Daniel Orozco - Orientation - And Other Stories

Gallardo waits a few yards away, beyond the hedgerow, pacing next to the Mercedes, which is parked at the curb on this quiet street. The entrance to the compound is on the main boulevard, up on Avenida Mariscal López. A twenty-foot-high stone wall topped with iron pikes runs along the length of the street. Gallardo paces, smoking a cigarette. He has just gotten the Presidente-in-Exile from Bolsi. No matter what, he was told, get me out of there before midnight. And they were heading home, until the señor directed him here. Gallardo hates this detour. It is embarrassing for him, having to explain to whoever may come upon them. For the most part, the guards here don’t seem to mind, which puzzles him. But what if they come across a guard who does, some greenhorn coming at him with guns blazing? This is not how he wants to die, on lookout while his boss pees on U.S. property.

Gallardo sucks on his cigarette, drags deeply. Up ahead, a figure appears from around the corner, backlit by streetlights from Mariscal López. Gallardo watches the figure see him, see the car, watches the guard draw his M16 and move briskly toward him. He drops his butt and with his arms outstretched walks slowly toward the advancing guard, putting distance between him and the Mercedes. “Está bien, está bien,” he calls out. “Is okay.” Although he still holds his arms wide, hands in plain view, Gallardo relaxes a bit. He recognizes this marine, this negro americano .

“Is okay.” When he hears the voice, gets a better look at the car, the marine guard stands down. It’s that tin-pot dictator, pissing in the bushes. He sighs, shoulders his weapon, greets the driver. “How you doing?” He takes a cigarette from behind his left ear, where he’d tucked it for this little break. “Is good, is good,” the driver responds. The marine lights up, and the driver makes the international hand gestures for bumming a smoke. The marine gives him one, watches him slip it into a shirt pocket. “For later,” the driver tells him. Both men hear a sharp metallic rapping. They turn to see the dictator finish pounding on the roof of the car and climb into the backseat. The driver rolls his eyes, smiles sheepishly.

The marine can’t believe this shit is allowed. But the orders have been handed down, some unofficial understanding between nations: Let this fuck-wad piss on the United States Embassy. “Vaya con Dios,” the marine tells the driver. The driver returns the blessing, then says, “Yankee go home!” The marine laughs. He finishes his cigarette. He watches the Mercedes pull out and make a three-point turn and drive past him, back toward Avenida López. In the backseat, the ex-dictator is in shadow, but his head swivels as the vehicle moves past the embassy guard, who sends off our Presidente-in-Exile with the smartest salute he can muster and the precisely mouthed words: “Fuck you, too.”

* * *

Standing in front of a hand mirror hung by a nail on the wall, Cook claws baby oil into her long black hair. She pulls and separates, creating three thick, lustrous cords. She plaits them tightly together, interweaving a long strip of bright orange muslin. She lays the braid over her left breast. No, the right one. Yes, better. She slips on a pair of soft black flats that she has spit polished with the inside hem of her skirt. She owns two pairs of shoes — sneakers for work, and these. Although cook’s ankles are thick and sturdy, her feet splayed and rough-hewn, these shoes somehow render them fine-boned and delicate. She puts a peppermint leaf into her mouth and crushes it. She slips her bag over her shoulder. She exits her apartment — a single room, tiny and spare and very clean — and leaves the villa grounds via the rear service gate. She waves to the guard in the guard booth. He waves back. She strolls a half mile down the road, to the mercado . There is a coffee bar there, open late. She sits at the counter and orders a café con leche and a biscotti. She pulls a fotonovela out of her bag. It is entitled Por un beso , and relates the adventures of a beautiful, innocent village girl in big, bad Mexico City. Because she cannot read Spanish, she gets most of the story line from the actions depicted in the drawings. Cook gleans that the heroine in the picture panels seems to triumph, that she thwarts Lothario, and maintains Virtue, and gets a promotion at her office job. As she reads, she looks up from the paperback often, until — finally — her young friend Osvaldo pops in. He approaches her at the counter and smiles. “Mba’éichapa nde pyhare, Ynez.” Cook smiles back.

Cook’s name is Ynez.

She has been with the villa for decades — sent to her great-aunt when she was a child, and trained by her, taking over her duties when the woman died. The owner of the villa is a Guaraní, and he has insisted that whoever leases his property must also take the cook and the two Guaraní gardeners and the old kennel master. Her whole life has been with the villa. Her mother is dead, her father is old and blind and alone. She visits him once a year up in the Gran Chaco, in a desolate village that the young have abandoned. She sends him money each month. He is grateful. “You are an ugly girl,” he tells her, running his chitinous palms gently over her face. “But you are a saintly girl.” And she has always believed this to be so. Until Osvaldo, who gave her a second look one day. And whom she has run into in this coffee bar two nights a week for the past month and a half. And whose motives have always been transparent to her.

She doesn’t care. Osvaldo is young and handsome, all toothy smiles and barrel-chested swagger. He is much too young to be flirting with such as her. But he does. She can see him looking for her when he enters, can see him light up and put on that smile and that swagger as he comes to her. Other women glance up at him, and they watch him come to her! He is not old and dull like the kennel master, whom she sleeps with occasionally — a kind man, but so diffident, and dull. Osvaldo is brash, voluble. He raises his voice, then brings it down to a growl. He flings his hands and arms about as he talks. His Guaraní is really quite good for a non-native, with the trace of an accent — Argentine, most likely. He is charming. He is loud and flashy, and asks too many questions. And then there is that wig — lopsided and shiny, and a shade of brown not found in nature, a wig that shouts WIG! to everyone. He is so obvious. She worries for him.

Osvaldo orders a tereré , with two straws. He sips, asks about her book, about the story it tells. He pushes the drink toward her and asks about her day with the patrón .

All her life she has kept her head down and worked hard, knowing or caring very little about the tenants of the villa: the Germans who stayed for more than a decade, quiet and monastic in their habits, until they left quite hurriedly one night; the university professors from Canada, hippie types who spoke Guaraní and insisted on eating only native cuisine; the Colombian, of whom she was very afraid and who lasted only a few months before Stroessner sent soldiers to put him on a plane out of the country.

And then the patrón . Since his arrival he was always going on about how awful Asunción was — a backwater infested with bugs and Indians, with shitty food and crooked cops and not one decent nightclub. She did not understand why a rich man who could live anywhere chose to live in a place he hated. Until Osvaldo explained to her that he had no choice. And in this way she learned about the patrón —his infamy, his fall, and his exile.

She takes a deep draw from Osvaldo’s tereré . It is ice-cold, as is the custom. It hurts going down. She tells him about her day with the patrón , tells him about the luncheon she’s expected to prepare tomorrow, after his return from a 9:00 a.m. meeting at the Banco Alemán downtown. She gives it all to him so he does not have to fish for the details. It is her gift to him.