“Well,” said Salvador, grinning ear-to-ear, “her mother is an old conniving she-fox. The first time I went over to see Lupe, she kept me at her side the entire evening, drawing blood with question after question, telling me that no daughter of her’s will every marry a drinking man. Then she explained to me all the vices of gambling!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” said Doña Margarita. “A mother of any worth should protect her daughters.”
“But not like this! My God, Mama, I never even got a chance to see Lupe that first night, except when she brought in the tea.”
His mother and Luisa both laughed, enjoying Salvador’s predicament.
“Why, I had to trick her mother the second night. I showed up with tickets for the movies so that I could get to see Lupe!” he said, half laughing, half angry.
“Good, I like what I hear so far,” said Doña Margarita. “But I want to warn you, mi hijito, that these sound like very good, honest, God-fearing people and so we’re going to have to put our heads together and figure out a campaign so you’ll be able to win this girl’s hand in marriage. You can’t just go around tricking honest people with movie tickets, mi hijito. You got to give honest people what it is that they want.”
“How?” asked Salvador, getting defensive. “By telling her mother the truth, that I’m gambling man and I don’t just drink liquor, I manufacture it, too?”
“Of course not, mi hijito,” said his mother calmly. “Honest, God-fearing people don’t want to hear the truth. They want you to lie to them.”
“Mama!” snapped Luisa, glancing up at the towering church. “Please, watch what you say! We’re on the steps of the holy house of God!”
“So,” said their mother, full of mischief, “do you really think that if we weren’t on these steps that the Almighty couldn’t hear us?”
“Oh, Mama, please,” said Luisa, getting more nervous by the moment, “don’t talk like this,” she pleaded, making the sign of the cross over herself, hoping that they wouldn’t be struck down by lightning.
“Oh, mi hijita, you woman of such little faith! God respects my honesty that I admit that lie. He’s a hundred thousand years tired of people preaching the truth in His home, but then lying to all the world once they get away from the shadow of His domain!”
“Mama, stop it!” said Luisa. “I’m begging you, you’re right, I know! But couldn’t we just get off the steps and talk across the street?”
She looked so genuinely frightened, staring wide-eyed at the church, that Doña Margarita began to laugh.
“All right, if that will please you, Luisa,” said their mother, “but keep in mind that lying and tricking are the very foundation of love and courtship! Like you, what did you do, mi hijita, when you went after Epitacio to marry you and you were big with child? You lied, you used every form of trickery that we’ve learned since Eve tempted Adam, and María told Joseph that God had visited her.”
“Dear God, please don’t listen to her!” shouted Luisa. “She doesn’t know what she says, dear God! I didn’t really lie! No, I just kind of, well, didn’t tell the whole truth.”
“Exactly!” said Doña Margarita. “And those are the best kind of lies! Always keep close to the truth, mi hijito, so in case you’re caught ankle-deep in your own caca, you can crawl out.”
“Oh, Mama!” screamed Luisa, rushing off the church steps as fast as she could go. “You’re just awful!”
Seeing his sister flee, Salvador burst out laughing. Taking his mother’s arm, they went across the street.
“So, I shouldn’t trick her mother anymore, eh?” said Salvador, truly enjoying his mother. “I should just lie straight out.”
“Precisely,” said the old lady. “That’s what honest, God-fearing people really want. They don’t want the truth.”
Salvador laughed again. “And you, what do you want, Mama?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“Me? Well, I want the truth, of course,” she said without hesitation. “My world isn’t based on right and wrong, mi hijito. It’s based on love and doing whatever a mother needs to get done to survive. Just like God in the heavens and His responsibilities of the universe, I’d lie ten thousand times a day to help my family.”
“Then God doesn’t hate us if we lie or cheat or swear?” asked Salvador, thinking back to that day when he’d cursed God at the Rio Grande.
“Ha!” said his mother. “And who’s the biggest liar of all the universe? Giving us a mind that knows all the questions but none of the answers!” She laughed. “Why, God is the biggest lying jokester of all! Remember, He even created the devil just to amuse Himself with our predicament! No, of course, He won’t hate you for lying or cheating or swearing if it helps you to survive. But, of course, you don’t injure others.”
“Oh, Mama,” said Salvador, “I love you!”
“Of course you do,” she said. “You had no other tit to suck the first year of your life. But now, no more of this. Tell me more about her mother and her father, too.”
So Salvador told his mother and sister all he knew about Lupe’s parents and brother and sister and all this time, the priest was spying on them.
“Well,” said his mother, kissing him goodbye, “you be careful and don’t be tricky like the sneaky old raven with these people. You be stouthearted like the eagle and, also, pray for our letter to reach your brother.”
“I will, Mama,” said Salvador, hugging them both, feeling so good to have shared his good news with his mother and sister, and to hear about his brother, Domingo.
“But remember,” said his mother, “you don’t just follow the crotch of your pants and promise her anything until I meet her. Men lie to women and women lie to men, but it is a very different matter between two people of the same sex. You mark my words; I must meet her. And I don’t have much time. So move!”
“Yes, Mama,” he said, kissing her again.
Back in Carlsbad, Lupe was growing anxious. The sun was starting down and Salvador hadn’t come by to see her. Last night at the movie house, they had held hands and been so close. Oh, it angered her to realize that she’d allowed herself to get so touched by a man that she hardly knew.
It was getting late and Lupe decided to join Manuelita and the others who were going to the seashore. If Salvador came by and missed her, she didn’t care. In fact, she’d feel relieved. It just wasn’t proper for a lady to care so much for any man. No, she’d seen what it had done to her sister, María, with Esabel. María was now much better off with Andrés, who was a good man, although she didn’t love him very much. Besides, Salvador didn’t know much about her, so there was no real reason for him to respect her or admire her the way Mark did. She quit thinking of Salvador and began to think of Mark and of all the wonderful walks that they’d had coming home from the library.
It was low tide and the rocks and tide pools were visible down below the bluffs. Taking off their shoes, Lupe and the girls climbed down to the wet, cool sand. Lupe walked alongside Manuelita; Carlota and Cuca and Uva went up ahead of them.
“I just don’t know what to do,” said Lupe to Manuelita. “Before, I only had thoughts for Mark, but now I’m not so sure. And Mama keeps insisting that I tell her everything but, well, a part of me just doesn’t want to tell her everything.”
“Then don’t,” said Manuelita.
“But if I don’t, then she worries so much and, yet, if I do, then she’ll. . . . Oh, I just don’t know what to do, Manuelita! I still haven’t even told her about Mark’s proposal!”
“Don’t torture yourself,” said Manuelita, taking Lupe’s hand. “We have to admit that we both have mothers that are, well, to put it mildly, so strong-willed that if we don’t keep quiet about part of our lives, we’d never have any privacy!”
Lupe laughed. “Yes, that is true,” she said.
“Of course it is,” said Manuelita. “How do you think I ever managed to get engaged? I kept quiet about everything until the last moment!”
“No! R
eally?”
“Of course,” said Manuelita, glancing around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. She drew in close to Lupe, talking a mile a minute, telling Lupe everything.
Just then, Salvador drove up above them on the bluff in his long, ivory-white automobile. He’d stopped by Kenny’s and bathed and changed his clothes. Then he’d gone to the camp and was told that the girls had gone to the beach.
Spotting the five young women below him, Salvador breathed in so deeply that his nostrils narrowed and then went wide and dark. Why, Lupe looked like a living picture, walking along the surf with her girlfriends. She was taller than the others, looking as graceful as a deer moving up the coastline with the glistening sunlight in her hair and her long, muscular arms moving as she spoke. It was a picture that Salvador would take to his grave.
Quickly, he backed up his car and drove farther up the beach. Getting out, he sneaked down the bluff through the brush. He could see Cuca, Uva, Carlota, and right behind them, Lupe and Manuelita. As they approached, Salvador stepped out from behind the brush.
“Good evening!” he said, taking off his hat.
They all turned, giggling with surprise, except for Lupe. She was mad. He’d shown up late, causing her to worry.
Seeing her anger, Salvador put on his panama and, as he came across the sand to them, something very interesting happened. Cuca, who was the closest one to him, gave him the eye and a movement of hips. And Lupe, seeing her friend’s flirtatious behavior, forgot her anger. With fire in her eyes, she walked straight up to him and took his arm very possessively.
Salvador wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He and Lupe walked arm-in-arm up the seashore. Good old jealousy did it every time. As surely as greed did it in the game of cards, jealousy gave you the edge in the game of love.
The girls followed behind them, laughing and talking and, in the distance, they could see the Oceanside pier jutting out into the dark blue sea.
Lupe and Salvador smelled the salt air and watched the right eye of God turn into liquid flame as it slid down into the flat, blue sea. They walked on, touching, talking, brushing up against each other.
It was then time to turn around. The four other girls ran ahead. It was almost dusk by the time they all got back to the Moon automobile.
They drove back to the migrants’ encampment where the tents were lit up like glowing paper bags with candles inside them. And there they were: the two old lionesses guarding the castle’s entrance.
“You’re late!” snapped Doña Manza to her daughters.
“It’s my fault,” said Salvador quickly.
“Oh, no it’s not!” said Doña Guadalupe. “These girls have minds of their own!”
“I told you so, Lupe!” said Carlota.
“Carlota!” snapped Lupe. “You never said any such thing!”
“Enough! All of you!” said Doña Guadalupe. “Now go inside and make some tea while we talk to Salvador!”
The girls obeyed their mothers. Salvador nodded nervously to Don Victor. “What-ever you say, ladies,” he said. “Before you start, well, I’d like to tell you that I drove up to Corona this morning and saw my mother, and she told me the most wonderful news that I’ve heard in years.”
“Oh, and what might that be?” asked Lupe’s mother, still pretending to be upset. She wasn’t, really; it was mostly just an act. A mother could never be too careful.
“My brother, Domingo,” he said, “we’d lost him back in Mexico in the Revolution, and we think we’ve found him.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” said Doña Guadalupe. “Especially for your mother! The very same thing happened to us. Sophia, one of my older daughters, came ahead of us to the United States and we’d heard that she’d drowned at sea. But then, years later, we found her in Santa Ana. So, please, sit down and tell us all about this.”
“Well, of course,” said Salvador, feeling good to be in control once again.
Finishing the story, Salvador thought that he’d done a wonderful job and he figured the two old she-boars weren’t going to drill him with any questions tonight. But he was wrong.
When Lupe and the girls came out with the tray of tea and sweet bread, they were told to go back inside. Then, Lupe’s mother came after him, wanting blood.
“Well,” she said, “now, getting back to our conversation of the other night, I want to ask you what you think of the Mexican tradition that says that money should only be handled by men.”
Salvador almost spilled his tea. “Well, to tell the truth,” he said, putting his cup down, “I’ve never thought too much of it.”
Lupe’s mother glanced at Doña Manza. “Well, to be perfectly frank,” she continued, “my comadre and I have spoken of this topic at great length and we think that this custom of ours that says money should never be put in the hands of women and children isn’t just wrong, but actually destructive for the very survival of the family.”
“Oh, I see,” he said. “I never thought of that.”
“Of course not,” she said, going right on without hesitation, “because tradition tells you that men are free to do with the money as they please and the church agrees with them, making our tradition sound as if it came straight from God, and so no one ever questions it. But my comadre and I, who raised our children alone half of the time, were forced to think of this,” she continued, “and so we can’t possibly agree with this very Mexican belief that men alone were made superior by God to handle money. In fact, personally, I’ll go so far as to say that I believe that some women are more capable of handling money than men.”
And saying this, she stopped and stared at Salvador straight in the eyes, daring him to contradict her.
But Salvador gave her nothing, then taking a deep breath he glanced at Don Victor, who must have known what was in store for him this night, because he winked at Salvador.
“Yes, of course, I can see what you mean,” said Salvador calmly. Inside his soul, he was raging. He’d never heard such talk in all his life. The first time, this old woman had said that cards and liquor were worse than war for marriage, and now she was saying that women were more capable of handling money than men. This was blasphemy! Why, the Pope, himself, was a man! And Jesus Christ had put him in charge of mankind’s destiny on earth!
But before Salvador could say anything, the old lady went right on. “And to go further,” she said, “I’ll tell you this. I believe that women, with their instincts of a mother protecting her young, have the obligation for the survival of the family to handle the money that their husbands make. And I don’t say this lightly or with malice or with ignorance. No, I say this from what I’ve seen again and again all my life. And if a man is a man, he, too, can open his eyes and see this very important fact. Money must be used for the good of the entire family and not just for a man’s arrogant need of cards and liquor!”
Salvador put down his sweet bread. Why, next she’d be saying that a son-in-law’s obligation was to turn his paycheck over to his mother-in-law.
“And now, Salvador,” she said, sitting back, “what do you think?” she asked, smiling. “And be perfectly frank. Because, after all, what I’ve just said is far removed from the common ideas of our people. So, of course, it would be unfair of me to not understand a young man being disturbed with these ideas of mine.” And there she stopped, smiling such a sweet, innocent little smile that Salvador almost laughed. Why, she was as cunning as his own mother.
He took a deep breath and glanced at Doña Manza. She, too, was smiling sweetly. He glanced down at his shoes, trying to gain time and think of how his own mother would handle this situation. But looking down, he saw that his beautiful black and white shoes were covered with flies. The bacon grease that he’d taken from Kenny’s kitchen to shine his shoes with had melted and attracted all these flies. And one big horsefly was stuck on the tip of his right shoe, crawling around in a circle, making desperate sounds as it tried to get free. His mind went blank. He could think of nothing. And yet, he fully r
ealized that this was the most important test of his life, if he ever hoped to marry Lupe.
Glancing up, he saw that both women were also staring at his shoes. He turned crimson with embarrassment and reached down, pinching the fly off his shoe, then brought out his red silk handkerchief, wiping off his hand.
“Well,” he said, wishing that he had a pint bottle of whiskey so he could take a good swig. “What can I say?” he continued, brushing the crumbs off his pant legs from the sweet bread he’d eaten. “Except that you’re right, Señora, absolutely right.” He figured that he’d lie straight out, but that he wouldn’t stray too far from the truth, in case he had to eat his own lies someday. Oh, it was a good thing that his mother had prepared him or he’d be feeling pretty helpless right now.
“And my dear mother would be in complete agreement with you,” he added, not quite knowing where he was going, but hoping to wing it. “For I remember my parents’ arguments when I was small and, most of the time, they were about money. My father was a hard worker, the hardest, and excellent with horses and cattle, too, but he just wasn’t good with money.”
He glanced into the well-lit tent and he saw Lupe and the other young women. Carlota was giggling and pointing at his shoes. He breathed deeply, brushing the rest of the crumbs off his pants, and stomped his feet, getting rid of the flies, then coughed, clearing his voice.
“And so, as I was saying,” he said, “my father was a big, handsome man with a huge, red two-handled moustache and he had tremendous power for fighting and working. But, still, even as a child, I somehow knew that my mother knew more about money matters than he did. Once, I’ll never forget, we were up on the slopes and he got so mad at our goats that he began to yell and scream. A shrewd businessman happened to come by on horseback.
“‘Don Juan,” he said to my father, “‘I’ll take those troublesome goats off your hands right now. Here’s a twenty peso gold piece.’ And before my older brother, José, could say a word, my father said, ‘All right. Give me the money, you got a deal!’
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