Amigoland (25 page)

Don Celestino shook his head. “Just the check, please.”

“And for me, another Carta Blanca,” the old man said, ignoring his brother’s gaze. “I want to make a toast.”

“We don’t need to be making toasts, Fidencio.”

“Me, not you,” he replied.

The waiter returned with the beer, poured it with the same flair as earlier, and left again. Don Fidencio raised his glass
and waited for his brother and the girl to do the same. “To Celestino,” he said, “the brave one who kept his word about the
trip and this morning rescued his brother.”

His brother and the girl raised their glasses and drank.

“There’s more.” He kept his glass in the air. “May he live a long and happy life with such a lovely companion by his side.”

Socorro reached for Don Celestino’s hand.

“And at last, I raise my glass to my little brother for finally believing our grandfather’s story and for helping me to keep
my promise to him.” Then he leaned back and swilled the drink.

“Because I said I would take you there doesn’t mean I believed it,” his brother responded.

“Then what?”

“That I would take you, that was all. Why does it always have to be more with you?”

“It sounds like you’re taking a child, only to amuse him.”

“What does it matter why I said yes?”

“It matters,” the old man said. “I was going to tell you what else I remembered today on the bus.”

“Tell us tomorrow on the way to the station,” Don Celestino argued. “I want to get some rest.”

“At seven o’clock?”

“I woke up early to go get you, and I wasn’t the one who slept most of the way on the bus.”

“Bah, now you want to blame me for being able to sleep. If tonight is like most nights, I’ll be lucky to sleep a few hours.”

“Go on and tell us, and after that we can go rest for tomorrow,” Socorro said.

The old man looked at his brother and then over at the girl.

“I’m only telling it for you,” he said. “Whoever else can listen if he wants.”

He took another swig of his beer and then poured the rest of the bottle into his glass. “Papá Grande had only ever been on
an old mule that belonged to his uncle. La Chueca, they called it, because it walked with a limp. You can imagine how slow
the poor animal must have walked?” He jounced about on his wooden chair to demonstrate to her how it might have been to ride
the gimpy mule. “And now here he was, this little boy on a real horse, being taken by the one who had killed his father.”

“With the arrow?” she said.

“Exactly, and already you know where.” He checked to see if his brother was listening. “But that wasn’t all of it, because
he had also seen almost everybody at the circus killed, even his mother, who had been hit across the face with the back of
a small ax. Then there was the midget that they scalped. And not just scalped, because this one was still alive when they
peeled back the top of his head.”

“And so now he’s a midget?” Don Celestino asked.

“He was always a midget, that’s the way he was born.”

“All the other times it was Papá Grande’s uncle or just a man in the circus, nobody else.”

“So now I remember the circus man had a midget with him. Somebody had to help him with the bear. What difference does it make?”

“It sounds like you’re making up the story as you go.”

“Why would I say he was little if he wasn’t little? This is only what Papá Grande told me.”

“Maybe he remembered wrong — maybe you remembered wrong.” He looked at Socorro but found no support. “Before, you said the
circus man came alone. You never mentioned anybody else. Now you made it the helper and maybe one of our uncles who got scalped.
Next you’re going to tell us that it was our uncle who was the midget.”

“Then tell me how you remember it.”

“I don’t remember any midget, that I do know.”

“By then they had killed and skinned a small bear that was in a cage.”

“Now the poor bear?” Don Celestino glanced up at the ceiling. “What more, a lion?”

“He never said anything about a lion, just a small black bear.” Don Fidencio stared at his brother a moment longer before
turning back to the girl. “And after that they rode away as fast as the horses would go, crossing fields and small riverbeds
and valleys. All night they rode this way. Papá Grande had never been any farther than Linares, and now they were taking him
from everything he knew. Already he had some idea that this would be the last time he’d see his home and that there was no
one left. But still he couldn’t help looking back, wondering if anybody was following them. The sun had gone down, and the
world around him had started to grow dark.” He paused to sip his beer.

“The Indians kept going and only stopped for the horses to drink water. There were times when Papá Grande thought he was going
to fall asleep on the horse. He felt weak because since that morning he hadn’t eaten and only chewed on some kind of beans
that the Indian had given him from a tree they passed. It was when they were climbing a large hill that they saw what looked
like twenty soldiers following their trail, maybe only a mile behind them. This gave Papá Grande a little bit of hope, but
they were still so far away.” Don Fidencio noticed his brother wanting to interrupt. “Now that I think about it, I remember
he told me that it was just before dark that they saw the soldiers. How else would they be able to see so far?” He took a
sip, then wiped the edge of his mouth with his cuff. “But whatever time it happened, it was right then that one of the other
children, a little girl, she thought it would be a good idea to scream so the soldiers could hear them. And without thinking
about it, the Indian she was with reached around and cut her throat, from one ear to the other. The screaming ended right
there. No more screaming, just the horses running. The Indian tossed her body to one side without slowing down. And what could
they do now but stay quiet-quiet and pray that the soldiers would catch up? Papá Grande said those Indians knew about horses
better than most men, probably better than the soldiers.”

“I thought you said he had never been on a real horse,” Don Celestino said.

“I knew you wouldn’t stay quiet forever.” The old man used the interruption as an opportunity to take another drink. “Papá
Grande knew they were good because he was there, on the horse, and saw how they controlled the horses, how they rode them.”

“Yes, but how could he know they were better than most men if he had never climbed onto a horse?”

“I thought you were sleepy?”

“Until you kept me up with your story.”

“The way I remember it, they rode through the night,” Don Fidencio replied, surprised his brother didn’t object. “The Indians
stopped only two times to water the horses, but they wouldn’t let the children get down, maybe because they were afraid one
of them might escape.”

“Those poor children, all that time without eating or sleeping?” Socorro turned toward Don Celestino, but he was staring out
the window as if they were still on the bus.

“The worst of it was that, after a while, he felt like he had to make water, but there was no way for him to tell this to
the Indian, not that he would have stopped anyway.” The old man shook his head. “The whole night that way. Not until they
crossed the river did they let him go free.”

“Only him?”

“The way Papá Grande told me, only him. The rest of the children, they took with them to the north. Maybe they thought leaving
one little boy would force the soldiers to stop or that they would be satisfied with only that one child. But who knows, why
him and not the others?”

“He was lucky, no?” Socorro said.

“Lucky that they freed him, but not so lucky with what had happened earlier.” He took the last sip of his beer.

The waiter, who had been standing off to the side and halfway listening, stepped up now. “Another cold beer for the gentleman?”

“No, just the bill,” Don Celestino said before his brother had a chance to answer.

After paying, they walked out of the restaurant and through the lobby. Don Fidencio kept testing his new cane by stabbing
it into various splotches and cigarette burns on the carpet. Don Celestino had rented two rooms, his brother’s located on
the ground floor, and a bigger room upstairs for him and Socorro. They agreed to meet for coffee and a quick breakfast at
seven and try to be in the taxi by seven thirty. If they were still hungry, they could buy a snack at one of the stores inside
the terminal or wait until they arrived at their destination. It was only a two-hour bus ride to Linares.

T
he same waiter unlocked the doors early the next morning. His shirt was still untucked and he held the tail ends together
as if they were part of his bathrobe. Don Celestino pulled a chair out for Socorro. As it had been the evening before, they
were the only customers in the restaurant.

A few minutes later the waiter brought out some coffee for Don Celestino and an orange juice for Socorro. He placed a basket
of fresh bolillos on the table, turning back one corner of the checkered cloth they were wrapped in.

“I knew this would happen,” Don Celestino said. It was now quarter after seven.

“It must take him longer to get dressed,” she said.

“Then he should get up earlier.”

A man not quite as old but using a cane walked into the restaurant. He wore a black guayabera and a pair of gray pants with
sharp creases. He surveyed the surroundings until he saw the waiter motioning that his table was ready. When he arrived at
the table, he hooked his cane on the backrest of one of the chairs and then tugged on it to make sure it was secure.

“Maybe he couldn’t sleep,” Socorro said.

“He can sleep more on the bus if that’s the problem.” Don Celestino glanced at his watch again.

“What if something happened? Maybe we did wrong in leaving him alone in his own room, not even on the same floor.”

“Where else did you want him?” he asked. “Sleeping between us there in the bed?”

“If you want, I can go check on him.”

“No, you wait for us here.” He pushed away from the table and stood up.

“Remember his age, Celestino.”

“You think I might forget?”

A cleaning girl in bleached jeans and T-shirt was emptying an ashtray container down the hall from the room. She didn’t seem
to notice or care when Don Celestino pressed up against the door. The room was silent as far as he could tell. No television.
No shower. As he had suspected, the old man was probably still asleep or barely getting ready, maybe sitting on the toilet.

He stayed listening for a few seconds before he knocked.

“Fidencio?”

He knocked harder the second time and then tried the doorknob.

“Fidencio, are you asleep?”

The third knock was loud enough to hear in the bathroom, if that’s where he was. Don Celestino told himself there were plenty
of reasons why he might not be opening the door, though he couldn’t see why he wouldn’t at least answer, let him know that
he had heard him knocking.

When it was clear that his brother wasn’t going to open the door, Don Celestino asked the cleaning girl for help. She walked
over, dragging a plastic trash bag as if someone might take off with it when she had her back turned. Her dark hair, still
wet from her shower that morning, was pulled back into a high ponytail.

“And your key?” she asked.

“I have my key.” He dangled it from the wooden slat with his upstairs room number written on it. “But my brother’s not answering
his door.”

“Maybe because he doesn’t want to come out or wants you to leave him alone.” Her slew of keys hung off a large metal ring
like a jailer might carry.

“Yes, but he’s an older man.”

The girl stared at him for a moment, as if she were attempting to do the math in her head. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she
said as she inserted the key. “The manager is the one you should go tell.”

She knocked as she was turning the knob, and then into the door frame called out, “Hello? Cleaning!”

She pushed open the door less than an inch before the security chain pulled taut and then someone pushed back from the other
side. “I knew this was a mistake,” she said, and moved over.

“Fidencio,” his brother said into the tiny crack between the door and the door frame. “Open the door already.”

“Go away!” the old man shouted from somewhere inside the room.

“What happened to breakfast, like we said?”

“Nothing, leave me alone.”

“What do you mean, leave you alone?” Don Celestino was now talking down at the doorknob as if it were some type of transmitter.
“We need to catch a bus, remember, to Linares?”

“Go yourself!”

“Are you sick?”

“Ya, I told you to leave me alone!”

The door to the next room opened and a bare-chested man peered down the hall. He cocked back his head as if to ask what exactly
the problem was at 7:23 in the morning. The cleaning girl waved hello to him.

“Now let’s see if he doesn’t call the manager and they run me off,” she muttered after the man had gone back inside.

Socorro walked up as Don Celestino was pressing his shoulder against the door. It took some convincing that he was going to
hurt himself before he backed away and finally agreed to go wait in the restaurant. Maybe she could get the old man to open
the door. The cleaning girl returned to her work down the hall but kept looking back every so often.

Socorro leaned into the closed door. “But you don’t feel sick, right?”

“No, you can go and leave me, there’s nothing wrong.”

“And you took your medicines again today?”

“Yes, all of them,” Don Fidencio said, tired of all the questions. “Just like yesterday.”

“You slept good?”

“All night, like a baby.”

“Then?”

“Please, just leave me.”

“Take as long as you want, but I’m not going anywhere.”

“And then what, you think you’re just going to be there, standing in the hall?”

“I can sit if I get tired,” she said.

“How will that look, a young lady sitting on the floor outside a hotel room?”