Of Love and Shadows (9 page)

The roar of the motor brought to mind a song from the Spanish Legion that Gustavo Morante often sang:

I'm a man who has known fortune's wrath,

Fended off fate's cruel blows in my manner.

I am the Bridegroom of Death,

I have felt her cold breath,

But I hold her love high as my banner.

It had been a bad idea to sing that song in Francisco's presence, because ever since he had called Gustavo “the Bridegroom of Death.” Irene was not offended. In fact, she seldom thought about love; she never questioned her long relationship, but accepted it as a natural condition inscribed in her fate from the time she was a little girl. She had heard so often that Gustavo Morante was her ideal mate that she had come to believe it, without ever examining her feelings. He was solid, stable, virile, a firmly established fact in her life. She thought of herself as a comet soaring on the wind, but at times, frightened by her own internal rebellion, she yielded to the temptation to dream of someone who might curb her impulses. But such states of mind lasted only briefly. When she pondered her future, she tended to become melancholy, and that was her reason for wanting to live her unfettered life as long as she could.

For Francisco, Irene's relationship with her fiancé was nothing more than the sum of two solitudes and many partings. He said that once Irene and Gustavo had the opportunity to be together for a while, each would realize that the only thing keeping them together was the force of habit. There was no urgency in their love; their meetings were placid and their separations too long. Francisco believed that deep down Irene hoped to prolong the engagement to the end of her days, in order to live in conditional freedom, meeting Morante from time to time and romping around like panther cubs. It was clear that she was frightened by marriage and so invented pretexts to postpone it, as if she could foresee that once wed to that prince destined to become a general, she would have to renounce her swirling skirts, jangling bracelets, and exciting life.

That morning, as the motorcycle swallowed up fields and hills en route to Los Riscos, Francisco calculated the number of days remaining before the return of the Bridegroom of Death. With his arrival everything would change. The happiness of these last months when he had had Irene to himself would disappear;
adiós
to turbulent dreams, days filled with surprises, waiting with anticipation, laughing at her outlandish projects. He would have to be much more cautious, talk only of trivial things, and avoid any suspicious actions. Until then they had shared a serene complicity. Irene seemed to wander through the world in a state of innocence, oblivious—at least, she had never asked questions—to the small signs of his double life. With her he did not have to take precautions, but the arrival of Gustavo Morante would oblige him to be more circumspect. His relationship with Irene was so precious to him that he wanted to keep it intact. Though he did not want to sow their friendship with omissions and lies, he knew that soon lies would be inevitable. He wished they could prolong this journey to the ends of the earth, where the Captain's long shadow could not touch them, that he could travel the country, the continent, the seas, with Irene's arms around his waist. The trip seemed all too brief. As they turned up a narrow lane, they saw broad wheat fields glistening, in that season, like a fine green down on the land. He sighed with a certain sadness as they reached their destination. They had unerringly hit on the place where the saint lived, but were bewildered by the solitude and silence, since they had expected at the least a handful of gullible souls come to watch the phenomenon.

“Are you sure this is it?”

“Sure.”

“Then she must be a pretty shabby saint, because there's no one here.”

Before them stood the typical house of poor country folk, whitewashed adobe walls, faded roof tiles, a single window, and a small gallery across the front of the house. There was a large patio bounded by a leafless grape arbor, an arabesque of dry and twisted branches where tiny buds announced the summer shade. They could see a well, a small wooden outbuilding that looked like a privy, and beyond that a simple square room that was obviously the kitchen. Several dogs of various sizes and coats rushed to receive the visitors, barking furiously. Irene, accustomed to animals, walked through the pack speaking to the beasts as if she had known them forever. Francisco, in contrast, found himself reciting the magic verses he had learned as a child to ward off such dangers: “Halt, ferocious beast/trail your tail on the ground/God in His Heaven was born/long before you, vicious hound!” But it was obvious that her system was working better, because although she had calmly walked past them, they had surrounded him and were baring their teeth at him. He was preparing to deliver a few murderous kicks to fiery muzzles when a very young child armed with a stick appeared and yelled at the watchdogs, scaring them away. Following this uproar, other people emerged: a graceless, heavyset woman with an air of resignation, a man with a face as shriveled as a winter chestnut, and children of various ages.

“Is this where Evangelina Ranquileo lives?” Irene inquired.

“Yes, but the miracles are at noon.”

Irene explained that they were journalists who had been drawn there by the magnitude of the rumors. The family, overcoming their timidity, invited them inside, in accord with the unvarying tradition of hospitality of the inhabitants of that land.

*  *  *

Soon the first visitors began to arrive and made themselves comfortable on the Ranquileos' patio. In the morning light, Francisco focused on Irene as she was talking with the family, to capture her unawares because she did not like to pose for the camera. Photographs deceive time, she said, freezing it on a piece of cardboard where the soul is silent. The clean air, and her enthusiasm, lent her the air of a woodland creature. She moved about the Ranquileo property with the freedom and confidence of someone born there, talking, laughing, helping serve the refreshments, threading through the dogs that were thumping their tails docilely. The children followed her, astounded by her strange hair, extravagant clothing, constant laughter, and the charm of her movements.

A group of evangelicals arrived with their guitars, flutes, and bass drums, and began to intone hymns under the direction of the Reverend, who turned out to be a tiny man in a shiny jacket and funereal hat. The plaintive chorus and instruments were never quite in tune, though no one except Irene and Francisco seemed to notice. All the others had been hearing the music for several weeks, and by now their ears were accustomed to the discord.

Father Cirilo also appeared, panting from the enormous exertion of pedaling his bicycle from the church to the Ranquileo home. Seated beneath the grape arbor, lost in melancholy divagations or prayers learned by memory, he moved his lips and swayed his white beard, which from a distance looked like a spray of orange blossoms pinned to his chest. Perhaps he had realized that the rosary of Santa Gemita blessed by the hands of the Pope was as ineffective in this case as the chanting of his Protestant colleague or the many-colored pills of the doctor from Los Riscos. From time to time, he consulted his pocket watch to verify the punctuality of the trance. Other persons, lured by the possibility of miracles, sat silent beneath the eaves of the house, in chairs lined up in the shade. Some discussed with deliberation the next planting, or a long-ago soccer match heard over the radio, never at any moment mentioning what had attracted them there, out of respect for the owners of the house, or because they were shy.

Evangelina and her mother attended the guests, offering cool water with toasted flour and honey. Nothing in the girl's aspect appeared in any way abnormal; she seemed tranquil, with a slightly foolish smile on her red-cheeked apple face. She was happy to be the center of attention in this small gathering.

Hipólito Ranquileo spent a long while rounding up the dogs and tying them to the trees. They were barking too much. Then he explained to Francisco that they had to kill one of the bitches because she had dropped a litter the day before and eaten her own whelps, a crime as grave as a hen crowing like a rooster. Certain vices of nature must be rooted out to avoid infecting other animals. On this subject he was very delicate.

It was at this point that the Reverend planted himself in the center of the patio and began an impassioned discourse delivered at the top of his lungs. All those present listened, not wanting to slight him, although it was evident that everyone except the evangelicals felt uncomfortable. “Rising prices! The high cost of living! This is a well-known problem. There is more than one way to stop it: jail, fines, strikes, among others. What is the heart of the problem? What is its cause? What is this ball of fire that inflames man's greed? Behind it all lies a dangerous tendency toward the sin of avarice, the unrestrained appetite for earthly pleasure. This leads man away from our Holy Lord, it produces human, moral, economic, and spiritual instability, it unleashes the ire of our Lord God Almighty. Our times are like the times of Sodom and Gomorrah, man has fallen into the dark paths of error, and now he is harvesting his measure of punishment for having turned his back on his Creator. Jehovah is sending His warning in order that we may reflect on our ways and repent of our loathsome sins—”

“Excuse me, Reverend, would you like some refreshment?” Evangelina interrupted, cutting the thread of inspiration with flaws still to be enumerated.

One of the Protestant disciples, a squat and cross-eyed woman, went over to Irene to explain her theory about the Ranquileos' daughter: “Beelzebub, prince of devils, has entered her body. Write that in your magazine,
señorita.
He likes to aggravate Christians, but the Salvation Army is stronger than he is, and we will vanquish him. Put that in your magazine—don't forget.”

Father Cirilo heard her last words, took Irene by the arm, and led her aside. “Pay no attention to her. These evangelicals are ignorant as sin, my daughter. They are not of the true faith, although they have some good qualities, we can't deny that. Do you know they are abstemious? In that sect even confirmed alcoholics stop drinking. I respect them for that. But the Devil has nothing to do with this. The girl is crazy, pure and simple.”

“And the miracles?”

“What miracles are you talking about? Don't believe that humbug!”

Minutes before noon, Evangelina Ranquileo left the patio and went into the house. She unbuttoned her sweater, let down her hair, and seated herself on one of the three beds. Outside, everyone fell silent, moving to the small gallery to watch through the door and the window. Irene and Francisco followed the girl inside, and while he adjusted his camera to the darkness Irene readied the tape recorder.

The Ranquileo home had a dirt floor, so tamped down, dampened, and tamped down again that it had acquired the consistency of cement. The sparse pieces of furniture were of ordinary unfinished wood; there were a few rush chairs and stools, a rough, homemade wooden table, and, as the only decoration, an image of Jesus with a flaming heart. The girls' beds were curtained off from the rest of the room. The boys slept on pallets on the floor in an adjacent room with a separate entrance, thus avoiding promiscuity among brothers and sisters. Everything was scrupulously clean and smelled of mint and thyme; a bunch of red geraniums in a jar brightened the window, and the table was spread with a green linen cloth. Francisco saw in these simple elements a profound aesthetic sense and decided that later he would take a few photographs for his collection. He was never able to do so.

*  *  *

At twelve o'clock noon Evangelina fell back on the bed. Her body trembled and a deep long moan, like a love call, ran through her. She began to shake convulsively; her body arched backward with superhuman force. The girlish expression of a few minutes earlier was erased from her disfigured face and she was suddenly years older. A grimace of ecstasy, pain, or lust marked her features. The bed was rocking, and Irene, terrified, could see that a table a few feet from it was moving with no visible cause. Fear conquered her curiosity and she moved toward Francisco, seeking protection; she took his arm and pressed close to him, mesmerized by the spectacle of madness taking place on the bed, but her friend gently disentangled himself in order to operate the camera. Outside, the dogs howled an interminable lamentation of catastrophe in accompaniment to the sounds of song and prayer. Tin utensils danced in the cupboard, and a strange clatter lashed the roof tiles like a hailstorm of pebbles. A continuous tremor shook a platform in the rafters where the family stored their provisions, seeds, and work tools. From overhead a rain of maize was escaping from the seed sacks, contributing to the sensation of nightmare. On the bed, Evangelina Ranquileo writhed and twisted, the victim of impenetrable hallucinations and mysterious urgencies. The father, dark-skinned, toothless, with his pathetic sad clown's face, watched glumly from the threshold, without moving closer. The mother stood beside the bed, her eyes rolled back in her head, perhaps attempting to hear the silence of God. Inside and outside the house, hope seized the pilgrims. One by one they drew near Evangelina to request their small, humble miracles.

“Cure my carbuncles,
santita.
”

“Don't let them take my Juan off to the Army.”

“God save you, Evangelina, full of grace. Heal my poor husband's hemorrhoids.”

“Give me a sign—what number should I play in the lottery?”

“Stop the rain, handmaiden of God, before my goddam seeds rot in the ground.”

Those who had come motivated by faith, or simply as a desperate measure, filed by in orderly fashion, pausing an instant beside the young girl to offer their plea, and then moved on, transfigured by the confidence that through His intermediary they would be favored by Divine Providence.

No one heard the Army truck pull up.