Irma Voth (12 page)

Do you think it’s possible to rot without even feeling it? said Aggie.

Rot? said Marijke. Like, decompose?

Yeah, said Aggie.

Without knowing? said Marijke.

Yeah, said Aggie. Like until it’s a bit too late.

This conversation was being shouted at top volume against the howling wind. I looked at Wilson through the back window of the cab, through the rear-view mirror. I saw him mouth some words to Elias. I could feel my stomach writhe inside of me.

I took my notebook out of my pocket and made a list of troubling things.

Aggie is now my responsibility.

Aggie has to go to school, at least in the fall. But where?

We have hardly any money.

Jorge might never come back.

Our father is going to sell the house.

I have to get a map.

We’ll have no place to live.

We’ll have to stand silently by the road like that Tara-

humara family. Forever.

I miss my mom.

I’m a bad wife.

I tore the page out of my notebook and threw it away into the wind and watched it float up and over towards Belize or maybe Paraguay. I opened my notebook to the first page where I had traced my hand and wrote the words
we live only in your book of paintings here on the earth
along the length of my ring finger. But it was so bumpy that none of it was legible and the letters looked like little worms burrowing under skin.

When we got to the clinic we unloaded Elias from the truck and carried him in. He was still groaning but we had stopped worrying about him. Marijke had gone off to wander around in the cornfield next to the barn. We had to walk past three deformed dogs to get to the desk where the nurse was sitting. Is this a vet or a clinic? said Wilson. It’s everything, I said. The nurse was my quasi cousin. She had white-blond hair like Aggie’s. Our great-grandpa had had thirty-one kids with three different wives who kept dying and we had all lost track of who was really who. She might
have come from a different campo, like maybe 4 or 2.5 or something. She asked me if I was a Voth and I said yeah, you? She said no, Nickel, but used to be a Voth. I thought so, I said. She didn’t need to ask what was going on or who these guys were. She told us to carry Elias right into the doctor’s room and lay him down on the stretcher thing and the doctor would be there soon.

We heard some screaming. Finally the doctor came and told us to leave so that he could examine Elias and we went and sat outside on a fence to wait. We heard more screams coming from the barn.

What is that? said Wilson.

A mother, I said. She’s having a baby in that other room next to Elias’s. We were all quiet, even Aggie, listening to the woman scream.

I would just say no way and take the doctor’s gun and shoot myself in the head, said Aggie.

We listened to the woman some more. Except for those screams there was no sound at all.

That’s her husband, I think, I said. I pointed to a guy sitting in a truck with a bunch of little kids.

Why doesn’t he go in? said Wilson.

They don’t do that, I said.

Elias finally came hobbling out of the barn with crutches that were too small so he was hunched over like a little old man. Wilson walked with him back to the truck and Aggie rounded up Oveja and I went into the corn to find Marijke so we could go. It took me a while and when I
found her she was sitting in the dirt, crying. I crouched down next to her and asked her what was wrong and she told me that she kept opening and closing her eyes thinking that eventually, when she opened them, she would see her son standing there in front of her. She was afraid she was going nuts in this fucking desert. She wanted to go back to Germany but she was afraid that Diego would kill her.

I can’t leave now, she said. Or his film will be ruined. And then he’ll kill me. It’s simple.

He won’t kill you, I said. That would be stupid.

He keeps saying he’ll kill Alfredo, said Marijke. So why wouldn’t he kill me?

He doesn’t mean it, I said. That’s how he talks.

I feel like I’m disappearing, she said. Look at me. Do you see me?

Yes, I see you, I said.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

We should go to the truck now, I said. Elias is done.

Sometimes I feel like my life is an invention, she said.

Well, I said, sometimes the only way I know I’m alive is when I feel the pain in my chest, because there’s no pain in heaven.

What makes you think you’ll be in heaven if you’re not alive? said Marijke.

I held my hand out to her and she took it and I pulled her up off the ground. I was just about to tell her that she was as light as air but remembered that that was the thing she was afraid of and I kept my mouth shut.

We drove home in silence, collectively worn out from
the sun and our own individually wrapped pain. The crew had become smaller from being sick. Before it was hard to squeeze more than four people into the cab of the truck but now we could fit five. I asked Wilson to drop Aggie and me off at the end of my driveway. We had to milk the cows and then we’d come to the house to make some kind of meal for everyone. We got out of the truck without saying goodbye to anyone and found a box sitting in the middle of the driveway.

It’s more of your stuff from when you were little, said Aggie. I was milking furiously while she took out the clothing from the box and held each little undershirt and dress under the light bulb that hung down on a cord from the roof of the barn.

Wow, this is hideous, she said.

You wore it too, I said. And it was Katie’s before it was mine probably. Put it back in the box and then put the whole thing in the grain shed and come help me.

I wish Katie was here, said Aggie.

You do? I said. You never talk about her.

We’re not allowed to, said Aggie.

Or it’s just easier to forget, I said.

No, said Aggie. It’s the hardest thing in the world to forget.

Yeah, I said. You can talk about her with me if you want to.

I don’t want to.

You want her to be here, I said.

Yeah, said Aggie. But talking about her is useless.

No, it’s not, I said. What do you remember about her?

Nothing, said Aggie.

Aggie, I said. That’s not true. You do remember stuff. How can you want her to be here if you have no memory of her?

Well, you have memories of her, don’t you? said Aggie.

Of course I do, I said.

And don’t you want her to be here? said Aggie.

I said, I don’t think your question makes sense.

How can you not know? said Aggie. Didn’t you love her?

It’s not that, I said. Of course I loved her.

Dad said you love your imagination more than real life, said Aggie.

What? I said. That’s not true!

I’m just saying that’s what he said, said Aggie. Maybe it’s true. So what?

We should hurry, I said.

Why should we hurry? said Aggie. Are you in love with Wilson?

Just put all that stuff back in the box, I said.

At dinner Diego delivered a motivational speech to the cast and crew. He apologized for losing his temper on the mountain. He lost his composure and put his hand over his eyes and said he was sorry for putting us at risk. He asked Elias how his ankle was. Morale was low. Every five minutes something was going wrong. Diego had bought a bottle of tequila and was pouring shots for everyone, even Aggie. The Mexican woman he had hired to kiss Alfredo on the hill was eating with us too, along with two of her kids. I asked her in
Spanish if she was having an okay time and she said she was waiting to get paid. Alfredo was lying on the couch with a pillow over his face. Diego acknowledged that the going was getting a little tough, that conditions were difficult and that time and money were running out, but he had faith that it would work out in the end and that seven months from now we’d all be wearing beautiful
vêtements
and drinking champagne on a party yacht at the Cannes film festival where the world had come to be blown away by our efforts.

The art of making a movie is an exploding bomb, he said, and while it destroys it also re-creates.

I attempted to translate this for Marijke but she didn’t really understand what I was trying to tell her. I had made her a giant bowl of green salad for her anemia and I kept pointing to it like all those pieces of lettuce were shrapnel or something and somehow emblematic of the creative process. I thought about grabbing the bowl and tossing the salad high up into the air and then picking up the pieces and returning them to the bowl but that just seemed dumb and by then Diego had moved on to compare the art of making a movie to anal sex (absurd and painful at first) and to the resurrection of Christ.

We need more blankets, said Elias.

And water, said Sebastian.

Wilson walked me and Aggie and Oveja back to my house. I whispered to him that I thought Marijke was having a hard time, that she was worried about going crazy out here.

Even with all her theories and voodoo? said Wilson.

Well, I said, this is the desert. He nodded and said that made sense. He said it took him a year to recover from one of Diego’s films. He’ll take your soul, he said. And then you have to spend some time afterwards looking for it.

Marijke doesn’t want to look around for her soul, I said.

For the sake of the mind, said Wilson, it’s very important to be able to communicate loneliness.

Well, I said, Diego wants Marijke to run down the road.

Run down the road? said Wilson.

To clear her mind, I said.

What did she say about that? asked Wilson.

Nothing, I said. I didn’t translate it for her.

Why not? said Wilson.

I don’t know, I said. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.

Because she might not come back? said Wilson.

That was the end of our conversation. He briefly touched my shoulder and I nodded once, the way a man would. We said goodbye. Then the night started in for real.

Aggie had gone to bed and I was sitting in the dark at the kitchen table. I was thinking about my family. Mostly about my mother. I tried to cheer myself up by remembering something from long ago. We’d had a phone in Canada. It was brand new. It had never rung. I remember answering it when it rang for the first time and giving it to my mom. It was my aunt Hildie. Katie and I listened to our mom with some astonishment while she talked to Aunt Hildie on the phone. Yes, my mom had said to her, you told me that. Yes, she said, I won’t forget. Yes, she said, I agree with you.
I have to go now. Yes, she said, I’ll remember. Now Hildie, she said, you know I’d wish for you to die. Then she said goodbye and hung up the phone and went back into the kitchen like it was no big deal. Katie and I were laughing so hard and our mom stared at us and asked us in German what had gotten into us and we asked her the same question. She explained to us that Aunt Hildie had chosen that day to worry about what would happen to her if she fell into a coma and she didn’t want to be artificially resuscitated and wanted our mom to remember that.

Is it possible to communicate loneliness if the only person you’re sharing it with is yourself? I looked around my little house and thought: Oh! Is that a prayer? I got down on my knees and I bowed my head and folded my hands and whispered dear God, bring me love. Bring me love. Bring me true love. Bring me love. I opened my eyes and got back up and walked to the bedroom and got into bed next to Aggie and waited.

I waited and waited. Then there was a knock on the door. It was my father and he was there to inform me that he’d just sold my house to his something something, some kind of twice-removed whatever, and that I would have to get out and take Aggie, if she was there with me, but frankly he didn’t care where she was, and find other lodgings. Maybe we could get work cleaning for Mexican capos. If we were lucky.

I slammed the door in his face and listened. Nothing. I thought he must be walking back to his house. Then I heard some Bible verses being quoted and realized that he was still there.

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, he said. And then louder, a practised crescendo I’d heard a million times.

And he said unto him, Lord I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death!

I wondered if I should make some coffee or go back to bed.

And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me!

I couldn’t find my canister of coffee. I let a cupboard slam by accident and swore. I didn’t want Aggie waking up.

Then he demanded that I let him into the house. I didn’t say anything. He started yelling and Aggie eventually came out of the bedroom and together we stared at the door.

It’s Julius Voth, I said.

Don’t let him in, she said.

Then we heard another voice.

Who’s that? said Aggie.

I think it’s Diego, I said.

Our father asked him what he was doing there and Diego told him that he’d been outside staring at the sky, looking for signs of rain, and had heard yelling coming from my yard and then had started to wonder what was going on and if I was all right.

Well, now you can leave, said my father, and stay out of our business.

I will, said Diego, but why don’t you go home also.

You will not tell me what to do on my own property, said my father.

Aggie and I sat silently at the table waiting for it all to end. It took a while. Arguments between two visionaries are lengthy, I learned. One of these men will be dead soon, I thought. While they argued Aggie made shapes on the table with flour. Tiny words, then bigger, like an eye chart. And hearts and clouds and cacti and planets. I went far away in my head, back to Canada, to snow, to forts, to ammunition that could melt, to red wrists from sleeves on parkas that were too short, to eyes frozen shut with ice.