The Pastures of Heaven

by Steinbeck, John

  When Maria drove back to the house that afternoon, she found her sister strangely quiet. The shrieks, the little squeals, the demands for every detail of the journey, which usually followed a reunion, were missing. Rosa sat in a chair at one of the tables, and on her face there was a scowl of concentration.

  Maria approached timidly. “I bought the husks very cheaply,” she said. “And here, Rosa, here is the sweet. The biggest kind, and only four cents!”

  Rosa took the proffered candy bar and put one huge end of it in her mouth. She still scrowled with thought. Maria settled herself nearby, smiling gently, quizzically, silently pleading for a share of her sister’s burden. Rosa sat like a rock and sucked her candy bar. Suddenly she glared into Maria’s eyes. “Today,” she said solemnly, “to­day I gave myself to a customer.”

  Maria sobbed with excitement and interest.

  “Do not make a mistake,” Rosa continued. “I did not take money. The man had eaten three enchiladas—three!”

  Maria broke into a thin, childish wail of nervousness.

  “Be still,” said Rosa. “What do you think I should do now? It is necessary to encourage our customers if we are to succeed. And he had three, Maria, three enchiladas! And he paid for them. Well? What do you think?”

  Maria sniffled and clutched at amoral bravery in the face of her sister’s argument. “I think, Rosa, I think our mother would be glad, and I think your own soul would be glad if you should ask forgiveness of the Mother Virgin and of Santa Rosa.”

  Rosa smiled broadly and took Maria in her arms. “That is what I did. Just as soon as he went away. He was hardly out of the house before I did that.”

  Maria tore herself away, and with streaming eyes went into her bedroom. Ten minutes she kneeled before the little Virgin on the wall. Then she arose and flung herself into Rosa’s arms. “Rosa, my sister,” she cried happily. “I think I think I shall encourage the customers, too.”

  The Lopez sisters smothered each other in a huge em­brace and mingled their tears of joy.

  That day marked the turning point of the affairs of the Lopez sisters. It is true that business did not flourish, but from then on, they sold enough of their “Spanish Cook­ings” to keep food in the kitchen and bright print dresses on their broad, round backs. They remained persistently religious. When either of them had sinned she went di­rectly to the little porcelain Virgin, now conveniently placed in the hall to be accessible from both bedrooms, and prayed for forgiveness. Sins were not allowed to pile up. They confessed each one as it was committed. Under the Virgin there was a polished place on the floor where they had knelt in their nightdresses.

  Life became very pleasant to the Lopez sisters. There was not even a taint of rivalry, for although Rosa was older and braver, they looked almost exactly alike. Maria was a little fatter, but Rosa was a little taller, and there you had it.

  Now the house was filled with laughter and with squeals of enthusiasm. They sang over the flat stones while they patted out the tortillas with their fat, strong hands. Let a customer say something funny, let Tom Breman say to them, as he ate his third tamale, “Rosa, you’re living too high. This rich living is going to bust your gut wide open if you don’t cut it out,” and both of the sisters would be racked with giggles for half an hour afterwards. A whole day later, while they patted out the tortillas on the stone, they would remember this funny thing and laugh all over again. For these sisters knew how to preserve laughter, how to pet and coax it along until their spirits drank the last dregs of its potentiality. Don Tom was a fine man, they said. A funny man—and a rich man. Once he ate five plates of chili con came. But also, something you did not often find in a rich man, he was an hombre fuerte, oh, very strong! Over the tortilla stones they nodded their heads wisely and reminiscently at this observation, like two connoisseurs remembering a good wine.

  It must not be supposed that the sisters were prodigal of their encouragement. They accepted no money for anything except their cooking. However, if a man ate three or more of their dishes, the soft hearts of the sisters broke with gratitude, and that man became a candidate for encouragement.

  On an unfortunate night, a man whose appetite was not equal to three enchiladas offered to Rosa the money of shame. There were several other customers in the house at the time. The offer was cast into a crackle of con­versation. Instantly the noise ceased, leaving a horrified silence. Maria hid her face in her hands. Rosa grew pale and then flushed brilliant with furious blood. She panted with emotion and her eyes sparkled. Her fat, strong hands rose like eagles and settled on her hips. But when she spoke, it was with a curious emotional restraint. “It is an insult to me,” she said huskily. “You do not know, perhaps, that General Vallejo is nearly our ancestor, so close as that we are related. In our veins the pure blood is. What would General Vallejo say if he heard? Do you think his hand could stay from his sword to hear you insult two ladies so nearly in his family? Do you think it? You say to us, ‘You are shameful women!’ We, who make the finest, the thinnest tortillas in all California.” She panted with the effort to restrain herself.

  “I didn’t mean nothing,” the offender whined. “Honest to God, Rosa, I didn’t mean nothing.”

  Her anger left her then. One of her hands took flight from her hip, this time like a lark, and motioned almost sadly toward the door. “Go,” she said gently, “I do not think you meant bad, but the insult is still.” And as the culprit slunk out of the doorway. “Now, would anyone else like a little dish of chilies con frijoles? Which one here? Chilies con frijoles like none in the world.”

  Ordinarily they were happy, these sisters. Maria, whose nature was very delicate and sweet, planted more gerani­ums around the house, and lined the fence with hollyhocks. On a trip to Salinas, Rosa and Maria bought and presented to each other boudoir caps like inverted nests of blue and pink ribbons. It was the ultimate! Side by side they looked in a mirror and then turned their heads and smiled a little sadly at each other, thinking, “This is the great day, This is the time we shall remember always as the happy time. What a shame it cannot last.”

  In fear that it would not last, Maria kept large vases of flowers in front of her Virgin.

  But their foreboding came seldom upon them. Maria bought a little phonograph with records—tangos, waltz­es. When the sisters worked over the stones, they set the machine to playing and patted out the tortillas in time to the music.

  Inevitably, in the valley of the Pastures of Heaven, the whisper went about that the Lopez sisters were bad women. Ladies of the valley spoke coldly to them when they passed. It is impossible to say how these ladies knew. Certainly their husbands didn’t tell them, but neverthe­less they knew; they always know.

  Before daylight on a Saturday morning, Maria carried out the old, string-mended harness and festooned it on the bones of Lindo. “Have courage, my friend,” she said to the horse, as she buckled the crupper and, “The mouth, please, my Lindo,” as she inserted the bit. Then she backed him between the shafts of an ancient buggy. Lindo purposely stumbled over the shafts, just as he had for thirty years. When Maria hooked the traces, he looked around at her with a heavy, philosophic sadness. Old Lindo had no interest in destinations any more. He was too old even to be excited about going home once he was out. Now he lifted his lips from his long, yellow teeth, and grinned despairingly. “The way is not long,” Maria soothed him. “We will go slowly. You must not fear the journey, Lindo.” But Lindo did fear the journey. He loathed the journey to Monterey and back.

  The buggy sagged alarmingly when Maria clambered into it. She took the lines gingerly in her hands. “Go, my friend,” she said, and fluttered the lines. Lindo shivered and looked around at her. “Do you hear? We must go! There are things to buy in Monterey.” Lindo shook his head and drooped one knee in a kind of curtsey. “Lister to me, Lindo!” Maria cried imperiously. “I say we must go. I am firm! I am even angry.” She fluttered the lines ferociously about his shoulders. Lindo drooped his head nearly to the earth
, like a scenting hound, and moved slowly out of the yard. Nine miles he must go to Monte­rey, and nine miles back. Lindo knew it, and despaired at the knowledge. But now that her firmness and her anger were over, Maria settled back in the seat and hummed the chorus of the “Waltz Moon” tango.

  The hills glittered with dew. Maria, breathing the fresh damp air, sang more loudly, and even Lindo found youth enough in his old nostrils to snort. A meadow lark flew ahead from post to post, singing furiously. Far ahead Maria saw a man walking in the road. Before she caught up with him, she knew from the shambling, ape-like stride that it was Allen Hueneker, the ugliest, shyest man in the valley.

  Allen Hueneker not only walked like an ape, he looked like an ape. Little boys who wanted to insult their friends did so by pointing to Allen and saying, “There goes your brother.” It was a deadly satire. Allen was so shy and so horrified at his appearance that he tried to grow whiskers to cover up his face, but the coarse, sparse stubble grew in the wrong places and only intensified his simian ap­pearance. His wife had married him because she was thirty-seven, and because Allen was the only man of her acquaintance who could not protect himself. Later it de­veloped that she was a woman whose system required jealousy properly to function. Finding nothing in Allen’s life of which she could be jealous, she manufactured things. To her neighbors she told stories of his prowess with women, of his untrustworthiness, of his obscure de­linquencies. She told these stories until she believed them, but her neighbors laughed behind her back when she spoke of Allen’s sins, for everyone in the Pastures of Heaven knew how shy and terrified the ugly little man was.

  The ancient Lindo stumbled abreast of Allen Hue­neker. Maria tugged on the lines as though she pulled up a thunderously galloping steed. “Steady, Lindo! Be calm!” she called. At the lightest pressure of the lines, Lindo turned to stone and sunk into his loose-jointed, hang-necked posture of complete repose.

  “Good morning,” said Maria politely.

  Allen edged shyly over toward the side of the road. “Morning,” he said, and turned to look with affected in­terest up a side hill.

  “I go to Monterey,” Maria continued. “Do you wish to ride?”

  Allen squirmed and searched the sky for clouds or hawks. “I ain’t going only to the bus stop,” he said sullenly.

  “And what then? It is a little ride, no?”

  The man scratched among his whiskers, trying to make up his mind. And then, more to end the situation than for the sake of a ride, he climbed into the buggy beside the fat Maria. She rolled aside to make room for him, and then oozed back. “Lindo, go!” she called. “Lindo, do you hear me? Go before I grow angry again.” The lines clattered about Lindo’s neck. His nose dropped toward the ground, and he sauntered on.

  For a little while they rode in silence, but soon Maria remembered how polite it was to encourage conversation. “You go on a trip, yes?” she asked.

  Allen glared at an oak tree and said nothing.

  “I have not been on a train,” Maria confided after a moment, “but my sister, Rosa, has ridden on trains. Once she rode to San Francisco, and once she rode back. I have heard very rich men say it is good to travel. My own sister, Rosa, says so too.”

  “I ain’t going only to Salinas,” said Allen.

  “Ah, of course I have been there many times. Rosa and I have such friends in Salinas. Our mother came from there. And our father often went there with wood.”

  Allen struggled against his embarrassment. “Couldn’t get the old Ford going, or I’d have gone in it.”

  “You have, then, a Ford?” Maria was impressed.

  “Just an old Ford.”

  “We have said, Rosa and I, that some day we, too, may have a Ford. Then we will travel to many places. I have heard very rich men say it is good to travel.”

  As though to punctuate the conversation, an old Ford appeared over tile hill and came roaring down on them. Maria gripped the lines. “Lindo, be calm!” she called. Lindo paid not the slightest attention either to Maria or to the Ford.

  Mr. and Mrs. Munroe were in the Ford. Bert craned his neck back as they passed. “God! Did you see that?” he demanded, laughing. “Did you see that old woman-killer with Maria Lopez?”

  Mrs. Munroe smiled.

  “Say,” Bert cried. “It’d be a good joke to tell old lady Hueneker we saw her old man running oil with Maria Lopez.”

  “Don’t you do anything of the kind,” his wife insisted.

  “But it’d be a good joke. You know how she talks about him.”

  “No, don’t you do it, Bert!”

  Meanwhile Maria drove on, conversing guilelessly with her reluctant guest. “You do not come to our house for enchiladas. There are no enchiladas like ours. For look! we learned from our mother. When our mother was living, it was said as far as San Juan, even as far as Gilroy, that no one else could make tortillas so flat, so thin. You must know it is the beating, always the beating that makes goodness and thinness to a tortilla. No one ever beat so long as our mother, not even Rosa. I go now to Monterey for flour because it is cheaper there.”

  Allen Hueneker sank into his side of the seat and wished for the bus station.

  It was late in the afternoon before Maria neared home again. “Soon we are there,” she called happily to Lindo. “Have courage, my friend, the way is short now.” Maria was bubbling with anticipation. In a riot of extravagance she had bought four candy bars, but that was not all. For Rosa she had a present, a pair of broad silken garters with huge red poppies appliquéd on their sides. In her imagination she could see Rosa putting them on and then lifting her skirt, but very modestly, of course. The two of them would look at the garters in a mirror standing on the floor. Rosa would point her toe a trifle, and then the sisters would cry with happiness.

  In the yard Maria slowly unharnessed Lindo. It was good, she knew, to put off joy, for by doing so, one in­creased joy. The house was very quiet. There were no ve­hicles in front to indicate the presence of customers. Maria hung up the old harness, and turned Lindo into the pasture. Then she took out the candy bars and the garters and walked slowly into the house. Rosa sat at one of the little tables, a silent, restrained Rosa, a grim and suffering Rosa. Her eyes seemed glazed and sightless. Her fat, firm hands were clenched on the table in front of her. She did not turn nor give any sign of recognition when Maria entered. Maria stopped and stared at her.

  “Rosa,” she said timidly. “I’m back home, Rosa.” Her sister turned slowly. “Yes,” she said.

  “Are you sick, Rosa?”

  The glazed eyes had turned back to the table again. “No.”

  “I have a present, Rosa. Look, Rosa.” She held up the magnificent garters.

  Slowly, very slowly, Rosa’s eyes crept up to the brilliant red poppies and then to Maria’s face. Maria was poised to break into squealing enthusiasm. Rosa’s eyes dropped, and two fat tears ran down the furrows beside her nose.

  “Rosa, do you see the present? Don’t you like them, Rosa? Won’t you put them on, Rosa?”

  “You are my good little sister.”

  “Rosa, tell me, what is the matter? You are sick. You must tell your Maria. Did someone come?”

  “Yes,” said Rosa hollowly, “the sheriff came.”

  Now Maria fairly chattered with excitement. “The sheriff, he came? Now we are on the road. Now we will be rich. How many enchiladas, Rosa? Tell me how many for the sheriff.”

  Rosa shook off her apathy. She went to Maria and put motherly arms about her. “My poor little sister,” she said. “Now we cannot ever sell any more enchiladas. Now we must live again in the old way with no new dresses.”

  “Rosa, you are crazy. Why you talk this way to me?”

  “It is true. It was the sheriff. ‘I have a complaint,’ he said to me. ‘I have a complaint that you are running a bad house.’ ‘But that is a lie,’ I said. ‘A lie and an insult to our mother and to General Vahlejo.’ ‘I have a com­plaint,’ he told me. ‘You must close your doors or els
e I must arrest you for running a bad house.’ ‘But it is a lie,’ I tried to make him understand. ‘I got a complaint this afternoon,’ he said. ‘When I have a complaint, there is nothing I can do, for see, Rosa,’ he said to me as a friend, ‘I am only the servant of the people who make com­plaints.’ And now you see, Maria, my sister, we must go back to the old living.” She left the stricken Maria and turned back to her table. For a moment Maria tried to understand it, and then she sobbed hysterically. “Be still, Maria! I have been thinking. You know it is true that we will starve if we cannot sell enchiladas. Do not blame me too much when I tell you this. I have made up my mind. See, Maria! I will go to San Francisco and be a bad woman.” Her head dropped low over her fat hands. Maria’s sobbing had stopped. She crept close to her sister.

  “For money?” she whispered in horror.

  “Yes,” cried Rosa bitterly. “For money. For a great deal of money. And may the good mother forgive me.”

  Maria left her then, and scuttled into the hallway where she stood in front of the porcelain Mary. “I have placed candles,” she cried. “I have put flowers every day. Holy Mother, what is the matter with us? Why do you let this happen?” Then she dropped on her knees and prayed, fifty Hail Marys! She crossed herself and rose to her feet. Her face was strained but determined.

  In the other room Rosa still sat bent over her table.

  “Rosa,” Maria cried shrilly. “I am your sister. I am what you are.” She gulped a great breath. “Rosa, I will go to San Francisco with you, I, too, will be a bad woman—”

  Then the reserve of Rosa broke. She stood up and opened her huge embrace. And for a long time the Lopez sisters cried hysterically in each other’s arms.

  Eight

  MOLLY MORGAN got off the train in Salinas and waited three quarters of an hour for the bus. The big automobile was empty except for the driver and Molly.

  “I’ve never been to the Pastures of Heaven, you know,” she said. “Is it far from the main road?”