Lives Undone Read online

Lee asked in halting Spanish, "How old would he be today?"

  "He would be forty now," the woman said.

  Spotting James' camera, she asked him if he wanted to take a photo of her. As he opened his lens, she posed without any self-consciousness in front of her pink, purple and yellow altar, next to her long-dead child.

  "Your son is very handsome," Lee said, touching the woman's shoulder.

  Lee had used the present tense on purpose; she wanted to comfort the old lady and let her know that her son was among them that day.

  "They must find solace in these rituals," Lee said as they walked out.

  "That's what rituals are for, I've been told."

  "Even after thirty years, I imagine she always does that."

  The most skillful con-woman in the world could not have feigned the tenderness in her eyes; it was as if she would have protected the old woman from grief if she could. He had seen that tenderness before; it was a side of her she wanted to hide.

  It’s in our contradictions that we are most ourselves, James thought. Lee’s contradictions kept him returning to her as someone might return to an intriguing book, not wanting to read it too fast but unable to leave it aside.

  They went to a garden cantina for lunch. The men at other tables turned to look at Lee, and he couldn't blame them. She looked especially beautiful with her dark hair, eyes that were brighter than any jewel and lips that needed no enhancing. Lee was more woman than artifice.

  The waiter deposited dish after dish on the table: huitlacoche, the black, delicious fungus that grew on corn, blue flour tortilla, nopales and squash flowers.

  “It’s all so good,” she said after eating a couple of forkfuls.

  James smiled. She couldn’t fake the delight she had in simple things either. It was as if she were a child discovering the world, ready to believe it was good. He was sure she had once been just such a child, before others ruined life for her.

  "I had no idea I was so hungry," she said when they were finished, stretching her legs before her.

  He got up, looked away from her legs and moved toward the kitchen. The women inside laughed as he leaned against the threshold, joking with them and asking for coffee.

  "You seem to feel at home in Mexico," Lee said when he returned to their table.

  "I love Mexico, but I don't know if I can feel at home here," he said. "There’s a lot that’s mysterious and can't be talked about. A lot that’s unsaid."

  Her elbows were on the table and she moved her arms toward her body, as if creating a shield between them — but a wry expression took over her face. "Very unlike your homeland."

  He laughed. "I'm used to the British way of not saying anything."

  "Liar."

  "All right, it's true that I like things out in the open where I can see them. It used to be important in the wild. You couldn't just look at tall grass and think it was pretty, there could be something lurking there. Or up a tree, or behind a dune."

  She cocked her head, deep in thought, and asked after a moment, "Do people in tribes keep secrets?”

  "The thing about secrets is that we can never tell if they exist or not. But someone living in a relatively small group would find it hard to keep important ones.”

  "Then there are never psychopaths in these groups?”

  "Never sociopaths. They can’t act against the community, they’d be thrown out. There is running amok, though. All the control drives people crazy sometimes, and they don't know what to do with their aggressiveness. A man may go through his village killing as many people as he can before he is put down."

  "Did you ever run amok?"

  "I think you know the answer to that, but I never did it in a tribe that wasn't mine. And for your information, some groups highly respect the man who goes haywire. They think that the spirit of a tiger or some noble beast possessed him."

  She laughed. "Tiger spirit, that's what I'm going to call you."

  “Sounds like a beer commercial. Just call me arsehole."

  "Asshole, in any case."

  He clicked his tongue. “A Southern lady, swearing like that."

  "What makes you think—?"

  James interrupted her, "Here's a parlor trick. I'll tell you what I think I know about you, since we're talking of secrets. Come on, might be liberating."

  "All right," she said slowly.

  "You said you were from Arizona, but you're not. You're from somewhere wet in the South."

  Lee poured him a small shot of tequila with a steady hand. "Will you reveal how you came to these conclusions?"

  "Fine, here is the Sherlock Holmes version: there's the way you used to say my name at certain times when you couldn't help it. Ja-ymes, Ja-ymes!”

  She blushed. He liked it when she did that. "I sounded like a donkey?"

  "You sounded like you were from the South. It had to be somewhere marshy, because at Deerholt you mentioned that you were used to mud. I thought it might be Louisiana, but you also mentioned horses running free on the beach, so — aha, a North Carolina girl."

  She drank her shot and didn't deny it. He considered her for a moment, before adding. "A North Carolina girl from around Dismal Swamp?"

  "Very good."

  "And you grew up poor. Very poor. But not all the time."

  “Good trick, James."

  "Don't worry, it stops there."

  "Why?" She shrugged. "Keep going."

  "Want to know why I think you have a liking for shiny things?"

  "That would be a stab at Psychology 101, wouldn't it?"

  "A bit, and you’re more complicated than that. Besides, knowing why you have a fetish doesn't really change anything."

  "My father used to call me Magpie," she said, tracing the flower on the tablecloth with a fork. "I liked bits of rock and glass that sparkled."

  James remained still. Having her talk of her past was like getting some bird of paradise in his sights; something hard to capture that stood in the light for a moment, opening its feathers.

  But the moment was gone as she shrugged once more. "That's all it is, really. That, and needing to make money fast."

  Her eyes looked hard and defiant as they held his, but their coffee arrived, and Lee blinked. She smiled at the woman who brought it; she always thanked people who did anything for them. The defiance, not the tenderness, was the ruse.

  "Don't they say there are only a few stories in the world?" he asked as he ran his hand over the steam rising out of his coffee cup. "Rags to riches, the hero's quest, Big Lizard versus Freud?"

  "I think mine is definitely the last one. Especially coming from a swamp."

  "I like 'Magpie,' though."

  "No, you're not giving me another nickname!"

  "Why not?" It was his turn to shrug. "I don't know your real name."

  She became serious again. "Looks like you could find out, if you wanted."

  "I won't do that, I promise. I may be an unbearable little boy, but I'm no liar. Not when I swear."

  He held out his pinky and she wrapped hers around it. That was as far as he could touch her.

  In the evening they once more visited a cemetery, where hundreds if not thousands of candles had been lit for the souls of the children. They walked among the graves, looking at the flames shimmering in their nooks, at the crowns of flowers, at the movement of the families. Lee was silent by his side and he liked that; he liked that they could talk or be quiet together. It was, at times, so easy to be with her.

  When they returned to Sol's, they found her in the shed where she worked. Lee went into the house to have a shower, and James sat with his friend, who was slapping plaster on iron rods.

  "This is a great room," he said, looking around at her unfinished sculptures, her metals, pots, brushes, hammers and spatulas.

  "Yes, I like it."

  He pointed at some forms scratched on the wall. "What's that?"

  "Oh, an idea I had when I was out of paper, out of everything, so I drew it on the wall with a nail."


  He stopped before a canvas with just a few strokes of black paint that unequivocally represented Sol. "Did Lee do this?"

  Sol glanced behind her. "Yes, isn't it great?" She turned around on the stool, crossing dirty hands over her apron. "It’s a pity that a girl like her, with talent for real things, can waste it on spying and stealing."

  "Art is not necessarily a 'real thing' for most people," James said.

  "Oh, don't be a snob."

  "I'm being all the opposite. Some people have to worry about other problems.”

  Sitting down, he began cleaning her instruments as she watched him.

  "What's going on, Jim Tony?"

  He groaned. "Can't you leave my name alone?"

  "No. What’s going on between you two?”

  "We’re friends."

  "Ha!" She stood and took his face in her hands, lifting it up. "What bones you've got. If I were into something more figurative, I'd beg to sculpt your face."

  She moved to the sink and washed her hands, grabbing a wet cloth. She returned to James and scrubbed away the plaster she had left on his cheeks. "Here's the thing, Jim: you're like two pyromaniacs in the making, ready to set everything on fire. And passion, God bless it, is one of the great things life gives to us miserable human beings. Feels better than anything for a while. I'm retired now, but I know."

  "You make me want to grab your bum when you talk about being retired, with your boobs in my face, too."

  "Don't run away from the subject, Jim. What's it going to be?"

  "I don't even know what you're talking about."

  "Lo sabes perfectamente.”

  "No, but you apparently have the answer to whatever question you're asking."

  "Is there a reason, apart from her being on the wrong side of the law sometimes, why you wouldn't grab Lee’s bum, as you're clearly dying to?"

  James gave her his widest and most innocent smile. "I made a promise."

  Sol cocked her head at him. "Ah! Trust issues."

  He snorted. "Now that you put it like that ..."

  "You were one of her victims?"

  Pulling his face away he stood and walked through the room as if he hadn't just inspected it. "It's like this, she might be the hardest nail that ever closed a coffin, the biggest con, the mother of all self-obsessed bitches. Or she could be ..." he stopped in front of Lee's painting.

  "I see. And you can't decide which."

  " 'By the world, I think she be honest, and I think she is not,' " he said in a low voice.

  "Ay, ay, ay, when an Englishman quotes Shakespeare ..."

  The black strokes of Lee's painting became blurry the more James stared at it. "Once I found her in a hotel room, nearly destroyed. And I say nearly, because she would have picked herself up — but it touched me more than I can say that she believed that she had to do it alone. That day, and other days, I realized how many times she had had to do it, and I wanted to say—"

  Sol didn't speak, and he thought he might as well try to put his thoughts into words.

  "You know the vows people make, when they stand at the altar, or on some beach in Fiji or in some shaman ceremony in a cave? They say some variation of 'I will be there, I'll help you — you'll help me.' I think most of the time they have no idea what's coming. But I had some idea. I knew she wasn't going to be easy, and I didn't mind."

  "You just didn't expect her to be lying about everything?"

  "Even that I could take. But her job is to become what men want so she can rob them. And the problem with hearing lies is that you never know what the truth sounds like again.”

  Across the garden, the door of the house opened and closed. Sol was at the window, looking out. "I just see a girl, James. She has a lot inside, true, but a lot that's good. Do we ever get anything exceptional without effort?”

  He didn't answer; he walked past Sol and joined Lee at the table outside. She had made more margaritas and poured three glasses as Sol took her place.

  "Will you give me a cigarette?" Lee asked.

  Sol handed her a leather case and a lighter. "I thought you didn't smoke.”

  "Sometimes I do. Only sometimes, like James."

  James sat back and watched as Lee took a deep drag of the cigarette. With parted lips he inhaled the smoke that she exhaled and let it envelop them both.

  ELEVEN

  As Lee walked to James’ hotel in the morning, the streets were being swept clean. She liked the scratching sound of the brooms against stone, the rhythmic movement of the women wielding them, the colorful debris of the previous night's festivities.

  She wore the skirt Sol had made for her with “Mexican clichés” enhanced by beads and a few sequins. Her blouse was white and the same flat sandals that had served her well the day before were back on her feet.

  A woman with long black braids was selling masks made of cloth over hard papier maché. Lee bought half a skull and a laughing devil.

  Her heart began to beat a little too hard and fast at the thought that she was about to see James. When she spotted him sitting at his window on the second floor, eyes closed as he enjoyed the sun, she realized that the day hadn't started, and already she didn't want it to end.

  Lee put on her skull mask, stood under his window and whistled.

  His eyes opened, and he smiled down at her. "Señora Muerte, cinco minutos por favor."

  Lady Death, give me five minutes ...

  "Thinco minutos?"

  He laughed at her attempt to mimic his Castilian lisp.

  "I need a pan de muerto and a coffee," he told her as he came out of the hotel. His eyes had swept quickly over her before he looked away. Either he was being good, or she was firmly in the friend zone.

  "I'll have one with you,” she said.

  They stopped at a counter and stood drinking their coffee and biting a femur-shaped bread. Lee looked out at the empty square. "I think today it will be less sad. It won't be the dead children anymore."

  "No, today it will be all the old people who were tired of life."

  She smiled. "That’s better."

  He took a picture of her in her beautiful skirt against the dark counter. Outside the bar, he photographed the debris on the street, and she stepped forward on her toes to look at the images, their faces close together.

  James moved easily, like in Rome, holding his camera and yet forgetting about it for stretches of time as he talked to a stall holder, a policeman or a woman preparing an altar on the street.

  Women loved him. They laughed as he talked to them, raising their eyes and covering their mouths; it didn't matter if they were old wizened ladies or little girls. A baby in her mother's arms reached out, and James picked her up. He showed her to Lee, laughing as if the baby were something extraordinary.

  When he turned away she saw the mask, pushed to the back of his head. The devil leered at her.

  Lee began to feel something like nausea. She shouldn't go around with him anymore; not when she watched all the women in love with him, and he in love with a baby girl.

  She couldn't see him; it was like torture.

  Fanning herself with the mask, Lee thought of excuses to leave, but didn’t give any and didn’t budge. Six girls had arrived with a cart full to the brim with marigolds, white chrysanthemums, red gladiolas and many other flowers. They were setting up their stalls and James placed Lee among them. She smiled with all the radiance she couldn't show when James looked at her without his lens. He snapped the photograph and lowered the camera, staring at her for a moment. One of the girls put a marigold behind her ear before they moved on.

  The day was otherwise easy again: they strolled and met people; they ate and visited the cathedral, where they lit candles for the dead.

  "Sometimes I like to walk into churches," James said. "They’re always cool inside when it's warm outside, and they’re always quiet."

  Lee looked around at the simple stone walls, at the ladies with black lace mantillas on their heads — mumbling, crying, whispering with
rosaries wrapped around stiff fingers.

  "I just don't like how much they like to suffer," he remarked dryly, touching her elbow so they would leave.

  That evening the streets were even fuller than the night before. There was a lot more music too, and dancing in the squares. They ended up in an out-of-the-way cantina having tequila. The walls of the place were decorated with colorful paper skeletons; the patrons sat in costumes, drinking or talking.

  "You need to go slowly," James said, setting a small glass of tequila in front of her.

  Lee swallowed the whole shot.

  "That's slow for you, is it?" he asked.

  She coughed. "It seems wrong to sip it."

  Fortified by the first shot, she got up and walked to the counter. She asked the barman for a bottle of his best tequila as two men with masks on top of their heads stared.

  "Que guapa," the man with a skull mask told his friend.

  "Madre mía!"

  Ignoring them, Lee returned to the table with the bottle. James narrowed his eyes at her admirers, but they smiled, making apologetic faces.

  The cantina filled with people, voices, laughter and music. Three men started plucking at their guitars, a short woman with a strong voice began singing boleros, and couples got up to dance.

  Lee's hair waved over her forehead and she left it there. “Can we dance?"

  He considered her for a moment. "Should we?"

  "Everyone is doing it," she said, standing.

  On the floor, he put his arm around her waist but kept a respectable distance between them. His eyes were never hot or cold now, only cool. As they moved to the sound of the bolero, he started to sing along. El Día Que Me Quieras.

  The Day You Love Me. She had heard it before, but nevertheless asked, "What does it mean?"

  He glanced down at her. "Something-something."

  "Come on, what does it say?" She was tipsy and daring; she felt at home in the rundown cantina, among the skeletons and the other couples.

  "It says the day you love me, the rose will dress in her best color, and the wind will tell the bells that you are mine—"

  The singer continued, and she inched closer to him. "And?"

  "You know what it says."

  She hummed under her breath and listened. "The night you love me, the jealous stars will watch us go by—"