She opened her purse. She brought out Manny’s letter. When she saw the beautifully shaped letters that were almost delicate—how smart her son had been, with hardly any formal education!—she almost gasped with the always-fresh realization of his death, always, always like a first time. She was about to put the letter away, but she held it, and then she read it slowly, all of it, not just the parts she had read over and over, memorized; she read it all for the first time since she had learned her son was dead.
My dearest mamacita—
I love you with all my heart—I’m sorry I cause you pain—your sad because I’m in troble agan but this time I’m goin to do right—I promise in the name of the Blesst Mother you allways comend me to & love so much & who loves you just as much—I’m goin back to school & not make troble & make lots of money to buy you a butiful house—you & me & Gloria & Juan—you wont have to work & everthin will be butiful—Mamita, it was my fault the day of the tatoo & the burn—remember that—Amita, if I thot I would only come out & hurt you again like I have befor I would take myself away—thats how much I love you with all my heart—allways belive that—
Your son who loves you—
Your Manny
Amalia let the letter rest on her lap. She had allowed herself to see what she had always let her eyes glide over, Manny had blotted out some words, and written over them. ‘7 would take myself away’ instead of—No! Amalia took out the envelope from the public attorney and opened it angrily.
Dear Mrs. Gomez:
I am sorry to relate that ample evidence exists to indicate that your son, Manuel Gomez, did, in all probability, take his own life by tying—
No! Amalia tore up the letter from the public attorney. The heated air was so still that the falling pieces of paper did not even flutter.
She closed her eyes. In that second she heard a car screech and stop, idling on the curb. She pushed herself against the bench. She saw a carload of ugly young men with shaved heads. Had she seen them before? Their faces twisted in angry laughter. She felt her face struck by something moist, stringy, the oily remains of gnawed chicken. The garbage flung at her streaked her face, a piece of skin slipped down her chest. With a cry, she thrust it away but it had already stained the ruffle across her shoulders. She wiped her face. The car raced away. Out of it, words exploded within laughter:
“Fuckin Mexican bitch!”
Anger consumed her.
She felt herself walking, hurrying, running to a sudden destination.
Amalia faced the Blessed Mother in the alcove of the church she had been in earlier on Sunset Boulevard.
When she had rushed in moments before, she had not even paused to cover her head, had not moistened her fingers in holy water to perform a sign of the cross. She had walked directly to the shrine.
Now she stood before the Holy Mother.
Within the silver sheen of the mosaic shell behind her, the statue was bathed in an even greater radiance, now that glimmering church lights were being turned on. Shadows draping the back part of the alcove intensified the glow of candles. Flames flickered reflections on the statue’s face. Stained-glass windows shone with the last of this day’s light, barely illuminating one side of the face. Saturday evening Mass was over, and only a few people remained scattered about the vast church. But Amalia had not noticed them.
Standing very straight before the Holy Mother, she said aloud:
“I—!”
Only that word broke the trance of rage that had propelled her back to the church. Her body lost its rigidity. It sagged under a terrible weight. She bowed her head. She lowered herself to her knees. She adjusted the top of her dress higher over her chest. She searched her purse for her lacy handkerchief. With it, she covered her head, tucking her hair behind her ears, subduing the lush mass. She made a slow sign of the cross, and then another, to compensate for the one she had not made when she first entered. Then she began her favored prayer, honoring Mary, blessed among women:
Dios te salve, reina y madre,
madre de misericordia,
vida y dulzura,
esperanza nuestra …
The prayer would soothe her, quell the recurring surges of anger aroused in the street by the tossed garbage; it would help her regain her natural breathing. Full of reverence and trust, the prayer would still the shaking of her body. That’s why she had turned to Mary, the Holiest of Queens, Mother of Mercy. And Mary would—
The Blessed Mother was not even looking at her!
Amalia had glanced up and had had the impression that the glassy eyes of the Madonna had glided beyond her to the back of the alcove, toward the candles lit in her honor. Bewildered by that sense of avoidance, Amalia stared intently at the statue until it seemed—yes, in a split second during which a candle blinked—that the Madonna had looked at her—
Vuelve a nosotros esos tus ojos …
—and quickly away!
Amalia lowered her head again and closed her eyes, to stop the false impression. Of course the Blessed Mother was looking at her—who could doubt it? She always looked at the devoted. The prayer just uttered asserted that she would turn her eyes full of mercy toward—Amalia glanced up to ascertain that.
The Blessed Mother’s stare remained distant.
Amalia closed her eyes even more tightly. She started another prayer:
… bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres …
And who could question that Our Lady was the most blessed among women? Amalia reiterated to herself. Just look at the dazzling white radiance within which she stood in this sacred alcove. Amalia’s eyes had shot open onto the full spectacle of the Queen of Heaven’s shrine. And why shouldn’t the Holy Mother bask in such resplendent glory? She was, after all, the Immaculate Conception.
The Immaculate Conception! And the Virgin Mother!
In awe of that enormity, Amalia bowed her head lower, and prayed, “Bendito es el fruto de tupurisimo vientre …” The Sacred Mother’s womb was pure—
Not sullied by rape in a dark hallway near garbage!
At the same moment the thought invaded her mind, Amalia had stared up again at the Virgin Mother. Impassive! Amalia placed her hands on her forehead, pressing her palms over her eyes, resuming her prayers, words out of sequence now: “O clemente, O piadosa, O dulce siempre Virgen Maria—”
You’re a woman, like me!
In reaction against that assaulting thought, Amalia reached for the top of her dress, to raise it still farther. But she didn’t—her fingers had brushed her full breasts. She allowed her eyes to flow back to the statue.
Your woman’s body is always hidden in the folds of your beautiful dress.
The Blessed Mother had turned away from her. No, the weaving light of candles had created that impression. No, there had been a frown on the face, and then the Madonna had looked away…. Amalia crushed her thoughts with holy words: “Dios te salve Maria, llena eres de gracia … muéstranos a Jesus …”
I lost a son, too!
Santa María, Madre de Dios,
Santa María, Madre de Dios,
Santa—
Blessed Mary, Mother of God, Blessed—Amalia repeated those words over and over to control her thoughts. Apprehensive, she forced herself not to look up at the Holy Mother’s face. Her eyes swept along the panels of the stations of the cross on the walls and stopped on the station she often prayed before: The Virgin Mother knelt weeping before her martyred son, and she was dressed in white, embraced by light that blazed on a golden halo; her face was bright with tears.
Your tears are too beautiful!
Ruega por nosotros …
My tears hurt when my Manny was born and even more when he died and nothing that hurts that much can be beautiful. … Amalia clasped her hands against her forehead, blocking her persistent thoughts:
Dios te salve Maria … reina y madre …
esperanza nuestra …
reina y madre … Virgen Maria—
Queen and mother! Virgin Mary! Amal
ia raised her head and tried to meet the vacant stare of the statue. You don’t look pained!
—y después de este destierro muéstranos
a Jesús…
But you are a mother, and so you had to hurt when your child wrenched from inside you, you had to scream when flesh was ripped from you—
Bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres… tu purisimo vientre …
Or didn’t you feel pain because you conceived purely?—a Virgin mother, your womb always untainted, unhurting …Then how can you be blessed among women!
The head of the Holy Mother tilted as the light of fading candles wove shadows over her face. She seemed to be—
Waiting.
For what? You want something from me, Amalia was certain at that moment. What? Proof of my devotion? How can I give more evidence of that than that I’m here, now, before you, kneeling, on this terrifying day? You want me to assert my belief even more? I have never doubted, not you, nor God, nor your Holy Son. What do you want me to say? I’ve confessed everything, to you. Everything. …
Amalia looked down into her hands. What do you want me to say? That I knew my mother was dead when she stopped coughing and I went into her room?… That memory entered her mind easily, without hurt. I was tired from all those days of my Manny’s death. Certainly there was no sin in wanting to rest before I tended to another death. Amalia inhaled. And Teresa was cruel, she added quietly.
In a fleeting glance, Amalia thought she saw on the Madonna’s face … understanding. No, the face had remained the same, still waiting.
That isn’t what you want me to say. Amalia bowed her head. I sent away that boy Juan brought to live in the garage. I saw his sad young eyes. I knew what I was doing was cruel. But I also knew what was really involved between him and my son. …
The Madonna’s face had not changed, expressionless in the veiled light.
But how can you accuse me for that when your Holy Church forbids it all so harshly? She screamed that silently because she had remembered why she had thought that she might have seen the men who had flung trash at her—it had not been them, no, but men like them—on Santa Monica Boulevard beating up the loitering young men on the street, young men like her Juan—and they would call him the filthy names she had called him. The realization struck her with such force that she gasped. And even as she imagined herself among the women in the separated line outside the Hall of Justice, she thought: I won’t turn against my son. I won’t turn against him no matter what!
O clemente, Opiadosa, O dulce
siempre Virgen Maria. …
She realized she had raised her head to the statue. The face had … softened. Then why did it still wait?… Would you have wanted me to stay with Salvador, keep a child born from the filth he pushed into me? Sinful to divorce that despised man who beat me daily? Sinful to try to find someone else for my children? And for me, for me, too. Is that sinful?
Amalia’s eyes strained to intercept any new expression on the statue’s face. But the glow of expiring candles was diminishing and a dark translucence masked the face. Still, she thought she could feel the eyes becoming—
I knew Raynaldo was coming to desire Gloria, but only that, and I knew she sensed it, but I didn’t want to hear about any of it because I never suspected anything more—I swear that!—and I was sure it would pass and I wouldn’t have to give up the little we have, because it’s so hard without help, for all of us—and that’s why I tried to force her to say it wasn’t true, to force it not to be true, but when I knew today there was more, I sent him away. And that doesn’t mean I don’t want to find another man, a good man who will love my children. And me—
Against the silver mosaic shell, the statue had become a waiting outline.
Amalia cupped her face in her hands. I burned my Manny’s hand…. Her body sagged lower with the enormous weight of the years-long horror of that day. She huddled against herself, to warm her body, which had suddenly turned cold, cold. … I burned my Manny’s hand that day I was with a man and he walked in on me. All I saw was his gang tattoo, like Salvador’s, I saw Salvador while I held my son’s wrist over the burner, and then I screamed when I realized what I was doing. And I licked his burn to soothe it. You heard him say it wasn’t my fault and he even wrote it to me in his last letter! … But it was my fault. … In the church now, Amalia heard her son’s words from that day: “… ‘Amá, ‘Amita, if I thought I would hurt you again, I would kill myself”—and those were the words he had blotted out in his letter, masking them from jailers.
My son killed himself.
Amalia felt a gasp knot in her throat. She tried to stifle it, but it came, a long, long, deep moan. Then she closed her eyes. She said silently to the memory of her dead son, But I know you loved me, just as I know you never doubted how much I love you.
When she looked up, the face of the Madonna seemed … kind. But why was it withdrawing into the candlelit mistiness?
Don’t turn away! You saw it all!—the ugliness, the humiliations, you saw my father, and you saw Salvador discard me against the trash, you heard Teresa accuse and hate me and you just listened, and I raised my children the only way I knew—and didn’t you see Gabriel and the others walk out on me as if I was nothing?—and that man last night said I should be grateful! Grateful for what?
For the garbage flung at me?
The Madonna’s eyes seemed about to pull away.
Face me!
The Madonna glanced down.
You gave me no choice!
More candles flickered dead and a shroud of darkness veiled the statue’s face.
Amalia’s fingers clenched into fists. She stood up. The covering on her head fell to the floor. Suddenly dizzy, she grasped the back of a pew in order to remain standing.
The features on the statue cleared.
I have not lost my faith! It has grown stronger, strong enough for me to speak to you like this.
The Blessed Mother faced her.
Amalia inhaled.
That is why I am finally able to plead with you—pray for—supplicate—ask for—I am hoping for—I beg—I ask—I need—
She yanked her hand away from the supporting pew.
I demand a miracle!
It zigzagged with bolts of red-and-blue neon lightning, a purplish blocks-long structure held together by a network of chromy escalators that floated within plastic tunnels lit ice-blue.
After she had left the church, Amalia stood on Sunset Boulevard before a bench with a picture of Marilyn Monroe. She stepped into a bus that stopped there, and it took her to the huge shopping complex at the edge of Beverly Hills.
During a time when she had worked nearby, she had seen the giant mall from the windows of the bus she rode, had seen the flow of well-dressed people gliding on its many escalators to its various levels.
Today, she got off at the far corner, across from a hotel that proclaimed its name over uniformed attendants waiting on decorated guests:
MA MAISON SOFITEL
Night remained as still and hot as the day. As she crossed the street toward the shopping center, Amalia noticed for the first time that over a restaurant situated at one corner was what looked like the rear half of a car, inclined, as if it had crashed intact through the roof. Clusters of pretty young people—so many wore shorts, she always marveled about Anglos—waited on iron-grilled benches to enter the restaurant:
THE HARD ROCK CAFÉ
Through open gold-painted doors, rock music burst out. Amalia glanced inside. The front portion of the car mounted on top of the roof outside penetrated the ceiling into the restaurant to assert the impression that it had crashed through. What an odd decoration, Amalia thought, where everything was so peaceful. Just look: Along the block, newspaper racks, not toppled over, not broken into, lined the sidewalk neatly.
She floated up an escalator. From it she looked away through its clear enclosing tunnel, and she saw the vista of the vast city of angels. From this distance, it was all cleansed by
night, turned lustrous by thousands of lights. Many people—young, old, men, women, children, teenagers—roamed the complex. They all seemed to be laughing or about to laugh, talking spiritedly as they spilled from the various escalators onto the various floors. Even several young Mexicans here looked prosperous and untroubled in this enclosed world of chrome.
She walked into the first level of the great complex. She looked about, at stores with names that were impressive, no matter what they meant. Black letters engraved on white, scrawly letters carving their own designs, letters intertwined through swirls of colors:
EPISODE … LAURA ASHLEY … LENZO OF PARIS
Shops opened into the promenade, no need for barred gates here. Amalia paused before a store that sold only leather clothes, black leather dresses and skirts. Imagine that. And they were all ugly, who’d want them? Next to that store and in a window that was almost invisible, fur-draped mannequins exhibited underclothes. Well, she was no prude, anyone could tell that, but that was … Nearby, a young man hungrily kissed a girl—probably aroused by the display, Amalia thought She turned away when the boy looked at her, said something to the girl, and she looked, too A round jewelry store in the middle of the mall was filled with glittering things. A toy shop over there displayed stuffed animals so large they wouldn’t fit in her kitchen. She was shocked, and then delighted, to see that expensive sunglasses in a wall-less store looked exactly like the free ones she had thrown away this morning—and they were probably the same.
EDDIE BAUER … ABERCROMBIE & FITCH … PRIVILEGE
She continued along the promenade. She idled before shops. Now, that dress would look beautiful on her Gloria, with her hazel eyes that at times had a tinge of green like her mother’s—and for Juan, that fringed jacket!
Amalia looked at the real plants and exotic flowers—lavender-pink with gold specks on the petals—that grew in encircled areas at regular intervals on the floor. Large, round declines carved into the promenade were outlined by upholstered benches, where people sat casually, surrounded by cascades of flowering vines.