24 Teresa, Barrio Ávila, 1995
Teresa lit her first cigarette in many years. She did as Cristina had coached her to do—she gathered every thought that plagued her, mixed them up with the smoke in her lungs, and blew them out into the rain. All the Eastern religions emphasize breathing control, Cristina said. I just put my little twist on it.
In Carmen’s old room, petals of chipped paint fell from the walls. Teresa sat in a chair that was too small for her. Flashes of distant lightning brought the room back to life. A collage of hundreds of Polaroid photographs and posters pinned above the bed fluttered in the breeze from the opened window. Smoke explored the dresser and the contents of its opened drawers: eye shadows, unicorn-patterned bras, Betty & Verónica comic books, Carmen’s graduation gown, its matching hat and gold tassel. When Carmen left to live with Juan Julián in San Pedro, Teresa had kept her room exactly as it was.
Again, a dizzying pain rattled inside her head. A starved lion behind bars, a jailed man with everything to lose.
Teresa flicked her still-lit cigarette out the window into the garden. It landed with a fizzle and ignited a desiccated leaf at the foot of one of the Queens of the Night. Teresa noticed that the dirt beneath the tree was dry despite the rain. She ran outside with a cup of water to extinguish the flame. But once beneath the branches, Teresa felt light-headed. She had probably gotten up too quickly. She sat down with her back to the thin trunk and looked up at the trumpet flowers in full bloom. Their aroma entered her like music. She let rainwater fill the cup and began watering the plant’s roots around her body. After each poured cup, her eyelids felt increasingly leaden. Again, the lion roaring in her head, the jailed man screaming for mercy. Her body labored to stay awake. Beyond the thunder, her grandmother’s gentle voice reappeared.
Be still, child. If you fight it, you will lose.
THE SECOND ECSTASY OF TERESA
Teresa opens her eyes and finds herself inside Cartago’s basilica. Its gold and emerald interior sparkles with candlelight, illuminating stained glass and rippling pools of holy water. To her right, José María stands motionless in her father’s navy blue suit. The perfect curl on his forehead gleams with sweat and gel.
It’s her wedding all over again. Teresa turns to see only the left pews filled—her family and friends crowded around applauding. Her mother, who used her influence to give Teresa this honor, is almost smiling. Teresa looks down at the bouquet of roses in her hands. The white lace of her dress sparkles in the morning light.
“Let me get a good look at you.”
Teresa turns around to see her grandmother standing in the center of the aisle. Her hair is white and braided, radiant in the morning light. Wrinkles carve her face, and in each hand she holds an upturned trumpet flower. One filled with water, the other with fire. Her grandmother pours the contents of one into the other as she speaks.
“I’m sure you are a little surprised to see me,” she says.
“Tita, ¿what the Hell am I doing here?”
Her grandmother laughs. Still she pours fire into water, water into fire.
“You know, you shouldn’t talk like that. Especially inside a church,” her grandmother says.
“I’m sorry…”
“It’s all right. It happens to everyone. You know, this was a beautiful ceremony. I wish I had been alive to see it.”
“So do I.”
“¿Is that your husband?”
“Yes … José María. He’s the man I chose.”
“¿And you separated him from his tail?”
“Yes, just like you said to. Tita, ¿why am I here?”
“Come,” her grandmother says. Teresa follows her to the right side of pews and they sit in the middle row facing the pulpit. “Tell me, ¿what is it you see?”
Across the aisle, her family and friends are in a jubilant, radiant clap. At the pulpit, the statuette of the Virgin stands at the top of an intricate structure made of solid gold. Gold angels play gold instruments at her feet. The enclosing golden belvedere is lined with red velvet. Golden spikes of golden sunlight radiate from the gold sarcophagus. Teresa wants to free the Mother of God.
“Look carefully. What is most important is always in front of your face.”
It takes but a few moments for Teresa to notice José María still there. The faded navy blue suit a size too big. His hands are folded over his belt buckle. Pure, sincere elation bringing out his dimples and his teeth.
“Happiness is what always makes itself clearest to you even if you don’t take immediate notice,” her grandmother says. “Everything else in life is merely a distraction. On this day, you carried Lyra in your belly. ¿You hadn’t told him yet, had you? But you can tell he could feel her tininess wriggle around inside you. His face is of a man who is loved, but even I can see he has no idea what to do with it. And a man like that, who has known only darkness and then is saturated with love’s light, is a man who will cling to that happiness no matter what. The love of a man like that is as delicate as an egg, and can be so easily cracked open. And when that happens, his true self will no longer have anywhere to hide.”
Teresa walks over to José María. She embraces him and breaks into sobs. She wants to punch, and kick, and scratch at all parts of him for all that he’d done, but she can’t. She can’t bring herself to, as if her fists are magnets of an opposite polarity. She kisses the center of his chest. She touches the silver necklace underneath his shirt. A shark’s tooth hangs from the chain, the talisman he found in the sand the night they met.
“Where there was fire,” her grandmother says, “ashes remain.”
TERESA FOUND HERSELF on the wet earth beneath the Queen of the Night. She had no idea how much time had passed, but her crushing headache has disappeared along with the rain. The eye of the storm had signed a cease-fire with the night.
She was still dizzy and had the taste of ash in her mouth. “José María,” she said aloud. “¿Dónde estás?”
The sound of her grandmother’s voice echoed in her ears. And then underneath the echo, another sound, the sound of a train whistle. The railroad, Teresa thought. It’s there. He’s there. It was where José María was last seen, running east along La Guaria Railroad.
In the house, Teresa slipped on her gum boots, fixed her hair, and made her way out to the track. Turning right, she ran as fast she could, ignoring the pain in her joints and the shifting gravel. Her thoughts raced alongside her, traversing the rotten crossties and rusted rails. She ran over a rickety bridge, past an encampment of homeless junkies, and finally to the AFC’s old banana grove, which had swallowed the railroad’s end. Teresa pushed through tattered leaves and pendent flowers that dangled from woody stems. Deeper into the forest, the old, abandoned train rose like a hill, vibrating and alive. Painted green like a jewel.
Teresa arrived at the grove’s center, small and surprisingly barren, a gap no more than five meters in diameter. The space where a bungalow’s office had once been. Where the doctor named Smith drank his wine and enjoyed his cigars. Where he typed his memos, read his medical journals, and made love to his wife. Massive fronds protected that patch of dry earth from other elements.
Instinctually, Teresa began to dig. Hard dirt accumulated under her nails as she hurled handfuls of soil in all directions. The deeper she dug, the more frantic she became, using her fists and elbows as tools, until she hit something small and metallic. She yanked a silver chain out of the earth. A single shark’s tooth hung from it. The necklace and its serrated tooth were charred, as black as the dirt. And clutched in her fingers, it was still as hot as the night it had burned.
