In her defense, I should explain that she did just that with Simonopio as soon as she had the chance, which was what mattered, though it never seemed enough to her. What was given, was given, and that slap was certainly given by my mama who, for the rest of her life, with unwavering certainty, with stabbing remorse, would say that it was the first—and last—time she had hit anybody.
She never wanted to listen to my objections: the spankings, my spankings, did not count as hitting as far as she was concerned.
“Anyway, you deserved them. Simonopio did not,” she replied whenever I tried to contradict her.
82
Unanswered Questions
Her brother Emilio was so proud to be the one who found Simonopio and Francisco that Beatriz did not have the heart to tell him that it was Simonopio who found him.
Beatriz appreciated the great effort to which all the men went, searching for her son without rest. Though she did not know the details, she knew that Simonopio had saved him. How could one understand or explain what Simonopio did? Explain his sudden and inexplicable escape from the river? She had always suspected it, but for Beatriz, this was the first irrefutable and direct evidence of her godson’s special ability, his very particular gift that she had always treated discreetly and discussed with no one except her husband.
She felt a nip in her heart: her husband was not there anymore.
Nobody asked where Simonopio and Francisco had been or what they had done while they were missing. All Emilio and the men knew with certainty was what Simonopio had been prepared to share. While they waited for the cart to transport Francisco safely, Emilio asked Simonopio if he had seen anything, and he nodded.
Emilio and the men had already had their suspicions, but they were glad to have a witness, even if he was a mute.
“We found Espiricueta’s and his son’s horses on the hill, up above . . . above the place. Was it them?”
Simonopio nodded firmly.
“What happened?”
Simonopio refused to answer that question, and no one, not even his godmother, Beatriz, would learn the details from him.
Simonopio knew there was no way to recount them, for even if he had been able, even if he could have made himself understood, he would never have verbally reproduced the cruel images that would remain in his memory forever. It would mean causing everyone more pain, which he refused to do. In any case, how could he communicate the humiliation, the anguish, the terror, the horror, the pain, the cruelty, the coldness, and the loss that he had witnessed? It was not possible. He could not, and he did not want to do it. Overwhelmed by the memory, instead of answering, Simonopio had burst into tears, until, without realizing it, he moistened Francisco Junior’s face with his drops of grief.
With rough slaps on the back, not knowing the right thing to say, Emilio tried to console the youngster, who seemed not to know that men must not cry, at least not in front of other men. But Simonopio did not stop sobbing until the cart that transported them was approaching the house.
Even without knowing the details, what everyone at first suspected became an irrefutable fact: Simonopio had witnessed Francisco Morales’s murder, and the culprit was Anselmo Espiricueta. They also mentioned the son, but Beatriz doubted that he would have pulled the trigger. However, she did not doubt for a second that his father was guilty.
They had both vanished, and their disappearance was a mystery that caused alarm.
The Guardia Rural were searching for them, though Espiricueta had not returned home and nobody had seen them since before that Saturday. They had left no trace. They abandoned the horses, and they did not leave by train. Everyone reached the same conclusion: the pair were still roaming the hills, evading justice, perhaps living in caves; so they thought it wise to offer a sizable reward to anyone who informed on them. They also decided that guards would be posted around the Morales Cortés house, in case the pair decided to attack again.
Beatriz knew that they did not have many funds available, since the bank had embezzled their money, but she would not skimp. She would figure out later how to pay rewards and salaries, even if she needed to borrow against the next season’s harvest. And she would see what she would do, what Beatriz—the civilized Beatriz—would demand when they were caught. She would see what she would say—or what she would scream—face-to-face with her husband’s murderer. She also had a primitive Beatriz inside, one she would never allow to come to the surface: the vengeful woman, the one she normally kept well under control, for if she let her out, primitive Beatriz would not be satisfied without at least gouging out the murderer’s eyes and tearing his skin to shreds.
Impossible. Impossible, even if they found him. She was a woman, and revenge was still not a woman’s business.
For the moment, there was one thing she could do to begin to satisfy her urge to hurt the murderer back.
“Go to the Espiricueta house with the tractor and tear it down.”
Leocadio and Martín looked at her, clearly distressed.
“With the girl inside?”
“What girl?”
“The daughter. Margarita. They left her there.”
Then she remembered the girl who had been excited to receive the clothes and ragdoll Beatriz had sewn for her, that day when Beatriz tried to offer her condolences to the family; the day when the man tried to attack Simonopio, still a child; the day when she returned home having decided to ask her husband to get rid of the campesino.
She had left it unresolved—she could not remember why—and had done nothing to drive the murderer away from her family when she still had time. She had been negligent. She had ignored her instinct and the evidence, and they had paid a very high price for her carelessness, changing their lives forever with a painful absence.
It was her fault.
She wished she could say sorry to her husband, but it was too late. It was too late for everything now.
“No. Pull the house down, but let the girl gather her things and come out, of course. She can leave if she wants. Give her money so that she can take the train. If she wants to stay, take her to the nuns or find work for her in a house. I don’t want to see her or know anything more about her.”
She did not receive anyone during those days.
Her oldest friends arrived to keep her company, to distract her, to congratulate her on finding her son, but she had no time or desire to be distracted.
Her reclaimed son was still unwell. When Francisco Junior was back to his usual self, when they no longer had to answer the same questions every time he woke because he could not retain the information, when he stopped saying sorry for some mischief for which he imagined he was responsible, when she stopped crying every time she looked into his confused eyes, then she would consider whether she could recover something of the Beatriz she had been. There would be time to see what kind of life she would build.
That woman changed once again by violence no longer had a husband, and for now, she did not want friends or distractions either. Now she was a woman in charge of everything by herself: from the weekly wages and the moths that had returned, to the planning for the future.
Her Singer was calling to her, constantly, with its siren’s song: Come and forget about everything; lull the pain to sleep with the rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat. Beatriz did not allow herself that promised rest. It was not the time. There would be time later. There would be time in the future, though it was impossible to think ahead.