Burnt Water (13 page)

“Take me out to the empty lots where all the dogs gather,” little Luisito directed Rosa María.

Some masons were constructing a wall on the vacant lot along Canal del Norte. But they'd just begun to raise the cement partition on one side of the lot, and little Luisito told Rosa María to go down the other side, away from the workmen. There were no children today, but a gang of teenagers in jeans and striped jerseys, all laughing, they'd caught a dog as gray as the wall. The workmen were watching from a distance, wielding trowels and mortar, watching and elbowing one another from time to time. Beyond them, the sound of the armada of trucks choking the traffic circle of Peralvillo: buses, building-supply trucks, open exhausts, smoke, desperate horns, implacable noise. It had been in Peralvillo that little Luisito had been hit by the tram. The last streetcar in Mexico City, and it had to hit him. The teenagers clamped the dog's muzzle shut; while a few held its legs, one of them laboriously cut off its tail, a mass of blood and gray hairs, better to have chopped it off with a machete, quick and clean.

They hacked at the ragged stump, leaving threads of flesh and a jet of blood spurting into the animal's throbbing anus. But the other dogs of this pack that gathered every morning on the empty lots where the workmen had begun the wall hadn't run away. They were all there, all the dogs together, at a distance, but together, watching the gray dog's torture, silent, muzzles frothing, dogs of the sun, look, Rosa María, they're not running away, and they're not just standing there stupefied waiting for it to happen to them next, no, Rosa María, look, they're looking at each other, they're telling each other something, they're remembering what's happening to one of their own, Doña Manuelita's right, these dogs are going to remember the pain of one of their own pack, how one of them suffered at the hands of a bunch of cowardly teenagers, but Rosa María's shoe-button eyes were like stone, without memory.

About one o'clock Doña Manuelita peered through the curtains on her door as the girl returned, pushing her brother in his chair. Even from a distance she could see the dust on the girl's shoes and she knew that they'd gone to the empty lots where the dogs gathered. In the late afternoon the old woman covered her head with her shawl, filled her shopping bag with dry tortillas and old rags, and went out to the street.

A dog was waiting for her in the doorway. It stared at her with its glassy eyes and whined, asking her to follow. When they reached the corner of Vidal Alcocer, she was joined by five more dogs, and all along Guatemala, by dogs of every breed, brown, spotted, black, about twenty of them, milling around Doña Manuelita as she portioned out pieces of dry tortilla, already turning green. They surrounded her and then preceded her, showing her the way, they followed her, nudging her softly with their muzzles, their ears erect, until they reached the iron fence before the Sagrario, the chapel of the Metropolitan Cathedral. From a distance, the old woman could see the gray dog lying beside the carved wooden door beneath the baroque eaves of the portal.

Doña Manuela and her dogs stepped into the great stone-floored atrium, she sat beside the injured dog, you're the one they call Cloudy, aren't you, poor half-blind fellow, well, just be thankful you have that one blind eye as blue as the sky and you can see only half the world, dear God, just look what they've done to you, come here, Cloudy, here on my lap, let me bandage your tail, bastards, picking on you for their fun, sons of your poor bitching mothers, just because dogs can't defend themselves or talk or call for help, I don't know any more whether they do these things to dumb animals to keep from doing them to each other or whether they're only practicing what they plan to do tomorrow, who knows, who knows, let's see now, Cloudy, poor old puppy, why I've known you since the day you were born, left on a rubbish heap, blind in that eye since birth, your mother didn't have time to lick you clean, right away you were tossed into the garbage and that's where I found you, there now, is that better? poor fellow, the cowards would pick on you, on you the most helpless of all my dogs, let's go give thanks, let's go pray for the well-being of all dogs, let's go pray, there, in the house of the Lord our God, Creator of all things.

Quietly, bent over, petting the dogs, more stooped than usual, with sweet words, Doña Manuela entered the Cathedral of Mexico that afternoon with her twenty dogs surrounding her; they managed to reach the main altar, it was the best hour, no one around but a few devout old women and two or three peasants staring at the ceiling with their arms uplifted. Doña Manuelita knelt before the altar, praying aloud, a miracle, God, give my dogs a voice, give them some way to defend themselves, give them some way to remember each other and remember those who have tortured them, God, you who suffered on the cross, have mercy on these dumb animals, do not forsake them, give them the strength to defend themselves, since you did not give men mercy or teach them to treat these poor animals with tenderness. Oh, God, my Jesus, God and True Man, show that you are all of these, and give equally to all your creatures, not the same riches, no, not that, I'm not asking that much, only equal mercy so they can understand each other, or if not that, equal strength to defend themselves, don't give more love to some of your creatures than to others, God, because those you have loved least will love you less, and they will say you are the devil.

Several of the women praying shushed her and one exasperatedly asked for silence and another cried, Respect the House of God, and then acolytes and two priests came running toward the altar, aghast, what sacrilege, a mad woman and a pack of mangy dogs. None of this had any effect on Doña Manuela, she'd never experienced such exaltation, she'd never spoken such beautiful and heartfelt words, almost as beautiful as those her daughter, Lupe, knew how to speak. The old woman stood there, so happy, more than bathed, feeling embalmed in the afternoon light filtering down from the highest domes, multiplied in reflections from silver organ pipes, golden frames, humble vigil lights, and the glowing varnish of the rows of pews. And God, to whom she'd been speaking, was answering her, He was saying:

“Manuela, you must believe in me in spite of the fact that the world is cruel and unjust. That is the trial I send you. If the world were perfect, you would have no need to believe in me, do you understand?”

But now the priests and acolytes were dragging her away from the altar, shooing the dogs; one maddened acolyte was beating the animals with a crucifix and another was dousing them with incense to stupefy them. All the dogs began barking at once and Doña Manuela, pushed and pummeled, looked at the crystal coffins wherein lay the wax statues of Christs more ill-treated than she or the dog Cloudy. Blood from your thorns, blood from your side, blood from your feet and hands, blood from your eyes, Christ of my heart, look what they have done to you, what are our sufferings compared to yours? Then why won't you allow me and my dogs to speak of our little pains here in your house that was built large enough to hold all your pain and ours?

Flung to her knees on the flat stones of the atrium, surrounded by her dogs, she was humiliated because she'd been unable to explain the truth to the priests and the acolytes, and then she was ashamed as she looked up and met the staring, uncomprehending eyes of little Luisito and Rosa María. Their mother, Señora Lourdes, was with them. But her eyes, oh yes, her eyes had something to say: look! that's the proof of what kind of woman old Manuela is, just what I've always said, we'll have to cast her from our building the way the priest cast her from the temple. In the shocked recrimination of those eyes Doña Manuelita saw menace, gossip, everyone remembering once again what she'd been able to forget and make others forget by her discretion, her decency, her helpful everyday chores, watering the geraniums, covering the canaries' cages.

Luisito looked quickly from his mother's eyes to Señora Manuela's. With both hands on the wheels he pushed his chair to where the old woman lay sprawled. He held out his hand, offering her a handkerchief.

“Here, Manuela. You've hurt your forehead.”

“Thank you, but don't get yourself in trouble over me. Go back to your mother. Look at the terrible way she's staring at us.”

“It doesn't matter. Please forgive me.”

“But for what, child?”

“Every time I go out to the vacant lots and see how they treat the dogs, I feel good.”

“But, Luis, child.”

“I think to myself, if it weren't for them I'd be the one getting the beating. As if the dogs stood between those boys and me, suffering in my place. I'm the biggest coward of all, aren't I, Manuela?”

“Who knows,” the stunned woman murmured as she dried the blood from her head with Luis's handkerchief; who knows, as laboriously she struggled to her feet, placing one hand on the ground and the other on her knee, then crossing them over her bulging belly and then on the arm of the wheelchair, rising like a statue of rags fallen from the highest niche of the Sagrario; who knows, is there anything you can do to make the dogs forgive you?

I'm fourteen, almost fifteen, I can talk to them like a man, they always will call me little Luis because I'll never grow very big, I'll be stuck in my chair getting smaller and smaller until I die, but today I'm fourteen, almost fifteen, and I can talk to them like a man and they'll have to listen to me. He repeated these words over and over that night as before supper he pored over the photographs and postcards and letters stored in the trunk that now served as a chest, since everything had to do double duty in these tenements that used to be palaces and now sheltered down-on-their-luck families who lived there with former servants, they who'd been wealthy in Orizaba, and Manuelita, who had never been more than a servant in a wealthy house. Little Luis repeated those words to himself, sitting at his usual place at the table that was used for preparing and eating their meals, as well as for schoolwork and the extra accounting his father brought home so as to pay the bills every month.

Sitting in silence, waiting for someone to speak first, staring intently at his mother, daring her to begin, to tell here at the dinner table what had happened to Doña Manuela that afternoon, so yes, the gossip would begin here and tomorrow everyone in the building would know: they beat her and chased her from the Cathedral along with all her dogs. No one was saying anything, because, when she wished, Señora Lourdes knew how to impose an icy silence, to make clear to everyone that it was no time for joking, that she was reserving the right to announce something very serious.

She directed a bitter smile to each of them—to her husband, Raúl, to her two older sons, who were waiting impatiently to go to the movies with their sweethearts, to Rosa María, who could hardly keep awake—but she waited until everyone had served himself the simple rice with peas to tell again the same story, the one she always dragged out to prove how bad Doña Manuelita was, how she'd made her own daughter, Lupe Lupita, believe that when she was a little girl she'd had a bad fall and that she'd been crippled and would always have to be in a wheelchair, nothing but lies, why there was nothing wrong with her at all, nothing but the selfishness and evil of Doña Manuela, who wanted to keep the girl with her forever so she'd never be alone, even if it meant ruining her own daughter's life.

“Thanks to you, Pepe,” Doña Lourdes said to her oldest son. “You suspected something and convinced her to get out of the wheelchair and try to walk, and you showed her how, thanks to you, my son, Lupe Lupita was saved from her mother's clutches.”

“For God's sake, Mother, that's all over now, don't keep bringing it up, please,” Pepe said, blushing, as he always did when his mother told the story, and stroking his thin black mustache.

“That's why I've forbidden Luis to have anything to do with Manuela. And now, this very afternoon…”

“Mother,” Luis interrupted, “I'm almost fifteen, I'm fourteen years old, Mother, I can talk to you like a man.” He looked at his father's face, drained by fatigue, at the sleepy face of Rosa María, a girl without memories, at the stupid faces of his brothers, at the impossible pride, the haughty apprehension of his mother's beautiful face, none of them had inherited those high, hard, everlasting bones.

“Mama, that time I fell down the staircase…”

“It was an accident. No one was to blame.”

“I know that, Mother, that isn't the point. But what I remember is how everyone in the building peeked out to see what was going on. I cried out. I was so afraid. But everyone stayed right where they were, staring, even you. She was the only one who came running to help me. She hugged me, she looked to see if I was hurt, and ruffled my hair. I could see all their faces, Mother. I didn't see a single face that wanted to help me. Just the opposite, Mother. In that moment, everyone wanted me dead, everyone wished it, I guess, out of compassion—poor little fellow, take him out of his misery, it's better that way, what can life offer him? Even you, Mother.”

“That isn't true, Luis, how could you make up such a vicious lie?”

“I'm not very bright, Mother. I'm sorry. You're right. Doña Manuela needs me because she lost her Lupe Lupita. She wants me to take her place.”

“Of course she does. Have you just realized that?”

“No. I've always known it, but I couldn't find the words to say it until now. It's good to know you're needed, it's good to know that if it weren't for you another person would be terribly lonely. It's good to need someone, like Manuela needed her daughter, like I need Manuela, like you need someone, Mother, everyone does … Like Manuela and her dogs need each other, like all of us need something, need to do something, tell something, even if it isn't true, write letters and say that things haven't been going too badly for us, in fact that we're living in Las Lomas, isn't that right, and that Papa has a factory, that my brothers are lawyers, and that Rosa María is in boarding school in Canada, and I'm your pride and joy, Mother, first in my class, a champion horseback rider, yes, me, Mother…”