Thirteen Heavens

by Mark Fishman

  Rubén Arenal, a couple of kisses for Luz Elena, then Avelina, Perla and Cirilo, his nieces and a nephew, and Rocket, eat everything your mother tells you to eat, mis niños, and his sister handing him the half-empty pack of Faros, not Delicados or Fiesta, not a white and green and black pack of Aros, but Faros, real coffin nails, and Luz Elena, you might as well take them, I bought a carton, hiding packs all over the house, but you’ll never find them, you’ve got to ask, Rubén Arenal, another kiss for his sister, and Rocket, El Güero’ll never know what he’s missing, ¡qué idiota! Luz Elena smiling an accomplice’s smile, shaking her head, and Luz Elena, don’t mention it, and don’t mention his name either, gently closing the front door, Rubén Arenal hearing her turn the latch, and Rocket, a locked door is a closed door, a spring lock after El Güero moved out, remembering his sister’s words the week El Güero left, “with respect to privacy, nobody in everybody out, unless I let them in, ¿entiendes, mi Xihuitl?” “understand, my comet?” Rubén Arenal, a swift turn on his heels, leaving her small two-bedroom house behind him, not far from the Parque San Felipe, but not much of a park, and heading home, the sky slipping slowly into darkness, rubbing the calluses on the palm of his right hand, and his fingers itching to make a hidria for Luz Elena.

  Unlocking the front door, the foyer lit by an electric bulb hanging from the ceiling, a foyer separating his apartment from the street entrance, the door closing behind him, opening the door to his ground-floor apartment, a simple home, and his pottery studio, Rubén Arenal shutting the door, moving across the floor like he was floating, tapping gently with his knuckles on the rough wooden table in the center of the room, a kind of kitchen in the medium-sized studio, looking at the refrigerator, and a few shelves with spices and canned soup, but no time for food, Rubén Arenal heading straight for the part of the studio he called his workshop, an island in the grid-patterned city, no windows here, high capacity fuses, cables, and outlets, switching on the standing lamps, changing his shoes, finding the least worn pair in a pile of mostly worn-out shoes, light illuminating the potter’s wheel, Rubén Arenal using a potter’s wheel, not always, but most of the time, an old kick wheel, and the standing lamps illuminating a secondhand, front-loading electric kiln, a wedging table, light thrown on fettling knives, fluting tools, wires, paddles, ribs and scrappers, a few things he’d brought from Mata Ortiz, and a hacksaw blade lying on the wooden stool where he’d left it, but it was clean, keeping everything in order, and a heavy-duty trash container on a dolly with heavy-duty casters storing reclaimed clay, Rubén Arenal opening a box containing a fifty-pound bag of stoneware clay, not from Mata Ortiz, a clay graytan in color with mid-sized particles, slicing open the bag with a utility knife, caressing the coarse-grained clay, giving it a pinch, tender skin, and a familiar only just moist surface, Rubén Arenal, a sort of daydream, maybe a vision, seeing the form of the pitcher, as if he’d already drawn it without using a pencil, a vision of the hidria he was going to make for his sister, something the whole family could use, Avelina and Perla, but not Cirilo, not yet, he wasn’t old enough, a pitcher for Luz Elena’s fresh agua de Jamaica, a little homemade hibiscus flower juice, and ginger or cinnamon, juice poured from the pitcher he’d made for her.

  Rubén Arenal, without a sketch or drawing to follow, hunched over the wheel head and his clay, working with the pleasure of concentration only pottery gave him, time passing silently as he worked, but traveling as fast as a train moving freely on rails without a signal to slow it down, faster than a speeding bullet, not only on his feet, a hidria taking shape, the wheel moving steadily, controlled by the wisdom of his foot on the flywheel, Rubén Arenal, already feeling a little pain in his knee, nothing new, but he felt it, and the clay he was working into a pitcher, part of the material environment, this world, and coming from the land, the clay agreeing with the spiritual nature of the universe, coinciding with it, so he didn’t bother himself with the discomfort of his knee, and he was thinking, not of the hidria, but of Ernesto, Guadalupe, and Coyuco, and Rocket, human suffering! how many sad words are still hidden in the belly of man, his thoughts returning to the pitcher, a gift for his sister, he’d pulled the hidria’s handle before he started on the pitcher itself, using a lot of water so it didn’t break, the handle draped over the edge of the wedging table, hanging there to dry in the air, losing some of its moisture so it’d be easier to work with, the hidria at his fingertips, the wheel spinning, the flywheel an extension of his legs and feet, limbs with roots the strength and weight of the reinforced concrete flywheel, and the bell at the street door ringing in his ears, it took him a minute to know where the sound was coming from, his foot rising from the flywheel, fingers putting the finishing touches on the hidria, the wheel head slowing down just a little, a long exhalation, a drawn-out wisp of air, the pitcher not suffering the consequences, it was finished except for the spout and handle, Rubén Arenal, stopping the wheel, forming the spout with his index finger, pinching softly with the thumb and second finger of the other hand, cutting the form from the wheel head using a wire, the wheel was still turning, lifting the form, setting it gently on a ware board, and the doorbell ringing again, or a stroke or two from a clapper against both sides of a bell that finally awakened him from his waking dream.

  At the open street door, Rubén Arenal blinking, his eyes focusing on the boy, a young man, standing in front of him holding out a sealed envelope in a very formal way, not a large envelope, about 6 x 9, bigger than a standard letter, the young man waiting for him to take it so he could get back on his scooter and go home, there wasn’t a receipt to sign, the boy, or young man, with a purple Dorados de Chihuahua baseball cap on his head, wearing a personalized T-shirt with Héctor Espino Gonzalez’s picture printed on it, and his nickname, El Niño Asesino, written below, and Rocket, more than a few words to himself, Héctor Espino, one of the best hitters in baseball, also known as El Rebelde de Chihuahua, born in Chihuahua on June 6, 1939, Rubén Arenal scratching his head, yes, Calle Cayetano Justiniani 34, that’s it, not far from Escuela Secundaria Guillermo Prado, six minutes on foot, taking a left on Avenida Independencia and a right on Eduardo Urueta, try to get your bearings, can you see it? and the school, even if the school wasn’t there then, just to get an idea where Espino was born, the neighborhood, and Héctor Espino, his first semi-pro team in 1959, the Dorados of the Chihuahua state league, a team named after Pancho Villa’s bodyguards, Héctor Espino, the Liga Mexicana del Pacifico declaring that he hit 299 winter ball home runs in twenty-four short seasons, the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame setting that total at 310, eleven home runs unaccounted for, and over the summer, in the Liga Mexicana de Béisbol, he hit another 453 home runs, for a total of either 752 or 763, and then the three home runs in Jacksonville, don’t forget three more, making the total either 755 or 766, and counting the twenty-four home runs Espino hit in the Mexican minors, listen, the total’s at 779 or 790, and you don’t have that many fingers, hermano, Héctor Espino Gonzalez, “El Superman de la Dale,” a right-handed hitter, a real king, retiring in 1984, Rubén Arenal, shaking off the numbers, taking the envelope from the boy, his thumb sweeping across the letters of his name written in ink, a woman’s handwriting, and good quality paper, the young man looking at the ground, reserved or bashful, Rocket reaching out with an open hand and a reassuring voice, and Rocket, a player to be proud of, El Niño Asesino, and the young man, maybe seventeen years old, maybe less, without a word, taking a few steps back, raising his baseball cap, tipping it, offering a shy smile, a wave, ¡adiós por ahora! bye for now! Rubén Arenal, not knowing what the boy meant by it, saying goodbye for now, watching him get on his spotless wine-red Vento Phantom 125cc four-speed scooter, disappearing down the street, not fast not slow, Rubén Arenal, a smile on his face, and remembering the hidria, unfinished, a gift for his sister, shutting the street door behind him, turning the lock of the door of his ground-floor apartment, a simple home, his pottery studio, and a song playing in his head, “Perdón mujer,” a ranchera
by Gilberto Parra, performed by Las Abajeñas, a duet singing the lyrics, two women, Catalina and Victoria, with Narcisco Martínez, El Huracán del Valle, on accordion, born in 1911 in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and now, Catalina and Victoria, Las Abajeñas, voices filling him with melancholy, singing, Qué bonito que quisieras volver, / tu cariño me hace falta mujer, “How beautiful that you would return, / I’ve missed your loving, woman,” and without knowing the contents of the letter, Rubén Arenal, a partnership with the envelope in his hand, a subliminal bond between man and words, hearing the song “Perdón mujer,” a slow sad song, Rubén Arenal making his way to the wedging table, leaving the letter unopened, returning to his work on the pitcher for Luz Elena, taking the handle from where it was hanging, draped over the edge of the wedging table, working it slowly, the clay a little harder but soft enough to move it, a dry surface that didn’t leave fingerprints, cutting off the piece he’d use as the handle, scoring the end to help attach it to the pitcher, tapping the scored end with his index finger to widen the surface slightly, applying a slip to fix it, and attaching the top end, letting it sit like that for five minutes to help the clay of the pitcher draw water from the handle so they’d be at the same stage of dryness, hanging the other end of the handle, adding slip, smoothing the joint and the handle where he’d left a few fingerprints, lightly pulling the handle with water, adjusting the handle’s curve, cutting the excess clay off, a drop of water at the base of the handle, a little pressure to attach it, Rubén Arenal smoothing the edge of the lower part of the handle fixed to the body of the hidria, and Catalina and Victoria singing the last of the lyrics, “There is no other who would love you / like I, you are good and will return to me, / my garden will again bloom, / and this time it will be for you,” Rubén Arenal all at once seeing the woman who was a double for Little Pascuala, her alabaster fingers pushing a few strands of hair away from her face, a picture of her at night the last time he saw her, Rubén Arenal bathing in a romantic vision of the woman who looked like La Pascualita, leaving the pitcher covered with a soft sheet of plastic for a day or until it’s leather hard, Rubén Arenal, deciding on the glaze, looking at a selection of colors, a cautious turn, a cautious look, Rubén Arenal, a dreamer’s face, seeing a finished hidria the whole family could use, not Cirilo, he wasn’t old enough, but Luz Elena, Avelina and Perla.

  The open envelope on the kitchen table, a first-rate piece of stationery in his hand, and the handwriting, not scribbling or scrawling but elegant, definite, each word laid out like adobe bricks drying in the sun, using a fountain pen, bottled ink or a cartridge, bold or extravagant gestures of controlled fingers and a slender wrist, not young, no doubt old, a pair of transparent hands, now you see them now you don’t, but Rubén Arenal, staying with what he could see, not looking deeper than the fine paper it was written on, there wasn’t any need, it was enough just as he saw it, and the feminine hand that’d written the letter, conveying a voice unleashed, weighty and confident, a mighty missive, not long but official, in a private sense, words asking him, but not a request, a statement of fact, the words in the letter saying, if a divine dweller of this divine city of Chihuahua were to rise in the air and fly southeast to a distance of eighty-two or eighty-three miles—one hour and forty-seven minutes by car—as the angel flies, he would see La Presa de la Boquilla, also called Lago Toronto, a dam located in the riverbed of Río Conchos in San Francisco de Conchos, Chihuahua, and La Presa de la Boquilla, a little more than twenty-four miles southwest of Santa Rosalía de Camargo, still flying, now Camargo City, named after Ignacio Camargo, a Mexican insurgent, hero of the independence of Mexico, and La Presa de la Boquilla, a dam that has a hydroelectric power station capable of generating 25 megawatts, with a total capacity of almost three thousand cubic hectometers—Esteban Armendáriz swam 1500 meters of it in eighteen minutes, thirty-two seconds—the area of the reservoir, more than sixty-five square miles, and if it’s running at seventy percent capacity, it’s generating more than enough electricity to light our eyes and heart, my daughter and myself, in the same way we’re lighted by your work, ignited really, I’m not exaggerating, and so we ask to see you, at your studio, on Thursday, tomorrow, in the afternoon, not too late not too early, with the same desire we have to see the sea touching the slope of the sky, there isn’t a doubt, it’s your pottery we want to buy, no rhyme intended, but refinement and grace, and some tenderness, our señor Arenal, Rubén Arenal, Rocket to your friends, Xihuitl to your sister—what I know about you could fill a notebook, not too big not too small—a student of Mata Ortiz, an ejido years ago, but it’s on the map, not far from the ruins of Casas Grandes, and the city Nuevo Casas Grandes, Rubén Arenal studying near Paquimé, a fourteenth- to fifteenth-century prehistoric settlement, not hitting the books, but hands on, a student of experience, not relying only on text books, a mind as fast as his legs can carry him, returning to Chihuahua, refining your technique, an amalgam of the traditional and the modern, a mixture or blend, not as curious as people might say, a natural development of your artistic brain, making pots with narrow spouts—I’ve seen them—mugs, bowls, plates, a jar or pitcher for water, cups for tea, mugs for coffee, a vase for flowers, but don’t forget your enormous debt to Mata Ortiz, I’m not shaking an index finger, I wouldn’t dare, not me not ever, and you already know, a nod and a bow of your head in recognition, a modest view of yourself, a paramount perception, so Thursday, that’s tomorrow, Thursday afternoon, not too early not too late, be prepared, I want to see everything, and maybe what I need is more than you’ve got—ser claro, let’s be clear, what I’ve got is what you need—there’s no surprise, so collect what you can, lay it out to its full extent, bowls, plates, pots, pitchers, jugs, vases, cups and saucers, even an urn, you never know, Rubén Arenal contemplating the overconfident complementary poetry of the words, admitting that there’s no question, a real buyer, and Rocket, it’s a sure thing, and none too soon, así es, that’s right, you can believe your eyes, mi hermano, his words joined with optimism and the promise of a sale, financing for Ernesto and Guadalupe, their search for Coyuco, su hijo, their son, Rubén Arenal, not needing more in life than he already had, and Rocket, enough is more than enough, Rubén Arenal leaning back in his chair, hands resting on the tabletop, fingers fingering the superior stationery, A1, top-notch, and the ink, a deep blue midnight blue, a hint of green, making him think of Chalchihuitlicue, Lady Precious Green, storm goddess, “the personification of youthful beauty, of whirlpools, and the violence of young growth and love,” Rubén Arenal thanking Cottie Burland, just like his sister’d done, a chip off another chip off the old block, Luz Elena, with all the references at her fingertips, and stored away in her head on a Rolodex, don’t probe just believe, it’s all in there, your filled-to-overflowing mind, a head with plenty of files, Rubén Arenal taking stock of more than the individual words, wide awake and tuned in, their overall tenderness and consideration, shuffling the romantic images like cards but not dealing them, staying with an empty hand except for the letter, there was plenty of time, and Rocket, slow down, ’mano, it’s a buyer not a wife, don’t jump when you don’t know where you’ll land, and who’s the other part of we, bringing the letter close to his eyes, a squint, and the signature, and Rocket, a curious coincidence? the possible isn’t impossible, the letter was signed Pascuala Esparza.