Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexico City, 2009
MECHE FOLDED THE magazine and finally decided to look out the window. The Federal District lay below, a great beast with no beginning and no end, towers and buildings rising and dotting the valley. The roads were twisted snakes criss-crossing its surface, the cars tiny ants racing to their anthill. Twenty million people all gathered together—smashed against each other in the subway, crammed into the buses—with the Angel of Independence saluting them from above its pedestal.
It was eighteen years since she’d seen the city. Twenty since she’d last seen her father.
Now he was dead.
He had been pickling his liver for three decades and smoking since he turned twelve, but she’d thought him immortal.
Meche rubbed the bridge of her nose.
She didn’t even have a black dress. She knew her dad would have said to wear whatever the hell she wanted: dead is dead. But her mother would expect black. The whole nine days of mourning. The food they’d feed the guests. The nightly prayers.
If it had been up to Meche she would have cremated him and tossed his ashes in the Gulf of California, like he wanted. But her mother had insisted on the casket, the funeral, the prayers to follow.
She collected her bags and pulled the luggage, trying to find the familiar face among the sea of strangers.
“Meche!”
Her cousin Jimena stepped forward, giving her a big hug and a kiss on each cheek. Jimena’s hair was dyed a fake-looking red. She wore a lot more makeup than Meche remembered. Jimena’s lipstick was so dark it looked purple and Meche could feel the greasy traces of it on her face.
“Girl, how was your trip?”
“Alright,” Meche said, rubbing off the smudges of lipstick with her hand. “I thought my mom was picking me up.”
“She’s too busy. Your dad didn’t make any arrangements.”
“Ah.”
That sounded like him. Inconsiderate until the end. He was probably chuckling from beyond the grave thinking of how, even in death, he could screw everyone over. Because that was her father.
Jimena’s car was very small and there were plush toys sitting on the back seat of it. A Garfield was stuck on a window, grinning. It had been there since the 80s.
Jimena turned the key and the car sputtered into life. Meche could not see a CD player. Just the old cassette deck.
“I heard you’re working with computers now,” Jimena said. “Do you build them?”
Her cousin switched on the radio and ear-cringing pop music filled the car. Clearly Jimena’s taste had not improved with time.
“I do software programming.”
“Well, you sure had the brains for it. We were all drinking beer on the weekends and you were doing your math homework. You were such a nerd.”
“I remember.”
“Do you make much money? You must if you can fly your mom over to Oslo for Christmas every year.”
“The benefits of being a nerd,” Meche said with a shrug.
“Do you remember what you used to wear? Oh, my God. I remember that dress you had on at Tita’s party.”
“I remember you were hot,” Meche shot back.
Jimena did not seem to catch the pointed use of the past tense and smiled, very proud of herself. “Yes. Absolutely. Hey, do you remember...”
Meche looked at the little kid juggling balls while the traffic light glowed red. The yellow and red balls flew up and down in the air. He took a bow, then walked by the cars, cap in hand. Meche rolled down the window and gave him a bill.
Jimena frowned.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Jimena told her.
“What?”
“Give money to the street kids.”
She shouldn’t be in Mexico City either, breathing the sticky, grey air of the city and filling her lungs with pollution, but she was.
Jimena took out a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out and lit it.
Meche disliked smoke and smokers. They reminded her of her father. It had never mattered that he made his living through his voice and that cigarettes could—would—one day ruin it. He never quit. He chain-smoked and he even did it inside the radio studio, even though it was forbidden.
“Do you want one?”
“No,” Meche said sternly. She rolled the window down.
It wasn’t any better with the window rolled down, but it was a symbolic gesture. She pulled out her music player and picked a playlist, pressing the earbuds into place.
“I’m going to close my eyes,” she told Jimena.
She did and pumped the volume up, listening to Nina Simone. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. The Animals covered it and Santa Esmeralda made it famous, but Nina sang it like it was nobody’s business. Powerful blues and a voice that just punched you in the gut.
She let Nina sing to her, watching the city fly by. The old neighbourhood began revealing itself. Buildings had come down. The pharmacy had been replaced by condos. The bakery was gone, in its place a bank. The park seemed intact, still shitty and desolate, with its concrete benches and its sad trees. The teenagers used to make out there, by the bushes, but not Meche.
The cantina remained and she turned her head to stare at the men standing by the entrance, almost expecting her father to be there, waving back to her after drinking a dozen reposados.