Lost in the City: Tree of Desire and Serafin (14 page)

“And her soul?”

“It went back to her body. That's why she died happy.”

“Did you see when her soul went back?”

“No, because you don't see the soul, but I saw her smile when she felt her soul enter her body again.”

“What did she feel?”

“I don't know. Maybe something like happiness. And warmth. You saw how she was always cold lately.”

But afterward, Serafín saw his grandmother not only in dreams but in reality. Until one night Mamá got tired of his visions and shook him firmly, taking him by the shoulders. They were near the door of the bathroom, where he said he had seen her. Papá and his brothers and sisters were sleeping. Mamá got up because she heard him talking in the dark.

“I was talking with her,” Serafín said.

“You can't talk with her because she's already dead. You have to understand that.”

“I heard her voice so clearly. Just as clearly as I'm hearing yours, Mamá.”

That was when Mamá took him by the shoulders and shook him hard, as if to drive out whatever vision he had inside him.

“She's gone! Leave her in peace so she can rest!”

9

When he came out
of the bathroom, the old man was already in bed with the covers up to his neck and with a strange look, like a wrinkled child.

“Put out the candle and come here.”

Serafín blew out the candle but stayed by the table. He again felt fear in his bones. In the silvery light coming through the curtainless window he could see the old man's frozen smile, very wide. Why was he more frightening when he smiled?

“It's better if I sleep in the chair. I can sleep wherever I am.”

“Come to bed. It's very late.”

He sat on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes and put the bag next to them.

“Take off your pants.”

“This is how I sleep.”

He lay down on the bed on top of the cover, as far away from the old man as he could. Who would have thought, with the repugnance he'd felt from the beginning, that he would end up sleeping beside him.

“You're a fraidy-cat. You're even scared of words.”

“I've been thinking . . . if it's true . . . about the woman who died here . . .”

“Yes, it's true. I don't tell lies.”

“And . . . you killed her?”

“Yes, but I'll tell you about it tomorrow. Go to sleep now.”

The old man put his bony hand on Serafín's chest like a shackle and a few seconds later was asleep, snoring with that snore that at times turned into a muffled whistle.

Serafín looked at a piece of very blue sky through the window. Was it the same sky Mamá would be looking at? And what was he doing there, within the painful embrace of that crazy old man, without any certainty he would ever find Papá?

.   .   .

“Remember that night when I couldn't sleep? You were awake, too, and stayed with me the whole time. Then later, you were sleepy, but I couldn't sleep, so you didn't go away. You kept on hugging me and telling me things. How could you stand it, all night, your head nodding, leaning up against the wall, because, you said, if you got under the covers, you'd go to sleep? And why was I so bad letting you do that, making up visions so you would see how frightened I was? What are you looking at now, Mamá?”

.   .   .

He jerked awake some hours later, sitting up suddenly in bed. Where was he? He looked beside him at the old man, gulping in air that turned into snorts. He had dreamed something about him. Or was it about the woman who died there? The images were mixed together. Instead of a woman, the old man was killing a pig in the
middle of the room, cutting its throat. And it wasn't here, in this room, but rather at his own house, outside his house. Perhaps because one time he really did see his Papá kill a pig. Seeing the blood spurt out made him feel sick. And even more when some skinny, stray dogs came nosing around to drink the blood that had not yet seeped into the earth. Afterward, inside the house the lard was boiling in a pot giving off a dirty, thick smoke. Serafín almost vomited when Mamá made him eat meat of the animal he had seen die. It's different eating an animal you know, one you've grown fond of just by seeing it.

He sat on the edge of the bed to put on his shoes. Picking up the plastic bag, he walked on tiptoe toward the door. It squeaked when he opened it, and the old man stirred in the bed. Serafín was going to leave when he heard the cracked voice, not yet awake.

“Are you leaving already, brat?”

“Yes, Señor.”

“Go on, then.”

The windows in the alleyway were dark. The sheets hung out to dry, moving lightly in the breeze, seemed to be about to take flight. He went out to the street, feeling calmer. Anything was better than staying there.

He walked to a park where the earth was dry. What time was it? A car passed by only rarely, making the street seem real. I'm in the city, he thought. The darkness and silence made him doubt it. He sat on a bench in the park and watched the night. There was no one there, nor did it seem possible at that moment that anyone had ever been there, except the wind. A wind that swept up dust, dry leaves, and pieces of newspaper, like a hangover from the day before. He felt as if he were alone, completely alone in the city.

He was hungry and looked in the bag for one of the cans of juice. There were only two left, but why think of that now? Hope was ebbing and flowing inside him, like an interior sea. And now he was feeling better, maybe because at last he was free of the old man. Also, he did not come to the city every day. He sighed and lay down on the bench. And, at last, he rested in a deep sleep with no visions, all by himself.

10

At dawn someone woke him up,
shaking his shoulder. It was a policeman, who asked him what he was doing there. He sat up quickly and picked up his bag with both hands. He blinked, unable to concentrate on the question. Behind the policeman he saw the patrol car, with its insistent red light driving away the sun, just appearing.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, Señor.”

“Yes, Señor, what? I'm asking you what you're doing here.” His eyes were peering through narrow cracks, and he had a fuzzy mustache.

“I went to sleep.”

“But why here? You should go home, go on.”

“I'm from Aguichapan, Señor. I came to find my papá. I need to call him at this number,” and he looked for the piece of paper. “Please help me . . .”

The policeman took the paper and smiled so broadly his eyes disappeared.

“Hey, Rigo,” he said, turning toward the policeman who was still sitting in the police car, with the door open and his cap pushed back, his face indefinite in the hazy dawn. “He came to find his papá and needs to call him on the phone.”

“At this hour? It's very early. Let him be.”

The policeman twisted his mouth and returned the paper. Just as he saw him turn his back and head for the police car, Serafín heard him say something about filthy Indians who come to the city just to dirty it up.

Serafín was going to ask him again to dial the number, but his legs did not respond and neither did his determination, so he stood there, holding out the paper, watching the patrol car turn into a dark street as if into the last remnant of night.

.   .   .

He spent the morning asking people to dial the telephone number. He kept on stubbornly, stopping people by tugging on their clothing, then shrinking smaller, looking through his eyelashes, and
softening his voice to show his paper and ask his favor. Some brushed him off angrily, others did not even answer him, and others smiled and even gave him some money.

Only two women were kind enough to find a phone and dial the number, but there was no answer, and later there was a busy signal.

The wave of people and cars was growing as the day went on. At moments it stopped, as if drowsing, only to surge again, with more force. At first the uproar frightened him, but later, watching it entertained him. The eyes, the gestures, the cars, the buildings dizzyingly high, the shop windows, the newsstands, the children passing by him (what were their lives like?), the hard attitude of the people waiting for a bus, gathered for an indecisive attack on the still moving step, already past them as the anguished squeal of the tires grew louder. The stream of traffic, the horns, the wave of people going down into the Metro (where he, of course, did not dare go), the sun at its highest point, the panes of glass one after another like fugitive mirrors.

.   .   .

“That was the city, Mamá. The place my uncle Flaviano once said we didn't have any right to because we were just going to be a nuisance. Remember? You know he never wanted to come. He would rather die without knowing the city than be a nuisance. He was always like that, very dignified. Who would think that Ramona, his oldest daughter, the most spoiled of his twelve children, would die in the city of a very strange death. You didn't talk about it in front of me or else talked in very low voices, but I knew it was very uncommon because Aunt María said, what a peculiar death, poor girl, to end up that way. And I saw my uncle Flaviano cry in a different way. He cried and cried and refused to come to the city to claim the body. Why should I, if she's already dead, he would say. Better to keep her alive in me. So he never knew the city, since that was his best chance. It didn't tempt him, or he was tempted, but held out against it. You know how he is, Mamá.”

.   .   .

He stopped in front of all the shop windows. It was where he lost most of his time. It seemed to him the show windows were more city-like than anything else. On an avenue with palm trees, there was a row of windows with everything imaginable, and some things he had never imagined. He went past them very slowly, taking in every detail. He looked through the windows just as he had looked through the bus window before arriving at the station. With the same eyes and the same astonishment, and it almost seemed to be the same window.

He gave a bill to a beggar woman with a child inside her
rebozo
, one of the last he had left. It was because of the way she looked at him. She said:

“Give me something from that bag you're carrying.”

But he preferred giving her the bill. Then he thought it would have been better to give her a can of juice or one of the
tortas
, but it was too late. There was no way he could ask her for the bill and give her something else in exchange. Anyway, when he turned, she was no longer there, as if she had guessed his change of mind.

When it was afternoon, he came to a narrow, very green street with two lines of foliage joining in the distance. He sat down on the sidewalk and realized how tired he was. The sky's shimmering, cloudy surface was beginning to give way to night. He needed to insist on the phone call, but first he had to rest a little. And eat something. Why had he given her that bill? And where had that woman come from? Maybe from somewhere close to Aguichapan, and she was also looking for a relative. And it was then that hunger hit him.

And what if the same thing happened to him? How would he feel? He took the last
torta
out of the bag and ate it slowly, looking at a large tree that reached out over a high wall to keep him company.

11

A young woman
dialed the number again, but it was still busy.

“Here, you listen,” and she handed the phone to him. He had never talked on the phone, but supposed the repeated sound meant what they were telling him.

“Could you please dial it again for me?” he insisted in a voice that was no longer soft, but breaking.

“It'll be the same. You have to wait a while, see?” and she returned the paper to him.

He went to a park to spend the night. Now he was really sad, much more so than the night before. Although the night before it was as much astonishment or fear as it was sadness. In the park he recognized the old sadness at his side, the same sadness he'd seen grow in Aguichapan.

He remembered that Mamá had told him to change his shirt after two days, and it calmed him to obey her. It was better to do it there in the park and at night, although the cold made him shiver. He had put it on when he felt the cross in the pocket on the left side, the one closer to the heart. It was a small, metal cross with a Christ figure roughly embossed. Was it the one Mamá would put in Papá's knapsack when he went away, without his realizing it, until one day he threw it on the floor and threatened to break it? Although at that moment he thought it was probably one that belonged to his grandmother. Had Mamá put it in because he loved his grandmother? But what if he broke that, too, or lost it? Why had Mamá put in the cross and the virgin? He had a fleeting desire to react like Papá, to throw them away, since they only made him sad. Why would he want to have them with him there, lost in the city?

.   .   .

“Cipriano's daughter. I told you what they told me, Mamá. And what if he really brought her to the city and is living with her? He might even want to go back with her, if he wants to go back. Think about what I'm going to ask you, Mamá: What if Cipriano's daughter came to live with us?”

.   .   .

In Aguichapan, that was what happened to a friend of his, Alino, who lived with his father's two wives. Alino's father worked in buying and selling huge bottles of different colors, called
damajuanas
. But the way things had been going lately, he could not sell any. They saw him coming and going on foot to the villages nearby
because his
burro
died and he could not buy another. He had a long pole across his shoulders with the
damajuanas
tied on, hanging like spheres. One day in May, a new woman arrived in Aguichapan from who knows where, and he moved her into his house as if it were a normal thing, just because he felt like it. Alino told Serafín:

“At first, my mamá put up with it, but now she says she can't stand it any more.”