The waiter came over and helped him with his coat and held the chair. They spoke briefly and the waiter nodded and smiled at the girl and carried away the maestro's coat and hung it up. The girl turned slightly in her chair and looked at John Grady.
C-mo est++s? she said.
Bien. Y toe?
Bien, gracias.
The blind man had tilted archly in his chair listening. Good evening, he said. Will you join us please?
Thank you. Yes. I would like to.
Then you must.
He pushed back his chair and rose. The maestro smiled at his approach and held out his hand into the darkness.
How are you?
Fine, thank you.
The blind man spoke to the girl in Spanish. He shook his head. Mar'a is shy, he said. Por quZ no hablas inglZs con nuestro amigo? You see. She will not. It is of no use. Where is the waiter? What will you have please?
The waiter brought the drinks and the maestro ordered for his guest. He put his hand on the girl's arm for her to wait till all were served. When the waiter had gone he turned. Now, he said. What has happened?
I asked her to marry me.
She has refused? Tell me.
No. She accepted.
But so solemn. You gave us a scare.
The girl rolled up her eyes and looked away. John Grady had no idea what it meant.
I came to ask you a favor.
Of course, said the maestro. By all means.
She has no family. No sponsor. I would like for you to be her padrino.
Ah, said the maestro. He put his folded hands to his chin and then placed them on the table again. They waited.
I am honored of course. But this is a serious matter. You understand.
Yes. I understand.
You will be living in America.
Yes.
America, the maestro said. Yes.
They sat. The blind man in his silence was twice silent. Even the three musicians in the corner were watching him. They could not hear what he was saying but they seemed to be waiting also for him to continue.
The office of the padrino is not a mere ceremony, he said. It is not some gesture of kinship or some way to bind friends.
Yes. I understand.
It is a serious matter and it is no insult that a man should refuse to accept it if his reasons are honorable.
Yessir.
One needs to be logical in these matters.
The maestro raised one hand before him and spread his fingers and he held it there. Like an evocation perhaps, or a gesture of fending away. Had he not been blind he would simply have been studying his nails. My health is poor, he said. But
even were that not so this girl will be making a new life and she should have counsel in her new country. Dont you think this would be best?
I dont know. I feel like she needs all the help she can get.
Yes. Of course.
Is it because of your sight?
The blind man lowered his hand. No, he said. It is not a matter of sight.
He waited for the blind man to continue but he did not.
Is there something you cant say in front of the girl?
The girl? said the maestro. He smiled his blind smile, he shook his head. Oh my, he said. No no. We have no secrets. An old blind father with secrets? No, that would never do.
We dont have padrinos in America, John Grady said.
The waiter came and set John Grady's drink in front of him and the maestro thanked the waiter and slid his fingers across the wood of the table until they touched his own glass.
I drink to the boda, he said.
Gracias.
They drank. The girl bent down the straw in her bottle of refresco and leaned and sipped.
If a person could be found, said the maestro, of intelligence and heart, then perhaps the office could be explained to him. What do you think?
I think you are that person.
The blind man sipped his wine and set the glass back in the very ring upon the table it had vacated and folded his hands in thought.
Let me say this to you, he said.
Yessir.
In a matter such as this, once one is asked he is already responsible. Even should he refuse.
I'm just thinking about her.
I too.
She doesnt have anyone else. She has no friends.
But the padrino does not need to be a friend.
He has to be something.
He has to be a man of character who is willing to undertake certain duties. That is all. He could be a friend or not. He could be a rival from another house. He could be one to reunite families distanced by intrigue or bad blood or politics. You understand. He could be one with little connection to the family even. He could even be an enemy.
An enemy?
Yes. I know of such a case. In this very city.
Why would a man want an enemy for a padrino?
For the best of reasons. Or the worst. This man of whom we speak was a dying man when his lastborn came into the world. A son. His only son. So what did he do? He called upon that man who once had been a friend to him but now was his sworn enemy and he asked that man to be padrino to his son. The man refused of course. What? Are you mad? He must have been surprised. It had been years since last they spoke and their enemistad was a deep and bitter thing. Perhaps they had become enemies for the same reason they had once been friends. Which often happens in the world. But this man persisted. And he had thehow do you sayel naipe? En su manga.
The ace.
Yes. The ace up his sleeve. He told his enemy that he was dying. There was the naipe. Upon the table. The man could not refuse. All choosing was taken from his hands.
The blind man raised one hand into the smoky air in a thin upward slicing motion. Now comes the talk, he said. No end to it. Some say that the dying man wished to mend their friendship. Others that he had done this man some great injustice and wished to make amends before leaving this world forever. Others said other things. There is more than meets the eye. I say this: This man who was dying was not a man given to sentimentality. He also had lost friends to death. He was not a man given to illusions. He knew that those things we most desire to hold in our hearts are often taken from us while that which we would put away seems often by that very wish to become endowed with unsuspected powers of endurance. He knew how frail is the memory of loved ones. How we close our eyes and speak to them. How we long to hear their voices once again, and how those voices and those memories grow faint and faint until what was flesh and blood is no more than echo and shadow. In the end perhaps not even that.
He knew that our enemies by contrast seem always with us. The greater our hatred the more persistent the memory of them so that a truly terrible enemy becomes deathless. So that the man who has done you great injury or injustice makes himself a guest in your house forever. Perhaps only forgiveness can dislodge him.
Such then was this man's thinking. If we may believe the best of him. To bind the padrino to his cause with the strongest bonds he knew. And there was more. For in this appointment he also posted the world as his sentinel. The duties of a friend would come under no great scrutiny. But an enemy? You can see how nicely he has caught him in the net he has contrived. For this enemy was in fact a man of conscience. A worthy enemy. And this enemypadrino now must carry the dying man in his heart forever. Must suffer the eyes of the world eternally on him. Such a man can scarce be said to author any longer his own path.
The father dies as die he must. The enemy become padrino now becomes the father of the child. The world is watching. It stands in for the dead man. Who by his audacity has pressed it into his service. For the world does have a conscience, however men dispute it. And while that conscience may be thought of as the sum of consciences of men there is another view, which is that it may stand alone and each man's share be but some small imperfect part of it. The man who died favored this view. As I do myself. Men may believe the world to bewhat is the word? Vol
uble.
Fickle.
Fickle? I dont know. Voluble then. But the world is not voluble. The world is always the same. The man appointed the world as his witness that he might secure his enemy to his service. That this enemy would be faithful to his duties. That is what he did. Or that was my belief. At times I believe it yet.
How did it turn out?
Quite strangely.
The blind man reached for his glass. He drank and held the glass before him as if studying it and then he set it on the table before him once again.
Quite strangely. For the circumstance of his appointment came to elevate this man's padrinazgo to the central role of his life. It brought out what was best in him. More than best. Virtues long neglected began almost at once to blossom forth. He abandoned every vice. He even began to attend Mass. His new office seemed to have called forth from the deepest parts of his character honor and loyalty and courage and devotion. What he gained can scarcely be put into words. Who would have foreseen such a thing?
What happened? said John Grady.
The blind man smiled his pained blind smile. You smell the rat, he said.
Yes.
Quite so. It was no happy ending. Perhaps there is a moral to the tale. Perhaps not. I leave it to you.
What happened?
This man whose life was changed forever by the dying request of his enemy was ultimately ruined. The child became his life. More than his life. To say that he doted upon the child says nothing. And yet all turned out badly. Again, I believe that the intentions of the dying man were for the best. But there is another view. It would not be the first time that a father sacrificed a son.
The godchild grew up wild and restless. He became a criminal. A petty thief. A gambler. And other things. Finally, in the winter of nineteen and seven, in the town of Ojinaga, he killed a man. He was nineteen years of age. Close to your own, perhaps.
The same.
Yes. Perhaps this was his destiny. Perhaps no padrino could have saved him from himself. No father. The padrino squandered all he owned in bribes and fees. To no avail. Such a road once undertaken has no end and he died alone and poor. He was never bitter. He scarcely seemed even to consider whether he had been betrayed. He once had been a strong and even a ruthless man, but love makes men foolish. I speak as a victim myself. We are taken out of our own care and it then remains to be seen only if fate will show to us some share of mercy. Or little. Or none.
Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast and endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in that maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life. If the dead man could have forgiven his enemy for whatever wrong was done to him all would have been otherwise. Did the son set out to avenge his father? Did the dead man sacrifice his son? Our plans are predicated upon a future unknown to us. The world takes its form hourly by a weighing of things at hand, and while we may seek to puzzle out that form we have no way to do so. We have only God's law, and the wisdom to follow it if we will.
The maestro leaned forward and composed his hands before him. The wineglass stood empty and he took it up. Those who cannot see, he said, must rely upon what has gone before. If I do not wish to appear so foolish as to drink from an empty glass I must remember whether I have drained it or not. This man who became padrino. I speak of him as if he died old but he did not. He was younger than I am now. I speak as if his conscience or the world's eyes or both led him to such rigor in his duties. But those considerations quickly fell to nothing. It was for love of the child that he came to grief, if grief it was. What do you make of that?
I dont know.
Nor I. I only know that every act which has no heart will be found out in the end. Every gesture.
They sat in silence. The room was quiet about them. John Grady watched the water beading upon his glass where it sat untouched before him. The blind man set his own glass back upon the table and pushed it from him.
How well do you love this girl?
I would die for her.
The alcahuete is in love with her.
Tiburcio?
No. The grand alcahuete.
Eduardo.
Yes.
They sat quietly. In the outer hall the musicians had arrived and were assembling their instruments. John Grady sat staring at the floor. After a while he looked up.
Can the old woman be trusted?
La Tuerta?
Yes.
Oh my, said the blind man softly.
The old woman tells her that she will be married.
The old woman is Tiburcio's mother.
John Grady leaned back in his chair. He sat very quietly. He looked at the blind man's daughter. She watched him. Quiet. Kind. Inscrutable.
You did not know.
No. Does she know? Yes, of course she knows.
Yes.
Does she know that Eduardo is in love with her?
Yes.
The musicians struck up a light baroque partita. Aging dancers moved onto the floor. The blind man sat, his hands before him on the table.
She believes that Eduardo will kill her, John Grady said.
The blind man nodded.
Do you believe he will kill her?
Yes, said the maestro. I believe he will kill her.
Is that why you wont be her godfather? Yes.
That is why.
It would make you responsible.
Yes.
The dancers moved with their stiff formality over the swept and polished concrete floor. They danced with an antique grace, like figures from a film.
What do you think I should do?
I cannot advise you.
You will not.
No. I will not.
I'd give her up if I thought I could not protect her.
Perhaps.
You dont think I could.
I think the difficulties might be greater than you imagine.
What should I do.
The blind man sat. After a while he said: You must understand. I have no certainty. And it is a grave matter.
He passed his hand across the top of the table. As if he were making smooth something unseen before him. You wish for me to tell you some secret of the grand alcahuete. Betray to you some weakness. But the girl herself is the weakness.
What do you think I should do?
Pray to God.
Yes.
Will you?
No.
Why not?
I dont know.
You dont believe in Him?
It's not that.
It is that the girl is a mujerzuela.
I dont know. Maybe.
The blind man sat. They are dancing, he said.
Yes.
That is not the reason.
What's not?
That she is a whore.
No.
Would you give her up? Truly?
I dont know.
Then you would not know what to pray for.
No. I wouldnt know what to ask.
The blind man nodded. He leaned forward. He placed one elbow on the table and rested his forehead against his thumb like a confessor. He seemed to be listening to the music. You knew her before she came to the White Lake, he said.
I saw her. Yes.
At La Venada.
Yes.
As did he.
Yes. I suppose.
That is where it began.
Yes. He is a cuchillero. A filero, as they say here. A man of a certain rigor. A serious man.
I am serious myself.
Of course. If you were not there would be no problem.
John Grady studied that passive face. Closed to the world even a
s the world was closed to him.
What are you telling me?
I have nothing to tell.
He is in love with her.
Yes.
But he would kill her.
Yes.
I see.
Perhaps. Let me tell you only this. Your love has no friends. You think that it does but it does not. None. Perhaps not even God.
And you?
I do not count myself. If I could see what lies ahead I would tell you. But I cannot.
You think I'm a fool.
No. I do not.
You would not say so if you did.
No, but I would not lie. I dont think it. I never did. A man is always right to pursue the thing he loves.
No matter even if it kills him?
I think so. Yes. No matter even that.
HE WHEELED the last barrowload of trash from the kitchen yard out to the trashfire and tipped it and stood back and watched the deep orange fire gasping in the dark chuffs of smoke that rose against the twilight sky. He passed his forearm across his brow and bent and took up the handles of the wheelbarrow again and trundled it out to where the pickup was parked and loaded it and raised and latched the tailgate and went back into the house. HZctor was backing across the floor sweeping with the broom. They carried the kitchen table in from the other room and then brought in the chairs. HZctor brought the lamp from the sideboard and set it on the table and lifted away the glass chimney and lit the wick. He blew out the match and set back the chimney and adjusted the flame with the brass knob. Where is the Santo? he said.
It's still in the truck. I'll get it.
He went out and brought in the rest of the things from the cab of the truck. He set the crude wooden figure of the saint on the dresser and unwrapped the sheets and set about making the bed. HZctor stood in the doorway.
You want me to help you?
No. Thanks.
He leaned against the doorjamb smoking. John Grady smoothed the sheets and unfolded the pillowcases and stuffed the feather pillows into them and then unfolded the pieced quilt that Socorro had given him. HZctor stuck the cigarette in his mouth and came around to the other side of the bed and they spread the quilt and stood back.
I think we're done, John Grady said.
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