“You must prevent any more convulsions, but be aware that the fever is a sign of another ailment that might be killing him.”
When he arrived home that night, an urgent message awaited Dr. Cantú. That was when he found Mercedes Garza dead.
The first to learn of her death and arrive to hold a wake were her parents, brothers, and sisters. At two o’clock in the morning, by which time the body had been washed, dressed, and prepared for an open coffin in the parlor, the rest of the family members, friends, and acquaintances began to arrive, all ready to accompany the widower on his night’s vigil. At dawn, some left to rest, eat breakfast, and prepare to come back later, while others arrived to continue the wake.
In this coming and going of people sharing the widower’s pain, of prayer chains and gossip before the mass and burial, my parents were not present.
They, too, had been awake all night and must have prayed, but I assume it would have been for the boy who had come to them from the sierra. No sooner had his temperature gone down a little and they relaxed their vigil than it suddenly went up again, making him convulse in a way that frightened them all. When they learned of Mercedes’s death, with great sorrow they dedicated some prayers to her as well, but they never considered leaving the boy, their godson, the son of nobody and of everybody, who had brought so much joy with him.
They worried about Simonopio but also about Nana Reja, who would not move from his side. They had sent for her rocking chair so she would be more comfortable, but they were concerned that the pain of seeing her beloved little one die would cause her irreparable damage. They tried to explain and prepare her for what was certain to happen, but if anyone remained calm, it was her. Serene but active for the first time in years, she gave herself to the task of keeping Simonopio hydrated. As she had done when the boy was just a bundle in her arms, she squeezed a constant drip of milk into his mouth, with added honey from the bees that accompanied him all his life.
At that time caring for the sick was mostly women’s work, but my papa, worried as he was, did not want to go far from Simonopio’s room. Running the hacienda took him away some, for work did not stop even when a death was near, but as soon as he had given his instructions, he returned. With the compassion for which she was known, my mama gave him jobs to keep him calm and make him feel he was doing something to help. If more goat milk or cold water was needed, she would ask him, and he would send for it. When it was time for another dose of aspirin, my father would grind the tablets, taking care not to waste a single precious gram.
The day after Mercedes’s burial, when they heard that there was a strange, devastating, deadly epidemic in Linares and Monterrey, for a moment they thought Simonopio must have caught it, as many who had attended the wake and funeral had.
“But where?”
“The day he came to wait for me when I had my meeting. Perhaps Mercedes passed it on to him.”
“No, remember he already had a fever. And he would’ve infected us by now.”
My papa gave strict instructions that no workers from the hacienda or their families must go to Linares for any reason.
“And if they go, they’d best not return.”
He gave instructions to Anselmo Espiricueta to stand guard at the entrance to the hacienda with harsh but necessary orders, under the circumstances: Anyone who wants to leave can leave, but we won’t let them or anybody else back in. Not even Dr. Cantú.
If needed, Espiricueta had permission to fire his rifle.
Simonopio’s fever remained a mystery, but while it was clear it was not the same illness attacking and killing so many in Linares, my papa wanted to prepare for every possibility. He remembered a cure that, according to his maternal grandmother, was infallible against any affliction of the lungs, from a cough to pneumonia. He sent for a piece of canvas, which he smothered on one side with a thick layer of mustard, and he applied it to Simonopio’s chest.
“What’re you doing, Francisco?”
“A sinapism for Simonopio.”
He remembered Grandma’s sinapisms. They were very unpleasant, but every time one was administered to him against any congestion, he was cured. Sometimes, just knowing they would put one on him cured him. He hoped that the heat the mustard produced in contact with the skin would draw out any malignancy from Simonopio’s chest.
“Leave it on until I return.”
My papa had been planning to go fetch my sisters by train from Monterrey when the news reached him that Governor Zambrano and the public health authorities had ordered a quarantine across the northern part of the country and the closure of public places, including the schools. The railway service had also now been suspended.
“I’ll go in the car before they close the roads on us. No one must leave the hacienda,” he reiterated.
In those days, there was no road like this one—wide, paved, and free of potholes. With the poor state of the rural lanes between the two towns, it would take him many more hours to arrive by car than it took by train. But there was no train, and nothing would deter him: he was intent on bringing Carmen and Consuelo back from Monterrey.
Later, he would tell my mama that, driving through the streets of Linares that morning with the car windows firmly shut, it was as if he were passing through a ghost town, as if life had ended. The streets were devoid of living people, but there were shrouded bodies dumped in front of houses, some of them dear friends. He saw that the stray dogs, normally wary after a long education of kicks and beatings, were now beginning to lose their usual caution: they were sniffing around the bundles, attracted by the smell of death. It would not be long before they made up their minds to dig into the feast that the Spanish flu had left for them.
So he stopped, the only time he would dare do so in the entire journey. Afterward, he would admit that, before plucking up the courage to open the door, he had taken a deep breath and held in the air, for two reasons: fear that the infection was alive in the Linares air in search of new victims, and fear that the streets would smell of dead townspeople. He did not want to live the rest of his life with that memory.
With his lungs full of the clean air from his car, holding his breath, he climbed out with the .22-caliber rifle he always kept under the seat and fired three well-aimed shots. The five surviving dogs fled, frightened by the bangs or because they did not wish to share the fate of their partners in crime. He allowed them to scamper away, struggling because the air stored in his lungs was running out but satisfied he had scared them off for the time being. They would be back, he knew. The sickly sweet smell of decomposing flesh would embolden them.
As he returned to the car, he saw Vicente López—the only living inhabitant of the town he came across—turn the corner and approach with the cart already half-full. They waved at each other. The gravedigger collected the bodies my papa had protected from being devoured and then lifted the dead dogs onto the cart as well. Only then did my papa continue his journey, speeding away and hoping the dogs would not end up in the same grave as the humans.
The road to Monterrey, already long and difficult at the best of times, had never seemed so punishing to him, worried as he was for poor Simonopio and for the well-being of my sisters. He knew they might have already been infected in the communal living space of the boarding school, but he didn’t care. If anyone in his family had to die or if they all had to die, they would do so together.