Have You Seen Luis Velez?

“‘And I also tried knocking on doors in our building,’ she said, ‘only on my own floor, though, because the stairs frightened me. To navigate them all by myself, I mean. I used to know all of my neighbors. I had friends, but I’m afraid that I’ve outlived them.’”

Millie describes losing acquaintances over the decades and her caretaker Luis suddenly, without explanation. She reveals how she has lost her world. She can no longer go to the second floor by herself and leaving the building alone is out of the question. In this way, Hyde shows that Raymond and Millie are kindred souls. Raymond’s only close friend has just moved across the country. Both he and Millie feel completely isolated.

“He struggled inwardly for a moment, floundering in the embarrassment of having been seen. It struck him odd that he’d had come to the home of a blind woman to be seen clearly. At long last.”

Hyde uses metaphors centered on vision, sight, and light. She shows her readers that seeing someone is not merely a physical act but also entails emotional awareness and connectedness. Though she is blind, Millie has the strongest emotional vision.

“‘She’s a stray,’ Raymond said. ‘I’ve been feeding her. I tamed her. I got her to the point where she should come to me and let me pet her. But I shouldn’t have. Because now she’s in trouble, and it would have been better if I’d left her alone. She should be scared of people.’”

Raymond takes the stray cat he rescued to Millie’s. In these lines, his perception of the world and of himself are on full display. He recognizes the world’s propensity to destroy what is innocent. Finally, he blames himself for the unintended consequences of his goodness. Millie refuses to accept his self-condemnation. She believes compassion is necessary, that his kindness reveals what a fine person he is.

“‘At least let me walk you to the subway,’ Luis said. ‘You took the subway here, right? It’s not the best neighborhood.’”

Convinced he must do all he can to reunite Millie with her missing caretaker, Raymond begins to hunt down every Luis Velez in New York City. While the experience is frustrating, he also experiences many positive encounters. Many respond to Raymond’s goodness with kindness; in this case, one Luis Velez walks with him through a rough neighborhood.

“‘So what do you do when you’re not in school?’

‘Well. These days I help out this old woman.’

‘Millie.’

‘Right. And before that... And when I’m not doing that... I like to read. I read a lot. Nonfiction, mostly. I read books about political leaders, and wars, and uprisings, and... Well, history. But not only history. I like to read about the world. Learn more about it.’”

This conversation takes place between Raymond and the wife of the second Luis Velez he finds. When people discover what Raymond is doing, they ask him about himself. Hyde contrasts warm connections like this, with a complete stranger, and the lack of communication between Raymond and his family. Hyde is a former resident of New York City, a place known for the aloofness between residents. She shows that connection and communication are present, just beneath surface interactions.

“Never be afraid to look, Raymond. It’s always better to look. Whatever you’re afraid of, turn toward it, not away. Once you’re willing to do that, it loses all its power over you. Trust me. I know this. I don’t always do it. But I really, truly know.”

Millie and Raymond talk about his sexuality. Raymond affirms that he is not romantically interested in girls or boys and does not think he ever will be. He thinks he is unique, and Millie asks why he has not investigated this. The exchange is significant: It demonstrates Millie’s ability to completely accept Raymond—a biracial, asexual teenager. She has much wisdom to impart to someone who seems to be her opposite.

“He closed his eyes and said a... Well, it would not do to call it a prayer, because Raymond was not at all sure he thought there was a God. And even if there was, it would be terribly rude to come to him with a favor after all these years of not speaking.”

Raymond requests help after a frightening experience with a hostile Luis. This is one of several passages where characters discuss the presence or absence of divinity. In this case, just after admitting he deserves no special dispensation from God, Raymond seems miraculously blessed: A large, happy family embraces him and welcomes him to their supper table.

“Luisa rose from the table and walked to Raymond, who pushed his chair back slightly then frozen in fear. Why fear, he had no idea. He was simply afraid of people.”

This passage characterizes Raymond as being inherently anxious and fearful. As part of his narrative arc, Raymond will face his fears and embrace courage.

“But maybe that’s because his name was Luis M. Velez. That’s me. Luis M. Velez. It hit me like a baseball bat […] And the more I read what happened to him, the more I realized...That could so happen to me.”

The last Luis whom Raymond encounters speaks these words. He tells Raymond that Millie’s caretaker is dead, shot down by a woman on the street as he tried to return a billfold she had dropped. This Luis, a young professional man, is unique, just like every Luis Velez in the narrative. At the same time, every Luis Velez is bound by the death of a man who shares their name. This is Hyde’s way of telling readers that, different as people are, they are united by the capriciousness of life.

“As he stood, watching the two women and letting himself cry for the first time in as long as he could remember, he noticed something about himself. His self-consciousness, his physical awareness—it was gone.”

Raymond tells Millie that Luis is dead and brings his widow, Isabel, to meet her. Even during this sad moment, Raymond discovers he has changed, that he has grown to be less self-conscious and more focused on the present.

“‘He told me you were the only person he’d ever met who didn’t have one prejudiced bone in your entire body,’ Isabel said. ‘Not even one hair on your head with a slight bias. That’s what he said.’”

Isabel tells Millie how much respect Luis, her caretaker, had for her. Hyde implies that every human being holds some prejudice against others. Millie is unique in that she accepts people without bias. Hyde is not implying Millie is perfect, only that she refuses to cast judgment.

“Many people I have known died young. That is all I care to say about that. Were I to see them again... and, who knows? Maybe there’s an afterlife. Maybe I will see them. Who can say? You think I will join them any sooner than necessary and tell them I gave up trying because life took something away from me? That is an affront to those who are not lucky enough to grow old.”

Millie responds to Luis’s death by withdrawing and refusing to eat or leave her apartment. Raymond says that he is afraid she will starve herself and die. Her response above becomes a philosophical statement about the importance of living life fully, accepting both the good and bad, and becoming the best person one can be.

“You know how sometimes you have pain, so you call the doctor? […] So you make an appointment, and let’s say it’s weeks away. You start hanging on the calendar and putting all your hopes in that day. Like if you can just make it to the doctor’s appointment, then everything will be okay [...]”

Millie and Raymond discuss the upcoming trial of Luis Velez’s shooter. Millie tries to get Raymond to understand that one single moment or outcome does not determine whether one’s life is good or bad. She uses the example of an anticlimactic encounter—a doctor’s visit—in which a person invests hope, only to be disappointed. Her intent, and Hyde’s message, is not to hang all of one’s happiness on a single outcome or desired goal.

“‘Yes, you seem to care about a whole different set of things from the rest of us. Obviously. And when you try to tell me what you care about, I don’t understand. I get that. So what can I do to make you feel like I see you, and that what you are is okay with me? Because I really want to do that if I can.’”

This statement from Raymond’s mother may be the most surprising in the narrative. Both Raymond and his father have described her unwillingness to adapt to others’ concerns. As Raymond begins to speak up for himself, his relationships deepen. Hyde’s use of the word “see” alludes to the theme of different types of vision.

“The idea, on the surface of the thing, was to weed out prejudice. But underneath the surface, Raymond saw that both attorneys were quite aware of prejudice, even in the jurors they let stay. Their whole job seemed to rely on prejudice.”

Raymond watches the attorneys go through jury selection during Ms. Hatfield’s trial. He recognizes the unfairness of this process; criminal justice, as pursued in the courts, is less a matter of impartiality and more of a game played by manipulative attorneys. When the jury acquits Ms. Hatfield, the prosecutor admits that he failed to manipulate the jury.

“‘Your other two kids have Spanish names.’

‘This one can be different.’

‘Kind of hard to be different from your family. Take it from someone who knows. Is there a Spanish version of the name Raymond?’

‘Well. There’s Ramon.’

‘That’s so much better. You should definitely name him Ramon.’”

Isabel tells Raymond that Luis visited her in a dream and told her to name their baby after Raymond. Raymond is deeply honored, but doesn’t want members of her family to ostracize the baby for being different, as Raymond has been. His lack of narcissism is evident in this exchange; he prioritizes others above his own ego and the pleasure of having someone named for him.

“‘Take this one,’ the man said, opening the back door of the cab and pointing into its back seat.

‘But we may not have—’

Before he could even say the word ‘money,’ the man reached out his right hand as if to shake hands with Raymond. […]

As soon as he did, he felt the folded bill. Felt it silently, invisibly pressed into his palm.”

Strangers who see Raymond and Millie recognize that Raymond is Millie’s helpmate. This provokes a kind response. Hyde’s message is that people, though reluctant and guarded in an unpredictable world, warm up to goodness and respond to it with goodness of their own.

“‘I don’t know if I can explain it.’

‘Well I hope you can, Ms. Hatfield. Because I don’t think we live in a society where you get to shoot a man dead without being able to explain what he did to make you feel threatened. At least I hope you don’t. […]

‘I’m a good judge of character. I can feel in my gut when something’s wrong.’

‘If that’s true, Ms. Hatfield, then this incident is a terrible example.’”

The prosecutor exposes Ms. Hatfield’s underlying prejudice. Hyde shows that fear and bias result in mistaken judgments and hurtful—even lethal—actions. The narrative juxtaposes Raymond, who stifles his fear to reach out to strangers, and Ms. Hatfield, who recoils from interaction with those she is prejudiced against.

“It goes like this […]: is this person I’m supposed to be judging our tribe, or another tribe? If she’s us, mistakes can be forgiven. Hell, everybody makes mistakes. The mistake becomes an anomaly, because it’s us, and we’re good people. If she’s them, mistakes need to be punished, because that’s just how they are.’”

This exchange takes place between the prosecutor and Raymond, who struggles to understand how the jury acquitted Ms. Hatfield. The prosecutor explains that the jury connected with the defendant, seeing her as belonging to their “tribe,” while they saw Luis as belonging to a different tribe. Their decision was based on prejudice and not the facts.

“The next thing he knew, Raymond was scraping everything off his desk with one arm. The notebook computer landed on the carpet…”

After Ms. Hatfield’s acquittal, Raymond loses his temper. While this startles his mother and frightens his sister, it shows how Raymond has grown. Anger at the world’s injustice has begun to supplant the guilt and self-judgment that consumed him prior to meeting Millie.

“My father was not Jewish. My mother was. In the Jewish religion, it is the mother who confers Judaism on the children, so in that sense, yes, we were. […] And now I feel bad because I did not tell you this sooner, because it is a thing we have in common. We both know a strange truth about the world: that people judge you by your most controversial half. […] People judge you only by the half they don’t like. If my family had stayed in Germany, they would not have put half of me in a camp or sent half of me to the gas chamber. No. I would have been completely killed.”

Even 77 years after escaping Nazi Germany, Millie struggles with survivor guilt. Hyde suggests that people judge one another based on prejudices and not an individual’s character. Bias against a single element of a person leads to condemning the person as a whole.

“The world is terrible and wonderful at the same time. One doesn’t negate the other, but the wonderful keeps us in the game.”

One of Raymond’s new positive relationships is with the school librarian. She accepts Raymond and enables his research. These lines embody the novel’s worldview and moral: There is much evil in the world, but there is also joy. One must treasure the good things and hold on to what makes life worth living.

“The only thing I can come up with is that you need to know people care. Not only about you, although that’s nice, too. But about what happened. About your friend, the one you lost.”

Raymond asks people how to end Millie’s despair. Ironically, they say there is nothing he can do; then they give valuable advice. Sofia tells Millie how much her family cares about the life and death of her caretaker, Luis.