The Five Acts of Diego Leon

by Alex Espinoza

  “There you are!” Elva said, approaching Diego and Luis. “The others are changing now. Come quickly. They’re about to start. Where’s your mask?”

  He reached into his bag and brought it out. The mask was an ugly thing, he still thought. It looked sinister, its wood-carved skin ravaged, weathered. It appeared to mock him. Father Solís emerged from the church and walked over, gathering the other boys and Gonzalo together as the crowd made space in the center for them.

  “Very good,” he said, clapping his hands. He helped the others adjust their outfits and straighten their shawls. “Elva,” he whispered. “Help the boy with his mask.”

  “Here,” said Elva, turning to Diego. “Let me.” She took the mask and placed it over his face. He felt her hands reach around back, tie the twine together, securing it. She smelled like corn and smoke, and he wondered if this was what his mother had smelled like before God called her up to the clouds. He saw through the mask’s slits that Elva was pointing off in the distance at something.

  “Look,” she said. “Look.”

  At the edge of the courtyard, his father was leaning up against the wall, smoking a pipe. Just as he was about to run to him, Father Solís grabbed Diego by the shoulders and placed him alongside the other boys who were already lined up as Gonzalo began to play. Diego’s breathing quickened. It was uncomfortable and hot underneath the mask. He felt his forehead dampen and his cheeks itch. His heart beat faster and faster as he began to dance, and he imagined it swelling up, threatening to burst forth from his chest. His palms moistened, making it difficult to grip the cane.

  They took small steps, forward then back, their leather huaraches squeaking over Gonzalo’s violin. The crowd gathered around them, laughing and clapping. He concentrated on their cheers, and when he imagined his father joining in, smiling and waving, the fear vanished. But will he know which one I am? he wondered. My face, it’s hidden behind this mask. How will he know me? Will he see me?

  He looked out onto that world now, and the things he knew transformed before his eyes. And the sun shone brighter, striking the crowd gathered there in such a way that they glowed, and Diego wondered if he was seeing their souls inside their bodies. The edges of their shabby homes and the sagging columns and the crooked street seemed to soften, straighten, and expand. Everything was reaching out, fighting to be noticed, and he felt the same way. He stepped farther out, toward the front of the crowd, so close to the group that several of them reached out to touch him. One of the other boys tried pulling him back, but Diego was too quick. Then someone, a lady carrying a bag woven from straw shouted, “Let him. Can’t you see that he just wants to dance?”

  He moved farther still, into the mass of people, which gradually parted for him. He improvised, shuffling his feet in a different way, swinging the cane up in the air. The more he moved, the louder the crowd cheered him on, the more they applauded, and the happier he felt. Surely his father was noticing him now, Diego knew. He weaved in and out, circling around their legs, around a goat with dirty white fur standing next to a young girl. The crowd continued to cheer and a woman took him by the hand so they could do a little dance. But just as they began, Mateo Avila stepped into the clearing and chased Diego around until he was back where the others stood, no longer dancing, but watching the spectacle. They had removed their masks and were glaring at Diego.

  “Very good,” Father Solís said to the boys once they finished the performance and the crowd dispersed. “Especially you, Diego.”

  The other boys watched him now, fists balled, mouths puckered, eyes glaring at him.

  “Thank you, Father,” he said. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  A week after the Feast of San Antonio, Diego stood outside, boiling gristle and meat from a slaughtered goat. They would use the animal fat to make candles and soap. Diego watched the pot, the pink chunks of flesh swirling inside, stirring it with a wooden spoon. It was always best, he knew, to boil this outside because of the smell.

  His father walked over and sat a few feet away, in the bright afternoon sun, watching Diego. The scar across his face seemed deeper, darker, and more intense than when Diego saw him the day he returned with Luis.

  “I know I haven’t been myself. Ever since I came back,” his father said.

  Diego stayed silent.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know how I’m supposed to raise you on my own.”

  Diego slowed his stirring and focused on his father’s words, on the body of that mutilated animal.

  “I left for the city then ran off to fight in the revolution because I thought I could change my destino.” His father sighed and looked around. “I thought I could make something of myself. I thought I could become someone important. I sought my fortune in Morelia and failed. I brought your mother back and we had you. I followed the revolutionaries because I believed in their cause. It turned out to be a lie.” He laughed. “Then I come back to find that your mother is dead. I try and try, and I can never change any of it. Why can’t I?” Gabriel approached, crouching next to Diego.

  And he wanted to love him, to understand him, this man called his father. Diego watched him now, and Gabriel began to cry. He said there was nothing else he could do, that there was nothing left to seek, that this would be his life.

  “You’ll die here if you stay,” he said. “Just like I will. Just like all the Leóns have. Your mother would have wanted more for you. I want more for you.” He rose, stiffened his shoulders, and cleared his throat as he wiped his tears away. “This isn’t the place for a boy like you. I’ll send you to the city. To live with your grandparents. I have no other choice.”

  “But why?” he asked him. “Why are you doing this?” Diego stopped stirring and let go of the spoon. It fell to the ground, and he stepped away from the colander.

  “Because you won’t survive this life if you remain here. I want you to make something of yourself. I can’t do anything else for you. I don’t have the means. But they do.”

  Gabriel took the boy by the hand and led him back inside. He took a pickax and walked over to the spot on the ground where he slept. He dug and dug until he unearthed a tin box. Diego watched him reach in and pull out a roll of money and a stack of papers.

  “Here,” his father said. “This is a letter your grandmother wrote to your mother.” He placed the envelope in Diego’s hands. “I don’t know what it says, but it has her address on it.”

  He told Diego to tell them who he was: their daughter’s son. Make them know you, he said. Make them know us.

  A few days later in the church, Diego knelt before the statue of Christ crucified. Elva lit a glass votive and arranged it in the candelabra among the others. Soon he would be leaving on the afternoon train to Morelia; he was nervous and Elva told him to say a prayer.

  He hadn’t said good-bye to his father; Gabriel had risen early that morning and left for the field. In truth, it was better this way, he thought. What would he say to him anyway? The man had made it clear: he couldn’t be Diego’s father and didn’t want him around anymore.

  “I’m a burden,” Diego said to Elva. “That’s why he’s sending me away. Because I’m a burden and he doesn’t love me.”

  “That’s not true,” Elva said. The church was drafty, so she wrapped her shawl tighter around herself. “Deep inside, he does. You can’t feel it. Like God’s love. Your mother’s. But just because you can’t feel something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  “I don’t want to go,” he said. “I want to stay here with you.”

  Elva put her arms around him. “I’m not long for this world. I’ll be going soon. Your father will be fine. Your mother will always be with you, too, guiding you.”

  “Will I ever see you again?” he asked.

  “Of course you will,” she said. “If not here, somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “Back there. At the beginning and the end of all things,” the old woman said.

  Diego looked up at Christ, feet nailed
to the cross, a flimsy cloth made from the leather hide tied around his waist. He saw the figure’s rib cage, each bone a narrow strip, one on top of the other like rungs on a ladder leading up to his hollow chest, his neck, then to his face, which wore the weight of sin and despair and agony. There were the gaunt cheeks, the desiccated skin, the plaster thorns of his crown piercing fake flesh. He was only a thin strip of flesh, naked, so hard to reach. He could appear as anyone, anything, Elva said—a cloud of smoke, the petals on a flower, an insect, a stray dog, a white dove, a bearded old man. Don’t let the image on the cross fool you, she told him. God is everywhere. God sees everything. God is everyone, and everyone is God.

  “You go now. But you’ll be back,” Elva assured him. “Maybe a little different. A little changed. But you’ll come home again.”

  ACT II

  1.

  Morelia, Michoacán

  June 1917

  DIEGO WATCHED THE COUNTRYSIDE UNFOLD OUTSIDE AS THE train traveled down the tracks. There were endless green fields with tall grass unfurling in the breeze, humps of oxen grazing in the distance, and rows of tiny shacks and houses clustered together. He wondered if he would ever see it again. His father and his father’s fathers had been born and raised in San Antonio de la Fe. They never knew another place. For as long as anyone could remember, Elva once told him, the Leóns had lived in San Antonio, had forever been tied to the land. It would end, though, with him.

  Most of the other passengers slept, waking when the train arrived at the station. They rose and collected their things, stretching, rubbing their eyes. Diego looked at the people outside—the men in their suits and ties and hats, the ladies in dresses and jackets, the boys on the corners selling toys and wooden whistles.

  “This is Morelia?” someone asked.

  “Yes, it is,” another responded. “Finally.”

  Diego stepped off the train and followed the crowds. There were people everywhere, jumbling and bustling about, hailing taxis or boarding trolley cars that coasted by on rail tracks threading throughout the avenues. Diego walked cautiously, clutching his valise. He followed a crooked alleyway with houses squeezed together, flanking either side. It wound upward and, hoping to get a better view of the city, Diego climbed to the crest. He soon found himself atop a low rise with all of the city of Morelia below. In the distance, the cathedral’s twin bell towers rose up into the sky. Somewhere among it—the old buildings with their elegant arches and graceful columns, the large homes, unlike any he had seen before, the expansive and shaded plazas—lived his grandmother and grandfather. Diego trembled, afraid he’d never find them. He clutched the valise and walked down the hill, cautious. The people he passed looked at him with suspicion. Maybe they thought he was a beggar, because a few of them held pesos out to him. After he accepted one, a police officer strolling by walked over and told Diego that, if he was to beg, to please do so around the corner, in front of the church, where the rest of the city’s vagrants were permitted by the municipal authorities to gather and solicit money.

  “But I’m not a beggar,” Diego explained. He handed the officer the letter his father had given him. He pointed to the address. “There,” he said. “I need to go there.”

  The officer squinted, trying to make out what was written on the envelope. He shook his head. “I know this address,” he said. “This is the home of Licenciado Sánchez. Licenciado Doroteo Sánchez. What kind of business does a dirty peasant like you have with him?”

  “He’s my grandfather.”

  “He’s your grandfather?” The police officer laughed.

  “Please, I’m telling the truth. Will you help me?”

  The police officer sighed. “Very well,” he said, handing him the letter. “It’s not that far. I’ll escort you.” The officer reached out and snatched the peso Diego had been given. “For my troubles,” he said.

  Verdant laurels and ash trees lined the sidewalks, providing shade from the hot sun and perfuming the air. The police officer led him through a park with stone trails and bandstands, down streets where shops sold extravagant gowns and suits and ties. There was the constant rush of trolley cars and the clopping of horses’ hooves. Diego saw bars, a few houses where women in tight dresses leaned in the doorways or waved at passersby through opened windows. There were dance halls, rooms full of games, restaurants, and large hotels. The women paraded by in fancy hats and dresses, the men in striped plus fours and silk spats over their shoes, well shaven and groomed, nothing at all like the men of the countryside, Diego thought, nothing at all like his father. The city was noisy with movement; people boarding trolleys, darting across the crowded avenues, avoiding honks and shouts, and screeching tires. Finally, they turned down a quiet street where there were many two-story houses made of plaster and adorned with iron and glass.

  “Here you are,” said the officer, stopping before a white house set toward the back of the plot, away from the sidewalk. “Go on.”

  In front of the house, giant clay pots held plants and flowers of vibrant colors and strong smells—hibiscus bushes, bougainvillea vines, roses and lilies. A stone fountain trickled water, and a sundial sat on a large table, casting shadows near the imposing front door. He took a deep breath before knocking, and soon there came the sound of footsteps from the other side. The locks were unfastened, and the hinges groaned as they squeaked open. The woman was older, her gray hair pulled back tightly in a bun. She wore dark clothing—a sweater, a long blue dress, thick stockings, and black shoes with low, wide heels. She looked sad, lost, far away.

  “Yes?” she responded, eyeing Diego curiously. “What do you need? Quickly. State your business. I haven’t got all day.”

  He remained silent, unable to speak; he was so panicked.

  “Are you looking for charity?” She gripped the door’s handle. “Speak, or I’ll notify the police.”

  “No,” Diego managed to say.

  “Go away. Just go away and take your begging somewhere else. We haven’t got anything here for the likes of you.”

  Diego’s voice quivered when he spoke. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” She sighed now, folded her arms. “Well?”

  Finally, he spoke again. “Grandmother?” he asked. “Are you my grandmother?”

  “What did you say? What did you call me?”

  “Are you the mother of my mother, Amalia León?”

  “Amalia.” She whispered it as though it were a name she hadn’t heard in a long time. She gripped the gold crucifix around her neck. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Diego. Amalia’s son.” He handed her the envelope.

  She looked at it then reached out to him. The woman cupped her palm underneath his chin and regarded him, as if he were not at all a person but a thing. Then she pulled her hand back, straightened her shoulders, and cleared her throat.

  “And your father? Something must have happened. Is he dead?”

  Diego lowered his head. “No,” he said. “But he sent me away. He told me to come here. He said he couldn’t take care of me.”

  The old woman shook her head. “Very well,” she said. “Come along inside. I don’t want the neighbors thinking we’re taking in vagrants.” She led him through the door. “Quickly. Quickly.”

  Inside, the house was vast. The tile floors shone brightly in the afternoon sun. The living room was filled with clay pots, couches with pillows, and sitting chairs with intricate scrolls and designs etched into their finely polished and fragrant wooden backs. A thick tapestry hung from a long metal rod on the wall alongside an oil painting of a young man wearing a suit of armor. A collection of antique pocket watches and magnifying glasses were arranged in locked cabinets. Glass figurines covered the top of a credenza made of dark wood with iron inlays. When the grandmother had him sit down, Diego couldn’t believe how soft the cushion beneath him felt, and he had to fight the urge to let himself go and fall asleep. The grandmother ordered a servant to bring him a glass of warm milk and two slices of sweet bre
ad and roasted almonds that she carried in on a silver tray. Diego ate, swallowing the milk in deep and long gulps.

  “Slowly,” she said, her voice tense. “Slowly.” She took a seat across from him, in a chair with a high back. She sat erect, her hands folded neatly on her lap. “Diego?” she asked. “You say your name’s Diego?”

  He put the milk down. “Yes.”

  “Wipe your mouth before you speak.” She gestured at a lace handkerchief before him.

  He dabbed his lips with it then passed it back. “Thank—”

  “No,” she interrupted. She waved a hand at him, flinging her thin wrist, the bones beneath her skin jagged. “Keep the thing. I don’t want it back. How old are you?”

  “Eleven. What … what should I call you? Grandmother?”

  “Doña Julia. Call me Doña Julia.” Her face was gaunt, the flesh pulled taut over her sharp cheekbones. Her mouth was small, the lips very dry and pale. Her eyes were two dark brown pits that seemed to devour all light, and Diego found he couldn’t look directly into them. They were crowned by a pair of uneven and bright white brows that rested—very heavy and sagging uncomfortably—along loose and flaccid ridges of skin.

  “Doña Julia?” Diego asked. “Can you tell me about my mother when she was younger?”

  “She was very pretty.” His grandmother rose and walked over to a wooden secretary. She pulled the front drawer out and removed a photograph in a pewter frame that was heavy when she placed it in his hand. “Here she is. It was taken her last year of school,” his grandmother said, her voice tender, her eyes filling with tears. He saw her smile when she placed the photograph before him.

  It was hard for Diego to believe that this woman in a white dress with ruffles along the neckline, pearl earrings dangling from her earlobes like small drops of milk, was his mother. In the photo, she neither smiled nor frowned. She was beautiful in a way that would forever be difficult for him to describe. His grandmother took it from him, walked back to the secretary, and placed the photograph inside. From another drawer, she removed a telegram.