The Heart Has Its Reasons (17 page)

I wanted to continue asking Daniel questions: he seemed open to answering without reserve. What he was offering me were broad brushstrokes of Fontana's life, but I found them valuable. I regretted not having come to him earlier: I would have saved myself hours of doubt and a headache or two.

The noise coming from the street suddenly diverted our attention and we both focused on what was happening on the other side of the coffee shop window. The young man with the Rastafarian hair and the large drum, like an alternative Pied Piper of Hamelin, started the demonstration. Behind him was a crowd made up of students holding signs and megaphones, young couples with baby carriages, professors and middle-aged citizens, schoolkids with colored balloons, and the energetic old ladies selling T-shirts and yelling like truck drivers.

“Should we get going?” he said, starting to pick up his books.

I put my raincoat back on as he finished gathering his things, ­leaving several dollars on the table without waiting for the waiter to bring the bill. Then he jotted down something quickly on a napkin.

“In case you still need me,” he said, and handed it to me.

While I was putting the two phone numbers—cell and home, I figured—in a pocket, he slung his heavy backpack over his shoulder and I did the same with my bag.

“Thanks a million for clarifying a few things,” I said as we left.

“On the contrary, Blanca, you're doing me a favor. I like to reminisce about my old friend, to talk about him again. It's healthy to unburden oneself of memories and make peace with all that has been left behind.”

The afternoon's weather was getting bleaker; no sooner had we set foot on the street than I closed my raincoat, crossing my arms firmly against my chest, and Daniel pulled up the collar of his overcoat. The wind stirred our hair.

“You know,” he added, a half smile visible amid his light-colored beard, “had he lived, Andres Fontana would no doubt have been at this protest. He was always against any meddling. I told you that he often
took long walks in Los Pinitos, right? Especially in the last couple of months, when he still had no idea how little time he had left.”

He then passed an arm around my shoulders, partly protecting me from the tumult and partly pulling me toward him. A couple of seconds later we were in the midst of the protest. In between yells, songs, slogans, and the booming of the drum, Daniel had to shout for me to hear him.

“He was fond of saying, half-serious, half-joking, that he walked there in search of the truth.”

Chapter 16

T
oward the middle of November my birthday approached and with it a handful of electronic greetings from family and friends. Along with their best wishes, most asked in passing when was I planning on coming back, but I was not forthcoming with dates because I didn't even know myself. My fellowship did not stipulate a precise end date, stating instead that I had three to four months to complete the assigned task. I still had work ahead of me, and for the time being had no intention whatsoever of returning.

Being a year older is not the most encouraging thing that can happen to someone whose husband has just left her for a younger woman. Nor did it raise my spirits that I lived far from my sons or that I received insistent calls from my sister every four or five days furiously goading me on to sabotage my ex-husband on his road to happiness. Nevertheless, I decided to celebrate the date, perhaps to prove to myself that life, in spite of it all, went on.

No one in Santa Cecilia knew it was my birthday. Perhaps because of this, and in an attempt to make the day special and add some color to my life, I decided to throw a party—a Spanish party for my recently made American friends, who had opened the doors to their homes and offered me their time and affection. A party in which none of the typi
cal travel-guide Spanish ingredients would be missing; a wink perhaps to the long-past National Hispanic Heritage Month debate. I'd serve potato omelets, gazpacho, sangria, olives. I decided, however, to keep the reason for the gathering secret.

I ran off some invitations on the old office printer, which most of the time functioned capriciously. I distributed them among the department's mailboxes and handed out another batch to my students. I hadn't given everyone much notice, but that's just how it had worked out. Unexpectedly, unforeseen. Just like everything else lately.

Once people had confirmed, I calculated that there would be more than thirty of us, between those invited and their respective partners. Luis Zarate accepted from the very start, as did several other colleagues. Rebecca would be there, of course. Daniel Carter would come by if he managed to make it on time: the night of the party, he'd be returning from a conference in Phoenix, he'd told me over the phone. And most of my students wouldn't let me down either.

After initially hesitating, I finally decided to invite Fanny as well, but she refused, claiming that she always dined with her church members on Saturdays. I'd gotten used to her strange personality and we managed to get along well, even with affection. I was no longer taken aback by her small eccentricities and her messy way of doing things; time had turned her into a close presence, almost dear. Not exactly into a friend, but someone special.

“Is there anything I can help you with or lend you?” Rebecca offered when I told her of my plans.

Before I could reply, she assumed the answer was yes and started to reel off the essential supplies to convert my 450-square-foot apartment into a decent place for a party.

“Let me think . . . I've got a collapsible table and folding chairs for when I have a crowd at my place. I can also lend you cooking utensils if you need them and, if you want, a large tablecloth, glasses, and cutlery . . .”

I had no other choice than to cut short her overwhelming generosity, otherwise my tiny space would be so packed with stuff that the guests wouldn't fit. I accepted the table, a few chairs, and a couple of other odds and ends. The rest would be disposable.

“When I'm done Friday afternoon, I'll wait for you and we can stop at my place first, load the car, and take it all to your apartment. I have to go to Oakland on Saturday morning and most likely will only return just in time for the party, so it's better if we get it all ready the day before.”

At a little after five, we pulled up in front of Rebecca's house. There was a lush garden and pool at the back, and a big hairy gray-and-white dog of dubious pedigree and with a preference for pizza crusts, she told me. His name was Macan and he was as genial as his owner. He just showed up one day ten years ago; Rebecca said her daughters found him tied to the rear wheel of one of their bikes. They put up posters in the area, but no one ever claimed him.

There were still indelible marks of the inhabitants who had passed through the house: skates and bicycles in the garage, raincoats on the clothes rack behind the door. Rebecca had three children and five grandchildren, none of whom lived nearby. However, the house didn't look like that of a mature, independent woman but more like one whose family members had just gone out to the movies or on a brief errand. Not a typical empty nest but rather a refuge to which they could all return at any moment and feel as if they'd never left.

“Let's begin in the kitchen,” she proposed.

The room had a large window overlooking the garden and a wooden island with burners at its center, above which, suspended from an iron frame, hung pots, pans, and clusters of dried herbs. Rebecca's efficiency evidently went beyond the office: everything was in its place, the jars labeled, the calendar on the wall with neatly written annotations, and some recently cut flowers in a vase on the counter.

“This is for the gazpacho,” she said, taking out an enormous electric contraption with a glass jar attached to it.

I said that a simple blender would do just fine, but apparently she didn't have one.

“And this is for the sangria. Pablo Gonzalez, the Colombian professor, brought it back for me from Spain some years ago,” she announced,
raising a large earthenware pitcher with a spout at the bottom. “Now let's go to the basement to fetch the chairs.”

We descended to a large open room where household goods and odds and ends were neatly stacked. In the center was a ping-pong table, and along the walls were cardboard boxes labeled with the names of their owners and their contents; posters of bygone singers; hundreds of vinyl records; and loads of photographs, pennants, and diplomas affixed to an enormous corkboard. A junk dealer's paradise, with the order of a military parade.

While Rebecca located the folding chairs, I was unable to resist the temptation to take a look at the photos. Picnics on the beach, kids' parties, prom dances, toddlers who were now parents, and grandparents who were only alive in the memories of their descendants.

“Well, we're done,” Rebecca announced as soon as she'd finished stacking a few chairs next to the stairs. She came over to where I was looking at the photos. “They're ancient,” she said, smiling.

Just as she'd shown me the picture of Andres Fontana in the department's conference room shortly after my arrival, now she pointed out who was who in her large family. For each image she had a reminiscence, an anecdote.

“This was a Fourth of July on the beach; in the end we got caught in a huge storm that ruined our fireworks. Here we are on an excursion to Angel Island, in the bay. That day my son, Jimmy, ended up falling off his skateboard and wound up with a gash in his head. He had to have seven stitches.”

She continued traveling in time as she went through the photos, until she came to one with a group of young adults.

“My God, what a sight! So many years ago! It's been a while since I've looked at this one. Let's see if you can recognize anyone,” she challenged me.

I looked at the snapshot carefully. Four people in the open air, two men at the sides, two women in the middle. All leaning against a large red car covered in dust. In the background, a desert landscape and what looked like Mexican houses. In the distance, the sea. The first one
on the left was a dark-haired man with a wide band around his head. Very skinny, with a flowered shirt and a beer in an extended hand, as if toasting the photographer. Next to him, a short girl, all smiles, with her hands stuffed in her shorts pockets, two braids, and a yellow shirt with the word
PEACE
emblazoned across it. The third figure was a young woman, slender and pretty. Her large mouth seemed to have been captured just as she burst out laughing. She was wearing countless colored necklaces and a long white dress that reached almost to her bare feet. Next to her, a tall man wearing a faded shirt and ragged jeans completed the group. One could hardly make out his face, which was hidden behind a mane of blond hair that reached his shoulders, a thick beard, and sunglasses. It looked like summer, and they were tanned, oozing happiness.

“No idea.”

Although I didn't know who they were, I wouldn't have minded being one of them. So radiant and carefree.

“This is me,” she explained, pointing to the girl with the braids.

“No!” I said with a loud laugh.

It was really hard to imagine that the elegant and mature Rebecca Cullen I knew was that girl with scanty shorts whose bosom proclaimed world peace.

“And there is someone else you know. Take a good look . . .”

I did, but unsuccessfully. Then she placed her finger on the last figure, the tall man with long hair and beard.

“Take a good look . . .”

Suddenly I thought I could recognize him. Although I could barely see his face, there was something in his figure that made me intuit who it might be.

“Daniel Carter?” I ventured to ask.

“Exactly,” she confirmed with a nostalgic smile. “My God, how much time has gone by! Look, how young we were, the clothes we wore—the hair.” She pointed again to the photo, moving her finger over the remaining figures. “This was his wife, and this is my ex-husband, Paul.”

I stopped myself from asking what had become of them. There was no need, however, because as Rebecca moved away from the photos and got ready to pick up the chairs, she began to elaborate.

“That photo was taken in Cabo San Lucas, in Baja California. Although I look very young, my three kids were already born. Paul, my husband, was a philosophy professor here in Santa Cecilia. We'd moved to California from Wisconsin three years earlier. The Carters arrived a little later and we became good friends.”

We were going up the stairs, Rebecca carrying the folding chairs, me dragging a table behind.

“At the time, I was centered exclusively on my family. I didn't work. The kids were still small and had come one after the other. We'd just finished buying this house; it was in ruins and we were still fixing it up. My parents came from Chicago that summer and stayed with our kids for a week so that we could finally have a vacation.”

We'd reached the kitchen, and the efficient Rebecca of the present returned to reality. “Well, now let's go and load all this into the car. I think it's best if we put the table in first, because it takes up more space. Then we'll put the chairs in and the rest of the things on top, okay?”

I assented, although I really wanted her to keep telling me things about her life, about that summer when they were young and drove down the Pacific Coast in a dusty old car.

To my good fortune, Rebecca, like the efficient woman she always was, managed to do both things at the same time.

“Paul left us four years later. He took off with a doctoral student. My daughter Annie was nine at the time, Jimmy seven, and Laura five. He told me it was an animal passion, a force beyond him that he was unable to control.”

We'd reached the front garden, next to the car. It was already dark.

“He came and went for a time, confusing the children and making me crazy,” she continued. “He'd disappear for a week and then return begging for forgiveness, promising that his affair was over, swearing he'd be faithful for the rest of his life. This went on for four or five months.”