By the Light of My Father's Smile (12 page)

He wanted desperately to tell the youth the truth, of course. He wanted to tell them to run like hell, from him and from anybody else in uniform. But there he was, stuck to his Purple Heart and Congressional Medal of Horror, I mean Honor, like a fly stuck to a piece of cheese.

So what did he do? I asked.

He tried to tell them how to stay alive. That, he said, was his field of expertise. The only thing he felt he knew how to do. But they weren't Indians. They were soft American farm boys and even softer and sillier urban ghetto youth. Besides, he and they knew the military was the only job they were ever likely to get. The farm youth were bored to death with peace and television; the urban youth risked death several times a day just walking to the corner. He would talk to them all morning, then go back to his hotel room and drink.

He didn't know how to stay alive, I said. Accepting the cup of coffee she handed me.

She shrugged. He died singing, she said.

Oh, I said.

Yes. He died singing his initiation song. When we lived in the mountains he taught it to me, and I used to sing it all the time.

Magdalena began to hum, then to sing softly under her breath:

I remember that, I said. I almost do.

I'm telling you, I used to sing it all the time. Or hum it. It drove Daddy crazy, which was part of the reason I did it. At some point, I realized years ago, he really did change himself into a priest; it was as if all his Bible reading and acting to fool the Mundo became part of who he was. I used to think of it as his having been overtaken by his ancient reptilian brain.

It was odd, wasn't it? I said. Both Mama and Daddy were atheists.

They were colossal liars, said June. Always spying on the Mundo and scribbling in their evil gray notebooks.

Their work would have been funded today, I said. Some anthropological society, integrated by now, would certainly spring to the aid of such a fresh, spunky, intelligent-sounding black couple, interested in the doings of a mixed-race tribe like the Mundo.

The church enslaved them, in a way, said June. Forcing them to do its work in order to do their own.

It's hard to imagine that they pulled it off, I said. Daddy preaching about stuff he hardly knew, or cared, a thing about. Mama pretending to be pious.

Fucking kept them going, my sister said bitterly.

Oh yes, I said, laughing. You would never believe how long it took me to understand why it did!

I remember when Magdalena asked me why in my tribe we consider the mad dog wise. It was like her to ask such a question. Her little sister, Susannah, hardly asked anything. She was content to trail sedately behind her parents. In truth, her father spoiled her. It was clear he thought her beautiful only when she was moving very slowly, or when she was still. He would gaze at her as if she were a flower, with no more mobility than a flower possesses. Not so Magdalena. She was all over the place, sticking her nose everywhere. All the elders loved her, because she was still wild. They would tell her stories for as long as she could sit still, and she would run errands for them.

The mad dog is considered wise because it has lost its mind, I said. Which is one of the most difficult things in the world to do. Our people take herbs once a year to lose their minds all together, at once. Instead of thoughts, we have visions, and that is how we guide ourselves.

But why would you want to lose your mind? she asked bluntly, frowning. That sounds stupid to me.

No, no, I said. In the world that you come from, people put too much emphasis on the mind. You could even say they have become mind only.

What do you know about the world I come from? she asked.

I will tell you about that later, I said, but right now I want to tell you about why the mad dog is wise.

Oh, okay, she said, putting her hand on her hip and looking up at me.

She was so pretty! Magdalena. Even when we were still only children I wanted to kiss her. Her lips were full and round; in the summer she became very brown, almost black. Her cheeks were like chocolate. I wanted to lick them. Her spirit was bold; whatever she felt never left her eyes.

Mad dogs bite people, she said now.

That is not the part we like, I said. Nor the drooling or frothing at the mouth, nor the fear of drinking water, either. It is only the losing-of-the-mind part.

Aha, she said.

It is a way of saying you must not live too much in your head. It is a way of reminding you to stay in your emotions, no matter how nutty they are; it is a way of saying, also, that craziness has value.

But wisdom? she said. I don't know if I see that.

The elders say you do not see wisdom to recognize it until you are old.

Well, she said, laughing, nobody could ever get as old as them.

Somehow the elders heard of this retort. They found it amusing. And that is when she began to be called Mad Dog. Which her father insisted must be MacDoc. And then even this nickname embarrassed him. He did not understand that Magdalena was what we called a Changing Woman, a natural one, uninstructed and uninitiated, and therefore very rare.

We saw this immediately. Even on the first day they came to our village. It is easy to recognize a Changing Woman–to–be, even in the person of a small girl. She will be the one who appears to look at everything, deliberately. She will be the one who appears to have no shame. For what good would shame be to someone who might become at any moment that of which she is ashamed?

Even as the bus dragged me, I sang. Though by then I must have been already dead. Among my people this is considered extremely lucky. It means I will continue to sing, to live, on the other side. At least until my tasks are done. That is what the initiation song promises, even though when you learn it you are so young you cannot possibly understand.

And that is why my horse's name was Vado, which means a place in the river where it is easy to cross.

I did not want to leave Magdalena, but now, from where I am, I can see that it was a perfect time to go. That I, in pieces, had been saved for her, returned to her. But I was like a limp rag that was temporarily starched by her love. I stood tall for a moment at her side. Long enough to tell her that I, too, understood that we were meant for each other. That what we'd shared was real. For that was also part of her hunger. To know she was not in a forsaken love alone.

Among the Mundo there is the teaching of nonpossession of others. But I left the tribe so young that it was a lesson only partly learnt. The lesson I did learn was that there is one other soul in each of our lifetimes to which we are primarily drawn. It is a body and a soul attraction. When it is found, what one notices inescapably, is that there is no fear of what anyone thinks. You do not say, Who will like this? What offense will we give? You say only Thank Mama (our conception of God) or Thank Luck. Since to us Mama (everything that is) and Luck are the same.

My father worked in a meatpacking plant when I was a child, I said to Susannah. Even then, the late Forties, immigrants from Eastern Europe and undocumented workers from Mexico were beginning to be offered the dirtier, lower-paying jobs that men like my father held; he was extremely upset by this. Workers who barely spoke English, whom he'd trained on some noisy, greasy machine, soon rose above him at the plant. All his anger and selfpity was brought home to our door. A scratched and scarred door that was so hideous and forbidding, reeking as it did of the misery on the other side, that as a teenager I saved money from my baby-sitting to buy a small can of yellow paint and painted it “sun.”

I have often told Susannah of my childhood because she is endlessly fascinated by stories of survival.

How did your mother feed all of you? she asks, her eyes wide.

In our house, I replied, nothing was ever thrown away. Not even bones.

Not even bones, she echoes, whenever she hears this. What could she possibly do with bones?

Make stock, I reply.

Stock? she says, as if it is a word not found in culinary conversation.

Stock, I reply. There was the stock of the stockyard, I explained, that was not far from the meat-processing and packing plant in which my dad worked. But this stock was a broth that my mother used as a base for making soup.

Oh, she says. She might be brushing her long, sable-colored hair, or painting her nails. I might have just fucked her silly.

We were poor, I'd say.

You were poor, she'd echo, as if the concept of not having plenty was one she could not quite grasp.

But my father's stereotypical belligerence, hostility, maudlin and abusive bullying were not all there was to him. There was a whole other side, I said. When he was in his right mind, as my mother called it. After he'd bathed and napped and had a good dinner; after he'd reviewed our report cards and found them satisfactory; after he'd forgone a first drink and lured my mother into their back bedroom, he was a father full of funny stories and play. He was a father who loved to repair things, a father who played the guitar.

At this notion of fatherhood Susannah always perked up. Oh, she might say, he sounds great.

I would ponder this, perhaps while caressing the inside of her thigh.

He was ordinary, I think, I might say.

Tell me again about how you got pregnant, she would ask, just as a child might ask for a fairy tale.

It was in the spring, I would begin.

Wait, wait, she would say. If it was spring, we must open the windows. Or, if it was wintertime where we were, she'd say, Oh, if it was spring, we have to light a candle or make a fire. Ritual mattered to her, more than to anyone I'd ever known. I would wait while she raised the window, lit a candle, laid a fire, or whatever.

It was spring, I would begin again. I was fifteen.

Fifteen, she would echo.

Fifteen, I would say.

Do bad things always happen to young girls of fifteen? she would ask.

Don't interrupt, I'd say.

I believe they do, she'd say, breathlessly.

There was a nice man who was a friend of my family. I did not think he was all that nice. I mean, he was okay but if he'd never come to dinner at all I would have been happy.

You mean you wouldn't have missed him?

Right.

Go on.

I'm trying to.

Sorry.

Aren't you going to ask me again how poor we were? I'd ask.

Oh, she'd say. I'd forgotten that part.

Even before the nice man came to dinner and started to stare at me across the dinner table, we were poor. My father worked all day processing and packing meat. He smelled like meat. He brought meat home for us to eat, hidden in his clothes. Actually, the clothes he worked in he left at the packing plant. I never even saw those. He said that at the end of the day they were so greasy and pukey and bloody they could stand up by themselves. At night all the workingmen's clothes were collected and boiled.

Ew, said Susannah.

In winter he wore a big coat; inside it, my mother had made lots of pockets. We would run to him when we heard his key in the door and pull meat from each of his pockets. If he wasn't too drunk and evil, this made him laugh.

How many were you? she'd ask, her brown eyes darkening in anticipation.

Twelve, I said.

Twelve, she'd reply, as if stunned.

Ten children, I'd say hastily.

She would remain silenced by the thought.

Ten children, all with mouths, my mother used to say.

And were you the eldest? she'd ask.

I was near the middle, I'd say. Number four.

How did you avoid being lost there? she wanted to know.

For some reason, this always made me laugh uneasily. In therapy I discovered I had felt lost, but while I was at home I'd considered myself very important. The older children had my parents for parents, I said. The younger ones had me.

Oh, she'd say, puzzled.

I was a mother from the age of five, I said. It happened gradually. Lily Paul, hand me the diaper; Lily Paul, hand me the baby's bottle. Lily Paul, hold Joey. By the time I was eight I could cook dinner while holding one baby and watching over two more.

No, said Susannah, eyes wide.

Your eyes are wide as saucers, I'd say.

Because she was a writer, this description of herself always made her laugh.

But if you were so important, I don't understand why they wanted to marry you off. You were the perfect hired help, except you weren't even hired.

I only really cared about school, I said. It was a passion with
me. I would sneak off to school in the morning after I'd gotten the other children out of the house. I'd leave my mother's babies there for her to tend to. Which she was by then too sick to do.