He could remember the high temperature and discomfort of the first few days. And in his moments of lucidity, when the fever’s grip eased, he lamented the things he had not had time to do. He lamented that he had never returned his friend’s boots to him and that he had never sent that love letter to Luz, his neighbor, after stealing a kiss. But once he was lying on the street, with his mother’s blessing on him and the cart about to collect his body, what did it matter?
He had arrived at the cemetery in a daze from the illness, without much memory of the journey in the cart. Three days later, with his fever lifted, lying on the edge of the pit, he felt completely alert. Alert and fed up.
Little by little, he had moved away from the edge for fear of rolling off as he slept. Of falling in by accident and being given up for dead. Or falling and breaking his neck and actually dying. Each time the gravedigger asked whether he was dead yet, he answered No, first in a weak voice and later more forcefully. Not yet. On the third day, he yelled with all the might he could muster that he was still there, and Can I have some water?
He had witnessed the deaths of each of the bodies on either side of him. Each had died differently: one in silence and the other making a great deal of fuss—coughing, choking, and wailing—but neither of them, he was certain, suffered one moment’s boredom or hunger. If they had had the time and clarity to think of a wish, they would have wished only to end their torment as quickly as possible. He therefore reached the conclusion that, in the process of dying—well or badly—there was not much time or energy for boredom. So he decided to stop devoting his time to dying.
Itching’s a sign of healing, his mother always said. Well, now he had his own version: If you’re bored, you’re getting better.
And truth be told, he was also itching. Fiercely. All over his body. While the dead were being eaten by the insects of the dead, he was being eaten alive by the ones that prefer warm flesh and fresh blood. Living flesh.
He stood, took off the shroud, and folded it carefully. Though his legs were shaking, he walked for the first time in many days. He plodded forward, slowed by weakness and wary of frightening the gravedigger, though López did not bat an eyelid when he saw him in a vertical position.
“No, compadre. Nothing frightens me anymore.”
With some help, he climbed onto the cart, this time so the gravedigger would take him back to town and straight home—without stopping at the cantina that he had also been dreaming of since the day before—for he was eager to give his mother the good news of his recovery.
“She best find out from me and not from someone else. Can you imagine her reaction, Don Vicente?”
“Uh-huh.”
There was little time to imagine it. When she opened the door and saw him, his mother—who in her sorrow had pictured her son infested with maggots in the green sheet she had wrapped around him when he was dying—managed only to let out an ear-piercing scream before collapsing, killed by shock, as the rest of the family and the neighbors who peered through their windows looked on in astonishment.
Practical as ever, and aware of the long funereal journey ahead of him, Vicente López asked the young man who had been his only return passenger, “Will you help me lift her onto the cart?”
And equally practical, as one necessarily becomes on returning almost from the gates of heaven, he answered “Yes” and “Poor Mama, her time had come.” And since he had with him the green sheet that had been his shroud, he wrapped his mother in it, a little unhappy about the dirt it had accumulated in the last three days but certain his mother was beyond worrying about such things.
One by one the neighbors came out of their houses, which they had not dared to do for days, to marvel at the events and then share the news.
At the time, the doors to the cathedral were kept locked because the federal government had ordered all gathering places to remain closed: theaters, movie houses, bars, and of course, churches. For a while, poor Father Pedro had defied the order, saying that nobody had the right to close the House of the Lord, much less refuse Communion to believers, even if fewer and fewer attended. Sick but soldiering on, he had died suddenly three days ago while reciting the Credo in the first mass of the day. The handful of churchgoers had run out without even crossing themselves. His body had to wait all day and all night for the gravedigger to come by and collect it, watched over by his young assistant, Father Emigdio. The now-familiar sound of the cart approaching had freed him from his vigil. Since then, a frightened Father Emigdio had kept the doors locked. He did not dare even to look through the peephole when someone knocked, asking to come in and pray.
He was the only person who prayed there at that time. And that was what he was doing right when they came and knocked insistently on the cathedral doors. Surprised and alarmed by the many fists that thumped the doors with such persistence, he made an exception and opened the peephole.
“A miracle, Father! A miracle!”
“What miracle?” Overcome with emotion and longing for them to tell him the disease was gone, he flung the doors wide open.
“Lazarus has risen!”
12
Letters and Telegrams
News of the resurrection of Lázaro de Jesús García—for that was what the fortunate return passenger had been called since the day of his baptism—spread through Linares in a matter of minutes. Some would soon accept the truth and view the news as a mere curiosity, with nothing more than anecdotal significance. But others clung to the hope brought by good tidings at a time when everything seemed like hell itself, and they would have lynched any birds of ill omen who dared refute the miracle. To this day, some still tell the story—swearing it was witnessed firsthand by a great-uncle or great-grandmother—that on one of the most terrible days in the history of Linares, a Lazarus rose from the dead by God’s hand.
That day, as the news spread through the town, Lázaro was elevated to divine status. After plucking up the courage to leave the cathedral, young Father Emigdio decreed that the restoration to life of a local parishioner was a sign of the forgiveness of God, who had punished the poor community so much already, making the just pay for the sins of others, for as its very name indicated, the epidemic was the fault of the socialist, apostate Spanish who strayed ever further from the Church.
Then, overcome with emotion, he went to the home of the last living postal employee.
“Álvaro. Open up the post office for me. I must send an urgent telegram.”
Despite the postman’s initial refusal and his doubt as to whether anyone was at the Monterrey office to receive the telegram, the priest persuaded him with the promise of eternal salvation. Thus, he sent the first telegram of his life to the archbishop in Monterrey: URGENT stop MIRACLE HAPPENED IN LINARES stop LAZARUS RISEN stop CONFIRMED BY ME stop RESPOND URGENTLY stop.
Father Emigdio did not know whether the telegram would reach its intended recipient, but that day, by a stroke of luck—good or bad would be determined later—Governor Zambrano in Monterrey, despondent due to the public health crisis, also required the special services of a telegraphist. While sending official telegrams reporting the number of dead to date, the governor received the good news—At last, some good news!—and sent it immediately to its ecclesiastic addressee.