The Senora's Family Comes Over

He sat in his bedroom, reading the poster on the wall.

Now the poster irritated him. He doubted whether he understood it. Not the words, the meaning. He had the urge to ask Donte, the other foreign exchange student, if the poster meant what he thought it did.

To wish for too big of a happiness makes it difficult for the same happiness.

The poster was in Spanish. His Spanish had gotten better over the last two months. Signs, labels and snatches of conversation still eluded him. He sensed meanings in a vague, partial way. The poster in his room continued to elude him--even though he thought he understood it now.

The clown had funny shoes and a fumbling gait. Underneath the shoes was the quizzical quotation. Which he was pretty sure he knew what it meant.

And he had been foolish. He had been foolish for not comprehending the poster earlier. Lethe expected Spain to be idyllic. He expected the Senora to become his best friend. Perhaps she was only the woman who lived here. Perhaps she was only the woman who took in college students every year, who cooked their meals and cleaned their dirty jeans. She returned to her household duties soon after the talk she had with Lethe on the couch.

The meaning of the poster changed. He thought that it meant, "You will receive all the happiness you wish for."

It was Sunday afternoon and the Senora's relatives were over. Her family came every Sunday. He would stay in his bedroom until she called him for lunch, and even then, he might stay in his room. The voices of the Senora's relatives rumbled through the thin walls of the apartment. Outbursts of laughter. He could hear them cracking pistachio nuts and the children running in the halls. The men were playing cards, and accusing each other of cheating. The women were helping in the kitchen and gossiping. Juanita lurked in the hallway with her patched eye. She was probably looking for him.

The poster said not to wish for happiness. But that was impossible. Lethe expected the Senora to take care of him. Now she was ignoring him. And yet, he didn't want to go home either.

Yesterday he felt so comfortable and secure with his situation. Yesterday he wrote the first pages of a novel. A novel! Imagine that! Lethe Bashar began the first pages of a novel. He repeated this to himself over and over.

He recalled the ease and fluidity of that day. How he seemingly floated through it without a single irritation and everything unfolded effortlessly.

He came in from the balcony and sat down at his desk. Then, as if the shutters of a dark room had suddenly opened, he looked out and saw the suburbs of his childhood. The gated subdivision with the artificial ponds. The weeping willow trees. The pool house and red clay tennis courts.

He followed the camera over manicured lawns, sparkling lakes, flowering gardens. The cul de sacs of Barclay Park turned in and out, down hills, around vast swathes of land. An artificial world, to be sure. And it was made even more artificial by his memory.

Swans floated on the ponds, handpicked for a festival or a banquet. And the weeping willows draped their long hair over the white rocks. Children sat on green painted benches with their wet-nurses. The professional dog walkers bent over to pick up doggie doo doo.

These memories grew and grew inside of him until his pen was scribbling furiously. The rush was satisfying.

In a sense, his whole life history crystallized into these first few images of his childhood. He remembered the house where he grew up, the white ranch house his mother loved more than anything. He remembered the three pine trees in his backyard, and the log cabin his father had built. Like a dream it was suffused with various shades and colors and hues. The world flashed before him in an instant.

In rare moments he felt the energy to write down his history. But mostly he felt inept, feeble-minded, unable to capture it all. It was a grand, sweeping narrative. He made sporadic attempts, but again and again it escaped him.

In Spain, he needed the Senora more and more. He needed her for comfort. These dreams were small burdens. He was weary from carrying them. He needed her to bring him back to reality. Would she smoke another cigarette with him? Did she have a moment to spare?

Alone, in his room, he questioned the foundation of himself: the dreams he let get out of hand with the constant repetition of a childhood fantasy.

"Maybe I'm not the genius that I think I am."

Was it true?

The very thought of his ordinariness bothered him. He quickly recalled the International Institute and the herds of students who rushed through the halls every morning. He was not like them. "No," he said aloud in his room, "I'm different. I'm . . . more sensitive, more unique."

But what if Lethe Bashar was not more unique? What if he was just like everyone else? What if his literary prowess was not literary or prowess?

Two days past. Not another page written.

He laughed to himself. Ha-ha-ha. He mocked himself for wanting to be great.

The patter of voices could be heard on the other side of the wall. The Senora's family was loud. They were filled with mirth, and exuberance.

The children screamed while they played. Their little cloven feet padded up and down the hall. The husbands sat with their bellies full in the living room. They were smoking pipes, and spitting tobacco in aluminum cans.

Lethe would still not come out of his room. He dreamed of his Novel. He dreamed of becoming an Author. The Vivid Book of Life was all he ever thought about. Sometimes his dreams made him gloomy, other times they filled him with energy and life.

Visions! Visions! Like the clown who warns us all: Wishing for too big of a happiness makes it difficult for that same happiness.

The Senora's relatives were in the other room, and the Senora was occupied. If only she came into his room to talk to him. They could smoke a cigarette together and he could tell her about his plans for his novel.

He heard her voice at his door.

"Come in," he said.

"They're all gone. I saved some food for you. Do you want to eat?"

"Yes, thank you."

In the small kitchen, Lethe ate a piece of bread and a potato omelet.

For a moment she watched him eating. He looked like a street urchin, like a beggar. Then she went into the hall with her dust mop. She stood in the darkness, swinging the mop across the tiles.