Days she spent in her room gray as night and the nights themselves smothered Kate. With fireworks and the inexplicable cheer of people in the neighborhood. Going on with their lives. Helicopters blackened the sky over Antigua, a pared sky, its borders the up-and-down horizon of deep folded mountains. Helicopters chopped overhead, hanging peeringly, spinning away. At first Kate would venture only as far as the kitchen but she heard them beating their wings, miracles of machinery. What did they have to do with her? Nothing, her rational voice said. Her rational voice: issuing from a cave in her torso. She located it, listened for it. Nothing has anything to do with anything, she reiterated unceasingly. That was God’s honest truth: Maggie dying did not mean anything to the Sandinistas or the Contras. She’d been used for target practice.
Sunny had visited while Kate was in bed, weeping. The middle of the second night. Sunny had come rustling through the bedroom door, saying, “Kate. Kate. May I come in?” She sat on the edge of Kate’s bed. In a smear of yellow light from the colonnade. She looked jaundiced in that light. Kate felt like a prisoner Sunny was visiting. Fated. They whispered, though there was no need to whisper. No one was home but Dixie. A day later Kate could not remember what they had said. Sunny had placed a caring hand on Kate’s back and left it there, circling lightly, never losing contact, until Kate had finally fallen asleep. When she woke up Sunny was gone.
For a week she did not eat more than a slice of toast now and again. The food would sit there on the kitchen counter, glistening obscenely. Pasta salad under plastic wrap. Potato rolls and butter. Melons. Hunger was a dream she might have had once. Her appetites had been sucked from her. Dixie laid out the food and he put it away. Kate would come to the kitchen and sit at the table and drink while he had dinner. He had gone out and bought her a bottle of Gordon’s. It was what she wanted; she could make herself sick on it if she liked.
Finally she gathered her reserves to go to GUATEL. Dixie had gone to the market. She moved through the house as though her flesh were weighed down with disease. It took a long time to get dressed. To braid her hair. To make sure she had everything she needed in her denim pouch. She wrote out a list of numbers she would try. A list of lifelines.
Dixie came in the front door and set down his string bags. Long stiff egg noodles stuck out of a narrow brown sack. He said, “Where you headed?”
“Out. I have to get out a while.”
“Don’t go right now, Kate.”
“I have to,” she said, moving toward her room. “I have to get out. It’s been a week.”
Dixie followed her. “Stay for dinner. You can go after. I’ll drive you.”
Her room was dark with narrow slats of weak evening light coming through the shutters, cutting across the paisley bedspread. She sat on the soft edge of the mattress. Bent over her sneakers to tie them. Hair curved over her face. She did not look at him but said, “This is important.”
“Don’t, Kate.”
She peered up at him. He stood in the light just outside her door. Posh flew up to his shoulder and clawed obeisantly at the wool stitches of his sweater. He said, “I think someone was watching. As I came home.”
He hesitated. He plucked the parrot up and set him on a nearby table. He put his hands in the pockets of his chinos. “I don’t know. Their windows were dark.”
“Well, who would want to?”
He shook his head. “Don’t get involved.”
“Believe me, I won’t. I have to make some phone calls. I have to.” She pressed past him.
He grabbed her hand. His hand felt warm and padded; she felt a slight keen surge. Touching.
“What?”
“It’s safer inside.”
She pulled away from him. “You’re paranoid.”
Kate strode toward the front door. He tried to block her way.
“Eight years in the lion’s den and you’re still naive.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I think Ben’s coming back.” He put out one hand, offering her this last bribe.
“None of that matters now.”
Dixie turned away from her, rubbing the back of his neck, exasperated. He blocked the doorway with an outstretched arm. “I’m trying to look out for you.”
“I have to talk to someone who knows me.” She slipped under his arm. “I’ll be back.”
She lifted the iron latch of the front door and stepped over the door sill into the early evening street; an opaque coppery light coated the sky like the inside of a bowl. The pastel colors of the houses had deepened. There were people on the street: two plump women talking by a short doorway, their dark heads tucked urgently near each other, a boy on a ratchety motorbike, three men moving a large piece of furniture into the house across the street, a wardrobe or an armoire. Two dogs circled a wad of garbage, yelping tentatively. Plucking and yanking at it with bared teeth.
Kate caught a glimpse of the car Dixie spoke of—she could see that its windows were tinted almost black. New and boxy, a Cherokee or something like it. She would not look long at it directly; she did not want to lend it credence. Instead she set off walking forcefully, purposefully. Toward the center of town. The volcano. The volcano lit by the sunset.
Her heart pumped—a fierce lub-lub. So this is what it’s like, she thought. She had been followed before, but that time she had been accompanied by Sandinista soldiers and had felt protected. She had been on her way to the mined school bus where the children were waiting in shock, covered in blood like birthmarks. This time she did not know her enemy. This was different and she felt her bladder pressing inside her and her stomach contracting and it was a sick feeling and she kept saying to herself, I’m lucky, I’m lucky, worse than this has happened to me. She thought of the times she had lied to Mexican soldiers when she walked past their checkpoint on the way to the refugee camp. Once they grew accustomed to her she did not even have to lie. She had been dark-skinned and growing darker every day, with long black hair, the hair she had not cut more than an inch or two in years. She had taken to wearing it in a long braid to keep life simple. She learned to be deferential to the Mexican soldiers, to speak a minimum of Spanish, and they actually let her pass. So many times. Not once did they ask for her papers. In Chiapas she had been pumped full of the adrenaline of lust and the adrenaline of subterfuge. She had almost always felt this pressing in her bladder as though she had to pee but couldn’t.
At GUATEL she called collect.
She heard Paul come on the line. The operator asked him to accept the charges. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.”
Kate’s throat constricted. Her tear ducts were dry and swollen. There was that click at the other end.
Her hands shook. She went out of the telephone booth and gave the clerk her mother’s number. It was busy. Just to talk, to honor Maggie—all the hope she had mustered washed away. She wished she could lie down.
She went out to the park stood in line to buy a chucho, out of habit, not hunger. She stood in line to buy the chucho. To have something to do. Tears stung her eyes.
She did not know if she could eat but she wanted to try. She felt hollow from not eating. She’d swallowed the sound of Paul’s voice saying no. A dark raw no. She took her chucho and retreated to a bench across from the vendors. She ate; it was hard to swallow. Paul said no. She looked at that from every side. Paul who had loved her said no. The thought was like a box right in front of her that might explode. Emotional detonations were likely.
Kate got up and tossed her corn husk in a trash can. When she returned to her bench, a portly man in a tight business suit sat down on the opposite end. He ate an ice cream cone and a slight brush of pink ice cream ran across his mustache. The streetlight shone down, casting a lavender splotch on his bald head.
“Buenas noches, señora,” he said quietly, without looking directly at her.
“Buenas noches,” she said, with not one shred of good will.
“You are a friend of Sunny Hires.”
“Who wants to know?”
At that moment someone in a car, his car, it must be, shone its headlights directly on Kate. Pinned her there. In piss-yellow fog-light.
“My friends want to talk to Sunny.”
Kate got up and walked away.
“We know who you are, Vidalúz,” the man called. Or did he call, “Do you know Vidalúz?” Kate did not trust her own ears.
Her knees shook. Vidalúz. She kept walking until she got to the shadowy edge of the park where the taxi drivers squatted, across from the cathedral. At the highest cathedral step, a lone drummer banged a big mournful drum.
She found Alberto on a curb under a broad and leafy tree, in the tree’s shadow, with two other taxi drivers, their cigarette tips brass pins in the dark. The three men looked up startled from their desultory talk. Alberto’s face was slim; an athletic sleekness cloaked his body; he leaped up and graciously opened his taxi’s door.
Once inside he said, “What is wrong, señorita?” He leaned over the seat. His elbow nearly touching her knee.
He spoke very softly. “Where do you want to go?”
“Take me to the Mexican restaurant,” she said. “Near the Church of the Merced.”
“Pronto.” He started the car and worked his way around a clump of revelers at the corner of the park. One woman glowed in a white dress.
“Can you come back and get me later, Alberto?”
“A qué hora?”
“Two hours from now?”
“Sí, sí.” He glanced up at her in the rearview mirror. “You will be safe there?”
“I’m sure I will be. I’m just going to have a glass of wine and visit with some friends. But I do not want to walk home that late.”
“I will come for you. Don’t worry.”
She did not turn around to see if the bald man had trailed after. She looked ahead and all Antigua was out, it seemed, in the streets and on the steps, amid the golden lights and white lights, amid the pearly black shadows in the middle of the blocks. Engines gunning. Babies crying. Salsa music erupting from the gardens and the restaurants. All their bridled energy released into night, into a few hours of freedom. She did not think she should feel afraid but she did feel afraid. Her body was afraid, shivering.
The Mexican restaurant had floor-to-ceiling shutters opening onto the street. The bar sparkled—opaque iridescent glass lit from inside. Music from the States reached the street, rock and roll she did not recognize. There was probably plenty she would not recognize when she got home. If she was able to find her way home. Eight years in the lion’s den. She paid Alberto and wished him a good night. Inside she made her way to the inner patio, a sheltered place with stars overhead. She felt she did not breathe a normal breath until the waiter had taken her order and she had the chance to simply sit for a few minutes, among other North Americans. It made her feel more safe to sit among them.
There were many places a woman could not go alone but this place was all right. Sometimes it was called the Texas Spur, sometimes it was called the Lone Star. For an hour Kate took refuge on the patio, dim exile of drinkers, nursing a glass, and then another, of bitter red Argentinian wine, examining the cloudy detritus in the bottom of her glass. Now and then a stench like rotting chicken skin rose over the patio wall. The music never changed: a country twang the origin of which she could not quite put her finger on. The round metal table wobbled. Kate folded a matchbook cover and tucked it under one table leg. Hands trembling. She held the opaque glass in both her hands to steady them. A wind portended a cool night, possibly rain. A chill tingled unexpectedly up her back and arms. She wished she’d worn her only wool sweater. The people dining or waiting to dine were inside. She could see them through an open window where gauzy curtains belled out, the wind inside the curtains persistent as flesh. Waist-high terra-cotta olive jars lined the patio; ivy curled and twisted up one stony wall.
“Kate?”
There slouched Ginger, boyishly slender, her skin chapped around her nose and mouth, her clothes—a wool poncho, loose slacks—stinking of patchouli and cigarette smoke and cardamom chewing gum. On her feet she wore only sandals.
“Ginger,” Kate said. “Cómo le va?”
Ginger leaned close and stage-whispered, “Do you believe in God’s will?” Her fine hair brushed Kate’s cheek.
Kate laughed, more harshly than she intended. “You mean everyday chaos?” she said.
“Can I sit down?” Without waiting, Ginger pulled out the other metal chair and folded herself into it, arms straight out on the table, hands clasped.
“See those people in the dining room? By the palm tree?”
The woman’s hair was falsely red: red cellophane. The man wore a dark suit; he hovered over a calculator; he had a bald spot the size of an egg.
Kate struck a match and lit the stubby white candle in the center of the table. A curl of flame lit up Ginger’s face. Her crucifix earrings bobbed in the candlelight. Kate felt a warmth established by the light: a potential but slight and undesirable connection, as though they’d found themselves seated side by side on a bus. “What about them?”
“They want me to have their baby.”
“Are you out of your mind—”
“Shh—”
Kate said, “They look … like they don’t belong here.”
Ginger smacked her lips, slightly irked. “I think you’re reading them way wrong.”
The woman straightened her skirt and cupped her hand protectively over her leather clutch lying on the table. The man had a recent haircut, with his sideburns trimmed shorter than Kate had ever seen sideburns, even with the tops of his ears. His face was freckled and guileless but Kate thought it was a studied guileless-ness. The woman’s makeup—a coppery sheen—concealed whatever emotion a face might possibly register. Her face was small, foxy. The man placed his hand over hers. They made an effort not to glance Ginger’s way.
Ginger flipped up the hood of her poncho. “She thinks I look like her. She can’t get pregnant.” She reached tentatively for Kate’s glass. “Can I have a sip? They only let me drink juice.”
Kate nudged the glass across the table. Ginger took a gulp of wine.
“So, did your friend finally show up?” she said.
Kate closed her eyes; she covered her mouth with her hands. She tried to treat herself gently. She had noticed a tendency toward roughness when she touched herself, punishment of a sort.
She shook her head. She couldn’t form the words to tell Ginger.
Ginger shot a sly look toward the couple. “So—are you staying?”
“God forbid,” Kate said. Then, “Tell me you’re putting me on.”
“Listen. They’re paying me. They’ll put me up in a nice place, cable TV, pay all my expenses—” She made a fist as though she’d caught the brass ring on the merry-go-round. “I’m like, wow, I could actually not go home and sponge oft my folks. I could relax—”
“Having a baby’s not a temp job.”
Ginger peered at Kate from beneath the hood, squinting, irritated. She whined, “They have a right to be happy.” She drank from Kate’s glass once more, then grinned sheepishly. “And—at the end—after—I’ll have ten thousand dollars. Clear.”
Kate hung her head, squeezed her temples. Adjusted her glasses. “Ginger, Ginger.” She reached out and Ginger relinquished her wine glass. “Does Dixie know about this?”
Ginger said, “What’s Dixie to me? I’m Methodist. Sort of.”
“He cares about you.”
Ginger said, “That’s his job.”
“What about school?”
“School’s over.”
Kate frowned.
“For the year, it’s over for the year,” Ginger said. “I passed everything. I did.”
“I thought you had a guy here?”
“Figment of my imagination,” Ginger said.
“This is a cold way to bring another life into the world.”
“You have a better idea? Like love?”
Kate took that in. She had nothing to counteract Ginger’s cynicism. Then she asked, “I’m not sure I want to know, but what’s their story?”
“Simple story. They’re from California. San something or other. He’s a banker. He has a laptop computer with him. He’s starting a bank. In the capital. She golfs and grows zinnias and stuff like that.”
“I’m stunned,” Kate said. “Though I don’t know why.”
“I had to see what you’d say. You’re like the first person I’ve told.”
“You don’t have a clue what you’re getting into. Your hormones’ll change. It’s not a joy ride.”
Ginger shyly glanced down. “No big deal,” she said.
In that moment Kate intuited—suspected—that she was already pregnant. And worse, she had a premonition: that somehow, somewhere, she would be called upon to deliver Ginger’s baby. She pictured it: the crowning of the big red head, Ginger terrified and screaming.
The waiter went to the couple’s table and left the check.
Kate leaned close to her across the table. She slid the wine glass in Ginger’s direction. “I am absolutely freezing. If you’re going with them—they do have a car, don’t they?—could I borrow your poncho? Just till tomorrow. You could come by for it, or I could meet you at the park.”
“What’ll I wear?”
“This,” Kate said, stripping off her cardigan. “If they have a car—”
“They do. It’s really cool.”
Kate shrugged.
“Sure, okay,” Ginger said. “That’s cool. You can just put it with my stuff in the bodega. I’ll stop by for it.”
They traded cardigan and poncho. Kate stood up, slipped into the poncho. “That’s better, much better,” she pretended. Like pinpricks, the woolen fibers scratched her bare arms and neck.
“I’m not afraid to do this,” Ginger said.
“If you say so.” Kate thought some encouragement was called for, but she did not have it in her. Then she faintly mustered, “It’s okay if you are afraid.”
“I’ll probably be, like, nervous, when the time comes. But I’m not now.”
Ginger got up and looked at the couple and smiled. They smiled back at her—cordial, phony, meant-to-be-reassuring smiles. Ginger pressed her palms on the back of the chair she’d been sitting in. Her nails were bitten down to the quick. “You can tell Dixie. Tell him not to worry about me.”
Tell him yourself was on Kate’s lips, but she said, “If you want, I will.”
“I’d better go,” Ginger said. “They’re waiting.”
“Wait. Please. I wondered … did you know Sunny very well?”
“Sort of, I guess. I moved in before Christmas.”
Kate stepped closer to Ginger. She could smell her chewing gum. “Do you have any idea what was going on for her?”
Ginger stuck her fists in the cardigan pockets. “Look. I gotta go.” She turned and walked proudly, head high, sandals squeaking. The hem of her slacks had come undone in the back.
The man and woman sighed with relief, exchanged glances. He laid a pile of wrinkled quetzales on the check. They hurriedly scooped up their things—a tan umbrella, her purse, his calculator—and hustled Ginger out of the Texas Spur.
Kate tried to imagine Ginger’s mother and father, somewhere in Washington State, having an ordinary life while their daughter was out of their reach, making mistakes. She was old enough to be Ginger’s mother: that was a shocking thought. She didn’t dwell on that. She paid the check, said, Pase buena noche, and flipped up the hood of the poncho.
At the open front doors, between the dark green shutters, she waited for Alberto. From beneath the poncho hood she scanned the cobblestone street for the men who had followed her. She watched for Alberto’s yellow taxi; he would squire her home. At her back the music wound its way among the drinkers, filament of nostalgia: she finally recognized it: the Allman Brothers. Paul had liked that. For a moment she could almost taste shots of tequila at someone’s kitchen counter on New Year’s Eve. Paul had worn a paper king’s crown and she had worn a paper fool’s cap. The memory muddied after that, blurred. She recalled the music and the tequila and the paper hats; the feel of the night was lost. The wine she had drunk made hazy all that had gone wrong that day: the argument with Dixie; Paul’s refusal to accept her phone call; the man in the park.
She stepped down onto a sidewalk made long ago of blocks of granite like modest gravestones laid end to end. Under an archway across the street a policeman in a royal blue uniform held a chubby baby in his arms; the baby wore a lacy ivory dress; the baby’s mother looked on approvingly. People strolling home took their sweet time. A gringo strode around the dawdlers, into the street. Kate would have called him a boy, about nineteen, in a tam-o-shanter made from recycled tipica. He could have been a basketball player from the Midwest. Strawberry blond. Clean-shaven. Well fed. He sang out, to no one in particular, “Te amo y solimente tu! I love you and only you!” He seemed a little drunk, a little lonely. The Guatemalans nearby laughed at him, with him. For that moment there was good will among everyone on the street.
Except Maggie. Maggie did not laugh or sashay down the street or kiss Kate’s cheek. Maggie did not exist anymore and that knowledge was too big to see, too enormous.
An almost imperceptible earthquake tremor snaked under Kate’s feet. No one else seemed to notice. She folded her hands beneath the poncho; brushing Ginger’s hand as they traded garments had made her feel all over again the scarcity of touch. She had taken to falling asleep at night holding her own hand under the pillow; there was closure, a circle, comfort, in that. Across the street a woman sold steamed corn on the cob out of a zinc washtub. Children crowded around the tub. She thought of all the corn she’d eaten as a child. The nubby kernels. Butter running down your wrist. Shingly salt and silky butter. And the sigh of night, the visible humidity over rosy-tasseled cornfields, the unending sizzle of insects during summer, during the fall. Lupita liked to say that when you get older you live in memory more than not. Memory had heft; available imagery. But what lay ahead dissolved, disappeared. The iridescent cries and laughter of the children lit up the darkening street.