The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (48 page)

Behind us, people were pushing their way forward. I glanced back and saw that the crowd was not flowerlike at all, but thin and dry as tinder, their eyes alight with a fanatical, incendiary ecstasy of poverty.

My God. Who
were
these people? Their legs were ulcerated, their feet were bare and thickened, their backs were bent from hauling wood or fruit or coffee, but what act of madness might they not be capable of? The guerrillas in the neighboring villages dozing tensely under the dark trees, the children who work the raging fields, the maids, the porters, the farmers, curled up on their beds or straw mats, alert in their sleep, dreaming their dangerous dreams. People who can’t afford a newspaper. People in whose languages no paper will ever be printed, people who couldn’t read one if one
were
printed in their languages—these people who don’t even know there’s a world out there, it’s these people who could burn the world to the ground. Stunted and sloe-eyed, with the delicate, slanting planes of their faces, their brilliant clothing, their ancient, outlandish languages, they seem like strange, magical creatures. But, no! These people have lives that go from one end of the day to the other. They eat or go hungry. They have conversations behind closed doors—

As Sarah and I were thrust out the side door we saw a small knot of soldiers dispersing in the courtyard below us, blending into the crowd. My hands felt weak again, and damp.
Tainted
, I thought;
tainted.
Next to me Sarah picked up a wobbly child who was steadying himself against her knees, and nuzzled his soft, black baby hair, through which I could absolutely
see
the columns of lice tramping. But when I opened my mouth to warn Sarah I could hardly croak.

The baby waved his new little hands for balance—his new little enemy hands. His swimming black baby eyes reflected for an instant, in exquisite miniature, the thousand or so candles, the floating church, the thick, blest, kindled crowd. Which of the reflected men could that baby hope soon to be? Which of the frail old enemy men?

A little girl tugged urgently at Sarah’s skirt and held out her arms to claim her brother as a noise manifested itself at a distance. The noise came toward us slowly, solid and tidal, but separated, as it approached, and we were engulfed in shouts, hoofbeats, chanting, as lanterns and torchlight wavered through smoke and incense.

Facing us, at the head of the mob, two Roman centurions reined in their huge horses to a nervous, hobbled trot. Around them surged the Jerusalemites in their purple satin and Roman foot soldiers holding lances, as well as hundreds of town dwellers in ordinary clothing.

A trumpet sounded, and the edgy crowd fell silent. The sky gleamed black, the moon was streaking through the clouds. Sarah’s pale face narrowed and flashed like a coin, and I had the sensation that if I concentrated I would be able to remember all the events that were to follow—every detail…

And, yes, one of the centurions was already holding out a scroll:
Jesus of Nazareth was condemned to die by crucifixion!
The pronouncement rang out against the stone of the church like something being forged; its echo pulsed in a cataract of silence.

Saturday

Clouds below us, plane not too crowded. Sarah sitting with a book on her lap, gazing out the window, at nothing.

This morning, as we were leaving, it was just as Dot had said it would be. No
alfombras
, no processions, tourists thinning out. No trace whatsoever of the pilgrims in front of the municipal building. Just women in black, privately lamenting Mary’s murdered child. But yesterday—Friday—processions were volatile, grief-stricken, unrelenting: Christ in black, prepared for his death, then Christ on the cross, broken.

Felt v. peculiar—ill-tempered, rattled—all yesterday morning. Suppose from my disorientation of Thurs. night + looming lunch with McGees.

And then—the
Buena Vista
itself!
¡Dios!
Curvy Ladino girls modeling hideous clothing around the pool, children streaking between them, landing in the water with loud splashes, bloodcurdling shrieks. Indian women making tortillas, watching with expressionless sentry eyes. Well-to-do visitors from the capital dispatching slender, olive-skinned sons to the parking lot with little plates of rice and beans for the maids. A species of splotchy, knobby tourists (Evangelicals, apparently; McGee says they get a big price break at the
Buena Vista
) sunning themselves in plastic lounge chairs, laughing loudly and nervily, as though they’d just hoodwinked their way out of prison.

Sarah struggled with her little sink stopper of a steak for a few minutes, then got up and ambled around the lawn, looking unusually pensive. When she sat back down, she started telling the McGees about something she’d seen a few days ago. Had she mentioned it to me? Don’t think so. Said she’d seen three big guys grab a boy as he walked out of a store—nobody was paying attention except for one lady, who was yelling. Then the men bundled the boy up, put him on a truck. “I didn’t really think much about it at the time,” Sarah said. “It was like a tape playing too fast to make any sense of.” She looked from Dot to Cliff. “I suppose I just assumed it was a kid getting picked up for a robbery…”

“Oh, Lord,” Dot said with a sigh.

“Now, Dorothy,” McGee said.

“No, Cliff.” Dot’s voice trembled slightly. “I don’t care. Their poor mothers. You know”—she turned to Sarah—“after the boys are trained, they’re sent to other parts of the country, because it does work out better if they don’t speak the language, doesn’t it? Oh, I know that it’s all necessary, but it’s terribly hard for the families. Their families love them. Their families need them to work.” She turned back to McGee. “I think it’s disgusting, Clifford, frankly.”

McGee lifted his hand for peace. “I never said—” he began, but just at that moment a tall man of thirty-five or so approached. His thatchy hair and matching mustache were the color of dirty Lucite. A large, chipped tooth might have given his smile an agreeable, beaverlike goofiness except for an impression he gave of the veiled, inexhaustible rage you see in certain ex-alcoholics. “Excuse me,” he said. “Do you happen to be Clifford McGee?”

“I am he,” McGee said judiciously, extending his hand.

“My name’s Curtis Finley,” the man said. “I work with your old outfit, and you were pointed out to me once at the Camino.”

“So, they’ve got you down here, do they?” McGee said. “Have a seat. We’re just—what is it they say?—
improving the shining hours.
”

Sarah stood up suddenly, then flopped back down into her chair. Finley glanced at her. “Thank you, sir,” he said to McGee. “Yes, I’ve been here for a bit, now. I’m on my way to supervise a project up north.”

“Really,” McGee said. “A lot going on up there. You’ll have to come by when you get back, let me know how things went. I like to keep up.”

“I imagine you do, sir,” Finley said. “They still talk about you at the office.” The two men smiled at each other, and a faint smell of sweat imprinted itself on the air.

Dot nodded toward Sarah, who was splayed out glumly in her chair. “
This
young lady saw a recruitment the other day,” Dot said.

“Dorothy,” McGee said, as Finley looked sharply at him.

“Those cretins,” Finley said. He turned to me and Sarah, showing his teeth to indicate friendliness. “So, what brings you folks down here?”

“Dennis is a journalist,” Sarah said. She drew herself together and smiled primly.

Finley looked away from her legs. “Recruitments are very unusual here in town,” he told me. “And technically against the law. In fact, as I understand it, something’s being done about them now.”

“I’m not really a
journalist
,” I assured him hurriedly. “I’m just doing food. Hotels, Easter celebrations in a general sort of way…”

“I see…” Finley said.

“Actually,” I said, “I’m a banker.”

“Oh.” Finley looked at McGee.

“No,” Dot said. “You see, Dennis is doing the most marvelous thing—he’s writing a nationally syndicated article about Holy Week. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Finley frowned. “Oh.” He showed his teeth again. “Well, how are you enjoying it? Beautiful town, isn’t it?”

McGee shifted in his chair. “We’re taking these two to the de Leóns’ tonight, for dinner,” he said. “They’re old friends, and the cook does wonderful things with regional produce.”

“Oh, yes.” Finley looked at me with vague bitterness. “Interesting fellow, de León. Never met him personally. Good morning, isn’t he?”

“Pardon?” I said.

“Good morning,” McGee said. “You’ve seen them in the supermarkets. Oranges, grapefruits. Even some bananas with the little sticker that says—”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Of course. Good Morning!”

“Yes,” McGee said. “that’s de León. Good Morning! Oranges, Good Morning! Grapefruits. Coffee’s his main thing, but he’s all over the place now, really.”

“Had some trouble with a son, I remember hearing,” Finley said.

McGee nodded. “A bad patch. Over now.”

“Kid had one wicked case of red-ass, as I heard it,” Finley said. He turned to Sarah. “If you’ll pardon me.”

“Excuse me?” Sarah said with a misty smile. “Sorry, I wasn’t really…Oh, Mr. Finley, do you happen to know what this pretty vine is?” She pointed to an arborlike construction above us.

“Curtis,” Finley said. He peered overhead, then looked at Sarah. “Vine?”

“I think,” Dot said, squinting distantly, “that the rain is going to come early this year. Last night I saw lightning from over by the coast.”

McGee smiled comfortably. “Same family as the Japanese wisteria,” he said.

Later Sarah hunched over in the big chair in our room, hugging her knees while I walked back and forth.

“Just because a fellow doesn’t happen to recognize one particular plant,” I said, “does not mean he’s some kind of
impostor.
”

Sarah sighed noisily.

“Well, after all,” I said. “But, besides. I think one has to ask oneself what, in all honesty, are the alternatives.”

“What on earth are you saying, Dennis?” Sarah said.

Mustn’t let Sarah force me into positions—her willful naïveté, threat of shrillness. Always have to remember to relax, keep perspective. Allow her to relax. Tried to point out calmly that, whatever one thinks of this method or that, people’s goals tend to be—on a certain basic level—the same. “We all want life to improve for everyone; we’re all struggling, in our own ways, to make things better. Yes, even people who differ from us can be sincere, Sarah—I mean, unless you’re talking about a few greed-maddened dictators. Psychopaths, like Hitler, or Idi Amin. Sociopaths, I guess, is what the word is now. Is that what they say in your classes, ‘sociopaths’?”

Sarah gazed down at her sandaled toes and wiggled them.

“But it’s funny,” I said, perching next to her on the arm of the chair. “Isn’t it? The way terminology can change like that. It must reflect a wholesale shift in the way moral reasoning, or whatever, is perceived to work. I think it’s so interesting, that, don’t you? They used to say ‘psychopaths’ when I was young.”

Sarah wiggled her toes again. “Isn’t it wonderful,” she leaned down to say to them, “the way that bogus agronomists are crawling all over the place, struggling to improve life for everyone?

“Oh, yes, Sarah,” she answered herself in a crumply little voice. “Deeply heartwarming. But that word ‘agronomist’—I think the word you want is ‘agriculturalist,’ interestingly. You know, when I was just a
little
toe—”

“Oh, Sarah,” I said.

“Ex
cuse
me, Dennis.” Sarah looked at me icily. “I was talking to my
foot.
”

For the rest of the afternoon, we were very, very cautious with one another. Was dreading dinner. But Sarah was on her good behavior, or a variant of it. Was weirdly tractable, polite. Just as well, especially because the de Leóns turned out to be exactly what one would have expected—exactly what one would have feared.

The Sra. steely in linen and small gold earrings. The Sr. somewhat more appealing. Handsome, very Spanish, melancholy. Obvious habit of power; cordiality engineered to infinitesimal degrees of correctness. Daughter, Gabriela, petite like mother. Pure, unclouded face, whispery clothing—quite taken with Sarah; many limpid smiles. Missed the States, she said, her friends from boarding school in Connecticut. Threatened “So much to talk about.” All three excellent English.

Maids, passing out hors d’oeuvres and cocktails—rum + Good Morning! fruit juices. Gigantic house, huge collection of antique Indian textiles, pre-Columbian artifacts, splendid colonial furnishings, etc. Evening inexplicably slippery at first—odd tides of dusk from the series of enclosed patios and gardens flowing around the bulky forms inside. Everyone floating a bit, like particles dislodging themselves from something underwater, which was my mind.

Found Sarah in a hallway, staring at a row of photographs. From behind, I watched her examining the face of a beautiful young man, pale, black-haired, who was staring into the camera with an expression of sardonic resignation.