Donato Farias:1 bandana 0.252-½ kil. tobacco 2.30cig. papers 0.70shoes 3.502-½ met. cloth 2.25(for trousers)6 kil. beans 1.804 kil. sugar 1.20salt 0.62dried chili 0.10------12.72
Farias had purchased these items during the last month. Each week he earned twelve pesos but received nothing in cash. His total indebtedness at thetienda de rayaamounted to 1,291.68 pesos. Raul, perched on a three-legged stool at the desk in thetienda de raya, mumbled Farias' name and x'd his account; then signed and dated the sheet. Flipping to the S pages, he canceled Salvador's account, which totaled over fifteen hundred pesos. Esperito, his father's bookkeeper, had faked entries and Raul spotted them with half an eye; the corroded brass pen between his fingers, he felt Esperito's pocked face over his shoulder, objecting. Let the ghost object: Esperito had been packed off to Guadalajara, to another job of pencil chewing and peso bickering.
Raul wiped the nib of the pen on the desk blotter, pleased that he had control and could be generous. Deliberately tapping the tobacco into his pipe bowl, liking the aroma, he smoked a while, hacienda noises coming in through the open windows. Sun streaked the freckled Petaca map, with its residence, ponds, villages, roads and mountains. His father had tacked it up. A colored print of Porfirio Díaz (as a young man) dangled over the stained flattop desk. A Mosler safe, with New England autumn landscape on its door, squatted under a heap of account books, cattle magazines, boxes of nails, screws and bolts, its casters in dust, sand and pigeon feathers.
All other space in the room was shelved with supplies, soap, boxes of nails and hinges, bundles of machetes, bolts of cloth, cans of tobacco and oil, packages of tobacco and cigarette papers, tins of coffee and gunpowder, the thousand and one things needed at an hacienda. A thousand times a week Petacan men and women talked of thetienda de rayaand cursed its prices. The same words were heard at a thousand haciendas. Thetiendawas the core of the peasants' lives, for there they bought their servitude, since nohacendadopermitted purchases anywhere else. Thetiendawas everyman's ball and chain. Sons inherited their father's indebtedness. If a man fled, the rurales had a way of picking him up with uncanny rapidity.
In the corner, the shelving was broken by a glass gun case: Winchesters and Remingtons stood in a row. Revolvers and pistols, holstered and unholstered, crowded the rack, with boxes of shells neatly stacked behind them. The guns and shells were the only neatly arranged things in the store. Everything else had been put down carelessly, was dusty and tangled with cobwebs.
Raul fiddled with the counterfeit coins a forgottenmayordomohad nailed across the rim of his desk: the five-peso silver piece turned rustily on its nail; the ten-peso coin had a big nick out of the side; he remembered the copper two-centavo coin was like one he had had as a boy; quite a bit of counterfeit money had found its way to the hacienda during the nineties.
Wind puffed through the open room.
Feeling relaxed, he got up, shut the door and walked toward his father's room. His wound had stiffened, as he sat at the desk, and he pumped his arm as he walked, appreciating the fit of his new red leather boots. His jeans and gray shirt, carefully tailored, were also new. Scratches from the palmera marred his cheek and he picked the scab as he paused in his father's open doorway.
"Hello," he said.
His father grunted.
"I'd like to talk to you," said Raul.
"I can't very well stop you," said Fernando. "Come in," he added peevishly.
"I see you've had breakfast," Raul said.
Chavela was removing dishes and silver and placed them on her Tarascan tray. A stupid grin on her face, she worked awkwardly. Amused, Raul watched her, knowing how clever she could be in the kitchen, supervising others. When she had gone he pulled a chair up to the bed. Through the grilled window, the sun spread over the carvings on the ugly wardrobe. Fernando smoked a fresh cigarette and asked:
"Did Farias tell you that our rock fences had been deliberately pulled down along the del Valle line? Or did he keep that information to himself?"
His voice quavered; propped on his pillows, one arm under the sheet, his hair uncombed, his face unshaven, he filled Raul with pity and disgust.
"I've talked with Farias. I plan to visit Santa Cruz. I'll talk with Señor Oc."
"You'll find him a trickster."
"I've never met him. He's your enemy, not mine."
"You imply...." The old man's voice climbed; he wanted the peace of his own folly.
"I came to talk to you about this." Raul tapped his shoulder where a bandage bulged under his shirt. He thought it would be easy to say, but the words choked in his throat.
"Don't accuse me of attempting to assassinate you!" Fernando screamed.
"I'm leaving for Colima in an hour or so. I'll have a talk with the police. I'll have Pedro picked up and jailed," Raul said, forcing himself to keep calm.
"Who'll be your overseer?"
"Salvador."
"Salvador, the oxcart maker! Jesús, use your head!"
"I like honest men."
With tense fingers, Raul emptied and filled his pipe; his eyes took in the smooth, familiar bowl and stem. Neither man spoke and the chatter of servants crossed the room; a child called: "Run, Lupe, run."
"You may as well get it into your head that I didn't send Pedro after you."
"You sent him after Farias."
"I wanted to involve those Jesuits. I hate those bastards. I wanted to work up a little trouble ... we've always had difficulties with the del Valle people." He sounded extremely tired; a flip of his fingers sent his cigarette somersaulting across the tiles.
Raul saw himself in his father's mirror; he shut his eyes and bit his pipe stem.... In Guadalajara, his father had said: "I sometimes see him...."
"You think in terms of morals," Fernando went on. "We don't live in a moral age. Do you believe Díaz is a moral president? Surely, at your age, Raul, you're not that blind! You're not moral yourself—if we come to that. I've never been moral but you, well, you seem to feel you're God himself!"
Raul wished he could forget the decayed face, the glaring eyes.
"I don't like what you've said."
Fernando chortled.
"You and your Lucienne don't like a lot of things, I gather. She hides in her flowers and you hide in her lap."
Raul jabbed his pipestem at Fernando. "You hired Pedro; he's been your private assassin; get rid of him."
Fernando's lips collapsed. His eyes slapped shut. House noises filled the room.
"Let me say this," said Raul, pipe in both hands, eyes on the smoke that trailed from its bowl. "Maybe I'm as corrupt as you say. But I happen to love Lucienne, if that makes any difference. I've been promiscuous.... We've all played with hacienda girls. But you have played with lives. You've let people starve for a whim. You've had them kicked and whipped and killed. You've stopped our school. You let Esperito fake entries in the account books. That's corruption."
"You should be able to name things," growled Fernando, his hands under the sheet, the sheet under his chin. "I'm sure you learned everything when you were in Europe, all the pros and cons."
"The record here at Petaca speaks for itself. I know how many men you've had killed."
"Many men have killed and not been held to account. Every general kills."
"That kind of reasoning makes nothing right."
"Do you know how dangerous these times are?" asked Fernando. "Do you?"
"I can only guess. Perhaps it will take only a spark."
"A spark to touch off a conflagration," said Don Fernando, one eyebrow going up.
"You mean a revolution?" asked Raul.
"That."
"I doubt if it will be revolution. It won't get that bad. If it gets that bad, we'll be put back a hundred years. A revolution will cost us that much."
"You sound prophetic," laughed Fernando.
"I'm going to help," Raul said.
"I don't want to lose Petaca, whatever happens," said Fernando, feeling the land to be his only friend.
Raul shoved his hands in his pockets and rose to leave. It took all his will power to look at his father briefly.
"I'll send Arrillo to shave you," he said. "I'm going to Colima. I hear the quake damage has been serious ... I want to see what I can do to help."
The room quiet, Fernando feared death: he wanted his son's new boots, trousers and shirt; he wanted to strap on a gun. Through his bloodshot eyes, as he gazed at the sunny patio, he saw himself at twenty-five or thirty, in new clothes, stalking off to Colima. His arm refused to stop shaking; he groaned; death would not let him alone. He tried to make out the serpentine fountain. Was that a woman dipping water? A girl dipping water? The dim figure reminded him of Caterina, and he heard her reading to him, as she had sat beside his bed. But he put Caterina out of his mind and groped for his copper bell and rang.
When Chavela came, he said: "Pedro's at the mill. I want him here.... Oh, Christ, stop looking like a scared calf! Pedro won't hurt you. Get out there and tell him I want him. And bring me another cigarette when you come back."
Fernando enjoyed the prospect of seeing his renegade; it amused him, too, that Pedro had gotten himself into trouble. Like an old cat, Fernando drowsed till Pedro appeared.
"What took you so long?" he began, instinctively aware that considerable time had elapsed since Chavela had left.
"I waited for Don Raul to leave."
"Afraid of him!"
Pedro did not care to reply; he was impervious to the old man's jibes.
One hand was stuck in his enormous leather belt, he was dressed in white, no guns, no cartridges. His boots were dusty. He had left his hat somewhere. A long timothy straw dangled from his mouth.
"You went too far," Fernando exclaimed. "I don't want Raul killed.... you were to kill Manuel. Farias was to have been a blunder for the Jesuits. That didn't work out. You're clever but you're not clever enough. I'm not the murderer of my son. My business with my father taught me something. Now, I want you to leave Petaca. Get out!"
"What?" said Pedro, hand to the straw in his mouth.
"Raul has gone to Colima to talk with the rurales. They'll come here for you. They'll scour the hacienda. At least you're warned." Fernando grinned at the other's dilemma. "Get out. You're licked."
This was something Pedro had not foreseen. He removed the straw from between his teeth and smelled the end of it, frowning.
"You may need me," he mumbled, unable to think.
"Go to Mountain Rancheria. You have friends there. It'll be safe enough. Get out, before I decide to turn you over to the rurales." Fernando chuckled.
"All right. Mountain Rancheria. I'll go there ... all right."
"Come back here in an hour or so. I'll let you have some money."
"Give me enough for some guns. I need guns."
Pedro's face became eager; he tossed away the straw and moved close to Fernando's bed, his spurs rattling. Bending low, he smiled.
Fernando caught the rebel instinct in that grin. God, he thought, to be out of bed. "Guns," he said. "Why do you need guns? What will you do with guns?"
"Sell them, Don Fernando."
"Men are buying guns?"
"Yes. Now I can make money. Big money."
"Is General Matanzas in charge of the garrison?"
"He doesn't know people are buying guns.... He mustn't know."
"Guns," Fernando muttered. "Money for guns."
"There will be trouble," said Pedro.
"I gather that," croaked Fernando. He no longer feared death. He asked Pedro to have men place him in a chair and carry him to thetienda. Alone, at the desk, he opened his safe and counted 2,000 pesos for his overseer. Guns! With the bills before him he felt powerful again. The smell of the pesos told him insane things. The map of Petaca confirmed his illusion: 1,800,000 acres, corn land, wheat land, sugar cane, mountains, valleys ... his. Yet, as he stared at the map, he realized he could not distinguish one sector from another. Troubled, he began shuffling the bills; then he noticed the open account book. In spite of his shaky hands, he found the accounts Raul had canceled. Groaning, he slid forward, tried to grasp the desk, tried to rise and collapsed. Somehow, he held to the top of the desk. The guns in the gun rack became sticks. The door became a black hole. He felt his eyes ... they were still open. Slowly, he rested his head on his arms.
Presently, someone rapped and the door opened.
"Don Fernando?" called Pedro, coming inside and closing the door. He stepped to the desk and jogged Fernando's back and the old man looked up; instantly, Pedro realized he could not see.
"Don Fernando," he whispered.
Fernando could not reply. He lowered his head again.
Without hesitation, Pedro picked up the money and jammed it into his trouser pockets; then he stood still and listened carefully; he glanced through the open windows; an oriole sang; a horseman clattered by; then footsteps seemed to be coming toward thetienda.
One of Fernando's bearers rapped. Pedro let him in and together they carried Fernando to his room, Chavela hovering about squeaking and clucking. Angelina brought ammonia. Someone went off for Father Gabriel.
Calmly returning to thetienda, Pedro checked the safe. The old man had spun the dial. Hands in his pockets, walking stiff-legged, he went to an empty stable and sat on a feed-box. He had never had so much money. His hands trembled. It frightened him to count it ... his tongue hung out.
"... two hundred, three hundred, four-eighty, six hundred, seven hundred ... seven hundred and twelve pesos." He stopped counting, hurriedly stuffed the money inside his hat, and strapped the cord under his chin. His face was red. His jaw sagged. Guns ... guns. They'll be afraid of me at Mountain Rancheria. His tongue skated round his teeth. In the gloom of the stall, he smoked a cigarette and thought of his Yaqui home, the Sonora country, how far away it was. Of a sudden, it seemed close. With hundreds of pesos he could take the train.... Nobody would know him.
Again he counted the money, got up to fifteen hundred and fifteen pesos and stuffed the bills inside his hat, fingering his chin strap. Rising, with a great sigh, he got his horse and threw on his saddle.
As he rode uphill, he watched volcano smoke elbow across the lagoon, a calm gray surface. Petaca lay below. Oxcarts crowded the courtyard as men returned from an irrigation job along the lagoon. Sitting his gray, a spirited stallion, he knew the renegade's fear: the Clarín had planned to pay him off, could trap him if he wanted to. Well, Don Fernando might never recover. To hell with Petaca and the old man! He had money enough to make out. Roweling his horse, Pedro climbed the slope toward Mountain Rancheria. He would buy and sell guns there ... somebody would want his services.
Alberto Saenz, the Christ-faced musician, balanced empty birdcages on top of his head, as he trudged along the shore of the lagoon. Soon he would reach Petaca and could rest. A string of smoke hung out of the volcano, but the air was clear. No doubt the worst was over. Scooping water from the lagoon, he drank from his palms, and the sedgy flavor pleased him. Rising, he stroked his beard and resumed his walk, along the pebbly shore. Herons let him come close, wading no deeper, beaking their feed calmly: what harm could a fellow do with cages on his head?
At Petaca, he sat for a while on the veranda, watching, drowsing. Workers were busy at the far end, where the quake had demolished roof and arches. Stonecutters pecked with hammers and chisels, fast, light strokes; a mason sloshed mortar in a box, adding sand to his mixture. All were bare-headed, barefooted and all wore white. Alberto wore white—his trousers slashed on the outside, above the ankles, his buttonless shirt open on his white-haired chest. Head against a veranda arch, he dreamed of other visits, Raul's kindly mother, the runaway carriage from La Calera, the fiesta of the Virgin of Petaca when they had burned fourcastillos.
Before taking his cages to Raul, he prayed in the chapel. Kneeling, he let the whiteness of the room take him: he had been a lover of Mary ever since he could remember: without a doubt She had saved his mother during the black plague. Strains of music he had played through the years came to him, as he knelt. Stepping toward the altar, he touched the glass dome covering the Virgin: her rubies, emeralds and diamonds never changed. Some night, as the dawn arrived and birds began their day, She would speak and Jesus would gently remove him from this life. Friends would wash him and borrow the hacienda grave box.
Back on the veranda, he picked up his cages, knocked, and asked for Raul.
A new servant from Ameca said harshly:
"You wait on the veranda. No, go round to the kitchen. Get along, wait in the kitchen."
"I'll wait right here," said Alberto, and turned away, to sit on the steps.
Raul overheard, came outside, and accepted the cages. Together they hung them in the patio. Alberto had ideas as to what kinds of birds should be put inside. Raul understood how much the old man prized his gift. He led him into the kitchen for something to eat. His bearded face, through the closing door, brought to mind the man decorating the hill cross and his own resolve to assume the hacienda responsibilities.
On the veranda, Raul talked with the stonecutters. In a short time the house would be repaired. This afternoon, he had to ride to the pond in Sector 17; the quake had cracked the dam and released most of the water. A group of workers was already there, but the job had to be pushed before the dry season.
Oxcarts creaked across the court, each loaded with stone for the veranda. One cart was new, made by Salvador, and pulled by hisgarbanza-colored oxen. Salvador drove his cart and young Esteban rode another, his goad over his shoulder, spear-like, his team black and white. Pigeons fluttered about the carts, as if they hoped for grain.
Salvador greeted Raul with a friendly grin.
"It's hot this morning."
"It's hot to haul stone," Raul said.
"These loads will give us enough to finish the veranda."
"Who supervised the cutting?"
"Alejandro."
"He's doing a good job," said Raul, and started into the house, pleased with the progress.
"Ah, before you go ... I'd like to say that Isidro found sixty pesos in the stable. They must be yours. I have the bills." He dug into his back pocket and drew out his red bandanna, the pesos knotted inside.
"As far as I know, I haven't lost any money," said Raul.
Salvador held out the cash to Raul, and mopped his face with the bandana, puffing loudly.
"I'll see. I'm pretty sure it's not my money," Raul said.
"Keep it in the tienda, till you know. None of us lost it," said Salvador, and laughed his silent, rocking laugh, his eyes dancing. "Where would we get so much money?"
"Salvador, where did you say Isidro found it?"
"In a stall, by a feedbox."
"Queer," said Raul and took the money and went inside the house.
In the bedroom, Angelina sat beside the patio window, barefooted, in her white dressing gown, a cat in her lap. She was embroidering a pillowcase.
"I had a letter from María," she said, without glancing up.
"Yes," he said, hoping she would not read it, since her sister's letters were garrulous and about people he scarcely knew.
"I got it this morning. Father Gabriel just came back from Colima, and brought it to me." She attempted to sound sprightly.
"How is she?" Raul asked, getting his boots for the ride to the pond.
The cat jumped down and Angelina turned toward Raul, her legs showing under the robe. A boy's legs, he thought, annoyed. A girl's body, with boy's legs. She's never grown up. She loves children but hates the sex act. What is it that fills her with fear? I used to try so hard to please her ... and she tried to please me.
He struggled with his left boot.
What are the bubbles of fear behind her eyes? As if the pigment had broken loose and was swimming to the surface. The smile smiles and the eyes hide something.
We've lived too many years together to disentangle our emotions. The boot hurts, at the heel ... it used to fit fine. I don't want to wear my new ones.
María wants her to come to Guadalajara, but she doesn't need an excuse to go to Guadalajara, or anywhere. Fifteen years ago she wouldn't have left me for anything in the world—or I her.
Blinking at his right boot, he began to yank it on....
"María wants me to come to Guadalajara soon. She's worried about me, after the quakes."
"I think you should visit her," he said. "Has she finished remodeling her house?"
"The remodeling's done.... I need some mourning clothes," she said.
"Have them made in Guadalajara."
"But you know how long that takes? That takes forever." The way she hit the last word piqued him, but he said nothing.
"I'll be glad to get away from that new cook. She puts oil in all our food. Look how she prepared the chayotes last week! Did you ever taste the like!"
She turned back to her embroidery, but thought:
He's putting on boots to go somewhere, he's always going somewhere. Maybe I did say I wouldn't leave. Maybe I did say that Caterina needed me. He never speaks of her ... he doesn't miss her.
Suddenly, she asked: "Why didn't you come here when you were wounded?"
"I was closer to Palma Sola."
"I think you're always closer," she said.
Astonished, he stopped dressing, stopped buttoning his shirt. With a great effort, he made himself continue, his fingers working uncertainly.
"Give her up, Raul. Get her out of our lives. You owe it to me and Vicente."
Somehow he managed the last button and thought: I've got to think clearly. He crossed the room to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Would it help us now, Angelina? There's Estelle, you know...."
She lowered her eyes.
"Estelle," she said, wanting to keep the word to herself.
He felt her tremble.
Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, I'll see Estelle. You and your stinking boots. What can you know about delicacy? Keep your von Humboldt. I'll keep my friend. Once you would have accompanied me to Guadalajara, but now you send me with a servant.
Silent, he went out, pitying her small face, pitying himself, Caterina, Vicente—everyone.
When he had clumped out, she closed the door, locked it, removed her robe, went naked to the wardrobe and unboxed her fox fur, a reddish-gold pelt. With it on, she appraised her body: quite, quite pretty, she told herself. Parading in front of her mirror, she swayed from side to side, dancing the length of the room and then back again to face the mirror. Quite, quite pretty. All of a sudden, her ecstasy faded and she tossed her fur on the bed and flopped beside it. Hunger pervaded her. Closing her lids, flat on her back, she saw the Degollado Theater in Guadalajara, saw María and Estelle, Estelle in pale green moire, her blond hair glistening....
On the stage, the dancers performed jotas; the flamenco, dressed in black, a red sash bleeding round his waist, put her into a trance. Estelle whispered to her ... then....
So many barren days went into life at Petaca. No Vicente to love, no Caterina, no woman her age or kind. Children, yes, but anonymous. No plays, no musicals, no burlesques. In the convent of Ursula, on Calle López Cotilla, she had had a girl friend (it seemed yesterday and not years ago) who had slept with her. They had lain together, without clothes, night after night. Nobody had ever found out. Where was she? Where was Renée? What had happened to her? Would anyone in Guadalajara ever have news of her?
Dear María, I'll come ... I wasn't going to come but now I'll come ... I'll stay with you, then stay with Estelle. I'll have fresh pineapple and oranges ... we'll have dulces ... we'll have nieves ... only a few children will miss me here and maybe the chapel organ. Yes, yes, I heard the organ say, one night, as the candle burnt low, she's nice, she's really quite nice. Am I quite nice? I'm quite pretty. Estelle says I am.
Sighing, she rose and sat at her dressing table and began plucking her brows. Each hair, as she pulled it, made her wince. She rubbed herself with cream, dressed and descended to the living room, pretending, as she walked, that this home was the home of a Guadalajara family and that she was a guest.
It irked her to find Caterina's smiling photo, in its velvet-gold frame, on the desk. Momentarily bewildered, she dusted it and laid it face down. Taking stationery out of the drawer, she wrote María, writing fast, in a nervous spidery scrawl.
"Dear María,
"I am glad I can come to you. Raul says I can join you in a few days. I'll try to be real discreet so you can keep me a long time. You must phone Isabel and arrange fittings for me; I have to have so many dresses in black.
"I'm glad the remodeling is done. I know it is pretty...."
A tropical cloud had gathered as she dressed and now, as she wrote, the rain lashed, hitting the lagoon side of the house. She was glad Raul had had men fix the living room roof; he was riding in the rain, she realized. She did not care. Probably Manuel was holding an umbrella over him. Raul had learned to look after himself long ago, he and his Negro. Putting down her pen, she went to the veranda windows, her elegant black swishing. But she was barefooted. More peasant than many peasants, she liked the tongue of tiles licking her soles, the hairiness of oriental rugs, the feel of the mountain lion before the fireplace.
Her old-fashioned dress was low cut, with sleeves three-quarter; in the V of her throat, above her boy breasts, dangled a diamond cross of her mother's. She had braided her hair into a coronet, glossy, perfumed, perfect.
Returning to her desk, hearing the rain, feeling the nakedness of her feet, the nakedness of herself under the dress, she swayed on her chair. As thunder rumbled, she recalled fragments of a poem by Felipe Clavo, a passionate outcry: he had expressed what it was to be manacled by tropical isolation where "white butterflies made love to protruding lianas." Clavo's lines had the sway of a hammock.
Clavo had said: "Love between women is superior to love between men and women—it asks so little." At the Degollado, Clavo had read his poetry but she could not remember him or what he had read; she had been too young.
The woman's poet, some called him.
That didn't matter.
Only loneliness, only love mattered.
"Caterina, do you mind the storm?" she asked, the huskiness of her voice softer than usual. "I guess you don't mind the rain. I guess none of us mind the rain when our day comes. No thunder reaches us...."
Taking her pen, she completed her letter to María and then wrote Estelle Milan. A streak of lightning blazed. In Guadalajara, when it rained, a carriage whisked them to the theater; they laughed as they bumped over cobbles; after the theater, they had supper at the Copa de Leche: Cota, Lorenzo, Cordero, Gouz, Aguirre, Milan. In spite of the storm, she had rejoined her friends: a shiver ran through her because they were so real, so close.
Chavela lit candles on the desk, on the mantelpiece and in wall brackets.
"It's gotten dark so fast," she complained. "What a rain! Do you want me to light the kerosene lamp?"
"Later," Angelina said. "Bring me my cup of coffee."
"I'll bring it right away."
Angelina poured at the desk, mixing her particular concoction of strong coffee and hot milk, pouring the milk from a diminutive Turkish pot of brass. As she drank, she heard Gabriel coming in. She liked Storni and rose to welcome him.
Slipping off his poncho, spreading it over the back of a chair, he kissed her hand and brought a chair close to the desk. Because of the damp, he limped heavily. His robe smelled of dried straw; noticing the smell, she held up her handkerchief and said:
"The coffee's just right. I'll ring for a cup."
"Hot coffee—on an evening like this! Where's Raul?" He was naïvely captivated by her perfume and her old-fashioned dress.
"Raul's gone to see about a dam that cracked in the quake."
"We'll need all the water we can save, before our dry season ends," he said.
She hid her feet under her skirt and played with the diamond cross at her throat.
"I'm leaving for Guadalajara ... María's house is done. Gabriel, it'll be so good to get away. I'll have Vicente come when school is out in Colima."
"I know how you feel," Gabriel adjusted his glasses. "I'd like to get away myself, if there weren't so much to do here at Petaca."
"Why has Don Fernando taken another bad turn?" she asked.
"Money," he said.
"Whose money?"
"Hacienda money," said Gabriel. "You see, Raul canceled certain accounts. He wants to do away with the indebtedness on the tienda de raya books. A matter of hacienda funds."
"Raul goes too far," she said, putting her cup down hard.
He began to defend Raul's actions and she tried to listen politely, filling his cup, giving him sugar, handing him a napkin. She felt that the sound of the rain was all that kept her in the room—without it everything would disappear.
"Oh, Caterina's photo has fallen over," he said, and set it up.
"I laid it down."
"Why did you do that, Angelina?"
"To help me forget her."
"Forget her ... we mustn't forget her."
"Don't you understand that I miss her ... I miss her all the time ... I don't need her photograph. Can't you see that things can be so bitter ... can't you accept how I feel?" She spoke without rebuke, as though to herself.
They lapsed into silence; the rain beat across the veranda, across the tiles; somewhere a shutter thudded; somewhere children babbled.
"We should have saved her," said Gabriel, stirring his coffee.
"How could we have saved her?"
"The Indians know many ways of curing dysentery."
"Then why don't they cure their own little ones? We see them die every year. Gabriel, the haciendas are littered with their graves."
She remembered playing with Concepción, Miguelito, Trinita, Pepe—dear faces, Petaca's dead children! Her love for them choked her.
Forget Petaca! Forget Raul!
But did one forget someone once loved? Could there never be accord? Gabriel had recommended patience. The dung beetle was patient: she had seen it shoving a ball, worming it from side to side, attacking it frenziedly. She was no dung beetle. Revolving the delicate cup on its saucer, guiding it around inside the rim, her toes digging at the rungs of her chair, she smelled her own flesh, waited. It seemed to her she had waited more than half her life, waited for someone to love, waited for marriage, waited for sexual adjustment, waited for childbirth, for her babies to walk and talk. Even death had to be waited for. Her own. Her friends. Don Fernando's.
She heard her father-in-law say:
"Let's not bring that toy to the breakfast table....
"This is no place for women ... get out....
"Well wait for your wife to go to bed....
"Take the noisy children away...."
Dressed in one of his charro outfits or in badly pressed whites, whip or quirt in hand, he epitomized Petaca. Blood-shot eyes, battered mouth, scrawny neck—soon death would take them away. And she knew how he feared death; she had heard him mumble to himself. It had perplexed her that Caterina had been fond of him but she let them alone, hoping the innocence of one would offset the vices of the other. Well, it had been a brief affection. She wondered how she condescended to treat him humanely, almost with affection sometimes.
Pouring herself more coffee she tried to shake her mood and said the first thing that came to mind:
"What have you been thinking about?"
"I? Oh, I was thinking of Italy. What were you thinking about?"
"Don Fernando. Caterina. Life and death."
"I was thinking of home. Very foolish of me. I guess I'm ... well, sentimental." He patted his bald spot.
"You've been homesick as long as I can remember," she said.
"Come, come now," he said. "I haven't been that bad, have I?"
Chavela went about opening windows and candle flames wavered from the cool, damp but refreshing air. The clack-a-clack of hundreds of blackbirds resounded from their roosting place in the Indian laurels at the lagoon end of the garden.
Gabriel lit a kerosene lamp and placed it on the piano and excused himself.
"Good-night, Angelina ... I must visit Viosco ... he's sick ... thanks for the coffee...."
She hunched on a sofa, her feet under a velvet cushion, eyes on the irresolute candles. Shall I confess to Gabriel that I like to walk naked in my fur? Shall I tell him about the girl at the convent? Shall I tell him why Raul married me? Confess. Must we all confess, confess how lonely we are?
Later, in the chapel, she prayed for Vicente and herself. The place was dimly lit but the darkness and herrebozocould not shut out the Petacans, the lame, the sick, the hungry: they whimpered for clothes, medicine, alms: they fought for food, stole, got drunk, killed. They had never crowded about her before and their ghostly presence drove her to her room.
Raul had stayed in a peasant hut during the rain, a thatched room where woven fronds, carefully herringboned, shut out most of the downpour. A pig slept in a corner. Raul sat on a wooden chest; the owner and his wife squatted on a mat. Above the pig, in a sisal hammock, swung a child. Another hammock was looped over a peg, its pouch resembling a gray moth's case. The deluge shut out nearly all light. Through the open doorway mist drubbed. Nobody tried to talk. Raul dozed. When the rain stopped, he thanked the pair, accepted a chunk of sugar cane for Chico, and got on his horse and rode off.
Chico trotted briskly, whiffing the rain-washed air as they followed a trail through pastureland where knots of Herefords grazed. Belly high to the horse, a stone wall paralleled the trail, iguanas here and there.
At a bend, Chico whirled sidewise, and pain from his bullet wound shot through Raul. He thought he might topple, but somehow managed to keep his saddle, as the horse pirouetted. Shouting, commanding, he dug his spurs. The horse screamed. Then, Raul saw the snake, a good-sized rattler.
Dragging violently at the bit, he checked Chico underneath some orange trees and dismounted, thoroughly disgusted.
"You fool. Haven't you ever seen a rattler before? You ought to learn a thing or two. You crazy fool—you're no colt!"
The snake slithered away through the grass.
At the dam, the foreman told Raul that they had less than a week's work, though the cracks in the dam appeared formidable. Raul sucked his pipe, nodded his head, simply agreeing. The place oozed gnats and flies. Sandpipers paraded the shallows.
Remaining on his horse, Raul chatted with the workers, all of them in breechclouts or shorts. A number wore conical hats of a nearby mountaineer clan. The southerners had bodies like chocolate. Some spoke no Spanish. Through the years, Raul had acquired an Indian vocabulary of sorts and he tried to josh the men but none of his jokes got across. He slapped at gnats, and left as soon as he could.
On his way home, he felt a sense of freedom. The breadth of the land affected him. Uncle Roberto had said: "It does something to a man to live on a place you can't ride across in days." Though Raul had been born at Petaca, he realized there were parts he had never seen, hill country, mountain fields, lava terrain, streams. A subforeman insisted that a lake existed in Sector 25. Recently someone told of Indians camping in 31, thatched huts in a valley of willows.
As dusk brought the swallows and bats, Raul remembered Petacan outings in all kinds of weather, high volcano climbs with lightning flashing from rock to rock, river explorations, treks across pasture lands, trails to milpas, trails through steamy canyons choked with red-barked trees. They had herded cattle, roped yearlings, branded, dehorned; they had driven herds of sheep and goat; they had chased wild horses. Gathered around campfires, they had eaten from chuck wagons. Years past, they had packed burro trains into the Mountain Rancheria area in search of gold and silver. They had hunted deer in the uplands,tigresin the marsh grass of the coastal land, iguanas where the palmera whined, alligator and ibis in the lagoons, wolf and bear midway up the great peak, eagles at the summit.
At first, he had tried to share these things with Angelina but she had not cared for the rough life and so he had gone with his men, storing up the hours, making his own calendar, riding most often with Manuel, including Lucienne when he dared.
High up, in the darkening sky, a hawk drifted.
Surely, the Medinas were monarchs of a kind.
Lights burned at Petaca, in the windows and in the kerosene lamps atop the wooden posts in the courtyard. Raul saw rurales, some mounted, some afoot, their uniforms unmistakable. He had heard that they had been encountered in the remote sections of the hacienda but this was the first time he had seen them and he was glad to have an indication of their interest in apprehending Pedro. His trip to Colima had been successful.
He did not doubt that his father knew where Pedro had gone. (Would this new stroke end his life?) Some said guns were being smuggled, bought and sold. At other haciendas, men had been placed on guard duty. Count de Selva, it was rumored, had clamped men in irons for demanding the right to buy matches in Colima.
A peculiar fear washed over him, as he rode into Petaca. It seemed to be hooked up in his mind with the birthday party Lucienne was planning next week at Palma Sola. A foolish fear, no doubt.
As he stood in the living room at Lucienne's, a little tipsy, glass in hand, Roberto las Casas called the roll, talking to himself:
"Baroness Radziwill and family, Count and Countess de Selva (the old boy's not doing well), Lucienne (very pretty), Joaquín Siquiros, Federicka Kolb (ah!), Benito Serrato (new mayor of Colima), Raul, Gabriel, Jesús Peza, General Matanzas (drunk) ... quite a birthday gathering...."
Roberto flicked ash from his beautifully tailored dinner suit and lifted his glass. For a man in his late fifties, he was handsome. Standing to one side, near some candles, his diamond cuff links and studs glittered. Bald as a man can be, he had the air of a diplomat. Angular, taller than Raul, he had none of Raul's physical toughness ... he was a Guadalajara lawyer, promoter of mining interests and capable dabbler in city real estate. His mother had been the sister of Raul's mother. He liked the city, but appreciated Petaca's spaciousness, hunts, rodeos, fiestas and gambling.
Tonight the roulette wheel spun and the tinypelotaclicked like a race horse; it clicked and stopped, and the sound of the surf came through the room. For days the wind had boiled offshore and now the rollers foamed and thudded.
"Twenty," Joaquin Siquiros called.
"Twenty," someone repeated.
No one had placed money on that number and the wheel began again.
"Forty-one," Siquiros called, in his boyish voice.
Roberto strolled from guest to guest, drinking, eating, chatting, bored with roulette since he had lost heavily; the asthmatic Selva had stolen his luck and Lucienne had won more than her share of the evening's cash. He found Lucienne, beside a bigmafafa, and put his arm around her.
"Were you lucky the last round?" he asked.
"Yes, but where have you been?"
"Just talking to people, catching up on Palma gossip."
"You're drinking too much."
"Not too much. I'm just tall and hold more. I leave the drinking to the Baroness. See, she can hardly take in her winnings." He laughed gently.
Half asleep, losing, gaining, she leaned on the roulette table, jewels sparkling in her hair.
"... Sister of the Polish pope," said Roberto. "Let's have something to eat," he whispered. "Food has been known to help people in my condition. May I bring you some sandwiches?"
"Please. I'm really hungry."
He served sandwiches andentremésfrom a silver tray that salt air and time had darkened to a pewter finish.
"Now, my dear, I'll get us some coffee. Let's sit here."
"Twenty-four," Siquiros called.
"Mine, mine!" shouted the Baroness.
"Where did you buy that lovely gown? In Paris?" asked Roberto, bringing the coffee, and sitting down by Lucienne.
"In Rome," she said.
"Rome ... I remember Rome ... but I never saw a gown like yours there." He sipped his drink and said: "Lucienne, you're a beautiful woman; you make the gown more beautiful."
Lucienne laughed happily.
"I'm fairly sober," he said. "And it is your birthday.... Shall I go on? About your hair, your tiara ... your..."
"Ah, no ... no more, dear Roberto." But her hand went to her platinum tiara; she pushed it forward on her head; the rubies, diamonds and sapphires seemed to glow a little more. The gown was dark, almost a velvet green, very long, very simple. She wore no jewelry other than the tiara, a Humboldt heirloom.
"You know, it's almost 2:00 A.M.," she said.
"Why do you think about time on your birthday! When it's four, we'll be able to see the sun. Has it been a wonderful party?"
"Very wonderful, Roberto."
"Have you opened my gift?"
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," he agreed, and took a sandwich from the tray on a side table. "Come, Raul, join us," he said, grasping his cousin's arm. "Aren't you hungry? We have a sandwich tray here."
"I've been hungry all evening," said Raul. "Lucienne, where are the venison steaks you promised?"
"You don't sound like a man who has lost a lot of money," said Roberto.
"I didn't lose so much."
"I'll see to it that you win next year," said Lucienne, bringing him close.
"What could he win next year that he hasn't got now?" laughed Roberto. "Here, Raul, take my chair. I feel better.... I'll try a whirl at that wheel again. What's your lucky number, Lucienne?"
Outside, on the ocean porch, the orchestra began a plaintive Veracruzana, with the violins carrying the melody, the horns a trifle slow, the surf coming through.
Oblivious of the orchestra, General Matanzas sat at the old Chickering; his fingers fished for a sentimental song to match his intoxicated mood. He swayed on his bench, his belly sagging, his epaulettes bobbing. Smoke from some candles on the piano drifted across his gray-white head and beard.
"It's really bad news about Díaz," said Raul to Lucienne. "He shouldn't resign. If he must resign, he should appoint a capable successor. The more I think about it, the less I like the situation. De Selva says we're in for bad times."
"Come, come," said Lucienne. She leaned over and brushed crumbs from his trousers. "I think Díaz will die in office. He should, just to please us. And, anyhow, this is my party...."
"Maybe you don't grasp the significance," he said.
"A man in his eighties has a plan."
"But nobody knows his plan."
"We live a long way from the capital. We'll get some accurate news soon. Our president is no fool."
Federicka Kolb, a friend of the Humboldts for years, paused before Lucienne and Raul, smiled and offered them cigarettes. She was an attractive heavy-set person, with a light complexion and especially intelligent mouth and eyes.
"Darling," asked Lucienne, "what is the latest news about President Díaz? Is there anything we can depend on?"
"General Matanzas said he has resigned and left the country," said Federicka.
"The highest authority," said Lucienne, glancing at the general, who had put his head on his arms.
"I'll talk to him later," said Raul. "Is there any word of a successor? Has Matanzas been in Mexico City recently?"
"I was in Mexico City last week," said Federicka, her face pleasant and calm. "People say Díaz wants Mexico to become a democracy. Díaz wants the Indians to vote."
The orchestra had stopped playing and Baroness Radziwill overheard Federicka's last sentence.
"That's utterly ridiculous," she cried, her black eyes snapping. "Not one Indian in ten thousand can read or write. Is Díaz too old to think?"
"They can read at the point of a gun," said Serrato, the young Colima mayor, his lips twisting.
Federicka took up the challenge: "All of us can remember faithful Indians. When Lucienne's mother and father drowned in the surf, who tried to save them? The Indians who were fishing nearby. Itzla drowned. He gave his life. When my father built the railroad to Cuernavaca, he learned to like them."
"Long live Porfirio Díaz," cried Serrato dully.
"Long live Díaz," others echoed.
"Maybe I've drunk too much coffee," Roberto muttered under his breath. "What's all this?"
"I'm no Díaz man. How do you feel about Petaca and what I'm doing?" Raul asked him.
"Well," said Roberto, grinning, "Fernando, like Díaz, has served his time. I want to see what you can do."
He opened his silver cigarette case and rubbed a smudge from the initials. He felt sleepy, tired of this room and its old-fashioned furniture. A little sickish, he headed for the porch and the cool sea air. Being alone could be comforting.
"I tell you, we're in for bad times," de Selva sermonized before a group. "Our haciendas are threatened by renegades. Don Raul was wounded by one of those fools who wants to grab our land. We have to carry guns ... I go about armed."
Raul led Lucienne to the long, cool porch and they danced to a Strauss waltz ... the ocean beating hard.
"Hold me close, Raul."
"Are you falling asleep?"
"I've been thinking of my presents, what fun it's going to be, opening them."
"When will you open them?"
"At lunch tomorrow ... just the two of us."
"Open them now."
"It's fun to wait. When there aren't so many people around."
"Shall I tell you what Roberto gave you?"
"Tell me ... please."
"Two gold-plated faucets for your bathroom ... in fourteen karats."
"Oh, no. I'll never believe that. How silly!"
"Come on, let's open his package."
"All right, let's open it, let's open all my presents."
They went into the living room, laughing heartily.
Roberto listened to their laughter, as he got ready for bed, his bedroom door half-open. He envied their love. A fine house in Colonia Vallarta had not added up to happiness for him. His wife thought him a clown, not a wit. Now, the Díaz news had disheartened him and he tossed his shirt over one of Lucienne's plants, beside the four-poster. Stretching, he breathed in the cool air, glad to be back by the ocean. It would be fun to see how Lucienne felt about those faucets tomorrow ... he had paid a pretty penny for them....
In the morning, Raul met Lucienne in the greenhouse, whose salt-rimed windows faced the sea, a ramshackle Swiss-style conservatory built by her father when he, too, had dabbled in plants and flowers. When Raul came in, she was adjusting salt screens.
"Good morning. You're up early."
"Good morning, darling. You're lazy. I've already had a swim."
"You should have wakened me."
"But you were so comfortable, I just slipped out of bed."
"Have you had breakfast, Lucienne?"
"I'm waiting for you."
"I often think of you working here. Your world is something you can touch. When we were little you had a garden of your own ... all these years this has been your life ... this and your friends."
"But has anything come of it?"
"I'd like to marry you."
"Raul, don't talk that way, especially before breakfast. An agnostic must be left to her plants."
"I want to break away.... I want Angelina to live permanently in Guadalajara."
She lifted a watering can and began sprinkling seedlings.
"Let's be realistic: who broke away first, you or Angelina?"
"I can't say."
"Really?"'
"Really, I don't know ... and what could it matter?"
Drops from the watering can fell on her fresh white cotton dress.
"This is no way to begin the day," she said. "Let's make it a happy day. I think we should have breakfast."
They ate at a square table in her dining room, facing the ocean through many French windows. On three sides, in round bamboo barrels and special boxes, tropical plants grew lavishly, most of them dark green, many of them climbing as high as the ceiling. It was like being inside a miniature park. Barefooted girls served. A girl brought in a blue glass pitcher filled with red roses and placed the bouquet in the center of the table.
"I feel better," said Raul.
"One should never talk marriage in a greenhouse."
Raul grinned.
"Has everyone gone home?" he asked.
"I think so ... even Roberto."
"What was his hurry?"
"To get the train in Colima."
"He should have waited for me."
"I told him you needed sleep ... that I needed you."
Mona wandered in and Lucienne fed her pieces of tortillas. Her short-haired terrier appeared and the two dogs raised such a hullabaloo the maids had to chase them outside.
"What happened to your baby fox?" said Raul, eatingmamey.
"It got away, somehow. What's become of Vicente's honey bear?"
"He's around. Vicente likes him."
"How's Vicente doing?"
"Fine. He's a great boy."
"And what does Angelina write ... or should I ask?"
"She wrote strangely."
"How do you mean?"
"She told about a round of parties, and then made curious remarks about Caterina."
"Are you worried about her?"
"Something's wrong." But he avoided saying anything more.
While a girl removed their fruit husks, they smiled sadly at each other. His hand grasped hers. They wanted to push aside unhappiness. The girl set down a platter of golden-brownpámpanosringed with sliced limes.
"I'd like to walk to the old church this afternoon," he said.
"The old church? Why?"
"I've always liked it ... let me serve you, Lucienne ... nobody knows how long it's been there. It was a lighthouse for years, wasn't it? I haven't seen it for ages."
"Big fig trees are smashing it, lifting walls: one side's trapped in the roots of a huge fig. Treasure hunters have dug up the floors ever since somebody found a tiny gold ship there."
"Do you think anyone found a ship of gold?"
"I doubt it. But you'll see lots of lizards; they attend Mass faithfully." She blushed.
He laughed out, and said: "Who's the priest ... a sea gull?"
"Do you remember the huge tree that grew in front of this house?" she asked. "Our palma sola? It was the tallest palm I've ever seen. Papa loved it. It really hurt him when it blew down.... Raul, have more beans while they're hot. I'm so pleased with my new cook. She's one of the best I've ever had...."
After breakfast, Lucienne showed him her seedling acacias for it was early and the conservatory was still cool. A butterfly coasted about complacently, above the tiers of seedlings now ready for transplanting. Below the trays, on the floor, rare coconuts split their husks, their yellow sprouts resembling boars' tusks. In a bottomless dugout canoe, filled with sand and shells, grew dwarf cacti, mammillaria, opuntia and cholla.
"Isn't that your father's canoe?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "I just keep it.... I like it here, a memento."
"Wasn't it filled with ferns?"
"Yes, it was."
Mona came trotting in and Raul picked her up and stroked her shaggy gray head and shoved some of her hair out of her eyes ... her tongue licked.
"We never escape the past, do we?" he said.
The past accompanied him as he rode home. With Manuel, he rode across country, under ceibas and palm, the trail winding, sometimes across streams, sometimes through boulder-piled land. They talked about Pedro. The people at Mountain Rancheria reported he was living there, buying and selling guns. The rurales had to be informed. It was a six-day trip. Would they go after him?
White ibis and rosy spoonbill flew up from a small lake ... a blue heron sat on a dead and leafless tree, its wings outspread in the sun. An alligator splashed away from the shore as the horses trotted along a shell-strewn beach.
"Do you remember this lake?" Raul asked.
"Sure. We shot a grandfather alligator here, years ago."
"I bagged atigrein the bush," grinned Raul, "a fast, running shot."
"There are notigresaround now."
"I suppose not," said Raul. "We should gotigrehunting, way up the volcano, where there are plenty of them. Let's try our luck one of these days."
Dismounting, they rested undercocos de aceite, a woodland of thousands of short-trunked palms. They nibbled tortillas and a coil of cheese, an armadillo scrabbling in the distance.
"I remember that when it rains here the gnats take over," said Raul.
"Ssh, see, over there," whispered Raul.
Regardless of men and horses, three raccoons, one behind the other, filed toward the water. All stared at the ground, their tails low; the leader had an injured paw and limped badly.
"They're late for their food," said Raul.
"Something must have delayed them," said Manuel.
Raul dug for his pipe and filled it and Manuel rolled a cigarette and they lit from the same match. Again, something ignited in their eyes—they felt their close communion. Saddlebag under his head, Raul smoked, the smoke climbing and climbing, thecocos de aceitecompletely windless.
A blue flycatcher lit on a mossy log, where it preened its wing and tail feathers lazily.
"Have you heard that the flycatcher is from Quetzalcoatl?" asked Raul.
"Yes, I've heard that," said Manuel.
"I wonder why the old gods died," Raul said.
"People say they died because no one cared any more. Why does anything die, Don Raul?" Manuel shook his head; he removed his hat and forked his fingers through his hair. Faced by his own question, he felt tired, old. The forest could answer that question. Bending over his cigarette, sheltering it, smelling it, he listened to the woods.
"We couldn't go on living, all of us," he said, exhaling after a long drag, the smoke flooding over his eyes. "Some of us must be lost, in jungles, in rivers, fall on the sides of mountains, take sick of fever, be buried in ruins and little roadside places."
"But the gods weren't buried," objected Raul.
"They were buried at Tenochtitlan, at Monte Albán, at temples in Yucatán."
The flycatcher went on preening its lovely feathers.
Manuel lowered his voice: "Perhaps the old gods may return. I've heard it said...."
"I guess it was quite a party," said Fernando.
"Yes, Father."
"Who was there?"
"General Matanzas, Serrato, Roberto ... the Count, Jesús Peza, the Radziwills, Federicka ... several asked about you."
"Don't be so damn' polite."
The old man screwed round among his pillows, his cot in the patio of the serpent fountain. Slouched among pillows and sheets, he resembled a beachcomber, a feudal derelict. Behind him hung one of Alberto's cages, anazulejofluttering inside. Columnar cypress sliced the sky.
Raul perched on a cane chair, his hat on the floor beside him. He had just returned from an inspection of the lagoon irrigation project, a job that would put fifteen hectares of land under cultivation.
"I saw your cancellations in the books," Fernando cried, the flames in his eyes starting. "I want those cancellations stopped." His voice sounded childish.
Raul did all he could to control himself: he fished out his pipe, nicked off scale, stared at it, silent.
"You can't alter our records," Fernando exclaimed.
"I'm not keeping our people in servitude," Raul declared.
"Will you free them?" Fernando cried, lips wide. "They'll kill you!"
"We've had them killed. Perhaps it's their turn."
"You talk like a madman!"
"Hasn't it been insane to think we can destroy and destroy and go on destroying?"
"We must eat," said Fernando foolishly. He wanted to see clearly: the damn' scum floated about at any time, blocking, filtering; he rubbed his eyes.
"I'm going about the job of changing things as slowly as possible. The lagoon project is coming along. I've had the dam repaired in Sector 17. Petaca is being improved. Our people have a right to a better way...." He thought he could not go on defending himself, repressing his feelings. "You say we must eat. God knows we've never gone hungry, we Medinas!"
"Listen," Fernando said. "I've disposed of my mining shares in Pachuca Incorporated. The money is banked in my name now."
Raul had counted on the dividends for further improvements. He had counted on them as a financial buffer as well. His lips went white.
"Did you hear me?"
"I heard you."
"You talk of improvements. I'll cut your income. I can control Petaca." Fernando's sheet billowed and sank back.
"You can't!" Raul exclaimed.
"Raul—you can't better Petaca on one hand and undermine it on the other. Your radical ideas will ruin us."
"So we must hold our own by destroying others."
"It's a system like any other."
"That's no excuse."
"What will you do? Divide our land? The Indians owned it once. Will you give it back?" His voice crackled.
"That can be answered later," Raul said.
"When? Tomorrow? Next month? How long will you wait?"
Raul replaced his pipe in his pocket and forced himself to reply: "I haven't decided how to act."
"You'd give our land away!"
"No, Father. I won't give up Petaca."
Fernando forced a quaking hand from under the sheet and wedged a pillow behind his back. Except for a general diffusion of yellowish light, he could see nothing.
"I'm almost blind," he mumbled. "When is that optical fool coming from Colima to fit my glasses? Blind ... you know what it is to be going blind? Give me a drink."
As the old man drank, he thought of Pedro; he trembled; his fear of death returned, and he did not want Raul dead.
"Don't go, Raul. Sit down, wait."
Raul held the empty glass and remained standing.
"Did General Matanzas speak to you ... of a new president?" he asked, with difficulty. He had difficulty in swallowing.
"No. He was drunk."
"Who is to take over Mexico ... does anyone say?"
"Nobody knows."
"What utter fools," he growled. "A ship without a helmsman.... And here at Petaca I must fight you." Then he said, sadly: "This is a time of rumors about revolt, about partition of land.... I don't like a time of rumors." He cleared his throat.
For the first time during their conversation, Raul considered his father carefully; he saw that he had lost weight; the gnarled face had shrunken; both hands trembled now. No one had troubled to wash his hands. No one had combed his hair.
Raul went for Chavela and brought her back with comb and brush and pan of warm water and cake of soap. As she held the basin, he washed his father's hands, remembering some old legend of men deriving power and adding to their own longevity by such an act. Chavela dried Fernando's hands and washed his face as he lay with eyes closed, silent. He fell asleep, while she combed and brushed his hair. Raul got his hat and climbed the stair to his room. At another time he would question Fernando about Pedro's gun smuggling.
In his bedroom, he smelled Angelina's perfume and, as he changed from boots to shoes, he went over their disaffection, wanting, no matter how absurd, how contradictory, a touchstone that might bring about harmony.
Downstairs, Gabriel rested, seated in a big armchair, drowned in a book, his robe pulled up from his legs, his sandals kicked off. Light from the veranda drilled holes through his spectacles as he read.
"When did you come in?" asked Raul, poking about.
"I've been at the bookcase quite a while. Last week I got lost in Josse'sHistoriaand now I'm trying Locke's essay onUnderstanding."
"I'm the one who needs understanding."
"Not as much as I need it," said Gabriel. "What is it we need at Petaca?" he wanted to know.
"Friendship."
"Can that be it, Raul?"
"You taught me that, Gabriel. You've looked after the cuts and bruises and listened to the bitter stories. You've found ways of expressing friendship in the little things, a new altar cloth, medicine for Motilinia, a straw horse for a boy's birthday."
Quiet, Gabriel thumbed the leather book; for years he had encouraged one after another; it pleased him that Raul should speak out. What he had accomplished he could not say.