by J. L. Jarvis
“No!” She tugged harder and he turned and looked down to where her hand dug into his sleeve. She followed his gaze and then loosened her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said, as though addressing the sleeve. Their eyes met. Confused feelings passed over their faces. Lips parted, but neither could speak. It was she who leaned close and broke through his defenses.
“Come with me,” she said, as she led him back down the street to the large limestone house.
“Do you like it so much?”
They stood facing the house, whose dark windows stood out against the light stone, as it caught bits of moonlight against its rough surface.
He said, “It’s a fine looking house.”
“Yes, it is, and it’s mine.”
“Yours?”
“I bought it today. With some of the money tío Felipe left me.”
“It’s…large.”
Ana nodded. “A good size for a school, don’t you think?”
Eduardo stared at the house and then slowly turned toward her. “You’ve talked about starting a school of your own, but—”
“I’ve done it.”
“So you have.” He stared back at the house, for once grasping for words.
Ana grinned.
“But all this?”
“You don’t think I can manage it?”
“No, of course not—I mean, no, that’s not it at all! I am certain you can.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“Have you thought of your daughter?”
“Of course I have thought of Carlotta.”
“It will take so much time.”
“Not if I have help.”
“Good. So you don’t intend to do this alone.”
“Well I can’t hire anybody yet, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then how will you manage? Ana, have you any idea what you’ve taken on here? A school, a large property to run. Maintenance, housekeeping, yard work, and business matters that will need your attention—not to mention the teaching. No single person can possibly do it.”
“You’re right. No single person could.”
“No.”
“But a married person—”
“Exactly. A what?”
“Married person—or a couple…”
“Oh.” He turned toward the house and took a breath as he tamped down his emotions. “Of course I knew that one day—it was bound to happen. I just wasn’t expecting…I didn’t know there was anyone else—anyone. In your life.”
“There isn’t. Eduardo—”
“Don’t play games with me, Ana. We’re well beyond that.” He seemed almost to frown as he took a step back and put more space between them.
“I’m not playing games.” The air was so still and the night was so perfect. Why was it all coming out wrong? “What I’m trying to say is—”
“Yes, I know. You love me. And I know how it must ease your guilt to keep offering me something more than friendship but less than love. And while I’m pleased to provide such a service for you, I must tell you—from my point of view—”
She grabbed hold of his shoulders and blurted out, “But I do love you. That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Her voice softened. “But that’s not quite how I wanted to say it.”
He did not move. She had his attention.
Ana loosened her grip on his shoulders and rested her palms on his chest. She said softly, “I am in love with you.”
He met her gaze, but did not seem to have heard her.
“I’m in love with you,” she insisted, with luminous eyes.
His intense look seized her heart.
“Is it too late?” asked Ana.
“Ana…”
Her warm breath met his lips as he kissed her, and held her and whispered, “Are you sure? Do you want me to love you?”
“Yes. And…I was hoping you might marry me.”
They walked hand in hand down the block to the bookstore, where Eduardo lived and worked. Above the large room where the newspaper was printed was Eduardo’s small room.
Eduardo paused before unlocking the door. “Are you sure about this?” said Eduardo.
Ana smiled and said, “Yes—unless you think I’m rushing things.”
Eduardo looked at her sideways. “But your daughter—”
“Carlotta’s spending the night at Lupe’s. It’s a great treat for her to stay there overnight. She loves having all those children to play with.”
Ana grew distant and quiet.
“What is it?”
“I was thinking about us—as a family. She’ll learn what it is to have a father. She never knew hers.”
“But I did, and I’ll tell her.”
Her eyes misted.
He said, “I miss him, too.”
For so many years Eduardo had looked in her eyes through a distance so great it sometimes ached even to see her. Now they stood together. The past was around them, but they were together. He recalled Carlos riding fearlessly through the vast desert, strong and alive, and far in the distance. He would always be with them, but no longer between. Now it was their time together.
“I love you,” he said, as he lifted her hand to his lips. “Ana, you’re trembling.”
“I’m nervous.”
His voice was steady and low. “Look at me.” He did not touch or cajole her. He waited. She lifted her eyes to meet his, and his look was so sure and so gentle.
His voice sounded so tender, it made her heart sigh. “I can take you home now.”
Ana lifted her eyes to meet his directly. “No.”
“Are you sure? Because once we walk through that door, I may not show such restraint.” He was grinning.
“Unlock the door.”
With one arm around Ana, he opened the door. It was dark.
“Wait. I’ll turn the light on.” He reached for the string and pulled.
Ana started to gasp as he pulled the light string. A beefy-armed man grabbed Ana from behind as she looked with stunned eyes over the rough hand that covered her mouth. Another man pointed a gun at Eduardo.
“Texas Rangers,” he said.
Eduardo looked at the gun, and at Ana, and raised his hands. In the corner, for the first time, he spotted Paolo, bound and gagged. Minutes later, Eduardo and Ana sat with him, tied to chairs while the three Texas Rangers took sledge hammers to the printing machines, desks, and leather bound books.
They were untied, except for their hands, and led to the door. They were under arrest, said the one giving orders.
“On what charges?” asked Eduardo.
“Sedition.”
“Come on. Let’s go now,” said the ranger guarding Paolo.
They walked outside, where a police wagon waited to take them to the jail. Neighbors watched with tight lips and sharp eyes. The ride was not long.
“May I please see the warrant?” asked Eduardo.
“You are charged with using the United States mails to incite murder, arson, and treason.”
Eduardo mumbled to Paolo in Spanish.
The guard said, “Hey, what are y’all saying? Speak English.”
Eduardo looked at the guard calmly and said, “I told him your charges are bullshit.”
The next morning, Ana sat in the hall in an old wooden chair that creaked when she shifted her weight, and she waited. A guard sat not far away, his chin forming an arc to his barrel chest.
Why Eduardo? What could he have said to bring down the wrath of the U.S. government? He lived here peaceably, and wrote mostly against the Mexican government. She knew that the bookstore and print shop where he lived and worked was a front for a branch of the PLM. But the secrecy was to protect them from Mexican authorities—not from the U.S. government. They raised money and did God knew what else, but Eduardo’s involvement centered on the newspaper, which he wrote and edited, and then smuggled over the border to distribute in Mexico. In it, he had voiced opposition to the war in Europe. But those were words. How could free speech be suffi
cient to deny a man freedom?
Eduardo had voiced opposition to the Huerta regime. He had written articles defending Pancho Villa’s actions. While she held no affection for Villa, Eduardo was right about one thing: he remembered his people. But perhaps people were too low a concern for a man like President Wilson to see from the White House.
Ana thought of the dangerous men who roamed the borderlands, and yet they chose Eduardo to arrest. His ideas posed no real threat to the U.S.—unless it sought to control the politics of its neighboring nation. The offshoots of Eduardo’s ideas could upset that balance. Even so, how could Eduardo’s newspaper be any more than a minor annoyance?
Perhaps the U.S. sought simply to buttress the bridge of diplomacy between the two countries by helping Mexican authorities. It could pay off later, and the cost now was low—merely Eduardo’s liberty. And so, it seemed to Ana, freedom of speech was a privilege one could have only so long as one did not exercise it.
A guard approached and beckoned Ana to follow him to a small room with no windows. A large table sat in the center. Three chairs were scattered and facing in different directions. Ana sat and waited alone. The room smelled of stone and disinfectant. A few minutes later, feet shuffled outside the closed door.
Eduardo was brought in and directed to sit. One guard stayed inside, while the other left. The key turned in the lock.
Ana leaned over the table and grasped Eduardo’s cuffed hands, marred by bruises and cuts. She looked up at his eyes, but the sharp look he gave warned her not to comment.
Eduardo got up. The guard stepped forward. “I just want to sit near her.” He came around to Ana’s side of the table and pulled his chair close to hers. He lifted his hands to her face and leaned closer. His lips touched her cheek. They kept their heads close together.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“They released me this morning. I don’t understand. Why are they keeping you here?”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her. His lips brushed her cheek as he whispered, “He speaks Spanish. We cannot talk freely.”
Ana glanced toward the guard, but Eduardo pulled her closer and stroked her hair with his fingers. He whispered more.
“Don’t worry.” The guard shifted his weight and continued to watch. Eduardo put his hand on Ana’s shoulder and guided her head to the curve of his neck. She breathed the warm scent.
He pressed soft lips to her forehead. “I won’t be here long. I’ve got a wedding to go to.”
“I don’t understand. It’s a newspaper. Words.”
“I knew what I was risking.”
“It’s not right.”
“And they’ll realize it soon.”
She had little faith in his assurances, given the context.
“Ana? I’ll be fine.”
“Not while you’re here.”
Eduardo’s cuffed hands kept him from pulling her into his arms. Instead he pulled her close and held fast.
“Time’s up,” said the guard. “Ma’am, you’ll have to wait here while we take the prisoner.”
Chapter 27
One Year Later
Hot, soupy air dampened the courthouse window. A door opened. Ana first saw Paolo, then Eduardo. Their eyes locked. He was led to the familiar table in front of her. Over the rail she reached out to touch him on the shoulder. The next minutes were a blur of muffled words except for one. The word “guilty” sank to her heart. The air leaked from her lungs but she could not breathe in. She grabbed hold of the rail. “…ten years…Leavenworth….”
He turned around and she reached for him as he pulled her close with strong arms.
“No,” she murmured.
“Don’t wait for me, Ana,” he whispered into her hair.
As they took him away, she was barely aware of Lupe beside her, with her arms around Ana’s shoulders. “This is wrong.”
It was not wrong under the law. Eduardo had been tried and found guilty of using the mails to incite murder, arson, and treason—a federal offense under the Alien and Sedition Act. Now he would go to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas.
“For words,” said Ana.
“Let’s go,” said Lupe as she took a step into the emptying aisle.
Ana followed mechanically. “When did freedom of speech become a crime?”
“When they wrote a law that made it a crime,” said Lupe.
“It was supposed to be better here.”
My dear Ana,
How can I tell you how sorry I am for the pain that my being here causes? I have hurt you. Forgive me. I know as I write this that you are too kind and good not to do so. I know, too, the great price you have paid. I am plagued with regret as I think of the ways I could have spared you all this.
Your letters bring me such joy. I will write when I can, but they let me write only two letters per week, and that includes correspondence with my attorney. He talks of appeals, but I hold out little hope. I am a dreamer, it is true, but I am not a fool. Your love gives me courage, and I thank you for that. Let my love give you courage to let go. We will always have love, my sweet friend, but we cannot have each other.
You have so much life yet to live. I am happy to think of you as you live each day in significant ways: as you teach, brush your daughter’s hair, or walk down the street on a cool autumn day. Do not walk alone.
Give Carlotta a hug from her Tío Eduardo…
He finished the letter and looked up at the wall of his cell through eyes swollen from beatings for being a greaser, a red, or for no reason at all. It was prison. What other reason did they need? New rules applied. A bar of soap was now a weapon when saved, melted into a ball, and stuffed in a sock. His face bore the proof.
Eduardo pieced together a photograph of Ana, which he had found on the floor by the toilet all torn into pieces. He hardened his face. He would not be seen crying.
Chapter 28
Two Years Later
Ana stood in a room of the large limestone house, with a class full of Mexican children, her daughter, Carlotta, among them.
“Very good! Now in English, so when they hear our voice they will know what we say. Ready?” She lifted and lowered her chin. They began.
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands one nation invisible—“
Ana said, “Indivisible.”
“Maestra, what does it mean?”
“Indivisible means that the nation cannot be divided.”
“But we are,” said a boy from the back of the room.
Ana regarded the boy while she framed a response, but the child went on simply, “Like the signs—No Dogs, No Negroes, No Mexicans—at the stores and the swimming pool and the trains and the restaurants and the barber shops—like that.”
“Yes, like that.” Ana paused for a moment to think of an answer. She gazed outside the window. A faint trail of smoke rose in puffs past the train station. The black smoke ballooned upward and dissolved in blue sky. “Perhaps these words are a goal, a dream for our future.”
The boy squinted, unconvinced.
“Now, where were we? Ah, yes. One nation—”
The children joined in.
“—indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
They completed the recitation with wide eyes and untroubled faces. Their hope gripped her heart. With a smile, she dismissed them for the day. Some tumbled out of the room in an instant, while others gathered their things and followed in their own time. Ana turned to erase the black chalkboard. A shadow crossed over it.
She turned to see who blocked her light.
“Hello, Ana.”
In the doorway stood Eduardo, his hat in his hands. His tan suit was rumpled.
Ana trembled as she walked. He met her halfway, his arms open.
“How?” she whispered, studying his face to convince herself this was real.
“I was pardoned. By President Harding,” he added, still not quite able to believe it himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did not want to give you false hope. I didn’t believe it myself until it happened.”
She leaned away just enough to touch his face with wonder. “It’s over?”
He nodded. His face had grown weary and wise, but behind wire-rimmed glasses his gentle eyes glimmered. Dark, salted curls fell in disarray over his creased brow.
“Tío Eduardo!” Carlotta rushed in. He stooped just in time to catch her and pull her up into his arms.
“You remember me?”
“Mami showed me your picture.”
He set her down and straightened the long strands of black hair that draped over her shoulders. “Did she? My, what a lovely young lady you are.”
Carlotta smiled demurely, then looked to her mother.
“Mami?” said Carlotta with timid respect.
Ana was startled from her thoughts.
“Are you okay?”
With a small laugh, Ana said, “Yes. Why don’t you go outside and play for a while?”
Carlotta’s dark eyes flashed as she started to frown. Ana gave her a look. With one last glare, Carlotta looked down and left.
“She looks like him,” said Eduardo.
“She’s strong and stubborn like him, too,” Ana said with a laugh.
His lips widened, hinting at a smile. He was not the same man who’d appeared at her doorstep a decade ago. There were small things. His shoulders were broader. Threads of gray lightened his dark tousled curls, but his eyes were different. The bright zeal of his youth had given way to forbearance. Yet the passion was there, not completely obscured by his years of confinement.
“What will you do?”
“It depends. Some friends in Canada have asked me to join them.”
“It’s so far!”
“I can write anywhere.”
“I know. I just thought…I don’t know what I thought.”
He studied her as he quietly said, “I didn’t say I was going.”
“Don’t,” she suddenly urged. Then softly she repeated it. “Don’t.”
“It’s been so long. I wasn’t sure.”
He took hold of her hands, studying them. “You’re not married?”