Alive or dead.
The day would come when she would thank her mother for her stubbornness, but not yet.
She would go to the three masses, because custom and her mother made her do it, but she would pray for the return of her son: the prayers for Francisco could begin afterward. He would understand. There was no rush.
“Beatriz. Look at me, Beatriz.” With effort, she did as her mother asked. “Leocadio came for the cart.”
“What . . . ?” It seemed impossible. She would have seen something from her window.
“I don’t know. Pola told me. He quickly came and went without saying anything, but not that way,” she said, indicating the road Beatriz could see from her window. “Out the back, down Reja’s road. Do you want to wait there?”
For years they had called that path Reja’s road, because it was where she always faced, even if she did not look at it; it was where she had gone in search of a crying baby, and also from where she had returned, baby in arms, on the same cart for which they would wait that day together, one on her rocking chair and the other in a straight-backed chair. One with her eyes closed and the other with her eyes wide open.
Both looking for their boys.
Alive or dead? Alive or dead? Alive or dead? they both asked silently to the rhythm of the nana’s rocking chair.
When the answer was finally about to come after almost two days of asking, Beatriz Cortés, widow of Morales, was tempted to return to her window to look the other way. She had thought that she would prefer to know. To find her son even if he was dead. Then it occurred to her that the worst thing might be to learn that her son had died with his father; that it would be worse to receive his battered, lifeless, decomposed little body, which she could not refuse her attentions—even if they were mortuary—because for what remained of her life, she would never forgive herself such neglect.
She did not move from her place, but she closed her eyes like Nana Reja. It was impossible, however, to close her ears: she could hear the cart’s wheels and the horses’ hooves on stones and earth growing closer and closer. Closing her eyes was useless and it made it worse: what her eyes did not see, her mind imagined. So she opened them, so she stood, so she walked out to meet the cart, so she saw that neither Francisco nor Simonopio were riding on its front bench, so she concluded; she contained her breath, her body, and her tears, and she said, “He’s come home dead like his papa.”
80
An Empty Roof
If Simonopio had gone to his shed to rest and not off into the hills, it was not just to keep his promise to not leave Francisco again; it was also because, while he had not felt them before, suddenly the wounds on his feet began to hurt, a lot, and putting on shoes and walking off seemed like a very bad idea. Then he remembered that he had lost the only shoes he had, that in the rush, he had left them almost as an offering for the river to devour. He also remained in his shed because he needed the comfort of what remained of the beehive under his roof, of the queen bee and of the bees that, because of their young age, had not gone out when he had called them.
They also needed him: they were all in mourning. They had all lost too much.
Under the great, almost-vacant structure they had built over nineteen years between the roof beams, Simonopio allowed himself to sleep, to put the vigil on hold. He also gave himself permission to rest the wounds on his body and heart.
After cleaning himself up, eating, and drinking, because he had not done so since he’d found Francisco Junior, Simonopio slept for two days straight. Sometimes he opened his eyes a little to find Nana Reja sitting at the foot of his bed, or rocking beside him, but his eyes closed again of their own accord. Perhaps it was that Simonopio did not have the strength to open them for long enough to explain to the little old lady, with a look, everything that would change their lives, all the grief that life would bring. Or perhaps it was that his eyes still refused to be the messengers of the news.
At other times he had sensed that his godmother had come to see him; that she offered food or fresh water; that she touched his brow; that she stroked his cheek; that she cleaned the cuts on his hands, face, and feet and applied ointment; but he had not been able to escape his stupor to ask after Francisco, to respond to anything, or to thank her for her kindness.
He was aware of the words she said to him during the time she was in his shed, tending to him: Francisco had improved, he was regaining consciousness at intervals, he spoke a little, he was asking after him.
“The doctor says you did well not to move him much, because of the blow to the head and the broken rib.”
Remembering how Espiricueta had shaken him and thinking about the pain it must have inflicted on the boy—aggravated later by each step that Simonopio had taken with him in his arms—almost made him come out of his slumber, but he did not allow himself to do so: he reminded himself that Francisco was now safe. Francisco was receiving the attention he needed, and now Simonopio also had to rest in order to be ready for the decisions that would soon have to be made.
Simonopio would wake up only when he sensed that Francisco had completely regained consciousness. That was the time frame he gave himself and that he would obey. With this decision made, Simonopio forced himself to remain insensible to everything, from the unease he felt at the almost-empty and silent roof under which he slept to Nana Reja’s rhythmic rocking and the never-changing parting words of Beatriz: “Thank you, Simonopio. Thank you. Forgive me, please.”
He had understood the reaction of his godmother who, seeing him arrive with her boy in his arms, without knowing whether Francisco was dead or alive after two days of continuous anguish, had received him with a slap.
He understood: it had been that or to fall to pieces, and true to her essence, Beatriz Cortés de Morales had opted to be strong. Once she recovered her young son, the spark had returned to her eyes, the storm that broke out when Lupita died and that had slowly faded over time.
Her fury was not directed at him. Her fury was for the coyote.
There was nothing for which to be grateful. Nothing to thank him for. And nothing to forgive.
81
Your Mama Never Forgave Herself That Slap,
and until the day of her death, as sane as she always remained, she continued to berate herself for the violent error.
It’s true. My mama continued to sew on her Singer until the end, in her eagerness to remember the good things, forget the bad things, and have the strength to face life’s surprises, good and bad. By the way, she never wanted the electric sewing machine that I gave her—It doesn’t sew the same, it doesn’t sound right, I can’t make my hands comfortable, she would say, always finding some defect in it—so she would die with stronger legs than a marathon runner from so much pedaling to the rhythm that brought her peace and that she lost only when, in her absorption, the memory of the welcome she had given Simonopio that day popped into her head. Her rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat became a disordered rat-a . . . tat that ended in tangled thread and straying material. Then she would stop without finishing the project and wander for a while around the house as if lost, feeling desolate, going over the events of my seventh birthday and wishing she had behaved differently with Simonopio, with my papa, and with me.
But that had been her reaction, and it could not be undone, despite the regrets and wishes that stayed with her for the rest of her life: if only she had hugged him, if only she had told him that she had also thought of him, that she had also feared for him.