Menardo realized he had paused by the coffin somewhat longer than usual. Menardo pulled himself up straight and made a little bow to Iliana, patting her crossed hands. He had not touched the dead before and was surprised at the nothingness he felt. Not woodenness or waxiness or cold—just nothingness. Death had made her hands a mere surface; already her body was becoming an illusion. Death had flattened her out. She had no more substance than a photograph. He almost wished they did not have to bury her. He almost wanted to watch, day by day, and to check from time to time on the progress of decay.
BOOK TWO
REIGN OF FIRE-EYE MACAW
TERRORIST BOMBS
PERHAPS IT WAS NOT the normal thing so soon after a wife’s death, but Menardo was succeeding brilliantly with the new business deal General J. had set up, and Alegría had finally agreed to marry him. Still, change was everywhere from that time on. Sometimes Menardo told himself these changes were his fate, and it was only with Iliana gone that his eyes had cleared enough to see. Iliana had always kept him so tightly tangled in the world of club luncheons and dinner dances Menardo had not noticed the shiftings or the rise of the river. Now there were more “incidents.” Tuxtla had always had its share of petty crime and murder among the Indians. But not a week after Iliana was buried, Menardo found himself back at the funeral home, this time for rosary of the eldest daughter of the bank president. The girl had been walking on the main street in downtown Tuxtla. A bomb had exploded in an alleyway across the street. The girl had been killed by a piece of roof tile knocked loose by the explosion. At the funeral-home chapel, Menardo tried to get a good look at the dead girl. While all the others prayed aloud softly, Menardo leaned hard against the polished wood of the front pew, clicking his rosary loudly so none would suspect he was studying the corpse, not praying. She had not been a pretty girl. She had a beak nose and black moles on her neck and cheeks. Death had changed her skin color very little. All the banker’s daughters had cultivated skin white as milk. Menardo could not determine much by looking at the dead girl. He knew he would have to touch her as he had touched Iliana. Even after the rosary was finished he stayed on his knees with head bowed, waiting for the others to leave. All he wanted was to touch the dead girl’s hand, but he did not want anyone to see. Because they would not understand it was something he needed to do in order to clarify his thinking. Menardo had even spoken to Tacho about the matter.
Tacho’s expression never changed as he listened to the boss. The black, piercing eyes in the rearview mirror studied Menardo and made him self-conscious. Menardo had inquired what the Indians did when there was a death. “The usual things like the white people do. And then . . .” Tacho let his voice trail off, as if the boss would not want to hear more than that. The eyes in the rearview mirror kept watch.
“No,” Menardo said, “tell me more. What I wonder about is . . .” But Menardo could not say it. Not even to this Indian who had no idea of propriety, of which questions might be asked and which could not. Tacho said no more, and Menardo had decided it was not worth the trouble to ask him again. Tacho was waiting outside the funeral home for him. Menardo looked around quickly to see if there were any windows Tacho might be able to peek through. Menardo checked to be sure no funeral-home employees were nearby.
Menardo’s throat was dry with excitement. He could feel a tingling down both legs, which he blamed on the hour he’d been kneeling. As he walked toward the coffin, he dropped the rosary beads into the pocket of his suit coat. He could justify what he was about to do only because it was necessary. Once he had done it, he would be free of it and would never have to concern himself again with these thoughts. This was all a result of Iliana’s death. It was not his fault. Menardo held his hand above hers, working himself up to touch the dead girl’s hand. He extended his right forefinger slowly, as if approaching a reptile which might startle. Menardo could smell his own sweat. It had the odor of fright he recognized from that morning he had rushed through the doors of the new house to find medics, police, and servants milling at the foot of the stairs.
He was not sure he was actually touching her hand, but when he pushed, the corpse’s left arm had shifted, leaving the right hand alone on her chest with a pink rosary threaded through the fingers. The movement of the left arm horrified Menardo. Everything was supposed to be in its place and remain there. It had frightened him so badly he could not remember what he had felt with his forefinger. He had not been able to distinguish her flesh from his own. What embarrassment! He would have to try to fix the left arm before any mortuary employees appeared. Menardo took a deep breath. The odor of candle wax and gardenias made him light-headed. He took the left arm by the wrist, but this time there was no mistaking it. He could see he was touching the dead girl, but the arm felt as if it were an extension of himself, a strange growth on the ends of his thumb and his fingers. He let the arm drop again, took his own right hand into his left, and squeezed each finger. There was nothing wrong with his fingers. He looked at the dead girl again. He had to hurry. His hand was shaking so badly now he could barely rearrange the rosary in the hands. He lifted the arm by the white chiffon and guided it back to its place on top of the right hand and the rosary.
Menardo could see the red glow of Tacho’s cigarette. Tacho was leaning against the side of the car staring up at the sky. It was a moonless night and clouds were scattered over the stars. Menardo was relieved Tacho would not be able to see his face clearly. He was sure his face must be the color of ashes. Menardo rolled down both windows in the backseat so he would not have to smell his own sweat. But Tacho had already picked up his scent. Tacho’s eyes stayed in the rearview mirror watching him all the way to the house. Suddenly Menardo felt an anger almost bursting his chest. Menardo was angry the bomb had killed the young girl. He was angry at the stupid fall Iliana had taken, a fall that she could as well have taken two months sooner, before she had made her poisonous phone calls to Mexico City. Menardo was angry at Alegría, paralyzed in her apartment in Mexico City, refusing to allow him to see her. Alegría insisted they observe some rules of decorum before their marriage, since Iliana had died in a freak accident. Luckily, Iliana had done the design of the steps herself. It had been Iliana who had insisted the marble be highly polished. Alegría had argued for a more subtle effect.
Menardo had to see Alegría. The operator rang and rang, but Alegría was not answering her phone. She had told Menardo she was keeping the phone unplugged because she did not wish to receive calls from her parents, who had learned of her disgrace and who called to question her more closely about her dismissal from the firm. What she had not told Menardo was that she could not bear to be in the apartment alone. The pale blue rooms were a prison. Everywhere she turned there was a reminder of the career she had dreamed of.
COMMUNISTS
ALEGRÍA KNEW BETTER than to tell Bartolomeo or any of the rest of the group about Menardo’s marriage proposal. They would have sneered. Still, it was comforting to hunch in a, corner and listen to them drone on and on about revolution. Mexico was being robbed blind. Mexico had been robbed blind. “Yes,” Alegría wanted to say, scanning the faces quickly, “and only one or two of you were not weaned on the stolen fruits of Indian land and Indian labor.”
She had been exhausted by the time the taxi dropped her at Bartolomeo’s apartment. His comrades did not seem to be at home, although anyone might have been sleeping in the piles of newspapers and dirty clothing. Alegría had quit asking who or how many because Bartolomeo delighted in the “open door” policy their group had. As many as twelve “comrades” sometimes slept in the tiny room. So there had been little privacy. The room served Bartolomeo well. The politics of the room kept intimacy at bay and had forced his family to disown him.
Alegría wished she had a shot of brandy. The comrades and roommates often came marching into the little room right in the middle of the night. Bartolomeo kept her pinned on the tangle of old blankets until she convinced him she had had an orgasm. When the roommat
es walked in, she always shut her eyes tight. She was grateful then not to have electricity. The candles they kept lit in the red and blue glass jars cast long shadows, and Alegría imagined the comrades saw hardly more than vague figures. This night she lay listening for the trump trump trump of the comrades’ boots while Bartolomeo labored on top of her. He could not pierce the shell of her concentration on sound. She could hear a baby crying on the floor above. She could hear a slow, metallic ticking of a cheap alarm clock down the hall, a radio, and a musician playing an Indian flute. She could hear the voice of a woman pray, “Hail, Holy Queen Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope”; she could hear the sound of retching and vomiting and the scrabble of rodents’ feet, a dull thud, a door slamming, a groan.
When Alegría awoke, she was lying alone on the pile of blankets. Their voices were low, but they were not arguing Lenin or what is to be done with the writings of Mao. Alegría detected an atmosphere of alertness, and a certain suspense. From the floor she could make out the legs of men at the table, though later she heard a woman’s voice. One voice kept saying, “Slowly, slowly now—be careful!” Then she knew. She was wide-awake in an instant. The comrades were making bombs ten feet away from her. She moved very slowly, as one might move to avoid startling a wild animal. She did not bother with bra or panties and crushed them into her purse. She was glad she was wearing a simple dress with no buttons or zippers. She listened for a lull, for one of the people crowded around the table to move, and then she got up and said, “Bartolomeo?” In the strange candlelight at the table all the faces seemed elongated. A voice said, “Who’s that?” and another said, “Just the one Bartolomeo fucks.” “He’s not here. He went to get something.” Suddenly Alegría felt how much she had hated all of them. To them Alegría would always be just another woman Bartolomeo fucked. Nothing she could do or say would ever make them trust her. Bartolomeo needed her to stir up their anger, to remind them who and what it was they hated and opposed. They would not care if Alegría agreed the system that starved and destroyed human beings for the profit of a few was a system that must fall from the sheer weight of the bodies of the dead. “Stay with your own kind!” one of the women drunk on the cheap beer had shouted at her late one night, and Alegría had shouted back, “I know my own kind! The bourgeois! You are one and the same as me!” The drunk woman had tried to fight her, but Bartolomeo had pulled Alegría away by her arm. She didn’t like the sound of what they were now doing at the table. The voice that kept urging, “Easy! Easy!” didn’t seem able to answer back when another voice demanded, “You know so much then—you do it!” Alegría wanted to laugh out loud. She had to get out of there. She had listened to their discussions enough to know that their grasp of dialectics was weak; she feared their grasp of wiring blasting caps to explosives might be even weaker. She preferred to take her chances on the street at three-thirty in the morning. Overhead the smoke, dust, and clouds had formed a luminous canopy that glowed a poisonous orange. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she saw the glow was bright enough to throw faint shadows on the decaying walls. The early November frost had come down from the mountain peaks. Alegría turned up the collar of her coat to cover her mouth and nose.
She returned to her blue rooms just as the sun was blazing up behind the layers of orange and pale brown. The phone was ringing as she came in, and it continued ringing until finally she lifted the receiver.
Menardo had to see her. The situation was urgent. His voice sounded desperate. “What is it?” she said. “Oh,” he said, “everything is breaking loose! Subversives are everywhere!” Menardo had to swallow hard before he said, “They bombed this week, killed a young girl.” He thought he might sob when he said, “The bank president’s daughter.” Alegría managed to calm him. They must not see each other until their engagement was announced. Wedding plans must wait until at least eight months had passed since Iliana’s death. “You know that,” Alegría reminded him. “Yes,” he said reluctantly, he knew.
Alegría had tried to make a clean break with Bartolomeo in Madrid. She had. They had. Bartolomeo had gone to Mexico City. But later her best job offer had come from Mexico City. She had been careful not to go near the university because she knew where he’d be. In the end, he had come looking for her.
Menardo met her at the Tuxtla airport with his arms full of red roses. He put them into Alegría’s arms and hugged her close. The paperwork at the civil registry had taken no time. A magistrate had read the vows, and two of his clerks had been witnesses. Menardo’s dream had been an intimate little chapel wedding, but under the circumstance, he had agreed with Alegría that a quiet civil ceremony was called for. All Menardo wanted was for her to be his wife this night of all nights when she would truly be his and he would truly be hers. Driving to the hotel afterward, Menardo had taken Alegría’s hand and had gently pressed it to the crotch of his trousers so she might feel the strength of his ardor. The organ flexed and pulsed before she had moved her hand away. Alegría felt nausea sweep over her; she had no choice. Alegría pressed against Menardo and leaned over so he could reach into her bodice to take the nipple of her left breast between his fingers. As they reached the hotel, Menardo straightened his tie and rearranged his hair. Did she want to dine? In the light of the big lobby she could see him so vividly, the large black mole right above his lip, the perspiration of his sexual excitement soaking under the arms of his white polyester sport coat. Alegría would not have been surprised to see a spot of moisture near his fly, but fortunately his sport coat had been buttoned.
No, she did not want to eat. The idea of food left her nauseous. She needed to rest. But Menardo interpreted the words “to rest” to mean she wanted sex with him. She wanted to try to explain, but saw that his ardor had already returned, and words would do no good.
Menardo had ordered the honeymoon suite filled with dozens of white roses. The champagne was iced, and he insisted she drink a glass. The champagne did settle her stomach, and she had two more glasses before Menardo could wait no longer. His penis was as short and fat as he was, and it was lost in the overhang of his belly. He insisted on kissing her all over, then licked and sucked the parts he’d kissed. The champagne and the fatigue had left her drowsy, and the kissing had irritated her more than it had aroused her. Alegría wanted to tell him just to stick it in and get it over with. But now she had to pretend she was his bride; from that night on, she would have to be his wife. She had to endure his lips on her shoulders and her arms. When he kissed her thighs and inched toward her pubis, Alegría imagined he was a giant mollusk trailing slime over her as he prepared to nose into her vagina. The urge to jerk herself away, to draw her legs to her belly and then to kick him violently was almost uncontrollable. So she had groped desperately for his penis. But the crouching position he had assumed for the licking and kissing had put the organ out of reach. Fortunately, Menardo interpreted her gesture as a great demonstration of desire, and he had lost all control and embarrassed them both with his ejaculation across the sheets.
COMRADE LA ESCAPÍA AND THE CUBAN
“COMRADE LA ESCAPÍA,” people in the villages called her, teasing, and not teasing. She didn’t care. All her life she had heard them whisper behind their hands and gossip behind her back. Call her comrade, call her anything you wanted, but she had worked her way up to the rank of colonel in the Army of Justice and Redistribution. Delegates sent by all the villages had warned that everyone would be quarreling and fighting if military rankings and military discipline were used. No one was supposed to set herself or himself above anyone else, not in the family, not in the clan, and they sure better not in the village. No, the village delegates had recommended military rank not be used except in their dealings with the outside world.
The village delegates had not recommended anyone be called comrade either. People had seen enough TV and movies to know what comrade meant. They had been taught by the missionaries to hate communism. Things had begun to shake, and La Escapía knew the upr
ising would be in full blossom soon enough to silence all her enemies and critics. Big things were going to start happening so fast. She and the other leaders of the People’s Army had been able to amass one of the largest and most sophisticated arsenals in the region. The Indians had managed to obtain the weaponry and supplies from at least a half dozen different groups representing more than a dozen foreign governments as well as underground groups. The Indians had even got two big checks from a famous U.S. actor. La Escapía laughed at critics. Of course the tribes took money from anyone they could get it from. They agreed only on one point: they must retake their land despite the costs. From the missionaries, La Escapía (known to the nuns as Angelita) had gone to the Cuban Marxists. She was a silent but ruthless critic of the months of “political instruction” she and the others had received at the Marxist school the Cubans ran in Mexico City. La Escapía’s favorite instructor had been a blond Cuban who had taught her how to fuck. He used to take her to his rich woman’s apartment, “his fiancée,” he called her, then Bartolomeo had dripped his juice all over the blue velvet bedcover. When La Escapía had tried to wipe off the bedcover, Bartolomeo had stopped her. He said the woman needed to be brought down a notch or two. Bartolomeo had tried to get rough with her. Not physically, because she was certain she weighed more than he did. Bartolomeo had tried to bully her. He had threatened to report La Escapía and the others for harboring nationalistic, even tribal, tendencies. But Angelita only laughed. Her laugh meant the end of the afternoon sex instructions with Bartolomeo. Let him fuck his rich-bitch architect girlfriend. La Escapía and the others would deny they had secret intentions. Whatever the rich outsiders wanted to believe was all right with the tribal people. They just wanted the means to take back their lands. That was their secret and the only “truth” tribes could agree upon. Angelita had never hesitated to admit she had fucked Bartolomeo because she had learned a great deal from him about obtaining aid from others besides Cuba. She had graduated at the top of her class at the Marxist school. Later when enemies in the villages, people related to her by clan or marriage, accused La Escapía of being a “communist,” she let them have it. Didn’t they know where Karl Marx got his notions of egalitarian communism? “From here,” La Escapía had said, “Marx stole his ideas from us, the Native Americans.”
The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel Page 36