“You could have left it to your son,” he said.
It wasn’t what he really meant, of course: Cochocho probably had designs on it himself, some unscrupulous plan that would net him a tidy profit. But I played along, as if this possibility had just occurred to me.
“That’s true,” I said, facing my old man. “Why didn’t you?”
My father chose this moment to be honest. “I didn’t want to burden you with it.”
And then the night began to turn: my old man frowned as soon as the words had escaped. It was more of a grimace, really, as if he were in pain; and I thought of those faces professional athletes make after an error, when they know the cameras are on them: they mime some injury, some phantom hurt to explain their mistake. It’s a shorthand way of acknowledging, and simultaneously deflecting, responsibility. We sat through a few unpleasant moments of this, until my father forced a laugh, which sounded very lonely because no one joined him in it.
“A burden, you say?”
This was Santos, who, excluding a year and a half studying in France, had lived in the town for all of his seventy-seven years.
Just then Celia came to the table with two fresh bottles. “Sit with us,” I said. I blurted this out on impulse, for my sake and my father’s, just to change the subject. She smiled coquettishly, tilting her head to one side, as if she hadn’t heard correctly. Her old T-shirt was stretched and loose, offering the simple line of her thin neck, and the delicate ridge of her collarbone, for our consideration.
“I would love to,” Celia said, “but it appears there is no room here for a lady.”
She was right: we were six drunken men pressed together in a crowded, unpleasant rectangle. If more than two of us leaned forward, our elbows touched. It was a perfect answer, filling us all with longing, and though we hurried to make room, Celia had already turned on her heel and was headed back to the bar. She expected us to stay for many hours longer, was confident she’d have other opportunities to tease us. Her mother glared at her.
But the men hadn’t forgotten my father’s insult.
“Explain,” said Santos.
My old man shook his head. He wore an expression I recognized: the same distant gaze I’d seen that first night, when we’d sat up, drinking tea and looking through Raúl’s old photographs. Who are these people? What do they have to do with me? He wasn’t refusing; he simply found the task impossible.
I decided to step in, playing the one card my father and I both had.
“I think I know what my old man is trying to get at,” I said. “I believe I do. And I understand it because I feel the same way toward the capital. He meant no offense, but you have to understand what happens, over time, when one leaves.”
Santos, Cochocho, and the others gave me skeptical looks. Nor, it should be said, did my father seem all that convinced. I went on anyway.
“Let’s take the city, for example. I love that place—I realize that’s a controversial statement in this crowd, but I do. Listen. I love its gray skies, its rude people, its disorder, its noise. I love the stories I’ve lived there, the landmarks, the ocean, which is the same as the ocean here, by the way. But now, in spite of that love, when I have a son, I would not leave it to him. I would not say: here, boy, take this. It’s your inheritance. It’s yours. I would not want him to feel obligated to love it the way I do. Nor would that be possible. Do you understand? Does that make sense? He’ll be an American. I have no choice in the matter. That’s a question of geography. And like Americans, he should wake into adulthood and feel free.”
I sat back, proud of my little speech.
“Ah!” Santos said. It was a guttural sound, a physical complaint, as if I’d injured him. He scowled. “Rank nationalism,” he said. “Coarse jingoism of the lowest order. Are you saying we’re not free?”
We fell silent.
For a while longer the bottles continued to empty, almost of their own accord, and I felt I was perceiving everything through watery, unfocused eyes. The television had been trying to tell me something all night, but its message was indecipherable. I was fully Francisco now. That’s not true—I was an amalgam of the two of us, but I felt as close to my brother then as I had in many years. Most of it was internal and could not have been expressed with any script, with any set of lines. But this audience—I thought back to the two antagonists and Joselito’s moto-taxi, the way they became fully invested in the scene the moment they realized they were being watched. I’d taken my brother’s story and amplified it. Made it mine, and now theirs, for better or for worse. It was no longer a private argument, but a drama everyone had a stake in. I felt good. Content. Seized by that powerful sense of calm you have when you have understood a character, or rather, when you feel that a character has understood you. I felt very confident, very brash, as I’d imagined my brother had felt all these many years on his journey across North America.
I stood then and confirmed what I’d begun to sense while seated: I was very drunk. It was comforting in a way, to discover that all that drinking had not been done in vain. It was time to go. Celia and her mother came out from behind the bar to clear off the table, and the other men stood as well. And this was the moment I as Francisco, or perhaps Francisco as me, pulled Celia close and kissed her on the mouth. Perhaps this was what the television had been trying to tell me. She kissed me back. I heard the men call out in surprise, heard Celia’s mother as well, shrill and protective, but entirely reasonable. After all, who was this young man? And just what did he think he was doing?
I placed one hand at the small of Celia’s back, pulling her to me. The crowd continued to voice its disapproval, scandalized, but also—I felt certain—glad for us. The dance is complete. The virile foreigner has made his mark. The pretty girl has claimed her property. And it was the role of the gathered men to be appalled, or to pretend to be; the role of the mother to wail about her daughter’s chastity when she herself had never been chaste. But when it was over, when Celia and I separated, everyone was grinning. The old men, my father, even Elena.
Very late that night I called Rocío. I did not feel any guilt. I just wanted to talk to her, perhaps have her read me the letter I’d already imagined. Be amused by her. Perhaps laugh and discuss her lover’s murder. It must have been three or four in the morning, and I could not sleep. I’d begun to have doubts about what had happened, what it meant. A few hours before, it had all seemed triumphant; now it felt abusive. The plaza was empty, of course, just like the previous night; only more so—a kind of emptiness that feels eternal, permanent. I knew I would never come back to this place, and that realization made me a little sad. From where I stood, I could see the sloping streets, the ocean, the unblinking night; and nearer, the listing palm tree scarred with names. I would have written Celia’s name on it—a useless, purely romantic gesture, to be sure—but the truth is I never knew her name. I’ve chosen to call her Celia because it feels disrespectful to address her as the barwoman’s daughter. So impersonal, so anonymous. A barwoman’s daughter tastes of bubblegum and cigarettes, whereas Celia’s warm tongue had the flavor of roses.