The Tortilla Curtain

oil so rich you lick it from the tips of your fingers...
    She thought of that, held the image in her brain till it was imprinted there, and her hands were quick and nimble even after eight hours, and the fumes hardly bothered her. They bothered Mary, though. Bothered her plenty. The big _gringa__ with the ring through her nose hadn't shut up about it since the fat man had led them into this great long beautiful room of his house lined with windows and given them each a pair of yellow latex gloves and the plastic bottles of the corrosive. America didn't understand what the woman was saying, of course, and she tried to block her out too, but the drift of it was inescapable. Mary didn't like the work. Mary didn't need the work. Mary had a house with a roof and four walls and a refrigerator with food in it. She didn't like the fumes or the fat man or his beautiful house or life on this planet. She tipped back a pint of that liquor she had with her and as the day went on she got slower and slower till practically all she did at the end was sit there and complain.
    The work was hard, no doubt about it. The man haown'. The mand hundreds of straw cases lining the walls of the room and stacked up to the ceiling in the back, and in each case was a stone figurine of the Buddha, gone black with mold and age. They were all the same: two feet high, heavier than lead, the bald head and pregnant gut and the stupid grin that was meant to be a look of wisdom but could as easily have been senility or constipation. And each Buddha had to be scrubbed with the corrosive to take the discoloration off the brow, under the eyelids and lips, in the crevices beneath the arms and the tiny blackened indentation of the navel. When it was cleaned, when the corrosive had devoured the mold and the wire brushes had dug their deepest, the Buddha took on a rosy sheen, and then it was time to affix the glossy gold strip of paper with the glue already on it that read JIM SHIRLEY IMPORTS.
    America didn't care about the fumes or the tired nasal rant of the _gringa__ or the stiffening in her fingers and the ache in her back from lifting statue after statue out of its cradle and setting it on the table before her--all she cared about was pleasing this healthy big bearded fat man who'd given her the chance to earn the money she needed to stay alive till things got better. She worked hard. Worked like two women. And she never stopped, not even to stretch her aching back or massage her cramping fingers, not even for a minute.
    Finally, at quarter past seven by the bronze sunburst clock on the wall, the fat man slammed through the door, running sweat, and gave them a wild-eyed look. He was panting, and the big T-shirt he wore--Mickey Mouse poised on the steps of the Magic Kingdom--was wet under the arms. He barked out something in a roaring deep voice and Mary sprang to her feet, roaring something back at him. America had her head down, raking the wire brush across the belly of the nearest Buddha as if she were trying to saw it in two. She was tired and hungry and she had to pee, but at the same time she wanted to stay here forever in the big clean open room earning four dollars and sixteen cents for every hour the blood flowed through her veins and the air swelled her lungs. She scrubbed at the statue. Scrubbed furiously.
    The _patrón__ didn't seem to notice. His words were truncated, clipped off as if he couldn't spare the breath for them--“Okay, that's it, let's go”--and he clapped his hands twice, two short impatient bursts as abrupt as a cannonade. America didn't dare look up. Her fingers flew, the brush rasped. He was standing right over her now--“Come on, let's go, I'm in a hurry here”--and she felt a quick surge of panic. It was time to go, yes? Eight hours and more--of course it was. And yet she couldn't escape the feeling that he was criticizing her, urging her to work faster, harder, to ply the brush and pour the corrosive and make every Buddha in the room shine as if it had just emerged from the mold.
    “Jesus,” he said, letting the air hiss over his teeth, and she understood him now. She wanted to apologize--the words were on her lips--but she didn't have the chance. The next thing she knew he had her by the elbow and he was pulling her roughly from the seat--“Finish now, finish,” he was saying--while Mary, a cigarette clamped between her lips, called out _“Vamos”__ in a drunken slur and they were moving, all three of them, out