So Long - Lucia Berlin

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the next corrida, areneros in blue, with wheelbarrows, came to cover up the blood in the sand, others raked it smooth. The plaza was empty when the gurney wheeled up below the barrera. Meet us in front, the medics said, but Deedee refused to leave him. It took a long time to move Jerry’s body, and to get him down through the now frenzied crowd and onto the gurney. Once in the callejón outside of the ring they kept having to wait, move out of the way of running banderilleros, of the man with water bottles to wet the red cape, the mozo de las espadas, the man who carried the swords. Indignant shouts at Deedee, because she was a woman, a taboo in the callejón.

      Señor Errazuriz and Jane accompanied the old couple on the far, far climb to the top of the plaza. Giglio had killed Genovés with one perfect thrust. He was awarded two ears and a tail. The brave bull was being dragged triumphantly around the place to cries of “Toro! Toro!” People spilled onto the narrow steps, many drunk, all ecstatic. The alquacil was walking across the sand to Giglio, carrying the ears and the tail.

      Jane walked behind the Yamatos. Señor Errazuriz and a guard led the way to the blare of trumpets, deafening shouts of “Torero, torero.” Roses and carnations and hats flew through the air, darkening the sky.

      Loretta met Anna and Sam the day she saved Sam’s life.

      Anna and Sam were old. She was 80 and he was 89. Loretta would see Anna from time to time when she went to swim at her neighbor Elaine’s pool. One day she stopped by as the two women were convincing the old guy to take a swim. He finally got in, was dog-paddling along with a big grin on his face when he had a seizure. The other two women were in the shallow end and didn’t notice. Loretta jumped in, shoes and all, pulled him to the steps and up out of the pool. He didn’t need resuscitation but he was disoriented and frightened. He had some medicine to take, for epilepsy, and they helped him dry off and dress. They all sat around for a while until they were sure he was fine and could walk to their house, just down the block. Anna and Sam kept thanking Loretta for saving his life, and insisted that she go to lunch at their house the next day.

      It happened that she wasn’t working for the next few days. She had taken three days off without pay because she had a lot of things that needed doing. Lunch with them would mean going all the way back to Berkeley from the city, and not finishing everything in one day, as she had planned.

      She often felt helpless in situations like this. The kind where you say to yourself, Gosh, it’s the least I can do, they are so nice. If you don’t do it you feel guilty and if you do you feel like a wimp.

      She stopped being in a bad mood the minute she was inside their apartment. It was sunny and open, like an old house in Mexico, where they had lived most of their lives. Anna had been an archaeologist and Sam an engineer. They had worked together every day at Teotihuacan and other sites. Their apartment was filled with fine pottery and photographs, a wonderful library. Downstairs, in the back yard was a large vegetable garden, many fruit trees, berries. Loretta was amazed that the two bird-like, frail people did all the work themselves. Both of them used canes, and walked with much difficulty.

      Lunch was toasted cheese sandwiches, chayote soup and a salad from their garden. Anna and Sam prepared the lunch together, set the table and served the lunch together.

      They had done everything together for fifty years. Like twins, they each echoed the other or finished sentences the other had started. Lunch passed pleasantly as they told her, in stereo, some of their experiences working on the pyramid in Mexico, and about other excavations they had worked on. Loretta was impressed by these two old people, by their shared love of music and gardening, by their enjoyment of one another. She was amazed at how involved they were in local and national politics, going to marches and protests, writing congressmen and editors, making phone calls. They read three or four papers every day, read novels or history to each other at night.

      While Sam was clearing the table with shaking hands, Loretta said to Anna how enviable it was to have such a close lifetime companion. Yes, Anna said, but soon one of us will be gone….

      Loretta was to remember that statement much later, and wonder if Anna had begun to cultivate a friendship with her as a sort of insurance policy against the time when one of them would die. But, no, she thought, it was simpler than that. The two of them had been so self-sufficient, so enough for each other all their lives, but now Sam was becoming dreamy and often incoherent. He repeated the same stories over and over, and although Anna was always patient with him, Loretta felt that she was glad to have someone else to talk to.

      Whatever the reason, she found herself more and more involved in Sam and Anna’s life. They didn’t drive anymore. Often Anna would call Loretta at work and ask her to pick up peat moss when she got off, or take Sam to the eye doctor. Sometimes both of them felt too bad to go to the store, so Loretta would pick things up for them. She liked them both, admired them. Since they seemed so much to want company she found herself at dinner with them once a week, every two weeks at the most. A few times she asked them to her house for dinner, but there were so many steps to climb and the two arrived so exhausted that she stopped. So then she would take fish or chicken or a pasta dish to their house. They would make a salad, serve berries from the garden for dessert.

      After dinner, over cups of mint or jamaica tea they would sit around the table while Sam told stories. About the time Anna got polio, at a dig deep in the jungle in the Yucatán, how they got her to a hospital, how kind people were. Many stories about the house they built in Xalapa. The mayor’s wife, the time she broke her leg climbing out of a window to avoid a visitor. Sam’s stories always began, “That reminds me of the time …”

      Little by little Loretta learned the details of their life story. Their courtship on Mount Tam. Their romance in New York while they were communists. Living in sin. They had never married, still took satisfaction in this unconventionality. They had two children; both lived in distant cities. There were stories about the ranch near Big Sur, when the children were little. As a story was ending Loretta would say, “I hate to leave, but I have to get to work very early tomorrow.” Often she would leave then. Usually though, Sam would say, “Just let me tell you what happened to the wind-up phonograph.” Hours later, exhausted, she would drive home to her house in Oakland, saying to herself that she couldn’t keep on doing this. Or that she would keep going, but set a definite time limit.

      It was not that they were ever boring or uninteresting. On the contrary, the couple had lived a rich full life, were involved and perceptive. They were intensely interested in the world, in their own past. They had such a good time, adding to the other’s remarks, arguing about dates or details, that Loretta didn’t have the heart to interrupt them and leave. And it did make her feel good to go there, because the two people were so glad to see her. But sometimes she felt like not going over at all, when she was too tired or had something else to do. Finally she did say that she couldn’t stay so late, that it was hard to get up the next morning. Come for Sunday brunch, Anna said.

      When the weather was fair they ate on a table on their porch, surrounded by flowers and plants. Hundreds of birds came to the feeders right by them. As it grew colder they ate inside by a cast-iron stove. Sam tended it with logs he had split himself. They had waffles or Sam’s special omelette, sometimes Loretta brought bagels and lox. Hours went by, the day went by as Sam told his stories, with Anna correcting them and adding comments. Sometimes, in the sun on the porch or by the heat of the fire, it was hard to stay awake.

      Their house in Mexico had been made of concrete block, but the beams and counters and cupboards had been made of cedar wood. First the big room—the kitchen and living room—was built. They had planted trees, of course, even before they started building the house. Bananas and plums, jacarandas. The next year they added a bedroom, several years later another bedroom and a studio for Anna. The beds, the workbenches and tables were made of cedar. They got home to their little house after working in the field, in another state in Mexico. The house was always cool and smelt of cedar, like a big cedar chest.

      Anna got pneumonia and had to go to the hospital. As sick as she was, all she could think of was Sam, how he would get along without her. Loretta promised her she would go by

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