by Robert Hough
The show began with a musical presentation: a group of local students who called themselves Los Inconsolables del Norte. Armed with accordion, trumpet, snare drum, and armadillo-shell guitars, the students lurched through renditions of “Mi Capitano,” “Mi Estrellita,” and, in a nod to Madam’s assembled employees, the popular bolero “Mi Hermosa Maria.” And while the music wasn’t enjoyable per se — it was vastly atonal, with an articulation not unlike the grunting of an estrous sow — the audience nonetheless hummed along, overjoyed that the town’s youth had somehow generated the lightness of soul necessary to make music. When the students finished, everyone applauded with a vigour as genuine as it was polite.
It was now time for an address from the mayor, a weary veteran named Miguel Orozco. Burdened with an ill-functioning left foot, he clambered awkwardly onto the stage, trying his hardest not to tear any of the papery ropes. Applause rose when he succeeded, yet another sign that a small degree of hopefulness had infected the town.
— Señores and señoras, he began in a tremulous voice. — I would like to welcome you all to the very first lucha libre in the history of Corazón de la Fuente. Though I have never attended such an event, I am assured that it is a most enjoyable spectacle, and I think that the Reyes brothers deserve our gratitude for providing such an unexpected diversion.
There was polite clapping, followed by a pause in which the mayor’s face turned serious.
— As you all know, these past years have not been easy ones, or prosperous ones, or happy ones, for the people of México. Many of us lost loved ones during the revolution, and all of us have suffered from great upheaval. And yet … it is my belief that those days are over, and that prosperity and happiness are poised to return to our humble village.
Though he didn’t have to, he gestured towards a large field beyond Madam Félix’s House of Gentlemanly Pleasures. With any luck it would soon be visited by gringos wearing hard hats and steel-toed boots.
— It is my humble opinion that sunny days are coming to both our town and the grand state of Coahuila, and it is also my belief that this optimism is symbolized today by the wonderful efforts of Luis and Alfonso Reyes, who spent an exceedingly hot morning constructing this beautiful ring and who organized this wonderful concert by Los Inconsolables del Norte. And so, it is with this in mind that I ask you all to give an enthusiastic Corazón welcome to … Los Hermanos Reyes!
The mayor gestured towards the opened doors of the town hall, where the Reyes brothers appeared in the archway, hands on their waists and chests thrust forward, wearing nothing but cowboy boots and wrestling trunks. Alfonso wore a white mask, Luis the black mask of a villain. As the brothers strutted through the plaza towards the ring, Luis was already calling to members of the audience, accusing them of being idiots and pendejos and stupid, bug-eating campesinos. The onlookers cheered and whistled, as was demanded of an aroused lucha audience.
The brothers climbed into the ring and went to their corners. While waiting for the bell, Alfonso kneeled and prayed to Jesús, the Lord above, the Holy Spirit, and, last but not least, his mother, who at that moment was looking on from the plaza while nervously chewing a lock of dark hair. Luis, meanwhile, stomped his boots and jeered his opponent by calling him señorita and asking if he’d enjoyed his fiesta de quinceañera. This last remark inspired laughter within the audience; even Violeta chortled, causing Francisco to wonder whether she might be enjoying herself in his presence.
There was a lull. The audience quieted. Consuela Reyes, standing immediately outside the ring, struck the back of a cast-iron pan with a large metal spoon that she ordinarily used to lift cricket fritters out of simmering oil. The hefty sixteen-year-olds circled one another, legs bent and arms at the ready. Alfonso feinted, Luis jabbed, and they returned to their slow, predatory rotating. Suddenly there came a muffled, high-pitched battle cry. Luis charged, his arms windmilling. When he collided with his brother in the centre of the bandstand, those seated closest to the ring heard Alfonso say — Lift me in the air, Luis, just like we practised.
Luis paused as though thinking hard, a moment that caused all the Marias to titter behind their fans. He then bent at the knees and, employing the strength for which the Reyes brothers were known, lifted his brother into the air. For a moment he held him aloft, like a Mayan priest displaying the entrails of a ram, before throwing Alfonso to the floor of the stage. Alfonso landed properly, right on the flesh of his shoulder, and then rolled away while moaning theatrically. As his brother lay writhing, Luis paraded the ring, gesturing malevolently at the crowd. By this time some of the younger audience members, who had seen lucha bouts in the nearby city of Piedras Negras, began yelling, Kill him, kill him!
Luis stopped and cupped his hand over his ear, as though struggling to hear. His supporters switched their cheer and began yelling, The guillotine! Give him the guillotine!
Luis paused, let out a war cry so visceral that many of the Marias shrank into their seats, and charged his still moaning brother. When he was a metre away, he leapt skyward and then dropped, his rotund backside leading the way, the back of his fleshy left leg appearing to strike his brother across the face. Alfonso rolled away, feigning injury by groaning and holding his nose. Luis leapt to his feet and circled the bandstand, ranting against his detractors and inciting his supporters. Above the din, he heard, the propeller, hombre!
Luis again cupped his ear to the audience.
The propeller! shrieked the adolescents in the crowd. Give him the propeller!
Despite the presence of his mask, the whole town could see that Luis was grinning. He circled the ring a few more times, stomping his boots for effect, before approaching his downed brother. Luis bent, grabbed Alfonso’s feet, and hooked them under his armpits. He then gripped his brother’s knees and began to turn. One second later, Alfonso was airborne and spinning, his masked head whirling though space, his arms tight to his stomach so as not to disrupt the aerodynamics of the move. Yet as Luis accelerated the spin, their mother, who understood that her sons suffered from both an excess of might and a deficiency of common sense, began to wave her arms in the air and yell — No, no, Luis, put him down. Luis, por favor, put him down!
It was too late. In the muggy heat of the evening, Alfonso’s legs had grown slippery with perspiration. Luis’s grip loosened and Alfonso came free, at which point he soared through the air like a bag of flung sorghum. The crowd silenced as he arced, face towards the twilit sky, over the confines of the ring. His flight ended in the lap of Los Inconsolables’ accordion player. A thunderous minor-key squelch, not unlike the screech of a ram being neutered, echoed off the walls of the village, drifted over the surrounding plains, and was heard by a tribe of Kickapoo Indians who were out hunting that evening for desert voles.
The second noise to ricochet through the streets was the clang of a dropped pan. Consuela Reyes ran to her son. The accordion player, having been protected by his now battered instrument, merely looked as though the wind had been knocked out of him. Alfonso Reyes, however, was lying on his back, completely still save for a quiver in the fingertips of his left hand. Luis came running, crashing through the paper ropes he had laboriously erected that morning, and stood fearfully behind his mother.
Consuela gingerly peeled off her injured son’s mask. Alfonso looked pale and disoriented.
— Mijo, she said gently. — You can hear me?
— Errrrrrrrr was the reply.
— Do you know your name?
Alfonso mumbled and seemed to fully come awake.
— My back hurts.
— Can you move everything?
— Sí, he sighed, and to illustrate he rocked his feet from side to side.
Consuela Reyes glanced up just long enough that the townsfolk of Corazón de la Fuente could see that her eyes were glassy, her lips trembling, and her face, once so youthful and pretty, was now marred by lines and red blemishes. They each took a step forward to offer assistance, for each and every one of them saw
in Consuela what they saw in themselves: the way in which accumulated sorrow can be caused by years of strained coping.
And then, slowly, as though hefted by an unseen crane, Alfonso Reyes rose shakily to his size-twelve feet, one arm draped around his beleaguered mother, the other around the humped shoulders of his relieved brother. The people of Corazón raised their hands into the dwindling light and emitted a hearty Qué bueno! Most then stopped to slap the Reyes brothers on the back and congratulate them on an evening of high-calibre lucha. This in turn caused the brothers to smile, and to promise that they would be back the following Saturday with a new display of wrestling prowess.
Soon the sky began to turn a starlit lavender. Many looked up and admired it, for it was often said that when you are no longer moved by the last stages of dusk in the Mexican desert, it is time to shake the hand of your Maker. It lasted for ten full minutes, the sky suddenly a depthless black dotted by a million silver shimmers. Piñon torches were lit, and a restorative breeze, originating from the tips of the Sierra Madres, animated the milling crowd.
The Marias departed first: it was almost nine o’clock, and soon there would be a notable increase in the number of Texans coming over the border for an evening of mescal quaffing and carnality. The village poor hung around a bit longer than most, understandably reluctant to return to the sweltering tin-roofed hovels of the ejido. The curandera, on the other hand, seemed to vanish — one second she was there and a second later the overturned crate that had supported her was abandoned in the dust. This, of course, did nothing to counteract the popularly held suspicion among Corazón’s elderly residents that she dabbled in the black arts, and had sacrificed more than one baby goat in honour of Satan.
It was around this time that Francisco Ramirez escorted Violeta Cruz back to her place of residence. The couple walked along Avenida Cinco de Mayo, turning south when they reached Violeta’s street. She stopped when she reached the door of her house, where she was momentarily caught in a beam of starlight, causing her flowing black hair to turn a colour in keeping with her name. Her eyes were a depthless Mayan jade. Her skin, as was the case with some norteñas, was the pale white of rice pudding. Francisco felt an exhilaration that bordered on the vertiginous; as he stood gazing at her, he experienced a sudden and profound understanding of what people meant by the grace of God. Yet just as his spirit began to soar, she looked up at him, her eyes doleful.
— Francisco, she said.
— Sí, Violeta?
— I have to talk to you.
— All right.
— I … I’m not sure about this.
— Not sure about what, Violeta?
— This. You, me, spending time together … Francisco, I just don’t know.
— What is it?
She lowered her eyes and looked embarrassed. — Francisco … there’s a problem. If we are to formally see one another, you must ask my mother’s permission. It is only right. I will not sneak around behind her back. It isn’t proper, and she would not permit it.
Francisco suddenly felt a mild sense of unease, as though he were about to enter a terrain where nothing, not even the solidity of the earth beneath his feet, could be trusted. As every young man in Corazón de la Fuente knew too well, Malfil Cruz considered her daughter too much of a prize for the simple, dust-caked boys of the town. It did not reduce Francisco’s feelings of despondency that Malfil Cruz was probably right.
— You would like me to have a meeting with your mother?
— Francisco, she said witheringly. — It is not a matter of what I want or do not want. It’s a matter of what needs to be.
{ 3 }
AS HE TRUDGED HOME, FRANCISCO RAMIREZ SKIRTED the west face of the plaza, his thoughts so ravaged by worry and desire that he failed to notice that there were still four men left in the village square, their faces lit by torchlight.
Though the town had no official hierarchy, there was a sort of ersatz leadership in place, a quartet of hombres whose relationship with Corazón de la Fuente was almost parental in both affection and degree of responsibility. The semi-crippled mayor, Miguel Orozco, lived in a one-room house near the town hall. Corazón’s wealthiest resident, a handsome Spaniard named Antonio Garcia, owned a ruined hacienda just east of town, and for this reason was ordinarily referred to as the hacendero. Carlos Hernandez, a lean-faced local with a moustache the size of a chihuahua, operated Corazón de la Fuente’s only drinking establishment, and this designation had afforded him a moniker as well. The town priest, a man known as Father Alvarez, dressed just like every other hombre in town: in boots, Levi’s, a denim shirt worn so tight that the material stretched at the buttons, and, to hide his bald pate, a slender cowboy hat. They were all around forty years old, the closeness of their ages uniting them as surely as their loyalty towards the town of Corazón de la Fuente.
— Compadres, the hacendero said in his gravelly voice.
— I must be off.
The mayor, the cantina owner, and Father Alvarez all struggled not to grin.
— But why leave so early? the mayor asked in a voice that feigned innocence. — We’re all going to the cantina. Why not join us?
— Sí, said the cantina owner. — I have some real Jaliscan tequila. It came in just the other day. Good for the more discriminating among us.
— It’s tempting, said the hacendero. — But I’m busy these days. I think I told you I’m about to take delivery of a new horse?
— Sí, said the mayor. — We heard.
— Then I’ll say buenas noches.
— Buenas, said the others. — And be careful with that horse of yours.
The remaining men stood in the plaza, all three smiling as they listened to the fall of the hacendero’s lizard-skin boots.
— That hacendero, snorted Father Alvarez. — It’s not a horse he’s interested in riding, am I right, amigos?
— We should wait here a bit, said the cantina owner, — and catch him doubling back to visit Madam Félix.
— Come on, primos, said the mayor. — We all have our peccadilloes. We all have our little fictions. Can you blame him for wanting a little company? After what the revolution did to that hacienda of his?
The others nodded and conceded that the mayor had a point.
— Speaking of love, said the cantina owner, — did you see who was with Francisco Ramirez?
— Ay sí, said the mayor. — Violeta Cruz. My God, she’s a beauty. It takes the breath away. Do you think Francisco’s the one who’ll finally snag her? I always thought she’d marry away.
— You never know, said Father Alvarez. — No woman is made of stone. Still, my guess is that Francisco is one muchacho who’s bitten off more than he can chew.
The three men all chortled sympathetically, each having suffered the brutality of unrequited love in the past.
— Come on, said the cantina owner. — Let’s go for that drink.
The three walked towards the north end of the plaza, moving slowly so that the mayor could keep up. At Avenida Hidalgo they turned west, their conversation interrupted by the far-off braying of coydogs.
The town’s lone watering hole was nothing more than a refurbished adobe house, no bigger or smaller than the other addresses along the street. The cantina owner pushed open the heavy knotted door, which had remained unlocked since the day that a thirsty commandante in the northern army had shot the padlock off with a Smith & Wesson the size of a rolling pin. The mayor and Father Alvarez stepped into the hot gloom and waited while the cantina owner lit an oil lamp and placed it in the middle of one of the tables. He then retreated to the mesquite-wood bar, which still bore splinters and perforations gained during the northern army’s visit. He lit a second oil lamp and returned with four glasses and the bottle of tequila. After filling all four, he lifted his own glass.
— To lucha! he proposed.
The men laughed and then tipped their glasses, enjoying the spread of warmth across the back of their throats. Soon after, they he
ard a knocking at the rear of the saloon. The cantina owner stood and walked towards the back door, which opened onto a sewage gulley and, beyond that, an eternity of ink-black scrub. An ejido-dweller, looking obsequious and parched, was waiting. Carlos filled the man’s cup with a frothy, malodorous pulque, the favoured beverage of those who had migrated up from the south. He then accepted a few pesos in return; it was a transaction that had become, over the years, the lion’s share of his business. He sat back down, poured a second round of tequilas, and said to the mayor: — Tell us some more about the radio tower, Miguel.
— Ay, Carlos. What do you want to know?
— Is this Dr. Brinkley really going to build it?
— It’s starting to look that way.