WHEN I BECAME NEVER

 

BOOK ONE

​

 

I had heard the garage door open, the clunking of its chains pulling me from under the duvet, heavy and dampened by my sweat. This sound, the usual cue telling me my parents were off to their weekly bridge game, three houses down our street. 

Friday night freedom, I called it, the end of my workweek at the miso plant. Just like punctuation quiets the pulse of a text, the noise silenced me, allowing me to breathe again.

My parents, Georges and Mary, had become trusting of my behaviors; my words, the way I hummed to Rachmaninoff’s evening vespers when I felt alone, and yet, more alive. They kept me by their side because I had been damaged, pushed into some sort of dysfunctional mode the way some are pushed into drugs. Because, yes, one can become addicted to abnormality. I knew they believed I had landed back into some form of normalcy, and one would have thought that, yes, it’s been thirteen years, she should be back. And there were days when I did feel normal, just not as normal as they thought me to be. 

My mind is something I have learned to conceal, you see. It is a bastion inside which I can retreat, a place where I can fully be, where my quirks—my fantasies, and my truths, co-exist. This time, since then, I hold it, like I hold a dead leaf crinkled by the rain and the sun and the wind––fodder for new life yet to be sown, like poking my finger into blood-pricked skin. This time, here, since then, yes, I smell it. Do you know what time smells like? It smells of mildew, black and slimy; it smells of sweat; it smells of cinnamon––it smells of feculence.

I got up from my nap wearing black jeans and a T, but mostly, still wearing the smell of umami. And I remember the scent, another one.

Salt.

Sugar.

Fruit.

A kind of earth we all crave, in our mouths as much as in our hearts.

This savoury me.

I went to the kitchen, an avocado-colored thing they didn’t care to update, opened the refrigerator door, took the beer can, snapped it open, and stared at the pasta, crusty and unappealing. Still, I grabbed the cover-less Tupperware, sat at the kitchen table, and dug in. Once done, I placed the container inside the dishwasher and made my way through the house. 

Those nights, when alone, I alternated between Chet Baker and Rachmaninoff, more of it. And that night was no different, except I ached for loudness, more absolutes— treble that makes the ear shriek, bass that makes the body shake—to flood my ears. I wandered a little more, stopped on the second floor, and decided to enter my parents’ bedroom, something I had never done since they had brought me back from that dead place, thirteen years before.

Why did I do that?

Because the steel bolt had been removed, something to this day I’ve never understood. I still wonder. What had pushed this new nonchalance onto them and made them forget about their own rules? For my protection. But they had, and that was good enough for me, and in I went. 

The crocheted bedspread had wrinkled over a queen size mattress that had sunk in its center. Over it, two Diane Furstenberg wraparound dresses my mother had tried on before deciding on a simple jean A-line skirt and black jersey blouse. I knew because I had heard my father insisting on her wearing her usual good luck attire. Diane Furstenberg.  I brushed the top of the cover with my hand knowing the elevated patterns—series of daisy chains, interconnected garlands—would tickle my fingertips. And I remembered my feet sinking into the carpet as I would sneak into their bed and stay there, little me, little moon they called me. Little moon. That was me. 

I saw the door to the walk-in closet was unlocked, too. I saw there had been a bolt there as well, the space where it had been––a white imprint on a beige-colored door.

I entered and spotted it right away, the pile of newspapers at the end of the closet beside my mother’s shoe rack. Before fanning through them, I slipped them on, slowly. Kitty heels. Ballerina flats. Slutty heights, too. Twenty-two pairs of size 9 shoes. I wear a narrow 6 ½. Mirrors furnished two of the walls, and I had been avoiding them, but even so, I strutted into the cool leather of the shoes, pretending I was on a runway somewhere inside the walls of a posh Parisian venue. Maxime’s, maybe. Harry’s bar. Stolly’s.

I came back from my imaginary travels, quickly placing the Louboutin’s in their place and sat down. It took me some time to realize what they contained. I read the articles, all the ones highlighted in fluorescent green, some translations mostly. I scrutinized the images, the pictures of people––especially ... that one. I felt the inside of my brain freeze, my pulse quickening. Inside the New York Times the killer’s hands were mentioned. And there, inside Nicaragua’s newspapers, The Jornada and El Nuevo Diario, I read and saw more of what I thought I had never known. Agile, they had written. His hands. Artfully scalping squares of missing skin. Just then, flashes poked at my mind, imaginations, of Rachmaninoff’s own large hands. They had to have been pure to create, I thought. How can you create without purity floating somewhere in your body? Had the heart been pure, too?

His heart. No no no. o. No heart. Only  the mind. And the thought of his, what it had told him, sent a cold over my skin.

Still seated on the carpet, feeling dizzy, I started to remember. 

The sea, its turquoise set against the lead of the sky.

Sheets of rain falling on my body stretched out on the sand.

The coming of storms smelling of sewage. 

Promises hidden inside the goodness of the world.

And the sweat, the sweetness of my own, dripping everywhere it shouldn’t have been. And I thought of her, and I thought of me, and I thought, why not me?

 

​Deus ex Machina

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These men chose their prey carefully, their words cloaked and masked and wrapped in dogmatic charm, and he was one of them––a cove of God who battled a land aching to remove the bowels of popery the way grandmothers yanked teeth out––riding high under a full sun. Father Antonio Ruiz tightened the Cordovan’s string below his chin and smiled, his face reddened by the dusty winds sweeping the earth. Look, he said, pointing ahead, our grounds, more of Spain. Andalucía. A blow, short and loud, coming from the horse’s nostrils, as if in agreement. The tall man squeezed his thighs against the animal’s sides, and bending over its neck, pressed a finger along the vein bulging from underneath its taunt coat. The horse trotted, faster, ears straight and twitching forward, tail up, its pace now constant.

As if entering his own home, the priest walked inside the Munduyas’ small house, a hovel smelling of wine that would never age, lavender that would never heal, candles that could only burn––where confusion, contrived and well fed, reigned.

And while this southern land rebelled against the Church’s quests to dominate loam as much as ether––the family patriarch tried to remain faithful to it, clenching to all its veiled illusions. The man hoped, and struggled in doing so, pulled by the quelling of holy uncertainties; life’s in-betweens––lethal, and always so, and it seemed to him, a victor.

Those were Romero’s Munduya’s battles. This man, a descendant of Moors, a proud lineage—a lifeline, long ago pushed by the rulings of ruthless monarchies to convert to Christianity in order to save themselves, becoming Moriscos.

Señora Raquel, Father Antonio said, moving toward the small kitchen table, I haven’t seen you this week at confession. 

Romero’s wife repressed a smile. You’ve just been assigned to the village of Ronda, young man. For one year you’ve been knocking on our door––reminding us. Have we ever let you down?

Father Antonio pulled a white handkerchief from his inside coat pocket, removing dust from around his face. The Lord can never go hungry, you know that, he started. And I was worried, too, Raquel. Your last absence … you were sick, weren’t you? A fever, I recall. I came to see if all was well. He looked around, his eyes lingering. So much disease around us, you know that as well as I do. So much death.

Of course, Padre. Gracias. She paused, looking at her hands where she saw the faces of loved ones passing, lost to war’s lotteries; lost to plagues—of the flesh, and of the mind. She turned to Romero and smiled. I need you, her dark eyes said. Still. We all do. She turned to the priest. The grapes have kept us very busy this time of year, more than last year’s sad crop. And that is all. Join us, won’t you? She pointed to the wine carafe placed in the middle of the table, and to the empty glasses, as she searched for her eldest daughter’s eyes. Dolores, Amorita, por favor, pour Father Antonio a glass? All of us, in fact, if you will. The taste of our earth, she said, and she smiled, and she raised her head to him, eyes knowing. She took the man’s soft hand in hers, pulling his body to the chair next to hers. Come and sit Padre. Eso.

The wooden table, long and narrow, around which everyone sat, Romero at its place of honor, observing his ten-year-old twin girls, Marisol and Luna. With cheeks rotund and plump, with faces around which thick and curly hair ruled from above like an aura, they smiled back at him, huddled inside the picos Raquel had sown for them the week before. One day, she had said to her daughters, while bent over her late mother’s old sewing machine, one day I will make them with silk, the best kind of silk, and then you will know the true levity at the heart of our sevillanas.

In the soft, cool wind, the purple-colored curtains swayed, brushing against Father

Antonio's shoulders. Delicately, he shooed them away, his eyes narrowing on Matías, his tone grave. I come here almost every month, yet, you my son, are rarely to be seen.

 Upon hearing these words, Matías felt his lanky body stiffen, his hairless face flush.  He turned to the priest and tightened his lips.

You come here to teach the twins, not him, not Dolores, either, Romero said, ignorant of his son’s discomfort.

Matías Munduya looked at the priest, this mouth always half-opened; always telling; of things to be done and not be done. And he knew, when this man, said to be of God, visited his family, each time, another moment came when everything that mattered was not named. We have remained dark-skinned Spaniards to you and your kind, he thought. Morenos. And that is why you teach my sisters, because you fear their skin, darker than most, darker than mine, will deny them entry to paradise. That’s what you told them, that a better understanding of the Bible will make them acceptable to God. Worthy of Him. His eyes to the floor, he spoke. Papi, todo esta bien.

Below the table, quieting his anger, a foot dropped onto his, her signal, maybe. Matías moved his fingers next to his sister’s. So warm, he thought, so you. And looking at her pushing the now emptied carafe back to the middle of the table, he moved his fingers farther inside her hand. No one noticed, the young woman remaining silent, observant. Dolores, beautiful sister, he thought, mi alborada. My beloved dawn. He turned again to the priest. I fear God’s wrath as much as anyone, but what good are the texts, Father, if the Reds kill us? 1927, and Spain’s monarchy will die soon. Give it two years. I can feel it. The country feels it. He paused. Then, Father, your life’s work as a man of the Church will have been for what? He leaned forward, whispered, hell, more of it, will be here soon enough. 

Romero raised his hand, considered his son. No more, Matías. We know about the fear. We’ve inhaled its fumes since the beginning of time, Matías. Our ancestors’ fear has been walking in our blood for so long. Hijo, he said, por favor, no more. We all know.

Behind the twins, a window from which another gust of wind came, the fringe of the mantòn dancing and tickling their skin. The girls stilled, their arms hanging side-by-side, their hands meeting, and sifting their unease from the moment they searched for Romero. For something. Their father was still holding the priest’s eyes.

This smell, Romero, the priest said, as he fanned the air, such rancid sweetness, no?

We live inside this scent, Father, Raquel said, impatience in her voice. And it doesn’t leave us, either. Her head still, her eyes wandered beyond her husband. She brought a hand to the back of her neck, grabbing large portions of the curly mane that had escaped the Kanzashi pin’s grip. Delicately, she collected the rogue thickets of hair in her fingers and pushing the hairpin farther toward the top of her head, secured the chignon made that morning before preparing the workers’ breakfast. I know too much, she thought, of this gaze that weighs on me; on them; of the heat tingling across my shoulders because of it. I think the harvest will be a good one, she finally said, her mind absent. Better than last year’s. 

One’s house usually smells of one’s earth, I would think, Father, Romero continued. I would expect the scent of holy wine in yours, no? Just as sweet, if not more. The father of four lowered his head, and with eyes half shut, and trembling lids, he let his imagination fill voids––all the spaces he felt, wanting to fill them, too, with what he saw, what he was certain was there, on his soil––sweat starting to drip from his temples. His eyes now open, his gaze became caught between two of the floor’s wooden planks as he listened to the words coming from his wife’s mouth. His vacancies staying. 

I will come to you, Father, of course, and Raquel stood and let her hand slide along her son’s back. There were notes mingling inside her head, lyrical and staccato, their essence known to her bones; to her mind––the sound of fandangos beating between her temples, and she walked the short distance separating the table from the entrance door, changed by them. Tonight will be filled with dancing, she told them, more Flamenco, for it quietly lures our feet into the present only––hopeful escapes, palatable deceptions, she thought. She stilled at the entrance, pushed the door open, and looked to the vineyard. The breeze had gone, and the cold, poked by the absence of the breeze, became quiet. 

For almost two years, fourteen-year-old Dolores had witnessed these scenes unfold. The actors; the words; the tone, an immovable script––usually. Today is different, she thought, looking at her sisters. They were wriggling on their chairs, as if a long ripple was unfolding beneath their muscles. They always do, she thought, trying to dismiss her unrest––move. They rarely stopped, she thought more, scurrying through the maze-like vineyard, morning to night, draped in laughter so crisp and generous the laborers nicknamed them pequeñas diosas de la tierra––little goddesses of the earth. But this wasn’t movement. No. This was agitation. Dolores mouthed to them to stop fidgeting and listen. The girls obeyed.

Inside the long silence, a space where the world around them continued, the workers sang of love and loss, off pitch and low, their voices reaching them from the fields, and as it did, a barn cat landed on the windowsill, an orange feather-like particle hanging from its mouth.

He keeps doing that, Luna said, as she stood. He catches all the butterflies and brings them back here. Siempre. Amused by the interlude, they watched the young girl walk to the window, and with her small hands, delicately remove the butterfly from the cat's soft bite. Gato malo. Malo malo malo. The insect was still alive and when she saw that it was, she placed it atop her hand, watching the wings slowly stroking the air. Come with me, she said, and she walked back to her chair and sat. I will take care of you.

It’s time for me to go, the priest said, pushing away the emptied glass in front of him. Hasta mañana, Dolores, he said. Y Recuerda que Dios es grandioso. He stood, feeling restlessness gripping his thighs, and meticulously replaced his hat on his coiffed head. Remember, Luna, that butterflies carry the beauty of struggles with them, and the certainty of new beginnings, too. Just like the Bible does. 

Luna turned to her father––the moment escaped his grasp.

Raquel held the door for the tall man, her knee pointing into its broken panel, below the hem of a skirt, circular and long. Her eyes fled, not wanting to meet his, not there.

Not now. 

The priest stepped over the sill and turned back. I’ll be waiting, Señora Raquel. Mañana.

Squinting, she looked away, Dolores in her sights. Si Dios quiere, Padre. Mañana.

Dolores’s gaze followed that of Romero’s, to where the priest was, at the door, his silhouette, broad and menacing. God’s spy, she thought, as she walked to where her sisters stood, her hand searching for theirs. That or it’s the Devil’s. Stay with me, she told them.

Standing on the porch, they watched the priest saunter to the makeshift enclosure surrounding the house. They watched as the light waved onto the weak-tea colored coat of the Lusitano, the sun dappling flank to neck. Sensing his master approaching, the sixteen-hand horse grew even larger, and stomping the ground, neighed. Once by his side, Father Antonio spoke to the animal, a jargon drenched in softness––hypnotic and lulling––and as he did, he cinched the girth strap, pulling twice on the latigo. Still talking, the man slid his hand across the horse’s mane, and grabbing the black stock of bristly hairs, climbed onto the saddle.

With the weight of eyes pushing on his back, the priest left Romero Munduya’s propriety knowing what he was leaving behind; what he had continued to feed––suspended specks of dust in lieu of brightness––porous ignorance.

And seated behind the girls, unseen, the cat slowly swallowed the butterfly.

 

The fire was not completely out, the priest opened the door to the cast oven, tossing more lumber inside the small space. Pensive, and waiting for the flames to grow taller, Antonio brought a stool next to the stove and sat, his hands hovering above the burgeoning heat. Outside, the smell of war, of collective indigence, voices about to fall from an edge, about to burst and bounce off the neighborhood’s walls. 

In this modest dwelling, adjacent to this modest church, a backdoor led to a yard. As he walked out, he nodded to the horse standing in the middle of it. This horse, he thought, the only thing I truly own. Folding his naked body into a large basin, oblivious to the world, he felt the water, brown and smelling of iron, wrap him with tepid warmth. He brought his knees to his chest and thought––about his ending, unavoidable. Hide and hide well, the archbishop had said, stay alive as long as you can, keep the faith alive where you can. And be happy Madrid is your friend. 

He looked up, the sound of them impossible to ignore––bombers like flies appearing from below the clouds, engines never hushing, and he thought, until this carmine fed ideology sends me to my death—and it will, he knew––I will continue to live, as I know how. And no other way.

Stepping out of the basin, he stood, wet and dripping, and he walked to his horse. Water running over his body, the cold wind pulling shivers from his skin. What would I do without you? he asked, in whispers. The horse’s head pushing against his and their eyes synchronized. I’ll see you tomorrow, he said, as he caressed the horse’s mane. Mañana. He turned toward the door, sauntered inside the house, directing his attention to the mattress facing the small wooden table. Slumping, naked, underneath the bedcover, Antonio thought more, about them, this family––the girls. 

From the floor he brought a bottle of wine to his lips and closed his eyes: He would need to travel to that space where he quarreled with God. In there, Antonio stood at times, unbent and pious, but remaining––a Father burdened by a mind, ductile, slave to the baseness of an unstable core.