The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (34 page)

The truth is that her last, and what should have been her easiest, delivery almost killed her. Twelve hours after her water
broke, she lay writhing on a cold metal table. Her legs, jammed into stirrups, trembled with fatigue, while her belly convulsed
without end. In the brief moments between contractions, she could see José Naipaul’s face pressed white against the small
rectangular window in the door to the delivery room.

As her blood pressure mounted, so did her rage against Humberto. He had done this abominable thing to her and left her to
fend for herself. She swore to the white ceiling above her that she would have killed him herself if he had not already been
dead. Dr. Campos, the hospital’s obstetrician, who was also a surgeon, conferred loudly with a nurse, as though Marta were
not in the room, as though his voice did not need to compete with Marta’s screamed curses. Or at least she was trying to scream,
but her throat was so parched that what emerged sounded more like the croaking of a frog.

“Let’s move her to surgery,” said Dr. Campos.

“Yes, Doctor,” said the nurse. And Marta wanted to kill her for having such a smooth, flat stomach, for even having the capacity
of speech.

“Why did you wait so long?” she gasped, as the nurse approached her.

“Dr. Campos said he would prefer a natural delivery,” said the nurse.

“Fuck Dr. Campos and his preferences. And fuck you. And fuck this brat who is trying to kill me,” growled Marta, just before
she lost consciousness.

“You always take up for her,” Luz said to Marta, on the day she turned nine and her mother made her share with Lily her American
Barbie doll collection, which had grown to twenty, due to the largesse of José Naipaul. And, thinks Marta, perhaps it is true.
Lily is not complicada, she does not baffle. Lily is like a serene, dark pool, with waters that rarely ripple. Marta’s relationship
with Lily has always been unperturbed, easy, sane. Whereas with Luz, Marta has always felt she must be prepared for battle,
to defend her position. Luz makes Marta feel like she must guess the weather of tomorrow and always be wrong.

Marta has done the best she knows how with all her children. It isn’t that she doesn’t love Luz or that she wouldn’t walk
through a thousand fires to save her were it ever necessary. It is just that...Marta can’t understand why Luz hoards her hurts
as if they were treasures. The way she still holds a grudge about that doll, even though it was almost twenty years ago! Marta
decides the reason she and her daughter cannot have a decent conversation is weariness, pure and simple. She is weary of Luz
and her constant dredging up of what she considers to be her mother’s past misdeeds. She is tired of her judgments and blackmail,
of her ceaseless barbs and unquenchable demands for validation twenty-four hours a day. She wants Luz to grow up and stop
being mad at her brothers Juan Pedro and Jorge Luis for being born first. And now that Lily needs her family and friends more
than ever, she wants Luz to give up her silly childhood rivalries. But instead, Luz is jealous. It seems to Marta that Luz
is jealous of anything that isn’t about her.

Gracias a la Reina Maria Lionza, the boys had never given Marta much trouble, except for the time they were lost. Even between
the ages of twelve and seventeen, when their hormones rage out of control, the boys had been easier. Consuelo and Ismael had
helped her put them through a government-subsidized boarding school, and they had grown up into strong and principled men
without untoward incident, except for a few broken bones along the way, as with all young boys. Bones are easier to mend than
hearts. Luz, well, it was as though she’d been born with a broken one.

Marta loves her daughter. But she doesn’t always like her. That’s the truth of it, though she wishes it weren’t.

Because of their proximity in age, Marta had entertained fantasies that Lily and Luz would be like sisters, since neither
of them had one. She wanted them to relive what her own sister and she had growing up in Cuba. Until she married Humberto,
Marta and her sister Yolanda had done everything together, shared everything. Even after Marta had fled to the mainland, the
sisters wrote to each other every month. But Marta never saw two girls more opuestas than Lily and Luz, as different in their
likes and dislikes as chalk and cheese. If it was the weekend and Lily wanted to go to the park, well, then, Luz wanted to
go to the zoo. It had to be her way every time, and there was no compromising, otherwise there would be hell to pay. And,
while this may be a good quality in a businessman, it is no asset in a woman, is what Marta thinks. Which makes Luz furious.
But then, everything makes Luz furious. According to her brother Juan Pedro, Luz is just mad at the whole world and wants
the world to know it.

From the time she was five, which is when Señora Consuelo had offered Marta a job, Luz was always watching to see whether
Lily got a larger piece of chocolate, more ice cream on her plate, a better birthday present. Neither of them could ever finish
a whole banana when they were little, so Marta used to cut one in half. Once, Luz complained that whenever Lily was around,
her mother always gave her, Luz, the culo of the banana.

“What do you mean, the culo of the banana?” Marta asked, astonished.

“You always give her the top part and me the bottom,” Luz accused.

“Ay, por Dios. What are you talking about?” Marta had been so upset, so...baffled by her daughter. But La Señora had only
laughed and cut up another banana. She gave Luz the top part. She handed the culo to Marta.

“Give her time, Marta,” said Señora Consuelo, “she’ll grow out of it.”

But, so far, thinks Marta, Luz hasn’t grown out of it. And now she fears that it is Luz herself who has cast the evil eye
on Lily. Not on purpose, of course, that’s not how it works; most people aren’t even aware that they are doing it. And Luz,
whatever her faults, would never deliberately wish Lily harm, but the evil eye is cast when one person covets, even unconsciously,
the life, looks, possessions of another. Years ago, Luz had been envious of Irene’s hold over Lily, and look what happened
to
her.
That Luz is envious of Lily’s pregnancy is clear to Marta, and it is impossible for her to ignore the fact that when Lily
had slipped and fallen six days ago, it had been right after Luz entered the room. This is why she is relieved that Luz decided
to accompany Carlos Alberto and Ismael to Sorte. But Luz’s absence is only temporary, and Marta is not sure what will happen
when she returns. And so these days she prays to Maria Lionza, not only for the safe delivery of Lily’s baby, but for the
delivery of Luz from the sickness that is envy. In return she offers to give up her petition of revenge against her enemy.

Marta wonders whether there might be an advantage to having children late in life, although it is generally considered dangerous
because the later you have them, the more likely they could turn out mental. She once saw an older woman—forty-five or so—in
the grocery store in La Esmeralda. She had her child by the hand. Marta saw that the child had slanty eyes like a Chinese
person, and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth. It scared her half to death, because she was thirty-six at the time,
and pregnant with Luz. What if my baby comes out like that, she had thought.

When she was growing up, it was considered best to get the childbearing over with when you were young. It was unthinkable
for a girl to remain unmarried out of choice beyond the age of twenty-three. There was none of this modern nonsense about
how women had to fulfill themselves intellectually and have careers before they settled down to have their babies. In those
days, until the Revolution, the roles were clear—women stayed at home and had the babies, and the men brought home the bacon.
Everyone had their work cut out for them, knew what it was, and nobody was traumatized about it. But today’s women are having
their babies later and later. Marta read an article in her favorite magazine,
Mujeres,
that said there was a woman in the United States who had a baby at fifty-five. Her daughter couldn’t have one because there
was something wrong with her insides, so this lady decided to have one for her. Fifty-five! Imagine! The woman’s daughter
said she wanted a “natural child.” But it seems to Marta that there was nothing natural about any of it, because the mother
had to use her twenty-eight-year-old daughter’s egg and grow the egg outside of her body in a petri dish. Then the daughter’s
egg had to be planted in the mother’s womb at a later date. Even though Marta no longer attends the Church, she can see why
His Holiness, the Pope, would be against such a procedure, because if people are going to grow babies in dishes and grandmothers
are going to start giving birth to their own grandchildren, where is the line to be drawn?

Consuelo says that because of her age, which was forty when Lily was born, the first thing everyone did was count all the
baby’s fingers and toes. Then they closely examined her genitalia, because sometimes, when the mother is too old, the baby
is born with both sexes. But, gracias a Maria Lionza, Lily was perfect when she was born.

Marta sometimes used to worry that it would be a problem for Lily to have a mother old enough to be her grandmother, but Lily
and La Señora, they were always like two peas in a pod. And Lily never gave her mother any trouble. At least not after she
was separated from that little demon, Irene Dos Santos.

“Don’t say that,”
says a voice in her ears.

“Ah, it’s you, isn’t it, still causing trouble in this house,” Marta says. “Why don’t you show yourself?”

But there is no response and Marta knows the reason why: it is far easier to get rid of a ghost you can see than one who hides
in your ears.

The wild passiflora edulis found in the rain forests of South America are hardy vines that are able to endure the onslaught
of pests and extreme weather.

W
hile Carlos Alberto stands on the bank of the stream looking on, his mouth slack with shock, Ismael smothers his nose in the
left sleeve of his jacket, and with his right hand turns the man nearest to him around. It is one of Diego’s twin sons, he
cannot tell which. The young man’s lips are blue, his brown eyes staring. Fumbling with one arm, the other still held against
his face, Ismael unbuttons the man’s denim jacket and pulls up his shirt. The bullet to the back has traveled through the
body and exited from a place just above the sternum. The wound is pale and clean, its blood having emptied into the stream.
He can barely bring himself to look at the others. Another youngish man might be the second twin, but his state of decomposition
is further along, and Ismael cannot be sure. Only Juanita would be able to make an identification. The remaining two bodies
are of the woman without a face, and his beloved friend, Diego. All four have been dead at least two days, he concludes.

Two by two, Ismael and Carlos Alberto drag the bodies to a flat area at the top of the stream’s bank, wrap them in the bedsheets
they had brought with them, and drag them through the forest back to the hut.