“Encontré a Sol face down, with a rope tied to his waist, half buried by pieces of wood, broken plates, furniture, clothes like I often find after a sudden storm. I moved closer and saw that the vague shape was of flesh and bone. A child of the river brought to me by the lizard people and the kindness of the river. I cleaned his face and tried to wake him, but no response came. I thought his soul had been ripped out of him, but he still breathed. After a while I slapped him gently and licked his face, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, stomach and legs. His body was between a boy’s and a man’s, and as I stroked, blood rushed into him. He pushed my hands away and opened his eyes. The boy took several deep breaths. I knew then that I had to move him before the river rose. With all my strength I took hold of his wrists and dragged him away from the river’s edge. I rested for a moment, then slipped my arms under his, and with one last great effort I managed to pull him to the center of dry high grass in the middle of several oak trees big enough to protect him from beasts and men. I gathered dry leaves, soft brush and grass for his bed. That night I brought him clothes, water and chicken soup with rice. He ate so fast that I held his hands to stop him from gorging himself. He finished eating, sat staring at the river and then fell asleep. I watched over him all night in case he awoke afraid. I protected him from the animals that hunt at night following the river’s edge. In the morning I fed him pastry, fruit and milk. He gestured that he wanted to leave, but I calmed him down and made him stay a little longer. He seemed to understand but could not speak any words. When the sun set he followed me, dragging himself on the ground. I gestured for him to stand, and with great difficulty he walked. It was as if he had to learn to walk again. Step by step, with lots of patience, we made it to the house.
“Cuando lo llevé a la casa Sol could not speak or walk. He was like a newborn baby. He didn’t have the words for the common objects that surrounded him, or the names of foods, animals and clothes. At daybreak he waited for the sun to appear, and when he saw its first light he became overjoyed, and reaching up to the sky he yelled, ‘Sol.’ I realized then that Sol was his name. When I called him Sol, he was so happy that he gave me a great hug and whirled me around. I had to use all my strength to disentangle myself from that strong boy.
“Poco a poco he learned how to speak and walk. Sol liked to drag himself on the floor like a lizard. He had arms like tree trunks, hands like bear claws and fingers like iron bolts. Sol learned to go to the outhouse and clean himself with paper. Those who dealt with him eye to eye understood that Sol was not complete. ‘You should have him examined,’ people advised. Sol was troubled, but he was healthy. He grew stronger and worked like a man. He was troubled but not sick physically.
“Some people said Sol was retarded and that I should take him to a curandero. I took him to Mr. Manquillos, a very wise healer who specializes in roots and plants to cure ailments of the brain, infections, growths and even craziness. Mr. Manquillos asked Sol to lie face down on the floor and then to get up quickly. He did this exercise several times. Mr. Manquillos stopped Sol and declared that he knew what ailed him. The wise old man told Sol that he sensed the terror of the water and that he saw who had saved him from drowning in the river. He prepared an infusion with ingredients from nature, only known to him, that he had Sol drink immediately.
“As Sol was drinking the potion, Mr. Manquillos explained that the lizard people had saved Sol at the exact moment of drowning. They saved his life, his soul, but they could not separate him from the terror that caused the loss of oxygen to his brain, and this had damaged his sight and perception. In the lizard people’s underground city, Sol learned to live like a reptile and breathe like an amphibian, to live with less oxygen. The lizard people returned Sol to our world, breathing and seeing the world with lizard and human perception through two worlds, times and spaces. He will never be free from this condition. That’s Sol’s don, a gift he now possesses. At that moment Mr. Manquillos sunk his fingers in a jar and smeared Sol’s mouth with black mud, indicating that the consultation had ended.
“Sol es inteligente and possesses a special gift that he is learning to use. He is a good student and enjoys the lessons I give him. But I think he learns more from the river than from me. He knows the river intimately. Nature’s creatures are not afraid of him. They approach him as if he is like them or a part of them. He walks up or down the river for miles or swims when the river is high and always returns with fish, crabs, a rabbit or with an object the river has offered him. Usually he places the object into a wall or on the roof of his room or another room of our house. Sol’s knowledge and discoveries make the house grow.
“Sol continues to learn, showing that he is an intelligent and mature adult. He still has a little trouble speaking, but he is fast overcoming that. Here you have him, a grown young man, a true phenomenon of nature who was saved by the lizard people and reborn in the Río de la Porciúncula.”
SOON AFTER THE meeting with Sol’s adopted mother, Oakley and Agatha began bringing Sol home to visit their house. Albert, still a boy, took a liking to Sol, who was like a docile bear and easily engaged in playing with young Albert. Toypurina did not comprehend that her oldest son had been found alive. She was getting way up in years and did not take care of herself, did not eat three meals a day and did not bathe or change her clothes. Marta Orrari was still taking care of her, struggling physically with Toypurina to bathe and dress her. Marta was a mountain of patience, preparing meals that Toypurina often would not eat. What Toypurina never missed was tea at four. She enjoyed the spiced tea, little cakes and sandwiches that Marta served. Marta made extra sandwiches, sliced them in four pieces and placed them in front of Toypurina, who ate them eagerly. Often Toypurina began having conversations with her beloved husband. Marta enjoyed listening to Toypurina speak to Abelardo, who stayed with her for a least an hour. Immediately after tea, Toypurina would go back to work in her gardens. All she enjoyed doing was working. She hardly slept. She would rise from bed or from where she had fallen asleep the night before, push breakfast aside, drink a cup of very strong coffee and go out to the fields to her corn patch, her milpa, or tend the animals grazing in the field by the river’s edge or the smaller animals, the rabbits in the barn that had to be protected from coyotes, wolves and mountain lions.
Toypurina did not call anyone by name. Much of the time she remained silent. When family visited, Toypurina would look at them and question who they were and why they were in her house. She slowly lost the ability to recognize her loved ones, as well as the capacity to take care of herself. Marta’s day job became a twenty-four-hour vigil over Toypurina. Oakley called on Jesús and Garras to stay at Toypurina’s house day and night, to take turns watching and caring for her, to bring their wives and families, to make sure that somebody was with her constantly. He asked Jesús and Garras and their wives in particular to help Marta feed, dress, bathe and care for Toypurina and also to maintain the house and ranch.
The more the family watched their mother, the more ancient she became. She slowly transformed into one of the old Indian women they had seen grinding corn meal at the San Gabriel Mission. Toypurina’s Indian ancestry pushed and surfaced on her wrinkled skin, her eyes, her long grey hair, her wiry arms and hands—her hands wrinkled like those of the thousands of Indians of her tribe who had disappeared. Toypurina’s life spirit seeped into the furniture and walls of the house that Abelardo Ríos had built long ago. Toypurina’s energy merged into the building, the crops, the animals, the river. Her body and mind blended into the world she and her husband had created. She left a bit of her flesh and liquid on every object she touched. Toypurina was fading into the earth and the objects that rested on the earth. Oakley watched her many times walk in random directions for great distances until she was out of sight, then return later to the house ahead of him. Lately, when his mother ventured along the edge of the river, he could see right through her. She was becoming like water flowing through the world, and the world flowed through her.
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nbsp; Oakley, fearful that his children would hear him, whispered to Agatha just before turning off the bedside lamp to sleep, “Agatha, I’m afraid my mother is leaving us.”
One morning, Oakley rose earlier than usual and rushed to his parents’ house. He had an inexplicable sense that he did not want to lose the ability to see right through his mother, to see the world through her body. As he neared the house, passing by the fields his father had planted for years, he saw a woman waving to him from that wonderful porch that went around the house. The woman seemed to float along as he came closer to the front yard. Oakley stepped out of the truck, happy that his mother had waited for him at the entrance to the house where Sol and he had played and worked with their parents, the house where they both had observed Abelardo deal with neighbors and friends, the house that held his parents’ values, respect and caring for one another, caring for their sons and for the people who lived nearby and for those who came to visit. It was the house that taught him how to live, how to deal with other human beings, the house that taught him how to love, the house that prepared him to survive out in the world.
He slowly shut the truck door, stood facing the porch, but his mother was no longer there. He looked out over his parents’ land and down to the river. He stepped up the stairs to the front door. Jesús and his family were gathered in the kitchen. Oakley heard the children playing and laughing. Jesús was discussing the day’s work with his wife, Martina. Marta listened to the listing of the chores that needed to be done; as usual, she was about to go to the market for groceries and fresh fruits and vegetables. These few hours would give her some needed rest from taking care of Toypurina. Marta had been sleeping in the same room for fear that Toypurina would suffer a physical attack or get up from bed and wander out the door and get lost in the river.
Oakley, seized by an emotion to rush in to see his mother, held back, politely knocked on the door and waited outside.
“¿Jesús, mi mamá?”
“Pos, estará en su cuarto, Don Oakley.” Jesús answered that Toypurina was in her room, for a moment standing in Oakley’s path. He sensed a nervousness in the appearance of his patrón and immediately led him toward the bedrooms.
Oakley, Jesús and Martina entered each room calling Toypurina, but there was no response. They searched every space of every room in Abelardo and Toypurina’s house—but to no avail. Oakley felt she had just been in the room he entered, but each time felt like he was just missing her. He sensed her energy and kept following it wherever it led him. Again he called out to her. She could not hear or see him. At last Oakley, Jesús and Martina found themselves outside with their eyes fixed downriver. Oakley understood what Jesús and his wife had known intuitively, perhaps hours before, but resisted telling him. He had to discover this knowledge by himself. His mother had simply walked away and disappeared between the spaces she and her loved ones inhabited. She had gone to the place where the living became only the stories of themselves, remembered and retold by the loved ones left behind. For Oakley and for all the people who knew her, Toypurina’s disappearance was traumatic because she had left all of herself behind in each space, in all the objects in the house and on the property she had possessed. Her disappearance made her even more present in every space she had occupied even for an instant.
Martina explained that Toypurina had flowed away like water pouring into the ocean.
As soon as she said this, the river rose from the flash floods in the mountains.
“Señora Toypurina siempre volverá, Don Oakley. She will return. Just as water keeps us alive, she will always be with us, Don Oakley.”
WHILE THE MAIN Street bridge construction continued with few problems, Oakley and Agatha enjoyed life with their son, Albert. They relished the office-house they had built, for it offered wide views beyond the river of Los Angeles and the basin. They delighted in inviting friends to cross the river and lunch or dine with them on the large porch overlooking the fast-growing city. Los Angeles in 1915 was a peaceful city. In Mexico the war grew more violent, in Russia bloody clashes between the Russian tsar’s troops and the Bolsheviks escalated and in Europe the signs of war became painfully obvious. The world seemed headed towards a catastrophic moment, but the world that surrounded the Banac and Rivers families was at peace. Oakley and Agatha’s construction company was thriving, with the number of employees growing to more than one hundred men. While thousands were slaughtered and displaced during the Mexican Revolution, and the trenches were being dug in Europe, the Banac and the Rivers families grew wealthy and powerful from the construction business. Companies like theirs throughout the country had answered the call to make America strong at home and abroad. This idea translated into building a strong infrastructure and a mighty army. Oakley and the Banacs understood the opportunities this national attitude offered.
Not distracted by his business responsibilities, Oakley made it clear that his brother was welcome to share his family’s home. Each time Sol came to visit, his stay became longer, until one day he did not return to the River Mother’s home. Oakley, Agatha and Albert never noticed the exact day when Sol didn’t return to the river house. Sol quietly took over a large tool shed adjacent to their house, where he built his own bed from old wood and metal pieces he had found along the river. The foraging of the river for objects he deemed valuable had become one of his daily chores. He would bring a few “finds” to his new house but mostly added them to the River Mother’s structure. The objects he did bring to his brother’s home he always used for something he was building: a table, a chair, a box, a lamp fixture or a decorative piece. Oakley never prevented him from bringing his finds to the house. He, like the rest of the family, wondered at first what Sol would do with the finds he happily worked on in the tool shed, but they were repeatedly surprised with Sol’s ingenuity.
SOL STARTED TO visit the old Abelardo and Toypurina Ríos homestead that was occupied by Jesús and Martina and Marta. At first he visited the outside gardens and the land down by the river. But, one day he asked Jesús and Martina for permission to go inside to sit in each of the rooms of the house.
Martina told him there was no need to ask for permission.
From then on, Sol frequently went to the old Abelardo and Toypurina Ríos homestead to walk the rooms and sit for hours on the porch and observe the river, say good-bye to the setting sun or greet the dawn. Sol enjoyed the rhythm of the sun and the moon and the stars. At times Marta—who had asked to stay on and wait for Toypurina’s return—joined him sitting on the porch. For Jesús, Martina, the children and Marta, Sol’s presence meant they had a man who could fix just about anything in the house. Having him close meant comfort and peace of mind. In the time Sol lived with the River Mother, she had taught him a variety of skills that required using his mind and hands: carpentry, cabinetmaking, forging metal and blowing glass. He learned how to repair almost anything by using objects that most people would throw away, and he found a new use for those objects doomed for the trash heap. Sol proved that he was practical and creative. Marta thought of him as a person always surrounded by peace. It was peaceful having him at the dinner table.
Often during the day or at night Sol walked barefoot along the river, sensing the dampness of the soft earth. He walked into the river, feeling the mud and the wet grass under his feet. He took hours pacing barefoot at the borders of the Ríos’ land. He looked for the animals in, around and above the river. The river fauna never seemed to run, swim or fly away from him. The animals watched for him and accompanied him on his long walks. Small and large birds flew down to his feet and paused before him. Early one morning on the trail, he stretched his body toward the sky and a hawk alighted on his forearm. Sol remained perfectly still, amazed at the great bird that had come to greet him. He never had any fear of the animals, and the animals never feared him. Once early in the morning with the moon illuminating his path, he stopped to rest when several rabbits scampered across the dirt road. One rabbit crossed slowly, unsteadily, and waited at
the edge of the road. Sol wondered what was wrong and approached the rabbit. He squatted, and the animal hopped into his arms. Sol got up, walked for a mile or so, petting the rabbit along the way. He paused for seconds and looked to his right and left and realized that a pack of coyotes accompanied him and the rabbit. He put down his little friend and watched the rabbit scamper into the brush. The coyotes did not move but sat and waited for Sol to start moving along the trail again. Sol’s heightened senses proved to him that he was a part of their world. He never asked how or why he had this relationship with nature’s creatures. In a proud way he accepted it. He was happy, content that he could live near the river and his parents’ house. He was glad that Jesús, Martina, their children and Marta watched over the house.
Two years almost to the day of Toypurina’s disappearance, Jesús and his family abruptly abandoned the house, leaving furniture and clothes behind. Several neighbors had gone to Oakley to tell him that they had seen his mother along the river carrying a large green lizard on her shoulders. Another man, who had been fishing, went to Oakley to tell him that while fishing he had caught six good-sized trout and kept them in a basket while he continued to fish. After casting his line the man noticed a splashing in the water in front of him. Someone was throwing rocks into the river, he thought. Again it happened, and he turned to see Toypurina holding his basket and throwing his fish back into the river. “Doña Toypurina!” he screamed, and stepped back into the river. Toypurina released the lizard toward him. The reptile swam past him. When the man looked back at the shore, Toypurina had disappeared, leaving his basket ripped apart, empty at the edge of the river. He reported that the hair on the nape of his neck was standing straight and cold.
River of Angels Page 7
