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others. I have never known substantial peace, since my life has transpired in the shadow of paternal absence, war, pugnacious politicians, negligent martial arts instructors, and my mother’s endless troubles.
When I started elementary school and learned that there was another student named Paz (Spanish for peace) in my class, I decided to make friends with her and invite her to my home, so that my mother could have what she wanted most in life: and what she sometimes found in the tiny sleeping pills in a bottle which she desperately withdrew from her bureau drawer.
“My mom would like you to come over for dinner,” I said to Paz at recess. It was the first time we spoke.
She agreed.
“One of my friends wants to meet you. She’s seen you when you come to pick me up,” I said to my mother, who smiled gratifyingly.
This is how a long-lasting friendship was initiated not only between Paz and me but also between her and my mother. To compensate Paz for the benefits she bestowed on my mother, I gave her own mother hugs full of love. Her mother’s plumpness, which provoked so much ridicule in school, was a haven for me—a warm, comfortable pillow upon which I could lay my head.
Sometimes I suspected that Paz and I had been switched at birth: that her mother was biologically mine and mine was hers. Paz’s mother seemed to treat me with greater tenderness than Paz, and mine seemed to treat Paz with more intimacy than she treated me; we never could figure out if it this was out of common courtesy or an expression of their true allegiances. I learned about Paz’s father because of the pictures in the house, through the stories expressed in them. As it happens, her father was Ángel Márquez, a judo instructor. The martial arts and the lessons of the Toyama were unknown to me then. Its practitioners seemed like latent criminals: why else would they fight so violently? In time, I learned that the very night before the newspapers exposed the world to the first pictures of Mars from deep space, a mugging obstructed my father’s presence at my birth. The image of a band of brutal men in white uniforms with black belts kicking my dad in the face entered my mind when I viewed the photograph of Paz’s father, which probably explained why I disliked him without ever having met him; but the fact that he abandoned his family without warning one day, and Paz’s mother never smiled again, also shaped my scornful opinion of the man.
NASA launched the Viking 1 on a mission to Mars, inserting into the planet’s orbit in 1976. Talk of Martians occupied the center of our discussions then, being of personal and collective significance to us. It was of interest to me, personally, because it was rumored that an expedition of aliens would visit the Earth when peace reigned on our planet, and my mother needed this kind of peace even more than she needed my friend Paz.
“If the Martians come, I hope they take me with them,” my mother said in an unforgettably solemn tone.
“You’d really take off, just like that, and leave me behind?” I asked anxiously.
Her response mingled tenderness, disillusionment, lethargy, and curiosity. It was then that I learned of the coincidence between my birth and the first photographs from deep space of the planet Mars, which she showed me.
“I’ve always wondered what’s up there in the sky, what the worlds beyond ours are like. But no, honey, I wouldn’t leave you.”
Her answer calmed me, partially, but deep down I knew that her desire to leave this world was not fleeting, and that she really wanted to know if the peace she so desired might be found in another world.
I met Ángel Márquez in person at Paz’s mother’s funeral. Paz and I were in college by then, and her mother’s plumpness had escalated into morbid obesity. Her coffin had to be special-ordered, triple the size of the average one, to fit her entire body. Her husband, the judo instructor, looked much the same as in the
When I started elementary school and learned that there was another student named Paz (Spanish for peace) in my class, I decided to make friends with her and invite her to my home, so that my mother could have what she wanted most in life: and what she sometimes found in the tiny sleeping pills in a bottle which she desperately withdrew from her bureau drawer.
“My mom would like you to come over for dinner,” I said to Paz at recess. It was the first time we spoke.
She agreed.
“One of my friends wants to meet you. She’s seen you when you come to pick me up,” I said to my mother, who smiled gratifyingly.
This is how a long-lasting friendship was initiated not only between Paz and me but also between her and my mother. To compensate Paz for the benefits she bestowed on my mother, I gave her own mother hugs full of love. Her mother’s plumpness, which provoked so much ridicule in school, was a haven for me—a warm, comfortable pillow upon which I could lay my head.
Sometimes I suspected that Paz and I had been switched at birth: that her mother was biologically mine and mine was hers. Paz’s mother seemed to treat me with greater tenderness than Paz, and mine seemed to treat Paz with more intimacy than she treated me; we never could figure out if it this was out of common courtesy or an expression of their true allegiances. I learned about Paz’s father because of the pictures in the house, through the stories expressed in them. As it happens, her father was Ángel Márquez, a judo instructor. The martial arts and the lessons of the Toyama were unknown to me then. Its practitioners seemed like latent criminals: why else would they fight so violently? In time, I learned that the very night before the newspapers exposed the world to the first pictures of Mars from deep space, a mugging obstructed my father’s presence at my birth. The image of a band of brutal men in white uniforms with black belts kicking my dad in the face entered my mind when I viewed the photograph of Paz’s father, which probably explained why I disliked him without ever having met him; but the fact that he abandoned his family without warning one day, and Paz’s mother never smiled again, also shaped my scornful opinion of the man.
NASA launched the Viking 1 on a mission to Mars, inserting into the planet’s orbit in 1976. Talk of Martians occupied the center of our discussions then, being of personal and collective significance to us. It was of interest to me, personally, because it was rumored that an expedition of aliens would visit the Earth when peace reigned on our planet, and my mother needed this kind of peace even more than she needed my friend Paz.
“If the Martians come, I hope they take me with them,” my mother said in an unforgettably solemn tone.
“You’d really take off, just like that, and leave me behind?” I asked anxiously.
Her response mingled tenderness, disillusionment, lethargy, and curiosity. It was then that I learned of the coincidence between my birth and the first photographs from deep space of the planet Mars, which she showed me.
“I’ve always wondered what’s up there in the sky, what the worlds beyond ours are like. But no, honey, I wouldn’t leave you.”
Her answer calmed me, partially, but deep down I knew that her desire to leave this world was not fleeting, and that she really wanted to know if the peace she so desired might be found in another world.
I met Ángel Márquez in person at Paz’s mother’s funeral. Paz and I were in college by then, and her mother’s plumpness had escalated into morbid obesity. Her coffin had to be special-ordered, triple the size of the average one, to fit her entire body. Her husband, the judo instructor, looked much the same as in the
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