There’s no one here at this time of the day, and Nini has a parking pass that allows Edgar to pull up inside the gates, right in front of the chapel. It’s full of trees here, old trees, solid and generous with their shade.
When they built this cemetery, over two hundred years ago, these were the outskirts of town. But the city has grown and swallowed the dead, who are now shielded from traffic and smog by walls of concrete. From the outside, only the trees peek out, and a guard zealously mans the gates, following a strict schedule, to prevent any pillaging from these tombs that house the poor and the not so poor and the patrons of the city.
No one gets buried here anymore. There aren’t any more plots to be had. And it’s not the thing to do, anyway. People prefer those pastoral cemeteries that are miles away, where each grave has its plot, like an endless garden, where the lines are clean and organized. Here, the caskets are piled one on top of the other, inside tall walls with simple nameplates, each indistinguishable from the next.
Gabriella’s mother isn’t there.
She’s in the Gómez mausoleum, an ornate little monument with marble slabs and a wrought-iron gate that you must open with a key if you want access to those inside.
Gabriella’s great-grandmother is on the left, and on top of her is her great-grandfather, and on top of him, her grandfather’s brother.
Her grandfather is on the right, and on top of him is her mother.
“It’s a temporary arrangement,” says Nini.
“When I die,” she always reminds Gabriella, “you have to put me on top of your grandfather, and your mami on top of me.” She always adds, by way of apology and explanation, “I have to be beside your grandfather.”
Edgar wipes the gate clean with a moist rag before unlocking it. There are coins and flowers and paper icons on the floor, offerings her grandfather’s patients keep leaving for him, even seventeen years after his death.
Nini collects them in a bag but takes them outside. She doesn’t like to keep foreign objects in the family crypt. Then she instructs Edgar to sweep the little entryway, clearing it of dust and cobwebs, until it again looks shiny and visited. “These dead haven’t been forgotten,” she always mutters under her breath.
“You want to go first, Gabriella?” she asks matter-of-factly as Edgar walks back to the car, leaving them alone with their ghosts. “I’ll go to the chapel.”
“Okay, Nini,” Gabriella responds, and gently kisses her on the cheek because she always looks so grimly cheerful here.
Nini used to go in with her. The first years Gabriella came here, she was terrified. Of the casket, of the crypt, of all the dead people in this place. The two of them would visit together then; Nini would talk to her daughter, Gabriella to her mother. Nini would talk about Gabriella’s horseback lessons and her awards and what she had done with her hair. Gabriella would listen solemnly, and nod. But it never felt comfortable, what Nini did. Talking to a dead woman she couldn’t see, who didn’t answer.
And then, Gabriella can’t even pinpoint when it happened, but it just did. She started to have her own stories to tell her mother.
Now, she likes to close the gate and sit in the middle of all the coffins. Nini has a little chair for her in there, and when Gabriella sits down, she’s still tall enough that she can rest her head on top of her mother’s casket.
Gabriella likes it there. She likes to lay her head on her mother’s chest and picture her, sleeping, face up, with her hands folded quietly over her chest. Her hair is long—because it’s been growing all these years—and it falls in endless, gorgeous curls over her shoulders and her breasts and down to her ankles. She looks beautiful like this, like a resting Lady Godiva. And she always smiles, because she’s happy to see her daughter, to feel her and listen to her.
“Mami,” Gabriella says, speaking very softly, very close to her so Grandfather won’t hear. He’d be pissed. And then she tells her what she couldn’t bring herself to tell her father. “I met a boy. His name is Angel.”
She pauses, trying to bring it all back.
“It’s a beautiful name, isn’t it? But the thing is, he’s the wrong kind of boy. That’s what Juan Carlos says, and honestly, that’s what I think today, too.
“But he felt so right. And… and I guess he could be right. We danced last night, and he’s a great dancer. And he’s so tall. You have no idea how hard it is to find someone who’s taller than me! And he’s so, so beautiful. He’s a beautiful boy, with beautiful skin and cool hands—not clammy! I hate clammy. Just really cool and firm, you know?
“I don’t know how to explain it, Mami. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this about a boy. I don’t know that I ever have. It’s—” Gabriella stops. She tries to rationalize if it was the drinks or the moment.
“It’s like there was no one else,” she says, shaking her head. “And, you know what? He had your book! He had your Valle del Cauca book in his library. He told me they’d bought one of the farms in the book because of your pictures. I think that’s a good sign, don’t you?”
Gabriella stops, feeling guilty. She can’t bullshit her mom. She’s dead; she knows everything. Gabriella sighs. She can’t pretend not to know what her mother already knows.
“Mami, his dad is a mafioso,” she continues, lifting her head up and looking down at the casket, trying to see her mother beneath the marble and the wood.
“Actually, I think he’s a pretty big deal mafioso. And I wonder, Mami, if I should just walk away? Now you see why I can’t tell Daddy. He’d make me fly back in a second if he knew.
“Although.” Gabriella pauses, but even before she speaks, she can hear how unsatisfactory her explanation sounds. “I mean, he’s not the mafioso. It’s his dad. He’s a victim of… of fate.
“Do you hold people accountable for what their parents do? People can change the circumstances they were born with, don’t you think? It’s what free will is all about. It doesn’t seem fair, Mami,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s not his fault that he is who he is. I wish…”
Gabriella doesn’t know what she wishes, but the wetness on her hands startles her. She realizes she’s started to cry because the tears are sliding from the casket onto her hands.
“Mami, he might not even call me. He hasn’t called me. It doesn’t matter. But Mami. I still wish I could talk this out with somebody. I wish I could talk this over with you.”
She stops for a bit. “Please don’t tell anyone,” she says, looking around.
Gabriella wipes her eyes and scrambles through her purse for a tissue. Long ago she learned she couldn’t do without tissues when she came here. You just never knew.
“Anyway, Mami,” she goes on, and this time she looks outside the gate at the trees and listens, for the first time that day, to the birds that are quietly chirping out there. It’s a fine place to rest in, she always thinks. She imagines that at night, when everyone’s gone, her mother and grandfather get into these big, lively discussions with the great-grandparents—who were supposed to be partyers—and if there’s such a thing as afterlife wine, they probably drink gallons of it.
“I’m fine. I really am. I’m graduating this spring, and I’m making my mind up about what I want to do with my music, you know? Sometimes I think I should bag the classical stuff and just write jingles. Daddy says it will be inane, and I can make a ton of money and he can retire. Of course, he’d hate for me to do that. He thinks I’m some kind of prodigy, but it isn’t like that at all, Mami. Sometimes I think it’s pointless to have studied music. I mean, who am I kidding, right? I’m not going to be a serious classical pianist. God, I’m a wreck every time I have to perform. But I’m going to score a short film that my friend Patsy is directing in the film department. Daddy thinks it’s a great opportunity, and it can open doors in the business.
“But Mami, I’d like, for a change, to decide on my own. Maybe to not run it by anyone at all, because then everybody has an opinion, and it’s not even about me anymore, you know? It’s about what they think I should do and what they think I should want, and never about what I might really like. Last year I told Daddy I was taking a semester off to study Italian in Rome. Oh my God, he almost had a heart attack!”
She sighs.
“Well, then he spoke with the conservatory in Rome and set me up there for classes, and of course, I didn’t want to do it anymore. The whole point was to have a change of air, of perspective.
“Anyway. I’m just going to try and relax here. Think things over. Go to the club. Run. I’ll let you know what happens.
“And Daddy is well. He’s shooting a movie right now, and he’s getting all these accolades. He was nominated for a Golden Globe, you know? He could win. He really could. It’s this story about a gay magician. I know, very esoteric. But the book was written by Ann Patchett—do you remember, Mami? She’s the one who wrote Bel Canto, that book I told you I loved so much. The cinematography is just beautiful. Daddy really has such a great eye.”
Gabriella tries to think of all the things she would have liked to tell her mother this past year alone, but of course, they’re lost now. Gone with the moment in which they happened.
“Record it now or lose it forever” is one of her dad’s favorite phrases, what he uses to justify his ever-present digital cameras.
“He painted the house,” she says suddenly, the image springing to her mind. “It’s yellow now. It looks really, really dramatic, but stylish, because the bougainvilleas finally grew in, and they’re purple and fuchsia. Great contrasts. You would like it,” she adds with a smile. “At least, I think you would.”
In the distance, Gabriella sees Nini walking toward them and turns to her mother one last time.
“Bye for now, Mami,” she tells her, giving her coffin a kiss.
“Adiós, abuelo,” she says, giving Grandfather a kiss, too. Today she’s ignored him and now it makes her feel a little guilty. But she needed a girl-to-girl talk. She thinks he’d understand.
“I’ll be back soon,” Gabriella promises and steps out into the sunlight.