Arcadio (15 page)

But in a little while come the old
máquina
, the old
adiós
piece, Johna again, Johna was waiting for me under a tree. I been thinkin that you need the
compañerismo
of a woman and hope that have changed your mind and will let me go with you wherever you are going. You and Hombre was the only ones I ever felt it with. Women do not seem to understand about
adiós
pieces, you wan hear, and about swan songs and always want to believe that there can be some more and they will use their
máquina
for this. I know,
compadre
. If you have the
máquina
you will naturally begin to deal with it, make a deal with it. I know,
Señor, Señorita
. You wan hear. I do not speak through my hat, as the
gringos
say. I am hunting for my mother I says to Johna. Well I am not doing anything especially, Johna told me. Now that Hombre is gone I would be glad to go with you and work for you like I worked for your father. I don't need no wine, I said. And no woman. Back there was our swan song, if that's what you would be planning, Johna. Try then to think of something, said Johna. You and Hombre was the only ones I ever felt it with. I can think of nothing, answered I. And I do not want to ever feel it with you again. I become mean and I am not sure why, I should have had pity for Johna that had lived all her life on her
máquina
, just like my father Hombre on his member. But I felt mean toward Johna and wanted her to go away, you wan hear. What do you want me to do? said she. I don wan you to do anything I found myself saying. Look, Johna said, and I could see that she was going to try to deal with me, to try to make a deal, naturally it would be a
máquina
deal because that is a woman's deal. Johna I said, don't try to make some deal with me.

Johna said saw very early about herself, that she had a
máquinita
little
máquina
and that if you had the
máquina
you would naturally begin to make a deal with it, said twas filled more often than her mouth but she never felt it much, said men filled her, taught her where she had what they wanted, taught her how to make a deal. Her mind was in her
máquina
from the early days, told me, her mind was on the deal. But she never felt it much, not until she was with Hombre and me. She come to the
China Boy
when she was sixteen years of age and had been there a long time when I got there, when Hombre brought me to old Shuang Boy Johna was already there. Said her name was Johna Katz and father's name was Grady Katz, never heard of him, owned a dry-goods store over at Lufkin Texas, Katzes Emporium, in the old days. And Johna was the first woman to take me down, and then with Hombre, they both worked me at the same time, and taught me and crazed me and locked me into them like a part of them like a part of a
máquina
, an infernal
máquina
of three pieces, and taught me and crazed me. The three of us was an unholy
figura
I told you about, twas a
fuerza
piece of human flesh aworking when we put ourselves together like that, fitted together like that, aworking, twas a
máquina
, an infernal
figura
. But I got free of that now, I said to Johna Katz, my father Hombre is dead, the third one is forever gone, and I am part of the river and I am part of the trees, I am no longer damned by the infernal
figura
. I said to Johna here, here is a stone, set on it. Set on this stone and look the other way, for I am going down the road and we will never see each other again, the infernal
figura
is gone.
Paz
.

I do not know whether Johna turned into the stone or not, but when I looked back I did not see Johna and the stone looked like twas shape of Johna. And so I went on.

BUT JUST A
LITTLE
more. I heard tell of them finding in the deep swamp-woods of the Looshiana bayou in the rainy season a dark woman half eaten up by what was probably a great big night hawk—some said a great big vicious owl would do the same, that is attack and bite and claw to pieces a person so that you could not even tell of a face or of any part of them much. Some bird
aficionados
that'd come in there to the swampwoods to help wild birds brought this news and said it could be the deed of some such bird
feroz
, I don know. Of course I was ascared it might be Chupa
mi madre
and remembered her all night, wherever I was at the time I don know the name of the town. But then they said again it could have been a man. Or could have been the work of a devilish wild hog, or of a
demonio
coyote pack, or some wild swamp beast ascared of a person suddenly appearing in the wild swampwoods. So I did not pursue the thought that it might have been Chupa, my mother, and hung my tears out to dry. I let her go.

But why did not the
noticias
let me alone because then there was some news of a woman
fantástica
that was putting on a big show in a filthy city in the East. She was sweetly dressed like a white angel and was walking a rope on her tiptoes across a
grande
dumpyard of garbage and did not fall or falter once and was called the Angel of the Dumpyards and was famous and was wanted by other cities and by Shows, yet she was not found again. She run away. Was that
mi
madre?
You wan hear? And there was another runaway woman answering to the description I would give of Chupa run away with the richest young swindler in one part of the North and when they caught the young swindler with a million swindled dollars, the woman was gone and was not found again, bringing back to me familiar memories of Chupa my runaway mother. And a woman in a holy trance saw a picture of the Cross of
Jesucristo
on her screendoor and because of that begun to be able to heal people and to get presents from half the counties of Texas for a while; said the field in front of her house was crowded with cripples from half the counties of Texas. Until she run away and was not found again. Shades of Chupita, my
fugitiva
mother.

Yet I begun to hear tell of an old saint woman lived out in the bitterweed prairie back of the town that's over yonder, there in the prairie, and could tell the fortunes of people, past and ahead. I went back there and saw in the weeds of the prairie a little shotgun house settin under one shade tree, twas a big liveoak I believe. I knocked on the door that looked like hadn't been opened to anybody in a long time twas brambled over by vines that locked it. An old voice called me to come around to the front, and an old woman opened the front door and at first glance I thought twas surely Chupita. And then I wasn't sure. From time to time I thought the old saint woman recognized me, a look in her eye at me. Yet then I saw I was mistaken.

Where did you come from I asked her, where have you been? My past is forgotten, the old woman said, it has been wiped out of my mind. Then you yourself need a person who can tell the fortunes of others, past and ahead, I said to her. Cobblers' children need shoes, she answered in a riddle. Is your name Chupa, I said. Tell me are you Chupa and were you once beautiful in a green dress of sparkled fringe? I was once beautiful the old
santa
answered me but I never to my memory owned a green dress, never wore that color. But said few come out here in the bitterweed prairie, who has given you
noticias
of me, and I said but everywhere it is said you are
una santa
that has an eye into the lives of others and does holy deeds of telling other people's fortunes. I have no such eye and I have never done no holy deed of fortunes, I live a
ermitaña
in this prairie of bitterweeds how could a hermit do a holy deed, the old saint woman said, since no one would ever know about it, the old woman saint said. You must have the wrong person. But I had such a hunch
Señor
that this was my mother and that if she could only remember, if I could only tell her her own fortunes she would recognize me her firstborn, Arcadio, the one she herself had told her own fortunes to, and I could come home, at last, and live in this house out in the prairie with my mother. That is, it seemed to me pretty sure that this woman of holy fortunes was
mi madre
. The thought to reveal my nakedness to her as once I did of yore years ago the night of my excape come
feroz
over me. But I did not, you wan hear, I did not reveal myself.

And so I give up again and let my mother-searching go and went on my way towards God, looking for God, which don't need no help from anybody, nothing but yourself, don even have to take a step can do it setting down or laying down, that is the kind of journey looking for God is. This is what I begun to see. I hope He will show up soon. Meantime
canto
. I forgot to say don know why I have forgotten to say it or didn't remember to say it to you until now that the old saint woman in a moment of meanness looking at me with the
feroz
eye of a
demonio
threw me out of her shotgun house, turned me out with a strong arm, was unhospitable to me, showed me mean
inhospitalidad
. But I know that I myself have been a person of
inhospitalidad
many times back there in the Show, setting there still and without welcome, without
hospitalidad
to those standing before me and wanting to reach out to me—all but the unknown hand that reached out the White Bible to me, at which time I remember whispering in a voice that did not seem like my own,
Gracias
.

For a moment as the woman was throwing me out in her
inhospitalidad
, I wanted to turn and kill her—with a knife I do not know why I brought along for that possibility. I say surprisingly because as I tell this I am surprised that I would have such intentions and make such plans for
madre-muider
, knowing about the knocking, like it tells me—you know, to be still, to make
paz
. I only wanted to reconcile. But I saw how close
reconciliación
and
violencia
are to each other,
compadre
, those same feelings that are always in me, living together in my double person. The
inhospitalidad
of a woman who might be my mother was the grief I could not hardly stand no more,
no
lo comprendió
, I did not know what to think, you'd have thought I was over those feelings now that I was seventy years of age—
creo que sí
, I believe—and had me some wisdom that come into me from the Show, from my mother's life and some from my father's, from the
China Boy
, from my long excaped life on the road living along the river in the earlier days and in the riverwoods where God fed me with a bird, a fish, a leaf, a berry, and slept on the ground or in trees. I did not see nobody for many days and many nights and then I was full of reconciliation and of
hospitalidad
. Or living outside of towns and cities sometimes going as a cowboy, sometimes in my uniform from some war I do not know what one,
quizás
a Mescan war perhaps, I do not know. Nor care. I came to doors and stood at back steps and asked for something to eat. Oh I have some wisdom of this life to give,
compadre, Oyente
. I have some opinions and some ideas. I am therefore surprised that I would have intentions to strike down a woman maybe was my mother. When she run away I understood, a little, you wan hear,
porque
I myself am a runaway and feel those feelings too; but to turn me out, to be turned away, was feelings only
Jesucristo
would accept from his own mother if he had had to but he did not; yet I had to, from a woman that might be my own mother, be turned back and I could not, I become
feroz
. I wanted very much to put the knife into this woman there in that place my mother one time showed me where my father Hombre once had printed on her
estómago
stomach underneath her how you say
ombligo
, navel, the little flower in the middle of the stomach:
CHUPA
with the letters wound in a little flowering vine. But I probably would not have found the
CHUPA
because the printing would have probably been rubbed off by all the years of rubbing that my mother put her
estómago
through, God knows. But
Señor
I did not put the knife.

You will say that
quizás
perhaps they would be looking again for me, if I had put the knife. As they did so long ago in the days of yore when I excaped the Show, under the invitation of my mother. I am sure those ones would not be hunting again for me, the old ones that old ridiculous posse. Then it would be the
policía
who would be looking for me, that is if the absence of the old saint woman was found out, if there was
noticias
of it in the town, I did not see any neighbors, only the old woman's house in a long field of blooming bitterweeds setting under the one tree, a live oak, I guess. And I would be at large again, excaped this time from
la ley
the law. Double at large, if I had put the knife, excaped from the Show and the Law.

And if they would be looking again for me then I could put on the woman's clothing and be there when they come for the unknown knifer and they would find the
milagro
miracle of the resurrected
santa
sitting in her bitterweed house. And no one would know that I had become my mother,
mi madre
Chupa. In this way,
Señor
, she could never run away from me again. And in this way would I find home and God and the end of all my hunting—for my mother, for my half brother Tomasso and for my dick-struck father. Do you say I should have done this,
Señor?
For if you would think that they would be looking for me I would not wait but go myself looking for them who was looking for me, to tell them of my deed and to ask forgiveness like
la Biblia dice que sí
, like the Bible says. That is, if it would be my mother. If twas not then I am sure that they would let me go in
paz
. And since there would be no way of finding out who was this woman that had had the knife put in her since the little flower would have had the little winding vine rubbed long ago away from it.