It felt good to say it. A relief.
The registrar was a small, very round man named Juan, with dark skin and a raspy voice. He’d been my father’s best friend in third grade, or so he claimed. My old man didn’t bother to contradict him, only smiled in such a way that I understood it to be untrue; or if not untrue exactly, then one of those statements that time had rendered unverifiable, and about which there was no longer any use debating.
The registrar liked my answer. He loosened his tie and clapped his hands. “California! Oh, my! So what do you do there?”
My father gave me a once-over. “Yes,” he said now. “Tell my old friend Juan what you do.”
I thought back to all those letters my brother had written, all those stories of his I’d read and nearly memorized in my adolescence. It didn’t matter, of course; I could have told Juan any number of things: about my work as a ski instructor, or as a baggage handler, or as a bike-repair technician. I could have told him the ins and outs of Wal-Mart, about life in American small towns, about the shifting customs and mores of different regions of the vast United States. The accents, the landscapes, the winters. Anything I said at that moment would’ve worked just fine. But I went with something simple and current, guessing correctly that Juan wasn’t much interested in details. There were a few facts I knew about my brother, in spite of the years and the distance: a man named Hassan had taken him under his wing. They were in business together, selling baby formula and low-priced denim and vegetables that didn’t last more than a day. The details were arcane to me, but it was a government program, which, somehow, was making them both very rich.
“I work with an Arab,” I said. “We have a store.”
The registrar nodded severely, as if processing this critical information. “The Arabs are very able businessmen,” he said finally. “You must learn everything you can from this Arab.”
“I intend to.”
“So you can be rich!”
“That’s the idea,” I said.
A smile flashed across Juan’s face. “And the American girls? Ehhhhh?”
His voice rose with this last drawn-out syllable, so that it sounded like the thrum of a small revving motor.
I told him what he wanted to hear, in exactly the sly tone required. “They’re very affectionate.”
Juan clapped again. “Wonderful! Wonderful! These young people,” he said to my father. “The whole world is right there for them, just ripe for the taking. Tell me, are you happy, young man?”
I had to remind myself he was addressing that version of me that lived in California, that worked with Hassan, the one who was going to be unspeakably wealthy as a result. Not the me who’d never left the country, who wanted to be an actor but was actually a part-time employee in a copy shop run by a depressive.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m very happy.”
Juan smiled broadly, and I knew my part in the conversation was over. He and my father got down to business. The paperwork was prepared, a long stack of forms and obtusely worded declarations, all signed in triplicate, and in a matter of minutes, my great-uncle’s house was officially no longer our problem. I stood when my father did. Juan took my hand and shook it vigorously.
“California!” he said again, as if he didn’t quite believe it.
Once we were free of Juan and the municipal offices, outside again and breathing the briny, life-giving sea air, I congratulated my old man. I said: “Now we don’t have to burn the house down.”
He gave me a weary look. “Now we can’t, you mean.”
We walked toward the plaza. It was late afternoon, still hours of light remaining, but where else could one go in this town? The regulars would be in their habitual spots, waiting for the sunset with steadfast, unflagging patience. It had been barely a day, but already I could understand why my father had fled this place the moment he had the chance. He’d gone first to the provincial capital, a nice enough place that he began to outgrow the moment he arrived. He was young; he wanted more. He moved to the capital itself, where he finished his education, won more prizes, married, and went abroad, fulfilling, if only partially, the expectations of those he’d left behind. They’d wanted him to be a judge, or a diplomat, or an engineer. To build bridges or make law. His actual job—head librarian of the antiquarian books and rare manuscripts section of the National Library—was a wholly inconceivable occupation. It sounded less like work one did for a wage, and more like an inherited title of nobility. But then it was precisely the rarefied nature of his position that gave my father such prestige in these parts.
We hadn’t gone far when he said, “Quite the act in there.”
I was feeling good and opted not to listen for any trace of sarcasm. Instead I thanked him.
“An Arab?” he said. “A store? How precise!”
“Everything’s an act, right? I was improvising. You have to say the lines like you mean them.”
“I see your studies at the conservatory have really paid dividends. It was very convincing.”
“Your best friend thought so.”
“Best friend, indeed,” my old man said. “I suppose it’s obvious, but I have no memory of him.”
I nodded. “I don’t think he noticed, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
We still hadn’t returned to the discussion of the previous night, and now there seemed no point. Instead we’d come to the plaza, with its view of the sea and its benches filling up one by one. We ducked into a tiny restaurant, hoping to have a quiet meal alone, but everyone recognized my father, and so the basic ritual of our stay in town began anew. We entered the dining room, waving, accepting greetings. A few men called my father’s name excitedly—Manuel! Manolito!—and by the way his face shifted, the way his eyes darkened, I could see this prominence beginning to weigh on him. I saw him draw a deep breath, as if preparing for a steep climb. He was bored with it all, though every instinct told him he must bury this cynicism, ignore it. There are no cynics in this town—that is something you learn when you travel. When you live in the capital and become corrupt. One cannot be rude to these people, one cannot make fun of them. They know almost nothing about you anymore, but they love you. And this was the bind my old man was in. The night demanded something, some way to shift its course; and perhaps this was why, when we approached the table that had called us, he threw an arm over my shoulder, squeezed me tightly, and introduced me as his son, Nelson, home from abroad.
“From California,” my father said. “Just back for a visit.”
His announcement caught me by surprise. I hadn’t intended to reprise the role debuted in Juan’s office, but now there was no choice. I scarcely had a moment to glance in my old man’s direction, to catch sight of his playful smile, before a couple of strangers wrapped me in a welcoming embrace. Everything happened quite quickly. A few narrow wooden tables were pushed together; my father and I pressed into perversely straight-backed chairs. We were surrounded. Everyone wanted to say hello; everyone wanted to get a look at me. I shook a dozen hands, grinning the entire time like a politician. I felt very grateful to my old man for this opportunity. It was—how do I explain this?—the role I’d been preparing for my entire life.
Scene: A dim restaurant off the plaza, in a small town on the southern coast. Santos (fifteen or twenty years older than the others, whom they call Profe) and his protégé, Cochocho, do most of the talking; Erick and Jaime function as a chorus and spend most of their energy drinking. They’ve been at it all afternoon when an old friend, Manuel, arrives with his son, Nelson. It is perhaps two hours before dark. Manuel lives in the capital, and his son is visiting from the United States. The young man is charming but arrogant, just as they expect all Americans to be. As the night progresses, he begins to grate on them, something evident at first only in small gestures. Bottles of beer are brought to the table, the empties are taken away, a process as fluid and automatic as the waves along the beach. How they are drained so quickly is not entirely clear. It defies any law of physics. The waitress, Elena, is an old friend too, a heavyset woman in her late forties, dressed in sweatpants and a loose-fitting T-shirt; she observes these men with a kind of pity. Over the years, she has slept with all of them. A closely guarded secret; they are men of ordinary vanity, and each of the four locals thinks he is the only one. Elena’s brown-haired daughter, Celia, is a little younger than the American boy—he’s in his early twenties—and she lingers in the background, trying to catch a glimpse of the foreigner. Her curiosity is palpable. There are dusty soccer trophies above the bar, and a muted television, which no one watches. Occasionally the on-screen image lines up with the dialogue, but the actors are not aware of this.