“You wait right here. Order us coffee while I make some phone calls.” She smiled and waved to people, men mostly, who called to her from other cars at the drive-in as she made her way to the phone booth. She was in there a long time, came out twice, once to borrow a sweater and get some coffee and later to get more dimes. Ben played with the radio knobs for a while and turned the windshield wipers on and off. The carhop warmed a bottle for me; Ben drank it and fell asleep in my lap.
Bella put the top up when she got back, flashed me a smile and took off down Mesa toward the Plaza. “South of the border … down Mexico way!” she was singing.
“Okay, Lou. It’s all settled. I’ve been through this myself. It’s horrible, but it is safe and the place is clean. You’ll go in this afternoon at four and be out by ten in the morning. They’ll give you antibiotics and painkillers to bring home, but it doesn’t hurt real bad, it’s like having a period. I called home and told them we were going shopping in Juárez, were spending the night at the Camino Real. That’s where little Ben and I will be, getting to know each other, and you can come the minute it’s all over.”
“Wait a minute, Bella. I haven’t thought this out.”
“I know you haven’t. That’s why I’m doing all the thinking.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“We’ll get you to a doctor here. They can save your life and everything in Texas. They just can’t do abortions.”
“What if I die? Who will care for Ben?”
“Well, I will! And I’ll be a darn good mother too.”
I had to laugh then. She made sense. In fact a big load was off my mind. Not worrying about a little infant in addition to Ben. God, what a relief. She was right. An abortion was the best thing to do. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the leather seat.
“I don’t have any money! What does it cost?”
“Five hundred. Cash. Which I happen to have in my hot little hand. I have money to burn. Every time I go near Mama or Daddy — sometimes I just want a hug or to tell ’em I miss Cletis or ask maybe should I go to secretarial school — they shove money at me, go get yourself something pretty.”
“I know,” I said. I knew what that was like. Or did, before my folks disowned me. “I used to think if a big old tiger bit off my hand and I went running up to my mother she’d just slap some money on the stump. Or make a joke … ‘What’s that, the sound of one hand clapping?’”
We came to the bridge and the smell of Mexico. Smoke and chili and beer. Carnations and candles and kerosene. Oranges and Delicados and urine. I buzzed the window down and hung my head out, glad to be home. Church bells, ranchera music, bebop jazz, mambos. Christmas carols from the tourist shops. Rattling exhaust pipes, honkings, drunken American soldiers from Fort Bliss. El Paso matrons, serious shoppers, carrying piñatas and jugs of rum. There were new shopping areas and a luxurious new hotel, where one gracious young man took the car, another the bags, and still another gathered Ben into his arms without waking him. Our room was elegant, with fine weavings and rugs, good fake antiquities and bright folk art. The shuttered windows opened onto a patio with a tiled fountain, lush gardens, a steaming swimming pool beyond. Bella tipped everyone and got on the phone to room service. Jug of coffee, rum, Coke, pastries, fruit. I had formula and cereal and plenty of clean bottles for Ben, begged her not to feed him candy and ice cream.
“Flan?” she asked. I nodded. “Flan,” she told the phone. Bella called the gift shop and ordered a size 8 bathing suit, crayons, any toys they had, and fashion magazines. “Maybe we should stay here the whole time! Plumb forget Christmas!” she said.
* * *
We walked around the grounds with Ben between us. I was so relaxed and happy I was surprised when Bella Lynn said, “Okay, hon, it’s time for you to go.”
She gave me the five hundred dollars. Told me to take a cab back to the hotel and have her come down and pay it. “You can’t take any other money or identification with you. You can give them my name, and this number.”
She and Ben waved good-bye to me after she had put me in a cab, paid for it and told him where to go.
The taxi took me to the Nueva Poblana Restaurant, to the back entrance of the parking lot, where I would wait for two men dressed in black, wearing dark glasses.
I was only there for two or three minutes before they appeared behind me. Quickly and silently an old sedan pulled up. One of the men opened the door and beckoned to me to get in, the other ran around to the other side. The driver, a young boy, looked around, nodded and took off. The back windows were curtained, the seat so low I couldn’t see out; it seemed we were driving in circles at first and then the whap whap whap of a stretch of highway, more circles, a stop. The creaking of heavy wooden gates. We drove a few yards and stopped, the gate closed behind us.
I had a glimpse of the courtyard as I was led inside by an old woman in black. She didn’t exactly look at me with scorn but her failure to speak or greet me was so devoid of usual Mexican warmth and graciousness it felt like an insult.
The building was yellow brick, maybe an old factory, the ground was entirely cemented, but there were still canaries, pots of four o’clocks and portulacas. Bolero music, laughter, and the clatter of dishes from across the yard. Chicken cooking, a smell of onions and garlic, epazote.
A businesslike woman nodded to me from her desk, and when I sat down she shook my hand but did not give her name. She asked for my name and the five hundred dollars, please. The name and number of someone to call in case of an emergency. That was all she asked, and I signed nothing. She spoke little English but I didn’t speak Spanish to her, or to any of them; it would have seemed too familiar a thing to do.
“At five o’clock the doctor will come. You will have exam, catheter placed in utero. During the night cause contractions but sleeping medicine, you don’t feel bad. No food, water after dinner. Early morning spontaneous abortion most usually. Six o’clock you go to operating room, go to sleep, get D and C. Wake up in your bed. We give you ampicillin against infection, codeine for pain. At ten car will take you to Juárez or to El Paso Airport or bus.”
The old woman took me to my bed, which was in a dark room with six other beds. She held up her hand to show five o’clock, then pointed to the bed, then gestured toward a sitting room across the hall.
There had been so little sound that I was surprised to find twenty women in the room, all Americans. Three of them were girls, almost children, with their mothers. The others were emphatically alone, reading magazines, sitting. Four of the women were in their forties, perhaps even fifties … change-of-life pregnancies, I imagined, which proved to be true. The rest of the women seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties. Every one of them looked frightened, embarrassed, but most of all, intensely ashamed. That they had done something terrible. Shame. There appeared to be no bond of sympathy between any of them; my entrance was scarcely noticed. A pregnant Mexican woman swirled a dirty damp mop around, staring at us all with undisguised curiosity and contempt. I felt an unreasonable fury toward her. What do you tell your priest, bitch? You have no husband and seven children … you have to work in this wicked place or starve? Oh, God, that was probably true. I felt a tiredness, an immense sadness, for her, for all of us in the room.
We were, each of us, alone. The young girls perhaps most of all, for even though two of them were crying, their mothers also seemed distant from them, staring out into the room, isolated in their own shame and anger. Alone. Tears started to come to my eyes, because Joe was gone, because my mother wasn’t there, ever.