She’d been asking after her brother around the edges of the abyss. She’d approach anybody she heard speaking latin tongue, give a verbal portrait of her brother, imitate his singsong accent, mention his favorite colors, repeat the story of the land he was there to claim, state his place of birth, list all the things he could do, beg them, please, to try to remember if they’d ever come across him. Until the frigid squall forced her to duck into an ATM booth, where she curled up like a dog and after much bone-trembling managed to fall asleep and dreamed that she was scaling one, two, three, seven hills, and when she made it to the top of the eighth she was awakened by the thunderous contempt of the redhead.
It hadn’t fully dawned yet — the sky was barely a reddish exhalation that hadn’t quite made up its mind to spread over the earth — but by this time the people who might have information for her were already back in the hustle and bustle. She began to walk, rubbing her palms red and pricking up her ears. As she passed the back alley of a restaurant she heard not only a familiar lilt but a voice she knew. She peeked in and saw the youngster from the bus dragging metal cans up beside the restaurant door; he was working energetically, whistling a song from another time, and though he wore only pants and a t-shirt he didn’t seem to mind the early-morning chill. He had a small bandage on the hand that Makina had schooled. He smiled on seeing her and made his way over, but as he got closer his face clouded, more with sadness than with fear. I must look terrible, she thought.
Fell on your feet, huh? said Makina.
Damn straight, the boy responded. How bout you?
Ok, but I’m not there yet; there’s still someone I have to find.
Your kin came for a grind, too?
Yeah, but I don’t know where.
The kid pondered for a moment and then said Come with me.
They walked into the restaurant. Makina followed him past rows of cauldrons boiling on the stove, knives, hatchets, cressets, skillets, brokeneck chickens and flopping fish, to a corner where there was a woman deveining a pile of red peppers. She was pale and thin and had an extremely sweet face, but to Makina she looked like Cora, perhaps because of the way she worked, as if undressing her grandchildren for the shower, or because straight away, like with Cora, she felt she could trust her. The woman raised her eyes, fixed them for a second on Makina without ceasing her work on the chiles, and lowered them once more.
Doña, I’m bringing you this girl here, the youngster said. She’s looking for one of her kin, and since you seen so many folks come through …
Yes, I know, the woman said, but made no attempt to fill the silence that followed.
What? asked Makina. What do you know, señora?
I know who you are.
Did you ever meet my brother?
The woman nodded.
Turned up all sickly and scared as a stray dog, she said. We gave him soup and a sweater and let him sleep under the dish cabinet. Bout a year ago it was, maybe less. Round about that time an anglo woman came, seemed so sad, asking if we didn’t have a young man, said she needed one urgent for a job, she seemed like a good person and just so sad, and I told your kin he should go see if that would work for him, cause like I say she looked like a good person but real real mournful and I had no way to know what it was she needed. Your brother went to see her and never came back. Reckon it worked out for him.
And do you know where he went?
Let the boy here take you; I showed him the barrio.
The woman gave the youngster an address and Makina was already rushing him out to the street when she stopped and looked back to ask How did you know who I was? Did my brother tell you how to recognize me?
That too, yes. Told me he had a sister who just by looking at her you could tell she was smart and schooled, said the woman. Yes, that too.
After half a block the youngster was already lagging and decided to give Makina the address of the house where her brother had gone. Makina flew; she literally felt her feet not touching the ground, as if she could float, scissoring her legs till she found her brother and brought him home without setting foot on foreign soil again.
The house was beautiful and big and pink and a wooden fence surrounded it. Makina opened the little gate in the middle of the fence, went up to the front door, rang the bell, waited. She heard a man’s footsteps approach and got her hopes up that it was him, that he himself would be the one to open the door, that they’d be reunited right then, no more delays. The door opened and there stood a small man with glasses, wrapped in a purple bathrobe. He was black. Never in her life had she seen so many black people up close, and all of a sudden they seemed to be the key to her quest. Makina glared as though reproaching him for being skinnier and blacker and older than her brother, as though this man were attempting to pass for the other. She was about to say something when he beat her to it with I could put on a blond wig if you like.
Makina was thrown for a second and then laughed, embarrassed.
Sorry, she said in anglo, it’s just that I was expecting someone else to open the door.
Someone white? Do you think this is a white person’s house?
No, no …
Well, right you are, this is a white person’s house, there’s not a thing I can do about it, except dress like a white person. Do you like my robe?
No … Yes … I mean, it’s just I was expecting someone different.
A different black man? Are you saying I’m not black enough?
Makina laughed. The man laughed. Suddenly her anxiety had passed. For the first time since she’d crossed she felt welcome, even if she still wasn’t invited in.
No, not white or black, I’m looking for my brother. They told me he came here to work, in this house.
Oh shoot, the man said with exaggerated disappointment, I knew my prayers couldn’t have been answered with such celerity … Last night I knelt down and begged the Lord: Lord, send me a woman to relieve me of my misery.
I’m sorry …
Right, I know, the brother. He’s not here. I’m here. The family that lived here moved. To another continent. They sold the house and I bought it. I don’t know why they left, but times are changing and this is a lovely place to stay put.
Makina felt all of the strength she’d been recovering from her own ashes begin to ebb, felt herself extinguishing, felt she wouldn’t be able to verse from this one last dead end and that her luck had finally run out. To hell with it all, she thought, to hell with this guy and that one, to hell with all this shit, I’m going to hang myself from a lamppost and let the wind whip me around like an old rag; I’m going to start crying and then I’m going to go to hell too. She gestured farewell to the black man and prepared to go.
There’s one left, though, he said.
Makina stared intently, as if trying to read his lips.
What?
They left the oldest son behind. He’s a soldier. If you go to the army base you’ll find him there.
Makina had no idea what so-called respectable people were referring to when they talked about Family. She’d known families that were truncated, extended, bitter, friendly, guileful, doleful, hospitable, ambitious, but never had she known a Happy Family of the sort people talked about, the sort so many swore to defend; all of them were more than just one thing, or they were all the same thing but in completely different ways: none were only fun-loving or solely stingy, and the stories that made any two laugh had nothing in common.