“I’ll talk to him. Let’s go!”
El Iluminado carries the two boards, ruined and rotted by fluctuating temperatures and humidity. He carries them in front of him, side by side, his arms extended and his eyes looking heavenward, praying.
“Now what is Lupe up to?” thinks Tulio, the ice cream man, pushing his wooden cart, which keeps the two barrels (lemon and chocolate) cold, packed in salt. The two of them shared a desk in school, he knows Lupe from before his transformation, “though he has always had a screw loose.” Back in school people said Tulio was the crazy one, always making things up.
When he gets to the store, El Iluminado lowers his eyes. The board begins to speak, giving him orders:
“Put me in front of Bartolo.”
El Iluminado obeys, and goes a step further: he thrusts both boards in Bartolo’s face.
Bartolo is just finishing serving Doña Eduviges. Taken aback, the shopkeeper looks at the deranged man who has shoved the boards in his face, so close they’re practically touching his eyelashes.
He hears the high-pitched voice clearly as El Iluminado lowers the first board onto the counter and lays the second board perpendicular to it.
“Donate four nails to put me together, so that these two boards can become a cross.”
Señor Bartolo is relieved that El Iluminado has lowered the threatening boards, although “they’re going to make a mess of the countertop …” He turns to get the box of medium-sized nails down with the stepladder. He picks up the hammer. He hits the first nail on the head.
“Ay!” the voice says.
A second blow, another “ay!” (which Bartolo finds amusing), a third, “ay!” and a fourth, “ay!”
The two boards are now a cross. El Iluminado picks it up off the counter, looks at it, says a few incomprehensible and incoherent words, and takes it away without so much as a “thank you.”
“Poor Guadalupe gets crazier by the day. What were you saying to me, Doña Eduviges, what were we in the middle of?”
“Say what you want about El Iluminado, Señor Bartolo. I heard that cross, loud and clear. Holy Mother of God!”
Doña Eduviges leaves the store, crossing herself several times. She’s barely out of sight before Bartolo starts grumbling:
“What a dimwit! Guadalupe fakes a voice and keeps his lips from moving and she thinks it’s a Talking Cross?”
Maria Elena Carranza, who is facing him, says thoughtfully:
“Pardon me for saying so, Don Bartolo, but she’s right: that cross spoke.”
Doña Eduviges goes off to spread the word to all the old church ladies that El Iluminado has a Talking Cross.
North of the Río Bravo, Eleonor is still devotedly wiping the sick man’s chest with a damp cloth, completely engrossed in her work. Behind her she hears a weak complaint: “It hurts.” It’s Shears, the crappy carpenter and crappier sheriff. “It hurts.”
South of the Río Bravo, El Iluminado enters the church and stops in front of the font of holy water, whether of his own accord or at the Cross’s bidding is unclear.
When El Iluminado is about to dip the (filthy) cross into the holy water, Father Vera (who might also be acting on orders of a holy voice) dashes out of the confessional.
“Hey! Lupe! That’s holy water!”
The Talking Cross responds in a frigid tone of voice: “Crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered, died, and was buried,” and the group of old church ladies following El Iluminado murmur, “Praise the Lord.” “Holy be.” And other such blessings.
Father Vera takes water from the font and blesses the cross with a long prayer. The church ladies, reeling off strings of “pray for us sinners,” keep a short distance; the Talking Cross fills them with fear.
Immediately word gets around that the Talking Cross has been dunked in holy water (which we know is not true), and folks start to believe it has curative powers.
Dr. Velafuente sits down to drink his coffee, though it’s earlier than usual. Given the hour, he might upset either his stomach or his bowels. If it’s the former, a soda water would put him right; he buys it in bottles imported from London. If it’s the latter, he’ll take some Atacadizo syrup — Aunt Cuca makes it, she’s the only one who knows the recipe — and soon feel better. It’s nothing to write home about. It’s the only benefit of not being born a savage … not being subject to the vulnerabilities of the flesh. Civilization has remedies, cures, and even surgery if necessary. In all other respects the savages are better off: three or four wives, lives of leisure — when they want to eat they just stretch out a hand and grab a mango or a banana. They have everything they need for soup — turtles and herbs — right at their feet … while we just work our fingers to the bone … (He was thinking about savages from the south; for Dr. Velafuente the north was something else altogether: the source of all evil.)
The Café Central in Matasánchez is on one side of the city’s Central Plaza, facing the cathedral. The trees’ thick foliage obscures the renovations being done on the church — the 1832 hurricane damaged its bell tower. The tables are beneath the arcade, which runs along the storefronts up to the façade of the Hotel Ángeles del Río Bravo, the finest in the region. It’s very elegant. In Matasánchez they say that it lacks nothing compared to the best hotels in the world, and it’s true. Over the years, Nepomuceno’s relatives, as well as his business and political associates, have all stayed there since the very first night it opened. Wagging tongues claim it’s yet another of Doña Estefanía’s businesses, but that’s definitely not true.
At the Café Central there’s a little of everything. In the evenings, musicians play late into the night. By day street vendors mill about, civilized Indians from the south who bring exquisite handicrafts, vanilla from Papaoapan, woven crafts from Bajio, embroidery from the southwest, chocolate from Oaxaca, tamales from Istmo, and mole from Puebla. It’s quite a sight. Yet there’s even greater variety in the clientele sitting at the tables, from folks who can afford the prices, which are not inconsiderable, to folks who while away the hours by stirring a teaspoon in a complimentary glass of water. And the clientele changes by the hour. On weekday mornings, men sit and read the papers or discuss them; after the lunch hour, before siesta, they hang around for a drink or a coffee. Tuesdays at five, when the menfolk have finished their siestas and returned to work, the women gather to drink chocolate and trade gossip, such as news of recent engagements, upcoming baptisms, or their health — it runs the gamut. Travelers also frequent the establishment, the majority of whom are men who have come to buy or sell merchandise, but occasionally they bring their wives and daughters (if they’re from the region or if they’re en route to the steamboats bound for Havana or New Orleans). When night falls, the folks who are trouble come out. More and more, gunslingers and fortune hunters from north of the Río Bravo can be found at the Café Central’s tables. They’re the ones primarily responsible for corrupting the establishment, because they come to satisfy appetites for things they wouldn’t think of even trying in the north.
Juan Pérez, the wealthy, unscrupulous Indian-trader from Mexico, who would sell his own sister if it would profit him, sits two tables over from Dr. Velafuente’s usual table. He’s no spring chicken, and his sister is the only living relation he has left. His mother died nearly ten years ago, advanced in years and ruined by money and regrets. His brothers were all low-ranking members of the army and became cannon fodder in a variety of battles. He never knew his father. He doesn’t have a Christian wife; they say he has married several Indians, but he doesn’t recognize any children as his own, and if he ever did have women, he’s forgotten them all, even their names (that is, if he ever knew them). To him women are a pair of spread legs, or several pairs, to be exact.