Read Online The Girl in the Glass by Jeffrey Ford - Free Book Online Page B

she said.
    "Antony? You saw him?"
    "From the upstairs window. I watched the whole thing."
    "I have one question," I said. "Why are you helping us?"
    "Not us," she said. " You . We Hindus have to stick together."
    "You were never convinced, even for a second, by my turban?"
    She shook her head.
    "When did you come north?" I asked.
    "'In twenty-four," she said. "I was eight."
    "The big year," I said. "Me too, but I was nine."
    "We got on a bus in Ciudad Juárez," she said, "and it took us to California. My parents went to work in Parks's orchard out there. I was sent to the mansion to work in the kitchen. My mother died of typhoid. My father was eventually repatriated. I was lucky, I suppose. When Parks moved here from California, I was brought along."
    The moonlight illuminated her face, and I could see the sadness in it. "¿Y tú?" she asked.
    "We lived in Mexico City, and my family survived the worst of the struggle—the shelling, Zapata's siege of the city, all of it. Just when it seemed that things were looking up, my father was caught in an exchange of gunfire between Zapatistas and Carranza's soldiers. He was on his way to the market."
    "How old were you?" she asked.
    "Four. Later, when the border opened in twenty-four, my mother took me and my older brother, Hernando, and we fled."
    "You pick crops?" asked Isabel.
    "No," I said. "My mother wanted to go east, to New York."
    "¿Por qué aquí?"
    "She heard farm labor was bad, that factory work was better. We got a small apartment in a building on the East Side, no heat, and we had to boil the water that came from the pipes. We were only there for a month before she didn't return from work one day. No one knew what happened to her. She just never came back."
    "You must have been scared," she said.
    "My brother and I were evicted and roamed the streets, eating out of garbage pails and scrounging leftovers from the back doors of restaurants, begging change."
    She put her hand out and lightly touched the side of my face. "And the handsome man with the mustache?"
    "He found me in the street, unconscious," I told her. "I'd been separated from Hernando, and I couldn't survive without him. I passed out in the gutter one night, and Schell just happened to be in the city on a job. He took me home and raised me."
    "Un milagro," she said.
    I nodded, clearing my eyes. It had been so long since I'd allowed myself to think about the past. All of the considerable effort put toward my studies had been an attempt to erase it. Sitting close to Isabel made the early days return, vivid and full of life, as if my memory was a room full of butterflies.
    LIKE A GHOST
    Y our English is perfect," she said.
    "Better than my swami?"
    She laughed. "Me da problemas."
    "You do well," I said. "I had private tutors. They came five days a week. Schell told me if I wanted to succeed here, I needed to get so good at the language that I could convince people that night was day."
    "And that's your life now," she said.
    I nodded, lifting the hat off my head.
    "What's your name?" she asked.
    I told her.
    "Siéntate a mi lado, and we'll watch the water," she said, patting the air beside her. I moved closer to her and turned to look out over the sound. Her hair lightly whipped across my face, carrying the vague scent of some spice. Leaning back, arms behind me and fingers braced against the rock surface, our shoulders touching, I was in a daze. My head swam, I felt weak and there was a nervous energy in my chest. We sat for some time in silence, and then she leaned against me.
    "Parks is sending me back to Mexico in the spring," she said. "The only reason he's waiting is that he doesn't want to train someone new during the holidays."
    "Why?" I asked, sitting forward and slipping my arm lightly around her shoulders.
    "His friends have told him it's not right to have a Mexican working for him. You know, La Depresión, the repatriation…"
    I wanted to say something to comfort her, but all I could offer was silence