The Ladies of Managua (39 page)

When I open the door, she's standing there, with her mouth open and moving, but no sounds coming out. Her cell phone is in her left hand, the flashlight is in her right, and the weak circle of light it offers is trained on the trail of blood I've left, marking my path from the bed to the bathroom.

 

41

Isabela

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2009

We didn't even wait for Don Pedro to arrive. When Allen burst into my room at half past seven, he had already hired a car and driver from the tourist agency across the street. I can't imagine how he got them to open the shop that early. He probably banged on their door, which is what he claims he did to mine. He says he pounded for several minutes before convincing the girl at the desk—it's the one with the smooth forehead again, she must be back from her days off—that there was an emergency and he needed the housekeeping key to my room. Poor girl must have thought I had expired in my bed, died of grief.

I was mortified, of course, when he shook me awake. I screamed, “Díos mio! Que pasó?” before my brain woke up and I realized whom I was talking to. When I saw it was Allen, and he looked perfectly fine, I managed to say, “You could have killed me,” in English. “A woman my age, his heart is weak. And I have the emphysema from all the smoking of Ignacio.”

He apologized, of course, and said he'd been knocking hard but I hadn't heard him. It's possible he's telling the truth; my hearing isn't what it used to be, but I want to grow my hair out a bit more so that it covers my ears before I start using a hearing aid, like all of my girlfriends.

I didn't tell that to Allen; it's not his business, and he wasn't in my room to talk about hairstyles. “Now that you're up, hurry and get ready, Bela,” he barked, as if he's in a position to be giving me orders. “We're going to Managua. Ninexin called. Maria's sick and she got a helicopter to bring them to the Metropolitano hospital.”

He thrust his arm at me, to help me out of bed, and I grabbed on but didn't start inching out toward the floor although he was practically dragging me. “Sick? My Mariana? With what? And why?”

I meant, why had Ninexin called him first, not me? But he didn't give me time to express all that.

“The connection wasn't very good; Ninexin said she couldn't talk long but they were in the hospital, the doctors are working on Mariana, and she'll call as soon as she has more information. All I really know is, I'm leaving in fifteen minutes whether you're with me or not. I'm going to finish packing and check out. I'll see you in the lobby.” I crossed my arms over my chest, but then he said, “Bela, it's our girl,” and offered me his other arm. This time I did slide my feet to the floor. What did it matter if he saw me
en déshabillé?
My nightwear is as modest as you can buy these days, what with all the overnight nurses we've had staying at the house since Ignacio's heart started failing.

Ignacio! Thank God he isn't here with me now, getting ready to go see our granddaughter in the hospital, suffering. The anxiety would have killed him. He loved Mariana more than anything or anyone, and he hated situations that he couldn't control. To think of her flying through the air in a bumpy, whirring toy of a plane, sick, and with God knows what! Ninexin went to collect Mariana in Solentiname. Maybe she got jungle leprosy there. Or food poisoning. She probably has the stomach of a gringa now and is susceptible to that sort of thing.

Those thoughts were buzzing through my brain like a plague of locusts, but I didn't stop to call Ninexin. There would be time for that from the car. Even as my mind was busy, my body was calmly gathering my things—thank goodness for Mother Dauphinais, who checked our drawers for neatness; having everything arranged in piles makes short work of packing, even for a slow-moving old woman on an unfair deadline. I was packed and dressed and drinking coffee in the courtyard when Allen came running down the hall twenty minutes later. I didn't even want the coffee, although I enjoyed the croissant that came with it. I just wanted to show him that even in a crisis, there's nothing to be gained by acting like animals.

“Nice work, Bela,” he said. As if I had asked for his evaluation or approval. “Can you get that to go?”

“I have dined sufficiently.” I rose without the help of the hand he offered. I hoped he saw the red imprint my lips left on the coffee cup, that he noticed I had managed to put on lipstick. This is the caliber of women in the family he aspires to marry into.

*   *   *

I called Ninexin three times before we even left the outskirts of Granada, but each time I got her recorded message; Allen told me her phone must have been turned off. The bouncing of the van on the highway made my hollow stomach ache with nausea as well as hunger. I took out my rosary and closed my eyes so that Allen wouldn't interrupt me. But when he put his hand on my shoulder, I didn't shrug it off. I thought it might be his ignorant way of joining in my prayers.

We were ten minutes from the hospital when Allen's cell phone rang. He picked up, nodded a bit, then said, “Oh, thank God!”

“Give me the phone!” I demanded and he handed it over before running both his hands through his hair, as if he were making space for the stupid grin spreading across his face.

“Que pas
ó
?” I demanded, and Ninexin told me that Mariana was fine, she was in with the doctor now, it turns out she had a blood clot on her pancreas, which was not unheard of in these situations. “Oh, Dios mio!” I said, and Ninexin, who must have ice water in her veins, replied, “I know, Mama, but I promise it's nothing to worry about.” I was about to tell her of course I was worried when she started right in again: “Listen, Mariana's going to be with the doctor for a while. Drop Allen off here, go home, shower and change, and come back when you're fresh,” Ninexin said, and it was a command, not a suggestion, as if I were one of her subordinates and she were my comandante.

“Absolutely not!” I told her. “Not even if God wanted me to. I have every right to be there, I raised that girl when you were too busy looking after this ungrateful country instead of your own daughter. And now you think she'd rather see this—foreigner—instead of me? I think not.” I used the word “foreigner” because I thought Allen would hear “gringo” and understand that we were talking about him. And just because this was a crisis, and I had been offended beyond all reason, was no excuse to go around making people feel badly.

“Calm yourself, Mama. Mariana
asked
that you go to the house first, she wants you to bring a clean nightgown and the large sketchbook she left in the guest room. She may be here a few days and sketching will make her feel better.”

“Why does she need to be in the hospital for a few days if there's nothing to worry about?” I demanded.

“She'll rest better here, and the doctors can observe her. It's just a precaution, Mama, and she really wants her sketchbook.”

I knew what was going on. Ninexin wanted Mariana to herself. She's always been jealous of all the time we had together, as if she weren't the one who had chosen to be busy elsewhere. But I wasn't going to remind her of that now; there was no need for a scene. “One of the maids can bring it, they've had nothing to do for days,” I pointed out. But Ninexin said that Mariana didn't want anyone else snooping through the paintings, that some of them showed subjects she preferred to keep private. “She said you'd understand. You're the only person she trusts, Mama.”

“Of course I am,” I said. “And with good reason!”

“Great. Now please put Allen on,” Ninexin instructed, without so much as a good-bye for me, the woman who brought her into this world.

I left Allen in front of the hospital—he, at least, had the decency to kiss me good-bye before leaping from the van. I went home to take a shower and run a comb through my hair, change into a navy suit, and throw on a bright scarf, even if I am in mourning, because people in a hospital need cheering up. And I had a proper breakfast, too, so that I'd be at my best when I saw my Mariana.

*   *   *

She looks so pale, lying in the hospital bed with her father's dark hair spread all around her. I can't help sobbing when I walk in. “Oh, Mariana!” I manage to choke out. “Oh, mi hija!”

“I'm starved.” Allen rises from the chair at her side. “I'm going to go grab lunch, now that you're in such capable hands.” He extends his arm to help me settle into the chair but I stay leaning over my Mariana for a moment, touching her cheeks, her eyes, her throat, her hands, just to make sure she's all right. She giggles, squirming away from me.

“Is it painful, mi corazón? Where does it hurt?”

“I'm fine, Bela. Nothing hurts. It didn't even when I was bleeding. I had no cramps, no pain, nothing. I was just scared more than anything.”

“And what caused it, this clot on your pancreas?” Mariana starts laughing again, only much harder this time, as if I'm just the funniest comedienne she's ever heard, a regular Lucille Ball. A great eruption of honking behind me means that Ninexin is apparently in on the joke.

“Not pancreas, Bela,
placenta
! I have a blood clot on my placenta.”

“Well, your mother said pancreas.” I turn to Ninexin so she can admit that she's the one being made a fool of here. But Ninexin just glides to the foot of Mariana's bed and sits down at her feet.

“Did not, Mama; I never said ‘pancreas.'” The word makes them both fall about laughing all over again, although there is nothing humorous about the pancreas.

“Well, of course you did. And it can't be ‘placenta' anyway, because only pregnant women have placentas to speak of.”

Now they're laughing harder than before, Mariana's sheeplike bleats and Ninexin's unbecoming honks making a barnyard symphony. I drop into the chair.

She's pregnant. My unmarried granddaughter is pregnant. And laughing. It's not that I expected her to be a virgin, not really. I know it's not like that for girls anymore; half of my friends' daughters walked down the aisle with a baby under their white gowns and no one batted an eye, unless it was one of the bride's girlfriends winking at her, thinking how clever she was to trap whatever slippery man she had been dating into marrying her.

Speaking of slippery men, this is why Allen ran out for lunch, the coward! He was afraid to face me. A grown man like him should know better, taking advantage of my sweet Mariana. He should at least know how to prevent such things from happening. He's not a teenager! “Ay, Dios mio!” I whisper, and the two of them start laughing again.

“This is not funny!” I shout, but that only makes them laugh more.

“Maybe not, but it is joyous.” Ninexin inches farther up the bed, closer to where I am sitting. She grabs my hand. “Think of it, Mama! A baby!”

“The next generation.” Mariana looks happy, for the first time since she showed me the painting whose photo she had hidden for me on her phone. It's a very similar expression to the one she wore when the little screen lit up with that image: joyful and shy and a little bit proud. Even Ninexin is beaming at her.

“A baby!” I say. And then, because I'm not one to sit around guffawing like an idiot when there's work to be done, I reach into my purse for the little leather notebook with the gold-tipped pen Ignacio gave me every year at Christmas; this year's was bright pink. Even though it's the last gift I'll ever receive from him, I was considering giving it away; it's hardly the right color for a woman in mourning. But it is the perfect shade for planning a wedding.

“Xalteva, like your abuelo and me,” I say. “Definitely Xalteva. We'll have to wait at least three months from your grandfather's death, to show respect, but we can't wait any longer than that, you'll be showing. How far along are you?”

“Eight weeks; in three months I will be showing. But, listen—”

“Well, that's not so bad, we'll find a dress that makes the best of it. I don't think I'm up to making the trip to New York, but as soon as the doctor says it's okay, we can fly to Miami and shop in Coral Gables. It's where all the girls get their gowns, anyway. And you won't be the first bride showing a bit of a stomach at her wedding, even Maria Leonora's granddaughter—”

“‘Bela, I'm not getting married!” Mariana grabs my hand. “Not any time soon, anyway.”

“But why don't you want to get married?” I'm trying to understand, to be pleased for her, because she's obviously happy herself, but none of this is making any sense.

“It's not that we definitely don't want to get married,” she says. “Allen and I want to see how things go, to concentrate on the baby first. The doctor said the blood clot will likely disappear on its own, but right now this is still a high-risk pregnancy.”

“Pendejo!”

“Mama!” Ninexin jumps to her feet. “Please!”

“He wants to wait to make sure the baby's actually born first? That is not how a gentleman behaves!” I stand up again; Allen couldn't have made it that far. I'll get him to behave responsibly.

“Sit down, Bela!” Mariana shouts. “Sit down and listen!” She never yells at me. And she must be thinking the same thing, because then she adds, in a softer voice, “Sit down and relax. Please.”

As I settle into my chair, even more slowly than I need to, as a show of protest, Mariana takes a breath so deep it seems she's drawing in all the air in the room before she finally speaks. “Allen would get married now, today, if I wanted to. I just think we have other things to concentrate on, under the circumstances, besides finding a dress to flatter my impending gut. If and when we have a wedding, I want to be able to drink champagne and wear a gown I love. And maybe the baby will dance, too.”

“Now you're the one saying things we should all laugh at! Why would you have a child out of wedlock when the father wants to give the baby his name?”