The Journal of Antonio Montoya Page 10

  “Ramona and I have never been close,” Flavio said softly, although he did not know if this were really true or just something he had come to believe.

  “And whose fault is that?” Epolito said.

  “Ramona was always your favorite.” The words rushed out of Flavio’s mouth. He felt his face flush and regretted that he had said such a thing to his grandfather.

  Epolito stared at his grandson. Finally he said, “So? When Ramona was young she smelled like lilacs. You smelled like a cabrón, Flavio. Who would you choose to be your favorite? A lilac or a goat?” Flavio, who had never thought of himself as a goat but had always been fond of lilacs, looked away and chose to say nothing.

  “You, Flavio,” his grandfather went on, “have a good wife and a home and acres of land, and you have let your sister be alone with herself. And you tell me you have never been close like there is some sickness between you. Don’t be stupid, Flavio. Besides, you are the only man in the Montoya family now. You are the one little José will look up to. There’s no one else.”

  Flavio looked back at his grandfather. He could see that he was taller than Epolito and that the brim of his grandfather’s hat was soaked with sweat. He thought that his grandfather must be thirsty. Epolito raised his shovel and poked his grandson in the belly with the handle. “Are you listening, hijo?” he said.

  Flavio looked past Epolito at the field. He could see that the alfalfa was no higher than his ankle. “It is too late this year for this field,” Flavio said. “But next spring as soon as the snow is gone.”

  “Next spring,” Epolito said. “And by summer the alfalfa will be as high as my shoulder.”

  “Yes,” Flavio said.

  They left their shovels spaded in the ground next to the ditch and walked back toward the house. After walking for a while with only the sound of Epolito’s breath, Flavio said, “Grandfather, how did you and Grandmother come back?”

  “Back from where?”

  Flavio started to say, “From the dead,” but he thought such words might sound harsh when spoken aloud. “Back from the afterlife,” he said.

  Epolito grunted. “You think I have not been here all this time?”

  “Here?” Flavio said, and suddenly in his mind he saw Ramona eating and sleeping and working on her paintings, and all the time their grandparents in the house with her.

  “You’ve been here all these years?” Flavio said. “You never left?”

  “Sometimes your grandmother and I would walk to your house and visit you.”

  Flavio looked down at the ground. He pictured his grandparents standing outside his house at night, looking in the windows. He thought this would not be something he would tell Martha and then wondered if this were a common thing after death. Were all the houses in Guadalupe surrounded by ghosts staring in their relative’s windows?

  “But what of God?” Flavio said, and he spoke the words softly.

  Epolito stopped walking. He looked at his grandson. “There are some things, hijo,” he said, “that not even I know.”

  Flavio could hear the noise coming from Ramona’s house while he was still fifty yards from the door. When he followed his grandfather into the kitchen, he saw that the room, which was normally still and empty, was jammed full of people. There was a party in Ramona’s house, but in all of it his sister was nowhere to be seen.

  Martha was sitting at the kitchen table, placing corn tortillas and chile in an enormous flat pan. Her face was damp and flushed from the heat, and when Flavio stopped in the entranceway, she glanced up and smiled almost wildly at him. Martha was nearly delirious with happiness. Grandmother Rosa was standing behind Martha, and when she saw Flavio, she too smiled and then bent over his wife’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. Little José was sitting on the floor at the other end of the room with one leg crossed over the other, eating from a pile of corn chips stacked on his lap. Loretta, whom Flavio hadn’t seen since the day she lay in her casket with her hands folded over her breasts and wearing a smile not her own, was at the sink washing dishes. When she saw Flavio, she rushed to him, and, putting her wet hands on both his cheeks, kissed him lightly on the lower lip.

  “Flavio,” she said, and Flavio could smell the scent of oranges on her breath. “Close your mouth, Flavio. It’s open too much.”

  Beyond Loretta in the center of the room stood an old man who had no hair but only fuzz on the top of his head and whose large ears framed a face that was all bone and flesh that sunk inward. The clothes he wore hung on his body, and he supported himself with a cane in each hand. For a moment, Flavio thought that another dead relative had come to visit. Then he recognized that the old man was Alfonso Vigil, a friend of his grandfather’s, who was over one hundred years old and naturally would not look his best. Shrill trumpets and guitars played loudly from a small radio on the counter above José’s head, and Flavio saw that Alfonso was shuffling his feet slowly in a circle. The only other person in Ramona’s kitchen sat at the table across from Martha, and he too was an old man, over the age of eighty years. He was Albert Vigil, Alfonso’s eldest son, and his face was the color of ashes. Loretta patted Flavio’s cheek. “That’s better,” she said. “Now sit down and I’ll bring you a beer.”

  Flavio sat next to Albert, who did not even move his eyes toward him. Flavio looked across the table at his wife.

  “We’re cooking, Flavio,” she said loudly, over the sound of the music.

  “Yes,” Flavio said.

  “You look so good, mi hijo,” Rosa said. “Did I tell you?”

  “Yes, Grandmother,” Flavio said. Loretta put a beer before him on the table, and Flavio watched her walk back to the sink.

  “Flavio,” Albert said. His serious voice wavered and cracked. “My father is dancing.”

  Flavio looked at Albert’s father, who stared at the floor as he moved his feet. Alfonso’s hands were curled tightly around the top of each cane like knots of a piñon stump.

  “Yes,” Flavio said. “Your father has always danced, Albert.”

  Albert moved his hand and placed it over Flavio’s. “Are we all dead, Flavio?” he said.

  Flavio thought that if he looked at Albert and his father together, they would look like brothers who had cheated death and were slowly becoming petrified. “No, Albert,” he said. “The dead have only come to visit.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think so.” But Flavio felt a snag of doubt and wondered for a moment exactly who had crossed over to where. “Do you want a beer, Albert?”

  Albert shook his head. “I have had my kidneys removed,” Albert said. Flavio could see that Albert’s left eye was glazed with cataracts and that when he spoke his teeth resembled teeth a horse would have. Albert leaned a little closer to Flavio. “Why are they here?”

  Flavio shook his head. “I don’t know, Albert,” he said. “Maybe they are lonely.” He felt Albert’s hand tug at his own.

  “Flavio,” Albert said, “I would drink a little whiskey.”

  MARCH 10:

  It has snowed now for six days, and the cold is the cold of January. This morning I walked to the church, which is down the hill from the village office in a large clearing where the land is flat. Father Joseph was not there, and Modesta Griego, who has taken care of Father Joseph’s needs since I was a child, told me he had gone to visit Horacio Medina, whose foot has become badly infected and is twice its normal size and no longer resembles a foot. Modesta, who is bent severely in the shoulders and speaks only in a harsh whisper, said that Father Joseph has been feeling poorly of late but that she would tell him I had come.

  Upon leaving, I walked to the east side of the church, where the wall has swelled out badly through the years and is in need of buttressing. At the base of a large cottonwood that shades the church in the summer, I saw a large circle where there was no snow, only charred wood many inches thick. In the center of this circle the wood still smoked, and I could see a carved hand that was now black and the fingers bent in a way I
could not recall making. I moved this from the embers and covered it with snow until it no longer burned, and at the tip of one finger I could see where the paint was still the color of flesh.

  I waited until after dark for Father Joseph, and he did not appear. Still it snows this evening. It does not fall heavily and is, after so many days, no higher than my knee, but it snows steadily as though it will never stop.

  MARCH 11:

  Eduardo Muñoz, who is sixty-two years old and lives with his parents, came to my office on this day. He is a man who speaks seldom, and his mind is like that of a small child. His face was red from the cold, and he wore a hat that covered his ears and a coat that was too tight for his body. When I asked him to come in and sit by the stove, he shook his head and looked away. After a moment, he said that he could not stay long, as his mother and father often worry if he is away too long. I asked what had brought him to my office, and he said he had come to ask when the snow would stop. He was tired of this weather and would like it to change. After this, Eduardo looked down at his boots, which were soaked through, and said nothing. When I asked him about the health of his three sisters, who are all married and live close to their parents’ home, he told me they were also tired of the snow and were increasingly irritable with each passing day. I then told Eduardo that I believed the snow would end soon as would the cold and that when the weather broke, the air would be warm and he would see how green the fields would become with so much moisture. Eduardo thanked me and said nothing more. I watched him walk quickly back down the hill. As he walked, his feet did not rise above the snow.

  MARCH 12:

  Although the sky was thick with gray clouds today, there was no snow, and in the evening stars could be seen.

  MARCH 13:

  Berna Ruiz came to my house just before dawn. Upon her head and falling down her back was a black shawl, and she told me that in the night her mother had died. She went on to say that her family was now asleep, as was Father Joseph, who had spent the night at her mother’s bedside. The sky beyond Berna was full of stars that I had not seen for many days, and there was no wind. I told her I was sorry to hear such news but that her mother had lived many years and that it was good that Father Joseph had been present. Berna said that in the final hour, her mother had lain with her eyes wide open, and when she breathed, she made the sound of a small bird. We did not speak for some time, and when I asked Berna what I could do, she said that she had come to my house to ask my permission to speak with the Lady she had returned just days ago. I could see the thin lines of blood in her eyes and the deep creases at the corners of her mouth. She remained for more than an hour with the Lady, while I sat by the stove and listened to the sound of Berna’s voice, which came soft and muffled from the other room. Berna thanked me as she left my house. When I entered the room she had been in, I found that the santo who had once worn a towel over her head now had a moist handkerchief covering her feet. In her hands was a strand of hair that was white and fine. I have let these things remain where Berna left them.

  In the afternoon, the temperature rose well above freezing, and there is the sound of running water beneath the snow.

  MARCH 15:

  Today Father Joseph walked to my office. There was a look of fatigue about him, and his face, which has always been full and red, is now drawn and with a slight cast of yellow. He told me that the infection in Horacio Medina’s foot, which had been severe, has subsided, although he has lost another toe which turned black and dry and fell off almost by itself. He told me also that he had been present at the death of Florilla Martínez, the mother of Berna Ruiz, and that when she had breathed her last, a sound like a bird had come from her mouth, and her arms and legs had trembled as if she had thought to fly. He added that this had disturbed his sleep the past two evenings, as he felt that humans near death should fall gracefully into the arms of God, not suddenly bear the countenance of animals. We did not speak for some moments, and Father Joseph, for the first time since entering my office, raised his eyes and asked what it was I wished to speak with him about. I told him that I had heard he was burning santos outside the church and also that when I had walked there I had seen where this had been done. We were silent for some time, and beneath Father Joseph’s eyes I could see circles of darkness. Finally he said that what I had heard was true and that he had burned more than thirty santos. At this, he rose with some effort from his chair and walked to the door. He said he had known me since I was a child, and he was sorry for what had come to pass. He said at his age there is an understanding that some things come to an end, and although it is painful, that too will pass. He added that, having given his life to God and the church, he must follow their wishes. Or what, he asked, would he possess then?

  In my house, in the room that has no window, remain the five santos and also the one on which I no longer work.

  MARCH 16:

  My sister, who was christened Ramona Montoya and was my only sibling, died on this day twenty-one years ago at the age of twelve. She is buried in the Guadalupe cemetery that sits on a small hill and lies in a coffin made of rough pine that my father and I made the afternoon of her death. As that spring was warm and dry, we were able to dig a deep grave so that my sister lies beneath many feet of dirt. Six months after her death and soon after our mother left us, my father, who had always been a strong man, stopped eating in much the same way an infant will. Within a month he was confined to bed, and one morning he did not wake. When my sister died, she took with her the mind and soul of my mother and she also took with her my father.

  The sun was now shining through the door of the office, and its light spread across the floor and onto the table in the center of the room where Ramona sat reading. She could feel tightness in the back of her neck. In the sunlight, she could see motes of dust that floated without falling, and she knew that, although she had read only a few pages, the sun was now low in the west and hours had passed. Ramona was beginning to feel as if she were living in two places and that she was losing time and herself in both. She rose from the chair and then for no reason reached down and flipped over a number of pages in the open book. She turned to an entry dated June 2. It read, “Juanito Griego, son of Juan and Estelle Griego, drowned in an irrigation ditch that runs behind their house. Juanito’s sister, Victoria, said that he fell in and floated away too fast.”

  Ramona stared down at the journal and saw that the hand writing was not that of Antonio Montoya. The letters were printed large and awkwardly, the way a child would write in learning. Her hand was lying on the page, and Ramona could see how thin her fingers were and how her skin was dry and cracked. She turned a few more pages to September 23, and in the same print was written, “Tomás Rael’s truck ran down the hill going into the village with no driver and killed a horse belonging to Martín Gonzáles.” Ramona watched her hand turn all the pages in the book. “December 25: It is Christmas Day, and it is snowing.”

  For a moment, Ramona did nothing. She looked down at the words written by someone else. Then she flipped the pages back to the last entry she had read by Antonio Montoya. March 16. At some point between that day and the second of June, Antonio had ceased to speak. Ramona had no idea what that meant, nor what it meant to her. She walked to the entrance to the back room, and in the shadows against the far wall, she could see a large stack of books on the floor. She knelt before them and took one from the top. It was dated 1925. The cover was soft and wet, the pages stained. The first entry was written in the same awkward print as before. She reached for another book from other years, and then another, and in none of them could she find the writing of Antonio Montoya. When Ramona finally stopped, the books were spread about her, and she wondered just what it was she had lost.

  When Ramona entered her house, the first thing she saw was Flavio sitting on her small couch and next to him, an old man whose head came only to Flavio’s shoulder. Both were smiling at her as if awaiting her return, and on the lap of the old man were his false teeth and a b
ottle of whiskey that was three-quarters empty.

  “Ramona,” Flavio said, and Ramona could tell where much of the whiskey had gone. “Ramona, this is my friend Albert Vigil. He is the oldest son of Alfonso Vigil.” Albert bobbed his head twice, and although he continued to smile, he did not speak. Ramona wondered how a man so old could be called the son of anyone. She watched Albert take a small sip of the whiskey and then pass the bottle to her brother.

  “Ramona,” Flavio said, “Albert has no kidneys.”

  “I have no liver, también,” Albert said in a voice that sounded full of gravel. Flavio looked at Albert fondly in much the way a father would look at his son.

  “Flavio,” Ramona said, and Flavio looked back at her, “where is Grandmother?”

  “She is in the kitchen,” Flavio said. “Cleaning. Where have you been, Ramona? You have missed the party.”

  “I’ve been outside,” Ramona said, and she saw that Flavio was no longer smiling and was looking at her in such a way that she thought he might once again begin to weep. “Flavio,” she said, “are you all right?”

  “Ramona,” he said, and he held out his hand, “you have always smelled like lilacs, Ramona.”

  She stepped toward her brother and took his hand. She knelt down and said, “I think you have had a little too much whiskey, Flavio.”

  “I have,” Flavio said. Beside him, Albert snaked out his arm and took the bottle from between Flavio’s legs and stuck it tightly between his own.

  “I am sorry for everything, Ramona,” Flavio said. “I have been no brother, and the field is only weeds.”

  Ramona, who had no idea what her brother was talking about, could smell the heavy scent of whiskey coming from the two men and the flat odor of tobacco. She thought of her father and saw him as a child walking slowly across the snow with a white bandage on his forehead. She patted Flavio’s hand gently.