Carmen could not pay much longer for the motel room where she was staying, so she started looking for work and a place to live. She bought a newspaper and took a table in a café near the university, and among countless notices for holistic massages, aroma therapies, miraculous crystals, copper triangles to improve the color of your aura, and other novelties that would have enchanted Olga, discovered the help-wanted ads. She called several places before one restaurant gave her an appointment for the next day: she was to bring her social security card and a letter of recommendation, two things she did not possess. The first was not difficult—she simply found out where to sign up, filled out a form, and was assigned a number—but she had no idea how to obtain the second. She knew Gregory Reeves would have given her a letter in a minute; what bad luck he wasn’t there, but she couldn’t let a small setback become a major blow. She located a hole-in-the-wall shop where she could rent a typewriter and wrote a letter praising her expertise in child care, her reliability, and her pleasant manner in dealing with the public. The style was somewhat flowery, but out of sight, out of mind, as her mother would say: Gregory did not need to know the details. She knew her friend’s signature by heart; it was not for nothing they had corresponded all those years. The next day she presented herself at the restaurant, which turned out to be an old house decorated with plants and strings of garlic. She was met by a gray-haired, pleasant-faced woman wearing baggy pants and the sandals of a Franciscan monk.
“Interesting,” she said after reading the letter of recommendation. “Very interesting. . . . So you know Gregory Reeves?”
“Yes; I worked for him.” Carmen blushed.
“As far as I’m aware, Gregory has been in Vietnam for more than a year. So how do you explain a letter dated only yesterday?”
The person Carmen was speaking to was Joan, Gregory’s friend, and she was in the macrobiotic restaurant where he had gone so often to eat vegetarian hamburgers and seek comfort. Knees trembling, voice quivering, Carmen admitted her deception, explaining in a few sentences her relationship to Reeves.
“Well, I can see you’re resourceful.” Joan laughed. “Gregory is like a son, though I’m not old enough to be his mother—don’t let my gray hair fool you. He slept on the sofa in my living room the night before he left for the war. It was so stupid to go! Susan and I wore ourselves out telling him not to, but what could we do? I hope he comes back the same man; it would be a terrible waste if something happened to him; he always seemed like a super guy to me. If you’re his friend, then you’re our friend too. You can start today. Put on an apron and tie a kerchief around your head so your hair doesn’t end up in our customers’ food, then go on in the kitchen and let Susan explain the work.”
Soon Carmen Morales was not only waiting tables; she was also helping in the kitchen. She had a flair for stuffings and sauces and ideas for new combinations to vary the menu. She became such a good friend of Joan’s and Susan’s that they rented her the attic of their house, a large room that became an ideal refuge once the junk was cleared out. It had two windows overlooking the bay from the superb prospect of the hills and a skylight in the roof that let in the starlight. In the daytime Carmen enjoyed the natural light, and by night the room was illuminated by two huge Victorian lamps rescued from a flea market.
She worked afternoons and part of the evenings in the restaurant but had her mornings free. She bought tools and materials and in her leisure time started designing jewelry again, finding, to her relief, that she had lost neither her inspiration nor her will to work. The first earrings she made were for her patronesses, who had to have their ears pierced to wear them; they both had slightly sore ears but took off the earrings only to sleep, persuaded that the jewelry enhanced their personality: feminists but still feminine, they would say, laughing. They considered Carmen the best coworker they had ever had but told her she should not be wasting her talent waiting tables and stirring pots; she should devote herself entirely to her jewelry making.
“It’s the only thing you’re suited for. Every person is born with a talent, and happiness depends on discovering that talent in time,” they would say when they were all sitting around drinking mango tea and telling their life stories.
“Don’t worry. I’m happy,” Carmen replied truthfully. She had a premonition that the hard times were behind her and the best part of her life lay ahead.
Back in the world of the living, Gregory made a pile of his war souvenirs—snapshots, letters, music tapes, clothes, and his medal for bravery—sprinkled them with gasoline, and set them afire. He kept only the painted wood dragon, a memory of his friends in the village, and Juan José’s scapulary. He meant to return that to Inmaculada once he discovered how to remove the dried blood. He had sworn not to behave like so many other veterans, hooked forever on the nostalgia of the only momentous event in their lives, crippled in spirit, unable to adapt to everyday routine or to rid themselves of the multiple addictions acquired in the war. He avoided news reported in the press, protests in the street, friends from that time who met to renew the adventures and camaraderie of Vietnam. Nor did he want to hear about the others, comrades in wheelchairs or emotional cripples—or about suicides. For the first few days he was grateful for every small detail: a hamburger with french fries, hot water in the shower, a bed with sheets, the comfort of civilian clothes, conversations with people in the street, the silence and privacy of his room; but soon he realized that this appreciation held its own dangers. No, why should he celebrate anything, even the fact of having a whole body? The past was the past—if only he could erase it from his memory. During the day he nearly succeeded, but at night he had nightmares and woke, bathed in sweat, to the sound of rattling weaponry and the onslaught of visions of red. He dreamed of a small boy lost in a park, and he was that boy, but most of all he dreamed of the mountain, where he was firing against transparent shadows. He would reach out and grope on the table for pills or a joint, turn on the light, half awake, not knowing where he was. He kept the whiskey in the kitchen; that gave him time to think before taking a drink. He thought up small obstacles to help: no booze before I get dressed or eat something; I won’t take a drink on odd-numbered days or if the sun isn’t shining; first I’ll do twenty push-ups and listen to a concerto all the way through. Using these tricks, he postponed the time for opening the cabinet where he kept the bottle and usually was able to control his impulse, although he decided not to forgo liquor altogether; he wanted always to have something on hand for an emergency. When at last he called Samantha he did not tell her that for two weeks he had been only twenty miles from their house; he acted as if he had just arrived and asked her to pick him up at the airport, where he waited for her, fresh from the shower, shaved, sober, and wearing civilian clothes. He was amazed to see how much Margaret had grown and how pretty she had become; she looked like a princess in a nineteenth-century illustration, with her navy-blue eyes, blond curls, and fine-featured, strangely triangular face. He also noticed how little his wife had changed; she was even wearing the same white pants she had worn the last time he saw her. Unsmilingly, Margaret held out a limp hand but refused to give him a kiss. She moved with the coquettish gestures she had copied from adult actresses in soap operas and, like them, swayed her little hips as she walked. Gregory felt uncomfortable with her; he could not see her as the young girl she truly was but as an indecent parody of the femme fatale; he felt ashamed of himself—maybe Judy was right, after all, and the perversity of his father was latent in his blood, a hereditary curse. Samantha gave him a lukewarm welcome. She was happy to see him looking so well, he was thinner but stronger, and the tan was becoming, she said. Apparently, the war had not been that traumatic for him; for her, on the other hand, things were not going at all well, she hated to say it but her finances were in terrible shape, she had run through his savings and was finding it impossible to live on a soldier’s salary; she wasn’t complaining, of course, she understood the circumstances, but she wasn’t used to hardship and
neither was Margaret. No, she hadn’t been able to keep his baby-sitting business going; it was hard work, and boring, and besides, she had to look after their daughter, didn’t she? As they got into the car she told him very smoothly that she had reserved a hotel room for him, but she had no objection to his keeping his things in her garage until he had a better place. If Gregory had had any illusions about a possible reconciliation, those few sentences were more than enough to remind him of the chasm between them. Samantha was as courteous as ever; she had remarkable control over her emotions and was able to maintain a conversation for an indefinite time without saying anything. She did not ask any questions, because she did not want unpleasant answers; with remarkable effort she had managed to live in a fantasy world in which there was no room for sorrow or ugliness. Faithful only to herself, she had tried to ignore the war, their divorce, the breakup of her family—anything that might affect her tennis schedule. Gregory realized with a kind of relief that his wife was a blank page and that he had no remorse about beginning a new life without her. For the remainder of the drive he tried to talk with Margaret, but his daughter was not disposed to cooperate. Sitting in the back seat, she chewed on her red fingernails, played with a lock of her hair, and watched herself in the rearview mirror, replying with monosyllables if her mother spoke to her but stubbornly silent when it was her father.
Gregory found a house to rent across the bay; its principal attraction was that it had a dock—in questionable repair. He planned to buy a boat sometime in the future, more for show than from any desire to sail. Every time he had gone out in Timothy Duane’s boat he had been convinced that so much work could be justified only to save the life of someone drowning, never as a pastime. Following the same criterion—appearances—he bought a Porsche, hoping to elicit admiration from males and attention from females. Cars are phallic symbols, Carmen teased when she learned of his purchase, so I don’t know why you would want one that’s so short and stubby and trembly. At least he had the good sense not to buy furniture before he had a steady job; he made do with a bed the size of a boxing ring, one multipurpose table, and two chairs. Thus installed, he traveled to Los Angeles, his first trip since taking Margaret to meet the Morales family several years before.
Nora Reeves welcomed him casually, as if she had seen him only yesterday, offered him a cup of tea, and told him the news of the barrio and of his father, who continued to communicate with her every week to keep her informed about the progress of The Infinite Plan. She did not refer to the war, and for the first time Gregory noted the striking similarities between his mother and Samantha: the same coolness, apathy, and courtesy, the identical determination to ignore reality—although the latter had not been as easy for his mother because she had lived a much more difficult life. For Nora Reeves, indifference had not been enough; it had taken a strong will to remain untouched by life’s problems. Gregory found Judy in bed, with a newborn baby in her arms and her other children playing about her. Her obesity was disguised beneath the sheet; she looked like an opulent Renaissance Madonna. Busy raising her brood, she made no attempt to ask Gregory how he was, assuming that if he was standing before her, apparently in one piece, there was no news to tell. His sister’s second husband turned out to be a taxi driver; he was a widower, the father of the two older children and the baby. He was a Latino born in the United States, one of the many Chicanos who speak Spanish badly but who bear the unmistakable stamp of their ancestors: small and slim, with the long drooping mustache of a Mongol warrior. Compared to his predecessor, the gigantic Jim Morgan, this man looked like an undernourished wimp. Gregory wondered whether he loved Judy as much as he feared her. He imagined a quarrel between them and could not help smiling; his sister could crack her husband’s skull with one hand, as easily as breaking an egg for breakfast. Gregory, fascinated, tried to imagine how they made love.
The Moraleses gave Gregory the reception he had not had until that moment, hugging him, with tears flowing. Fleetingly, Gregory was tempted to believe that they were grieving because it was he and not their son Juan José who was returning unharmed, but the expression of unqualified happiness on the faces of his friends cleansed his heart of that unworthy doubt. They removed the plastic from one of the armchairs and sat him down to question him in detail about the war. Gregory had promised himself not to talk about it but to his surprise told them everything they wanted to know. He realized this was part of the mourning process; among them, they were burying Juan José for the last time. Inmaculada forgot to turn on the lights and offer Gregory something to eat; no one moved until well after dark, when Pedro went to the kitchen to get some beer. Alone with Inmaculada, Gregory took off the scapulary and handed it to her. He had given up the idea of washing it, fearing it would disintegrate, but he did not need to explain the origin of the dark stains. She took it without examining it and immediately put it on, hiding it beneath her blouse.
“It would be a sin to throw it out, because it was blessed by a bishop, but if it couldn’t protect my son, I don’t know what good it is.” She sighed.
Then Gregory was able to tell about Juan José’s last moments. The Moraleses, sitting side by side on the ugly ruby-red sofa, hand in hand for the first time in anyone’s presence, listened, shivering, to what Gregory Reeves had sworn not to tell them but now could not keep secret. He told them about Juan José’s reputation for being lucky and brave, how, miraculously, they had run into each other on the beach, and how very much he wished he had been the one to be at Juan José’s side and hold him in his arms when he was falling: Padre, hold me, I’m falling, and it’s so deep.
“Did he have time to think of God?” his mother wanted to know.
“He was with the chaplain.”
“Did he suffer much?” Pedro Morales asked.
“I don’t know; it was over so fast. . . .”
“Was he afraid? Did everything seem black? Was he crying out?”
“No; they told me he was calm.”
“At least you’re back, thanks be to God,” said Inmaculada, and for a wonderful moment Gregory felt absolved of all guilt, redeemed from anguish, saved from his worst memories, as a wave of gratitude swept over him. That night the Moraleses would not allow him to go to a hotel; they insisted he stay with them and made up Juan José’s bachelor bed for him. In the night table Gregory found poems his friend had written in pencil in a lined notebook. They were love poems.
Before he flew back, Gregory visited Olga. She was showing her years; little remained of her former brilliant plumage, she had become a tangle-haired old witch, although her vigor for healing and fortune-telling had not diminished. By this time in her life she was thoroughly convinced of human stupidity; she had more faith in her sorcery than in her medicinal herbs, because sorcery appealed more directly to her clients’ boundless credulity. It’s all in the mind, she maintained; the imagination works miracles. Her home, too, showed the wear and tear of time; it looked like a medicine man’s bazaar, crammed with the dusty items of her magic, with more disorder and less color than he remembered. Dried twigs, barks, and roots still hung from the ceiling, the shelves holding flasks and small boxes had multiplied; the old aroma of incense from the Pakistani shops had disappeared, swallowed by more powerful odors. Many pots still bore labels suggesting their contents: Forget-Me-Not, Business Blossoms, Invincible Conquerer, Secret Vengeance, Savage Pleasure, Removes All Cares. With an eye trained to discover the invisible, Olga immediately noted the changes in Gregory, the impenetrable wall around him, the hard eyes, the harsh, joyless laugh, the dry voice, and the new twist to the mouth that on thinner lips would have been scornful but on his was mocking. He radiated the power of a rabid animal, but beneath the armor she perceived pieces of a shattered soul. She knew instinctively it was not the moment to offer her broad experience as a counselor, because his mind was closed, and so she spoke of herself.