Irma Voth

by Miriam Toews

  I could teach you, said Aggie.

  Aggie and I badly danced the tango in the dying light while Ximena punched away the ghosts.

  That night we tried to sleep in the park, leaning up against a statue of a handsome man that we pretended was our father, but the police told us we couldn’t do that. We had no food for Ximena. The only way we could stop Ximena from screaming with hunger was to walk around so that’s what we did. All around avenidas Michoacán, México and Amsterdam. Avenida Amsterdam had originally been a racetrack that circled the park. We walked a million laps. We kept watch over each other while we peed in bushes. We activated some kind of alarm on a blue car when we leaned against its bumper. We ran. We were cold. Aggie cried a little bit and said again how sorry she was. I tried to comfort her. We made up rhymes in Low German and tried to remember jokes. When we passed under street lamps we read a little bit of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos’s selected writings. We accepted a few pesos from a happy drunk couple who called us curious and wondered if we were real or a mirage. Sometimes we’d sit down on the grass but then Ximena would start to scream and I was afraid the police would get mad. In the early morning, when the sun began to rise, we gave our pesos to a fruit vendor setting up his cart and he gave us some avocados and juice in a plastic Baggie. Aggie peeled the avocados with her knife and we dipped them in the juice and tried to get Ximena to suck on them. I asked the vendor if he had an old rag I could use as a fresh diaper for Ximena and he gave me a soft white cloth with a picture of the Empire State Building on it. We washed our faces in a public fountain. I knew I would have to ask Hubertus for an advance on my wages and that made me nervous.

  At 7:30 a.m. or maybe 8:00 the three of us stood on the sidewalk in front of the bed and breakfast.

  Pray now, I told Aggie.

  For what? she said.

  What do you think? I said. Everything.

  I don’t know where to begin, said Aggie.

  And let me do the talking, I said.

  The real talking? said Aggie.

  Yeah, I said. You pray silently for mercy while I speak out loud to Hubertus.

  How will we keep Ximena from screaming? she said.

  That’s part of the prayer for everything, I said.

  We could wait in the park, said Aggie.

  No, I said. We tried that and you went dancing. Just put some avocado on your finger and put it in her mouth.

  We could just walk around the block while you’re talking to what’s his name, said Aggie.

  Forget it, I said. Pray.

  TEN

  WE WERE ALL SITTING IN THE little courtyard drinking hot coffee and eating eggs and beans and oranges. Natalie had run out to buy formula and a plastic bottle and some diapers for Ximena from the little store across the street. Aggie tried to drink from the green garden hose and I whispered to her in Low German that she shouldn’t. Hubertus pretended not to have noticed and quickly brought us a bottle of water and some pineapple juice. Aggie thanked him in Spanish and told him she’d been dying of thirst. She poured some of the water out of the glass bottle into her hand and splashed it on her face.

  Aggie, I whispered. It’s just for drinking.

  You are sisters and you are Mexicans? he said.

  Yes, I said.

  What language are you speaking?

  Spanish, I said.

  I know, he said, but to each other.

  Low German, I said.

  I’ve never heard of Low German, said Hubertus. Is it like regular German?

  Yeah, sort of, I said. Natalie had returned with the baby stuff and was preparing the bottle in the little kitchen next to the courtyard.

  Irma, he said, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable but there are some questions I have to ask.

  All three of us stared at him and he laughed.

  Don’t be afraid, he said. You should see your eyes. All six of them! You girls are funny.

  Sorry, I said.

  Sorry for what? said Hubertus. He laughed again. I could tell that he was a little spooked by Aggie’s wolf eyes, or maybe he wasn’t. But she could go for ages without blinking like she was challenging you to fill the empty whites of her eyes up with something better than what she was seeing right then. She could wait forever.

  Okay, he said. I have to ask you. Why are your little sisters here with you? I’m so sorry if this is a difficult question to answer. Is it?

  Yes, I said. I tried to put the pieces of my life together in my head before I blurted out a stupid answer. I wanted to tell the truth but the truth, in its plain dress, was so ugly. I didn’t want to say those words in front of Aggie because I thought they’d make her feel lost and helpless all over again. If I were somebody else I could answer with a mural or a tango down by the pond in the park or a poem. If I were Wilson. Or a gun if I were my father.

  I’m sorry, said Hubertus. But if your parents are looking for you, I need to know. Your sisters are only children, still.

  Natalie came trotting out of the kitchen in her high heels holding the bottle up like a victory flag. Here! she said. Let me feed that poor baby. May I? I handed Ximena over to Natalie and whispered that I was sorry she was so filthy. Natalie waved that all away, nonsense she said, and held X. close to her chest while she fed her.

  They’re not, I said.

  They’re not children? said Hubertus.

  They’re not looking for us, I said.

  The only sounds in the courtyard were birds and Ximena ferociously sucking. I thought she might devour the plastic bottle itself and live forever with its outline bulging in her stomach.

  How can you be sure? said Hubertus. Are they dead? I’m sorry for asking.

  No, I said. They’re alive as far as I know. Hubertus smiled and nodded. Aggie took a sip of pineapple juice. I noticed a plane flying high in the sky and spelling out a word with its jet stream, but then it disappeared.

  My father doesn’t like us, I said. He doesn’t like girls. He doesn’t like it when we get older and … there’s something about his daughters that makes him crazy and … that’s all.

  Natalie looked up from her job feeding Ximena, and Hubertus looked at her and then at Aggie who may or may not have blinked.

  My God, said Natalie.

  Natalie, he said.

  What? she said. Am I not allowed to speak?

  Does he know where you are? said Hubertus.

  No, I said. Nobody does.

  What about your mother? he said. Won’t she want you to come back?

  Not if he’s there, I said.

  Hubertus nodded and tried to look grim. He spread his fingers out and examined the backs of his hands. He made loud breathing sounds. Then he rubbed his thighs vigorously. He looked at Natalie who had gone back to feeding Ximena. She ignored him. The birds continued to sing, or to make noises anyway.

  So, said Hubertus finally. And you lost all your money when Aggie here (he nodded at Aggie and smiled) decided to enrol in an impromptu tango class in the park?

  Yes, I said. She put the bag down.

  Well, said Aggie, you can’t dance the tango with a farmacia bag.

  But you can dance it with a baby? I said in Low German.

  What was I supposed to do? she said.

  You could’ve stayed on the bench and not danced at all, I said.

  I wasn’t going to—

  You could have stayed out of trouble, I said in Spanish.

  Well, said Hubertus, what’s life without trouble?

  Yeah, Irma, said Aggie. What’s life without trouble?

  Yeah, I know life isn’t life without trouble, I said, that’s pretty clear. I’m just saying that you don’t have to be the one to cause it all the time. Why don’t you give somebody else a chance every once in a while?

  I’m not! said Aggie. You’re the one who married a—

  Aggie, I said. Shut up.

  You’re married? said Hubertus.

  Yeah, I said, but I don’t know where he is, my husband.

  Does
he know that you’re here? said Hubertus.

  No, I said.

  Hubertus asked Natalie to join him in the office of the bed and breakfast where their computer and desk were. Are they fucking now? said Aggie when they were gone.

  If you want to live in a big city, I said, you have to learn not to say the first thing that comes to your mind because there are actually people here who can hear it. There’s a population here.

  Yeah, but they’re strange people, don’t you think? she said.

  When they came back they told us we could live in a little room that was a part of the bed and breakfast. It was upstairs and in the back, overlooking other rooftops. It had a big bed and a pullout couch and a bathroom and a sink and a little fridge and a microwave oven and some painted pictures of fruit and other things on the wall and a tiny balcony. I would make breakfast for the guests in the morning and clean rooms and run errands in the afternoon. Aggie would go to school. Ximena would hang around being taken care of by me or by Natalie or Hubertus. In the evening I’d teach Natalie English so that one day she could pursue her dream of reading the complete works of Charles Dickens in their original form. Or something like that. She and Hubertus were laughing their heads off when they said it.

  I don’t know how to thank you, I said. I’ll never forget your kindness.

  Let’s go, said Natalie. I’ll show you your room and you can get some sleep and when you wake up we’ll have lunch.

  I don’t know how to thank you? said Aggie in Low German. That’s a stupid thing to say. We were lying in the giant bed with Ximena clean and fresh-smelling and drunk with satisfaction between us. You say thank you, said Aggie. Like this. Thank you.

  I wish I was as smart as you, Aggie, I said.

  I know, me too, she said. I pray for that every night.

  Thanks, I said.

  I’ve almost given up, though, she said.

  Yeah, I understand, but thanks anyway, I said. Not only are you exceptionally smart you’re also kind-hearted and considerate.

  She moved her shoulder over a few inches so that it touched mine and then she moved back.

  Are you being affectionate? I asked her.

  When we woke up, Ximena had soaked the bed, right through her diaper and sleeper, through the blanket and the top sheet and the mattress protector and the mattress.

  Shit, this kid is a lot of work, said Aggie.

  We rinsed all that stuff in the shower and hung it over the balcony railing to dry. It was getting dark again. We went downstairs to find Hubertus and Natalie but they weren’t around. There was a note for us. It was written on the back of an envelope and taped to the door of the office. They would be back late and there was some cash in the envelope that we could use to buy some food and diapers and there was also a small key to the kitchen, where the washer and dryer were. I’d start work in the morning. We went into the kitchen and ate some tortillas and cheese and salad. Then we wandered off into the neighbourhood to find a place where we could get our hair cut. We would use some of the food money. We wanted what we referred to as pixie cuts. Jagged and short. It was the only style I could remember from when I lived in Canada. Katie got one before she left for Vancouver, before she tried to leave for Vancouver, and it was maybe the first step on the road to our father’s mad ness. I remember her showing it to me in our room and her whispering to me that it was called a pixie cut and this’ll make him blind with rage and me agreeing and experiencing intense pain in my chest and stomach while she pranced around admiring herself, smiling at her reflection, fearless.

  While we were getting our hair cut in a small shop on Avenida Michoacán the power went out and we were in the dark. The haierdresser asked us to wait for a few minutes but the power didn’t come back on and Ximena was getting restless in my lap and banging her head against my collarbone and I was pulling bits of my hair out of her mouth and off her face and so we decided to pay and leave. The hairdresser asked us to come back the next day so that she could finish cutting our hair. When we got outside we saw each other in the light of the street lamp and Aggie laughed so hard she said she thought she’d wet her pants and I told her to try not to because she only had one pair.

  You look like Wilf! she said. Wilf was my younger cousin, the one who lived in the filmmakers’ house before he and his family went back to Canada. Three men walked past us and called us ugly gringas and Aggie swore at them in the coarsest Spanish slang I had ever heard. Not even from Jorge. Or Diego. We went back to the bed and breakfast and went into the kitchen and found a pair of scissors and took them back to our room. We brought a chair onto the balcony and Aggie finished cutting my hair. I picked up the blond strands and felt their baby softness between my fingers and then I threw them into the garbage can. I put my feet up on the railing. I offered to finish cutting her hair too but she said she liked the asymmetry of it and I shouldn’t bother. Then we stared off at the city of Mexico, the D.F., the borough of Cuauhtémoc, our new home. We stayed out on the balcony for a long time looking at the lights and listening to the traffic and all the sirens. Way off in the distance we saw a building on fire. We talked a little bit about the things we had left behind, but not much. We talked about the universe, about loneliness. We talked about how to fall, the right way and the wrong way, to prevent injury, and if we could see our shadows from the light of Venus. We got a little cold but neither one of us wanted to go inside to get our sweatshirts because Ximena was dormant on the bed and we didn’t want the sound to activate her.

  That night Ximena woke up every hour on the hour howling at the world for all its timid resignation and coy duplicity and also, I think, at me directly for having no hair that she could twist around her little fist and pull until it came out by its roots. She could still vomit on me, though, so she did that a couple of times and then to top it off she head-butted me in the nose which actually brought tears to my eyes and made me plop her on the bed next to Aggie more roughly than I should have. Aggie woke up and said no, get her away from me and I said no, you have to walk around with her for a while now. I have to sleep.

  I don’t know what happened after that because Aggie took over and I lost consciousness. When I woke up they were both lying on the pullout couch, their eyes closed, their mouths wide open like sleep had caught them by surprise. If they’d been my captors this would be the moment I’d choose to run. A vile odour emanated from Ximena’s ass. I peered closely at her chest and saw it rise and fall and rise again and thought: you live.

  I went into the tiny bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Short and jagged. Good. I stroked the naked nape of my neck. I lifted up one lock of hair near my ear and measured it. One, maybe one and a half inches. Good. I looked at myself some more. Did I look like Katie? I don’t know. I wanted to show my mother my new haircut. She would have smiled and shaken her head and kissed me. She would have been afraid for me. She would have covered her eyes and then peeked through them. She would have admired my daring. She would have rejoiced quietly, silently, and stored this moment in some dark and hidden pocket of her soul. I stared at myself a bit longer and tried so hard to see Katie. I tried to see my mother and I even tried to see my father.

  The stuff that happened next was almost calm and manageable so I won’t go into much detail. Aggie started school in September. She has a navy blue and white uniform that she hates and a clarinet that she practises on the balcony and one or two friends that come around every once in a while. She is drawing murals on our walls, on large sheets of wrapping paper that Hubertus buys in bulk. She has a so-called boyfriend whose name is Israel and who is also, coincidentally, a hemophiliac, so they must be careful when they punch each other and play around or he’ll bleed to death. That’s her type. The kind of kid who understands a soft and wounded interior. Israel told her that even sharp words can injure him but that was just a joke. His latest plan is to become a chainsaw artist. I’ve seen Israel run up the side of a building and then do a backwards somersault and land on his feet. He says that
’s his calling card.

  I’m working. Cleaning rooms, making meals. Ximena, my antagonist, sits in her baby chair and watches me. Aggie and I both have cellphones. I tried to phone Jorge again and the operator told me that number was no longer in service. Otherwise I have Aggie’s number and Hubertus’s and Natalie’s numbers and also Noehmi’s number. We go for beers sometimes when she’s not too busy with university classes and anarchy. Sometimes I walk over to the park to spy on that bookseller. I think and wonder a lot about Jorge. I wonder if he ever thinks about me or if he misses me at all. I wish I had been a better wife. And sometimes I pretend that I see Wilson. In bed, before I get up to work, I lie in the dark and imagine conversations with him and I remember the way he moved his hand across my body.

  Ximena has learned how to bite and sit and point and lure people with her good looks. The tourists here at the bed and breakfast love her at first and then she starts to fight with them, stiffening her body into a blunt weapon, grabbing their noses and cheeks and lips and ears and twisting, screaming like an injured bird, and they give her back to me. Natalie says that when Ximena learns to walk Mexico City will know destruction similar to the scale of the 1985 earthquake.

  Aggie’s murals are almost all of our family. But they’re conceptual, she says. Katie is a ghost that hovers over every scene and sometimes takes the shape of a crow or a breeze and Aggie is a rabbit. Our little brothers appear, when they appear, as raindrops. Our mother is a barn and I’m a tractor and our father is a big bell or the wreckage of the broken crop-duster. Aggie paints murals with these figures in different positions and doing different things. Sometimes she has us saying things, even the barn, but not usually. Aggie doesn’t talk much about her murals and I’ve learned not to ask too many questions. One thing I like to ask and she doesn’t seem to mind answering is: where’s Katie in this one? I don’t know if the purpose of each of her murals is to create a picture in which Katie can appear, or if she feels more free talking about the thing that represents Katie because she doesn’t remember much about her so she isn’t hampered by reality. One day I asked her where God was in her murals and she said TBA. I asked her what that meant and she said she didn’t know but I’m pretty sure she does.