When the Owl Cries

  12

  "I guess it was quite a party," said Fernando.

  "Yes, Father."

  "Who was there?"

  "General Matanzas, Serrato, Roberto ... the Count, Jesus Peza, theRadziwills, Federicka ... several asked about you."

  "Don't be so damn' polite."

  The old man screwed round among his pillows, his cot in the patio ofthe serpent fountain. Slouched among pillows and sheets, he resembleda beachcomber, a feudal derelict. Behind him hung one of Alberto'scages, an _azulejo_ fluttering inside. Columnar cypress sliced the sky.

  Raul perched on a cane chair, his hat on the floor beside him. He hadjust returned from an inspection of the lagoon irrigation project, ajob that would put fifteen hectares of land under cultivation.

  "I saw your cancellations in the books," Fernando cried, the flames inhis eyes starting. "I want those cancellations stopped." His voicesounded childish.

  Raul did all he could to control himself: he fished out his pipe,nicked off scale, stared at it, silent.

  "You can't alter our records," Fernando exclaimed.

  "I'm not keeping our people in servitude," Raul declared.

  "Will you free them?" Fernando cried, lips wide. "They'll kill you!"

  "We've had them killed. Perhaps it's their turn."

  "You talk like a madman!"

  "Hasn't it been insane to think we can destroy and destroy and go ondestroying?"

  "We must eat," said Fernando foolishly. He wanted to see clearly: thedamn' scum floated about at any time, blocking, filtering; he rubbedhis eyes.

  "I'm going about the job of changing things as slowly as possible. Thelagoon project is coming along. I've had the dam repaired in Sector17. Petaca is being improved. Our people have a right to a betterway...." He thought he could not go on defending himself, repressinghis feelings. "You say we must eat. God knows we've never gonehungry, we Medinas!"

  "Listen," Fernando said. "I've disposed of my mining shares in PachucaIncorporated. The money is banked in my name now."

  Raul had counted on the dividends for further improvements. He hadcounted on them as a financial buffer as well. His lips went white.

  "Did you hear me?"

  "I heard you."

  "You talk of improvements. I'll cut your income. I can controlPetaca." Fernando's sheet billowed and sank back.

  "You can't!" Raul exclaimed.

  "Raul--you can't better Petaca on one hand and undermine it on theother. Your radical ideas will ruin us."

  "So we must hold our own by destroying others."

  "It's a system like any other."

  "That's no excuse."

  "What will you do? Divide our land? The Indians owned it once. Willyou give it back?" His voice crackled.

  "That can be answered later," Raul said.

  "When? Tomorrow? Next month? How long will you wait?"

  Raul replaced his pipe in his pocket and forced himself to reply: "Ihaven't decided how to act."

  "You'd give our land away!"

  "No, Father. I won't give up Petaca."

  Fernando forced a quaking hand from under the sheet and wedged a pillowbehind his back. Except for a general diffusion of yellowish light, hecould see nothing.

  "I'm almost blind," he mumbled. "When is that optical fool coming fromColima to fit my glasses? Blind ... you know what it is to be goingblind? Give me a drink."

  As the old man drank, he thought of Pedro; he trembled; his fear ofdeath returned, and he did not want Raul dead.

  "Don't go, Raul. Sit down, wait."

  Raul held the empty glass and remained standing.

  "Did General Matanzas speak to you ... of a new president?" he asked,with difficulty. He had difficulty in swallowing.

  "No. He was drunk."

  "Who is to take over Mexico ... does anyone say?"

  "Nobody knows."

  "What utter fools," he growled. "A ship without a helmsman.... Andhere at Petaca I must fight you." Then he said, sadly: "This is a timeof rumors about revolt, about partition of land.... I don't like atime of rumors." He cleared his throat.

  For the first time during their conversation, Raul considered hisfather carefully; he saw that he had lost weight; the gnarled face hadshrunken; both hands trembled now. No one had troubled to wash hishands. No one had combed his hair.

  Raul went for Chavela and brought her back with comb and brush and panof warm water and cake of soap. As she held the basin, he washed hisfather's hands, remembering some old legend of men deriving power andadding to their own longevity by such an act. Chavela dried Fernando'shands and washed his face as he lay with eyes closed, silent. He fellasleep, while she combed and brushed his hair. Raul got his hat andclimbed the stair to his room. At another time he would questionFernando about Pedro's gun smuggling.

  In his bedroom, he smelled Angelina's perfume and, as he changed fromboots to shoes, he went over their disaffection, wanting, no matter howabsurd, how contradictory, a touchstone that might bring about harmony.

  Downstairs, Gabriel rested, seated in a big armchair, drowned in abook, his robe pulled up from his legs, his sandals kicked off. Lightfrom the veranda drilled holes through his spectacles as he read.

  "When did you come in?" asked Raul, poking about.

  "I've been at the bookcase quite a while. Last week I got lost inJosse's _Historia_ and now I'm trying Locke's essay on _Understanding_."

  "I'm the one who needs understanding."

  "Not as much as I need it," said Gabriel. "What is it we need atPetaca?" he wanted to know.

  "Friendship."

  "Can that be it, Raul?"

  "You taught me that, Gabriel. You've looked after the cuts and bruisesand listened to the bitter stories. You've found ways of expressingfriendship in the little things, a new altar cloth, medicine forMotilinia, a straw horse for a boy's birthday."

  Quiet, Gabriel thumbed the leather book; for years he had encouragedone after another; it pleased him that Raul should speak out. What hehad accomplished he could not say.

  One force had worked consistently against him and that was DonFernando.... As enemies, they had stormed over every sector of thehacienda. Already Raul had re-opened the school and secured a teacher,an able young man from Manzanillo, handy with guitar and songs.Secretly, Gabriel was a little jealous of Raul's successes. But heknew the inner man, the inner conflicts, and probed no more.

  Both read in the shuttered, still living room. The bookcase occupied acorner, the top of it strewn with bric-a-brac: silver cup, barometer,Dresden doll, porcelain animals, the deed box.

  Raul took down the _Journal of Las Casas_ and after reading a while atrandom he said, "I never find much time for reading any more."

  "In Italy, I read a book a fortnight ... that was my goal."

  "Perhaps life was easier in Italy."

  "It's a matter of habit," said Gabriel.

  "I'm sure you're right. I get more out of my smoking than I do out ofmy reading."

  "When I first came, I read till late every night," Gabriel said.

  "I remember how late your light used to burn."

  "Well, my eyes aren't up to that kind of reading any more," saidGabriel, regretfully, and fingered the bow of his glasses.

  In a loud voice, Salvador called Raul from the doorway of the veranda.

  "Tomas is hurt," he said, as if reporting the weather.

  "Which Tomas?" asked Raul, laying down his book. Petaca had two,little and big, both stable workers.

  "Little Tomas."

  "What happened?" asked Raul, rising.

  "His leg."

  "Yes."

  "A horse kicked him. I think the leg is broken."

  "I'll go with you," said Gabriel.

  The man lay on the ground in a stall, almost buried in gray straw andgray light. An enormous dusty cobweb drooped above him.

  "Are you badly hurt?" asked Raul.

  "Yes ... patron."

  "Where?" br />
  "My leg, patron."

  "Where--down low, or high up?"

  "Low."

  "Umm, I wouldn't want you kicked in the groin. Help me lay him flat,Gabriel."

  Storni knelt in the dirt and together they made Little Tomas morecomfortable. They removed his sandals and explored the injured leg;the break was obvious.

  "Let's take him to my place," said Gabriel.

  "Where do you want him?" asked Salvador, and bending over he gatheredTomas as if he were a child.

  Tomas began to whimper.

  "No, no ... take me to my hut," Tomas begged. "Patron ... por favor."

  "It's closer," said Raul. "Take him to his own place."

  It made no difference to Salvador; he said something cheery andswaggered out of the stall and across the stable yard to the row ofhuts built recently. Tomas and a friend shared a hut. Salvador laidhim on a straw mat, just as he would set down pottery. The man-lengthspace had no furnishings, but Tomas' macaw wabbled in and climbed ontohis arm and, when Raul scared off the parrot, it squatted in a cornerand clicked its beak peevishly.

  "I'll go for Velasco," said Gabriel. "I'll get him here as soon as Ican, Tomas."

  Raul had Salvador bring water; there in the hut some of Tomas' fearvanished; he managed a twisted grin; his face, streaked with straw andsweat, had the eagerness and pathos of a student. Salvador's corn cobfingers removed straw from his hair; sitting beside Salvador, Raul lita cigarette and then a second one for Tomas.

  "What horse kicked you?" he asked.

  Salvador picked up more straws.

  "Yours ... Don Raul."

  "Chico! That damn' horse! What the hell was Chico doing in thatstall, Tomas?"

  "I was leading him ... to be shod ... he kicked me ... I fell into thatstall ... I fell."

  "Ah," said Raul, smoking, disappointed in Chico.

  Later, outside the stable, he watched men curing a batch of iguanahides; they had the pelts submerged in a chemical solution and kneadedthem with wooden mauls. Other men padded saddles with milkweed andsewed and polished leather. Under a thatched _ramada_ they had a dozensaddles on saw-horses; he noticed one of his own, a reddish McClellan,from Texas. The air smelled of leather, strong saddle soap and polish.Sun streaked the stable wall. Raul strolled among his men, chatting,whistling, smoking.

  A teenager, in torn shorts, gutted a snake. Above him, head high fromthe ground, in a carved niche, stood the figure of St. Christopher. AMedina had placed it there generations ago, a pink stone carving doneby a local artisan. A snakeskin dangled from St. Christopher's arm andanother swung from the saint's sandal. The snake collector lookedworried as Raul inspected his workshop.

  "Why do you want so many skins?" Raul asked. "Are you trying to getrid of all our snakes?"

  "No ... to make belts."

  "You cure them for belts?"

  "I can make other things." The youngster could scarcely work histongue; he thought Raul would accuse him of selling his products; heleaned over so far his straight hair touched his bloody knife.

  "What can you make?"

  "A pouch ... maybe a hatband."

  "Make me a tobacco pouch. I'd like a small one, about this big."

  "Yes, sir." (Faintly)

  "Make me a good one."

  "Yes, sir."

  He believed in the man's kindness.

  The snake boy and Little Tomas and his father faded from Raul's mind ashe walked toward the burial plot in the grove. Juggling a smooth whitestone, he walked past the rear of the mill; above--he did not stop tolook--gulls cried. Usually gulls did not fly this far inland. A dogbarked ... it might have been Mona chasing after a girl's ball.

  The graves had been redecorated with shells; the jungle had been pushedback; lianas had been cut; vines had been ripped down; trees had beentrimmed. For the first time in years he read his mother's name on hermarker. Her marker consisted of a red _cantera_ globe; he sat on itand listened to the gabble of parrots and still, high up, somewhere,the cry of gulls.

  In a few weeks Caterina's bronze figure would be cast and, if theartist remained faithful to his sketches, it would be a graceful girlbearing a bouquet of roses in her arms, her dress swirling over barefeet. Soon it would acquire a patina and become part of the jungle.Perhaps it would tell others what a beautiful child she had been.Perhaps ... then he remembered his murdered grandfather and looked atthe marker Roberto had set up, a dignified shaft of fluted marble.Time had cracked the stone and quakes had knocked it out of line ...nothing defied the years.

  Nothing had helped his father forget his crime.... He, too, was buriedhere, the best of him, the kindness that a man normally had.

  He returned slowly to the house and sat on the long veranda. Men hadgathered in the court; one had a guitar and his voice had the oldpleading tone. Rocking on an old hide rocker, Raul listened to thesinger as the sky filled with stars. The big dipper hung above thecourt. Someone lit a bonfire. Suddenly, Raul realized that Manuel hadbeen sitting near him for some time.