Still Life with Plums (7 page)

Everyone gratefully agreed, and when I led them to the alcove, Uncle Eliseo smoothed the ripple of my fear when he said, “It is good. It would not do to have the household running on top of him just now.” We led him to the couch, and Uncle Luis pushed on Hector’s collar bone so he would sit, which he did, with his knees pressed tight together and his arms at his sides.

This was how I found him when I brought his evening tray. Candles flickered in the breeze of my entrance. I saw their reflection in the hand mirror, but not in Hector’s waxy eyes. The only thing I could think to do was nudge his shoulder so he might lie down. In one stiff movement he tipped over, but still with his body pressed into a tight Z. I angled him more evenly on the sofa and covered him for sleep.

For four days he slept just like that. No one dared to wake him, though we wanted to hug him, and cry for him, and rub on the jojoba salve Aunt Tulia sent all the way from Amarillo—Federal Express—and you know that wasn’t cheap! Not even the dog went near Hector, and she begged scraps from anyone.

When I returned from work each day I asked María, “Did he move?”

“No.”

“Is he still breathing?”

“Yes.”

“This can’t be good for his kidneys.”

“No, but what would you have us do?”

I didn’t know, so finally I asked Carmelita, “Should we wake him?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But he must take liquids soon.”

“Yes.” I reached in the cabinet for the tallest glass and filled it with water.

“Wait,” Carmelita said, and stirred in a spoonful of honey. “It’s something, at least.”

I carried the glass like an offering, followed by Carmelita, who wiped her hands on an apron though there was no need. For the first time since Hector’s arrival I noticed how quiet the house was. “Where are the children?” I said. And when I saw Hector’s untouched lunch tray, “And Gringa the dog?”

“María keeps them outside all day,” Carmelita said. “Every time the children come in they remember about Hector and hide. Lupé even got his head caught under the kitchen sink.”

Cousin Hector still had not moved, so I knelt beside him. Palming his shoulder I gave a nudge so slight I wasn’t even sure I’d done it, but Hector’s eyes popped open like he’d been waiting for someone to do just that. He still did not meet his good eye with ours, but when I slipped my hand behind his back to raise him, he did not resist. And when I held the glass to his lips, he drank. I turned to smile at Carmelita, but she had already rushed to the kitchen to heat up chicken broth.

So began Hector’s slow conformation to the patterns of the house. Sleep when it is dark. Awake when it is light. During the day he sat rigid on his sofa, rising only to go to the bathroom with the uncles’ assistance. Everyday we took turns sweet-talking and coaxing.
“Would you like to go outside, Hector? To the movies? En Español. How about some ice cream?” Hector would not go outside, but eventually he did take meals with the family, though he ate very little, and always slipped a buttered tortilla into his pants pocket to hide under his sofa. Pocked María scooped them out each morning when he left the room, but no one had the heart to tell him to stop, not even the uncles, who thought wasting food was a venial sin at least.

The children grew accustomed to this new uncle. They no longer hid, and even crouched outside his door sliding metal cars and plastic dolls across the floor into his foot to see if he would move, say a word, blink. I scolded when I found them, but not until the last toy slid, because I hoped their game would work.

And one day it did, which scattered the children back into hiding, and made me freeze in an awkward position. When the ceramic burro hit his foot, Hector tilted his head down and watched it skid across the floor and rest under the candelabras. He rose and walked toward it, no longer with don Migalito’s popping knees, more like a shuffle, as if the weight of each foot was just too much. He bent to retrieve the blue burro, and a red Matchbox car, a rubber dog bone, a Barbie leg, and held them to his chest and stood face to face with all those pictures he had not seen before. Clutching the toys to his concave belly with one hand, he traced the grid between the pictures with the other, careful not to touch one shiny edge. Underneath each photo his finger paused. I waited to see what he would do at Patricia, but his pause was no longer or shorter for her than for anyone else. I thought,
He does not know!

When I brought this up to the uncles, Paolo twisted the worn gold band on his thick finger and said, “You think he is ready to work?”

Luis cleared his throat and said, “Yes, now maybe he is.”

“Uncles,” I said. “Didn’t you hear me? I don’t think Cousin Hector knows about his disappeared wife!”

I looked at the uncles and there was an unbearable pause when their eyes bruised back to the moment when they realized their own horrible losses. Then suddenly, almost in unison, they shook it off and Uncle Paolo said, “He may not even remember he
had
a wife. Does that mean he cannot push a broom? I am sixty-seven and I push a broom.”

I dropped my arms to my sides with a smack. How did they think Hector could push a broom? He barely left his alcove, which worried me because he was turning the color of Mr. Velázquez’s cataracts.

“Uncles,” I said, forcing calm. “Let me tend to him awhile longer. Take him outside in the sun. Work his muscles so he can push a
big
broom for you. Maybe even run heavy machinery.”

The uncles rubbed their scratchy beards, nodding, until Uncle Eliseo said, “Yes, he will work better once his body is built back. Not like us,” he indicated their three sagging, purple-veined bodies. “It will be good to have a strong man working for the house.”

Now each afternoon before removing my smock, I inserted my arm into Hector’s like a key and pulled him outside. It was difficult at first. He had to shield his eyes from the sun, and his weighted feet scraped noisily across the ground. But our circuit grew daily, from the porch, to the mailbox, to the street sign on the corner, even to Mango’s tipping, straw hat.

When Hector wasn’t walking he stared at the alcove walls. At the pictures, I mean, for hours and hours. Every time I peeked in to say Good night, Hector; Good morning, Hector; Time for our walk; he was standing there, facing the walls, with his arms at his sides, looking. He even moved the candelabras so he could stare up close.

“That’s something,” Carmelita once said, tapping her head. “It shows that even if he isn’t talking, he’s thinking up there.”

And I guess he was, because one evening I saw him nose-to-nose
with his Patricia. He even pressed his forehead against her glossy finish.

At night, in bed, while the household slept, I could feel Felipe’s arms around me, his warm breath on my neck. I would wait for Carmelita to snore like a creaking mattress spring and then, in my lowest voice, I would tell my husband the events of the day: Lupé lost a tooth; Uncle Luis backed into the fire hydrant again; Hector polished his shoes with just a little help from me. One night Felipe squeezed me tight and said, “That’s good, Ana. But don’t forget that I need you, that your children need you, too.”

“Never,” I said. “I could never forget that.”

Then he stroked my hair until I, too, snored like a creaking spring.

On a Sunday in May Hector and I walked my route to the gallery. It was only a destination; we hadn’t meant to go inside. But sitting on the doorstep was Widow Greenbaum, her head wrapped in the orange scarf she always wore. She had a pickle in her mouth and was drawing on the sidewalk—right on concrete!

She withdrew the pickle as we approached. “Look who is coming to visit on such a pretty day,” she said. It wasn’t always easy to understand her. Learning English was difficult enough, but hearing it strained through a Polish tongue was most frustrating.

“Ana!” she said, rising to greet me. “I was just—” She stopped when she saw Hector and the pickle fell right out of her hand, hitting the sidewalk with a dull thwack. Then she stepped right past me and stood before Hector.

“Poor angel,” she said. “What have they done to you?” She cupped his face in her tiny Polish hands. Hector only stared straight ahead and let her do it. Then she pulled a hanky from her sleeve and loudly blew her nose. From the other sleeve she produced a Snickers bar and handed it to Hector, who promptly slid it inside his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “He does the same at home.”

“Don’t apologize, Ana,” she said.
“This
I understand. Now come inside and let me feed you.” She took Hector’s wrist and poked a finger into his belly. “Such skin-and-bones,” she said, and led him into the gallery.

I’m no artist, but I could never comprehend the paintings hanging on those walls. Giant naked ladies with green faces and purple breasts. Men with huge feet and tiny heads—no fig leafs there! One painting was totally black. I swear on my dead mother’s braid it was two meters by two meters of nothing but black. But hey, like I said, I’m no artist.

Widow Greenbaum sat Hector on a stool by the rhododendron. “I have some nice Gouda and a tin of sardines,” she said. “Oh! And somewhere there is a box of shortbread cookies.” She scurried to the kitchenette and Hector popped right off his stool and went for those paintings. He stood in front of one I bet five minutes. Five minutes to look at blue and yellow blobs. Finally I joined him and craned my neck. “What is it you see in there, Hector?” He kept on staring just like at the pictures at home. Blue and yellow blobs. That’s all.

Widow Greenbaum returned with a cheese- and fruit-laden tray. “Ah,” she said. “It’s one of my favorites, too.”

Then Hector moved to a different painting. Purple streaks with green, the paint all mixed together as if the artist couldn’t be bothered to clean his brush. But Hector inspected it as intently as the first.

It was difficult to pull him away from the gallery.

“Come again anytime,” Widow Greenbaum yelled to Hector as we hurried off toward home.

I guess the uncles were impressed with Hector’s progress, because one night I found a folded section of newspaper beside the toilet. Uncle Paolo left his reading material behind. I only meant to retrieve it, but the red circles made me read: WANTED: MANUAL LABORER. NO SPECIAL SKILLS. DUTIES INCLUDE HEAVY
LIFTING; WANTED: COOK. NO EXP. NECC. BENITO’S BURRITOS; WANTED: BOUNCER. HOURS 9 P.M. - 2 A.M. EVE’S EDEN. The last one scared me so much I had bad dreams that night. They all involved Hector flipping burgers at a—I’m too embarrassed to say where.

When I was leaving for work the next morning, Hector got up from his couch, without prodding, and put on his coat. I said, “No Hector, this is not our walk. I have to go to work. Trabajar.” As I closed the door behind me I felt bad, but what could I do? It wasn’t until Mango’s nursery that I recognized Hector’s scraping. And sure enough, when I turned around, there he was, heading toward me. “No Hector,” I said, “Work!” But he wouldn’t stop, and really, I was so proud of his initiative I didn’t have the heart to send him back. Even Mango tipped his hat and said, “He’s looking much better these days, Ana. But I would too under your care.”

When we got to the gallery I sat him on the stool and told him, “Stay,” just like I might tell Gringa the dog.

Of course you know he did not stay. He went right to those paintings. I shook my head and said, “Okay, but don’t touch,” and went off to find Widow Greenbaum.

She was sitting on a stool on top of a rickety table in the studio, her pant legs rolled up to her knees. Seven students sat or stood behind wooden easels frantically sketching Widow Greenbaum’s feet, her toenails painted shiny as red Christmas balls.

“Two minutes,” she said to the students, and then she saw me peering in the doorway. “Yes, Ana.”

The students swiveled toward me, but immediately returned to their drawings.

“It’s Hector,” I whispered, pointing back to the gallery. “He’s with me.”

“It’s good,” she said. “It was for him I made this gallery.”

I nodded, puzzled, and backed into the hall.

From then on Hector accompanied me to work. The uncles weren’t pleased, but I told them it was practice for when he got a job of his own. And really, it was like his work. Each day Hector moved from painting to painting, staring sometimes seven minutes without blinking—I know because I timed it.

You’d think his legs would tire after so much standing, but they didn’t, I guess, because as soon as we got home he headed straight for his alcove to resume the staring. Only this time it was into a wall crowded with faces. Sometimes the uncles peered in, shook their heads, and shuffled back down the hall.

A few weeks later while I was scrubbing the gallery’s kitchenette Widow Greenbaum hollered from the studio, “Ana, please bring me a hanger from the cloak room.”

I hated going into the studio while the students worked. Something about their scrunched faces made me nervous. I was glad when Hector followed, though he stood just outside the door. He wouldn’t go in where the pupils were noisily setting up sketch pads and tool boxes. Widow Greenbaum was talking, hands flapping, to a woman I’d never seen. She was swathed from neck to ankles in peach cloth. Her skin was the color of cocoa powder from the can. I thought surely if I blew across her cheek she would swirl away.

Widow Greenbaum motioned me toward them. “Ana,” she said, “this is our new model, Maranga. She speaks very little English.” I nodded and she smiled. Then she looked at Widow Greenbaum who nodded as well.

Maranga turned away from us, untucked one end of her wrap, and it fell noiselessly to the floor. When she turned back around I noticed the taut skin over her stomach which was ripe with a child. She tried to bend and retrieve her wrap, but couldn’t, so she let out a laugh that was smooth, like water sliding over pebbles.

I stooped to collect the peach fabric and hung it carefully over the hanger.

Aqua blue fabric was nailed to the ceiling, spilled down the wall and across the floor. Widow Greenbaum led Maranga to a stool in the middle of all that color.
Madonna
, I thought, and tried to move, but I couldn’t stop marveling at the beauty of this woman. The yellow-rose color of the palms of her hands, the soles of her feet. The white shine on the bulge of her stomach. Hector was watching, too, with his head tilted down, but his eyes aimed up. Widow Greenbaum slowly circled Maranga, pushing a shoulder, arranging a hand. “May I?” she asked before touching her stomach. Maranga smiled and nodded. Widow Greenbaum placed her hands on each side and began to gently feel the shape. “Beautiful,” she said, and I felt a twinge in my own belly, or an ache. Suddenly I felt like a bitter wind could blow clean through me. I grabbed Hector’s wrist and tried to pull him away but he wouldn’t move. “Come on, Hector,” I said, “We mustn’t disturb them.”
Still
he would not budge. “Hector!” I said, then Maranga said something I didn’t understand. Widow Greenbaum translated, “She says he may stay if he likes.” So I dropped Hector’s arm and left them to their work while I attended to mine.