The Book of Unknown Americans(2)

WE WOKE in the morning bewildered and disoriented, glancing at one another, darting our gaze from wall to wall. And then we remembered. Delaware. Over three thousand kilometers from our home in Pátzcuaro. Three thousand kilometers and a world away.

Maribel rubbed her eyes.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I’ll make breakfast,” I said.

“We don’t have any food,” Arturo mumbled. He was sitting bleary-eyed on the mattress, his elbows on his knees.

“We can get some,” I said.

“Where?” he asked.

“Wherever they sell food.”

But we had no idea where to go. We stepped out of the apartment into the bright sun and the damp early-morning air—Arturo wearing his hat, Maribel wearing the sunglasses that the doctor had suggested she use to help ease her headaches—and walked down the gravel drive that led to the main road. When we came to it, Arturo stopped and stroked his mustache, glancing in both directions.

“What do you think?” he asked.

I peered past him as a car sped by, making a soft whooshing sound. “Let’s try this way,” I said, pointing to the left for no reason.

Between the three of us, we knew only the most minimal English, words and phrases we had picked up from the tourists that traveled to Pátzcuaro and in the shops that catered to them, and we couldn’t read the signs above the storefronts as we passed them, so we peered in every window along the way to see what was inside. For the next twenty minutes, flat glass fronts, one after another. A beauty supply store with racks of wigs in the window, a carpet store, a Laundromat, an electronics store, a currency exchange. And then, finally, on the corner of a busy intersection, we came to a gas station, which we knew better than to pass up.

We walked past the pumps, toward the front door. Outside, a teenaged boy stood slouched against the wall, holding the nose of a skateboard. I could feel him watching us as we approached. He had on a loose black T-shirt and jeans that were frayed at the hems. Dark brown hair, bluntly cut, brushed forward past his hairline. An inky blue tattoo that snaked up the side of his neck from beneath the collar of his shirt.

I elbowed Arturo.

“What?” Arturo said.

I nodded toward the boy.

Arturo looked over. “It’s okay,” he said, but I could feel him pushing my back as we passed the boy, ushering Maribel and me into the gas station with a certain urgency.

Inside, we scanned the metal shelves for anything that we recognized. Arturo claimed at one point that he had found salsa, but when I picked up the jar and looked through the glass bottom, I laughed.

“What?” he asked.

“This isn’t salsa.”

“It says ‘salsa,’ ” he insisted, pointing to the word on the paper label.

“But look at it,” I said. “Does it look like salsa to you?”

“It’s American salsa.”

I held up the jar again, shook it a little.

“Maybe it’s good,” Arturo said.

“Do they think this is what we eat?” I asked.

He took the jar from me and put it in the basket. “Of course not. I told you. It’s American salsa.”

By the time we finished shopping, we had American salsa, eggs, a box of instant rice, a loaf of sliced bread, two cans of kidney beans, a carton of juice, and a package of hot dogs that Maribel claimed she wanted.

At the register, Arturo arranged everything on the counter and unfolded the money he’d been carrying in his pocket. Without saying a word, he handed the cashier a twenty-dollar bill. The cashier slid it into the drawer of the register and reached his open hand out to us. Arturo lifted the blue plastic shopping basket off the floor and turned it over to show that it was empty. The cashier said something and flexed his outstretched hand, so Arturo gave him the basket, but the cashier only dropped the basket behind the counter.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Arturo.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I gave him the money, didn’t I? Is there something else we’re supposed to do?”

People had lined up behind us, and they were craning their necks now to see what was going on.

“Should we give him more?” I asked.

“More? I gave him twenty dollars already. We’re only getting a few things.”

Someone in line shouted impatiently. Arturo turned to look, but didn’t say anything. What must we look like to people here? I wondered. Speaking Spanish, wearing the same rumpled clothes we’d been in for days.

“Mami?” Maribel said.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’re just trying to pay.”

“I’m hungry.”

“We’re getting you food.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“But we have food in México.”

The woman behind me in line, her sunglasses on top of her blond hair, tapped me on the shoulder and asked something. I nodded at her and smiled.

“Just give him more money,” I said to Arturo.

Someone in line shouted again.

“Mami?” Maribel said.

“I’m going to take her outside,” I told Arturo. “It’s too much commotion for her.”

A bell tinkled as Maribel and I walked out, and before the door even closed behind us, I saw the boy again, still slouched against the wall, holding his skateboard upright. He shifted just slightly at the sight of us, and I watched as his gaze turned to Maribel, looking her up and down, approvingly, coolly, with hooded eyes.