Carry Me Like Water (11 page)

Now he was less afraid. Luz had said that the border patrolmen were just a bunch of pendejos who had reached their highest station in life. “Some day somebody is going to write a story about them,” she said, “and they’re going to let the whole world know what a bunch of assholes they are.” But nobody will ever write that story, Diego thought, never write it because El Paso was too far away from all the places in the world that people liked to read about. Nobody would ever want to read a book about the border and the migra—it would all be too strange, too foreign, too dull and hot, too poor and desolate to be considered exotic. People liked exotic, Diego thought.

He finished his second empanada. He played with the mango in his hands tossing it from one hand to the other. He would save the mango and eat it for dinner. He walked slowly toward home on San Antonio Street. He found himself standing outside the county jail, a tall, gray, concrete building with tiny windows. It was supposed to be escape proof, and as far as Diego was concerned, it was. Luz had brought him here once and pointed at it saying: “This is a giant dick, my Diego, that’s exactly what it is: a giant dick they use to screw the Mexicans.” He didn’t know what to think about that. Sometimes she said things because she was as much an actress as Mary, but he appreciated the logic behind her words. He once told Luz that Mary and she were very much alike in the way they thought. She had gotten so angry that she shook him by the collar and threatened to hang him up by his balls on the flagpole at the bridge: “The American flagpole,” she had yelled, “as a warning to other assholes.” He had apologized and she had forgiven him.

Outside the jail, he saw mothers and children and old people gathered around the benches as if it were a park. Some were eating lunch and drinking soft drinks. Some were waving toward the windows as if they were waving at soldiers in a parade. Every day, there were people gathered here, happy and waving at windows and making signs—and behind those windows stood husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles. Their tongues were useless, here. All they had to speak with were their arms and hands. Diego felt close to them. He loved to watch them. A girl asked her mother which window was her father’s. The mother answered: “Over there, the one at the very top. He can see everything. Right now, he can see you.” She smiled at her daughter and took her up in her arms. Diego walked over to them and handed them his mango. The little girl laughed. He walked away reluctantly wondering why they weren’t angry or sad or ashamed.

11

L
IZZIE STOOD
at the entrance to the rectory of Mission Dolores. She looked around nervously and stared at the outside of the church. For some reason, looking at it made her nervous. She pulled her eyes from it, wondering at her strange attraction to that building—it was as if she carried a memory of it around in her. But it was not possible that she remembered her own baptism. A chill ran down her spine. She looked away from the church, rang the bell, and walked in just as the sign instructed. A dark-haired woman in her late fifties with a friendly voice was sitting behind the desk. She asked Lizzie if she had an appointment with one of the priests.

“No,” she said, opening her mouth to say something more—but stopped.

The secretary watched her for a moment. “Would you like to make an appointment—or are you here to pay for a Mass?”

Elizabeth paused for a moment, “Well,” she said, “neither. You see—well—I’m looking for some information.” She had carefully planned out the encounter, but now she felt stupid for playing this childish game. She was too old to be playing hide-and-seek, but this was the only way of making sure that her visit last night had been real. It was as if she were here to spy on herself. She was no longer sure of anything. “You see,” she continued, “I’m a nurse at St. Mary’s, and one of our patients died yesterday. He mentioned
he’d been baptized at Mission Dolores Church. For some reason, it seemed like an important thing to him. I don’t know if it’s true or not—sometimes it’s the dementia. Anyway, if he was baptized here,
I
want to give a gift to the church in his name.” She paused. “He was a special patient. I wanted to do something.” Her palms were sweating. She felt her story was a little precious, but when she had come up with this plan, she had figured if money was involved, the church would not ask too many questions. She despised herself for her cynicism. She was certain the secretary would discover her lie, but she had decided that telling the truth was not an alternative. “I’m a little nervous,” she said. “I’ve never been this close to a Catholic church.”

The secretary smiled. “There’s really nothing to be nervous about.” Her voice was warm, deep, a slight Mexican accent mixed with a heavier southern drawl. “I know how you feel, though. I once went to a wedding in a Baptist church. I was so nervous, you’d have thought I was the bride.”

Lizzie laughed not so much because she thought her joke was funny but because the laughter helped her relax. She was desperate for a cigarette.

“It’s very nice of you to want to do something in your friend’s name.” The woman’s smile was warm and strong like a cup of coffee on a cool morning. “I love your earrings—beautiful,” She turned off her electric typewriter and gave Lizzie her full attention. “I’m sure that if he was baptized here, we’ll have a record. The only problem is that our system is a little bit, well, outdated. One of the younger priests wants to computerize the whole system, but the pastor won’t allow it. The old priest has this idea that’s it’s holier to write things out with your own hand than to write something out on a screen. And, me, well, I don’t take sides. I do what I’m told. Anyway, all of our records are kept in books—handwritten. There’s no way I can look up your friend’s record without knowing the year he was baptized—that’s how we do it here—by the year. It’s a simple system but it works.”

Lizzie listened, already knowing what she would say. She paused a moment. “Well, according to his records at the hospital, he was born on—well—I have it written down.” She opened her purse.
unfolded a piece of paper, and read the date. “He was born on August tenth. Does that help?” She felt as though the secretary could see right through her bad acting.

The secretary smiled. “Do you have a year?”

“Oh yes—of course.” She stared at the paper. Nineteen fifty-five.”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something.” She looked at Lizzie as if she were waiting for something.

“Yes?” Lizzie asked.

“His name. I’ll need his name.”

Elizabeth broke out laughing. “I guess I expected you to have telepathy.”

“Empathy, yes. Telepathy, no. I haven’t learned that one yet.”

“I have,” she said, Lizzie was immediately sorry she’d spoken.

“What?”

“Nothing. It was just a joke.” She smiled to herself. “His name’s Salvador Aguila,” she said.

“Aguila? What an unusual last name. Are you sure it isn’t Aguilar?”

“No. It’s Aguila—I’m sure of it.”

“Very unusual,” she repeated, “But it should make things easier. At least he’s not a Garcia or a Gonzalez—we have thousands of those. One moment. Let me just look this up in our records, I’ll be right back—it shouldn’t take too long, but you never know.”

“I have time,” Lizzie said matter-of-factly.

The woman walked through a door and down a hallway. She carried herself with grace, with a sense of certainty. Lizzie was sure this woman did not simply “do as she was told.” She sat in the room already familiar with its smell. It had smelled the same way last night, had smelled of book mold, and old wax, and old furniture. She thought there was something very soothing about this place. She felt tired and wanted to rest here for a long time.

She expected to wait for a while, but the woman appeared almost immediately, holding two big leather books in her hand, “See,” she said, “if he was born in August of 1955, he was either baptized later that same year or very early in 1956—sometimes people wait a while for a relative to come into town or something. Take me, for instance: My godmother had to travel from Mexico City to San
Antonio in order to be present at my baptism. She was sick when I was born. By the time she recovered and made the journey, I was already eight months old. Of course, back then, she made part of the journey in a horse-drawn carriage. You know, when I went to her funeral, I just hopped on a plane. I sometimes think we don’t live on the same earth as our ancestors.” As she talked, she opened the book labeled “I955.” “Let’s see, we’ll begin just after August tenth.” Something in her hoped this woman would confirm what she’d found the night before—then she would know that last night’s travels had not been a dream; then she would know that she had actually left her body and floated through the night like a holy specter; then she would know that her life would never again be ordinary, that she had left the legacy of the dull suburbs behind for good; then she would know she was sane, she would know she was gifted—gifted by that man whose voice ran through her like a cool wind. Salvador. She half-whispered his name. But the other half of her wanted her to find no names, no Salvador Aguila, no Maria de Lourdes Aguila, nothing. Half of her wanted this to be nothing more than a vivid dream born out of the sickness of being raised upper middle class. She sat there in the waiting room amid the familiar smell of dust wanting the smell not to be familiar. “Ahh,” the woman said, “here we go. Jesus Salvador Aguila, baptized August twenty-second, nineteen fifty-five, by a Padre Diego Landa. It’s him—I’m sure—date of birth, August tenth.” She looked up at Lizzie. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She looked down at the book again. “Did you know he was a twin?”

“A twin?”

“Yes, a twin. I’m sure of it. There’s another listing on the same day: Maria de Lourdes Aguila, born on the same day, and baptized by the same godparents. The parents’ names don’t appear.”

“Is that unusual?”

She nodded. “See.” She lifted the book and showed the place in each entry that listed both the parents and godparents. “It used to be that parents often did not attend their own children’s baptism. I know that sounds strange, but in the old days, the parents stayed home to prepare a big feast. Even so, their names always appeared in the record.”

“Why do you suppose the parents’ names don’t appear?”

“I don’t know. There must have been some special circumstances—otherwise the priest would have never allowed it.”

“Are you sure the two are twins?”

“Two children born on the same day, baptized by the same couple on the same day, neither one listing the parents. Yes, I’m sure they were twins. You have a better explanation?”

Lizzie smiled at the woman. “It sounds reasonable.”

“Did the sister go and visit him?”

Lizzie shook her head, then changed her mind. “Weil, yes, she visited him once—but only once,” She wanted to move away from the subject of the sister. “Anyway, I’d very much like to give a gift in his name.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a pen and her checkbook. She wrote out a check for two hundred dollars, and handed it to the woman. She started for the door. As her hand touched the knob, she turned around and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to know if he’s having his funeral Mass here, would you?”

“No,” she said, “there’s nothing scheduled that I know of.”

“Is it possible one of the priests forgot to tell you?”

She laughed. “It’s possible. Anything’s possible.” She laughed again, “But I practically run this place.”

Lizzie smiled. “Good for you,” she said. “Thank you so much. You’ve been very helpful.” She closed the door behind her softly.

As she walked down the steps, she heard the woman call her name. She looked up at her. “If I hear anything about his funeral, I’ll call you. I’ll take your name and number from the check—would that be all right?”

Lizzie smiled and nodded. “Thank you,” she said again. “You’re very kind.” As she got into her car, she noticed the church. She wondered what it looked like on the inside. She sat in her car for a long time fighting the urge to go inside. She did not know why she was afraid. She turned the key to the ignition and slowly drove away.

“What brings you to Palo Alto in the middle of the day?” The old woman reached out and embraced her daughter. “You look a
little tired.” She took Lizzie by the hand and dragged her into the kitchen. “I just now put on a fresh pot of coffee. Your timing is perfect,” She poured them both some coffee. “So, did you escape from the City to spend the day with Helen?”

“Actually, Mom, I took the day off because I’ve been working too hard—and I needed a rest. And I needed to talk—” She paused and shook her head. “God, I wish I had a cigarette.”

“It’ll pass, Lizzie.”

“No it won’t!” she yelled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.”

“What is it, Lizzie? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I’m your mother, Lizzie, just talk—but don’t yell. I hate it when you yell. I’m not up for a fight today.”

“Oh, Mom, I’ve been telling you everything I wanted all my life—and that’s been the cause of all our fights. I’m constantly pissing you off about everything.”