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  She would make “a proper wife.” Miss Koenig was keen on the idea too. Dad stood out among the parade of well-scrubbed suitors who frequented her parents’ Fifth Avenue apartment: Those “Bradleys” and “Carltons” elicited little more from Miss Koenig than the occasional “nice” or “sweet.” Dad was something different: a scientist with a bohemian edge. And both of these characteristics filled Miss Koenig with a demure debutante’s version of lust.

  Father seriously considered the match. Miss Koenig’s knack for conversation would suit him well as he climbed academia’s greasy pole. She also had the approval of the Spencer family of industrialists. He would need grants for his work. They could provide.

  Did he love her? Not really. But he was a scientist and thought when it came to marriage, pragmatism might be a more rational guide than emotions.

  So, as he left for a conference in Mexico, he believed he would return a week later and ask Miss Koenig to marry him.

  He did not return for ten years.

  He was chairing a panel on string theory at the National Autonomous University and my mother was in the audience. She’d gone there on a whim. It was raining. She missed her bus. You know the drill.

  Despite the fact that she was no specialist, and, frankly, not even very interested in the subject, she torpedoed the panel of speakers with a series of incisive questions. By the end of the session, my father was both annoyed and intrigued. Who was this girl? Her simple common sense had shredded his presentation like one of the paper cutouts Mexicans make for the Day of the Dead. He caught up with her at the subway that evening and never left her side again.

  Love at first sight, they say.

  Whatever.

  Miss Koenig married a banker and spent much of the next twenty years in and out of the Betty Ford Clinic.

  My parents smile whenever they see her name in the headlines.

  And so into this world of fairy-tale love I came, like the eel in a koi pond. I wasn’t what my parents expected or wanted. Almost from birth, I fought their attempts to mold me into the perfect sunny expression of their love.

  I was queen of the temper tantrum. Princess of “no.” And mistress of rage.

  My parents largely ignored my behavior. They turned inward, losing themselves in their idyllic romance. Their relationship actually was idyllic, powered by equal amounts of goodwill and affection. And passion too, I guess.

  It’s baffling, but I can attest to it. I was there for most of the soap opera.

  My father may have sent his inheritance straight to hell, but my mother also made sacrifices, dropping out of med school to follow her crazy Irishman. He, meanwhile, complaining that his colleagues were unimaginative and incompetent, resigned from his professorship in quantum physics at Harvard. The two of them lived on their modest teachers’ salaries in the Colonia Roma, a hip neighborhood in Mexico City, until my father finally decided to go back to the United States. He had some new ideas he wanted to bounce off his former colleagues, and more important, he needed financial backing, something that would be hard to find in Mexico for a problematic gringo who didn’t know how to kiss university officials’ asses and who virulently despised politicians and opportunists.

  My mother tried to convince him to stay. She loved her city, life made more sense there than it ever would in an anonymous American suburb. But for once, my father wouldn’t listen. He was convinced that it was time, not just for professional reasons, he explained, but also to deal with unfinished family business—and to express his opposition to U.S. interventionist policies in a way that “really mattered.”

  Vietnam.

  “Out here anyone can speak out against the war and it makes no difference. But if I get a professorship in the States, I won’t just be working; I’ll be able to directly influence U.S. academics.”

  My mother thought it was bullshit, another of her husband’s idealist fantasies; she’d learned to live with them, but they still drove her up the wall. Nonetheless, she gave in. Within months, we had packed a few belongings, sold everything else, and boarded a plane to Boston.

  What happened next is irrelevant: high school, college, boyfriends with acne, ten million comics read beneath the covers, psychopathic snipers, political correctness, thermoses filled with gin, overweight couples holding hands, distant wars, unreliable condoms, ecstasy, the Cure, discovery of a voracious sexual appetite that would lead to good times and more foul-ups, an arrest or two, Dostoyevsky and Bukowski. My life moved beyond the mundane when I finally found a way to link my true interests with an academic and professional pretext that justified them. After years of denial, I accepted that my true passion was comic books: reading them, drawing them, writing them, and—why not?—researching them. I realized they could be seen as a means of pop expression, as the sketchy realizations—with their low cost and unique accessibility—of people’s aspirations, ideals, and fears.

  I spent my childhood obsessed with the comics that I was forbidden to read. Any book with more than five pictures was suspect, from the low-brow Adventures of Kaliman and Mickey Mouse to Tintin, Superman, Astérix, and Corto Maltese. It made no difference; anything with thought bubbles was instantly condemned, even thrown out the window.

  “It’s entertainment for imbeciles and illiterates,” my father said.

  This forbidden aspect was part of their allure.

  I concentrated on studying and writing my thesis. While comics were often used for the most base and mercenary ends—as propaganda tools, vehicles for consumer and religious training, mechanisms for controlling the masses, and systems of sentimental education—I postulated that they could also be used to break the information monopoly of mass-media consortiums, the ideological oppression of the state, and the mental laziness of those incapable of opening a book. It’s not that I thought humanity would free itself from its chains by reading the funny pages; but I fervently believed that they had something valid to say, even if it was in the most basic sense. The first time I read something about Marx, Freud, or Ho Chi Minh, it was in a comic by the Mexican cartoonist Rius. He may not have spurred me on to communism, but his work opened my mind to a different avenue of learning.

  Okay, I’ll admit my theory was nothing out of this world. Similar stuff had been said by dozens of others. Many simply wanted to justify their juvenile passions. I wanted to take it further. So I started digging through art history, and without having to look too hard, I rediscovered the Mexican muralists: Diego Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco, and the artist José Guadalupe Posada. Adding a dash of the ancient pre-Columbian pictographic tradition, I had a set of visual criteria that offered an interesting portrait of Mexican culture. Armed with these concepts, I returned to Mexico and contacted several groups that made underground comics and zines. I spent months researching and documenting their work. By the time I had enough for a decent thesis, I was already collaborating on a strip for the magazine Gallito Cómics. I had also moved in with Alberto Mejía, an artist who dreamed of becoming a famous painter but drew comics and political cartoons for a newspaper for a living. Alberto and I didn’t last much longer than the time it took us to illustrate a few pages. That’s when I met Joaquin.

  I didn’t go to Mexico looking for romance, but I didn’t foresee meeting Joaquin. The day I met him began so strangely.

  I woke that morning with an odd vision. A series of letters arranged in a very specific way filled my mind. I wrote them down on a sheet of paper:

  E

  N

  I

  T N U J A A

  B

  N

  I stared at them. They had no meaning that I could determine. No relation to anything I could think of. Yet they seemed important. Very important. I tried to work on one of my comics, but the letters obsessed me. Every few minutes my eyes would return to the pad. It was as if these letters, in this pattern, possessed an almost religious significance. An undeniable, transcendent power. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

  The let
ters appeared to be completely random. They didn’t form words; they didn’t even suggest sounds. They were just letters. And the pattern didn’t seem to have any obvious significance. But I knew it meant something.

  I felt this was the most important thing I’d ever seen in my life. I would kill for these letters. I would build temples to these letters. If these letters could talk, I would do anything they said.

  It was bizarre. I had never been excitable or fanatical. My love of comics was deep and powerful. But it didn’t even touch this. This was huge.

  I took a shower hoping the feeling would wash away. But as the water pounded against my skin all I could think about were those letters. They had a hold on me. I wanted to jump out of the shower, run back to my desk, grab that pad, and cradle it in my arms like a baby. But I fought the urge, turned up the hot water; maybe I could steam these crazy urges from my soul.

  Slowly, as the vapor filled my nostrils, the urge dissipated. By the afternoon I returned to work on my comic, and by evening, guests started arriving for a party Alberto had arranged. The letters were all but forgotten.

  chapter 19

  FINDING ALONDRA

  Finding Alondra completely changed my life. I met her at a party thrown by some acquaintances who created underground comics. I was sleep-deprived and unenthusiastic at the thought of going out. Every time I went to one of these things, I’d ask myself the same question: Why bother? Usually I returned home bearing the same answer: Next time, don’t bother. Friends I hadn’t seen in months would greet me from the bottom of bottles and roach ends of joints. I’d see desirable women on the arms of total jerks, stave off hunger by eating potato chips and drinking liquor so noxious I could feel my liver corroding before it even reached my stomach.

  On this particular occasion, I found a chair in a corner of the kitchen, next to an artist who wrote and drew a comic about a zombie superhero. I pretended to be interested.

  “Zombo is like a classic superhero, with foibles, anxieties, and problems. You know the whole Stan Lee thing,” he told me.

  “What are his superpowers?” I asked.

  “Well, he’s immortal because he’s already dead. He lives in a grave and only comes out at night. He defends democracy and he protects his girl.”

  “Why would a zombie care about democracy?”

  “Because he’s a modern vigilante.”

  “Oh, of course,” I said, suppressing a laugh.

  A woman dressed head to toe in black, with full lips painted the same color, approached.

  “So what’s Zombo up to these days?” she asked with a smile. She had a subtle accent I couldn’t place.

  “Defending the world from injustice.”

  “And protecting democracy from its enemies?” she added, giving me what seemed like a conspiratorial look.

  “Have you met Joaquin? He’s a disc jockey.”

  “A disc jockey?” she asked, considering me coolly.

  I let the question go unanswered. I didn’t want to talk about my job.

  “I knew a disc jockey once. Killed himself by jumping in front of a train,” Alondra said.

  I didn’t know what to make of this comment. Hostility? Ridicule? I wasn’t sure.

  Unable to think of a rejoinder, I asked her name.

  “Alondra,” she said. It sounded like a challenge.

  “Are you also an expert on zombies?” I asked, hoping to sound witty.

  “I’m an expert on a lot of things. But zombies aren’t a favorite.”

  Zombo’s creator grasped Alondra’s sarcasm and his face fell. I seized the moment.

  “Frankly, my main problem with Zombo is that he has a really stupid name,” I ventured.

  He stared at me in confusion; he was obviously trying to hold in the anger that would make him look like what he was: a ridiculous, easily offended cartoonist. He decided to laugh instead.

  “It’s meant to be stupid,” he said limply.

  “His name’s the least of his worries. Believe me. I’ve read most of his adventures,” Alondra said, moving closer to me.

  “Well, it’s a work in progress.”

  “Progressively decomposing. But for a zombie, that might be a good thing.”

  Crestfallen, the artist got up and limped away.

  I already liked everything about Alondra: her face, the black dress she wore trimmed with antique lace, her hair, her hands; the accent that seemed ripped from the soundtrack of an old Superman cartoon.

  “So, what do you do?” I asked.

  “Guess,” she said, a hint of playfulness dancing in her eyes.

  “Well, you dress like you’re in a Goth band, which means you’re not.”

  “Good.”

  “Too sarcastic for an actress.”

  “Much too sarcastic.”

  “Too independent to have come here on someone’s arm.”

  “Yes, my arms are free.”

  “And since this is a party for underground-comics people, you must be one of them.”

  “Nice deduction, Sherlock.”

  I gave her a courtly bow.

  “The guest list kind of tipped my hand.”

  I nodded.

  “What might you have guessed without that?”

  “Serial killer?” I blurted out.

  She laughed and some of her armor slipped away.

  The conversation shifted, becoming easier, looser.

  We talked about comic books and hip-hop, politics and food, Web sites and the crime rate in Mexico City. She told me a little about the trajectory that had carried her to the Federal District.

  “You hungry?” she wanted to know.

  “Hardly at all now. I ruined my appetite with a rancid bag of something I found lying around here,” I answered.

  “Let’s go eat something more substantial.”

  Without another word, she headed for the apartment door. I followed. Just as we were crossing the threshold, Alberto came up to us.

  “Where you going?” he asked Alondra.

  “I’m having dinner with my friend Joaquin here.”

  I’d known Alberto for some time. In fact, I’d invited him onto my program, back when it followed the conventional cultural broadcasting model. He was upset, but keeping his cool. Barely.

  At the time, Alondra’s bluntness, while refreshing, seemed a little cruel to me. I couldn’t help identifying with poor Alberto. I’d been “that guy” more than once. Hell, we all have.

  “You want me to come along?” he asked feebly.

  “You should stay with your guests,” Alondra said, but in a tone that made it sound more like “fuck off.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Not sure. I’ll have to come back eventually, my stuff is here. Don’t wait up.”

  I said good-bye, but Alberto didn’t answer. We left silently, not speaking until we climbed into my car.

  “What was that? It seemed like you were a little mean.”

  “I behaved impeccably,” Alondra responded. “Where are we going?”

  I took her to Charco de las Ranas for tacos. It wasn’t easy for us to pick up the conversation again, which was mostly my fault; I kept expecting an explanation.

  For a while I feigned interest, but I couldn’t focus on what Alondra was telling me about popular myths and traditions in Papua, and eventually I interrupted:

  “It seemed like something serious happened with Alberto back there. Do you have any idea what it might have been? He acted jealous.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “Does he have any reason to be?”

  “People have reasons for a lot of stupid shit,” she answered.

  “I guess it might be because you’ve been with him and his group for a while. He must feel a certain attachment or affection for you. Maybe he was disappointed that you left in the middle of his party,” I said, choosing my words carefully so they wouldn’t sound like an accusation.

  “Maybe.”

  “But you don’t think so.�
��

  She shook her head.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I fucked him a few times,” she said, biting into her beefsteak taco.

  I nearly choked on my glass of horchata.

  “Pardon?”

  “I thought you knew. But don’t worry, it’s meaningless.”

  “Where I come from, doing something like that to another man can end up costing you your life,” I said, although inwardly I doubted that this would be the case with Alberto and me.

  “Don’t be dramatic. That’s the way it goes. I’m crashing at his place. I got bored. It happens.”

  “But still…”

  “I’m not cheating on anyone, Joaquin. Eat your tacos.”

  I didn’t have an answer for this woman, who seemed more attractive, fascinating, and dangerous with each passing moment.

  At this point, Alondra changed the subject. Clearly she wasn’t interested in talking about Alberto anymore. And, I have to admit, I was grateful. We finished eating, and on the way to the car, she asked me where I wanted to go. I suggested a bar, and she agreed, so I decided to take her to a hole in the wall over on Medellín Avenue: a ruined garage where musicians, artists, gang members, politicians, and other bums came to drink and dance until dawn. The noise was overwhelming but the ambience was worth it; Alondra seemed to enjoy herself.

  It was hot in the club, so I took off the jacket I’d been wearing all night. Alondra noticed my forearm. I have an odd tattoo that often raises an eyebrow or two, but nothing prepared me for Alondra’s reaction.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me into a corner of the club where the lighting was better. She studied the tattoo; a look of concern, even fear, marked her face.

  “You don’t like it?” I asked feebly.

  “What does it mean?” she said, her eyes wide and her lips trembling.

  “Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know?”

  “How can that be?”

  “I used to raise quite a bit of hell. After one of those hell-raising nights, I woke up with this on my arm.”