By the Light of My Father's Smile (11 page)

And did he actually come? I asked my sister.

Yes, she said.

And was it good?

What do you mean?

The reunion, I mean.

Well, she said, he wasn't very drunk, only moderately so. We spent our first afternoon together drinking coffee and walking by the river.

From her description of “Mannie” I could imagine them, rolling and creaking beside the river. I had often shared that walk with her, and with my father, when one of his visits to June coincided with one of mine. The people who saw them together wouldn't know what to make of them; they wouldn't even have a clue.

I asked him if his wife knew he was visiting me, said June.

He said of course. He had been faithful to her, except while he was in Nam. And she to him, except during the same period. It was an agreement they had made.

Even though she was pregnant when he left? I asked.

Yes, said June. They both understood she would not be pregnant forever. And the way he was raised, remember, he would have been considered pregnant, too.

That's true, I said. I had forgotten this. Although my mother and father had actually written a small book about this aspect of Mundo life. How pregnancy was considered thoroughly shared, so much so that during labor the father-to-be took to his bed with labor pains and all his buddies gathered around him to offer support. Sometimes the father's cries drowned out the mother's.

It is also characteristic of his upbringing that he would not lie to her about me, said June. God, Susannah, do you remember how outsiders would come to the village and talk to Daddy and Mama and shake their heads and say the Mundo were as unsophisticated as children? Just because they didn't lie.

And Daddy seemed to waffle a bit, but Mama was steadfast in her belief that they were more mature than any of the folks who came to study them, including her and Daddy.

There was a saying among the Mundo: It takes only one lie to unravel the world. And when our father, wearing his preacher's hat, said God had said man had dominion over all the earth, the Mundo men had declared this could not possibly be true. Perhaps, they had said, stroking their bearded chins, it is the one lie that has unraveled your world.

While my sister talked, I thought about the Mundo, whom I had not really thought about in years. They had never understood how woman could be considered evil, either, since they considered her the mother of corn. When hearing of her original sin of eating the forbidden fruit, they scratched their chins again and said, even more gravely, Perhaps this is the one biggest lie that has unraveled your world. The men had not wanted the women to
even hear what they were accused of; they tried to persuade our father not to divulge this horrible secret, even if he claimed he knew. And when the women found out, they were so hurt.

That they could be considered not good had never entered their minds.

To tell you the truth, June was saying, at first this Mannie/Manuelito disgusted me. I kept seeing in my mind's eye the body of the boy I used to love. I kept looking into his stitched-together face, hoping to have it dissolve into the bright, intelligent face of infinite kindness that I had known. His face had been so destroyed that even his eyelids had been stitched together unevenly. And yet, oddly, passersby would not necessarily have noticed anything wrong. Of course no one really looks at anyone anymore, and of course no one any longer looks like themselves. They all have the same perms, the same bleached sidelocks, the same bland skin. Big noses have mostly been left in the surgeon's rubbish bin.

But pretty soon, something began to happen to me. I did begin to recognize my own pretty Manuelito through the mask of his shattered face; to feel the tenderness in his eyes pouring out through his horrible experience of war, and to stain me, as if he gazed at me through blood.

So much blood, he told me. Rivers of it. Huge patches of earth slick with it. How come you and I are still alive? he would suddenly ask, with the accuracy of the very drunk.

I did not know. At some point I grabbed for his hand, my own feeling like a gigantic, rubbery paw, and his feeling crabbed and shrunken and bent. My thighs rubbed together as we walked, the hissing of spandex a constant strifeful music.

All your life you have the necessary illusion that you know all there is to know about heartbreak. I hate to be the one to tell you about the heartbreak you experience after you die. There I was, shivering on the bridge over which they passed. Her enormous hand cuddling his. Every wire in his broken body zinging with the cold. I had beaten her for loving his young body! If I were not dead already, I would have killed myself.

That night I could do nothing. I was so ashamed of myself I could not even bring myself to spy on them. I know they came home to her apartment; that she ran a hot bath for him in her gigantic Jacuzzi tub; that he dutifully doffed his uniform and nestled his aching body into the mounds of snowy white foam. I hung my head, or what once would have been a head, outside the front door. What was I to do to make amends? A student came to my daughter's door to bother her with work. I placed myself between her and the door. She knocked and knocked on my chest, the sound killed by the deadness of myself as space. When she left, I sank to my knees and, as wind, began a gentle breathing of apology upward and over the transom of June's locked door.

What is left of it doesn't really work anymore, said Manuelito. Them crazy Cong shot it just about off.

I am sorry, I said.

He laughed, suddenly. Who would have thought we'd end up like this, eh, Magdalena?

Oh, I don't know, I said, raising my leg through the folds of my low-cut silk nightie; I think some parts of us still look pretty good. The moment Manuelito had gotten out of the tub and I had dried him and he had leaned down to kiss the ankle of my left foot—and then had been unable to get up again without help—I had felt my spirits lightening. My legs are still very good, wouldn't you say?

Oh, I agree absolutely, he said, leaning over to kiss my knee.

Your lips are fairly unscathed, I said, leaning back in his arms to study them.

Really, he said, poking them out.

Sure, I said. Kissing them with a big smack.

You're beautiful still, he said, just big. More of you to appreciate.

We had been hurrying before; now I knew we would take our time. Remember how I used to brush your hair? he asked.

No, I said.

I used to brush it, he insisted. I used to like the way it curled around my fingers. It is curious about the Mundo: some of us have managed to keep our dark skin, so you can tell we are connected to Africa, but our hair is hopelessly straight. Indians have strong straight-hair genes, he said, chuckling.

It won't snap now, I said, as I watched him search for the brush.

Grinning, he placed himself behind me in the bed. Lean back your head, he said. I did. There was the most delicious feeling of rest, just to have my head on his chest. Slowly he began to brush. I thought he might comment on the green streak, but he did not.

It is much thinner, no? he said. Tugging at the length of hair on the very top of my head.

I did not answer. Billie Holiday was singing very softly. Something merry and hip. I feared the sound of her voice would make Manuelito want a drink. It was that kind of music, that kind of voice. But no, he brushed serenely, shifting his body frequently to keep it loose. He brushed for so long, I began to doze. But the moment I did, he laid the brush aside, and I felt his fingers kneading my shoulders and my neck. I felt them brush the gown covering my breasts.

I love big breasts, he said into my ear.

Well, lover, I grew these melons just for you. I said this as I reached up and guided his hands toward each audacious nipple. Very gently, wincing slightly, he removed the chains. And that is how we began.

Every time a lover leaves you and you are still in love with them, you fantasize about having them once more in your arms.
But it is always a fantasy of how it used to be. Your bodies are the same that you had before. Manuelito and I were the same people, but our bodies seemed to be those of two other people. We kissed. We licked. We rubbed. (He deftly removed the spike from my bellybutton.) But mostly we prayed that our strangers' bodies would come to their senses and find each other again. At first it did not seem possible that this would happen. At one point Manuelito mumbled something about needing a drink. I would have died for a burger and fries. But we persevered. I thought I had to find on his body those few remaining places where he could still be quickened sexually. He thought he had to battle to find my center by pushing aside the fat. But when we became very tired, we abandoned strategy. We napped. And when we awoke it seemed to me the energy of the apartment had changed. When we left my bed hours later, both of us were satisfied.

Magdalena, he said as we ate a magnificent breakfast at Burger King, I want to marry you.

But you are already married, I said.

He looked surprised. This made me laugh.

I am married, you are right. And I love my wife, Maria.

Maria? I said. Her name's Maria? Goddess, I thought, how predictable.

There is not the same magic between us, he said, sadly. There never was. Do you know what I believe? I believe there is one soul in all our time on earth that just matches our own. We are always looking for it, moving in its direction, but so often it is never found. He paused. We found each other not just once, but two times! Not just when we were young and beautiful, but even now, when we are like this.

I stuck a french fry into my mouth. Eating with you feels like eating alone, I said.

That's what I mean, he said.

Even so, Maria is your wife. She's been through too much to let go of you now.

What should we do? he asked.

We should be lovers, of course, I said.

But we must tell Maria everything, he said.

Yes, I said, I remember that is your way.

He nodded.

Will she despise us, or will she have pity on us?

I do not know, he said. I have been a drunk for years; it is hard to have pity for a drunk. We are so disgusting over such long and messy episodes of life.

For me, for us, I knew Manuelito would stop drinking. Just as I knew I would immediately begin noticing my weight. But like the Manuelito and Magdalena of old, we did not say anything of the sort to each other, and in fact had stiff drinks and a hearty dinner that very same day.

As we were leaving the restaurant, Manuelito, singing drunkenly, and turning first toward me and then swinging his arms up as though to embrace the rising bright moon, was hit by a bus. The bus dragged him for half a block. By the time I got to him, he was gone.

And that is why I am coming down the mountain, the place of refuge where I write left far behind me. The guardian spirit I am gradually beginning to feel, which hovers there, left on the oak tree swing. I am going to be a sister to Magdalena, June, Mad Dog, MacDoc, as she is submerged by another flood of pain.

But I am not sad, Susannah, she said when I arrived on her doorstep. Frazzled from the flight, the midday traffic, and lack of sleep, I gazed at her through bloodshot eyes. Big as I remembered her, she seemed now twice her usual size. Her green hair was lank and her nose rings unpolished. But there was definitely something different about her. What was it?

It was a miracle, our finding each other again, but it was not meant to last, she said. I felt, even as we made love, that Manuelito was on loan to me from someplace else. Not just from Maria, his wife, and their children. There was a pause. Actually, she continued, glancing at the bottom of her teacup, I think he was killed in Nam.

Oh, darling, I said, you make it sound like
The Twilight Zone.

There
is
a twilight zone, she said softly. Where do you think the one on television comes from?

Come on, I said.

Oh, I understand it isn't rational. She put down her cup. But look at the world, she said. Should any of us give a shit that something's not rational? Nothing out there looks rational to me.

So you met him on a plane from Las Cruces. What was he doing? Where was he going?

Oh, she said. Get this. The “job” the government found for him was to make speeches to high school students. Speeches about the Army. About Nam.

Wow, I said.

Right. She said. So there he traveled, a kind of Indian Flying Dutchman, only alighting at home to get drunk, bully his family, and change into a fresh uniform. A nightmare.

Well, what could he possibly tell the youth? I asked sarcastically.

Magdalena laughed. Exactly. There he was in his neat little Army suit. His body stitched together with metal thread … did I tell you the metal detectors in stores always went crazy when he passed by? He had a special travel document that he presented to the guards at airports.

No kidding, I said. Still pondering the change in my sister's character. She had eaten nothing since we came from the airport. She's dieting, I thought; perhaps that explained a certain ethereal radiance that surrounded her.