‘José Martinez.’
And she said:
‘Celia Obregon.’
And then both said nothing.
He heard the men moving up on the tenement roof. He moved to follow.
She said, quickly, ‘I saw you tonight!’
He came back.
‘The suit,’ he said.
‘The suit,’ she said and paused. ‘But not the suit.’
‘Eh?’ he said.
She lifted the book to show the glasses lying in her lap. She touched the glasses.
‘I do not see well. You would think I would wear my glasses, but no. I walk around for years now, hiding them, seeing nothing. But tonight, even without glasses, I see. A great whiteness passes below in the dark. So white! And I put on my glasses quickly!’
‘The suit, as I said,’ said Martinez.
‘The suit for a little moment, yes, but there is another whiteness above the suit.’
‘Another?’
‘Your teeth! Oh, such white teeth, and so many!’
Martinez put his hand over his mouth.
‘So happy, Mr Martinez,’ she said. ‘I have not often seen such a happy face and such a smile.’
‘Ah,’ he said, not able to look at her, his face flushing now.
‘So you see,’ she said, quietly, ‘the suit caught my eye, yes, the whiteness filled the night, below. But, the teeth were much whiter. Now, I have forgotten the suit.’
Martinez flushed again. She too was overcome with what she had said. She put her glasses on her nose, and then took them off, nervously, and hid them again. She looked at her hands and at the door above his head.
‘May I –’ he said, at last.
‘May you –’
‘May I call for you,’ he asked, ‘when next the suit is mine to wear?’
‘Why must you wait for the suit?’ she said.
‘I thought –’
‘You do not need the suit,’ she said.
‘But –’
‘If it were just the suit,’ she said, ‘anyone would be fine in it. But no, I watched. I saw many men in that suit, all different, this night. So again I say, you do not need to wait for the suit.’
‘Madre mía, madre mía!’ he cried, happily. And then, quieter,
‘I will need the suit for a little while. A month, six months, a year. I am uncertain. I am fearful of many things. I am young.’
‘That is as it should be,’ she said.
‘Good night, Miss –’
‘Celia Obregon.’
‘Celia Obregon,’ he said and was gone from the door.
The others were waiting, on the roof of the tenement. Coming up through the trapdoor, Martinez saw they had placed the dummy and the suit in the centre of the roof and put their blankets and pillows in a circle round it. Now they were lying down. Now a cooler night was blowing here, up in the sky.
Martinez stood alone by the suit, smoothing the lapels, talking half to himself.
‘Aye, caramba, what a night! Seems ten years since seven o’clock, when it all started and I had no friends. Two in the morning, I got all kinds of friends …’ He paused and thought, Celia Obregon, Celia Obregon. ‘… all kinds of friends,’ he went on. ‘I got a room, I got clothes. You tell me. You know what?’ He looked around at the men lying on the rooftop, surrounding the dummy and himself.
‘It’s funny. When I wear this suit, I know I will win at pool, like Gomez. A woman will look at me like Dominguez. I will be able to sing like Manulo, sweetly. I will talk fine politics like Villanazul. I’m strong as Vamenos. So?
So, tonight, I am more than Martinez. I am Gomez, Manulo, Dominguez, Villanazul, Vamenos. I am everyone. Ay … ay …’ He stood a moment longer by this suit which could save all the ways they sat or stood or walked.
This suit which could move fast and nervous like Gomez or slow and thoughtfully like Villanazul or drift like Dominguez who never touched ground, who always found a wind to take him somewhere. This suit which belonged to them, but which also owned them all. This suit that was – what? A parade.
‘Martinez,’ said Gomez. ‘You going to sleep?’
‘Sure. I’m just thinking.’
‘What?’
‘If we ever get rich,’ said Martinez, softly, ‘it’ll be kind of sad. Then we’ll all have suits. And there won’t be no more nights like tonight. It’ll break up the old gang. It’ll never be the same after that.’
The men lay thinking of what had just been said.
Gomez nodded, gently.
‘Yeah … it’ll never be the same … after that.’
Martinez lay down on his blanket. In darkness, with the others, he faced the middle of the roof and the dummy, which was the centre of their lives.
And their eyes were bright, shining, and good to see in the dark as the neon lights from nearby buildings flicked on, flicked off, flicked on, flicked off, revealing and then vanishing, revealing and then vanishing, their wonderful white vanilla ice-cream summer suit.
Fever Dream
THEY put him between fresh, clean, laundered sheets and there was always a newly squeezed glass of thick orange juice on the table under the dim pink lamp. All Charles had to do was call and Mom or Dad would stick their heads into his room to see how sick he was. The acoustics of the room were fine; you could hear the toilet gargling its porcelain throat of mornings, you could hear rain tap the roof or sly mice run in the secret walls, the canary singing in its cage downstairs. If you were very alert, sickness wasn’t too bad.
He was fifteen, Charles was. It was mid September, with the land beginning to burn with autumn. He lay in the bed for three days before the terror overcame him.
His hand began to change. His right hand. He looked at it and it was hot and sweating there on the counterpane, alone. It fluttered, it moved a bit. Then it lay there, changing colour.
That afternoon the doctor came again and tapped his thin chest like a little drum. ‘How are you?’ asked the doctor, smiling. ‘I know, don’t tell me: “My cold is fine, Doctor, but I feel lousy!” Ha!’ He laughed at his own oft-repeated joke.
Charles lay there and for him that terrible and ancient jest was becoming a reality. The joke fixed itself in his mind. His mind touched and drew away from it in a pale terror. The doctor did not know how cruel he was with his jokes! ‘Doctor,’ whispered Charles, lying flat and colourless. ‘My hand, it doesn’t belong to me any more. This morning it changed into something else. I want you to change it back, Doctor, Doctor!’
The doctor showed his teeth and patted his hand. ‘It looks fine to me, son. You just had a little fever dream.’
‘But it changed, Doctor, oh, Doctor,’ cried Charles, pitifully holding up his pale wild hand. ‘It did !’
The doctor winked. ‘I’ll give you a pink pill for that.’ He popped a tablet on to Charles’s tongue. ‘Swallow!’
‘Will it make my hand change back and become me, again?’
‘Yes, yes.’
The house was silent when the doctor drove off down the road in his carriage under the quiet, blue September sky. A clock ticked far below in the kitchen world. Charles lay looking at his hand.
It did not change back. It was still – something else.
The wind blew outside. Leaves fell against the cool window.
At four o’clock his other hand changed. It seemed almost to become a fever, a chemical, a virus. It pulsed and shifted, cell by cell. It beat like a warm heart. The fingernails turned blue and then red. It took about an hour for it to change and when it was finished, it looked just like any ordinary hand. But it was not ordinary. It no longer was him any more. He lay in a fascinated horror and then fell into an exhausted sleep.
Mother brought the soup up at six. He wouldn’t touch it. ‘I haven’t any hands,’ he said, eyes shut.
‘Your hands are perfectly good,’ said Mother.
‘No,’ he wailed. ‘My hands are gone. I feel like I have stumps. Oh, Mama, Mama, hold me, hold me, I’m scared!’
She had to feed him herself.
‘Mama,’ he said, ‘get the doctor, please, again, I’m so sick.’
‘The doctor’ll be here tonight at eight,’ she said, and went out.
At seven, with night dark and close around the house, Charles was sitting up in bed when he felt the thing happening to first one leg then the other. ‘Mama! Come quick!’ he screamed.
But when Mama came the thing was no longer happening.
When she went downstairs, he simply lay without fighting as his legs beat and beat, grew warm, red hot, and the room filled with the warmth of his feverish change. The glow crept up from his toes to his ankles and then to his knees.
‘May I come in?’ The doctor smiled in the doorway.
‘Doctor!’ cried Charles. ‘Hurry, take off my blankets!’
The doctor lifted the blankets tolerantly. ‘There you are. Whole and healthy. Sweating, though. A little fever. I told you not to move around, bad boy.’ He pinched the moist pink cheek. ‘Did the pills help? Did your hand change back?’
‘No, no, now it’s my other hand and my legs!’
‘Well, well, I’ll have to give you three more pills, one for each limb, eh, my little peach?’ laughed the doctor.
‘Will they help me? Please, please. What’ve I got?’
‘A mild case of scarlet fever, complicated by a slight cold.’
‘Is it a germ that lives and has more little germs in me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure it’s scarlet fever? You haven’t taken any tests!’
‘I guess I know a certain fever when I see one,’ said the doctor, checking the boy’s pulse with cool authority.
Charles lay there, not speaking until the doctor was crisply packing his black kit. Then in the silent
