moleslog07022007

Today the screen doesn't bake into my brain: I may have an hour or two. The guava in my window has been a friend, as have the still stones of the court.

I first rose to eat last night. I wanted a restaurant, but made it only to the center, el Jardín, they call it for the handful of small trees. A few men stood lashing fireworks to a castillo, so I sat on the cast-iron fleur de leis bench to watch. The Mexicans make a better show of fireworks. We gringos blow up half the sky and don't come close. You have to be willing to lose a child's finger or set grandma's hair on fire, I guess.

I sat and did not move. A crowd began to gather. A young lady arrived. Her fear to find a seat anywhere except beside me made me laugh. I couldn't have wanted a better sign that some question stayed alive in her. Ahora se habla español, I told myself, but nothing happened, of course. I had some fun. I'd construct some question, and she'd chirp and twit a minutes answer, from which I'd glean one or another word to form a question. Still, she was fine to watch, and finer still somehow because I could just watch and know nothing would happen anyway. She kept looking over her shoulder at the groups that promenaded in a circle round the square. She denied she waited for anyone, which could have meant she waited for anyone at all to free her.

Of course he came before long -- friendly, by my good luck, but wary enough to want to lure me off. He kept cocking his hand and pointing at his gullet, having no idea how much I'd rather have some bitter tea. But Luisa said I had agreed to meet her sister, which I likely had, since I grandly si-si'd everything she said. He followed us until we'd entered the hospital and her sister came out, an arrangement in little circles -- circular curls tucked under a roundish nurse's cap, round face with startled round brown eyes and full lips. We hello'd and pleasetomeetcha'd all around, San Francisco left, convinced that both I and the night were hopeless, and I made excuses, leaving Sis to chat with Sister, and strolled home most likely happier than if I'd fed. Sometimes it's just some little human contact, with all the errors and misapprehensions, that one needs.