River of Angels

by Alejandro Morales

  “Albert,” Oakley called to his son.

  “Just a minute. Let me put these tools in the shed.”

  Oakley and Sol waved him over to the table. Allison seemed upset, yet managed a smile for him. Ernest brought him a chair but did not greet him. Albert was uneasy, wondering why they were there. He sat down, anxiously finding a space in the silence around the table.

  “I’ve been … !” Ernest, sitting across from Albert, broke the silence. “I mean, we have been watching you and Louise. She is not well, Albert!”

  “You are too close. She is too young!” Allison cried out.

  Albert simply sat and listened. He knew exactly what was bothering them. He only wondered what had taken them so long to react. Oakley pushed away from Agatha; they had been whispering while the Kellers spoke.

  “Albert …,” Oakley continued. “We, the Kellers and your mother and I, have concluded that Louise and you have been too close. You are both too young. You have your whole lives to live. We feel that your relationship is getting out of hand.”

  “It has!” Albert responded immediately. “I love Louise, and she loves me. We want to be together for the rest of our lives.”

  “Love is not wrong, Albert. Don’t misunderstand us. We think that you both are still children. You need to complete your studies and Louise must finish hers.”

  “Children? No, you’ve gotta understand. We’re in love, and nothing can keep us apart!”

  “It’s our fault, Agatha! We pushed them together. We thought they were beautiful together, so innocent. We played with their lives. We brought them together, and now they have fallen in love.”

  “Allison, don’t exaggerate. Nobody’s to blame. Thank God nothing terrible has happened yet. Look, Albert, nothing against you, but you’ve caused enough harm already,” said Ernest.

  “Now you’re blaming him, Ernest!” Oakley stood up. “Louise is the cause of this also!”

  “Please stop! Let’s not argue. We did enough of that already.” Agatha quieted her husband and then reached across the table for Albert’s hand.

  “Albert, son, please listen to us. We think you and Louise need to stop seeing each other for a while. You both need to cool the relationship down. For a few months, son. Please understand, we want the best for both of you. After a few months we’ll see how things stand. … We’ll see if you still have the same feelings about each other. Maybe this is only an infatuation, a case of first love that might not last. You might be wrong for one another, son. Let time pass, give time a chance to let you think.”

  “I love Louise. Maybe in your minds the worst has happened, but you really don’t know how involved we are.”

  “Damn it! Quiet, Albert! I don’t want to hear any more. Just stay away from my daughter. Leave her alone. She cries and cries. All I want is to see her happy again. Stay away, Albert. Stay away!”

  Ernest took Allison by the arm and left the Rivers family alone at the table.

  “Allison, come back! We need to talk,” Agatha called out softly. Her words were like a prayer in the cool evening.

  IT HAD RAINED heavily for several days, drenching the mountains and the nearby hills, damaging crops and bringing down homes with devastating mud slides. Several expensive homes built on the hilly terraces above Los Angeles had rumbled down to the canyons below. Even after the police had warned the residents to evacuate, they would not leave their homes. Families died.

  “Why can’t I be with her?” Albert asked himself as he stood on the Fourth Street viaduct overlooking the swollen river rushing onward to the ocean. “I can take care of Louise. We’re not children. We’re in love. They think that separation will change how Louise and I feel. Keeping us apart is kindling, feeding our desire to stay together. I can take care of Louise better than her parents. I can work. I’m as good an engineer as my father or any of the engineers who work for him. Louise and I can make a life together. Our parents should not try to stop our love from growing. By now they must know that we’ve made love many times, and we can’t stop. We need each other to live and to be happy.”

  Albert had stopped attending classes at USC. He dedicated his days without Louise to working for his father, doing hard labor with the workers on several road construction and home-building sites. These were merely small jobs taken on by Oakley to keep his crews busy while he and the company prepared bids for major construction projects. Their bigger contracts included building homes in new residential areas that were opening up on the east side of the river.

  To let Louise know that he was back from work, he’d drive by her house and park the truck in front of his place. He had not talked much to his parents, who were still angry with him for not attending school. Several of Albert’s engineering classmates kept him on track with the classes he had missed, warning him that the professors were getting impatient. They wanted Albert to let them know when he planned to return. One professor had indicated that, even considering family emergencies, Albert could not miss more than three weeks.

  The family had a quiet dinner that night and everyone went to their rooms early. Oakley and Agatha had gotten into bed by ten. By eleven, crickets and frogs sang loudly outside, breaking the silence inside the house. Albert waited in his bed for something, anything to happen. A miracle? Two weeks had passed and there was not a word from Louise. His body ached from physical labor and from the constant worry about Louise. He lay there resting, listening to sounds from outside. He opened his eyes to fingernails grasping the doorknob. The door opened slowly. His sister appeared. Dame Marie motioned to follow her. She led him to the farthest room from their parents’ bedroom, the workroom that had a door to the gardens. Dame Marie and Albert silently stepped just outside the house.

  “Emily, Gloria,” Dame Marie whispered toward the high row of blue hydrangeas. Emily and Gloria immediately hugged him.

  “Louise wants you to know that she needs you to be with her. She can’t wait much longer,” Emily said in her calm manner.

  “You should go see her, Albert! This can’t go on! She’s miserable! She’s sick, and Mother seems to be getting angrier because of Louise’s illness.” Gloria spoke with a tone of anger and desperation.

  “Uncle Philip doesn’t help. He’s always scolding her for what she has done with you. We must go. If Father finds out we’re here, he won’t let us out of the house ever again.”

  Emily smiled and embraced him. “Here, she wrote this for you. Come to the house, Please.”

  Albert took the paper and started for his room, as quietly as possible, but turned and suddenly embraced Dame Marie.

  “Thank you, Sis, thank you. I love you.”

  Shining, glittering reflections seemed to light his way back to his room.

  He pushed his books aside, turned on his desk lamp and sat for a while, holding Louise’s letter. Finally something had happened. He had been worried that Louise had given in to her parents and did not want to see him again. But now he knew that wasn’t what was happening. He unfolded her letter.

  Albert My Love,

  I am desperate to be with you! Please come take me away. I need to be with you. I can’t sleep at night thinking of you and what you are suffering. I am sick. My stomach is upset. I throw up every morning. Mother is very angry with me, and I know why. Uncle Philip is not happy with me. He blames me for what I have done. He says I have ruined the family by associating with you. If he only knew what we have done. Albert, please don’t be upset at what I will tell you now. It was unavoidable. Our love will make it all wonderful. My beautiful Albert, I think that I am pregnant. I have missed three periods. I think Mother knows. She can’t seem to find a way to ask. Tomorrow morning I will make it easier for her—I will tell her. God only knows how she and Father will react. I don’t know what my father will do. I just don’t know. I need you now more than ever. Please, my love, come for me, take me away from here. I want to be with you and only with you. I want to have our baby more than anything in the world. I’m happy I’m pregnan
t. I will not stay here much longer. Come for me, my beautiful Albert. I love you. I love you! I love you! I love you!

  Louise

  IT WASN’T LONG before Uncle Philip got the news he had dreaded.

  “Louise is going to have a baby,” Allison softly told Uncle Philip and waited for the outburst.

  Uncle Philip simply stared directly at his nephew. “You could have stopped this from happening a long time ago. You should have taken her away from him when I warned you about him. Now there’s only one thing to do. Ernest, you must do the right thing now.”

  Allison looked over to her husband. She understood exactly what Uncle Philip was about to suggest. But she was not sure if she agreed.

  Uncle Philip grabbed his hat and stood up. “Send her away! Have her get rid of that mongrel kid that’s growing inside her. Do something about Albert! It’s his fault! He got her into this mess! I hope you’ve both learned your lesson—you especially, Ernest. Do something about Albert, or I will.”

  “I’ll take care of it. You stay away from him.”

  Ernest walked his uncle to the door and watched as he drove away in his new car. His rise from the ashes had been miraculous. Uncle Philip had overcome alcoholism, drug addiction and the loss of most of his wealth in the Crash. Ernest had forced his uncle to get treatment. Ernest did this on behalf of his father, who sent funds to save his brother, Philip. Ernest never told his father about Uncle Philip’s sexual proclivities. Ernest was only concerned about his uncle’s financial, physical and mental health. Uncle Philip’s cadre of friends, members of the Southern California Aryan Club, also came to his aid. They would not let a brother down. Uncle Philip responded to his nephew’s generosity and his Aryan brothers’ support by becoming healthy in mind and body, and wiser financially. During his recovery he began to read about the events in Germany and the rise of a new political party that expressed and practiced many of his beliefs. Ernest no longer worried about his uncle’s money problems, but he did not like these new ideas from Germany.

  THE TALL THIN palm trees bent their heads to a forty-five degree angle, allowing the strong Santa Ana winds to have their way with them. Several large trees had been uprooted and fallen into gardens; bushes rolled like tumbleweeds on the grass toward the Rivers’ little forest. Vases with roses and ceramic candleholders fell from patio tables. The wind smashed the new rattan furniture into outside walls. This was the second day of strong Santa Ana winds. Luckily, Los Angeles had been spared brushfires in the hills surrounding the basin. As gusts of up to seventy-five miles per hour screamed, slamming against the Rivers’ house, windows shuddered and doors became percussion instruments vibrating in their encasements. The outside walls resisted the relentless natural force, as the wind shattered into multiple howls of living creatures desperately pounding and flaying the skin of the house.

  Albert had packed a duffel bag with all he needed the night before and stuffed it under his bed. He thought about the notes he had sent to Louise and hoped they had gotten to her as swiftly as the wind, and that she understood tonight’s plan. The violent wind made for a good distraction for his and Louise’s families. Both of their parents were attending a celebration dinner in honor of Merrill Butler, the self-educated engineering genius who had designed and supervised the construction of the bridges that linked East Los Angeles to the central city. Preoccupied with this event and the business networking opportunities it created, their children were pushed to the back of their minds. Albert was convinced that they had to leave before Louise’s parents, urged by Uncle Philip, would send her away. Within the family nothing was a secret anymore. What Uncle Philip advised Ernest and Allison to do was unacceptable to Louise and Albert. No matter the threats he made against Albert, they were not enough to stop the plan they had both concocted. This night and this wind offered the perfect opportunity to take Louise away to safety.

  THE TIME HAD come for Albert to grab his duffel bag, jump in his pickup and go to Louise. When he arrived at her home, the front porch light was on. Albert parked his truck and stepped down into the racing wind. Uncle Philip came to mind, but Plymouth Street in Hancock Park was quiet and peaceful. This was happening in such a natural way. This is the way it must be, he thought, as he skipped up the front steps. The door opened and there stood Louise, who pulled him in out of the wind. They embraced. How good it was to be close again. They kissed and almost forgot where they were and what they were about to do. Emily and Gloria, carrying two suitcases, braced themselves to run out to place the bags in the bed of the pickup. The sisters entered the foyer and pushed their hair back. Dame Marie gave Albert an envelope.

  “Take this. It’s from us.”

  “Be careful. We love you.” Emily tried not to cry.

  “Sol’s here,” Gloria announced, looking out the window.

  The four women hugged each other in a circle like they did when they were children.

  “Take good care of my sister,” Emily insisted.

  “Once you’re settled, we’ll visit. Sol promised to take us,” Dame Marie said, trying not to cry. She opened the door.

  “Come on, Albert. I’ll follow you.” Louise urged her lover to step into the wind and to a new life.

  Louise climbed into the truck, waved good-bye to her sisters and Dame Marie. They wanted her to have a healthy baby and to be happy with Albert. That’s all that mattered. They were so excited, waving and jumping in the street. The wind forced them to push down their skirts. But soon they were laughing and twirling and no longer cared if the wind played with and lifted their skirts. The two trucks were out of sight. They were satisfied, convinced that they were justified in helping Louise leave their parents and, in particular, Uncle Philip. They rushed back to the house and closed the door behind them, escaping the wind.

  LOUISE HAD NOTICED that Emily, Gloria and Dame Marie came to help her not as daddy’s little girls or adolescents, but as women. They talked about what she should do, freely expressing what they really felt without fearing their parents and, especially, hot-headed Uncle Philip. The four women had planned this escape, this elopement. Even, they had agreed, if their parents found out, the plan would be carried out. They had made a pact that if their parents refused to allow Louise to leave with Albert, all four of them would elope with Albert. Thinking of the wonderful pact she and her sisters and Dame Marie had made, Louise laughed, wiped tears from her eyes, and laughed again.

  “What’s so funny, Louise?”

  “We are. I am. My sisters, Dame Marie and you—we’re all funny.”

  Louise turned to see if Sol was following. Sol waved at her. She held her tummy, trying to protect her baby from the bumpy ride toward the river. Albert’s eye caught Louise’s profile. He drove on, desiring to hold the beauty of her eyes and nose forever in the corner of his eye. Albert quickly turned to see her face. You’re so beautiful, he thought, that I don’t know what to do. He slowed down as he approached the Fourth Street bridge. A sense of comfort and safety made Louise look out over the side of the bridge to the river. People were down there braving the wind as they walked along the edge of the water flow. The wind was calming down. Albert and she drove beyond the mid-point of the bridge. She held tightly to what was growing inside her, feeling herself and her child a part of the bridge, part of the bridge’s history. Because both Albert’s family and hers were bridge builders, she felt overwhelming pride as she moved closer to Albert. She was going to give birth, protect the baby and baby’s father, no matter what the outcome. Albert turned left into the Sun Construction Company equipment yard. Right behind them, Sol parked his truck down by the old Ríos Adobe. He waited for them as they made their way to the path that led to the River Mother’s house.

  Thousands of corners, circles, squares, points, tubes, planks, curves, waves, angles, walls, boxes, rocks, glass, iron bars, metal sheets, wheels and rocks gleamed—and blinding lights pierced upward toward the late afternoon sky. From up there the River Mother’s house appeared magical. Since Louise’s last v
isit, the house had expanded noticeably. Sol led the way.

  Several men finished loading old rusty ice boxes. The River Mother had the doors removed before sending the boxes to the metal chopper. She had dealt with too many tragedies concerning abandoned ice boxes with doors that locked playing children inside to suffocate. Few paid much attention to these killers of children. She made it a point to collect ice boxes from the river and from the neighborhoods.

  The River Mother appeared out of nowhere and embraced Sol. She wore an elegant green satin gown, and around her waist an array of blue, grey, brown, silver, gold silk scarves. She had embellished herself with several diamond and pearl necklaces, emerald bracelets, ruby rings and diamond earrings. She had made up her face with a variety of lip color, eye shadow, and rouge. Her hair was held up with at least a dozen jeweled hair pins. She wore a gold and silver bejeweled crown on her head. On each foot a different-patterned shoe was encrusted with colorful gems.

  Albert and Louise smiled in amazement as the River Mother moved to embrace them.

  “¡Sentía que venías! I had a strong feeling you were coming. I dressed up to celebrate your union. Albert, Louise, come here. Give me a big hug. Sol, hijo mío, I’ve felt your embrace since this morning. That’s why I was sure you would arrive.”

  The River Mother, like a great bird, spread her arms wide. She closed her eyes to sense her children deep at the center of her embrace.

  “Seeing you makes me so happy! Come in for a cold drink or hot tea.”

  “Thank you, River Mother.”

  Sol, Albert and Louise drank, sat back and relaxed.

  The River Mother’s smile made them feel welcome and safe. She was truly glad to have them visit.

  “Sol, m’ijo, you have the eyes of a lagartijo with a crushed tail. I know you well. So many years you lived with me. Nothing escapes me. Tell me what is bothering you. Maybe I can help.”