One night when he left his house, sleepless and tormented by the incessant call of the many voices of the devil traveling on the wind, Anselmo found a group of men camped near his home. Their fire gave them away. After a moment of tension when they thought the rural force had discovered them, they allowed him to join them in the warmth of their fire. Perhaps they recognized the same zeal in his eyes that he had recognized in theirs, and they invited him to share their food, their drink, and their friendship.
They never camped in the same place twice: afraid the owners would discover them, and still without the strength to defend themselves, they moved stealthily around the remote parts of the haciendas, most of which were now converted into orchards. They had also found caves in the sierras, which they presumed Agapito Treviño had used in his glory days as a raider when he was fleeing the law, before he was executed by firing squad. Anselmo did not know who this Treviño was, nor was he interested in seeing the caves, but he visited his landless friends whenever they were nearby.
With them he found the camaraderie he had never felt with anyone in the region. With them he could talk about the family he had lost forever, or sit there for hours without saying anything and listen to their songs or hear them talk about the land they would have, the land they needed for their many children.
“I only got one,” he told them on the first day, forgetting he also had the girl.
“Then make some more, compadre.”
They made it sound so simple.
The image of Lupita, the washerwoman, making children for him went through his mind and lingered there. He had not seen her for a long time. He had always liked her. She did not visit the fields, and nobody asked Espiricueta to do jobs at the main house anymore. But he remembered her well, with her basket of wet clothes at her hip, walking toward the washing line and then hanging up the laundry without being aware that, each time she raised her arms to peg up a garment, her skirt lifted, revealing her slender ankles, and her blouse pressed against her generous breasts.
He would find her soon, he decided. He would make a whole new family with her, and he would have his own land, which would be as fertile as his new wife.
There was a lot to do before that could happen. Which was why Anselmo paid close attention to everything going on around him, for Francisco Morales was plotting something. A new son, and a new crop that was gradually displacing the old one, was no coincidence, though he did not yet understand exactly what it meant. They said to him, Dig the hole for the tree, and he would do it, without even looking up, but he did it singing—under his voice and through his teeth—the only refrain he remembered from a song he had learned in the warmth of a fire and that had never left his consciousness or his dreams.
Now the golden eagle has flown
and the finch is chased away.
At last the day must come
when the mule takes the reins . . .
There were times when, while he was supervising, Francisco Morales asked him, “What’re you mumbling about?”
But Anselmo, interrupting his song, merely replied, “Nothing, Boss.”
Like the law, for now, and like the guns, for now, Anselmo Espiricueta remained silent. For now.
41
New Stories to Tell
After so much patient waiting and such a long road traveled, life was at last what it should be: the flowers had arrived, and soon the fruit would follow. Now the boy Simonopio had been expecting for years had arrived, the one he had saved before the boy even existed, for had the Moraleses died of influenza, the possibility of him would have died with them. However, he had to find yet more patience within himself, because they would not let him hold the baby yet.
He’s very little. It’s women’s work. Or We don’t want him to get used to being held, they would tell him. They did allow him, at least, to sit at the side of his crib when the boy slept. They trusted him enough to leave them alone together. He watched over the boy, observing him while he slept in his crib, dressed in the clothes that had been impregnated with the smell, with the aroma, of honey by the infant body of their previous owner, his tireless protector: Simonopio.
He did not give the baby honey, as they had given him since his first few hours of life. But every day, when the little boy cried with his mouth open, Simonopio took the opportunity to delicately place a little royal jelly under his tongue. He knew that the baby liked it and that it strengthened him, because he noticed the ever-more-energetic movement of his arms and legs when he was content, his calm and deep breathing when he rested, and his prodigious lung capacity when he cried. Whenever he was in his crib, Simonopio did not take his eyes off Francisco Junior, because he did not want to miss a single moment.
That was how he memorized the child’s features, from the gentle dip in the crown of his head to the soft cowlick of fine hair, like the fur on a tender peach, that formed between the barely perceptible eyebrows and that Simonopio insisted on stroking against the grain, in an experiment designed to ascertain whether the order of that perfect circle could be disturbed with the gentle, tender force of his rather callused finger—the finding of which was no: it was what it was and would remain like it was. He also learned which song soothed the baby when he woke up crying and which words made him open his eyes and pay attention—come out of his stupor and sleepiness—though everyone thought that a newborn never paid attention or took an interest in the world around it.
This was how, in that tiny face, Simonopio saw the boy he would become, the roads they would travel together, and the new stories they would create between them.
Simonopio drew on all his patience while, through the crib’s newly painted bars, he observed the movements of little Francisco Junior, who did not stay still even while he slept. The temptation was very strong: he wanted to hold him in his arms. He had to hold him, he knew. The problem was that he was the only one who understood that, the only one who knew that this boy would be his responsibility.
The day would come, and he would wait patiently. For the time being, when they were alone, he spoke almost into his ear about the world, about the wild flowers, about the bees that buzzed at the window, insisting they should be let in to visit the newcomer.
He would wait until later to tell him the stories about the coyote. He did not want the baby to be afraid. He would keep them for when the boy was a little older and could understand that Simonopio would take care of that and of everything.
42
The First Drop
I believe it was when the first of my children was born that my mama confessed to me that, for a longer period than was desirable, she had thought I was not entirely normal. That is to say, though I’d been born in one piece and with everything where it should’ve been, she was in some doubt about my mental capabilities.
I honestly was not offended. I suppose what happens to anyone is that, when they have a baby, the first thing they do is worry: count the fingers, inspect the ears, the belly button, the breathing. One asks oneself: Is it normal? Or in other words, as filled with joy as one is at the occasion, one is also filled, to one’s surprise, with anxiety and uncertainty. My mama, seeing me in this state when my first child was born, saw fit to confess her own doubts in days gone by, to comfort me.
“Ah, Son, there’s nothing to worry about. For the first three years of your life, I thought you were half-backward, and look at you now.”