The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel - By Hector Tobar Page 0,136
you know?”
The news of the “kidnapping” had circulated in Spanish too, in a flow of words only slightly less robust than in English, beginning in the morning, when a popular FM radio talk/variety jock interrupted his usual series of bawdy jokes and barnyard animal noises to reflect on el caso, lowering his voice an octave into what he called, off the air, his “citizen voice.” “Friends,” he said in Spanish, “this is a case that might impact each and every one of us. I don’t know what this lady is doing with these boys, but if you’re listening to me, señora, or señorita, take them home. Let’s remember that our relationship with these people is built on trust. Because I know there’s thousands of nuestra gente out there taking care of these little mocosos with blond hair and blue eyes. And if just one of us messes up like they say this lady is, a big load of you know what is going to fall on top of all our heads.” In kitchens where meals were being prepared by women named Lupe and María and Soledad, the anxiety level rose significantly after listening to this lecture, and rose further after Lupe and María and Soledad saw the reports on the city’s three Spanish-language television stations, and the footage of Araceli in flight. So by the end of that fifth of July, the floors gleamed brighter, the food was prepared with extra care and fewer spices, until, in the evening when Lupe and María and Soledad arrived home to the cluttered hominess of their apartments in South-Central and Compton, or when they settled into their cramped servant quarters in Beverly Hills homes, and they turned on their televisions and their radios to hear the happy news that Araceli Noemi Ramírez had been set free and that she had been exonerada of all charges.
On Spanish-language television, the images of Araceli walking free were broadcast with commentary that took on a thinly veiled tone of the celebratory, the rising voices of a soccer victory, or the birth of a celebrity baby. “Salió una mujer libre, con la cabeza alta, y digna.” It had all been a misunderstanding, they reported in voices a half breath short of a sigh. The charges against Araceli, now dropped, were a false wrinkle in the freshly starched blanket of responsibility for which latinoamericana nannies were famous. Una mala comunicación. On the telephone, “la soltaron” became the refrain: They let her go, they let her slip away. It was an observation dropped into conversations that soon swung back to the mundane quotidian chatter and melodramatic gossip about school meetings and comadres who were pregnant again and jobs opening up in “casas buenas,” and the irritating behavior of employers in “casas malas.” They let Araceli go and everything was back to normal until the next morning, when the workday began in the early morning darkness, and Lupe and María and Soledad entered kitchens and bedrooms and looked for the faces of the women who paid them, their jefas, and saw the upturned corners of pert lips, the flaxen caterpillar eyebrows that rose in recognition and comfort: Yes, I know you, you are my Lupe, my María, my Soledad. You are here again, on time, and you will wave your chestnut hands and return these sheets and comforters to order, and you will erase the grease from the kitchen surfaces and keep the ants away, and you will change my baby boy’s diaper, and I will leave you here alone in my nest, alone with my child and my possessions, because of that moment of faith and calculus when I close my eyes and feel that thing called trust.
Maureen led Scott back to the living room, where Assistant District Attorney Goller was standing alone by the front door with the attentive look of a best man awaiting the bride and groom at a wedding. When Maureen reached the door, he gave her a comforting smile, put his arm around her shoulder, and lowered his chin to speak sotto voce, even though no one else but Scott was listening.
“There’s about a dozen reporters out there. Don’t let that scare you.” He guided Maureen gently to the picture window and pulled back a corner of the drapes, revealing the spectacle of lights and telescoping microwave antennas outside; they felt to Maureen like an alien force, gathered on her lawn with nefarious cinematic intent, fed by the electricity generated by their humming vans. “The