She had never seen a victim of a stroke before and had no idea how to help him. She did not know whether to move him so that he was lying down or to leave him where he was. Nor was she certain whether she should speak to him or shake him out of his stupor, or whether it was better if he came back to his senses of his own accord, in his own time. Should she give him water, or not? Give him ammonia to smell?
She ventured to touch his face. When he felt the contact, Francisco opened his eyes so suddenly that it made Beatriz jump.
“What?”
Wavering between shock and relief, Beatriz opted for indignation.
“I thought you were dying, that’s what!”
“Of course I’m not. Who said that?” he asked without moving from where he was.
“Oh, forget it. It’s clear you aren’t. What’s all this mess? What happened here?” In the respite that her relief at her husband being alive gave her, she noticed the envelopes scattered across the floor.
“The consensus in Linares is that they’re all love letters for Carmen.”
“Ah. There’s an opinion on the matter in Linares?”
“What do you think? Eighty-nine letters don’t go unnoticed, Beatriz.”
“That many?” She began picking them up and making tidy piles while Francisco observed her without moving. They were a little battered, but none were open, and it appeared that none had been destroyed. They were all from Antonio Domínguez.
Francisco noted that Beatriz did not seem surprised.
“You already knew that Carmen had a sweetheart in Monterrey?”
“I only found out a few days ago.”
She told him what she knew about their daughter’s romance and about the amorous suitor’s family and social pedigree.
“I was going to tell you very soon; it wasn’t a secret. I was just putting it off, that’s all. Until the right moment. Now we’ll have to speak to her about making a serious commitment.”
“Not in his dreams! She will not marry so young. Anyway, who is he? He could be a fortune hunter, a libertine, a seducer of young ladies—”
“No! He’s a young man from a good family, like I said. And I don’t think he would dare play games with someone like Carmen. But he’s not from Linares: if they marry, they’ll live in Monterrey. Just imagine. What would we do? How often would we see her? And of course, they must not marry immediately: Carmen must finish school and wait at least a year for the mourning.”
“A year for each death would be better.”
“I don’t think so. At that rate, we’d never be grandparents. And I do want to be a grandmother, even if our grandchildren end up living far away. Just not so soon. In any case, we need time to come to terms with the idea that we could be grandparents, that we’re old, don’t you think? The news that I had a daughter with marital intentions hit me like a bucket of cold water, to be honest. I was only just getting used to this phase of our life, and now we’re entering another, the same one my mama’s in. And it has been hard: growing old isn’t easy.”
“First we will have to see whether we like the suitor before there can be any wedding. The grandchildren will come later. It’s a long way off.”
“Well, if I grow old, that means you’ll be growing old, too, you should know.”
“I’ll never grow old, and if I don’t, then I won’t let you either,” he said to her, pulling her onto his lap.
That was how Carmen found them when she came crashing into the room, brimming with joy.
“Is it true a lot of letters came for me?”
“Who told you?”
“They told me in town, on the way home. First Doña Eufemia told me that she saw that there were three sackfuls. Then other people. They all wanted to know who they’re from.”
“Doña Eufemia . . . I told you all of Linares would know about the famous letters, Beatriz. One sack. There was just one sack. And you, Carmen: I’d like you to make it clear to this Antonio that I do not like the fact that, thanks to him, you’re the talk of the town. And if you are going to read the letters, afterward you will pass them all on to your mother so she can check them. His tone and his intentions had better be the right ones. And if you reply, you must also read your reply to your mother, to avoid any misunderstandings or more gossip. If that’s not to your liking, we can burn them right here and forget about the whole business.”
Carmen quickly agreed but took her time sorting the letters by date before opening the first one.
Nana Pola plucked up the courage to come in to announce the doctor’s arrival.
“How embarrassing,” Beatriz said. “I had him come for nothing! I thought you’d had a stroke. I’ll tell him it was a misunderstanding, so that he can go.”
“No, tell him to come in. With all the thrashing around, I injured my back. I can’t move,” he admitted.
Beatriz looked at him closely.
“Didn’t you just promise me you’d never get old?”
23
Verses That Win Hearts
While her father recovered from his fit with the help of aspirin and hot-water poultices, Carmen read her letters out loud in the presence of her mother, who was forced to admit that, not only did they show the respect due to a young lady of good family, they also expressed a devotion that seemed sincere, passionate, and at all times well mannered. In the first few letters, Antonio made Carmen promises and asked for promises in return. He asked for her consent to write to her parents, to obtain their permission to begin the courtship. In the most recent letters, he continued to make promises, but in his anguish at the prolonged absence and silence of his sweetheart, his hope for a future together was replaced by his fear that Carmen no longer graced the world of the living with her presence.
He transcribed songs for her and clumsily translated some of the classic poems of English literature into Spanish. He was also brave enough to include some of his own imperfect but impassioned pieces. Beatriz did not know whether Carmen noticed the difference, but she liked Antonio’s originals the most—if not for their quality, then for the devotion they expressed. In spite of her surprise at Carmen’s new romance and her firm belief that her daughter was still too young for it, Beatriz was deeply moved by the strength of feeling that her daughter had elicited in the young man. If somebody was going to love her, a mother could hope only that her daughter would be loved well and for the rest of her life. And that was how, with his verses and declarations—and with the good intention of wanting to ask her permission—Antonio Domínguez won the heart of the woman who would become his mother-in-law. With each page, Beatriz cared less about their initial obstacles and objections. She did not know her future son-in-law, but she hoped to meet him, to learn more about him. She wanted to see the love and admiration that he felt for her daughter in his eyes. The war would end, and it would become easier to visit them in Monterrey when they married. They would find a way to ensure that the grandchildren did not miss their grandparents, inviting them to visit often.
The young man had not yet mentioned dates, just promises, and while there was no reason to fear Carmen would threaten to marry before she was sixteen, Beatriz began to think that her firm conviction that her daughter must wait until she was seventeen could soften if the young lovers decided to marry sooner.
If one thing had been beaten into Beatriz in the years of war and months of infection and death, it was that life offered no guarantees, and regardless of how many plans had been made, events outside of one’s control could easily spoil them. From the first line Carmen read from Antonio Domínguez’s letters, the hard shell of cynicism that had formed around Beatriz had begun to soften. Nothing would make her change her mind: she still thought that life did not make promises. For her, that was a simple fact. But she had based her decisions on this precept for a long time. And now she wanted to think that, while life did not make promises, sometimes it offered opportunities. Beatriz recognized that Carmen had a chance to live and to give life, to start afresh, with new enthusiasm a
nd faith in the future.
She therefore concluded that it did not matter whether Carmen married at sixteen or seventeen: the important thing was to seize the opportunity and not let it go. She realized with nostalgia that they were leaving behind the childish games of “Who will I marry?” that a mother and daughter play, a question to which there was never a concrete answer, until there was. And now there was. And she wanted to say to her daughter, Here he is; it’s time; this is what life is offering you. Don’t let it go.
With each paragraph that they read, Beatriz Morales de Cortés gradually turned her back on past sorrows, hardships, and complaints, and began to look with relish at future opportunities. For everyone. For Carmen—she decided to believe—there would be more joy than suffering. And what more could a mother want for her daughter?
For the first time in a long while, she felt that the deaths, disease, and war were not the end; life went on, and at times like this, she took pleasure in it. Naturally, eighty-nine letters cannot be read with due care in one sitting. They stopped to have dinner and later again for another bite to eat. On her mother’s insistence, Carmen’s reply had to wait until the next day. Who knows what silly things you might say at this time of night?
“And the same goes for me. Time for bed.”
The next day, they had Martín take Carmen’s letter to the post office. With the appropriate discretion, it contained the necessary information: I am alive; I received your letters; I don’t know when I will return; my parents have given me permission to be your fiancée. Martín left with the letter but returned with nine more, though just one was from Antonio Domínguez. The rest, to the Morales family’s surprise, were also professions of love for Carmen, written by young men of Linares who, hearing about the large shipment of letters from Monterrey the day before, had seen the door open to courting her.
The replies to them were kind but emphatic: Thank you, I am spoken for. Even so, not all of them desisted from their attempts: years later, letters that would never receive a response continued to arrive, and Beatriz would keep them forever. Her daughter was engaged, but in a world with so little good news, why not appreciate young love—whoever it came from—which wanted only to let itself be known?
24
Life That Goes On
My sister Carmen would not marry immediately. After much discussion, my parents decided that my sisters must return to the Sagrado Corazón, in spite of the romance. The violence and pillage of the war hadn’t abated, even after three months of the influenza epidemic. The levy remained a real danger for the men, and women could also disappear in an instant and never return. I suppose all of this was worse in other states, but in Nuevo León, we were not exempt from it. My parents thought that Carmen and Consuelo were at greater risk from the possibility of bandoleros attacking Linares than they were boarding in the protection of the nuns. Carmen’s suitor would have to wait.
But it wouldn’t be easy for them to support my sister in their courtship. Determined that neither of their daughters would marry a man they did not know well, they had to think of a strategy to enable the sweethearts to see more of each other—with the utmost propriety, of course. It would not be enough just to allow them to leave the boarding school from time to time with their friend, the young man’s cousin. Indeed, they were afraid it would be frowned upon that a young woman of good family should see her fiancé in the absence of her parents.
So, my papa, who had already devoted a great deal of thought to fast-developing Monterrey as an opportunity to leave, as a respite from the crossfire of the war—and from the stagnation and uncertainty of the countryside—announced to my mama a few days after learning of the courtship that, protest as she might, it was time to build or buy a house in Monterrey.
“And no, it’s not to go live there. I know you don’t want to. It’s to be closer to the girls. That way Carmen can see Antonio under your supervision, because one does not marry blind. And anyway, it’s a good investment.”
His final point was, perhaps, mostly for his ancestors’ ears.
“But the tractor you need, the peons’ houses, the electrics . . .”
“We have savings, and if they’re not for something like this, what are they for? I’ve already used some to buy land there, and look: nothing happened.”
With my mama concerned about the changes that were about to happen, my papa finally informed her, without much fuss, about the properties he had purchased. When there was no explosive response on my mama’s part, to avoid tempting fate—to distract her—he continued explaining the plan.
My sisters could stay in the house when my mama was in the city, and they would join the Monterrey Social Club so they could go to the dances.
My sisters liked the idea. The problem was that my mama had not returned to Monterrey since my grandfather was executed. It was not the city she objected to: it was the journey. She was worried about the dangers of traveling by train. When my papa told her he would send her in the car, though it would take longer, she was no less afraid. Train or car, it made no difference. My papa could hardly criticize her for her fears, for they were well founded. He couldn’t promise her that nothing would happen, that there was no danger, just as he couldn’t promise her that she would be safe if she remained in Linares.
My sisters were very beautiful, especially Carmen, and not by chance: they inherited it from my mama, who, despite having a daughter of marrying age, was very well preserved. My papa knew that the risk of her being snatched while in transit was almost as high as it was for my sisters. And in order to stay as close as possible, watching over her since the incident that made them decide to send my sisters to board in Monterrey, he had not given the Tamaulipas ranches the attention they needed. Carmen’s engagement opened up the possibility of the family living in safety in a new home in Monterrey, at least while he was away on his ranches.
Though my mother swore—and would fulfill her oath—to never spend more than a week away from her home by my papa’s side, they quickly bought a house on Calle Zaragoza, at the time the best location for families of means. It was of modest size but extremely modern: fully electrified, with running water in the kitchen and an indoor bathroom. At first this had seemed extravagant to Beatriz, but she grew accustomed to it almost immediately.
That was how Carmen and Antonio, despite both of them being in mourning for a year—for in Monterrey there had also been many deaths from the Spanish flu—were able to conduct a quite conventional courtship when my mama was in the city. They danced at the Monterrey Social Club; they dined at home with my mama. And when my papa came to visit, the fiancé’s parents would invite them to some family event. When my sister returned to boarding school in my mama’s absence, the couple wrote to each other twice a day, missing one another and impatiently planning the event that would bring their lives together in the winter of 1920.
As it turned out, they didn’t marry until the winter of 1921, though everything had been ready for the wedding for a full year. What happened—and my parents would later point out the irony of initially worrying so much about the young age of their enamored daughter—was that Señora Domínguez, Antonio’s mother, died of acute hepatitis in October 1920, shortly after the couple notified the Church of their engagement in August of that year. Antonio, obliged to remain in mourning for at least a year, postponed the wedding.
“Look, Francisco. You must promise me something,” my mama said to my papa during their son-in-law’s year of mourning. “If I die this year, don’t even think about postponing Carmen and Antonio’s wedding. If we carry on like this, their whole life could pass them by with all this death. Life waits for no one, and death takes us all. Let them marry, and that’s that. Something discreet, if they want. Without much celebration. Honestly, it would offend me if it weren’t discreet; I would be more offended if they grew old before marrying because of my imprudence.”
“Would flowers be allowed in this context?” asked my papa and, after receiving the pinch that he
deserved, added, “Don’t even say it; you’ve never been imprudent in your life. And don’t even think about starting now.”
25
The Coyote That’s Coming
The day that Simonopio accompanied Beatriz Morales de Cortés to offer her condolences to the Espiricueta family was the day when he took refuge again in his nana’s bed.
Simonopio had slept peacefully in Reja and Pola’s bedroom all his life, first in a Moses basket and then in a crib. When he was four, they urgently made him a bed.
His godmother had walked in one night, looking for Nana Pola, and saw him lying in his crib, ready to sleep curled up in a ball. She approached to stroke his brow and tuck him in, but then stopped.
“Just look at you, Simonopio! When did you grow so much?” He, of course, offered no reply. “You don’t fit anymore. If you keep sleeping here, you’ll grow all rolled up like a snail.”
Two days later, Simonopio found a large bed with no rails in place of his crib.
He did not want to turn into a snail, and he liked the idea of stretching his legs, but he would miss the bars that kept him inside, that protected him. He knew he would be unable control his movements in order to keep away from the edge. The first night, he could not sleep. After that, he slept but would wake suddenly, startled by the feeling in his stomach of falling into a void. Simonopio was not afraid of hitting the ground; he was afraid of the void. Of falling forever.
In the following months, he developed the habit of sneaking with blanket and pillow into his nana Reja’s bed, where he fell fast asleep between his protector’s warm body and the wall.
Reja, who did not sleep, noticed when the boy climbed in with her, trying not to disturb her, afraid perhaps that she would stop him and send him back to his own bed. But she never did. She did not care if the bed ejected her before her customary time in the mornings, stiffer than usual and groaning a little as she moved and got up, which she had never done before. She was not used to having someone so close, whether in the day or night, but if she was not there to offer comfort to her boy, what purpose did she have in life?
The Murmur of Bees Page 17