The Journal of Antonio Montoya Page 9

  Loretta turned toward him and held out her arms. José ran to her and fell into his mother’s arms as if he were a part of her body. Ramona looked down at her coffee and saw in it the shadow of her face.

  “Why did you trick me?” José said, his voice muffled by Loretta’s blouse.

  Loretta held him tighter, and her voice made a soft humming sound. “There has been no trick, mi hijo,” she said.

  José raised his head. “So we’re going home?”

  Loretta kissed his mouth. “No, José,” she said, and then she kissed his eyes. “It was a very bad accident. I came back because I love you so very much. And also to see if your Tía Ramona has made sure you bathed, which I can see she hasn’t.”

  Loretta placed her hand on José’s cheek. “I can only stay a little while, hijo.”

  “Until I’m older.”

  “Until it’s time to go.”

  “And then you’ll be gone?”

  “Yes,” Loretta said. “Like smoke that is magic. And you are to stay with your Tía Ramona, where I can always see you. You are to listen to her always. Always, José.”

  José turned his eyes to Ramona. He didn’t speak, and they looked at each other while Loretta’s hand softly stroked the side of José’s face. Ramona felt as though the three of them had fallen into a painting.

  “Come,” Loretta said. “Let’s see what Grandmother Rosa has made.”

  MARCH 1:

  For the past two days the wind has taken much of the moisture from the snow, which has shrunk to no more than six inches on the ground. There is mud now in the afternoons. Lito Montoya, the son of Epolito and Rosa Montoya, returned to school this morning for the first time since his accident. He walked alone, and I watched him make his way carefully across the crust of snow. On his forehead was a white bandage.

  MARCH 2:

  Today Isaac Medina, the oldest son of Benito Medina, shot the blind horse his father had purchased, and also Horacio Medina. The shootings occurred outside the home of Horacio Medina, and when I arrived, Isaac was sitting alone in the road near the body of the large horse. From inside the house came the noise of many women and the loud voice of Horacio. Isaac told me that he had come to Horacio’s house early in the morning to return the horse his father had been cheated into buying, and upon hearing this Horacio had called his father a name he would not repeat. At this, Isaac said, he had shot his rifle at the ground and Horacio had placed his foot where the bullet struck.

  I asked him what had happened to the horse, and Isaac told me that after Horacio had been carried into the house by his six daughters, he had looked at the horse for a while and then shot it. I took Isaac’s rifle and sent him home.

  Horacio Medina lost two toes from his right foot and twisted his back badly when he fell.

  Upon leaving, I met Father Joseph, who had been summoned by Horacio’s oldest daughter, Cecelia. He agreed that it would be best to settle this matter quickly, before it got out of hand. I have paid Filemon Rodríguez one dollar of village money to remove the dead horse with his tractor.

  Late in the afternoon, Father Joseph came to my office, complaining of the wind and the mud that he thought was worse than he could remember and also of his age, which was far too advanced for all the walking he had done on this day. He told me that Benito had agreed to give Horacio ten lambs for the loss of his toes and also that when his son Isaac complained of this, Benito struck him sharply on the side of his head with his hand. Father Joseph said that he then walked back to town and presented this offer to Horacio, who by this time was in little pain and quite drunk. Horacio demanded twenty lambs for the loss of his toes and also that Isaac work ninety days without pay in his employ the coming summer. Father Joseph told me he ate a hurried lunch with Horacio’s daughters and again walked the long distance to Benito’s house. Benito, after staring silently at the sky for a long period of time, agreed to the arrangement and swore that never again would he consider the purchase of a horse. I told Father Joseph that he had done well, and he breathed deeply and said that it was not easy being priest for so many.

  Upon leaving, Father Joseph said that he had missed my presence at mass the past two Sundays and that he hoped this would not continue.

  A thick bank of clouds could be seen in the west, and now in the dark they have moved and half the sky is without stars.

  MARCH 4:

  Berna Ruiz came to my office this morning. She walked alone, and in her arms she carried the three santos I had years before given to her and her family. She told me that her husband, Eloy, who sells wood to many people in this village, had removed the santos from their home two weeks before, after Father Joseph had spoken out against such things, and placed them in the woodshed behind their house. There they had stood looking at the fields until this morning, when Berna decided that they should be returned to me. All three were wrapped in a small blanket, and when I took them from her, she told me to be watchful of the smallest Lady, as she could be disruptive and troublesome and was in need of constant discipline. I told her that I would and asked about the health of her family. She told me that her mother, who is ninety-six years old, has continued to shrink and no longer has hair upon her head, and that without teeth her mother has become as if an infant.

  I have brought these three santos to my house and placed them with the others. It has begun to snow, and from my house I cannot see the lights from the village.

  MARCH 5:

  Four inches of new snow fell in the night, and at dawn the wind began to blow. It is cold. At sunset I looked down at the village from the doorway of my office. I could see no one, only the smoke from the chimneys. Even the cows stand still with ice on their backs, as if frozen.

  MARCH 7:

  Although it has snowed now for three days, the wind continues to blow, and there is no more than six inches on the ground.

  I have brought beans and flour to the family of Ramón Trujillo. He has been gone from this village for eighteen days in search of work to the south. His wife, Crusita, told me that she is not yet concerned. But beneath her eyes are circles of darkness.

  When Ramona told Juan Trujillo that she was leaving Guadalupe, that what she wanted for her life was not in this village, he did not speak but turned away from her. When she spoke his name, he would not face her but shook his head, and Ramona realized then that he had always known this would come.

  She walked out of his house and stood for a moment outside where, two years before, he had placed four white crosses in the ground. One bore the name of the woman who was not his mother, Crusita Trujillo, and on the others were the names of Juan’s half-brothers and half-sister. Inside the house, Juan began to sing a song Ramona had never heard before. As she walked away, his voice faded, and she felt as though her life were becoming larger.

  Ramona,” Rosa called from the front door, “are you all right, mi hija?”

  Ramona turned in her chair. “Yes,” she said. The front of Rosa’s apron was dusted with flour and red chile.

  “I was thinking of you, hija.”

  “I’m fine, Grandmother.”

  “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “I’ll come and get some soon.”

  Rosa turned from the door. “Eee, Loretta,” she said, “you never stop,” and Ramona heard the sound of Martha’s laughter.

  MARCH 8:

  Demecio Segura, a frail man of seventy years who lives with his nephew, Luis, walked to my office this afternoon. He told me it took him four hours to walk the distance, which is not far, and with each footstep, he said, a pain would touch the back of his neck and reach into his chest for his heart. I told him that he should not be out in such weather, which continues to be cold with snow. Demecio agreed but said he was in need of assistance in composing a letter to his daughter, Estancia, who lives fifty miles to the south, where the climate is less harsh. In this letter, Demecio told his daughter that his health has been poor and that Luis cooks seldom and that when he does, it is always goat meat and b
eans without chile that taste like nothing. He had me write that his last will and testament is under his bed, where there is a cold draft from the cracks in the wall. It is also his desire to give his daughter his wife’s wedding dress and marriage shoes, which are small and red, and also the family Bible that has been passed down from his wife’s grandfather. These things are kept in a trunk which Luis, who has no respect, uses as a chair at the kitchen table. He wished for me to add that he misses the company of his daughter and his grandchildren greatly and that he would consider living in her home, where orchards of fruit trees grow in the summer and where an old man would be less likely to slip on the ice and hurt his bones in the winter months. When this letter was completed, Demecio thanked me, placed the paper inside his coat, and returned to his home.

  MARCH 9:

  On leaving my office this afternoon, I met Rosa Montoya, who was returning home with her son, Lito. Lito no longer wears the bandage on his forehead, and on his face below his hat is a dark bruise. As we were not far from their home, Rosa placed her hand on her son’s shoulder and told him to walk ahead. He did not speak but did as she said. He walked slowly away from us, and with his head bent and his body hunched under the bulk of his coat, there was the feeling of age on this boy. Rosa told me that although Lito has recovered from his fall, she worries more about him now than before. She said that he has changed, as if a part of him has left, and what remains now carries a great weight. It was as though she’d had two sons, and now one of them was gone. I did not speak, and we stood and watched Lito make his way across the snow. When I looked at Rosa, she said with her face still toward Lito that the Lady I had given her stands against the wall in her bedroom and that the dreams she had been dreaming have ceased. She turned her face toward me and said that for all the cold and the snow of this winter, there have also been too many fires. She told me that at night Father Joseph has been burning the santos brought to the church by those who had them. I only looked back at her, and at that moment, for the first day of many, the sun could be seen in the west between the clouds and the mountains, and it made the snow that was falling look like embers.

  Ramona looked up from the book, and her eyes came to rest on the old village office. She faintly remembered a time when the building was in use, when the field it sat in was kept mowed and vehicles were parked in the dirt drive before it. That was all she remembered. She couldn’t ever remember being inside or even when it had outlived its usefulness. The sun was directly above her now, and she could feel the heat on the back of her neck. Behind her, inside her house, she could hear the low hum of voices and every so often the clatter of a pan. If she were to stand and walk over to the old building, she thought, her feet would pass over the same path that Lito, her father, had once taken on his way to school.

  The door to the village office was ajar, and when Ramona pushed it with her shoulder, the bottom scraped roughly against the floor. She looked into the room from outside.

  There was one small window, but it was so streaked and layered with cobwebs that it seemed to make the room even darker. She found a light switch dug into the adobe next to the door frame, and the room filled with a dim yellow light. The lightbulb hung naked from the ceiling in the middle of the room, and Ramona could see how badly the vigas sagged from years of snowloads. The wood was stained gray and black. A crooked entranceway opposite her led into a small back room, but her eyes were not yet accustomed to the shadows. Stacked and piled against all the walls was what seemed to be decades of broken or dismantled junk. Shovels with broken handles, ax and pick heads cast in rust, coffee cans flowing over with bolts and old nails, parts from ancient engines slabbed thick with dirt and grease, and in one corner a faded pile of clothes, wet and rotted.

  The room swam with things used up and lost, except in the very center. There by themselves sat an old cast-iron stove and, beside it, a small oak table and chair. Ramona could see layers of dust on the tabletop, cobwebs that wound through the legs of the chair. She held the book written in Antonio Montoya’s hand against her chest and stepped inside, toward the table. Beneath the odor of damp and rotting wood, she could sense the scent of cedar and smoke.

  When Ramona left the village of Guadalupe at the age of nineteen, she sat alone in the back of the large bus as it drove west through other villages that, to her, looked dismal and empty. In her bag she had packed a black dress belonging to her mother, which Ramona had never worn anywhere, a change of soft cotton underwear that was pure white, three hundred and twelve dollars in silver that made Ramona feel she was carrying something of great weight, and a new set of charcoal pencils. Ramona thought that with these things there was nothing she could not do.

  Near the end of the bus ride, Ramona had fallen asleep and dreamed of her brothers. She dreamed that Flavio was alone, looking out the windows of their house and weeping quietly at the loss of their mother. Baby José, who only walked backward, was in this dream also. He was lost in the yard where her father split wood. His face was dirty, and in the dream Ramona saw through José’s eyes that he could only see where he had been. When Ramona woke, she found that the bus had arrived at her destination, and her dream flowed through her veins as if her blood had become thick and black.

  Five weeks later, Ramona Montoya sat in her small rented house. It had once been a garage, and the four walls were painted yellow and smelled of exhaust fumes. In the yard outside grew one citrus tree that bore a strange red fruit that not even the birds ate. Ramona sat on the edge of her bed with her hands clenched in her lap and fought an almost overwhelming desire to return to Guadalupe and to her family. She reminded herself that she had, in fact, found a job, and although it involved cleaning floors for many hours a day, it was still a job she had found. And if her drawing was going poorly, and it was, she told herself she could work at it until it improved. Ramona lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She wondered what kind of fruit it was that a bird wouldn’t eat. She thought that just a mile from where she lived was a bus station, and if she were to walk there and purchase a ticket, she would be home with her family by the next day.

  At some point, Ramona realized that she must have dozed off, for she became aware of someone walking away from her door. When she opened it, she found in her mailbox the only letter she was ever to receive from her grandmother. It read:

  Dear Ramona,

  I miss you so very much, mi hija. The nights are becoming cool, and your grandfather keeps busy as always. Your brothers Flavio and José are both well, as is your father. I write you to say that I am very proud you are my granddaughter, and I hope you are happy there. I am sending you something I found that your father made when he was a small boy. Do not forget to eat well and pray for me sometimes. My love to you always,

  your grandmother

  Ramona unfolded the piece of paper that was enclosed in the envelope. It was a sheet of gray-lined paper from a tablet, and on it was drawn in pencil hundreds of fish, and all of them had legs and small feet, and some were in trees and some were walking in fields of alfalfa.

  Ramona lived away from Guadalupe for thirteen years and made a life for herself in a place where water ran hidden in culverts beneath the streets, and where chickens did not talk, and where the earth was covered with concrete and there was no such thing as mud. Seldom did Guadalupe enter her mind, but when it did, it was as if a hand had reached out and stroked her. Sometimes, and it seemed to be always at dawn, she would be riding the bus and would see the form of a man on the sidewalk, his shoulders hunched, his cap pulled low, and then she would see him in a field with a shovel, moving water with steel and wood. Or the wind would blow at night against her house, and Ramona would see hills of piñon and juniper, and there would be the sound of the wind rushing through the branches. One evening, lightning struck and the power went off, taking away the lights of the city. Ramona walked outside and, with her neighbors, looked at the sky, and there were only stars. Guadalupe became a scent that came only occasionally, but when it did
, it was as if her bones could sense it.

  There were men in her life, enough that Ramona gradually became aware of what each one desired of her. She practiced love with the conviction that she would eventually get it right. Sometimes, when unable to sleep, she would sit beside the bed and watch, from the light coming in the window, her lover breathe. She understood that his breath came from his mouth like hers, and she would lean close to his face and feel the soft push of air on her skin. She would trace his hand with her fingers as if there were a secret she could find only in the dark. There was a part of Ramona that even she couldn’t reach, as if it were either buried too deep or had been given to something else.

  Now, as a summer afternoon passed by her, she sat at a small oak table that was covered with dust, the journal of Antonio Montoya in her lap. She thought that she knew this man, but she didn’t know from where.

  Eight

  “YOU LET THIS FIELD TURN to nothing,” Epolito said. He moved a clod of dirt from the ditch, and Flavio watched the water spread and sink into the ground. “This field would grow alfalfa to my waist, and look at it now. Not enough hay for a rabbit.”

  “It’s not mine, Grandfather,” Flavio said. The two of them were in the field alone. José had run back to the house over an hour ago to bring them drinking water and had yet to return.

  Epolito turned his head to Flavio. “It’s your sister’s,” he said sharply. “Who is closer to you than her? Don’t tell me it isn’t your field. I’m not so old I have to listen to that.”

  All the time he had been irrigating with Epolito, Flavio felt as though he and little José were the same age. Whenever he opened a ditch, his grandfather would grunt and with his shovel would ever so slightly change the flow of water. In truth, Flavio didn’t know why this should surprise him. His relationship with his grandfather had always been such. It was not Epolito’s fault if little changed after death.