The road climbed uphill along a cliff for a while, then dropped down again between sand dunes, sometimes disappearing entirely, only to reappear a few yards farther on like a magician’s scarf. At one point there was a fork not indicated on the map. The east branch showed signs of more frequent use than the west. If the señora was correct in claiming that no one went to Bahía de Ballenas, then the west branch seemed the better choice. He took it.
The sun, which had seemed so gentle and friendly at dawn, was turning into a monster that couldn’t be pacified or controlled. He wasn’t sure at what point or why the Ford’s air conditioner blew out, but he suddenly became aware that he was riding in an oven with the heat turned on full and that he’d better do something about it fast. He stopped in the meager shade of some mesquite, opened all the car windows and two of the bottles of beer. The beer had been in the oven with him and did nothing to quench his thirst, but it improved his general outlook from terrible to bad. He was, if not lost, certainly misplaced. The road, which had never been more than a series of tire tracks, was now visible only at times when the capricious wind deposited the sand short of it or beyond it. He wondered how B. J. had ever maneuvered a vehicle the size of Dreamboat as far as Bahía de Ballenas. Of course the girl, Tula, had lived in this area with her relatives and was familiar with it. She would have known which road to avoid, and this was undoubtedly it.
A mixed flock of gulls and smaller, more agile sea birds often flew low over the car like an advance patrol. They had a cool confident air as if they knew exactly what they were doing. Aragon started the engine again and followed them.
At the top of the next sand dune Bahía de Ballenas came into view, a half circle of sparkling blue water surrounded by desert. A few small fishing boats were tied up at a battered pier. The only other boat visible rode at anchor in the middle of the bay, a grey sloop sleek as a dolphin. It was flying both American and Mexican, ensigns, a purple-and-white yacht-club burgee and an officers’ flag. At the water’s edge were some salt-water conversion tanks, an old fish cannery that looked abandoned and half a dozen wooden shacks. On higher ground stood the crumbling remains of a small adobe mission. Between the mission and the shacks was the inevitable collection of children and chickens and dogs and goats all covered with dust. An invisible and insurmountable barrier seemed to separate the clean clear water of the bay from the dirty little village and its people.
The children, ranging in age from a baby barely able to walk to a twelve-or thirteen-year-old girl, were ragged and shoeless, like the mestizos of Viñadaco, but different in appearance. These were darker-skinned, with rounded features and soft expressive brown eyes. Under their grimy clothes their bodies looked well-nourished and healthy except for one boy who had a withered left leg.
Aragon addressed the girl. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Is this place Bahía de Ballenas?”
She nodded. The other children broke into giggles as if they’d never before heard such a funny question. Was this place Bahía de Ballenas? Of course. It had to be. There wasn’t any other place.
“What’s your name?”
“Valeria. What’s your name?”
“Tomas.”
“I have a chicken named Tomas. He doesn’t lay eggs and he’s mean.”
“Boys don’t lay eggs.”
“Chickens do.”
“Boy chickens don’t.”
“I know that. I just told you he doesn’t.”
“Okay, okay. Whatever game we’re playing, you win.”
She accepted her victory with the equanimity of a champion. “I’m grown up. Next year I might marry my cousin Raul. He lives in a real house beyond that hill over there.”
She pointed. Aragon couldn’t see any house and there were half a dozen hills all exactly the same. He turned his attention to the boy with the withered leg. “What’s your name?”
“Okay okay.”
“Is that what they call you?”
“Okay okay.”
Suddenly the boy thrust his hand in the window of the car and honked the horn. The children began running away, shrieking with laughter, followed by their squawking barking baaing retinue of animals. He got out of the car intending to follow them, but a voice stopped him, the high cracked voice of someone very old: “Good morning. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Aragon turned. A man was standing in the doorway of the crumbling mission. He wore a straw hat and the remnants of a brown priest’s robe tied at the waist with a piece of rope. He was tiny and shriveled as though he’d been left too long in the sun. One of his eyes was bloodshot and dripped tears that ran down the deepest groove in his cheek. Flecks of salt from previous tears glistened on his face when he pushed back his hat.
“Are you lost, friend?”
“This is Bahía de Ballenas?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m not lost. I’ve been looking for it.”
“Not many people look for us. This is a pleasant surprise. What is your name?”
“Tomas Aragon.”
“Everyone calls me padre. I once had a real name, but it slips my mind now and then. No matter. Such things are not important where everybody knows everybody. Will you come inside where it’s cool?”
“Thank you, padre.”
“Padre is a courtesy title only. I have long since left the Church, but it has not left me. I am allowed to live here. The villagers and I have mutual respect. I give them comfort when I can and take it when I must.”
The doorway was so low that Aragon had to stoop to enter. The man noticed his hesitation.
“Have no fear for your safety, friend. These walls will last beyond my time and yours. Adobe is a very fine building material in a climate like this. It is strong. And more, it is friendly, absorbing heat during the day and giving it back during the night.”
The room was only a little larger than the cabin Aragon had occupied the previous night at Viñadaco, but it was cool and comfortable, furnished with a cot, a table and chairs and an adobe bench in front of the altar. Dwarfing the room and its contents was a life-sized and extremely ugly statue of the Virgin Mary. It was all grey like an angel of death.
The padre looked up at her with affection. “I made her myself. The original statue fell and broke during an earthquake, so I spent some years, ten, perhaps twelve or thirteen — tempus fugit — fashioning a replacement. It is the only gift I will leave behind for the villagers when I die.”
“It’s very impressive.”
“Yes. Yes, I think so. Inside, to hold her together, I piled stones which the children helped me collect. And the sculpting material is what we use to make our cooking stoves, water poured over hot ashes and mixed into a paste. Each day, every time I had a fire, I added a little, and there she is.” He crossed himself. “Now I don’t have to worry so much that the villagers will lose touch with God after I’m gone. They will have the Blessed Virgin to remind them... I was about to eat my midday meal. Will you be my guest?”
“Thanks.”
“Simple fare, a bit of mullet I cooked this morning and some pitahaya. The Americans in La Paz used to call it organ-pipe cactus, so it seems most fitting to serve it in my little church, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”