Laura Restrepo - Hot Sur

While he waited, Rose thought about something he had heard many times before, that Plácido Domingo was the greater tenor of the two, that in Milan, Pavarotti always failed to hit the high notes during the second act of Don Carlo . “Maybe you blew it at La Scala,” Rose told Pavarotti, “but here in this food court, the victory is all yours, rest in peace, you marvelous fatso, here you out-howl all of us together.” It was already half past three and not a sign of María Paz.

Rose stood to become more visible, and surreptitiously scrutinized the women milling about, loaded with children and packages. Could María Paz be that that melancholy skinny one, waiting for something, or someone, sitting alone at her table in front of a disposable cup? She was brown, more or less pretty, had the long dark hair, but just then her beau arrived, kissed her, and sat beside her. So no, not that one. Did María Paz dye her hair blonde to evade her pursuers? Was she that blonde who was so engrossed with her cell phone, punching the little keys with a demonic agility? Wrong again. Without pausing from her texting, the blonde stood up and left. Wait, someone approached. It was an old woman in winter getup, with a pink coat, white boots, and too much makeup that adhered to her face like a mask. The old woman just wanted to know if the coupons that she was holding in her hand were good for the sale at Macy’s. Rose apologized and said he didn’t know, not even bothering to ask about the garden grates. Clearly, this was not the girl.

At half-past four, he gave up. He had been waiting for ninety minutes; at that point, he deduced that the meeting had been thwarted. Or Empera somehow had gotten the information incorrect, and he had gone to the wrong place. Or something had happened to María Paz and she could not make it. Maktub, as she herself said. What could he do? Rose began to go, more relieved than upset, almost running away from the food court and resolving for the time being to relax and disconnect from the situation. He had had enough clandestine activity for the day. Ciao, María Paz, see you later, for now you’re on your own. Sorry, I did what I could; I can’t do any more for you. The situation brought with it a ferocious appetite. Rose realized it was already dark outside and he had not had lunch yet, so he asked for the whereabouts of a real restaurant. No food court, no junk food; since Cleve’s death months before he had been eating terribly and sparingly, but suddenly he felt like eating a hearty meal, and doing it slowly. Someone directed him to a place called Legal Sea Foods, and he went and had clam chowder and an order of shrimp wontons. Now he could return home; the dogs would be waiting. He paid his check and went back to the central area, where Ravioloti was still hitting all those high notes that his detractors claimed he could not hit. A few minutes later, Rose noticed a heavily pregnant woman moving rapidly toward him. She wore a ridiculous multicolored hat and scarf, a crazy matchy-match. Rose made to get out of the way, fearing that if the girl crashed into him, she would give birth on the spot. But she walked right up to him, arms akimbo.

“Are you the father of Mr. Rose?”

“And you… you’re here about the grates?”

“I suppose so.” She took half a step back to look at him. “You’re the other Mr. Rose. The father of Mr. Rose.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, good God, I’ve known you for a while,” María Paz said.

“As have I known you, more than you think,” Rose said, and then realized how truthfully he had spoken, that from reading her manuscript, reading it so many times in the solitude of night, he was more intimately connected to her than he had allowed himself to believe. Now she was there, in the flesh, and he not only felt he knew her, but more than that, he felt a certain closeness to her. There was also something nice about her that made him let his guard down, her guileless smile, perhaps, or her cheerful look. Or maybe it was compassion he felt for her, with that huge protruding belly pushing out from under her coat, a kind of compassion tinged with discomfort at the extravagant knit cap and scarf, and the self-confidence with which the girl carried herself, flashy and out of place as she seemed. But the jumble of feelings suddenly gave way to a more powerful emotion, and Rose’s heart soared at the insane delusion that had taken over his mind. Could it be Cleve’s child? Was this woman bearing the child of his child?

“Is it my grandchild?” he asked, his voice overcome with emotion.

“But how, Mr. Rose; it would have been very nice, but the dates don’t quite match up.” María Paz laughed.

“Then that clamp inside you must be huge,” Rose said, trying to conceal the interplanetary sentimental journey from which he just landed with a joke and hastening to dry his tears with the sleeves of his coat.

“You mean the pregnancy?” asked María Paz, for whom the word “clamp” had little meaning. “This pregnancy is as real as a three-dollar bill.”

“A disguise,” Rose sighed. “But you went too far, dear, it looks as if you are about burst at any moment, and the ambulance will come for you.”

She asked him to wait and excused herself to use the ladies’ room, went into a stall, got rid of some of the filling, and returned a couple of months less pregnant. Rose asked if she had been followed and she replied that she hadn’t, and had taken precautions.

“We have to get out of here, right now,” he said. “I have the car in the parking lot, we need to talk, a matter of a clamp.”

“A clamp?”

“It’s complicated.”

“What if I’d rather go to the movies?”

“The movies? Are you nuts?”

“It’s been a long time since I went to the movies, I’d really like to. There are a bunch of theaters here.”

“You don’t understand; you have the entire police force after you and a clamp inside you. You have to have the clamp removed, it is very important. Your friend Mandra X told us about it, she saw the X-ray—”

“There’s too much noise here, I can’t really understand what you’re saying. Come on, Mr. Rose, let’s go to the movies, nothing will happen.”

Rose suddenly thought he saw enemies walking around everywhere, his paranoia in full force, but she insisted on going to the movies with such naive teenage-like enthusiasm that he began to give way, not sure why, perhaps because he had no other choice. At least during the movie, they would be more hidden, anything better than to remain there, exposed, in this very busy place.

“But what movie do you…?” It was the dumbest question.

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever is showing. Come on.”

So off they went, crossing from one end of the huge mall to the other looking for a movie theater, and she took him by the arm. She did it as naturally as a daughter would with her father, and that gesture just smoothed away any feelings of distance or distrust that may have lingered in him. He was very nervous, but he was there, holding on, somehow feeling supported, accompanied for the first time in months. He even managed to smile despite the tremendous tension, calibrating how suspicious they may have looked, checking out their reflection in the windows, the image that they must have presented to others. And what was it that he saw? He tells me he saw himself with a young woman, more or less his son’s age, a girl who could be his daughter, well, if Edith had been another ethnicity. There would have to have been some uncommon ethnic pairing to get a father so fair-skinned and a daughter so dark-skinned. That part was strange. In any case, she could have been adopted, the father an engineer working in Colombia who had adopted a baby orphan and brought her back. Rose supposed he looked like a father with his daughter in the mall taking advantage of the last days of her pregnancy to do some holiday shopping.