“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. My memory has dulled with age.”
“Tomas Aragon.”
“Would it be suitable if I called you Tomas?”
“I’d be pleased.”
The two men sat down facing each other across the wooden table. The padre blessed the piece of mullet on the battered tin plate and waved away the flies buzzing around it. Though the fish had a slight greenish iridescence, it tasted all right, and the pitahaya was similar to what he’d been served at the café in Viñadaco, only sweeter and juicier. After the meal Aragon went out to the car and brought in several bottles of beer.
“My saints and sinners,” the padre said. “This is a great surprise.”
“It’s very warm, if you don’t mind...”
“Oh, no no no. I like it any way at all. Tecate. I haven’t tasted that for a long time. This is an occasion, Tomas, yes, a celebration. We ought to make a toast. What do you suggest?”
“To your health, padre.”
“To your safe journey, Tomas.”
“To your village and the future of its children.”
“That’s the best toast. To their future.”
The two men drank. The beer was the temperature of restaurant tea.
“One of the girls has her future planned,” Aragon said. “She will marry her cousin Raul and live in a real house.”
“That would be Valeria. Always planning, already like a woman.”
“I haven’t seen any real houses in Bahía de Ballenas. Perhaps she is dreaming.”
“Perhaps. Now if you will excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll go and bury the remains of our meal.”
“Let me help.”
“No. No, it won’t take long. Sit and contemplate the Blessed Virgin.”
It would have been difficult in that small room to contemplate anything else, so Aragon did as he was told. In spite of the strong beer, the statue of the Virgin remained ugly. There was a frightening determination about her face that reminded him of Violet Smith. It was now Sunday afternoon. In a few hours Violet Smith would be setting out for church to sing hymns — sharing her hymn book with B. J.’s first wife, Ethel — and stand up afterward in front of the assemblage to voice her problems and concerns. Perhaps she would tell about the young man who was hired by B. J.’s second wife to go on a confidential mission, giving names and places and dates and whatever other details she might have wormed out of Gilly or Reed, or overheard on an extension phone or through a thin closed door.
When the padre returned, his breath was wheezing in and out of his lungs like the air through an old leaky accordion.
Aragon said, “Do you teach the children?”
“Whatever and whenever possible.”
“I noticed one of the boys has a deformed leg and acts retarded.”
“A child of God.”
“His skin seems somewhat lighter than that of the others. His parents—”
“He is an orphan.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Mexico all people love children. Pablo can live anywhere.”
“But where does he live?”
“It would break hearts if he were ever taken away. If you have any such thought, any reason—”
“No. None.”
“He is much beloved, a child marked by God.” The padre crossed himself, then frowned briefly through the open door at the sky as if for a fraction of a second he was questioning God’s common sense. “He lives with his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. A happy family. It would be a pity to disturb their tranquility.”
“Where are his parents?”
“Gone. They left here years ago. They couldn’t take the boy along because the authorities wouldn’t allow it. You yourself are not from them, from the authorities?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t think I should answer any more questions. It might appear to be gossiping... When tragedy strikes, everyone likes to talk about it, that’s human nature. But it all happened in the distant past. Pablo doesn’t remember his mother. To him everything is ten minutes ago, or an hour, or at most, yesterday. Even if he were normal, no one would remind him of her. She fell from grace.”
“Does she communicate with the family?”
“No. She wouldn’t want to, anyway, but even if she did, we have no telephones or mail service. There was talk of mail service once when someone was going to build here. Nothing came of either the building or the service. No matter, we survive.”
“What about the boy’s father?”
The padre considered the question in silence, squinting out at the sky again, this time for guidance. “He was an American. You see, Tula went away for a while to America. She had an unexpected opportunity to make a fortune. A fortune around here is very little, and when Tula saw her chance to go and get a job in America, she reached out and grabbed it.”
“Who gave her the chance?”
“One Christmas a couple came along in a truck loaded with old clothes and bedding and things like soap and canned goods to distribute to the more remote villagers in Baja. Tula persuaded the couple to take her back with them. She was very pretty, not too smart, but she could talk the ears off a donkey. So the people agreed and off she went. We heard nothing from her for a year or more. Then she came back married to a rich American and riding in a veritable chariot. My saints and sinners, what a vision she was, dressed like a princess and waving from the window of the chariot. Some of the women began screaming. They thought Tula had died and gone to heaven and this was her spirit. Oh, it was a great day. Everybody got drunk.”
“What happened to the chariot?”
The padre’s excitement faded. The great day was finished, everybody was sober, the chariot in ruins and the princess a long time missing.
“It never moved again. Its wheels got stuck in the sand and the engine broke down and there was no fuel anyway.”
“And now it’s the ‘real house’ the girl Valeria referred to in her marriage plans?”
“Yes. But you mustn’t go there, you will disturb the family’s tranquility.”
“Does Pablo live with them?”
“You most certainly can’t talk to him. He doesn’t understand. He is like a parrot, only repeating noises he hears. And the family will not want to discuss Tula, because she fell from grace... But I can see you’re not hearing me, Tomas.”
“I’m hearing you, padre,” Aragon said. “I just can’t afford to listen.”
Seven
Only a few letters of the name still faintly visible on one side identified the ravaged hulk as Gilly’s Dreamboat. The wheels had disappeared into the ground and most of the windows were broken. The paint had been scratched by chollas and creosote bushes, rusted by fog and salt air, blasted off by wind-driven sand.
On the roof was an old sun-bleached, urine-stained mattress. A lone chicken sat in the middle of it, casually pecking out the stuffing. It was the only living thing in sight. Yet Aragon was positive that there were people inside watching his approach with quiet hostility as if they’d already found out the purpose of his visit. It seemed impossible, though he knew it wasn’t. In places where more sophisticated forms of communication were lacking, the grapevine was quick and efficient, and the fact that he’d seen no one outside the mission while he was talking to the padre meant nothing.
“Hello? Hello, in there! Can you hear me?”
He didn’t expect an answer and none came. But he kept trying.
“Listen to me. I came from the United States looking for Mr. Lockwood, Byron James Lockwood. Can anyone give me some information about him or about Tula?”
If they could, they didn’t intend to. The silence seemed even more profound: Tula’s fall from grace had evidently been far and final.
“The padre will tell you that I mean no harm. And I’m offering money in return for information. Doesn’t anyone want money?”