Blue Genes Read online

  Fireworks. The sky was bright with pinwheels and rockets. I walked down the Avenida de la Reforma, buffeted by the celebrating crowds. Huge billboards announced the lottery. The streets were crowded with celebrants. I continually tried to assimilate the smells and sounds of this, the biggest street in Mexico City at nine o’clock in the evening of the day before the day they call Cinco de Mayo. It was a glorious cacophony. Boys, no more than six or seven years old, ran in and out of the crowd, selling fracciones of lottery tickets; street musicians competing with each other in friendly disharmony. Tacos, frying over charcoal, summoned the juices of thousands of stomachs; beggars, blind, one-legged, armless, plied their trade. Automobiles careened around traffic circles in unending spirals with no break for vehicles entering from side streets.

  Umber, pink, terra cotta, ochre, rust—the earth tones of Latin America made the landscape a living painting. The streets were alive, crawling with millions of people: farmers in two-piece, white cotton work clothes; charros in broad-brimmed sombreros, with silver buttons down their trousers; ladies in embroidered dresses; businessmen, striding along in three-piece suits; Indian peasant women, their tattered dresses covered by rebozos, in which they carried their infants. All in an infinity of colors. Poverty, such as I had never seen before, marched side by side with luxury. Hands were held out in supplication to passing strangers who jingled in jewelry or leather boots with spurs. Above, the sky crackled: From every rooftop, amateur pyrotechnicrats set off fireworks, so that the evening sky was pink and white and green, and the air smelled of gunpowder.

  A never-ending parade of festivals. I drank and ate and danced in the streets, watching the fireworks.

  This was a romanticized version. I didn’t actually dance and revel in the cacophony. In fact, I was frightened by the noise and the strange customs. At the age of twenty-six, I had not yet conquered my childhood fear of being alone. Sent away to camp at the age of six, learning that my mother had died, that my father would go away to a hospital, and that I, too, must go away, had left me with a host of residual anxieties that surfaced at times like this.

  In adolescence, Tony and I had gone everywhere together, and I was able to bear up even when we were robbed by those toughs in Bloomingdale’s because Tony was with me. But when I was alone, even in my adult years, the fears of being abandoned and left behind in some forbidding place often came back. Tony thrived on new places; I learned how to make film and sat in the safety of an editing room. It was a striking contrast, and not until I married and traveled extensively did the fear of abandonment in foreign environments begin to leave me.

  In the morning, with the sunshine, I was a new man. Refreshed, I breakfasted on huevos rancheros and strong coffee. In those days the María Cristina was already a rarity: it had enough real estate to set the pleasing hotel onto the grounds of that large garden—at a moderate cost. There was no air-conditioning, but the thick walls of the hundred-year-old building made that unnecessary. The rooms were small, but who spends time in rooms in Mexico? The restaurant served a delicious breakfast of eggs, tortillas, and fresh papaya; a little bar off the garden boasted a guitar trio that serenaded all night long. We were in paradise.

  For those few days in Mexico City, Tony and I were fellow travelers on an equal footing, something that had never been true before. I had read up on the country and its offerings; I spoke Spanish. Tony was without any of the language, and he hadn’t had time to learn anything of the country’s history. For once, I had done the research; he had not.

  We took the tourist trail recommended by Kate Simon. We ate at the restaurants she suggested—Danubio, in the downtown area, Hamburgo 76, in the Zona Rosa. We looked through the old Museum of Anthropology, where glyphs and stelae mingled with jade masks and stone images of Coatlicue—the goddess of death. History was Tony’s passion, and he enjoyed this look into the pre-Columbian era.

  We went to the huge square—the zocalo—where an immense cathedral stood on the former site of an Aztec temple. We stood in awe of the thousands of people crowding public streets. On the Paseo de la Reforma, we took the peseros, gypsy cabs that plied only that route, charging but one peso for a group ride.

  We were entranced by all of it—the cuisine, the ancient myths, the artifacts. We sneezed our way through dusty hallways in search of Rivera and Orozco murals, stopped at midday to dine on langostinos al mojo de ajo—succulent crawfish with a crisp garlic sauce. We listened to mariachis as they serenaded lovers in raunchy Plaza Garibaldi and heard the marimbas play through the night in the Zona Rosa near our hotel.

  The second night in the city, we took a cab to the Frontón México, the country’s paean to jai alai. The atmosphere inside was more like that at a prizefight or a play. Spectators sat in the dark. Players were in a brightly lit arena, separated from us by a huge rope net that hung from ceiling to floor. They slung the pelota at hundred-mile-an-hour speeds from their rattan canastas, white flannel pants gleaming in the luminescence. During lulls between shots or games, bookies cried their odds, and bettors in the audience caught a tennis ball into which a slit had been cut—permitting them to insert pesos, then toss it back to the tout, who remembered everyone’s bet. At the end of play, which could last from a few minutes to a breathtaking half hour, one team—Rojo or Azul—had won, and winnings could be collected. Tony and I watched enthralled, but didn’t wager. We couldn’t understand the odds.

  Three days later, we went back to the airport and flew by DC-3 to Oaxaca. It was an early morning trip, so we skipped breakfast.

  This, too, was on Kate Simon’s trail, though she hadn’t warned of the creaky old World War II warplane that flew the route—so drafty that during the entire flight a hiss of cold air came into the cabin from a break in one of the windows. The landing in Oaxaca was bumpy; skimpy brakes sent us skidding to the very edge of the runway. We would have to take the same plane to Acapulco two days later.

  As we traveled the short distance into that city of ten thousand people, to the Marques del Valle hotel, I saw for the first time what Mexico would evoke for me the rest of my life: old men with brooms made of straw, or of thin tree branches, sweeping the pathways full of bougainvillea blossoms that had fallen in perfect circles—like painted skirts around the mother vines; young girls, on hands and knees, black tresses tied up in braids behind their heads, washing endless miles of marble corridors. Later, it would also mean guitar trios on the beach in Acapulco, the blind guitarists of the zocalo in Oaxaca, the sad marimbas; stelae and pyramids, standing in fields of broken stone, mute against the harsh light. Pomegranates, dripping from the trees; police whistles like birdcalls; women in endless poverty; mescal, tequila, and exquisite dark sauces with sharp and subtle tastes.

  We checked into our room and went immediately to the lobby to seek Victor, a tour guide who had been recommended to me in L.A. Victor put us in a tired car and drove to Monte Albán, the first of the two great ruins in Oaxaca. We were tired, hungry, and discombobulated by the dust and heat. Tony had spent two years in Baltimore and seemed to be able to sweat his way through humid days without discomfort; I found the heat unnerving. Unlike the pyramids outside of Mexico City, no structures at these Zapotec and Mixtec sites were above a few feet tall. And while Victor made much of the “Greek key” motifs on the low walls, my mind kept wandering to cool patios and a lunch of guacamole. On the way back to Oaxaca, we stopped at a local jewelry store. Jaguars made of onyx and jade stared out at us from the floor-to-ceiling shelves. Next door was a bar. Victor poured us a couple of shots of mescal, our first taste of the stuff. By the time we reached our hotel, mid-afternoon, food was the last thing on our minds. I badly needed a siesta.

  Our room was on the ground floor. Its large, shuttered windows opened onto a square patio in the front of the hotel, shaded by a huge cypress. Here, in the evening, marimba players would serenade the hotel while its guests sipped rum or tequila drinks.

  Tony and I drifted off to sleep. When I awoke, a few hours later, it was dusk
, and I could hear the sad strains of “Zandunga,” a Tehuantepec song, played on marimbas in the patio. My nose was running. I wiped it with my sleeve, but it continued to run. Opening my eyes, I saw that my shirtsleeve was covered in blood. I was bleeding copiously. I went to the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and held it hard against my face, but the towel quickly turned deep red. I began to panic. What would happen if this bleeding didn’t stop?

  Waking Tony, I had the presence of mind to have him call for ice from room service. It was a long time coming. Meanwhile, I watched him for signs of fear, for Tony was frightened of physical pain or illness. If a hypodermic needle came near him, he had been known to faint. A syringe for bloodletting would make him turn his head away in nausea. Once, I was told, he even fainted during a simple eye examination. From time to time, he reported that he was suffering from one serious disease or another, even when there was no evidence.

  Now, however, he just sat on his bed and watched me bleed. Perhaps it was only his pain and blood loss that were frightening. From time to time he would ask, “Any better?” I would check the towel, then shake my head.

  Finally a slim young girl in a white dress entered the room and stood at the door, aghast at the sight of this young American stretched on the bed, holding a bloody towel to his face. Tony took the bowl of ice, the precious cargo already melting in the tropical heat, and the girl fled.

  I held what was left of the ice to my nose, hoping that the bleeding would stop. Tony sat on the other bed, and we talked about what would happen if it didn’t. Would he have to find a doctor? Would we fly back to the States? In my innermost thoughts, I wondered whether I would die here.

  Outside, the marimbas continued to play their sad, tango-like tune about Zandunga, the ghost who haunted a man’s memory:

  Ay! Zandunga!

  Zandunga mamá por Dios

  Zandunga no seas ingrata

  mamá de mi corazón . . .

  Around midnight, as I drifted in and out of sleep, the bleeding finally stopped. I was hungry and persuaded Tony to phone down for toast and tea, which I thought would be good for an ailing American and his ravenous brother. Instead, a tostada—the vegetable-laden salad Mexicans serve on a tortilla smeared with refried beans—arrived. Tony ate it, and I went back to sleep.

  In the morning, the marimba and its sepulchral players had gone; traffic was up to its daytime cacophony; the streets were alive—and so was I.

  A few days later, the same DC-3 did take us, without incident, to the small airport at Acapulco. We found a tiny, grimy, and by no means upscale motel near the northern end of town—away from all the shiny resorts, but close to a small beach touted by a local taxi driver. We thought we would swim in the motel’s pool, but it was cloaked in green slime and apparently hadn’t been used for years.

  On the beach, however, we found a sybaritic heaven. Strolling guitarists serenaded us for a few pesos, singing “Malagueña,” “Crei,” “Cuando Caliente el Sol,” and other laments of the South. Shrimps and oysters could be purchased from our beach chairs for mere pennies. The sun was hot and magical, and though we shaded ourselves as much as possible from its rays, we could feel its healing power in our backs and legs.

  Though we occasionally argued over how long we should stay at the beach (Tony was just hanging out; I wanted to get on with explorations), we were beginning to accept the rhythms of each other’s lifestyle and compromised sufficiently to stay on good terms.

  We were also both learning a lot about a new world outside of ourselves. We had not been prepared for Mexico—for its colonial apparatus, the richness of its culture, the poverty of most of its citizens, the acceptance by them of us, the yanquis.

  At this point, we began to address our assumptions about the country, about our right to be there, to be waited on, to get good lodging and great food while tens of thousands went homeless and hungry. It happened in one of the first restaurants where we ate. Tony softly whistled for the waiter. I looked up, surprised. This would be considered outrageous behavior in the States. But Tony assured me that his friends in Baltimore said it was quite the custom here. And, to be sure, the waiter didn’t seem bothered at all by the whistle. “Sí, señor, mande,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  This began a discussion between us as to where we were and what we were up to. As vacationers, we made assumptions about our comfort, our safety. But what about their comfort and safety? At the University of Mexico, and at the museums, through the great muralists, we came face-to-face with colonialist history and its oppressive practices.

  Which is not to say that we became zealots for the rights of the poor. We were still tourists in a strange land, still trying to secure our own comfort and safety. But we did come to understand something of what the indigenous people of this country were up against.

  As we went from place to place, we gobbled it all up. This was better than history from a book: this was what the ancient Greeks called historin—experiencing the world, not just learning about it.

  One experience came close both to bonding us and to separating us. I don’t know about other siblings, but my brother and I never talked about sex. It just wasn’t part of our interaction. This was partly embarrassment, partly prudishness, partly a desire for absolute privacy. Nevertheless, I was aware that Tony used prostitutes. In Mexico City one night, he disappeared into the darkness around 10:00 p.m. and told me later he had been looking for a bordello. On the one hand, this was a mystery to me—both Tony and I had women friends who, even in the Victorian 1950s and early ’60s, were amenable to sex—but it also seemed natural: Didn’t all men engage in this kind of thing? Up to this point, I had not done so, but I chalked that up to my unnatural shyness and morality about sex.

  In doing research for our vacation, I had heard that there was a seedy backside to Acapulco: a little red-light district called Rio Rita. It was up in the hills and said to be a “must” for tourists. Tony said he wanted to see it. Would I accompany him? For me, Rio Rita was a chance to do something I’d never done before. Though it caused me a certain tremor (I had seen the raunchier districts of Mexico City, and I knew that foreigners were often robbed there), it was also something a “man” had to experience, wasn’t it?

  The single street that was Rio Rita was long, gaudy, brightly lit, and consisted of nothing but cantinas. It was not overrun by tourists—far from it—and unlike similar joints in other Mexican towns and cities, the interiors of these bars were clean and tidy. And quiet. There were a few tables at which a few women sat, idly swinging their legs. Tony and I picked a place to sit and asked for Dos Equis beer. Nearby sat a young woman, perhaps my age or a little younger. Despite my aversion to the idea of having paid sex, I was curious. The place seemed clean, there were no menacing figures ready to grab pesos from our wallets.

  Lifting myself off the chair at our table, I took the plunge and sat down next to her. Esperanza (Hope) was her name, and she didn’t speak English. My Spanish was sufficient to make a deal: thirty pesos for a quick trip to the back room. She would have been happy to spend the night at our motel, but that didn’t fit my desire or my budget.

  Before Esperanza and I left for the back room, Tony spied a dark-haired woman in the far corner and asked me to interpret for him. This turn of events had not occurred to me. How was I supposed to carry this out without becoming a part of Tony’s sexual life itself? It turned out I didn’t need to: the woman spoke good English. I left them at our table and went into the back with Esperanza.

  At the doorway to the nether regions of the cantina, she stopped and held out her hand. “Money,” she said, in thickly accented English. I put thirty pesos into her hand and she disappeared. Had I just been robbed, or was she off to give the money to the management? In a few seconds, she returned, and we went to her little room.

  In some ways, this was exactly what I had expected of a Mexican bordello: dim red light, a tiny bed, walls covered with dime-store folk art. In the corner was a shower.

 
Looking back, I still feel badly about the next fifteen minutes. Not just because I was contributing to a deleterious way of life, but because of my inability to feel anything verging on interest in this thin, only vaguely sexy young woman. I was asked to take a shower. I provided a condom from my pocket (this was before AIDS, but not before syphilis or gonorrhea).

  The experience was short, sordid, and not very satisfying. But I had now practiced that male skill—going to a prostitute—and could add that to the list of things I did that others said had to be done to be a real man. I would never repeat it. For me, affection was a necessary component of sexual activity.

  Tony and I never talked about this experience. The very fact that we didn’t put a bit of distance between us: here was one more thing that was improper to discuss; one more secret that had to be kept.

  ON THE NEXT-TO-LAST DAY IN ACAPULCO, Tony and I took a little boat that carried just six passengers over to La Roqueta, a tiny island about half a mile from our usual beach. The sand was cleaner, the crowd thinner, and the shade deeper under groves of palm trees. The afternoon was spent drinking beer, eating shrimp, napping in the sun, and bathing in the salty, bath-warm water. We were mindful that the last boat left at 5:30; after that hour, it was swim for it or stay the night on the island.

  Toward 4:30, we noticed four or five boys in their subteens playing soccer on a wet and slippery stone terrace near a refreshment stand. Since Tony and I had been middling players in high school, we asked if we could join in.

  It was a silly move, since even ten-year-old boys in Mexico were bound to be better than we. We feinted and kicked and caused a great deal of laughter. Then Tony’s foot went out from under him on the wet stones. He fell on his left elbow, causing instant swelling and intense pain.