“Mama!”
77
Satin from Another Age
She had not wanted to see the body. She did not want to clean it or change the clothes. What she had done with great composure for her father and for Lupita, she refused to do for the man with whom she was of one flesh, according to the law of God.
What clothes would you like us to put on him? they asked her, but she did not answer.
Nor was it she who organized the wake or notified relatives and friends of her husband’s death. She had not thought of her daughters, nor of paying for the telegram that would be sent to them, nor had she asked at what time they would arrive. When she was asked whether she minded them using the coffin they had kept, well protected and covered in a storeroom, she did not even question what a casket was doing in one of their storerooms: she would not remember, until she saw it closed on top of the dining table, that she had bought it herself unnecessarily on the day that Simonopio arrived. That she had had it stored in case it was needed one day.
As it was today.
If, after almost twenty years, the satin inside was yellowish and not white as it had originally been, she did not care. Francisco would not care, either, and she knew that, had he been able, he would have said that men don’t pay any attention to such things and that there’s no point in spending money on a new one if we already have one that’s perfectly adequate. What would the aunts and ladies of the social club say about it? She did not care about that either. No one would see the inside, because the one thing she had firmly requested was that the coffin be kept closed at all times.
She did not want anyone to see him like this: dead, defeated, destroyed.
Her mother had changed her into mourning clothes after giving her a few hours to calm down and, on the doctor’s recommendation, several cups of lime-blossom tea for the nerves.
“Hurry, Beatriz,” Sinforosa said to her when she was doing nothing, “the people are arriving now.”
They had taken her to sit beside her husband’s casket to receive the guests, who offered her their condolences without caring that she did not want to hear them.
To one side of her, they had also pulled up a seat for Nana Reja, who left her rocking chair to make her slow journey to the dining-room-turned-mortuary. Nana Reja had known her boy Francisco since he was newly born. Now she would sit with him when he was newly dead. And Beatriz knew that the little old lady was not as insensible as she sometimes seemed. That she was suffering. As if Nana Reja struggled to pass air in and out, she gave a deep groan from her chest every time she inhaled, though it was audible only to Beatriz, only to the woman who shared her pain and who soon began to imitate her.
No one offered condolences to the wooden woman. Nana Reja sat, closed her eyes, and did not open them again during the entire process. The visitors walked past her as if she had nothing to do with the events.
Beatriz, on the other hand, did not want to close her eyes for a single instant, not even to get away from the tide of people coming toward her.
She had not had the strength to say or yell no, she did not want to see anyone or speak to anyone; she did not want anyone to speak to her or look at her; she wanted to be left in peace, because she felt dead, defeated, and destroyed herself. If they could find another coffin in a storeroom, they might as well put her in one too: she, the one with the murdered husband and the missing son, to whom she had not gone out to say goodbye for the last time for no reason other than to attack a plague of moths.
Sitting there without blinking, she was aware of Francisco’s recent, violent, cruel, and permanent premature absence.
Permanent. From now onward. Forever.
She knew that sooner or later she would have to face it. The day would come when she would need to contemplate a life in complete solitude, filling the hours of the day in order to survive them, and surviving the empty nights.
She knew that her grief for Francisco would come out.
For now, that pain was almost stored away, waiting. She had controlled it out of necessity with the other pain, the more demanding one, more urgent. Because that day, she did not have time to think about her widowhood or to receive sympathy from anyone, for she wanted to ask them all: What are you doing here keeping vigil over a dead man if there’s a living child out there, lost in the cold?
If she had been able to trust her body not to betray her, she would have gotten up immediately to wander the hills yelling Francisco Junior’s name until she found him. But at that moment, her body could not remember how to speak, let alone walk or hold itself up without a chair with a back keeping her upright.
She was the mother of a missing boy, but she did not have the strength in her body or the courage in her soul to stand up and go in search of him, for fear of what she would find or what she would never find, destined to wander the sierras calling to her lost son for eternity, like the Weeping Woman of legend.
She allowed herself to be embraced a little and allowed the compassionate words to float around her, but she did not let any of them in, because at that moment there was nothing that could distract her from the fear and uncertainty, from the void she felt at the core of her existence.
She had been the daughter and then the orphan of her father, to which she had grown accustomed. She had been a wife and was now a widow, to which one day she might resign herself. She had been a mother and . . . What does one call a mother who has lost a child?
Amputee? That was how she felt.
Now she was an amputated mother.
How does one resign oneself to that? When?
People approached her; they spoke to her; they offered her advice for which she did not ask. They offered her food or drink, but that day she could only look out through the window to the horizon, concentrating, waiting, longing for the miraculous appearance of her missing boy. And there was no room in her head for anything other than the silent cries that resounded inside it ceaselessly: Where are you, Francisco? Are you cold, Francisco? Are you alone? Are you afraid? Are you hurting anywhere? Are you alive? Francisco!
While dressing her, her mother had assured her that her brothers would continue the search, which the Guardia Rural had also joined, and which they would continue until the child was found.
“Simonopio must be looking for him as well, and if Francisco Junior’s alive, he’ll find him, like he always does, you’ll see.”
“And what if he’s dead?” Beatriz said, refusing to look at her.
“If he’s dead, he’ll also find him.”
Would he already know? Would Simonopio know that his godfather was dead and that Francisco Junior was missing? If Simonopio lived, he would know. If Simonopio knew, then he would find him. But Simonopio had not returned since the day before, either—not since they saw him run off from the river in a sudden and inexplicable manner.
Simonopio was missing, too, like Francisco Junior. They were not dead. Just missing.
Francisco.
I can’t feel you. Are you cold, Francisco? Where’re you hurt, Francisco? Are you alone? Are you afraid? Don’t be afraid of the dark—what else can it do to us? What else? Simonopio’s coming for you. Can you hear him? Simonopio: Can you see him? Where are you? Are you hiding? I can’t hear you. Have you gone? I can’t feel you, alive or dead. Not alive, or dead. And I didn’t go out to say goodbye. Where are you? Alive? Where are you both, Simonopio? Are you alive? Dead? No, no, no. No, Francisco. Francisco, are you alone? Are you alive? Are you cold, Francisco? I expect you’ve lost your sweater by now, Francisco, or gotten holes in it, child. And the blankets? I gave you blankets. I think I did. I gave you two. Or was it three? They were blue. The good ones. But I didn’t go out. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t say goodbye to you both. I had to save the other blankets. It was very important. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you lost them. Come. Come home, now. Come to me. Alive or dead, come home. I don’t care about the blankets. Don’t be afraid now. Nobody will scold you. Are you hurting anywhere? I don’t have the strength. I don’t have the strength to come find you. I don’t have the strength to lose you. Are you alive? Francisco, Francisco, I can’t feel you and I didn’t say goodbye. I can’t feel you because I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t say goodbye. Why didn’t I say goodbye? How stupid I was, Francisco. Are you hurting anywhere? Something hurts inside. Something broke inside me and if it doesn’t heal today, it will heal tomorrow . . . No. No. It won’t heal if you’re not here. It won’t heal if you don’t come back. It will never heal. Come back or it will never heal. Where are you alive, Francisco? Tell me. Where are you dead? Why didn’t I go out? Are you cold where you are, Francisco? I am, and there’s no blanket that will make me warm. Bring him now, Simonopio, bring Francisco, and you come as well. If I’d gone out, I would’ve stopped you, Francisco. I would’ve known. Somehow, I would’ve known. I would’ve stopped you. It hurts. I’m hurting. Perhaps you’re not, anymore. Not if you’re dead. And if I’m hurting, I’m hurting because I’m still here, waiting for you. Alone. The waiting hurts. The doubt hurts. Francisco, Francisco, Fr . . . Are you alone? I am. Are you afraid? Me too, Francisco. Me too. Me too. Very much. Afraid of knowing and of not knowing.