All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [2]
Between meals, we visit Monte Alban, the Zapotec ruins, climbing to the top of the pyramids to take in the wide sky and view of the town below. You can see why Hernán Cortés, who was offered anywhere in Mexico for himself after his conquest, chose the Oaxaca Valley. Then we walk all the way back to town to find Aztec soup and chicken tamales wrapped in banana leaves. We wander around the neat cobblestone streets another day, peeking into brightly painted churches, admiring cactus gardens, browsing in art galleries—and then we order Anaheim and poblano chiles sautéed with fresh cheese, onions, and crème fraiche. We tour Oaxaca’s huge food market, pass stalls with hanging pigs, fresh chocolate, stacks of cactus, and basketfuls of corn, tomatoes, onions, exotic greens, and roasted grasshoppers. Tidy piles of chiles stand as tall as I. We discover the chocolate factory and drink creamy hot chocolate, looking into each other’s eyes, bittersweet.
“Qué rico,” I say to the server as I finish my chocolate. How delicious.
“How do you know Spanish?” the Professor asks.
I explain that my mother brought my three older sisters and me to live in Mexico for a summer when I was ten years old. We spent that time in San Miguel de Allende, a colonial town not unlike Oaxaca, at an age when I was unafraid to roam around and try to talk to everyone. It was when I got my first taste of the wide world and felt a hunger for its endless sights and flavors. It was also when I first understood that being able to speak another language, even the few phrases one can manage at ten, isn’t just a matter of translating familiar words; it’s a way of expanding your internal territory and venturing outside the borders of your culture and family. The fresh new sentences change the very nature of your thoughts, your usual reactions, and your sense of who you are. I learned, that summer, that I couldn’t speak a little Spanish without becoming a little Mexican. That exciting summer in San Miguel de Allende—discovering the pleasures of discovery—was when I first became a traveler.
“Intelligent mother,” says the Professor, pushing back from the table, content.
EVENTUALLY IT IS our last evening, and we have finished dinner down to the mescal, satiated with the place, cheeks warmed, and cheerful, for the moment, with our transition to friends.
“Happy birthday,” says the Professor, and he pulls out a necklace he bought from an Indian vendor, a lovely string of turquoise and amber. I try to remember if any man besides my father has ever bought me a piece of jewelry. Aside from my first boyfriend in college, who gave me an opal pendant as a parting gift, I can’t recall any. I was outraged once when my friend Giovanna told me her husband had never bought her any jewelry during their entire marriage, with all the toys he bought for himself, and maybe I was so mad because mine didn’t, either. So this gift, at forty, is a delightful surprise. The Professor clasps it, hands warm, on my neck. “What do you wish for?”
So many things. I wish we could stay in Oaxaca and be the lovers we used to be. I wish I could still fall in love or even believe I could. I wish for great food, adventure, and soul-scorching sex. Maybe a child, still. I wish for it all.
“Romance and adventure,” I say. I do not say what else I wish for, maybe what I wish for most, because it seems contrary to everything else, which is to be with one man or in one place, to have something settled in a life where nothing is settled.
“Do you think you can have both?” asks the Professor. “Who is the man who will let you roam around the world, meeting your old lovers?”
I shrug. “Maybe he’ll travel with me.”
“Good luck,” says the Professor, and he is sincere.
I twirl my glass between my fingers, sniff the smoky mescal, and wonder, as I always wonder, whether we will see each other again. I ask the Professor if he thinks we might travel together again.
“You never know,” he says. He