Haresh Shah
Eres Tu, Eres Tu, Asi, Asi, Eres Tu…
Premonition? Up until this very moment, I had never thought of it that way. But there are times when you can’t help but wonder and end up giving things the benefit of the doubt! During the trip I took from Chicago to Mexico City, I met with Francisco Sadurni, the local attorney hired by Playboy to help me get a long term multiple entry visa. Knowing that I didn’t have any plans for the evening, he tagged me along to a party at his uncle’s house – also an attorney.
From the outside, the house looked quite unpretentious. Ordinary even. But what I encountered behind the closed street-side gate was nothing like anything I had seen inside a private home. It opened into a vast courtyard running into a spacious living room. The centerpiece about which the people milled around was a real fountain, like in a small garden of a Shinto shrine. There were ornate columns buttressing the slanted skylight roof. The palm, cactus and other tropical plants gave you a feeling of being in a rain forest. Five piece strolling Mariachi band serenaded while the guests made trips back and forth between the individually canopied food and drink stands, set up like in a traditional Mexican mercado. Bottles of French champagne popped open and emptied every few minutes. Men were all dressed like lawyers in their dark pinstripe suites, which many of them probably were. There were scores of beautiful young women dressed so provocatively and yet elegantly in their clingingly skin tight outfits with revealing tops. I felt like Alex in the wonderland. What I had thought to be a party containing of about twenty people, turned out to be a hundred or more guests.
Francisco takes me by the hand and introduces me to many of the guests with his good humored effervescent Mexican manner with an abrazo here, a back slapping there.. As everywhere else, the name Playboy evokes an awe as people shake hands with me and make small talk.
Seeing that I am eyeing the approaching morena in her dark and shiny burgundy-on-burgundy striped satin jumpsuit, he stops her in her tracks.
‘Let me introduce you to my cousin Luis’ daughter Patricia.‘
We say hello. Her English is rudimentary at the best, and my Spanish is yet non-existent. When Francisco runs away to greet new arrivals, we are left alone standing in the middle of the hall – trying to communicate best as we can. She is more exotic than she can be called pretty. Her oily dark brown skin is darker than mine. Her jet black hair and big penetrating dark eyes and the complexion makes her stand apart from most of the light skinned women swirling around. Up close, I notice that cut out at the top of her tight fitting jumpsuit is a heart shaped slit, revealing the firm round breasts through her cleavage.
We try to talk for a while and then excusing herself she disappears in to the crowd and is gone for hours. Soon she fades from my awareness as I engage in conversation with other guests. It must have been closer to one in the morning. I guess I must have been having good time to still be around. Francisco is long gone and the crowd is now thinning out. And I see her again. Now looking a bit weary, she is sitting on one of the two facing love seats. The another one is occupied by an elderly couple. Intuitively, I walk up to her. She gestures me to sit down next to her.
‘Meet my parents, Luis and Rosario.’
‘Mucho gusto,’ I say.
And we talk. Rosario has lived in Los Angeles for a while, and she speaks good English. Mainly it is her and I talk while Luis sits there looking tired and bored. Rosario engages me and Patricia in pleasant talks. Asking me about myself, my job, even my family back in India. I could tell, the mother likes me. A definite kiss of death! Or maybe not.
Soon after, Rosario gets up with; ‘I better bring my husband home before he falls asleep’ Patricia too makes a move to depart.
‘Stay for a while, please!’ I plead. ‘I will bring you home in a cab.’
‘She doesn’t have to go with us. She has her own car,’ says her mother.
Patricia sticks around for an hour or longer. We somehow manage to communicate, mostly in mimes augmented by a few words in-between. Actually she ends up taking me back to my hotel in her little Volkswagen Bug. I manage to make a date with her for the weekend.
‘I am sorry but my younger sister Tere will have to come with me!’
I agree. I guess that’s how things are done in Mexico.
I shouldn’t have worried about the third wheel. She indeed shows up with her sister for the poolside buffet at Camino Real. Soon as we finish eating and have moved to the grassy patch to lounge around, Tere promptly excuses herself and is gone. She is spending the afternoon with her boyfriend!
●●●
During the next seven days that I spend in Mexico City, Patricia and I see each other several times. Sneaking out for quick lunches, meet for dinners. Growing closer and feeling more and more emotionally linked at every encounter. In absence of being able to verbally communicate fluently, we complement our body language with passing back and forth of my Spanish-English pocket dictionary. She fills it in with some English words that she remembers from what she must have learned in school. I use the few Spanish words I pick up everyday from here and there. But most of our growing infatuation with each other can easily be summed up from the night before I return back to Santa Barbara. We sit together huddled on a bench seat of the most elegant and romantic restaurant, Le Fouquet’s de Paris, nestled inside the vast expanse of my hotel.
Mostly we hold hands and communicate the intensity of our feelings by varying the pressure of our squeezes. We gaze into each others eyes and catch that certain ray of the flickering candlelight from her eyes to mine and mine to hers. Between the courses, while waiting for the next, which are paced just right, we would scoot – or more like cuddle closer – as if it were possible to be any nearer.
Me whispering: You’re so beautiful, almost wanting to break into Joe Cocker rendition of you’re so beautiful, to me. Her looking back, meeting my gaze and whispering back, probably translating eres guapo, into “you’re a beautiful boy.”
Sitting there with this exotic beauty, only twenty two years old, working as an executive secretary, it amazes me to think that how sophisticated she is in the way she is dressed, and in her knowledge of good wines and the food. And how refined is her manners. I am specially touched by the way she takes a piece of bread, butters it daintily and hands it to me so tenderly, like a loving little mother. And then watching me eating it as tenderly, before picking up a piece for herself.
As the evening wears and we sit there with the glasses warmed over the open flame of the cognac warmer, she takes a sip, then puts down the glass. Takes my hand into hers. We are facing each other sideways. I see her lips flutter.
‘I love you.’ She whispers.
‘I love you.’ I whisper back.
By the time I escort her to her little VW Bug, the hotel garage is deserted save for a few cars strewn here and there. I am overwhelmed with emotions and the desire so deep and fervent that I don’t want to let her go. We stand by her car and hold each other close. There are kisses and then she gently peels herself away.
‘My father will kill me.’ Those words emerge slowly. Somehow she has managed to utter an entire English sentence.
I pull her to me one more time. My arms resting on her shoulders, I scoop her face into my hands. I don’t want to let her go. ‘This is a crazy question to ask, but would you be my girlfriend?’ It just rolls out of my mouth.
Startled, she steps back. Her eyes fixed on mine, I hear her utter, ever so softly: ‘Si.’
●●●
Next morning she picks me up and brings me to Benito Juarez International Airport. We have coffee up in the terrace café. We are both tired, sleepy even. We don’t say much but hold hands across the table. My hand sandwiched between hers.
‘I’ll miss you.’ She says.
‘I’ll miss you.’ I repeat.
‘I’ll wait for you. And…’ she whispers something that I don’t quite grasp at first but then understand as, ‘And be good!’
‘I am always good!’ I answer playfully!
‘Be good.’ She repeats. ‘Or…’ And I see her slide the blade of her hand across her neck.
‘Ouch!’
I let out a nervous laugh. I could almost feel the sharp knife slashing through my throat and see the blood dripping. And think: she is a Latin Lover alright. But no importa. I haven’t felt this good and this close to anyone in a long time. I reach across the table and put my other hand on the top of our already layered hands, like in a Pyramid.
They announce my flight. We shuffle and I sling my carry on bag over my shoulder. As we walk down the stairs, we stop on the landing. I put down my carry-on and take her in my arms. ‘But the people!’ Her mild protest is lost in our sealed lips. And we continue our descent. She takes my hand in hers, gives it a slight squeeze and I hear her say, ‘I feel triste.’ The sadness has dawned upon me as well. We pause at the bottom of the stairs, and then I hurry through to the immigration desk. When I look back, she is gone. I imagine her blurry eyes. I want to run back.
© Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Jordan Rutherford
SISTER SITE
Next Friday, February 15, 2013
IN THE NAME OF LOVE
It’s easy to fall in love. But it takes some doing to sustain a relationship. Most of the time it’s only little things that make big differences. To wrap up my Valentine Month, I tell the story of a friend who chooses to sustain his love with his wife than to hold on to something that was emotionally so dear and near to him.
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