All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [83]
The bus let us out in the center of town, near another church and a square. We suddenly felt very gringo, surrounded by our suitcases, probably more stuff than the people around us owned. We ate steaming tacos with our hands and drank orange sodas. Then we were able to take in the town—the trees dripping with flowers, the old cheek-to-cheek buildings that would have been plain-faced but for their marvelous colors: pink, crab apple, marigold, Fanta orange. The streets weren’t paved, exactly, but covered in flat, irregular stones, like an old, smooth riverbed. After the dreary bus ride, suddenly everything seemed calm and colorful, infused with waning shades of sunlight. We piled ourselves into a couple of taxis that threaded through narrow, one-way streets on the way to our new, temporary home.
We passed donkeys, indignant under their heavy loads. We drove by houses where the tops of the walls were embedded with glass shards to keep burglars out (though a cat was delicately making its path across the broken bottles, undisturbed). Finally we pulled up to a stucco house with a heavy carved wooden door. The place seemed stark and forbidding, with no wide screen doors, lawns, sprinklers, or anything else we associated with summer. We girls glanced at one another nervously: we were going to spend our precious summer here?
And then someone opened the door. Inside was a world of green, of flowers, birdcages, fountains, and painted tile floors. A magic garden. The house seemed to be mostly outdoor space, with the rooms surrounding the courtyard almost an afterthought. The proprietress, a stout woman with curly gray hair and woven, ethnic-looking clothes, bustled about, showing us to our simple whitewashed rooms with twin wooden beds, each with a cross above the headboard. Amy and I flopped down, the fan cooling our humid skin, taking us into a slumber of tropical dreams and anticipation.
In the morning, I woke to the sound of bells and roosters and a maid swishing her broom on the tiles. Mexico! I nudged Amy, who gave me a sleepy grin, and pushed her harder because it was morning and we were in Mexico and there was no time to spare. We got out of bed, feet cold on the tiled floor, and peeked out the window. In the courtyard, the sun was just touching the lush tropical plants, lighting the pink flowers, shining the surface of the water in the stone fountain. The other doors around the patio were closed. We made our way, shyly, to a breakfast of crusty bolillo rolls with marmalade. “Gracias,” I said to the maid, who smiled—Spanish words actually work—and I was eager to go outside, to explore the town, to learn new words, to make all that was strange familiar.
WITH THESE MEMORIES swirling around in my head, anticipating my return to San Miguel with both eagerness and dread, we finally come into view of the town. The lights are so widespread it seems as if San Miguel de Allende has spent the past thirty-five years outgrowing itself, sprawling away from its colonial streets. On the edges of town, identical condos line up behind locked gates like prisoners waiting for the count and housing developments march up into the foothills and scatter. My heart sinks as we enter town, when we pass a fast-food chicken restaurant and a supersized grocery store. “That’s new,” says the driver.
I wonder if the mercado, where short, gnarled women pressed still-warm tortillas into our hands, still exists.
Nothing about this San Miguel de Allende seems familiar, until we turn a corner onto a narrow, crooked street, our way lit by wrought-iron lampposts that cast rosy circles of glow. I don’t know where I am, but I have been here before. We stop in front of the hotel, and the driver leaves. I give the night attendant my name and he checks the book; there is no reservation for me tonight. Maybe I am so late that my room has been given away, another sign that I shouldn’t even be here. The night man is baffled about what to do. I ask if there is a room, any room, and he nods. Phew.