Saint Death

Arturo looks at Margarita, who nods.

  It’s dark inside the house. The sunlight seems to barely penetrate, and where Arturo’s father stands in the hall he is just a hunched silhouette, blocking the path inside. But he moves, goes farther in, and Arturo sees he has no choice but to follow.

  Somehow, Arturo finds himself sitting on a leather sofa, a real leather sofa, in their living room. It’s almost impossible for him to understand that this all belongs to his father. The room is full of expensive things: a knife-thin TV, a laptop, art. Art, thinks Arturo. He has enough money to spend on pictures for the walls, and trinkets to put on the shelf. His father sits opposite him, his back to a tall window. Margarita stands to the side, between them, her arms folded, her mouth shut tight.

  It is Arturo who speaks first.

  —¿How long?—he asks.—¿How long has this been going on?

  He waves a hand from Margarita to his father.

  His father says nothing. He stares at a point on the top of the low table that lies between them, unblinking.

  —A couple of years—Margarita says. She looks at the floor, and then turns her head sideways.

  —Roberto told me you were dead—she adds, and her voice is cold and sharp.

  Arturo stares at his father.

  —¿You told her I was dead?

  Roberto Silva lifts his head, stabs a forefinger toward his son.

  —You are dead. I told you that. ¿Or have you forgotten?

  Margarita is pacing up and down now. Arturo sees her hold her hand to her mouth.

  —¿You know what happened?—he asks her.—¿Right?

  She stops walking and stares at Arturo.

  —I see—says Arturo.—He didn’t tell you.

  He stares at his father as he speaks.

  —He didn’t tell you how he nearly killed me. He didn’t tell you how he got so drunk, night after night. He didn’t tell you that he beat me. He didn’t tell you how he burned our crappy place to the ground one night with me inside.

  —¡I didn’t know you were inside!—Roberto snaps, irritated. But not angry, it seems, not sorry.

  —¡Yes, you did! And if you didn’t, it was only because you were off your head with pulque.

  Margarita has stopped pacing up and down and is staring at Roberto.

  —And you told me he was dead. When we met, when we got together, you told me he was dead. ¿How many more lies have you told me?

  —He is dead—Arturo’s father says.—He is dead to me. He knew that. There was no reason to tell you differently.

  —¿What?—Margarita shouts.—¿What are you talking about?

  Roberto does not answer. He glares at Arturo, as if challenging him.

  Arturo knows that look, and that he was afraid of it once. He is not afraid of it anymore. He holds his father’s stare as he explains to Margarita.

  —The day after the fire. The neighbors actually called the police. And it must have been a quiet day because they even came to see what had happened. And my father told me I had to tell them it was an accident, that the fire was an accident.

  —¿It wasn’t?—asks Margarita and her voice is trembling and her hand is halfway to her mouth again.

  —You tell us, Father—says Arturo.—You were drunk and I was asleep and you poured gasoline on the outside of the shack and set it alight. ¿Was that an accident?

  Arturo tries to fight the memories of that night: the flames in the dark, the shouting and his childish fear that the burning jacal was going to set the whole world on fire; that the world would burn before the flames died out. And none of that as bad as what he was most afraid of, the man sitting in front of him now.

  Roberto says nothing. Margarita is motionless, rigid with fear and horror and betrayal.

  —And then—Arturo says—I told the police what had happened, and they put him in jail. For a night. He tried to kill me and they put him in jail for a night. Then he came back to Anapra and found me and beat me so badly I thought I would never walk again. He told me I was dead, and left me.

  Roberto Silva continues to glare at his son. Margarita barely breathes. Only Arturo finds that he is calm, that a tranquil emptiness has entered him and that this emptiness is holding him up, supporting him.

  —¿When was this?—Margarita asks.—¿After you stopped coming to school?

  —A year or so—Arturo says.—I was just thirteen.

  Margarita is shaking her head.

  —¿And you didn’t know about this? ¿You didn’t know about us, I mean?

  Arturo doesn’t answer.

  Then Margarita says—Carlos. How you found us. ¿Right?

  And Arturo doesn’t answer that either, and then Margarita turns away from them both, facing the wall. No one moves. There is no sound, there is just pain hanging in the room, filling it with an atmosphere of poison.

  From nowhere Margarita picks a thin glass vase off the shelf and whirls, flinging it at Roberto. He throws his arms up to protect himself and the glass shatters all over him in hundreds of small pieces, and with it, the atmosphere is shattered. Margarita unleashes her anger upon him, cursing him, berating him, and she is crying too and she only stops when another sound of crying comes to them.

  From upstairs, the cries of a baby drift down, and with that, Margarita hurls one last tirade of her anger at Roberto, and then hurries away to soothe the child.

  —¿You’re a father? ¿Again?—Arturo asks, once she’s gone.

  Roberto barely moves. Pieces of glass lie in his lap, even in his hair. As always, Arturo notices, he seems untouched, while others around him suffer. More than that, Arturo hates the way he cannot, even now, be normal. Cannot be a normal father to a normal son. He just sits, motionless like the statue of a god, an ignorant, tribal god.

  —¿Still drinking?—Arturo asks, and hates himself for playing these games, for being so easily cheap as to try to find cheap, easy ways of hurting his father, of getting some reaction out of him, anything, anything at all, even anger. But his father just sits there.

  Arturo waves a hand to indicate the room they’re sitting in, the house.

  —So it turned out all right for you, then.

  Roberto scratches behind his ear, slowly, staring at Arturo.

  —¿What do you want, Arturo? ¿Why did you come here?

  —I came to see Margarita—he says.—I thought she could … And instead I find you.

  From upstairs, the sound of the baby crying. There’s also the sound of Margarita singing and that is almost too much for Arturo to bear because it is the same song she used to sing to the little kids at school when they were upset. It is one memory too much for Arturo. Those days, when he went to school and Faustino and Eva and he were just kids and his father didn’t drink too much and his mother, his mother was still …

  —She is too good for you—Arturo says, and for a second, Arturo is suddenly afraid as he thinks his father is going to leap across the table and throttle him to death.

  Instead, Roberto takes a long breath and runs a hand over his hair.

  —¿So? ¿Why did you come to see Margarita? ¿What could she possibly help you with?

  ¿Why not just say it? Arturo thinks. ¿Why not just say it? There is no reason not to.

  —I need money. I need a lot of money, and I came to borrow it from her. But now I see that it’s your money I’ve come to borrow.

  For the first time, Arturo gets some kind of reaction out of his father: surprise.

  —You want to borrow money. From me.

  —That’s right. Cabrón.

  Arturo knows Margarita guessed correctly; that Carlos must have sent him here, and Arturo also guesses that Carlos knew that his father was here. That was what Siggy wanted to be kept secret, and there, thinks Arturo, is the difference between them, because Carlos believes that, despite everything, Roberto will help his son. Whereas Siggy believes that he will do no such thing and it will only bring more pain and more anguish. Arturo knows all that, in an instant, and he supposes that he is abou
t to find out which of them is right.

  He also knows that he is not going to beg, he is not going to beg. But he has to do this, he has to say it, he must, for his own sake, and for Faustino’s and also, therefore, for Eva, for the baby. If the baby is to have a father, Arturo needs to get this money. So he asks for it.

  —I came to borrow money. I thought I was asking Margarita, but now I see I have come to ask you. I need five thousand dollars. And I need them right now. And in fact, I don’t want to borrow it, I want you to give it to me.

  Roberto stares at him, his face still impassive.

  —¿Why should I do that?

  —I’m in trouble. I got into some trouble with some narcos and I owe them five thousand. By tonight.

  —Five thousand dollars is a lot of money.

  Arturo hates him. He hates him for playing games, for not being a normal father to a normal son. He gave up years ago wondering why his father hates him so much, a question he asked himself a million times, but one that he knows his father never asked himself. Which was, Arturo decided in the end, the answer in itself. Why does his father hate him? He just does. But then Arturo thinks about Eva and the baby, and he knows what it is to have no father and so he clenches his teeth and asks again.

  —I need it. ¿Will you give it to me, or not?

  Just tell me, chingada, Arturo thinks. Just damn well tell me.

  —That’s a lot of money.

  Arturo does not answer. He waits, hoping that, once his father has played his games, he will put his hand in his pocket and give him the cash.

  —You know—Roberto says—I ought to thank you. For all this, I mean.

  —¿Why?

  —You could have got me killed, getting me sent to the cells that night. You have no idea what it’s like in there. No idea. I hated you for that.

  —¿Yeah?—says Arturo scathingly.

  —Yeah. There was a fight in the cell next to me; this big guy smashed some poor pendejo to nothing. Broke his head open on the floor, and the cops … they did nothing. No, that’s not true. They stood and laughed. Then they placed bets on how far the blood would run across the floor.

  Arturo tries to show no emotion, and yet, despite everything, despite himself, despite all the luxury around him, he feels sorry. He feels sorry for his father, and scared for him, his father of years ago, stuck in a jail cell overnight, because of him. No, he tells himself. No. He did it. He burned that shack down and I was scared. I was just a kid and I was really, really scared.

  Arturo shakes his head.

  —¿So why should you be thanking me?

  —Because I met a guy that night; he gave me his phone number. A while later, I looked him up. He gave me a job. And now, as you see, life is good.

  Roberto smiles.

  There’s a shudder, a giant shuddering as the earth stumbles once more. It trips over its own revolutions, just for a split second, a vast heart skipping a beat, and Arturo reels and feels the dangers rising out of the cleft in the ground that has been steadily opening beneath him. Things crawl up his legs, worming through his skin like maggots and into his poor heart and then he hears himself asking his father a question.

  —¿What job?

  His father waves a hand.

  —I’m a driver. It’s a simple job.

  His father is still smiling and the smile sends the maggots into a frenzy and they eat Arturo’s heart from the inside out as Arturo knows that something is wrong, something is wrong, something is desperately wrong. Then his father stands and starts to slowly unbutton his shirt, button by button, and he stands and as fragments of glass tumble to the floor he shows Arturo what lies there.

  Inked across his body is a vast tattoo; in the center there is a god-king, bare-chested, with a headdress of the feathers of the sacred quetzal. His arms are outstretched in a gesture of power. Beside him stand warriors and warrior women, fierce, noble. But this is nothing. What Arturo sees above this ridiculous pomposity is what draws his gaze, what has transfixed him.

  The number 21. Written bold and large, dominating the scene below. The number 21, and Arturo knows that the 2 means B and the 1 means A. And BA means Barrio Azteca, and that is who his father is driving for, for one of the most powerful pandillas, or maybe even for the cartel itself, and that is where the money has come from that is building this fancy house in which he and Margarita live with their child.

  * * *

  Margarita has returned from upstairs. She’s standing on the bottom step, the sleeping baby in her arms.

  —She’s asleep now—Margarita says quietly.—So no more shouting. ¿Right?

  Her anger has gone. She stands on the step, gently rocking the baby on her hip, gently rocking her to keep her asleep, Arturo’s half-sister.

  —¿What did you come for?—Margarita asks Arturo.

  —He came for money—Roberto says, before Arturo can answer.

  —So give him money—Margarita says.

  Arturo’s father looks him in the eye, as he says—No.

  Arturo does not move.

  He does not beg, he does not shout. He nods at Margarita, and for a moment thinks about going over to see his sister.

  He doesn’t.

  He looks at his father, hating him, and hating himself for still caring. He thinks of all the things that he could say to hurt him.

  He says none of them.

  He leaves.

  * * *

  ¿But what other reaction is there to the world than this? Anger. Anger at the way the world has been divided. In Central America, in Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East, even in Europe, people are leaving their homes to find something better. ¡Believe me, this is no easy step to take! To leave everything you know and set off into the blue …

  In the past, there would have been revolutions. ¡In France, in Russia, right here in Mexico, when people found themselves with unbearable lives, they rose up! ¡Faced with the intolerable, they overthrew their oppressors! Now, the oppressors are not emperors; they are transnational corporations that are so powerful that even nations cannot control them. They span borders, they operate in many countries and it is hard to know who they are and what they do. And so the people do not know who to rebel against. So there are no revolutions; instead, people walk. Or they get on a boat, or they climb on a freight train. ¿Right? They go to another country looking for work, for a better life, for a life away from these wars and persecution.

  And they end up in the rich countries, and you know what people there say … ¡Migrants! ¡Illegal aliens! But everyone is a migrant, everyone, outside of the African cradle. It’s just a question of how far back in time you care to look …

  * * *

  SANTA MUERTE

  There were times, and they were always nighttimes, when Arturo dreamed of killing his father. His father might be out at El Diván, making himself more unpopular. Or he might have found some mescal to bring home to their shack. Either way, he would become the subject of young Arturo’s fantasies. He never really saw how he did it, in those dreams, he would just linger over the thought that he had killed this hideous monster, this drunken beast. That he had freed himself from the beatings and the sadness and the fear, but if he ever got as far as picturing himself holding a knife, or shooting his father with some imaginary weapon, the fantasy would dissolve. Once the night was past, Arturo would always find himself dangling around his hungover father, getting him coffee, fixing him eggs if they had any. His father might even seem guilty sometimes, though he would never apologize, and would avoid looking at Arturo’s bruises. And Arturo would feel guilty too, and think to himself, over and over, I don’t want you dead, I don’t want you dead, I don’t really want you dead.

  Father killed Son. Or maybe Son killed Father. Neither actually happened, but both came close; an action left undone, a deed conceived but never completed.

  The fire, however, was a deed that had happened, and afterward they never saw each other again, save once, when Arturo was crossing Rancho Anapra one
day, and saw his father in the distance, looking as old, drunk, and mean as he had ever been, and where he was living and what he was doing was something Arturo forced himself to stop thinking about.

  Things change, Arturo knows. Things change, things can always change, but he still cannot believe that his father works for the Barrio Azteca, or that he got himself together, or that he hooked up with Margarita. That she fell for his mierda. That they have a baby daughter. And what was in Margarita’s eyes? What was it, aside from the anger, there was something else dark …

  He wanders, without purpose, without further thought, away from the house, back the way he came. As he reaches the highway and the first of the gas stations he sees a large sign that alternates between displaying the temperature and the time.

  It’s well after two o’clock. He knows he is as good as finished, but he walks on anyway. It doesn’t matter where he goes, she will find him anyway, though for now, she seems to have truly abandoned him.

  It’s as he’s coming back past the bank that an image presents itself to him. The line is still there, but it’s shorter now. People stand, waiting, chatting, grumbling patiently, and Arturo sees that they have been standing there so long that they have become oblivious to the world around them. Occasionally someone at the head of the line finishes at the ATM, and the line shuffles forward a little, an almost totally unconscious act.

  As he looks at the line shuffle, he sees a young woman at the head of the line. The image rises up in Arturo’s head and without thinking further, he acts on it. He’s never had money, but he’s heard enough to know that if people are scared about their savings, if they think the bank is going under, they will take out as much as they are allowed from the machine. From across the parking lot of the bank, under the shade of a small tree, Arturo watches as the woman completes three separate transactions, putting a card into the machine three times, while behind people grumble at her for taking so long. She studiously ignores them, and doesn’t move away until she has taken the last stack of money from the ATM and put it in her purse.

  She sets off, briskly, and walks right past Arturo. She doesn’t see him. She has car keys out but she’s leaving the bank parking lot behind. It’s obvious why: it’s full, stuffed with all the cars of people waiting in line. But next door are two office blocks, with their own parking spaces. It’s Saturday; they’re unused, apart from by the handful of people unable to find a space outside the bank.