Crossing The Border #23
San Miguel #23
I opened the wooden door at the top of the three steps to the street and left it open and ran up the winding staircase, under the archway and into the courtyard. Mom’s room was empty, as was the kitchen. Maria was not in my room either. Or in my bathroom or Mom’s or the other one. She wasn’t in guest room one or in guest room two or in the wide tiled hallway connecting all the bedrooms. I stepped back out into the courtyard and entered the living room. This was the first time I had been in this room. Two steel chairs with leather seats sat opposite their twins for a total of four chairs. Padded benches sat at either end and three people could sit on each of those so I pictured a party and put people in each seat and counted ten people. A long low narrow table that looked like a tree trunk sat in the center. This is where everyone would put their drinks I guess and where the ashtrays would go. Two lamps with curled iron bases stood at either end of the room. Floor to ceiling windows with lace curtains led to a narrow long balcony that faced Cuna de Allende. I had seen those balconies from the street but hadn’t thought about where they actually were in the house.
Maria held a stick with a bunch of feathers on the end; she was rubbing the feathers against the curtains.
I had to take a breath between esta and Mama.
Maria looked at me and smiled.
I ran into my room, dropped my backpack on the mattress, stepped out into the courtyard, under the arch, down the spiral staircase, out through the open front door, down the three steps to the street. I turned right this time, passed La Vista Hermosa on my left—I knew my left from my right because I could feel the little blister on my left thumb from sucking it when I had been a really little kid—and walked to the corner of the Jardin, where I turned left onto Calle de Hidalgo and crossed the cobblestones and ran the rest of the way until I was in front of the biggest door on the whole street. Above it, sticking out into the street about one story above, hung a wrought iron sign: Instituto de Bellas Artes. The wooden door was two stories high and stood open, revealing an inner courtyard, two or maybe three times the size of the one at La Vista Hermosa.
I look up. A big square. Five floors of iron railings forged into swirls. Flower pots hanging everywhere, little red four-petal flowers cascading over the sides of them. Four doorways on each side, so that’s sixteen rooms on each floor, eighty rooms, no wait, can’t count the ground floor, sixty four rooms. Some doors open, some closed, others half-open. People here and there walking around, standing, some wearing aprons, others just normal clothes…there are two on the third level… there is one on the fifth, three coming down the steps now talking softly. A group huddled together in the corner smoking and talking loudly. I have no idea where my mother is.
I see an office sticking out from one corner of the building behind me, closest to the street. The walls are made of glass. Inside, a man wearing a uniform leans back in a folding chair, his cap is pulled over his forehead and eyes.
I go to the office door and knock.
The man jumps and the chair falls back and then he’s on the floor on his back.
He looks up at me through the glass, stands up, puts his cap back on and opens the door.
He walked over to his desk and begins looking at a list of names on a clipboard.
I give the Spanish version so he can maybe find her name faster.
He stops reading the clipboard and looks up at me.
I walk away, calculating that with sixteen rooms on each floor, and if the first of these is on the second floor, then Mom should be on the third floor in a room with a twenty above it and so I find a marble staircase and head up, trying to jump two steps at a time the whole way.
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