Irma Voth (17 page)

One minute you’re jumping in the sparkly waves for the first time in your life and completely
unable
to stop laughing and the next you’re shedding the useless lining of
your uterus and smearing messages in blood in porcelain bowls and sandy beaches. Words of shame like I’m sorry about this mess and the smell and I don’t know why the hell I’m crying on such a beautiful summer day.

At the airport Gustavo held each of us close to his warm body, his beating heart, and told us that if we were ever in some part of Mexico, I can’t remember now which part, we had to go to the lake of echoes and that anything we said would be cannonballed right back at us clear as day. If you say, for instance, the name of the person you love, then the world will say it back to you as though it is confirming that it understands.

You can yell anything, said Gustavo, and the world will confirm it. You could yell
Vive mucho tiempo el muerto!
Or you could yell
Esto es una locura!

We will, I said. If we can find it.

Or you could yell
Chivas!
he said.
El Rebaño Sagrado!
That’s my team.

What team? said Aggie.

Soccer, I said.

The sacred herd, said Gustavo. You haven’t told me your names.

I know, I said. I’m sorry.

I understand, he said. I’m a cab driver. Nothing surprises me.

That’s good, I said.

No, said Gustavo, it’s a tragedy.

We said goodbye to Gustavo. But then he said wait a
minute and he ran to his cab and took something out of his glove compartment and ran back to us and handed me a tiny photocopied picture of a boy.

Is this your son? I said.

Yes, said Gustavo, it’s Raoul Elisandro Lopez Mundo. He’s nine years old. If you see a boy who looks like this please tell him to contact me, Gustavo, at the address printed on the back. He turned the paper over and pointed at the telephone number and address in Acapulco.

Where did you last see him? said Aggie.

At home, said Gustavo, in Mérida.

That’s so far away, said Aggie. What’s the population of Mexico? Now that she had bid farewell to her childhood and all of its impossible dreams she had suddenly become ruthlessly pragmatic. Gustavo and I shrugged.

Millions and millions, I said.

How will we find him? she said. And hasn’t he changed since this picture was taken?

I know, said Gustavo, that’s true. That’s all true.

It would be a miracle if we found him, said Aggie.

Yes, said Gustavo.

Aggie put the photo into our plastic bag of random stuff and we stood on the curb outside the airport and waved goodbye again. Aggie made Ximena wave too, by waggling her arm around like a rag doll.

We all fell asleep on the plane to Mexico City. I was trying to stay awake long enough to make a mental list of the things that we needed. They were all simple things: food,
shelter, clothing, money, school for Aggie, a job for me and a babysitter for Ximena. I had wanted to get my notebook out of the plastic bag but I couldn’t reach it without waking up my sisters. Aggie’s head was on my shoulder and Ximena was curled up in my lap with her arms around an empty bottle. I imagined Jorge and Wilson on either side of me, stroking my hands and agreeing to get along. We were all smiling. We’ll live together as an unusual family, said Jorge. We’ll have an apartment with big windows, said Wilson. Or a lighthouse with round rooms, said Jorge. The last thing I heard was the voice of an older woman who was sitting behind me and talking to a young man. Where is the art made from intense personal necessity? she said in Spanish. He answered her quietly, whispering, and I couldn’t make out what he said.

When we landed the three of us moved dreamlike through the artificial world of the airport and then out and into the real world of Mexico City and for the first time in a million years it occurred to me that my chest wasn’t hurting and it was as though I were experiencing a strange, foreign feeling like bliss or something which meant that either I had died in my sleep on the plane or I don’t know what.

Where would you like to go? said the taxi driver at the airport.

Aggie and Ximena and I all looked at each other for a couple of seconds and then I said well, I guess the Zócalo?

The Zócalo? said the taxi driver. No, you don’t want to go to the Zócalo now. There are thousands of people there protesting. It’s a zoo. Total chaos.

I know, I said. I didn’t know what else to say. It was the only place in Mexico City that I could name and that was only because Diego had been talking about it on that day when we were stuck in the field waiting for the right kind of rain.

I won’t be able to drop you off at the Zócalo, said the taxi driver. Or even close to it. All the side streets coming off it are jam-packed too. It’s not a good idea to go there.

I know, I said. That’s okay. Just as close as you can get will be fine.

He shook his head and peered at us through the rear-view mirror. I smiled at him. He looked worried. I imagined myself reaching over the seat and moving my finger gently over the ridge of his furrowed brow the way Marijke had done to me on the day we met.

We drove down wide avenues and narrow streets and past a park where men were hanging upside down from ribbons and spinning around a very tall pole, it must have been two hundred feet up in the air. The ribbons were wrapped around their feet so their arms were free to stretch out like wings or to hold on to tiny horns and drums which they blew and banged on periodically while they spun upside down way above the earth.

What’s that? said Aggie.

A tradition, said the taxi driver.

We turned around and peered up at the men from the back seat window until we couldn’t see them anymore.

It’s not going to work, said the taxi driver.

What won’t work? said Aggie. Her braids had come undone and her hair was wild and twisted around her head like a sun corona. She was beautiful in a deranged way and I was relatively calm after my nap on the plane and Ximena was still very much alive and we had seen men flying serenely through the air and … well, that was enough.

Obrador won’t accomplish anything with his tent city, he said. Calderón is official and it’s done.

Ximena started to cry, this was bad news for her, and I made a bottle for her in the back seat with the last of the milk formula and the clean water. Aggie stuck her filthy finger into Ximena’s mouth so she’d have something (toxic) to suck on while I made the bottle. She gently caressed the tips of Ximena’s ears because Oveja had loved it and so why shouldn’t a baby.

Are you here to sell cheese? said the taxi driver.

No, I said. I mean yes. Aggie looked at me and rolled her eyes and muttered a word in Low German that meant something like emperor with no clothes.

Where is it? said the taxi driver.

The cheese? I said. It’s with somebody else.

The cheesemonger, said Aggie.

Right, I said. I asked Aggie in Low German if that was another ancient word she’d learned from her stone tablet textbooks and she smiled and said nothing.

We’re meeting the cheesemonger in the Zócalo, I said.

He’s next to the cobbler, said Aggie. Across from the haberdasher.

Really? said the taxi driver.

Okay, I said. No. We’re not selling cheese.

I just thought you might be selling cheese, he said, because of the way you’re dressed. I thought you were
vendequesos
.

Not all Mennonites sell cheese, I said.

Well, I know that must be true, he said.

We walked for blocks towards the Zócalo, taking turns carrying Ximena. It was loud. There were people everywhere. It was getting dark. We stopped at a
farmacia
along the way and bought more baby formula, bottled water, pads, toothpaste, toothbrushes, diapers, notebooks, pens, a package of three boy’s sleepers (part of her disguise) and a primitive stacking toy for Ximena that Aggie insisted on buying even though I told her she was too young to appreciate it. Then we stopped in a clothing store and bought jeans, T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts for warmth
and
style, according to the clerk. Even so, we still looked like idiots. We looked at each other and laughed our heads off. We left the store self-consciously, a little shy, like astronauts stepping out onto the moon. Somebody will rescue us, I thought. Somebody will notice we’re missing and come and find us and bring us back home and be so happy that they found us unharmed and healthy. That might not happen, was my next thought. Then the third and final thought in this dumb trilogy was: Well. Okay. There was more sub-thought to that one but essentially I had made a decision. There was a sidewalk kiosk that sold knives and strollers so we bought one of each of those for protection
and
comfort, although Ximena was too small
really for a stroller so we used it for our stuff and I tied her tightly to my chest with my old dress, and kept on walking towards the Zócalo with ridiculous grins on our faces in spite of being almost completely broke now and having no discernible future.

EIGHT

THE THREE OF US STOOD IN AWE
at the edge of the Zócalo. I didn’t know what to compare it to. Maybe a very large field of corn, every stalk a human being, or a desert night sky packed with stars, or a page in a notebook where every available space is filled with ink, words, letters and parts of letters.

C’mon, I said.

Where to? said Aggie.

Just follow me, I said.

What are we doing? she said.

I don’t know, I said. Protesting.

Protesting what? she said.

I don’t really know, I said.

It seems like we’re just walking, said Aggie.

We sat down finally so that I could make another bottle for Ximena who had woken up starving and livid and with contempt for all she saw.

She’s clawing out her eyes again, said Aggie.

Don’t let her, I said.

Next to us was a group of young men and women banging on pots and pans and dancing and laughing and poking playfully at each other while they attempted to unravel some kind of banner with blood-red lettering. We stared at them. One of them yelled something incomprehensible into a bullhorn and the rest of them continued to dance around. Ximena was going nuts and Aggie was jiggling her a bit trying to calm her down while I prepared the bottle. The young men and women next to us started talking about the meaning of some English words.

The words
plangent
and
trenchant
, said one of the guys, they mean different things.

I’ve never heard of either one of them, said one of the girls. I think you’re full of shit.

No, no, said the guy. One means incisive and one means sad or maybe reverberating but I just use them to mean HA HA.

The girl laughed again and Aggie and I looked at each other, confused. I thought the boy was in love with the
girl. She mocked him and kissed him and laughed at him and jumped on his back. We continued staring. She reminded me of Katie and I wanted to say that to Aggie. I wanted to describe to her the way Katie rebelled, with jokes and smiles and affection and with some kind of tragically naive understanding that it would all be fine and even fun and definitely, ultimately, forgivable. But how do you talk about that?

Power was stolen in this case, said one of the guys.

Power is always stolen, said the girl. Again a huge grin on her face and kisses for everyone.

Here, feed her, I said to Aggie. I had finished making the bottle. I wanted to observe these people and make notes in my notebook.

No, you do it, said Aggie. I don’t want her to throw up on me.

Use my old dress as a shield, I said.

No! I’m not gonna sit here draped in that ugly thing, she said. I’m going to look at stuff.

She started to walk away and I told her not to wander too far and to come back in twenty minutes. She waggled her ass at me. She didn’t look back. She looked like a normal girl in those jeans and sweatshirt. I watched her walk in the direction of the National Palace, the place the seven Mennonite men came to a long time ago with grim hopes of making a land deal. I imagined her going in and saying hey! El Presidente! Time for a new deal! I fed Ximena. We looked deeply into each other’s eyes while she drank. I liked the heavy, warm weight of her in my arms. I kissed her forehead and the motion made her lose
her grip on the nipple and she craned her head around to my breast, her mouth open and searching for the thing she’d lost.

The jokey girl came over and sat down beside me. The boys were kicking a tiny beanbag or something around in a circle trying to keep it from falling to the ground. The girl told me she had noticed the three of us and was wondering where we came from. I was going to say Canada, but I said Chihuahua, the truth. She asked me if we had come to Mexico City for the protest and I said no, not exactly.

Are you tourists? she said.

No, not really, I said.

Have you been to Mexico City before? she said.

No.

There’s a ruined temple beneath us, she said.

There is? I said.

It was once used for Aztec worship and human sacrifice, she said. She stroked Ximena’s cheek with the side of her finger and made the sound we use to ward off rattlesnakes in the desert. Ximena stopped sucking on the bottle and stared at her.

Spanish conquistadors used bricks from the temple to help build their own capital, she said.

I nodded and smiled. They were like that, she said. Can I hold her?

Of course! I said. I handed Ximena over to the girl. I pointed at the enormous Mexican flag in the centre of the Zócalo.

I’ve never seen a flag that big before, I said.

Me neither, said the girl. She sang a Spanish song to Ximena who was eerily quiet and a little dumbstruck. Her tiny mouth was wide open like she’d forgotten there wasn’t a nipple still inside it and she seemed unable to blink.

What’s your name? I asked the girl.

Noehmi, said the girl. What’s yours?

Irma Voth, I said. She’s Ximena. And my sister Aggie is here somewhere.