The Cartel (46 page)

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“What did you color your zebras?” Pablo asks.

“Orange and blue.”

Good, Pablo thinks.

All this narco stuff is foolishness. All that matters is that his son is willing to color zebras in orange and blue.

—

The two rectangular boxes—one yellow, the other terra-cotta—of Cafebrería, sit on José Reyes Estrada Circle, just off the Plaza de las Américas and close to the university, and are the epicenter of the intellectual life of the city.

It represents everything Pablo loves about Juárez.

A coffeehouse, a bookstore, a gallery, a performance spot, a gathering place for everyone who cares about ideas and art and community, Cafebrería is almost literally the heart of the city for him.

He goes there to see friends, meet new people, find interesting ideas, get into discussions and debates (which occasionally turn into arguments but never fights), listen to music, hear readings, buy books that he can neither afford nor resist, not to mention just get an honest strong cup of coffee that doesn’t come from a giant corporate chain, and sit in a quiet spot and read.

Now he sits in a metal folding chair with Mateo at his feet happily coloring (a magenta and turquoise tiger this time) and listens to Tomás read from his latest novel. It’s a beautiful book and a beautiful reading, as one would only expect from Tomás Silva, whom Pablo regards as a national treasure.

One thing that Pablo loves about Tomás’s readings is that there is no sense of irony in them. The author is serious about his work and reads it seriously, his sad eyes glowing from behind his glasses, his strong jaw set as if he’s reconsidering his words as he speaks them.

Ana sits down the row with her eyes closed, shutting off visual stimuli to focus on the sounds of the words. Giorgio stands off to the side, quietly snapping photos of Tomás without the distraction of a flash.

Óscar has his bad leg propped up on the chair beside him, his cane hooked over the chair in front. He and Tomás go back to their university days—close friends still—and Pablo knew that El Búho wouldn’t miss this reading.

Really, most of the Juárez intelligentsia are present for the event—writers, poets, columnists, and a scattering of serious readers who always show up for this kind of thing. Pablo recognizes a few local politicians, there to display that they have a brain and, supposedly, a soul, although he doubts both.

Victoria is not there, even though she loves Tomás, both professionally and personally.

Probably working, Pablo thinks.

Victoria is always working.

The reading ends and Tomás takes questions. There are many—some of them legitimately curious and wanting an answer; others more statements than interrogatives, meant to show off the questioner’s knowledge or express a dogma. Tomás is patient and painstaking with all of them, but is clearly relieved when the Q&A is over.

Then there’s coffee and wine and the usual standing around and schmoozing, but Pablo figures that he’s probably used up his four-year-old’s full store of patience and takes him across the boulevard into the park to run around and play before they go over to Ana’s.

—

Four hours later, Pablo sits on the kitchen steps that lead into the small fenced-in backyard of Ana’s little bungalow in Mariano Escobedo
.
Pablo has spent many a good evening out there, sitting on the kitchen steps or in one of the wooden chairs, or helping Ana to cook on the little charcoal grill.

Tonight, the house is packed.

Ana of course ended up inviting everyone who attended the reading, and most of them showed up. It didn’t matter, she’d made enough paella to feed a small army, and a lot of her guests went out to dinner first before showing up at the party.

And most of them brought wine or beer, as did Pablo, so as not to put a financial strain on the hostess. That was just expected at Juárez gatherings, especially among a group that is mostly communist, or at least socialist, anyway.

Now Pablo sips on a beer and listens to Tomás and El Búho, just slightly in his cups, passionately discuss the romantic lyricism of Efraín Huerta as Giorgio debates the World Bank with an attractive woman whom Pablo doesn’t know.

“Fiscal policy as foreplay,” Jimena observes as she eases herself down beside Pablo, who slides over to make room.

Jimena is tall and thin, all awkward angles and sharp edges. One of nine brothers and sisters—her family have been bakers out in the Juárez Valley for generations—Jimena is also an activist. In her early fifties now, with two sons who are now young men, she spends more and more time on social causes, which often bring her to Juárez.

—

They met when Pablo was covering the
feminicidio,
as it came to be called—the disappearances and murders of hundreds of young women.

Three hundred and ninety, to be exact, Pablo thinks.

He covered at least a hundred of them. Saw the bodies—if they were indeed found— interviewed the families, went to the funerals and memorial services. It seems to have ended now, with no more answers than there were when it started. But Jimena, who lost a niece, helped to create an organization—Our Daughters Coming Home—to pressure police and politicians to close the cases.

Now she wryly observes Giorgio make his moves.

“He does have a certain charm,” Jimena says. “What about you? Any romance in your life?”

“Not lately,” Pablo says. “Between work and having a kid…”

“Mateo’s getting big.”

“He is.”

“Such a nice boy.”

And he loves his Tía Jimena, Pablo thinks. Mateo went to her the second they got into the house, climbed into her lap, and they had a serious conversation about zebras, tigers, and other animals.

Then she got Mateo a bowl of rice from the paella and, after securing Pablo’s permission, some
polvorones de canela,
then eventually took him into Ana’s big bed and read him a story until he fell asleep.

“How’s Victoria?” Jimena asks.

“She’s Victoria,” Pablo answers. “Conquering the world.”

“Poor world.” She ruffles his hair. “Poor Pablo. Our big, shaggy puppy of a Pablo. Who is Giorgio seducing now?”

“Some lawyer, I think.”

“Is he succeeding?”

“Just a matter of time,” Pablo says.

But Giorgio breaks it off and comes to sit down with them, and the lawyer goes into the house.

“Neofascist dyke,” Giorgio says.

“Now, now,” Jimena warns.

“Left-wing lesbians are perfectly natural,” Giorgio says, “but there’s something about a right-wing lesbian that’s, I don’t know…almost North American. Sort of Fox News–ish.”

They get El Paso television broadcasts in Juárez, and Giorgio is masochistically addicted to Fox News, which makes him simultaneously livid and horny.

“Tell me you don’t want to do those women on Fox News,” Jimena says.

“Tell me
you
don’t,” Giorgio counters. “Anyway, of course I do. I want to convert them through the subversive power of the orgasm.”

“So it
would
be a political act,” Jimena says.

“I am willing to sacrifice myself for the cause,” Giorgio answers.

“How did she find her way to this party?” Pablo asks.

“She’s a disciple of Tomás’s,” Giorgio answers. “She thinks he’s ‘important.’ ”

“He is,” Jimena says. “And her supporting the World Bank doesn’t necessarily make her a fascist any more than her resisting your doubtless charms makes her a dyke.”

“I just couldn’t imagine waking up with her,” Giorgio says. “What would we talk about?”

“How wonderful you were in bed?” Jimena suggests.

“Certainly, but that gets boring after a few times,” Giorgio says.

“
Pobrecito.
Such problems.”

“
You
should go after her, Pablo,” Giorgio says. “She’s your type.”

“But I’m not hers,” Pablo answers.

“Pablo is giving up on love,” Jimena says.

“Who said anything about love?”

“
What
about love?” Ana asks as she comes out the door. She sits down on Jimena’s lap.

“Why do women love to talk about love?” Giorgio asks.

“Why don’t men, is more the question,” Ana says.

“You can either love,” Pablo says, “or you can talk about it. You can’t do both.”

Ana whoops, then hollers, “Óscar, did you know that you have a young Hemingway working on your staff?”

Óscar blinks vacantly—he’s much too involved in the discussion of poetry for this—but smiles politely before he turns back to make a point to Tomás.

“I’m a little drunk,” Pablo admits.

“But you make a point,” Giorgio says.

“Oh?” Ana asks. “So, Giorgio, can you either make love or photograph it, but not both?”

The edge in her voice makes Pablo certain now that they had sex.

“You should have seen Ana with our esteemed governor today,” Giorgio says, changing the subject. “She had him sputtering.”

Ana laughs, then does a rather good imitation of the Chihuahua state governor: “ ‘On the subject of a so-called cartel in Juárez, it does not now nor never has existed, and moreover, my administration has made excellent progress in combating it if it does or has, which, of course, it doesn’t and hasn’t, unless you have evidence that you’re about to show me, in which case I’m late for a very important meeting.’ He’s a great idiot, our governor, but very well bred. He kissed my hand.”

“He didn’t,” Jimena says.

“He did,” Ana answers. “I blushed.”

“You didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” Ana answers. “But I didn’t dislike it as much as I thought I would. It’s been a long time since a man has kissed my hand.”

Pablo leans across and touches his lips to her fingers.

“Oh, so sweet, Pablo,” Jimena says.

Ana looks at him curiously, then recovers and says, “Anyway, certainly there are more important stories to cover, with PAN taking us into the brave new world of free-market economics just as all the jobs are going to China, and Bush killing every Muslim that moves.”

“Bush speaks Spanish, you know,” Giorgio says.

“That’s the brother,” Ana corrects him. “The one in Florida.”

The conversation swings from the brothers Bush to the war in Iraq to the emerging rights of Muslim women to postfeminism to current cinema—Mexican, American, European (Giorgio goes spasmodically mad over Bu-ñuel), and back to Mexican again—to the relative superiority of shrimp over any other kind of taco to the excellence of Ana’s paella, to Ana’s childhood, then to Jimena’s, to the changing role of motherhood in a postindustrial world, to sculpture, then painting, then poetry, then baseball, then Jimena’s inexplicable (to Pablo) fondness for American football (she’s a Dallas Cowboys fan) over real (to Pablo)
fútbol,
to his admittedly adolescent passion for the game, to the trials of adolescence itself and revelations over the loss of virginity and why we refer to it
as
a loss and now Óscar and Tomás, arms over each other’s shoulders, are chanting poetry and then Giorgio picks up a guitar and starts to play and this is the Juárez that Pablo loves, this is the city of his soul—the poetry, the passionate discussions (Ana makes her counterpoints jabbing her cigarette like a foil; Jimena’s words flow like a gentle wave across beach sand, washing away the words before; Giorgio trills a jazz saxophone while Pablo plays bass—they are a jazz combo of argument), the ideas flowing with the wine and beer, the lilting music in a black night, this is the gentle heartbeat of the Mexico that he adores, the laughter, the subtle perfume of desert flowers that grow in alleys alongside garbage, and now everyone is singing—

México, está muy contento,

Dando gracias a millares…

—and this is his life—this is his city, these are his friends, his beloved friends,
these people,
and if this is all that there is or will be, it is enough for him, his world, his life, his city, his people, his sad beautiful Juárez…

—empezaré de Durango, Torreón y Ciudad de Juárez…

Pablo sings into the soft night.

—

Sundays are the worst.

They always are, but especially when he has to bring Mateo back to his mother. And Mateo is sad, too. Are they his own feelings? Pablo wonders, or is he picking up my melancholy?

Pablo makes them a simple breakfast of croissants, jam, and butter—Mateo has milk while he has café blanca—and then they walk over to the park to kick the ball around. They try to joke and laugh, but they’re each aware that they’re just killing time, postponing the sadness, and after a while Pablo asks Mateo if he’s ready to go “home” and he says yes.

So Pablo calls Victoria and tells her that they’re on their way, and they take a bus to her neighborhood and then walk down to her condo. It’s a gated community but Pablo has the code, and anyway the guard recognizes them and passes them through.

Victoria is waiting out front.

She hugs and kisses Mateo, then says, “Honey, run inside and get ready for your bath, please.
Mami
wants to talk to
Papi.
”

Mateo hugs his father and trudges inside.

“He’s tired,” Victoria says. “Did you let him stay up?”

“He went to bed at Ana’s,” Pablo says a little defensively. “At the usual time.”

“Well, Ana has some sense,” Victoria says. She looks tired herself and she’s dressed professionally and Pablo is sure she took advantage of the free Sunday to get some time in at her desk. Tired or no, she looks beautiful, and Pablo is chagrined to feel the same old stir that he always feels.

Then she says, “Pablo, I’ve been offered a new job. A promotion.”

“That’s great. Congratulations.”

“It’s
El Nacional.
In Mexico City.”

Pablo feels his heart stop. “Well, you’re not taking it.”

“Well, I am,” she says. “A national newspaper? Editor of the financial desk? Come on.”

“What about Mateo?”

She has the decency to look a little abashed. “He’s coming with me. Of course.”

“He’s my son.”