Karate Chop: Stories (Lannan Translation Selection (Graywolf Paperback)) Read Online Free Page B

gives me a high-five with his hand down low. The nameplate on the door says the Great Danes. This is a joke by some friends of theirs. I like the Bangs, but when the Bangs aren’t at home I’m always afraid they will suddenly appear in the doorway.
    That’s why I hesitate to invite the man inside. But he is sweating, and the Bangs have air-conditioning. I tell him my name is Raquel and that he must take off his shoes. His name is Gabriel. He says he has other returns he needs to pick up elsewhere in the city. I tell him I’ll give him something for his trouble. He says he won’t accept anything if it’s my own money. We smile, and he puts the tomato down carefully on the kitchen counter.
    “I don’t know what to give you,” I say, but then he says I can let him freshen up a little.
    The Bangs have a separate bathroom for guests, but my buckets and cleaning supplies are in there and the Bangs never told me what to do about guests like Gabriel. So I indicate the sink in the kitchen and he pulls the sleeves of his T-shirt up over his shoulders. Gabriel washes like my father used to in the kitchen at home in Puerto Consol. Mexican men lather themselves up to the elbows and pay special attention to the eyes and ears and nose. And when they rinse the soap away they snort like the first Mexican snorted as he staggered out of the Rio Grande. This is how Gabriel washes, and when he is done he half turns to face me. I hurry into the guest bathroom to get him a towel. The dirty ones are in a pile on the floor. The clean ones from Lumturi are folded in a neat stack. I take a clean one and go back to the kitchen where he stands dripping.
    “I could make you a sandwich,” I tell him as I hand him the towel.
    “I don’t want to be any trouble,” he says.
    I point at the tomato and say:
    “Es un jitomate muy grande, pero no puede bajar las escaleras por si mismo.” *
    While he eats his sandwich I finish up my cleaning in the guest bathroom, and when I’m done scouring the bowl I put the dirty towels and the Bangs’ bed linen in the laundry bag for Lumturi. In the kitchen, Gabriel is standing in his stockinged feet looking at the bulletin board.
    “They are tall people, right?”
    He indicates how tall he thinks the Bangs would be beside him if they were at home.
    He is looking at some photos from the Bangs’ wedding. There are quite a few on the bulletin board, and I tell him that the people who live here are from Denmark. He looks at the photo of the Bangs together with a lot of other people outside a small, white church. Everyone looks tall, though not as tall as Mr. and Mrs. Bang. Another photo shows them in wedding outfits standing by a horse-drawn carriage in front of a castle in a sumptuous green landscape. Mrs. Bang’s hair has been put up in a way that makes her look even taller. In another photo, Mr. Bang is carrying her over his shoulder. She is so high up her head is not even in the picture.
    Gabriel repeats what he said about them being tall. I tell him that the Bangs are nice people, which is true. Then Gabriel points at the horse-drawn carriage and says he thinks it’s strange for people to come to America when they have lives like in that picture. I say ordinary people may find it hard to understand, but even people like the Bangs will live abroad if it means their lives can be happier.
    I point to the blue laundry bag and tell Gabriel not to forget the tomato. I am done here. We take the stairs together without speaking. Outside the evening is warm and his bike is where he left it. It has a large box, and he has the key. He puts the tomato inside next to some other vegetables, but I don’t notice what kind. Then he bends down and turns the pedals with his hand. He scratches his head. Eventually he straightens up, takes the laundry bag out of my hand, and puts it on top of the box.
    “I’m going your way,” he says.
    He pushes the bike along beside me and we head for Snowy White. Lumturi, the Albanian