Before nightfall, in the company of their husbands, Carmen and Consuelo arrived from Monterrey to take charge of the preparations. They had imagined that on arriving they would collapse with grief into their mother’s arms and that she would console them like she always had. But seeing the state she was in, they understood, alarmed, that they did not have time to break down, that they had to take responsibility, because at that moment their mother was not capable of anything, not even offering comfort.
The family were all present, they said, so they announced the Requiem Mass and burial of Francisco Morales the next day.
They struggled to coax Beatriz away from her husband’s coffin, beside which she had stationed herself to keep vigil not over the deceased but over her missing son.
78
Honey on the Wound
Francisco Junior was lost.
Many hours had gone by, but the body was still unconscious in his arms, and Simonopio had been afraid for the same number of hours.
“Where are you, Francisco? Come back.”
Simonopio sang all the songs he knew to him over and over again. He told him all the stories, except the one about the lion and the coyote, because not even he wanted to remember either of them.
Sometimes the soul must be allowed to rest, kept away from the things that hurt it.
“Is that what you’re doing, Francisco? Resting?”
He had walked with Francisco in his arms to this place with clean air away from Espiricueta’s land, to what was more like a crack in a rock than a cave. It was not the ideal place to spend the night, but it offered some protection against the cold wind. In any case, he could not have gone on any longer: the run from the river had exhausted him, and carrying Francisco was no longer as easy as it had been when he was a baby.
So he had headed to this place he knew from some other occasion. He sat down, resting against the base of a rock, without letting go of Francisco, refusing to return him to the cold earth where he had spent so long under his father’s body. He was sorry that he had not brought his overnight bag, thinking that he would only be out for a few hours, though he was grateful that he never went out without the old pocketknife his godfather had given him. From the small inventory he had in his sack, he took out his jar of honey and dabbed some on Francisco’s wounds, to protect them. His arms would have to be enough to shelter the boy from the cold.
But he did not sleep, for fear of falling into the depths, like Francisco.
When the boy woke—Simonopio decided during the first night—they would go to fetch the cart in order to return home. But Francisco Junior would not wake up. The new day arrived and went, but the boy remained lost in unconsciousness. Simonopio knew that, by then, his godmother would be in a state of anguish because of her dead husband and missing child, and he would have liked to alleviate her suffering in some way, but it was impossible. He also knew that a group of men was searching for them, but they were far away and heading in different directions, and there was no way for Simonopio to go find them: on no account would he leave the boy alone or move him more than necessary.
“I won’t leave you,” he repeated between stories, between songs.
He had broken his promise once. He would never do it again.
Francisco would be all right. The boy would wake up, Simonopio told himself, though he was uncertain whether he was predicting it or merely hoping.
But Francisco was not waking up, despite Simonopio’s attempts to bring him back to the world with his voice.
Little by little, drip by drip, he gave him all the honey that he had taken with him to the river. With a corner of the blanket, Simonopio persevered in collecting the water that seeped and filtered through the rock, so that, drop by drop, he could also keep the boy’s tongue and body moist. Now the honey was all gone, and soon he would have to decide whether to get up and walk, to set off home in spite of the boy’s delicate condition and the danger of the coyote.
Because while Simonopio knew that a search party was scouring the hills, he did not know whether the coyote was among them, as he had been on that occasion years before, when they had given Simonopio up for lost. He could not know, because his bees remained in an unfamiliar silence from which they transmitted no news to him of any kind. Simonopio did not know with certainty whether they had managed to hunt down the murderer. He did not know whether they had survived the night to continue the hunt the next day.
Almost forty-eight hours had passed when, finally, he sensed that a search party was close. He decided it was time to come out of hiding. With his pocketknife in his hand as a precaution and Francisco Junior in his arms, trying not to mishandle or move him more than necessary, Simonopio went out to meet them.
He saw with relief that it was Uncle Emilio Cortés, accompanied only by Gabino and Leocadio; although Simonopio preferred Martín, both men could be trusted. He trusted his uncle especially, and he knew that Uncle Emilio had not stopped searching even to rest or eat. Even so, Simonopio flatly refused to hand the boy over to him, because he was still the one who had to carry him, in spite of the many hours he had spent doing so, in spite of being exhausted, in spite of his cramping arms.
He and no one else would take him to his mother.
79
Alive or Dead
Francisco Morales’s burial was at noon that Monday, just after Mass, which the new Father Pedro had gone to great pains to make moving and personal, speaking of Francisco Morales with genuine respect, admiration, and affection.
His daughters broke down in tears in anticipation of the pain of missing the father whom, with so many preparations and legal formalities to take care of, they not yet had the chance to miss. Sinforosa, the deceased’s mother-in-law, saturated one of the handkerchiefs she had brought with tears. The other handkerchief, which she had given to Beatriz, was still unused, for only one pair of dry eyes remained in the church: those of the widow, who was incapable of paying any attention to what was happening around her.
Years later, once she had built up the strength to talk about the episode with Carmen and Consuelo, Beatriz continued to be unrepentant of her rude—albeit temporary—catatonic state, because it had protected her from suffering the same pain she had suffered during the funeral process for her father, when she had remained sane, despite the loss. If, in the days of her husband’s wake and burial, some well-intentioned visitors had told her that what had happened was a test from God, she did not listen. If other insensitive and senseless people spoke to her of the two angels, summoned by God, that heaven had gained, she did not take it personally. If the new Father Pedro had approached her, declaring that her recovery hinged upon her capacity for forgiveness and upon prayer for her dead husband, her missing son, and the enemy, she pretended that she was made of wood, like Nana Reja.
All of a sudden, all that remained of the whole process was the three masses that would be offered for the salvation of Francisco Morales’s soul, since he had died without being anointed. Beatriz would go: her mother, showing a strength that had appeared to have faded when she was widowed, would not allow her to do otherwise, just as she would not allow her to refuse to eat, wash, and sleep, even if all Beatriz wanted to do was look out of the window and be the first to see her son return.
Alive or dead.
The day would come when she would thank her mother for her stubbornness, but not yet.
She would go to the three masses, because custom and her mother made her do it, but she would pray for the return of her son: the prayers for Francisco could begin afterward. He would understand. There was no rush.
“Beatriz. Look at me, Beatriz.” With effort, she did as her mother asked. “Leocadio came for the cart.”
“What . . . ?” It seemed impossible. She would have seen something from her window.
“I don’t know. Pola told me. He quickly came and went without saying anything, but not that way,” she said, indicating the road Beatriz could see from her window. “Out the back, down Reja’s road.
Do you want to wait there?”
For years they had called that path Reja’s road, because it was where she always faced, even if she did not look at it; it was where she had gone in search of a crying baby, and also from where she had returned, baby in arms, on the same cart for which they would wait that day together, one on her rocking chair and the other in a straight-backed chair. One with her eyes closed and the other with her eyes wide open.
Both looking for their boys.
Alive or dead? Alive or dead? Alive or dead? they both asked silently to the rhythm of the nana’s rocking chair.
When the answer was finally about to come after almost two days of asking, Beatriz Cortés, widow of Morales, was tempted to return to her window to look the other way. She had thought that she would prefer to know. To find her son even if he was dead. Then it occurred to her that the worst thing might be to learn that her son had died with his father; that it would be worse to receive his battered, lifeless, decomposed little body, which she could not refuse her attentions—even if they were mortuary—because for what remained of her life, she would never forgive herself such neglect.
She did not move from her place, but she closed her eyes like Nana Reja. It was impossible, however, to close her ears: she could hear the cart’s wheels and the horses’ hooves on stones and earth growing closer and closer. Closing her eyes was useless and it made it worse: what her eyes did not see, her mind imagined. So she opened them, so she stood, so she walked out to meet the cart, so she saw that neither Francisco nor Simonopio were riding on its front bench, so she concluded; she contained her breath, her body, and her tears, and she said, “He’s come home dead like his papa.”
80
An Empty Roof
If Simonopio had gone to his shed to rest and not off into the hills, it was not just to keep his promise to not leave Francisco again; it was also because, while he had not felt them before, suddenly the wounds on his feet began to hurt, a lot, and putting on shoes and walking off seemed like a very bad idea. Then he remembered that he had lost the only shoes he had, that in the rush, he had left them almost as an offering for the river to devour. He also remained in his shed because he needed the comfort of what remained of the beehive under his roof, of the queen bee and of the bees that, because of their young age, had not gone out when he had called them.
They also needed him: they were all in mourning. They had all lost too much.
Under the great, almost-vacant structure they had built over nineteen years between the roof beams, Simonopio allowed himself to sleep, to put the vigil on hold. He also gave himself permission to rest the wounds on his body and heart.
After cleaning himself up, eating, and drinking, because he had not done so since he’d found Francisco Junior, Simonopio slept for two days straight. Sometimes he opened his eyes a little to find Nana Reja sitting at the foot of his bed, or rocking beside him, but his eyes closed again of their own accord. Perhaps it was that Simonopio did not have the strength to open them for long enough to explain to the little old lady, with a look, everything that would change their lives, all the grief that life would bring. Or perhaps it was that his eyes still refused to be the messengers of the news.
At other times he had sensed that his godmother had come to see him; that she offered food or fresh water; that she touched his brow; that she stroked his cheek; that she cleaned the cuts on his hands, face, and feet and applied ointment; but he had not been able to escape his stupor to ask after Francisco, to respond to anything, or to thank her for her kindness.
He was aware of the words she said to him during the time she was in his shed, tending to him: Francisco had improved, he was regaining consciousness at intervals, he spoke a little, he was asking after him.
“The doctor says you did well not to move him much, because of the blow to the head and the broken rib.”
Remembering how Espiricueta had shaken him and thinking about the pain it must have inflicted on the boy—aggravated later by each step that Simonopio had taken with him in his arms—almost made him come out of his slumber, but he did not allow himself to do so: he reminded himself that Francisco was now safe. Francisco was receiving the attention he needed, and now Simonopio also had to rest in order to be ready for the decisions that would soon have to be made.
Simonopio would wake up only when he sensed that Francisco had completely regained consciousness. That was the time frame he gave himself and that he would obey. With this decision made, Simonopio forced himself to remain insensible to everything, from the unease he felt at the almost-empty and silent roof under which he slept to Nana Reja’s rhythmic rocking and the never-changing parting words of Beatriz: “Thank you, Simonopio. Thank you. Forgive me, please.”
He had understood the reaction of his godmother who, seeing him arrive with her boy in his arms, without knowing whether Francisco was dead or alive after two days of continuous anguish, had received him with a slap.
He understood: it had been that or to fall to pieces, and true to her essence, Beatriz Cortés de Morales had opted to be strong. Once she recovered her young son, the spark had returned to her eyes, the storm that broke out when Lupita died and that had slowly faded over time.
Her fury was not directed at him. Her fury was for the coyote.
There was nothing for which to be grateful. Nothing to thank him for. And nothing to forgive.
81
Your Mama Never Forgave Herself That Slap,
and until the day of her death, as sane as she always remained, she continued to berate herself for the violent error.
It’s true. My mama continued to sew on her Singer until the end, in her eagerness to remember the good things, forget the bad things, and have the strength to face life’s surprises, good and bad. By the way, she never wanted the electric sewing machine that I gave her—It doesn’t sew the same, it doesn’t sound right, I can’t make my hands comfortable, she would say, always finding some defect in it—so she would die with stronger legs than a marathon runner from so much pedaling to the rhythm that brought her peace and that she lost only when, in her absorption, the memory of the welcome she had given Simonopio that day popped into her head. Her rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat became a disordered rat-a . . . tat that ended in tangled thread and straying material. Then she would stop without finishing the project and wander for a while around the house as if lost, feeling desolate, going over the events of my seventh birthday and wishing she had behaved differently with Simonopio, with my papa, and with me.
But that had been her reaction, and it could not be undone, despite the regrets and wishes that stayed with her for the rest of her life: if only she had hugged him, if only she had told him that she had also thought of him, that she had also feared for him.
In her defense, I should explain that she did just that with Simonopio as soon as she had the chance, which was what mattered, though it never seemed enough to her. What was given, was given, and that slap was certainly given by my mama who, for the rest of her life, with unwavering certainty, with stabbing remorse, would say that it was the first—and last—time she had hit anybody.
She never wanted to listen to my objections: the spankings, my spankings, did not count as hitting as far as she was concerned.
“Anyway, you deserved them. Simonopio did not,” she replied whenever I tried to contradict her.
82
Unanswered Questions
Her brother Emilio was so proud to be the one who found Simonopio and Francisco that Beatriz did not have the heart to tell him that it was Simonopio who found him.
Beatriz appreciated the great effort to which all the men went, searching for her son without rest. Though she did not know the details, she knew that Simonopio had saved him. How could one understand or explain what Simonopio did? Explain his sudden and inexplicable escape from the river? She had always suspected it, but for Beatriz, this was the first irrefutable and direct evidence of her godson’s special ability, his very particular gift that she had always t
reated discreetly and discussed with no one except her husband.
She felt a nip in her heart: her husband was not there anymore.
Nobody asked where Simonopio and Francisco had been or what they had done while they were missing. All Emilio and the men knew with certainty was what Simonopio had been prepared to share. While they waited for the cart to transport Francisco safely, Emilio asked Simonopio if he had seen anything, and he nodded.
Emilio and the men had already had their suspicions, but they were glad to have a witness, even if he was a mute.
“We found Espiricueta’s and his son’s horses on the hill, up above . . . above the place. Was it them?”
Simonopio nodded firmly.
“What happened?”
Simonopio refused to answer that question, and no one, not even his godmother, Beatriz, would learn the details from him.
Simonopio knew there was no way to recount them, for even if he had been able, even if he could have made himself understood, he would never have verbally reproduced the cruel images that would remain in his memory forever. It would mean causing everyone more pain, which he refused to do. In any case, how could he communicate the humiliation, the anguish, the terror, the horror, the pain, the cruelty, the coldness, and the loss that he had witnessed? It was not possible. He could not, and he did not want to do it. Overwhelmed by the memory, instead of answering, Simonopio had burst into tears, until, without realizing it, he moistened Francisco Junior’s face with his drops of grief.
With rough slaps on the back, not knowing the right thing to say, Emilio tried to console the youngster, who seemed not to know that men must not cry, at least not in front of other men. But Simonopio did not stop sobbing until the cart that transported them was approaching the house.
The Murmur of Bees Page 37