Pacazo Read Online Free PDF Page B

Reynaldo says that I pay her too much, that it will make her complacent and greedy. I do not know what to think about that. I also do not know how to repay her for the first months after Pilar’s death, and have not truly tried.
    Dead leaves fall thickly now, but by summer the tree will again shade the yard, and the house of my adolescence also has an almond tree. No one has ever gathered the almonds, and the tree does not grow well, but my father dug drainage for it each fall, took space heaters out for each cold snap. My mother still lives in that house, not Daly City but Fallash three hours to the north, old brick fireplace and overgrown back yard. Of course Pilar and I did not buy this house for the almond tree alone, but it pleases me most days.
    For a year my parents had talked of how the Bay Area exhausted them; we left a week after my eleventh birthday, and Fallash, eight thousand inhabitants on the shore of Clear Lake, I hate and then love its quietness. Duck flocks, dry hills, oak and manzanita. My mother teaches social studies at a school in Lakeport and my father starts an insurance company. Late on certain nights I walk to my parents’ room, see my mother twitching in her dreams and my father watching infomercials, tears slipping down his cheeks. One morning I ask. My father denies ever crying and my mother says the dreams were only grade books come alive and dancing, alive and dancing.
    Here in Piura, saints are used instead of insurance policies. The plasticized images are carried in purses and wallets, given away to bring good luck. The arrozeros are gone. Mariángel stands with both hands against the tree and sways. In recent days Casualidad’s skin has gone still darker, and I have no idea why, and the telephone rings from the living room.
    As I reach for the receiver my hand brushes a bookend and there is a cascade—Baudin and de la Riva Agüero and Porras Barrenechea across the floor. Casualidad comes in at the noise, stands quietly as I answer the phone. It is Arantxa, my boss, director of the Language Center and head of its English Section, a large woman from Bilbao. On days when she receives packages from home, her office smells of chorizo, and she is buoyant, receptive to new ideas, even bad ones.
    - You are wanted, says Arantxa.
    - No. You can’t. Not on the weekend.
    - The archaeologist needs an interpreter for dinner with the rector. Jacket and tie, the Pórticos Hotel, in an hour.
    - What archaeologist?
    - You got the memo about the conference, says Arantxa. I saw you reading it, and you should have gone, you would have liked it, but the point is that I need you tonight.
    - Why don’t you do it? You’re much—
    - I did all of yesterday’s sessions and the dinner with the History department last night, but there was something wrong with the pork chops, I think, or the salad. I can’t get out of bed.
    - Have you been vomiting? And the diarrhea, is it greenish or brownish? And is there any blood?
    - John—
    - Because if there is blood, that means your intestines are ulcerated. Amoebic dysentery, probably. You’ll need antibiotics, clean water, maybe antiparasitics, plus the—
    - John.
    - What?
    - I just need you to be at the Pórticos Hotel in an hour.
    Casualidad is gathering the fallen books. I cover the mouthpiece, ask if she can work late. She nods, says she can stay all night if necessary, but she’ll have to call Fermín to let him know.
    - Sorry, I say to Arantxa, Casualidad is unavailable.
    - I heard your question, John, and I heard her answer.
    - You’ve got twenty other English professors on staff. Any of them could—
    - You’re our only native speaker. Also, I already called them all, and no one else answered the phone. You owe me, John. Please be there in an hour.
    I squeeze the receiver until the plastic starts to crack, then hang up, thank Casualidad, say she can call Fermín now. She asks if I would mind making the call myself. I nod and dial. She was born and raised in