by Michael Nava
He clambered onto his father’s back, tucked his legs beneath his father’s arms, and clasped his father’s chest. He could feel the heat of exertion rising from his father’s body, deepening the familiar scents of tobacco and bay rum. He leaned his cheek against his father’s neck and closed his eyes, and he was a toddler again being swept off his unsteady feet by his enormous father, who slathered him with kisses and called him “mi hombrecito”—my little man.
José did not doubt that his father loved him, but it was the bodies of the women of his family from which he ordinarily received the animal intimacy that created love’s profoundest bond. The smooth, soft, and yielding bodies of his mother, grandmother, and aunts swaddled him in flesh. His father’s embrace was very different. His body was hard and his skin covered with bristly hairs. In his barbed embrace, José did not lose himself, as he did in his mother’s arms, but remained a distinct entity. His mother’s body sheltered him; his father’s body challenged him. His mother’s touch was imbued with the nostalgia of the womb, calling him back to a place of unquestioned safety. His father’s strong hands had delivered him from that womb and continued to push him forward into the world.
They reached the cavernous room where a dozen lesser bells were hung and ascended a final flight of stairs to the top of the tower, where they stood on a platform beneath the three tons of Santo Ángel. José eased off his father’s back. His father draped the blanket around José’s shoulders, took his hand, led him to the east side of the tower, and said, “Mira,” as the eyes of morning began to open above the snow-shrouded peaks of the volcanos, Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl.
He watched the light break across the valley, revealing the green and brown of farmland. The occasional flash of colored tiles marked the dome of a church of one of the outlying villages. He could see the silvery sheen of the five small lakes that, in ancient times, had filled most of the valley. His eyes traced La Viga, the last surviving canal from the time of the Aztecs, as it flowed toward the city from Lake Xochimilco. As it had in Moctezuma’s time, it connected the countryside to the city, and its surface was clotted with barges and canoes laden with food and flowers for the markets. His father led him around the platform, and he saw the Paseo de la Reforma, almost deserted at this hour, cutting west toward the mossy forest and castle-covered hill of Chapultepec. He could see the domes and towers of the colonial city amid the marble structures of the Centenario, seventeenth-century tenements, and the new suburbs of the rich. Electric streetcars and horse-drawn carriages shared the same venerable cobblestone streets. Far off, a train crossed an iron trestle and plunged into a remnant of primordial forest. He saw everything all at once as the sun rose higher in the sky, and he could only murmur, “Oh, Papá, it is so beautiful. I never knew it was so beautiful.”
“It is,” his father said. “This is our patrimony, José. Do you know what that means?”
José, still astonished by the landscape unfolding beneath him, could only shake his head.
“This is México, Josélito. This is what our fathers have given us to love and protect and, if need be, to lay down our lives to preserve it for our sons. This is our world, José.”
José’s heart beat with pride for his country and love for his father, and he could not tell where one ended and the other began.
“Yes, Papá,” he said, slipping his hand into his father’s. “This is our world.”
14
On the sidewalks of El Carmen, awed passersby stopped and pointed at the Silver Ghost. Even on the colonia’s gouged roadways the Rolls-Royce’s engine purred, unlike the firework explosions of less opulent automobiles. The vehicle moved steadily forward in the direction of the polychrome-tiled dome of the church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, visible above the row of palm trees that marked the plaza.
Tío Damian’s new car had only recently arrived from England, complete with the broad-shouldered, hard-faced English driver whose black uniform gave him a martial look. The sensation of traveling in a coach not being pulled by horses made José feel like a character out of a Jules Verne novel. From his perch beside the driver, he turned to share his glee with his mother, but she and his uncle were deep in conversation.
“I can’t believe you intended to come here unaccompanied,” Damian said. “The streets are filled with thieves and worse.”
“They are poor, not criminals,” Alicia said shortly. “There is a difference.”
“I do not see it,” he replied.
She bit her lip. “It was good of you to escort us,” she said.
“Well, since your husband has decided to run off and play the revolutionary, someone needs to watch over you,” he replied and added, with feigned casualness, “Have you heard from him?”
“Not since January,” she said. A month earlier. “He told me he would be traveling in areas from which he would be unable to send letters.”
Damian nodded. “The Sierra Madre,” he said. “That’s where Madero and his people are holed up.” He tapped his finger on the seat rest. “Twenty years ago, Díaz would have flushed them out and …”
She completed the sentence in her head—and shot them. Aloud she said, “But he has not. Even the government newspapers are filled with stories of fighting in the north and in Morelos.”
He grunted. “A dozen tiny fires in a country the size of México do not make a revolution,” he said uncertainly, as if trying to convince himself.
Alicia looked out the window and saw not the dusty barrio of El Carmen but herself embracing Miguel at the railway station in the American town of Douglas while Tomasa stood impatiently at her side. January in the Sonora desert was cold and bright, the winter sun refracted off the bare surfaces of rock and earth. The train station buzzed with activity. The conductor shouted, “All aboard,” in the harsh syllables of English. Reluctantly, she released her husband.
“I will return to you,” he said defiantly. “When I do, I will bring with me hope for a better México.”
“I only care that you bring yourself home safely,” she said.
“I must go,” he said, picking up his satchel. “Good-bye, Tomasa.”
The girl had slipped her hand into Alicia’s. “Good-bye, Doctor,” she said. “I will take care of Doña Alicia.”
Miguel smiled. “I have no doubt of that.”
And then he was gone. She stood with Tomasa at the platform until his train was no longer visible on the eastern horizon. She sighed, squeezed the girl’s hand, and said, “Now we must find your brother.”
The American town astonished her after the long journey across the vast expanses of dun-colored Mexican desert. When the train did stop, it was in villages where she witnessed scenes of poverty that still woke her at night. Packs of skeletal feral dogs, starving children, vultures swarming an unseen corpse, the slow parade of men and women so caked with desert dust they seemed to have sprung from the earth. She had always imagined that hell would be a place of caves and darkness, but here it was, brilliantly and cruelly lit, every horrifying detail laid bare beneath the relentless sun. After five days, the train pulled into Douglas, passing beneath an iron archway inscribed with the words “Welcome to America.” Miguel, translating the words for her, had snorted, “America! Typical Yankee arrogance. We were America when these people were living in hovels.”
As she and Tomasa rode through the streets of Douglas, she thought the days when the Americans lived in hovels were long past. The roads were wide and smoothly paved. In place of the familiar street markets of México were rows of dry goods stores, which displayed everything from shoes to hammers, sewing needles to candy confections, behind immense plate glass windows. As evening fell, the entire town was lit by electric lamps, creating a bright oasis in the surrounding darkness of the desert. The effect on Alicia was as disorienting as it was impressive. It seemed to her she had entered not simply a different country but a different time—the future. It was a future filled with the jangly language of the Americans, of which she spoke only a
few carefully memorized sentences; with incessant mechanical noises—sputtering automobiles, ringing telephones, whistling trains, and water rushing through plumbing; with the acrid stink from the copper smelters at the edge of town; and with the Americans themselves, pale-eyed and sunburned, careening along the sidewalks as if cherub-sized demons prodded them forward with tiny pitchforks. She was both fascinated and repelled by the Americans, who, she thought, were like the food they served her, appetizing in appearance but flavorless.
Padre Cáceres had sent messages ahead to Douglas that Alicia was arriving with a daughter of the Yaquis. A message had returned that she would be met, but no details were given other than that she should wait. On her second evening in the town, the manager of the hotel knocked at the door to her room. Frowning, he communicated to her that she had a visitor downstairs. Leaving Tomasa behind, she followed him to the lobby filled with potted palms and horsehide furniture, where, to the manager’s clear disapproval, a thin, hawk-faced, white-haired Indian with eyes like flints stood on the oriental carpet.
The Indian spoke in Spanish, saying, “I have come for Tomasa Flores.”
“May I ask your name?” Alicia asked politely.
“Sacramento Matus,” he replied. “I took custody of the girl and her brother after their mother’s murder, and I brought them here. Where is she?”
Before she could respond, Alicia heard Tomasa, behind her, say quietly, “I am here, Don Sacramento.” She walked past Alicia to Sacramento. “I have returned to care for my brother as my mother wishes.” After a moment, she added, “I only wanted to be a warrior, like my father.”
A faint smile flickered across Sacramento’s lips. “You have shown you have your father’s blood in you, now you must show you have your mother’s as well. Mateo needs you.”
She bent her head slightly. “Yes, Achai. I will get my things and come with you.”
She turned and went up the stairs, leaving Alicia alone with Sacramento. She was aware not merely of his physical strength—he was spare as a rod of steel—but of a spiritual power that glowed in the depths of his eyes. She felt, as she did with the Americans, that he occupied a different dimension of time than she, not the future, not the past, but a place beyond the reach of time.
“She called you ‘father,’” Alicia said, recognizing the Yaqui word by which Tomasa had addressed him.
“I have tried to be a father to her and Mateo,” he replied.
“Where will you take her?” Alicia asked.
“To her home,” Sacramento said.
“Here, in this town?”
“Be assured, she will be safe,” he said. “I am grateful to you for bringing her back to her people. Our children are so few that each one is precious to us.”
“It is only a small restitution for what my people have done to yours,” she said.
He cast a long look at her. The light in his eyes seemed to illuminate every cell in her body, every moment of her life. It was all she could do to endure his scrutiny.
At length he said, in a soft, kind voice, “Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children.”
She recognized the words that Jesus had spoken to the women who wept for him as he dragged his cross along the Via Dolorosa to Calvary.
“I do not understand, Don Sacramento.”
“The women of México will soon enough know for themselves the suffering their soldiers have caused my people,” he said.
He spoke without anger or malice. Before she could question him further, Tomasa came down the stairs clutching her carpet bag and went to Sacramento’s side.
“Thank you, Doña,” she said.
Alicia stepped forward, embraced the girl, and kissed her forehead. “You are my daughter now, Tomasa. I will remember you in my prayers, and one day perhaps we shall meet again in a different and happier world.”
“Take this,” Sacramento said to her. He removed from his neck a string of wooden beads that held a large wooden cross. The beads were carved in the shape of an eye. “It will protect you on your journey home. Come, child.”
The man and the girl left her standing alone, her fingers attempting to decipher the meaning of the eye-shaped beads, and her mind the meaning of his quotation from the gospel.
The Silver Ghost came to a stop in front of a small warehouse. Painted on its facade was the faded word mortuario, and beneath that, in fresher paint, Teatro Palantino.
The driver turned and said to Damian, “We are here, sir.”
Damian exclaimed, “This place! Are you sure?”
Alicia removed the cheap handbill from her bag, studied it for a moment, and said, “This is the correct address.”
“You said it was a theater,” her brother-in-law said.
“Teatro Palantino,” she replied. “Just as it says on the building. It must be inside the mortuary.”
“This is absurd,” Damian said. He barked at the driver, “Go inside and see what this place is.”
But Alicia had already opened her door. “No,” she said. “I will see for myself.”
“Alicia,” he called after her.
“Mamá,” José said, scurrying down from the front seat. “Wait for me.”
She reached for José’s hand and they entered the building. Aisles of plain pine coffins were stacked from floor to ceiling in a large, square room. The coffins were unlined and unpainted, except for the smallest—intended for infants and children—which were blue or pink or yellow or white. Cobwebs glittered in the dark corners and a heavy layer of dust covered the roughly planked wooden floor. The place smelled faintly like a forest. At the far end of the aisle, a lantern’s glow illuminated the dimness.
“Come,” his mother said, walking toward the light. José followed, running his finger in the dust along the sides of the coffins. At the back of the room was a wall with two curtained openings, one marked Entrada and the other Salida. Between them was a table, where a gaunt man sat behind a cashbox and a pile of pink slips of paper.
“Is this the Teatro Palantino?” his mother asked.
The man rose, bowed, and said, “Yes, Doña.”
At that moment, José heard his uncle call, “Alicia!”
“This is the place,” she told him. “I was just speaking to the proprietor.” Addressing him, she asked, “The stage is behind the wall?”
“Not a stage, Doña. A stage is not required.”
She pulled the handbill from her purse. “‘Moving pictures of the Rebellion,’” she read. “Is that not the title of the performance?”
“Yes, Doña, but it is not a performance; it is the thing itself.”
“The thing itself!” Tío Damian exclaimed. “What nonsense.”
From behind the wall, a piano began to play a popular tune.
“Well, something is going on back there,” his mother said. “How much for tickets, sir?”
“Five centavos for you and the gentleman. The boy can enter free.”
She gave him some coins in exchange for three pink tickets. “Through this curtain?” she asked, indicating the entrada.
“Yes, Doña,” he said.
“Alicia,” his uncle said. “This is foolish. You have no idea what is in that room. We should leave now.”
She took José’s hand and, looking over her shoulder, said, “Are you coming, Damian?”
He sighed, rushed forward, pushed aside the dusty curtain, and entered first. José clutched his mother’s hand, his stomach fluttering, as the curtain fell shut behind them. They found themselves in a dark room. A single beam of light shot through the musty air from the rafters and illuminated a large sheet of muslin hanging from a cord stretched across the front wall. A collection of chairs and benches faced the sheet. To its right was the piano, where a corpulent woman played a love song by the light of a candle. There were perhaps a dozen other people in the room, men mostly, laughing, talking, smoking, and drinking. The air smelled of sawdust, cigarettes, and pulque. José looked upward at the beam
of light and followed it to its source, a small, square opening in the wall of a tiny room built into the rafters. He looked back at the sheet of muslin, white in the darkness, lit up like a ghost, and felt a shiver of premonitory excitement.
His uncle was saying, “This is hardly the place for a respectable woman,” and he felt his mother waver. He grabbed her hand and said, “Mamá, I want to see what happens!”
After a moment, she said, “We are staying, Damian.”
“As you wish,” he replied curtly. “Let’s sit apart from the rabble at least.”
As the piano player thudded away, the room filled with still more people and the air grew warmer and thicker. His uncle put his handkerchief to his mouth, and his mother fanned herself with the handbill. When the room was at capacity, the pianist began to loudly pound the opening chords of the National Hymn. José saw flickering movements cross the muslin. He thought they were shadows, but then, as they came into focus, he gasped. He saw photographs of men in a dusty town and then—
“Mamá, mira!” José shouted. “The pictures are moving!”
The handbill slipped from her fingers, and she murmured, “Damian, look. It’s Don Francisco Madero. He’s walking toward us.”
His uncle muttered, “Fantástico.”
Elsewhere in the audience were cries of disbelief and fear, one woman screaming, “Ghosts! Ghosts!” as she ran from the room. Others in the audience laughed with delight at the little figures of Madero and his advisors and generals. José watched raptly. The men were strolling on a wooden sidewalk beneath shop signs in English, their mouths moving in animated but silent conversation. They stopped and Madero seemed to look straight out at the audience, eliciting more gasps, for it was as if he were present. His image faded to a black square that occupied the whole of the sheet. Written in white lettering on the square were the words “Vista de la revuelta.” Cries of “Read it! Read it!” and “What does it say?” rose up from the illiterate audience. His mother stirred beside him, then stood up, and read in a clear, firm voice, “A view of the rebellion.”
