If he left now, he wouldn’t drink the water. I had to get him to sit and take another sip. My mind raced.
I said, “Baby, sit for a minute, then I’ll come and tuck you in.”
“Nah, I’m really off-kilter here, Grace,” he said.
I remembered I had some Lomotil in my bag and I said, “I have something I can give you for it. Sit for a second.”
“Okay.”
I dug around and produced the pill. “Take it with your drink. The booze will help kill the germs.” Come on, Mary. I said it in my head and knew it wasn’t the most correct way to ask the Mother of God for anything. It sounded more like I was urging an athlete across a goal line. Whatever. So I was a little rusty in the religious-petition-and-prayer department.
“I’ll just chew it,” he said. But when he did it was so bitter that he reached for his scotch to wash it down.
“I feel better already,” Michael said.
“Good,” I said, thinking he was saying that so I wouldn’t worry about him all night.
I walked him to his room, pulled down his covers, kissed him on the cheek and said good night.
“Get some sleep,” I said. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”
“You, too, sweetheart. Thanks for the pill. My stomach is completely settled.”
“Good.”
I smiled at him and he smiled back, using his whole face, including his eyes. You could see his affection spill out from them and I thought he must be the most wonderful man who had ever lived.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SOMETHING ABOUT MARY
In the morning, Michael decided to sleep late and skip the tour to the National Museum of Anthropology, saying perhaps he would go on his own later in the day. It was a long trip from Charleston to Mexico and he was understandably tired.
“No, I’m not sick or anything. I’m just not feeling like a museum this morning. You go and have fun. Call my cell when you’re, like, half an hour away and we can figure out where I can join you.”
“Okay. Love you.”
The museum wasn’t the first stop on our agenda. There were so many sights to see in Mexico City and the surrounding area that we could have stayed for a year and still never have seen them all. So we took a group vote and decided on a few. First Miguel took us up to the top of the Latin American Tower to take in the panoramic views of the city. From there we could see the Zócalo, an enormous square in the heart of the city. Every inch the tourists, we took pictures—panoramas, digitals and even the old-fashioned kind on film.
“El Plaza de la Constitución. Capital de la Aztec Empire,” Miguel said to the group.
“It’s mucho grande!” I said in miserable Spanish, indicating its enormous size with my arms.
Miguel laughed and said, “Sí! Primo? Tiananmen. Secondo? Red Square. Y El Zócalo is numero tres! In all the world!”
“How do you like that?” I said. I did not know that.
“Y la bandera?”
“Bandera?” I said, and looked at Father John. “What’s a bandera? A scarf?”
By that time Miguel was waving his handkerchief.
“Oh! The flag! I think that’s bandiera in Italian? Jeesch, I should know this stuff.”
“Yes, Grace. We were counting on you to translate,” Father John said.
“Then you got a big problemo,” I said.
“Problemo?” Miguel said.
“No, no! Everything is bueno,” I said. “Alora, la bandiera?” Okay, so I’d use the three words I knew in Italian and see where it got me.
Miguel began, “Okay. The emblem? Historia de la Aztec. La verde? Independence. Y blanco? Purity?”
“Sí! Purity es blanco,” I said, and looked at Father John with a smug little smile.
“Your Spanish is very much improved,” he said with a wry little smile of his own.
At this point Miguel was laughing, thoroughly amused by the way Father John and I were giving each other a hard time but enjoying what Miguel was telling us.
“Y la roja? España and los hermanos who fight?”
“Gracias, Miguel,” I said, and he turned away to take a picture of two couples with the city in the background. And thank God your flag doesn’t have eleven colors. We could be here all day.
“So, what do you think about El Zócalo?” Father John said as we made our way back to the bus.
“Well,” I said, “it’s nice to know that somebody has a bigger flag than Al Russo!”
Miguel struggled through the crowded streets with our little bus and pulled up near El Zócalo. We all climbed out.
“All right, everyone!” I said, gathering our crowd together. “Over there you have the National Palace, which has some of the most amazing murals, painted by the famous atheist and Marxist Juan Diego—”
“Um, Grace? Excuse me?” Father John said. Everyone turned to him. “He had a deathbed conversion. He went down a Catholic.”
“Another one! Gee whiz. Okay! And over there is the Metropolitan Cathedral, which is slowly sinking because of the sand under it, which became soft due to twenty million people sucking the water out of it. In fact, a lot of historic buildings in Mexico City are sinking. So why don’t we meet back here in one hour? Is that long enough?”
Everyone said an hour was fine and went their own way, leaving Father John and Miguel with me.
“With bus, with bus,” Miguel said, to mean that he had to watch his bus.
“Okay, yo comprendo,” I said, in tourist Spanish, unsure of pronoun and tense.
“So?” Father John said. “Diego Rivera first and then the church?”
“Why not?”
The outside of the National Palace reminded me a lot of the Louvre. It was a long building of several stories. Imposing but not particularly beautiful. From the patio courtyard, the architecture of the arched balconies reminded me of the barracks at the Citadel in Charleston when viewed from inside their quadrangles. Except that the National Palace had a fountain. And, it was massive.
“Holy smoke,” I said. “Look at this.”
We were at the stairwell that took you to the first floor and the walls were completely covered in Rivera’s work. The murals were crowded with people playing out every single significant event in Mexican history. And they were gorgeous.
“Cortés in full regalia, Aztecs in loincloths…they’re all here.”
“It’s breathtaking,” Father John said, his voice reduced to a whisper of amazement.
“He was a wild guy, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but an interesting character, too. He was actually partially responsible for convincing the government to give Trotsky asylum here.”
“I read that somewhere. We’re going over to Trotsky’s house after lunch.”
“Good! I’m anxious to see it.”
We wandered through the rooms where the president used to live and where government officials met, and finally emerged into the sunshine.
“It’s impossible to think about the art of Mexico without Rivera, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I agree,” Father John said.
“Hey, Father?” He looked over to me. “Why do you think he had a conversion on his deathbed?”
“I would like to think it was because he came to terms with his life and realized that God was real. But I suspect he didn’t want to spend eternity in foul company and he knew he was dying. Besides, he was actually born on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. December eighth. Did you know that?”
“That’s completely creepy,” I said, and rubbed the chill bumps from my arms.
“A lot of people have deathbed conversions, including Oscar Wilde.”
“Oscar Wilde? Wait a minute! Don’t tell me he was born on the same day!”
Father John had a major belly laugh then, wiped his eyes and looked at me. “You are so funny, Grace! Oh Lord! I haven’t laughed that hard in ages! Come on or we’ll be late.”
The Metropolitan was the first cathedral built in North and South America. It was
classic Baroque in style, but for me, the most outstanding feature was that it had eighteen bells in two enormous neoclassical towers that had been added centuries after the cathedral was dedicated. When they rang, I would bet you a dollar that you heard them all over the city. Just like the Colosseum in Rome had provided the marble for St. Peter’s, Cortés had this massive church built from the stones of demolished Aztec temples. Recycling had arrived in Mexico early.
“It’s imposing, to be sure, but it looks like any other European cathedral, if you ask me.”
Father John just shook his head.
We had a brief lunch of beans, rice and shredded chicken at a little cantina on the square simply because the restaurant smelled so good. And then we were off to Trotsky’s house.
We got on the bus and I began to give our group the lowdown on how Trotsky wound up in Mexico.
“They say the house is haunted and a lot of people have had some pretty funny things show up on their film when they take pictures of his study.”
“Do you think it’s haunted, Grace?” one of our group said.
“I don’t know, but if this guy could organize the Russian Revolution, he might be able to haunt a house!”
We spent less than an hour there, roaming the gardens and pausing at the site of Trotsky’s ashes.
“How did he die?” Father John asked.
“A friend of his from the KGB stopped by for a drink and stabbed him in the head with an ice pick. Turns out that guy was actually better friends with Stalin.”
“You can say that again!” an older man said. “That’s a pretty violent exit!”
We pushed on to the National Museum of Anthropology and History. The museum was an architectural wonder. Its roof was supported by a single pillar. We wandered through the exhibition halls, following the instructions of the audio guides, stopping of course to gape at the Aztec Calendar Stone. The galleries were filled with so many Mayan and Aztec artifacts that after a while they all started to look the same to me. My ADHD was kicking in. I paid attention for as long as I could stand it, but ancient artifacts just weren’t my favorite and I started getting antsy. Too bad this trip didn’t have a budget for my Sardinia buddy Geri Post. She would have been in heaven.
“I think some of our group are showing signs of fatigue, Grace,” Father John said.
“Including the leader,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We polled the group and they admitted they were bleary-eyed and ready for a siesta. I pulled out my cell phone to call Miguel. Then I called Michael to let him know we were on our way back.
While we were standing around outside waiting for Miguel I turned to Father John.
“May I tell you a secret?”
“I’ll give it the seal of confession,” he said with a grin.
“Good grief.” I rolled my eyes. “Last night, I laced Michael’s scotch with the water from the shrine of Our Lady of Ocotlán.”
“What?”
“Look, he’s dizzy, nauseated, he has headaches…he’s got every sign of this horrible brain tumor again.”
Father John put his hand on my arm. “Let’s think positive, Grace. You know what they say. God works in mysterious ways.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. Look, I had a wonderful chat with him yesterday. I think God has a purpose for him and it’s not a premature obituary. And I have a little plan for your Michael, too.”
“You do? What?”
“You’ll see.”
Back at the hotel the group dispersed, agreeing to meet up again at six. That evening we had tickets to a performance of the Mexican Folkloric Ballet at the Palace of Fine Arts and a quick dinner beforehand at a nearby cantina chosen by Miguel, who admitted to me in private that it was owned by his brother-in-law. But I was accustomed to that sort of nepotism. Of course he only recommended family and friends for various jobs and destinations! In a city of twenty million people, you had to look after your own.
Michael was waiting in the lobby when he spotted me with Father John.
“Hey! Why are y’all back so early?”
“Well, the average age of this group is about seventy-five, and even though they’re in good shape, they get tired, you know? It’s normal,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a new man,” he said. “I slept like a pile of bricks.”
“I think they are all going to have a nap,” Father John said, “but if you two are up for it, I have someone I’d love for you to meet.”
Michael and I looked at each other and then back at Father John.
“Who do you know in Mexico City?” I said.
He ignored my question. “Michael, I have a friend over at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe who was on the National Catholic Ethics Board. He taught at Duke and still holds a chair. He was involved in that MIT study. Brilliant guy. I think you two would find each other fascinating. Want to go? We’ll be back here in an hour and a half.”
I looked at my watch.
“It’s only two-thirty,” I said. “Sure. Why not? Let’s go.”
Miguel took us there and we walked across the sprawling plaza to the entrance. The basilica was enormous. Father John told the admissions people who he was and that he was there to see Monsignor James Mirenda. Mirenda must have been some big holy deal because this gal jumped up, made a quick phone call and then led us through the cathedral to a small bank of offices the average tourist never would have noticed.
On the way we must have passed ten thousand people—young, old, infirm with various maladies, but also many who seemed blissfully happy. I saw faces wrenched in pain and others beaming through tears, as though they had just been delivered of some terrible suffering.
“Look at all these people!” I said to Michael and Father John. “What’s up with them?”
Father John stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me. He sighed so hard it startled me. Had I said something so wrong?
“Grace Russo,” he said, and managed one of his smiles that for the first time I was sure was forced, “you are one piece of work. I’m going to put you in my friend’s chair and let him introduce you to a whole new world.”
The admissions attendant opened the door and led us into Mirenda’s office. The monsignor stood to greet his old friend and finally us. He seemed like a regular fellow and I wasn’t afraid of being lectured in the least. You see, now that I had a priest for sort of a buddy, the whole army of them didn’t scare me anymore.
“Please sit down. May I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“Anything cold would be great,” I said.
The monsignor went to his closet, which held a small refrigerator, and returned to his desk with bottles of water and Cokes.
“Help yourself,” he said. “This time of day I like a Coke. Wakes me up.”
“Me, too. These two are my latest challenge,” Father John said with his trademark benevolent smile, opening a bottle of water and passing it to me. “Her in particular.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I said, feeling my nerve ends tingle and my shields start to rise.
“Now, now,” Father John said. “Just hear my friend out. I’ll even make you a little bet.”
“What?”
“If you don’t think your life is changed forever in the next thirty minutes, you will never have to listen to me about anything ever again. If it is changed—and I mean a profound change that causes you to question many things—then I expect you to act on that with your excellent mind.”
I didn’t know what he meant but I knew I was about to find out.
Monsignor Mirenda turned his focus to Michael.
“Father John tells me you’re a scientist, Michael.”
“Yes, I am. I work at the Medical University of South Carolina.”
“Well, they have certainly made great strides in research. But you have to watch out with this stem-cell business. It’s a very slippery slope.”
“It’s one hot tama
le,” Michael said.
I thought that had to be the corniest joke he had ever made. But then I realized it was a ploy to dodge further discussion.
“Father John thought that both of you might find the science of Our Lady of Guadalupe to be interesting.”
“Well, you know the story, don’t you?” Father John said.
“Not really,” I said. “I went to Catholic schools, but I don’t remember if they covered saints and miracles. They talked more about social issues like prejudice and the environment. My grandmother is sort of the family resource for that stuff, but she’s more focused on Italian martyrs.”
“And you, Michael?”
“All-boys private school.”
“Well,” Mirenda said, “I don’t want to bore you with a long-winded talk but the miracle is important. You saw all the people out there, right?”
We nodded.
“We have thousands of visitors every day. In the summer months, I couldn’t begin to tell you the numbers. It’s shocking, even to me, and I used to be stationed at the Vatican. Anyway, Mexico, as you know, has a long and rich history that predates Cortés and Montezuma; but let’s begin with them. When Cortés arrived here in 1519, Montezuma was the Aztec emperor in charge. He ruled all the various tribes and each year sacrificed anywhere up to twenty thousand Indians to appease his pagan gods.”
“Not nice,” I said.
“To say the least,” Mirenda said, and cracked a little smile. “Anyway, Cortés and his army were Spaniards and therefore Christians. Basically, they went to war and whipped Montezuma’s army. The priests were the next to arrive and continued the business of converting the Indians to Christianity. These were dark days, as I’m sure you know.”
“Very,” Michael said.
I could see Michael shifting in his chair and knew he was thinking that he couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“Then, by 1531, after much fighting over Mexico City itself, Cortés was firmly rooted in the Mexican government, which was now loyal to Spain, and the Catholic faith was taking hold of the natives. Okay, enough boring history, unless you want more?”
Monsignor Mirenda looked at us and then laughed.
“You two look like you’re waiting to have your fingernails pulled out!”
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