The Empty Trap (6 page)

The man of the house was named Armando, a squat brown man with a look of leathery toughness, a shock of startlingly white hair. His woman, the mother of the boys, was Concha who was perhaps thirty, perhaps twenty years younger than Armando, a placid heavy woman who sometimes fed him, spooning soups and thick pastes through the gap where teeth had been, holding him up gently when she held the pottery cup of cold water to his lips, washing his body with brusque efficiency in which there was a leavening of tenderness.

Usually it was the girl who took care of him. Her name was Isabella, and often they called her ’Bella or ’Bellita. She seemed to be seventeen or eighteen, a sturdy girl with a broad brown face in which he saw a family resemblance to the three boys, with black thick brows, black braided hair coarse and shiny as the tail hair of a black horse. She came to feed him and care for his needs during the day when the others worked, came to him smelling of sun and the fields and of sweat, impersonally gentle, sometimes crooning to him with the reassuring sounds
you make to a small child. He knew she was not directly of this family, yet somehow related. She called Concha Tia, and Armando Tio. It was Isabella who taught the small boys. She made them drone lessons in unison, and she made them draw letters in the packed dirt outside the room with a pointed stick.

Other people often came to the rooms and there was much talk. And much laughter. And often music and singing. These were poor people, he knew. They worked very hard. Their life had a certain cadence of love. Many times other women, two or three, would come to visit Concha. They would bring flat stones and stone rollers and they would sit for tireless hours on the floor, crosslegged, grinding corn. With water and lime water they would turn the white powder into a paste, then slap it into tortillas. The slapping sounds merged with the sun and the sleepy afternoon, and their light quick voices as they worked and talked.

They were a clean people. He could hear the sound of falling water not far away. They used a coarse soap. Isabella sometimes wore her braids in coronet fashion. Other times the two long braids dangled. Sometimes when she bent over him, one of the coarse gleaming ropes would fall across his face, smelling of sun and freshness and the strong soap. There were goats that sometimes came and peered in at the door. When the wary scrawny chickens wandered in, Concha would flap her skirts and chase them out.

For a long time he was aware only of such a complete weariness, such an utter exhaustion, that he could not do anything for himself, nor could he concentrate long on what went on around him. His attention span was as short as that of a small child, and he slept often. He did not try to speak. In sleep he did not dream.

Then, when the days were very warm, he began to take an interest in things around him, and began to do more for himself. When he hitched himself up into a half-sitting position and reached for the bowl, Isabella let him feed himself until, half-way through, his hands and arms became too weary. It was then that he began to
exercise as he lay there, working the muscles of arms and legs, shoulders, back and belly, bringing the strength slowly back. And he began to try to say some of the words he heard. Because of the tied jaw, his articulation was both guttural and hissing, but he could say “Gracias” to them so they could understand it and smile at him and beam very proudly. He listened when they talked, and though he began to understand a phrase here and there, he could not follow any conversation.

It was Isabella during one day of rain who took the initiative. She sat crosslegged by his pallet, expression earnest, voice taking on the same flavor of authority she used when she taught the small boys. She pointed to her head and said, “Cabeza,” then waited until he repeated it in his curious voice. Then a heavy braid in her hand. “Pelo.” Then, “Pelo negro.” And then the words for hand, foot, arm, eye, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, neck, fingers, knee, ear, stomach, heart. Then, mutely, she pointed at each object in turn. He missed two out of the list the first time, made a perfect score the second time. She smiled broadly and with pleasure at him.

It was either that day or the next, when they were away that he managed to crawl through the doorway, and, shaking with the effort, brace his back against the adobe wall and soak up the sunlight. He looked at the hills, and down the slope of the valley. He saw the other huts with their thatched roofs. Each was built into the living hillside, so that they were half hut, half cave. He saw the sparkling fall of water, a stream that came from a cleft in the rock and fell ten feet, shining like silver, a column thick as a man’s body, sending up a mist that made a permanent rainbow. He looked at the wide blue of the sky and looked down at his outstretched legs. He guessed he could not weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds. In full health he had carried a hundred and eighty pounds on his six-foot, two-inch frame, a man of heavy bone structure and quick lithe muscles. Tears of weakness ran from his eyes into the heavy mat of ginger beard.

They made exclamations of wonder when they returned,
and they helped him back to the pallet. After that there were lessons each day. As the words and ideas became more abstract, Isabella was forced to act them out. She would sit for a time, frowning at the wall, then leap up and, in pantomime, create the meaning for the word she taught him. He listened to them and could not understand them and thought he would never learn the language. It changed for him, suddenly and dramatically one evening. They sat outside in moonlight and they were talking and he was making no particular effort to understand them. And, as though some hidden switch in his mind had been turned on, he found that he could understand. They spoke of a Roberto and whether it was time for him to go to Talascatan again, and what objects he should bring back from the village. He sat up in the darkness and he was very excited. He listened. He missed many words, but he could follow all they said. And he could understand words he had not realized he knew. Some of them had slipped into his mind during the early weeks when he was close to death, he decided.

From then on he and Isabella began to speak together in simple sentences. When the others understood they should go slowly, he could converse with them too. He became pleased with his own increasing proficiency. One afternoon Armando brought a man back with him. Lloyd was sitting outside. They squatted on either side of him, fingered the bound jaw, argued violently. Armando, Lloyd understood, felt that the jaw was now sufficiently healed, that enough time had passed. The other man, Rosario, claimed that when a man had been very ill, the bones healed more slowly. Armando said heatedly that if it was bound much longer, it would no longer work. In the end they cut the strip of leather. It had worked itself into the flesh of the underside of his jaw and had to be pulled free gently. Both men were delighted when Lloyd thanked them with an articulation he could not previously manage. There had been a considerable atrophy of the muscles. When he sat upright his lower jaw, after a period of time, tended to sag. He could not chew at first, and later,
when the muscles had regained strength, he could only chew far back on the grinding molars.

The sun had moved and the nights began to be chilly. When he asked, Isabella told him it was the seventeenth day of October. It shocked him to learn how many months had gone by. Five months and eight days since he had gone over the cliff. He walked for the first time that day, sweating with effort, leaning heavily on the sturdy shoulders of Isabella, walking ten steps while she grinned encouragement. His left ankle was very stiff, yet not frozen in place. He could move it, but only at the expense of grating pain. For three days it was too swollen to attempt walking again. Soon he could walk without help, but not far. He felt too tall, teetering and fragile, like a man on a tightrope. Appetite and strength improved and he began to put on weight more rapidly.

As yet, with any of them, there had been no talk of past or future. On a day colder than any that had gone before, Isabella came to him with a strange shyness. She held something out to him and said, “Is it permitted to wear this?”

He took it from her and it took long moments to identify it. It came from another life, a life before this one. He saw that it was one of Sylvia’s sweaters, cashmere in a dark red, with a design in white at the throat.

Holding it, he said, “Is there more clothing?”

“Yes. For you and for her. A lot of it.”

“It is more cold now. You and Concha must take her clothing and use it. She is dead.”

“I know. What was her name?”

“Sylvia. And the other clothing, the boys must use what can be fitted to them. You have … shared all you have with me. I will share with you.”

She thanked him. She wore Sylvia’s clothing. The skirts were too long. They fit at the waist, but were tight over Isabella’s heavier hips. She was shy at first, and then pleased with herself. Armando self-consciously wore one of Lloyd’s tweed jackets. It fit across the shoulders, but came almost to his knees.

He said one day to Isabella, “How did I come here?”

She looked at him and finally nodded. “It is time to talk. I will tell my uncle.”

There was a conference that evening. Goat skin covered the doorway, a protection against the chill of the nights. Now, each night, the cook fire was left burning. The lantern was lighted on this special occasion. The boys were sent into the adjoining room. Armando, Concha, Isabella, the man named Roberto, and Lloyd sat around the lantern.

“We must talk,” Armando said. And he reached over and handed Lloyd an object which Lloyd recognized as his own wallet. Lloyd halted himself just in time before looking in it. He sensed that would be rude. He put it casually aside and said, “Thank you.”

“It contains thirty-four American dollars and eleven hundred and ten pesos. It is a great deal of money,” Armando said.

But not enough, Lloyd thought, even to tempt Tulsa or Benny to take it. That was part of the window dressing if the accident was discovered. “I thank you for saving it for me.”

Armando nodded gravely. He told the story. When it was Roberto’s turn, he took over. They both spoke slowly for Lloyd’s sake. Roberto had been gathering charcoal after a mountain fire. He had his two burros with him. He had looked down into a valley and seen a glint of metal. All the way home he had wondered about it, and, two days later, had gone down into the valley with one burro. He had found the Señor Lloyd in madness, very close to death. Roberto had waited for death to come, but it did not. Finally he had placed the Señor Lloyd on the burro and had brought him back to this place. He did not die on the seven hour trip as Roberto had expected. They were mountain people here, accustomed to the breaking of bones and the fixing of bones. They fixed the jaw and the wrist and the ankle, not as well as a doctor could do it, but as well as they could. The fever was very bad. He was like a bed of coals. They gave him remedies and waited for him to die. It was a curious problem. If the Señor Lloyd should die, then the money and the things from
the automobile would properly belong to Roberto, and to Armando who was his cousin. This was fair because it had been Armando who, hearing Roberto’s story, had urged him to go back to the valley. But it was not permitted to kill the Señor Lloyd. They were not murderers in this valley, except for a true cause, and to make profit was not a true cause. It was equally murder to neglect a man’s wounds. The honorable thing was to care for the Señor Lloyd. If he died, there would be no question of taking his money and possessions. If he lived, such a thing could not be done. They were not thieves in this valley. The Señor Lloyd had lived and now was stronger each day. When the time came, they would bind his eyes and Roberto would take him to a place where he could easily walk to the village of Talascatan. It was regrettable the binding of the eyes was necessary, but a vote had been taken, and though it would appear the Señor Lloyd had reasons for being grateful, it was best that no one should worry about such a matter.

And now, in fairness, it should be explained why no doctor was brought to the Señor Lloyd. There are twenty-eight persons in this valley, counting the children. There was political trouble in the village of Pinal Blanco, a village which is two villages beyond Talascatan. There was a tax matter and killing, and powerful enemies made. A price was placed on the heads of certain men. The choice was to become bandits, or live in a hidden place in peace. They were not thieves, nor murderers. This is a hidden valley. The trail is very difficult. Roberto, who is not wanted by the law, goes to Talascatan for their needs. It is a way to live in peace, but there are difficulties. No doctor, no schools, no church. But that is better than being a bandit, no?

Armando said, into the silence, “And you have strong enemies too, Señor Lloyd.”

It was statement, not question. They would have seen the burns on chest and feet. They had been frank, and expected an equal frankness.

“They are enemies from my country. They followed me here. They found me at a hotel in Talascatan. They
strangled the woman, put us in my car and pushed us over the edge.”

There was a gasp of horror and interest. “I do not know how it is you live,” Armando said.

“They believe me dead.”

Armando fingered his chin. “If they did this thing, why did they not take your money?” he said suspiciously.

“They took money. They took so much money, the little they left me was not of importance.”

“What will you do?”

“When I am strong, I will leave here and I will go back to my country and I will kill them.”

Armando and Roberto nodded.

“There are four of them,” Lloyd said.

Roberto said, “It is miraculous that a man as badly broken could raise up such a great pile of stones over the body of the woman.”

“So the zopilotes would not have her body,” Lloyd said. “They angered me.”

“If that is the quality of your anger,” Roberto said, “when you are in health you can kill them with your hands.”

“All but one. With him I am a child.”

“Then use the knife.”