The Journal of Antonio Montoya

by Rick Collignon

  “Tell Grandfather,” José said, and he half walked, half ran past Ramona and went inside the house. Ramona could hear the sound of her grandmother’s voice.

  Flavio hadn’t taken his eyes off the old man. Grandfather, he thought. Qué grandfather? The old man crossed the road slowly, looking both ways a number of times as if he could no longer trust his own eyes. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled low, and Flavio saw that he favored one leg slightly. The old man was close enough now that Flavio could see the set of his mouth and how he tapped one hand against his thigh as he walked. Flavio felt the blood in his veins stop flowing.

  Epolito stopped a few yards away from Ramona and Flavio. Flavio and his grandfather were of the same height, and Ramona noticed how her grandfather’s legs seemed to bow out at the knees, as did her brother’s.

  “Are you rested, hija?” Epolito said to Ramona.

  Ramona felt her smile grow and thought she might laugh aloud. “Yes,” she said. “I am, Grandfather.”

  Epolito looked at Flavio. “You look well, Flavio,” Epolito said. “Ramona, you make sure your brother doesn’t throw any rocks. I don’t want any more dead chickens.”

  After Epolito walked by Flavio and went into the house, Flavio stood openmouthed and pale, staring straight ahead as if he had seen a ghost—which he had. When the door to the house slammed shut, Ramona saw Flavio’s shoulders jerk, and she thought that if her brother did not run to his truck and drive away, it was possible he would fall to the ground in a faint. Instead, he turned his body and looked down at his sister.

  “Ramona,” he said harshly, “how can this be?”

  “Grandmother’s in the house,” she said to him. “She’s cooking enchiladas.”

  Flavio felt his mind slide toward darkness. He remembered that when he was a small child first learning to read, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate, the letters would sit on the page stealing his thoughts from him. He knew that his mouth had dropped open, and that he was breathing too fast, and that his sister must think that he looked like a dog on a hot day.

  Ramona rose from her chair and took her brother’s arm. “Flavio,” she said, “sit here in the chair.”

  “Ramona,” Flavio said.

  “I know, Flavio. Our grandparents have come back.”

  Flavio took in a deep halting breath of air and let it out slowly. “I think I better go,” he said. At this moment, the door to the house opened. In the doorway stood Rosa Montoya, small and thin and gray, with the front of her apron wet and stained with chile.

  “Flavio,” she called out with delight, “you will stay for dinner.”

  Flavio didn’t say a word. He stood frozen, his eyes blinking rapidly. When he finally opened his mouth, Ramona heard him say in a whisper, “Grandmother.”

  “He has to go home, Grandmother,” Ramona said. “To get Martha. He’ll come back later.” Flavio nodded his head up and down slowly in agreement.

  “Bueno,” Rosa said. “Come soon, hijo.” With that, she turned and disappeared inside.

  Flavio backed away from his sister and then turned and walked to his truck. Ramona watched him climb behind the wheel, and without a glance behind him, he backed into the road and drove off.

  Four

  RAMONA, JOSÉ, AND THEIR GRANDPARENTS ate together at the small table in the kitchen. Rosa had the kitchen door open, and Ramona could feel the breeze take the heat from the stove out of the room. Through the open door, Ramona could see one wall of the shed behind the house, where she stored her paintings. The old wire that had once kept in chickens was twisted with weeds and stepped down in places. A few hours of daylight remained, and Ramona felt that this had been the longest day of her life.

  “What did Flavio say?” Epolito asked. He spoke with food in his mouth, his jaws working, his eyes looking down at the plate.

  “He came to talk about José,” Ramona said. She watched her grandfather move a tortilla around his plate with his left hand.

  “Talk what about me?”

  “Don’t talk with food in your mouth, José,” Rosa said.

  José was sitting next to his grandfather, and Ramona could see how Epolito’s elbow touched José’s shoulder. She watched José chew the food in his mouth and then swallow. She looked at her grandfather and wondered how it was that a face as smooth and dark as José’s would someday become like that of her grandfather, gray and heavy.

  “Your Tío Flavio thinks you should live somewhere else,” Epolito said. “He thinks you would be better off with your mother’s family.”

  “Did you know, José,” Rosa said, “that your mother’s grandmother, her name was Guadalupita García, was born with horns?”

  Both Ramona and José looked at their grandmother. “It’s true,” she went on. “There were tiny bumps under her hair, one on each side of her head, and if you gave Guadalupita something she wanted she would let you touch them. Her parents tried to keep it quiet that their daughter was born with antlers, but Guadalupita had a big mouth and would tell everyone. She thought that this was something to be happy about. A lot of the Garcías, especially back then, were like that. You wouldn’t want to live with people whose ancestors were born with horns, would you, hijo?” Rosa slid the plate of tortillas toward José. “Eat, hijo,” she said. “You’re too skinny. The wind will blow you.”

  José took a tortilla from the plate. “My mother’s grandmother was like an elk?” he said.

  “Almost,” Rosa said.

  “But my mother wasn’t like that,” José said.

  “Oh no, hijo,” Rosa said, and she reached over and placed her hand over José’s. “Your mother was a beautiful woman. And hardworking. Like you, who will grow up and always be proud of her.”

  “The problem with Flavio,” Epolito said, “is he never worries about what he should. He worries about things that have no meaning. Did he think when he picked up that rock that it could kill a chicken? No. And then he thinks up a lie only a fool would believe. That a chicken would fly down from a tree at just the moment he threw the stone. Who does Flavio think I am to believe such a story?”

  “The breeze feels good, doesn’t it, hija?” Rosa said to Ramona.

  Ramona looked at her grandmother, and after a moment she smiled and said, “Yes, Grandmother, it does.” She thought that if she shut her eyes, she would be like a child again.

  Epolito scraped his chair back from the table. “I’m going to let the water on the field,” he said. He looked at his granddaughter. “It has been dry for too many years.”

  José grabbed another tortilla and stood beside his grandfather. “Can I help you?”

  Epolito grunted, and Ramona watched the two of them walk out the kitchen door. She heard Epolito say, “Get the shovel, José. It’s there by the shed.”

  Rosa rose and began clearing the table. When Ramona began to help, her grandmother told her to sit back down. She went into the living room and returned with the book José had brought into the house.

  “Your grandfather brought this for you to look at,” she said. She placed it on a small dishtowel before Ramona. “You sit and I’ll make us some coffee, Ramona.”

  Ramona looked down at the book. Again, she could smell the strong odor of mildew. The thick cover was bloated and warped and chewed around the edges. She could see the date, 1924, printed in ink and faded on the cover. She wondered if it was possible to catch something mortal from the filth on the book. Carefully, with her fingertips, she opened the cover to the first page.

  It was a journal, the entries written in Spanish, the handwriting small and cramped. There was but one line on the first page, and it read, “Un otro año.” Ramona turned the page and there was nothing. It wasn’t until January 27 that she found another entry. Ramona looked up at her grandmother, who was at the sink. “What is this, Grandmother?” she asked.

  “Read, hija. You always have so many questions.”

  JANUARY 27:

  There is a bad pneumonia. Fires burn in the cemetery to
thaw the ground, and today I helped dig the graves for the infant of Juan and Leonardra Mondragón and also for Delfino Rael, who, according to his wife, Stella, was sixty-seven years of age and in good health until he fell ill six days ago. The weather remains cold and wet, and I believe that is why so many are ill. There are five of our village who have died since Christmas. I write this late in the evening, and I do not have the will to work on the Lady. Of late, I have kept this journal poorly, and as this is the story of this village, I pledge that from this date it will go better.

  Ramona looked up from the book. There was a cup of coffee on the table before her. Her grandmother was no longer in the room, and Ramona realized she hadn’t heard her leave. Ramona took a sip from the cup and turned the page.

  JANUARY 28:

  It snowed in the night. From where I sit, I can see the village. There is smoke coming from all the chimneys that hangs over the village like a shroud. I can see that Horacio Medina’s cows have once again broken through their fence and now stand down the hill from this office in the middle of the road. I can count twelve cows, and the snow is midway up their legs. Their tracks and those of Father Joseph leading from the door of the church are the only marks in the snow.

  JANUARY 29:

  This morning, Father Joseph came to this office in boots not made for this season to say that Lydia García’s fever had abated in the night and that she would recover soon. And also, he told me, the snow had extinguished the fires in the night, and possibly this was a sign from God. He asked me how the new santo was progressing, and I told him that with all the digging, there was little time for such work. We sat quietly after that, and as he left, he told me that sometimes it is difficult to keep one’s faith and one’s sense of humor. I agreed with these words. It is evening now, and I write this in my kitchen. Today, at noon, the sun broke through the clouds, and for the first time in so long I could feel warmth in the air.

  JANUARY 30:

  Miguel Romero, the son of Manuel and Cora Romero, was standing in the snow outside the office waiting for me when I arrived. The sun had not yet risen above the mountains to the east, and the air was cold. Miguel is a tall, thin boy of thirteen, and if he stood straight, his eyes would be level with mine. He told me his father wished to speak with me before there was bloodshed. We walked to his house, which sits in the valley and is not far from the creek. Horacio Medina’s cows were still standing in the road, and as we passed, Miguel struck one with a ball of snow in the center of the forehead. When we arrived at Miguel’s home, his father, Manuel, a small man much shorter than his son, was outside standing in the cold with his hands in his pockets. I asked Manuel what was wrong, and he looked away from me at the mountains, which are covered with more snow than I remember ever seeing before. He said that he was sorry that his family had disturbed me but that his wife, Cora, wished for him to shoot his neighbor, Gustavo Ortega, and that if he didn’t, his wife had said that some night when everyone was asleep, she would take the rifle and shoot Gustavo herself. When I asked how this had come about, Manuel kicked at the snow with his boots and said nothing. At that moment, Cora Romero opened the door of the house. She is a large woman and wide, with thin legs. She said that I should come into her house and out of the cold but that her husband could not.

  Cora told me her neighbor, Gustavo Ortega, an old man who has lived alone since the death of his wife, had offended her by telling her youngest son that his mother was so fat that if she were a cow she could feed the village through the winter. This had been said seven days before and had not disturbed Cora until this morning, when she woke feeling poorly and told her husband that if he did not shoot Gustavo, she would.

  Cora gave me coffee. I told her that this had been a long and hard winter and that pneumonia had been especially bad this year and that even now spring was far. When I finished, I told her that what Gustavo had said was insulting and of no purpose and that I would speak to him about this.

  Gustavo greeted Manuel and myself at his door. When he invited us inside, I said no and told him that we had come to speak with him about Manuel’s wife, Cora. Gustavo, whom I know to be in his seventies and suffering from loss of sight so severe that his right eye is the color of milk, stepped out from the house and asked what it was he could do. I told him that Cora had heard of what he had said about her and that she felt bad about this. Gustavo looked down at the frozen earth and moved his feet, which were clothed only in heavy stockings. I told him I had come so that there would be no trouble and that I thought with all the illness this winter that this was all very foolish. Gustavo looked past me at Manuel and apologized. He said that he had been thinking of his own wife that morning and of his children, who had abandoned him by moving to the south side of the village, and also that he had been drunk. Manuel nodded and said that he would tell his wife this and that the winter had been exceptionally hard and that it wasn’t good for the soul to be confined indoors for so long. I ate eggs and chile with Manuel and his family and walked back to my office alone. By late afternoon the sun had shrunk the snow almost six inches.

  Tonight I worked on the Lady. Her hand comes from the wood, and I can see the flesh of her fingers.

  Ramona looked up from the book and found herself staring blankly straight ahead. She could see out the kitchen door and noticed that the light outside had grown dull. The sun had fallen behind the hills to the west. She looked back down at the open book and read the last line once more. “Her hand comes from the wood, and I can see the flesh of her fingers.” She wondered what it was she was reading. She saw how small and tight the handwriting was and thought that the man who wrote this must have labored over each word. Ramona let her hand rest on the open page for a moment and then rose from her chair and walked to the door. Across the field, she could see her grandfather bent over, working the shovel in the irrigation ditch. Beside him was little José, hands in his pockets, watching his grandfather work. Above the two of them was a sky at dusk streaked a soft red that echoed off the field and piñon hills and made the hills look full and lush. Ramona thought she had never seen anything so beautiful.

  Ramona’s grandmother had gone to bed while Ramona had been reading in the kitchen, and when her grandfather came into the house from the field, he washed at the sink and without a word retired into the bedroom, closing the door after him. Ramona and José sat quietly together for a little while in the kitchen until Ramona told him that it was getting late and he should lie down.

  Ramona thought she would sleep in the chair in the living room. But after an hour of turning her body, she gave up and went into the room where José was sleeping. In the darkness, she saw a figure standing beside the cot. Ramona thought of La Llorona, and she felt her knees weaken and her heart race.

  “It’s only me,” the figure said in Loretta’s voice. “I just came to watch.”

  Ramona leaned against the frame of the door. She waited for her breathing to calm and then said in a whisper, “Did he see you?”

  “No,” Loretta said. She stayed by the bed a moment longer and then turned to Ramona. “I would like to hold him, Ramona,” she said.

  “Yes,” Ramona said. “I know.”

  “It would not be good, would it?”

  “No,” Ramona said. “I don’t think so,” and for a little while the two women were quiet. “Loretta,” Ramona said, “where is my brother?”

  “Big José? He was always so slow, Ramona. You should know that. You are his sister.”

  “I feel like there is nothing I know any longer, Loretta. People who should not be here appear when they wish and for no reason. I don’t understand any of this.”

  Loretta stepped closer to Ramona, and Ramona could smell the scent of cloves. “I came to see the length of José’s eyelashes,” she said, “and how his face looks when he sleeps. To hear his breathing. I came to look at his hands, which, by the way, Ramona, are too dirty. You have to make him wash before bed or he will turn into a little animal.”

  Ramona closed
her eyes in the darkness. She thought that there must be the right words to say to her sister-in-law, but she had no idea what they were. When she spoke to Loretta she felt as though her words were no more than air. “Loretta,” she said, “why is this happening?” When there was no answer, Ramona opened her eyes. Loretta was gone.

  Ramona stood next to the cot in much the way that Loretta had, and after a while she undid the buttons in the back of her dress and let it fall to the floor. She bent over and gently pushed José to one side of the cot and crawled in beside him. She covered herself with the thin blanket. She could feel his leg warm against hers and smell the odor of mud on his skin. José turned toward her in his sleep, and she could feel his breath on her shoulder.

  Five

  RAMONA DREAMED IN THE NIGHT. She dreamed that the cemetery was on fire, and upon waking, she lay still, trying to grasp each image of this dream before it faded. She remembered quite clearly that she had seen the cemetery as if from a hill above it. She remembered flames sprouting from each wooden cross like blossoms until the fires joined together and the graveyard where Loretta and José and Ramona’s parents and grandparents and all the dead of Guadalupe were buried became one mass of flames, the smoke black and churning just above the fire. Ramona couldn’t remember any more of this dream. She became aware of José asleep beside her and realized that she had enough problems as it was. If her sleeping mind wanted to play games, it could do so without her participation.

  José was lying on the cot with his back to Ramona, his face close to the wall. He had awakened briefly before dawn, his eyes open wide as if they had never closed. He had remained motionless and looked toward his Tía Ramona, who lay beside him. He then moved his body enough that Ramona stirred in her sleep and spoke to herself, and when José could feel the length of her body against his, he closed his eyes and slept.