When Ramona left Guadalupe a few years later, she left Juan Trujillo behind. One day, in one of the few letters she received from her father, she read that the house Juan had rebuilt had caught fire again in the night. The following morning, he had spoken to no one but had packed what possessions remained and left Guadalupe.
Nothing remained now of the house Ramón Trujillo had once built. The adobe bricks had long ago washed to dirt. The vigas were gone, and weeds covered the few acres of land. Ramona thought there were many things in her life that she had almost forgotten. She rubbed at her eyes with her fingers and after a few moments looked back down at the journal.
FEBRUARY 12:
Father Joseph spoke with me today. He is a large man of German descent who speaks Spanish well but much too slowly. He has been priest here for thirty years and claims that his stay has been so long because the church has forgotten there is such a place as Guadalupe. He has told me privately in the past that he has received no correspondence from the archbishop in the last fifteen years and that, were it not for the parishes nearby, he would never know of changes made in the church. I have asked him why he does not write to his superiors to remind them not only of the existence of this village but also of his presence in it, and he has said that he fears they would then transfer him to a different parish, and he would be lost.
Father Joseph told me he had visited the home of Berna Ruiz a few days ago, as Berna’s mother, who is ninety-six years of age, was near death. Since then, she has miraculously recovered and is now out of danger. Father Joseph went on to say that Berna Ruiz’s mother has become no larger than a small child and can only breathe with her mouth open wide. While he was there. Father Joseph noticed that this woman was in possession of three santos I had made, and while the two that were visible were carved with great care and were pleasing to the eye and to the spirit, the third stood in the far corner of the room, facing the wall, with a small towel draped over its head.
When Father Joseph questioned Berna about this, she told him, after much delay, that this particular santo was responsible for the health of her family, and after her husband was injured last autumn when a tree he was felling landed on his foot, and now with the illness of her mother, she had placed the Lady in the far corner of the room with a towel over her head so she could stare at nothing and see how she liked that. Father Joseph told her that he thought the Lady had learned her lesson and should be returned to the counter with her companions. Then he said it was quite possible that the Lady had been merely testing Berna’s faith, as her husband had regained the strength in his foot and it now appeared that her mother would recover.
After telling me this, Father Joseph sat without speaking. I knew the three santos he spoke of. I had carved them a number of years ago. Two were small figures of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the third was of Saint Francis that I had given Berna Ruiz as a gift when her son, Telesfor, married. All three were of cottonwood. I asked Father Joseph what he thought of this, and he responded that, although it was true God is everywhere, He is most present in the church. Father Joseph said he thought I should consider the santos I made to be the property of God and the church and that I should take care what homes I place them in. Surely a santo exiled to the corner of a room with a towel over her head was not something I wanted.
We spoke little more, and Father Joseph left before dark.
FEBRUARY 14:
After mass today, I told Father Joseph that Our Lady of Guadalupe would be completed before the following Sunday. He seemed distracted and said that, although he has not seen her, he trusts my talents. Upon leaving the church, Father Joseph took me aside and asked what I thought of the saints that were now being cast in plaster—that they were formed in molds and in the time it took me to create one, thousands could be made. I told Father Joseph that I thought not at all about this and that, if I did, it would not be in a favorable light.
FEBRUARY 15:
The weather remains warm and much of the snow has melted. Andario Jaramillo came to my office on this day. He told me that in the summer his daughter, Ofelia, will marry the son of Romolo and Clorinda Gonzáles.
FEBRUARY 16:
Tonight I have finished Our Lady of Guadalupe. She reaches to my chest, and I have given her the round face and large eyes of my sister who died at the age of twelve. Her gown is the color of blood and flows from her neck down to the base she stands upon, which is the color of the earth. Her hair is black and falls to her shoulders, and she stares forward openly and without a smile. Her hands are raised and meet at her chest, and I think it is in the thinness of the fingers and the way they are bent slightly that I can see my sister. She is to live in the church of this village to one side of the altar, and upon the inside of her left wrist I have traced with a knife the letters of my sister’s name where only I would find them. Ramona.
Ramona stared at her name for a long time as if she didn’t recognize it written in another’s hand. She could hear the soft sound of her own breathing and nothing else. She felt as if the world had somehow moved on and left her behind. She thought that she should rouse herself, push the book away from her, and let it fall to the floor where the pages, brittle, would crack away from the binding like ashes. Too many things were coming into her life, and she understood none of them. Ramona closed her eyes and then, for the first time, she wondered who this man was who wrote such things, this man who had carved the likeness of his sister, who bore her own name, onto a santo.
Ramona rose and walked to the kitchen door. Across the field, she could see José beating his shovel against the earth. She could see by the dark color of his pants that he was wet up to his crotch.
José had been losing his water to a gopher hole. By the size of this hole, José thought that a small dog could fall into it and become lost. His water, which he had so expertly led from the ditch, was pouring endlessly into the hole as if it fed to the other side of the world. José had tried to fill the hole with mud, but in so doing he had uncovered a maze of smaller holes and then had found himself suddenly surrounded by three small animals that ran around his legs making high-pitched barking noises. He was trying to smash one of them with the flat of his shovel when he heard his aunt’s voice.
“José,” Ramona called, “what are you doing?”
José pointed mutely at the ground.
“You are supposed to irrigate the field,” Ramona yelled, “not beat it.”
José nodded his head up and down, although he hadn’t understood a word his aunt had said. He looked back at the ground and saw that the small animal he had been trying to smash had fled.
Ramona turned and went back into the kitchen, where she saw Flavio standing at the far end of the room. Against the wall were two large bags stuffed full.
“Ramona,” Flavio said, “I’ve brought José’s things. His clothes. Some books.”
Ramona took in a deep breath. “Thank you, Flavio. I didn’t hear your truck.”
Flavio shrugged and then looked down at the floor. While rummaging through his brother’s trailer, Flavio had planned a small speech to give to his sister. In this speech, he was to tell Ramona that she must be firm with their grandparents and tell them that this foolishness was something they would not allow. He had practiced this speech aloud a number of times until he thought he could recite it flawlessly. He had planned to tell Ramona these things immediately upon seeing her and then leave quickly for his house.
Flavio looked at his sister, and he saw the softness of her features and the redness in her eyes. He felt his plan slip away. “Are you all right, Ramona?” he said.
Ramona stared at her brother for a few seconds. “No,” she said finally. “I’m not all right, Flavio. Nothing is what it should be. Whenever I turn around, there is something else.” Ramona wondered why she was saying these things to her brother. She saw how awkward he looked, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched up. “Maybe we should have a cup of coffee, Flavio,” Ramona said, and then she smil
ed. “We can talk about how our grandparents are making us crazy.”
Flavio sat across the table from his sister and sipped from the cup she had served him. “This is good coffee, Ramona,” he said, although he thought the coffee tasted like mud.
“Grandmother made it,” Ramona said.
“Ah,” Flavio said. He remembered quite clearly the last time he and his sister had spoken about anything of meaning. It had been early in the morning the day after their mother’s death, two days before Ramona disappeared from Guadalupe. Flavio had come into the kitchen to find Ramona at the sink. There had been a great many people in the house the day before, and the kitchen counters were piled high with pots and pans and platters of leftover food. Their father, in his sorrow, had consumed a bottle of whiskey, and Flavio and Ramona could hear the sound of his uneasy sleep through the wall.
“Flavio,” Ramona had said, “when I’m gone, you must look after baby José.”
Flavio, who had never cared to be near his younger brother because of the odd way the boy had of walking only backward, chose to ignore what his sister had said. “Ramona,” he said, “do you think we will catch the same disease Mama had?”
Ramona’s hands stopped moving, and she turned to her brother. Flavio thought she would be pretty if it weren’t for the straightness of her mouth. “No,” Ramona said. “Mama died of a sad heart. It is not something we will catch.”
Flavio wondered how a sad heart could cause one’s arms and legs to go numb. He heard his brother crying from another room.
“Where are you going, Ramona?” he asked.
“I’m going away,” Ramona told him. “Forever.”
Now, in another kitchen, Flavio placed the cup of coffee back on the table and folded his hands in his lap.
“Flavio,” Ramona said, “it is not just our grandparents. Loretta is here too.”
Flavio looked at Ramona blankly and then moved his eyes away. Out the open door, he saw how bright the sun was and then how a slight breeze moved the leaves of the cottonwoods. It will be a hot day, he thought. Maybe he would fish the creek later, where the trees shaded the water.
“Flavio,” Ramona said, “are you listening?”
Flavio was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, and a fear shot through him that he might weep and look like a fool before his sister. He cleared his throat and spoke carefully. “Yes,” he said. “Loretta is here, también.” My whole family, the living and the dead, Flavio thought, are roaming the streets of Guadalupe. “Why is this happening to us, Ramona?” he said.
It had not occurred to Ramona that her brother might feel as she did. She had always thought of Flavio as someone who was solid and dull and looked at life much the way a cow might. She stared at her brother and could see that the shape of his face, though heavier, was like hers and that he had shaved smoothly before leaving home. There was a streak of moisture at the corner of one eye, as if a wind were blowing in her kitchen. “I don’t know, Flavio,” she said.
“Maybe if you were to talk to our grandparents,” Flavio said. “Tell them how disturbing this is.”
Ramona sighed. “You think I haven’t tried?” she said. “They are here as if they never left. Grandmother cooks and Grandfather irrigates. Loretta appears at odd times and is only concerned with little José.”
“Is Loretta well?” Flavio asked.
“Is she well?” Ramona said.
“I mean …” Flavio began, and then for some peculiar reason he thought about how nice Loretta had always looked in blue jeans, but he chased away the thought before he mentioned it aloud. “I mean, Martha will be happy to hear this. She always enjoyed Loretta’s company.”
“That’s good,” Ramona said, and she suddenly had the distinct feeling that her conversation with her brother was going nowhere.
“Has Loretta spoken of our brother?”
“Barely,” Ramona said, and she thought that possibly her dead brother had once again begun to do things backward.
“Ah,” Flavio said. As a child, alone at night in his room, Flavio would sometimes practice death. He would lie stiffly in bed with his arms at his sides and quiet his breath. He would close his eyes lightly until he felt the muscles in his face relax and saw the colors beneath his eyelids turn to darkness. He would lie there so still and think that his legs were no longer attached to his body and, other than the occasional creak of a viga, he was encapsulated in a blackness that was, in its own way, comforting. This was what Flavio expected of death. Now it was beginning to appear that death more closely resembled the annual church picnic where everyone ate lamb with their fingers, drank a little too much beer, and threw horseshoes.
“Maybe if we talk to the priest,” Flavio said. “He could intervene on our behalf.”
Ramona pictured Father Leonardo and her grandfather in the same room together. “I don’t think that is a good idea, Flavio,” she said.
Actually, Flavio didn’t either. His grandfather spoke only in monosyllables, and about him was always an air of impatience. Father Leonardo led mass in much the way that one would lead a marching band. His grandfather and the priest in the same room would be a disaster.
“I thought,” Ramona said, “that you as the oldest grandson should talk with our grandfather.”
“Me?” Flavio said. He stared at his sister. He saw that she was smiling slightly, and he wondered if she were teasing him.
“Yes,” Ramona answered, and she realized she was taking pleasure in her brother’s discomfort. “I have had to live and sleep with them. It is the least you can do.”
“Grandfather has disliked me since the day I killed his chicken,” Flavio said. “It is you who were always his favorite, Ramona.”
“It was the lie you told to him.”
“It was an accident. How was I to know the chicken would be in a tree?”
Ramona grunted. “No one has ever believed that story, Flavio.”
“It’s the truth,” he said. “I swear.”
“Roosters do not make nests in trees, Flavio.”
“Possibly not all roosters,” Flavio said. Then he and Ramona heard Ramona’s truck pulling into the driveway.
Six
RAMONA WATCHED HER GRANDMOTHER rush into the kitchen. She was dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing the day before, and her dress was rumpled from sitting in the truck. There was a faint line of lipstick on her grandmother’s lips.
“Flavio,” Rosa said breathlessly. “Oh, how good it is to see you, hijo.” She walked quickly up behind her grandson and put her hands on his shoulders. She bent over and placed her cheek against Flavio’s ear. “It’s been so long, hijo,” she said softly. “So very long I’ve missed my grandson.” Ramona watched her brother close his eyes. One of her grandmother’s hands patted Flavio’s shoulder. “Tonight we eat your favorite food,” Rosa said. “Enchiladas with cilantro. The way you like them.”
Ramona saw Flavio’s face knot up, and to her amazement, her brother began to cry.
Flavio felt as though he had left his body and was watching from above. He saw his grandmother as he had always remembered her, with her cheek pressed against the side of his face and her hand patting his shoulder. He saw how his head had fallen to his chest, that he was gulping air soundlessly, and that there were tears streaming like a river down his face. He also saw that his sister was staring at him with an expression of astonishment.
Ramona was thinking that her brother cried exactly as he had as a child, and she remembered the times she had joyfully tormented him until his face would twist as it did now and he would run from her.
Ramona heard her grandfather’s voice. “Look at you,” Epolito said gruffly. “Bawling like a baby. What’s wrong with you?”
Flavio wiped at his face with the flat of his hand. He opened his mouth as if to speak and then closed it. Ramona glanced back at her grandfather, who was standing just inside the kitchen door. “Grandfather,” she said.
“What have you done to your brother?” he s
aid.
“Nothing. We were just talking.”
“And this is what happens when you talk to your brother?”
“My hijo is just a little upset,” Rosa said, still patting Flavio’s shoulder.
“Enough of this,” Epolito said. “Stop this nonsense, Flavio. Your nephew is out in the field irrigating, and you sit in here with the women crying like a small dog. What’s wrong with you, anyway?” Epolito turned and looked out across the field at José, who was no longer irrigating but had built a wall of mud and was busy running back and forth where the water ate through. “Flavio,” Epolito said.
Flavio shook his head. “Yes, Grandfather,” he said. “I have a shovel in my truck. I’ll get it and come to the field.”
Ramona watched her brother rise without looking at her. He walked out of the room, and Ramona heard the sound of the front door opening and closing.
Rosa pulled out the chair in which Flavio had been sitting. “This has been a long day, and still it’s morning,” she said. “And oh yes, Ramona, before I forget, your grandfather says there is a noise in your truck and that you should fix it before the engine blows up.”
“I drive the truck seldom, Grandmother,” Ramona said. “And then only around town.”
“Things blow up even around town, Ramona. You could turn the key and be in flames. We wouldn’t want that, hija.”
Ramona closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she said, “I will have the truck looked at.”
“Good,” Rosa said. “Maybe Flavio would do this.”
“Yes,” Ramona said. Her brother passed by the kitchen window. He was walking quickly, his hat pulled down low on his forehead. As soon as he disappeared from sight at the window, he reappeared at the kitchen door.
The Journal of Antonio Montoya Page 6
