Refuge Read online

  ~

  Carlos arrived with his arms full of flowers, red roses with a fragrance unlike anything in May’s garden. Raspberries dusted with cinnamon. She’d wake to find him sitting under her window singing ballads, soft rancheras about lonely vaqueros and faithful señoritas, simple tunes she’d hum through the day, her old habit coming back with such pleasure that she wondered why she’d ever let it slip. On her afternoons off, she’d meet him in the zócalo and they’d wander the Alameda or catch a trolley to Chapultepec Park, places she saw first with Don Arturo, eardrums fluttering, the city charged with light.

  With Carlos, she moved in a different sort of daze. He avoided the Ritz and the American Club, the English bookstore and the Wells Fargo, even the House of Tiles, La Casa de los Azulejos, where she’d sip a cup of coffee at Sanborn’s on those days when she felt an overwhelming need to hear a little English.

  Instead, he took her to the burning-place of the heretics. To the Church of San Hipolito, where Aztec slaves once waited to be sacrificed. On a splendid summer afternoon, they walked the steep, winding ramp up to Chapultepec Castle, built on the site of an ancient Toltec temple, he said, the summer palace of Montezuma and, later, Emperor Maximilian and the beautiful, sad Carlota.

  “Before Maximilian, this was a military school,” he said. “When the Americans invaded our country to bring us democracy, the great gift they insist to give to the world, the students refused to surrender. Six boys wrapped their bodies in the flags of Mexico and jumped to their death.” He pointed to the battlements on one side of the castle. “The Irish soldiers from New York, good Catholic men, were so ashamed that they deserted and made the Batallón de San Patricio to fight beside the Mexicanos.”

  He led her off the path and pulled her down into the shade of a jacaranda tree, where she sat dozing a little, lulled by the silvery hum of invisible insects.

  He shook her gently.

  “Listen. You must hear this. My grandfather, he was one of the Irish men. His name was O’Brien. He changed it to Obrégon. That’s my name — Carlos Obrégon.

  “The Americans beat him, burned D into his cheek for ‘deserter.’ ‘I refused to murder boys and violate the church,’ he said to me. ‘I am not ashamed of this.’ When I was a boy, I painted D on my cheek. D for ‘defender.’ I wanted to be like him. One of Los Colorados. That’s what we call them, because of their red Irish hair. I inherited that much, at least. The Mexican government rewarded the men of the Batallón with land by the ocean, in the province of Jalisco. This is where I am from. The village of San Patricio.”

  After that, she called him Renegado, her defensor valiente.

  ~

  Carlos was there, under her window, in her arms; then for weeks at a time, he was gone.

  The first time, she forgave him, although he didn’t ask her to.

  He never told her he was leaving; he never asked her to wait. When she’d think, That’s it, I am never going to see this man again, there he’d be, tapping at her window, his arms filled with roses, crooning some old song. The fact of him in the room with her erased the pain of those weeks alone, although some part of her kept on waiting: for him to leave, for him to come back, for him to tell her the truth.

  “But where were you?”

  “Taking pictures.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know? I went to the photography shop to see if you were working, but Frieda’s father said he hadn’t seen you in days. I thought you must be dead or lying wounded in a ditch.”

  “You stayed with Don Arturo too long. Not all of us poor Mexicans are rebels and thieves.”

  “So you left the city?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t. You don’t tell me anything.”

  “I tell you I love you.”

  “Not often enough, Renegado.”

  “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” Carlos whispered, kissing her eyes, her chin, the shallow hollow at the base of her neck, kisses she would have waited an eternity for. He held her face softly in both his hands. “I love you more than my country. But I have other things I must do. Obligations. Please do not think this means I don’t love you. Look at me. This is love you see.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  The girl is standing on the mat by the door, her legs slick with water from the lake. I wave the papers clutched in my fist, cutting at the space between us.

  “I will ask you again: Who are you? And don’t say Nang something or other. According to these, you are Mi Jadanar Khine Thiri. Either you are lying or these papers are, and they look pretty official to me. So which is it? You’d better tell me the truth right now or get your things and leave.”

  I grab her backpack. I mean to swing it through the air, land it at her feet, but it’s heavy, or I’m weak. It slides off the table and crashes to the floor, the front pocket gaping.

  “Hey!” Sean is right behind her, all bones and black beard, unembarrassed by his own earnestness. “Give her a chance.”

  I turn my glare on him and he steps forward to stand at her side. Smitten already, silly fool.

  “These are official papers, aren’t they? The ones you’re planning to send to the Canadian government to apply for citizenship?” I slap them on the table and stab at the name. “See? Mi Jadanar Khine Thiri. They tell the same story about being the great-granddaughter of a Canadian. So are you the Nang whatever who sent those emails to me? Or are you this Mi person? Speak up! Which is it?”

  “Yes.” The girl stands rigid. Unperturbed. A bit paler, perhaps. The laughing tone I heard outside the window, vanished.

  “So your name is Nang?”

  “No. Nang Aung Myaing. I from Burma, Shan State. Shan name all one.”

  “So who is Mi Jadanar etcetera?”

  “I Mi Jadanar Kine Thiri.”

  Anyone else would spit out her story all at once, but this girl measures her words in minims. So far, I’ve learned only one thing about her: there is always more to come.

  “Also, Nu Myi Thuza.”

  “Three names! So you use whatever name suits you in order to get what you want from old women? You see,” I say, turning to Sean, “she’s a con artist. I knew it.”

  The girl turns to Sean too. “What is con artist?”

  “A person who tries to trick another person. To get something from them. Money, usually.”

  She looks at me. “I no lie.”

  Sean leans close and whispers, “I am not lying.”

  “I am not lying,” she parrots.

  “Then you’d better explain yourself, young lady. What’s your real name? The name your parents gave you.”

  “Baby name is Mi Jadanar Khine Thiri. Little Jewel Friendly Generous Leader.” She blushes. “Mother, father have big hope.”

  “So Thiri was your father’s name?”

  “In Burma, no father name, no mother name. Name for baby only. For help in her life.”

  “And the other names?” I lack the girl’s patience. Sean is waiting for her answer too, tapping the side of his jeans, but it’s not impatience. He’s watching for an entry point, a turn in the conversation that will let him grab hold, carry her off to safety.

  She starts again. I try my best to follow, but it’s hard to make sense of what she says.

  “When become woman, new name. Nang Aung Myaing. Nang be all Shan womans. Also, brave. Aung is win. Myaing, forest. I brave, make free Shan forest.

  “In prison, also new name. Nu Myi Thuza. Thuza is angel, very help.”

  “Okay, I get it. You have three names. But which one is really you?”

  “Me all three.” She spreads her arms, as if to embrace the baby, the young woman, the prisoner. “Many lifes, yes? For Shan peoples, new life, new name.”

  “But how is a person supposed to know where you come from, what family you belong to?”
r />   “All Shan name. All letter M, for birth day, Thursday. Mouse sign.” She allows a scant smile. “Very small, much help.”

  Gnawing away, more powerful than a lion.

  “That’s all very interesting, but I still don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to call you. Why did you use one name with me and another on the citizenship papers?”

  “Man make passport, baby name. Must write government same.” She looks away, the set of her lip not as firm as it was.

  “I thought you said you didn’t have a passport.”

  “Passport yes. No legal.”

  I smooth the papers as best I can, fold them in half, and hand them back to her. So, she hasn’t been lying. Not about her name, at any rate. She returns the citizenship application to the pocket of her backpack and zips it up firmly, the only sound in the room.

  Sean lays his hand gently on her shoulder. “What would you like us to call you?”

  “Nang Aung Myaing.”

  “Okay. Nang it is. Right, Cass?”

  The girl pulls on his arm. “Nang Aung Myaing. All one.”

  “Nang Aung Myaing,” he repeats, catching her inflection perfectly. He grins like a fool. “It’s like telling a story every time I say your name.”

  “Would you look at him? Just look at him!” Helen exclaimed, holding the baby with one hand while she cut the cord with the other. “What are you going to call him?”

  ~

  She’d stayed in her room while the others left for Frieda’s wedding, then she crammed what she could into her old valise and caught the tram to the railway station. Three hours she waited, hiding in the lavatory, locked in a cubicle with her back against the door, terrified someone would come looking for her. Afraid that no one would.

  On the train heading north, she took a seat in second class, to avoid the tourists. She should have known there’d be gringos who got on the wrong car, lunging their suitcases frantically down the aisle toward first class, their wives trailing after them, stiffening at the press of Mexicans with their clutter of children, chickens, and squealing pigs, baskets of vegetables and flowers and bundles of worldly goods heaped around their feet. Mexicans had a talent for remaining unperturbed in the face of chaos. She took them as her model. When a gringo blundered past, she turned her face into her shawl, pretending to sleep as she counted the heartbeats exploding against her eyelids.

  At last, the train steamed out of the city, and there was nothing to do but watch the blue agaves piercing the sky, the haciendas crumbling in the heat. At every station, women in dark rebozos reached up to the window with folded cloths of tortillas, mugs of pulque, sections of orange and dragonfruit. Men on quick little horses, bandoliers slung across their backs, galloped down the parched streets, raising cyclones of dust, and always at the main corner, a trabajador, the wide hems of his cotton trousers flapping white in the hot wind, his bright sarape, the blanket that was cloak and bed all in one, draped over one shoulder, watching as the train picked up speed and hurried on.

  When sufficient miles had accumulated between them, she allowed a thought of Carlos lounging on the parapet of the wedding house, gazing down into the street as the guests trailed up to the rooftop, waiting for Frieda and Diego to appear. He would wonder why she was so late, think perhaps she had gone to the mayor’s office with the Kahlos. As the evening wore on, he’d search out Frieda, take her aside. And what would she say?

  That his Cassandra had a bun in the oven? That he’d knocked up his girlfriend and now what was he going to do? Or did she just laugh and give him a shove, tell him to go home to his wife?

  “¡Rulacho!” she mouthed to the window, to the cactus, to the desperate roads with their thorn fences. She’d taken a seat facing backward, so she could keep her eye fixed on all that was slipping away. “¡Adiós!” she hissed, willing it gone. “Good riddance.”

  At Nuevo Laredo, she got off with the rest and walked across the bridge into Texas, her eyes straight ahead, thinking there should be a reward for moving forward with resolve, just as there was punishment for looking back.

  On the American side, she boarded a train to San Antonio, then one to St. Louis. From there, the stationmaster told her, she could get a train to anywhere. The Sunshine Special had carried her south, and now the Lone Star would haul her north, as far as her savings would go. To a place where she knew no one, not a single soul.

  “Yes, my husband—,” she said when a woman paused to ask if the seat beside her was taken.

  The husband was a surprise, even to her. He took on form and flesh as the train hurtled east. A tall man. Blond, she decided. With a moustache and kind eyes. Passing through Ohio into the hills of Pennsylvania, he acquired a past. A profession. An undying devotion to his young wife. By the time she stepped onto the platform at Grand Central Station in the city of New York, he was in his grave, the victim of an accident. Better yet, a disease. Something swift and inevitable, like the smallpox that took Don Arturo’s father in a matter of days. Charles O’Brien, that was his name. Chuck. A photographer from Texas who travelled to Mexico to shoot the aftermath of the Revolution. He’d left her a widow in a foreign country, with a child on the way. Who was there to say any different?

  The future can belong to anyone, her father wrote, but the past is ours.

  She stood in the shaft of light slanting down from the windows of Grand Central Station and read the newspaper listings of rooms to rent.

  “Can I help you, miss?” a porter asked, his eyes taking her in, lingering even after it was clear there would be nothing in this for him.

  “Is there a hospital in the area? A children’s hospital?”

  “The Willard Parker’s not too far. East Sixteenth Street and Second Avenue. A mile and a bit.”

  “Would I find a room nearby?”

  “Sure thing. Anywhere you go, you’ll find a room. Always folks comin’ and goin’.” He walked with her out to the sidewalk and pointed down Park Avenue, counting out the blocks. “Turn left at Union Square onto Sixteenth. It’s three, four blocks to the Willard Parker, you can’t miss it. A bit of a walk, though. You sure you don’t want me to hail you a taxicab, miss?”

  She shook her head and picked up her bag, shifting it hand to hand as the rush of pedestrians propelled her along the sidewalk. At every cross street, the human sea parted to let the cars through and she caught a glimpse of sky, a narrow column of blue rising between canyons of glass and steel so high that for a moment she forgot the troubles that had landed her there. She walked with her head tilted back until her neck grew sore with staring at buildings that, like spindly trees in a forest, grew up instead of out.

  The sky was hazy, the air stifling, as if breathed too often, exhaled from too many mouths and tailpipes. She yearned for a quiet place to sit. Don Arturo’s courtyard or the back alley of the Kahlo house. The island at the farm. She faltered at the thought, and her suitcase slipped. A man tripped over it and cursed.

  When she got to Willard Parker, she headed south into the Bowery, where the buildings shrank until the storefronts huddled together like Communists, the messages on the signs written in strange alphabets, even the shapes of the letters foreign. Crates of grapes and peaches spilled onto the sidewalk beside potbellied stoves, barrels of mops and brooms, unsteady racks of shirts. Bins of books for a nickel. Plucked chickens dangling by their necks. The streets were cobbled now, the sidewalks broken, some still made of wood. The women no longer wore gloves and hats with stiff little veils. They trudged along with their heavy bags, just as she did, their cares pressed into their faces.

  “The room’s just big enough for one,” said the voice that filtered through the crack of the opened door.

  She held up her left hand, the hospital crest on her nursing ring turned toward her palm. “I’m a widow.”

  The door opened a little wider and a woman peered out, taking her measure as if she were a shank
of beef she might buy, but only if the price was right.

  “All right, then.” The woman widened the gap just enough for her to slip through.

  The hallway was dark and smelled of unwashed clothes and last night’s cooking. For the first time since she left, she felt the urge to turn and run back the way she’d come, but the woman was talking again.

  “Print your name there.” She pointed to an open ledger on the narrow table beside the door. The woman’s voice was sharp, her face creased in an indelible scowl, as if every misfortune she’d ever imagined had come to pass.

  She stared at the column of names, playing with the alphabet that belonged to her, shifting, rearranging, trimming until finally she wrote Sandra, scratching the letters into the page. Sandra O’Brien. She filled in the address of the rooming house in Toronto where she’d lived after she graduated from nursing.

  The woman took the pen from her hand and bent over the book. “Mrs. O’Brien is it then? Well, payment’s in advance.” She looked slit-eyed at her new lodger. Something in what she saw softened her a little. “By the day or week, your choice.”

  ~

  It was Don Arturo’s name and the Cruz Roja that opened the doors of the Willard Parker Hospital for Children with Contagious Diseases.

  “Nothing permanent, you understand,” the nursing supervisor warned, “but we do have a girl on sick leave and with your experience . . .”

  She worked whatever hours she was offered, took extra shifts on any ward, sometimes helping in the laundry or the kitchen. So long as she was busy, she didn’t think about Carlos, although in the nights, lying in that narrow, sagging bed, listening to the heaves and sighs that filtered through the thin partitions, her heart would collapse with such force that she thought she might never get up again.

  In the daylight, it was easier. She worked hard and never so much as glanced at the letters waiting for the lodgers on the hall table of the rooming house. She had told no one where she was going and wrote to no one to tell them where she had ended up. At the evening meal, she said little. Even to herself, she admitted no past and no future, only today and, perhaps, tomorrow.