The Crystal Frontier (15 page)

A jewel in the night,

While I'm so ordinary …

They laughed, then turned sad, and Marina thought about Rolando, wondering what he was up to in the streets of Juárez and El Paso, a man with one foot on that side and the other on this, a man connected to both places by his cellular phone.

“Don't call me at my place at night. It's better to call me in the car. Call my cellular phone,” he told Marina at the beginning. But when she asked for the number, Rolando wouldn't give it to her. “They've got a tap on my cellular,” he explained. “If they pick up one of your calls, I might get you in trouble.”

“So how will we see each other?”

“You know. Every Thursday night at the courts on the other side…”

But what about Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays? We all work, Rolando said, life's tough, it's not a free ride. A night of love, can't you see? Some people don't even have that … And Saturdays and Sundays? My family, Rolando would say, weekends are for my family.

“But I don't have one, Rolando. I'm all alone.”

“And Fridays?” he shot back with the speed of light. Rolando was fast, no one could take that away from him, and he knew that Marina would get flustered as soon as he mentioned Friday.

“No. Fridays I go out with the girls. It's our day to be together.”

Rolando didn't have to say another word, and Marina would anxiously wait for Thursday so she could cross the international bridge, show her green card, take a bus that left her three blocks from the motel, stop at the soda fountain for an ice-cream soda with a cherry on top (the kind they knew how to make only on the gringo side), and, fortified in her body, sleepy in her soul, fall into the arms of Rolando, her Rolando …

“Your Rolando? Yours? Every woman's Rolando.”

The jokes the girls made echoed in her ears as she braided the black, blue, yellow, and red wires, an interior flag that announced the nationality of each television set. Made in Mexico—there's something to be proud of. When would they put a label on the sets that said “Made by Marina, Marina Alva Martinez, Marina of the Assembly Plants”? But she didn't have that pride in her work, that fleeting feeling she was doing something worthwhile, not useless, something that erased the jealousy Rolando made her feel, Rolando and his conquests. All the girls insinuated it, sometimes they said it: every woman's Rolando. Well, if that was the way it was, at least she got her little piece of the action from a real star, well-dressed, with suits that were silvery like an airplane and shone even at night, nicely cut black hair (no sideburns), not like a hippy's, a perfectly combed little moustache, an even olive-colored complexion, dreamy eyes. And his cellular phone stuck to his ear—everyone had seen him, in fancy restaurants, outside famous shops, on the bridge itself, with his phone to his ear, taking care of
biznez,
connecting, making deals, conquering the world. Rolando, with his Hermes tie and his jet-plane-colored suit, arranging the world, how could he afford to give more than one night a week to Marina, the new arrival, the simplest, the humblest? He, someone so lusted after, the main man?

“Come here,” he said the third time they met in the motel, when she burst into tears and made a jealous scene. “Come here and sit in front of this mirror.”

All she saw was that the tears were gathering in her thick eyelashes, the eyelashes still of a little girl.

“What do you see in the mirror?” asked Rolando, standing behind her, bending toward her face, caressing her bare shoulders with those smooth coffee-colored hands covered with rings.

“Me. I see myself, Rolando. What are you talking about?”

“That's right, look at yourself, Marina. Look at that unbelievably beautiful girl with thick eyelashes and dark little eyes, look at the beauty of those lips, that perfect little nose, those divine dimples. Look at all that, Marina, look at that lovely girl, and then look at me when I ask myself, How can a girl that pretty be jealous, how can she think Rolando could like any other woman? Maybe she can't see herself in the mirror, maybe she doesn't realize how lovable she is. Doesn't Marina have any self-confidence? Rolando Rozas will have to educate her.”

Then her tears flowed, tears of sorrow and happiness, and she threw her arms around Rolando's neck, asking him to forgive her.

Today was Friday, but it was different. As they were leaving the assembly plant, Villarreal, the managers' waiter, told Candelaria something that excited her, something that completely unnerved her—a woman usually so self-possessed. Rosa Lupe, though she pretended to be composed, was in a state of turmoil. She'd been sullied both by Esmeralda, who'd humiliated her, and by Herminio, who'd protected her—which of them was worse, the bestial old woman or the sex-crazed young man? Dinorah, too, was burdened, and Marina tried to recall all the day's conversations to figure out what had upset Dinorah so much. Dinorah was a good woman, her cynicism was all pose, she was just defending herself against a life that seemed unfair to her, insane—usually she said it but now she was just insinuating it … Marina saw how sad they all looked, how preoccupied, and decided to do something unusual, something forbidden, something that would make all of them feel happy, different, free, who knows …

She took off her patent-leather stilettos, tossed them aside, and ran onto the grass barefoot, dancing over the grass, laughing, mocking the warning
NO PISE EL PASTO/KEEP OFF THE GRASS
, feeling a marvelous physical emotion. The lawn was so cool, so moist and well-kept, it tickled the soles of her feet; running over it barefoot was like bathing in one of those enchanted forests in the movies, where the pure maiden is surprised by the prince in shining armor, everything is shining, the water, the forest, the sword. Her bare feet, the freedom of her body, the freedom of that other thing—what is it called?—the soul. What the songs sing about—the body free, the soul free …

KEEP OFF THE GRASS

The women all laughed, made wisecracks, cheered, warned her, Don't be such a nut, Marina, get out of there, they'll fine you, fire you …

No, said Don Leonardo Barroso, laughing from behind his opaque windows. Just look, Ted, he said to the gringo who was dry as a corncob pipe. Look at the joy, the freedom of those girls, the satisfaction they take in having done their jobs. What do you think? But Murchinson looked at him skeptically, as if to say, How many times have you staged this little act?

*   *   *

The four women, Dinorah and Rosa Lupe, Marina and Candelaria, sat at their usual table right next to the discotheque's dance floor. The manager knew them and reserved the table for them every Friday. It was Candelaria's doing. The others knew it. Fridays it was extremely difficult to get a table at the Malibú, it was the great day of freedom, the death of the workweek, the resurrection of hope and hope's companion, joy.

“Malibú? Maquilú! Maquilá!” said the MC—in a blue tux with a ruffled shirt and fluorescent tie—to the wave of women filling the stands around the dance floor, over a thousand working women all crowded in together. It's the lights, just the lights, said Dinorah, the wet blanket. Without the lights this is a miserable corral, but the lights make it all nice and pretty. But Marina felt as if she were on a beach, yes, a marvelous beach at night, where the beams of light—blue, orange, pink—caressed her, especially the white, silvery light, which was like the moon touching her and tanning her at the same time, turning all to silver, not a suntan for others to envy (when would she ever go to a beach?) but a moon tan.

No one paid attention to sour Dinorah, and they all got up to dance with themselves, without men. Rock and roll lent itself to that—you didn't have to put an arm around anyone's waist or dance cheek-to-cheek. Rock was as pure as going to church: Sundays were for Mass, Fridays for the disco—the soul and the body were purified in the two temples. How well they all got along, what wild ideas they had, arms here, feet there, knees bent, hair flying, breasts bouncing, asses shaking freely, and most of all the faces, the expressions—ecstasy, mockery, seduction, shock, threat, jealousy, tenderness, passion, abandon, showing off, clowning around, imitating celebrities. All of it was allowed on the Malibú dance floor, all the lost emotions, the forbidden moves, the forgotten sensations, everything had its place here, justification, pleasure—pleasure above all—though the best thing was missing.

Sweaty, they returned to their seats—Candelaria in her multiethnic outfit, Marina tricked out in her miniskirt, a sequined blouse, and her stilettos, Dinorah on display in an attractive low-cut dress of red satin, Rosa Lupe wearing her Carmelite robe, carrying out her vow. But here fantasy was allowed, and it was somehow soothing to see someone dressed like that, all coffee-colored and draped in a scapular.

Then the Chippendales paraded onto the runway, gringos brought over from Texas. Bare-chested, they wore bow ties, ankle-high boots, and jocks whose straps slipped between their buttocks and whose pouches barely supported the weight of their sexes while revealing the forms and challenging the girls: Arouse me with your eyes. The boys were identical yet varied, each carrying his sack of gold, as Candelaria said laughing, but each different in certain details: this one with his pubis shaved, that one with a diamond in his navel, another with a tattoo of the two crossed flags—the stars and stripes, the eagle and the serpent—on his shoulder, one boy, if you looked lower down, with spurs on his boots. All of them moving to a delightful, manly, exciting beat while the girls stuck money in their jocks—Rosa Lupe, all of them—blond but tan, oiled so they'd shine more, their faces made up, all gringos, desirable little gringos, adorable, for me, for you. The girls elbow one another. In my bed, just imagine. In yours. If he'd only take me, I'm ready. If he'd only kidnap me, I'm kidnappable. A Chippendale squatted down and pulled the rope that bound Rosa Lupe's penitential robe, and all the girls laughed. He began to play with the rope as Rosa Lupe said, This is my day, this makes the third time someone's tried to strip me, but the boy, tanned, oiled, made up, with no hair in his armpits, played with the rope as if it were a snake and he a snake charmer, raising the rope, giving it an erection. The other girls elbowed Rosa Lupe, asking her if she'd rehearsed it all with this hunk, and she swore, laughing till the tears rolled down her face, that no, that was the good part, it was all a surprise. But the girls howled, begging the boy to toss them the rope, the rope, the rope, and he ran it between his legs and stuck it under the diamond in his navel as if it were an umbilical cord, driving the girls crazy, all of them shouting for him to give them the rope, to tie himself to them, to be a son by the rope, a lover by the rope, a slave, a master—they tied to him, he tied to them—until the Chippendale slid the end of the rope into Dinorah's lap as she sat there next to the runway, and she yanked it so hard she almost pulled the boy down. Hey! he shouted, and she shouted wordlessly, howled, tugging on the rope, pulling herself forward, elbowing her way through the crowd, the astonishment, the comments …

The girlfriends looked at one another, astounded but not wanting to show it, wanting instead to show they approved of Dinorah. To vast applause, their jocks stuffed with money, the Chippendales took a break, losing, one after another, their assembly-line smiles, each one returning, as he stepped off the runway, to his everyday face. A parade of difference: one bored, one contemptuous, this one satisfied, as if everything he did had been admirable and should have earned him an Oscar, that one shooting murderous looks around the corral full of Mexican cows, as if, perhaps, he wished it were another corral, full of Mexican bulls. Frustrated ambition, ruin, fatigue, indifference, cruelty. Evil faces, said Marina without meaning to. Those boys wouldn't know how to love me, they're not like my Rolando, whatever his faults may be.

But now came the most beautiful part.

They began to play Mendelssohn's wedding march, and the first model appeared on the runway, her face covered by a veil of tulle, her hands clutching a bouquet of forget-me-nots, a crown of orange blossoms on her head, her skirt puffed out like that of a queen, like a cloud. The girls let out a collective exclamation, a sigh really, and none of them had any doubt about the person whose face was hidden by the veil: she was one of them, dark-skinned, a Mexican woman—they would have been offended if a gringa had come out in a bridal gown. The boys had to be gringos, but the brides had to be Mexican … Once they did bring out a little blond bride with blue eyes, but in the riot that ensued, the place almost burned down. Now they knew. The parade of bridal gowns featured Mexican girls, it was meant for Mexican girls: five brides in a row, modest and virginal, then one in a mock bridal outfit, a taffeta miniskirt, and at the end a naked bride, wearing only a veil, the flowers in her hands, and high heels, ready for the nuptial bed, ready to give herself. Everyone laughed and shouted, and at the end a little man dressed as a priest appeared and blessed them all, filling them with emotion, with gratitude, with the desire to come back the next Friday to see how many promises had been kept. But there at the exit were Villarreal—Don Leonardo Barroso's man, the boss's servant—and Beltrán Herrera—Candelaria's lover, the union leader, a serene, dark-skinned, graying man with tender eyes, now more tender than ever behind his glasses. His moustache was wet, and he took Candelaria by the arm to whisper something in her ear. Candelaria covered her mouth to keep from screaming or weeping, but she was a solid woman, maternal to the core, intelligent, strong, and discreet. She only told Marina and Rosa Lupe, “Something terrible's happened.”

“To whom? Where?”

“To Dinorah. Come on, she's going home as fast as she can.”

They hurried into Herrera's car and Villarreal repeated the story he'd heard in Don Leonardo Barroso's office, that they were going to tear down Colonia Bellavista to build factories, were going to buy the lots for nothing and sell them for millions. What were the workers going to do? They had enough weapons to prevent an outright looting, to get some notice, to demand that they, too, reap some benefits.