My mama didn’t live to see us make up, because Consuelo knew how to enjoy and prolong a good grudge. I think one day she decided to forgive me. Just like that. Better late than never, I suppose. By then, she was about to become a grandmother, and I imagine the time came for her to realize that even grandparents have hearts and that, if they’re lucky, as she was, they still enjoy the marital activities for which she resented and criticized our parents for decades.
I never understood, even after we made peace, how it was that she was able to have such a good relationship with her husband and children. Did I tell you that, of all the men in Monterrey, she fell in love with Miguel, the younger brother of Antonio, my other brother-in-law? That’s right: sisters and brothers.
The fruits of this double marriage kept me confused throughout my early years, because only the young parents—and perhaps the grandparents, but only by concentrating hard—could say with absolute certainty whose son or daughter was whose. Not only did they have the same surname, which rather complicated matters at school, but with their genetic mélange, Carmen’s seven children and Consuelo’s six were all born with the same coloring, nose, and even mouth. They were all from the same mold. There was not one pair of twins among them, but to me, that was how they appeared: twin cousins.
In the not-too-distant future, they would release me among that jumble of cousins—my nieces and nephews, who lived in adjoining houses—and I’d be completely overwhelmed. Not least because, as I was younger than some of them and the same age as others, people in Monterrey thought that I was just one of the crowd and that one of my sisters must be my mama. And I, who had never lived with them as sisters, admit that I came to think of them as my mamas in Monterrey—though I liked Carmen more than Consuelo in the role—and that my real mama was only my mama in Linares, where my sisters were my sisters.
I know it’s illogical, but remember, I was a little boy, and small children sometimes need more clarification than we adults think it necessary to give.
One time, for instance, when I was something like four years old—an impressionable age—I heard my aunt Rosario say to my mother, Ay, Beatriz, Francisco’s going to drop dead tonight when he goes to bed.
That prediction gave me a terrible fright.
The previous month, a seasonal laborer had in fact dropped dead as he worked in my father’s orchard. Just like that. One moment he was stretching out his arm to inspect the ripeness of the fruit on a tree, and the next he was openmouthed and open eyed on the ground. Not even a blink: he dropped down dead. Simonopio had invited me to go with him that day to see the orange trees thick with fruit almost ready to pick, but what I remember most is the dead man, for we were quite near, so I saw him. What’s more, for many days it was the main topic of conversation among the adults: he dropped down dead.
And that was the frame of reference my four-year-old self had when I heard my aunt foretelling that my papa would drop dead when he went to bed. How was I supposed to know there could be more than one meaning to the expression “drop dead”?
That day, my papa was supervising what I think must’ve been one of the first big orange harvests. I knew that meant he wouldn’t be home until nightfall, so there was no way to warn him of his imminent death; Simonopio wasn’t there to help me, having gone off on his own as he so often did. I knew I couldn’t go from orchard to orchard searching for my papa by myself, because at that age, any distance seemed enormous to me, any road endless, and every turn I took would have seemed the same as the one before. Venturing out on my own would have only gotten me lost, without achieving anything. I knew that all I could do was wait.
I think that day was one of the longest of my life.
I was silent the whole time, barely moving from the spot I had chosen to look out for my papa arriving. I needed to warn him not to go to bed, to speak to the doctor, to hug me, to go confess. I didn’t know what one did in such cases, when almost the precise hour of death had already been foretold. But I had faith in my papa: he would know what to do, if not to save his body, then at least his soul.
Why didn’t I go to my mama so she could ease my worry? I suppose I believed she was somewhat complicit with my aunt. When my aunt made her deadly announcement, Mama had laughed and then changed the subject, which seemed like a blatant betrayal or at least proof that she didn’t care at all about my father’s fate.
When he finally arrived, exhausted, I had fallen asleep in his bed. In the end, sleep had defeated me in my vigil at the front door, but before I closed my eyes, I found the discipline I needed to move and go to the place where I would at least stop him from going straight to sleep. I was afraid he would carry me to my bed without me realizing, because once I was asleep, I was usually impossible to wake. But that night—it’s what fear and anguish do—my papa woke me as he pressed his hand against my forehead, as parents always do to check whether their child has a fever, so unusual was it for me to go to sleep in his bed.
I lost my tongue and lost all my body’s moisture through my eyes. Four years building my vocabulary, and at the crucial moment, nothing would come other than tears and sobs. When the words finally began to emerge, truncated and faltering, it was some time before my papa understood what was wrong with me. “I’m not dead, I’m here,” he assured me. But in my faltering voice I told him, “But when you go to bed you’ll die!”
I can only imagine the maze of words my papa must have picked through in order to understand me. Finally, between him and my mama, they managed it, and then they explained the misunderstanding to me. I forgave her, of course, but I would never look kindly on my aunt again: she fell out of favor with me forever, not because of the misunderstanding, which I admit was all mine, but because every time we saw each other, even years later, she would never miss the opportunity to tell “the anecdote.”
I should explain that I see the funny side now. But at the time, I didn’t understand, and certainly didn’t like being laughed at because of it, not least because it wasn’t the first or the last time something like that happened to me.
We’ll talk about that later, if we have time. Slow down—you’re going too fast.
Let’s go back a little. Big as a foal and crying my lungs out, I was born prematurely only in terms of my mama’s plans. She welcomed me with a mixture of fright and surprise that Tuesday in April 1923.
When it was no longer possible to deny that she had gone into labor, she thought that such a premature baby was unlikely to survive, and in the few months since discovering she had a lodger in her belly, she had gotten attached to the idea of me. Well, to the idea that she had formed of me.
Later, when instead of a scrawny weakling—which even the doctor had feared would be born only in order to die—she was presented with a heavyweight, she did not have time even to feel relieved. For when she saw me, when they placed me in her arms, it struck her that she hadn’t finished sewing or crocheting my little cardigans, and that those she had finished wouldn’t fit me, since she had made them with her delicate daughters in mind. She also remembered that the crib still required a fresh coat of paint and the mattress still needed to be beaten to rid it of dust that had gathered since Simonopio had used it. That even the Moses basket was still in the storehouse, and the diapers and other paraphernalia needed in the early life of a baby hadn’t been put in the chest of drawers.
“I was going to start next week!”
My mama had taken some time to digest the news that she was expecting another member of the family. Then she’d decided it was best to wait until closer to the due date to prepare, because she didn’t want to invest too much, especially when it came to hopes and dreams, in a pregnancy that might not be successful due to her age.
“Don’t worry,” my papa told her after the birth. “He won’t be naked: Simonopio’s gotten out all the clothes he wore as a newborn. I’m sure they’ll fit. Lupita’s already washing them.”
“Used clothes?”
My papa, who had run home with Simonopi
o without anyone summoning him, took care of everything while my mama concentrated on giving birth. Remember that, in those days, childbirth was exclusively a women’s affair—and it always will be, even if it’s shared now—and men never went in to witness it, though the long wait was hard for them as well. So Simonopio killed two birds with one stone: first he kept my papa busy and therefore calm, giving him tasks. And in keeping him occupied in this way, he also managed to solve all the problems the new mother would think of by the time her ordeal was over.
He must’ve foreseen something.
“We’ve already gotten the Moses basket out, and they’re cleaning it. Pola’s putting the diapers where they belong and cleaning the room. There’s time to do the crib, don’t worry.”
“We haven’t painted the baby’s room!”
That might have been the first time my father stood firm about my upbringing.
“We men don’t care about those things, Beatriz.”
And how right he was. I never cared whether my room was painted white, spotted, or dirty. Nor did I care when they told the story of how I was born unequipped, that I had to wear clothes and even use sheets that were not mine.
I never cared, because it had all been Simonopio’s, and in that confused world I’d arrived in, the one thing I knew with complete clarity from the beginning, because he always told me firmly, was that he was my brother.
40
The Day the Mule Takes the Reins
The señora had just given birth, and Anselmo Espiricueta did not understand why everyone was so happy: with a son in the world, Francisco Morales would be determined to produce more, to safeguard the land he had—by any means—and to keep it all.
More for him, less for everyone else.
The boss said nothing and shared none of his plans. He just gave orders: help the Chinamen with their vegetables, plant maize, harvest the maize, cut the sugarcane, pull it all up, and now dig holes and plant trees. Anselmo could do nothing if the boss spoiled the land by covering it in trees that would mean he could no longer grow good crops—food crops. So he kept quiet.
But Anselmo was neither blind nor deaf. Even though—to feign a lack of interest—he resisted asking questions, people around him talked. Some were critical of the reform, yes, but others praised the nerve of those who believed they had the right to have their own land, by whatever means necessary, fair or foul. The bosses had organized themselves and formed the Guardia Rural to try to ward off the agrarians, but before long, some—those who coveted land—were saying the law and its guns would do the talking.
One night when he left his house, sleepless and tormented by the incessant call of the many voices of the devil traveling on the wind, Anselmo found a group of men camped near his home. Their fire gave them away. After a moment of tension when they thought the rural force had discovered them, they allowed him to join them in the warmth of their fire. Perhaps they recognized the same zeal in his eyes that he had recognized in theirs, and they invited him to share their food, their drink, and their friendship.
They never camped in the same place twice: afraid the owners would discover them, and still without the strength to defend themselves, they moved stealthily around the remote parts of the haciendas, most of which were now converted into orchards. They had also found caves in the sierras, which they presumed Agapito Treviño had used in his glory days as a raider when he was fleeing the law, before he was executed by firing squad. Anselmo did not know who this Treviño was, nor was he interested in seeing the caves, but he visited his landless friends whenever they were nearby.
With them he found the camaraderie he had never felt with anyone in the region. With them he could talk about the family he had lost forever, or sit there for hours without saying anything and listen to their songs or hear them talk about the land they would have, the land they needed for their many children.
“I only got one,” he told them on the first day, forgetting he also had the girl.
“Then make some more, compadre.”
They made it sound so simple.
The image of Lupita, the washerwoman, making children for him went through his mind and lingered there. He had not seen her for a long time. He had always liked her. She did not visit the fields, and nobody asked Espiricueta to do jobs at the main house anymore. But he remembered her well, with her basket of wet clothes at her hip, walking toward the washing line and then hanging up the laundry without being aware that, each time she raised her arms to peg up a garment, her skirt lifted, revealing her slender ankles, and her blouse pressed against her generous breasts.
He would find her soon, he decided. He would make a whole new family with her, and he would have his own land, which would be as fertile as his new wife.
There was a lot to do before that could happen. Which was why Anselmo paid close attention to everything going on around him, for Francisco Morales was plotting something. A new son, and a new crop that was gradually displacing the old one, was no coincidence, though he did not yet understand exactly what it meant. They said to him, Dig the hole for the tree, and he would do it, without even looking up, but he did it singing—under his voice and through his teeth—the only refrain he remembered from a song he had learned in the warmth of a fire and that had never left his consciousness or his dreams.
Now the golden eagle has flown
and the finch is chased away.
At last the day must come
when the mule takes the reins . . .
There were times when, while he was supervising, Francisco Morales asked him, “What’re you mumbling about?”
But Anselmo, interrupting his song, merely replied, “Nothing, Boss.”
Like the law, for now, and like the guns, for now, Anselmo Espiricueta remained silent. For now.
41
New Stories to Tell
After so much patient waiting and such a long road traveled, life was at last what it should be: the flowers had arrived, and soon the fruit would follow. Now the boy Simonopio had been expecting for years had arrived, the one he had saved before the boy even existed, for had the Moraleses died of influenza, the possibility of him would have died with them. However, he had to find yet more patience within himself, because they would not let him hold the baby yet.
He’s very little. It’s women’s work. Or We don’t want him to get used to being held, they would tell him. They did allow him, at least, to sit at the side of his crib when the boy slept. They trusted him enough to leave them alone together. He watched over the boy, observing him while he slept in his crib, dressed in the clothes that had been impregnated with the smell, with the aroma, of honey by the infant body of their previous owner, his tireless protector: Simonopio.
He did not give the baby honey, as they had given him since his first few hours of life. But every day, when the little boy cried with his mouth open, Simonopio took the opportunity to delicately place a little royal jelly under his tongue. He knew that the baby liked it and that it strengthened him, because he noticed the ever-more-energetic movement of his arms and legs when he was content, his calm and deep breathing when he rested, and his prodigious lung capacity when he cried. Whenever he was in his crib, Simonopio did not take his eyes off Francisco Junior, because he did not want to miss a single moment.
That was how he memorized the child’s features, from the gentle dip in the crown of his head to the soft cowlick of fine hair, like the fur on a tender peach, that formed between the barely perceptible eyebrows and that Simonopio insisted on stroking against the grain, in an experiment designed to ascertain whether the order of that perfect circle could be disturbed with the gentle, tender force of his rather callused finger—the finding of which was no: it was what it was and would remain like it was. He also learned which song soothed the baby when he woke up crying and which words made him open his eyes and pay attention—come out of his stupor and sleepiness—though everyone thought that a newborn never paid attention or took an interest in the world around it.
This was how, in that tiny face, Simonopio saw the boy he would become, the roads they would travel together, and the new stories they would create between them.
Simonopio drew on all his patience while, through the crib’s newly painted bars, he observed the movements of little Francisco Junior, who did not stay still even while he slept. The temptation was very strong: he wanted to hold him in his arms. He had to hold him, he knew. The problem was that he was the only one who understood that, the only one who knew that this boy would be his responsibility.
The day would come, and he would wait patiently. For the time being, when they were alone, he spoke almost into his ear about the world, about the wild flowers, about the bees that buzzed at the window, insisting they should be let in to visit the newcomer.
He would wait until later to tell him the stories about the coyote. He did not want the baby to be afraid. He would keep them for when the boy was a little older and could understand that Simonopio would take care of that and of everything.
42
The First Drop
I believe it was when the first of my children was born that my mama confessed to me that, for a longer period than was desirable, she had thought I was not entirely normal. That is to say, though I’d been born in one piece and with everything where it should’ve been, she was in some doubt about my mental capabilities.
I honestly was not offended. I suppose what happens to anyone is that, when they have a baby, the first thing they do is worry: count the fingers, inspect the ears, the belly button, the breathing. One asks oneself: Is it normal? Or in other words, as filled with joy as one is at the occasion, one is also filled, to one’s surprise, with anxiety and uncertainty. My mama, seeing me in this state when my first child was born, saw fit to confess her own doubts in days gone by, to comfort me.
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