Pacazo (43 page)

Mireille joins us, and she has brought a frisbee. She assumes that I can throw it great distances. When she learns that I cannot, she believes I wish to learn and is equally wrong, but Reynaldo is watching from the balcony, and Karina and Mariángel are underneath, watching from the shade among the wooden beams.

There is too much wind, this is evident. I state the fact, and still Mireille wishes to play. The distance between us lessens and the distance we must run to attempt catches grows. All the same at some point there is a transformation, a need to make one catch, a single catch with some measure of grace or style. At last there is a throw that I might perhaps reach, and I run, the wind dies and the frisbee floats and I run, great sprays of sand and the frisbee hangs and I run and it drifts and I run and reach and hit something very solid very hard.

It takes longer than I would have expected for faces to appear above me. It takes even longer for my breath to return, and still longer for the faces to stop laughing and Mariángel to stop applauding. When I can speak I ask Reynaldo for something to drink, and he nods and jogs.

Others have gathered, neighbors and construction workers. I am helped to a sitting position. What I hit, it was a cement piling from a house El Niño took away. The piling no longer stands straight, and this is my doing, which is some consolation.

Armando arrives, receives the story, tries not to laugh. He takes Mariángel up, tells me that he and Karina will babysit so that I might rest. This is what I had planned to do today even before hitting the cement piling, and I thank him for making it easier and more thorough.

I sleep on and off and in the evening there is another idea: Mireille wishes to see the service that replaces Mass this one day each year. Everyone else agrees. I had forgotten that today was Good Friday, but am feeling substantially better, have no objections or other suggestions.

Again the walk up, branching right, to the rise on which the church rests. There is a single bell tower that would be white if not for the past months of rain. The rest of the building is sand-colored, squat and deeply worn, all but windowless. The main doors face straight out to sea and a plaque in front declares the church a national monument. The declaration is dated Janary 20, 1983—the very heart not of this El Niño but of the last one.

Dogs are gathering, perhaps a dozen, but they do not have the energy to bark in this heat. As we enter Mireille points at a carving of a double-headed eagle. She whispers something about royal crests and Hapsburgs, and Karina nods and shakes her head.

The service has already begun and the church is full: people from the town dressed in black and weeping, people from summer homes dressed not in black and watching, and several more dogs. The only light is that of candles, and this is an ancient custom or a result of the blown transformer. There is also a band, four aged men with aged wind instruments, and at times they play mutually compatible notes. The muscles of my stomach ache but there is not enough bruising to justify any complaint.

Along the walls are many objects, carvings and paintings and metalwork, and I have studied each before, would welcome the chance to see them again, but they have all been covered with loose burlap. The service proceeds for some time, communion but no consecration. The dogs wander. Wind moves through the church and extinguishes large numbers of candles, but preparations have been made, men are ready, they relight each candle gone dark.

At last the service nears completion. Christ is removed from the cross, and a statue of Mary with movable arms is lifted, and they work through the church, are carried out the doors. Those around us follow, a procession that will circle the town, Reynaldo says, will end only at dawn.

We return to the house, Mariángel asleep and carried by Karina, but she wakes as Karina lays her in the playpen, is furious for reasons I cannot determine. Again and again she demands to be lifted out, to be allowed to walk unassisted. Each time she is freed she begins a search for breakables. It is half an hour and a shattered coffee mug and the rubber pig thrown off the balcony into the surf before she is quiet again.

I join the others gathered on the balcony. There is a round of beer, and another, and several more. We talk of nothing and then as Mireille fills my glass she asks how it is that I do not believe in God.

I toast her question, and say that I do not remember ever saying anything of that kind to her. She says that I did not have to. I look to Karina and Reynaldo and Armando for assistance with a simple exit. They smile and have no interest in helping.

- I am the same as you, I say.

- That is not an answer, she says.

- It is. We all do what we can to beat death back.

- That is interesting but macabre and also not an answer.

- We beat death back with narrative.

- Oh dear.

- Yours was religious but there are many kinds, and you and I make use of some of the same: genealogical, regional, national.

- This is truly your answer, isn’t it.

- Look. Biologically each of us is pointless. And we cannot bear being pointless. So we create a point by placing ourselves in stories that grow ever longer.

- John, I surrender.

- You are not allowed to surrender, not yet, and death is the anti-narrative. It is the story not even ending but simply stopping. If the story never ends, death loses. Now you may surrender.

There is a silence. Then laughter. Mireille thanks me for accompanying her to the church. I say that I am glad to have gone. She smiles at everyone, stands and goes to her room. I breathe deeply, catch myself mid-exhalation when she returns. She holds up a deck of cards, asks if anyone is interested in poker.

It is the perfect question, but no one quite remembers the rules. Karina brings out a pen and paper, and we come to slow consensus on the relative order of strength of hands and suits. There is still more beer, and more. We use wooden matches as poker chips, ten céntimos per match. At first there is conversation, but it fades, and we play as if millions or lives were at stake.

It is the sudden absence of beer that in some sense wakes us. Hours have passed. Armando and Karina are out of matches and no one else any longer cares. We shake our heads, cash out our winnings, dump the matches back into the box.

We promise one another that tomorrow there will be adventure, but I know already that we will sleep poorly, the chants of mourning brought to us now and again on the wind. Karina ruffles my hair, says that she liked my little speech, kisses me on the cheek and walks away. Reynaldo and Mireille say goodnight and are gone. I am gathering strength to stand and then Armando’s hand is on my thigh.

I look at him. A moment later he withdraws his hand, looks down.

- I’m sorry, he says. From what you said, I thought we—

- What did I say?

-
Our kind.

- I don’t—

- At Günther’s party. You said you hadn’t thought our kind was welcome at the university.

- Our kind as in constructivists, Armando. As in tropologists. Not as in gay.

- Oh.

- It doesn’t matter.

- It does, he says.

I pat him on the shoulder. He stands, starts to say something, walks to the door.

- It really doesn’t, I call after him. You do not have to worry. Things will be fine in the morning.

In the morning the beach is covered with dead fish. Chula, says Reynaldo, a trash fish, most likely unwanted catch, thousands of them simply dead, a foot long, more, silver with white bellies, large opaque scales. The smell makes the beach uninhabitable and so we begin: we fill garbage bags, one after another, first from in front of his aunt’s house, then working up and down the beach. It is our only adventure.

At night the wind bears away the smell, and we try to build a bonfire. We collect driftwood, spend an hour coaxing with newspaper and cardboard. The flames will not take hold in the wood.

I run to Armando’s sister’s house, and she says that he is reading on the balcony, has asked not to be disturbed. I walk around the house and down to the beach, take position beneath his balcony, tap repeatedly on a wooden beam with a mussel shell until he leans over the railing and asks me to stop. I say that everyone is waiting. He says that they are not. I say that at the very least he could lend us some floor wax or kerosene to help us with the bonfire. There is silence, and the flat slap of a book dropped on a table.

We walk together back to Reynaldo’s aunt’s house, unspeaking but not ill at ease. He goes to induce fire with the others, and I lead Mariángel to her room. I sing Los Rodriguez, and she dances, a flopping hopping dance, and at last she tires and sleeps.

Outside there is fire and rum and charades. In turn we step too close to the flames. As the first bottle of rum is emptied the charades become harder, though it helps that Mireille’s often involve mountains, and Karina’s often involve Italy, and Reynaldo’s often involve extraterrestrials.

Another bottle is brought out, and another. None of my charades are successfully guessed though I too have a theme and do not mean my movements to be mysterious. Time after time. It comes to seem unfair, even cruel. Another rum and no one guesses Diego de Almagro, and another rum and no one guesses Friar Valverde, and when it is my turn again I tell them it is a film and act out beating Pilar’s murderer to death with a flat stone.

No one attempts to guess. I perform the charade again. I wait, breathing heavily, sweating. Again no one guesses. I tell them to try. I tell them it is easy. I tell them they had better fucking guess it and they try and no one is even close and I all but tell them but then Karina. I had somehow forgotten she was here. They are all waiting.

- My father, I say.

I look at their faces, wave my hands.

- Telling me that I have conqueror blood in my veins. Juan de Segovia, my ancestor. What a load of shit. But helpful shit, yes? The very best kind. Made me strong. Made me angry and so very strong.

Karina comes and stands beside me, pulls my arm and I do not move.

- My father, I say. Can you believe that?

- So you are or you aren’t? says Mireille.

- Exactly, I say. For years I was and suddenly I wasn’t any more. All lies. The best kind of lies.

I look at Armando, and his eyes are blazing. I look at Reynaldo, Karina, Mireille, and they love me, all of them love me. Karina pulls on my arm again, and this time of course, and so we go.

OUT THROUGH THE DARK TREES and I do not know why but this week my classes have been fluid and deft, my students working cleanly through prepositions of time and adverbs of manner, through the schwa and defining relative clauses, through reporting verbs and false friends. During office hours they come to me in pairs and small groups, sometimes with problems and sometimes only to chat. When there are problems I try to help. When I cannot help I invent geometric proofs to show the students that their problems are slightly smaller than they thought. Then I take the students to the empty deer pen, show them the perfect square opening, request that they ponder it.

The faint shriek of fighter jets, three or perhaps four. Again to the fork in the path. To the parking lot, again the stage and floodlights. There are far fewer moths than before. There are also far fewer spectators though just as many chairs. The verbena has already begun and I search for Armando, find him, take the empty seat beside him and he smiles.

He invited me, I believe, only to have invited me, expected me to pause before giving any answer. Instead I said that I would happily go if he would accept that there were no issues between us. He agreed, and still did not think I would come or so I suspect.

A few of the jokes this evening are at my expense—my bulk, my gait, the size and colors of my underwear—but my likeness is jovial, is often allowed a last laugh. Less kindness is shown to the head librarian and her single eyebrow, to the dean and his limp, to Armando himself: there are puns on his alcoholism and effeminacy. All the same we laugh, the dean and the librarian and Armando and me, we laugh as is required.

From time to time I glance at the rector, and it seems that his laughter wanes sooner than that of those around him. There are many reasons why this might be, and when the verbena ends, students come running to talk to Armando and me, to assure us that no harm was meant, that in fact we are well loved, that laughter had been the only objective. Some of the students are sincere when they say this. Some only believe that they are. I tell them the truth, that I always attempt not to care. Armando says that he found each and every joke extremely amusing, claps the students on the shoulders and laughs, pretending to remember.

His posture is as always ever so slightly off center, his gait minimally unbalanced, not as if he were about to fall but as if at any moment he might bend to pick up something he has dropped. I thank him for having invited me, and he thanks me for having accepted. I shake his hand, shake the hands of the dean and rector, walk for home.

A hundred yards still from the gate, and there is a group of students gathered on the sidewalk beneath an algarrobo. They are staring, and I go to stand and stare with them. There is a fox stretched out dead at the base of the trunk. It is cat-sized and twilight-colored. Its skull has been crushed.

A car or truck, surely, and someone tossed the body to the side. I leave the students there staring. Some things cannot be helped.

Out and along. A few of the old smells are returning, plumeria and jasmine, and of course the smell of sweat never left. There is standing water only in the deepest of holes. Along and along. I catch myself scanning license plates, stop and look upward instead. There are fewer stars visible than one might perhaps guess, the desert haze building again.

Turning, the park and its trees, the Virgin under glass. She is no longer crying, has not cried in days, and my neighbors discuss the meaning of this more loudly than is necessary. Karina finds them preposterous. I wonder what Pilar would have thought of them. She was often open to this sort of possibility but did not speak of it with me, was unwilling in this and other respects to provoke my derision.