Gringa (25 page)

The governor's men pushed him back and the crowd parted as if for a man on a stretcher. That night men came to Gato's hut and took his father out. Gato's mother held him, her hand over his mouth, and he bit her until he gagged on her blood, but she would not let go. They found his father in a ditch with his throat cut. Soon after that Gato went to Mexico City.

The students were mesmerized. Gato's voice was now full of passion; Abilene was amazed at the power of it. “The authorities will learn what is right! The people of the country will teach them. You will hear them, and then you must decide what to do. The peasants will lead you. I promise you this.”

The students went home. Gato and Abilene lay in bed in silence, as if a gorge lay between them. For Abilene, it was too risky to reach across.

She felt small, and foolish, and sad. She wasn't surprised when, in the morning, Gato was gone.

ABILENE SAW MICKEY again at Tonio's office, where she had gone to see if Tonio had left money for her. If he cut her off, she would have to go back to the ranch, unless she wanted to spend her little savings, now in a Mexico bank. She realized that her summer in Mexico was nothing more than the sojourn in Zihuatenejo had been—a little time away. She had been excited by the students, by the enthusiasm of Hallie and her friends, even by Adele's company, dead woman and all. But she was going in circles. She had not written Sage again, nor he her, and the thought of him had grown less real or possible. What she wanted was something new from Tonio, something more than waiting for what he would give. She wanted to be more to him than a cat or a monkey. She wanted to know if he could understand what that meant; if he could, maybe she could love him again, or better. She had felt her spirit push up against his insistent memory, but now she thought it was adolescent of her, the same as Pola wanting to go to L.A., or just to a market without her mother's okay. Recently she had seen a very simple truth: that she belonged to Tonio, or with Tonio, in a way she had never belonged with anyone. He was not her first lover, but he was her first attachment. In his way, he had looked after her for nearly five years. She didn't want to go with Sage until she knew who she was with Tonio. Sage had been right, he and Abilene were alike, but Abilene added one important additional factor: Tonio was something else altogether.

Señor Muñoz said that Señor Velez was out of the country, but he had left instructions to give the señorita what she needed. “He expects you at the Tecoluca after the rains,” Muñoz said. Abilene was surprised; already she had won this concession, when Tonio had seemed so adamant that she return immediately. Of course he wasn't there! He had never cared much what she did when he was gone, and if he had minded, or even known, how she spent her time, he had never said. She didn't think that Tonio spent much time thinking about other people, certainly not her. He thought of her when he wanted her. All in all, that hadn't been so bad.

Mickey came out from the inner office, his face flushed, and when he saw Abilene, engulfed her in his greeting. She thought, maybe I can talk to Mickey about it, but the idea was silly. Mickey had such a distorted perspective.

“Oh good, you remembered our lunch date!” he said now, with a huge, false cheer that could have fooled no one. Muñoz had the face of a statue.

“Sure, let's go,” Abilene said.

Constanzia called out. “Oh Señorita, you left a package here the other day. See, I've saved it for you.” She handed Abilene the bright yellow bag from the shoe store. Abilene was stunned. Constanzia shook the bag in her hand. “Señorita!”

Abilene took the bag. “Who brought it in?” she asked in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

“No one, señorita. You left it here, don't you remember? You must have been preoccupied to forget your shoes!”

In the elevator she told Mickey she had lost the shoes. “In a cafe near the museum, or maybe on the bus. But not in the office, I'm sure of that!”

Mickey cut her short. “You ought to have thrown those old huaraches away anyway, Abby. Your new ones are much better. When he saw her impatient frown, he added, “Everything doesn't have to make sense.”

“Well of course it does!”

“Don't you know Tonio knows everything?” This he said merrily, like a joke. Though she was incredulous, she argued it no more.

Mickey said he had to run an errand for his father in the elegant Lomas de Chapultapec colonia. He was carrying a package.

“Well then, I'll see you later. We didn't really have the date you said we did in the office. That much I do know.”

“But don't go now. I was going to come see you next.” He whistled for a taxi. When they had settled into the seat he leaned over her and thrust his hand up on her thigh. “I need you,” he said fiercely.

“Oh, do stop it!” she said. So Mickey was in a mood. She relaxed as he sat back. They pulled onto a street of old elegant buildings. They stood outside the fence of a large house; over the top she could see the heavy amber panes of windows. He rang for admittance. The door swung open, and he was ushered inside. She wondered what was in the package he carried, and she wondered about her shoes.

Mickey came out and said, “I know a good place not far from Chapultepec, they do grilled beef Argentine style.” As they walked, she asked him about his errand. Mickey sighed importantly. “A friend of my father's lives there. He did some work for Tonio and Tonio didn't pay him. My father intervened. I was returning some property, I'm not sure what it was.” Abilene accepted this explanation; she had been in Mexico long enough to appreciate that everyday things were often cloaked in intrigue.

They ate on the outdoor terrace of a quiet restaurant in an old converted house. Fawning trees bordered the terrace. The waiters moved slowly, without the self-importance of those in Niza restaurants. She offered to buy a bottle of wine, and Mickey chose a red one, surprisingly dry. They spent a long time eating and drinking. They talked about the students—Mickey said they were looking for trouble, it was the first inkling of his new self-importance—and he said her skin was pink and pretty. She thought of telling him about the abortion, but he would want to know whose baby it was, and she couldn't have said.

“Tell me about your new job,” she said. Mickey now worked in the same bank as his father. He described his co-workers. He had a talent for description and mimicry. She wanted to tell him that he was most charming when he imitated himself. His clerkship wasn't so bad, he said. It was slow work and there would be no reward for hurrying; they had twice as many clerks as they needed. “It's part of the function of government to provide employment,” he said. She found she was amused by his seriousness. “Of course,” she answered. “It stirs loyalty and devotion.” She also noted that he had been able to get away for a very long lunch, to which he made no reply.

“I was talking to Tonio recently,” he said instead. Her chest began at once to ache. She ordered more wine. “He is having horses brought from Portugal this year; there is a possibility I might go over there and accompany them back.”

She could not help smiling broadly. “Will you travel in their stable?”

“He's gone to Switzerland, you know,” Mickey went on. He was swollen with this information. Abilene realized he had been saving it to tell.

“Why Switzerland?” she asked in a lazy way.

“He's gone to a music festival with his mother.”

“Odd. I didn't think he was so devoted to her, nor to music.”

Mickey smirked. “Anne Lise is in Europe. I have a friend at the American Embassy who knows I like to hear what's going on. Of course it is all circumstantial—” He shrugged, amused. She was perturbed to be caught ignorant. She didn't think she cared, other than that. She found Tonio a remote concept, harder and harder to retrieve from her store of memories.

Mickey leaned over and touched her hand on the table. “You know I would love you if you let me, Abelita.” She had to suppress a laugh. Behind his glasses, the lenses terribly smudged, Mickey's eyes were round dark moons. She half-expected him to weep. They were both drunk.

“Go ahead,” she teased. He broke off a piece of roll and wiped up the grease from his plate. “If you want, I'll go back to Texas with you,” he said. He ate a huge bite of soggy roll. With his mouth full he said, “I've never divorced Janice, and our kid is American. I could get a permanent visa. Or you and I could get married.” He licked his lips and wiped his face on the back of his sleeve.

“How can we, if you are still married to Janice?”

“Maybe she's gotten a divorce. What do I know? She's a hippie now.”

“What brings this on?” Mickey was so often serious about impossible things, about bullfighting apprenticeships and Pemex jobs, falling in love with attaché's daughters. This most recent idea was the dregs in a bottle of wine.

“You can't stay here forever,” he said.

“I have a visa. I'm not leaving.” The joke was it was a student visa, renewable every year.

“Where can it lead?” His words had a sharp edge. He was always a little angry when they talked seriously. He had never really forgiven her for using him. “Texas would be better. I could bring my son up there. What will he ever have here?”

“What would he have in Texas?”

“Opportunity! A life that depends on no one's favors.”

Abilene laughed. “Like I had? The opportunity to grow up and get a shitty job and live in debt and envy? You think that's different? Better?”

Mickey's face turned bright red.

“Mickey,” she said gently. “Do you want me because Tonio—” There was no good way to say it. “Because Tonio has me?”

Mickey exploded. “He treats you like a second-rate horse, Abby, and you go for it. You like it! It's sick. He orders you around, sends you off to have your face shaved, abandons you for months at a time, passes you around—” Abilene stood up. “He knows what you're like! He knows what you're doing here! He'll make you sorry, make you wish you hadn't. He beats you, doesn't he? Doesn't he?”

“Of course he doesn't!” Mickey lunged for her arm as she said this; he grasped it and used it to pull himself up. As he stood, the table tipped and dishes clattered onto the terrace floor. The table wobbled and Mickey, seeing it, made a growling noise and gave it a vicious kick. A man at a nearby table stood up and screamed at them. Waiters ran out, followed by the maitre d'. Abilene held onto the back of a chair. Mickey shouted in every direction that it was all an accident. He held onto Abilene so tight he was cutting off circulation. The other diners yelled that they saw him do it, that he was a clod, a drunk, not civilized enough for restaurants. “Eat your tacos on the street!” they yelled. Mickey reached into his pocket and pulled out his money, squashed in his pocket like balled-up hankies. He let go of Abilene, and she rubbed her arm. He threw money onto the chair and onto the toppled table on the terrace. He stuffed bills into the maitre d's hands. The maitre d' was a figure of calm, but he said he would call the police if he ever saw either of them again. He said that they were pests and clods. A waiter on his hands and knees was picking up pieces of dishes.

“Jesus, Mickey,” Abilene said, shaking, halfway down the block. Her arm was burning. “You're crazy. You've gone daffy.” Mickey pushed her against a light post. She could feel his hot breath on her throat. So close to her, he looked wild and ugly and threatening. “I've seen pictures,” he said. “Tonio has pictures—”

Tonio had so many pictures, Swedish girls with their labia held apart, their sex turned to winking eyes. “So what?” she said. Then she realized that Mickey meant pictures of her. Her mind raced—what pictures were there? Tonio had a Polaroid. There had been pictures, long ago. But Tonio wouldn't show them. Not to anyone, not to Mickey. He wouldn't.

“What pictures?”

Over his shoulder she saw a girl had stopped a few yards away. She was a child, maybe fourteen. She was country girl, dressed in a long skirt and reboza; her feet were bare. She had no expression whatsoever; the blankness of her stare was alarming. I won't come closer, her stare seemed to say, but I want to see. As if seeing were everything. Abilene stared back, and the girl dropped her eyes. She looked like one of the maids at the ranch, called in for scolding—humble, resigned, unrepentant.

Mickey was talking on and on. He had seen pictures. He described them, pictures of Abilene with her hair down over her breasts in tangles, her chest glistening with sweat, pictures with her mouth open, her tongue wetting her lips. “Oh God,” Abilene said. Pictures of the two of us. It made her sick to think of him mooning over them. He was a weasel, a snake! She wouldn't let him make her care. What was it to her if he fed his lust? “So what?” she said coldly.

Her eyes darted back and forth from Mickey and the girl. The girl had something in her reboza, a package; she backed up a few steps and looked down into the shawl. A baby. The child had a baby. Abilene grabbed Mickey's arm. “Look!” she said, pointing to the slowly retreating figure. “What's she doing in Lomas, and with a baby?”

Mickey looked at Abilene as if she had said something very stupid. He whistled to the girl, who stopped at the sound. “Come here,” he said roughly. Her face was thrust forward, almost as if she were off balance, too far out over her feet. Her hair was tied back with string. “Come,” he said again. The girl approached slowly, tentatively, glancing over her shoulder to check her escape route. Mickey dug into his pocket for change and gave it to her. She took the coins and trotted away.

“She's like you,” Mickey said. Except for the sweat on his face, he now looked nothing like he looked two minutes ago, in the midst of his feverish monologue. “She has heard there's life in the city. Maybe she had a cousin come here, someone who was lost in the maw and didn't come back. She decided to follow. Anything is better than the village. She walked to Mexico, to find her cousin. Now she sees how it is, and she's waiting for someone to notice that she needs a place to live. She'll go with some young man, if she is lucky, maybe to one of the caves below Lomas; or she will go with bad men and do whatever they say, for tortillas. Her baby will die of diarrhea. But now, knowing none of this, without an ounce of perception, this stupid stupid girl is walking around. At night she sleeps in the street.”