The Book of Unknown Americans

235 Pages·2014·0.99 MB·English

by  Cristina Henriquez

ALSO BY CRISTINA HENRÍQUEZ
Come Together, Fall Apart
The World in Half

This is a Borzoi Book Published by Alfred A. Knopf
Copyright © 2014 by Cristina Henríquez
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC,
New York, and in Canada by Bond Street Books, a division of Random House of Canada, Limited,
Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to The Permissions Company, Inc., for permission to reprint an
excerpt from “Poem After Carlos Drummond de Andrade” from Nightworks: Poems 1962–2000 by
Marvin Bell. Copyright © 1990 by Marvin Bell. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company,
Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henríquez, Cristina, 1977–
The book of unknown Americans : a novel / Cristina Henríquez. —First Edition.
pages cm
“This is a Borzoi Book.”
ISBN 978-0-385-35084-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-38535085-3 (eBook)
1. Teenagers—Fiction. 2. Immigrants—Fiction. 3.
Delaware—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3608.E565B66 2014
813′.6—dc23 2013022215
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales
is entirely coincidental.
Jacket painting by Elizabeth Mayville
Jacket design by Kelly Blair
v3.1_r1
For my father, Pantaleón Henríquez III
Let us all be from somewhere.
Let us tell each other everything we can.
— , “ ”
BOB HICOK A PRIMER
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1 - Alma
Chapter 2 - Mayor
Chapter 3 - Rafael Toro
Chapter 4 - Alma
Chapter 5 - Mayor
Chapter 6 - Benny Quinto
Chapter 7 - Alma
Chapter 8 - Mayor
Chapter 9 - Gustavo Milhojas
Chapter 10 - Alma
Chapter 11 - Mayor
Chapter 12 - Quisqueya Solís
Chapter 13 - Alma
Chapter 14 - Mayor
Chapter 15 - Adolfo “Fito” Angelino
Chapter 16 - Alma
Chapter 17 - Mayor
Chapter 18 - Nelia Zafón
Chapter 19 - Alma
Chapter 20 - Mayor
Chapter 21 - José Mercado
Chapter 22 - Alma
Chapter 23 - Mayor
Chapter 24 - Micho Alvarez
Chapter 25 - Alma
Chapter 26 - Mayor
Chapter 27 - Alma
Chapter 28 - Arturo Rivera
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
Reading Group Guide
Alma
Back then, all we wanted was the simplest things: to eat good food, to
sleep at night, to smile, to laugh, to be well. We felt it was our right, as
much as it was anyone’s, to have those things. Of course, when I think
about it now, I see that I was naïve. I was blinded by the swell of hope
and the promise of possibility. I assumed that everything that would go
wrong in our lives already had.
crossing the border, we arrived, the three of us in the
THIRTY HOURS AFTER
backseat of a red pickup truck that smelled of cigarette smoke and
gasoline.
“Wake up,” I whispered, nudging Maribel as the driver turned into a
parking lot.
“Hmmm?”
“We’re here, hija.”
“Where?” Maribel asked.
“Delaware.”
She blinked at me in the dark.
Arturo was sitting on the other side of us. “Is she okay?” he asked.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “She’s fine.”
It was just after sunset and darkness bled in from the outer reaches of
the sky. A few minutes earlier, we’d been on a busy road, driving
through four-way intersections, past strip malls and fast-food
restaurants, but as we neared the apartment building, all of that had
given way. The last thing I saw before we turned onto the long gravel
lane that led to the parking lot was an abandoned auto body shop, its
hand-painted sign on the ground, propped up against the gray stucco
facade.
The driver parked the truck and lit another cigarette. He’d been
smoking the whole trip. It gave him something to do with his mouth, I
guess, since he’d made it clear from the moment he picked us up in
Laredo that he wasn’t interested in conversation.
Arturo climbed out first, straightened his cowboy hat, and surveyed
the building. Two stories, made of cinder blocks and cement, an outdoor
walkway that ran the length of the second floor with metal staircases at
either end, pieces of broken Styrofoam in the grass, a chain-link fence
along the perimeter of the lot, cracks in the asphalt. I had expected it to
be nicer. Something with white shutters and red bricks, something with
manicured shrubs and flower boxes in the windows. The way American
houses looked in movies. This was the only option Arturo’s new job had
given us, though, and I told myself we were lucky to have it.
Silently, in the dim and unfamiliar air, we unloaded our things: plastic
trash bags packed with clothes and sheets and towels; cardboard boxes
filled with dishes wrapped in newspaper; a cooler crammed with bars of
soap, bottles of water, cooking oil, and shampoo. During the drive we
had passed a television set on the curb, and when he saw it, the driver
braked hard and backed up. “You want it?” he asked us. Arturo and I
looked at each other in confusion. “The television?” Arturo asked. The
driver said, “You want it, take it.” Arturo said, “It’s not stealing?” The
driver snorted. “People throw away everything in the United States.
Even things that are still perfectly good.” Later, when he stopped again
and pointed to a discarded kitchen table, and later again at a mattress
propped up like a sliding board against someone’s mailbox, we
understood what to do and loaded them into the truck.
After we carried everything up the rusted metal staircase to our
apartment, after we found the key the landlord had left for us, taped to
the threshold of the door, Arturo went back down to pay the driver. He
gave him half the money we had. Gone. Just like that. The driver put the
bills in his pocket and flicked his cigarette out the window. “Good luck,”
I heard him say before he drove off.
, Arturo flipped the light switch on the wall and a bare
INSIDE THE APARTMENT
bulb in the ceiling flashed on. The linoleum floors were dingy and worn.
Every wall was painted a dark mustard yellow. There were two windows
—a large one at the front and a smaller one at the back in the only
bedroom—both covered by plastic sheets held in place with tape, the
wood casings warped and splintered. Across the hall from the bedroom