Bless Me, Ultima (16 page)

“The golden carp,” I whispered in awe. I could not have been more entranced if I had seen the Virgin, or God Himself. The golden carp had seen me. It made a wide sweep, its back making ripples in the dark water. I could have reached out into the water and touched the holy fish!

“He knows you are a friend,” Cico whispered.

Then the golden carp swam by Cico and disappeared into the darkness of the pond. I felt my body trembling as I saw the bright golden form disappear. I knew I had witnessed a miraculous thing, the appearance of a pagan god, a thing as miraculous as the curing of my uncle Lucas. And I thought, the power of God failed where Ultima’s worked; and then a sudden illumination of beauty and understanding flashed through my mind. This is what I had expected God to do at my first holy communion! If God was witness to my beholding of the golden carp then I had sinned! I clasped my hands and was about to pray to the heavens when the waters of the pond exploded.

I turned in time to see Cico hurl his spear at the monstrous black bass that had broken the surface of the waters. The evil mouth of the black bass was open and red. Its eyes were glazed with hate as it hung in the air surrounded by churning water and a million diamond droplets of water. The spear whistled through the air, but the aim was low. The huge tail swished and contemptuously flipped it aside. Then the black form dropped into the foaming waters.

“Missed,” Cico groaned. He retrieved his line slowly.

I nodded my head. “I can’t believe what I have seen,” I heard myself say, “are all the fish that big here—”

“No,” Cico smiled, “they catch two and three pounders below the beaver dam, the black bass must weigh close to twenty—” He threw his spear and line behind the clump of grass and came to sit by me. “Come on, let’s put our feet in the water. The golden carp will be returning—”

“Are you sorry you missed?” I asked as we slid our feet into the cool water.

“No,” Cico said, “it’s just a game.”

The orange of the golden carp appeared at the edge of the pond. As he came out of the darkness of the pond the sun caught his shiny scales and the light reflected orange and yellow and red. He swam very close to our feet. His body was round and smooth in the clear water. We watched in silence at the beauty and grandeur of the great fish. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw Cico hold his hand to his breast as the golden carp glided by. Then with a swish of his powerful tail the golden carp disappeared into the shadowy water under the thicket.

I shook my head. “What will happen to the golden carp?”

“What do you mean?” Cico asked.

“There are many men who fish here—”

Cico smiled. “They can’t see him, Tony, they can’t see him. I know every man from Guadalupe who fishes, and there ain’t a one who has ever mentioned seeing the golden carp. So I guess the grown-ups can’t see him—”

“The Indian, Narciso, Ultima—”

“They’re different, Tony. Like Samuel, and me, and you—”

“I see,” I said. I did not know what that difference was, but I did feel a strange brotherhood with Cico. We shared a secret that would always bind us.

“Where does the golden carp go?” I asked and nodded upstream.

“He swims upstream to the lakes of the mermaid, the Hidden Lakes—”

“The mermaid?” I questioned him.

“There are two deep, hidden lakes up in the hills,” he continued, “they feed the creek. Some people say those lakes have no bottom. There’s good fishing, but very few people go there. There’s something strange about those lakes, like they are haunted. There’s a strange power, it seems to watch you—”

“Like the
presence
of the river?” I asked softly. Cico looked at me and nodded.

“You’ve felt it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then you understand. But this thing at the lakes is stronger, or maybe not stronger, it just seems to want you more. The time I was there—I climbed to one of the over-hanging cliffs, and I just sat there, watching the fish in the clear water—I didn’t know about the power then, I was just thinking how good the fishing would be, when I began to hear strange music. It came from far away. It was a low, lonely murmuring, maybe like something a sad girl would sing. I looked around, but I was alone. I looked over the ledge of the cliff and the singing seemed to be coming from the water, and it seemed to be calling me—”

I was spellbound with Cico’s whispered story. If I had not seen the golden carp perhaps I would not have believed him. But I had seen too much today to doubt him.

“I swear, Tony, the music was pulling me into the dark waters below! The only thing that saved me from plunging into the lake was the golden carp. He appeared and the music stopped. Only then could I tear myself away from that place. Man, I ran! Oh how I ran! I had never been afraid before, but I was afraid then. And it wasn’t that the singing was evil, it was just that it called for me to join it. One more step and I’da stepped over the ledge and drowned in the waters of the lake—”

I waited a long time before I asked the next question. I waited for him to finish reliving his experience. “Did you see the mermaid?”

“No,” he answered.

“Who is she?” I whispered.

“No one knows. A deserted woman—or just the wind singing around the edges of those cliffs. No one really knows. It just calls people to it—”

“Who?”

He looked at me carefully. His eyes were clear and bright, like Ultima’s, and there were lines of age already showing.

“Last summer the mermaid took a shepherd. He was a man from Méjico, new here and working for a ranch beyond the hills. He had not heard the story about the lakes. He brought his sheep to water there, and he heard the singing. He made it back to town and even swore that he had seen the mermaid. He said it was a woman, resting on the water and singing a lonely song. She was half woman and half fish—He said the song made him want to wade out to the middle of the lake to help her, but his fear had made him run. He told everyone the story, but no one believed him. He ended up getting drunk in town and swearing he would prove his story by going back to the lakes and bringing back the mer-woman. He never returned. A week later the flock was found near the lakes. He had vanished—”

“Do you think the mermaid took him?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Tony,” Cico said and knit his brow, “there’s a lot of things I don’t know. But never go to the Hidden Lakes alone, Tony, never. It’s not safe.”

I nodded that I would honor his warning. “It is so strange,” I said, “the things that happen. The things that I have seen, or heard about.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“These things of the water, the mermaid, the golden carp. They are strange. There is so much water around the town, the river, the creek, the lakes—”

Cico leaned back and stared into the bright sky. “This whole land was once covered by a sea, a long time ago—”

“My name means sea,” I pondered aloud.

“Hey, that’s right,” he said, “Márez means sea, it means you came from the ocean, Tony Márez arisen from the sea—”

“My father says our blood is restless, like the sea—”

“That is beautiful,” he said. He laughed. “You know, this land belonged to the fish before it belonged to us. I have no doubt about the prophecy of the golden carp. He will come to rule again!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What do I mean?” Cico asked quizzically. “I mean that the golden carp will come to rule again. Didn’t Samuel tell you?”

“No,” I shook my head.

“Well he told you about the people who killed the carp of the river and were punished by being turned into fish themselves. After that happened, many years later, a new people came to live in this valley. And they were no better than the first inhabitants, in fact they were worse. They sinned a lot, they sinned against each other, and they sinned against the legends they knew. And so the golden carp sent them a prophecy. He said that the sins of the people would weigh so heavy upon the land that in the end the whole town would collapse and be swallowed by water—”

I must have whistled in exclamation and sighed.

“Tony,” Cico said, “this whole town is sitting over a deep, underground lake! Everybody knows that. Look.” He drew on the sand with a stick. “Here’s the river. The creek flows up here and curves into the river. The Hidden Lakes complete the other border. See?”

I nodded. The town was surrounded by water. It was frightening to know that! “The whole town!” I whispered in amazement.

“Yup,” Cico said, “the whole town. The golden carp has warned us that the land cannot take the weight of the sins—the land will finally sink!”

“But you live in town!” I exclaimed.

He smiled and stood up. “The golden carp is my god, Tony. He will rule the new waters. I will be happy to be with my god—”

It was unbelievable, and yet it made a wild kind of sense! All the pieces fit!

“Do the people of the town know?” I asked anxiously.

“They know,” he nodded, “and they keep on sinning.”

“But it’s not fair to those who don’t sin!” I countered.

“Tony,” Cico said softly, “all men sin.”

I had no answer to that. My own mother had said that losing your innocence and becoming a man was learning to sin. I felt weak and powerless in the knowledge of the impending doom.

“When will it happen?” I asked.

“No one knows,” Cico answered. “It could be today, tomorrow, a week, a hundred years—but it will happen.”

“What can we do?” I asked. I heard my voice tremble.

“Sin against no one,” Cico answered.

I walked away from that haven which held the pond and the swimming waters of the golden carp feeling a great weight in my heart. I was saddened by what I had learned. I had seen beauty, but the beauty had burdened me with responsibility. Cico wanted to fish at the dam, but I was not in the mood for it. I thanked him for letting me see the golden carp, crossed the river, and trudged up the hill homeward.

I thought about telling everyone in town to stop their sinning, or drown and die. But they would not believe me. How could I preach to the whole town, I was only a boy. They would not listen. They would say I was crazy, or bewitched by Ultima’s magic.

I went home and thought about what I had seen and the story Cico told. I went to Ultima and told her the story. She said nothing. She only smiled. It was as if she knew the story and found nothing fantastic or impending in it. “I would have told you the story myself,” she nodded wisely, “but it is better that you hear the legend from someone your own age…”

“Am I to believe the story?” I asked. I was worried.

“Antonio,” she said calmly and placed her hand on my shoulder, “I cannot tell you what to believe. Your father and your mother can tell you, because you are their blood, but I cannot. As you grow into manhood you must find your own truths—”

That night in my dreams I walked by the shore of a great lake. A bewitching melody filled the air. It was the song of the mer-woman! I looked into the dark depths of the lake and saw the golden carp, and all around him were the people he had saved. On the bleached shores of the lake the carcasses of sinners rotted.

Then a huge golden moon came down from the heavens and settled on the surface of the calm waters. I looked towards the enchanting light, expecting to see the Virgin of Guadalupe, but in her place I saw my mother!

Mother, I cried, you are saved! We are all saved!

Yes, my Antonio, she smiled, we who were baptized in the water of the moon which was made holy by our Holy Mother the Church are saved.

Lies! my father shouted, Antonio was not baptized in the holy water of the moon, but in the salt water of the sea!

I turned and saw him standing on the corpse-strewn shore. I felt a searing pain spread through my body.

Oh please tell me which is the water that runs through my veins, I moaned; oh please tell me which is the water that washes my burning eyes!

It is the sweet water of the moon, my mother crooned softly, it is the water the Church chooses to make holy and place in its font. It is the water of your baptism.

Lies, lies, my father laughed, through your body runs the salt water of the oceans. It is that water which makes you Márez and not Luna. It is the water that binds you to the pagan god of Cico, the golden carp!

Oh, I cried, please tell me. The agony of pain was more than I could bear. The excruciating pain broke and I sweated blood.

There was a howling wind as the moon rose and its powers pulled at the still waters of the lake. Thunder split the air and the lightning bursts illuminated the churning, frothy tempest. The ghosts stood and walked upon the shore.

The lake seemed to respond with rage and fury. It cracked with the laughter of madness as it inflicted death upon the people. I thought the end had come to everything. The cosmic struggle of the two forces would destroy everything!

The doom which Cico had predicted was upon us! I clasped my hands and knelt to pray. The terrifying end was near. Then I heard a voice speak above the sound of the storm. I looked up and saw Ultima.

Cease! she cried to the raging powers, and the power from the heavens and the power from the earth obeyed her. The storm abated.

Stand, Antonio, she commanded, and I stood. You both know, she spoke to my father and my mother, that the sweet water of the moon which falls as rain is the same water that gathers into rivers and flows to fill the seas. Without the waters of the moon to replenish the oceans there would be no oceans. And the same salt waters of the oceans are drawn by the sun to the heavens, and in turn become again the waters of the moon. Without the sun there would be no waters formed to slake the dark earth’s thirst.

The waters are one, Antonio. I looked into her bright, clear eyes and understood her truth.

You have been seeing only parts, she finished, and not looking beyond into the great cycle that binds us all.

Then there was peace in my dreams and I could rest.

U
ltima’s cure and the golden carp occupied my thoughts the rest of the summer. I was growing up and changing. I had plenty of time to be by myself and to think and feel the magic these events contained.