The Mexican Year

Chirbampo isn’t the end of the earth, it just feels that way. The winding road that descends into the mining town also rises out again, snaking up the almost-vertical back wall of the canyon, following the silicious ore veins even deeper into the mountains. The only thing that ends are the guardrails. From this point on, there’s nothing but sheer cliff faces waiting at the edge of the pavement. Below me Chirbampo is dwindling faster in elevation than distance. Suddenly my ribcage feels too small for my heart and lungs. I drive slowly and try not to look down whenever a change in topography takes the Explorer to the outside lane.

In the passenger seat Nooshin is a storm cloud of dark billowing hair. She’s got her window rolled down, proving to me that she can almost touch the canyon wall creeping past. “See? Look at — omigod!” Her outstretched hand recoils into the cab. She sits there, caramel skin blanched almost pale, her flat chest heaving into the seatbelt.

I glance in the rearview mirror at the jutting rock that almost lopped off her arm. “I told you so.”

“I know, I know,” she sighs.

There’s a distracted pause while I navigate a hairpin switchback. Nooshin composes herself and starts messing with the car stereo. A recent development. I used to have two sacrosanct responsibilities in the truck — driving, and choosing the soundtrack for that driving. But now she’s sneakily taking over the music, the same way she sneakily rezoned her bedroom as the “office” and never left my bed again. This girl got under my skin, and into my head, and through my ribcage — and now she’s making herself an immutable part of my life. I’d be annoyed as hell if I didn’t love it this much.

Like, goddamnit.

If I didn’t like it this much.

“Wow. There’s sure a lot of…” Nooshin frowns sourly. “I forgot the word already. What are they called again, those little crosses on the side of the road?”

“Descansos,” I say through clenched teeth, muscling the truck around another curve fringed with empty space.

Every rocky shoulder is dotted with descansos — literally “resting places” in Spanish. The roadside crosses and memorials commemorate loved ones, who apparently die in droves on this heart attack of a road. The mayor of Chirbampo crashed into one of these ravines, a drunken flaming demise already marked by an ostentatious descanso.

Finally we reach our destination, the first turnoff, a well-worn gravel road leading to the silver mine known as the Prieto. The mineshaft and its outbuildings are lost somewhere behind a line of lumpy hills. All we can see is a ragged picket line of women strung across the road leading to the mine, sitting on folding chairs or lying on blankets. A jeep in company colors is parked on one side of the road, its security guard occupants dozing. I pull off on the opposite shoulder, triangulating between the picket line and jeep, keeping an impartial distance from both, not taking sides.

Bored faces watch us get out and stretch in the patchy sunshine. Nothing happens until Nooshin fumbles her antique Polaroid camera out of her purse. Then everybody stirs from their inactivity. The women grab their banners and placards and stand up to start an anti-company chant. The security guards get out of their jeep, put on their sunglasses, and look menacing.

“Are they doing this for us?” she asks, leaning against her door, fiddling with the camera.

“Yeah. For anybody who comes along. Especially agents of the federal government.” I jump up and settle myself on the Explorer’s hood. The ass-heat from the engine feels good in the cool mountain air. “This strike is the reason Senor Reyes is in prison awaiting trial. One of the reasons, anyway.”

Nooshin snaps a picture and flutters her wrist to develop it. “What do you mean?”

“Mining is considered a vital economic sector, so the Mexican government tries to protect it from disruptions. When there’s a strike, the government pays the mining company a strike subsidy for lost production. Senor Reyes figured out that the subsidy is more lucrative than operating the mine, and definitely better than shutting it down. So he convinced his miners to go on strike.”

She’s intrigued now, the camera dangling forgotten by her jeaned thigh. “He wanted his own workers to go on strike?”

“That’s the other genius part of Senor Reyes’ scam. You see all those women? They don’t work at the mine. They’re the wives of the striking miners, who found other employment a long time ago. But the union pays a strike benefit if the workers maintain the strike and keep picketing, so the miners send their wives instead. This pays better than any job they can find in town.”

“No one wants the strike to end? Senor Reyes and the miners and their wives, they just keep on like this for…years?” Nooshin raises a slender hand to cut me off, then uses it to pin bangs behind her ear. “Let me say it this time — only in Mexico, man!”

I nod tightly, aware of the scrutiny of the picket line. The women have stopped chanting and are patiently waiting for us to finish our conversation. When I wave at them, they all wave back. Careful to maintain my impartiality, I turn to wave at the security guards. They’re leaning against their jeep, heads tipped together in conversation. They nod at me, all macho-like. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a doctoral dissertation in their faces, in their circumstances, and it’s probably a better one than the piece of shit I’m starting to bang out on my laptop using the Korea Textile maquiladora archive.

On Friday thunderheads are boiling up from the coastal plain and slicing open their bellies on the craggy peaks. Beneath their wet embrace Chirbampo is shrouded in cold drizzle. Rain drips off the hotel eaves in torpid rivulets. Vehicles splash through water-logged potholes. The window is open a crack, letting the damp chill seep into the room.

Underneath the sheets Nick and I spoon indolently, our bare skin plastered with heat. He wraps me in his embrace, one arm flattening my already-flat chest, the other draped over my hip. I can feel his heartbeat tattoo my back and gently slow, his hardness melting. Occasionally my butt flinches, tickled by his pubic hair.

He’s talking in a voice like frayed velvet, his words a lazy reminiscence about Iowa. The sun sinking into an endless shimmering curve of corn tassels. Grain silos rising from snowdrifts. Jumping the railroad tracks on his big brother’s dirt bike. Clouds of bats shrieking overhead at dawn and dusk. The ghostly calm of abandoned farmsteads. Windmills that clank and glitter in the breeze. Trysts in the hayloft with his high school girlfriend. Ruthie, he lets slip.

I’m smiling into my pillow, caught up in the vision of a younger Nick in bucolic paradise, treasuring this insight into him. Then a question pricks my contentment. “Did you love her?”

He blows a long sigh into my hair, warming the nape of my neck. “I thought I did.”

“What happened?”

“Ruthie left for college. Bowdoin, of all fucking places. Way the hell out in Maine.”

I nip at his wrist playfully. “She wanted to get away from you that bad?”

“It wasn’t my fault. Bowdoin gave her a scholarship.” Nick’s laugh hovers between relief and resignation. “I was miserable for a couple months, and then I wasn’t anymore.”

“That’s when you met the next girl, huh?” Giggling, I try to rotate in his arms. “Did you love that one?”

His muscular embrace tightens, pinning me in place. “Let’s talk about what we’re doing today.”

“Besides this sex-type stuff?”

“Yeah. Besides several helpings of this sex-type stuff.” Suddenly his sweaty heat is gone. Nick escapes from bed and stands at the hotel window, arms folded and feet planted far apart. The pose is oddly regal, as if he’s the king of all he surveys — namely Chirbampo. “I’m giving you the responsibility of building a demographic profile of the town, before during and after the Korea Textile maquiladora. Who left to work at the maquiladora in Tijuana? Who stayed behind here in Chirbampo? Who came back after the maquiladora shut down? That kind of demographic profile.”

My body is all goosebumps and shivering without his warmth. I snatch a fleece pullover from the floor and shrug into it. “A demographic profile? I don’t even know what that is.”

“Just a fancy way of saying you analyze the census data for a given time and place. In Mexico the national census happens every 10 years, just like in the U.S., except here it’s bottoms-up instead of top-down. Mexican towns collect their own census data, then forward it to the state government, which forwards it to the federal government.” He glances over a naked shoulder at me. “Chirbampo keeps its original census data in the basement of the public library. You’ll love it down there. Trust me.”

“Are you being serious?”

“Not really,” Nick laughs, and goes back to his contemplation of the rainy street.

“What are you going to do while I’m slaving away in the library’s basement?”

“Keep interviewing people. I’m trying to learn more about Senor Reyes and what people think of him. He bought the Korea Textile maquiladora in Tijuana and offered people jobs there. That kept money flowing back to Chirbampo, since migrant Mexican workers always send part of their paychecks home. But it also lured the young and ambitious away, and when they married and started families it wasn’t here. Add it all up and what do you get?”

It’s one of his pop quizzes. I peer out from my cocoon of sheets, distracted by a mole that interrupts the muscular contour of his left buttcheek. I never noticed it before. “Ummm…”

“I’ll tell you what you get — a ghost town waiting to happen. A lot of old-timers and a few youngsters, mostly dependent on money from relatives in Tijuana or even America.” Nick shakes his balding head sadly. “This town is dead and they don’t even know it.”

Abruptly he marches into the bathroom. The tinkle of his peeing turns into a waterfall when he flushes the toilet. Meanwhile I hang on words that he already forgot saying. Send money back home. That’s what I should do. Sign over my checks from UCLA to my family. Help them repay the mahr that Saman’s family paid for me. Because this divorce is bigger than the girl I’m becoming, even bigger than five years of house arrest as a wife and daughter-in-law. Disappearing into Mexico with Nick changed everything, and nothing at all. The two families are still right where I left them, shamefully entangled by my flight from Saman, hating me more than ever.

The bedsprings creak. “Let’s sleep in for a while,” Nick whispers, a familiar embrace from behind. “The library doesn’t open until noon, anyway.” I relax and feel his stubbly cheek against my shoulderblade, feel his breathing ease into slumber…

When I close my eyes I can still see him in passionate abandon, hips churning into me, neck arched toward the ceiling — and afterward, when he stares down at me, his icy visage has melted into tenderness, or even vulnerability. I just want him to look at me that way forever. Forever and ever.

That image lingers in my fitful dreams, where we live fantastical adventures involving dirt bikes and windmill creatures and bat-clogged skies, escaping to make love in a corn-tassel bed. Later I’m awakened by the muffled report of a truck backfiring down on the cobblestones — and in waking Nick is still here, a solid warmth pooling into me, as if the dream never ended.

What a pair of Catholic gatecrashers we make. I’m an agnostic who reverts to nominal Lutheranism in weak moments, and Nooshin is a lapsed Muslim who still believes in Allah or God or whatever she calls a higher power. But despite our heretical beliefs, we’re still climbing the worn stone steps to the massive oaken doors of Chirbampo’s cathedral. Normally I’d rather suffer blunt trauma than go to church — any church — but it’s a PR move. Appearances are important in Mexico, especially rural Mexico, and this is a memorial mass for the recently deceased mayor.

Inside the cathedral we’re momentarily disoriented, blinded by the transition from sun-drenched outside to pitch-black interior. We stagger around, bumping into the warm bodies of the parishioners packed around us. A male voice yelps when Nooshin stumbles and plants a heel on somebody’s foot.

“Over here,” I hiss, and yank her into an empty pew.

I let my eyes adjust to the dim lighting, just a few banks of guttering candles. Incredibly ornate woodwork stained almost black soars from the coal-colored tile of the floor to the roof, lost somewhere in the gloom above, where the candles’ illumination can’t reach. Intermittent alcoves hold amazingly lifelike icons, realistically painted and clothed. Here and there, inlaid silver glints in the darkness. The effect is simultaneously divine and subterranean, a paean to God and the mines of Chirbampo.

“What a gorgeous cathedral,” Nooshin is murmuring, awed.

“Technically it’s not a cathedral,” I murmur back. “There’s no bishopric here.”

“Bish-what?”

“Bishopric. The bishop’s office. It’s an administrative level in the Catholic Church hierarchy. A cathedral is the principal church of a bishop’s diocese.” I point at the altar, my outstretched hand a pale flash in the murk. “If this was a cathedral, there’d be a big-ass throne up there. For the bishop.”

Processional music begins and everybody gets to their feet. I turn toward the aisle, expecting to see the priest and his altarboys — but instead glimpse the rich and powerful families of Chirbampo. They march down the aisle, resplendent in their tailored suits and expensive dresses, a best much better than everybody else’s. A few peek sideways at us, noticing the Americans who tower head-and-shoulders above the rest of the parishioners.

I loop my arm around Nooshin’s waist and pull her warmth close, putting my lips against her ear. “This is like something out of colonial times,” I whisper, explaining that church seating used to be segregated by social station — peninsulares from Spain first, Mexican-born mestizos next, Indians and half-breeds in the back.

The rich and powerful seat themselves in a bank of transept pews, apparently reserved for the leading families of Chirbampo. Only when they’re settled does the priest appear, altarboys in tow, and the service begins. I instruct Nooshin to mimic the rest of the assembled throng, standing when they stand, kneeling when they kneel. The Catholic rituals are alien to me, and probably even stranger to her.

Apparently the deceased mayor was a law-and-order type. One of the liturgy readings honors his memory with a brimstone recitation of sins and punishments from the Old Testament — including adultery, with the straying wife stoned to death. Nooshin understands enough of the Spanish to sag a little. She commits adultery every night she sleeps in my arms, shaming her family beyond my comprehension, earning their hatred. Adultery is not something she likes to think about.

When the priest and altarboys arrange themselves for communion, she tries to rise — and runs into my arm, braced like a bar across her lap. “Communion is a sacrament reserved for the believers,” I hiss in the dark.

White teeth flash in a mischievous grin. “What do you care? You’re the one who doesn’t believe in God.”

“You know what a sacrament means? They believe the wafer and wine actually become Jesus Christ. Like, his body and blood.”

“That’s what Catholics actually believe?” Her grin vanishes in the dark. “That’s just gross. And really pagan too, eating your god like that.” But she still struggles against my restraining arm. “Nick? Please? Can we try some?”

And that’s how we wind up queuing in the aisle, slowly shuffling toward the guttering candles, treating the Catholic sacrament of communion like it’s a buffet. The communion wafers are stale and the wine tastes like screwtop Gallo, too sweet and thin. The body and blood of Christ.

“That was cool,” Nooshin gushes, when the service finally concludes and ushers dismiss our pew. “Thanks for taking me to church.” The first and last time I ever want to hear those words.

My attention is focused on making a good impression with the priest, always a pillar of the community in Mexico. He stands outside the massive oaken doors, a half-dead relic shaking the hands of his parishioners as they file out of the darkness and into the light. After he’s in the grave the priest-strapped Catholic Church will write off this parish, consigning it to the deacons and laypeople.

“The American,” the elderly padre beams, showing off his dentures, and frailly clasps my hand. He can’t be younger than 70. “So good to meet you, my son.”

“Likewise, padre.”

“Did you know the mayor, may he rest in peace?”

“I wish I had the pleasure. He was obviously a great man.” I say it plenty loud, broadcasting my flattery.

The padre nods approvingly, then tilts up at Nooshin. “And this would be your…wife?”

“Uh, yeah. My wife.” The words are barely out of my mouth before I regret them. Shit. I should’ve just told the truth. A single word — no — and a cold smile that doesn’t invite further conversation.

Her eyes are squinty in the sunlight, but I can still see the right one twitching in nervous confusion. She understood the introduction. Mi esposa — my wife. For a paralyzing moment her smile looks pasted-on. Then naturalness seeps back into her features. A slow knowing recovery. “The service was beautiful,” she compliments in deliberate Spanish, getting the past tense right.

The priest almost puddles inside his vestments with pride. I quickly drag my so-called wife down the steps to the plaza, where Mexican families are scattering in the directions of home, clattering across the cobbles. Around us kids are bursting with pent-up energy and swirling around the Americans. “Los altos!” — the tall ones! — I hear a rugrat screech in delight.

Nooshin’s wedgie sandals are matching my hiking boots, stride for long stride, as we exit the plaza in the direction of downtown, a modest block of shops that have seen better years. Like the 1700s. “Your wife?” she says in a tiny voice, reaching over to snag my hand. “Why’d you tell him that?”

“Hell if I know.” I try to shrug nonchalantly, as if I was just following the priest’s lead or something, but my shoulders hitch with apprehension. What if my ready agreement was actually a Freudian slip, a window into my subconscious? Or even a portent from that god I don’t believe in, whose body and blood I just sampled?

What the fuck am I saying? Get a grip, for chrissake. Don’t overthink this shit.

“I’m a zan, alright. Your seeghe zan. A temporary wife to you. Although I suppose that’s better than calling me your faheshe, your whore. Not like it really matters in the end. When it’s over with…well, you know.” Nooshin is tugging me across the almost-deserted street toward the opposite sidewalk, where a corner sign spells FARMACIA. Her long inky hair is snapping in the breeze, her face lit with hopelessness. “Let’s get some more condoms. At least I can pretend I’m a real zan for a while…”

We find Don Fidel’s casa on the north edge of the colonial district. The house takes up half the block, a martial-looking structure of imposing mud brick walls and slit windows. Next to me Nick is explaining that it was probably built in the mid-1700s, when Indian attacks were commonplace in this region. At the gated front door, he clangs a massive silver knocker shaped like a coat of arms, rolling his icy blue eyes. Apparently families in Mexico are always falsifying their ancestry, faking connections to the conquistadores and titles granted by the Spanish throne, but to me it looks like this family might be old enough to have a genuine claim.

The heavy wooden door opens just enough for a single almond eye to peek out. Nick fumbles the letter from the mayor out of his backpack and slides it through the crack. There’s a pause, then the door creaks wider in welcome and we’re facing a teenage maid — identifiable because she’s dressed in one of those outfits with the lacy apron and hat and everything, just like the maids in the telenovelas I watched back in Tijuana. He grins and launches into his “rico suave act” as he calls it, flirting in a blur of Spanish, making her giggle as she leads us into the house.

Through a short arched hallway is a courtyard swimming in greenery and blossoms, like a private indoor arboretum. We press through walls of palm fronds. Orchids dangle from suspended planters and brush our faces. Water is trickling in a fountain somewhere. Eventually I realize that small kids are spying on us, hiding in all the bushes and flowers.

At the far end of the courtyard a stooped figure emerges from the shadows of a balcony overhang. I almost burst out laughing — it’s the Mexican Yoda! The wrinkly little man is about half our height, with dark skin made even darker by innumerable liver spots. He’s still wearing his pajamas, covered by a silk robe. Beneath the wattles of his neck is a…omigod, it’s a cravat! I’ve never met anyone wearing a cravat before.

The maid presents the letter to him. He scans it theatrically, turning his wispy-fringed head as if the page contains entire sentences instead of a single word. Then he hands the letter back abruptly, exclaiming in English, “The gringos! Good to meet you! I’m Don Fidel!” He shakes hands with enough strength and enthusiasm to make Nick wince. The old man turns to me for an air-kiss on both cheeks, requiring me to bend over as if I’m touching my toes. “I’ve gotten several phone calls, you know. Friends reporting that we had gringos in town. Gringos!”

For the first time since I’ve known Nick, he looks as if he doesn’t know what to say next. He stares down at the comical oldster, mouth hanging open a little. Finally he says, “It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, senor.”

“Of course it is,” Don Fidel laughs, trying to slap Nick on the back but barely reaching his butt. “Hey everybody! Come meet the Americans!”

We’re introduced to a dizzying array of relatives, none of whose names I remember five minutes later. His sons, his daughters, and their spouses. A wave of granddaughters curtsy, one after another. His grandsons demonstrate their fledgling English. A few teenagers stop long enough to say hi and slink off to more interesting things, the way teenagers everywhere do.

After his family melts back into the courtyard jungle, Don Fidel ushers us into a dark but comfortable study. Or it would be comfortable, if not for the eerie portraits of previous family patriarchs staring down at us. He digs out an unlabeled bottle and two glasses from a massive teak bar. “I get this from a farmer out in Batomilas,” he announces, pouring a finger of opaque liquid into each glass and handing one to Nick. “Let’s put some hair on our balls!”

They clink classes and down the shots. Nick almost chokes. “Mescal,” he gasps to me.

The old man cackles uproariously. “Good and strong, no? Not like tequila!” Then he pours a glass of Spanish-dark wine for me. “Here, senorita. A fine wine for a fine woman, I always say!”

“How about a beer chaser?” Nick suggests weakly. He’s even paler than usual. I wonder if the mescal is going to stay where he put it.

“Beer? Piss is more like it! Have another shot!” Don Fidel pours more foul liquid into his shotglass. When Nick declines, he grins like a fiend.

“So the acting mayor suggested that we see you — ” Nick starts to say, trying to get the conversation back on track.

The old man cuts him off with a liver-spotted hand. “I know why you’re here, my friends. You want an introduction to Senor Reyes. He founded that maquiladora in Tijuana. Some 30, 35 years ago, if I remember correctly.” He considers his shotglass for a moment, then pours it down his throat. “As it turns out, Senor Reyes is…how do you say? Indispuesto.”

“Indisposed,” Nick translates. “But indisposed — how?”

“He’s in prison awaiting trial. Down the coast in Culiacan.” His eyes turn shifty. “Because of some, uh, tax matters.”

There’s more to the story, obviously. A lot more. But Nick doesn’t pursue it. Instead he wanders over to a massive bookshelf made of old rough-hewn oak and begins running a fingertip down the spines. “I’m told the tax records for the maquiladora were impounded in the municipal jail. Can I get access to them?”

“Not here you can’t. They were moved to Aldama because of a change in venue.”

“Aldama?” Nick is turning more white than usual. “Leon de las Aldama, in Guanajuato state?”

Don Fidel nods. “Last I heard they were being stored in Aldama’s jail.”

“You’re acting like this is bad news,” I say to Nick.

“It is bad news. Aldama is a couple days southeast of here, up on the altiplano. It’s a real shithole because of all the coal mining.”

“You’ve obviously visited Aldama before, my young friend.” Chuckling, Don Fidel turns to me. “Aldama has none of the charms of Chirbampo. Hopefully you won’t be staying there for very long.”

I’m imagining myself in a polluted town, the coal soot blocking out the sun and invading my hotel room, turning documents gray as I feed them into the digital scanner. I blink at Nick in confusion. “Are we leaving right away?”

“Nah. I still need to interview Senor Reyes and do a bunch of fieldwork stuff here.” He’s looking at a framed Mexican flag with PARTIDO REVOLUCIONARIO INSTITUCIONAL underneath the emblem of an eagle, perched on a prickly pear tree, devouring a serpent. The PRI is the political party that dominated Mexico for 70 years before the recent advent of real democracy. “I take it you’re PRI, huh?”

“Yes,” Don Fidel mutters. “A lifelong party member.”

I know I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut during political conversations, but I can’t resist observing, “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

He begins pacing the wooden floor, his slippers shuffling along. “I’m old enough to remember when people still starved to death, when only a few children went to school. Thanks to the PRI, we can feed ourselves and our children get free educations — my grandchildren are even learning English in their school! But…” He stops pacing to wring his liver-spotted hands, frowning deeply. “The corruption worries me. It’s not like it used to be. Little bribes for this and that. Now it’s big bribes. Times have changed.”

“Are you referring to the narcotraficantes?” Nick asks from a dark corner. “Buying political influence, police protection, that kind of thing?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.” The old man starts pacing again, several shuffles toward the teak bar, several shuffles back. “But drugs, they are an evil, no?”

I sip from my wineglass, studying Nick over its rim. His gaze reminds me of a can opener, and Don Fidel is the can. Suddenly he changes directions — just like he would in the truck, when he sees a gap in the traffic — and launches into an explanation of his research. The reason why he’s studying the Korea Textile maquiladora in the first place. All the interviews he did with ex-workers, or just locals who lived near the factory. Tracing the backward linkages to Chirbampo and Senor Reyes, the maquiladora founder, as well as the families whose relatives went to Tijuana to work there. Would Don Fidel be kind enough to arrange an introduction to Senor Reyes, if only in the name of scholarship?

The diminutive figure swells up like he’s going to burst, then emits a very deep sigh. “Very well, my gringo friends. But only after the election next week.”

“The mayoral election?” Nick asks, trying to mask his disappointment. I know he wants an immediate introduction. He was born in a hurry.

“Yes, the mayoral election. Next week.” Don Fidel is noticing Nick’s impatience too. His leathery face creases into a grin, then outright laughter. “In the meantime, enjoy all Chirbampo has to offer the tourist!” He jabs a crooked finger at me — not us or even Nick, just me — and winks playfully.

Chirbampo doesn’t have much to offer the tourist, of course. We’ve already strolled this pueblo from one canyon wall to the other. There isn’t anything worth seeing twice except for the ancient history — the town plaza and its gothic cathedral, rusting derricks and mining machinery, the graveyard with headstones dating back to the 1600s. Don Fidel is probably winking at me because his thoughts mirror my own. Between now and the mayoral election I’m going to spend a LOT of time in bed with Nick, because what else is there to do around here?

Sleeping in is usually a mistake in rural Mexico, where most hotels only have hot water for an hour or two in the morning. Including this 19th-century relic that looks like a concrete blockhouse. In the bathroom I can hear shower knobs squeak, the splashy tumble of water hitting tile — and Nooshin groaning in dismay. But she needed sleep more than a warm relaxing shower. That’s why I didn’t wake her earlier.

Our suitcase is an open clamshell in the corner, each half heaped with a colorful riot of clothes, his and hers. I dig through her side of the messiness, cherrypicking an outfit — bra and panties and socks, a plain black pullover sweater, jeans — and toss everything onto the bed. She can save her sundresses and tanktops and miniskirts for the big cities. This is the bible belt of Mexico.

The girl who emerges from the bathroom looks like she was just fished out of the North Atlantic. Long inky hair is plastered to her face and bare shoulders. She’s wrapped tightly in a towel and hunched a little, shivering. A puddle is forming around her feet. “I’m…warning…you,” she grimaces through chattering teeth. “I didn’t…shave…my legs.”

I point at her side of the bed. “Hurry up and get dressed before you freeze to death.”

Nooshin throws aside the towel and struggles into her clothes, fabric catching on her glossy wet skin. Of course, she complains about the bra — “I don’t need it, you know” and “Why do I have to wear one?” and blah blah blah — from the moment she kicks into her hiphuggers until she finishes tying her Nikes. Another week in rural Mexico and she’ll forget she ever dispensed with that undergarment.

Down on the cobblestones Chirbampo is vibrant with daytime. Stark sunlight floods the streets, now awash in people and vehicles belching smoke. Smells assault our nostrils — diesel exhaust, meat grilling for lunch, the perfume of passing women. Every radio within earshot is playing Paulina Rubio’s latest hit, a hooky song about unreliable men and reliable tequila.

On the sidewalks we’re two skyscraper-tall Americans in sunglasses, feeling like rockstars, every face turning our way. “Buenos dias!” people chorus as we pass. Little kids grin at us and wave. Nobody tries to sell us anything, partly out of respect, partly since there’s no tradition of tourism here.

“I love the real Mexico,” Nooshin murmurs in delight, clasping my hand. “This is so much better than Tijuana!”

That makes me grin. “Right now it is, sure. But let’s see how you feel in a month or two. You might kill for a bus ticket back to the bright lights, big city of Tijuana.”

“I suppose,” she says. Doubtfully. Then her arm flies into a pointing line. “Oh wow! Look at that!”

Coming into view is the hand-carved edifice of a gothic cathedral, built by a colonial silver baron trying to buy his way into heaven. The cathedral is enormous for a town this size, towering over the tile rooftops around it, but still dwarfed by the confining peaks. It stands magnificently on the north side of the plaza, a cozy medieval-looking square of cobblestones bisected by the creek that winds through town. A pair of matching stone bridges cross the leafy ravine at each edge of the plaza, joining the two halves.

I tug Nooshin toward the government building and its symbolic placement on the opposite side of the plaza — keeping an eye on God and the Church, dividing the spoils of the New World, an uneasy partnership. Beneath the timbered veranda old men are playing cards and dominoes. The ones who are gambling don’t bother to look up.

She’s fumbling her antique Polaroid camera out of her purse. “Where are we going?”

“To see the mayor.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons,” I say, pausing so she can snap a picture of the cathedral. “First, we need to introduce ourselves as visitors to his town. Just a respect thing, basically.”

“And the second reason?” she asks, collapsing her camera and sliding it back into her purse.

“Because mayors always come from old families that run the town. They know the political landscape, all the local history, you name it. If the mayor tells somebody to talk to us, they will.”

The veranda is interrupted by a cut-out entryway to the building, where a slovenly policeman is baking on a wooden chair in the sun. Inside the massive scarred doors we discover two levels of bureaucratic living, the upper one ringed by a balcony. I begin to circle the ground floor, looking for a brass plate etched with ALCALDE — the Mexican title for mayor — while Nooshin trails along behind me. Unfortunately, an interior modernization in the 1940s or 1950s obliterated the traditional oak doors and brass plates. Instead I’m reading stencils on the smoked-glass windows of metal doors.

Eventually I find the mayor’s office upstairs. There are two women in the anteroom but only one desk. A nubile teenager in a low-cut blouse and hitched-up miniskirt sits in a chair, flipping through a fashion magazine. I pointedly ignore her, since she’s here for the mayor’s pleasure, not mine. “Is the mayor in?” I ask the working secretary in Spanish.

She doesn’t bother to look up from her paperwork. “The mayor is a busy man.” Doesn’t matter whether he’s napping in his office or visiting a mistress somewhere. He’s a busy man. What more do we need to know?

We backtrack to the balcony and claim a vacant and very uncomfortable bench. Also waiting for the mayor are an ancient peasant, a nervous-looking dude in a suit, and a frumpy mother and her skinny morose teenager. Nooshin puts her head on my shoulder and prepares to sleep some more, but we don’t have long to wait.

A stocky Mexican bangs through the entryway and starts huffing up the stairs. It takes a while. His oversized guayabera shirt can’t conceal a raging girth. Sweat beads on his three chins, then drops to spatter his sandals. At the top of the stairs he pauses to catch his breath, scanning the crowd with obvious disinterest. He meets important citizens at their convenience, at dinner and over drinks. We’re just petitioners. He meets us at his convenience.

The mayor finally turns his fat face our direction. His beady eyes widen. “Americans?” he asks in English thicker than Mexico City smog.

I stand up slowly, giving his neck vertebrae a workout. “That’s what my passport says,” I reply in Spanish, sticking out a hand. “I’m Nick Roberts. It’s a genuine pleasure to visit your town and meet you, senor.”

The mayor tries to summon a macho handshake, but the only exercise his forearm gets is the 12-ounce kind. “Yes. Of course. It’s a pleasure to meet you too. We don’t get many Americans here.”

He tilts over at Nooshin, who pushes her sunglasses up on her head, pinning back her bangs. She smiles brilliantly at him — while her crooked eye wanders off to more interesting sights. He blanches and turns back to me plaintively, as if seeking an explanation. I just keep staring down at him, enjoying his distress. Finally he pivots on a sandal and motions us to follow.

The mayoral office is a surprisingly small room with a view of the plaza. The town’s coat of arms hangs above a simple metal desk. The other walls are mostly bare, the graying plaster only decorated with a small framed map here, a crucifix there. The mayor settles his bulk in what turns out to be a rocking chair, creaking back and forth on the uneven wooden floor.

I’m carrying letters of introduction in my backpack, along with my laptop computer and some tourist guidebooks that don’t bother to mention Chirbampo. I toss the letters on his desk.

The mayor scans them while scratching himself. His eyes gravitate to the letterhead — UCLA, University of California Regents, and my trump card, Estado de Baja California Norte Departmente de Administracion. That gets his attention, a bureaucrat with a small title impressed by a bureaucrat with a bigger one. “You know the director general of Baja California’s Department of Administration?”

Actually I’ve never met the man, just got a secretary to sign his name on a letter I’d written, but I don’t tell the mayor that. “I assisted him in various matters,” I shrug nonchalantly.

“Hmmm,” he nods in appreciation, and slides the letters of introduction back to me. “So what brings you to Chirbampo?”

I explain that I’m seeking an interview with the founder and original owner of the Korea Textile maquiladora. I’m hoping the mayor can make an introduction for me, maybe pick up the phone and —

“I’m not really the mayor,” he corrects me, and his features twist into a pudding of apology. “I’m the head of the town council. The mayor died in a car crash last month. Very tragic.” A fat hand rises toward the window, hangs in space a moment, then slaps back to the desktop. “That’s why you see all the political banners everywhere. We’re having a mayoral election next week.”

Actually I haven’t seen any of the telltale signs of a Mexican election — banners hung from lightpoles and balconies, buildings repainted in party colors, cars topped with loudspeakers careening through the streets and blaring slogans. I shake my head like he’s speaking Swahili instead of Spanish. “What does the election have to do with me?”

The acting mayor writes vealo — see him — on a sheet of letterhead and hands the paper to me. “Take this to Don Fidel and tell him what you want. Maybe he’ll make the introduction for you, maybe he won’t. But it’s out of my hands.”

Confused, I pocket the letter and thank the obese guayabera-clad politico for his hospitality. Next to me Nooshin is rising to her Nikes, oblivious to the conversation, eager to snap a picture of the mayoral office. I aim a warning glance over the acting mayor’s sweaty scalp. Our eyes briefly lock, and her hands immediately fall away from her purse.