Miriam Toews - Irma Voth

How can you be sure? said Hubertus. Are they dead? I’m sorry for asking.

No, I said. They’re alive as far as I know. Hubertus smiled and nodded. Aggie took a sip of pineapple juice. I noticed a plane flying high in the sky and spelling out a word with its jet stream, but then it disappeared.

My father doesn’t like us, I said. He doesn’t like girls. He doesn’t like it when we get older and … there’s something about his daughters that makes him crazy and … that’s all.

Natalie looked up from her job feeding Ximena, and Hubertus looked at her and then at Aggie who may or may not have blinked.

My God, said Natalie.

Natalie, he said.

What? she said. Am I not allowed to speak?

Does he know where you are? said Hubertus.

No, I said. Nobody does.

What about your mother? he said. Won’t she want you to come back?

Not if he’s there, I said.

Hubertus nodded and tried to look grim. He spread his fingers out and examined the backs of his hands. He made loud breathing sounds. Then he rubbed his thighs vigorously. He looked at Natalie who had gone back to feeding Ximena. She ignored him. The birds continued to sing, or to make noises anyway.

So, said Hubertus finally. And you lost all your money when Aggie here (he nodded at Aggie and smiled) decided to enrol in an impromptu tango class in the park?

Yes, I said. She put the bag down.

Well, said Aggie, you can’t dance the tango with a farmacia bag.

But you can dance it with a baby? I said in Low German.

What was I supposed to do? she said.

You could’ve stayed on the bench and not danced at all, I said.

I wasn’t going to—

You could have stayed out of trouble, I said in Spanish.

Well, said Hubertus, what’s life without trouble?

Yeah, Irma, said Aggie. What’s life without trouble?

Yeah, I know life isn’t life without trouble, I said, that’s pretty clear. I’m just saying that you don’t have to be the one to cause it all the time. Why don’t you give somebody else a chance every once in a while?

I’m not! said Aggie. You’re the one who married a—

Aggie, I said. Shut up.

You’re married? said Hubertus.

Yeah, I said, but I don’t know where he is, my husband.

Does he know that you’re here? said Hubertus.

No, I said.

Hubertus asked Natalie to join him in the office of the bed and breakfast where their computer and desk were. Are they fucking now? said Aggie when they were gone.

If you want to live in a big city, I said, you have to learn not to say the first thing that comes to your mind because there are actually people here who can hear it. There’s a population here.

Yeah, but they’re strange people, don’t you think? she said.

When they came back they told us we could live in a little room that was a part of the bed and breakfast. It was upstairs and in the back, overlooking other rooftops. It had a big bed and a pullout couch and a bathroom and a sink and a little fridge and a microwave oven and some painted pictures of fruit and other things on the wall and a tiny balcony. I would make breakfast for the guests in the morning and clean rooms and run errands in the afternoon. Aggie would go to school. Ximena would hang around being taken care of by me or by Natalie or Hubertus. In the evening I’d teach Natalie English so that one day she could pursue her dream of reading the complete works of Charles Dickens in their original form. Or something like that. She and Hubertus were laughing their heads off when they said it.

I don’t know how to thank you, I said. I’ll never forget your kindness.

Let’s go, said Natalie. I’ll show you your room and you can get some sleep and when you wake up we’ll have lunch.

I don’t know how to thank you? said Aggie in Low German. That’s a stupid thing to say. We were lying in the giant bed with Ximena clean and fresh-smelling and drunk with satisfaction between us. You say thank you, said Aggie. Like this. Thank you.

I wish I was as smart as you, Aggie, I said.

I know, me too, she said. I pray for that every night.

Thanks, I said.

I’ve almost given up, though, she said.

Yeah, I understand, but thanks anyway, I said. Not only are you exceptionally smart you’re also kind-hearted and considerate.

She moved her shoulder over a few inches so that it touched mine and then she moved back.

Are you being affectionate? I asked her.

When we woke up, Ximena had soaked the bed, right through her diaper and sleeper, through the blanket and the top sheet and the mattress protector and the mattress.

Shit, this kid is a lot of work, said Aggie.

We rinsed all that stuff in the shower and hung it over the balcony railing to dry. It was getting dark again. We went downstairs to find Hubertus and Natalie but they weren’t around. There was a note for us. It was written on the back of an envelope and taped to the door of the office. They would be back late and there was some cash in the envelope that we could use to buy some food and diapers and there was also a small key to the kitchen, where the washer and dryer were. I’d start work in the morning. We went into the kitchen and ate some tortillas and cheese and salad. Then we wandered off into the neighbourhood to find a place where we could get our hair cut. We would use some of the food money. We wanted what we referred to as pixie cuts. Jagged and short. It was the only style I could remember from when I lived in Canada. Katie got one before she left for Vancouver, before she tried to leave for Vancouver, and it was maybe the first step on the road to our father’s mad ness. I remember her showing it to me in our room and her whispering to me that it was called a pixie cut and this’ll make him blind with rage and me agreeing and experiencing intense pain in my chest and stomach while she pranced around admiring herself, smiling at her reflection, fearless.

While we were getting our hair cut in a small shop on Avenida Michoacán the power went out and we were in the dark. The haierdresser asked us to wait for a few minutes but the power didn’t come back on and Ximena was getting restless in my lap and banging her head against my collarbone and I was pulling bits of my hair out of her mouth and off her face and so we decided to pay and leave. The hairdresser asked us to come back the next day so that she could finish cutting our hair. When we got outside we saw each other in the light of the street lamp and Aggie laughed so hard she said she thought she’d wet her pants and I told her to try not to because she only had one pair.

You look like Wilf! she said. Wilf was my younger cousin, the one who lived in the filmmakers’ house before he and his family went back to Canada. Three men walked past us and called us ugly gringas and Aggie swore at them in the coarsest Spanish slang I had ever heard. Not even from Jorge. Or Diego. We went back to the bed and breakfast and went into the kitchen and found a pair of scissors and took them back to our room. We brought a chair onto the balcony and Aggie finished cutting my hair. I picked up the blond strands and felt their baby softness between my fingers and then I threw them into the garbage can. I put my feet up on the railing. I offered to finish cutting her hair too but she said she liked the asymmetry of it and I shouldn’t bother. Then we stared off at the city of Mexico, the D.F., the borough of Cuauhtémoc, our new home. We stayed out on the balcony for a long time looking at the lights and listening to the traffic and all the sirens. Way off in the distance we saw a building on fire. We talked a little bit about the things we had left behind, but not much. We talked about the universe, about loneliness. We talked about how to fall, the right way and the wrong way, to prevent injury, and if we could see our shadows from the light of Venus. We got a little cold but neither one of us wanted to go inside to get our sweatshirts because Ximena was dormant on the bed and we didn’t want the sound to activate her.