Irma Voth

THREE

IT WAS LATE WHEN WE GOT BACK to the filmmakers’ house. Wilson invited me in for coffee and I said no, I couldn’t. Then I changed my mind and said yeah, okay. He told me he wanted to show me something. Marijke had gone to her room and closed the door — we could hear her laughing or crying — and Diego was busy talking on the radio. Wilson asked me if I would come into his bedroom. I stood still and quietly panicked and then he said that it was okay, he didn’t mean it in that kind of way, he just wanted a little privacy from the others. So I followed him into his room and he closed the door and I went and stood by the window and he sat on his bed.

I’d like to read you something if you don’t mind, Irma, he said. He opened his notebook and read a story, half in Spanish, half in English, about an angry circus clown who was going through a divorce.

All the people in my stories are awful, he said. I agreed with him.

Why don’t you write about people who aren’t such assholes? I asked him.

Because, he said, that would be too painful.

I looked around the room. I remembered playing with my cousins. I remembered trying to climb out the window of this room and breaking the window frame. I got up and went over to the window and it was still cracked and crooked.

I used to play here all the time, I said.

Really? said Wilson.

Yeah, my cousins lived here.

One family? said Wilson. There are so many bedrooms in this house.

Lots of kids, I said. A soccer team.

Or a film crew, said Wilson.

They didn’t make movies, I said.

I know, said Wilson, I was just kidding. They probably didn’t play soccer either.

Of course they played soccer, I said. That’s mostly what we did all the time.

Oh, said Wilson. Are you any good?

Not really, I said.

Do you want to kick a ball around sometime? said Wilson.

Well … I don’t know, I said. I’m a married woman now.

So? said Wilson.

I could see Elias and Sebastian standing on the road talking to each other and passing a cigarette back and forth. Elias was waving his arms around and Sebastian was perfectly still. Corn was behind them. Endless corn. Then Elias crouched down to the ground and picked up some stones and threw them at the corn and there was a dark explosion of crows.

Why is it so painful to write about people who aren’t assholes? I asked Wilson.

Because I would start to love them, he said.

I was still looking through the broken window. I didn’t know what to say. I heard Wilson sigh. Can I show you something now? he asked. I went over to the bed and stood beside him and he lifted up his shirt. There were scars all over his chest and stomach, some of them looping around to his back.

What happened? I asked him.

I’m dying, he said. I sat down beside him on the bed.

From what? I said.

My veins won’t stay open, he said. They sometimes just collapse. The doctors have cut me open so many times to work on a vein but after a few months another vein quits and they have to go back in. Then they gave me this super-industrial-strength medicine that I had to squirt into my body through a tap in my stomach. They drilled a hole right here above my belly button and stuck a little faucet in there that was attached to a long cord and a pump which I could hold in my hand and every hour or so I’d have to squirt another drop into my body and it would go through the long cord and then through that little tap into my gut. It was basically like TNT blasting through my veins trying to wake them up so the blood could move.

You don’t have the tap anymore? I said.

No, said Wilson, because I kept getting infections from the incision and they had to replace it every three weeks and that was excruciating. So now it’s just a matter of waiting. But I try not to think about it.

Are you afraid? I asked him.

He told me he was scared shitless, actually, who wouldn’t be? And then I told him about all the stupid things I’d done in that room when I was a kid and a little bit about my old life in Canada, how we couldn’t recognize even our own mothers in the winter because we were so bundled up trying to stay warm, which he thought was funny. And I told him about the hockey rink that my father built for us little kids in our backyard by first of all clearing away tons and tons of snow and then using that snow to build towering walls around the rink and then by packing down the surface until it was as smooth as glass even though it was only rock-hard snow and how once I woke up in the middle of the night and the yard light was still on which made me wonder what was going on so I looked out the window at the glistening hockey rink in our backyard and I saw my father on his hands and knees in the middle of it next to a perfect red circle and he was all hunched over and concentrating, painting lines, red ones and blue ones, on the hard snow to make the hockey rink official and the lines were so even and perfect and bright against the white snow. I watched him paint for a long time and finally he stood up and put his hands on his hips like this and stared at his circle and his lines and he had this huge grin on his face.

Did he see you in the window? said Wilson.

No, I don’t think so, I said.

Was it supposed to be a surprise for you guys? said Wilson.

Yeah, I said. The next morning we went downstairs and we went outside and he was there with new hockey sticks for all of us too. We had to make up names for our teams and sing the national anthem.

Beautiful, said Wilson. Did you play on it?

Yeah, we played forever, I said. Not with skates or anything, just in our boots. Sometimes, my older sister, Katie, would referee for a while before she got bored and went off with her friends. Every night until way past everyone else had gone to bed. So it was me and my mom against my dad and Aggie. She was little and he made sure she got a shot every once in a while and me and my mom would fake trying really hard not to let it in.

But somehow it got in, said Wilson.

Yeah, I said. And then she and my dad would do their victory dance.

Do you think it’s still there? said Wilson.

Well, I said. You know what happens to snow, sometimes, right?

Two things happened when I got back to my house. Somebody was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. I thought it was Jorge and I was about to jump on top of him but then I realized it was my father.

That was the first thing. And the second thing is that he spoke to me. But not until after a long period of spooky silence. Just sitting there and looking at me or looking around the house.

So what’s up? I asked him finally. Is mom okay?

You’re involved with the filmmakers? he said. I didn’t say anything.

And Aggie is also spending time with you? he said.

She’s my sister, I said.

She’s my daughter, he said. I’m thinking of selling your house.

Well, where will I live? I asked him.

He suggested I talk to God about that and reminded me that the house belonged to him and that he had only allowed Jorge and me to live in it because we were also taking care of his cows but now I was getting Aggie to do the work and running around with artists, and my husband should be the one to take care of me and now I was humiliating everyone, my mother, my father, my relatives, the entire campo, the church and God.

What about the cows? I said. You forgot to mention.

You’re not funny, Irma, he said.

Well, you’re not either, I said. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

What apple? he said.

Me, I said. I’m the apple and you’re the—

You’re a lunatic, he said.

Jorge hasn’t left me, I said. My father looked around the house pretending to search for Jorge like it was a joke. I stood up. I wasn’t afraid of him for myself, only for Aggie, but I was going to leave.

Irma, said my father, what do you want from this life?

I sat down next to him and touched his arm for half a second. It was a surprise and he didn’t flinch. He didn’t expect an answer. It was a kind gesture for any man from around here to ask a question of his daughter. I felt like touching his arm again but I knew he’d be prepared this time and pull away.

You don’t have light in here? he said.

Sometimes, I said. I can’t get the generator to work. I had a flashlight but I lost it. He didn’t say anything. For a second I was sure that he would promise to come back to fix the generator. I knew he wanted to. I waited for him to say the words. Then he got up and left. It felt like a scene in the movie. I imagined my father saying hey, how was that? Was I okay? And I’d say well, it wasn’t bad, but let’s do it one more time.

We were in an apple orchard with an old, slimy swimming pool in the middle. An ancient Mexican woman in a Nike T-shirt had opened up the wire gate for us and led us to the pool. I had wandered off into the trees to pee and while I was squatting in the dappled sunlight a huge horse appeared out of nowhere and tried to push me over with its nose. Fuck off, I said, and then apologized. I picked up a rotten apple that had fallen onto the ground and tossed it gently at the horse and it moved a foot or two away from me and snorted like it was planning to charge and then changed its mind and came back and stood next to me, over me really, while I finished peeing. If I could only interpret my dreams I would know what I wanted from this life and then I’d be able to explain that to my father. I felt sleepy, so tired. I thought about having a short nap while the horse watched over me. Horse, I said, what are you doing here? He let that question dangle between us and I left.

It was another shot of the family, this time swimming together but with undercurrents of tension. On the surface the shot was supposed to be serene and warm and show the hard-working family having a nice little break. Diego was having a heart-to-heart conversation with Alfredo about the necessity of him taking his clothes off in the abandoned change room.

Marijke doesn’t have a problem taking off her clothes, said Diego.

She’s European, said Alfredo.

It will be a long shot, Alfie, said Diego. You’ll be this big. He held his fingers up an inch apart. And it’s dark in there. It will be one brief second in the film.

Marijke was lying in the sun reading a book called You Are Not a Stranger Here and smoking and Miguel was running around with the Mennonite children, trying to keep them from getting bored while the others set up the shot. A crowd of people from the nearby campo, including the mothers and siblings of the kids acting in the movie, had found out where we were shooting and were standing around watching.

One of the mothers came up to me, her name was Tina, and she asked me how my mother was and I said I didn’t know really but that she was going to have another baby and then Tina asked me if I knew that Aggie had quit school to help out at home.

When did that happen? I said.

I think today, she said.

I thought of my father making a long slit in the stomach of a hog and draining its blood and guts onto the ground in minutes. In seconds. In one second. Which was the length of time it took for news to spread around here.

I wasn’t surprised at all and I wanted to talk to Tina some more about Aggie just to be able to form the shape of her name with my lips and my tongue, Aggie, but Diego called my name and I had to go.

Tina, I said, will you ask Abe to talk to my father about Aggie staying in school?

What would I say? said Tina.

I don’t know, I said. But my father has always liked Abe and maybe he can say something.

Tina nodded and touched my shoulder. She told me she would pray for our family. She told me that Abe liked my father too, but didn’t like how strict he was. She said that she and Abe were grateful to my father for not involving the police when their son shot one of our cows just for fun.

Thanks, I said. Can you please tell my mother hello and how are you.

Diego called me again and Tina and I said goodbye. He was still trying to convince Alfredo to get naked and Alfredo was sitting on a rock enjoying another vampiro and smoking and shaking his head and Diego told me to tell Marijke that when Alfredo told her what a good mother she was, in the scene, that she should tell him that he was a good father, too. And that when Alfredo commented on her soap-making abilities that she acknowledge him gratefully with something appropriate.

I began to walk over to where Marijke was and Diego began yelling at Alfredo that okay, fine, he’d take his clothes off too, for the shot, no sweat. And then he told the crew that they should take theirs off too so that Alfredo could see that he wasn’t the only man in the world with a cock and balls and they said sure, no problem, and began to strip down to their underwear and Marijke was looking at them all calmly, smoking, and I started to panic and ran over to Diego and told him that they couldn’t do that, that all the Mennonites watching would seriously freak out and the crew would be herded up and shot and left in a field to rot and their faces sewn into soccer balls.

All right, said Diego, we’ll shoot that part another time when nobody is watching. He put his pants back on but by this time Elias, Sebastian and Wilson were all in the pool in their underwear trying to keep the camera from slipping off the inner tube that they had tied it to. Some of the women watching had taken their kids away and a few of them were standing with their arms folded laughing at the half-naked crew and whispering. I ran back to Marijke and sat down with her in the sun and she put her arms around my shoulders and asked me how things were going.

Life is a bitter gift, no? she said.

So, now, in this shot, I said, when Alfredo tells you that you’re a good mother you smile softly, like this, and look at him and say thank you, but how would you know? And when Alfredo tells you that you make good soap or whatever his line is you nod and say yes, but you’re sick of making soap and thinking of just buying it in the store from now on. And again, I said, try not to look directly at the camera. Marijke nodded and got up. Thanks, Irma, she said.

No sweat, I said.

We smiled and I told her she was beautiful. Radiant. I told her I thought her neck was as long if not longer than my forearm, like Nefertiti. She told me she felt like shit in the dress she was wearing and then looked at mine and apologized and said that it was weird that her dress was a costume and mine was just a dress even when they were virtually identical and then she apologized again, she put her hand on her throat as though that was the place where regrettable words sprang from, and I waved it all away, it didn’t matter. I had befriended a horse wearing this dress. For some reason I thought it would be funny for me to tell Marijke that but she was already gliding away towards Diego and the others.

The next day everybody was sick, probably from the dirty water in the pool and nobody had anything to say. Through the kitchen window I could see Oveja napping under the truck. I pulled the notebook from the pocket of my dress and pressed it to my forehead. It felt cool on my warm skin.

Diego has asked me if I’d be willing to clean the house and do the crew’s laundry. Marijke and the crew are huddled around the TV watching something with no sound and looking green and exhausted. I don’t know how to ask Diego if he’ll pay me extra for cleaning. In addition to the word samizdat I’m now pondering the meaning of the word despondent. My English is fine. I lived in Canada for thirteen years and went to a normal school with normal kids. But there are words that drift around in my head like memories from the Jazz Age or something. I want to say them but they’re not really mine to feel. Here comes Diego again. The end.

Okay, I said. I’ll clean the house.

He said he’d still take the crew out to shoot some stuff but that Marijke could have the day off and stay in bed or do whatever she wanted to do.

Where’s Wilson? I asked.

He went back to Caracas, said Diego.

Why? I said.

We had a fight, said Diego. I keep forgetting how sensitive he is. He erupts like shrapnel and then goes psycho still, like numb inside. His eyes go like this. I don’t understand him. He wants me to write an introduction to his book of stories. But now we all have extra work. Irma, I have a question to ask you. Do you know that song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”? Do you know this? A-gonna?

No, I said.

Diego went back into the living room to talk to the others and I wandered into Wilson’s room and looked around. He wasn’t there. So, that was true at least. I sat on Wilson’s bed and felt the mattress sag a bit beneath me. He hadn’t forgotten to take his notebook.

After the others had left, Marijke went into the yard and threw up next to the pump. She washed her face and then stuck her whole head under the water and then took off her T-shirt and lay on the grass on her back with her breasts exposed to the sun and the wind and God. I lay down in the grass on my side with my back to her.

Marijke, I said, what kind of a Mennonite are you? I said it quietly and in Spanish. In fact, I may not have said it at all.

Irma, she said, do you have any real idea of what this movie is about?

Well, it’s about the meaning of life? I said. I mean not life, life, but some lives? That’s all I can think of. Leave-taking.

What did you say? she said.

Leave-taking, I said. I wasn’t sure how to use that word in a sentence. Our leave-taking from Canada was abrupt and permanent. Our poignant leave-taking left me breathless and … I wasn’t sure.

You miss Wilson, she said. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t see her. She put her hand on my back and I went stiff like a stillborn calf. I felt like I was being branded. I thought I’d start to cry.

No, I said, I miss Jorge.

When we first got married Jorge was at home all the time but then he went to his mom’s place in Chihuahua city one weekend to visit and he met some guys who offered him real money. All he’d have to do was store their boxes of hierba in our grain shed because we lived in the middle of nowhere but only a few hours from the border and it was all perfect, and Jorge said sure, that sounded good, all he’d be doing was storing it, and he had held my hands and told me it would be a great opportunity for us, that it might help us to make enough money to leave the campo so he wouldn’t have to work for nothing for my father anymore and he’d take care of me and we’d have babies and move away from here and get that boat we’d been talking about. And then he started bringing stuff back to our place.

I think Diego might want to sleep with me, she said.

What? I said. Why do you think that? You don’t even know what he’s saying.

I don’t have to know what he’s saying, she said.

Well, I said. I wouldn’t if I were you.

Why not? she said. What if I’m feeling lost and lonely?

Are you? I said.

Of course I am, Irma! she said. Look around. Can I talk to anybody but you? Do I have my husband and son here with me? Do I have friends? Do I know what I’m doing? Do I understand this story? Do I have anything to do but lie around and try to remember not to look directly at the thing that’s always looking at me?

No, I said. I guess not.

I’m trying not to let my anger bubble to the surface and infect my mood, she said. Have you ever stomped down on a ceramic tile on your kitchen floor? It keeps popping up. I’m not going to sleep with him, don’t worry.

I’m not worried, I said.

My anger, I said to myself. I liked the sound of that. I needed something of my own, something I could keep. My anger. I’d embroider these words into my underwear. I felt like Frankenstein. I punched myself in the forehead. My mother thought I was retarded when I was a baby because I’d bite myself and pull my own hair. Well, whose hair was I supposed to pull? I’d ask her.

Marijke lit a cigarette and started humming.

Well, the tile just needs to be glued down, I said.

Hey, she said, do you mind asking Diego if it’s possible to get more leafy vegetables around here? I was looking at the whites of my eyes this morning and I think I’m developing anemia.

I turned around and looked deeply into the whites of her eyes and tried to detect a problem.

Then she told me she’d like to meet my family and I told her why that was pretty much impossible and then just at that moment as though we’d conjured her up like a dream Aggie was standing next to us with a suitcase and there we were, three Mennonite girls in an empty field, one bare-chested, one bewildered and one on the run.

Diego and the crew came roaring back into the yard in two trucks and Elias and Oveja ran over to us and Elias said we had to go shoot right then, immediately. Because the light, he said. And we had to bring Oveja with us for some reason I couldn’t quite understand. Either because we would need protection or because he, Oveja, needed protection.

What did you say? said Aggie.

Who is this? said Elias. He smiled and kissed Aggie on the cheek.

Aggie, I said. My sister. This is Elias. He’s a cameraman. This is Marijke.

Did you come from the airport? said Elias. He pointed at her suitcase.

No. Just from over there, said Aggie. She pointed at her house.

Come with us, said Marijke. She put her T-shirt back on and grabbed Aggie’s suitcase. It’ll be fun.

No, I said, she has to go back.

No, I don’t, said Aggie.

Yeah, you do, I said.

Well, I’m not, she said.

Agatha, I said.

Irma, she said.

We rode in the back of the truck this time while Diego drove and had a money talk with one of the film’s producers, José. We could see their arms flying around in the cab while they talked. Elias told us that José had come from Mexico City with some concerns about the amount of money Diego was spending out here in Chihuahua. Diego was having to shell out dough like crazy to the various Mennonites he’d enlisted to help him realize his dream. Elias explained Diego’s rationale with the campo dwellers. This is what he says, said Elias. I understand and respect your religion’s stance on photography and artificial images but I also believe that by making this film we can help to preserve your culture and prevent it from disappearing. This presented a conundrum that stopped the Mennonites in their argumentative tracks. Diego then added that he was willing to pay them for letting him shoot on their land, or in their house, or wherever it was that he wanted to shoot, and that got the Mennos nodding again and shortly thereafter the deal was done.

That’s what they’re talking about, said Elias. Diego is trying to explain to José the reason why the Mennonites are being truculent. No offence.

I had stopped listening, really, because now Aggie and I had started to argue.

Marijke and the crew smoked and stared politely into the desert pretending not to notice me and Aggie hissing at each other in the wind. She kept her hand on the handle of her suitcase but she turned her head away from me when I tried to talk to her.

So, where do you think you’re going to go? I said.

Don’t worry about it, she said.

Well, obviously I’m going to worry about it, I said. Are you a total moron or what?

Let’s enjoy the moment, Irma, she said. She was quoting Marijke. José and Diego were shouting and throwing cigarettes out the windows. A spark skittered off the metal and landed on Elias’s arm and he swore in Spanish, puta, and extinguished it with his spit. Trucks packed full of Mexican or Mennonite families were passing us and they were all waving and smiling or very determinedly looking away, like Aggie when I tried to tell her that she was risking her life by leaving home.

I know, she said. So what. I didn’t know what to say then and wished that I smoked for real or that sparks would land on me.

Because the light, said Aggie.

What? I said.

Because the light, she said. What that guy said. She pointed at Elias who blew her a kiss. It’s funny, she said.

Stop taking my things, I said. I pointed at her ratty suitcase.

I’m returning it to you, she said.

We’re standing, lying, sitting in an empty field waiting for the rain. This time Aggie is with us, learning how to play Frisbee with Miguel and Elias, and apparently enjoying the moment as though it were her last. Oveja has now become her best friend thanks to a dozen zwieback she had in the suitcase. Alfredo has come here in his own truck, by himself, but he’s sulking and Diego is worried about him leaving before the rain comes. Alfredo says he is wasting his time and losing money that he could be making from his real job and that there’s so much stress at home because of this movie. Diego has taken me aside and asked me, again, to ask Marijke if she would spend more time with Alfredo. If maybe now she would agree to drive with Alfredo in his truck so that they can get to know each other and so that Alfredo won’t feel lonely and ignored.

I took Marijke aside to tell her what Diego had told me. I handed her my bottle of water.

He would like you to spend more time alone with Alfredo, I said.

Why? said Marijke.

To strengthen your relationship.

What relationship?

Your movie relationship.

That’s Diego’s job, she said. She drank the water that was left in the bottle and gave it back to me.

Diego jogged over to us. He looked worried. He was wearing white, gauzy pants that billowed out like sails when he ran. From a distance his head was a crow’s nest. He asked me if I had told Marijke what he had said about spending time with Alfredo.

Yes, I said, but she has reservations.

Please tell her that it’s important for the energy of the film, said Diego. Please tell her that when I see a beautiful fish I immediately have feelings for it. I wait until the last possible moment to cook it. And it’s that connection that makes the meal delicious.

Marijke, I said, Diego wants you to know that he sometimes has feelings for beautiful fish before he eats them and that makes them taste better.

Is he stoned? said Marijke.

Hang on, I said. I spoke to Diego in Spanish. Yeah, I said, she understands. But she doesn’t want to drive with him because he’s always drunk and she’s not prepared to die.

Irma, said Diego, when I said we must all be prepared to die for this film, I didn’t mean in a car crash because of drunk driving. If that’s what you’re implying. Tell her I’ll talk to Alfredo about his drinking.

Well, I said. And she’s worried about having anemia. She needs more leafy vegetables.

We continued to wait in the field for rain. José and Diego played a game that involved slapping each other hard in the face. José seemed to be winning and Diego refused to give up. Why are they doing that? Aggie asked me.

Elias heated up some sausages on a filthy grill over an open fire. I taught Marijke how to make a type of kissing sound that would keep the rattlesnakes away when she went into the trees to pee. José and Diego ended their strange game with an embrace. The sun scorched us. Diego tried to get Marijke to rehearse a kiss with Alfredo and eventually became so angry with Alfredo’s clunky attempts that he grabbed Marijke and did it himself. Is that so difficult? he asked Alfredo.

Afterwards Marijke came up to me and asked me if I knew what she meant about Diego having the hots for her and I said yes. We sat on the ground and flipped through the pages of the script. It was clear that Diego had started to make things up along the way.

Aggie came to sit with us and had a look at the script too, and I asked her what she thought. I don’t understand all the Spanish, it’s a bit majestic, I guess, she said. I liked the offhanded way she neutered words that were meant to be powerful. Then all the men started yelling at each other about the new Mexican president and the fraudulent election. The Zócalo in Mexico City was filled with thousands and thousands of protesters. They’ve been there for a week already, said Diego, and they refuse to budge. He said he thought it made more sense to wait for rain in the desert than for justice in Mexico City.

The clouds were moving around, bulging and darkening here and there but nothing else. It was getting late and I had to get Aggie home before my dad got back from the field or from town or wherever he was. She and I were still arguing. I told her that she was risking a lot by being out here with the film crew and that she was being foolish. I told her how much her brazenness bugged me because she didn’t have a clue what she was doing.

Well, why are you here then, Irma? she said. You’re a hypocrite.

I’m here because it’s a job and I have no money and no family. Nothing! I said. I have nothing to lose. You should go home and stay away from me.

I was starting to sound like Jorge.

You can’t tell me what to do, she said.

You’re an idiot, I said. You have no idea.

Most of the crew had fallen asleep on a tarp, surrounded by equipment and empty water bottles, and Diego and José were talking quietly in the truck. I knocked on the window.

I need to get Aggie home, I said.

Diego got out of the truck and stood there squinting up at the sky. We’ll give up on today, he said. I thought it was the rainy season now.

It’s supposed to be, I said.

Do you think God is punishing us? said Diego.

Why, what did you do? I said. He told me he was just joking.

Will you be able to make a meal for the crew when we get back? he said. A woman from the village was supposed to come but she took my money and never came. Her brother told me she went to America. Or she is dead. I’m not sure.

I’m not sure I have time, I said. Aggie has to get back and I’m worried—

Now you’re worried, said Diego. First Marijke, now you. You girls are professional worriers, I’ll say this.

I’m not going back, Irm, so don’t worry your pretty little head over me, said Aggie.

You don’t know that expression, I said.

You don’t know everything, said Aggie.

We’ll stop and buy some food and it’ll be green and good for your anemia, said Diego.

Not mine, Marijke’s, I said.

Okay, said Diego. I could make it myself but José and I have paperwork to fill out and the guys are still feeling a little sick. Plus, I promised in their contracts there would be meals and I’m worried about a mutiny. Please, Irma, I really need your help.

I didn’t say anything. I waited to feel that old familiar pain in my chest, my cue to continue.

I’ll do it, said Aggie.

No, you won’t, I said. She can’t.

Why not? said Diego. It makes no difference, you or her.

I want to do it, said Aggie.

No, I’ll do it, I said. It’s fine. No sweat.

Aggie started to say something to me in German, but Diego cut her off in English. You and Aggie can sit in the cab with José and me, said Diego. Marijke will drive with Alfredo.

What? I said. I told you, remember, that Marijke doesn’t want to drive with Alfredo. She’s worried that—

It’s all right, said Diego. I talked to Alfredo. I ran four times around the pasture with him and afterwards he was healthy.

José opened the passenger door for Aggie and me and we got in. Oveja jumped up and down throwing himself against the window, crying and howling. Aggie said we had to let him in and Diego said no, not possible, he had to ride in the other truck and Aggie said fine, let her out then, but the other truck had already taken off so Diego had to let Oveja ride with Aggie. The truck got stuck in the muddy field and we had to push ourselves out and José helped but fell and was covered completely in mud and very angry because he hadn’t brought extra clothes from Mexico City. We had to stop all over the place to buy supplies, food and water and beer and gas and some new pants for José.

Aggie and Oveja and I sat on a box outside a store in Rubio and looked around. Aggie couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to town. She was making some jokes and goofing around but I was trying to ignore her. Did you know that there’s this country that nobody really knows about that’s kept in an office building in Paris? she said.

A girl wandered over to us and asked if she could sit down too, and we all moved over a bit and waited. She didn’t look much older than Aggie. She was drinking some juice out of a plastic bag. She told us her name was Lindsay Beth and that she was from Indianapolis. We told her we were Irma and Aggie from nearby and that the dog was Oveja.

Why are you dressed like that? she said. We shrugged and looked around some more. That a pit bull? she asked. We nodded.

Are you here all by yourself? said Aggie.

Yeah, she said. They had to keep me in a cage.

Who kept you in a cage? said Aggie.

Rehab, she said. She told us they had thrown a box of soap in her cage and she was supposed to use it to carve her urges into shapes and she’d carved a giant key.

I would kill for OxyContin, she said.

Then how are you allowed to travel all by yourself? I asked her.

It’s about establishing trust, she said.

What is OxyContin? said Aggie.

This is the last time my parents are going to bail me out, said Lindsay Beth. I’m not actually by myself.

She was wearing pyjama bottoms that said dark side of the moon all over them. A little boy who had been playing around in the dirt came over and practised his reading on her legs. He poked at her pyjamas. His small finger traced the words. Dark. Side. Of. The. Moon, he said. Dark side of the moon. Dark side of the moon. Dark side of the … He pulled the fabric a bit where it had crinkled … moon.

This is my brother’s kid, she said. We waved at him.

Where’s your brother? I asked her.

Inside, she said. We’re on our way to the last ditch hotel. They’re supposed to make excellent smoothies there, that’s all I know, and that’s all my stomach can absorb. My brother will drop me off and only pick me up again if I’m clean at the end of it. Otherwise I’ll just be released into the atmosphere like a toxic gas. I’ll just wander around the desert like Neal Cassady or whatever and eventually lie down for a nap on railway tracks.

She told the kid to go and find his dad. She told us that her brain had disintegrated to the point where her eyeballs had minds of their own and that even when she knew she was staring straight ahead her eyeballs would do their own thing and look elsewhere, off to the side or up towards the sky. She told us that even her one-thousand-dollar-a-day rehab facility in Malibu with equine therapy had failed to take. They think my brother will help me but he won’t. He’s fed up. She pointed at the store. I have to want to stay alive or not. I told her it looked like she wanted to.

Do you? said Aggie. She had stood up and was facing Lindsay Beth with her hands on her hips.

Well, she said, I want my hair to stop falling out. She pulled out a chunk of her hair and showed it to us. She held it tenderly in her hand like a wounded bird. Aggie stared at it for a long time and seemed distressed when the girl finally threw it into the wind and it flew off towards El Paso. We talked for a while about things and played a little hide-and-seek game with the boy and waited and waited.