Lost in the City: Tree of Desire and Serafin (2 page)

She went to her bedroom and, taking off her nightgown, looked in the closet for a dress and some shoes. In the bathroom she
splashed some warm water on her face. She went back to brush her hair in front of the light walnut vanity. (Her grandmother had left the bedroom furniture to her, and the moment she saw herself in the vanity mirror, knowing it belonged to her, she felt she was no longer the same, that time was doing a somersault and putting her somewhere else, ahead of or behind the place she had always been.) With a plastic clip in the shape of a tiny flower, she caught up the lock of hair that fell across her forehead and looked at herself sideways, smiling, as always, when she finished dressing. She made her bed and put a rag doll with long hair on the pillows.

“I'm going away, Virginia, take care of yourself.”

She went into Joaquín's room and felt the most afraid while watching him sleep. Strength seemed to be leaving her body. Maybe it would be better to wait . . . sleep a while longer, to see what was happening when she woke up . . . But no. It was settled. Period. She touched the child's shoulder gently.

The boy moved around in his bed, squirming and pushing the covers with his feet. Cristina patted his shoulder.

“Come on, honey, we have to go.”

He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyelids, not understanding, as if opening his eyes for the very first time. His sister picked him up, put him on a chair, and started unbuttoning his pajamas.

“Where's my mamá?”

“She went away,” Cristina answered, taking off his shirt.

“Where did she go?”

“I don't know. You and I are going away, too.”

“And my papá?”

“He's gone away, too.”

The child said “Oh,” and let her take him to the bathroom, where his sister washed his face, put some pants and a clean shirt on him, and combed his hair, making a perfect part on one side. Then they went to the kitchen, and Cristina put a pan with two eggs on the stove to boil and poured two glasses of milk. The child looked at her surprised.

“Are we going to school?”

“No.”

“Where are we going, Sissy?”

“You'll see,” Cristina replied, breaking the shell of an egg with the edge of a spoon.

“I want to go to school.”

“Here, drink this.”

He obeyed. Cristina wiped off his mouth, and then put the cups and glasses in the sink and the bottle of milk in the refrigerator.

“Let's go.”

“I'm going to get Lucas.”

“You're not going to take Lucas.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

The child let out such a shrill scream Cristina had to close her eyes sadly and ask herself if it wouldn't be better to give up, to play with Lucas, too, to open the new jar of preserves. They had just given her a very beautiful game of Chinese checkers. Mamá and Papá would come back, they were so good . . . but no (and no), she raised her hand to quiet her brother and, above all, to stop the temptations that doubt was awakening in her.

“O.K., take him. But we have to go now.”

The cry—that betrayed a real tragedy—dissolved in a moment and left eyes full of sparks, as if a thick cloud had swiftly crossed the sun. Joaquín came back from the roof garden with a broad smile, carrying the cat by its back with his hand like a set of small tongs.

“I've already told you not to carry him that way. You're going to kill him.”

“He likes it.”

“What a boy!”

She went to her bedroom for coats and sweaters and—she had almost forgotten it—took a ten-peso bill from the back of a drawer beneath her underwear. She put it carefully in her small red purse, which she wore across her chest like a cartridge belt.

Opening the door to the street, she knew she would never come back there. “Some day one has to leave,” she told herself.

3

They went out
into a sunny morning. Cristina was seeing things as if for the first time, with the sense of creating the world. Before crossing each street, she waited until no car was coming, looking nervously one way and then the other. Then she ran, holding the child by the arm and stopping when they reached the sidewalk, as if it were a recently won beachhead.

“Are we going to school?”

“I've already told you we're not going to school”—the tone of her voice rising—“and carry that cat carefully.”

They got to Insurgentes Avenue and stopped at the corner. Cristina was looking at the buses streaming by in front of her, wondering which one she should take. She had gone to Alicia's house with Mamá so many times. Why hadn't she paid attention to the names of things then? Why hadn't she thought she would need to go there someday alone? Now it seemed so hard to remember . . . She took a chance with a very serious-looking lady who was protecting herself from the sun with a brilliantly colored parasol. She looked at them surprised from her square of shade, as if from far away, and asked about their mother. Cristina replied that they were just going to meet her, and chose to walk to the next block to get away from the woman (she had such eyes . . .).

When the bus stopped, she ran to get on it. First she pushed the child on by his waist, and then she got on herself. But she faced a finger moving from side to side like a windshield wiper.

“That cat can't get on,” the driver said firmly.

“It's Lucas,” Joaquín explained.

A very tall, smiling man took his hand off the chrome bar, stroked the child's head, and then looked at Cristina.

“Please, Mister,” Cristina begged the driver.

“Animals can't get on. Come on, get down,” and he started to move the gear shift.

Cristina got off first, thinking it would be easier to lift Joaquín down afterward. But he was afraid to jump down from the platform—before the anguished cry of his sister—and the cat must have caught his fright because it slipped out of his arms and ran
down the aisle of the bus with Joaquín behind it. Cristina was in the street, with her hand out, pleading, and the last things she could hear were her brother's cries, mixed with the even sharper shrieks of a woman probably terrified by the presence of the animal. An instant later, she saw the red stripe pass in front of her like the flash from a gun, and the roar of the motor was again deafening.

“Joaquín!”

The world spun around dizzily, and everything seemed senseless. She ran with the conviction that if she lost her brother, she would throw herself under the wheels of the next passing car. A cry within drowned her voice:

“Joaquín!”

But the bus stopped in the middle of the block. The air could be breathed again. Cristina saw the tall man who had stroked his hair descend and receive Joaquín and the cat in his arms. He settled them carefully on the sidewalk, smiled and waved good-bye to Cristina, and got back on.

Their coats had fallen, and she had to go back to get them. Then, although still panting and crying, she hugged her brother.

“He scratched a lady,” Joaquín informed her, stroking Lucas' head gently.

“Well, I'm sick and tired of your blasted cat. Didn't you see how I ran behind the bus? I almost died . . . What if I'd never seen you again?”

“Oh.”

“Besides, they're not going to let us get on with him. Understand?”

The child raised his free hand to his eyes, and his lips became round, but he stopped when he heard his sister's threat:

“Look, if you cry, I'm going to hit you . . . hard, Joaquín.”

4

They found a solution:
put the cat in a plastic bag Cristina got out of a trash can. She would carry it herself, hidden under the coats.

She waited for a bus that was not too full and put Joaquín on first; he never took his eyes off the swinging bag his sister was carrying.

“Hang on really tight to this bar. Here, keep still,” she ordered as she gave the ten-peso bill to the driver. She put away the tickets and the change, six silver coins jingling together making quite a noise, with so many. Lucas moved around in the bag, and Joaquín looked at it caressingly. He stayed firmly attached to the bar with both hands, as if clinging to a topmast in a heavy storm.

“Get on, get on!” the driver shouted. “There's room in the rear!”

Then Lucas escaped from the bag with a leap and a meow, as if they had kept him under water for a long time. He ran down the aisle again between cries of fright and laughter.

“He's our cat,” Cristina told the driver.

“Go get him.” Without looking at her, he began to speed up.

“Can we stay?”

He didn't answer and, preferring not to insist, she went with Joaquín to find Lucas.

They ran the gauntlet of piercing looks and found the cat crouched with flaming eyes underneath the last seat.

“Get that thing out of here!” ordered the woman who, until the moment before his arrival, had been seated where Lucas was, and who was now swaying dangerously with a basket on her arm, grasping for the bar and catching only air.

“He's going to scratch you! He's frantic!” a shrill voice cried from a nearby seat.

However, Joaquín disappeared under the seat, as if diving into a swimming pool, and came up all smiles, holding Lucas up high.

“I told you not to pick him up that way!” Cristina protested and took advantage of the incident to occupy the two seats, in the face of the murderous looks of the woman with the basket.

Joaquín insisted on occupying the window seat, but his sister explained she had to watch the streets to avoid going too far. So he climbed on top of her, because he wanted to look out and show things to Lucas—whom he was carrying with both hands, as if he were a baby—“Look, a bicycle, a dog, a popsicle cart,” with a peal of laughter for each discovery. Cristina told herself, Patience, Cristina, and decided to put him on her lap and continue the game, showing amusement at his discoveries.

For a while nobody occupied the next seat (the woman with the
basket had found one farther up), so she put the coats there. She had to move them when a very fair, blonde woman, wearing a black suit and smelling of perfume, asked:

“May I sit here, little girl?”

So Cristina put everything on her knees. The woman gave her a friendly smile that the girl ignored.

“Do you know where to get off?” Cristina nodded her head without taking her eyes off the window. The boy, on the other hand, exchanged smiles with the woman, who ended up patting his cheek with the tips of her fingers.

“What a handsome boy. And what a pretty cat,” although she did not dare pat it.

“He's Lucas,” Joaquín told her.

“Lucas? Like the one in the comics?”

“No. Another Lucas.”

“Where are you going, child?”

The boy looked at his sister.

“Keetee knows.”

“How old are you?”

With difficulty, the boy managed to separate four fingers and hold them up.

“This much.”

“And your sister?”

The child looked at his hands, helpless. Cristina pointed out a motorcycle to distract him. The woman's interest bothered her. What business was it of hers? The boy let himself be intrigued by the attractions outside and forgot their neighbor, who became silent and looked straight ahead. When she got off, Cristina sighed with relief. The seat was occupied by a large man, who began reading his paper.

As they went farther along, Cristina's anxiety increased. How far should they go? And had they passed Sanborn's, the only reference point she remembered? Why did everything—every wall, every house, every store—look strange to her?

When she saw Sanborn's, she jumped and cried, “There it is,” pointing her finger at it. The boy was startled and didn't know where to look. Stumbling, Cristina got up, dragging Joaquín along.
The man reading the paper grunted as he watched them climb over him. The bus was full, and it was hard to move forward. Fortunately, there was still a block to go. Cristina asked a young man to pull the stop cord and, in a commanding tone, told Joaquín not to let go of her. Joaquín answered yes to everything, staggering, his eyes frightened. With one hand he held Lucas tightly, and with the other he clutched his sister's dress as she pulled him along or pushed him back brusquely. At a sudden jolt they almost fell, and Lucas meowed because Joaquín was smothering him. The door produced a blast of air as it opened. A huge, protecting hand reached over to support them and then help them get off, holding the child (and the cat) while Cristina jumped to the sidewalk. Cristina called out “Thanks,” but couldn't see the face.

5

It was very early;
Alicia would be in school until one o'clock, and they had to pass some time. There was a park on the other side of the street, and Cristina waited for the red light before crossing. She sat on a bench while the boy played with Lucas on the grass, rolling over, laughing, and meowing together as if they were two boys or two cats. Christina told him, Don't do that, be careful not to get dirty, but it was useless, and she didn't insist. She sat with her hands in her lap, looking up and thinking. If she could get some money, they would go far away, as far away as possible. She had to see how much Alicia had. She had offered it to her: when you need it, I've kept my allowance for a year. Alicia was her best friend. Once they had sworn friendship until death. Or beyond death. They had written their pact on a piece of paper and signed it with a mixture of their blood, the way they had seen it done in a film they'd watched together.

Joaquín's cry roused her. Cristina ran to him and took Lucas down from the tree an instant before he would have been dead.

“Joaquín!”

“I couldn't get him down.” He wept and covered the cat with kisses and saliva.

“Where did you get this cord!”

“It was here.”

“But why did you hang him?”

“He wanted me to.”

“What a child, I'm fed up with you.” And she pulled him over to a bench. A little later Joaquín was asleep on her lap, hugging Lucas. Cristina shielded his eyes from the sun and looked at him for a long time, her eyes smiling.