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\u2019s a quiet moment in Mexico. There are always a few such moments of total silence dispersed throughout the afternoon. Other times it\u2019s the sound of the water pump grinding into action, or snatches of banda music, children\u2019s voices\u2014the junk truck\u2019s recorded message blasting away. One thing after another. But it\u2019s quiet right now\u2014uncomfortably so.<\/p>\n
The older woman\u2014Irma\u2014sits straight, her hands clasped in her lap. Her hair is tied back in a severe bun\u2014tied back too tight. Just looking at Irma\u2019s distressed hairline makes your own scalp hurt.<\/p>\n
The younger woman\u2014Malena\u2014is dressed in ripped jeans and a purple T-shirt. Her nails painted pink are cracked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was introduced to my husband,\u201d says Irma. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a nice story,\u201d says Malena.<\/p>\n
\u201cStory?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour son told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Irma is silent for a moment, taking stock of Malena\u2019s 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\u2019s obvious\u2014a mix of blonde and cajeta. Her nose is strong and well-shaped. It gives her face character but the young women of Culiac\u00e1n do not want a face with character. They want a nose straight and small\u2014one that looks good on Instagram.<\/p>\n
Irma breaks the silence. \u201cHow long have you been with Ramon?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not really together,\u201d says Malena. \u201cDid he tell you that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said you were his novia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malena smiles. \u201cNo one told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lights in the room flicker on and off, on and off.<\/p>\n
Irma frowns, looking up at the overhead light. \u201cThe second time today. The commission of electricity is packed with cabrons.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happens at our house, too,\u201d says Malena.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happens all over the city,\u201d says Irma. \u201cElection year is coming up. You\u2019ll see. That\u2019s when they\u2019ll finally fix it for good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither one of the women is there to discuss electricity and politics, and Irma says, \u201cMy son is twenty-eight. It\u2019s time he got married.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Malena\u2019s turn to remain silent, until Irma asks, \u201cHow old are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Malena considers the question and decides to tell the truth. \u201cTwenty-five.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wait too long and no man will want you. The good ones, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Last week, the busybody across the street\u2014Gabriela\u2014had called out to Irma, motioning her to come over. She had said in a kind of whisper, \u201cDo you know what\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/p>\n
Irma knew something juicy was about to be shared, but was annoyed when she realized the gossip was about her son. \u201cI saw Ramon with Malena,\u201d said Gabriela. \u201cHe was touching her on the arm, on the shoulder. He was acting like a man in love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo?\u201d said Irma.<\/p>\n
\u201cMalena has been used by three men that I know of. My husband says seven. Your boy deserves better.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Irma takes a deep breath, sits up straighter. She says to Malena, \u201cI\u2019ve heard about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d But Malena knows exactly what Irma has heard.<\/p>\n
Irma says, \u201cSitting here with you, I think I know what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malena has no response for this.<\/p>\n
Irma leans forward. \u201cI will pay for a nose job if you marry my son.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The bedroom is a boy\u2019s room.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Ramon is taller than most Mexicans\u2014almost six feet. His body is trim, with muscular shoulders and a slight swell of belly. He\u2019s clean-shaven, with dark hair clipped close to the scalp. A handsome man, although timid.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Sometimes\u2014like today\u2014Ramon can feel himself swell inside, as though the world around him is too tight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The bathroom door is locked. Malena leans over the sink and peers into the mirror. It\u2019s 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, \u201cShe\u2019ll grow into it.\u201d As though her nose was a pair of shoes too big.<\/p>\n
Malena touches her face with the tips of her fingers.<\/p>\n
My old photos. I\u2019ll have to destroy them. Most of them. I don\u2019t want people to put the new and the old side by side, for a laugh.<\/p>\n
She hears her mother\u2019s voice call from the living room. \u201cMalena! She\u2019s here. Irma\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not the best plastic surgeon in Culiac\u00e1n, Dr. Suarez. The best are reserved for the girlfriends of cartel members. But Suarez is good enough for a simple rhinoplasty.<\/p>\n
Irma sits outside in the waiting room, scrolling through Facebook, tallying the likes her post has received\u2014a picture of Malena and Ramon from the back, holding hands, with the announcement:<\/p>\n
\u201cBig news to come!\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the operating room, Malena lies back on an operating table. Dr. Suarez places a ventilator mask over her nose and mouth and says, \u201cCount backward from ten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malena only makes it to three and then she\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an odd dinner. Irma and her husband sit next to each other at their dining room table, the one reserved for guests. Malena\u2019s 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\u2019s feeling. It\u2019s unlikely she\u2019ll ever again command this position.<\/p>\n
Her eyes and cheekbones are swollen and bruised. A bandage lies across the center of her face.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Ramon glances at his fianc\u00e9e, wondering how things managed to move so fast.<\/p>\n
Irma wipes her mouth with a paper napkin. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be a big wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malena\u2019s father nods, looking as though he\u2019s dodged a bullet.<\/p>\n
Malena\u2019s mother says, \u201cI have a family member who can officiate. I thought we\u2019d have the reception at the venue on Ria Sinaloa. I know the owner.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFour weeks?\u201d says Irma.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bandages come off in two,\u201d says Malena\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Irma mutters, \u201cPinche cabrons.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice,\u201d says Malena, the pale blue mask hiding half her face, and her voice muffled. \u201cBut we can\u2019t afford to live here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d says Ramon. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to live with your parents, or live with mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
As they walk, Malena thinks:<\/p>\n
Will we be lonely, just the two of us?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Three weeks before the wedding they find a small one-bedroom\u2014a tiny casita connected in a row with three others. There\u2019s a crack in one wall, a prevailing septic odor, and a committed drunk living next door. But it\u2019s what they can afford on Ramon\u2019s call center salary. Malena will continue to help her mother at the family abarrotes; making tortas and ringing up sales and making sure they\u2019re not being cheated on deliveries.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s bad luck to share a household before she and Ramon are official in the eyes of the church.<\/p>\n
Ramon has moved from touching Malena\u2019s 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\u2014from the initial agreement with Ramon\u2019s mother to the days leading up to the wedding\u2014these weeks have been Malena\u2019s 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\u2014young, middle-aged, and even elderly\u2014she 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\u2019re watching a soap opera.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maybe they don\u2019t need the doctor to remove Malena\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake a look,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He hands Malena a mirror.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
This is what I wanted? Yes?<\/p>\n
The bridge is straight and narrow, the nostrils narrow, too; and precise, as though machine-made.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe careful in the sun,\u201d says the doctor.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ramon sits on the edge of his bed. He wears a dark suit and has a tie draped over one knee. He\u2019ll marry Malena an hour from now.<\/p>\n
He stares at the phone in his hand.<\/p>\n
Is this the woman I fell in love with?<\/p>\n
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\u2019s face had both of these qualities before the surgery. Now, she\u2019s mismatched parts. Unsettling as it is, the surgery doesn\u2019t make Ramon love her any less. And it\u2019s true there have been times in the last two weeks when he\u2019s been filled with pride, hearing one person after another say how beautiful Malena looks. Now.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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\u2019s a short drive to Jardines del Sol, a downmarket venue for celebrating birthday parties, quincea\u00f1eras, and christenings. A live norte\u00f1o band plays the tunes everyone wants to hear. Ramon and Malena dance to Mundo de Amor and lots of pictures are taken.<\/p>\n
Irma doesn\u2019t dance and instead sits straight and solid in her chair, as though she has a magic wand concealed under the table\u2014a wand she waved through the air to make a bride for her son.<\/p>\n
There won\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Malena smiles, looking up at her new husband, handsome and trim.<\/p>\n
A cab waits outside at the curb. Ramon holds the door for Malena and they both fold themselves into the backseat.<\/p>\n
The drive to their casita is short, but not short enough.<\/p>\n
At the intersection of Calle Constituci\u00f3n and Avenida Nicol\u00e1s Bravo, a Ram pickup slams into the tiny cab.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In the seat next to her, Ramon slumps unconscious, his battered face dripping blood.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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\u2019ve given up restoring Ramon\u2019s facial features to their original appearance. Instead, realists that they are, they try to give Ramon a face that won\u2019t make strangers point and stare.<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
Did that little nose cause all this trouble?<\/p>\n
Ramon\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve kept mirrors away from Ramon during reconstruction, but now a nurse hands Malena a hand mirror and says, \u201cI think he will like what he sees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramon looks into the mirror and sees a face that isn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Ramon hands the mirror back to Malena.<\/p>\n
The lights flicker in the room.<\/p>\n
The nurse smiles. \u201cNo worries. We have a generator.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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\u2019s been staying with her parents and the casita has been closed tight.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t like to look at me. I don\u2019t blame her. I had a different face when I put the ring on her finger.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve brought food from the taqueria\u2014caldo de siete mares\u2014fish soup. Ramon puts the bag on the kitchen table, which also contains hot sauce, cut limes, radishes, chopped onion and cilantro, and two Cokes.<\/p>\n
With windows open, the afternoon light slants into the room.<\/p>\n
Malena smiles, but it\u2019s not a happy smile. \u201cYou didn\u2019t carry me into the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramon gives this some thought. He moves toward the front door. \u201cCome on then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malena follows him outside and Ramon scoops her up with both hands. \u201cHold on now. It\u2019s gotta be bad luck if I drop you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She tucks her face into his chest and in two steps they\u2019re back inside. Now it\u2019s the smell of the soup that fills the room.<\/p>\n
He sets her down and she says, \u201cLet\u2019s eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lights flicker on and off. Malena thumbs the wall switch. Nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope it\u2019s a short one,\u201d says Ramon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
They eat in the afternoon gloom and clean up as dusk arrives. Soon, when it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to fix this,\u201d says Malena. \u201cIt\u2019s too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow we\u2019ll buy candles,\u201d says Ramon.<\/p>\n
They go back inside and Malena taps on the flashlight in her phone. This only lasts a few minutes before the battery dies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about yours?\u201d asks Malena.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no light on mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a moonless night and their eyes blink in the blackness.<\/p>\n
Ramon says, \u201cCome lie on the bed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Ramon pats the mattress and sits on the edge of the bed. Unties his shoes. He settles back into the darkness. Malena\u2019s 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\u2019t see.<\/p>\n
Malena reaches out and finds Ramon\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the way it should be,\u201d says Malena.<\/p>\n
Her other hand reaches out with the intention of touching Ramon\u2019s face. She hesitates, brings the hand back to her chest.<\/p>\n
Ramon\u2019s breath whistles in his left nostril; a noise keyed to the rise and fall of his chest.<\/p>\n
Malena says, \u201cHave you heard stories about me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramon is silent for a bit, then says, \u201cThose stories don\u2019t bother me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stares at her husband but sees nothing. She can feel him staring back.<\/p>\n
Ramon says, \u201cI can\u2019t see you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malena reaches out her other hand, finds Ramon\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n
Ramon feels the heat of her body next to his.<\/p>\n
Love had been there all the time. Waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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