The House on Carnaval Street

  • • •

  The next morning didn’t start off so great. I found myself on the road way too early, thanks to the plaguing doubts about my move that had boomeranged back into my head at 4 A.M., and which were still running through my brain like hamsters on a wheel. Would I be able to make a living down here? Would I make friends? Was Carnaval Street a wise investment, or the biggest mistake I’d made in my life? Maybe things would seem clearer by daylight. It was still dark. Really, really dark. And I seemed to be the only person out at that ungodly hour.

  Suddenly the darkness was broken by three arcing beams of light about a hundred yards up the road. As I approached, I could make out a trio of dark-clothed figures waving me over. My instincts kicked in as I stepped on the gas, not sure whether to congratulate myself for avoiding a setup or berate myself for being stupid enough to try to outrun the police. To this day, I still have no idea who those guys were. Regardless, I pulled over at the next gas station and parked under a very bright light, and waited for the sun to come up.

  But even the light of day didn’t do much to soothe my nerves. The two-lane road was that in concept only. You could be going eighty miles per hour in the right lane only to come up against a huge bus at a dead stop right in front of your bumper. No place for you (or him) to pull over even if you had time to, just a drop-off that would turn a Mini into a pancake in one quick second. And the left lane? An overturned semi in the median was proof enough to me that it wasn’t a much safer option.

  Then there was the humidity. I could almost hear my hair frizzing up as I rolled down the window to pay yet another toll. The hot, thick air shoved its way in like a pushy commuter boarding the 5:10 to the suburbs. At least it was a sign that I was getting closer to the sea.

  Just fifteen minutes into the state of Sinaloa, a couple of guys in military uniform stopped my car. A shiny round face appeared at my window. “Qué está en el carro? What’s in the car?”

  What wasn’t in the car? I asked myself, my mind scrambling to remember the Spanish word for cat, panicking at the thought of me being kidnapped and Polly left abandoned in the desert, or of poor Polly being catnapped and the Mini being carjacked and me left to die by the side of the road. The officer motioned for me to open the door and step out. My legs felt like rubber, and I could feel that morning’s hastily downed coffee making its way back up.

  “Cat. I have a cat in there,” I pleaded in a voice that sounded nothing like mine.

  He bent down to peer under the Mini’s roof. I felt faint.

  “Fruta?” the guy holding the gun asked.

  “What?”

  “Fruta?” He called his partner over, and pointed inside. “Gato!” I finally remembered. “Gato!” But they weren’t paying attention. They were too busy laughing. I followed their gaze toward the backseat. The only things visible were Polly’s whiskers poking out from the carrier, stuffed between the space-saver bags that had by now, apparently due to the heat, expanded to the max, filling the car’s interior like a giant marshmallow man.

  No sooner had I recovered from that episode than I came to the road sign for Culiacán—the headquarters of the dreaded Sinaloa Cartel, allegedly the most powerful drug-trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere. A narco city that boasts of more homicides than any other city in Mexico. I had been warned, and had planned not to slow down, not to get gas, not to do anything but hold my breath and get through this town as fast as I could. I was beginning to feel like a character in a video game, leaping and hopping and ducking to avoid disaster at every turn.

  By now the jungle-green roadside had turned into farmland—flat, flat, flat—with nothing but cows that I, in an attempt to remain alert, actually started to count as they whizzed past my window. Yes, I was counting cows. I was up to forty-seven when I saw it. Right beyond the road sign for Mazatlán, a dark sapphire stripe glittered under the blaze of the overhead sun. The Pacific! Palm trees swayed in the ocean breeze. It was like entering paradise. I rolled down the window and let the briny air fill my nostrils with each deep breath I took. I was almost home, as scary as it sounded to call this strange place home. I may not have had a clue about any­thing that was to come, but I did know how much I was looking forward to seeing my house. My tiny bungalow that had gone practically overnight from seaside getaway to my lifeline.

  I’m still not sure how to interpret what happened next, though in retrospect I’m sure it had to be some sort of omen. At first I could have sworn it was snowing. Airy flecks of white started blowing past my window, rapidly multiplying into a swarm as I continued down the road. They drifted up against the windshield one by one, then three by three, and then before I knew it in a flurry so thick I could barely see two feet in front of me. Butterflies. Billions of them. Everywhere I turned, there were butterflies. Butterflies as far as the eye could see. I could feel the unfamiliar stretch of my lips against my teeth as a grin began to spread across my face. “We’re home, Polly. We are finally home.”

  You know how sometimes you hold on to an incredibly vivid memory of a place in your head, only to end up gobsmacked by reality upon your next visit? Maybe it was the remote little inn where you stayed for your honeymoon, whose carpet stains and peeling wallpaper were invisible to you at the time. Or that childhood home you revisited. You could have sworn the house was a lot bigger when you lived there.

  I am happy to report that, despite my worries, that did not happen to me when I returned this time to Mazatlán. I really can’t say it was love at first sight when Roger the Realtor had first led me to the house on Carnaval Street, on my last visit. But it was Carnaval Street! I could not believe there was a house for sale there. It must be meant to be, I thought. But the façade of the crumbling little box we stopped at looked like the aftermath of a bubble gum factory explosion. It was pink. Pink, bumpy cement. Pink all over, with a flat roof, one tiny window with blue and red and green and yellow opaque panes covered by a handwritten “Se Vende” sign, and a house on either side, with not even a hair of space between them. But something happened when I went inside. Though it was clear that you’d have to wedge your way through the narrow shower to get to the bathroom sink and toilet, and I couldn’t tell if that frosted glass in what I realized was the house’s one and only window was there to hide the street from view or vice versa, the high ceilings and century-old tiles made the tiny house feel strong and solid and wise. It took fifty-two steps to circle the entire space, which I did three times before I sat myself down on the cool green floor, where the colored light streaming through the window splashed down like a bright, blurry Christmas tree. I wanted this house on Carnaval Street. How could you live on a place called Carnaval Street and not be happy?

  Now, months later, I was back. And after the basic renovations I had overseen long-distance, including sanding and smoothing and the three coats of paint it took to turn that ­bubble-gum pink into a respectable ochre with forest green trim, my house was even better than I had imagined. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was all mine, but I felt something being inside this house that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt safe. Maybe it was just the lack of windows.

  I did hole up a lot at first. Though shy has never been a word used to describe me, it was clear that what had happened to me in Afghanistan and festered during my time in California limbo had snuck across the border with me. Trust, specifically when it came to trusting myself, had become an unreliable partner, and confidence—real confidence, not the crazy kind that compels one to, say, take off and drive halfway across Mexico—seemed as elusive to me as a marriage proposal from George Clooney. Even in my own home I was still a Debbie I had a hard time recognizing, and a Debbie who, frankly, was not much fun to be around. Especially in a hot little house with limited air-conditioning.

  Had I been more calculating or, to put it more honestly, had I been more in control of my life, I probably would not have chosen summer as the time to move south of the b
order. This wasn’t like Kabul heat, where at six thousand feet you could almost see the sun’s rays sucking the moisture from your skin. Here you were constantly drenched in a sticky sweat, as if you’d allowed an ice-cream bar to melt down your arms, onto your body, and in between your toes. If you had to wrap a scarf around your head you’d suffocate. At first I survived by jumping, soaking wet, from the shower to a spot in front of the fan and back again, or by sitting amid bags of frozen broccoli on my couch. I read a lot, and waited every day, all day, for the cable guy to arrive. In Mexico, waiting for the cable guy is sort of the same as waiting for the cable guy anywhere, but instead of saying they’ll be there on a specific day within a specific range of hours, they’ll only commit to a general time frame. As in “he will be there between now and when Jesus comes.” Mañana, mañana, they say when you call to check. For weeks I waited. No TV, no Internet, no landline. No communication with anyone but myself. Oh, I did have a cell phone, but without even one person in Mexico to add to my new “Five Friends Free” plan, it sat idle.

  In the meantime, when evening would start to fall, my daily prayers for the cable guy appearing to remain unanswered, I began to notice my neighbors across the street gathering on their front steps. Music and friendly shouts and quiet laughter would echo off the low-slung cement buildings. Since it felt no hotter outside than in, I forced myself out to explore. I was determined not to start out in Mexico the way I had ended up in California, as a housebound hostage held prisoner by my own demons.

  At first I’d just venture down a few buildings toward Abarrotes Josi, the local grocery. Carnaval Street comes to life in the evening—women in plastic chairs gossip around a game of bingo, babies get passed from lap to lap, and the older kids join each other for a game of soccer or tag or jump rope in the middle of the street. The street seemed to be the women’s domain. I figured the men must have favored cantina life. “Carro! Cuidado!” A synchronized warning would echo off the houses whenever a car approached, sending all the kids running for safety. Not a lick of English could be heard on Carnaval Street, which suited me just fine. I always found a sense of comfort being surrounded by words I couldn’t understand, conversations that couldn’t distract me, arguments that didn’t involve me. I had enough noise inside my own head for all of us.

  It wasn’t long before I found myself continuing down ­Carnaval Street a little farther than usual, down to the Plazuela Machado. It was twilight, and under a fading pink sky the lights around the square were starting to twinkle like fairy dust through the palm trees. Gleaming white-covered dining tables spilled out from under the spotlit arched façades of the restaurants lining the streets. I was hungry, and those tables looked so inviting. But being one who always hated eating alone, it took me three slow loops through the stalls in the center of the plaza, and one hundred fifty pesos plunked down for a pair of handmade earrings and a little woven purse, before I got up the courage to sit.

  A cute waiter approached with a smile. “Buenas noches.”

  “Buenas noches,” I said back with a smile.

  “Qué va a tomar?”

  “Vino tinto, por favor,” I responded, proud of my mastery of the language, at least when it came to ordering a glass of red wine.

  As I sipped under the darkening sky, the tables around me started to fill with young couples, groups of older men, ­mothers and daughters and children and friends, some greeting others with kisses as they made their way to their own tables, others waving a polite hello across the street. I was tempted to wave to an imaginary acquaintance myself, just so I wouldn’t seem so alone.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” The waiter’s perfect ­English jolted me out of my pity.

  “Wow! You speak really good English,” I said, a bit too eagerly.

  Again he smiled that beautiful smile. “Thank you. I have worked hard at it.”

  “Are you from around here?”

  He nodded. “I was born in Mexico.”

  “I’m from here, too! I mean, I live here now, too. I just moved here.”

  “Well, welcome to Mazatlán.” He extended his hand. “My name is Sergio.”

  “Debbie. Pleased to meet you.” My voice sounded rusty from neglect. “Join me?” I asked, forgetting for a moment that he had a job to do.

  Sergio laughed. “I wish I could. Let me bring you some chips and salsa, and you can just relax and enjoy all this.”

  Indeed, a spectacle was unfolding around me. Fire dancers spun their flames to the beat of drums, pausing occasionally to let the hip-hop kids strut their stuff. To my left, a long-haired blues singer raised her sultry voice in competition with the painfully off-key Beatles imitators on the opposite corner of the square. Across from me, a sad clown with a painted smile knotted balloons into swords and dachshunds and Mickey Mouse ears. I could barely hear myself think, which, I thought, was not a bad thing. And I was no longer alone—the relentless parade of street vendors winding their way from table to table were there to make sure of that. One, a beautiful girl selling flowers almost as tall as she was, seemed to be raking it in. I scanned the plaza for a mother or father or big sister trailing behind, but saw no one.

  I told Sergio to bring whatever he recommended from the menu, and he returned shortly after with a plate of crusty, golden shrimp circling a shallow dish of pale red glaze. “Camarón. In Mazatlán, we have shrimp coming out of our ears. Maybe sometimes you can’t find money at the bank machines, or your packages at the post office, but you can always find camarón. Enjoy.”

  And I did. That first bite of shrimp fried in coconut batter tasted like paradise. And washed down with the mango margarita Sergio had slipped onto my table? A fiesta in my mouth. It sure beat Kabul, where the sheep you’d see grazing in the garbage pile outside the hospital by day could very well end up being the mutton kabob on your plate that night.

  The battle of the bands intensified as more performers joined in, eager to fill their tip jars with pesos before the night’s end. The tables around me remained packed, the diners slowly nursing the remnants of their drinks, still chatting away as if they had just sat down together minutes before, instead of hours. Families continued to stream into the square, little boys running, girls perched on their fathers’ shoulders, babies in strollers. I wondered if there was something happening I didn’t know about.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked Sergio when he came to take my plate.

  He laughed. “It’s Saturday night.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s summer.”

  This was nothing like my summer Saturday nights, where my entertainment consisted of sitting on the front porch watching my kids catch fireflies.

  “Some of these people live here, and some are here on vacation. Summer is when the gringos leave and the Mexicans come.”

  Leave it to me to be the one bucking that trend. “But why are all these kids up so late?”

  Sergio looked at me as if I were an alien. “It’s Saturday night,” he repeated.

  In an instant a loneliness bubbled up inside of me like a warm shaken soda. It had been two years since I’d seen my kids. Yes, they were grown, Noah trying to make a go of it in Chicago and Zach, now married, selling insurance in Washington, D.C. But they were still my boys and here we were again, in different countries, in different time zones, in different worlds. But at least this time I knew I could be there in a flash if they, or my mom, needed me.

  Sergio brought the check. “Can I get you a taxi?”

  “That’s okay, I can walk.” I was suddenly anxious to get back to my house.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Carnaval Street.”

  Sergio checked his watch. “But you must not walk home by yourself at this time of night. A woman alone in any country should not be wandering around after ten o’clock.” He walked me to the corner, where a line of little white golf carts were waiting. “Ca
lle Carnaval. Cuánto?” After some negotiation with the driver, Sergio picked through the coins in my palm to make sure I had the correct change. “And not a peso more,” he warned me, helping me into the backseat.

  And as I bounced home over the potholes, I heard Sergio’s words. A woman alone. That I was. In a totally foreign place. What if something happened to me? How long would it take for anybody to know I was languishing in a hospital ward, or notice that I’d been kidnapped, or find me dead in the shower? Or that I’d slipped into a downward, penniless spiral, to the point of no return. Like my thoughts, the taxi seemed to be going in circles, winding around the one-way streets and hitting dead ends on a trip that should have been a clear, straight shot. I had no idea where we were. The town seemed to take on a completely different look at night. At one point I thought I recognized the hot dog cart that was usually at the end of my street, but I could have sworn they had been selling oysters from that very same cart just a few hours earlier. Finally, a U-turn brought us upon the unmistakable purple house six down from mine, and the familiar faces of my neighbors, still on the street where I had left them.

  I filled my days as best I could, adorning my house with enough color to cheer a pregnant nun. Up went the wall hanging I had carried from India and the painting I bought in Morocco, both placed weirdly low on the wall, thanks to a too-short ladder and a too-high ceiling. Polly kept busy standing guard over the cockroaches, some as big as Chihuahuas, that regularly wandered in under the door, our house being just one of the many stops on their daily patrol through the neighborhood. They strutted down the street as if they owned the place, which by all rights they did, seeing as cockroaches have been around longer than any of us. Polly would swat them, along with any of the little iguanas that dared to enter, back into the street with a quick whack of the paw. Sometimes I’d catch her playing footsies with a pair of little white paws inching in from under the gate. Sure, it was easy for her to make new friends. Meow was meow in any language.