Nancy, p.4
Nancy, page 4
Where is Pato.
× where
× ×
×× × × ×
× × × ×
I didn’t dare ask my papá till a couple of days later when I went to the big port with him to pick up his checks × That whole time we’d been going around the house in complete silence. I was supposed to think Pato was looking for somewhere to stay in the big port, and that mamá was going back and forth to help × × × × When my papá parked the car in front of the office I took his hand and said to him, looking at my toes twitching inside my sandals: Pato’s dead, isn’t he? × He didn’t know what to say. He just hugged me and gave me a two-luca note × × We still don’t know × × Go and buy a kilo of rolls and spend the change on whatever you want × × He said this with a warning look that made it clear there was nothing more to be said on this topic × And so it was.
I decided to go to the farthest bakery I could think of, and as I crossed the streets of the big port town—a horrible place, then and now, full of fat people and new cars—I saw him: with all his brothers, helping some kids from a senatorial candidate’s campaign team build a stage in the town square × I realized for the first time that the place was overrun with election propaganda × From their trucks full of posters the Romany were coordinating things backstage. He was hanging from the light tower, shirtless, copper-colored from dirt and sunshine × Our eyes met and he smiled at me × I ran to the bakery, squeezing my legs tight together. I had to ask to use their toilet. Inside, I laughed, running my finger over a saint’s card bearing the image of St. Jude the Apostle, like I was blind × I went back quickly, not daring to look at him again, but feeling him there, always in wait, just like at the market during Semana Santa × × × And when I was on my way home, he reached his hand out over everyone’s heads, holding a caramel apple, trembling × × × × × × ×
Then he winked and ran off with my smile × × × ×
I spent hours thinking about him, locked up in the house. More bodies had been found, all women, along the length of the beach, so my mamá’s paranoia had tripled, though I always thought the whole murdered-women thing was an excuse to keep me on a short leash × One day, for example, when we were in the middle of doing the beans, she said to me, sinking her fingers into my hair: You better watch yourself, ‘cause you’re ripe now, you little brat, like a flower open to the wasps, to the pack on the hunt, and I don’t want you getting knocked up × I kept quiet and went on peeling and peeling, concentrating on the bag. Doubt gnawed at me: How could I be sure the woman didn’t suspect something? Could I not rela× even in my daydreams? × Old women can tell just by looking at you. Mamá could tell, and she spelled it out to me: Your hair’s all shiny, and so’s the skin on your face and neck.
× ×
× It’ll be worse when you get your period ××× I hope you never get it × God willing × × I said nothing, just sighed ×
You’re not even a woman yet and already you’re going around like a bitch in heat, you little piece of shit.
×
×
3 Between the big port and Ch there were a bunch of little towns: the only big one, bigger even than Ch and set back from the coast, was a place that had been blessed by the arrival of progress: a few kilometers from the last houses on the outskirts of San Fermin they’d erected a coal-fired power plant that within ten years had devastated the countryside. The only people left there, the only ones who still hadn’t taken off, were those who were too poor to leave their jobs at the plant × Children were born with breathing difficulties, and over the years their bodies acquired an ashy color and the consistency of wet wool × You could recognize them from afar by the way they walked, always exhausted, pigeon-chested and shoulders slumping, and to top it off, dry, feverish eyes × When the first refugees arrived at school some good Samaritan dreamed up the nickname and that was that: from then on they were, all of them, mutants.
4 Judas wasn’t there though, or maybe he himself was Judas, the Pato of the future, of a couple of weeks later, Pato crossing the desert at dawn, Pato dancing among the sweaty bodies in Hurricane Bar or Godzilla, Pato laughing with his friends, trying to get it on with any young flower who lets her guard down, Pato with three grams of coke up his nose, shivering with regret, black as a Chinchorro mummy, soulless ×××
And I, the Lord God, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and he slept, and I took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in the stead thereof; And the rib which I, the Lord God, had taken from man, made I a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said: This I know now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
The Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith
I’d already given up on him. I was barely sleeping, tossing between the sheets, the mattress beginning to sag from the damp × My body was burning ×
But the devils, in their perpetual circling, wanted my mamá to run away, to leave forever, to live in the big port × And after a week living alone with my papá I ran into the Romany man outside the house, on a day as sad as any previous day.
I’d overslept, so instead of going to school I spent the morning watching cartoons. As I turned on the tap in the front patio to water the flowerpots, that same feeling from my dreams, from that time in the town square in the big port. It hit me in the knees and rose up to my belly button × Like someone had rubbed mentholatum all over me.
× × × × ×
× × × ×
There he was, standing in the street, smoking.
××× I opened the gate ××× ××× He entered serenely ××× We went into the house and he fucked me on the tiles of the living room floor
×××× Afterward he washed his face and left ××××
×
× The same thing happened about three more times, until it started to get really risky and no longer made any sense. The last time he came to see me I actually spent thinking about what Pato had said to me before he got lost or died, and about my papá’s anxiety, and I lay there practically motionless, reliving the family tragedy in my head: my mamá, apparently worn out by it all, had used a trip to the big port to ask around about Pato’s body as an opportunity to move in with her sister × She couldn’t stand life in Ch × According to her it was a shady, dead-end town where everyone was either drunk or jealous × Jesulé writhed on top of me × She couldn’t leave without making a scene: mamá mala completely lost it, shouting at papá bueno while throwing clothes into a duffel bag. She called him everything under the sun: eejit, fucking queer,
poor sad loser × And so it went.
× I stood in the doorway and asked them what the matter was. Then, seizing the moment, shouted: And what the hell’s going on with Pato?
They looked around at me, frightened.
Not even they knew what was going on.
× Papá was sitting on the edge of the bed crying silently. Snot was hanging down past his chin × Mamá already had her bag over her shoulder × I sat down next to papá on the bed and hugged him. The only thing he did during the whole episode was rest his hairy hand on my shoulder and say: She’s staying with me. You can do what you like, darling, but Nancy’s not going anywhere × × × × × × × × And so it went × Mamá left and never came back to Ch × Papá shut himself away and worked, worked with such contained fury it almost killed him. In the three weeks between the sudden separation and the arrival of his saviors he lost a lot of weight. He spent whole nights watching TV × As for me, in truth I was more worried about my meetings with Jesulé, terrified of the idea that one of the women from the estate would catch on to what we were up to, than I was about my papá, or about what life would be like now that, against all odds, we had become what they referred to in school as a broken family, dysfunctional × Papá bueno, papá tonto, so good and so stupid that he’d die if it carried on like this, and there was nothing I could do × I had my own things to think about. For example: every time Jesulé penetrated me I started bleeding, a lot, and I’d think: my period’s started × But he’d come close and smell it × Then he’d say: It’s like your cherry’s growing back every time I pop it × × So I was worried not only about that but also about getting the blood stains out of my clothes, keeping the house clean, buying food, homework ×
One morning I felt a jolt between my ears, elastic, like something in my brain had moved without causing any pain. After that, I gradually stopped caring so much about the Romany. Like when you’re standing by the road and see a bus in the distance, and you turn your head slowly as it approaches, but before you’ve even had time to register its arrival it’s already disappeared beyond the horizon × × Back then it felt like I only ever saw the nape of Jesulé’s neck.
Third time’s always the charm. He ejaculated between my neck and breasts and then left, this time without even washing: he simply pulled up his pants and backed out the open door, quiet as ever × That’s when I realized the only thing that really mattered was that my papá was working himself to death × That while I rolled around in sin with the most delicious of sinners, the most pitiful of sinners was losing his grip on this world. He really was dying ×
But inscrutable are the ways of the Lord, as they say around here, and in some ways my life illustrated the truth of that proverb: everyone in Ch knew my father read the Bible, though we never went to church of any kind × For years, papá tonto was heaven’s most sought-after new recruit × We got a lot of home visits. He was so dense, though, that after a certain amount of awkwardness they’d all eventually abandon their attempts to win him over: priests, nuns, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Anabaptists, Mennonites. In truth they all paid us a visit but always left with their tails between their legs × × Papá would listen to them, then ask a few well-aimed, specific questions, as though they were sat around the table talking about geometry or shipping costs, and by about the time the evangelist was answering the second to last question it became obvious the house was a barren wasteland, or at best a forest where the only things that grew were things my father cultivated on the direct advice of Scripture. It was almost fun to predict these scenes: the house felt refreshed, and we were all actually quite proud of our father, and he was proud of himself, he who usually said little but took advantage of these opportunities to lubricate the spirit via the tongue × A giant of God × In any case, that morning when the Mormons managed to get into the house and interest my papá in the teachings of the Prophet and the possibility of becoming a god in a future life, on a faraway planet, that morning was so, so gray that to tell the truth if it had been the postman who’d arrived, or a knife sharpener, the old man would still have been taken in, some way or other × The lucky Brothers, rewarded for their stubbornness, were named Bryan and Josías.
Elder McLean
THE CHURCH OF
JESUS CHRIST
OF LATTER DAY SAINTS
Elder Moroni
THE CHURCH OF
JESUS CHRIST
OF LATTER DAY SAINTS
Bryan was born and raised in Salt Lake City, in North America. Josías was Mexican, though he’d been born in the outskirts of a Mormon community in Nuevo León. They were classic missionaries: twenty-something years old, a little on the plump side, clean, with short-sleeved shirts, black ties, name badges, and backpacks faded from the sun. They invited themselves in, encountering no resistance from this man whose wife had abandoned him, who was carrying around the pain of a son missing, probably dead, and there the two of them stayed × My papá looked so animated that I sat down and listened, or pretended to anyway × I thought about my last visit from the Romany and realized that a new era was beginning. I quietly relived our antics in the living room, while around the table they discussed Jesus’s travels through America; the disputes between the Nephites and the Lamanites, descendants of the tribes of Israel who had arrived on the new continent on an ark made according to divine instructions; the appearance of God the Father and God the Son to Joseph Smith in a forest in the United States; etcetera, etcetera × I tensed my thighs against my groin and those moments of uncertainty, sweet uncertainty I’d spent with the Romany, blossomed inside me.
I tangled together my thin white legs and felt like I was in love × Strangely alien to myself × Like my soul had been abducted, vacuumed out of my uterus, and was contemplating Jesulé’s back and buttocks from the ceiling as he made his wild assaults on my body × The whole thing was always a glossy, fetid mess that left me exhausted but happy, expanded × Then with another jolt I was back to that morning when my papá secretly devoted his soul to the Latter Day Saints: he let them talk, asked many more questions than usual. The minutes ticked by and for the first time since I’d been living with him he actually took the day off work × At first I couldn’t tell from his face if the Brothers’ words were actually sinking in or if he’d just found himself a little bit of calm, bracketed off from the rest of life, in the noises issuing from the clean mouths and the perfect teeth of those creatures who had come so far. But the Brothers really had managed to get my papá interested × × The Word of God had done its work, and via those missionaries with their tanned necks and yellowing armpits it moved him, drawing him slowly into their embrace × Damn the Word and damn the sneaking Truth, taking advantage so cruelly, so mockingly of a man who up until a few minutes ago believed he had no soul × × I felt it: it was there, in the atmosphere, its body soaking into everything × The missionaries’ every sentence was a long, seductive limb proffered to my father like a glass of water to a mule driver in the desert × The Word, that tantalizing loin: the Word Bryan, with his broad, slumping body, his serious but somehow cheerful gaze. The Word Josías with his impressive knowledge of the Bible and his ability to make subtle, speedy connections between the Book of Mormon and a load of other texts I’d never heard of × The siren call of the Word × And me, the last death rattle of my mental encounter with the Romany slipping down my spine, sitting next to them at the table, swinging my legs. I felt like God’s Echo had permeated the foundations of the house.
When the table was groaning under piles of leaflets and they’d extracted a promise from my father to come and have a look around the temple, I decided that if I was going to keep my head I had to get out of there × I stood up and, as I ran to the kitchen, told them I was going out to buy bread and something to eat for lunch ×
×
×
As I was about to slam the door I realized nobody had stopped me: Josías and Bryan were still talking to my papá, showing him maps of the universe, confirming that today’s wars were signs of the end times, comparing them with passages from Isaiah, excited, all of them
And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.
Genesis 18:32
And so papá tonto became a Saint: papá santo × Papá santo behaved exactly the same as papá tonto, except that now he smiled, and things revolved around him × Apart from that, at first nothing much seemed to have changed: I still had to go to school, I could still skip religion classes and sit alone on the patio eating ramitas or ice cream while the bible-bashing evangelical boys in my class—likewise exempt from learning about the Roman Catholic church—tossed a ball around × The girls, who all had biblical names, gathered in a circle at the edge of the sports field and then walked around the courtyard, forming a kind of procession × Their hair and their dresses were very long. They seemed to be disgusted by everything except what was inside their own homes and their temples × They might’ve considered talking to me before but now they rejected me entirely. They all knew: about my mamá, about Pato, and also that whenever I could, even knowing it was fucking stupid, I went down to the beach with the other kids × × × × × And at the beach was the devil. The desert had once been the seafloor but the beach now marked its final reaches. And in the desert the Lord had been tempted × × × × × × × × × × × × × Being with me meant being with death, and for them there was only
× Resurrection ×
In a sense I think they intuited my end, they saw this drugged corpse haunting them from the future × Nancy Cancer floating above Nancy recently Eve ×
× The art of learning to tolerate those who do not tolerate you ×
After mamá left, it was up to me to keep the house in order because papá santo still didn’t know how to cook or bleach a bath clean × × × When I got home from school I’d change my clothes and scrub away happily, especially after the Romany stopped coming around × I had energy: I could kneel for hours on the floor, getting the tiles impossibly shiny. And besides, I liked it because it was like doing my own personal stations of the cross: slowly, expectantly, I’d approach the areas of the house where Jesulé and I had done it. I’d linger over them, giving it my all, until my fingers throbbed tight and wrinkled and my swollen ripped cuticles, skin flapping, dripped blood ×
