All About Jane's Ranch

CHAPTER NINE

By Christmas morning, she’d put the incident in the park behind her. There had been, after all, no dire consequences. Now, she just let herself enjoy the fact that the city was quiet —-no distant jackhammers, no traffic roar, no Mexican techno-pop pounding from boom boxes in the park below where kids hung out after school. What a relief, Lili thought, standing on the terrace in her pajamas and relishing the calm—no footsteps up and down the stairs, none of Fatima’s industrious scrubbing. Fatima and her mother had gone back to their tierra—some ranchito in Michoacan. Hanes and Gabi had returned from Havana and had taken off almost immediately for Acapulco, and Alejandro didn’t appear to be around either—at a family gathering, Lili guessed.

She felt grateful for the solitude. For the past two or so, blurred-together weeks, she’d thrown herself into Vivienne’s life, making order out of her sister’s barely contained office chaos, creating chores for Gabi at the gallery, leaving lists of tasks for Fatima to accomplish. All the while, she tried to push aside Joel’s ultimatum and her feelings for Alejandro, as well. She had to get her bearings, and time alone was what she needed most.

She knew she had to compose some sort of response to Joel’s letter, to the words end of our relationship with all their terrifying closure. Turning her face to the northern breeze, she let its cool, almost icy sting brush away the memory of Joel’s bullying voice over the phone during the last of their many unhappy phone conversations. “Have you lost your mind?” he’d demanded to know. “What do you mean it’s always been your path? This is insane.”

Maybe she should have given him a chance, asked him to share this path with her the way she’d shared his, but every part of her recoiled at the thought. She was surprised she had survived Joel’s cold, hostile rage, and it suddenly occurred to her that she’d been afraid of him all these years— his tempers, his fragile ego— and she’d never known or admitted it. Staring down over the becalmed city, she felt lighter, freer, and now the empty day stretched in front of her like a sandy beach, calm and pure.

It turned out to be just as well, Senor Hellmann’s secretary had called to cancel their Christmas dinner. “A touch of the grippe,” he’d said “And at his age, one can’t be too careful.”

Lili had been planning to drop Carlito’s name at dinner, trawl for information. Hellmann was not the kind of person you called on the phone and indulged in chatty gossip, and she really hadn’t needed Hanes to tell her frankness was not a virtue here. She couldn’t very well confront Hellmann directly and expect a real answer. Now that he’d cancelled, she realized she had wanted to talk about Carlito in part to stir the embers of Vivienne’s memory, to watch her sister rise from the ashes as they spoke of her.

Lili sighed. Carlito was probably just one of her sister’s moments, her lapses. She doubted he had meant much to Vivienne. She ran so hot and cold. And if Lili couldn’t pin her sister down when she was alive, how could she do it now?

Lili turned and headed for the bedroom where she dug up a huge, old flannel shirt and a pair of sweats. Neither seemed to be Vivienne’s—they hung like clown pants on Lili— but they were worn and soft. She went into the kitchen and made a big pot of coffee, heating milk, frothing it with a wooden whisk the way she’d seen Fatima do. Then she poured the coffee and foamy milk into a large deep bowl and carried it to the terrace.

The sun was out, weak, wintry, the air sharp with morning cold, and the white tip of Iztacihuatl peeked, visible between the buildings that spilled to the southeast. Lili wrapped her hands around the coffee bowl and felt the warmth. All is calm, All is bright, she hummed to herself between sips. Sleep in heavenly peace, she said, more of a prayer this time, an offering to all those she’d wronged by making this move—Joel, her students. Lili downed her coffee and carried the bowl back into the kitchen to wash up, church bells striking over the sound of the faucet. She listened to them chime over the running water, a carillon avalanche rolling over the city.

After she washed the coffeepot, she went into the bedroom, pulled up the sheets, straightened the bed and picked up around the room. She should really start going through Vivienne’s things, maybe get rid of that gauzy, mosquito net shrouding the bed, but the thought of changing anything paralyzed her. There was so much stuff— surely, there was storage space in this house, she thought.

Grabbing the key ring Vivienne had stashed in the drawer with her jewelery—the one that reminded Lili of charm bracelets, each key heavy with meaning— she hung it over her wrist and stepped out of the door. Cool, night air still lingered in the open courtyard, and it wafted up, smelling like lake water, damp and sweet. She had the dizzy feeling she was on a cruise ship, standing on one of the tiered decks. It was a crazy kind of ship, though, one you might see in a dream and wake the next morning with its vague memory. I was standing on the deck of an ocean liner, you might say, the top railings like French Quarter balconies, but the deck below turned into the terrace at Versailles. At that point, the dream would evaporate, and you would shake your head, get on with the morning. Only this, Lili realized, was her waking life now— the old, listing building hers, as well.

Turning right, she followed the walkway along the south side of the building. On one side, an arm’s distance away, were her apartment walls; the iron railing was on on the other. She continued until she reached the stairs that led to the second floor. Here the walkway continued past the stairs and ran the eastern length of the house, this time bordered on one side by her living room walls and, she guessed, Alejandro’s walls. She imagined the north wall of her livingroom and the south wall of his touching where the fireplace was.

Lili wondered if they shared a chimney. If they did, he might have discovered Vivienne’s hidden items instead of her. What would he have done with them she wondered, following the walkway, turning left again at the northeastern side. She looked down the stairway on this side to the second floor landing, but she didn’t go down. Instead, she walked the length of the northern walkway until she reached Alejandro’s door, turned around and repeated the same dazed walkabout. By the second time she reached his door, she had decided she would show him Vivienne’s ravings and his picture torn from a newspaper. On impulse, she touched her fingers to the doorknob just to put her hand where his had been. Shocked at having such girlish longing, she pulled her hand away and headed quickly down the walkway, down the staircase on Alejandro’s side to the second floor.

She stepped from the staircase onto a semi-circular balcony that extended over the courtyard. Leaning over the stone balustrade, she looked down, trying to imagine living a hundred years ago, leaning over this same railing, watching men dismount from horses. Fatima had turned off the pump on the fountain, and the water looked murky and green. There should be pots of geraniums surrounding the fountain, Lili thought, reminding herself to give Fatima money to take to the flower market.

Lili wandered the upstairs walkway, checking for chips in the stone and stucco, searching for repairs she might need to make. She noticed doors had been boarded up and plastered over to make walls for the apartments rented by Hanes and Gabi. No hidden storage places here, she thought. She descended the wide staircase on the western side of the building opposite the circular balcony, past the seven-foot crucifix, her bedroom slippers flapping against the marble, the sound echoing in the emptiness.

The doors on the ground floor had large, medieval-looking padlocks hanging from them. Lili tried her keys again and unlatched a door on the south side of the courtyard, then pushed it open. The room was pitch-black and smelled of rats and mildew. When her eyes adjusted, she saw outlines of furniture piled up like monstrous shapes in children’s nightmares. She heard scratching, rustling and slammed the door, locked its rusted lock.

She followed the southern wall past another set of doors to the southwest corner of the courtyard. Between the large stairway in the middle of the west wall and the corner of south wall, Lili noticed a small door. She walked over to it, tried a number of keys until it opened.

Behind the open door was a narrow passageway. Lili entered it, and ducking her head under the low ceiling, she walked a few steps until she saw another passageway on her left. Lili guessed it ran the western length of the ground floor rooms. At the end of the short tunnel, she saw daylight, the trunks of the jacaranda trees and the yard’s bright, green grass. Walking along the dank passageway, she tried to imagine the sodden plaster painted mustard color, tried to imagine herself holding the paintbrush that would swipe the walls, and tried to envision herself dragging pots of ferns and ivy, placing them along the wall. How long, she wondered would it take before she could look up some spring morning at the purple jacaranda blossoms framed by yellow arches?

She stepped around an old wooden ladder and into the light. Now she knew where she was. Across the lawn, the trees were the ones she looked at from her livingroom windows; behind the ivy covered wall, was the elderly swimmer ‘s house. If Lili looked to the east toward the Parque Rio de Janeiro, she saw the garage where the citroen was housed, and next to it, the iron gate that led to Calle Orizaba—-her usual way of entering the garden.

This secret passage must have been an old servants’ entrance. One day, Lili was determined it would be a private passage to the garden. She continued walking along the south side of the house, examining the shuttered windows, the chipped paint and dry rot covered with wrought iron bars and vines. Perhaps the windows could be made into double doors, the rooms behind them cleaned and painted, and a patio could be built here under the trees. She sank down and leaned her back against the sun-warmed side of the house.

Looking through the filigreed jacaranda branches toward the light, she imagined the patio with big pots of lemon trees, another fountain. She would invite her exotic, umbrella-carrying neighbor and the group that seemed to gather there various nights, maybe Yarabi and her friends. The iron gate opened, and she turned to see Alejandro give the gate a shove, jump back in his car and drive toward the garage. He cut the engine, and she could hear hear the last strains of Vissi D’arte from the CD player.

Lili shaded her eyes with her hands and squinted. She couldn’t very well run away now she knew. She watched Alejandro get out of his car, close the gate, and pull two sacks from the back seat. He aimed his key at the car, waiting for the beep that signaled it was locked. Then he turned and crossed Lili’s imaginary patio, where she was sunning herself like a cat. She had a pang of regret over the sloppy sweats, her unbrushed hair. Alejandro was natty as ever, even had a crease in his jeans, put there by some servant, of course.

“What are you doing?” he called to her.

“Renovations, in my head” she answered. “Patios, fountains—that sort of thing.” She felt her face get hot, her mouth go dry.

Alejandro leaned his back against the wall, looked around and shrugged. “Why would you want to spend all that money on this old place?”

“I thought you of all Mexicans would want to preserve your heritage.”

“Then you haven’t finished reading my book, have you?”

“I’ve been busy,” she lied. After her initial thrill at finding it, she had put the book away, finding it too painful to think about him and not wanting to know more or have more fuel for the fire.

“The next earthquake will take this place down anyway.” He lifted his bags. “My mother’s mole should go in the refrigerator. I’ll leave you to your renovations.”

Lili watched him walk back to the car toward the street and the front door. He must not know about the passageway, she thought, lifting the keys and heading back through its moldy walls, locking up as she went.

Inside her apartment, Lili walked down the hall to the back and stood at the French doors. Staring at the empty chairs on the roof garden, she imagined Alejandro in one of them and quickly gave the drapes a tug. With the dining room curtains closed, she wouldn’t know if he was there, wouldn’t know if he looked for her—or didn’t, wouldn’t worry about his taking pity on her solitude and feeling obliged to share his mother’s mole.

But hiding behind the silk drapes, she felt imprisoned, and there was nothing to do if she went out since the shops and cafes were closed. She would just look like one of those lost souls, a middle-aged woman with no family to cook for, easy prey. She could carry a bottle of wine tied with a bow as a decoy and wander the streets–or her Buche de Noel. Lili opened the refrigerator and lifted the box wrapped in cool, damp tissue—perfect. She changed into something more formal, dabbed on some makeup, grabbed her purse, her cake.

She walked down Orizaba to the wide Avenue Obregon. Usually crammed with cars, busses, mopeds, taxis, today the street was empty. Lili crossed over to the median and ambled under the palms and fresno trees, past tiered fountains, through broad shards of sunlight streaming through the branches. At Durango, she crossed Obregon and headed toward Michoacan. Wasn’t Tina Modatti’s house on one of these streets? And Octavio Paz’s, as well? She came to the corner of Durango, turned right and out of the corner of her eye she spotted the saffron-colored robes of two Buddhist priests. Lili followed them two blocks, intending to ask them about Dr. Jolet’s teacher and if they had known Vivienne. She saw them stop under an awning where red and green prayer flags fluttered, but when she reached the polished wooden door, they’d already slipped inside. A brass plaque on the wall read Casa Tibet and underneath Horas de Meditacion every day from six am until nine pm. She pushed open the door and entered. Every day. Even Christmas. They were Buddhists, after all.

She faced a long flight of stairs, which ended in a landing under a large skylight, and on her right she spotted a small gift shop. She climbed the stairs and found the monks sitting cross-legged, meditating in a hall off the waiting area. A young monk looked up from a counter with a display case of prayer beads and the like. “Sus zapatos,” he said, pointing to Lili’s shoes.

She removed them, set her cake box beside them and lined everything up next to the older monks’ sandals.

“Veinte pesos,” the monk said, holding a frayed pillow.

Lili walked to the counter, paid her twenty pesos and looked through the glass at the beads, Tibetan jewelery, bumper stickers that said Tibet Libre and a pile of brochures for meditation retreats. She bought the bumper sticker—Vivienne would have liked that glued on the back of her car. Lili stuck it under her shoes, carried her pillow to the back of the meditation hall and, imitating the monks, crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and began slowly breathing in and out.

It was one way to spend Christmas. She and Joel used to go to movies. All the films you could never get into on any other day were empty as gourds. She felt her stomach clench thinking about Joel, the way they used to spend time together, filling up the spaces. Better she should just breathe in and out. She shifted on her pillow, tried to clear her mind.

But this time Vivienne intruded, rising like a genie out of a bottle. She had managed to make a good life for herself here— the house, the benefactor, the boyfriend, the work, a charming psychiatrist, a cool little meditation center. Why had Lili never really wondered what Vivienne did with her days? Why did she never look beyond the pills and the screw-ups? You saw yourself as the strong one. That was your habit. So why was Hellmann willing to hand this over to her? What did he want? She felt as if whatever contained her had been removed and she was spilling out. She opened her eyes. The two priests had gone. In their place sat Yarabi Molino, cross-legged, palms facing upward. Lili stared until she was afraid she was being rude, but Yarabi never opened her eyes. Lili pretended to close hers, all the while watching Yarabi through a blur of eyelashes.

She hadn’t seen Yarabi since the night of Vivienne’s party, since her one-night stand with Alejandro. She and Yarabi had that in common, sleeping with the same man. It was a strange kind of connection, not entirely pleasant, like being crammed next to someone on a bus and feeling the stranger’s sweaty skin against your own. Still, Lili wanted to talk to her, find out what she knew about Vivienne. Lili wondered if Yarabi knew Dr. Jolet. She might, since they all seemed to gather here. Maybe Lili could find out the name of Jolet’s Buddhist guide. Maybe Vivienne had talked to the guide, studied with him. You who are called Vivienne in this life. Where had Vivienne learned all that? Lili pushed herself up and grabbed her pillow. Yarabi’s eyes were still closed.

Lili waited in the anteroom, wondering what she would say to Yarabi. Can we meet for coffee? I have some questions about my sister? She browsed through brochures about Caribbean meditation retreats and books on Tibetan art, then began trying on jewelry until Yarabi came out of the mediation hall, handed her pillow to the young monk, and surprised Lili by speaking first.

“Vas a casa?” she asked. “I’ll walk with you.”

Out on the sidewalk, Lili felt exposed, raw, as if something had been peeled away as she sat breathing in and out, letting her mind wander. Is that what Vivienne felt when she meditated, or had her mind raced, full of thoughts of omnipotence or despair?

“Momento,” Yarabi said.

Yarabi pulled a cigarette out of a small purse hanging from a strap on her shoulder. “Smoking as self-defense,” she explained. “With all the crap you breathe in the D.F, it’s good to spend some time blowing the stuff out.” She exhaled dramatically—actress that she was—just to make the point. “You don’t smoke, do you? I can tell. You’re like my brother. He was always complaining about your sister smoking, said he could smell it in his apartment.”

Lili stopped suddenly. “Your brother?”

She and Yarabi stood on Obregon now, under the palms, shafts of light falling on them like scarves, the smell of dusty, dry leaves mingling with Yarabi’s cigarette smoke. Children in Christmas finery leaped around their parents, the girls in crinolines and white taffeta like brown dolls dipped in meringue, the boys in miniature bow ties wrapped like gifts themselves.

“My brother—Alejandro. Your neighbor.”

“I thought,” Lili didn’t finish, didn’t need to.

“Alejo? You must be joking. He’s just my older brother, un gran necio.” A pest.

They continued walking, the early winter twilight washing everything pink, the sky clear, celestial blue.

“Why? Would he live in Vivienne’s run down palace?” Lili asked, crossing over to Orizaba, past the earthquake-ravaged buildings. “It seems to be too bohemian for his type.”

“He isn’t the type. You’re right.”

They had reached the front door. Lili pulled out her key, watched Yarabi take one more drag on her cigarette, throw it on the sidewalk, twist her foot over it and kick it toward the street.

“He was paid to live here, keep an eye on your sister. And the location suited him.”

Lili opened the door. “Paid? Who paid?”

“Senor Hellmann.” Yarabi followed Lili into the house, up the stairs. “Hellmann pays for everything around here. He’s my revolutionary brother’s biggest contributor, but don’t tell him I said anything—he’d kill me.” Yarabi drew a finger across her neck, indicating a slit throat, just as Alejandro opened the door. “Viva Che,” Yarabi said.

Alejandro bowed Lili’s direction as Yarabi blew her a kiss, and then he closed the door.

Lili stared at the shut door, the earlier feeling of peaceful solitude dissolving into loneliness. She walked back to her apartment, opened the drapes and wandered around looking for something to do. The dishes were clean, the bath scrubbed, thanks to Fatima. She plucked Alejandro’s book from the bookshelf and set it on the table. Alejo, his sister called him. She put water on for coffee, cut an apple into thick slices and found a wedge of queso fresco in the fridge—it would have to be dinner. The evening light glowed through the French doors, making everything melancholy. Lili bent the cover back and began to read, nibbling on a sour, green apple slice. “Cuando llegaron al Nuevo Mundo cien anos despues de los conquistadores…” the first sentence of Alejandro’s book began. “When they arrived in the New World a hundred years after the conquistadores, the Puritan settlers were even more certain of their religious beliefs than Cortez and his followers.” Lili struggled with the erudite, academic Spanish, relieved to be fighting against something other than loneliness, relieved to see the dusty history, full of folk heroes like Squanto and Myles Standish, with new eyes. She suddenly remembered the kettle, and got up to turn off the gas, pour water over the grounds when she heard knocking at the door.

“He wants to ask you a question,” Yarabi said.

Lili followed her along the walkway and through the open door of Alejandro’s apartment. She stood, taken aback. What had she expected? Something Mexican, baroque. Certainly not a room full of early American antiques. In the back of her mind she heard Alejandro’s voice. Then you haven’t read my book have you?

Facing her on the opposite tangerine-colored wall hung a blue and white homespun blanket; next to it, an early-American candlestand. She walked to the blanket, lifted it—no moth holes, nothing worn or frayed. “This must be museum quality,” she said. “And this,” she said, running her hand over the old maple candlestand.

“I’m something of a collector,” Alejandro said, coming up beside her.

Yarabi emerged from the kitchen. “I’m making chocolate. Want some?”

Lili nodded. She was starving actually.

Yarabi waved the wooden molinillo in her hand. “This is the only pinche cosa Mexicana in the whole house. My brother has acute gringophilia. Terminal, I’m afraid.”

“Do you know anything about this kind of thing?” Alejandro asked. He seemed almost deferential, as if her status as an American citizen gave her proprietorship over his things.

“Very little,” she said.

“Then I can teach you.”

Lili felt her face burn and looked down, staring at the table.

Alejandro turned the candlestand around to show her the bare, unfinished side. “Look,” he said, pointing to the middle where the legs—plain, maple cabriole — were connected. There was a signature in pencil. Thomas Savery.

“At first, I thought it was a fraud. William Savery was a famous Quaker cabinetmaker, did a lot of elaborate Chippendale furniture. His son, Thomas, though, was very devout, deeply affected by the Quietist movement, which frowned on making unnecessary luxuries or taking pride in one’s creations. Thomas became a tanner, though one could assume he’d learned to make furniture. If he did, it was unlikely he would have signed anything he made.”

Lili looked up. “Where did you learn all this? What on earth could you want to ask me?”

“Another pretext,” he said, showing his beautiful, white teeth. “Sin of pride. I just wanted to show off, and Yarabi thinks I’m crazy. Do you know what I paid for this?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Now look.” He lifted the table up.

Lili squinted. “I don’t have my glasses.”

“His address. Pure practicality. I had my man in the States look it up. Thomas moved from his father’s house in Philadelphia to his wife’s family home. This signature was just to identify it.”

“How can you go so crazy over a table?” Yarabi came in carrying a tray with cups of chocolate. “A tiny, useless table?”

She handed Lili and Alejandro their mugs. “ Drink of the gods. Where would the world be without the Mexicans, hermano?”

“The Aztecs would have had you, a commoner, killed for drinking chocolate, Yarabi, hermanita,” Alejandro said.

“I wouldn’t have been a commoner.”

“And Lili? What would you have been?” Alejandro prodded.

Lili shrugged. She wanted to say she’d have been the midwife, the one who chanted over Aztec babies,“You have come to a place of weeping.” But she would have had to explain all the convoluted histories that brought her here, kept her here. “I have no idea,” she said, keeping her past to herself.

Then, she looked down, breathed in the dark, cinnamon-scented chocolate, lifted the cup—as if it were sacramental wine— and drank.