Жанин Камминс - American Dirt

Later that night, after Luca went to bed, and Sebastián opened a bottle of wine on the couch, their conversation turned inevitably to the condition of life in Acapulco. Lydia stood at the open counter, leaning across it with a glass of wine at her elbow.

‘It was nice to be able to go out to dinner tonight,’ she said.

‘It felt almost normal, right?’ Sebastián was in the living room, his legs propped on the coffee table, crossed at the ankles.

‘There were a lot of people out.’

It was the first time they’d taken Luca out for a meal since last summer.

‘Next we have to get the tourists back,’ Sebastián said.

Lydia took a deep breath. Tourism had always been the lifeblood of Acapulco, and the violence had scared most of those tourists away. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to keep the shop afloat if they didn’t return. It was tempting to hope the recent peace signaled a sea change.

‘Do you think things might really get better now?’

She asked because Sebastián’s knowledge of the cartels was exhaustive, which both impressed and discomfited her. He knew things. Most people were like Lydia; they didn’t want to know. They tried to insulate themselves from the ugliness of the narco violence because they couldn’t handle it. But Sebastián was ravenous for it. A free press was the last line of defense, he said, the only thing left standing between the people of Mexico and complete annihilation. It was his vocation, and when they were young, she’d admired that idealism. She’d imagined that any child of Sebastián’s would come out of her womb honorably, with a fully formed, unimpeachable morality. She wouldn’t even have to teach their babies right from wrong. But now the cartels murdered a Mexican journalist every few weeks, and Lydia recoiled from her husband’s integrity. It felt sanctimonious, selfish. She wanted Sebastián alive more than she wanted his strong principles. She wished he would quit, do something simpler, safer. She tried to be supportive, but sometimes it made her so angry that he chose this danger. When that anger flared up and intruded, they moved around it like a piece of furniture too big for the room it occupied.

‘It’s already better,’ Sebastián said thoughtfully, from behind his wineglass.

‘I mean, it’s quieter,’ Lydia said. ‘But is it really better ?’

‘That depends on your criteria, I guess.’ He looked up at her. ‘If you like to go out to dinner, then yes, things are better.’

Lydia frowned. She really did like to go out to dinner. Was she that superficial?

‘The new jefe is smart,’ Sebastián said. ‘He knows stability is the key, and he wants peace. So we’ll see, maybe things will get better under Los Jardineros than they were before.’

‘Better how? You think he can fix the economy? Bring back tourism?’

‘I don’t know, maybe.’ Sebastián shrugged. ‘If he can really stanch the violence long-term. For now, at least it’s limited to other narcos. They’re not running around murdering innocents for fun.’

‘What about that kid on the beach last week?’

‘Collateral damage.’

Lydia cringed and took a gulp of wine. Her husband wasn’t a callous man. She hated when he talked like this. Sebastián saw her flinch and stood up to reach across the counter. He squeezed her hands.

‘I know it’s awful,’ he said. ‘But that kid on the beach was an accident. He was caught in the crossfire, that’s all I meant. They weren’t gunning for him.’ He tugged lightly on her hand. ‘Come sit with me?’

Lydia rounded the counter and joined him on the couch.

‘I know you don’t like to think of it like this, but at the end of the day, these guys are businessmen, and this one is smarter than most.’ He put his arm around her. ‘He’s not your typical narco. In a different life, he could’ve been Bill Gates or something. An entrepreneur.’

‘Great,’ she said, threading one arm across his midsection and resting her head on his chest. ‘Maybe he should run for mayor.’

‘I think he’s more of a chamber of commerce kinda guy.’ Sebastián laughed, but Lydia couldn’t. They were quiet for a moment, and then Sebastián said, ‘La Lechuza.’

‘What?’

‘That’s his name.’ The Owl.

Now she was able to laugh. ‘Are you serious?’ She sat up to look him in the face, to determine if he was messing with her. Sometimes he fed her nonsense just to test how gullible she was. This time, his face was innocent. ‘The Owl? That’s a terrible name!’ She laughed again. ‘Owls aren’t scary.’

‘What do you mean? Owls are terrifying,’ Sebastián said.

She shook her head.

‘Hoo,’ he said.

‘Oh my God, stop it.’

He worked his fingers into her hair, and she felt content there, leaning against his chest. She could smell the sweet red wine on his breath.

‘I love you, Sebastián.’

‘Hoo,’ he said again.

They both laughed. They kissed. They left their wine on the table.

It wasn’t until much later that night, when Lydia sat trying to read in the circle of lamplight that illumined only her side of the bed, when Sebastián had long since fallen asleep, his head resting on the bare skin of his arm, his snore a soft veil of familiarity in the room, that Lydia felt a dart of something worrisome pierce her consciousness. Something Sebastián had said. In a different life, he could’ve been Bill Gates. She folded her book closed and set it on her nightstand.

In a different life. The words echoed uncomfortably through her mind.

She pulled off the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Sebastián stirred but didn’t wake. Her baggy T-shirt barely covered her backside and her feet were cold against the moonlit tiles of the hallway. She padded toward the kitchen, to the table where the three of them often ate dinner together. His backpack was there, not entirely zipped shut. She pulled out his laptop and turned on the light over the stove. There were notebooks in the backpack, too, and several file folders stuffed with photos and documents.

Lydia hoped she was wrong, but she knew, somehow, what she would find before she found it. Near the bottom of a stack of pictures in the second folder: there, sitting at a table on a veranda with several other men, the face that was now dear to her. The wide mustache, the recognizable glasses. There was no question who La Lechuza was. Behind the wine and the cake and the dinner, she could still taste his chocolates on her tongue.

At home, Luca’s little room has a night-light in the shape of Noah’s ark. It’s not a very bright one, but it makes enough light that when he has a nightmare and shoves back the covers to run in to Papi, he’s able to see where his bare feet meet the tiled floor. So he’s disoriented when he wakes up in the darkened room at the Hotel Duquesa Imperial. He can’t make out a single shape in the blackness. He sits up in the unfamiliar bed, thrusting his legs over the edge.

‘Papi?’ It’s always Papi he calls for first. Papi whose side of the bed he approaches, Papi he taps on the shoulder, who tucks him into the fold of his arm, who doesn’t make him go back to his own room. Papi’s pillow smells faintly of the amber liquid he drinks at bedtime. Mami is great for the daytime things, but Papi is better, infinitely better, at tolerating disruptions to his sleep. ‘Papi,’ Luca calls a second time, and his voice sounds strange without the close walls to contain it.

Luca clutches the edge of the puffy blanket. ‘Mami?’ he tries then. There’s breathing nearby, which ceases, then rearranges itself.

‘I’m here, mi amor . Come here.’