The Brick People
Page 8
“Good, more people will come,” she said softly. “Gonzalo, we also spoke about other things.” She went and sat at his side.
“I told them that the past few days I have not felt well in the morning, that I got sick to my stomach. Mrs. Correaga asked me embarrassing questions. They were necessary questions. Then she asked permission to touch my stomach and breasts. The three women laughed. But I allowed them to because they had told me before that I might be with child and they wanted to confirm it. And it happened that Mrs. Correaga concluded that without a doubt I am pregnant. They embraced and congratulated me. They told me I could count on them when the time came. It might be in November. Forgive me, Gonzalo. I don’t know if they are gossipers.” Pascuala’s lips cradled into a slight smile.
Gonzalo, amazed at the wondrous news, reached for her hand.
After dinner Gonzalo and Pascuala strolled through the back garden of their house.
“That’s why you’re so thin, woman, because you are pregnant. Look at the night; it is beautiful, filled with stars and the soft wind, warm like your arms. Let’s stroll through the fields.”
Gonzalo led Pascuala past the barn, through a road leading to the agricultural fields planted by Japanese farmers. They embraced and kissed, and while they enjoyed the warm balmy Southern California evening they discussed the future.
As usual, Walter had discussed business with Joseph throughout the half-hour walk in the warm, windy, mid-June evening in Pasadena. They returned to Joseph’s house on California Street where Joseph and Laura had been receiving guests since seven-thirty that evening. It was a grand celebration and many people came from throughout Southern California to wish Reuben and Melissa Simons, patriarch and matriarch of the Simons family, a happy forty-sixth wedding anniversary. Reuben Simons, seventy, and Melissa, sixty-nine, had made many friends through their church activities and their sons’ growing business. That evening they were the life of the party and the center of attention. By eleven-thirty most of the guests had left except for ten couples, close Pasadena friends who sat speaking with Reuben and Melissa.
Joseph and Walter had left the party to discuss several financial emergencies that had come up at what Joseph called Walter’s yard. They left the party in order not to disturb the guests nor embarrass their parents in case they shouted during the discussion. Ever since the San Francisco earthquake, Joseph and Walter had been at constant odds. Neither one could make a suggestion to the other without causing friction. However, tonight they both agreed to what needed to be done to solve the immediate needs at Simons Town. More mules, hay to feed them, and wagons were needed. Joseph offered to transfer the animals and whatever else was necessary to keep Walter’s yard producing enough brick to fill the orders from Northern and Southern California. The success of Walter’s yard was money in Joseph’s pocket, for it was he who controlled the financial matters in the Simons Brick Company.
Outside, Rosendo looked into the gay sounds and lights of the Simons’ home. He was in charge of organizing the furniture for the dinner in the garden. He had been invited to enjoy the evening with the family, but he preferred to stay outside in the garden. He ate and drank by himself on the furthest table from the center. Joseph smiled at his faithful worker. He was convinced that the Mexican Rosendo would be loyal for life. Walter watched as Rosendo gave his boss a complimentary abrazo.
“Thank you for allowing me to stay. Please congratulate your father and mother again for me. Good night, Joseph. Buenas noches, Walter.” Rosendo moved away, turned, waved good-bye and disappeared into California Street.
“He hasn’t married yet, has he?” Walter asked, opening the gate of the fence covered with bougainvillaes.
“No, he has not,” Joseph replied, stepping up onto the porch. “Why is that so strange? You’re not married, either.”
“What does he do?” Walter asked, not sure of what he was searching for or what he wanted to know.
“He reads a lot. Anything he can get his hands on, in English, Spanish and French,” Joseph said.
“What about women?” Walter asked.
“I think he goes into Los Angeles for that. Sometimes he rides south to Santa Ana. But for the past several years he’s been reading. He asked permission to use the library in town and that’s where he spends his time off.” Joseph reached for the front door.
“Strange. I think that’s strange.” Walter was bothered by Rosendo’s pastime activity.
The brothers observed their parents discussing and laughing with friends. Joseph opened his watch and smiled.
“It’s getting very late for him,” Joseph said.
“Let them enjoy it. How has he been?” Walter asked.
“Sometimes good, other times he can’t get out of bed. But tonight he seems to be as strong as any of us,” Joseph said as he looked at the twenty or so grey-haired heads on aged bodies sitting deep in sofas and couches. Laura came to Joseph’s side.
“Well, they seem to be having a wonderful evening,” she said, taking Joseph by the arm. “Before I forget, we received a nasty letter from the Montebello City Council complaining that they don’t want your Mexican workers shopping in their stores. In fact they don’t want the brickyard anywhere near their town.”
“Too late to complain now. We’re there to stay,” Walter said with a tinge of annoyance in his voice.
“That’s right, you’re there to stay,” Joseph said.
Laura and Joseph joined their parents. Walter, puzzled by his brother’s last remark, did not follow but instead went to the dining room for a drink. His eyes watered. His vision blurred. Tired, he thought, and downed a whiskey.
Walter had felt two people present, a man and a woman, but had not paid attention. Only after the whiskey did he hear the voices clearly and recognize his brother Orin Elmer who sat at the table talking excitedly. Never had Walter seen his brother so content and proud. Orin Elmer’s conversation was with a woman in an intensely blue dress. From her shoulders hung a deep blue shawl knotted on the left side of her heart. The neckline plunged to the initial rise of her breasts and sealed the rest of her, revealing nothing, and yet for Walter, everything in his imagination. A pearl necklace marked the initiation and merging of a graceful and powerful neck. She pushed her delicate, soft brown hair away from the left side of her face.
Excitement, warmth, comfort, heat and a wetness in two parallel vertical furrows appeared above her nose. She placed the middle finger of her right hand there and moved her fingers across her eyebrow, never ceasing to observe Walter.
Orin Elmer, startled by the presence of something, someone unknown standing at his back, stood, turned and discovered his brother.
“Oh, come sit with us,” Orin Elmer said nervously. “I was getting ready to retire. I, oh, I have been talking with Miss Sarah Patenkin, Mr. and Mrs. Patenkin’s daughter. They opened the new drugstore in town.”
Emotionless, Walter expressed nothing on his face. He watched her in a way that probably would have made any woman uncomfortable. He made his brother more nervous and Sarah curious. Orin Elmer left the room, his words faded and forgotten. Sarah remained at the table. At that moment they were the only people in the world. Voices gradually re-entered the magic space.
“How do you do?” she said confidently. “I’m Sarah Patenkin” She smiled and went to the doorway leading to the living room. The guests were gathering their coats and leaving.
“I think I know everything about you, Walter,” Sarah said on the verge of laughter.
Walter sensed the friendly silliness and relaxed. He understood he was in the presence of the first woman he could love and consider for marriage. He took her arm and led her to the living room. He announced to his parents and hers that they would wait for them on the porch. Walter found it curious that the Patenkins were the last to leave, but too soon they were riding in their carriage toward downtown Pasadena.
As Walter walked home under a blanket of stars exposed by the warm winds, his mind filled with the images
of his two most important concerns: the Simons Brickyard, which Joseph had identified as Walter’s yard, and Sarah Patenkin, the beautiful woman who already knew everything about him. Surrounded by the sounds of early morning life, he listened to the rustling of animals resting and struggling.
Chapter 5
The earth had opened twice during the night. In the morning the village of El Barral discovered that five houses and families had vanished. By mid-day, water rose from small cracks in the earth. The news spread that other families and villagers had been lost to the underground movement of the great serpent that bore through the earth. Malaquías de León’s hut on top of the hill would not be touched by the rising water, but the fields were ruined and the crop lost. To the north, enormous thunderclouds formed. It would rain by late afternoon and thunder and lightning would terrorize animals and people.
Malaquías almost cursed the sun on that twenty-second of June, 1906. The rainy season promised to be long and overwhelming, he thought while walking to the entrance of the house where inside Lorenza Trejo de León lay tense, in pain, feeling her body begin to open up for the birth of their second child. He reached in his pockets and found a few coins and a letter. Lorenza’s moans were more constant. It would be over soon, he hoped. Their first-born, Paquita, now one-and-a-half years old, would soon cry. She would be hungry and Lorenza would nurse and comfort the child. This time there was no midwife to help in the delivery. Overnight, the moving earth and floods had isolated the de León family. People dared not venture out of their homes for fear of being swallowed up, swept away by water or burned by lightning.
Malaquías peered into the house. Lorenza lay quietly waiting for the next contraction. Paquita sat in a corner with a wooden doll purchased in Quiseo de Abasolo after her birth. The great thunder and curtains of water would soon be upon them. Malaquías could do nothing now but wait. The forces of nature were rushing toward them. The family would survive or perish together. He squatted outside the entrance beneath the last warm rays of the sun which were now being swallowed faster by the clouds darkening the earth. The rain was less than an hour away. The thunder was louder. He stood his ground and stared out at the vast living land before him.
Angrily he felt his cousin’s letter. Trabajo was the word that kept jumping from cell to cell in his brain. Here he worked and got nothing. He could never count on water. It was either too little or too much. How he hated and loved this land. He could never save enough money for the family to leave, but someday he would go to find work and buy land and after he was settled he would send for his wife and children, he dreamed as the sky darkened. Faraway a hazy red light floated where the sky meets the earth. Above him the sky was deep grey with black water tumors that would soon burst. He thought of Lorenza, lying there inside, praying that it would be over quickly.
Malaquías felt the wind pick up strength. The light on the horizon became a line of white. The house, Lorenza, their daughter, the child to be born and he were encased in a moist blackness. Through the monstrous clouds, silent streaks of light traveled downward. At any moment the lights would be upon them and would announce their presence with unimaginable thunder, and tons and tons of water would fall upon him and the persons he loved. The wind was stronger and it began to sprinkle kind little droplets. Now surrounded by lightning working its way down through the tonnage of water, Malaquías knew there was nowhere to go except inside his house and hope that it would be able to withstand the weight. From inside, a scream broke the song of the droplets. Instantly the sky shattered and responded with intense, painful thunder.
Malaquías crawled inside the house and watched Lorenza struggle to give birth. At Lorenza’s right side sat their Paquita, silently waiting to clutch a breast. A massive contraction seized Lorenza. Malaquías placed a towel between her legs. Outside, the water curtain shifted and moved toward the hut. The earth rumbled and shook. In seconds the curtain would fall on them. Lightning bolts illuminated the sky; loud thunder crashed nearby.
Malaquías moved the candle closer and saw that between Lorenza’s legs an infant squirmed. As he picked the babe up to give to Lorenza, a massive lightning bolt struck just outside the opening of the house. Lorenza’s body tensed up and their first-born clung to her mother and the newborn infant. Lorenza screamed with every bolt that crashed to the earth. The curtain fell on all four: the newborn with umbilical cord still attached screamed, searching for a breast; the first-born hung on to her mother and her new sister while Malaquías tried desperately to embrace the three of them with his arms and chest.
Amidst nature’s energies and noise, Malaquías peered into Lorenza’s bright eyes. She never knew whether she heard laughter or crying, or whether it was water or tears that trickled from Malaquías’ eyes. She held her children, Paquita, her first born, and Nana, her new baby, warm and safe in her arms. With Malaquías there to protect them, Lorenza was convinced that the house would stand against the fury of Tlaloc, the rain energy’s soul.
Dark, brown, round head, large black eyes, high-ridged wide-nostril nose, thin lips, wide mouth, large white teeth, large protruding ears: the ten-year-old boy’s face smiled as he turned to tell his friend to get ready for the photograph that Mr. J. R. Allen, Walter Robey Simons’ personal photographer, was about to shoot. The boys giggled at the attention they got from the “gringos” from Montebello Unified School District who had come to register the workers’ children and set up a school for them only. The two boys stood in the front row of twelve; on a bench behind them posed eight girls and four boys, and above them seven boys and two girls looked down at the camera. All of the boys wore overalls and white long-sleeve shirts buttoned up to the collar. Caps in hand pointed down to their bare feet. White was the color for the girls’ dresses. The clean, innocent faces shone with the excitement and fear that filtered through their hearts.
After the photograph was taken, the children stepped down and stood in line with their parents to register. Four groups of thirty-three children would make up the first classes at the Vail Elementary School. The classes were organized according to age. In the first group the children were from seven to ten years old; the second class had children from ten to twelve; the third class consisted of the thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds and the fourth class was made up of youngsters from fifteen to sixteen.
As the children moved through the line, the parents were asked for their child’s birth or baptismal certificate. None had the former and few had the latter. The school officials took down the information given by the parents and allowed the roster to be approved as official. From eight in the morning to three in the afternoon the children were registered. While the mothers talked with friends, the children stayed to play. At one o’clock an impromptu ceremony was announced when Walter and Sarah Simons, Jonathan and Clarissa Vail and Miss Betty Haylock, the teacher and administrator, arrived to officially open the academic year and the school.
J. R. Allen maneuvered his black box into position to capture forever the momentous occasion. Miss Haylock met the children and carried on a one-way conversation with the mothers who nodded and answered yes to her statements and questions. She told them to sit in front of the benches and to listen to what Mr. Simons was going to tell them.
Walter watched the faces of the young mothers who attempted to understand and do what Miss Haylock ordered. Suddenly he thought of the people he had seen on his Mexican trip. His people would have everything. They would not turn against him. Never would they despise him, nor would they ever wish him dead. He studied those sharp Indian faces and in their eyes recognized thousands of years of history. Walter feared the children. He would give them a school, a church, a clinic, everything, and create a paradise in which his workers would depend totally on him, so much so that the rising unrest in Mexico would not affect him or his people. They would never leave, he thought.
Miss Haylock escorted the Simonses and the Vails to the benches in front of the children and mothers. She handed Walter a list of names.
“Bartolome Becerra, Alberto Caballero, Nicolas Ortiz, Andrew Ortiz, Henry Ortiz, Joe Rodriguez, Albert Ponce, Fernan Alarcon, Bernard Alarcon, Carmelita Ortiz, John Cano, Leopoldo Martinez, Rita Juarez ... ”
The audience clapped and the children made funny faces as Walter recited and transformed the list into the book of Genesis. Suddenly, to everyone’s astonishment, Walter blurted out loud: “This is the beginning!”
The children and parents applauded their patron’s enthusiasm.
“Let me just say that this is a very important day for all of us. For you children, it’s the beginning of a great opportunity to learn. To learn a new language, to learn new names for all the things you now know. For you mothers and fathers, it’s the beginning of dedicating yourselves to helping your children advance. For Miss Betty Haylock, it’s a beginning as your teacher and administrator. There will be other teachers who will soon come, but she will be the person in charge of the school and your education. The people who made this beginning possible are Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Vail, who donated this land for your school. Soon we will construct beautiful school buildings out of brick for all of you,” Walter declared.
Sarah came to stand by him as the children, mothers, school officials, Mr. and Mrs. Vail and Miss Haylock applauded and cheered the patron’s promises.
“Those of you who have already registered, please line up for a tour of the classrooms. Please, let’s not dally now.” Miss Haylock motioned with her hands and the Mexicans got in line.
The tour began with Miss Haylock’s stopping each child at the entrance of each classroom. Her strong hands grabbed the head of every student to rigorously examine first the mouth and teeth, second the ears and nose, third the eyes, and fourth the hair, scalp and neck. There was no doubt that Miss Haylock was also the school nurse. As the children walked through, they argued.