and then she apologized again, she put her hand on her throat as though that was the place where regrettable words sprang from, and I waved it all away, it didn’t matter. I had befriended a horse wearing this dress. For some reason I thought it would be funny for me to tell Marijke that but she was already gliding away towards Diego and the others.
The next day everybody was sick, probably from the dirty water in the pool and nobody had anything to say. Through the kitchen window I could see Oveja napping under the truck. I pulled the notebook from the pocket of my dress and pressed it to my forehead. It felt cool on my warm skin.
Diego has asked me if I’d be willing to clean the house and do the crew’s laundry. Marijke and the crew are huddled around the TV watching something with no sound and looking green and exhausted. I don’t know how to ask Diego if he’ll pay me extra for cleaning. In addition to the word samizdat I’m now pondering the meaning of the word despondent. My English is fine. I lived in Canada for thirteen years and went to a normal school with normal kids. But there are words that drift around in my head like memories from the Jazz Age or something. I want to say them but they’re not really mine to feel. Here comes Diego again. The end.
