Pepe must not have realized that the mixed word carried pro and con meanings, and Father Alfonso and Father Octavio failed to see how an indigenous-looking Virgin Mary (with a fighter’s nose) could be anything resembling a “blessing.”
“I think you mean a ‘mixed bag,’ Pepe,” Señor Eduardo helpfully said, but this was not well received by the two old priests, either.
Father Alfonso and Father Octavio did not want to think of the Virgin Mary as anything resembling a “bag.”
“This Mary is what she is,” Lupe said. “She’s already done more than I expected her to do,” Lupe told them. “At least she’s done something, hasn’t she?” Lupe asked the two old priests. “Who cares where her nose came from? Why does her nose have to be a miracle? Or why can’t it be a miracle? Why do you have to interpret everything?” she asked the two old priests. “Does anyone know what the real Virgin Mary looked like?” Lupe asked all of them. “Do we know the color of the real virgin’s skin, or what kind of nose she had?” Lupe asked; she was on a roll. Juan Diego translated every word she said.
Even the new-nose devotees had stopped gawking at the Mary Monster; they’d turned their attention to the babbling girl. The dump boss had looked up from his silent prayers. And they all saw that Vargas had been there the whole time. Dr. Vargas was standing at some distance from the towering statue. He’d been looking at the Virgin Mary’s new nose through a pair of binoculars; Vargas had already asked the new cleaning woman to bring him the long ladder.
“I would like to add one thing Shakespeare wrote,” Edward Bonshaw — ever the teacher — said. (It was that familiar passage from the Iowan’s beloved Romeo and Juliet.) “ ‘What’s in a name?’ ” Señor Eduardo recited to them — the scholastic changed the rose word to nose, naturally. “ ‘That which we call a nose / By any other word would smell as sweet,’ ” Edward Bonshaw orated in a booming voice.
Father Alfonso and Father Octavio had been speechless upon hearing Juan Diego’s translation of Lupe’s inspired utterances, but Shakespeare hadn’t impressed the two old priests — they’d heard Shakespeare before, very secular stuff.
“It’s a question of materials, Vargas — her face, the new nose, are they the same material?” Father Alfonso asked the doctor, who was still examining the nose in question through his all-seeing binoculars.
“And we’re wondering if there’s a visible seam or crack where the nose attaches to her face,” Father Octavio added.
The cleaning woman (this sturdy roughneck looked like a cleaning woman) was dragging the ladder down the center aisle; Esperanza could not have dragged that long ladder (she certainly couldn’t have carried it) by herself. Vargas helped the cleaning woman set up the ladder, leaning it against the giantess.
“I’m not remembering how the Mary Monster reacts to ladders,” Lupe said to Juan Diego.
“I’m not remembering with you,” was all Juan Diego told her.
The dump kids didn’t know, for sure, if the Mary Monster’s former nose had been made of wood or stone; both Lupe and Juan Diego believed it was wood, painted wood. But, years later, when Brother Pepe wrote to Juan Diego about the “interior restoration” of the Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, Pepe had mentioned the “new limestone.”
“Did you know,” Pepe had asked Juan Diego, “that limestone yields lime when burned?” Juan Diego didn’t know that, nor did he understand if Pepe meant the Mary Monster herself had been restored. Was the giant virgin included in what Pepe had called the temple’s “interior restoration”—and, if so, did the restored statue (now made of “new limestone”) imply that the former Virgin Mary had been made of another kind of stone?
As Vargas climbed the ladder to get a closer look at the Mary Monster’s face — inscrutable, for the moment; the indigenous-looking virgin’s eyes betrayed no potential for animation, so far — Lupe read Juan Diego’s mind.
“Yes, I’m also thinking wood — not stone,” Lupe said to Juan Diego. “On the other hand, if Rivera was using woodworking chisels for cutting and shaping stone—well, that might explain why he cut himself. I’ve never seen him cut himself before, have you?” Lupe asked her brother.
“No,” Juan Diego said. He was thinking that both noses were made of wood, but that Vargas would probably find a way to sound scientific without saying too much about the material composition of the miraculous (or unmiraculous) new nose.
The two old priests were watching Vargas intently, though the doctor was a long way up the ladder; it was hard to see what Vargas was doing, exactly.
“Is that a knife? You’re not cutting her, are you?” Father Alfonso called up the long ladder.
“That’s a Swiss Army knife. I used to have one, but—” Edward Bonshaw began, before Father Octavio interrupted him.
“We’re not asking you to draw blood, Vargas!” Father Octavio called up the long ladder.
Lupe and Juan Diego didn’t care about the Swiss Army knife; they watched the Virgin Mary’s unresponsive eyes.
“I must say, this is a pretty seamless nose job,” Dr. Vargas reported from near the top of the precarious-looking ladder. “As surgery goes, there’s often quite a distinction between the amateur and the sublime.”
“Are you saying this surgery is in the sublime category, but a surgery nonetheless?” Father Alfonso called up the ladder.
“There’s a slight blemish on the side of one nostril, like a birthmark — you would never see it from down there,” Vargas said to Father Alfonso.
The so-called birthmark could have been a bloodstain, Juan Diego was thinking.
“Yes, it could be blood,” Lupe said to her brother. “El jefe must have bled a lot.”
“The Virgin Mary has a birthmark?” Father Octavio asked indignantly.
“It’s not a flaw — it’s actually intriguing,” Vargas said.
“And the materials, Vargas — her face, the new nose?” Father Octavio reminded the scientist.
“Oh, there is more of the world about this lady than I detect of Heaven,” Vargas said; he was having fun with the two old priests, and they knew it. “More of the basurero in her perfume than I can smell of the sweet Hereafter.”
“Stick to science, Vargas,” Father Alfonso said.
“If we want poetry, we’ll read Shakespeare,” Father Octavio said, glaring at the parrot man, who understood from Father Octavio’s expression not to recite more passages from Romeo and Juliet.
The dump boss was done praying; he was no longer on his knees. Whether the new nose was his doing or not, el jefe wasn’t saying; he was keeping his bandage clean and dry, and he was keeping quiet.
Rivera would have left the temple, leaving Vargas high on the ladder and the two old priests feeling mocked, but Lupe must have wanted all of them to be there when she spoke. Only later would Juan Diego realize why she’d wanted all of them to hear her.
The last of the idiot nose-gawkers had left the temple; maybe they’d been miracle-seekers, but they knew enough about the real world to know they weren’t likely to hear the milagro word from a doctor with binoculars and a Swiss Army knife on a ladder.
“It’s a nose for a nose — that’s good enough for me. Translate everything I say,” Lupe said to Juan Diego. “When I die, don’t burn me. Give me the whole hocus-pocus,” Lupe said, looking straight at Father Alfonso and Father Octavio. “If you want to burn something,” she said to Rivera and Juan Diego, “you can burn my clothes — my few things. If a new puppy has died — well, sure, you can burn the puppy with my stuff. But don’t burn me. Give me what she would want me to have,” Lupe told them all — pointing to the Mary Monster with the boxer’s nose. “And sprinkle—just sprinkle, don’t throw — the ashes at the Virgin Mary’s feet. Like you said the first time,” Lupe said to the parrot man, “maybe not all the ashes, and only at her feet!”