Carry Me Like Water

  “Did you bring the water?”

  Mundo took his eyes off the road for an instant and looked at Luz. “You bet, Doña Luz, I don’t forget nothin’—I got a sharp mind. Anything that passes through my eyes and my ears stays up there forever.”

  “You should paint this car another color. People on the road are looking at us.”

  “Let them look, Doña Luz, that’s why they got eyes. Anyway, it’s not my car—if it was mine, I’d paint if cherry red.”

  “Red would be worse—it would make me feel like I was covered in blood.”

  Mundo kept driving and laughed. He took his eyes off the road to look at Diego. “Hey, Mr. Diego, guess what? I saw a sign on a window yesterday. There’s a flower shop behind the jail that’s looking for a delivery man. I think you should go on Monday and apply for the job.”

  “He doesn’t know how to drive,” Luz answered.

  “I’ll teach you how, Diego, no problem. There’s nothing to it—I’ll just get you one of those DMV books, and you can read it, and then you take the test. Nothing to it—and then you got yourself a job delivering flowers. It’s in the bag.”

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” Luz said. “You’re going to kill us.”

  “Will you really teach me how to drive?” Diego wrote.

  He placed the pad in front of Mundo.

  “You’re going to make him wreck the car,” Luz said.

  Mundo read the note and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll teach you, and when you go in on Monday tell them you already know how to drive, but that you can’t start work for a week. You gotta lie about it, see? One week, that’s all we need.”

  “Stop talking and keep your eyes on the road,” Luz said.

  “Do you think I should lie like that?”

  Luz read the note aloud to Mundo. “Don’t read Diego’s notes, anymore—I’ll just tell you what he writes, damn it. Just drive.” Mundo nodded.

  “Monday, I’ll go down and apply.”

  Luz read the note to Mundo.

  Mundo nodded and laughed. “That job’s gonna be all yours.”

  “I don’t know, Dieguito,” Luz interrupted. “It sounds like a wonderful job, but I worry about you driving around this city. The roads are full of lunatics—do you really think you can learn to drive?”

  “Don’t worry,” Diego wrote, “it’ll all work out. Mundo will teach me—you’ll see.”

  Luz smiled to herself. She was glad Mundo was doing something for Diego. She decided to try and be nicer to him. Maybe that was part of his problem—not enough people had been nice to him.

  When they arrived at the entrance to the road that went up the mountain, the company of pilgrims got out of the cars and stretched their legs. “These guys,” Mundo said, pointing to El Kermit and Indio, “are going to stay with the cars. We can’t let anybody mess with these babies. They’ll keep watch down here while the rest of us go up.” He looked up at the din path that led to the statue of Cristo Rey. “It’s a long climb. Doña Luz, you think you can make it?”

  “I’m getting old, but I’m a long way from dead, Mundo—I can make it. My legs are strong. And I don’t want any talking while we’re climbing; this is supposed to be something sacred, so tell your birds not to talk. Tell them to pray if they know how.”

  “They’re not birds, esa, they’re people, brothers—have some respect. These guys are doing you a favor, so try and act real nice.”

  “I told you not to call me ‘esa.’”

  “Don’t fight,” Diego wrote, “this is supposed to be something holy.”

  “Don’t tell me about pilgrimages and what they’re supposed to be, Dieguito, I know more about these things than you do. Just put your pad away and be silent—I don’t want to see that pencil move until it’s all over.”

  Diego placed his pad and pencil in his pocket reluctantly. For a moment they all stood in silence not knowing exactly what to do until Luz began climbing the mountain. They walked behind her on the path without attempting to talk. At first, they climbed at a steady pace, but the sun was beating down on them like a belt against the back, the rays as heavy as a belt buckle. They moved slower with each step. Luz prayed her rosary as they climbed. Diego watched her hands as they touched the beads and fixed his eyes on her rosary as it swayed back and forth, back and forth touching her skirt and then swinging up toward the statue, toward the sky. Diego thought of his mother and how she had paced with her rosary in their small house, her lips moving, begging for things he could only guess at. They climbed slowly, higher.

  Luz finally had to stop and rest though something in the way she stopped said she was angry with her body for having to take a rest. She put her hand on her back and arched it tossing her head up to the hot, open air. Diego put Luz’s bag down on the ground, and looked out at the desert. It was amazing to him that the chamizos and the mesquites were so green. A miracle, he thought, the pale green that refused to surrender its color to the sand that swallowed everything, made everything parched, made everything die begging, begging for cool, begging for water. How could this green exist?

  Mundo handed Luz a cup of water from the jug he was carrying. He offered her a handkerchief to wipe the dust that had stuck to her sweating face. El Güero and El Guante wet their bandannas with water and tied them around their heads. El Güero lit a cigarette, and the look on his face said the nicotine was as good as water. Luz looked over at Mundo; he shook his head. El Güero took a deep drag and crushed his cigarette on the ground with his foot. After their first rest, they moved up the mountain—slower now—too hot to go fast. Diego felt his skin burning in the sun—burning like a match too close to the fingers. Luz took out the hat Diego had given her, the hat he had bought for Mary. She tied it to her head with the ribbons so the hot breeze wouldn’t blow it off. Diego watched her. She looked young in the sun, the way she looked before she had gone to Chicago, the way she had looked when he had first met her. He thought that many men must have loved her when she was young.

  Diego stared down at the dust his feet raised as he walked. The path was full of rocks and he could see where people had left small monuments as they had climbed. Some had written prayers, and others had simply written their names on crosses they’d stuck in the ground. All these people, he thought, publicly begging God for more than he would ever give them. He thought of asking for a voice.

  As Diego looked up, he could see the outlines of people climbing down from the mountain up above him. Angels, he thought, angels coming to get them. But they were too heavy and too solid to be angels. He watched them get closer and closer, counted the small crowd of people—there were five of them. Diego wanted to ask these people who they were, why they were there in the middle of the day. As they passed him, he caught the eyes of one of the men. He smiled and nodded at him. He had dark eyes and a warm smile, and for a moment, strange as it was, he wanted to stop the man and examine his face, and examine the face of the woman whose hand he was holding and ask them questions about their lives, about the purpose of their pilgrimage. Four of them passed him slowly, the man who had looked into his eyes and the woman whom he clung to who was too tired to look up, her face glued to the movements of her feet. And with them, an old woman who seemed too white and too fragile to him to be climbing up and down mountains, and a younger woman with hair as white as the clouds who almost smiled at him when their eyes met as they passed. Following behind was a big man with blond hair who also looked into his eyes as he passed, Diego nodded at him. The man nodded back. The big man looked sad and tired and Diego wondered what he was carrying around. Whatever it was, he had the weight of it on his face. Perhaps, he thought to himself, these travelers were sent as mirrors. He turned around and watched them move farther and farther away from him. He wondered why he felt the urge to run after them. They were gringos, he thought, what were these gringos to him? What could they possibly be to a deaf Mexican? He turned around and faced the lop of the mountain and began climbing again.

  The eyes of one of th
e men looked familiar. Lizzie thought of Eddie’s boyhood picture, how she had always felt it was familiar. She had the same feeling. She wondered why her ability to read minds was so capricious, why it came and went as it pleased, why it was something beyond her control. She had the urge to turn around and look straight into his face and ask him questions. She wondered—no, it could not possibly be Diego—not possible. She wanted it to be so, but it was not so. But why not ask? She turned around and watched the group climbing up the mountain. She decided to chase them down and ask the man if he was Diego. It could be, she thought, it could be. She looked down, and saw her mother stumble. “Mama!” she yelled. She ran down and helped her up, “Are you OK?”

  The old woman laughed. “Oh, I’m so tired, Lizzie. But I’m not hurt, just too tired to walk.”

  “You shouldn’t have come. Mama.”

  “I needed to come.”

  “It’s so hard on your bones.”

  “I wanted to climb the mountain. I wanted to look down and see the desert. It was lovely, Lizzie.”

  “Mama, you’re so stubborn.”

  “Help me,” she said, “I can’t make it without you.”

  Lizzie yelled Jake’s name. She did it out of instinct. He climbed back up from where he was and saw how weak Rose looked. He became her cane the rest of the way down. Lizzie walked beside them, the young man’s dark eyes forgotten for the moment. She was angry with herself for letting her mother climb a mountain in the light of this relentless and punishing sun.

  Diego tried to look up and see the blueness of the sky but the sun made everything so bright that he had to turn away. Luz appeared tired to him, but she kept praying her rosary. Mundo kept his eyes on her, and Diego wondered what he was thinking, wondered what he saw when he was thinking, wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Did he see the same woman he did—or did he see someone completely different?

  Luz stumbled on a rock and fell, almost in slow motion—but Diego couldn’t keep her from falling. He saw his mother falling in front of a car. He shook his head as if to erase the memory from his head, wanting to make the part of the brain that remembered into a chalkboard he could wipe free when it was too full of words. He found himself reaching his hand up toward Luz to help her up. He could see her eyes in the shade of the hat’s brim. She looked up at him and laughed. He helped her up, and she dusted herself off. Mundo came and offered her his arm.

  She shook her head.

  “Take my arm,” he said. “It’s not an easy climb. Don’t be so stubborn.”

  She grabbed his arm and steadied herself. She didn’t fall again. They walked ahead of Diego, and he smiled as he watched them climb ahead of him. Luz leaned on Mundo until they reached the very top of the mountain, the very foot of the statue. The T-Birds followed quietly behind.

  Luz knelt in front of the statue and prayed. The T-Birds fell back and lit their cigarettes away from Diego and Mundo. Diego’s eyes moved from Luz to the face of the statue, then to the huge outstretched arms. He saw the giant hands and looked across the desert. He could see El Paso; he could see Juarez; he could see New Mexico. I can see the whole world, he thought, and it belongs to me.

  He looked up at the statue again. Cristo Rey’s face was kind, not at all like the hard stone that withstood the wind. Diego studied the eyes, the lips, the well-defined chin. The statue stood so still—stone—and yet almost flesh, almost soft, somehow alive. Diego tried to memorize every feature. He thought he saw the outstretched hands move and the fingers wave in the air. Diego rubbed his eyes, rubbed them to clear the mirage. Too much sun, he thought. The statue pointed his eyes at Diego. The lips moved: “I can tell you where the jewels are, Diego.” Diego stared up at the inanimate statue and shook his head. He turned his head away.

  “The lips moved,” he told himself. “They really moved.” He turned his back to the statue, afraid to look at it again.

  “Diego,” he heard the voice, “Diego, Carlota’s jewels, I know where they are.”

  I can hear! he thought, I can hear! He shut his eyes. One more time, let me hear one more time. My God, just one more time.

  Mundo stepped up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You OK, Diego?” He could see his lips moving but he couldn’t hear him.

  Diego nodded. I‘m going crazy, he thought, I’m deaf, I can’t hear anything. He looked at Mundo and then looked down toward the ground. But I did hear. Mundo looked at him. “You’re making noises, you know? ¿Qué te pasa?”

  Diego shrugged his shoulders.

  “The treasure—it’s at the peak of Pico del Aguila,” the voice whispered. “Diego, Carlota’s jewels, the Juárez Mountains, Pico del Aguila.” Diego laughed at the whisper in his ears. He jumped up in the air and laughed.

  Mundo tried to hold him down. Luz ran up beside them.

  “Dig them up, Diego. You’ll find them.” He looked up at the sky, saw it bluer than he’d ever seen it. He faced the statue and stretched his arms toward it—laughing. He gave in to the laughter.

  “So this is what it’s like.” He felt the tingle in his ears. “My God! I can hear!”

  Luz grabbed his arm, “Dieguito, what’s wrong—what are you trying to say?”

  “Do you hear me, Diego?” He stared at the lips. “Do you hear me, Diego?”

  Diego nodded and yelled. He jumped in the air and tried to hug the air in his arms.

  Luz and Mundo looked at each other.

  Diego placed his hands on his ears, tears running down his face, and opened his arms toward the statue, then hugged himself. He fell on his knees, closed his eyes and focused on the sound of the voice. He wanted to be sure to remember what it had sounded like—more beautiful than any picture he had ever seen. The voice was like the stained-glass windows of the cathedral, like the chrome on the T-Birds’ cars; like the color of the sky. The voice was stronger than Mundo’s handshake; softer than Mary’s eyes. The voice was like the green in the leaves of the rain bush. He stayed on the ground a long time. He opened his eyes and rolled over in the dirt, laughing. Mundo and Luz stood over him, afraid.

  “Dieguito,” Luz asked, “what’s happening to you? Are you all right?”

  Diego watched her soundless lips and shrugged. The voice, he wanted to say, the voice. Didn’t you hear?

  “Did you faint, Dieguito? What are you trying to say?”

  He took out his pad. “I Heard!”

  “Too much sun, ese,” Mundo said. He motioned El Güero to bring some water.

  “I don’t need water,” Diego wrote.

  “Look, Diego, it’s hot.” He wet a handkerchief and handed it to him. Diego took it and wiped the sweat off his face to make Mundo happy. He took the jug and drank some water.

  “I’m not crazy,” he wrote.

  “Dieguito, no one is saying you’re crazy. We’ve just got to get you out of this sun.”

  Diego looked at the stone platform the statue stood on. He climbed it and kissed the feet of Cristo Rey. He climbed back down and wrote: “We’re going on another pilgrimage.”

  Luz read the note and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

  Diego smiled at her. He pointed toward Pico del Aguila. “Over there,” he wrote. “We’re going to get the jewels.” His hands trembled as he wrote.

  Mundo handed him a cigarette.

  “The statue talked to me,” he wrote. “I heard! The statue talked to me!”

  The T-Birds carried Diego down the mountain following Luz’s instructions. She had decided it was best to carry him rather than let him walk on his own—and Mundo had agreed with her. He couldn’t write anything while he was being carried so he stopped trying to explain anything to them. He shut his eyes and tried to calm himself. He thought of the voice, how good and calm and easy it had sounded. He felt the sun on his face, warm like the voice. Exhausted, he fell asleep.

  When he woke up he was lying on the couch in the living room of his house. Mundo and Luz and the T-Birds were drinking beer and standing around him, all of them we
aring looks of worry.

  Diego sat up slowly. They all stared at him. He looked around for a pad and pen. He made a writing motion to Luz. She walked to the bookshelf and found a pad and handed it to him.

  “I’m OK,” he wrote, “so stop looking at me as if I were in a zoo.”

  “We’re not looking at you like that, mi Diego, we were just a little worried. It was the sun. It was all my fault—I could have killed you taking you out in that heat. You’re not used to it.”

  “It wasn’t the sun,” he wrote. “The statue talked to me.”

  Mundo handed him a beer. “Look, Diego, drink this.”

  “I don’t need a beer,” he wrote.

  He looked at Luz. “Get him his cognac. He likes that stuff.”

  Luz nodded and went into the kitchen. She came back with a glass of cognac and handed it to Diego. Diego reluctantly took a drink. He looked up at the T-Birds who were watching him like he’d done something wrong. Mundo motioned them to leave, and Luz pointed them toward the backyard. Indio picked up the case of beer on the floor and they walked out of the room.

  “I’m not crazy,” he wrote. “Stop looking at me like I’m crazy. It wasn’t the sun—the statue told me where to find Carlota’s jewels.”

  “Dios mío, what have I done?” Luz said. She looked at Mundo. “He’s beginning to sound like La Mary.”

  “Look, ese,” Mundo said, “maybe it was like a dream, you know? Sometimes dreams seem real.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in dreams.” Diego wrote.

  “But some people do.”

  “It wasn’t a dream. I know the difference between a dream and what’s real.”

  “But the dreams in the sun are the worst kind, mi Diego.” Luz tightened her lips. “I know about these things.”

  “Goddamnit!” he wrote. He tore the page from his pad and shoved it in Luz’s face. He stared at both of them. He started writing furiously. “Look, I’m not a little kid. I don’t need to be taken care of, got that? Mundo, when you go out and do whatever the hell you want out on the streets, does anybody stop you? If you want to get laid, you get laid; if you want to fight, you fight—and nobody tells you anything. You do whatever you want. And you, Luz, you’ve had husbands and children and lovers and you’ve flown on a plane and done just about everything. And nobody tells you anything either. And you’re always telling me I’m a pendejo. I’m not a pendejo. I heard the statue. A deaf man knows when he hears something, damnit! I know what I heard. I know. I heard! You don’t have to believe me but you can’t steal it from me. If you see the sun, how do you know it’s the sun? If you see the sky, how do you know it’s the sky? How do you know you have hearts? You just know. And I know where Carlota’s jewels are, and I’m going to dig them up. Neither one of you is going to stop me. Do you hear? Or are you deaf, too?” He shoved the note in front of them and took a drink from his cognac.