Burnt Water (26 page)

W
ORDS

Martina asked him what they were going to do, she was very truthful and told him she could deceive him and let herself get pregnant but what good would that do if they didn't come to an agreement first about their future. She hinted around a lot like the time he suggested they hook a ride to Puebla to the Fifth of May parade and managed to get a supply truck to take them as far as the Church of San Francisco Acatepec glittering like a thimble and from there they walked toward the city of shining tiles and caramel candies, still blissful from their adventure together and the clear landscape of pines and cool breezes from the volcanoes that was something new for Bernabé. She had come from the Indian plains of the state of Hidalgo and she knew what poor country looked like, but clean, too, not like the city filth, and watching the parade of the Zouaves and the Zacapoaxtlas, the troops of Napoleon and those of the Honorable Don Benito Juarez, she told him that she'd like to see him marching in a uniform, with a band and everything. His turn might come up in the lottery for the draft and everyone knew, said Martina with an air of being very much in the know, that they gave the draftees whatever education they needed and a career in the army wasn't a bad deal for someone who didn't even have a pot to pee in. Bernabé's words stuck in his throat because he felt he was different from Martincita but she didn't realize it, and looking at a display of sweets in a shop window he compared himself to her in the reflection and he thought he was handsomer, slimmer, even lighter of complexion, and his eyes had a kind of green spark, they weren't impenetrable like his sweetheart's black eyes, in which no white was visible. But since he didn't know how to tell her this, he took her to meet his mother. Martincita took it all to heart, she was thrilled and thought it was almost as good as a formal proposal. But all Bernabé wanted was to show her how different they were. Doña Amparito must have been waiting a long time for a day like this, an occasion that would make her feel young again. She took out her best clothes, a wide-shouldered tailored suit, her precious nylons and sharp-toed patent-leather shoes, she hung up some old photographs that proved the existence of ancestors, they hadn't sprung from nowhere, johnny-come-latelys, why certainly not, señorita, you see what kind of family you're hoping to get into and a photograph with President Calles in the center and to the left General Vergara and in the background the General's head groom, the father of Amparito, Romano, Rosendo, and Richi. But one look at Martincita, and Doña Amparo was speechless. Bernabé's mother could handle women like herself, women insecure of their place in the world, but Martincita showed no sign of insecurity. She was a country girl and had never pretended to be anything different. Doña Amparo glanced desolately at the table set for tea and the mocha tea cakes she'd asked Richi to bring from a distant bakery. But she didn't know how to offer tea to this servant girl, not only a servant but ugly ugly ugly, God help her but she was ugly, she could even contend with a girl of that class if she were pretty, but a servant and a scarecrow besides, what words could deal with that? how could she say, Have a seat, señorita, please forgive the circumstances but decency is something one carries inside, something seen in one's manners, the next time you come we can compare our family albums if you would like, now wouldn't you like a drop of tea? lemon or cream? a mocha tea cake, señorita? Bernabé loves French pastry more than anything, he is a young man with refined tastes, you know. She didn't offer her hand. She didn't rise. She didn't speak. Bernabé pleaded in silence, Speak, Mama, you know what words to say, you're like Martincita that way, you both know how to talk, I just plain can't get the words out. Let's go, Bernabé, Martina said pridefully after five minutes of strained silence. Stay and have your tea with me, I know how much you like it, Doña Amparo said, good afternoon, young lady. Martina waited a couple of seconds, then wrapped herself in her woolly sweater and hurried from the house. They saw each other again, they spent one of their Sundays together all close and cuddling, and Martincita's words, pretty and teasing but now with a hard and cutting edge.

“Ever since I was a little girl I knew I couldn't be a little girl. But not you, Bernabé, not you, I see that now.”

P
ARTINGS

Bernabé tried once again, this time with the uncles, so many
r-r-r
's Martina laughed, showing her gold teeth, Rosendo and Romano and Richi sitting with their pistols between their legs after a Sunday morning shooting rabbits and toads and then cutting pigweed leaves on the plain where the squat green greasewood grew. Richi said that the leaves of the pigweed were good for stomach cramps and frights and he elbowed his brother Rosendo and looked at Martincita, who was smiling, holding his nephew Bernabé's hand, and Romano told Bernabé that he was going to need some pigweed tea to get over his fright. The three uncles laughed maliciously and this time Martincita covered her face with her hands and ran from the house with Bernabé behind her, Wait for me, Martina, what's the matter? The uncles yelped like coyotes, licked their mustaches, hugged one another and clapped each other's shoulders weak with laughter: Listen, Bernabé, where'd you pick up the little stray? she looks like something you'd throw to the lions, our nephew with a reject like that? you shouldn't be screwing with her, let us get you something better, where'd you scare her up, kid? don't tell us from the Sunday-afternoon rodeo? Oh, what a blockhead you are, nephew, no wonder your mother's been so upset. But Bernabé didn't know how to tell them how well she spoke and that she was loving besides, that she had everything except beauty, he wanted to tell them that but he couldn't, I'll miss her, he watched her run across the flat ground, stop, look back, wait for the last time, decide, Bernabé, I don't give you a bellyache or haunt your dreams, I cuddle you, I fondle you, I give you all my sweetness, decide, Bernabé, Bernabé my love. A real asshole, nephew; it's one thing to get a free lay from some servant girl on Sundays just to get your hard off but it's something else again who you show to the world and that's the very reason you're going to need money, Bernabé, stay here, don't be stupid, let her go, you don't marry the first little bitch you go to bed with, certainly not a pig with a dish face like your Martincita, my God, what an ass you are, Bernabé, it's about time for you to grow up and be a man and earn yourself a wad so you can take girls out, we've never had any children, we've given everything to you, we're counting on you, Bernabé, what do you need? a car, money, clothes? how are you going to buy clothes? what are you going to say to the hot mommas, nephew? how are you going to attract them? be bold as a bullfighter, Bernabé, remember they're the heifers, you're the torero and you have to make them charge, you need style, Bernabé, class like the song says, come on, Bernabé, learn how to fire the pistol, it's time now, come along with your old uncles, we've sacrificed ourselves for you and your mother, don't fight it, forget her, Bernabé, do it for us, it's time for you to get ahead, kid, you were spinning your wheels with that dog, boy, don't tell us we sacrificed ourselves for nothing, look at my hands peeling like a scabby old mutt, look at your Uncle Romano's big belly and he's got a matching spare tire of grease and fumes in his head, what does he have to look forward to? and look at your Uncle Richi's glazed eyes who never got to go to Acapulco he's bleary-eyed from dreaming, you want to be like that, kid? You need to go your own way, claw your way up, Bernabé, I'm an old man now and I'm telling you whether you like it or not we're growing apart, the way you just parted from your sweetheart you're going to have to part from your mother and us, with some pain a little more a little less but you get used to everything, after a while partings will seem normal, that's life, life is just one parting after another, it's not what you keep but what you leave behind that's life, you'll see, Bernabé. He spent that afternoon alone without Martina for the first time in ten months, wandering through the streets of the Zona Rosa, staring at the cars, the suits, the restaurant entrances, the shoes of the people going in, the neckties of the people coming out, his gaze flashing from one thing to another without really focusing on anything or anyone, fearing the bitterness the bile in his guts and balls that would make him kick out at the well-dressed young men and hip-swinging girls going in and out of the bars and restaurants on Hamburgo and Genova and Niza the way he'd kicked the lampposts outside the stadium. He tramped up and down Insurgentes that Sunday, a street jammed with automobiles returning from Cuernavaca, bumpers crashing, balloon vendors, sandwich shops jammed too, he fantasized he could kick the whole city until there was nothing left but pieces of neon light and then grind up the pieces and swallow them and I'll be seeing you, Bernabé. That was when his Uncle Richi, with whom he'd been angry even before he made fun of Martincita, waved excitedly from an open-air oyster stand near the bridge on Insurgentes.

“I've got it made, nephew. They've hired me as flute player and I'm off to Acapulco with the band. To prove I keep my word I want you to go with me. To tell you the truth, I think I owe it all to you. My boss wants to meet you.”

E
L
G
ÜERO

He didn't have to go to Acapulco with his Uncle Richi because the Chief gave him a job on the spot. Bernabé didn't meet him immediately, he only heard a deep and unctuous voice, like on the radio, from behind the glass office doors. Tell the boys to take care of him. In the dressing rooms they looked him up and down, some thumbed their noses at him, some gestured up yours and continued dressing, carefully arranging their testicles in close-fitting undershorts. A tall dark-skinned youth with a long face and stiff eyelashes brayed at him and Bernabé was about to take a swing at him but another man they called El Güero because of his light hair came over and asked him what he would like to wear, the Chief offered a new wardrobe to new arrivals and he told him too that he shouldn't pay any attention to the Burro, the poor thing only brayed to say his name, not to insult anyone. Bernabé remembered what Martina had said in Puebla, Join the army, Bernabé, they'll give you an education, you'll learn to take orders, then they'll promote you and if they discharge you, you buy a gun and go into business for yourself, she joked. He told El Güero that a uniform would be fine, he didn't know how to dress, a uniform was fine. El Güero said it looked as if he was going to have to look after him and he picked out a leather jacket, some jeans still stiff from the factory, and a couple of checked shirts. He promised that as soon as he got a girl he'd get him a dress suit, but this would do for now and for the workouts a white T-shirt and watch out for your balls, eggs in a basket because sometimes the blows fell hot and heavy. They took him to a kind of military camp that didn't look like a camp from the outside, with a lot of gray trucks always waiting in front and sometimes men dressed in civilian clothes who tied a white handkerchief on their arm as they entered and removed it when they came out. They slept on campaign cots and from the crack of dawn went through training exercises in a gym that smelled of eucalyptus drifting through the broken windowpanes. First were the rings and parallel bars, the horizontal bar and box horse, the weights and the horse. Then came poles, rope climbing, tree trunks across barrancas and sharpshooting, and only at the end of the training, bludgeons, rubber hoses, and brass knuckles. He looked at himself naked in the full-length mirror in the dressing room, as if sketched with an iron nib, hair that curled naturally not with curling irons like poor straight-haired Martincita's, fine bony mestizo features with a real profile, not like Martincita's pushed-in face, a profile to his face and his belly and a profile between his legs and a green pride in his eyes that hadn't been there before. The Burro went by braying and laughing at the same time, with a lasso longer than his, and both things angered Bernabé. Again El Güero held him back and reminded him that the Burro didn't know any other way to laugh, that he announced himself with his braying the way that he, El Güero, announced his presence with his transistor, with the music that always preceded him, when you hear music, that's where your Güero is. One day Bernabé felt the earth change beneath his sneakers. It was no longer the soft earth of Las Lomas de Chapultepec, sandy and sprinkled with pine needles. Now all the training exercises were held in a huge hand-ball court, where they learned to run hard, fight hard, move on hard pavement. Bernabé concentrated on the Burro to work up his anger, to turn nimbly and land a karate chop on the nape of the enemy's neck. He jammed a knee into the tall lanky youth with stiff eyelashes, which put him down for the count, but after ten minutes the Burro came to, brayed, and continued as if nothing had happened. Bernabé felt as if the moment for action was near. El Güero said no, he'd done well in training, worked like all get-out and he deserved a vacation. He sat him in a coppery Thunderbird and said have a good time with the cassettes, you can choose the music and if you get bored turn on this small TV, we're off to Acapulco, Bernabé, I'm going to give you a taste of what life's all about,
I was born to dance the rumba, down in Veracruz, I was born in silv'ry moonlight, I play it fast and loose,
choose anything you want. Not really, he said to himself later, I didn't choose anything, they chose for me, the blond American girl was waiting for me in that big bed with the glittery bedspread, the bellboy dressed like an organ grinder's monkey was waiting to carry my suitcases, and another just like him to bring my breakfast to my room and fill my refrigerator, the only thing they didn't give me were the sun and the sea, because they were already there. He looked at himself in the hotel mirrors but he didn't know whether they looked back. Other than Martincita, he didn't know whether or not women liked him. El Güero told him if he wanted to pay he'd have to make a lot of money so it wouldn't feel like he was receiving a tip; look at this Thunderbird, Bernabé, it may be secondhand but it's mine, I bought it with my own dough, he laughed and told him that they wouldn't be seeing so much of each other now, it was time to turn him over to Ureñita, old Dr. Ureñita himself, what a drag he was with a face like a sour old maid and ugly as a constipated monkey, he wasn't like El Güero, who knew how to enjoy life, hey, baby,
ciao,
he said, spitting on each hand and then slapping the saliva on the hood bright as a new coin before he roared off in his Thunderbird.