It’s Christmas Eve – Noche Buena in Mexico.  Tijuana is sloshing with amped-up religiosity, Catholicism stoned on pagan throwbacks.  Nativity displays that would spawn ACLU lawsuits north of the border are everywhere – on government building lawns, in bus stations, at schools – and all with empty mangers, waiting for the Baby Jeebus to be added today.  Partygoers break pinatas with seven streamers, one for each of the Seven Deadly Sins or the seven tribes of the Nahua, depending on who you believe.  Mobs of people ebb and flow through the streets, snarling traffic as they follow a costumed donkey-riding Mary led by a dude dressed as Joseph.  Churches bulge with parishioners supplicating themselves into a frenzy at the feet of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jesus’ mom with an ethnic makeover.  Native nochebuena flowers – called poinsettias in America after 19th-century U.S. Ambassador Joel Poinsett – are crowding horizontal spaces in every lobby and home, adding Christmas cheer and reminding the world that the Aztecs’ favorite color was blood red.

But none of that shit is keeping me awake.  Another Christmastime ritual is – the mass crossing of the border.  A couple hours before midnight and I’m watching through the barred front window as ghostly figures drift down the street toward la frontera.  They eddy against the rusting steel panels that cover the vulnerable chain link fence underneath, a teeming mass of shadow-people bursting toward the day-bright hills on the other side.  Their mass crossing is fueled by two idiotic beliefs – that the Border Patrol only fields a skeleton force during the holidays, and anybody making it to America today will receive a Christmas gift of citizenship tomorrow.  In reality the Border Patrol fields more agents, not less, and anybody caught today will wind up right back in Tijuana tomorrow.  Pressed against the glass I can feel the vibrations of a helicopter, thropping the night air overhead, probing the darkness on this side of the border fence with a beam of glaring light.  But the real noise comes from the humvees crashing up and down the hills, a mad orchestra of revving engines and grinding gearboxes and the occasional honking horn.

Headlights creep down the street, washing over small clots of would-be Americans.  A flashlight is aimed out the driver’s window, jumping from one house to the next.  I figure it’s a cop or cabbie trying to find their way, since there are never streetlights on a gravel road like this.  I take a step back from the window and prepare to settle myself into the sleeping bag again – until the flashlight hovers on my house and the vehicle pulls onto the front lawn, mistaking the pavers for a driveway.  With no drapes I’m forced to squint into the headlights, raising my arm into a bar of shade across my eyes.  I glimpse a shadow moving through the glare to the front door.

The knocking starts urgent and just gets worse.  “Nick?  Nick?!?  It’s me, Nooshin!”

What the hell?  I grab the long weight of my D-cell Maglite, half-flashlight half-club, and open the door prepared to use it either way.

“Nick…”  The gangly silhouette sags in relief.

I play the beam over Nooshin in shock.  It looks like she was in a fight – and got her ass kicked.  Her hair is a wild tangle spilling out of her headscarf and sweatshirt hood.  Through it I can see a broken nose, fat and purplish across the bridge.  The discolored swelling reaches across her cheeks and up to her eyes, puffing them into exhausted slits.  Her upper lip and chin are angry red skin, irritated with wiping, and her sweatshirt is caked with dried snot and blood on the sleeves.  My business card with the address on the back is clutched in her bony hands, the left one adorned with a too-tight gold band.  The leg of her jeans is ripped open from the knee down, flapping like a singular bell-bottom, and that sock is stained pink on the outside.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I finally manage to say.

“Yeah,” she sighs.  “I look pretty bad, huh?”

“Like you fell down the stairs a couple times.  Come on in.”  I pivot on a bare heel, flashing the Maglite around the living room, and guide her over to the papasan chair.  “Here.  Let me help you with that.”

Nooshin untangles from her purse with difficulty and collapses into the padded wicker shell of the chair.  Watching my flashlight beam dash into the bathroom and then the kitchen, she makes a sympathetic noise.  “I’m sorry you don’t have electricity yet.”

“Me too.  Remind me never to move to Mexico during Christmas again.”  I’m back with a first aid kit and towel dampened in bottled water, bending over her and gently blotting at her broken nose.  Her eyelids flicker and close in my Maglite’s frizzy wide-angle light.  She could pass for dead if it wasn’t for the little bubble of blood in one nostril, pulsing with every breath.  Something feral and murderous uncoils inside me.  “Who did this to you?  Saman?”

The name makes her flinch.

“You need to call 911 and sic the cops on that motherfucker – ”

“No,” she interrupts.  Then with more force, “No!”

“Nooshin, listen to me.  Your husband should go to jail for what he did to you.  If you file a police report – ”

“Nooo…”  It’s a trapped moan.

I touch the plain gold band that pinches her ring finger.  “Is this from him too?”

She thrashes miserably, trying to yank the ring off.

“Whoa.  Just relax, okay?  We can get it off later.”  I shift down to her calf, disinfecting and band-aiding the crusty zig-zag laceration.  “I’ll take you to a clinic later.  Broken noses usually heal on their own, but better safe than sorry, right?”  Then I play the Maglite over her purse, partially unzipped and spilling things like an antique Polaroid camera onto the cement floor.  “You’re traveling light.”

A single disconsolate sob pierces the darkness, and me with it.  “He’s waiting to take me back to Kansas City.  My family is on his side.”

“I suppose all your stuff is still at my place.”  I put the beam on Nooshin.

“Yeah.  My suitcase, anyway.  My phone is at my parents’ house.  And the rest of my money.  The money I had with me, I spent it all on the bus down here, and the border cab, oh god…”

“You took one of the cabs right at the border, huh?  They’re expensive as hell.”  I prop the Maglite on the floor, aiming it toward the tiny bedroom.  Then I unroll the spare mattress pad and sleeping bag.

“What am I supposed to do, Nick?”  Her voice is going high and stricken.  “I don’t even have a single dollar!”

“Can you tone it down a little?  You’re freaking me out.”  It’s true.  The white-hot urge to hurt Saman the way he hurt her has been eclipsed by emotional shards, cutting through me so fast I can’t even tell what they are.  I take a deep breath and scoop up the flashlight and start digging through a Hefty bag of clothes.  “You take the bedroom.  Here’s some of my clothes to sleep in.”  I toss her sweatpants and a retro-style Atari t-shirt.

In the circle of fuzzy light she’s standing up and hugging the clothes to her chest.  Tear-tracks are glistening on her cheeks.  Her crooked eye is wandering toward the Pacific.  “What do I do, Nick?”

“Don’t worry about it now.  We’ll get this sorted out in the morning.”  All the emotional shards within me are collapsing into something foreign and tender.  I war with myself, trying to regain my icy distance.  “As far as money goes, I’ve got some.  So don’t worry about it right now, okay?”

Her bruised and puffy face is arriving at a new conclusion about me, and desire – a tentative, awkward desire – is part of that conclusion.  Nooshin rushes past the flashlight’s glow, wrapping me in a pathetically grateful hug.  Matted hair brushes my face.  Her scent is sweat and grime.  At first I vacillate, still pointing the Maglite at the empty papasan chair.  Then I hug her back.  She feels breakable in my grasp, barely held together and trembling like a palsied calf.