Authors: W.P. Kinsella
Visiting newspaper reporters, tired of recounting the details of the murder, began to explore the political situation in Courteguay, some even dared to comment on human rights.
Those dispatches were seized by the Freedom Censors, but each reporter received a case of imported liquor. Male reporters were given vouchers good for the services of any prostitute in Courteguay.
The offending material was replaced by press releases from the Courteguayan National Tourist Service, headed Courteguay, Land of Enchantment, and sent out under each reporter’s byline.
JULIO HIRED AN AMERICAN
, a feng shui expert who was an immigrant from China, a man who specialized in the design of baseball stadiums, to pick the exact spot for Esteban’s burial. A home plate was installed
four feet in front of Esteban’s head, and pitching rubbers were sunk in the lush grass, eight of them, all exactly 60′ 6″ from the plate, but at such angles that none of the eight proposed hurlers would strike any of his compatriots when the ball was hurled over the single plate. The intricate geometrical patterns were such that there could be eight catchers crowded in an appropriate circle about the plate, each receiving pitched baseballs, without interfering with any of the other pitchers or catchers.
The reason the coffin, if it could be called that, had taken so long to prepare—actually it was done in a very reasonable amount of time considering its complexity—was that the Plexiglas container, which allowed the corpse to remain in its preferred position, was equipped with a refrigeration unit complete with a thirty-day supply of energy. There was a huge, forklift-like contraption beneath the container, capable of raising the top of the coffin from three feet below the earth’s surface to four feet above, at the push of a button.
Another button would then release the front wall of the container, allowing it to fall forward. The buttons were on the front inside wall of the container, within easy reach of Esteban’s throwing hand, should he suddenly regain the ability to use it. Instructions for the use of the buttons were in red lettering on the wall, in English, Courteguayan, Spanish, Latin, and French.
When Julio took Fernandella to look at Esteban’s coffin at the Armadillo of Navaronne Funeral Parlor in San Cristobel, Julio felt the tingle from wrist to elbow that he used to experience in the moments before a game as he warmed up lazily with Esteban, throwing softly, his arm aware, like a third person, anxious to begin laboring.
Julio shook his right arm vigorously.
“What are you doing?” demanded Fernandella, who was dressed in black, her hair pulled back until she was bug-eyed, looking as if she were a hundred years old.
“He looks just as he did when we played in America,” Julio said. “In fact, he doesn’t look much different than when he was inside your belly so many years ago. My arm wants to toss the ball to him.”
“Mfffft,” said Fernandella. She had never really believed her sons’ stories that they had played catch in her womb.
“He looks exactly as he did on the packet of baseball cards you sent,” Fernandella said. “But why have you done this to him? Can’t you let him find peace in death?”
“His body arrived from America in this position,” replied Julio. “A catcher is what he was before he came to this earth, and what he will be in the next life as well.”
“Then why not let him get on to the next life?”
“I’m not sure his time has come. He was killed by mistake. I think that counts for something.”
Julio put his arm around Fernandella’s crepe-covered shoulder. She felt fragile as a spiderweb.
“Mama, I love him very much. I can’t let him go without giving my best effort. There! Did you feel my arm? It flexed by itself. It wants to pitch. It could only want to pitch if Esteban were nearby—his spirit, I mean. His life force.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” said Fernandella, “but Esteban is dead. He should be allowed to rest in peace.”
The day of the funeral was clear and white. A few thumb-sized bees buzzed lazily over the emerald grass.
“Beautifully symbolic,” was how the Wizard described the burial plot—the pitcher’s rubbers in a circle about the bone-white home plate. The pit, rectangular and black, gaped deep.
The Wizard shielded his eyes from the sun and gazed into the pit. He was eventually able to discern the blue-and-silver workings of the contraption Julio had installed in the bowels of the lawn. The excess dirt had been hauled away, only enough to fill the space from the top of the coffin to the edge of the lawn was left, resting benignly on a carpet of artificial turf.
Julio, dressed in a dark business suit and sunglasses, kept scanning the sky, looking for a sign. For the first time in years he had dreamed of herons, endless rows of them needling the sky, and he ached for Quita Garza, and wondered if Esteban were not the lucky one. The dream made Julio question what he was planning.
“Esteban’s death will unite our people in grief,” said the Wizard, his own eyes slitted against the burning sky. “We will revere Esteban Pimental in death as he was never revered in life. In death he will become larger than life, if you will pardon the contradiction.
“There are only two real powers in our society, baseball and the church. Drawing from both worlds the way he did will make Esteban an idol. And a country without idols is nothing. Politicians make poor idols as Dr. Noir and his many predecessors discovered, always too late.”
“I intend to bring him back to life,” said Julio. “I don’t wish to offend you. But even if the idea does offend you, I intend to do it anyway.”
“How soon?” the Wizard asked. He was wearing a full-length, pure white, silk caftan with scarlet fingers of flames blooming on each sleeve. A few small, mysterious symbols decorated the back of the caftan.
The Wizard who usually favored stars and crescents had never worn these particular signs before. Julio recognized them as being several of the mysterious code signs baseball fans used on their scorecards to record outs, hits, and the advance of base runners.
“Don’t worry,” said Julio, “I will allow the nation time to mourn. A good tragedy will make everyone feel better.”
He recognized the last statement as a direct quote from the Wizard.
“Feel free to predict the resurrection,” he said to the Wizard.
“I only predict sure things,” said the Wizard. “I will be as surprised as everyone else if you succeed. Then, I’ll claim to have known about it all along, but that I did not want to raise false hopes. Let other people take the risks. Remember that if you ever decide to become a politician.”
Julio searched the sky above the brown ridge, which rose like the spine of a dinosaur above the white house. The sky was like fresh-hung sheets. Julio’s eyes watered behind his sunglasses.
Before the funeral service began the international press were allowed five minutes to photograph Esteban sitting upright in his Plexiglas coffin, dressed in his baseball regalia, wearing his catcher’s mitt, his clerical collar visible above his baseball shirt.
The Wizard had arranged to have pews moved from the long-defunct San Barnabas Cathedral, the pews so newly varnished they
stuck to the clothes of the mourners. The Wizard thought it would be a nice gesture to allow the old priest who had first instructed Esteban in religion to perform the service.
The Wizard visited the priest personally and assured him it was all right to come out from behind the chain-link fence for the occasion.
The priest refused.
“Well,” said the Wizard, “if one cannot bring the priest to the cathedral, then one brings the priest and the chain-link fence to the cathedral.”
The already makeshift communion rail was replaced by an eight-foot-high piece of frost fencing.
“It is about the same size as the wolf cage at the San Barnabas Zoo,” observed Fernandella wryly.
Beyond the infield the newly named Esteban Pimental Memorial Stadium was jammed with mourners. Various services were conducted, some vaguely religious, other full of swirling colors and mysterious winds, beyond Paganism. When the last ritual was finished, Julio and his family led the procession to the funeral cars and the drive to the mansion at San Cristobel.
Though by necessity the crowd was much smaller, there were still more rituals at the burial ground, including a contingent of teenage girls twirling ribbons until the lawn looked like a pink ocean.
Julio himself pressed the button that lowered the coffin into the earth. As the sod closed over the top of it, Julio signaled the mourners to keep their seats. Starting on the far right Julio, after taking off his jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his white-on-white shirt, produced a box of virginal baseballs and indicated that he was planning to throw a baseball from each of the eight pitchers’ rubbers. He did not use a catcher. Earlier, the geometric genius of the design had been demonstrated by eight pitchers pitching to a circle of eight catchers, the balls flying simultaneously but never colliding.
Julio wound up and fired the ball, the fans sighed collectively to see the greatest pitcher in the world throw. The ball hurtled toward the plate, but instead of passing on to the backstop, it vanished as it crossed the plate. Julio moved to the next pitching rubber. He repeated
the exercise eight times in all. Each time the ball vanished as if into the glove of an invisible catcher. Again Julio signaled the mourners to stay in their seats. He waited, expectantly watching the spot where his dead brother had been lowered from sight.
There was a gasp from those assembled as the earth twitched, followed by a sigh as it subsided. A moment later there was another gasp as the earth moved even more, then slowly, the coffin emerged from the ground. It seemed to shudder, shaking off the last of the dirt, like a dog shaking off water. Then the Plexiglas front opened outward and Esteban Pimental stepped from the coffin, white baseballs clutched in the crook of his arm like so many mangos.
Fernandella fainted, though only briefly. She had too many questions to ask to remain unconscious for long. Julio and Esteban embraced.
“You always know the right thing to do,” said Esteban.
“I, too, can read minds,” said Julio.
Under her thick, black veil the Gypsy girl, Celestina, smiled redly.
A
s he walked up the hill toward his mother’s home Julio was suddenly confronted by three soldiers, their uniforms gleaming like colored steam under the reflection of a white moon and a single streetlight. Their gun barrels glowed blue as they backed him up against a wall, issuing short, terse commands, their movements robot-like.
“Beisbol hombre!” one of them said.
“I am on my way home,” Julio said reasonably. Then, as the tallest pointed his rifle at him in a menacing manner Julio reluctantly raised his hands.
“Beisbol,” repeated the other two soldiers as they cocked their rifles.
“Dr. Noir is my friend,” Julio lied. “You know he has issued a directive that none of the men who play baseball in America are to be harmed.”
Julio knew of no such directive.
The soldiers stepped back a few paces, signaling Julio to remain with his back against the white adobe wall. Julio thought he recognized one of them as a childhood playmate.
“Miguel?” he said. “Miguel Figueroa?”
Too late, Julio realized that the encounter was not by chance. The one who had mouthed the words
Beisbol hombre
was indeed an acquaintance from childhood. He recalled Miguel Figueroa as an aggressive player who hated to lose.
“Attentiona!” cried Miguel.
Julio slowly brought himself to attention.
From the pocket of his tunic Miguel slowly withdrew a baseball. His smile was pure evil as he held it up for Julio to see. The ball glowed in the moonlight like a prize pearl.
Fog swirled about the legs of the soldiers.
“Those who are found in possession of the evil accoutrements of the game of baseball shall be executed on the spot,” said Miguel, “even if they are one of Dr. Noir’s pets.”
Julio decided that if they were really going to execute him, he would feign a faint and crumple to the cobblestones next to the fence. They would then have to stand over him in order to kill him, and might lack the nerve to do it. Even aggressive types like these, Julio knew, had a sense of the kill; they liked their victims alive and kicking. He discarded the idea of running for he would have to negotiate fifty yards of road with the moon, the light, and the whitewashed wall providing assistance to the soldiers, and illuminating his death.
Miguel Figueroa rolled the ball forward, it coasted to a stop against the wall, settling itself into a tiny depression.
“America will be angry,” said Julio. “They’ll overthrow Dr. Noir if you kill me, and if they overthrow Dr. Noir, you’ll find yourselves back in the hills, boiling beetles for soup, and eating roots and flower petals.”
“Dr. Noir wants an excuse to kill one of you,” said Miguel. “Why do you think he gave every Night Captain a baseball?”
Julio had no answer. He wondered if he could slide down the rough surface of the wall without lacerating himself.
“At the ready!” called Miguel Figueroa.
Julio took a deep breath as if he were getting ready to throw a crucial pitch, while as he did so, the air was awakened by the sound of bird wings.
A second later Miguel Figueroa let out a high, a surprised cry of pain as a heron, the sleek grey of fog, wings folded, pierced his back and chest like a stiletto. He pitched forward on his face on the cobblestones, the bird wavering like a spear in his back.
The other two soldiers turned their raised guns toward the source of the attack, one revolved in time to take his death in the chest rather than the back. The other caught his attacker by surprise and the heron pierced his left arm just above the elbow, fusing it to his body, causing his gun to discharge into night, toward the pale moon. A second shot ricocheted off the cobblestones, making a sound like a tight spring uncoiling, before another bird pierced his heart.
Julio breathed deeply of the sweet, bougainvillea-scented air. He stared up at the moon suspended in a puddle of fog. He could hear the flapping of gray wings in the night. He stood perfectly still until the flapping died away.