The Book of Unknown Americans(75)

Celia twisted the coffee mug in her hands. “But you’ll have to make a decision, won’t you?”

“I want him buried in México,” I said. I didn’t tell her that I wanted him in the Panteón Municipal, where we could celebrate him on el Día de Muertos. I wanted to bake pan de muerto and prepare calabaza en tacha for him. I wanted to make an ofrenda with the cempasúchil flowers that grew in our yard. I wanted to put candles on his tomb. I wanted to honor him. I wanted him near me.

Celia said, “Of course he should be buried in México.”

“But the woman from the hospital said it would cost five thousand dollars to send his body there.”

“Five thousand dollars! Qué escándalo. What are they going to do? Build a house around him?”

“I told the woman, ‘Thank you, but I’ll carry him to México myself if I have to.’ ”

Celia nodded.

“He has to go back with me. I need him—” The inside of my nose, the whole inside of my face, burned. I clenched my teeth until I could go on. “I need him with me.”

Celia looked at me sadly. “So you’re going back?”

“I don’t know what else to do. We’re not even in status. The police know that now. They’re going to send us back anyway if we don’t leave ourselves.”

“Where will you go?”

“We still have our house. My parents have been checking on it since we left. They’re waiting for us.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. I can barely even believe that the days will go on. It seems like it should all stop somehow.”

“But it doesn’t,” Celia said.

“No,” I said. “For us it doesn’t.”




I WELCOMED VISITORS. They made the passage of time tolerable. Gustavo Milhojas came over with a bouquet of flowers in his arms.

“They’re marigolds,” he said, handing them to me. “The girl at the flower shop said they were the right kind.”

I raised them to my face, inhaling their grassy scent.

“Come in,” I said.

Nelia Zafón stopped by with a greeting card that had an illustration of seagulls flying over a crucifix.

“I saw this in Walmart yesterday and thought of you,” she said. “They have a good selection of cards in Spanish.”

I opened it and read: “Con el pésame más profundo y las bendiciones de Dios por la pérdida de alguien tan querido para ti.”

“Come in,” I said.

Micho Alvarez knocked on our door, balancing a photograph on his open palm.

“I meant to give this to you sooner,” he said. “I had it developed a while ago. It’s from Christmas.” He handed me a photograph of Maribel, Arturo, and me, smiling in our winter coats in front of the Toros’ door. Looking at it, the most exquisite pain seared across my chest.

“Come in,” I said.

Fito arrived and stood in the doorway, stricken, the skin on his face sagging. I waited for him to speak and when he didn’t, I said, “It’s okay.”

Quisqueya never stopped by, but I saw her on the balcony one morning and raised a hand in greeting. She waved back, but hurried into her apartment. I understood. For her and any others who didn’t come over, I understood. They simply didn’t know what to say.

José Mercado and his wife, Ynez, came over without anything but condolences, and after I invited them in, they talked for an hour about what a good man Arturo was and how much they had liked him and how he had helped José carry paper bags of groceries into their apartment on more than one occasion. I hadn’t known anything about the groceries, but I wasn’t surprised, either. It sounded just like Arturo.

“Not that he was a saint,” I told them. “He never cleaned his mustache clippings out of the sink.”

“That sounds familiar,” Ynez said, poking her husband in the side. She had long gray hair that she wore in a low bun. Her face was gentle and kind, pleated with wrinkles.

“Arturo was stubborn, too,” I said. “He threw his back out once trying to raise cinder blocks over his head in a contest with his friends. This was in Pátzcuaro. I kept telling him he was lifting too many at once. ‘It’s too heavy,’ I said. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He just wanted to prove he could do it.”

“Men,” Ynez said, nodding in amusement.

“You’re more stubborn than me!” José said.

Ynez looked at me. “You see? Stubborn even in his belief that he’s not stubborn.”

I smiled.

And in this way, the days passed.

But when no one was there, no one but Maribel and me, the days vibrated with sadness. I had called Phyllis, the school district translator, and told her that I was keeping Maribel home with me. “I don’t want her out of my sight,” I said.

“Is she ever coming back to the school?” Phyllis asked.

“No.”

“Her teacher will be sorry to hear that.”

“I’ll find something for her in México,” I said. “I know it won’t be the same. But I’m not giving up on her.”

And because through the phone I could feel Phyllis’s sympathy, I added, “I promise.”