20

by John Edgar Wideman

  Emiliano Fortunato approached the villagers and stopped just five feet short of their huddled group. A layer of reddish brown road dust clung to his eyebrows and lashes. His face was streaked with dirt, his hair tangled and uncombed. The clothes he wore, clothes that had once belonged to Dr. Sevilla, were a bit too small for him and made him appear as though, swollen with death, he had grown a few inches. The clothes too were painted with a fine veneer of brown dust. Overall he looked as though he had only recently climbed up out of his grave. His beautiful hazel eyes were dulled and cloudy with fatigue, and he had only one arm.

  Teresa Fortunato, Emiliano's mother, stepped out of the crowd and faced her son. Before marching off to war he had been her only source of comfort, her reason for enduring a hard life. She did not recognize the clothes he wore, but as he stood there, slouching and unwashed, Teresa thought she saw in his tired smile a true-to-life vestige of her son.

  “Emiliano,” she said hesitantly, almost afraid to open her mouth to speak. “Is that really you, or are you a ghost?”

  Standing lopsided, smiling crookedly, Emiliano answered, “What would a ghost be doing with only one arm?”

  His mother rushed forward to embrace him.

  In the ensuing weeks it became all too easy for Emiliano to lapse into an infantile laziness. His mother tended to his every need: she washed his hair and scrubbed his back and shoulders when he bathed; at times she even fed him like a baby while he reclined against a thin mattress propped up in the shade of the gabled roof against the outside wall of their house.

  To answer the barrage of questions with which his return to the village was met, Emiliano fabricated an elaborate story about being left for dead on the battlefield, about later regaining consciousness only to discover all of his comrades slain. He had dragged himself from body to body, he said, saying a prayer over each man and gathering some small memento to carry home to the grieving family. From Juan Volutad he had recovered the tiny penknife with the mother-of-pearl handle. Hadn't he watched Juan on innumerable occasions use that very knife to carve up a piece of fruit, and didn't he know how much the return of such a souvenir would mean to Juan's bereaved wife and children?

  From Carlos Gutiérrez he had secured the gold coin with the hole punched into it so that it could be hung from a string and worn about the neck as a good-luck piece. And from Pablo Márquez, the devout, soft-spoken Pablo, he had recovered a medal of the Blessed Mother.

  From each of the twenty-seven men, Emiliano said, he had salvaged some memento certain to bring comfort in the empty days ahead. All of these treasures he had wrapped carefully in his green bandana to carry home to the grief-stricken families. Unfortunately he had been accosted by bandits along the way, beaten and robbed.

  When he told this story he bowed his head and wept and begged forgiveness for his failure. All but a few of the villagers comforted him when he grew sad or recounted for them his nightmares peopled with specters of slaughter and death. Argentina Neruda and a few other bitter old women wondered aloud why Emiliano Fortunato alone had been saved, why a skinny, lazy boy had been returned to them while good men with large families had been struck down.

  All but these few women paid a certain deference to the boy. This was especially true of those women aged approximately fifteen to thirty-five. More than once Teresa Fortunato was forced to shoo away a crowd of women who with their solicitous attention threatened to smother her son. What thick dark hair he had! they told him, each wanting to run their fingers over his head. What beautiful and sad hazel eyes! they cooed. How he must have suffered from the loss of his arm! How truly brave he was! What a good brave husband he would make one of these days!

  Emiliano, of course, did nothing to discourage such kindliness. He luxuriated in the attention as a well-fed cat luxuriates in the warmth of the sun. He teased playfully and even stole a kiss or two when no one was looking. Late at night he would sometimes slip out his bedroom window and not return until dawn was already creeping up the mountainside. This latter activity became so habitual, in fact, that by the time Emiliano had been home for only twelve days his mother was remarking how wan and lethargic he had become.

  “Don't you sleep well at night, my little soldier?” she asked.

  “I am haunted by dreams,” he told her while lying on his mattress propped up against the outside wall of their home.

  “Dreams of the battle?” she asked.

  “You will never know, mama, how horrible it was for me. You will never know how bravely I fought. And all to no avail. I sometimes wish I had not been successful in keeping myself alive.”

  “You must never say such things,” she warned. “It's a mockery of God's will.”

  “If only I could forget how terrible it was.

  His mother clicked her tongue sympathetically. “Such awful scenes you must have witnessed.”

  “They are etched into my memory,” he replied. “Even my arm, shot off as it was at the very height of the battle, even it will not allow me to forget. Each night it burns and pains as though it were still attached. Consequently I am forced to crawl out of bed to take long walks through the darkness, hoping to wear myself out sufficiently to snatch an hour or two of rest throughout the day.”

  Emiliano quickly discovered that such wounded-hero posturing was very effective in eliciting his mother's sympathies, and equally effective on many of the widows he visited covertly each night. This self-pitying attitude was best with the older women, women who had lost sons of their own, while the braggadocious swagger could be counted on to produce the desired effect in the younger girls.

  One warm afternoon Emiliano awoke from his siesta to realize what a fortunate man he was. He may have lost an arm, but in many respects he was truly blessed. He had a loving mother who doted on him, who dragged his spare mattress back and forth, who placed herself at his beck and call. And there were several warm, lovely women who each night waited anxiously for him, waited naked and eager beneath soft sheets, their hearts fluttering like tiny birds learning to fly. And there were several other women who, while not quite lovely by the light of day, were soft and solicitous and whose murmurs in the thick syrup of darkness were just as sweet as those of the prettier ones.

  There were, of course, those few women who could not bear the sight of Emiliano Fortunato. To see him lounging on his mattress reminded them that their husbands or lovers or sons, once as virile and handsome in their eyes as was this boy, were now dead. Why couldn't Emiliano be dead and the lost husband or lover or son here in his place? The women who entertained such thoughts frequently gathered together in the evenings to condemn the boy. Argentina Neruda encouraged their enmity; she cracked eggs and pointed to the spoor of blood, she read viscera and threw her bones and regularly pronounced Emiliano an evil spirit raised from the battlefield to haunt their village. After all, hadn't he been spotted more than once slinking between the small houses in the dead of the night, slithering through the shadows like a thief? And didn't it seem that he had cast some kind of spell over the younger women, so that they fondled and caressed and cooed over him as though he were a newborn baby? He was behaving as though he was Christ Incarnate, and not just a lazy, shifty-eyed boy with one arm and a huge supply of sexual energy.

  Emiliano knew very little of the machinations of his detractors. He ate well and was well looked-after and was practically lionized by three-quarters of the women in town. He slept throughout the day and indulged himself sumptuously each night. He had participated in a raging battle and had managed to escape with the loss of only one arm. As far as Emiliano Fortunato was concerned, he was indeed the luckiest man in the world.

  ————

  Nearly a month had passed when Dr. Sevilla came riding into Torrentino on horseback. He sat stiffly astride his well-lathered gelding, jouncing along like a small boy on a merry-go-round. He wore leather riding breeches and a pink silk shirt, and over the shirt a rebozo of handwoven wool. The first person he met was Argentina Neruda, who, when Sevill
a came riding down the narrow street into the village, was returning from her daily scouring of the mountainside for dead wood for her oven.

  “Which is the house of Emiliano Fortunato?” the doctor asked, reining back his horse and peering down at the wrinkled old woman. She had a face like an ancient cat's, small and round and suspicious as she squinted up at him.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her arms full of dead branches and twigs.

  “My name is Dr. Sevilla. Emiliano is a patient of mine.”

  Argentina did not like this man with the thin face, hawk's nose, and large, piercing eyes. Why would a man in a pink silk shirt—she had caught a glimpse of the shirt when the doctor raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun—come all the way to Torrentino to see a patient who could not afford to pay him more than a compliment? Besides, what right did he have to sit there peering down at her so disdainfully, as though she were some kind of an animal, a bug he would like to step on and squash?

  “Six houses down,” she finally told him. “On your right. You'll find him where he always is—sleeping on a mattress outside his house.”

  The doctor nodded his thanks, shook the reins, and urged the tired horse forward.

  The clopping of a horse's hooves against the dry earth stirred Emiliano out of his slumber. Shielding his eyes he peered up the street, uncertain of what he was seeing until the doctor grinned happily and waved.

  Now Emiliano stood and went inside the house. His mother, surprised to see her son moving so quickly in the middle of the day, asked him what was wrong. He did not answer. Hurrying into his bedroom he pulled the already lowered shades down over the windowsill, then sat on the edge of the bed in the tepid dimness.

  Out front, Dr. Sevilla introduced himself to Teresa Fortunato. A few minutes later he lifted aside the blanket that hung across Emiliano's doorway and, like a prairie dog peeking out of its hole, poked his head into the bedroom.

  “Emiliano,” Sevilla said, holding back his emotions for the sake of the boy's mother in the next room, “I've come to have a look at your arm.”

  “There is no arm to look at,” Emiliano said dryly.

  Now the doctor came into the room and sat on the bed beside the boy. He laid his medical bag and another small package against the pillow.

  “May I unbutton your shirt and take a look at your arm?” Sevilla spoke softly, his voice timid and almost whining.

  “Everything is fine,” Emiliano told him. “If you've come all this way just to examine me, you've wasted a trip.”

  “Please let me look at you,” the doctor said. He raised his hand to Emiliano's shirt and undid the top button. Emiliano seized the doctor's hand.

  “I have to examine you,” Sevilla said, speaking firmly now, “in order to determine that the wound is healing properly, that there is no infection, and that I got all the gangrenous flesh. Now please don't be a stupid boy. You don't want to have another operation, do you?”

  Hearing this, Emiliano submitted and allowed Sevilla to unbutton the shirt. Afterwards Sevilla raised the window shade, then turned the boy by his shoulders so that the amputation faced the inward-slanting shaft of sunlight.

  “It's healing nicely,” Sevilla said, probing the scar tissue. “All the pus is drained out, isn't it? That's what I like about you young boys; you all heal so quickly.”

  The doctor's hand slid from Emiliano's shoulder down across his chest and over his waist. “You've put on a little weight, haven't you?” Sevilla said. “Somebody must be taking very good care of you.”

  Emiliano reached for his shirt and draped it over his right shoulder, then drew his left arm through the sleeve and began to fasten the buttons. Quickly the doctor stood again and lowered the shades. He sat lightly on the bed, leaned toward Emiliano, and slid his damp palm beneath the boy's shirt.

  “My poor dear boy,” Sevilla whispered. “Why did you sneak away from my house the way you did? You know you broke my heart, don't you? I couldn't see any patients for a week, I felt so miserable without you.”

  Emiliano tried to stand but Dr. Sevilla grasped him by the belt and held him firmly. “Please don't walk out on me,” Sevilla said. “I came so far just to see your beautiful face again.” He sniffed, his own face held close to the boy's, his breath smelling of cloves. Sobbing quietly, he massaged Emiliano ‘s wrist.

  “If you'll only come back with me you can have everything you want. You'll have new clothes and a fine big house to live in. Why would you want to stay here when I can give you all that?”

  “This is my home,” Emiliano said archly. “This is where I belong.”

  “Who is to say where each of us belongs? And what makes you think you belong here, in a village full of women, rather than in my village living in a handsome white house? What can you accomplish here? From what I have heard, you do nothing all day long but lounge in the shade on your mattress.”

  Emiliano drew himself up straight. “I sleep in the day because my services are so much in demand at night.”

  Now the doctor understood. “So that's what keeps you here, is it? No wonder you're acting like a rooster in a henhouse. But how long do you think this can last before you tire of it?”

  “I will never tire of it. When I don't have it I spend all my time thinking about it.”

  Dr. Sevilla emitted a soft click from the back of his throat. A pout formed on his lips and he looked as though he might weep again. Then he turned and reached for the small brown package that lay on the bed. He stripped off the paper and handed the contents, a neatly pressed and folded pink silk shirt, to Emiliano.

  “It's just like the one I'm wearing,” Sevilla told him, and lifted his shawl in evidence. “Touch it; feel how smooth it is. Your skin is so delicate, especially here, at the amputation; you should have a material that will caress and soothe your skin instead of chafing it. What woman here could give you a shirt like this?”

  Emiliano held the shirt in his lap and fingered the cloth. It was as slick and sensual as the skin of a woman's breast. Emiliano was only remotely aware that, while he stroked the soft cloth, Sevilla had slid his hand along the inside of Emiliano's thigh.

  “I will give you a whole closetful of shirts like this,” the doctor whispered. “As well as silk trousers and silk socks and silk pajamas. And silk sheets to sleep on every night.”

  Emiliano ran his finger over the shirt collar. He felt each of the small pearl-like buttons. While the cloth had the texture of a woman's skin, smooth and slightly cool as when you first touch it before it becomes flushed with excitement, the buttons reminded him of the small hard nipples of María Castaneda's breasts.

  It was this analogy that finally convinced Emiliano to lay the shirt aside. “I'm staying here,” he announced. “This is where I'm needed.”

  “It would be easy enough to inform your admirers of the truth about your injury,” Sevilla said. “I remember well how you wept when you told me, knowing that you alone were responsible for the slaughter of your neighbors.”

  Emiliano's eyes narrowed. “And it would be easy enough to inform your patients of what a maricón you are.”

  The doctor drew his hand away as though it had been slapped. He stood and snatched his medical bag off the bed. “You'll get tired of them,” he said. “You'll get tired of the way they moan and the way they smell. You'll get tired of their flabby breasts and their soft stomachs. And sooner or later, with only one young man in town, there's bound to be trouble, isn't there?”

  “What kind of trouble?” Emiliano asked.

  The doctor only looked at him, smiled as though he knew a secret, and sniffed. “Keep the shirt,” he said. “It's my gift to a poor stupid boy. Maybe in a month or so I'll return to see how you're coming along.”

  Emiliano found the doctor's jealousy amusing. “Stay a while,” he said consolingly. “My mother can make you something to eat before you go.”

  After Sevilla's departure Emiliano returned to his bedroom. Prostrate on his bed, he wondered if there could be
any truth to Sevilla's prediction of inevitable trouble. It was something he did not wish to think about, but Sevilla's words kept returning to him. On the other hand, Sevilla was a capon, so how could he guess what a village full of women might or might not do?

  To put the doctor's warning out of his mind, Emiliano turned his head toward the wall and watched a spider constructing a web in the corner of the room. Emiliano had always been fascinated by spiders. They never seemed to rest. They suspended their delicate doilies in out-of-the-way places, then crouched unobtrusively like dustballs and awaited their lunch. But why did spiders never get entangled in their own webs, Emiliano wondered. Because they knew where to step, how to tiptoe around trouble. Just like me, Emiliano told himself. Even so, there was something about the subtle horror of the spider's anticipation that filled Emiliano with a vague unease.

  Later in the evening his mother looked in on him to inquire if everything was all right. He answered that the doctor had given him some medicine that made him sleepy, and would she please not disturb him again? He lay on his back and draped the pink silk shirt over his face and imagined it to be the perfumed hair of María Castaneda. So aroused did he become by his fantasy that he was barely able to wait for the fall of darkness so that he could climb through his bedroom window and, wearing his new silk shirt, hurry to María's house.

  María Castaneda was only nineteen years old, but she lived alone because her husband, to whom she had been married just two short weeks, had been a member of the Regimiento Torrentino. Before being married she had acquired a reputation as a bold and adventuresome girl. Now she was just another widow, younger than most, but one of the many who prayed fervently each night that Emiliano would choose her window or door to come tapping upon.