Tampico (James A. Michener Fiction Series)

by Olson, Toby

  Alma touched his horse’s flanks with his heels and it dipped its head and started off immediately, as if it had waited for the touch as signal and not urging, and Carlos could hear the horses’ hooves click on the stone leavings as they formed into pairs again and followed Alma’s lead, riding only a few dozen yards until they reached the mouth of the street and the large square opening before them and Alma pulled up again, motivated, Carlos thought, by occasion rather than pragmatic end. They were at the formal entrance to the city, and while there was no gate, he could see in the way the large rectangle presented itself, at least three hundred yards in length and gracefully wide, that they had come to the place of arrival and needed a moment to absorb the architecture.

  Off at the sides of the space, which Carlos immediately thought of as an agora, were rows of low public buildings. They were fashioned in stone, and though for the most part their façades were intact, he could see places where the fluted carvings above doorways at roofline had broken away and fallen, and some walls had collapsed too, vacant spaces at a few buildings’ sides, as if fitted pieces from a jigsaw puzzle had been lifted away. There was no rubble in sight, and fronting the rows of buildings, these structures that had obviously been designed and built to make a pattern, he could see what remained of a broad sidewalk, sunken now, yet bordered on the near side by a low stone wall, and he could see breaks in that wall, places where people and vehicles might enter. In the distance, on the left, was a building that was wider than the rest and with a wider entranceway, a stone arch, the mouth of which was high enough to allow a man on horseback to ride through in comfort, and Carlos saw motion in a square stone window to its side. Then a horse’s head appeared in the window and his own horse lifted its head and whinnied softly, and Carlos knew this was not some makeshift stable, but a structure planned in recognition of the importance of animals, for their care and use, and for convenience, as important as the building he noted to the far side, beyond the animal watching them, a bank he thought, or at least a commercial exchange of some kind. There were figures carved in the stone above the double doorway, possible letters of some alphabet, but too far away to make out.

  Manuel’s horse moved to his side, and he felt his father’s fingertips on his thigh and looked over to see him pointing toward the agora’s far end. Carlos noted the low fountain complex near the square’s center, then picked up the distant building his father had indicated. It was there at the very end of the public space, a modern glass-and-steel affair, a house he thought, but completely out of place here among these ancient structures. He could see sun shining in the broad glass windows, the graceful curve of a wide deck fronting it. A glass house, he thought, trying to locate it, make it stick here where it did not belong.

  Alma turned in his saddle then and beckoned to them, and each urged his horse ahead behind him, Ramona’s touching its muzzle into the flank of Gino’s familiarly, and they rode in at the mouth of the square, then headed off to the right, where up ahead and beyond the fountain in the distance, Carlos could see a lower structure in the line of structures there and could see a squat chimney above it and wisps of smoke floating up into the clear sky, and on the low hill that rose beyond the square’s perimeter above the chimney, he could see a meandering flow of cultivated fields, broad ribbon swaths where dense ground cover had been uprooted and plowed under, and a crop growing there and waving in the light breeze.

  Then he saw a few people, a woman in a woven poncho that fell to her bare thighs, her hair gathered tight against her scalp and very dark, and two men, scantily dressed in loincloths, or shorts of some kind, their chests bare and smooth and glistening in the sun. Unlike the woman, their hair hung to shoulder length, one raven and thick, the other’s head framed in blond ringlets Carlos thought might be the product of some vegetable dye. Alma was guiding them there, moving toward the building they stood before, one in the line that formed the square’s southern side, and as they got closer, Carlos saw the jewelry the men wore, looping stone necklaces and rings in their ears. They stood before the building’s open doorway, and another man came out to join them and took the reins of Alma’s horse and stood at its head and patiently waited for the others to climb down from their mounts, their careful actions accompanied by groans and bone clicks and those wheezing whistles and sucking sounds that issued from the old men. Ramona stood at Gino’s side, and he held her arm to keep his balance as he lifted his leg, kneading his cramped calf. The others were shaking themselves, turning in small, awkward steps, working the kinks out, and Carlos stood silently at his father’s side, waiting respectfully. Alma waited too, and only when they were steady on their feet did the man lead Alma’s horse away, the others following without prompting as they headed toward the structure where Carlos had seen the horse’s head in the window at the other side of the square.

  The building had no solid door, just a piece of heavy fabric that had been hooked to the side to allow passage, and once they were all inside, crowded together in a dim foyer, Alma went ahead with the three attendants, and the old men touched the cool stone walls and leaned against them. And in moments light flooded into the foyer from beyond, and when they stepped in they saw the blond man pull aside the last cloth window covering, and they found themselves in a large open room with a low ceiling, square window openings lining the back wall. The light brought shadow figures into the room, patterns of leafy branches that danced over the dark dirt floor and shimmered near the mouths of interior entrances to other rooms beyond. A low wooden table sat at the room’s center, ceramic bowls containing fruit upon it, and there were twisted wicker chairs surrounding the table, four of them, and a few wooden stools against the wall below the windows.

  The men had sat too long, and now they hesitated, though Carlos could see they were still wobbly on their legs. “Fruit,” Gino said. He still wore his sombrero, and his face was lost under the brim. Larry held his straw hat in his hand, no hair at all visible now, and just as Frank crossed to the table for a fat orange, they heard a creak of metal at the house front. Then the man who had taken away the horses returned, wheeling John’s chair through the doorway and into the room. John turned and saw it, and when the man had pushed it close enough, he backed into it, then sat down with a deep sigh. “Just like home,” he said.

  Then the two men came in from another room, their chests dark now in the shadows, and moved to where Larry stood. Carlos had thought them younger than they now appeared, shadows accentuating age lines in their flat faces. They were as old as the old men themselves, almost that, and Carlos saw that the formal stiffness in their gestures came as much from a carefulness with sinew and bone as it did from occasion. They look like me, he thought, and when they reached Larry’s side, the blond one turned and stared at him, as if in recognition of some brotherhood, and Carlos could see the light downy patch of hair running from his navel to disappear under his garment above his crotch, and he wondered if that too was the product of some dye or was natural. Each touched Larry lightly on the shoulder, beckoning, then led him through a doorway to another place. The men were gone for a few moments only, then came back with the woman, and soon all were led away, Manuel and Ramona together beside one of the men, the three old men with the woman, and Carlos, alone now, by the blond man. Alma had left quietly, and no one had noticed his going.

  The room the man led him into was a small bedroom, a table holding a fruit basket, oranges and bananas, and a narrow cot against the wall. There were two windows in the back wall, and a stone stairway leading down a few steps at the room’s side. Carlos could see the still pool there, a few leafy shadows on the water’s surface. The man saw him looking and lifted his hands and touched his bare breast and shoulder in a gesture of bathing, then moved to the cot and pulled the light woven coverlet to the side. Then he moved to one of the windows and lifted the hooked-up blanket and let it fall across the opening. He gestured toward the stack of rough towels on a shelf beside the stone stairway leading to the bath and nodded to Carlos
and smiled a little coyly and turned, his blond ringlets bobbing at his shoulders and his necklace clacking softly and brushing his nipple, and left the room.

  He awoke to the faint sound of laughter and splashing and turned his head on the pillow, still half asleep, and thought there might be someone in the bath off in the dark, but the sounds were more distant than that, and as he returned to wakefulness he knew they were coming through the rock that formed the bath’s far wall and from another bath beyond. He rose and sat at the bed’s edge and rubbed his eyes. He could feel grit in the creases, and when he lifted his head again and gazed into the room, he saw that it was darker now, not night yet, but surely dusk. The silhouettes were gone from the floor, but he could see the descending steps that led down into the bath, the towels on the shelf, and the table to his right. The fruit basket was gone, and in its place someone had set a pitcher and a mug. He rose and stretched, then moved to the table and poured from the pitcher and drank deeply, cool water, then filled the mug and drank again. Then he was peeling his clothes away and dropping them to the floor, and once he was naked he moved to the bath’s descending steps. He saw his pack and the cloth satchel he had brought along, off in a corner as he stepped down, his feet entering the water, and in a moment he had sunk in up to his neck and could hear the faint splashing and a few satisfied groans through the thick stone wall.

  It was dark by the time he had dressed again, in clean clothing, light khaki pants and shirt, and had stepped out through the building’s open doorway and onto the walk that edged the square. He found they were all there waiting, even Alma, in shorts like the bare-chested men had worn, but in a loose white shirt with beaded piping at the pockets. His father stood beside Ramona, who had traded her western costume for a long dress. She wore a silver necklace, but no makeup now, and Carlos thought she looked her age and might even be comfortable in it. Gino stood beside them, dark splotches on his bare legs that looked like thin sticks below his baggy shorts. Larry stood off to the side a little, looking toward the square’s center in the distance. He was wearing his loose, pajama-like outfit once again and his tennis shoes, and he’d replaced his cowboy hat with that beaded skullcap. Carlos could see lights where he gazed, around the dark shadow shapes of the low fountain, torches he thought, their flames dancing in the soft cool breeze he felt at his collar. Figures moved at the fountain’s edges, and some seemed to be carrying and adjusting things around it.

  “The bath was very good,” Frank said. His clothes were almost formal, a pair of cotton slacks and a black belt and white dress shirt, tucked in at the waist and bulging over his thick chest, and black tennis shoes. It was too dark now to see clearly under the shadow cast by the building, though the last remnants of sun, those final geometric figures, covered the square, starting beyond the walkway and the planters lining it, an enigmatic pattern that moved down its length to the fountain and beyond.

  John stood beside his wheelchair, the bright feather dusty in the brim of his derby hat now, in pants reminiscent of the ones Alma had worn on the trail and a similar woven shirt. His hand gripped the sidebar, and Carlos waved him off and lifted the chair down the few steps to ground at the square’s edge, and once John was seated and settled in, they started their slow procession, heading for the fountain. John lit a cigarette, as Carlos walked behind him and pushed him, and smoke flooded from his tracheotomy tube, to rise and disappear above them.

  There were lights in the huts along the hill, a shimmering in doorways like vacant movie screens, and the light seeped up into their roofs, leaking through the thatching, and the roofs seemed to be levitating. The flames off in the distance at the fountain had steadied, breeze rising from the square and leaving, and Carlos could hear it going in faint rustling in leaves and branches high above the huts where the hill peaked, and he thought he could see light in the sky there, though there was no moon. And he saw a glow of light too at the glass house.

  “Oil,” John said, a faint creak in the mechanism as Carlos pushed him, “all that dust and sand along the way.” His voice was creaky too, a deep exhaustion in it, but it held some energy as well, and the others seemed expectant also. He thought he could see it in their shuffling gait and even in Ramona, his father at her side, in the way she shook her loose hair that fell gracefully to her shoulders. Then, in a while, they were moving out of the darkness, coming into the edge of light cast by the torches at the fountain’s sides.

  The fountain was made of heavy slabs of dark stone that had been fashioned into rectangles to form a low wall that contained it. The wall was broad, at least a yard wide, and the lanterns rested on it, three on each side of the roughly rectangular shape, the contained pool rising up almost to the edge and lapping there. What had been a small animal figure stood up at the center, worn away over time, and a broad cylinder of water climbed up in the air above it, just a few inches, to form a mushroom head that spilled down, causing a turgid bubbling at its base, then changed to quieter ripples that dissipated into that lapping when it reached the walls.

  Carlos heard Ramona laugh lightly, then laugh again through a quiet sneeze, and when he looked beyond where she stood beside his father and Gino, he saw two women at a table on the far side of the fountain. He heard a click on glass, then saw the light flame at the fat candle wick as one of them lit it, and in that light a flag of white fabric floated on the night air for a moment, then fell to cover the wooden table, upon which the woman placed the candle and covered the flame with a glass chimney.

  There was another table beside it, set slightly askew as in some Paris café, and the women prepared it and more candles were lit and men came out of the darkness with more lanterns and yet another table. Soon light bathed the entire area, and Carlos could see the food in the wooden boats the men carried, those two that had met them earlier in shorts only, but now wore fabric smocks that hung down below their knees, brushing at their legs. They still wore their earrings and the blond one wore a beaded bracelet, and Carlos thought he could see a hint of color on their cheeks and noses, and he saw that Larry was watching them as well. They set the bowls down on the tables, then turned and walked back into the darkness at the lights’ periphery, only to appear again, carrying pitchers and baskets piled high with tortillas and a kind of cakey bread.

  The women held dishes then and wooden utensils, and they all watched as the tables were set for dinner and mugs were placed to the right of large pottery plates. Then Alma raised his hand again in that now familiar gesture, and the old men shuffled toward the tables, speaking softly, negotiating a proper seating, and Carlos and his father and Ramona followed after. Gino joined them, and so did Frank, and John and Larry sat with Alma at the other table, which was slightly smaller and edged out into the darkness a little where the lantern light failed. Then the wooden boats were lifted by the two men and the women and were brought to their sides and offered up so they could serve themselves.

  The food was similar to the stew Alma had served on the trail, but thicker and fresher, and they could smell sweet spices in the steam that rose above their full plates. The drink was water only, laced with mint, but spring water and delicious, and they lifted their mugs to toast each other and dipped tortillas and hunks of bread in the juices. The napkins were made from pieces of old clothing, large squares that had been cut and stitched by hand, and they used them sparingly to dab the brown juice away from their lips and chins, and their utensils clicked against their plates with dull sounds, wood against ceramic, and there was little talk, but only light laughter and a few whispered comments as they ate.

  When they were finished and their plates had been cleared away, the two men produced tobacco in a small wooden bowl and clay pipes and the women arrived again with a plate of candy balls with colorful veins running through them, some pasty substance, sweet, but with a tang that bit lightly at the tips of their tongues.

  Carlos could see beyond the other table now to where the legs of a row of straight-back chairs poked out of the darkness and into can
dlelight. There were five of them, and in four he could see the shadow figures of those who had served them. They must have sat there, attentively, all the while the company had eaten, then brought the tobacco and the pipes and candy and then retired there again. They sat there now, as pipes were lit and the rich scent of smoke drifted away over the tables, and he could see the crossed legs of the men, the women’s dark hands in their laps.

  The talk was quiet and subdued among them. Frank was at his side. He’d leaned back in his chair, moving out of elements of conversation, but for the whispered wonder talk of the here and now, he had no real part in. Ramona leaned against Manuel, and both were turned slightly, their heads in profile, looking down at Gino, his elbows on the table, who was telling them something Carlos couldn’t quite hear. Just a few words drifted across the table, borne on some insistence: smoke, hydrotherapy, skin. Frank’s hands were on his ample stomach, the pipe in his teeth. He was looking up to where the stars might be, but when Carlos glanced above he could see nothing in the darkness, and he wondered, just briefly, where his mind might be. He could hear Larry’s voice from the other table, something about flowers and air, and when he looked there he saw that John had pushed his wheelchair back a little from the table’s edge and had turned it. He’d given up on the pipe and had lit a cigarette, and he was watching Larry’s hands as they moved in tight, delicate gestures, forming things he was speaking of.