Last Train from Cuernavaca (30 page)

Rico had always viewed the outskirts of Mexico City from a train window. He knew the streets were a maze, but he had never navigated them on foot, much less on the back of a shambling, talkative mule. He stopped to ask directions at a small general store in a tree-shaded village that the expanding metropolis would swallow any day now and spit out in unrecognizable form.

The store owner, with his long, thin nose, stiff bristle of hair, and skinny legs, reminded Rico of an amiable rooster. When Rico asked if he would like to buy a mule his eyes lit up.

“God has sent you.” He looked as if he would leap the counter and plant a kiss on Rico's bearded cheek. “My mule has just died.”

He assured Rico that Moses would only be required to pull a delivery cart. “And not many deliveries at that,” he said sadly. “The people suffer, but what cannot be remedied must be endured.”

Rico guessed that what they endured was President Huerta.
“Por cada cochino gordo llega su Sábado,”
he said. “Every fat pig ends up as a main course on Saturday.”

Rico unsaddled Moses and turned him loose in the pasture next to the store. Moses wasn't interested in tender farewells. He lost no time getting down to the business of grazing.

As Rico left he glanced at his reflection in the store's front window. He stared into the deep-set eyes of a filthy, bearded stranger wearing a beggar's clothes. He resolved not to appear at the Mendozas' door looking like Lazarus the leper.

The sale of Moses brought enough money for cab fare with a little left over, and Rico decided to treat himself. He let the horse-drawn cabs pass him by and hailed a traffic-scarred Ford Model T touring car with F
OR
H
IRE
painted in black letters on the passenger-side wind-screen. He was surprised when the driver yanked and pressed the lever and pedal to brake the car and put it in neutral. If Rico had been at the wheel he wouldn't have stopped for anyone who looked like him. He climbed into the backseat and relaxed for the first time in longer than he could remember. He had three stops to make before he could see Grace.

“Take me to Uncle's.”

“Sí, señor.”

Rico didn't doubt the driver would know what he meant. The official name of the national pawnshop was
El Monte de Piedad,
the Bank of Pity, but everyone called it “Uncle.”

The prospect of seeing Grace preoccupied Rico, and he hardly heard the blare of car horns and the clang of trolley bells. Wheeled traffic increased and the buildings loomed four and five stories high. He had become a stranger in a familiar land, out of place among the brown suits, starched collars, glossy shoes, and derby hats. The Ford chugged past the elegant restaurants and cantinas where Rico used to meet his friends. Posh was what Grace had called them.

He stepped down from the taxi's running board at the northwest corner of the main plaza. In front of him stood the majestic stone building that housed the Bank of Pity. Spanish monks had founded it in 1775 to help the poor, but it lent money to anyone with something to leave as collateral. The well-to-do and the middling classes came here, too. Rico and his army comrades had often gone to Uncle's for cash to cover gambling debts.

The Bank's employees made swift appraisals of every sort of object imaginable, then handed over cash for thirty percent of the value. If the goods weren't redeemed at a low rate of interest within a month they went up for sale. Tens of thousands of items, from diamonds to cellos to grindstones, filled the cavernous building.

Rico went straight to the far corner of the mezzanine where firearms were displayed, and pawned the only things of value remaining. When he left Uncle's he felt odd without the weight of his tooled leather belt and the Colts in their holsters.

He would have to do his shopping in the sprawling cacophony known as the Thieves' Market. No one there would question a bedraggled beggar with cash in his pocket. Not everything for sale in the Thieves' Market had been stolen, but a lot of it had. Even pilfered crosses, chalices, and church vestments turned up there.

Its apparel section encompassed several city blocks. Tiers of garments hung from lines stretched overhead, like a grove of clothes in a season of abundant rains. Rico hurried through the ranks of army uniforms, dangling in ranks as if on gravity-defying parade. Rust-colored patches of dried blood stained many of them.

They reminded Rico of a story he had heard. Late in 1910, then-

President Porifiro Díaz received a box from one of the Revolution's generals. The box contained a dozen federal army uniforms, tattered and bloody, but neatly folded. The note that came with it said, “We are returning the husks. Send us more tamales.”

Beyond the uniforms hung clusters of twills, tweeds, and herring-bones. Rico stopped to admire a handsome white linen Palm Beach suit. On the counter below, the shopkeeper had laid out a pale blue cambric shirt, red silk four-in-hand tie, crisp white funnel collar, silk socks, patent leather shoes, and a jaunty fedora.

They tempted him, but he remembered how Grace once had described the New World's mania for Old World fashions. “Why do Mexican gents dress like whifling Brit stiffs when they cut such a smashing dash in their own duds?” She had surveyed him in his dark blue army tunic, then kissed him. “But a uniform, my love,” she had added in her for-Rico-only voice, “a uniform is honey to ants in any language.”

Rico couldn't wear a captain's uniform, but he could cut a smashing dash in the next best thing.

Rico left the public bath clean, beardless, and with well-scrubbed teeth. Over a white cotton shirt and red cumberbund he wore a waist-length deerskin jacket with silver buttons. His tight leather trousers were open from knee to ankle at the side of each leg. Their rawhide laces exposed the loose white cotton pants underneath. The flared hems broke gracefully across the sheen of his half-boots. As for the silver buttons that marched in military order up each side of the pants, he had polished them until he could see his freshly shaven chin reflected in them. His flat-brimmed black felt hat was the sort matadors wore.

He walked to the Mendozas' white stucco mansion, but when he pulled the cord on the brass bell at the front gate his heart pounded as if he had run all the way. The
mayordomo
opened the door, went goggle-eyed, crossed himself, and looked about to faint with terror. Rico had to convince the old man he was not a ghost before he would usher him into the high-ceilinged parlor with its red velvet draperies and European art on the walls. Rico didn't have to wait long for the family to gather.

Grace's former father-in-law was short and tightly packed. When he embraced Rico the top of his head easily fit under Rico's chin. He had been one of Díaz's
científicos,
and with the survival instincts of an alley cat, here he was, still alive and prospering. But then, so was General Huerta.

Mendoza held Rico at arm's length to get a good look at him, then embraced him again. “We heard that the rebels had hanged you. General Rubio and President Huerta certainly think so. They've called off the search for you.”

“Where is Grace?”

“In Cuernavaca.”

“Cuernavaca!” Rico wondered how many disappointments and obstructions fate planned to inflict on him and Grace. “I was told she came here.”

“We begged her to leave her hotel in the hands of God and come to the capital, but stubborn as three mules, she refused.” Mendoza gave him a telegram. “Before Zapata's criminals cut the wires she sent this.”

The cable had been sent a week ago. Rico imagined Grace in Cuernavaca's telegraph office dictating the message: “I am in God's hands Stop The hotel is in mine Stop.”

Rico read it over and over. He looked so forlorn that Mendoza waved a hand, urging Rico to keep it. Rico folded it and put it into the inner pocket of his vest. It proved she existed. At times in the past weeks he had wondered if he had dreamed her.

“Are the telegraph lines still down?” he asked.

“Worse.” Mendoza mopped his glistening brow with a big silk bandana. “Zapata's rabble has laid siege to Tres Marías. We believe they intend to take Cuernavaca.”

“Why doesn't Huerta send reinforcements?”

“He did. Most of them deserted to the rebels.”

“Lend me your best horse.”

“You can't reach Cuernavaca, Captain Martín.”

“Yes, I can.”

Señor
Mendoza smacked his forehead with the flat of his hand. “How could I forget? Actually, we thought you might come here.”

“Why?”

“Some mule drivers left a letter from Grace this morning, but it's addressed to you.”

Mendoza held out an envelope with Rico's address in Grace's handwriting. The envelope had part of a mule's hoofprint on one corner, but otherwise it was intact. It was the note Rico had written on the back of Grace's letter. It had arrived before he did.

Rico put it in the inner pocket of his vest. Surely fate had no more jokes to play on him, sending him here, there and, back again. Surely God would allow him to deliver this letter to Grace.

Two hours before dawn the nightly summer rain stopped on cue, as if God had assigned a member of His staff to turn off the celestial spigot. Grace stood on her balcony and looked out at the raindrops sparkling like jewels in the light of the gibbous moon. Then she dressed and went to the kitchen.

While she waited for the kettle to boil on the big, brightly tiled stove, she wet the tip of her finger so that the last flecks of tea leaves would stick to it. Now the tin of Sir Lipton's oolong was truly empty. When the tea finished steeping, Grace carried the steaming cup through the rear courtyard, out a side door, and into her own little Eden.

Four years ago, this garden had been a vacant lot hip-deep in garbage. Grace had hired a small army of men to haul the trash away and bring in wagonloads of rich dirt. Socrates had installed a door in the wall to give entry from the rear courtyard. Grace's gardener had abracadabra'd the bare lot into a jungle of fruit trees and green bounty.

Because of the garden, the Colonial enjoyed a reputation for fresh fruits and vegetables that diners could eat with no intestinal regrets. Foreigners journeyed from Mexico City and beyond to enjoy what the garden produced. In those prosperous days Grace had never imagined that her house hold's survival would depend on it.

Hunger had become so widespread in Cuernavaca that people stole in order to eat. Now, not only fine horses gazed out of second-story windows, but mules and nags. Tomatoes, squash, and beans, mangoes, avocadoes, oranges, and plums were not safe. To discourage thieves, the gardener had had to cement broken beer bottles along the top of the wall, with their jagged ends up.

The broken bottles meant that iguanas could no longer lounge on top of it. Grace missed them, basking in the sun with their eyes half-closed. They had accepted chunks of mango from Grace's fingers as graciously as if they were doing her a favor. She was charmed by how they cocked their heads, like birds, and inspected her before they took the fruit.

She observed that when they rested, their closed eyelids met at the middle, but when sound asleep the lower lid covered the entire eye. She also learned to recognize the “Glare,” when they turned their heads to focus one eye in a stare meant to intimidate.

Lyda advised against naming the “gonners,” as she called the iguanas. “Don't make pets of them,” she said, but Grace did it anyway. Lyda had been right. The broken bottles on the wall allowed Grace to imagine that the gonners had found somewhere else to nap, but she knew better, or worse. Foraging Cuernavacans had almost certainly turned them into soup.

As Grace stood in the moonlight, sadness swept over her. She wanted to weep for the iguanas, for the starving folk who ate them, and for this Eden of a land. Huerta and Rubio possessed an extraordinarily destructive talent to cause famine in Morelos. The Mexicans had a knack for agriculture, but even if they hadn't, flowers flourished like weeds here. Crops sprouted so fast Grace could almost see them increasing in height by the hour.

To lay waste to a country this bountiful, inhabited by people so artistic, resourceful, hardworking, and faithful, was a crime against humanity. A few days ago Jake McGuire had asked Grace if she would pull the triggers on her shotgun. She had said “Yes.” In truth, she would shoot over the head of an intruder, but should she find the
generalísimos
in her sights, she would aim lower.

Grace felt among the leaves for new sprouts, but the members of her house hold had picked the garden almost bare. That was why Grace was awake so early. Still holding her cup of tea she headed for the front gate.

Leobardo and Socrates waited for her with Duke and the hotel mule. The mule was affable enough, but he lacked Moses's roguish charm. The shotgun's saddle scabbard was fastened in what Jake McGuire called the northwest position. Jake had taught Socrates to buckle it so it rode horizontally, with the shotgun's butt pointing forward to make it easy to draw. Grace had the feeling that Socrates imagined himself a cowboy or an outlaw whenever he mounted the mule with the shotgun holstered in that position. She made a mental note to ask Jake, the next time she saw him, where she could buy a Stetson for Socrates.

Grace swayed sleepily, squinting in the fretful flare of the torch in Leobardo's hand. She held the chipped porcelain cup under her nose so she could breath in the aroma. It was the last of it she would smell for the foreseeable future.

“Must we leave so early?” English was difficult enough for Grace at this hour. She concentrated on making sense in Spanish. “The market stalls will be empty anyway.”

Socrates handed her Duke's reins and the riding crop. Grace understood that the crop was more for discouraging ruffians than encouraging Duke.

“If anything is for sale,” said Socrates, “it will be snatched up before the sun wipes the sleep from his eyes.”

Since traveling with Lieutenant Angel's rebels, Grace considered riding sidesaddle too effete. She wore what looked like a skirt that reached a few inches above her ankles and just below the tops of her high, lace-up shoes. Full pleats in front and back hid the fact that the garment was a pair of wide-legged trousers.

Grace followed Socrates through the gate and heard Leobardo slide the big bolt home. The winch creaked as he lowered the oak beam into its iron cradle with a thud like a fortress's portcullis locking. Or a cell door.

One advantage of leaving this early was that the scores of refugees camped on the two plazas were still asleep. Grace did not have to ride past the children and sorrowful women pleading for the gift of a
centavito,
a little penny. She did not have to see the hunger in their eyes.

The rain had stopped, but torrents of water rushed past, forming plump wakes behind Duke's ankles, and the mule's. The flood, with its crust of garbage and debris, tumbled down the steep street and plunged over the rim of the brush-choked gorge. In another hour the edges of the remaining puddles would shrink and dry in the morning sun.

As usual, vendors had spent the night sleeping on mats next to their stalls. Now they were awake and hoping for customers. The market lacked the former throngs of people, dogs, livestock, produce, and poultry, but one thing remained plentiful. Grace wrinkled her nose. Even with so little food for sale it smelled as bad as always.

She dismounted and led Duke down the first side street. Today she got lucky early. A black hen, tethered by a string, pecked at the litter of garbage. An old woman sat nearby, presiding at her makeshift stall of old boards and torn canvas like a judge on his bench. Grace started toward her, but Socrates made a small hissing sound.

“What's the matter?”

He turned away so the woman could not see his face. He lowered his voice to a murmur.

“The hen is there for a reason,
Mamacita.
Do not buy her.”

“Why not?”

“She is black.”

“What difference does that make?”

“A healer rubs his patients with a live black chicken to absorb the illness. That hen probably carries someone's sickness inside it.”

Grace knew better than to scoff at a superstition powerful enough to make a reasonable man like Socrates reject food in a famine.

“Can the black chicken be cleansed of the sickness?”

Socrates hesitated. “Maybe.”

“Do you know how?”

“It must be smoked over a fire made of palm leaves,
copal
resin, and bay leaves that have been blessed by a priest.”

Grace was relieved. As exorcism rituals went this was a simple one.

“Palms are everywhere and we can buy
copal
and bay leaves here in the market.”

“And a priest for the blessing?”

“I'll think of something.”

Socrates looked dubious and for good reason. Priests were scarcer in Cuernavaca these days than Yorkshire pudding. But Grace found two more black chickens and a small sack of dried beans before giving up. Tied by their feet to the pommel, the chickens seemed resigned to their fate, but Socrates eyed them as though they harbored all the plagues of Egypt.

On the way home Grace stopped at a small church on a narrow back street. It was called the Church of Jesus of Nazareth. She had passed it often, but she had never ventured inside. Several blocks away, the cathedral was more impressive, but Grace had always preferred the simplicity of this one. She dismounted and climbed the broad steps to the church while Socrates waited below with Duke and the mule.

The carved plaster entryway was an orange-red, but showing white where the paint had chipped and fallen away. A plaque on the wall read in Spanish, “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.”

Grace touched it lightly with the tips of her fingers. She stood that way for a minute or more, as if to give the words entrance to her heart.

The weathered oak doors stood open and Grace walked into the cool twilight beyond them. Inside, the walls were of whitewashed plaster with a stripe of faded red trim around the base of the ceiling dome. The morning light from one small stained-glass window splashed in colorful patterns across the altar's marble top. No pews stood between the door and the altar, nor hid the vivid patterns of the majolica tiles on the floor.

Grace expected the church to be empty, but a hundred or more devout filled the nave. Shawls hid the faces of the women. The men kneeled on the wide brims of their straw hats. Except for the occasional cough, the low murmur of prayer, and the clicking of rosary beads, a stillness pervaded the place.

Grace fed coins into the slot in the poor box and picked up six candles and a handful of the pale, fragrant chunks of
copal
from a basket. Brightly painted saints stood in niches in the white plaster walls, but Grace was interested in only one. She stood in front of Saint Jude Tadeo, the patron of desperate causes. She lit the candles and set them among the scores of others flickering at the statue's feet.

She had little use for religion. She rather agreed with Lieutenant Angel, who said, “Don't expect much from priests or cats.” But Grace considered faith as something separate from religion, and faith had a powerful presence here.

She asked for St. Jude's blessing on the leaves and the incense so she could feed the people she considered family. While she was at it, she asked him to help the widowed, the orphaned, the hungry, the ill, the frightened, and the homeless. When she finished, she had one last request.

“Please, do not let them kill Federico Martín.”