by Bea Gonzalez
And later still, it will be Diego himself who will knock on the window of her room, Diego who will stand there on the street, the rain dripping down his face, which seems luminous nonetheless, resplendent, for between the afternoon and the evening he has been building up strength, a strength he hadn’t known was his, and he will reach across the iron bars of the window and take Sofia’s hands confidently into his and he will kiss them over and over again, telling her not to worry, they will escape for the north, follow the path of the migrating birds, start life anew in Washington or even further north, Canada perhaps, but they will leave and soon.
But now, before her sits her father, a raging war building inside his chest, his eyes closed, his mouth a straight hard line. Although he does not say the words, Sofia can hear them nonetheless.
And yet. And yet.
It is then that Sofia raises her eyes, stands up slowly as the sad hard truth hits her squarely in the gut and she looks at her father as if seeing him clearly for the first time in her life. Silently she mouthes the words, Carlos Blanco Torres, incredulity tugging at her mouth, and before her father can utter a word, she has run out of the office to cope with the disappointment of that moment in the privacy of her room. Roberto has not heard her words, is still trying to calm the storm deep inside, and it is not until later, much later, after Edward Nelson has come and gone, after the women have shed the last of their tears and retired to their rooms, that the insidious thought that has been lingering just beyond reach finally rise to consciousness to torture him throughout the bitter night ahead.
Yes, Diego Clemente is a fine young man, an artist, a man subject to the same curious longings that he, Roberto, has always felt. The son of a marqués even, although impoverished, but it is probable that aristocratic blood courses through the young man’s veins.
And yet. It cannot be forgotten; some thoughts are impossible to erase, though he wishes he could torch the idea, relieve himself of the burden of his need. But there, standing in the wings, is Carlos Blanco Torres, son of one of the most powerful men in the Yucatán, a man who at this moment holds Roberto’s future in his grasp. Is it all that contemptible, all that unreasonable that he should desire a union for his daughter with the one man who can save him from ruin?
All night he remains awake at his desk, rueing the vicious hand of fate that can reduce a man like him to a rumbling, sea-tossed mess, at odds with the ones he loves most and, even worse, embroiled in a disheartening struggle with himself.
*
And now we see Diego Clemente, sitting in a chair at centre stage, head in his hands, plagued also by one devastating thought: I am a Judas, he is thinking, a traitor of the worst kind. How, he asks himself, how could the name of Ricardo Medina have come tumbling so easily from my lips?
“The dead have no ears to listen to the inanities we spew out into the world, amigo,” Very Useful assures him when Diego speaks to him of how that name has scorched his tongue, made a mockery of all that he believes. “Your real father would have forgiven you the trespass because of the situation you found yourself in.”
But no words will console his friend, no reasoning, no number of earnest attempts to bring a note of levity to the affair. It is then that Very Useful offers up the thought that will change the young man’s life.
“Diego, would you like to redeem yourself, my boy?” he asks his friend, excitement suddenly coursing through his words.
“Redeem myself, Very Useful? But how?”
“Ah, watch and listen, my friend. Eyes, ears and mouth, as our patrón always says. But the good man forgot the nose. And it is a nose that I count on above all, Diego. A nose that helps me to sniff out the most interesting bits of information to be had in this world.”
“What information, Very Useful? Speak!”
“First, Diego, we must go to a safer place …”
*
“An uprising?” Diego can hardly believe his ears.
“Shhhh … be careful, my friend, the trees and stones have ears to listen with and mouths with which to speak.”
It is later that night and Very Useful and Diego are sitting by the enormous ceiba tree, where they often meet in the afternoons.
Diego lowers his voice, asks his friend to explain.
“Early Saturday, a group of insurgents will be leading an uprising at La pequeña Versailles, the splendid hacienda of none other than our dear friend Don Victor Blanco.”
“An uprising—but why?”
“Why?” Very Useful asks, outrage in his voice. He reaches over and cuffs Diego on the side of the head.
“Ow!” the young man screams out.
“How on earth can you ask such a thing?” Very Useful hisses. “Are your eyes, ears and mouth too full of birds, too full of a certain señorita, to notice what is occurring all around you, my misguided friend? Have you not noticed how the henequen workers toil on the estates, how much my people suffer under the weight of the henequero’s fists? Bah! Sometimes you seem as empty-headed as a lec!”
“A lec?” Diego asks.
“Yes, a lec—that hollow gourd we store our warm tortillas in.”
“It is not that I have not noticed, Very Useful. Of course I have,” Diego says, rubbing the offended ear with the back of his hand. “It is just that I have learned to accept things as they are. Injustices are forever being committed. It seems to me to be the very nature of the world.”
“Ah, bonito! And with that attitude, where would we be? Things would remain as miserable as they have been for all time. Mexico would never have become Mexico had we not fought tooth and nail to free ourselves from the grasping claws of Mother Spain.”
“Are you going to be one of the insurgents yourself then, Very Useful?” Diego asks, alarmed now for the safety of his friend.
“Me? No, not this time, compadre. This time it is not my fight. There will be other opportunities for me to help set things to rights. But you, Diego, could be there if you like.”
“And why would I be participating in an insurrection, Very Useful?”
“Why? Why indeed?” Very Useful says, his hands up in the air, his eyes fixed on the sky. “Think, Diego, think. What is lying inside that house? What does our patrón want more than anything in the world right now?”
“The birds!” Diego cries out.
“Yes, Señorito Diego. The birds. And do you think the insurgents are going to be concerning themselves with an aviary at the back of the house? No, they will set fire to the tapestries, to the fine furniture, to all the things Don Victor Blanco values most. In the middle of the mayhem, you can make your way to the aviary and bring back the goods. Who will notice later that a couple of birds have been lost? Nobody, Diego, I will assure you of that.”
Diego thinks for a moment, his heart beating loudly in his chest.
“Yes, Very Useful, yes. I will do it. I will save those birds.”
“Ah, amigo, I knew I could count on you. I know a calesa driver who will lend his horse and buggy to the cause. I will wait for you on the outskirts of the hacienda while you run in for the birds. And then, presto! The prize will be in our hands.”
“When is this insurrection supposed to take place, Very Useful?”
“In less than forty-eight hours, my friend. Now listen up, we have precious little time to form a plan.”
On the earth below their feet, Very Useful now begins to fashion a map with the end of a stick.
That very night, Diego will take out his own map and add two birds at the very top. He will draw them carefully, lovingly, from their long pointed tails to their graceful curved necks and heads to their brilliant scarlet eyes. The Ectopistes migratorius—how he longs to see the birds in mid-flight, their wings extended gracefully as they ascend swiftly into the sky.
No matter, he thinks. The moment for their liberation is finally at hand. He puts his paints away then and closes his eyes. In his mind, he can see the figure of Don Ricardo Medina, dressed in his dark suit made by Utrilla, the finest tailor in
Madrid, smiling as he wades into a thick mud, walking, walking until he is immersed completely in that thick sludge and has finally disappeared for good.
SCENE FIVE
Two birds in hand
The hour has arrived for those who have lingered in the wings to take their rightful place at centre stage—the men dressed in black with the look of emaciated intellectuals, centuries of oppression etched on each and every face. It will take twenty of them, carrying guns and sticks and canisters of oil, to lay Don Victor Blanco’s vast henequen fields to waste. It is there that they begin first, setting the fields on fire as a warning that they will no longer be held hostage by the agave with the blue-and-grey spikes. But the insurgents do not stop there. They have not put skin and bone on the line to take a mere symbolic stance, not when they have so much anger coursing through their veins, not when they have come so far, have risked so much. The time for a revolution is ripe, they whisper to each other—the moment has arrived for a line to be drawn in the sand.
Diego and Very Useful arrive at the hacienda just as the first flames shoot out from the henequen fields at the back of the house. It is just past six in the morning and dawn is breaking all across the land. All around them, the birds have begun singing their spectacular morning songs. From somewhere above, they hear the eerie call of a Collared Forest-Falcon. Nearby, a Montezuma Oropendola is whining a single, heartfelt euhh.
Diego’s own heart is beating wildly beneath his cotton shirt. He focuses again on remembering the details of the map Very Useful had just hours ago drawn in the dirt. This time, Diego will be bypassing the main house altogether and running straight to the aviary at the back. In his pocket he carries a handful of berries and seeds to help him coax the birds to his hands. It will be simple, he assures himself: grab the birds, run back to the horse and carriage where Very Useful will be waiting just outside the gates. In less than an hour they will be back in Mérida with the precious birds in their hands, a priceless farewell gift for the man they both love.
“Bueno, my friend,” Very Useful says now, his voice grave. “The time has arrived. Do you remember what you are supposed to do? Keep your head low at all times. You do not want to be caught in the firestorm that is raging inside.”
Diego nods, slaps Very Useful heartily on the back.
He runs then through the magnificent arch that has greeted visitors to the hacienda for over two centuries now, past the regal house, past the dozens of people who are emerging from all corners—workers, servants, overseers too, all united on this day by their single desire to flee from the inferno that rages in the fields.
Inside the aviary, the birds are on high alert. Smoke has begun seeping in through the open windows and underneath the door. The birds’ frantic calls are raucous as they announce the encroaching danger to each other with squawks and squeals and the furious flaps of their wings.
In that half-light of early morning, his eyes stinging from the smoke, Diego is finding it difficult to make out anything. Even worse, the pigeons have been moved from the spot where they had been on the night of the ball. He looks around frantically but the light is too dim, the birds inside distinguishable only by the most obvious features—a large size, a pointed head, a prominent beak.
From somewhere in the aviary, a faint voice suddenly calls out in the dark, “Who is there? Answer me! Who is there walking about?”
*
It had been Don Victor’s misfortune to be at the hacienda that day, having arrived the night before to tend to a group of American buyers who were coming the following day. His wife and son had stayed behind at their house in Mérida to indulge in the season of dances and celebration that were taking place as the month of December drew to a close. At the crack of dawn, Don Victor had been awakened by a commotion that seemed to emanate from somewhere at the back of the house.
Now what? he had asked himself, annoyed as he tumbled out of bed bleary-eyed, the beginnings of a headache announcing itself already at that early hour of the day. He shouted for his most trusted servant, Mariano, but no one responded in the shadows. How unusual, he had thought. There were dozens of servants in the house; why had none of them responded to his call?
He wandered out of the bedroom and made his way across the dimly lit courtyard to the other side of the house. He noticed that a faint light was shining inside his office. A light there? the old man asked himself, less irritated now than gravely concerned. The office was the one room in the house kept strictly under lock and key. Inside were the many papers and records of the henequen trade Don Victor considered too important for eyes that were not his. He hurried there, noticing that the door was slightly ajar. Who is there? he called out, anger in his voice, and it was just then that a shot rang out and then another one from somewhere deep inside. One missed him, the other hit him in the thigh. He turned around quickly, desperately trying to make sense of what had just occurred, and, stumbling through the kitchen and the back of the house, made his way to the aviary, hoping to hide there until help arrived.
He had been lying there for some time when he spotted a dark figure making his way through the aviary in the dark. By then, Don Victor knew that he had lost a significant amount of blood. From outside he could hear the shouts of the people as they made their way frantically through to the front of the house, he could smell the smoke wafting in from the fields at the back. He knew with all the instincts of an injured animal that whoever was wandering about in the aviary presented his only hope—he prayed silently for a moment that it would turn out to be a friend and not a foe.
“Who is there? Answer me, I beg you!” he shouts out now.
Diego turns around sharply, spots a figure lying on the ground. He walks over to him and then slowly crouches down. Don Victor Blanco. Wounded, it seems—a hand is trying to stem the blood that is pouring from a twisted leg, his face is ash-grey, cadaverous already, Diego thinks, alarmed.
Two sets of eyes meet in the dark. A glint of recognition registers in Don Victor’s gaze.
“Are you not the American’s assistant?” the old man asks. And then, more sharply, he adds, “Does Nelson have anything to do with this?”
Diego shakes his head. “Nelson? No, of course not. I was in the area photographing birds—saw the commotion and thought of the Passenger Pigeons here inside.”
“The pigeons?” Don Victor repeats, astonishment in his face. He pauses, tries to add up what he is hearing, but his mind is a jumble. There is no way, he realizes, to make sense of what is going on.
“Well, help me up then, my boy,” the old man says in his hard, stentorian voice. “I am injured and cannot stand. If those bastards see me here they will shoot me again.”
“Where are the birds?” Diego asks.
“The birds? The birds?” Don Victor’s mouth opens wide; he stops as if to register the young man’s question and then points to the other side, “Over there. But forget about the birds, muchacho, can’t you see that I cannot walk? Do you have no pity in your heart?” The old man’s anxiety is building, desperation is emanating from his sea-bream eyes.
Diego hesitates, knows the time is ticking by. The birds or this man’s life? It would be easy to leave him behind, Diego thinks. After all, did men like Don Victor not bring this devastation upon themselves?
We are all free men, above all, he now hears Emilio say. Free to be decent even in the absence of God.
Diego pulls the old man up, puts his arms around his own shoulders, instructs him to hang on, as they begin to make their way outside, hurrying as much as they can along the cobblestone path to where Very Useful stands waiting just outside the gates.
“Thank you,” the old man whispers, his head resting on Diego’s shoulder, tears of relief streaming down his face.
From afar, Very Useful spots Diego making his way across the front of the house. The smoke is so thick by now that it is difficult to be sure why the young man is hobbling back. Surely those cannot be the birds he is dragging by his side?
Ve
ry Useful runs towards him and then stops abruptly once he sees that Diego is helping none other than Don Victor Blanco to the cart.
“Diego?” he asks, alarm in his voice.
“Quick, put him in the cart, find someone who can attend to his wounds. I am going back inside for the birds.”
“The birds?” Don Victor spits out. “You fool, you will be burned alive if you go back in. Leave the birds there, I will purchase another pair if they mean so much to you”
But Diego has already run back into the grounds, past the arch, past the people who are still streaming out—coughing, crying, calling to the others who are following behind—back into the aviary to the spot that Don Victor had pointed out before.
*
In Mérida, just as Very Useful and Diego were setting out for Don Victor’s hacienda, their patrón was awakening from a turbulent sleep. All night he had been accompanied in his dreams by old Don Pedro, a Maya curer from the town of Valladolid with whom he had once spent a week learning the healing properties of the local plants and trees. In his dream, Don Pedro was cleansing him with the freshly cut branches of a sip che as he invoked the help of the balams, the Jaguar Lords. Next he sang out the names of the plants and their properties in a hypnotic plainchant tone: resin from the ch’ich’put for skin eruptions; the bark of the bacal che for burns; leaves of the x mex nuxib for the evil eye and listen—here, Don Pedro had taken Nelson’s face violently into his hands—to cure one of the tortures of memory, tea made from boldo leaves, which tastes like the Devil but which erases every sigh of lament from one’s soul.
Nelson wakes up drenched in sweat. He laughs at himself, so old, he thinks, and yet still subject to the torments of a bad dream. Try as he does, though, he cannot easily shake the feeling of uneasiness that lingers in his chest. He busies himself with packing for the day’s work: his long-focus, four-by-five Premo camera and a Kodak of the same size first, a dozen plates and films, ammonia, Persian insect powder, a bottle of formalin and his gun. It is just as he is closing his pack that he hears the tremendous commotion being made outside as the first servants from Don Victor Blanco’s estate arrive on horseback, shouting for help. He runs out, listens to the story the men tell the group that has congregated outside and then runs quickly back into the house. He calls for Very Useful and Diego and, when there is no response, makes his way quickly to the house of Roberto Duarte, driven forward by a furious, relentless force.