From This Wicked Patch of Dust

Two Brothers

167 Two Brothers February 1997 Carmen, their Guatemalan babysitter, had just left. Little David was asleep in the crib that would soon be too big for him, and Ismael had one hour, perhaps two. The taxis and buses on Broadway slowly made their way through the snow-clogged intersection next to Fairway Market. Under the smudgy living room window of their pre-war apartment, the radiator gurgled. Last month, Lilah had detected a sharp odor in their bedroom, which faced a shadowy courtyard of wroughtiron staircases. Ismael had yanked up the metal cover of the radiator next to their bed and discovered a dried-up mouse on its back, its nose in the air. Now Ismael sniffed the air and smelled nothing but David’s A+D ointment. It was a shame they would never get to use the fireplace, Lilah’s favorite feature in their first apartment together as a married couple. Lilah loved the Astor, their home for the last five years, and where they had brought their newborn son from New York Hospital fifteen months ago. In their crowded one-bedroom on the fourth floor, jam-packed with used furniture from their college and graduate school days, Lilah and Ismael did not have many luxuries. But Lilah loved the creamcolored fireplace mantel: a slab of white marble with black streaks, and etched in it a pair of laurel leaves in an oval shape about the size of a large orange. She also loved other architectural quirks at the Astor: the high ceilings, the marble trim in the lobby, the brass mailboxes. In two months, however, they would close on a two-bedroom co-op in a tenyear -old building eleven blocks north. Their new building had a pool, a health club, and a gigantic playroom. 168 Lilah’s confidence in Carmen allowed her to return to the Federal Reserve after only three months of maternity leave, and to push herself at work so that she won a promotion to senior analyst two years before. Without that promotion, they would never have saved enough for the down payment on their new co-op. The classes Ismael taught at Columbia University, as a lecturer, did not even cover Carmen’s salary. That the nanny made more than Ismael haunted him for a while. One night, when he had ranted to Lilah about feeling like a failure, she encouraged him to keep writing and had reminded him of his recent publication successes. What really mattered, she said, was that they were a family, happy and in love. That evening Ismael had kissed Lilah a bit more deliberately, prompting a delicious night for both of them. In their darkened bedroom, he pleased her to thank her for being so kind and for loving him despite what her family and he himself imagined a man and a husband should be. Lilah had curled up and fallen asleep in his arms, and he stopped hating himself. The nanny also made it possible for Ismael to write. Yet while he was grateful, he was always relieved when she left for the day. Carmen was playful and affectionate with David. She took him to the park, playdates, the second-floor children’s section at the Barnes and Noble on 83rd Street, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. She spoke only Spanish to David, the reason why they had hired her in the first place. Lilah and Ismael wanted David to know the language of his abuelitos. Ismael’s mother had even initiated impromptu phone conversations with their nanny in Spanish. Over Christmas in Ysleta, Pilar had told him how lucky they were to find such a caring woman they could trust with their child. Even his mother didn’t have a problem with their raising their son with the help of a nanny. But Carmen was not that smart. As David was strapped into his blue-and-white high chair, Carmen would convince the child to eat what he didn’t like, sweetly at first, but soon enough with tricks to force him to swallow his peas, broccoli, or eggs. If David did not want to go 169 to the park, Carmen told David they were doing something else, just to get him into the stroller, and then take him anyway. Ismael had had conversations with Carmen about really listening to David’s wishes, about not...