Stranger Page 4

  She called me indifferent. I called her controlling. And then we fell into our different lives. And it was easy, because she had her career and I had my work and so we became separate.

  And now she is coming to you again. And she’ll want to be with you. What would be the point in coming otherwise?

  Many women come to the clinic and then go home without having a man.

  She was quiet.

  Talk to me, he said.

  I don’t want to be your thing.

  You aren’t. No. No.

  It can happen. You are here and free and you find me available and you think I’m easy and besotted and so you make me your thing.

  He smiled. Besotted, he said.

  Is that right?

  Yes, it’s right. Are you besotted?

  I could be. But not yet.

  Let me know when you are.

  She was quiet. Despite his consoling words, she was still afraid.

  Riding up out of San Lucas, she was aware of Eric’s body and that she was behind him and that her arms were wrapped around his waist. She felt sadness, and the sadness moved through her and she saw that it was dangerous to feel this way and so she let it go. She didn’t will it away, she replaced it with acceptance. She placed her head against Eric’s back and held him tight. He leaned back against her. She had always liked to wear his helmet, not only because of its physical protection but also because it provided her with some anonymity. She would appear to passersby as a figure on the back of the doctor’s motorcycle—a figure that might be this person or that person, not recognizable in any clear way. She liked that her face was hidden, she liked the secrecy. But on this evening, at dusk, passing the fires beside the road, and the joggers, and the families out for an evening walk, she wished that she would be recognized, and that people would stop and say, There is Íso Perdido, riding with the doctor. As they reached the village limits, she called out to him that she didn’t want to go home yet. She wanted to go to his room.

  He took the back roads that wound through the upper section of the pueblo. It was dark now and all the houses were lit, and inside Íso could see a child sitting before a television, or a woman holding a baby, or a girl standing before a cooker.

  He turned into the lane and they passed the restaurant of his hotel. There was a large group of people sitting near the window. She saw their gestures and their faces and she thought they were very happy.

  When they arrived at his bungalow, he turned off his motorcycle and asked, Are you sure?

  Yes, she said. I’m sure.

  SHE sometimes wondered if their lovemaking was different for him than it was for her, and she imagined that this was true, for he was older, and he’d had his wife, and he must have had other women. This was her way of figuring out who he was and where he came from. There were moments when she saw with great clarity that Eric Mann was more alone than she was. She was surrounded by her mother, her uncles and aunts, her friends, the people in her village. He stood off to the side, tall and imposing and confident in his solitude. Others at the clinic knew of their friendship, even though she and Doctor Mann rarely spoke together at work. When they did speak, it was about a patient or some small issue that was work-related. The trip up to Tecojate with the other doctors was unusual in that Íso had been invited by Doctor Mann, and she was simply a keeper, and so an outsider, and of course it would have been obvious to Betje and Hanna and Hans that she was there because of Doctor Mann. She had reconciled all this. She did not care what people thought.

  Early that week, however, the director, Elena, called her into her office and told her that the rules of the clinic were clear: the staff members weren’t allowed to fraternize with the doctors. You’ve been spending time with Doctor Mann, Elena said.

  Íso was quiet.

  Is this not true? Elena asked.

  We’re friends, Íso said. That is true.

  He’s married, Elena said. Are you aware?

  Yes, Íso said.

  And his wife is coming here.

  Yes.

  What you’re experiencing is not new, Elena said. This happens. A girl is attracted to a doctor who is charming, and who is from elsewhere, and who has money, and who pays attention. It’s a fine thing to feel special. But then it happens that the doctor goes away and the girl is alone, and she falls into despair and her labour suffers, and I am left with a worker who has lost focus.

  I’m not in despair, Íso said. She was sitting upright in her chair and listening carefully, but inside she thought that the director was wrong, and that she might even be jealous. She said again that she and the doctor were just friends.

  Elena studied her for a long time, and then she said that Íso was a good keeper. One of the best. The women appreciate you, she said. You’re focused.

  Thank you, Íso said. She bowed her head.

  Later that day, she saw him in the garden, talking to one of the patients. As she passed by he lifted a hand as if to touch her hip or to stop her, but his hand touched the patient instead. Even so, she was aware that he had noticed her.

  What was more disconcerting than the viewpoint of Elena and the other workers at the clinic was the opinion of her relatives, especially her uncle Santiago, her father’s eldest brother. Santiago was a woodcarver and a carpenter, one of the best in the village. He’d been involved in the construction of the clinic, and he’d carved the images of Ixchel above the lintels of the entrances to the birthing chambers. The carvings were all different. In one, Ixchel was carrying a sword and a shield. In another, she had snakes in her hair and she had jaguar claws and eyes. She was a weaver and a spider, and she was ancient.

  Santiago was an artist, first and foremost. He was also temperamental and impetuous. He was protective of his niece. His carpintería sat high on the hill beside the road that led down into the village. A large window with a shuttered awning gave onto the hillside below, and on clear days the awning was lifted and there was a view of the lake and of two of the volcanoes. As a young girl Íso had loved to visit her uncle’s shop. She played amongst the wood shavings, building nests into which she laid little blocks of ceiba, which were her babies. She wrote notes to her tío in the dust that had fallen onto his worktable, and he wrote her back. As she grew older, she visited less and less, but sometimes, late in the afternoon, walking home from the clinic, she went through the market and up the hill to the carpintería, where she found him and he brushed off a stool with a rag and asked her to sit.

  The week that Elena spoke to her, her uncle asked her to come by his workshop. He had something for her. And so, on a Thursday, she made her way to the carpintería and found him planing a piece of wood by hand. He looked up and invited her to sit. He came to her and kissed her cheek. She smelled sawdust.

  Santiago was a soft man. His face, his hands, the way he stepped along the road, his movements in his shop—all indicated a lightness of being. Even his voice was soft. He stood before Íso and removed from his front pocket a small object, to which was attached a leather thong. He held it up for Íso to see. It was a carving, from ceiba, of a white nun orchid with three petals. He said, For you, Íso, and he walked behind her and tied the thong around her neck.

  When he was done and had come back to face her, she touched the carving and thanked him.

  It pleases me, he said. Then he said that it was for her to remember who she was. He said that sometimes we forget. That sometimes we come face to face with an object that appears to be quite beautiful, and we are spellbound. And then we find out that the object is not so beautiful. Or it gets lost. Or it changes shape. I myself spent five years as a young man in America, he said. I understand what it is to be under a spell, and I understand disappointment.

  Íso smiled. She loved her uncle. She said that she was no longer a young girl. She had her own head. And here she tapped her head with a finger. And smiled again.

  This man, this doctor, her uncle said. He shook his head.

  We’re friends, Tío.

&nb
sp; One day you’re friends, and the next day he has hypnotized you.

  I’m not hypnotized.

  Not yet. But perhaps at some moment. Her uncle, as he spoke these words, had been moving lightly about his shop. To the hand planer, back to his view of the lake, returning to Íso. He stepped like a dancer, his hands raised, his wrists bent, always on the balls of his feet. His voice sounded happy. But he wasn’t happy, she knew this. He was worried. It was known throughout the village that you did not upset Santiago Perdido. There were stories of his anger, and his formidable nature. There were stories about his life during the civil war, and these accounts had become legend. There were those who believed the stories, and those who didn’t. Some said that Santiago was too much of an angel to be a hero. Others said that Santiago’s apparent softness and his angelic looks were what made him dangerous. The recipient of Santiago’s anger was always surprised.

  Íso did not want to upset her uncle. She told him that Doctor Mann was only a friend. She said that Doctor Mann had a wife, and the wife was coming to visit. She shrugged. You see?

  His eyes crinkled. He touched her face. He called her special. He said that he loved her. She said that she loved him as well. Very much. And she hugged him goodbye.

  3.

  AND SO THE DOCTOR’S WIFE CAME, AND ÍSO DID WHAT FOR most others would have been impossible: she cared for Susan Mann, she became her intimate other. And then Susan left the way she had come, by a car that carried her along the winding road that circled the lake, and down towards the coast and on to the city, where she would fly home. The doctor must have travelled with her, for he was absent for two days, and then he must have returned, for she saw him in the corridors of the clinic, and in the courtyard, but she did not talk to him, nor did she look at him when he passed her by.

  He came to her Sunday around noon, when the churches in the village were completing their services. She was out back washing clothes and twisting the water from them and hanging them in the sunshine. Her mother called her and said that it was Doctor Mann. She rose and walked into the dim light of the tienda and saw him standing in the entrance. She couldn’t see his face, because of the sunlight behind him, but she noticed that he had a bag in his hand, and he was offering it to her. She was dressed in old clothes, and she was embarrassed to be seen like this, and she felt the beating of the blood vessel behind her right eye. He said that he’d bought a pair of boots for her, and a pair for himself. He lifted his left foot and held it up several inches above the wooden floor, and she saw the fresh yellow leather of his boots.

  She looked at the bag in his hands. I can’t take a gift, she said.

  Why not? They won’t fit me.

  Maybe they’ll fit your wife, she said.

  She’s gone, he said.

  She did not speak.

  Okay, tell you what. I’ll keep them, and then you can come over tonight and try them on. How about that?

  She shook her head. She said that she couldn’t. She was busy.

  Okay, how about tomorrow evening?

  I’m busy then as well. She shrugged and said that she had clothes to wash. They were soaking in the tub.

  She turned to leave.

  He said that he had missed her. But now he was here, and he was free.

  You’re free, she said, but I’m not. And she went back to washing clothes. Her heart was heavy, and when she heard his motorcycle start and move up the street, she began to cry. And she thought that crying would not help, so she wiped her tears and she finished the washing. Then she swept the floor of the tienda, and she sat and cut a mango and slowly ate it, and when she was done she sucked on the pit. She went to the back and washed her face and hands and dried herself on a small towel.

  That week she went to work and she returned and sat at the counter of the tienda and she went to bed and slept beside her mother, and she rose in the morning and walked through the narrow lanes to the clinic. And during those times when she was not working, and when she had time to think, she put aside her feelings and created a ledger in her head and one side was labelled True and the other was labelled False. And always, when she made her lists, she discovered that the side labelled False was full of jealousy and selfishness and fear, and so she concentrated on the True column. And on that side she wrote down all that he owned, and in doing so she moved through his life and saw herself opening the drawers where his clothing lay, and she picked up one of his shirts, and she unbuttoned it and spread it on the bed. And his socks, and his pants, and his underwear. All those articles that covered him and kept him guarded from the outside world. Las cosas del mundo. For it was things that made the world real. His world. His things. His tan boots, his motorcycle, his shaving cream and razor that lay by the mirror in his bathroom, his jeans, his wallet, his watch that he carefully removed before lying down beside her and put on again when he was finished lying with her, his eleven shirts hanging in the small closet, his running shoes, his Nike shorts, his socks balled into pairs, his deodorant, his soap in the shower, his shampoo, his belt with its bronze buckle, his driver’s licence, the photograph of his mother, his nail clipper, his comb, his leather jacket and the things in the pockets of his jacket such as an American quarter and his wedding ring. When she had found the ring one day by chance, for he had asked her to look for his motorcycle keys, she held it up to the light and then laid it on his dresser top. The next time she was in the room, the ring was gone. One more thing. And on the True side she also wrote the following: He lies down with me. He eats meals with me. He talks to me. He tells me what is important. He looks at me. He calls me beautiful.

  As it turned out, he visited her on Saturday evening. She was sitting with her mother in the tienda when he walked in. He spoke directly to her mother. Señora Perdido, he said, I’m riding to San Lucas tomorrow and I’d like your daughter to join me. Is that possible?

  Señora Perdido had been aware of Doctor Mann’s absence over the last while, and she had been aware of Íso’s brooding, and so now she said that it was Íso’s choice. Eric turned to Íso and asked the question. Would you come with me?

  Íso nodded and said that she would be available.

  In the morning there was a mist on the road, and coming down onto a flat stretch that passed through a coffee finca, she smelled the sour husk of the beans, and there was a fire at the side of the road, and two men squatted before the fire, and the light of the sun filtered through the trees and fell onto their faces, and the air was cool and then warm and then cool again. She put her arms around Eric’s waist and laid her head against his back.

  They sat on a verandah that overlooked the lake on which the fishermen threw their nets. The early sun caught the drops of water as the nets fell through the air. They drank coffee and ate eggs with toast and jam and they talked about the fishermen and he talked about his research.

  As she listened to him, Íso thought that Eric might be avoiding what was most important. And so, when he paused and asked if she was okay, she began to speak. She said, I always thought that when you left here, when you went back home, I would never see you again. It would be finished. Sometimes, at night, I would wake up and worry, but then I would decide that it was not good to worry—what would that help?—and I would decide that I would go through my days not thinking about the next day. I decided to love you. And then your wife came and it was revealed to me that you were not as strong as I had thought. She made you a different person. Weaker. And this made me sad. It is strange to see how different a lover can be when he is faced with an important decision, and when there is fear on his face, and when he uses words to excuse his actions. Words mean nothing. They are like the husks of the coffee bean. They cover what is essential, which is the bean itself, and when the husks are discarded, they lie on the road and rot and disappear. Actions are what lie inside, like the bean. I kept waiting for you to act, to be strong, to tell your wife that you had a lover named Íso Perdido, and that Íso was beautiful and that you wanted to be with Íso and that Íso wa
s the most important thing in your life.

  She stopped.

  He said her name and reached for her hands.

  She allowed this. She said that she didn’t care, yes or no, if he had slept with Susan. That was past. She had her own hopes. Her own wishes. Her own desires.

  Do you know why your wife loved me? Because I was nothing. It’s very easy to love someone who brings you your food, who rubs your body, who never disagrees, who showers you, who says all the time yes, yes, yes. That is why she loved me. I was there and I was not there. Mostly I was not there. Invisible.

  He was quiet.

  You have nothing to say.

  I’m surprised, he said. At your passion.

  You don’t know half of it, she said. And here she touched her chest. That’s all, she said. I am finished.

  They looked out over the water. The waiter poured more coffee. They were quiet.

  Then she said, You will go home.

  Yes, he said, but I prefer it here. At home I live in a safe zone surrounded by walls topped with razor wire, and there are armed guards at the gates. It’s supposed to protect us, but there is always the feeling of danger. Everyone’s afraid, especially those who have something to lose. The poor outnumber the wealthy and it would take only a small revolution for the poor to gain power. The only thing that stops them is the belief that they too might become rich.

  Why go back?

  It’s home. You don’t choose where you’re born.

  But you can choose to leave.

  Yes. People do.

  She found her phone and took a picture of him. And when the waiter came to remove the plates, she asked him to take a photograph of them. She gave the phone to the waiter and she rose and went over to him and she squatted beside him, and the waiter took a photograph of the two of them, with the lake in the background and the fishermen in their boats and the mist rising off the water.

  She took the phone back from the waiter and thanked him and she went back to her seat. She looked at the photograph and then handed him the phone and he looked at it and she said that she would send it to him. To remember this time.