Irma Voth

FIVE

AGGIE AND I WALKED FOR A FEW HOURS, all the way to San Juan, a tiny village a few miles away. We didn’t walk right into the town, that would have caused more problems, but to the frayed edge of it. It was still very dark, the village was silent, but we wanted to see the small, twitchy boy who’d built himself a very high unicycle and had to come up with ingenious ways of getting on and off it. We didn’t see him. We hadn’t seen him in years actually but we thought that life was messed up enough that night that it could happen. And then back to my place. When we got there Aggie asked me to remind her of the cold in Canada. How parts of your body go numb and all you can do is keep moving or you will definitely die.

I want that, said Aggie.

You want your body to go numb or you want to keep moving? I said.

I’m not sure, said Aggie.

I think that’s normal, I said.

How would you know what’s normal? she said.

That’s a good question, smartass, I said, but I’m trying to make you feel better.

We lay side by side in bed. Aggie began to cry and I held her.

She finally fell asleep and my arm was trapped beneath her and I didn’t want to wake her up so I let her lie on my arm all night long and in the morning when she woke up I told her that she wasn’t going home again, that home had changed, that home, like thoughts, according to Marijke, were random patterns of atoms flying around and forever on the move. And I considered telling her that if thoughts and home were random patterns then actions were too, all actions, tender, desperate, lucid, treacherous ones and the promises we make and break, the secrets we share with dying Venezuelans, and the bruises and bleeding cuts on her back. All of them random patterns. And that they didn’t mean a thing.

The rain that was forecast for today hasn’t come. Diego is obsessed with the sky and is worried that if it doesn’t rain soon his movie will be ruined. He is wondering, out loud, about alternative sources of rain. He’s made a call to the bomberos, the firefighters, to see how much water they hold in their tanks and how far their hoses can spray it.

We’re all at the table, eating toast and eggs and fruit quickly, about to leave for our next location. I’m not sure exactly where it is but I think it’s a hill, somewhere south of here. I’m nervous about everything. Aggie can’t go back home and she can’t go to school because if she goes to school they’ll make her go back home. Marijke is talking to Aggie about astral projection and while she talks she puts her hand gently on Aggie’s cheek. Elias is talking about the constitution of the avocado which, when he bites into it, makes him feel like he’s eating a baby. Alfredo isn’t here yet but I think he’ll meet us at the hill. I only get bits and pieces of information. I can hear Wilson telling Sebastian that his home is where he can do his art and I can see him listening and nodding respectfully. He doesn’t want Wilson to leave again so he’s willing to listen to his theories. Wilson smiled at me when I handed him his plate of eggs and toast and he whispered something but I couldn’t understand it. Miguel has already left the table and is hauling equipment out to the trucks. Diego and José are reading something, a piece of paper, and Diego is pointing at it and talking very fast and rubbing his arm vigorously. The rebel spirit of my grandfather is directing this film! he said. José is perfectly still, like a kid playing freeze tag, waiting to be tapped. Neither one of them has spoken to Marijke, or even looked at her. Aggie has a cut lip and the red outline of a hand and all its fingers on her left cheek and Marijke hasn’t moved her own hand from it yet. I think she’s redirecting energy but I’m not sure. I’m nervous. I need to talk to Diego about getting paid and about Aggie getting paid too, if she’s also going to help with the movie, but he seems so agitated right now and is already worried about how much everything is costing him so I’ll wait until tonight when hopefully he’ll have gotten the shot that he and the rebellious spirit of his grandfather are looking for and his life will be worth living once again. Now he looks a little sad. He’s smiling at me wistfully, I think, as though I remind him of someone he once knew and liked.

We’re at the hill and Alfredo still isn’t here because of some family situation and Diego is upset. Elias has to listen to him while Diego explains that when he is on a plane and thinks that it might crash or when he’s in a car and it’s about to veer off a cliff he doesn’t think about his family. He thinks about his film. How he has to finish his film because it is his duty to finish his film. That’s how he thinks. He picks up a stick and says it has as much meaning as his own unborn child and then throws it far into the scrubby bushes.

I hate meaning! he says. Why is everyone searching for meaning? Elias stands and listens to Diego. He looks at the sky and nods, as though God is telling him it’s okay, Elias, my son, be patient, Diego won’t be angry forever, just listen for a little longer.

Aggie and I have been hauling stuff up to the top of the hill. Fruit, juice, water, granola bars. We’re wearing cowboy boots to protect us from the snakes. Marijke is sleeping in one of the trucks which are parked at the bottom of the hill and probably stuck in the mud. Her legs are protruding from the passenger side window. She doesn’t have to be here today for this shot, she’s not in it, but she didn’t want to stay at the house all by herself because it makes her feel like she’s dead. José the producer has gone back to Mexico City with some of the reels of film. Everyone is gaunt and exhausted. It’s so hot out here and we’re so high up and it feels like the sun is punishing us for trespassing.

This is another shot of a kiss. A woman is here from Cuauhtémoc to kiss Alfredo who finally showed up. She was supposed to be a Mennonite from Campo 6.5 but Diego couldn’t find a local woman willing even to pretend to be Alfredo’s lover so he’s using this pale Mexican substitute. They’ve tied her hair back and put her in Mennonite clothes and moved her head over to the left for the shot so that it’s more of Alfredo’s face and less of hers that will be visible. They’re about to be passionate on top of this hill.

Sebastian, the soundman, is giving Alfredo more lessons in kissing. I’m trying to learn too. I see that it might work to put my hand on the back of Jorge’s neck and then move it slowly up towards his hair. Diego is telling Alfredo to infuse this scene with love and tenderness, to spread his passion over every inch of the shot softly and smoothly like mayonnaise. He is encouraging Alfredo to think of something romantic to say to the woman. Words are lubricants, Alfie, he’s saying. Alfredo is squeezing his eyes shut and seems to be thinking hard of what that could be. Aha, he’s got something good. He opens his eyes and points them, smouldering, at the woman and says, I’m not indifferent to you.

Diego is screaming. Not indifferent? he says. Not indifferent? He can’t stand this life anymore and has wandered away to find a branch to hang himself from. From a distance we can see him still waving his arms around and pointing at the sky and grabbing his head and picking things up and throwing them but we can’t hear him. It’s like he’s playing charades and the thing he’s been given to act out is apocalypse.

Alfredo says good riddance. He calls him Hitler and cracks open another vampiro. The others are wandering around and looking into the camera and up at the sky and getting things ready for the shot. Sebastian has kissed the woman from Cuauhtémoc at least seven times now, she’s starting to giggle, and Alfredo is standing off to the side with a strange smile on his face, watching and nodding. Aggie and I are sitting on boxes off to the side, braiding grass and talking. Oveja is lying on the ground next to us, panting and farting in the heat. We can hear Diego asking his actors what they think is so fucking funny about kissing.

Alfredo has just pulled a gun on Oveja. They’re official enemies. Before the actual kiss Alfredo is supposed to run, with ardour, to the woman and grab her zealously. Oveja saw Alfredo rehearsing this part and attacked him and Alfredo took his gun out of his pants and smashed Oveja on the head with it. Oveja backed off a bit and stood snarling at Alfredo who was yelling and ready to blow the dog to smithereens. He fired a shot into the air. Diego is now yelling also for Wilson to take the dog back down the hill and put him in the truck with Marijke. He’s trying to explain to Alfredo that Oveja panicked and was convinced that Alfredo’s intention was to kill the woman, not to kiss her, and how could he know otherwise, he was a dog. Are you not more rational than a dog, Alfie? Diego was yelling. He can’t understand your actions but you can understand his because you are a man. Now stop this and put your gun away. Alfredo is threatening to leave again for good and Diego is swearing one inch from Alfredo’s face. I’m going to put away my notebook and walk down the hill with Wilson and Oveja.

Aggie, I said, stay here.

Why? she said.

I’m going to the bottom to talk to Marijke.

I’ll come with.

No, stay here. I’ll be right back.

I wanna come.

No, stay here. I’ll be right back.

I’m coming with.

We caught up to Wilson and Oveja and I spoke to him quickly and softly in slangy Spanish that I’d learned from Jorge and that Aggie wouldn’t quite understand. Wilson asked me if he could put his arm around me while we walked.

Why? I said. Are you okay? I knew immediately that that had been a stupid question but I didn’t know what else to say. Aggie walked ahead of us with Oveja, and Wilson put his arm around my shoulders and told me I looked pretty. I told him I couldn’t do any more naked things with him like lying in the field without clothes on. I told him that I felt so guilty and so bad and that I was terrified of Jorge finding out and killing me. Wilson said he could understand that. But, I said, I wanted more than anything to be his friend and to save his life. That came out wrong. He told me I was funny, that I couldn’t save his life, but that we could be friends. It felt like we had come full circle, from one obvious point to another one just like it. I felt like I should have said other more important and unique things.

Wilson, I said.

Yes, Irma?

If you knew that this was your last day on earth what kind of story would you write? I asked.

Given that I would actually use that time to write a story?

Yeah.

I don’t know.

Oh.

But it’s a very good question.

I was rejoicing silently in my heart. I had asked a good question. And not only had I finally asked a good question, I had asked a good question of someone I was trying to be friends with as opposed to myself. A question that had breath attached to it, that had left my own body. Jorge told me not to ask questions, he hated them, he could always tell when I was about to ask one and he’d put his hand up and say no, please. Please. Was I betraying Jorge by asking a good question of Wilson?

We got to the truck and Marijke saw us and pulled her legs back inside through the window and smiled and said she had missed us and what was up? She got out of the truck and gave us all hugs. She looked tired. I wondered if it was true that she had been fucking José. I told her that we had had to take Oveja away from Alfredo. We all decided to have some potassium-replacing bananas and water and a rest before we trekked back up the mountain. We heard more shots being fired and I explained to Marijke that Alfredo was angry again.

Oh my God, she said in German, is he killing people?

No, no, I said, he’s firing his gun into the air. He doesn’t know how to kiss properly.

And that’s what’s making him so mad? she said.

No, it’s the dog, I said. Oveja attacked him.

Marijke laughed. Wilson was teaching Aggie how to walk on her hands but it was a logistical problem because of her dress.

Come here you pig, said Marijke. Oveja waddled over to her. He was bleeding from where Alfredo had bashed him on the head. Marijke stroked his nose and said loving things to him in German which I didn’t bother translating for him.

Then we heard Diego’s voice shouting from Wilson’s radio. He needed Marijke after all, he had changed his mind, he was so close to his perfect shot, and we were supposed to run up the mountain to where they were shooting immediately.

What about the sky? said Wilson.

It’s perfect, said Diego. Send the girls now and tell them to move fast.

Diego said that Elias was running down the mountain halfway to meet Wilson with a reel of film that Wilson was to put under the seat in the truck and lock the doors. And Wilson was supposed to give Elias a certain lens that he’d bring back up the mountain and everything was supposed to happen now, immediately! We were all about to head up the mountain when we saw Elias tumbling towards us and screaming in pain and the reel rolled along beside him on the ground. When Elias came to a stop Wilson kneeled beside him and inspected his leg and said he had to get him to a clinic because he thought his ankle might be broken and he radioed Diego to tell him what had happened and that his shot might not happen right now after all and Diego went insane over the radio and said we were done shooting for the day and possibly forever. He said that even if he’d been the original Creator he couldn’t have conceived of a more incompetent film crew than the one he had. Wilson switched his radio off. We carried Elias to the truck and he lay in the cab while Wilson drove and Marijke and Aggie and I sat in the back.

Do you think it’s possible to rot without even feeling it? said Aggie.

Rot? said Marijke. Like, decompose?

Yeah, said Aggie.

Without knowing? said Marijke.

Yeah, said Aggie. Like until it’s a bit too late.

This conversation was being shouted at top volume against the howling wind. I looked at Wilson through the back window of the cab, through the rear-view mirror. I saw him mouth some words to Elias. I could feel my stomach writhe inside of me.

I took my notebook out of my pocket and made a list of troubling things.

Aggie is now my responsibility.

Aggie has to go to school, at least in the fall. But where?

We have hardly any money.

Jorge might never come back.

Our father is going to sell the house.

I have to get a map.

We’ll have no place to live.

We’ll have to stand silently by the road like that Tara-

humara family. Forever.

I miss my mom.

I’m a bad wife.

I tore the page out of my notebook and threw it away into the wind and watched it float up and over towards Belize or maybe Paraguay. I opened my notebook to the first page where I had traced my hand and wrote the words we live only in your book of paintings here on the earth along the length of my ring finger. But it was so bumpy that none of it was legible and the letters looked like little worms burrowing under skin.

When we got to the clinic we unloaded Elias from the truck and carried him in. He was still groaning but we had stopped worrying about him. Marijke had gone off to wander around in the cornfield next to the barn. We had to walk past three deformed dogs to get to the desk where the nurse was sitting. Is this a vet or a clinic? said Wilson. It’s everything, I said. The nurse was my quasi cousin. She had white-blond hair like Aggie’s. Our great-grandpa had had thirty-one kids with three different wives who kept dying and we had all lost track of who was really who. She might have come from a different campo, like maybe 4 or 2.5 or something. She asked me if I was a Voth and I said yeah, you? She said no, Nickel, but used to be a Voth. I thought so, I said. She didn’t need to ask what was going on or who these guys were. She told us to carry Elias right into the doctor’s room and lay him down on the stretcher thing and the doctor would be there soon.

We heard some screaming. Finally the doctor came and told us to leave so that he could examine Elias and we went and sat outside on a fence to wait. We heard more screams coming from the barn.

What is that? said Wilson.

A mother, I said. She’s having a baby in that other room next to Elias’s. We were all quiet, even Aggie, listening to the woman scream.

I would just say no way and take the doctor’s gun and shoot myself in the head, said Aggie.

We listened to the woman some more. Except for those screams there was no sound at all.

That’s her husband, I think, I said. I pointed to a guy sitting in a truck with a bunch of little kids.

Why doesn’t he go in? said Wilson.

They don’t do that, I said.

Elias finally came hobbling out of the barn with crutches that were too small so he was hunched over like a little old man. Wilson walked with him back to the truck and Aggie rounded up Oveja and I went into the corn to find Marijke so we could go. It took me a while and when I found her she was sitting in the dirt, crying. I crouched down next to her and asked her what was wrong and she told me that she kept opening and closing her eyes thinking that eventually, when she opened them, she would see her son standing there in front of her. She was afraid she was going nuts in this fucking desert. She wanted to go back to Germany but she was afraid that Diego would kill her.

I can’t leave now, she said. Or his film will be ruined. And then he’ll kill me. It’s simple.

He won’t kill you, I said. That would be stupid.

He keeps saying he’ll kill Alfredo, said Marijke. So why wouldn’t he kill me?

He doesn’t mean it, I said. That’s how he talks.

I feel like I’m disappearing, she said. Look at me. Do you see me?

Yes, I see you, I said.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

We should go to the truck now, I said. Elias is done.

Sometimes I feel like my life is an invention, she said.

Well, I said, sometimes the only way I know I’m alive is when I feel the pain in my chest, because there’s no pain in heaven.

What makes you think you’ll be in heaven if you’re not alive? said Marijke.

I held my hand out to her and she took it and I pulled her up off the ground. I was just about to tell her that she was as light as air but remembered that that was the thing she was afraid of and I kept my mouth shut.

We drove home in silence, collectively worn out from the sun and our own individually wrapped pain. The crew had become smaller from being sick. Before it was hard to squeeze more than four people into the cab of the truck but now we could fit five. I asked Wilson to drop Aggie and me off at the end of my driveway. We had to milk the cows and then we’d come to the house to make some kind of meal for everyone. We got out of the truck without saying goodbye to anyone and found a box sitting in the middle of the driveway.

It’s more of your stuff from when you were little, said Aggie. I was milking furiously while she took out the clothing from the box and held each little undershirt and dress under the light bulb that hung down on a cord from the roof of the barn.

Wow, this is hideous, she said.

You wore it too, I said. And it was Katie’s before it was mine probably. Put it back in the box and then put the whole thing in the grain shed and come help me.

I wish Katie was here, said Aggie.

You do? I said. You never talk about her.

We’re not allowed to, said Aggie.

Or it’s just easier to forget, I said.

No, said Aggie. It’s the hardest thing in the world to forget.

Yeah, I said. You can talk about her with me if you want to.

I don’t want to.

You want her to be here, I said.

Yeah, said Aggie. But talking about her is useless.

No, it’s not, I said. What do you remember about her?

Nothing, said Aggie.

Aggie, I said. That’s not true. You do remember stuff. How can you want her to be here if you have no memory of her?

Well, you have memories of her, don’t you? said Aggie.

Of course I do, I said.

And don’t you want her to be here? said Aggie.

I said, I don’t think your question makes sense.

How can you not know? said Aggie. Didn’t you love her?

It’s not that, I said. Of course I loved her.

Dad said you love your imagination more than real life, said Aggie.

What? I said. That’s not true!

I’m just saying that’s what he said, said Aggie. Maybe it’s true. So what?

We should hurry, I said.

Why should we hurry? said Aggie. Are you in love with Wilson?

Just put all that stuff back in the box, I said.

At dinner Diego delivered a motivational speech to the cast and crew. He apologized for losing his temper on the mountain. He lost his composure and put his hand over his eyes and said he was sorry for putting us at risk. He asked Elias how his ankle was. Morale was low. Every five minutes something was going wrong. Diego had bought a bottle of tequila and was pouring shots for everyone, even Aggie. The Mexican woman he had hired to kiss Alfredo on the hill was eating with us too, along with two of her kids. I asked her in Spanish if she was having an okay time and she said she was waiting to get paid. Alfredo was lying on the couch with a pillow over his face. Diego acknowledged that the going was getting a little tough, that conditions were difficult and that time and money were running out, but he had faith that it would work out in the end and that seven months from now we’d all be wearing beautiful vêtements and drinking champagne on a party yacht at the Cannes film festival where the world had come to be blown away by our efforts.

The art of making a movie is an exploding bomb, he said, and while it destroys it also re-creates.

I attempted to translate this for Marijke but she didn’t really understand what I was trying to tell her. I had made her a giant bowl of green salad for her anemia and I kept pointing to it like all those pieces of lettuce were shrapnel or something and somehow emblematic of the creative process. I thought about grabbing the bowl and tossing the salad high up into the air and then picking up the pieces and returning them to the bowl but that just seemed dumb and by then Diego had moved on to compare the art of making a movie to anal sex (absurd and painful at first) and to the resurrection of Christ.

We need more blankets, said Elias.

And water, said Sebastian.

Wilson walked me and Aggie and Oveja back to my house. I whispered to him that I thought Marijke was having a hard time, that she was worried about going crazy out here.

Even with all her theories and voodoo? said Wilson.

Well, I said, this is the desert. He nodded and said that made sense. He said it took him a year to recover from one of Diego’s films. He’ll take your soul, he said. And then you have to spend some time afterwards looking for it.

Marijke doesn’t want to look around for her soul, I said.

For the sake of the mind, said Wilson, it’s very important to be able to communicate loneliness.

Well, I said, Diego wants Marijke to run down the road.

Run down the road? said Wilson.

To clear her mind, I said.

What did she say about that? asked Wilson.

Nothing, I said. I didn’t translate it for her.

Why not? said Wilson.

I don’t know, I said. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.

Because she might not come back? said Wilson.

That was the end of our conversation. He briefly touched my shoulder and I nodded once, the way a man would. We said goodbye. Then the night started in for real.

Aggie had gone to bed and I was sitting in the dark at the kitchen table. I was thinking about my family. Mostly about my mother. I tried to cheer myself up by remembering something from long ago. We’d had a phone in Canada. It was brand new. It had never rung. I remember answering it when it rang for the first time and giving it to my mom. It was my aunt Hildie. Katie and I listened to our mom with some astonishment while she talked to Aunt Hildie on the phone. Yes, my mom had said to her, you told me that. Yes, she said, I won’t forget. Yes, she said, I agree with you. I have to go now. Yes, she said, I’ll remember. Now Hildie, she said, you know I’d wish for you to die. Then she said goodbye and hung up the phone and went back into the kitchen like it was no big deal. Katie and I were laughing so hard and our mom stared at us and asked us in German what had gotten into us and we asked her the same question. She explained to us that Aunt Hildie had chosen that day to worry about what would happen to her if she fell into a coma and she didn’t want to be artificially resuscitated and wanted our mom to remember that.

Is it possible to communicate loneliness if the only person you’re sharing it with is yourself? I looked around my little house and thought: Oh! Is that a prayer? I got down on my knees and I bowed my head and folded my hands and whispered dear God, bring me love. Bring me love. Bring me true love. Bring me love. I opened my eyes and got back up and walked to the bedroom and got into bed next to Aggie and waited.

I waited and waited. Then there was a knock on the door. It was my father and he was there to inform me that he’d just sold my house to his something something, some kind of twice-removed whatever, and that I would have to get out and take Aggie, if she was there with me, but frankly he didn’t care where she was, and find other lodgings. Maybe we could get work cleaning for Mexican capos. If we were lucky.

I slammed the door in his face and listened. Nothing. I thought he must be walking back to his house. Then I heard some Bible verses being quoted and realized that he was still there.

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, he said. And then louder, a practised crescendo I’d heard a million times.

And he said unto him, Lord I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death!

I wondered if I should make some coffee or go back to bed.

And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me!

I couldn’t find my canister of coffee. I let a cupboard slam by accident and swore. I didn’t want Aggie waking up.

Then he demanded that I let him into the house. I didn’t say anything. He started yelling and Aggie eventually came out of the bedroom and together we stared at the door.

It’s Julius Voth, I said.

Don’t let him in, she said.

Then we heard another voice.

Who’s that? said Aggie.

I think it’s Diego, I said.

Our father asked him what he was doing there and Diego told him that he’d been outside staring at the sky, looking for signs of rain, and had heard yelling coming from my yard and then had started to wonder what was going on and if I was all right.

Well, now you can leave, said my father, and stay out of our business.

I will, said Diego, but why don’t you go home also.

You will not tell me what to do on my own property, said my father.

Aggie and I sat silently at the table waiting for it all to end. It took a while. Arguments between two visionaries are lengthy, I learned. One of these men will be dead soon, I thought. While they argued Aggie made shapes on the table with flour. Tiny words, then bigger, like an eye chart. And hearts and clouds and cacti and planets. I went far away in my head, back to Canada, to snow, to forts, to ammunition that could melt, to red wrists from sleeves on parkas that were too short, to eyes frozen shut with ice.