Waiting in Vain
At the Bus Station in Los Angeles City was almost deserted. The last call to the bus from Nevada had come exactly forty-five to eight. For a moment there was the sound of the men and boys were carrying bags and the women with their children were crossing the large terminal to exit. The sound of the large terminal seemed to be absorbed for a long time now from the footsteps that were fading away. In the last minute there was the hurry of individuals walking by; the forgotten ones and those who God had given them only one chance to make up in life.
In this particular afternoon, in the same terminal, at the corner was facing the big billboard of California roads, sitting quietly, there was that old woman. She was straightened up without moving any of her muscles. She was very concentrated to her own thoughts. She was Maria Sierras who had been seated there for more than seven hours. There was an absent air that seemed to surround her. She was very neat. She held herself with that magic composure from the frozen frame of time as it was a photograph impossible to take your eyes off.
Mrs. Maria Sierras wore a tunic sleeves and hem. Slimming skirt elasticized to her waist that was designed by Ruth Pallet in the earlier 1920s and quite popular in the later 1950s and her shoes were those of stacked heels looked flat from the side and wide from the back and they were color brown, with a holyday medal across it. Her hair was all white, straight back and tightened it up, with a familiar pin designed as a loose-eyed dragon. She was slender and she smelled good and wore white gloves and a cute necklace around her neck and a hat. We only could guess she was in her later 70s or 90s that had been shared with such beautiful of youthful taste and health.
Mrs. Maria Sierras was not a homeless; she was just waiting for the 7 o’clock bus from Kansas.
She carried a brown purse that had an initial on it: R/C that her bony and large fingers seemed to hold the handler too tight against her body.
She did not have any valise or it seemed that she did not have any. If one had the time to look at her nevertheless, one would notice that there was a picture attached to her chest with a yellow color called black-eyes Susan showing a young face all wearing in white and with that smile of a good boy.
Mrs. Maria Sierras moved herself on the hard bench of the terminal for the first time.
By a given moment, she would push herself up and get up and walk to the ticket window. There was magnitude of her heights. She was six-one. She screened her eyes ahead somehow tragic and tranquil. Her pace was firm. Her movements were graceful, almost as a gal of a ballet lesson. There was a smooth rhythm of a gathering energy rooted all her body.
When she arrived in front of the ticket window, the growled young woman fulminate her with those youthful and disgusted eyes while Maria Sierras smiled at her.
Mrs. Sierras’ tone was measured. She seemed to take her time to form the right words. When all was ready in Maria’s head, she asked to the gloomy lady if the bus of the 7 o’clock from Kansas would arrive on time.
She buried the old woman under that horrified moments of anxiety, and then the young girl replied:
“I’ve told you, ma’am. Seven forty-five.”
Calmly without raising the tone of her voice and leaning forward to the window, with such a solemnity of her, Maria Sierras said:
“It’s already past eight.”
“Look! According to my calendar,” the window clerk replied without any decency to the old woman and with explosive tone, she added: “As I have told you already, the time of its arrival is alright.”
“In that case,” Maria Sierras replied, lowering her body a little closer to the window, “Can you check it once more, please?”
“Oh please, ma’am. Check what?”
“It can be a problem with your calendar, I must say.”
“Of course not.”
“Please.”
“There is no problem.”
“Just check it, please.”
“How long I have done it for you, ma‘am? Be patient, please. As soon as the bus from Kansas arrives, I will announce it through the speaker that the bus from Kansas has arrived. Satisfied?”
Mrs. Maria Sierras still believed that there was indeed a problem on the arrival or the departure of the Kansas bus. How hard was it for the young girl to understand that there may be a problem?
“All right. With that matter, can I speak with your supervisor?”
“He’s gone for the day. He left a quarter past three.”
“Is there anyone I can speak to?”
“You can call the 800-number operator. It’s on the back of your ticket. Customer Complaints, y’ know?”
“I don’t have a ticket, Miss Dawson.”
“And then why?”
“I’m waiting for someone.”
The young woman did not look at her. She didn’t care. Why should she? She had seen many like her. Lost, wondering, and apparently in the marks of waiting for someone or to get attention.
She wrote the number on a piece of paper and slipped it under the narrow mouth of the ticket window.
“Here. You can call them.”
“Is that the number to speak with a supervisor to tell me about the Kansas bus?”
“That’s the main office,” she replied. “If you want to complain or to speak to a supervisor that will be the only way around,” she added coolly. “And please ma’am, take care of it and call them, please.” She thought it was a way to hold Maria Sierras back. But she was sure she would come back. She thought that she needed someone tell her about the bus from Kansas. There would be no buses from Kansas. She did not know how to tell her that it was past eight and that all buses had stopped running until the following morning.
Maria Sierras turned. There was a resolution that had become to burn the clerk in despair.
“Unfortunately,” Maria said with a sigh, “There must be an error.”
The gloomy young woman’s eyes reddened as if all had been taken care of. She could not hold. “Please, ma’am, go and sit.”
Maria Sierras moved around.
It was then that across the terminal and chairs a police officer was crossing the terminal. He was watching. He got really interested when he saw the gestures and the manners of the window clerk and the old woman walking up and down in front of it.
He made a fast recollection of the last crime occurred Friday and slowly he approached the window. “What it seems to be the problem, missy?”
Mrs. Maria Sierras turned and smiled lovely at the police officer and at the same time she was catching a gesture from the ticket clerk making movements directly to her head.
“There is no problem, sir,” Maria said. “If it’s concerning to me, of course.”
The police officer whose name was Officer Goodwill stepped forward and there was a conversation between the window clerk and him. She had opened the window wide and she seemed to explain to Officer Goodwill what he wanted to know. The police officer furrowed his brow, and then backed up before Maria.
“According to the information that the ticket clerk has given me is that there are no buses from Kansas—” There was hesitancy in his voice.
She looked up and fixed her eyes first on the girl and then on the officer.
“There must be. She told me.”
“It must be a misunderstanding.”
“That can be impossible, Officer Goodwill. It must be a mistake.”
“There are no buses,” he said. “I’ve been patrolling this area for a long time now. I’ve never heard any buses from Kansas.”
“It should be.”
“Who are you anyway?”
“My name is Maria Casamayor Sierras and I am a native of Los Angeles County. I hope this information will be a clear indication that there will be no misunderstanding.”
“Of course not, Mrs. Sierras,” he said quietly. “But there won’t be any 7 o’clock bus from Kansas.”
Maria Sierras swallowed the news slowly. The officer noticed for the last few minutes she was struggling with that information. She straightened up and gave to the officer such power of seniority.
“There must be a 7 o’clock bus from Kansas. He wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Who told you that?”
“My son has told me, Officer Goodwill. My son Oscar.”
“I can tell you for sure there’s none.”
For the first time that composure of Maria Sierras seemed to fall before his eyes. She was wondering for a moment. Then she got her self-control back as she started to open her brown purse. Some of the things fell on the floor; but she didn’t seem to mind, except for one thing.
A letter.
“Ma’am, are you all right? You would not mind if I call someone you know?”
“I don’t have anyone,” she said as she finally found the letter.
“No? What is that?”
“My son Oscar wrote this to me, Officer Goodwill.”
It was barely a letter but a note. It was written with fast strokes. The nature of the note shocked him. He saw the date: December 25th, 1946 at 7. I love you, mom—your son, Oscar.
“Mrs. Sierras!”
“He wrote it to me,” Maria explained as she looked at the officer with such watery eyes.
“Ma’am,” he said slowly. “This letter was written in 1946.” He looked at her. “Today is December 25, 2015.”
“He promised me he will come. My son Oscar has told me. He’s the only I have and after the Great War II went to Africa to cure the wounded soldiers and then I returned back and found it.”
He took her from one of her arms and walked her to one of the benches. Honestly, Officer Goodwill thought he could do any more. He found her pure and smelled. He noticed she was so innocent and so convinced that there was nothing for him here to do. She did not struggle as the others do. She was sure there would be something else. Her son Oscar, he thought.
He stood there. He tried to put a heart-wrenching to it; but he thought for a moment about the tragic picture of his own father in Iraq. He thought that was part of what we made of and moved away from her. “Goodbye, Mrs. Sierras, and you take care of yourself now, hear me?”
But Mrs. Maria Sierras did not reply. She thought all of this was just a misunderstanding what the window ticket clerk and the police officer had just said. She looked up and down at the terminal.
It was desolated now.
The janitors had begun to clean up.
She smiled.
She would wait.
She was sure about that.
He would come.
Her son Oscar would come.
She looked around once again.
She fixed her clothes and her hat.
Then she straightened up almost rigid.
This time she looked like a magnificent queen, a queen who was waiting for her knight son who had promised her in his letter he would come.
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