by Robert Hough
He entered, the stench forming a vinegary liquid on his tongue. There were flies buzzing in the heated air and a half-consumed cup of coffee on the molinero’s table. Francisco crossed the floor and went to his old friend, his fear of death and all its cold incarnations overshadowed by the love he felt for the molinero.
— Señor Pántelas, he murmured as he kissed the old man’s cold forehead. — I’m here. Don’t worry, I’m here now. You’re no longer alone. I should have come earlier but I didn’t, and for this I am sorry.
He gently covered his old amigo with a blanket, straightened his hair, and made sure his hands were in a comfortable position. Then, as a final tribute to the molinero, he tried to summon the heartache he would feel were it his own father before him — he hoped that this feeling might ease the old man’s passage to the next world and make him feel as though his time spent in the world of mortals had not been without purpose or meaning. Francisco felt an ache in his chest and throat. He thought of non-existence, and the way it always loomed on the horizon, sullying the experience of living; better to be a dog, or a toad, and have no consciousness of your own mortality. When a tear finally loosened and dribbled down his pink, burning cheek, he swiped at it bitterly.
— Señor Roberto Pántelas, he said in a voice weakened by sadness. — It has been a pleasure to know you. No matter how long I live, I will never forget you. Tomorrow I will tell Father Alvarez that you have gone to heaven, and we will somehow find a way to bury you in the middle of the war that has broken out in your beloved Corazón de la Fuente. So do not have fear. I promise that your final passage will be graceful, and that you will rest in eternal peace, and that your legacy here in Corazón will be one of kindness, and obedience, and faith.
His throat began to close against the smell, making it difficult to speak. He thought of all the little talks he’d had with the molinero over the years, and the way that he had come away from each one feeling as though life’s little challenges were just jokes, played upon us by someone or something with a magisterial sense of humour. He also remembered the day that he and the old man became friends: Francisco had been a little kid, attracted by the sound of grinding corn, and he’d impishly asked the old man if he could help. Cómo no, the molinero had answered. I’d be glad for the company, hand me that bucket of corn, my goodness you’re strong, how old did you say you were? What? Just seven? My goodness you’re going to grow into an hombre and a half, verdad?
Francisco shuddered, for it seemed like that was just yesterday; the frenzied way in which time passed was as bitter a reality as mortality itself. A darkness invaded his heart. Gazing down at his old friend, Francisco Ramirez understood that there were times when goodness, while a necessity for gaining access to heaven, was also a hindrance in the world foisted upon men and women. With this realization came a further understanding — what the curandera had meant when she’d pointed a warty, crooked finger in his direction and said You’re the one.
He took a deep, shuddering breath and spoke with a stronger voice.
— I will make one other promise to you, my old friend.
He took another breath, this one designed to fight off a mild dizziness.
— Before the week is out, I am going to get the goddamned cabrón who did this to you.
{ 33 }
VIOLETA CRUZ SWUNG SLOWLY IN HER MOTHER’S hammock, savouring the love that every woman feels for her unborn child. She could feel it raging within her, churning in her stomach, simmering in her veins, replacing the marrow of her bones with a burning, mucilaginous lava. It pulsed in every part of her, in the arches of her feet and in the whites of her eyes and in the tender channel existing behind her slender kneecaps. It was a feeling so profound it almost hurt, albeit in places where discomfort feels lovely. Her maternal instincts thus awoken, they now possessed her, and she could not help but think to the time when she’d be raising her child — boy, girl, she didn’t care — on the beneficent side of the river.
She couldn’t wait to tell her bespectacled lover. He’d informed her on many occasions how much he liked children, and how much he wanted to have an entire houseful. He’d also confessed that this had been the main source of friction in his pitiable marriage — his wife’s inability to give him, a four-time recipient of the Compound Operation, a baby. Violeta smiled and felt awed. He did not have to worry any longer. She would do this for him. She would grant him this gift, this miracle, this unabated joy.
Surely he’d be back by now.
Violeta rose and poked her head out her bedroom door. She looked from side to side, and wrinkled her nose at the smell left behind by the homeless who were using the back lane as a lavatory.
— Mami, she called.
She listened, and heard nothing.
— Mami? she called again, her voice louder this time and filled with the wonder of possibility. Again she heard nothing. Her feet danced against the floor. She ducked back inside her room and dressed to please her doctor: long skirt, snug white blouse, a necklace. She brushed her long hair till it gleamed and she pinched the sides of her face with thumb and forefinger, even though pregnancy had left her with a continual flush. She rubbed a paste of crushed sand berries over her lips, leaving them the colour of a sunrise. She did so in a hurry, for she did not know when her mother would return.
Violeta took a single step into the dusty street. Though it was early in the day and the streets gravely quiet, she understood what fate would befall her should she run into an errant mercenary. More of a concern was her mother; she could well imagine how Malfil would react were she to catch her daughter trying to visit the man who had not only deflowered her, but created new life within her. For both reasons, simply waltzing across the bridge separating the two countries was out of the question.
Instead Violeta crept along the rear of the block, past ramadas and chicken coops and torn outdoor hammocks. She emerged in the Callejón of Resting Curs, which at that time of the day was thankfully still. She tiptoed around mangy, flea-bitten dogs, some as tiny as hamsters and some as large as the deer that roamed the plains of Coahuila, careful not to tread on any tails or accidentally kick a sensitive milk-filled teat. Poking her head into Avenida Cinco de Mayo, she hustled to the far side of the street and flattened herself against an adobe wall, her white cotton blouse picking up smears of light blue. After a brief rest, she moved along the laneway in which she was hiding, carefully climbed a wooden fence, traversed a stretch of brambly desert, and arrived at the southern bank of the Río Grande.
She paused, caught her breath, and slipped into the murky, slowly drifting water. The far bank was only a few hundred metres away, a distance she covered by aping the movements of deer who sometimes plunged into the river on afternoons when the heat grew oppressive. She entered the land called el Norte spewing grey water. Breathlessly she crawled onto the bank and lay in full sun, letting her clothes and hair dry enough that they were no longer dripping water. With her clothes still slightly damp, she climbed the bank and found her way to the road leading into Del Rio. It was there she discovered that a beautiful young Mexicana dressed in moist clothing had no trouble catching a ride with one of the Hispanic gardeners who plied that stretch of tarmac in old, coughing pickup trucks.
She was let off in front of the Roswell Hotel. After crossing herself, she lamented the way her wet hair had soaked through the back of her white cotton blouse — she felt like a walking cliché, a slur come alive. No matter; she didn’t have time for such trivialities. As soon as she reached her doctor and told him of her condition, and of the conflict that had broken out in Corazón, he would usher her to his palace and she would start her life as the spouse of a respected American doctor. She straightened, took a deep breath, and walked through the reception area, drawing glances from those who were surprised to see Rose Dawn at such an odd hour. At the elevators she pressed the button for the fifth floor. As she rode upward she was visited by visions of her future, a future that included a riverside mansion and a brood
of beautiful children. She closed her eyes and felt faint; it was too much for a young Mexicana to imagine, let alone experience. The doors opened. She walked quickly, so excited she had to struggle not to break into a run. She reached the outer room of Brinkley’s office, where she was greeted by the doctor’s secretary, a fair-haired woman named Sheila.
— Rose! she said. — How are you? I hear that things are difficult across the river.
— I am good, good. The doctor … is he in?
A puzzled expression came to Sheila’s face.
— Haven’t you heard?
— Haven’t I heard … what?
— I can’t believe no one’s told you yet!
— Sheila, Violeta said, with a note of impatience. — Where is Dr. Brinkley?
— Why … he’s left, Rose. He’s setting up another clinic, this one in a small village back home in North Carolina. He says he’s going to build a recreation centre for underprivileged children. He says it’s his way of helping the place he came from. Mrs. Brinkley is there with him as well. He told me he wouldn’t be back for six to eight months. From now on, his centre of operations will probably be there. Isn’t it wonderful, the way he likes to help people?
Violeta’s world tilted and turned wavy, and the first thing she felt was a strop-honed anger with herself, just for thinking that wonderful things could happen to a simple muchacha from a poor brothel town on the border. Her child would be fatherless now, a squalling little cabrón, Violeta its shamed and stupid mother. She felt tears fighting to escape whatever place produces them.
— Sí, she said, her face draining of colour and warmth. — It is.
She turned and walked out of the room. As she rode the elevator to the first floor, her feelings of self-contempt were replaced by a sudden realization. Of course, she thought. How could I have been so stupid? Often she had noted the way that Sheila looked at the doctor: admiringly, desirously, her eyelids batting the unconscious rhythm of one whose heart has been warmed. This confirmed it — Sheila was in love. Using the intuition granted by God to all women, Sheila had figured out that Violeta had graced the doctor’s art-festooned bedchambers. Brinkley had not left. He wouldn’t have done that. It was all a ruse, a swindle, a dissemination spawned by jealousy. In Violeta’s turbulent mind, the fact that Sheila had uttered this fabrication with such a cheerful smile only added credence to her theory.
Well, thought Violeta. We’ll just see.
With a palpitating heart, Violeta ran out onto the street and found Del Rio’s lone taxi driver, a pot-bellied gringo named Johnson who made a living mostly by taking old ladies on shopping expeditions. He was leaning against the hood of his Ford, drinking a cup of coffee.
— Hello, she said.
— Can I help you, missy?
— I am wishing to visit the house of Dr. Brinkley.
— It’s quite a way.
—Jess, it is.
Johnson thought it over. — It’d cost put-near ten dollars.
— Ten dollars is fine.
Two minutes later Violeta was in the musty back seat of the car, gazing fearfully out the window as they left the town limits. As Johnson drove, she recalled the first time she had visited the doctor’s mansion, and the feeling of airy limitlessness that had possessed her. They passed all the landmarks that Violeta, over the past month and a half, had grown to take for granted: the furrowed grape fields, the old wooden livestock barns, the wavering pasture land, the cypress trees touching over the roadway, the algae-coated swamp. This time she took note of each and every one.
Finally Johnson pulled up in front of the mansion. Violeta looked out, and felt a sickness invade every nook and recess of her being.
— Wait here, she said as she stepped out of the car and gazed up at the darkened house. Noticing that the tall wrought-iron gates were ajar, she walked up the path leading to the front doors of the mansion. She knocked, and knocked again. She then peered through a window into the gloom. All of the furniture was covered with sheets, and where oil canvases had once hung were now large rectangles of bleached wall space. She moved around the house and gazed miserably into the dining room where the doctor had first entertained her with champagne, fine food, and tales of his boyhood. The dining room table was covered as well, and it looked as though someone had yanked the immense crystal chandelier from the ceiling, scattering bits of plaster and dried paint.
Violeta heard footsteps. She turned and saw two men, both dressed in dark suits and wearing sunglasses, come around the corner of the house. As soon as they saw Violeta they paused, only to then quicken their pace. They stopped when they reached her, looking breathless. One was carrying a clipboard and a pen.
— Good day, said the one who had been writing.
— Good day, Violeta answered.
— Tell me, would you know the owner of this house? asked the other.
Violeta hesitated. — I do.
— So you know Dr. Brinkley?
— I just stated that I did.
— Do you know where he happens to be?
Violeta shook her head, and for the next few minutes the two parties eyed each other, as though unsure of what to do next. Finally, the first dark-suited man cleared his throat and said: — Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask if you have any identification.
Violeta’s heartache was immediately supplanted by panic. Though she did not know who these men were, or why they were lurking around the darkened house, she did know one thing. At no point had Brinkley ever arranged a work visa for her, or so much as mentioned the necessity of one, and it occurred to her that this may have been imprudent of him.
—Jess, she said. — I do. It is in the car. I will retrieve it.
She turned, commanding herself to walk as calmly as possible. Upon reaching the taxi, she looked back and saw that the two men were now peering at the upstairs windows, as though trying to glimpse a phantom.
— We will go, Violeta said.
— Who’re them fellers? asked Johnson.
— I said go, Violeta barked, in a way that reminded her of her mother.
Johnson turned and saw the torment in Violeta’s eyes. After studying her for a moment — her skin had reddened and her lips had started trembling — he turned back to face the dashboard and put the car in gear.
As they pulled away from Brinkley’s mansion, Violeta forced herself to enter a cold, distant, emotionless place so that she wouldn’t embarrass herself by dissolving into hysterics. Twenty minutes later, Johnson stopped at the bridge separating the two towns.
— We are no there yet, Violeta protested.
— You kiddin’ me? With all the trouble y’all are having over there? I wouldn’t cross that bridge if my life depended on it. Uh-uh, señorita. End of the line.
She paid the driver with dollars still damp from her swim in the river. She then tipped both guards, though not without telling them what she thought of their low, extorting ways, and how they would not be able to do this in a civilized world, and how one day God would cast a judgement upon them. Upon reaching Mexican soil, she began to run. She ran past starving campesinos and short, squat-shouldered Indians and sleeping, knife-hiding villains. She ran past vagos and borrachos and patrolling White Shirts, who grunted Mamacita! as she hurried by. She ran past Chiclets vendors and grubby-faced children and sellers of Indian corn-husk dolls. She ran past the town hall and she ran past the spireless church and she ran through the dark, dark shadow cast by the tower. She ran past the house of Francisco Ramirez and felt worse, knowing that, had men in black suits come looking for him, he’d have stayed and taken his medicine rather than abandon her. She then burst into her house and ran to her room, wailing.
She cried and she cried, her tears falling through the mesh of her hammock and pooling so prodigiously on the floor beneath her that, after a while, they began to drip through the floorboards, surprising the voles scurrying over the contents of their earth-walled root cellar. This went on for either minutes or hours, Violeta wa
sn’t sure; she knew only that the point came when her eyes dried and she felt overwhelmed by thirst. Still she didn’t get up. The door to her home opened and closed, and hearing this, she wished herself dead.
When Malfil entered her room, Violeta was staring into nothingness. She couldn’t even roll over to avoid the brunt of her mother’s fury.
— Violeta! her mother began, her voice as coiled as always. — What in the name of Jesús is going on?
That is when mother, employing both logic and instinct, came to understand what had happened to her daughter. Malfil’s expression softened, and as it did she looked almost pretty. Her shoulders dropped and her eyes turned moist. She left the room and returned, carrying one of the chairs from the main room. She placed it next to her only daughter. A moment later, Violeta felt her mother’s long, lye-scented fingers running through her hair.
— Your doctor, said Malfil. — He’s gone, verdad?
Violeta’s voice, when it finally came, was a gurgle. — Go ahead and say it, mami. Tell me I’ve been a fool and a tramp.
— Maybe tomorrow.
— You know you want to.
— What I want doesn’t matter, mija. Not at this moment. There was the longest of silences, during which Violeta started to blubber anew.
— Mami, she sputtered. — I feel so ashamed.
— I know.
— I feel so stupid.
Malfil took one of Violeta’s hands and squeezed it. — Men do that to us, amor. They can’t help it. It’s like blaming a dog for scratching at fleas.
Violeta snuffled. Time elapsed. Outside, life carried on, unconcerned by the tribulations of people.
— What am I going to do? Violeta finally asked.
— Today, you do nothing. Tomorrow, we’ll figure this out. Violeta gulped air and sat up, strands of hair sticking to the tears on her face. Malfil raised herself up beside her. Violeta then did something that, just one day ago, she would have thought impossible. She rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, an action that transported her to her days as a young child, the family not yet destroyed by revolution, Malfil relieving the hurt caused by a broken toy.