Carlitos Machado had told me the prohibition was carved in a stone at the entrance to this church, which was dedicated to a saint too free and easy with miracles. I looked, but I did not find.
“Oh, no sir! No! Absolutely not!” The cleaning woman, armed with a broom and wearing a helmet of curlers, grew indignant yet continued working without looking up.
“But that order of the king’s. . was it ever here?”
The cleaning woman faced me. “Was it? It was. But not anymore.”
She rested her hands on the tip of the broomstick and her chin on her hands. “That sort of thing didn’t set the right tone for the believers. You understand.”
I Give Thanks for the Miracle
Beside the altar in Mexican churches, ex-votos proliferate. They are images and words painted on small pieces of tin that give thanks to the Virgin of Guadalupe, because Pancho Villa’s troops raped my sister and not me;
thanks to the Blessed Child of Atocha, because I have three sisters and I’m the ugliest and I got married first,
thanks to the Little Virgin of Sorrows, because the night before last my wife took off with my buddy Anselmo and now he’s gonna pay for all the things he did to me\
thanks to the Divine Face of Acapulco, cause I kilt my husband and they dint do nothin to me.
That’s the way it was. And still is. But you also see novelties, like ex-votos that give thanks to Our Lord Jesus Christ because I crossed the river and came to the Unite Estays and I didn’t go under or get died.
Alfredo Vilchis, better known as Leonardo da Vilchis, paints on commission in the market at La Lagunilla. The Christs in his little paintings all have his face. And to accompany the words of thanks, he often paints archangels dressed as soccer players. Many of his clients made promises to Heaven before decisive matches, and the divine hand bestowed the grace of goals on their beloved club or on the Mexican national team.
The Great Beyond
At the end of the southern summer of ‘96, José Luis Chilavert scored a memorable goal in Buenos Aires. The Paraguayan keeper, who was great at blocking goals and also at scoring, shot from afar, practically from the center of the field. The ball flew up through the clouds into the heavens, then dropped straight down into the opposing net.
Journalists wanted to know how he did it. What was the secret of that kick? How did he make the ball take that incredible journey? How could it fall in a straight line from such a height?
“It hit an angel,” Chilavert explained.
But no one thought to check the ball for bloodstains. Nobody bothered to look. And so we lost a chance to find out if angels are like us, if only in that way.
The Virgin
The past as macho exploit: no women figure in the official history of the Canary Islands.
None? There is one.
She arrived centuries ago on the coast of Tenerife, long before Spain conquered the islands.
She floated in on the waves, asleep in the foam, and was picked up by fishermen. When they spoke to her, she did not answer. The fishermen took her to the king of the island. She remained mute before the monarch. And when the princes killed each other quarreling for her favor, she observed the spectacle without batting an eye.
The only woman in the official history of the islands is still there. Her name is Mary, and they call her Candelaria, for the tapers that illuminate her. She is a virgin and is made of wood. Men worship her on their knees.
The Others
The Gospel according to Saint Matthew says Jesus had forty-six ancestors: forty-one men and five women.
One of the five women, everyone knows, conceived without sin. But the others in his lineage were: Tamar, who dressed up as a prostitute so she could have a child with her father-in-law; Rahab, who plied the oldest trade in the city of Jericho; Batsheva, who was married to another when she begat Solomon in King David’s bed; and Ruth, who was not of the chosen people and was thus not deemed worthy of the faith of Israel.
Three sinners and one scorned. The damned of the earth were the grandmothers of the son of Heaven.
Christmas Eve
Spain. December 24 to 25, 1939.
“It’s Christmas Eve. We’ll get some sort of present,” said Javier, and he chuckled to himself.
Javier and Anton, prisoners of Franco’s troops, were traveling with their hands tied behind their backs. The jolting of the truck threw them against each other, and every so often the soldiers jabbed them with their bayonets.
Javier talked nonstop. Anton kept quiet.
“Where are they taking us?” asked Javier, who was really asking, Why me, why me, I’m not a red, I’m no troublemaker, I never got involved, I’m not political, not at all, never, not me, not ever, nothing.
On one of the bumps in the road, they ended up face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and then Javier squeezed his eyelids shut and muttered, “Anton, listen. It was me.”
But they couldn’t hear a thing over the roar of the truck. Nearly screaming, Javier repeated, It was me, it was me. “I brought them. It was me.”
Anton stared at the side of the road. There was no moon, but the forests of Asturias were glowing. Javier said they forced him; they had his entire family on their knees; they were going to kill them, the children, everyone. Anton was still off in the woods that shone in the darkness with their own light, a radiance that flowed up against the truck.
Javier fell silent.
There was only the coughing of the motor and the grinding of the truck on the road.
After a moment, Javier repeated, “It’s Christmas Eve.”
And he said, “It’s so cold.”
The truck stopped. A firing squad was waiting.
Easter Sunday
Nineteen seventy-three. Montevideo, Ninth Cavalry barracks. A rotten night. Roar of trucks and machine-gun fire, prisoners facedown on the floor, hands behind their heads, a gun at every back, shouts, kicks, rifle blows, threats. .
In the morning, one of the prisoners who hadn’t yet lost track of the calendar recalled, “Today is Easter Sunday.”
Gatherings were not allowed.
But they pulled it off. In the middle of the yard, they came together.
The non-Christians helped. Several of them kept an eye on the barred gates and an ear out for the guards’ footsteps. Others walked about, forming a human ring around the celebrants.
Miguel Brun whispered a few words. He evoked the resurrection of Jesus, which promised redemption for all captives. Jesus had been persecuted, jailed, tormented, and murdered, but one Sunday, a Sunday like this one, he made the walls creak and crumble so there would be freedom in every prison and company in every solitude.
The prisoners had nothing. No bread, no wine, not even cups. It was a communion of empty hands.
Miguel made an offering to the one who had offered himself. “Eat,” he whispered. “This is his body.”
And the Christians raised their hands to their lips and ate the invisible bread.
“Drink. This is his blood.”
And they raised the nonexistent cup and drank the invisible wine.
The History of Fear
The moon had something to say to the earth and sent a beetle with the news.