The Tortilla Curtain

there a long moment, stretched out beneath the green sheet of the roof, staring at the little bolus of plastic and the coins embedded in it. “There's your bus fare,” he said finally.
    She had her baby, and every living cell and hair of it was a miracle, the thing she'd done herself though her father said she was stupid and her mother called her clumsy and lazy and unreliable--her creation, beautiful and undeniable. But who could she show her off to? Who was going to admire her Socorro, the North American beauty, born with nothing in the land of plenty? For the first few days she was too full of joy and too tired to worry about it. She was in a shack, another shack, hidden away like a rabbit in a burrow, and she was alive because of Cándido's bravery and his quick thinking, and she had her daughter at her breast and Cándido had delivered her. That was all for then. That was all she needed to know. But as he went out to scavenge things--a blanket he found on a clothesline one night, a beach towel to wrap the baby in--or left her to crouch in the bushes across from the post office and wait for Señor Willis's car that never came, she began to brood, and the more she brooded the more afraid she became.
    This wasn't just bad luck, this was an ongoing catastrophe, and how long could they survive that? Cándido was the best man in the world, loving and kind and he'd never known the meaning of the word “lazy” in his life, but everything he did turned out wrong. There was no life for her here, no little house, no bathroom with its gleaming faucets and bright white commode like the bathroom in the _guatón's__ big astonishing mansion. It was time to give it up, time to go back to Tepoztlán and beg her father to take her back. She had her daughter now and her daughter was a North American, a citizen of Los _Estados Unidos,__ and she could come back when she was grown and claim her birthright. But then, how would anyone know? Didn't they have to record the birth in the village or the church? But what village, what church?
    “Cándido, what about the baby?” she said one night as they sat before the hearth he'd constructed of cement blocks, laying sticks on the fire while water boiled in the pot. It was raining, a soft discontinuous patter on the plastic roof, and she was lying snug atop the sacks of grass seed, wrapped in the blanket. Cándido had been gone all day, scouring the roadside for cans and bottles to redeem in the machine outside the Chinese store, and he'd come home with sugar, coffee and rice.
    “What about her?” he said.
    “We have to register her birth with the priest--she was born here, but who's going to know that?”
    He was silent, squatting over his haunches, breaking up sticks to feed the fire. He'd managed to make the place comfortable for her, she had to give him that. The slats between the pallets had been stuffed with rags and newspaper for insulation, and with a fire even on the coldest days she was warm. And he'd got water for them too, spending a whole night digging a trench up the hill and tapping into the development's sprinkler system, cutting the pipe and running joined lengths of it all the way to their little invisible house, and then he'd buried it and hidden his traces so well no one would ever suspect. “What priest?” he said finally.
    She shrugged. Socorro lay sleeping at her breast. “I don't know--the village priest.”
    “What village?”
    “I want to go home. I hate this place. I hate it.”
    Cándido was silent a moment, his face like a withered fruit. “We could walk into Canoga Park again, if you think you're up to it,” he said finally. “They must have a priest there. He would know what to do. At least he could baptize her.”
    She dreaded the idea after her last experience, but just the mention of the name--Canoga Park--made her see the shops again, the girls on the street, the little restaurant that was like a café back at home. Somebody there would know what to do, somebody would help. “It's awfully far,” she said.
    He said nothing. He was staring into the fire, his lips pursed, hands clasped in his lap.
    “What did you do with the cord?” she said after a moment.
    “Cord? What cord?”
    “You know, the baby's cord. The umbilical.”
    “I buried it. Along with the rest. What do you think?”
    “I wanted that cord. For Chalma. I wanted to make a pilgrimage and hang it in the tree and pray to the Virgin to give Socorro a long and happy life.”