That water pump was like the city’s heart, my father said to himself, and in a bakery he found Hipi and the Orphan happily distributing loaves of bread, rolls, Campeche cakes and powdered-sugar cookies, crackers, and pastries to the mob, who would have taken them even if our two friends weren’t there giving them out, but the two of them were so happy to be taking part in things, as if they were washing themselves clean of all the grime and disaster of Aca, and the manipulation they’d learned of later, and now they thought they were acting on their own but this time for everyone, and they shouted to my father, join in! we need more bakeries like this one! they laughed it was their mission: let them eat bread!
Angel Palomar shook his head.
Would they meet later with Egg and Angeles over at his grandparents’ house?
Who knows, let’s see, my father shrugged his shoulders.
8. On the night of the Ayatollah
On the night of the Ayatollah, Mexico City once again witnessed everything it could bear: only the memory (extinct) of the fall of the Aztec capital or the forgetting (voluntary) of the memory of the earthquake of September 19, 1985, could be compared to this new disaster. Nevertheless, amid the smoke and blood of the defeat of Tenochtitlán or in the thick of the devastation of the collapse and burning that had put the capital into mourning seven years before, no one ever saw two figures like these, who are now running in a low crouch, their heads covered with woolen shawls, virtually smeared along the leprous walls, between Avenida Durango and Calle Génova; they stop on every corner, look around, move along if they detect no danger, retreat if they see or suspect any.
“I know that all we’ve ever wanted is peace and quiet,” said Capitolina, delicately — but showing her disgust — detouring her sister around a mass of slaughtered animals in front of the aqueduct on Avenida Chapultepec.
“Peace first and finally quiet, and in the second place…” began Farnesia, but her sister interrupted her, excuse me Farnecita, excuse me, little sister, for exposing you to this violence, I who have so faithfully tried to fulfill my promise to our dear parents that I would protect and defend you. Careful now, don’t step on that dead cat …
“In the first place, let’s set the record straight, finally zero catastrophes, in the third place no crisis,” whimpered Farnesia.
“We thought things would always turn out that way…”
“Just as our dear parents taught us…”
“May they rest in peace…”
“In peace, amen, in peace!”
But stealing a look filled with palpable fear at the city of quickly dug trenches overflowing with dead bodies, the rows of men hung from the lampposts along Paseo de la Reforma in front of the Social Security Building, the burning of the fried-food stands along the avenue and the shacks of the jugglers and fire-eaters on the traffic islands, the Fagoaga sisters finally looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes and burst into raucous laughter until they had to quickly cover their mouths, the small and decisive Capitolina with her pudgy little hand, the tall and tremulous Farnesia with her black shawclass="underline" they had always imagined the worst — a lie, a lie: they had always fervently desired the worst: accidents, sickness, revolution, earthquakes, death … And here it was! No one would escape! All of them ground into dust! This was the finishing touch to a decade of disasters, and it’s true the sisters both believed what their wise and experienced older brother, Dr. Homero, told them: all that was needed was a little push, barely a flick of a fingertip to cast down the abysmal metropolis: its destiny was now its image, there was no need for any soothsayer to cut open a bird, and columns of fire, weeping women, or mirrors that reflected the stars in broad daylight were all unnecessary.
How many times had the Misses Fagoaga made a dinner unpleasant by warning an unwary guest:
“If I were you, I wouldn’t eat that, sir.”
That’s how they survived.
Until today. Bankruptcy and devaluations didn’t touch them: they had property, savings, and high interest here, dollar accounts across the frontier. The earthquake of ’85, which flattened their neighborhood, providentially left them unscathed, as it had their brother Homero: God loves the Fagoagas! The evidence speaks for itself! Until today, until today when death became general not out of error or natural catastrophe or divine will, now death was policy, enacted from above, and Capitolina was realistic enough to imagine that not even they would survive the disaster.
An ambulance, its siren howling, passed along the deserted avenue. It was dawn, the hour chosen by the Fagoaga sisters to carry out their final mission. Walking rapidly in fits and starts, feeling their velvet slippers grow thinner and wetter as they walked on the dust of the footpath soaked with blood and Coca-Cola, sighing, they crossed Florencia Street, until they turned onto Génova and headed toward the modest one-story residence that belonged to General Rigoberto Palomar, which was protected by the kind of iron gate found on garages, which might make the uncertain visitor confuse the house where Angel my father grew up with a vulgar shop.
The dawn negated the death of the Mexican vespers.
The morning light blazed like a pearl in a pigsty.
The air of the tree-covered mountains and the snow-covered volcanoes whisked away the layer of dust, along with the smell of blood and garbage. But soon the crystal would break again; the mask of sickness would reappear.
Capitolina and Farnesia approached the door of the general’s house. General Palomar opened the door before they made even the slightest attempt to enter or knock. The old man had put on his belt, strapped his.45 around his waist, and clapped his red liberty cap on his shaved head.
Capitolina said: “We want to see the girl.”
“What girl?”
“You know, the one amorously linked with our nephew.”
“Does she have a name, so far as you vultures know?”
“Angeles, someone said it was.”
“Well, and what do you spinsters want to find out?”
“Nothing, General, merely to ascertain the degree of her pregnancy.”
“We have only come to say hello and then we’ll be on our way,” said Farnesia, taking note of the murderous light in my great-granddaddy’s eyes.
“We have come for her,” declared Capitolina, “so that she may deliver the child properly and so that the new member of our family may come into the world protected, loved, and in a Christian cradle.”
“Are you saying that the devil would get him here?” Don Rigoberto laughed quietly.
“Well, that’s what my little sister and I fear most.”
“You’d turn him into a holy little hypocrite of a pharisee son of a bitch like you two…”
“Sticks and stones, General, sticks and stones!” Capitolina shrugged her shoulders. “Humph!” chimed in Farnesia.
“And in the process you’d have yourselves named heirs of the heir, the Palomar fortune would come to you, you pair of grave robbers.”
“Our considerations are of a purely moral nature!” Capitolina shook her finger directly into the general’s nose. Farnesia, who had eaten an extremely early breakfast in order to fortify herself for the day’s vicissitudes, tried to copy her sister but gave up when she realized that on her finger there glistened a few drops of rich blackberry jam, so she quickly licked her finger instead.