And the Mountains Echoed
you know the Chinese curse.â
âDid you like Africa?â Mamá asked Thalia.
Thalia pressed the handkerchief to her cheek and didnât answer. I was glad. She had the oddest speech. There was a wet quality to it, a strange mix of lisp and gargle.
âOh, Thalia doesnât like to travel,â Madaline said, crushing her cigarette. She said this like it was the unassailable truth. There was no looking to Thalia for confirmation or protest. âShe hasnât got a taste for it.â
âWell, neither do I,â Mamá said, again to Thalia. âI like being home. I guess Iâve just never found a compelling reason to leave Tinos.â
âAnd I one to stay,â Madaline said. âOther than you, naturally.â She touched Mamáâs wrist. âYou know my worst fear when I left? My biggest worry? How am I going to get on without Odie? I swear, I was petrified at the thought.â
âYouâve managed fine, it seems,â Mamá said slowly, dragging her gaze from Thalia.
âYou donât understand,â Madaline said, and I realized I was the one who didnât understand because she was looking directly at me. âI wouldnât have kept it together without your mother. She saved me.â
â
Now
youâre rhapsodizing,â Mamá said.
Thalia upturned her face. She was squinting. A jet, up in the blue, silently marking its trajectory with a long, single vapor trail.
âIt was my father,â Madaline said, âthat Odie saved me from.â I wasnât sure if she was still addressing me. âHe was one of those people who are born mean. He had bulging eyes, and this thick, short neck with a dark mole on the back of it. And fists. Fists like bricks. Heâd come home and he didnât even have to do a thing,just the sound of his boots in the hallway, the jingle of his keys, his humming, that was enough for me. When he was mad, he always sighed through the nose and pinched his eyes shut, like he was deep in thought, and then heâd rub his face and say,
All right, girlie, all right
, and you knew it was comingâthe storm, it was comingâand it could not be stopped. No one could help you. Sometimes, just him rubbing his face, or the sigh whooshing through his mustache, and Iâd see gray.
âIâve crossed paths since with men like him. I wish I could say differently. But I have. And what Iâve learned is that you dig a little and you find theyâre all the same, give or take. Some are more polished, granted. They may come with a bit of charmâor a lotâand that can fool you. But really theyâre all unhappy little boys sloshing around in their own rage. They feel wronged. They havenât been given their due. No one loved them enough. Of course they expect you to love them. They want to be held, rocked, reassured. But itâs a mistake to give it to them. They canât accept it. They canât accept the very thing theyâre needing. They end up hating you for it. And it never ends because they canât hate you enough. It never endsâthe misery, the apologies, the promises, the reneging, the wretchedness of it all. My first husband was like that.â
I was stunned. No one had ever spoken this plainly in my presence before, certainly not Mamá. No one I knew laid bare their hard luck this way. I felt both embarrassed for Madaline and admiring of her candor.
When she mentioned the first husband, I noticed that, for the first time since I had met her, a shadow had settled on her face, a momentary intimation of something dark and chastening, wounding, at odds with the energetic laughs and the teasing and the loose pumpkin floral dress she was wearing. I remember thinking at the time what a good actress she must be to camouflagedisappointment and hurt with a veneer of cheerfulness. Like a mask, I thought, and was privately pleased with myself for the clever connection.
Later, when I was older, it wasnât as clear to me. Thinking back on it, there was something affected about the way she paused when she mentioned the first husband, the casting down of the gaze, the catch in the throat, the slight quiver of lips, just as there was about the walloping energy and the joking, the lively, heavy-footed charm, the way even her slights landed softly, parachuted by a reassuring wink and laugh. Perhaps they were both trumped-up affectations or perhaps neither was. It
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