The two women sit across from each other in the living room. The older of the two has commandeered the sole rattan chair, while the younger woman sits on the sofa. It’s a quiet moment in Mexico. There are always a few such moments of total silence dispersed throughout the afternoon. Other times it’s the sound of the water pump grinding into action, or snatches of banda music, children’s voices—the junk truck’s recorded message blasting away. One thing after another. But it’s quiet right now—uncomfortably so.
The older woman—Irma—sits straight, her hands clasped in her lap. Her hair is tied back in a severe bun—tied back too tight. Just looking at Irma’s distressed hairline makes your own scalp hurt.
The younger woman—Malena—is dressed in ripped jeans and a purple T-shirt. Her nails painted pink are cracked.
“When I was introduced to my husband,” says Irma. “I knew within hours that I would marry him. I liked him and he was crazy about me. Within a week he proposed, although that was a formality. He had already proposed with his eyes.”
“That’s a nice story,” says Malena.
“Story?”
“Your son told me.”
Irma is silent for a moment, taking stock of Malena’s face. The lips are gently curved. Her eyes are light brown rather than the dark black of the Indian. Her hair has been colored, that’s obvious—a mix of blonde and cajeta. Her nose is strong and well-shaped. It gives her face character but the young women of Culiacán do not want a face with character. They want a nose straight and small—one that looks good on Instagram.
Irma breaks the silence. “How long have you been with Ramon?”
“We’re not really together,” says Malena. “Did he tell you that?”
“He said you were his novia.”
Malena smiles. “No one told me.”
The lights in the room flicker on and off, on and off.
Irma frowns, looking up at the overhead light. “The second time today. The commission of electricity is packed with cabrons.”
“It happens at our house, too,” says Malena.
“It happens all over the city,” says Irma. “Election year is coming up. You’ll see. That’s when they’ll finally fix it for good.”
Neither one of the women is there to discuss electricity and politics, and Irma says, “My son is twenty-eight. It’s time he got married.”
It’s Malena’s turn to remain silent, until Irma asks, “How old are you?”
Malena considers the question and decides to tell the truth. “Twenty-five.”
“You wait too long and no man will want you. The good ones, anyway.”
Last week, the busybody across the street—Gabriela—had called out to Irma, motioning her to come over. She had said in a kind of whisper, “Do you know what’s going on?”
Irma knew something juicy was about to be shared, but was annoyed when she realized the gossip was about her son. “I saw Ramon with Malena,” said Gabriela. “He was touching her on the arm, on the shoulder. He was acting like a man in love.”
“So?” said Irma.
“Malena has been used by three men that I know of. My husband says seven. Your boy deserves better.”
The rest of the afternoon, Irma thought about what she had learned. Her son was slow and if she left him to his own pace, he might never marry and supply her with grandchildren.
Irma takes a deep breath, sits up straighter. She says to Malena, “I’ve heard about you.”
“What?” But Malena knows exactly what Irma has heard.
Irma says, “Sitting here with you, I think I know what you want.”
Malena has no response for this.
Irma leans forward. “I will pay for a nose job if you marry my son.”
The bedroom is a boy’s room.
Ramon looks at his bed, at the stack of T-shirts, underwear, and jeans his mother has washed and folded. On the bedside table sits a scuffed water bottle with a Mercedes logo. There are no pictures on the wall, only a hand-painted mural of a rainbow and a black horse galloping along its arc. It was painted when Ramon was three years old.
Ramon is taller than most Mexicans—almost six feet. His body is trim, with muscular shoulders and a slight swell of belly. He’s clean-shaven, with dark hair clipped close to the scalp. A handsome man, although timid.
Down the hall, he hears his mother in the kitchen, the wooden spoon swirling and knocking around the clay pot, working the masa to make enough tamales to last the week.
Sometimes—like today—Ramon can feel himself swell inside, as though the world around him is too tight.
The bathroom door is locked. Malena leans over the sink and peers into the mirror. It’s a goodbye of sorts. A goodbye to her face. Since she was a child, her nose had been something to remark upon. Aunts would say, “She’ll grow into it.” As though her nose was a pair of shoes too big.
Malena touches her face with the tips of her fingers.
My old photos. I’ll have to destroy them. Most of them. I don’t want people to put the new and the old side by side, for a laugh.
She hears her mother’s voice call from the living room. “Malena! She’s here. Irma’s here.”
He’s not the best plastic surgeon in Culiacán, Dr. Suarez. The best are reserved for the girlfriends of cartel members. But Suarez is good enough for a simple rhinoplasty.
Irma sits outside in the waiting room, scrolling through Facebook, tallying the likes her post has received—a picture of Malena and Ramon from the back, holding hands, with the announcement:
“Big news to come!”
Inside the operating room, Malena lies back on an operating table. Dr. Suarez places a ventilator mask over her nose and mouth and says, “Count backward from ten.”
Malena only makes it to three and then she’s gone.
It’s an odd dinner. Irma and her husband sit next to each other at their dining room table, the one reserved for guests. Malena’s mother and father sit across from them. Ramon is at the far end and Malena sits at the head of the table, in honor of the pain and discomfort she’s feeling. It’s unlikely she’ll ever again command this position.
Her eyes and cheekbones are swollen and bruised. A bandage lies across the center of her face.
The table is set with serving bowls of steaming birria, baskets of tortillas, homemade salsa, red onion and habanero marinated in lime juice, shallow dishes of cabbage and cilantro, a bottle of red wine, and a caguama of Victoria beer. It’s a congratulatory feast, although Malena is limited to a bowl of rice pudding and a tall glass of water, no ice. Next to the glass is a pale blue facemask.
Ramon glances at his fiancée, wondering how things managed to move so fast.
Irma wipes her mouth with a paper napkin. “It doesn’t have to be a big wedding.”
Malena’s father nods, looking as though he’s dodged a bullet.
Malena’s mother says, “I have a family member who can officiate. I thought we’d have the reception at the venue on Ria Sinaloa. I know the owner.”
“Four weeks?” says Irma.
“The bandages come off in two,” says Malena’s mother.
The lights flicker once. Then they turn off altogether and for a long moment all six people sit in darkness. The light returns and holds.
Irma mutters, “Pinche cabrons.”
Next morning, Malena and Ramon walk through the quiet neighborhood of La Primavera. The houses are two and three stories, well maintained, with flashy details here and there: a circular stained glass window, an intricate iron gate, a sculpture of a rearing horse. Its residents are a mix of professionals, politicians, and high-ranking members of the Ala de Cuervo cartel.
“It’s nice,” says Malena, the pale blue mask hiding half her face, and her voice muffled. “But we can’t afford to live here.”
“No,” says Ramon. “But I don’t want to live with your parents, or live with mine.”
As they walk, Malena thinks:
Will we be lonely, just the two of us?
Three weeks before the wedding they find a small one-bedroom—a tiny casita connected in a row with three others. There’s a crack in one wall, a prevailing septic odor, and a committed drunk living next door. But it’s what they can afford on Ramon’s call center salary. Malena will continue to help her mother at the family abarrotes; making tortas and ringing up sales and making sure they’re not being cheated on deliveries.
Ramon begins gathering mismatched pieces of furniture gleaned from relatives and family friends. He strikes a deal with the landlord to purchase the ugly but operable stove and fridge left behind by the previous tenants. He washes the windows, mops the cement floor, and hangs cheap blinds. Malena will bring a tiny flatscreen TV. She avoids visiting the house before the wedding. Her mother insists it’s bad luck to share a household before she and Ramon are official in the eyes of the church.
Ramon has moved from touching Malena’s shoulder and the back of her hand to tentative and clumsy hugs hello and goodbye. Still no kiss. And of course, no sex. These weeks—from the initial agreement with Ramon’s mother to the days leading up to the wedding—these weeks have been Malena’s longest span of denying herself relations with a man. To avoid temptation, she blocks previous lovers from her phone and from Facebook. When these men come into the abbarotes looking for her—young, middle-aged, and even elderly—she treats them like any other customer. Not every former lover suffers in silence. The angriest spit words like puta or furcia. This makes some onlookers smile, as though they’re watching a soap opera.
Maybe they don’t need the doctor to remove Malena’s bandages, but Dr. Suarez insists and on the indicated morning Malena sits in his examination room, holding still as he unwraps his handiwork. When the last bandage has been stripped away, the doctor steps back, nodding his head.
“Take a look,” he says.
He hands Malena a mirror.
The nose is small and white in the center of her face, hidden from the sun for two weeks. Malena leans closer to the mirror.
This is what I wanted? Yes?
The bridge is straight and narrow, the nostrils narrow, too; and precise, as though machine-made.
“Be careful in the sun,” says the doctor.
Ramon sits on the edge of his bed. He wears a dark suit and has a tie draped over one knee. He’ll marry Malena an hour from now.
He stares at the phone in his hand.
Is this the woman I fell in love with?
Old images of Malena have been stripped from social media to be replaced by a flurry of new photos. Malena posing in various outfits and settings, her arm draped around friends, innumerable selfies, a few snaps with Ramon. Her straight nose is like the share of a plow and Ramon imagines it cutting through the air. Ramon is far from being an artist, but he has a natural ability to perceive symmetry and grace. Malena’s face had both of these qualities before the surgery. Now, she’s mismatched parts. Unsettling as it is, the surgery doesn’t make Ramon love her any less. And it’s true there have been times in the last two weeks when he’s been filled with pride, hearing one person after another say how beautiful Malena looks. Now.
The wedding ceremony is held in an airless Catholic church, heavy with afternoon lassitude. Ramon and Malena kiss and a few people clap their hands. Then it’s a short drive to Jardines del Sol, a downmarket venue for celebrating birthday parties, quinceañeras, and christenings. A live norteño band plays the tunes everyone wants to hear. Ramon and Malena dance to Mundo de Amor and lots of pictures are taken.
Irma doesn’t dance and instead sits straight and solid in her chair, as though she has a magic wand concealed under the table—a wand she waved through the air to make a bride for her son.
There won’t be a honeymoon, and when the reception is almost over, Malena and Ramon make their way to the door, thanking their guests. Tonight will be their first night in their new home.
Malena smiles, looking up at her new husband, handsome and trim.
A cab waits outside at the curb. Ramon holds the door for Malena and they both fold themselves into the backseat.
The drive to their casita is short, but not short enough.
At the intersection of Calle Constitución and Avenida Nicolás Bravo, a Ram pickup slams into the tiny cab.
The cab driver tumbles into the street, clutching his broken arm, cursing. Malena, dizzy from shock, looks down at the fine splatter of blood on her dress.
In the seat next to her, Ramon slumps unconscious, his battered face dripping blood.
There are 22 bones in the human face. Ramon has broken six of them. Of these six, two have been smashed into bits. He spends three weeks in the hospital, heavily sedated as doctors bend over him, stitching, bonding, filling, scraping. They’ve given up restoring Ramon’s facial features to their original appearance. Instead, realists that they are, they try to give Ramon a face that won’t make strangers point and stare.
Malena has been a daily visitor, even though there are some days Ramon is deep in sedated sleep, unaware of her presence. Irma also comes every day. Sometimes she sits across from Malena, wondering:
Did that little nose cause all this trouble?
Ramon’s flesh is young and responds to the nips and tricks of the surgeons. At the end of the third week, the doctors announce he is free to go home.
They’ve kept mirrors away from Ramon during reconstruction, but now a nurse hands Malena a hand mirror and says, “I think he will like what he sees.”
Ramon looks into the mirror and sees a face that isn’t his. Maybe the face of an older uncle, or a remote cousin. There is a resemblance to the old Ramon; especially around the eyes. But the nose is broader and when he breathes, there’s a whistling sound from his left nostril. One side of his face is angular, the other side softer, slacker. Most of the stitches have been removed and red lines crisscross his face. One deeper cut on his forehead is still healing and black stitches remain.
Ramon hands the mirror back to Malena.
The lights flicker in the room.
The nurse smiles. “No worries. We have a generator.”
It’s midafternoon when they arrive at their home. The casita smells of must and Malena hurries around, opening all the windows and propping both doors open. Since the accident, she’s been staying with her parents and the casita has been closed tight.
Ramon watches his wife. He finds it difficult to stay with a thought and he wonders if his mind has been altered as much as his features. He catches himself taking short breaths and forces himself to slow down. Breathe deep.
She doesn’t like to look at me. I don’t blame her. I had a different face when I put the ring on her finger.
They’ve brought food from the taqueria—caldo de siete mares—fish soup. Ramon puts the bag on the kitchen table, which also contains hot sauce, cut limes, radishes, chopped onion and cilantro, and two Cokes.
With windows open, the afternoon light slants into the room.
Malena smiles, but it’s not a happy smile. “You didn’t carry me into the house.”
Ramon gives this some thought. He moves toward the front door. “Come on then.”
Malena follows him outside and Ramon scoops her up with both hands. “Hold on now. It’s gotta be bad luck if I drop you.”
She tucks her face into his chest and in two steps they’re back inside. Now it’s the smell of the soup that fills the room.
He sets her down and she says, “Let’s eat.”
The lights flicker on and off. Malena thumbs the wall switch. Nothing.
“I hope it’s a short one,” says Ramon.
It isn’t.
They eat in the afternoon gloom and clean up as dusk arrives. Soon, when it’s full dark, they both step outside. The city is in almost total darkness. Here and there a window is lit by a battery-powered light or a wavery candle.
“They have to fix this,” says Malena. “It’s too much.”
“Tomorrow we’ll buy candles,” says Ramon.
They go back inside and Malena taps on the flashlight in her phone. This only lasts a few minutes before the battery dies.
“What about yours?” asks Malena.
“There’s no light on mine.”
It’s a moonless night and their eyes blink in the blackness.
Ramon says, “Come lie on the bed.”
They start off toward the bedroom, knocking against chairs, bumping the frame of the door, making their way to the bed one shuffle at a time.
Ramon pats the mattress and sits on the edge of the bed. Unties his shoes. He settles back into the darkness. Malena’s sandals fall to the floor with a clump and she lies next to her husband. Both are quiet and stare up at a ceiling they can’t see.
Malena reaches out and finds Ramon’s hand.
“This is the way it should be,” says Malena.
Her other hand reaches out with the intention of touching Ramon’s face. She hesitates, brings the hand back to her chest.
Ramon’s breath whistles in his left nostril; a noise keyed to the rise and fall of his chest.
Malena says, “Have you heard stories about me?”
Ramon is silent for a bit, then says, “Those stories don’t bother me.”
She stares at her husband but sees nothing. She can feel him staring back.
Ramon says, “I can’t see you.”
Malena reaches out her other hand, finds Ramon’s chest.
Ramon feels the heat of her body next to his.
Love had been there all the time. Waiting.
