‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thanks . . . I . . . thanks.’
The sawing stopped. We heard some deep-throated coughing, rattling with phlegm. We crept forward and hid behind the cover of a little grotto-like chapel, where rusty shovels and picks were stacked. There was a cracked marble bench in front of an almost-imperceptible bas-relief of the Virgin Mary set into the wall, a remnant of when Catholics ruled Incarnation. A little further along, we saw a small shack from whose roof was suspended a kerosene lamp. It rocked and flickered, sending fragments of light and shadow over the coffins. Through the window, I saw the figure of an old man bent over a couple of saw horses. He took a long drag from the cigar clamped between his teeth, the burning end of it glowing red. Then he coughed some more.
‘Well, I don’t think it’s the Muladona,’ I said, relieved. ‘It’s old man Ingqvist. The guy’s like seventy years old, and a little simple in the head. He used to do odd jobs at Father’s church. I guess he’s been roped into doing some overtime at the cemetery, what with the overflow of bodies.’
‘Come on,’ Carolina suggested, ‘let’s sneak by while he’s got his back turned to us.’
We left the cover of the chapel and snuck up as close as we could to the shack without being seen. The old man started another coughing fit, laying down his saw and bending over to spit out on the ground. We ducked into the closest alleyway between the tombs. Then we ran on in the darkness for several minutes, slipping and sliding along the cobblestones, without paying attention to where we were going. My lungs were on fire from the cold air, and we finally stopped in front of one of the tombs and sat down on its steps to rest.
It took me a while to slow down my breathing. Then I panted ‘I’ve got a lantern,’ and pulled it out from my satchel. The funnel was cracked, I guess from my struggle with Carolina on the hill, but it still worked. I lit the wick.
The flame leapt up. The first thing I saw was Carolina’s round, beautiful face. Her hair was pulled back, beads of sweat were on her forehead. ‘Man, I’m thirsty,’ I said.
‘Here,’ she said, offering me a leather bag with a spout on it. ‘I filled it up just before I left home.’
I sprayed the water in a long, cold stream down my throat. She took a swig herself. Then we looked up at the tomb on whose steps we were sitting. It was made of marble. Black. Shiny. Solid. Its straight lines went up into the darkness, like an ebony watch tower. Etched into the marble door was the life-size likeness of a woman. Eyes closed, lips parted. By a trick of the sculptor, it looked as if there were a shimmering veil covering her beautiful, mysterious face.
‘That’s not Beatrice, is it, Verge?’ Carolina asked.
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘But I’ve heard of this tomb. Sebas described it to me once in great detail. There’s an old legend that she comes alive at night, if you kiss her lips before the clock chimes twelve.’
‘And did he . . . kiss her?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And did it work?’
‘Not so far as I know.’
Carolina took the lamp from me and examined the plaque on the tomb. She translated from the Spanish, ‘Ana María Teresa García-Rodriquez, 1822. Unsurpassed wife and friend, she was my soul-mate. She did not know the child she bore. Her sacrifice will be repaid in Paradise.’ Then she looked down and said, ‘Seems like her husband missed her somethin’ awful. This tomb . . . it feels like a box full o’ grief. Or maybe full o’ supplication that she’ll wake up. Or mebbe both.’
Feeling uneasy in front of the sleeping figure, I said, ‘Come on, let’s get going.’
We took off down the alleyway between the mausolea. Carolina held up the lamp and observed, ‘We’re in the old part of the cemetery, Verge, from the time folks in Incarnation had money to burn. Look, this here’s marble from Italian and Frenchified sculptures.’
Studying the brass numbers affixed to the mausolea, she said, ‘Let’s see. 300, 303, 306. Some of the tombs have numbers. Some don’t. I don’t know how easy it’s gonna be to find number 1,032 from the last tale. But it must be in the more recent part.’
‘Like my grandmother’s grave,’ I said. ‘She’s on the other side of the cemetery, buried next to my grandfather. I used to come here with my mother, the day after our birthdays, el día de los muertos, you know. It seems kind of weird to me now, ’cause Mother never got along with Grandma Strömberg, as far as I’ve been told.’
‘Why not, Verge?’
‘I don’t know. I never met Grandmother Strömberg, but Lupita told me she used to say awful, hurtful things to Mother. But Mother used to say, regardless, “family’s family”. She said it was especially important to honour her grave, because she didn’t know where her own mother or father were buried, didn’t even know what her real name was. Grandmother Strömberg died around when my mother and father got married. Maybe because she didn’t approve of my father marrying the hired help.’
An idea occurred to me. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I think I know where the tale’s pointing us. It’s like I can see through the story, very faintly, to the Muladona’s thoughts on the other side. It’s like seeing through that marble veil on the statue just now.’
I cut through the old part of the cemetery, down a little lane, bumpy under my boots. Slowly, as we went along, the extravagant little houses of the dead underwent a transformation. They became smaller and more austere. They changed from marble to river rock, from colourful lead-glass windows, to small apertures with iron bars. The elaborate crucifixes of a languishing, tortured Christ devolved into empty, tin crosses. Soon, the mausolea thinned out and stopped all together. A small plot of land opened up. Under the glare of the moonlight, we saw a scattering of wooden crosses and tombstones. I felt like I was following in my mother’s footsteps from long ago, when she used to take me there. At the same time, I was also following Konrad’s steps from the tale. It was along this very alleyway that he’d pushed his wheelbarrow and uncovered Beatrice’s tomb.
I stopped at two small granite stones set flush with the ground, at the edge of the looming cemetery walls. Under the lamplight, I read out loud, ‘Pastor Magnus Amund Strömberg 1820-1894’ and ‘Anna Karolin Strömberg 1823-1899’.
I said, ‘The tale brought me here. There must be a clue around somewhere.’
‘What about those letters under your grandfather’s name?’ Carolina asked. ‘I can see something faint.’
I got onto my knees, pressed down the wet grass, and saw it read ‘The good shepherd.’ Then I anxiously felt the rough edges of my grandmother’s gravestone with my fingertips, to see if there was also some sort of message. But there was nothing written there.
‘Well, that doesn’t help us much,’ I said, crestfallen. ‘I thought . . . I felt . . . I don’t know. Something about this place seems familiar. I was almost sure. . . .’
From my perspective, kneeling on the ground, I could just make out the border of a flat grave marker. It wasn’t far from my grandmother’s, almost covered over by the remains of a broken, terracotta pot.
There was a dead carnation in it.
I shuffled over on my knees and removed the pot shards. I swept dirt away with my hands and blew onto it. It was a cheap, wooden grave-marker, half-rotten. ‘Here, bring me the lamp, quickly,’ I called. Carolina bent down next to me, tilting the lamp, so I could make out the faint lettering: ‘MOTHER 1878.’
‘That must be it!’ Carolina exclaimed. ‘That’s the one we’re looking for. Does it say anything else?’
Running my fingernails across the rotten wood, I felt the words, one by one, ‘Anyone who does not enter the sheep pen . . . by the gate, but climbs in by some other way . . . is a thief and a robber.’
‘Anything else?’ she asked. ‘Any mention of Beatrice?’
‘No, nothing,’ I said. I sat down, dejected, by the grave. ‘No name, no other information. Just this Bible quote.’
‘What does it mean?’
Without feeling, I said, ‘It’s from the Book of Jo
hn. My father quotes it all the time. I don’t know, it’s something to do with the price of not following God’s one, true path.’
Carolina sat down next to me on the cold, wet grass. We were silent for a long time. ‘At least we got the right grave,’ she said.
‘Well, a lot of good it’s done us,’ I rejoined, kicking the old bits of flower pot into the shadows of the wall. ‘It’s just a wild goose chase. The Muladona probably did it just to get inside my head. We’re no closer to finding out the truth than we were before.’
‘I dunno about that, Verge,’ she said. ‘There’s somethin’ about that year. And both your grandfather’s gravestone and this one here make a reference to shepherds. They’re also side by side. That can’t be a coincidence.’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t see a connection,’ I said, feeling exasperated. ‘My grandparents’ graves are just the kind you’d expect from fine, upstanding founders of the town. Granite. Severe. Enduring. But this one,’ I said, pointing at the rotten, mouldy grave marker, ‘is cheap and poor. It looks nothing like Beatrice’s opulent tomb. It’s more worthy of. . . .’
‘An Indian?’ Carolina finished my sentence.
I didn’t like the way it sounded, but I said, ‘Yes.’
‘Or a suicide? Or, maybe both?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Remember the Gazette entry you grabbed from the gambling hall, the one about the Indian woman committing suicide? It was the same year as your mother was born, the very same day she was found on the steps of your grandfather’s church.’ Her eyes grew wide, and she gasped, ‘The word MOTHER is carved into the grave,’ she said.
‘What are you saying?’ I asked, apprehension growing inside of me.
‘Verge,’ she said quietly, ‘this is your grandmother’s grave.’
I pointed to the stone marker and said, ‘I already know that. . . .’ but then I realised she wasn’t referring to Grandmother Strömberg. ‘You don’t mean. . . ?’
‘Verge, all these years you came visiting your papá’s parents’ graves, you didn’t know your other grandma—your mamá’s mamá—was just an arm’s length away.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Carolina and I walked back towards the entrance of the cemetery in silence. Then I couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘Black Swede, my foot,’ I exploded. ‘My mother was half Indian! Her long, black hair, her beautiful cheekbones. Why didn’t I see it? They’ve been keeping this secret all these years. Why else was she relegated to the back of the house with Lupita? Why else did my Grandmother constantly belittle her? On Halloween night, forty years ago, that poor young woman left her baby on the doorsteps of the church. She must have been rejected by the Swede father and had nowhere else to go. God only knows what desperate thoughts were going through her head, as she flung herself from the gambling hall tower. And my grandparents didn’t even have the decency to tell my mother about her past!’
‘Look,’ Carolina said, ‘I’m the last person to defend your grandparents. If you permit me, and I don’t wanna speak ill of the dead, they were hard people. But you gotta understand, your mamá —oh, Verge, it pains me to say—your mamá was probably born out a wedlock, and your abuela . . . she was a suicide. It must have been powerful shameful for your grandparents, ’specially your grandpa bein’ pastor and all. People go to great lengths to hide stuff like that.’
I spat out, ‘If it was a suicide, then how on earth would my pious, righteous-minded grandfather have allowed her to be buried on holy ground? And then he was buried almost right next to her, for Pete’s sake. It doesn’t make any sense. Knowing how my grandparents felt about the Indians, I can’t imagine they would let one inside their house. Let alone allow one to marry their son.’
My head ached so much, it felt like it was going to explode.
We approached the ramshackle place where old man Ingqvist had been sawing boards for the coffins. As we got closer, we saw all the coffins had been nailed closed and stacked neatly, side by side. I was thankful for this, because I couldn’t stand to see any more familiar faces of the dead staring back at me. There were no more sounds of pounding and hammering as before, and the light inside had been extinguished.
‘I think he’s gone,’ I whispered to Carolina. I flipped open my grandfather’s old watch and tipped it towards our lamplight. It was just after 11 p.m. ‘Come on,’ I said, my heart starting to beat quickly. ‘It took longer to find the grave than I figured. We have to hurry up to make it back to town before the Muladona comes.’
We made our way to the massive iron gates. To my horror, I saw they were closed and chained shut with a rusty chain and padlock. I grabbed hold of the gate, trying to rattle it. It barely budged. ‘No, no, no, this can’t be happening!’ I yelled. ‘We’re trapped.’
I grabbed a handhold and started climbing, but I only got a few feet up when I felt a stabbing pain in my hand. I let go, falling heavily onto the ground on my back. Winded, I looked at my injured hand, which had blood trickling from it.
Carolina rushed to my side and helped me to my feet. I wrapped my hand in my handkerchief to stop the bleeding, and she raised the lamp, examining the gate. Crisscrossed throughout the rusty bars were strands of barbed wire like a thick mat of iron nettles.
‘We’re not getting out this way,’ Carolina said. ‘We’d be torn to pieces. Quick, let’s go along the wall and see if we can find a low point. Maybe we can shimmy up onto one of the mausolea and jump to the ledge.’
We followed the perimeter for a hundred yards or so. By the flickering lamplight we saw the spool of barbed wire stretched across the entire wall. She said in hushed tones, ‘I guess they put it up to stop grave robbers. It’s like one of those internment camps for enemy aliens.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Haven’t you heard? The government’s set up these camps, like prisons, you know, for Germans, spies, pacifists, and other people that might give us problems durin’ the war. Oh, Verge, we’re just like them aliens, we’re trapped here. We’re trapped for good!’
For the first time, I heard her voice quaver and crack. Then she burst out sobbing. I took her in my arms and lied, ‘It’s going to be all right. Let’s just go back to the entranceway and sit down for a little bit. We’ll think what our options are.’
But I knew there were no options. The fact that the gates were closed meant my death, and Carolina’s too.
Looking back, I guess I could have tried to have drawn that box of protection in the ground, like the hobo had taught me. But I was so tired; I felt it in my bones. I wasn’t strong enough to say the incantation all night long. After all I’d been through that day, I could barely stand on my own two feet. So I walked Carolina back to the little niche with the faded image of the Virgin Mary. We sat down on the cold marble bench and Carolina huddled under my arm. I glanced at my pocket watch. It was a quarter to midnight.
So many thoughts were going through my mind, mostly about my mother. Why had my grandparents taken her in, the daughter of a suicide? Why hadn’t they said anything about her Indian roots? If I didn’t know any better, I could have mistaken it for Christian mercy. But the way Grandma treated Mother, the way she kept her close, just to watch her wriggle under her thumb. . . .
I could have said a million different things at that moment, but I whispered to Carolina, ‘Even without knowing her background, I never understood why Father asked Mother to marry him. And I can’t fathom why she accepted him. They were such opposites.’
‘Didn’t they have anything in common?’ she asked softly.
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘they’d grown up together. They’d spent years living under the same roof. But she was the hired help, relegated to the back of the house. He was a Strömberg, with all the rights and responsibilities that implied.’
‘Maybe,’ Carolina suggested, sitting up slowly, ‘maybe, just like everyone else in town, he fell in love with your mamá’s gentle manners and kindnesses.’
‘You remember that abou
t her?’
‘Heck,’ she said, wiping her eyes with her coat sleeves, ‘everyone around these parts does, ’specially the Indians. Papá says they still talk about her.’
I looked down at my feet and said, ‘Sebas told me that, before I was born, Father was a kind man, well . . . kinder than he is now. There was this warmth in his eyes. But it chilled when Mother became pregnant with me. I guess, whatever there was of the old father died when I was born. I don’t know . . . maybe it’s my fault.’
‘Don’t say that, Verge,’ Carolina said, pressing my hand. ‘Grownups do stuff we can’t never figure out, stuff that hurts us. Then they act all surprised when we get upset about it. I ain’t never gonna understand ’em. That’s why I don’t plan on never growing up.’
‘What, like Peter Pan?’ I said, forcing a laugh. There were only a few minutes before the Muladona would arrive. Neither of us had the option of growing up anymore.
‘Yeah, why not?’ Carolina replied. ‘How ’bout you?’
‘Well, I never figured I’d survive this long. That’s the impression Father and Doc Evans always give me.’ I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘You know, with me being sick and all.’
‘You feelin’ sick, Verge?’ she asked.
‘No, that’s the weird thing. Right now, sitting here with you, in this awful, cold place, in the midst of all this death, I’ve never felt healthier. I’ve never felt more alive.’
Just as I said this, I heard an eerie, creaking sound. It was like a great, rusty umbrella being forced open and closed slowly, rhythmically. A rattling of heavy chains followed after it. I looked to the sky. In the pale, uninterrupted moonlight—for the fast-moving clouds had fled completely now—I saw the outline of the awful mule: its black wings flapped, its legs pumped as if running through the air, uncannily, like no natural thing should. My heart ran cold.
Carolina turned from me and tried to look up, but I took her by the shoulders and forced her head towards me. ‘Don’t look at it, Carolina. Just look at me. Look at me.’
Muladona Page 23
