“They didn’t do nothing to your bike,” Juan told Mick. “Just made lots of scary noises.” He jangled his hands at Mick. “Just some crazies passing by—did they scare you bad, eseleT
“No,” Gloria answered firmly for him.
“Hell, no,” he echoed.
“Just locos, ‘Amá,” Juan reassured Amalia.
So many questions to ask. Had she been so overwhelmed with grief after Manny’s death that she hadn’t become aware that Gloria was involved with gang members? Were they trying now to reclaim her? Amalia knew of the bitter fights over “home girls.”
“We’re going riding, Mick, remember?” Gloria asserted.
He seemed reluctant. “I’m not sure—”
“I’m not either,” Amalia said. She was apprehensive because of what had just occurred outside, but also because she had seen girls on the back of motorcycles, hunched over the drivers, bodies pressed.
Gloria walked toward the door, waited for Mick.
Mick moved hesitantly with her.
“Gloria—” Amalia called.
“What?”
“You don’t have to go out, so early,” Amalia quickly substituted new words for the ones she had been about to speak.
“I don’t have to, Mom, but I am—and it’s not so early. You just slept late.”
Because—“Gloria!” Amalia called out more urgently.
“What!” Gloria waited impatiently.
“Kiss me.”
Gloria stood beside her mother. Then she kissed her lightly on the cheek, and then—suddenly—firmly on the lips. “It’ll be all right with Raynaldo, ‘Amá, I promise.” She left quickly, touching Juan in good-bye.
Amalia put her hand on the place where her daughter had kissed her; it was warm. They did love her. How could she doubt it? She heard the growl of the motorcycle as it faded. “Gloria isn’t in danger from a gang,” she said aloud, wanting her words to affirm it.
“I told you, man,” Juan said impatiently. “Those were just clowns outside.”
Those … clowns—she had seen them clowning on the streets just like kids—could become dangerous, killers.
“Sorry, ‘Ama, I didn’t mean to call you ‘man.’” Juan misinterpreted her silence.
She would say this for him: He relented in his defiance, especially when Gloria wasn’t around.
Juan stood silently before her, as if deciding something.
“M’ijo—?” For a moment she thought she knew what she wanted to ask him, but in the next moment the question was lost. All she knew now was that she wanted to push that strand of his hair back so she could see it fall again to his forehead. He couldn’t be in a gang, with hair that long. He didn’t even wear the uniform of khaki pants, loose T-shirts. But gangs were changing.
“‘Amá, I was—” Juan started.
She looked away quickly. The tone of his voice had alerted her to disturbing words—and wasn’t there enough, enough? But she knew he was waiting for her to react. After moments—he still waited. She said, only quietly, hesitantly, “What?”
“Nothing!” He started to walk out of the kitchen. “I was just going to remind you not to forget to check the winning Lotto number.” The angry note was gone.
“I never win anything,” she told him. She bought a lottery ticket each week only because Raynaldo insisted.
At the door, Juan said to her, “Whatever that letter says, remember, cops lie.”
Again that concern with the letter from the public lawyer; didn’t they know nothing it said would mean anything to her now? She heard the door close. He had gone out, without a shirt, no shoes. So he would be back.
Amalia sat alone in her iron-barred kitchen crammed with artificial flowers. She didn’t bother to warm her coffee. She drank it cold.
Then it was almost time for her Saturday morning serial. She went into the living room. The beds had been pushed and rolled away. On a mantel in this room there was another cherished picture, of John F. Kennedy—and another Sacred Heart of Jesus, the heart in this one bleeding beautifully. In the most prominent place, Amalia had located a small statue of the Holy Mother. She had decorated this one with paper flowers to look the way she remembered the Blessed Madonna had appeared to Bernadette—except that she had given her more flowers to stand on, and hers were colored, red and blue.
Amalia looked about this room and she felt poor. But, she thought quickly, others were much, much worse off. Today that did not alleviate her depression. It saddened her even more, that others were worse off. Rosario had said something like that once. Today her friend’s voice was echoing more than usual.
She heard a car. She looked out the window. Juan was leaning into the shiny new car that had just driven up. From here Amalia could not see the driver. There was someone in the passenger seat. A dark young man? She had the impression that she had seen him before. No. She saw Juan take something—exchange something? Then he looked back toward the house, spoke into the car, and retreated from it. The car slipped away from Amalia’s vision. It was just someone asking directions. Amalia saw Juan look at something in his hand. Money? A packet? Drugs! Who had received what? No, her suspicions were all wrong. Juan had just forgotten to return the slip of paper with the address the driver had inquired about. But why was he still waiting? For the car to park somewhere else? Now he walked out of her range. Amalia waited for him to return. He did not.
She sat down on the sofa bed, trying to force herself not to conjecture anymore. She fixed her full attention on the television. Raynaldo had bought it on credit at Circuit City, $15 a month to be paid forever. She waited through interminable commercials, refusing all the questions ganging up on her, about Juan, about Gloria. Where was Raynaldo? What if he had returned here last night only to verify that she hadn’t left El Bar & Grill right away? What if the bartender, who was jealous because she had rebuffed him several times—what if he told Raynaldo about—?
That bastard Angel! Amalia thought—and wished her serial would hurry up. She tried not to curse aloud, only to herself. Of course, God would still hear, He heard everything, didn’t He? So He must have heard Angel arouse her sympathies last night, and He would know that she responded with compassion—and Rosario would have approved, too. But first Angel had said, in his deep, oddly mournful voice:
“Eres una mujer muy linda, una verdadera mujer.”
A beautiful woman, a real woman! She had laughed in a way that resounded strangely to her. How old was he—twenty-eight? Difficult to gauge; you keep looking twenty-five until you’re past thirty. The extra beer must have already begun to take effect, because she had felt a tingling sensation—she would be the last to deny that. She was savoring the beer he had brought her, but she made a face to indicate she wasn’t used to three, in case he’d noticed she had already had her two with Raynaldo. It was then that he broke her heart—God and the Holy Mother would attest to this—when he told her in a lowered, hurt murmur about being forced to flee his country—Nicaragua—dangers, confusions, dislocated loyalties, new enemies … Amalia had been amazed that he had been able to survive it all, that anyone could survive all that violence. “You have to survive, bonita Amalia,” he told her, “there’s nothing else.” Her heart broke again. She agreed to take a walk with him, that’s all, perhaps with her company to soothe, at least attempt to soothe, his painful memories. Of course they would leave the bar separately so that no one would misunderstand. Then, outside, at the corner, she would thank him, courteously, for the extra beer, the compliments, his shared memories. And for the beautiful flower. Then she would wish him well—and walk home, alone …
Damn the whole night!
And most of all, damn that extra beer! In her Hollywood bungalow unit as she sat before the television screen, Amalia welcomed the throbby ballad about the endurance of dreams that introduced her serial. She leaned back. She forbade all worries. She surrendered to her semanal—so what if Raynaldo’s arm wasn’t about her? She concentrated on her cherished Saturday serial:
CAMINO AL SUEÑO
Antonio Montenegro adores his beautiful wife. He’s a successful architect in Mexico City—“la capital.” He is a loyal son and a devout Catholic—he was once honored with a private audience with the Holy Pope. His adoring servants call him “El Señor Arquitecto.”
So handsome, Amalia thought, and so kind. There was a combination. That man would never beat his wife. Nor walk out on her in an unjustified jealous fit at El Bar & Grill.
Antonio and his wife, Lucinda, of the prominent Soto-Mayor dynasty, have a perfect home, all chrome and glass and staircases.
Amalia touched the armrests of the sofa bed. The covers she had sewn slipped off every night. She felt the matted cotton underneath.
In the household of Antonio Montenegro, Lucinda has changed, becoming cold. “Una extranjera,” he confides to the oldest retainer, an old woman, perhaps Indian, part Indian, dark brown, as wise as she is devoted to the Montenegros. She dresses in black even in summer—
Like Mick! Amalia almost crossed herself at the irreverent thought.
—and wears a huge crucifix on her chest. She invites Antonio to sit down in her servant’s quarters—“although they are much too humble for you.”
“What do I care about worldly possessions when I am losing my beloved wife, Ti’ita?” He calls the old woman “little aunt” because she raised him.
Ti’ita looks sadly at her beloved Antonio. “Tienes que ser muy fuerte,” she exhorts, demanding his strength. “Remember that the Montenegros have a most noble heritage.”
Well, the Gómezes had quite a history themselves, Amalia might have said to Raynaldo, who would have laughed appreciatively.
“I have been privileged to serve the Montenegros from before your birth,” Ti’ita reminds Antonio. Her dimming eyes convey the distance of her cherished memories of devotion. “Your sainted father and mother—who now rest in the special place that God provides for such generous people in heaven—entrusted me to raise you under their just guidance. I would have given my life for them, and then for you—and now for our Lucinda.”
“Why has she changed?” Antonio begs.
Not because she knew he would walk out on her—Amalia would attest to that.
Ti’ita shakes her head at the weight of the words she must speak: “Lucinda’s past has caught up with her.”
Antonio is baffled. “She has no past except that which belongs to us both. Our lives began when we found each other.”
“That is what your love assures you.” Old Ti’ita smiles. Then she turns her head in outrage: “Lucinda was forced into a vile marriage before she met you, when she was but a child.”
Like me, Amalia thought.
“It’s not true!” Antonio protests. “Tell me you’re merely testing my strength as a Montenegro.”
“If God would allow me to lie!” the wise Ti’ita laments. “Antonio, Lucinda’s parents were rich—and corrupt. They squandered fortunes in ways that God forbids.”
“Liquor, gambling,” Antonio begins to understand.
“That—and more.” Ti’ita makes a sign of the cross, indicating the enormity of unnamed trespasses.
Antonio tries to understand. “And because of their many debts—?”
Ti’ita speaks the terrible words: “Her parents sold Lucinda to a brutal man who shunned God and his own family.”
“Sold?” Antonio cannot accept the word. “My beloved Lucinda—sold?”
The faithful Ti’ita nods. “Lucinda had no choice.”
No choice, Amalia thought. None. Never.
“But she ran away,” Ti’ita tells Antonio. “God in His infinite kindness led her to you, my son.”
“There has been no happier life,” Antonio asserts.
“But now that evil man has returned.” The old woman slows painful words.
Gabriel came back, Amalia thought. So did Salvador.
“He has come to claim her as his rightful wife,” the old woman finishes her terrible message. “He is her husband. God heard their vows in His holy church.”
“Lucinda and I were married at the altar,” Antonio reminds her. “God heard our vows. My beloved Lucinda wore the purest white.”
And I did not, Amalia thought.
“All of that is rendered unbinding, according to the just strictures of our Holy Church,” Ti’ita says firmly. “Who are we to question?” She looks down, inward. “Perhaps my just God is punishing me for loving you so much I kept this horrible secret—” She dabs at tears.
“God would never judge you, Ti’ita, never!”
“God holds us all accountable,” the wise old woman replies.
“Yes,” Antonio’s devotion tries to accept.
But would God permit—? The question almost formed for Amalia. God was mysterious, even in the semanales.
Ti’ita sighs: “Lucinda has chosen to make you hate her because she must leave you.”
“I would sooner hate my soul!” Antonio vows.
“And she loves you with all her heart,” Ti’ita asserts. “But that evil man has threatened to reveal all if she does not return to him. Antonio, he threatens to destroy you and the whole dynasty of the Montenegros!”
“Destroy my proud family? How?”
Ti’ita bows her head. All must be spoken now. “It was the Montenegros who, in their infinite generosity, lent to that vile man the exact amount he paid to the corrupt Soto-Mayores for—” She gasps the rest of her words: “—for their daughter—for Lucinda, your beloved wifel”
“Then my own family donated to—” Antonio begins to grasp the enormous complexity of his destiny.
“They did not know!” Ti’ita sobs.
“I have a gun! I will kill that godless man!”
“Antonio!”
But he is gone.
The old woman speaks to her clenched crucifix:
“O Dios, O Madre Sagrada! Is there no way out of this nightmare, O God, O Sacred Mother?” She shakes her weary head. “None.” She begins to look up. “None except—” She gazes at heaven: “Only a miracle can save us now! Give me a sign that you understand!”
6
WHAT IF God sent a sign—by way of the Blessed Mother—and you did not believe it! Worse yet, ignored it?—not willingly, of course. Who would deliberately ignore a miraculous sign? That would be like having a winning Lotto ticket and not checking to see whether you had won—or like losing the ticket.
The lyrics of “Camino al Sueño” swelled over the supplicating face of Ti’ita. Amalia clicked off the television.
Would winning the Lotto be considered a real miracle? Those who received miraculous signs were carefully chosen; were those who won the Lotto? Rosario had announced grimly one day that a millionaire had won even more millions in the state lottery. That might have been one of God’s most mysterious ways… If you didn’t understand the messages that precede a miracle—were there always three or only two?—would they be sent to someone else or just simply go away? How terrible.
Amalia remained sitting on the sofa bed. Her thoughts persisted: Well, there was this to make you think twice about receiving a miracle: Everyone who did ended up in a convent or a monastery, clinging to their beliefs, while everyone else disbelieved, even ridiculed—with the exception of one or at the most two priests who remained close to God because of their humble origins, like Father Ysidro in El Paso. Was he still alive? Women had to go to remote convents and live among sneering nuns in black habits. No convent for her, thank you.
Those odd thoughts again! Musings aroused by the semanal, Antonio, and Ti’ita, their impossibly complicated situation—that’s all.
Look at poor Bernadette—Amalia had seen the movie again recently on television—pleading with cynical bishops. She had to make such sacrifices!—saying good-bye to her good-looking curly-haired boyfriend—
Amalia was suddenly awed: A miracle was so enormous! It altered everything around it, and not just for a day, like in “Queen for a Day.” No, a miracle wasn’t s
mall, like the tiny amulets on Teresa’s Mother of Sorrows. Should she take La Dolorosa out? A miracle made everyone kneel with you in astonishment at the site of the apparitions. Then you had to shun “worldly things.” But shouldn’t a miracle set things right, not make them sadder?
If Father Ysidro were here, she would ask him more about that…. She would ask him over for a cup of coffee, some fresh pan de dulce—Too hot for coffee. Well, they might sit outside in the shade … Where?
“Father Ysidro—”
“M’ija?”
“Father, what if the Blessed Mother sent me a sign?”
“What kind of sign, m’ijaT
He might look stern for a moment, but she wouldn’t notice because she would be basking in being called “m’ija” by this saintly old man. “Well, Father, say a silver cross in the sky …”
“Then I would say it was a puff of smoke from one of those sky-writing airplanes that fly over the city.”
I’m sure that’s what it was, Amalia thought. Oh, she was still thinking about that … She touched the earrings Juan had given her. So very pretty. They would certainly become favorites. But why this present today?
The sour taste returned to her lips. That extra beer! No, the taste was gone, the memory of it remained souring. It’s not as if she hadn’t been noticed before by men like Angel, years younger than she and so good-looking and dreamy-eyed. They would often make comments about her sexiness as she walked past. But she didn’t think of being with them, and she hadn’t thought of being with Angel, no, not even when, at El Bar & Grill, she consented, after they had finished their beers, to walk outside with him. As agreed, she said loudly enough for the bartender to hear: “And don’t bother me again, hombre.” Angel had backed away, while smiling privately at her.