| THE TRUMPET
FLOWER, by Susan Wetherall |
CHAPTER ONE
The
termites came in April in Nicaragua at the start of the rainy
season. They came at night, like moths drawn by the lamps, swarmed
through the open doors, clouds of them, dropped their wings,
and lay
wriggling on the tables and floor and couch. On our laps and
in our
hair if we sat still long enough. And even if we swept them
up right
away, some always managed to get to wood and lay their eggs.
Then,
they would die.
We made preparations in
late March during the suffocating
stillness that preceded the rains. With tropical houses impossible
to
screen, the local custom was to paint all exposed wood with
gasoline
to repel the invaders, and in the event that some were not sufficiently
disgusted by the stench and actually did lay their eggs, then
to kill
them before they hatched.
We did this in 1967, and
in 1968. And again in 1969 though by
then the drought had taken hold and the termites stayed away.
We
were fooled though. For weeks the weather was gray and gluey
and
close. The heat sat in the lungs and behind the eyeballs. Already
crops were ruined and people were angry, over bus fares, the
price of
milk, the price of bread and eggs. Señoras
slapped their maids and
children arrived home from school with bloody noses. Our very
own
landlord, the lawyer Dr. Medina, had a shootout with a client
in his
office and the two of them ended up being carted off to the
hospital in
the same ambulance.
The newspapers had a field
day with that one. Demonstrations
over food prices became Communist revolutions in the Somoza
press.
Crimes of passion, especially those committed by government
supporters, got banner headlines in the opposition press, squeezing
out the usual three headed chickens and bovine immaculate
conceptions.
I have no idea if Marshall
remembers it this way. I suspect not.
He always said moderation was not my strong suit, and he was
right.
Either/or's are as intoxicating to me as hindsight ever was
to him. For
me, hindsight is too soothing. Here's what I remember, what
I know
now to be true: there was a revolution; people died; some of
them I
knew. And smug we may be, or safe at this remove, but we are
no
wiser now than we were then surrounded by our gas soaked furniture
in a land of unspent matches.
She woke with a jolt. The
early morning light filtered through
the curtains. Marshall slept on his back, his head tilted toward
her on
the edge of his pillow, his breathing light and even.
Julia eased away from him,
held her breath and counted down
the seconds before the clock-radio clicked on to the last beats
of a
cumbia.
"Buenos
días," shouted the announcer, "From
Radio Managua,
the eighteenth of June, we bring you the news. This morning
at 4:10,
Managua was visited by another tremor registering five-point-two
on
the Richter scale. The epicenter occurred approximately sixty
miles
west of Puerto Somoza. Volcanic activity at Cerro Negro remains
unchanged."
She sighed. Five point two
and she hadn't felt a thing. Again.
"A nest of Communist
antisocial subversives were surprised in a
residence of the Barrio Frixione yesterday, in the early hours
of the
morning by the heroic forces of our National Guard."
"Oh my!" She turned
toward Marshall, ran the tip of her finger
over the ridge of his shoulder and down his arm. "You hear
that?
They left out 'terrorists.' They're slipping."
He grunted, opened one eye.
"Which station's that?"
"His very own of course."
He sat up, swung his legs
to the floor. She stared at her
abandoned finger. He had such broad shoulders, broader from
the
back than from the front. "He left out anarchists,"
she murmured,
"and licentious, and lawless, and no-count, and shiftless...the
pinko
creep must be going soft on Communism...."
He yawned, scratched his
chest. "You started the ice yet?"
"It's a week away.
How many ice cubes do ten people need?"
She walked her fingers across the sheet, step, step, to his
rumpled
blue pajamas, but before she got there he stood and stretched
and she
fell back on the pillow wondering if he'd seen her.
The slam of a car door sounded
over the chug of the air
conditioner. Carrillo, the fat doctor who specialized in ladies'
diets and
gunned the engine of his car every morning for five minutes
in
memory of his years of medical residence in Alaska.
Marshall looked at his watch.
"Six fifty-two," he said. "He's
early."
"That's what I'm telling
you. Something's up. Did you feel the
earthquake last night?"
"Nope." He pulled
the seat of his pajamas out from the crease
of his rear-end. "How big?"
"Five-point-two according
to the voice of Tacho here." She
caught at the last words, tried to reel them back, or change
their tone.
But he only shook his head and raised an eyebrow. Her fingers
itched
to push up those heavy lids and check the color of his eyes,
as if by
that she could check the color and the temperature of his thoughts.
She sat up as he headed
for the bathroom, "You know, for a socalled
legitimate president..."
He stopped. "For God's
sake, Julia, this early in the morning?"
Caught between relief and
sorrow that she could always call him
back through anger, she shook her head. She felt the softness
of his
hair in those same fingertips, hungry fingers, his head jerking
back.
She splayed them up before her eyes and absorbed his look of
recognition, the sudden irritation.
"Purity, cleanliness,
good health," sang the radio. "Drink leche
La Salud."
He came back to the bed.
"I'd feel differently," he said, "if you
actually knew what you were talking about."
You shit, she thought. She
fell back on her pillow again. "He's
a shit!" She bore down on the forbidden word. There, take
that!
But he surprised her. "So
he's a shit, Julia. Who isn't? You
think we're so pure?" He jerked his chin toward the north,
"He just
happens to be the shit that makes things work around here."
"Makes the trains run
on time."
A flush spread across his
cheeks and she saw with surprise that
she'd actually made a hit.
He moved toward the window,
broad shoulders slightly bent,
swung the drapes aside and cranked open the glass louvers. Warm,
flower-scented air, tinged with exhaust fumes, flowed in.
He peered through the louvers.
When he spoke his voice was
flat and calm. "If it weren't for him, Julia, you wouldn't
be living in the
lap of luxury. Oh for God's sakes, would you believe, he's gone
in for
a second cup of coffee and left the bloody car on! We're going
to die
in our beds some day while he stokes up."
When he turned around he
was smiling. He held a tail of the
gold silk drapes in one hand. "You know what, Julia? I
like living in
the lap of luxury." The drape billowed toward her, "I
like cathedral
ceilings and wrought iron chandeliers," he pointed up and
then brought
his hand swooping downward, "I like marble floors."
To her astonishment he did
a little march-slap-step with his bare
feet, ending up at the foot of the bed. "And from all the
evidence I
see, so do you. Two maids, a gardener, pretty good for a girl
from
Toledo whose parents owned a diner." He held his hands
up before
she could speak. "Nothing against diners. But I don't see
you serving
your guests meat loaf and lima beans. Nope, it's boeuf
en croute for
you. And by God, a croute with
little pastry buttons, I bet." His
fingers plunked three buttons down onto an imaginary pastry.
She wanted to laugh, wanted
to hug him. "Nope," she said.
"This time I'll put a zipper on it instead." She grinned
at him and he
grinned back.
"You're right,"
she said softly, "When I let myself, I like it too."
"Then try to enjoy
it. Speaking of which, I've got a French white
for that shrimp, and a Spanish red..."
"Mother!" shrieked
Becka. The door flew open. "She's got my
uniform again. Make her take it off!" Becka stood in the
doorway,
school blouse, underpants, bare, skinny legs and heavy school
shoes.
Caley danced past her, dressed
in nothing but the brown and
white jumper. It dragged along the floor and her belly button
showed
above the waistband. Becka made a grab, caught one strap, Caley
twisted away and a button flew off.
"See!" Caley sang,
"She tore it!"
Becka pounded the door frame
with her fist. "I want my
uniform."
"Caley, give it to
her," said Julia.
"Who me?"
"Caley." Marshall's
voice dipped ominously.
Caley dropped the other
strap off her shoulder and let the
uniform fall to her feet. "I don't want it anyway."
She stepped out of
it, kicked it across to her sister, slapped her belly and struck
a pose.
Becka snatched up the uniform.
"Someday you're going to get
it, Caley Bennett. You're going to get it and am I going to
be glad.
I'm going to be so glad, I'm going to scream." And she
jerked back
her head and screamed, "Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God,"
until
Marshall yelled "Knock it off!"
"Thank you," said
Becka in a normal voice. "Thank you, God."
She clomped off to her room. "Thank you, thank you, thank
you."
Julia looked up at Marshall.
"I can't believe it,"
he said.
She started to smile.
"The most Estimable
Ambassador of our good neighbor,
President Nixon," proclaimed the radio announcer, "the
highly
respected Bigelow Hunnicutt, will honor his Extreme Excellency,
Anastasio Somoza Debayle, our General in Chief, Veritable Hurricane
of Peace,..." Marshall burst out laughing and Julia tuned
the radio
louder, "...with a gala reception on Friday next, in celebration
of the
said Supreme Commander's Glorious Leadership in the cause of
Freedom and Democracy."
Julia pulled the sheet over
her head.
"Put some clothes on,
Caley," said Marshall, "You'll be late for
Kinder."
Through the sheet Julia
heard the bathroom door close.
"Don't use up all the
hot water," she yelled.
He poked his head back out.
"I never have any trouble."
"That's 'cause you
always get there first."
"Yup." He closed
the door.
"Have you called the
landlord?"
"What's to call?"
he yelled.
"There's a leak. I
know there is."
The door opened. "Yeah,
right! Under the living room floor, you
can feel it with your bare feet. I know all about it."
And the door
closed again.
She slumped over her knees
and the energy slowly drained
away. She took a deep breath and rolled out of bed. "I'm
going to
call the landlord myself," she whispered to Caley who was
still in the
doorway. Caley's eyes went round. That was Daddy's work, even
she
knew that.
Julia took a slow, gliding
step forward. "And I'm going to tell
him," she stopped, "What'll I tell him?" She
took another step.
Caley shook her head, but
stood her ground.
"I'm going to tell
him..." she bounded forward, caught Caley up
in her arms and buried her face in the soft flesh of her neck.
"I'm
going to tell him there's a leak in the system!"
There
was nothing playful about it, there was a leak in the
system. And today, nearly thirty years later, I do not want
to think
about it. How much would I rather hide my face in that soft
flesh
again, to close my eyes and think it was all about getting enough
hot
water to take a bath. Enough is enough!
Except that here I am, waiting
for him, sitting on a bench under
a young maple tree that refuses to give up its leaves even though
its
elders all around have shed theirs. A single racing scull heads
east on
the Charles river, the coxswain shouting at her rowers, and
many
seconds later, the long, slow, glistening coil of the wake breaks
against
the stones at my feet and scatters.
It was bloody two A.M. when
he called, damn him! The sound
tearing through my belly and chest like a train and I came up
crying,
snatching for the receiver. It hit the floor and I flopped over
the edge
of the bed to scrabble for it, already sobbing. Not Becka, not
Caley,
not again!
"Julia!" The sound
exploded at me. Marshall always shouted on
long distance calls. I should have remembered that. Like his
father,
for whom the phone was an enemy invented solely to bring bad
news
and ruin the family finances.
"What?" I shouted
back. "What is it?"
There was a minute pause.
I heard the terror in my voice and
swallowed hard to keep from screaming at him. He knew better,
he
was their father! It wasn't all that long ago.
"What’s wrong?"
he bellowed, a half tone lower.
"It’s two A.M.
For God's sake, what's happened?"
"Nothing. Nothing."
Then why the fuck are you
calling at bloody two A.M. in the
bloody, goddammed morning, you schmuck, I thought and swatted
at
Tilly who had come over to sniff and lick.
This time there was a very
long pause and I suddenly realized I'd
spoken out loud. Oh God, five, six years, since we've spoken
and this
is what I come out with. I closed my eyes and rolled back up
onto the
pillow, waiting for the inevitable.
But for once it didn't happen.
For once he did not slam the
phone down and go trotting back to his well-behaved, tidy, little
English wife. Instead he picked up where we might have left
off, and
with hardly a tremor of disapproval or anything else, did I
not know
him so well, he asked to see me sometime today, here in Boston.
I
stared at the phone in wonder. He'd take the early commuter
from La
Guardia, he said, and meet me wherever, whenever, so long as
he
could get back to the City by nightfall. It was almost cut and
dried,
but there was that in his voice which told me I had better not
miss this
one, not exactly "or else," but a tremor of anxiety
and of anger,
almost of pleading. It is not a word I have ever associated
with
Marshall.
Which is really why I'm
out here now, ankle deep in dead leaves,
scared, and angry, and excited. It's curiosity, I tell myself.
Something's up, something's happened, and whatever it is, I
want to
know about it.
Someone I loved once asked
me which would I rather be,
omniscient, omnipotent, or all-loving, and without a moment's
pause, I
said omniscient. To know, to see around the corner and through
the
barriers, to understand. I thought this was wisdom. After all,
power
corrupts and love betrays, but it was only taken as yet another
measure of my alienhood, of how far out of the garden I had
been
cast.
There was a woman who had
a sausage stall in the market on
the west side of Managua. Berfalia, a huge woman, with more
bulk
The Trumpet Flower 7
even than Tacho, and certainly more stature. She it was who
told me
to go home, by which she meant back where I came from. She was
only trying to protect someone she loved very much. And I was
the
enemy.
How could she know she’d
touched down on the dilemma of my
life? Where exactly is home? My Mom once told me when she'd
had
too much to drink, that the day I was conceived, the doctor
had told
her she was ovulating, something to do with consistency and
viscosity
of secretions, drink did tend to make her exquisitely specific.
Anyway,
she called my dad up at the diner and made him come home. Now,
when things fall abruptly out of focus, I wonder if somehow
I was
called up out of sequence, plucked from a future life in Bali,
or Siberia,
or who knows, it could have been Nicaragua. It is then I picture
myself telling Berfalia, "But I was really meant to be
here."
"So?" she'd say,
and wrack up another sizzling sausage.
Whoever I was, I was not good for her or hers. And we both knew
it. |
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