The Ladies of Managua (11 page)

Which is terrible, I know. My mom's made history with her life, she's literally building a nation every day, and my highest ambition is, what—to be a handmaiden to a great artist? His most valuable audience member? I never tell anyone how I feel about Allen. I don't even tell him. But his world is so appealing, it's where I want to live. There's no fear, there's no anxiety, there's just wonder. I used to hide negative reviews of his shows—there was a bit of a backlash after his last painting sold for so much. And then he picked up a pile of take-out menus and other papers from my desk and found a review, read it, shrugged, and said, “You liked the painting, didn't you?” And after I nodded, “How's the new Thai place? Do they give you those ginger candies at the end? I'm always picking them out of my teeth three days later but I just can't get enough of them.”

I'm sure it puts some people off, the way he obviously feels so damn at home in the world. It did me, if only for a second. The first day I met him, he walked into the gallery, not bothering to stop at the desk, and strode straight up to one of his paintings, which we'd displayed on a wall of its own. I dutifully walked up next to him and said, “Let me know if I can help you with anything, sir,” and he said, “Don't call me ‘sir,'” without even looking at me. Which, if I'd known who he was, I might have taken as humble or charming, but since I didn't, and he didn't even bother to take his eyes off the painting to acknowledge the presence of another human being, it just seemed rude. “Then, let me know if I can help you with anything, dude,” I said, before I could think better of it. And he laughed so loudly and so hard that I had to shush him. That's when he looked at me and asked what I thought of the painting. I told him the truth, that I found it amazing. That I'd heard people say they didn't know what all the fuss was about, it looked like something their five-year-old could do. But that I felt that's exactly why it was a masterpiece. It was so bold, so bright. It looked like the person who created it had discovered only the beauty of life and not yet encountered the sorrow.

“Wow,” he said. And I realized that the man in front of me resembled the photo of the artist on the back of the brochure, only he was much older. “Are you related to the artist?” I asked, and he laughed again. “His brother?”

“I guess it's time to update the photo on my bio.” He barely managed to articulate the words, he was laughing so hard. I could feel the heat rising from my neck and knew I needed to get out of there before I blushed noticeably. “If I had that much money to spend on a painting, I'd much rather buy it from you than this guy,” I said, shaking the brochure in my hand. “This kid looks like kind of a jerk.” I think that between laughing and gasping for air Allen said, “He probably was,” but I'm not sure. I was already halfway back to my desk by the time he spoke.

Even tonight, when I first saw him walk into the funeral home, I couldn't help but stand up, and I knew it was joy lifting me out of my chair. It took me a minute to remember how hurt I am that he can't get it together to focus on me, on us, now when we need to find some answers that can't wait any longer. The truth is, there's still part of me that feels that this is all my fault. I shouldn't have said anything before I left. I should have made a decision on my own, or waited until I got back to bring it up again, should have bided my time for the right moment, when his painting was going well, but not so well that he could think of nothing else. But I just couldn't wait. Sometimes you have to think of the future, make a choice one way or the other, and live with the consequences.

Or maybe you don't. Allen's been living in the now for almost half a century. Still, I'm starting to think that existing solely in the moment is a privilege reserved for geniuses, millionaires, and the wildly self-possessed. Men, mainly. Guess what, John Donne? Some men
are
an island.

It's not just men, though. The truth is, my mother is just as self-sustaining as Allen. And here I thought only men had to worry about dating their mothers. Maybe Madre fainted because when Allen showed up she sensed that someone as self-focused as she is had just entered the room, and she's more comfortable with the idea of me living in her long shadow than in his.

The worst part is that Allen knows me better than I do myself. He knew I'd be pleased to see him, at least on some level. That's what finally helped me stoke the anger that had been lying dormant in the pit of my stomach, that smug expression on his face. He walked in, the only gringo in a room full of Nicas, the only person here besides the waiters who never met Abuelo, and he didn't look out of place at all. He looked proud of himself, so sure that his arrival was some romantic, big-screen overture, Rhett Butler buying back Tara, or John Cusack standing outside in the rain, holding up a boom box. He was actually reaching his arms out to embrace me when I whisper-spat, “What are you doing here?”

That's when he looked past me, saw the body of my grandfather lying in state, the eyes of countless relatives staring at him, wondering what his last name was, and his mother's maiden name, and her parents' names and their parents' names and who was he, and what did he want, and should they call for the caretaker? When he must have realized that perhaps he wasn't the director of this movie after all.

“How did you even get here?” I grabbed his wrist and pulled him out of the center of the room, closer to the wall, as if that would somehow make people stop staring at us. And then I added the first idiotic thought that rose in my head: “You don't take connecting flights.”

“I do if it's important,” he said, and I softened a little, so that my hand around his wrist was less of a handcuff, more of a handhold. “And it was only an hour layover in Houston. I read
The New Yorker
on your laptop. I thought you might need it.”

I had realized that I'd forgotten my laptop on his bedside table the night before last, while packing for my flight to Miami, but I wasn't about to go back and get it after the way I left his apartment, clutching my pride to my chest like it was an insufficient winter coat. I tried to tell myself it was a good thing I didn't bring the computer with me. After all, last time I was in Managua my BlackBerry had been stolen off the table in a restaurant where I'd stupidly left it when I went to the bathroom. I told myself it would be better to be unplugged, so that I would be forced to think, to make plans, without the distractions of Twitter or Facebook. But still I felt calmer, somehow, knowing that this link to my life in New York was here with me again. I felt less alone.

“I went to your mother's office first—it was the only Managua address you had in your contacts,” he said. “The girl at the desk told me that she'd be here. I mean, that you'd be here. She even got me a cab.”

I dropped my hand from his wrist. Allen always got what he wanted from the pretty girl sitting at the reception desk. Thinking of Madre's secretary made me wonder who'd made his plane reservation. I hoped that he'd had to do it himself, that his assistant wasn't back from vacation yet; if he'd asked Katie to book a last-minute flight to Managua, she would have gotten way too excited, thinking that he was planning to propose. Or maybe I was getting ahead of myself, maybe she would find it normal, him coming to comfort me when I needed support. Maybe I was the one misreading the situation, overdramatizing everything.

“We need to talk about this more, Maria,” Allen said. Even now when he says my name I hear the
West Side Story
cast recording in the background.
Say it soft and it's almost like praying.
But even though he was saying it soft, his prayer felt like an intrusion. He needed to talk about this more, just when I needed this time not to talk.

“I know how busy you are,” I said, trying to sound like my mother when I'd sit in her office over school breaks, listening to her speaking on the phone to some important official in a tone that clearly implied there was no way he—it was usually a he—could be as busy as she was. “But I think it's fair to insist that this can wait until after they bury my grandfather.”

It was the perfect thing to say. Elegant. Mature. Concise. But I guess it was too perfect, because when I'd finished speaking in cool, measured tones, making a statement there was no way he could respond to appropriately, even though he's older, smarter, and so much more talented than I am, he stood there for a moment, saying nothing, his mouth slightly open like when he's deep into a painting. Then I leaned toward him, pressing my advantage, adding, “That's not too much to ask, is it?”

And he stepped backward, into a black-vested waiter who tripped and dropped his silver tray, splashing bright red, chemical-smelling soda through the air and onto the floor so that when it met his poignantly shined shoe he slid, falling on his backside, hitting the door with his shoulder, and the clanging tray and shattering glass and slamming door combined into one horrible banging noise. But somehow, after it happened, no one was looking at the poor waiter, as he made his way back to his feet, rubbing his elbow. Everyone but the embarrassed waiter was motionless, staring at the back of the room, and when I looked there, too, I saw my nephews, or the closest thing I have to nephews, standing over the fallen body of my mother. In the next second, an entire phalanx of the foreign ministry moved toward her as if they were executing choreography; even the wounded waiter rushed to her side.

For a split second, I was worried, too. I wasn't yet annoyed or conflicted, wasn't dividing my anger between two worthy targets. I still hadn't thought about what caused her to faint, and how weird it was that she did so, just at that moment, too, as opposed to when she first saw her dead father's body laid out in his casket. I hadn't yet absorbed how strange it was that she'd fainted at all, when I'd never known her to do so. That was more my MO. That time I broke my arm in gym class, I passed out from the pain. Staring at my mother lying on the floor, I hadn't remembered the hospital yet, or the cracking sound when the doctor rebroke my arm, manipulating it back into place. I was just grateful to her for the diversion, for emphasizing the point that I had too much to deal with right at this moment to spend any time straightening out my love life, figuring out my future. Our future.

I turned back to Allen. “Check into the Contempo Hotel. There's hot water and free wifi; you'll like it,” I promised. “I'll come see you tomorrow night, once the funeral is over, everyone's gone home, and we're back in Managua.”

As I walked toward my fallen mother, I wondered whether or not I was telling the truth.

 

14

Isabela

I will give Ignacio tomorrow, I promise. From the moment I wake up, during the whole drive to Granada, and throughout the church service and the interment, I will think of no one else. And I will forget about his other women, and how I blamed him for not being one other man, and I will focus on the highlights: Christmas mornings with the girls, waltzing at the country club, cheering at Mariana's soccer games. I should be thinking of him now, as I sit next to his body, reliving the good times, because there
were
good times, moments when I was surprised by his thoughtfulness. After the birth of Celia and, so soon after that, Ninexin, he didn't just buy me a ring or a bracelet, but worked with the jeweler to create a piece that represented each new little person we'd made—my topaz ring is the color Celia's eyes were when she was born, and my diamond brooch swoops to resemble the birthmark on Ninexin's stomach.

After Ninexin's birth, when the doctor told him there could be no more children, Ignacio didn't complain that he'd never have a son, that the de la Torre name would die out within two generations. We could still have relations, the doctor said. And we did, sometimes, after a party where we'd danced together, or on a weekend when the girls had stayed at Celia's for the night, and neither of us had to get up early. But half the excitement came from knowing we might create something together, or at least, that's how I felt. Otherwise, there didn't seem much point, not anymore. Some men might have abandoned me completely then, found a permanent mistress, started another family, even. But Ignacio didn't. We remained a team at home. Not a pair of lovebirds, maybe, but a pair of oxen, doing an honest day's work, tilling the field that was our family.

And there were times when he showed greater strength of character and foresight than most men of our generation. When Ninexin warned us trouble was about to start in 1979, and worse, that her involvement in the Movimiento was putting us in danger, he didn't worry about his practice, he just taped an image of Sandino in his office window, packed us up, and drove all night until he brought us to Honduras, where we waited out the triumph of the fall of Somoza in safety. Two years later, when Ninexin warned us that Rigobertito could be drafted in the not-too-distant future, Ignacio saw it was time to move to Miami, and, more than that, he supported me when I insisted that we take Mariana with us. How happy they were together! Every Saturday morning she would walk him across the street from our apartment to Las Olas caf
é
, where he would drink coffee and, if he stayed through lunchtime, rum with the angry old Cubans.

And after she dropped him off, my Mariana would come back with a watermelon juice for me, and we would sit in the kitchen with the fan clicking above our heads and talk about whatever was preoccupying us just then. What to wear to Mass on Christmas. Or her school, and how different her classes were than mine had been at Sacred Heart, where French and Comportment were mandatory. I suppose we talked mostly about what preoccupied me, really, which is how she came to know all about Mauricio, things I had told no one since Padre Juan Cristobal, may God forgive him. And, you know, I would bet everything, all my jewelry, even the gifts from Ignacio after the births of our daughters, that Mariana is still the only person who knows, that she never shared my story with anyone. Not with Ninexin, even in those painful years when I could see them struggling to find things to say to each other, things that mattered, and she could have used the tale as currency, to show that her ultimate allegiance was to her mother. Mariana longed for her mother so much in the beginning; it hurt to watch. But then, before she even became a teenager, she turned a corner. She seemed to appreciate that her mother is a fine woman, a heroine, really, but that I was the one who was there with her every day. Most girls don't love their grandmothers as much as they do their mothers. But we were not most families. If Mariana wasn't loyal to me above everyone else, surely she'd have told Ninexin about Mauricio. And she didn't breathe a word. Not to her mother. And not to Ignacio on their walks to Las Olas or on the Sunday afternoons when he'd take her out fishing and they'd pretend they were on Lake Cocibolca, hoping to catch some guapote for dinner.