Violeta, p.19
Violeta, page 19
“I don’t see what good any of that did! You did nothing to help my daughter. What a waste of time and money!”
He stood up and left, slamming the door behind him. I watched him through the window, striding quickly down the gravel path of the garden.
I stayed on to listen to the rest of the information about my daughter’s health, which I tried to share with him later.
“They’re not doctors, they’re charlatans!” he shouted at me.
“You should’ve figured that out before you put Nieves in there against her will,” I responded.
Apart from the physical damage from the drugs, my daughter had had a few abortions, and suffered from malnutrition, osteoporosis, and stomach ulcers. They’d also had to give her antibiotics for cystitis and a venereal disease.
Julián wanted to search for his daughter, but this time Roy refused to help him.
“Face it, Bravo, you don’t have authority over her anymore; leave her alone. If Nieves wants your help, she knows where to find you.”
Crazed with frustration and grief, Julián returned to Miami.
On our last night, I said goodbye to Roy without making love to him, because the ghost of Nieves lingered in the room, watching us. We lay awake for hours, holding each other, and I fell asleep resting against the mermaid tattoo on his rock-hard shoulder. The next day he dropped me off at the airport, kissed me on the lips, and said we’d be in touch.
17
As soon as I got home to Sacramento, I broke down in front of José Antonio and Miss Taylor. I’d stopped at the airport in the capital for only an hour layover before flying to the south, because Juan Martín was away in the north with some other journalism students, filming a documentary. I told them about Nieves, cursing Julián Bravo for the damage he’d done to his daughter, for the cruelty he’d inflicted on his son, and for the abuse I’d received from him. They let me unload my resentment and tears. Then they brought me up to date on the situation in our country.
It seems unbelievable that I could’ve ignored what was happening. My only explanation is that I was too absorbed in my own drama; politics didn’t affect my business and I’d had the resources to pay domestic help and buy whatever I wanted on the black market. I’d never had to wait in line to get sugar or oil, the cook did that. My neighborhood, in the capital as well as in Sacramento, was far removed from the chaos on the streets. Very rarely did I have to go to the city center and deal with the traffic and masses of angry people. I found out about the large street demonstrations on television, where the scenes of collective fervor seemed more festive than violent. I didn’t give a second glance to the posters of Soviet soldiers dragging children into the Siberian gulags, pasted all over by the right, or the murals of laborers and farmworkers surrounded by doves of peace and flags, commissioned by the left.
My friends, acquaintances, and clients supported the government opposition, and the obligatory topic of conversation was how those leftists in power had violated the constitution, cramming the country with Cubans and arming the people for a revolution that would put an end to private property. If the president appeared on television to defend his agenda, I changed the channel. I didn’t like that arrogant man, who was a traitor to his class, a rich kid in Italian suits claiming to be a Socialist. And what was the difference between Socialism and Communism? They were the same thing, José Antonio explained, and no one wanted to see the country become another branch of the Soviet Union. My brother was concerned over the economic crisis, which sooner or later was bound to affect us, and he worried about the negative image we had among our social circle thanks to the government contract for My Own Home. The unwritten rule was that we should be trying to sabotage the government, not collaborating with it, but we weren’t the only ones who benefited. Almost all public works were carried out through private contracts.
I met with Juan Martín in the capital when he returned from the north. His documentary was about American companies with a long presence in our country. The government had seized control of the companies because they had been exploiting the region for half a century and owed a fortune in taxes, he explained. This wasn’t what I’d heard, but I knew so little about the matter that I couldn’t contradict him.
...
“You live in a bubble, Mom,” Juan Martín said, and insisted on taking me to a part of town I’d never visited before.
It was a poor neighborhood where the families like those in the My Own Home program lived, very humble people who needed assistance to obtain a basic dwelling. Until that moment the houses had been nothing more than a blueprint, a point on a map, or a construction model to be photographed. I walked through the shantytown, down narrow alleys of dirt or mud, filled with stray dogs and rats, kids with no education, unemployed young men, and women worn down from overwork. The prefabricated homes became more than just a good business proposal as I understood what they might mean to these families. Everywhere I looked I saw the typical murals of workers and doves in that horrible Soviet realism style, and on the walls of the homes hung photos of the president alongside images of Father Juan Quiroga, both patron saints. I began to see the arrogant man in the Italian suit from a new perspective.
After our walk we stopped at the home of a schoolteacher my son knew. Over a cup of tea, he told me about the hot lunch and fresh milk that the Ministry of Education provided to all students, which for many of them was the only food they’d eat all day. He told me about his wife, who worked in the San Lucas hospital, the oldest clinic in the country, where the doctors were on strike and had been replaced by medical students; about his son, who was completing his military service and wanted to study topography; and about his relatives and neighbors, lower-middle-class people who had been educated in good public schools and free universities, and were knowledgeable about politics and supporters of the left.
“And I could also introduce you to upper-middle-class people who voted for this government, Mom—students, professionals, priests and nuns, people you consider to be like us,” Juan Martín said afterwards, then proceeded to list the names of several cousins, nieces and nephews, friends and acquaintances with aristocratic surnames.
“Oh, and Mom! Just to clarify: That teacher you just met is an atheist and a Communist,” he said teasingly.
Several months later I received a call from Roy Cooper at the office. I hadn’t heard from him and assumed he’d forgotten me, although I thought of him often, with nostalgia. He wasn’t the kind of man to waste time with small talk, so he gave me the reason for his call in a few words.
“I’ve found Nieves, and I need help. Can you come to Los Angeles quickly?” he asked.
I said I’d be there as soon as possible.
“Don’t mention this to Julián Bravo,” he cautioned me.
Roy was waiting for me at the airport in faded jeans, sandals, and a baseball cap. On the long trip down the streets of that city jammed with traffic, I asked him why he’d kept looking for my daughter and how he’d found her.
“I wasn’t looking for her; she called me, Violeta. When I helped Bravo kidnap her in Las Vegas, I dropped my card in Nieves’s purse. I felt sorry for her, the poor girl … In my line of work I have to deal with a lot of despicable people. Your daughter is the exception.”
“What is your line of work, Roy?”
“Let’s just say I’m a problem solver. Someone has a problem and I solve it, my way.”
“Someone? Who, for example?”
“Maybe a celebrity or politician, anyone who doesn’t want to get arrested, blackmailed, or appear in the papers. The most recent case was a preacher in Texas who ended up with a dead body in a hotel room.”
“He killed someone?”
“No. He took a young man back to his hotel room, where the guy died accidentally from insulin shock, and the preacher didn’t call for help because he was terrified of the scandal it would cause.
His congregants would not tolerate homosexuality. I had to move the body to another room, bribe the staff and the police—you know, the usual.”
“Why did Nieves call you?”
“She has no idea what I do, Violeta. And she didn’t know the card she found was that of the man who’d helped kidnap her. She called me in desperation. She doesn’t want to turn to her father. She thinks Bravo had Joe Santoro killed.”
“My God! That’s impossible.”
He didn’t respond.
Roy Cooper could’ve called Julián and sold him the information about Nieves at a good price, but he chose to go to Los Angeles and help her. He took me to a part of the city he called the Mexican ghetto, a neighborhood of one-story houses, shops with signs in Spanish, and restaurants selling cheap meals. He explained that he’d set Nieves up in the home of an old friend of his.
Nieves was waiting for us, and when she saw me she came running and hugged me like she hadn’t done in an eternity. “Mom, Mom …” she said over and over. For a moment I was transported twenty years back in time to the treasured little girl who sat on my lap and let me brush her hair. She looked much better than she had the last time I’d seen her; she’d gained a bit of weight and her face without makeup looked young and vulnerable. She wore her hair short, its natural color, with only the tips still bleached.
“I’m pregnant, Mom,” Nieves announced in a shaky voice. And that’s when I looked at her belly, which I hadn’t noticed under her loose dress. I couldn’t speak so I just kept hugging her, without a thought for the tears streaming down my face.
The owner of the house, a Mexican woman, gave us time to pull ourselves together and then she welcomed me with kisses on both cheeks. She introduced herself as “Rita Linares, seamstress,” followed by the traditional greeting, “my home is your home.” Her house was similar to the others on the street, a modest cinder-block construction, comfortable, with a narrow yard and tile roof. The furniture, gaudy and unattractive, was covered in plastic; there was an enormous television set and a refrigerator in the living room, and a profusion of fake flowers and painted Day of the Dead skulls.
She showed me to a bedroom with a wide bed, a crucifix above the headboard, and several framed pictures on the dresser. Nieves explained that Rita had given up her bed and was sleeping instead in her sewing workshop. Rita invited us to the table and, without accepting help, served us a delicious dinner of fish tacos, rice, beans, and avocado. She offered Roy and me a beer, and placed a glass of milk in front of Nieves. I noticed that when she walked by she patted my daughter’s head in a gesture so intimate and maternal that I felt a pang of jealousy.
Nieves explained how she’d left the Utah clinic in the middle of the night aided by the security guard, who told her how to get to the highway, where she hitched a ride on the first truck that passed. Moving from one vehicle to another, she made it to California. I imagined that over the months that followed she’d gotten by in the same way as before.
“The good news is that she’s not using now,” Roy clarified.
Nieves told me that when the pregnancy was confirmed she decided that this time she wouldn’t have an abortion, and she held tightly to the idea of the baby boy or girl growing inside her as she battled her addiction. What the expensive treatment she’d undergone couldn’t do, the desire for a healthy baby could. To combat her anxiety she smoked cigarettes and marijuana, drank cup after cup of coffee, and ate too many sweets.
“I’m going to end up obese.” She laughed.
“You have to eat double, for you and the baby,” Rita responded, serving her another taco.
When Nieves ran out of money because she couldn’t get a job and wasn’t selling drugs or soliciting clients, she turned to local churches and women’s shelters, where she could spend the night. But by seven every morning she was back on the street, which was harder on her as the pregnancy advanced. One day she found Roy Cooper’s card in her purse, and on a whim she called him in Las Vegas. As a test, she asked him about Joe Santoro, but he didn’t know what had happened to Joe, and that made her trust him.
“He was shot in the back of the head,” Nieves told Roy, something she’d found out through the underground network of drug dealers.
Roy assured her that he hadn’t had anything to do with it, he wasn’t a hired hit man; he’d lost track of the pimp and wasn’t in contact with Julián Bravo either. He immediately offered to send her money.
“I don’t need money, I need a friend,” she answered. “Don’t tell my dad where I am,” she added.
Roy didn’t hesitate. Accustomed to solving problems, he went to Los Angeles to help. It turned out he’d been born in that city, he knew it well and had many friends, acquaintances, and more than one Hollywood client he’d helped out of a difficult situation. Roy had a Mexican stepfather, who moved the family to a neighborhood where he grew up speaking Spanish and fighting hard among Los Angeles’s huge population of Mexican immigrants.
“They’ll never find me here, Mom,” Nieves said.
“Who are you running from, child?”
“From Dad. He killed Joe Santoro.”
“You can’t accuse your father of a crime like that, Nieves. That’s monstrous.”
“He didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s responsible. You know he’s capable of anything. I’m scared of him.”
“He’d never hurt you, Nieves, he adores you.”
“You have a faulty memory, Mom. If he finds me, he’ll try, again, to make me do exactly what he wants. He’ll never leave me in peace.” Rita and Roy went out onto the patio to smoke and the two of us were left alone.
“Are you going to ask me who the father of this baby is, Mom?”
“It’s yours, that’s all that matters. I suppose it’s Joe Santoro’s?”
“No. That’s impossible. I don’t know who the father is, it could be anyone. I also don’t know exactly when it will be born, because my periods were very irregular.”
“Because of the drugs?”
“I guess. The midwife calculates that it will be born in October. But you know what, Mom? I don’t want it to be born so soon. I want to keep it inside for a long time. I just want to rest in this house with Rita, and sleep and sleep …”
José Antonio took over my work so I was able to stay in Los Angeles. I told only him, Josephine, and Juan Martín about Nieves. When Julián Bravo visited on his missions for Colonia Esperanza, they said I was on a Mediterranean cruise. He might’ve thought it was strange for a cruise to last so many months, but he didn’t ask questions. I found out, through the grapevine, that he was with a woman twenty-something years younger than him, whom he introduced as his girlfriend, and I deduced that it couldn’t be Zoraida Abreu. I later found out that it was a woman named Anushka.
To me, the weeks in the little house in the Mexican neighborhood were among the happiest times of my life, a vacation for my spirit a thousand times better than any luxury cruise, where I was finally able to restore a long-lost bond with my daughter. We shared Rita’s bed, self-consciously at first—it had been many years since we’d had any physical contact—but we soon grew used to each other. I remember the feeling of sleeping beside her, waking up with her arm thrown over me, a bittersweet memory.
Roy Cooper came and went often from Las Vegas and the other places his curious work took him. He would stay at a nearby motel because there was no other bed at Rita’s house, and according to him there was too much estrogen in the air, but in his free time he took the three of us out to eat at Mexican or Chinese restaurants, to the beach, or to the movies. He preferred action movies, with blood and fighting, but he sat through the romantic films we insisted on seeing. He would invite me to spend the night with him at his motel, and I went without offering any explanation to Nieves or Rita, because we imagined they wouldn’t want to hear about it.
Rita Linares had come to the United States by foot, through the Sonoran Desert, at twelve years old, in search of her father, and she’d lived undocumented in Los Angeles for over thirty years. She’d been Roy’s friend forever.
“He was the only white kid in our whole school. If you could’ve seen, Violeta, how the other boys picked on him, until he learned how to run fast and hit back,” she told me.
She was a widow; her children lived in other states and only got together for Christmas and New Year’s; she was lonely—and so she’d readily agreed when Roy called and asked her to temporarily house a pregnant girl with no family. She took Nieves in without hesitation; she needed the company and liked having someone to look after.
Nieves spent the last few weeks of her pregnancy lying in the backyard, tanning in the sun, swollen and exhausted, regularly dozing off. Rita and I sat beside her sewing and talking about our lives, the telenovelas we watched, my country and hers. I asked if she had ever been in love with Roy Cooper and she responded, horrified, that she was a one-man woman, faithful to her husband, “may he rest in peace.” We talked about Nieves in the kitchen, where she couldn’t hear us. Rita was as excited as I was about the baby’s imminent arrival; she’d set up a crib and was making baby clothes.
“I hope to God that Nieves will stay here to live with me. My only granddaughter is with her parents in Portland. It would make me so happy to have a baby in the house,” she said. But the idea that Nieves might stay in Los Angeles was crazy; she should return home, where her family could help her.
My daughter had always lived day to day, relying on luck, improvising without plans, goals, or projects. She was like Julián in that way as well. I asked on several occasions what she planned to do once she gave birth, but her responses were vague.
