Yet a tinge of remorse accompanies his gratitude for this day of liberation. Torture leaves a permanent stain. The days of innocence are gone. Then again, a certain type of man is grateful even for the opportunity to make sacrifice, lest so many lives be lived without a chance for improvement.
Never mind the regrets; his pain shall be everyone’s gain.
He undresses and slips into his own hammock, grateful as well that Baldo is man enough to fill his shoes in his absence. Who better to comfort such an innocent than his perfectly innocent brother? Well, maybe not perfectly innocent. That will take some sorting out. But he is innocently motivated, at any rate. And he never said an unkind word about anyone or anything.
Antonio resists the urge to wake them and celebrate, to tell them all that happened, and to learn about the pillowcase and the machete. He knows what they’ve been through, working as if yesterday and today were simply two more working days, tormented by not knowing. But he slides in quietly and joins the peace, sighing deeply as a man whose homecoming is now complete, surrounded by those who love him. Hardly as insensitive inside as he often appears on the surface, Antonio closes his eyes to better halt the welling tears.
He regrets the whole turn of events but feels worse about the pressure imposed on his own family. We cannot know if Esteban Silvestre was a bad man, but we can get a fairly good sense of it. We saw him in ruthless murder, as if no life counted but his own. A man given to killing so freely should sense the eternal presence of the Greater Judge. In this case God moved through the hands of the bailiff, an innocent who merely carried out the sentence of the court.
Antonio looks aside at the raft moving slowly downstream to join his loved ones in sleep. He is on board, yawning hugely where the delta meets the sea, drifting further on placid waters until the sorting process settles flat to every horizon.
Is a solid foundation as a maestro a good place from which to begin a career of elegance and good taste in the legal profession?
And soon all slumber.
XI
Life Goes On
The unfathomable dimension of some women, Antonio thinks, no matter how much their minds are open to learning, is the one where they keep their moods. They most often fail to fit the moment, these moods. Like now, with the sun about to rise and relief overflowing, she seems tentative and uncertain. Perhaps the truth is too much to accept all at once. Surely she can’t be pouting over the few short hours of delay in the homecoming. They were required for gratitude. Still, she seems nearly nervous.
Not Baldo though; like a pup left home alone, he’s all romp and ready to go, a certain beast of simple pleasures but noble in his simplicity and motivation. Lyria gathers her things about her loosely and hugs her betrothed, telling him they will talk in a little while, but for now she must hurry home to prepare for work. Today is Monday, when everyone must look sharp. And be sharp.
Baldo stretches like a rubber man, bringing a smile to his big brother, who must look up today to meet Baldo’s eyes. Antonio laughs, “Two days I’m gone, and you’re grown higher than the top of the door.”
Baldo stands tall under the door to see if the top of his head will touch the frame.
“Mm,” Antonio says. “Monday already. What a lovely weekend.”
Baldo nods, moving to the table to stoop and care for his bird, who gurgles and squawks when he pushes a piece of fish down its maw. At the sink he squeezes too much toothpaste onto his brush.
Antonio watches him brush with pneumatic vengeance, but the elder brother only smiles. “Baldo. Where is your machete?”
Baldo mimes the hurl over the breakers, flinging toothpaste in his ardor.
“And the pillowcase?”
Baldo indicates Lyria and the other, grasping imaginary melones for the other. He shrugs.
Antonio nods. It seems too slapdash for comfort, but at this point a reasonable man can only feel good, having Simón Salvador on his side rather than having an underpaid civil servant, even if the civil servant was as resourceful as Quincy and Quincy had nothing.
In a few minutes the young threesome stands together close enough to hug, because it’s Monday, and the bus is full.
Antonio feels the giddy current among them.
Baldo makes elbowroom when his bird complains.
Lyria looks annoyed, as only she can be over such simple things.
And Antonio grins for no other reason than life goes on in the sweet air of freedom to bring his life to its rightful fulfillment. The future feels intact. Which is no small feeling and certainly nothing to sneeze at. Whether more hurdles await is another story that must be examined sooner or later. But not today. Today is meant for joy.
Baldo feels it too, laying his head first on Antonio’s shoulder, then on Lyria’s.
Lyria adjusts to a reality too good to be true, looking at one and then the other and then at neither, as if sorting a reality that only yesterday seemed out of reach.
Antonio shivers in mere anticipation of the rich, hot cafe con leche that will soon flow through him as prelude to the renewed flow of life’s simple pleasures. In a few minutes more he tastes the warmth and richness, sipping in overview like a lord of the manor.
To the west, just inside the laundry room, stocking her cart, Lyria is industrious, stolid, a strong-willed woman with a pleasing if not dramatic figure, with good hips and handsome titas that already point and swell in preparation for Antonio’s own two hands. One day soon she will be his. She will bear his sons and, in keeping with the modern world of right values, his daughters. Soon seems sooner still with advances into the future like last night’s, filling the jar with another five big ones. At this rate, the rim will be met by the end of the year, and they will wed. That will be something, both the wedding and the wedding night with such a rare tomato, so pure and ripe she nearly splits with too much juice. Antonio will ease her in as only a man of experience can do, with gentle compassion for the inexperienced.
Does marriage portend the end of Mrs. Mayfair?
He needn’t make any drastic decisions just yet. For one thing, twice a year can hardly be called unreasonable. For another thing, little Tono boy will want the very best in clothing and education, and such a standard can hardly sneeze at five hundred a night. For yet another thing, Mrs. Mayfair must be disengaged easily, both as a sensitive, generous woman and a proven and trusted friend.
For one more thing, there she sits, making the most of her last day, lying back with her eyes closed, watching the replay that makes Antonio smile as well. She seems happy, all greased up for a last hurrah of Mexican sun, her grasping hands bikini lifting and spreading as if revealing her heart for sacrifice to the gods of poolside joy.
And there is Baldo, archangel of mercy and justice delivered. Antonio observes his brother’s oblivion and focus, as if recent events are merely part of life’s spicy mix, as if killing and caring are equal to a time for every purpose under heaven, as if he, Baldo, is the meadowlark on the fencepost singing this sentiment sweetly.
The bird is swaddled in a clean bandage and feeds again.
Each baby turtle is lifted and inspected and in silence encouraged to grow and be strong, as the silent boy has done. Anyone whose heartstrings ever plucked a chord for nature knows the tune flowing into the little turtle ears. The babies listen in perfect stillness until he’s done, then they flop their flippers in thin air as if the depths are felt by what he imparts to them.
Antonio feels the richness rising with the rising Sun, who seems equally pleased with his lovely planets in orbit. Soon Antonio is ready for the new guests who have come to let their hair down and have fun! With his cards neatly stacked, his dry-bean jar full of new, clean beans, his numbered balls loaded in his spinning basket, his public address system tested and working with hardly any warp or static, the first morning bingo can begin. “Er! Er-er! Er-errrr! Wake up! Wake up, everybody. No more siesta!”
Oh, how they moan and groan but move lovingly in compliance, rising for their card
s and beans. This looks like a very good group indeed.
“Okay! Not even lunchtime, so we play for one Bloody Mary! You need it, so only one line, up or down or diagonal. Okay! Wake up! No more siesta! Er! Er-er! Er-errrrr!”
With only a brief respite after lunch so that Antonio can relax on the eighteenth floor to revive and refresh himself and further repay the generosity shown him, life returns to normal.
Mrs. Mayfair merely touches his cheek with her fingertips to thoroughly convey her sentiment. She will miss him. Gone by one, airborne by two, she is winging overhead by two oh five, looking out the window as he looks up. You are my saint, he thinks.
Oy, the pillowcase, she replies. But looking down on the adobe and asphalt miasma called civilization, she reckons that a taxi was likely the best place to lose Exhibit A. Lingering in the few thousand feet between them is her promise to see him soon and his fervent desire to make it sooner.
So the days and nights settle as they once were before Mrs. Mayfair’s last visit.
Antonio saves his money.
Lyria works hard and then works some more, and though her beloved wonders what happiness she finds in life, he doesn’t press.
He rather goes along with her unspoken premise that these shall be the days of struggle so that those ahead may fill with ease and security. He marvels at her resilience and womanly resolve at such a tender age.
Baldo will not come home until way after dark, until the night sentries arrive, most often near ten o’clock.
So Lyria takes him his dinner, which he eats on the beach by the turtles, or else he takes it with Lyria to the laundry room, where a good maid can sort her needs for an orderly tomorrow. She looks healthier now, though her diet has not changed and she gets no more exercise. She fills out like a woman does, her breasts rising and heaving like competitors sprinting in the stretch. Not as big as Mrs. Mayfair’s, they grow rounder with a youthful exuberance defying gravity and the aging process.
Antonio keenly observes this change with pride and pleasure, not to mention anticipation. Yet he is fearful as well. For one thing, a bosom so resplendent will draw strays no less than stink will draw flies.
For another thing, hefty chichis are one thing, a good thing. But they often precede hefty thighs that chafe and blot all light in the gap beneath the sacred place, and that’s a thing of a different nature; call it bad. He fears the way of Rosa, and his heart and eyes grow heavy with apprehension of a gorda wife.
Just so, she reflects his worry. What will he do when she grows fat, go fishing?
He presents her with a pair of shorts, rayon and form fitting to show off the mystically succulent orbs, donde las espaldas pierden su nombre. But reference to where the back loses its name is only polite language; her luscious buttocks ride high and inviting with such luxuriant spread that any man popping an eyeful will need no words, polite or otherwise, to convey his love. Ogling as well her rich, tawny thighs, Antonio realizes that his mad lust can only derive from love. And from waiting, as purity and virtue dictate.
You can’t really avoid the stray dogs sniffing the bush on a package like this one. Antonio wants to see her figure on display, because soon she will be his, fore and aft, to have and to hold for all time, and seeing her exquisite componentry now will provide a baseline from which to compare the fat, if it comes. He won’t press her to wear the shorts for fear of another emotional failure like the one following his innocent request for a picture of Rosa in youth. She will wear them in time, maybe not until the night of nights, but she will. No woman can find peace forever in a maid’s baggy dress.
Meanwhile, life brings a change for the worse to Rosa, who takes to drink and melancholy. No one can say why or when, except that the evening of finding the old photographs and drinking through her nostalgia seems to mark the beginning of her downturn.
Baldo and Antonio awaken most mornings to retching sounds from the casa next door. They try to ignore the awful discharge, until Antonio winces and shakes his head. Sometimes he mutters about an old, fat woman who can’t control her drinking in spite of the awful dues she is made to pay.
Baldo shrugs and shuffles to the table where he stoops to feed his bird and then shuffles to the sink to brush his teeth.
So life fills another day with bingo, pool volleyball, beach volleyball, swimming pool aerobics, and shapely gringas shamelessly exposing themselves. Now and then they make shameless proposals that a practical man pursues only when the return is handsome.
Stocking the cart and cleaning rooms, feeding the turtle babies, and changing the water in each tub, counting and encouraging and staying late; all these things roll together, but not as tedium. No, they form a rhythm. Life is good with repetition and method.
Antonio feels himself change as well. His compliance with the rich gringas is now casual compared to his former exuberance.
Hello, how goes it for you? Thank you for your business.
He accepts these women as they accept him, as a convenience and a bounty, just as every sunrise needs a sunset in order to come again. Between the two are the goodly pursuits of every day. Antonio cashes in on his rippling abdominal rack, pectorals that look cut by a sculptor and veins popping on his biceps. He knows that these things too shall pass. In the meantime, a hundred sit-ups and a hundred push-ups are insurance. Money in the bank, mas o menos, as long as a demand needs a supply.
Crunches?
Mañana.
Baldo too finds a new complacence, no longer holding each dead baby as if grief can bring it back. Learning that life brings grief no matter what, he inures to difficulty, plucking the dead and walking them down the beach to the water’s edge, gurgling incantation in his muted, hoarse way until hurling it with God speed over the surf. From the hundred twenty-three babies, a hundred four survive with only six weeks until release.
And on a day like all the rest with no fanfare or indication, it’s time to give back that which nature gives.
Baldo unwraps his convalescent bird for the last time. It huddles uncertainly, perched on his arm, so he sets it on the arm of a chaise lounge and opens its wings, working them gently, stretching them to flight position. He holds a piece of fish up to the bird, who reaches for it. But this time Baldo pulls the fish away. He shows it to the bird once more and flings it toward the water.
By now the guests on the other chaise lounges sit up and watch, and those poolside gather for the show, which isn’t a show, really, unless your contact with nature is limited and most often expressed with sunscreen.
Baldo ignores his audience with aplomb equal to his brother’s fervent courting of the same audience. He lifts the bird to his arm again and walks it to the water’s edge, all the while whispering something confidential in its ear. Perhaps he reminds it of the beauty of flight and freedom. Perhaps he asks it to refrain from eating las tortugas chicas and warns it as well to stay clear of the nursery. Perhaps he assures this exquisitely winged creature of the rich days and nights ahead that only such a bird will experience.
The guests can only speculate, which they warmly do, some enthused to the point of emotion.
With a gentle uplifting of his forearm, he delivers the gift of flight, delivering the bird to its proper life again. He watches for a minute in a fanciful flight of his own. Turning away, he wipes a tear from his eye and sees on his walk back up the beach, as if for the first time, that many guests observe him.
They cheer with a standing ovation. He is the man of the hour.
Nobody from management praises Baldo, because Milo squelches all praise not for himself. Even so, any fool and Milo can see the lavish good cheer of the guests. They view las chicas frequently now and talk of the amazing man who guards them.
Baldo doesn’t mind the turtle babies being held for photos, but only after inspection of the hands for sun grease and other hazards.
They love his diligence, the guests, and he brings home tips no one could have foreseen, especially Milo. Not as big as Antonio’s tips but formidable;
these tips rising from the heart, not the pocket.
Whoever heard of tipping the turtle guard?
Nobody is who. But on another eventful Saturday a quiet man from Chicago and his quiet wife, both decrepit and very near the end of their journey, give Baldo a hundred dollars.
They smile and say nothing in deference to his special dialect.
He stares back for what appears to be a lengthy exchange, until they too shed tears and hug him. He gives the money to Antonio, who puts it in the jar with a fervent Er! Er-er! Er! Errrr!
Milo sees. Milo knows. Who cares?
Nine hundred twenty pesos are more than a tip; they are tribute. They make history and set the bar so high that no man or woman will clear it anytime soon.
Baldo is known, and then he is renown. He is secure in security, and top management takes only an hour to grant his requisition of six more plastic tubs to accommodate the babies, now twice as big as six weeks ago. A second requisition comes from his big brother, always with an eye on the future, who foresees the day after the day of turtle liberation, when El Capitán de las Tortugas stands alone with nothing to guard.
Antonio makes a memo to management, through Milo, in which he anticipates continuing need among those guests experiencing thirst and hopes that a position to serve such thirst can be reinstated on the staff ledger. Job description: coconut cleaver and server.
Anyone who can’t see through this transparent nepotism is enlightened by Milo, who protests that his own annual efficiency rating is based on service relative to payroll, and that another person poolside is unaccountable, as well as irresponsible and frivolous and, for all we know, dangerous. No, Milo insists, we cannot justify an addition to the staff. Brother Baldo will certainly be considered next year for another stint as El Capitán. We’ll be in touch. Thank you.
In the meantime, what? You think we would allow him near our guests with a potential murder weapon?
Toucan Whisper, Toucan Sing Page 17