A Handbook to Luck (5 page)

Enrique stared at Mamá's photograph and remembered their last day together. It was a Sunday and he was sitting in the front row watching his parents' magic show in Colón Park. The wind was brisk and the flag next to the statue of Christopher Columbus noisily flapped. With Mamá's assistance, Papi swallowed samurai swords, conjured up goldfish and Dalmatian puppies, juggled hot coals bare-handed, and turned a bouquet of tulips into a parrot that sang the national anthem. Except for the wayward storks—everyone thought they were part of the act—the show went smoothly.

Enrique studied his mother during the performance. She was petite and shapely and wore fishnet stockings and high heels. Her thighs flared becomingly and her eyelids were painted a seawater blue. A silver bracelet gleamed on her wrist. Enrique caught her eye during the goldfish trick and she playfully winked at him, both pleasing and embarrassing him.

It wasn't until the finale that disaster struck. As usual, Papi bound Mamá's ankles and arms with rope and invited the flat-footed mayor of Cárdenas, who happened to be in the audience, to test their strength. Then Papi lovingly tied a white handkerchief around her mouth, which she emblazoned with an unrepentant red kiss. A snare drum rolled as he escorted her up the three wooden steps to the rim of the aquarium. In a show of muscularity, Papi raised her over his head and lowered her into the turquoise water. As Mamá sank to the bottom of the tank, her hair rose like a crown of branches. Her eyes remained impassive as she struggled against the ropes.

Enrique heard the crackling before he saw the sparks, and the entangled stork, and the thick electrical cable, like a curse from the sky, swinging off its pole and into the tank where his mother was nearly free of her bindings. Once more she caught his eye, this time with such a wilderness of feeling that it cut off his breath. Then she opened her mouth and slowly drifted to the back of the tank. In that instant Enrique knew without words or explanations, his hair bristling, his saliva turning to a bitter paste on his tongue, that no amount of bravery or longing could save his mother or return them to the path they'd lost. Mamá was trapped, like she was trapped forever in this birthday paperweight.

Enrique accompanied his father down to the Diamond Pin later that night. Papi was in his element, backslapping, buying this one and that one drinks. A couple of the regulars surprised Enrique with birthday presents: girlie cards, a set of erotic dominoes (pussy tiles, someone called them), and a five-pound sack of pistachios. One of the Texans, Cullen Shaw, who was funny and long-jawed and had a surprisingly strong singing voice, gave him an album of Enrico Caruso's greatest hits.

Before long, Johnny Langston staked Enrique a thousand dollars on a poker game for his birthday. How could he refuse? He took a seat and looked around at his middle-aged rivals: paunchy, pasty-faced men wearing Stetsons (except for Danny Seltz, a frozen foods impresario from New Jersey, who had on his lucky pom-pom hat). Enrique fingered his mother's silver bracelet, safely tucked in his pocket for good luck. The men were a circus of oddities and tics. Langston had chest hair so thick it seemed to swipe at his Adam's apple like a furry paw. Shaw licked his lips until it seemed they would vanish altogether. One by one, his opponents smiled at him in a way that made Enrique think of animals that ate their young.

Fifteen rounds later, though, he could do no wrong. Straights, full houses, a four of a kind. The mathematical probabilities of this kind of luck were staggeringly low, and Enrique knew it. But it was more than that—his brain had kicked into overdrive. He could remember every card on the table, effortlessly calculate the odds, read his opponents' minds as if they were whispering in his ear. The men cracked their knuckles, shifting uneasily in their seats. The cigar smoke stung Enrique's eyes but his mind stayed sharp. By five in the morning, he had more than half the chips on the table. Then he got a straight flush, his first ever, and won the pot: twenty thousand bucks.

It was daybreak when Enrique left the casino. The sun was weak and barely undercut the neon blaze. The ring of mountains stood guard over the city. Everything looked burned out. He hailed a taxi and got in, driving past pawnshops and sex shops, trinket and tourist shops. Crows were perched equidistantly on the telephone poles. The giant thermometer read fifty-eight. When the driver pulled up to the pink concrete fortress that was the Flamingo Hotel, Enrique tipped him a hundred dollars.

Outside his father's penthouse suite, a tall woman was waiting. Her hair was so blond it looked white. She wore vinyl go-go boots and a fishnet dress that displayed her enormous breasts.

“Where's your daddy?” she asked politely.

“Uh, still playing poker.” Enrique felt himself getting warm all over. His hands dropped to cover the front of his pants.

“My name's Lori.” She dragged on a stalklike cigarette and let the smoke accumulate over her head. “I heard you won some chips tonight.”

Enrique shrugged. In Las Vegas, winning bought you instant privileges, but losing stripped you of them just as quickly. Really, it was a very democratic place.

“Want me to help you spend some?”

Enrique stared at her in disbelief. He imagined calling Shuntaro in Los Angeles to tell him.
No shit, man, she showed up just like that!
Lori's face was as white as her hair, except for her eyes, which were huge and brown, with eyelashes so long she looked like those matchbook drawings of a fawn. Her arms were hairless and smooth. Enrique remembered something his father had told him: Beauty is the advance payment on desire.

When Lori reached for him with her smooth white arms, Enrique trembled. This mortified him so much that he wanted to bolt. The hotel pool would open soon and for a moment he was tempted to go swimming. He could have the pool to himself, swim laps, clear his lungs. Instead Lori tucked his head against the cushion of her breasts and started slow-dancing. Enrique's cheeks still felt hot but at least his face was hidden. He breathed in her sweat beneath the layers of smoke and perfume.

Gently, Lori began kissing his hair. Then she brought his left hand to her mouth and sucked on his fingers. Enrique's whole body boomed with pleasure and fear. This was nothing like the film on prairie chickens. Would she know he was a virgin right off the bat? Why hadn't his father ever talked to him about sex? Enrique realized with a start that his other hand, the one not being sucked, was resting on the woman's hip. When he dared lift his head, she leaned toward him and whispered: “What's your name, sweet pea?”

Marta Claros

T
he marimba band started playing with fresh vigor after their break. The colored lights strung through the cypress trees competed with the stars for attention. In the distance, Marta could make out the hulking presence of the Izalco volcano. She was at the
quinceañera
of her cousin Anita, the daughter of Marta's stepfather's twin brother. People said that Anita could play cards and throw dice better than any man, that her fingertips were lucky. It was a good thing she was a girl or she might have become a professional gambler and disgraced her family.

There were over two hundred people at the birthday party near Lake Coatepeque, all related in one way or another. Anita's grandmother, Niña Cleotilde, oversaw the festivities from her wicker rocking chair on the porch. Marta smelled
chicha
on the breath of some of the men. She hoped a fight wouldn't break out and ruin the party. People used to say that her father could make cane spirits that ripped sense out of a man faster than a machete. When she was little, Marta had helped him squeeze the cane in the
trapiche,
the wooden press. The last Marta had heard, Papá had lost everything in the Hundred Hours' War with Honduras and was trying to cross the border into America.

The food at the party was delicious, better than anything in the capital, tastier and juicier, as if the fresh air made everything more flavorful. Marta gorged herself on rice with shrimp and roasted turkey from the banquet table. She eyed the platter of almond cookies next to the birthday cake, three tiers coated with fluffy meringue. Perhaps she could wrap up a slice to take to her brother.

Evaristo had returned home to live for a little while but he'd grown restless sleeping in a hammock and eating off a plate. Whenever a flock of doves whirred by, he would gaze at them with such longing that Marta gave up trying to convince him to stay indoors. Her brother was much happier in his tree. When the days were clear and bright, Evaristo felt a part of the hot, bleached skies. In the small hours of the night his tree's hush and sway soothed him, and its waxy leaves provided camouflage. Plus he loved the smell of the night jasmine, saturating the air like the
putas
downtown.

“Would you like to dance?” a young man asked Marta, catching her off guard. He had hazel eyes and was dressed more formally than the others at the party, with a button-down shirt and a skinny tie. His lips looked too pink for a boy.

“Está bien,”
Marta answered.

The dance floor was crowded with middle-aged people, unfamiliar aunts and uncles from her stepfather's family. The band rushed the hit song “Little Lies,” and the accordionist hammed it up with a flowery solo. Marta spotted her stepfather dancing with Mamá by the avocado tree. His hair was fixed with a glossy pomade and his machete was holstered at his side. They looked happy together for a change.

Marta's partner was a good dancer, confident and steady. His name was Alfonso and he worked in the office of a textiles factory in San Salvador. A shipping supervisor was what he called himself but Marta suspected that he was inflating his position like so many men did to impress a girl.

“Are you wearing perfume?” she asked him, sniffing the air.

“It's cologne,” Alfonso said, “from France.”

There was that country again, Marta thought, the same one that made the naughty underwear the rich housewives wore.

“Where are you from?” Alfonso asked her.

“Near San Vicente, but I've been living in San Salvador since I was six.” Marta watched him for any signs of arrogance. Country origins weren't appreciated by most city folks.

“I think your childhood is more like your country than your actual country,” he said.

Marta stopped dancing for a moment to think about this. She liked the way it sounded, though she wasn't sure what it meant. Behind them, the moon rose over the volcano. The band shifted to a slower, more romantic tune. Around them, the couples drew closer.

Alfonso led her off the dance floor to a wooden bench where a young woman with a horribly swollen leg sat. Marta wanted to tell Alfonso how in the winter she and her brother used to make sleds from the leaves of the newly pruned coconut trees. The leaves were so smooth and wide that they whipped down hills faster than a sneeze.

“Have you ever seen a volcano erupt?” Alfonso asked.

Marta looked toward Izalco, big and purplish in the distance, and imagined sparks flying from its cone.

“Once I saw Conchagua go up,” he said. “It was at night and the sky looked like it was exploding with fireworks. And the earth went
brrrrrr, brrrrrr, brrrrrr.
”

“Were you scared?”

“I was too far away to be scared. In school, I read about a city in Italy that was buried in ash. Archaeologists discovered the people a thousand years later in the positions they died in—working the fields, or sweeping the kitchen, or taking a crap.”

“I wouldn't want to die like that!” Marta laughed. Then she grew quiet again. She envied the schoolgirls in the capital their blue-and-white uniforms and satchels of books. Why couldn't she be one of them? There were so many things she wanted to know. Her cousin Erlinda had told her that one in a hundred girls was born without a navel
or
a womb. How could Marta be sure this was true?

She reached up and touched her hair, wavy from the permanent Erlinda had given her. Her cousin was in beauty school and had ruined her own mother's hair and the hair of several aunts (they'd taken to wearing kerchiefs and cheap wigs until their hair grew back) before persuading Marta to give it a try. Luckily, the permanent took hold. Erlinda showed Marta how to care for it with castor oil and a hair lotion called Bay Rum, and warned her to stay away from ordinary soap and shampoo.

“My hair is normally straight,” Marta said, twirling a dark curl around her finger.

“So's mine,” Alfonso chimed in, though it couldn't have been curlier, and Marta giggled. “I have a transistor radio. Do you want to listen to it?”

“There's music here.”

“I know, but the band's awful. They play so fast everyone's hopping around like rabbits. Besides, there's this show every Sunday night that plays the Rolling—”

“What time is it?” Marta interrupted him. She'd noticed the watch on Alfonso's wrist, its face shimmering with mother-of-pearl.

“Almost seven.”

“
La novela
is about to start!”

“Haven't those two gotten married yet?” Alfonso rolled his eyes.

“No, that's what's so exciting. You don't know if they'll ever be together.”

“If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't wait for her forever. I wouldn't care if she came from one of the fourteen families. You're either in love or you aren't. There's no in-between. You can't go through life being afraid all the time.”

“But wouldn't you need her parents' permission?”

“We could run away to Los Angeles.”

Marta's eyes widened. Mamá's oldest brother, Víctor, had left for Los Angeles ten years ago and never returned. Everyone said that Víctor worked all night cleaning office buildings and slept during the day, like an owl. They said he'd married a selfish Mexican woman, born there, who refused to have his children and made him wear rubber sleeves on his penis when they made love. At Christmas, Víctor sent the family money but they didn't hear from him the rest of the year.

Nobody talked much about Víctor anymore. It was as if he were dead, or worse than dead because at least you could visit the dead in the cemetery. How soon would her family forget her if she left?

“Are you thinking of leaving?” Marta asked.

“Yes, but don't say a word to anyone. I'm only telling you this because I like you.”

Marta warmed with pleasure at his words, but she didn't show it. “Now, don't get any ideas about me. We've just met.”

“It's not like that.” Alfonso jammed a fist in his pocket.

“Mamá says it's always like that, no matter what the boy tells you.”

“Did she follow her own advice?”

Marta didn't like the expression on his face, as if he knew everything and she knew nothing. Was he insulting Mamá? Maybe she should just get a piece of birthday cake for her brother and stay clear of this boy altogether.

A commotion broke out by the avocado tree. Her stepfather was lying flat on the ground with a crowd around him. A fat lady in a linen dress ripped a leaf off a banana tree and began fanning him furiously. Someone passed Mamá a handkerchief. She wiped his forehead, but he didn't move. His twin brother hovered close by like a ghost.

“Throw some cold water on him!”

“Hit him on the chest!”

“Go find the doctor!”

Marta pushed her way through to look at her stepfather. His eyes were frozen open, like the fish she'd caught in Chalatenango two summers ago. Tía Matilde had fried up the fish, white and tasty, and served it with tortillas and pickled cabbage. Marta stared at her stepfather and felt nothing.

“Se murió.”
She heard a voice whisper from the edge of the crowd.

It was Alfonso. His words quickly caught fire and everyone began repeating them—
se murió, se murió
—until they rose like smoke, higher and higher, mingling with the sounds of the cicadas,
chiquirín, chiquirín,
and reaching the mouth of the volcano itself. When the doctor arrived, he confirmed what everybody already knew. Marta studied her mother's face as she heard the news.

A month after her stepfather's funeral, Marta was working a second shift outside the fairgrounds downtown. The vendors were gossiping about the trapeze star of the traveling Mexican circus, a dwarf named Little Flea. Marta desperately wanted to catch a glimpse of Little Flea in his spangled costume, watch him do his triple and quadruple somersaults. People said that Little Flea flew from one end of the tent to the other, tucked tight like a baby in its mother's womb. Rumor had it that Little Flea, who was no taller than a grown person's knees, was quite the ladies' man, that not every part of him was pint-sized. They said that he'd sired sons, and normal ones at that, from Texas to Tierra del Fuego.

The circus tickets were expensive and only the wealthiest people in town could afford them. Marta heard that the price would go down fifty percent on the last night of the show. But that was still two days' work. Was it worth it to see Little Flea? Despite her efforts, Marta made barely enough money to keep working. She thought it unfair that the circus sold its merchandise at three times the outside price, including stale potato chips and flashlights that broke after an hour.

A cluster of vendors waited for the circus to end, eager to sell the last of their toys and chili-spiced corn on the cob. Marta worked a second shift when there was a special event at the fairgrounds—the Argentine opera troupe, a Peruvian folklore band, even the sparsely attended book fair. After selling used clothes all day, Marta switched to her evening supplies: pinwheels, whistles, clown marionettes, whatever was popular. She'd stopped selling candy because the rain made her lollipops stick together.

Life had gotten more difficult since her stepfather's death. Mamá refused to leave her mourning bed except to boil water for coffee. All the cooking and cleaning and money-earning work fell to Marta.
Ái, que vea cómo hace.
See what you can do to manage. That was what Mamá said to her every morning. Was it any wonder that she was fantasizing about running off with a circus dwarf?

A full moon lit up the puddles from the afternoon rain. The smell of roasted peanuts and cotton candy mingled with the stench of mud. Marta wondered how her brother was faring in his new home, a banyan located three blocks from the charred remains of his old coral tree, which had been struck by lightning. Poor Evaristo was burned over most of his neck and chest. If it weren't for the
guardia
who'd rushed him to the hospital, her brother would likely be dead.

“What are you doing out so late?”

Marta was startled. It was the
guardia
who'd saved Evaristo's life. Could she have conjured him with her thoughts? Marta waved at him weakly, embarrassed by her frayed dress and poorly patched sandals. His uniform and boots were spotless.

“How's your brother?”

“Much better.” Marta glanced at the pistol on the
guardia
's belt. Did he ever use it? Maybe it was true what people said—that you could judge a man by the degree of danger he courted. But what was the difference between danger and evil?

“Is he still living like a monkey in a tree?” the
guardia
asked.

“He's found better living quarters.”

“Oh?”

“A banyan tree.”

“Less flammable?”

“So he says.”

Marta had heard terrible stories about the
guardias.
People said that dead bodies were appearing in the rivers, that the
guardias
—assassins in uniform—were responsible. A car swerved around the corner and its driver shouted:
“¡Chucho hijo de puta, el día te va a llegar!”