"Was she really that bad?"
"Please listen, Alice. I was speaking of Isabel. Like the Vargases she was a Granadeña. Her father owned three pharmacies and was very prosperous. Isabel had been educated in an excellent convent, but still, her family did not dine at the Vargases, they did not meet each other at christenings and weddings. Mateo decided it would not be wise to tell his family—and especially Matilda, whom he feared—and that he and his beloved must elope. They did. Mateo knew the padre in a small village on the northern side of the lake, Tecacilpa. So it happened that they were praying in his small parish church when Mombacho erupted and the village was wiped out by lava flow."
"You're kidding," I said.
"I beg your pardon," Abelardo said, and blinked. He was definitely seeing things this morning: me, the wall, the snow outside the window, cars in the parking lot. I realized that his eyes were moving now, and days earlier they hadn't been. "It was the first eruption since 1570, when a debris avalanche destroyed an entire village. Another village."
"It seems a tad melodramatic," I said. I didn't mention that I have been accused of melodrama myself, on occasion.
"I assume you know we have forty-three active volcanoes in my country. Active. And what seems melodramatic to you, accustomed as you are to nothing worse than a snowstorm or a midsummer hurricane, was death to this young couple. And the rest of the village." Was this man completely devoid of irony? Was that what was required? Which one of us had just gone batty in the snow? Which one had carved angels in his pajamas? He continued, "After three days Isabel's father came to the Vargases' mansion and told Don Umberto Vargas that the bodies of their two children had been found in the debris of the church of St. Eulalia in Tecacilpa. By some miracle—so they said—Padre Diego had survived; he was badly injured, but he'd survived, and he related that before the disaster he had joined the two in holy matrimony."
"I thought the whole village was wiped out."
"Well, he survived. Almost always there will be some survivors. To tell the stories."
"Awfully convenient," I said. It sounded more cynical than I really felt. What I wanted was to hear what Abelardo felt. About all of this, about anything.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. After the tragedy, Matilda had a change of heart. They say that when she heard the news she fell into a swoon, hit her head on the tile floor, and was unconscious for three days. She had been tatting when the news came—for a while she was considered the best lace maker in the region—and she pricked herself with a needle as she fell. You, my dear Alice, might say that such elements contribute to the melodrama of the tale, and I would not disagree. However, at her brother's funeral, La Matilda publicly acknowledged that she had mistreated her brother and swore to spend the rest of her life looking after young boys. That evening, so they say, she moved into a hovel just outside the walls of the Vargas mansion, and the next day she began traveling the country, by foot and by donkey, ministering to poor young men. In the end, she started several schools for boys, each one dedicated to a saint who had misspent his youth. Saint Augustine, of course, and Saint Eustachius and Saint Wulfric, and others I can't think of just now. But I'm sure I will remember them soon."
"That's okay," I said. "I don't need to know them all."
"As I was saying, word spread, and donations came from all over. For some unknown reason vast amounts came from one city in Germany, Stuttgart. Do you know Stuttgart?"
"I know it exists. But I've never been there."
"Nor I," said Abelardo. "There are no great cathedrals there. But someone in Stuttgart heard about La Matilda's schools and sent lots of money."
"And all this because she felt guilty about having been so horrid to her brother?"
"Because her brother and Isabel would not have died if she hadn't been so horrid, as you say. The very fear of her recriminations forced them to elope."
"But other people died in the volcano, under the lava. And they would have died with or without this Matilda. And the volcano would have erupted no matter what she did. Was it like Pompeii? Are they preserved forever?"
"No." Abelardo sighed. The nurse was hovering over Rubén Zamora's bed, but she was positioned in such a way—and her breadth was so great—that it was impossible to see what she was doing to him. It seemed almost rude, or heartless, to be speaking in English about matters Nicaraguan when Rubén was right there and could not understand. But still we spoke English. "Not at all like Pompeii."
"So she's your big competition?" I said. "La competencia?"
"If you choose to look at it that way."
"So why would you tell Carolina about seeing your great-aunt in a chicken if Carolina's related to this Matilda? Isn't that like industrial espionage? Or selling secrets? "Giving away secrets."
"The only reason I might not describe my vision of Tía Tata is that it wouldn't be believed, might detract from a true appreciation of who she was."
"Can't they both be saints? Can you get a twofer deal?"
"No. They cannot. It was a good thing to start those schools, but Matilda's motives were never pure. Surely you can see that?"
"It's not as if I were there."
"Nor I, but I am capable of forming judgments."
"Is she still alive?" I asked.
"Of course not. Surely you know a person must be dead at least fifteen years before the canonization process can start."
"Surely? Surely that is not common knowledge. And yes, I assumed she was dead. I just thought I'd ask."
"I don't understand you, Alice," Abelardo said.
"I don't see what understanding me has to do with it. You just need to get better so you can canonize your aunt."
He said nothing, just smiled. His cheek creases made such perfect parentheses that I cocked my head and strained to hear that parenthetical phrase, that secret answer. Nada. Silencio.
"You are getting better, aren't you? I don't see any IVs in you. Your vision is back, isn't it? You're warm enough?"
"What is enough?" he said, and pulled the covers up closer to his chin.
"Abelardo?"
Barely moving his lips he said, "Lalo."
"Okay. Lalo?"
"Yes, my dear Alice."
"Lalo, in all this, what do you actually believe? Because none of this sounds like major saint material to me. Maybe I don't know saint material when I see it. That's probably the likeliest explanation. But still."
"Is that what troubles you? Belief? The possibility of belief?"
"Exactly!" How did he know me so well? And did I mind that he did? I said, "It's just that they both—your aunt and Carolina's aunt—what is it with aunts?—they just seem essentially ordinary. Better than average, but not extraordinary."
"Not at all," Lalo said. "In Tía Tata's case, her goodness was more than ordinary, and the good she did was far more than ordinary. But there is nothing wrong with being ordinary."
All this time a fruit-filled grocery bag and Lalo's brown suitcase with dark brown piping had been sitting on the floor beside me. Everything at the bottom of his suitcase was ironed and folded perfectly. On top of that was a yellow legal pad filled with pages and pages of writing in a very unusual scrawl, Lalo's, presumably. Had I seen the pad anywhere other than in his suitcase, I would have assumed the handwriting was a woman's. I didn't know the first thing about graphology, but that is what I thought.
"I almost forgot," I said.
"You might ask Hubert about that," Lalo said.
"Your stuff. And some fruit. No cherries, though."
"Ask him about what constitutes ordinary. Sometimes ordinary is the highest grace."
"You can send him an e-mail when you're better," I said.
"He's not comfortable with e-mail. He needs to make contact with an actual piece of paper."
Suddenly I remembered what had been lurking in the back of my mind all yesterday and today: when Pop was in the hospital, Mami visited every day. Once I went to see him after school and found Mami asleep next to him on the hosp
ital bed, her head on his shoulder, her arm flung across his body. Pop was awake and he shushed me before I could say anything. Mami slept on.
Abelardo said contritely, "The fruit will make a great difference. Whatever happens, I won't get scurvy or beriberi."
"That's a relief."
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like I have two heads, or two noses."
"Ignore me. I can't always control my eyes."
"You have strabismus?"
"I have distraction," I said. "And now I have to go and check on the dogs. Dandy is doing very well, by the way."
Lalo lurched forward in the bed. "Now I remember what I meant to tell you. That disease your dog has? What was it? An aplastic anemia, where his marrow is not producing red blood cells. Well, my father has exactly the opposite. I was thinking about that last night."
"Your father?" It crossed my mind that he was suffering from delusions. That either he or I was suffering from delusions. That he was suffering from delusions, and it was my fault. That I had been so concerned with my dog that I had neglected the most basic responsibility of hospitality. That I was guilty of some biblical sin.
"Last night when dear Felicity was tightening the cuff around my arm I thought of my father's blood, of all the Llobet blood that flows in his veins and mine and my sisters'. But there is too much of his blood. He has too much of his own blood. His marrow is overproducing blood cells. He has polycythemia vera."
"Pollyanna Vera?"
"Hardly. Don't you see? It is the opposite of your dog's illness. I find that extraordinary."
"Isn't it a good thing to have so many red blood cells?"
Lalo's nose twitched. "Too much of a good thing. They are clotting. Every three weeks he must be phlebotomized. Bled."
"How medieval. And creepy."
"Many people feel that way about blood, but I do not. Snow, on the other hand. Snow is creepy."
Back to snow! "Which reminds me," I said. "What can I bring you? Next time I come?"
"Poetry. Some poems would be nice."
"Any particular poem? Or poet?"
"I don't suppose you have Rubén Darío? Or Lorca? No. In that case, I defer to your judgment."
As I was on the way out, mere steps from Lalo's bedside, on the other side of the flimsy patterned-cotton curtain, Rubén, in the other bed, beckoned me. When his closed fingers curled back toward himself, in an eternal gesture of come hither, I didn't recognize it. I thought he might be having a seizure or was trying to stop himself from falling out of bed. Then I saw his eyes, and knew. It was easy to see his eyes because they were about the only intact feature of his face; they stood out in stark relief against the white bandages that swathed his cheeks and nose. I went and stood hesitantly next to his bed. He spoke in Spanish. At first I thought he said "Look after me," which seemed sad and also a little cheeky, given that I didn't know him. But in that weird way that spoken words unravel inside your head after you've heard them and are revealed to be other than what you'd first thought, I figured it out. I'd thought I'd heard Cuideme, when in fact he'd said Cuidele, which meant "Look after him." There he was, with a gashed face and no understanding of what was going on and generally pretty bleak prospects as far as I could tell, as a presumably illegal immigrant in the frigid north at the mercy of lawn-mowing trends, telling me to look after Lalo.
I asked him why. "¿Por qué?"
Which seemed to really shock him. What kind of idiot was I?
Because his aunt is a saint, he replied in Spanish.
"Yes," I said. "I will. Sí, voy hacerlo."
For the rest of the day I did laundry and read soup recipes. I never actually made any soup, but I did fold every shirt geometrically, and I folded every pair of socks into each other and made perfect little balls. I tri-folded the boys' tighty-whities so that each reinforced crotch panel formed the neat center of a closed triptych. Then I read the want ads. Why was there such a call for hospital administrators in our state but not dream radio hosts? If I had had a radiology credential and five years' experience, I could have had my pick of employment opportunities. But I had no such background.
I ate a can of sardines for dinner, and brought Gerard Manley Hopkins into the hospital for Lalo. It seemed highly likely he knew the poems already, given his Jesuit schooling.
On my way in I greeted Rubén, pleasantly but distantly, because I was afraid he might want to talk again. I pulled the separating curtain slightly aside and cleared my throat to announce my presence. Lalo's bed was empty. Lalo was gone, as were the blankets and pillows and sheets. The room was like a fresh wound scrubbed clean.
I asked the nurse at the nurses' station and she said he'd been discharged because he was perfectly fine, and if I wanted to know any more I really should ask Mr. Llobet—not her. So I had to talk to Rubén after all. He didn't know, he said. He'd been asleep, he said. When I repeated that Lalo was gone, not to return, he didn't look nearly as bereft as he should have.
My house felt empty. I gave the dogs some cold cuts I found in the back of the meat drawer, and that perked them up. But it was short-lived, and not enough.
By the time Lalo called from the airport I had lost all taste for smoked oysters. And then he didn't exactly tell me where he was.
First there was silence. Then, "Alice?"
"Lalo! I've been worried. Where are you?" I said.
He was silent, again. Then I heard the ambient noise of delayed-flight announcements, and knew.
"I'm really sorry about what happened," I said.
"Yo también. No, it is for me to be sorry," he said.
"But you shouldn't have left without telling me. I could have taken you to the airport, at the least. How did you get there, anyway?"
"You have an excellent local taxi service," Abelardo said. "I explained to the driver about Santiago de Compostela, about which he was sadly ignorant. Notwithstanding the scallop shell dangling from his mirror."
"He had a shell dangling from a mirror?" Was it safe to let Abelardo fly home alone?
"He said it was an air freshener," Abelardo said. "They're calling my flight. Alice, you will please come to Nicaragua?"
"I don't know, Lalo. I'm so—I don't exactly know what I am. Waldo will be home soon and he'll want to know all about you. What shall I say?"
"Tell him I missed him, but not very much. Because I had you."
"Lalo! Can you see where you're going?"
"Thank God for the return of colors," he said. And then he was gone.
Would I ever be hungry again?
9
Querida Carmencita
WALDO'S LUGGAGE DIDN'T ARRIVE with him. According to the airline's Lost, Mislaid, and Abandoned Baggage Department, his battered canvas suitcase had gone west instead of east. The boys' duffel bag, full of rocks and tools and treasures, was duly spat out of the luggage tunnel and down the chute; it made it halfway around the conveyor belt before the boys swooped it up.
Waldo was tired and cranky. "I am never checking luggage again. These people are idiots. The more advanced the technology they have, the worse the service is."
"You may have something there. This may be a clue to the modern dilemma," I said.
Ezra said, "We couldn't carry them on, Dad. Remember? They wouldn't have let us through with the pickax."
"This is true. But I don't normally travel with a pickax."
We filled out the forms, circling the line drawing of the suitcase that looked most like Waldo's while agreeing that it looked nothing at all like the real thing. According to the airline's tracking, the suitcase was now in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
"If they can get it to Cheyenne, why can't they get it to New York?" Ezra wanted to know.
"Ah," said Waldo, his mood brightening. "It's all about intention, isn't it? Where do they intend it to go? And where does it actually go? When do those things converge? Do you know how many discoveries were made accidentally, while people were looking for somethin
g entirely different? Do you know how many inventions are the results of slip-ups in the lab?"
"We know, Dad," Henry said. "'More than we think. Enough to make us wonder,'" he quoted.
"We really do know, Dad," Ezra chimed in.
"Tell me about the caves," I said. "Did you love the caves?" Tell me something new, and warm.
Ezra said, "Why didn't you bring Flirt and Dandy?"
"Because I can't leave them in the parking lot. Someone might steal them. Not to mention that it's not very nice to leave them locked inside a car," I said.
"But I want to be sure Dandy is A-OK," Ezra said.
"He is. He had another transfusion and he's a prince. You'll see him soon enough."
"You could have brought them into the airport. Close your eyes and pretend they're seeing-eye dogs," Henry suggested.
"I've never heard of a spaniel seeing-eye dog," Waldo said.
"Plus that's not very nice. How would a real blind person feel if he saw you pretending to be blind just so your dogs could come to baggage claim?"
"That's good, Mom," Henry said. "For one thing, a real blind person wouldn't see me."
"What's the second thing?" Waldo asked.
I said, "I want to hear about the caves."
"They were awesome, as in, they filled us with awe. They really did," Henry said.
Ezra said, perhaps with some pity, "They were huge, Mom. Vast and cavernous. First there was light from the opening, but then there was no natural light at all, only electric lights. And my headlamp. My headlamp was brilliant."
"They were grandiose, Mom. And eerie, full of secret tunnels, hidden openings. And of course stalactites. And stalagmites," said Henry.
"Tell me again how you can tell the difference," I said.
"Stalactites, with a c, grow down from the ceiling. Stalagmites, with a g, grow up from the ground."
"That's very good. I just wish I could remember it."
"It's CK, Mom."
Waldo mouthed, Common knowledge.
"Thank you," I said.
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