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CHAPTER 11

      HECTOR GUZMAN stood in front of his store, watching the sweating turistas walking down Calle 16th de Septiembre.

      The dirty sidewalk stretched two blocks north to the bridge that separated Mexico from the United States. Below the bridge, the Rio Grande was a shallow stream moving like brown soup through the wider riverbed's cracked, dried mud. The water was spent, the dribble left after the river was used to irrigate hundreds of farms in Los Estados Unidos before it reached this point. Beyond the bridge he could see the buildings in El Paso, some of them with signs in Spanish: Ropa Usada for used clothing, Comidas for restaurants, Cambio for exchanging pesos for dollars, although all the stores in south El Paso took pesos, and knew the right exchange rate, too - just as Guzman knew to the penny the dollar's exchange rate for his store.

      A thin man of middle height, Guzman, today, as always, was dressed in a light-colored suit with a sport-shirt open at the neck. He was on the sidewalk trying to direct tourists into the shop. "See my junk," he said to a middle-aged couple who had just eaten a fifty-cent filet mignon at El Central. Their eyes avoided him. "Look at my bargains," he told a couple of teen-age boys "- what are you doing, looking for the girls?"

      He held a bottle of sweet lime soda in his hand, sipping it between his forays. Inside, Rosa waited behind the glass-topped case of silver jewelry. When one tourist came, others would follow like ducks coming in to join the decoys. They would look at the merchandise, the carved painted canes, the tiny dagger letter openers with handles like jewels, the painted gourd maracas, the leather belts, the serapes, and sombreros. The store had everything: perfumes with Paris names made in Sinanola, little clay figures of men sitting on toilets straining, dirty books under the counter, plaster snake ashtrays, carved wooden chess sets, onyx paperweights, and figures of sleeping Mexicans with their sombreros down over their faces so they were easier to carve.

      Guzman's shop was not very different from the others. It was just a matter of getting the customers in, and selling to them. With a smile, a wave of his hand he could always get some of the tourists. And Guzman could sell them. He was an expert haggler and a good actor, putting the sombrero in their hands and asking for ten dollars - not pesos, Seņor - then coming down to nine dollars, watching them try to beat down the price further because they had been told by their friends that it was expected. And it was expected. The sale didn't really start until Guzman shook his head, took back the sombrero, abandoned all hope. "Too cheap," he would mutter, his face twisted with grief. Who could look at him without seeing his hungry children at home? As they started to leave he would chase them, cry out, "All right - all right, take it for four dollars" - twenty-five cents more than their last asking price. And more often than not they would come back and make the purchase, wear the hat outside while he and Rosa exchanged satisfied glances. Not bad - a two-hundred percent profit. . . a little more than he sometimes sold for.

      He liked working in his shop, although he was only the manager. The shop's owner was Seņor Mendoza, a shadowy man who owned many other shops along the street. Mendoza dropped in frequently and unexpectedly. He checked the inventory and took the cash, except a little for making change. He liked and trusted Guzman, who stole only a little compared to some of his other managers. It was possible in this business to spread the wealth. Ten dollars for Mendoza, half a dollar for Guzman. Sometimes when a tourist paid the asking price, although that was rare, he would take a dollar.

      Guzman did well outside of the store, too. In his pocket he had brass engagement rings set with glass diamonds that he bought by the dozen for twenty cents each. He could sidle into the bars like a thief and sell them for two dollars (down from ten) to the college kids who thought they were real. The way he looked out for the Policia was proof enough the ring was stolen. Once a man threatened to call the police if he didn't sell it to him for one dollar, which Guzman was pleased to do.

      Today was not a great day for tourists, but good enough. They walked over the bridge after parking their cars on the U.S. side because they knew better than to drive in Mexico. Some of them got on the streetcar that deadended at the bridge, but most walked, because here was where the action was - the saloons and curio shops, the places with the cheap silver, the stores that sold whiskey for a fourth the price in the U.S., sidewalk venders who sold tamales under a haze of flies. Over by the canal where the young men went, were the whorehouses and strip joints where "special shows" were put on.

      This would be a good week, Guzman thought. The sweat was dripping down his face from his carefully combed hair. The air was like a furnace. He was dangling a pair of silver cuff-links before the eyes of a tourist when the boy came and tugged on his jacket and told him he had a telephone call.

      Guzman paled. For somebody to call him to a telephone meant bad news. Somebody had died. He thought of the baby, which they left everyday with Rosa's mother. He told Rosa he had a telephone call, and he saw her sudden worry as he began running down the block.

      The telephone whose number he was allowed to give out to his family was in the office of Seņor Rodriguez's barbershop, where the tourists could get haircuts for a dime American. "It's your sister," Rodriguez said, his face doleful.

      Guzman picked up the mouthpiece and held it close to his lips, and with his other hand he held the earpiece so tight it hurt his ear. It was his sister, Consuelo. She was crying. And yes, after all, her husband was dead, their place in Nuevo Mejico was burned down. She and Tonio had escaped with their lives. They had spent their last nickel on the phone call. Could he come get her?

      "Where are you?"

      "In El Paso, at the bus station."

      "How did you get there?"

      "I sold the burro and the man took me to the bus station in Las Cruces. . . ." She began crying again.

      "Wouldn't it be quicker to just walk across the bridge? It isn't far."

      "No," Consuelo said. "Come here and help me get a taxi. I have no money."

      "Wait for me," Guzman said. Something must be terribly wrong if she needed a taxi - couldn't walk a mere four or five blocks.

      He ran back to the shop and told Rosa, "It's all right - it's Consuelo. But I've got to go get her," and Rosa felt a surge of relief, then worry again. What was wrong with Consuelo? She turned back to the silver-haired matron who held a bottle of perfume. "Of course it's made in Paris. Put some on your arm and smell it."

      By the time Guzman got to the bus station his heart was pounding. He thought he was in petty good shape, but he was approaching middle age, thirty-seven years old, and he smoked two packs of American cigarettes a day. But he felt great relief when he saw them. There were no bandages, no broken bones that kept them from walking. They looked fine. Tonio, whom he hadn't seen in two years, was quite a man now. They embraced and Guzman was pleased when the boy called him Uncle.

      "I thought you were crippled," Guzman said. "Why do you need a taxi?"

      Consuelo pointed to the box she had been sitting on when he got there. "It's the box - I cannot carry it."

      He grabbed the box by the rope and hefted it, then set it down. "What is in there?" he asked. "Lead?"

      "Better than that," Consuelo said. "When we get to your house, I'll show you."

      He called a taxi and while he was wrestling the box into the back, he wondered why with all her troubles, and despite her frequent tears, she was smiling.

     


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