Miriam Toews - Irma Voth

Excellent! Excellent! the instructor said.

The music stopped and Aggie looked around and grinned at a few of her fellow students. The class was over. I walked up to her and said hello and she said oh, sorry, you’re done already? I was just on my way back to the bench. Did you get a job?

Yeah, I said. I’m a maid.

I’m a dancer, she said. She stuck her elbows out and snapped her fingers.

Well, I said. I get paid.

Well, she said. I get applause.

Well, I said. I get paid and with that money I rent an apartment and buy food. And a television.

Well, she said. I get applause and with that affirmation of my amazing talent I feel happy and confident and cool.

Well, I said. Enjoy your life as a dancer.

Well, she said. Enjoy your life as a maid.

Thanks, I will, I said.

Good, she said.

We walked in grim silence towards something else. Ximena was squirming and gurgling with joy. She loved a good fight. I didn’t know where we were going. When Aggie asked me if I could hold Ximena for a while I asked her if she could stay on one fucking bench for a while.

That’s very mature, she said. I walked ahead of her and didn’t look back for ages but when I did she was still there, tagging along. I asked her to put my book into the farmacia bag and then I noticed that she didn’t have it.

Aggie! I said. Where’s the bag?

We ran back to the pond and looked around but it was gone. No big surprise. We gazed out at the water and stared at our murky reflections. What would Gustavo Mundo, the taxi driver from Acapulco, think about all this? That losing all our money and material belongings was worth learning how to dance the tango? I guess that made as much sense as anything.

Well, said Aggie. So we have a book now.

Yeah, I said. I held it up like a papery shield.

We’re doomed, she said.

I’m sorry.

Sure, I said.

When do you start your job?

Tomorrow morning.

I’m really, really sorry.

I am.

I am!

Show me some of your moves, I said.

Aggie looked a little shy. She untied Ximena from her chest and laid her out in the grass. X. immediately sprang into mortal combat with invisible enemies.

I could teach you, said Aggie.

Aggie and I badly danced the tango in the dying light while Ximena punched away the ghosts.

That night we tried to sleep in the park, leaning up against a statue of a handsome man that we pretended was our father, but the police told us we couldn’t do that. We had no food for Ximena. The only way we could stop Ximena from screaming with hunger was to walk around so that’s what we did. All around avenidas Michoacán, México and Amsterdam. Avenida Amsterdam had originally been a racetrack that circled the park. We walked a million laps. We kept watch over each other while we peed in bushes. We activated some kind of alarm on a blue car when we leaned against its bumper. We ran. We were cold. Aggie cried a little bit and said again how sorry she was. I tried to comfort her. We made up rhymes in Low German and tried to remember jokes. When we passed under street lamps we read a little bit of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos’s selected writings. We accepted a few pesos from a happy drunk couple who called us curious and wondered if we were real or a mirage. Sometimes we’d sit down on the grass but then Ximena would start to scream and I was afraid the police would get mad. In the early morning, when the sun began to rise, we gave our pesos to a fruit vendor setting up his cart and he gave us some avocados and juice in a plastic Baggie. Aggie peeled the avocados with her knife and we dipped them in the juice and tried to get Ximena to suck on them. I asked the vendor if he had an old rag I could use as a fresh diaper for Ximena and he gave me a soft white cloth with a picture of the Empire State Building on it. We washed our faces in a public fountain. I knew I would have to ask Hubertus for an advance on my wages and that made me nervous.

At 7:30 a.m. or maybe 8:00 the three of us stood on the sidewalk in front of the bed and breakfast.

Pray now, I told Aggie.

For what? she said.

What do you think? I said. Everything.

I don’t know where to begin, said Aggie.

And let me do the talking, I said.

The real talking? said Aggie.

Yeah, I said. You pray silently for mercy while I speak out loud to Hubertus.

How will we keep Ximena from screaming? she said.

That’s part of the prayer for everything, I said.

We could wait in the park, said Aggie.

No, I said. We tried that and you went dancing. Just put some avocado on your finger and put it in her mouth.

We could just walk around the block while you’re talking to what’s his name, said Aggie.

Forget it, I said. Pray.

WE WERE ALL SITTING IN THE little courtyard drinking hot coffee and eating eggs and beans and oranges. Natalie had run out to buy formula and a plastic bottle and some diapers for Ximena from the little store across the street. Aggie tried to drink from the green garden hose and I whispered to her in Low German that she shouldn’t. Hubertus pretended not to have noticed and quickly brought us a bottle of water and some pineapple juice. Aggie thanked him in Spanish and told him she’d been dying of thirst. She poured some of the water out of the glass bottle into her hand and splashed it on her face.

Aggie, I whispered. It’s just for drinking.

You are sisters and you are Mexicans? he said.

Yes, I said.

What language are you speaking?

Spanish, I said.

I know, he said, but to each other.

Low German, I said.

I’ve never heard of Low German, said Hubertus. Is it like regular German?

Yeah, sort of, I said. Natalie had returned with the baby stuff and was preparing the bottle in the little kitchen next to the courtyard.

Irma, he said, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable but there are some questions I have to ask.

All three of us stared at him and he laughed.

Don’t be afraid, he said. You should see your eyes. All six of them! You girls are funny.

Sorry, I said.

Sorry for what? said Hubertus. He laughed again. I could tell that he was a little spooked by Aggie’s wolf eyes, or maybe he wasn’t. But she could go for ages without blinking like she was challenging you to fill the empty whites of her eyes up with something better than what she was seeing right then. She could wait forever.

Okay, he said. I have to ask you. Why are your little sisters here with you? I’m so sorry if this is a difficult question to answer. Is it?

Yes, I said. I tried to put the pieces of my life together in my head before I blurted out a stupid answer. I wanted to tell the truth but the truth, in its plain dress, was so ugly. I didn’t want to say those words in front of Aggie because I thought they’d make her feel lost and helpless all over again. If I were somebody else I could answer with a mural or a tango down by the pond in the park or a poem. If I were Wilson. Or a gun if I were my father.

I’m sorry, said Hubertus. But if your parents are looking for you, I need to know. Your sisters are only children, still.

Natalie came trotting out of the kitchen in her high heels holding the bottle up like a victory flag. Here! she said. Let me feed that poor baby. May I? I handed Ximena over to Natalie and whispered that I was sorry she was so filthy. Natalie waved that all away, nonsense she said, and held X. close to her chest while she fed her.

They’re not, I said.

They’re not children? said Hubertus.

They’re not looking for us, I said.

The only sounds in the courtyard were birds and Ximena ferociously sucking. I thought she might devour the plastic bottle itself and live forever with its outline bulging in her stomach.