“There are two of me, you know.”
The uniformed man at customs and immigration met the remark with a cool shake of the head rather than curiosity. Somehow, I thought this comment would explain the situation—unfortunately, that is what I am always doing, thinking a simple remark can convey my intentions lucidly to anyone but myself. So, when he commanded me to wait, I was already prepping a better explanation.
“Drive over to that spot, and someone will be with you shortly.”
I moved over and sat in the car until two different men knocked against the driver-side window. They ordered me out and to follow them into a bleak building. Past a single secretary and three closed doors, there was a sharp turn to the right where we entered a room barely bigger than a closet. Two fluorescent lights hung over a cracked wooden table, where a single red plastic cup was filled with water. I sat down before it while the two each took a seat across from me. The first, to the left, was a man probably around my age, though balding at a rate I hoped to avoid for at least another thirty years. The other was the type I anticipated in a place like this. He was a little overweight, with light skin and a face that crossed a no-nonsense schoolmaster and stern construction worker. As expected, the young man spoke first.
“Can you tell us your name?”
“Alex Otero.”
“And what are you doing here?”
“I work, or I used to work, in Baja for eight to nine months of the year.”
“Occupation?”
“English instructor.”
“Why are you coming back?”
“My assignment is up. The job is over.”
The two men looked at one another, as if acknowledging the simple questions were done, that it was time to dig something out. The older man took over the interrogation.
“Look—Mr. Otero then—we have on the computer here that you are not who you say you are. We have on record that Alex Otero died near Simi Valley two months ago.”
He didn’t make it long here, I thought.
“Can you tell me what happened to him?”
“Maybe. Maybe you can tell us why you share his name, his card, his identity, and number first.”
His offer overwhelmed me, so I reached for the cup, despite not wanting it, and drank to buy an extra second. There was a secret to keep about him, one I wanted and pledged not to divulge. Yet, if he was dead, what promise was there to keep? The agreement was to hope he’d gotten away with the time he had left. The agreement was to leave him on his own when I returned. Opposing views kept appearing; though, I knew what I needed to do.
“I can probably explain most of it.”
“Go ahead.”
I started to share the last several months, rushing to speak like these were the first willing listeners I’d encountered in years. I suppose, in their own way, they were.
▴ ▴ ▴
As I mentioned: there are two of me. Before this came about, though, I had just received a letter from the organization that oversees my work. The news came as less a disappointment and more a surprise that I was even on their radar, that I was not just a blip on a forgotten page. After close to a decade of teaching English in Baja, I was not to have my contract renewed.
“That’ll be a good thing,” my friend Josefina said on the phone. “We were all starting to get worried you had a second life, a wife or a girlfriend, a group of friends you kept from us and who wanted to keep you down there.”
“We?”
“Yes. Even Michael questioned why you worked for so long in that country. There’s a life to start here. Isn’t it odd to remain in that program? How young are the rest of them? Twenty-one or twenty-two? You’re thirty now; it’s time to settle here.”
“Twenty-nine,” I mumbled. At least, I believed I did. It was hard to be sure because there was no response. But the truth was I was twenty-nine, a year short of her guess and quite able to begin applying life’s measurements to my own. Since we’d graduated college, Josefina had taken up with her college sweetheart Michael, escaped from the city I associated with her, and was two months along with her first child.
Of course, I know how all this is measured by people, and I know how thirty seems vastly too old for someone of my predicament. There was no stable life I was building, no stable family or friends. All I could hold onto was a group of nine students for whom English was a language of practical business and survival.
“Yes, well. I have a couple months left, and I can drive back. There’s not a lot of stuff here, so I see no reason not to just wait till then. One trip will do just fine.”
“Well. Maybe we can figure out something. Meet you part of the way. If so, I’ll be showing, and you’ll have to promise not to think I’m too far gone from your life because of it.”
I smiled and I hoped she could hear it in my voice.
“Never.”
We hung up shortly after, and I was surprised to remember a whole day awaited. That represents another obvious flaw—at the end of a long hoped-for call, I am always ready for the day to end.
With no class today, I left the apartment and walked onto the streets, a mixture of dirt and dust with cobbled and cemented paths, sprouting in random places. While tracing these problems in the road I nearly missed what was on it.
“Sorry!”
I held up a quick hand in apology to a parked gray car I thought was moving. My knee throbbed as I ran up the broken curb. Unable to see inside, I realized the gesture might have proved unnecessary; though, I repeated it just in case.
The cantina I entered was half full, and I took a seat along the wall. I waited there with a book I never opened and a beer I drank only to keep cool. Hardly an hour had passed. One forgets how much time there is in a day. So much talk and mental energy focuses on it rushing by, the way things recede into a past that grows larger. We forget how this works the other way too. When one wants time to hurry on, for the day to pass, things seem to never end.
So, there I sat on a warm day, thinking about the upcoming end to the job. I attempted to think of a life without this place, and it was not hard because I hardly had a life here. Yesterday might as well have been a time when Josefina was right there across from me on the college campus and not a country apart.
“Excuse me.” The voice belonged to a woman standing to the side in a beautiful blue and black Tabasco dress. Not used to seeing such a striking garment outside of ceremony, I glanced around the place. The square-shaped cantina was adorned with brown tiles, wooden tables, and yellow and orange walls that looked fresh. Colorful skulls littered the scene in various places. Everything looked right, just too clean and deliberate.
I started to shake my head at myself. After all this time it seemed I wound up in a place built for tourists. She waited on the spot. I had nothing to order, yet it seemed she had more to say, more to ask. And then the word came:
“Maestro?”
I sat up and tried to put the young woman before me in a classroom of mine that was somewhere buried in the past.
“Maestro Otero.”
“Yes,” I answered in English. “I’m sorry. You seem familiar, but I’m having trouble placing you.”
“Oh, yes. I’m Theresa. You taught me English several years ago.”
“Well, you sound fantastic. How long was this again?”
“I guess more than several. About seven years. But I am sure you have had a lot of students come and go since that time.”
A fellow waiter came nearby and began pulling on a chain. Creaks and gears strained, the sound tightening as the sun first peeked in from the floor. Theresa left her spot to grab onto a different cord from the other side while the man kept going. The outer wall was disappearing, replaced by open air. Its removal brought a wide-open world into the place and left it exposed. Gone was the cantina as a hiding place. Touching the right side of my body and leaving the unread book imperceptible, the sun refused to back down. Theresa came close once again.
“Are you still teaching, señor?”
“Yes. Though, this is the last class. There’s not much else to do but go back after.”
“You sound a little disappointed. Surely, there’s something good, or someone good, you want to see again.”
“Maybe.” It was too hot to remain here with so much time left in the day. “It was nice speaking with you. Here’s the thing: I tend to remember things a little too late. As soon as I leave and make it home, it’ll come back. You’ll be as fresh a memory as ever.” That last part might have been an odd thing to say, I realized, yet the figments were surely there, and I wanted her to know she would remain in my thoughts.
“That was a lovely thing to say. Please come back if you do.”
I started to leave, was already on the street and placing the book in my pocket, when Theresa came outside. With the sun on her, the dress popped, and—for the first time in a long time, I’ll admit—I wanted to think of a woman as more than just an unremarked memory.
“Maestro.”
I turned to give her my full attention.
“I cannot pay you, not much anyway. But I have a partner, and he needs help. Do you think you could come by again, even if you cannot remember me in your class?”
The rest of the day was filled with one long walk and a mind crowded with thoughts of how every second reframed the possible actions in the millions before. Various ideas of Theresa and her partner swelled while the book remained unread. A series of stories not belonging to the page took its place, all of them beginning their imagined narratives with if.
▴ ▴ ▴
“You seem to be avoiding the question,” the older man said. The cup was empty, and I would have liked more water for all the speaking I did.
“Are you stalling?” the younger one asked. “So, that girl you mention has a boyfriend, and you’re all heartbroken. What the hell does it matter?”
“It matters because it’s part of my story. And I told her I would come by after class.”
They both looked at each other. Tired and overworked, probably—I understood those dilemmas. In this tiny room there was not much else to describe. I found myself looking at the door during their silent conversation because on that door was a tiny, square pane of fogged glass. It was meant to keep the room just private enough, to hide its happenings and trace simple shadows as evidence of human presence.
“To be honest,” the older man said, “we are being patient in case you are a citizen, alright? Hurry up, then. Explain yourself.”
▴ ▴ ▴
When I was back in the classroom, there were no new students. The class, coliseum style, kept the students elevated while I was at the bottom. I proceeded to teach the rules of the English language only teachers and foreigners ever seem to know. At last, the class wrapped up and, on cue with the last person leaving, I saw my phone buzzing and Josefina’s name flashing on-screen.
“Hello, Alex? You’re out of class?”
“Yes, I just wrapped up.”
“Good. Listen, I was talking with Michael, and I want you to try to give us a heads-up about when you plan to come up. I want to clear everything and see you again.”
“Alright.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry; I just have to run to meet someone.”
“Oh.”
“Not what you think. It’s a special student to tutor on the side.”
Of course, I had to take the reminder and apply it to myself too. Too many thoughts about Theresa and not enough about her situation permeated. What possibility could emerge for us that would not require altering her present reality?
Outside, the air was heated, and I immediately went into an alleyway and through the market that was typically less crowded in the afternoon. Covered by the few buildings that stretched above and a mixture of sales tents whose shadows combined to place the market in the shade, the direction toward the cantina felt strangely cool. Bright colors greeted each turn of the eye. Bags, pots, blankets, fruit, and vegetables all seemed evidence of life’s possibilities as a vibrant sight. Several hands appeared before me, some with items to offer, others with requests for patronage, and others who simply wanted money. They recessed when many of the merchants probably saw none of my attention was here on Earth.
Still, enough of this place filtered through in technicolor. Leaving it behind was like returning to the days of sepia and washed dye. The buildings and tents gave way to a cliff overseeing the unfortunate beach. Three men were laughing down on the sand. Their happiness might as well have been a signal of their being foreigners. Two men were approaching fast to sell them alcohol. If not, to supply them with anything else they might need. The waves crashed, and I reflected on how it was a shame that on a hot day like this the locals could not access their own beach.
The cantina was not far, a walk further down the cliff and in the opposite direction of the shore. Yet, the more I retreated into town the closer I felt to the beach, as if I was walking into the dirty ocean.
And there it was. It’s door-like window was open again, allowing the sun to illuminate a possible respite for any traveler. I could already see Theresa sitting in the sun and dressed in a more modern style—a simple navy shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. As I approached, I realized a man was with her, that his clothes were crumpled and closed, like they were on him as he worked and slept.
“Hello,” Theresa said to me, a smile wide on her face while I waved back.
“You are the one with the comfortable job?” the man asked, evidently not one for greeting strangers.
“Yes,” I answered. “I suppose I can’t complain that it’s anything different.”
If I was to accept fantasy as something more than an invention to settle into, if I was to think that there was a hope of fruition, I realized it lay in this man. He was not a short man, but he might be described as below-average height. His hair was dark, combed back to calm some of the unruliness that comes from thick hair that has grown a bit too long. And his eyes were a deep, mud brown. If I sound harsh or strangely accurate it is because the same superficial details are how I imagine myself.
I am not saying we looked completely alike, but after seeing the two of us, most would say Theresa definitely had a type.
“Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t jump and judge. But you’re a pocho, no? Theresa says you are American but work and live here?”
“I’m sorry, Maestro. Juan is never good at a simple hello. He has to make sure even first-time strangers know his thoughts.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “In fact, that’s an enviable skill from my point of view.”
Juan reached out and we shook hands. Somewhere in my mind I could hear Theresa tell me to sit, but my attention was with Juan now, and rising questions made her voice fade into the background. Under the shade and mostly inside, the one free seat was perpendicular to Theresa and Juan, who both directly faced one another. Not a moment into us all sitting around the table did Theresa pop back up.
“Let me talk to everyone in the back. I’ll see what I can do.”
Theresa walked to the wooden bar, lifted a section at the corner, and disappeared into a hidden room behind the shelves that held as much alcohol as they did every symbol of this country: sombreros, papers cut in the shape of marigolds and colored bright orange, a couple masks from luchadores, and several guitars. The front of the bar was painted an unfinished blue that recalled Theresa’s dress from before. Along the front, several outlines of various men in the mariachi costume appeared. Some were decorated and splashed in vibrancy, while others were waiting to escape the confines of a colorless existence.
“I’d be careful.”
Juan was looking out into the empty street. The whole road seemed to have cleared itself for us to speak undistracted. However, he continued to look there.
“Careful about?”
“Theresa told me you had difficulty remembering her.”
“Yes. It did take a moment to recognize her, but—”
“It’s not the fact that you needed a second to place her face. No, it scares me how calm and easy you were to accept it. To sit back and have someone tell me there’s a memory I’m overlooking, I would be defensive. But that’s what living here—truly living here—does to a person. I see the opposite all the time though. You people come down from the border for a day or a week and get languid. The world all seems to stop for you when it hurries on for the rest of us.”
Yes, I thought. Wasn’t this the complaint Josefina pointed to about my time here? Wasn’t this the complaint I directed toward myself when Theresa first came? The nine years since I joined were soon up. Nothing but a tepid world awaited when I returned. I had allowed the inevitable return to make Baja a respite where nothing significant quite happened.
“She was a quiet student. Hardly spoke except when called upon. And when I did call on her, she spoke better than most Americans. There was a hint of lyric to her voice. But it did not matter because we are taught to think only about the class—not to think about students’ lives outside of it. And, you are especially not supposed to interact outside.”
“So, be careful. Just because a person looks like Theresa doesn’t mean you can keep a guard down. This country knows how to break you back in place.”
“She got me to come back because she said you needed help with your English?”
“That’s not the real reason you came back.”
I ignored the comment because it was time to ask a question that had formed for me.
“You don’t need help. Your English is fine. What did you really want?”
Theresa was behind me, quietly approaching the table to put three beers on it before answering the question on her own.
“Because we need your help. We know you’re from the other side of the border, and we know Juan cannot live here much longer. It’s not safe for him.”
“From whom?”
“As I said before,” Juan cut in. “From a certain part of this country. Sorry for that wrong foot. That’s the expression, no? Maybe I am just tired. I need to get up there, to the other side, and I need to do it in a way that I won’t get discovered. I need time, that is all.”
I picked up the glass; condensation had formed a ring on the table. The halo remained steady until Theresa ran a finger through it. I could feel Juan’s stare when I followed the movement to its source. Theresa spoke when the attention came:
“We know you spend a lot of time down here, actually. You have those classes to teach. They last at least a couple more months.”
“That’s true, but I don’t know what that can mean for you.”
“Don’t you see? He can go as you. There’s enough time to allow him to get away and find a way out. There’s enough to pretend your papers were stolen and rework a solution for yourself. Alex, I can help you here.”
▴ ▴ ▴
“So, you gave him your passport?” the older customs agent asked.
“Eventually.”
The transaction itself was later smooth and quick. I flicked through the passport one last time. It was easy to see this working. Already, we looked similar, and what could measurements or a blurry photo reveal about identity that was not bound within paper?
I showed up to their house and the two were there, sitting alone on the small porch. A dead lawn struggled to the end of the block, dirt and cracked cement. Neither spoke a word the whole time, and not one person could accuse them of conspiracy. Even as I came close and stood several steps away, there was not much discussion.
“What did you get out of it?” The older agent’s voice pierced the recollection for a brief second.
Juan warned me a car was near, and he noticed how it slowed around the block. As if on cue, a dark vehicle did pass by, windows tinted to prevent us from knowing more. I wanted to ask Theresa where she might go after, but I also thought it was not the time.
“I imagined a split image, a second me out there who could succeed and build a hard but new life. Another Alex Otero who might do something, or at least, find something. Ridiculous to think, maybe.”
“You know,” the younger officer started, stopping as if to better select his words. “We get people who all the time rethink their life; they go down there and try to live. They find new ways to be with people down there because their lives are empty up here.”
I remember warning Juan: You may be safe, but you might also find something empty about life. It was an absurd word of caution. Of course, the emptiness was a better alternative to the everyday fear, even when the first qualification proved false.
An outline of a body formed in the door’s foggy window paired with a heavy tapping. The older man pulled the door open to a pinch. He leaned over to receive the whispers of an unidentified partner. When it closed, he remained standing.
“You never reported your passport stolen.”
“Because it wasn’t stolen. I gave it to him.”
“You’re not making this easy.”
Disappointed or upset by the answer, they left the room together. They mentioned a need to check something, and I was alone to return to the past.
▴ ▴ ▴
After leaving them alone on a final afternoon, I started home. The long route was lonely. The streets seemed devoid of their usual crowds. The parks near me were the province of small wildlife, if it could be called that. Once home, nothing new awaited me. The same unread book, the same forgotten plans, and I hoped Juan might make a better life with my name, because I sure hadn’t.
The next day started in the classroom, a blur of banality because many students left with the look of time wasted. I repeated the same path to the cantina, walking along the cliffs that overlooked the beach. I paid little attention to the people on the sand, thinking more about the waves hurling into the shore, unaware of how dirty another country with its own shores made this one.
“Alex.” The voice was light, like noise I might hear from the ocean.
I expected—had wanted—to see Theresa again, though I didn’t know how or when this would happen. Now, she was steps ahead of me.
“Juan left?”
“Not long after. I don’t know if I should say that though. Maybe it’s better to say something else—Alex left.”
It is forever strange to hear your own name, however common, spoken to refer to another. Once it’s out there, it never quite makes you feel whole again.
“How did you get through the day?”
“You act like it was hard. Remember? It was my plan.”
The space between us grew, her running a hand on the crumbling wall meant to keep people from falling. She did not move too far, stopping where I could still hear her speak in the same soft tone.
“Alex—Juan—thought the danger would die down when he left. That car, it was there again this morning.”
“And you’re alone in the house now.”
Theresa continued down the path, hand on the same edge. It was not until she stopped and turned back that I realized she was waiting. I started to move. Slowly walking, I caught each footstep that carried her away. While we moved through town, I never came close. Several feet remained between us. Through the market, that same orange and yellow from the wares and cloth over the stands began to lose all their enthusiasm. Peddlers approached me with offer after offer, trying to make up for the day’s lack of sales. Their voices, too, were hollow next to this spirit that stole all senses.
We passed houses where children ran. A ball was kicked behind and ahead of me. These kids, they stopped and stared, perhaps questioning two adults in this place not speaking, not interacting in any significant way yet so obviously together. I knew where we were.
To the left were the three buildings that comprised the language school. Their lights were on but dim. Four guards the program director made sure to hire were waiting at the gated entrance for the evening, and one waved hello, though I couldn’t quite see who. It was getting dark, and in a place like this, you realize how quickly consuming the night can still be.
It mattered little for clarity because we were close, the same cracked road under our feet, the same feeling of a people wanting to leave this place behind. I seemed to hear the sound of the stiff stairs leading up to her porch before I saw Theresa on them. The image of her and Juan sitting yesterday played out like a projector running off my memory. It was the last thing from the past I saw. Theresa was there, through the screen door, standing silent, her eyes on mine.
I reached for the door and pulled it back.
As I did so, a small light shined through the place—the glare of a low beam from a passing car. A heavy breath seemed to escape her, a crack that punctured her calm.
“You see. Alex was wrong. The danger isn’t going away.”
“Alex?”
“I’m sorry. I meant Juan. Juan. Juan.”
▴ ▴ ▴
The young officer was the first and, as I eventually realized, the only one to return. He came carrying a manila envelope which he emptied out on the table. The only item was a single blue book—my passport.
“Seems we managed to get ahold of someone. You might not have reported your passport stolen, but some young woman did. Be thankful for that.”
I reached for it and flicked it open. There were no new details or prints.
“Tell me something, Mr. Otero. You don’t care to know more about Juan. So, what did you get up to with her? What did Theresa offer?”
I didn’t respond, not right away.
▴ ▴ ▴
After that first night, I hardly saw my apartment, and the brief walk to the classrooms were some of the only minutes I knew the outside world without her. It wasn’t all what you would think. Often, when she arrived home from work in the evening, we would sit there on the porch, the way her and Juan had. We would watch the cars pass and study those that slowed and seemed to gaze at us back.
Josefina called several times over the weeks, but I never answered. I kept the phone away and sat there in Theresa’s arms. On the few days when our schedules aligned and we could spend the day together, we would walk to the cliffs and sit on the ledge. Our legs hung over the steep drop. A simple push and the beach would find two concrete victims added to the list of suffering it contained.
Once, Theresa didn’t want to remain idle. She grabbed my hand, and urged me, “Please, let’s go down.” If there was an explanation at all for my hesitance, it remained aloof. All I seemed capable of was shaking my head and stating brief negations.
“No, let’s stay here.”
“No. Let’s go down. Come on.”
I let her wish overtake my reluctance. Holding onto her hand, we went down the stairs that landed us on warm sand. Bottles, cigarettes, and pieces of glass were scattered about. Yet, we kept going. There was a smell in the air, not bad, but estranged from the usual scent of ocean salt. I could not identify it, and the smell started to grow stronger the closer we got to the ocean’s stomping grounds.
Theresa fell to the shore in a single motion. I kicked layers of sand away before joining her. She put her head on my shoulder and whispered: “They are thinking you’re Juan.” Without a further thought I turned back; two individuals were sitting on the same cliff we just occupied. The high sun and their distance made their silhouettes visible but not the persons. From sitting on the porch and watching the cars, I wondered if the slow days we shared also taught me to watch for danger. “It’s not long before they come. You need to leave.”
I remember she kept her eyes on the ocean.
“I would have to leave you.”
“I know, but you got what you wanted, didn’t you?”
“You make it sound like this was the goal from the start.”
“No, because I got what I wanted. I was languid with you, but it couldn’t last. They’re always there.”
▴ ▴ ▴
A sound rang around the room. The young officer was knocking on the table.
“Hey, I asked something. Otero, what did you get up to? What did Theresa offer?” He continued to tap against the table until I spoke.
“It’s like Juan said. Time would slow. I didn’t realize I was making it worse for her, though. I didn’t realize how hiding from the world up here made the world down there faster.”
The young officer simply nodded as he stood up and held the door open. I walked through it with hardly a gesture to him as I followed the exit signs back to my car. I pulled out and returned to the busy road. The slow and halted traffic meant the border remained visible for some time. I tried not to look at it, but each fraction of the car crawling forward seemed to move my eyes up to the rearview mirror, where a simple cemented overpass was lit with several red lights. Above them, the name of this country was bright and gaudy, as if demanding we remember where we are. But it had the opposite effect, because it made me think of the land I was leaving; it made me think of her.
Theresa would be fine, I thought. She always would be.
It took a long time to get out of the road and to see the dividing line disappear. Yet soon it was behind me, and I was on my way to a home that wasn’t home. Josefina would stay up to sit on the couch, while her partner would leave us alone too early in the night. We would reminisce on what she was not a part of during my life down there. Eventually, we would slip into our history. But I was tired of memory. I would want to talk about the now. I would want the present, to hear about Josefina’s life and see her showing with her first child. It would remind me of a certain part of the past I had forever hoped might start over. Yet the dream I had so wanted with her was gone. For her, there was a future about to happen.
The passport returned to me was on the passenger seat. Its pages were open, and I could see glimpses of my photo turning up. There was only one of me now, one life to this name, and I hoped to find something for it, away from Mexico and away from Theresa. No… that wasn’t it. What was I going on about?
I turned the car through a dirt patch and was back on the empty road. In almost no time the border was back in front of me and then it raced to disappear. The market approached, dull and dim to the left, an odd and sad sight without the hum of people. It was so dark out there that the beach was a sightless noise. The car shook and holding my foot on the pedal sent a continuous vibration along my leg. Dirt scattered along the sides and the windows were becoming harder to see through.
It didn’t matter. I escaped the car and ran to the porch. As if knowing I was coming back, Theresa was there, waiting in her tabasco dress. Through the screen door I saw her in a hazy visage.
“It’s too late to forget time,” she said. “Now you’ll know the reality of living.”
A bright light shone through, and she put a hand up to cover her eyes. When I turned around, I had to do the same. As my vision cleared, I saw a dark car take shape. The same one pointed out to me before, sitting there—waiting and watching.
▴ ▴ ▴