Part 21 (1/2)

38.

Don Fidencio woke up early the next day with his arms and legs wrapped around the extra pillow. Though the shades were drawn and only the bathroom light was on, he was pretty sure it was morning. There was no part.i.tioning curtain or another old man in the room; his own bed was missing the rails that the aides raised every night and then had to come back to lower from one side each time he had to trudge over to the toilet. It wasn't until he heard the sound of something clanging atop the stove that he finally recalled where he was. He smiled for only a second before he let go of the pillow and stuck his hand under the covers and reached for his crotch. Then he patted the mattress under him and on either side. The pillow, he remembered, had been between his legs. All of them were dry, though. In his old head he tried again to understand how it was that two accidents could still be considered accidents. He thanked G.o.d that the last one had happened away from that place, away from where they would have forced him to start wearing the diapers that the rest of them did, and from there how long would it be before they put him in a wheelchair or started spoon-feeding him at The Table Of Mutes? Since arriving there he'd seen men much younger than himself lose control of their bodies. Their eyes lost all correspondence with the person behind them, not to mention with the person in front of them. Their bowels gave way or simply shut down for good. They had to be fed once, then again because their mouths would open before they chewed the food. And he thanked G.o.d even more - lying down and not on his bare knees only because he worried about ever standing up again - that this last accident had happened someplace other than in his daughter's house, where he would have never heard the end of it.

With much sacrifice, he sat up in bed and placed his feet on the floor. As soon as he felt the coolness of the cement, he knew that he'd forgotten to wear the padded socks his doctor had recommended. Wasn't it enough that he could remember to brush his teeth and comb his hair and almost always pull up his zipper and that he wasn't telling the same story over and over like the one who liked to tell everybody about his ugly finger? At least his grandfather's story had been handed down to him and he was only trying to keep it from slipping away, though he never imagined having to retell it with so much detail. His throat still felt raw from talking so much the day before. After his brother and the girl had left, he had made up so many things he couldn't say where the truth ended and the less-truthful parts began, so that with time it all became the same to him.

He grabbed his cigarettes and lighter off the nightstand and shuffled to the bathroom to take care of his morning business. Once he had turned around and backed up some, he pushed his boxers down past his knees and, holding on to the sink, lowered himself onto the pot. As soon as he was comfortable, he lit his first cigarette, making sure to keep his arm extended so the ashes wouldn't fall on his underwear. What could be more pitiful than an old man spending his last days wearing underwear with burn marks on them? These were the new pair the girl had bought for him after his accident. They came with what looked like tiny alligators on them. At least that was what he thought when he first saw them - now he couldn't tell if they were lizards. Carmen had offered to wash his clothes later today. He would have to ask her then - alligators or lizards? A man should know what he has on his underwear. For now he would say they were alligators.

From where he was sitting, he reached into the sink and tapped off the ashes. It seemed years since he had smoked indoors, much less while on the pot. Before it used to be that there was always someone watching. It was a miracle that he had been able to get out through the back gate. Or that he had been outside when his brother came around. If it had been drizzling, as it looked like it might, he would have stayed inside and waited for later. Or even that his accident in the hotel bed hadn't been something worse like another stroke that might have landed him in the hospital and from there back in the nursing home. He realized that it was only by a miracle of G.o.d that he was so far away from that place and all those strangers. And really, how many miracles could one old man expect to have?

39.

As he had grown used to for this last year, Don Celestino woke up alone the next morning. It took him a few seconds to recall that he hadn't gone to bed alone, though. The lights were still off, but he could make out the shape of his pants on the chair. At first he thought she might be in the bathroom; the door was half shut. It was possible that she'd gotten up to relieve herself and figured it wasn't worth closing the door the whole way. But she was also modest when it came to her body, preferring the room as dark as possible when they were intimate or, if it was during the day, as it usually was at his house, for them to stay under the covers. At least if there were some sound, any little bit, coming from that part of the room. How many minutes had gone by now? Five? Ten? These last few mornings he'd been the one to wake up first, much earlier and more alert. It was still dark outside. The hotel didn't have a restaurant and the lights were off in the lobby. She wouldn't have thought to go out for a walk at this early hour. He had a feeling he should get up to see where she was, but he also sensed that he might be alone for more obvious reasons.

”Socorro,” he called out finally.

He did it again a few seconds later, but still with no response. In the harsh light of the bathroom, he found that she had taken her brush and a few toiletries and had left the clutter that was on his side of the bathroom vanity. The area was wiped clean, with no sign that she had ever actually been there. The handwritten note attached to the mirror was all that she had left behind: Maybe I should have stayed and not come - only you know what you want. Maybe I should have stayed and not come - only you know what you want.

And that was all. No name at the top, no signature at the bottom. As if the last guest in this room had left the message for the next traveler. He tried to remember their last conversation, if it could actually be called a conversation, with only one of them eager to talk and the other ready for sleep. If this was about meeting her brother, then fine, he would meet him, shake his hand, talk to him for a while, whatever made her happy. Because he didn't want to jump on a bus in the middle of the night was no reason to leave this way.

He dressed and washed his face, barely taking his usual time before the mirror, and then hurried next door to grab the bag with his brother's medicines. Outside the hotel the dim streetlights guided him along the sidewalk that led past the munic.i.p.al building and to the taxi stand. Two cars were parked, one behind the other, and he found Isidro sleeping soundly in the driver's seat of the first one. The windows were rolled up, with only a tiny crack at the top.

The other driver stepped out of his car with a cigarette in his hand. ”Taxi?”

”I arranged yesterday for him to take me,” Don Celestino said. He tapped on the window, but the sleeping man only scrunched his nose as if a fly were trying to disturb his sleep.

”With this one, you might be here all day,” the young man said. ”Let me take you where you need to go.”

”Do you know how to get to a ranchito they call De La Paz?”

The driver blew out a trail of smoke. ”How hard can it be?”

”We took a long time to find it yesterday.”

”Only because you went with Isidro. He can get lost going from the front to the backseat.”

Don Celestino glanced at the sleeping man. ”I set everything up with him.”

”I can make you a special price,” the young man said. ”The half of whatever my friend said he would charge you.”

”That would be good, but he already knows the way.”

The driver didn't respond at first, then said, ”However you want it.”

”Thank you,” Don Celestino said, ”but I should go with him.”

”That's fine.” The young man stamped out what was left of his cigarette. ”I was only trying to help.”

”Yes, but thank you for offering.”

The driver nodded as he looked over at the other taxi. Then he reached into his own car and laid on the horn until Isidro jolted up. ”Now you can thank me,” he said.

The sun had risen by the time they reached the outskirts of town. From there they retraced many of the same dirt roads from the last two days, pa.s.sing this windmill or crossing that ironwork bridge. At one point the same old man and his grandson in the mule-driven cart waved to them the same way they had when they first arrived in Linares. A short while later Isidro stopped and doubled back, shaking his head as if overnight someone had changed the roads on him. Before they could turn left off the main highway he had to wait for a bus pa.s.sing in the opposite direction. Don Celestino craned his neck in time to see the blackened and soot-covered back windows as the bus headed eastbound, in the direction of Ciudad Victoria. He turned around to the front before this image had completely faded, then a second later twisted around again, but by now it was gone.

”You would be more lost if you had gone with another driver, believe me.”

”No, I wanted to wait for you,” Don Celestino said. ”This will only take a few minutes for me to get my brother. And from there you can take us to the bus station.”

”And your wife?”

For a second he considered ignoring the question altogether. And then he wondered what Socorro might say if she were the one sitting back here.

”Really, we're only friends.”

”Friends?” he said, as if he had heard the word before but not used in this particular context.

”She had to leave early,” Don Celestino said, ”so she could see her family.”

”To tell you the truth, in my mind I had the two of you married.”

”Maybe one of these days.”

Don Celestino brought his other arm down from the seat back. They were pa.s.sing the first set of groves, and the workers were only beginning to pull their ladders from the trucks. He blamed himself for not making more of an effort to stay awake. It was one thing for him to accidentally fall asleep and another to will himself to fall asleep so he wouldn't have to talk. But even if he had stayed awake, he wasn't sure he had the words to make her understand his hesitation. Less than a year ago he had promised himself not to remarry, and not because of some loyalty to his deceased wife but simply so he wouldn't have to go through the experience of losing someone again. If the right words had come to him last night, he might have told her that he had resisted getting closer for fear of putting her through the same. Because to meet her family was to get closer to her, and to tell his family was to say that he was serious about this young woman he had met, otherwise why risk telling them something that might hurt them? And to be more serious was to get married and to know that this marriage, as wonderful as it might end up being for both of them, would inevitably end someday. All of this he had done for her.

His logic made less and less sense to him the longer they took to arrive. Did he think he was the only one who understood what was happening? Wasn't this the same woman who had seen them loading him into an ambulance with his eyes glazed over and the oxygen mask covering most of his face? And still she had come to visit him in the hospital later that day. She had met his brother and seen what their future together might look like if she chose to stay with him, which apparently hadn't been much of a choice until earlier this morning. So what exactly was he protecting her from? And what exactly had he convinced himself she was too young to comprehend? And then he realized that she had already been alone herself, and for much longer than he probably ever would.

They crossed the iron bridge from yesterday and near the next grove Isidro pulled alongside a truck and waved to a teenage boy hanging on to the wooden slats that rose from the bed. A second later the boy tossed an orange down and the driver caught it, then tapped his horn as he drove off. Farther along the road he handed the orange back to his pa.s.senger. ”For when you see your lady friend again, a little souvenir from Linares,” he said. ”Maybe it will help her to make up her mind about you.”

40.

She might not have noticed if not for the wisp of white hair she thought she saw coming from the back window of the taxi. If it was him, he would have to catch up to her in Ciudad Victoria. And if it wasn't him, so be it. She had waited a full half hour at the bus station before going up to the ticket counter.

The driver was pulling over onto the shoulder of the road for another pa.s.senger, and he took the opportunity to turn and smile at Socorro. He had been smiling at her since she boarded the bus alone, the only woman to do so. On the road, he would glance at her in the mirror from time to time, hoping to catch her looking back. Of all the things she needed right now. To have pulled herself away from one man who couldn't see a future with her and now to be pursued by a man whose job it was to be somewhere else every day.

After lying in bed most of the night, she decided that even if he did wake up, there was little for them to say that wasn't by now obvious. So maybe he had done her a great favor by not pretending to feel something that he wouldn't be able to continue as time went on. But the bigger favor was helping her decide to collect her things and leave. Because this right now was the first time she could say that she had been on her own, without Rogelio or her mother or Celestino. And really, when the bus arrived in Ciudad Victoria, she didn't have to buy a ticket for the next one headed to Matamoros. She could travel south to San Luis Potosi or farther to Queretaro or, if she wanted, go along the coast to Tampico. She could go anywhere she wanted, she didn't have to be looking back to see if some man was coming for her, she didn't have to.

41.

The old man swished his mug about until the coffee turned to a muddy brown color. He was used to adding cream and Sweet'N Low, but here they had only evaporated milk and sugar. He supposed it was something he could get used to with time. Certainly there were more difficult things in this life that a person might have to endure; n.o.body had to explain this to him. Earlier the granddaughter had made him some huevos a la mexicana with just enough chiles and spices that he realized he had forgotten what a real breakfast was supposed to taste like. She wasn't his granddaughter, he realized, but her name had gotten away from him again, and in any case, she treated him like he imagined a granddaughter might treat a grandfather. Just yesterday evening when they had already left the store, it had occurred to her to turn the truck around and go back so she could buy him a pack of cigarettes, just in case he ran out in the middle of the night. And this morning after his breakfast, she had brought the coffee to where he was sitting outside, smoking. A few feet away the chickens walked inside their small fenced-in yard, pecking at the feed she had scattered for them.