Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,29
I want to be with him; tell him I didn’t know what else to do.
Desperate situations call for desperate moves, Mario should understand. But for the obfuscations of machismo—Antonia’s own father banished first one, then another daughter when he discovered they had transgressed with their American boyfriends. Antonia’s exile came spring of her senior year at college: her father called her dorm one Saturday only to find out from the big mouth at the switchboard that Antonia was away for the weekend with her boyfriend. When she returned, there were half a dozen pink message slips tacked to her door, Call home. Her father answered on the first ring, shouting into the mouthpiece, YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.
A year later, Antonia showed up at her parents’ house in Queens. Her boyfriend had left her; she had lost her job, working the night shift at the state mental facility, her charges tied to their beds—the days before patients’ rights and HIPAA monitoring of conditions. Nights were surreal, filled with howling, screams, shrieks, wails. The distraught and disturbed in need of soothing. The soiled in need of a cleanup. And here Antonia had taken the night shift thinking she’d get a lot of writing done. When she complained to her supervisor about the patients’ mistreatment, she was fired. Where could she go? She hitchhiked home. Only then, when she had hit rock bottom, did her father “forgive her.”
But along with machismo, the culture also commands respect for elders. Antonia is now la do?ita. Older than Mario’s mother by a dozen years. She will counsel him on the right way to act in this situation.
Gracias, gracias, ay, gracias, the girl keeps saying, tears in her eyes.
Wait to thank me till it’s over, Antonia jokes. She feels uneasy accepting Estela’s gratitude when she knows damn well she’d rather pass on this heavy load.
* * *
After settling Estela into the guest room, Antonia heads for next door. She turns into the driveway—Roger’s pickup is gone—and parks in front of the trailer behind the barn. The curtains the workers always keep drawn lift ever so slightly. Before she can even knock, the door opens: José comes out on the concrete stoop, then steps down to the ground to stand eye level with her.
Mario no está, he announces.
Mario not here? ?Por favor! she challenges the nervous young man. It’s not like the undocumented have the freedom to go missing or for a leisurely stroll in this predominately white town and state. Her minority students often complained to Antonia about being followed around in stores, as if the darker color of their skin made them likely shoplifters. Migrant justice groups have taken up the issue: immigration control is not supposed to be the province of local law enforcement. Some enlightened counties—like her own—have outright refused to be an arm of ICE. But that doesn’t guarantee a damn thing; a disgruntled state trooper or a cop in a bad mood after his wife left him or after he nicked himself shaving can always phone in an anonymous tip. Alerts are constantly issued—somehow Antonia got herself on that email list, too: La migra picked up two outside Walmart in Burlington; ICE arrested three passengers getting off a bus. La policía stopped a car about a broken taillight and apprehended three individuals, a college girl transporting two undocumented migrants. The student was taking them out for pizza, first time off the farm in months the day after Thanksgiving—jeez, Black Friday all right—and the three were brought to the local jail: the student was later released, a hearing pending; the two young men kept behind bars, soon to be deported.
No me voy hasta que no lo vea, Antonia announces, loud enough for Mario to hear her on the other side of the thin door. She is not leaving until she talks to him.
Okay, okay, José concedes, looking over his shoulder. He reminds Antonia of a teenager covering for a buddy in hot water. Mario is somewhere on the farm; José is not sure where. We don’t want any trouble. La do?ita knows how difficult el patrón can be.
I can be difficult, too. Antonia stands her ground, one hand on her hip, a cultural signal if there ever was one that this viejita means business. Mario! she calls out, her voice in command mode. Mario!
How different her behavior at this moment from her docility in the Illinois station with Officer Morgan. Sam often noted that Antonia got a lot bossier in Spanish. The