Her first impulse had been to complain about the offering, saying, You give your godfather a handkerchief full of flowers and give me one full of horrors? But she reconsidered: it was Simonopio, and there was no morbidity or cruelty in him. Whatever he did, he always did it thinking that it was the right thing to do, and in this case, it was: a body must not be buried incomplete.
Beatriz put the eyes inside the folds of the white linen shroud, near the girl’s hands.
“Thank you, Simonopio.”
That was how Lupita went to the grave and how she would reach God: complete.
That night, Francisco and Beatriz took turns keeping vigil beside the coffin. Francisco went to sleep first. They offered pan dulce and hot chocolate to everyone else who wanted to stay. Beatriz knelt beside Socorro, looking at nothing except the succession of beads, saying nothing except Rosaries and litanies for Lupita. Beatriz was grateful that, with everyone concentrating on the Rosary’s palliative rhythm, she did not have to face the aunt.
When Francisco returned—if not fully rested, at least ready to continue the wake into the early morning—Beatriz withdrew to her bedroom. It was her turn to rest, and with luck, her body would. But her soul would not, for it was as heavy as lead.
When she reached her bedroom and saw the unmade bed, she remembered that it had remained like that all day. Beatriz undressed but did not bother to put on nightclothes. She did not care. Nor did she change the sheets, even though Tuesday had gone by without anyone thinking to do it. She remembered the sheet in which she had wrapped Lupita’s naked body, and shuddered. Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow she would do it. Tomorrow she would do everything: Tomorrow I’ll change the sheets, I’ll see my daughters, I’ll look Socorro in the eyes, I’ll bury Lupita. Today, I’ll do no more.
She lay in the dark, without falling asleep or reconciling herself to the new absence. Or the new reality. Before she finally closed her eyes, the mild, light smell of lavender that remained in the used sheets reached her nose. It was the smell of Lupita.
She cried. She gave herself permission there and then.
“But not tomorrow.”
46
In Good Time
Simonopio did not go far on the day of Lupita’s burial. It was blossom season, and it was among the little flowers that he would find some peace. He walked from orchard to orchard, losing track of time. He walked tirelessly between the rows of trees, back and forth in the company of his swarm, which refused to leave him even though the day, the sun, and the flowers called to them to fly freely to enjoy the fruit of their labor. As the sun went down, they left him, because they would not face the darkness even to be with Simonopio.
Tomorrow would be better, they had said to him as they parted company. Tomorrow, calm would return. Tomorrow the flowers would still be there for them, for everyone.
Simonopio understood. Tomorrow, or the next day, he would let go of the memory of Lupita’s dead body. Of the feel of her dead eyes in his hand. Of the time he’d spent lying beside her: her body cold—lifeless and cold—and his body alive and warm—warm but limp—given over to crying, with no strength or will to share the terrible news. He knew he had to do it, and he would, as soon as he found the strength, because he knew that his work would not end there: he understood that, after raising the alarm and handing over the body, he would have to go in search of Lupita’s lost eyes.
Still lying like this sometime later, but calm at last, he sensed the peace of the place: Lupita had not died under this bridge—his bridge. Had that been the case, Simonopio would have sensed it, of that he was certain. Lupita died where her eyes lay abandoned. They had taken her here after she was dead—to hide her or as a message, he did not know. There were no longer any strange smells. He found nothing in the past or in the future that would enlighten him with the answer to the question that everyone would ask for years to come: Who killed Lupita?
He had seen the question in Francisco Morales’s eyes. His godfather even ventured to ask, Did you see anything, Simonopio? Or do you know anything? But he shook his head. It was true: he did not know anything.
And although she had not asked the question, he had seen it in Beatriz’s eyes, as well. He also noticed something else in both of them, something that seethed uncontrollably, transforming them: the thunder, the lightning, the deluge, the storm. He saw that they would search for the murderer and that, if they found him, they would struggle to hand him over to the authorities, to hand him over alive.
They would search for him for years, but he would evade them easily. They would never find him. Then Simonopio understood that no one would discover who Lupita’s attacker had been and that no one would find justice for the murdered girl. No one but he.
When? Where? How would he recognize him? He did not know, but it would happen. In good time.
47
Today, a Dead Desire
They were burying the dead girl today at the boss’s house, but no one had sent him an invitation. There was no work today. Everyone was there, and only he was here. And today the land was his alone, and he did not have to be so quiet.
Now the golden eagle has flown
and the finch is chased away.
At last the day must come
when the mule takes the reins . . .
Oh, come it will
the mule will take the reins . . .
Oh, come it will, oh, it will come
when the mule takes the reins
when the mule will take . . .
the mule will take . . .
take the reins.
48
He Who Lives by the Sword—or the Gun
Francisco Morales was confused. If he had prepared for any eventuality, if he had sent his daughters to Monterrey to protect them from the danger and drama of the countryside, then why was he so surprised and shaken by what he had feared would have already happened on his land, to his people? Had he thought himself immune, deep down? Had he, in his arrogance, come to believe that certain situations always happened to others and not to his own people?
Lupita had matured from a noisy child who did not know how to do anything into a woman who had mastered her work, yet remained loud, chatty, and chirpy. Lupita had successfully learned to read with the same enthusiasm with which she attempted to learn to sew with the machine, though without managing the latter.
You lack patience, Beatriz had told her, also with little patience.
Ay, Señora, if I can’t draw a straight line on a piece of paper, how am I going to draw one with thread on a flowery material?
In fact, Lupita had had a great deal of patience. She demonstrated it when she looked after Francisco Junior, a task that was far from easy, since only Simonopio knew how to keep him constantly entertained.
Now her death had been a blow for everyone. Because there were deaths and there were deaths. It had not been a stray bullet that killed her. Or influenza, or malaria, or yellow fever. She had not even been the victim of a revolutionary seeking a woman’s company, of the kind that made off with a girl to bring him warmth and children. No, Lupita had fallen into the hands of a being beyond Francisco’s comprehension, one that killed for the sake of killing. And worse: killed a woman.
He thought of the times in the past when, regretful, missing them, and faced with the evidence that nothing bad had happened, he had wanted to go to his daughters at the nuns’ school in Monterrey to bring them home once and for all. Now he knew that nothing happened until it happened. Now he was facing the fact that he had let down his guard. He admitted that, with the armed conflict—the official one—abating, he had stopped worrying about the well-being of his people and focused on the well-being of his land and assets. Not even the government’s war against the Church’s faithful had moved him to act.