That was truly all he was, Juan Diego was thinking. Even Soledad had lost confidence in him as a future skywalker. The good foot gave him trouble; it slipped in the rope rungs of the ladder, and it wasn't strong enough to bear his weight in that unnatural right-angle position.
What Juan Diego saw of Dolores was often upside down. Either she was upside down or he was; in the acrobats' troupe tent, there could be only one skywalker practicing at a time. Dolores had never had any confidence in him as a skywalker--like Ignacio, Dolores believed Juan Diego lacked the balls for it. (For balls, apparently, only the main tent--the skywalk at eighty feet, without a net--was a true test.)
Lupe had said Hombre liked you if you were afraid of him; maybe this was why Ignacio told the girl acrobats that Hombre knew when the girls got their periods. This made the girls fear Hombre. Since Ignacio made the girls feed the lion (and the lionesses), possibly this made the girls safer?
It was sick that Hombre liked the girls because they were afraid of him, Juan Diego thought. But this made no sense, Lupe had said. Ignacio just wanted the girl acrobats to be afraid, and he wanted them to feed the lions. Ignacio thought if he fed the lions, they would think he was weak. The part about the girls' periods mattered only to Ignacio. Lupe said Hombre didn't think about the girls' periods--not ever.
Juan Diego was afraid of Dolores, but this didn't make Dolores like him. Dolores did say one helpful thing to him, about skywalking--not that Dolores had meant to be helpful. She was just being cruel to him, which was her nature.
"If you think you're going to fall, you will," Dolores told Juan Diego. He was upside down in the practice tent, his feet in the first two rope rungs of the ladder. The loops of rope dug into the creases where the tops of his feet bent at his ankles.
"That's not helpful, Dolores," Soledad had told The Wonder, but it was helpful to Juan Diego; at the moment, however, he'd been unable to stop thinking that he was going to fall--hence he'd fallen.
"See?" Dolores had told him, climbing up to the ladder. Upside down she seemed especially desirable.
Juan Diego had not been allowed to bring his life-size Guadalupe statue to the dogs' troupe tent. There was no room for it, and when Juan Diego tried to describe the Guadalupe figure to Estrella, the old woman had told him that the male dogs (Baby, the dachshund, and Perro Mestizo) would piss on it.
Now, when Juan Diego thought about masturbating, he thought about Dolores; she was usually upside down, when he thought of her this way. He'd said nothing to Lupe about masturbating to the image of an upside-down Dolores, but Lupe caught him thinking about it.
"Sick!" Lupe said to him. "You imagine Dolores upside down with your penis in her mouth--what are you thinking?"
"Lupe, what can I say? You already know what I'm thinking!" Juan Diego said in exasperation, but he was also embarrassed.
It was terrible timing: their move to La Maravilla, and their respective ages at that time; it was suddenly painful to both of them--namely, that Lupe didn't want to know what her brother was thinking, and Juan Diego didn't want his little sister to know, either. They were estranged from each other for the first time.
THUS (IN THEIR UNFAMILIAR states of mind) the dump kids arrived, with Brother Pepe and Senor Eduardo, at Casa Vargas. The statues of the Spanish conquistadors caused Edward Bonshaw to stagger on the stairs, or perhaps it was the grandeur of the foyer that unbalanced him. Brother Pepe took hold of the Iowan's arm; Pepe knew that Senor Eduardo's long list of the things he'd denied himself had shortened. In addition to having sex with Flor, Edward Bonshaw now permitted himself to drink beer--it was almost impossible to be with Flor and not drink something--but even a couple of beers could unbalance Edward Bonshaw.
It didn't help that Vargas's dinner-party girlfriend was there to greet them on the grand staircase. Dr. Vargas didn't have a live-in girlfriend; he lived alone, if you could call living in Casa Vargas living "alone." (The statues of the Spanish conquistadors amounted to an occupying force--a small army.)
For dinner parties, Vargas always came up with a girlfriend who could cook. This one was named Alejandra--a bosomy beauty whose breasts must have been a hazard around a hot stove. Lupe took an instant dislike to Alejandra; in Lupe's harsh judgment, Vargas's lustful thoughts about Dr. Gomez should have obligated Vargas to fidelity to the ENT doctor.
"Lupe, be realistic," Juan Diego whispered to his sullen little sister; she'd merely scowled at Alejandra, refusing to shake the young woman's hand. (Lupe didn't want to let go of the coffee can.) "Vargas isn't supposed to be faithful to a woman he hasn't slept with! Vargas only wants to sleep with Dr. Gomez, Lupe."
"It's the same thing," Lupe pronounced in biblical fashion; naturally, she hated passing the Spanish army on the stairs.
"Alejandra, Alejandra," Vargas's dinner-party girlfriend kept repeating, introducing herself to Brother Pepe and the staggering Senor Eduardo on the treacherous staircase.
"What a penis-breath," Lupe said to her brother. She meant that Alejandra was a penis-breath--Dolores's favorite epithet. It was what The Wonder called the girl acrobats who were sleeping with, or had slept with, Ignacio. It was what Dolores called each of the lionesses, too, whenever she had to feed them. (The lionesses hated Dolores, Lupe said, but Juan Diego didn't know if that was true; he only knew for sure that Lupe hated Dolores.) Lupe called Dolores a penis-breath, or Lupe implied that Dolores was a future penis-breath, which (Lupe said) Dolores was too much of a dumb monkey twat to know.
Now Alejandra was a penis-breath, just because she was one of Dr. Vargas's girlfriends. Edward Bonshaw, out of breath, saw Vargas smiling at the top of the stairs--his arm around the bearded soldier in the plumed helmet. "And who is this savage?" Senor Eduardo asked Vargas, pointing to the soldier's sword and his breastplate.
"One of your evangelicals in armor, of course," Vargas answered the Iowan.
Edward Bonshaw eyed the Spaniard warily. Was it only Juan Diego's anxiety for his sister that made the boy think the statue's lifeless gaze came to life when the conquistador spotted Lupe?
"Don't stare at me, rapist and pillager," Lupe said to the Spaniard. "I'll cut off your dick with your sword--I know some lions who would like to eat you and your Christian scum!"
"Jesus, Lupe!" Juan Diego exclaimed.
"What does Jesus matter?" Lupe asked him. "It's the virgins who are in charge--not that they're really virgins, not that we even know who they are."
"What?" Juan Diego said to her.
"The virgins are like the lionesses," Lupe told her brother. "They're the ones you have to worry about--they run the show." Lupe's head was eye-level to the hilt of the Spaniard's sword; her small hand touched the scabbard. "Keep it sharp, killer," Lupe told the conquistador.
"They certainly were frightening, weren't they?" Edward Bonshaw said, still staring at the conquering soldier.
"They certainly intended to be," Vargas told the Iowan.
They were following Alejandra's hips down a long and decorous hall. Of course they couldn't pass a portrait of Jesus without comment. "Blessed are--" Edward Bonshaw began to say; the portrait was of Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount.
"Oh, those endearing beatitudes!" Vargas interrupted him. "My favorite part of the Bible--not that anyone pays attention to the beatitudes; they are not what most Church business is about. Aren't you taking these two innocents to the Guadalupe shrine? A Catholic tourist attraction, if you ask me," Vargas went on to Senor Eduardo but for everyone's benefit. "No evidence of the beatitudes at that unholiest of basilicas!"
"Have tolerance, Vargas," Brother Pepe pleaded. "You tolerate our beliefs, we'll tolerate your lack thereof--"
"The virgins rule," Lupe interrupted them, holding tight to the coffee can. "Nobody cares about the beatitudes. Nobody listens to Jesus--Jesus was just a baby. The virgins are the ones who pull the strings."
"I suggest you don't translate for Lupe--whatever she said. Just don't," Pepe said to Juan Diego, who was too transfixed by Alejandra
's hips to have been paying attention to Lupe's mysticism--perhaps the contents of the coffee can contributed to Lupe's irritating powers.
"Tolerance is never a bad idea," Edward Bonshaw began. Ahead of them, Juan Diego saw another Spanish soldier, this one standing at attention by a double doorway in the hall.
"This sounds like a Jesuitical trick," Vargas said to the Iowan. "Since when do you Catholics ever leave us nonbelievers alone?" As proof, Dr. Vargas gestured to the solemn conquistador standing guard at the doorway to the kitchen. Vargas put his hand on the soldier's breastplate, over the conquistador's heart--if the conquering Spaniard had ever had a heart. "Try talking to this guy about free will," Vargas said, but the Spaniard seemed not to notice the doctor's overfamiliar touch; once again, Juan Diego saw the statue's distant gaze come into focus. The Spanish soldier was looking at Lupe.
Juan Diego leaned down and whispered to his sister, "I know you're not telling me everything."
"You wouldn't believe me," she told him.
"Aren't they sweet--those children?" Alejandra said to Vargas.
"Oh, God--the penis-breath wants to have kids! This will ruin my appetite," was all Lupe would say to her brother.
"Did you bring your own coffee?" Alejandra suddenly asked Lupe. "Or is it your toys? It's--"
"It's for him!" Lupe said, pointing to Dr. Vargas. "It's our mother's ashes. They have a funny smell. There's a little dog in the ashes, and a dead hippie. There's something sacred in the ashes, too," Lupe added, in a whisper. "But the smell is different. We can't identify it. We want a scientific opinion." She held out the coffee can to Vargas. "Go on--smell it," Lupe said to him.
"It just smells like coffee," Edward Bonshaw tried to assure Dr. Vargas. (The Iowan didn't know if Vargas had any prior knowledge of the contents of the coffee can.)
"It's Esperanza's ashes!" Brother Pepe blurted out.
"Your turn, translator," Vargas said to Juan Diego; the doctor had taken the coffee can from Lupe, but he'd not yet lifted the lid.
"We burned our mother at the basurero," Juan Diego began. "We burned a gringo draft dodger with her--a dead one," the fourteen-year-old struggled to explain.
"There was a dog in the mix--a small one," Pepe pointed out.
"That must have been quite a fire," Vargas said.
"It was already burning when we put the bodies in it," Juan Diego explained. "Rivera had started it--with whatever was around."
"Just your usual dump fire, I suppose," Vargas said; he was fingering the lid of the coffee can, but he still hadn't lifted it.
Juan Diego would always remember how Lupe was touching the tip of her nose; she held one index finger against her nose when she spoke. "Y la nariz," Lupe said. ("And the nose.")
Juan Diego hesitated to translate this, but Lupe kept saying it, while she touched the end of her little nose. "Y la nariz."
"The nose?" Vargas guessed. "What nose? Whose nose?"
"Not the nose, you little heathen!" Brother Pepe cried.
"Mary's nose?" Edward Bonshaw exclaimed. "You put the Virgin Mary's nose in that fire?" the Iowan asked Lupe.
"He did it," Lupe said, pointing to her brother. "It was in his pocket, though it almost didn't fit--it was a big nose."
No one had told Alejandra, the dinner-party girlfriend, about the giant statue of the Virgin Mary losing its nose in the accident that killed the cleaning woman at the Jesuit temple. Poor Alejandra must have imagined, for a moment, the actual Virgin Mary's nose in the awful fire at the basurero.
"Help her," was all Lupe said, pointing to Alejandra. Brother Pepe and Edward Bonshaw managed to guide the dinner-party girlfriend to the kitchen sink.
Vargas lifted the lid of the coffee can. No one spoke, though they could all hear Alejandra breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth as she tried to suppress the urge to vomit.
Dr. Vargas lowered his mouth and nose into the open coffee can. They could all hear him take a deep breath. There was no other sound but the carefully measured breathing of his dinner-party girlfriend, who was struggling not to be sick in the sink.
The first conquistador's sword was withdrawn from its scabbard and clanged against the stone floor in the foyer at the foot of the grand staircase. It was quite a loud clang, but far away from where the dinner par-tiers stood in the kitchen.
Brother Pepe flinched at the sound of the sword--as did Senor Eduardo and the dump kids, but not Vargas and Alejandra. The second sword clanged closer to them--the sword belonging to the Spaniard standing guard at the top of the stairs. You could not only hear the second sword clang against the stone stairs, as it slid down several steps before its descent of the staircase halted, but they had all heard the sound of the second sword being drawn from its scabbard.
"Those Spanish soldiers--" Edward Bonshaw began to say.
"It's not the conquistadors--they're just statues," Lupe told them. (Juan Diego didn't hesitate to translate this.) "It's your parents, isn't it? You live in their house because they're here, aren't they?" Lupe asked Dr. Vargas. (Juan Diego kept translating.)
"Ashes are ashes--there's little smell to ashes," Vargas said. "But this was a dump fire," the doctor continued. "There's paint in these ashes--maybe turpentine, too, or some kind of paint thinner. Maybe stain--something for staining wood, I mean. Something flammable."
"Maybe gasoline?" Juan Diego said; he'd seen Rivera start more than a few dump fires with gasoline, including this one.
"Maybe gasoline," Vargas agreed. "Lots of chemicals," the doctor added. "What you smell are the chemicals."
"The Mary Monster's nose was chemical," Lupe said, but Juan Diego grabbed her hand before she could touch her nose again.
The third clang and clatter was very near to them; except for Vargas, everyone jumped.
"Let me guess," Brother Pepe cheerfully said. "That was the sword of our guardian conquistador by the kitchen doorway--the one right here, in the hall," Pepe said, pointing.
"No--that was his helmet," Alejandra said. "I won't stay here overnight. I don't know what his parents want," the pretty young cook said. She seemed fully recovered.
"They just want to be here--they want Vargas to know they're all right," Lupe explained. "They're glad you weren't on the plane, you know," Lupe said to Dr. Vargas.
When Juan Diego translated this, Vargas just nodded to Lupe; he knew, all right. Dr. Vargas put the lid back on the coffee can and handed it back to Lupe. "Just don't put your fingers in your mouth or in your eyes, if you've touched the ashes," he told her. "Wash your hands. Paint, turpentine, wood stain--they're poisonous."
The sword came sliding across the floor of the kitchen, where they were standing; there wasn't much of a clang this time--it was a wooden floor.
"That's the third sword--from the nearest Spaniard," Alejandra said. "They always put it in the kitchen."
Brother Pepe and Edward Bonshaw had gone into the long hall just to have a look around. The painting of Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount was askew on the wall; Pepe fussed with it until it hung right.
Without looking into the hall, Vargas said: "They like to draw my attention to the beatitudes."
Out in the hall, they could hear the Iowan reciting the beatitudes. "Blessed are--" and so on, and on.
"Believing in ghosts isn't the same thing as believing in God," Dr. Vargas said to the dump kids a little defensively.
"You're okay," Lupe told him. "You're better than I thought," she added. "And you're not a penis-breath," the girl said to Alejandra. "The food smells good--we should eat something." Juan Diego decided he would translate just the last part.
" 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God,' " Senor Eduardo was reciting. The Iowan wouldn't have agreed with Dr. Vargas. Edward Bonshaw believed that believing in ghosts amounted to the same thing as believing in God; to Senor Eduardo, the two things were at least related.
What did Juan Diego believe, then and now? He'd seen what the ghosts could do. Had he actually witness
ed detectable movement from the Mary Monster, or had he only imagined it? And there was the nose trick, or whatever one called it. Some unexplainable things are real.
* 21 *
Mister Goes Swimming
"Believing in ghosts isn't the same thing as believing in God," the former dump reader said aloud. Juan Diego spoke more confidently than Dr. Vargas ever had of his family ghosts. But Juan Diego had been dreaming that he was arguing with Clark French--though not about ghosts or believing in God. They were at each other's throats, again, about that Polish pope. The way John Paul II had associated both abortion and birth control with moral decline made Juan Diego furious--that pope was on the everlasting warpath against contraception. In the early eighties, he'd called contraception and abortion "modern enemies of the family."
"I'm sure there was a context you're overlooking," Clark French had said to his former teacher many times.
"A context, Clark?" Juan Diego had asked (he'd also asked this when he was dreaming).
In the late eighties, Pope John Paul II had called condom use--even to prevent AIDS--"morally illicit."
"The context was the AIDS crisis, Clark!" Juan Diego had cried--not only that time but in his dream.
Yet Juan Diego woke up arguing that believing in ghosts was different from believing in God; it was disorienting, the way those transitions from dreaming to being awake can be. "Ghosts--" Juan Diego continued, sitting up in bed, but he suddenly stopped speaking.
He was alone in his bedroom at the Encantador; this time, Miriam had truly vanished--she was not in bed beside him while (somehow) managing not to breathe. "Miriam?" Juan Diego said, in case she was in the bathroom. But the door to the bathroom was open, and there was no answer--only the crowing of another rooster. (It had to be a different rooster; the first one had been killed mid-squawk, from the sound of it.) At least this rooster wasn't crazy; the morning light flooded the bedroom--it was the New Year in Bohol.
Through the open windows, Juan Diego could hear the children in the swimming pool. When he went to the bathroom, he was surprised to see his prescriptions scattered on the countertop surrounding the sink. Had he gotten up in the night, and--half asleep, or in a sexually sated trance--scarfed down a bunch of pills? If so, how many had he taken--and which pills? (Both the Viagra and Lopressor containers were open; the tablets dotted the countertop--there were some on the bathroom floor.)