(1972) The Halloween Tree (9 page)

They hung above Mexico.

They hung above an island in that lake in Mexico.

They heard dogs barking in the night far below. They saw a few boats on
the moonlit lake moving like water insects. They heard a guitar playing
and a man singing in a high sad voice.

A
long way off across the dark borders of land, in the United States,
packs of children, mobs of dogs ran laughing, barking, knocking, from
door to door, their hands full of sweet bags of treasure, wild with joy
on Halloween night.

“But, here—” whispered Tom.

“Here what?” asked Moundshroud, hovering at his elbow.

“Oh, why here—”

“And down through all of South America—”

“Yes, South. Here and South. All the cemeteries. All the graveyards are—”

—full of candlelight, Tom thought. A thousand candles in this cemetery,
a hundred candles in that graveyard, ten thousand small flickering
lights farther on a hundred miles, five thousand miles down to the very
tip of Argentina.

“Is that the way they celebrate—”

“El Dia de los Muertos.
How’s your grade school Spanish, Tom?”

“The Day of the Dead Ones?”

“Caramba, si!
Kite, disassemble!”

Swooping down, the Kite flew apart for a final time.

The boys tumbled on the stony shore of the quiet lake.

Mists hung over the waters.

Far across the lake they could see an unlit tombyard. There were, as yet, no candles burning in it.

Out of the mists, a dugout canoe moved silently without oars, as if the tide touched it across the waters.

A tall figure in a gray winding sheet stood motionless in one end of the boat.

The boat nudged the grassy shore softly.

The boys gasped. For, as far as they could tell, only darkness was cupped inside the hood of the shrouded figure.

“Mr.—Mr. Moundshroud?”

They knew it had to be him.

But he said nothing. Only the faintest firefly of a grin flickered within the cowl. A bony hand gestured.

The boys tumbled into the boat.

“Sh!” whispered a voice from the empty hood.

The figure gestured again and, touched by wind, they blew across the dark waters under a night sky filled with the billion never-before-seen fires of the stars.

Far off on that dark island, there was a prickle of guitar sound.

A single candle was lit in the graveyard.

Somewhere someone blew a musical sound on a flute.

Another candle was lit among the tombstones.

Someone sang a single word of a song.

A third candle was touched to life by a flaming match.

And the faster the boat moved, the more guitar notes sounded and the
more candles were lit high among the mounds on the stony hills. A
dozen, a hundred, a thousand candles flared until it looked as if the
great Andromeda star cluster had fallen out of the sky and tilted
itself to rest here in the middle of almost-midnight Mexico.

The boat struck the shore. The boys, surprised, fell out. They spun
about, but Moundshroud was gone. Only his winding sheet lay empty in
the boat.

A guitar called to them. A voice sang to them.

A road like a river of white stones and white rocks led up through the
town that was like a graveyard, to the graveyard that was like—a
town!

For there were no people in the town.

The boys reached the low wall of the graveyard and then the huge
lacework iron gates. They took hold of the iron rungs and stared in.

“Why,” gasped Tom. “I never ever seen the like!”

For now they knew why the town was empty.

Because the graveyard was full.

By every grave was a woman kneeling to place gardenias or azaleas or marigolds in a frame upon the stone.

By every grave knelt a daughter who was lighting a new candle or lighting a candle that had just blown out.

By every grave was a quiet boy with bright brown eyes, and in one hand
a small papier-mâché funeral parade glued to a shingle, and in the
other hand a papier-mâché skeleton head which rattled with rice or nuts
inside.

“Look,” whispered Tom.

There were hundreds of graves. There were hundreds of women. There were
hundreds of daughters. There were hundreds of sons. And hundreds upon
hundreds upon thousands of candles. The whole graveyard was one swarm
of candleshine as if a population of fireflies had heard of a Grand
Conglomeration and had flown here to settle in and flame upon the
stones and light the brown faces and the dark eyes and the black hair.

“Boy,” said Tom, half to himself, “at home we never go to the
graveyard, except maybe Memorial Day, once a year, and then at high
noon, full sun, no fun. This now, this is—
fun!”

“Sure!” whisper-yelled everyone.

“Mexican Halloweens are better than ours!”

For on every grave were plates of cookies shaped like funeral priests
or skeletons or ghosts, waiting to be nibbled by—living people? or by
ghosts that might come along toward dawn, hungry and forlorn? No one
knew. No one said.

And each boy inside the graveyard, next to his sister and mother, put down the miniature funeral on the grave. And they could see
the tiny candy person inside the tiny wooden coffin placed before a
tiny altar with tiny candles. And around the tiny coffin stood tiny
altar boys with peanuts for heads and eyes painted on the peanut
shells. And before the altar stood a priest with a cornnut for a head
and a walnut for a stomach. And on the altar was a photograph of the
person in the coffin, a real person once; remembered now.

“Better, and still better,” whispered Ralph.

“Cuevos!”
sang a far voice up the hill.

Inside the graveyard, voices echoed the song.

Leaning against the graveyard walls, some with guitars in their hands or bottles, were the men of the village.

“Cuevos de los Muertos—”
sang the faraway voice.

“Cuevos de los Muertos”
sang the men in the shadows inside the gate.

“Skulls,” translated Tom. “The skulls of the dead.”

“Skulls, sweet sugar skulls, sweet candy skulls, the skulls of the dead ones,” sang the voice, coming close now.

And down the hill, treading softly in shadow, came a hunch-backed Vendor of Skulls.

“No, not hunched—” said Tom, half aloud.

“A whole load of
skulls
on his back,” cried Ralph.

“Sweet skulls, sweet white crystal sugar candy skulls,” sang the
Vendor, his face hidden under a vast sombrero. But it was Moundshroud’s
voice that sweetly piped.

And carried from a long bamboo over his shoulder hung on black threads were dozens and scores of sugar skulls as big as their own heads. And each skull was inscribed.

“Names! Names!” sang the old Vendor. “Tell me your name, I give you your skull!”

“Tom,” said Tom.

The old man plucked forth a skull. On it, in huge letters was written:

TOM.

Tom took and held his own name, his own sweet edible skull, in his fingers.

“Ralph.”

And a skull with the name
RALPH
written on it was tossed forth. Ralph caught it, laughing.

In a swift game, the bony hand plucked, tossed white skull after skull, sweetly on the cool air:

HENRY-HANK! FRED! GEORGE! HACKLES! J.J.! WALLY!

The boys, bombarded, squealed and danced about, pelted with their own
skulls and their own proud names sugar encrusted upon each white brow
of those skulls. They caught and almost dropped this splendid
bombardment.

They stood, mouths wide open, staring at the sugary death-sweets in their gummy hands.

And from within the graveyard, way-high male-soprano voices sang:

“Roberto … Maria … Conchita … Tomás.

Calavera, Calavera,
sweet candy bones to eat!

Your name on the snow white sweet skull

You hurry down the street.

You buy from the piled high white

Hills in the square. Buy and eat!

Chew your name! What a treat!”

The boys lifted the sweet skulls in their fingers.

“Bite the
T
and the
O
and the
M.
Tom!

Chew the
H,
Swallow
A,
Digest
N,
Choke on
K.

Hank!”

Their mouths watered. But
was
it Poison they held?

“Would you guess? Such happiness, such joy

As each boy dines on darkness, makes a meal of the night?

What delight! Snap a bite!

Go ahead! Munch that fine candy head!”

The boys tapped the sweet candy names to their lips and were about to bite when—

“Olé!”

A mob of Mexican boys ran up yelling their names, seizing at skulls.

“Tomás!”

And Tom saw Tomás run off with his named skull.

“Hey” said Tom. “He sorta looked like—
me!”

“Did he?” said the Vendor of Skulls.

“Enrique!” shouted a small Indian boy seizing Henry-Hanks skull.

Enrique pelted down the hill.

“He looked like
me!”
said Henry-Hank.

“He
did,”
said Moundshroud. “Quick, boys, see what they’re up to. Hold on to your sweet craniums and
get!”

The boys jumped.

For at that very moment an explosion hit the streets below, in the town. Then another explosion and another. Fireworks.

The boys took a last look in at the flowers, the graves, cookies,
foods, skulls upon graves, miniature funerals with miniature bodies and
coffins, at candles, crouched women, lonely boys, girls, men, then
whirled and exploded down the hill toward the firecrackers.

Into the plaza Tom and Ralph and all the other costumed boys raced
panting. They jolted to a halt and danced about as a thousand miniature
firecrackers banged around their shoes. The lights were on. Suddenly
the shops were open.

And Tomás and José Juan and Enrique were lighting and tossing the firecrackers with yells.

“Hey, Tom, from
me,
Tomás!”

Tom saw his own eyes glinting from the wild boy’s face.

“Hey, Henry, this from Enrique! Bang!

“J.J., this—Bang! From José Juan!”

“Oh, this is the best Halloween of all!” said Tom.

And it was.

For never in all their wild travels had so much happened to be seen, smelled, touched.

In every alley and door and window were mounds of sugar skulls with beautiful names.

From every alley came the tap-tap of death-watch-beetle coffin makers
nailing, hammering, tapping coffin lids like wooden drums in the night.

On every corner were stacks of newspapers with pictures of the Mayor
and his body painted in like a skeleton, or the President and his body
all bones, or the loveliest maiden dressed like a xylophone and Death
playing a tune on her musical ribs.

“Calavera, Calavera, Calavera—”
the song drifted down the hill. “See
the politicians buried in the news,
REST IN PEACE
beneath their names.
Such is fame!

“See the skeletons juggling, standing high

On each other’s shoulders!

Preaching sermons, wrestling, playing soccer!

Little runners, little jumpers,

Little skeletons that leap about and fall

Did you ever dream that death could be

Whittled down so very small?”

And the song was true. Wherever the boys looked were the miniature
acrobats, trapeze performers, basketball players, priests, jugglers,
tumblers, but all were skeletons hand to hand, bony shoulder to
shoulder, and all small enough for you to carry in your fingers.

And over there in a window was a whole microscopic jazz band with a
skeleton trumpeter and a skeleton drummer and a skeleton playing a tuba
no bigger than a soup spoon and a skeleton conductor with a bright cap
on his head and a baton in his hand, and tiny music pouring out of the
tiny horns.

Never before had the boys seen so many—bones!”

“Bones!” laughed everyone. “Oh,
lovely
bones!”

The song began to fade:

“Hold the dark holiday in your palms,

Bite it, swallow it and survive,

Come out the far black tunnel of
El Dia de Muerte

And be glad, ah so glad you are …
alive!

Calavera … Calavera …”

The newspapers, bordered in black, blew away in white funerals on the wind.

The Mexican boys ran away up the hill to their families.

“Oh, strange funny strange,” whispered Tom.

“What?” said Ralph at his elbow.

“Up in Illinois, we’ve forgotten what it’s all about. I mean the dead,
up in our town, tonight, heck, they’re forgotten. Nobody remembers.
Nobody cares. Nobody goes to sit and talk to them. Boy, that’s lonely.
That’s really sad. But here—why, shucks. It’s both happy and sad. It’s
all firecrackers and skeleton toys down here in the plaza and up in
that graveyard now are all the Mexican dead folks with the families
visiting and flowers and candles and singing and candy. I mean it’s almost like Thanksgiving, huh? And
everyone set down to dinner, but only half the people able to eat, but
that’s no mind, they’re
there.
It’s like holding hands at a séance with
your friends, but some of the friends gone. Oh, heck, Ralph.”