The Savage Detectives (75 page)

In Santa Teresa, when we went into a café with a big mirror behind the bar, I realized how much we had changed. Belano hasn't shaved for days. Lima doesn't need to shave, but he probably hasn't combed his hair since around the time Belano stopped shaving. I'm all skin and bones (I've been screwing three times a night, on average). Only Lupe looks good, or anyway better than she did when we left Mexico City.

Was Cesárea Tinajero the dead bullfighter's cousin? Was she a distant relative? Did she ask them to put her own last name on the plaque, give Avellaneda her own name, as a way of saying this man is mine? Did she add her name to the bullfighter's name as a joke? A way of saying
Cesárea Tinajero was here
? It hardly matters. Today we called Mexico City again. All quiet at Quim's. Belano talked to Quim, Lima talked to Quim. When I tried to talk the phone went dead, although we had plenty of coins. I got the impression that Quim didn't want to talk to me and that he hung up. Then Belano called his father and Lima called his mother and then Belano called Laura Jáuregui. The first two conversations were relatively long, formal, and the last was very short. Only Lupe and I didn't call anyone in Mexico City, as if we didn't feel like it or didn't have anyone to talk to.

This morning, while we were eating breakfast at a café in Nogales, we saw Alberto behind the wheel of his Camaro. He was wearing a shirt the same color as the car, bright yellow, and next to him was a guy in a leather jacket who looked like a cop. Lupe recognized him right away: she turned pale and said Alberto's here. She didn't let her fear show, but I knew she was afraid. Lima followed Lupe's gaze and said yes, it was Alberto and one of his buddies. Belano watched the car go by through the big café windows and told us we were hallucinating. I saw Alberto perfectly clearly. Let's get out of here now, I said. Belano looked at us and said no way. First we would go to the Nogales library and then head back to Hermosillo to continue our search, as we had planned. Lima agreed. I like your stubbornness, man, he said. So they finished their breakfasts (neither Lupe nor I could eat anything else) and then we left the café, got in the Impala, and dropped Belano off at the door to the library. Be brave, for fuck's sake, don't go imagining things, he said before disappearing. Lima watched the library door for a while, as if trying to come up with a reply, and then he started the car. You saw him, Ulises, said Lupe, it was him. I think so, said Lima. What will we do if he finds me? said Lupe. Lima didn't answer. We parked the car on a deserted street, in a middle-class neighborhood, with no bars or stores in sight except for a fruit stand, and Lupe started to tell us stories from her childhood and then I started to tell stories about when I was a boy too, just to kill time, and although Ulises didn't open his mouth once and started to read a book, still sitting behind the wheel, you could tell he was listening because every so often he would raise his eyes and look at us and smile. At noon we went to pick up Belano. Lima parked close to a nearby plaza and said that I should go to the library. He would stay with Lupe and the Impala in case Alberto showed up and they had to get out of there fast. I walked the four blocks to the library quickly, looking straight ahead the whole way. I found Belano sitting at a long wooden table, stained dark by the passage of time, with several bound volumes of the Nogales local paper. He was the only person in the library, and when I got there he raised his head and motioned for me to come and sit next to him.

The only image I took away from the Nogales newspaper's obituary of Pepín Avellaneda is of Cesárea Tinajero walking along a dreary desert road hand in hand with her little bullfighter, a little bullfighter who's struggling not to keep shrinking, who's struggling to grow, and who in fact begins to grow little by little, say until he reaches five and a half feet, then disappears.

In El Cubo. To get from Nogales to El Cubo you have to take the highway to Santa Ana and head west, from Santa Ana to Pueblo Nuevo, Pueblo Nuevo to Altar, Altar to Caborca, Caborca to San Isidro, then take the road to Sonoyta, on the Arizona border, but turn off onto a dirt road before you get there and go about fifteen or twenty miles. The Nogales newspaper talked about "his faithful companion, a devoted teacher in El Cubo." In the town we went to the school, and one glance was enough to tell us that it had been built after 1940. Cesárea Tinajero couldn't have taught here. Though if we dug around under it, we might be able to find the old school.

We talked to the teacher. She teaches the children Spanish and Pápago. The Pápagos live in Arizona and Sonora. We asked the teacher whether she was Pápago. No, she isn't. I'm from Guaymas, she tells us, and my grandfather was a Mayo. We ask her why she teaches Pápago. So the language won't be lost, she tells us. There are only two hundred Pápagos left in Mexico. You're right, that's not many, we admit. In Arizona there are almost sixteen thousand, but only two hundred in Mexico. And how many Pápagos are left in El Cubo? About twenty, says the teacher, but it doesn't matter, I'll keep teaching. Then she explains that the Pápagos don't call themselves that. They call themselves O'Odham and the Pimas call themselves Óob and the Seris call themselves Konkáak. We tell her that we were in Bahía Kino, in Punta Chueca, and El Dólar and we heard the fishermen singing Seri songs. The teacher is surprised. There are seven hundred Konkáak, she says, if that, and they don't fish. Well, these fishermen had learned a Seri song, we say. Maybe, says the teacher, but more likely they fooled you. Later she invited us to her house for dinner. She lives alone. We asked her whether she wouldn't like to live in Hermosillo or Mexico City. She said no. She likes this place. Then we went to see an old Pápago woman who lived half a mile from El Cubo. The old woman's house was adobe. It consisted of three rooms, two empty and one in which she lived with her animals. And yet the smell was hardly noticeable, swept away by the desert wind that came in through the glassless windows.

The teacher explained to the old woman in her language that we wanted news of Cesárea Tinajero. The old woman listened to the teacher and looked at us and said: huh. Belano and Lima looked at each other for a second and I knew they were wondering whether the old woman's
huh
meant something different in Pápago or whether it meant what we thought it did. A good person, said the old woman. She lived with a good man. Both of them good. The teacher looked at us and smiled. What was the man like? said Belano, gesturing to indicate different heights. Medium tall, said the old woman, skinny, medium tall, light-colored eyes. Light like this? said Belano, picking an almond-colored branch from the wall. Light like that, said the old woman. Medium tall like this? said Belano, holding up his index finger to a level suggesting someone on the short side. Medium tall, that's right, said the old woman. And what about Cesárea Tinajero? said Belano. Alone, said the old woman, she left with her man and came back alone. How long was she here? As long as the school, good teacher, said the old woman. A year? said Belano. The old woman looked through Belano and Lima, as if she didn't see them. She looked sympathetically at Lupe, asking her something in Pápago. The teacher translated: which of these men is yours? Lupe smiled. She was behind me and I couldn't see her, but I knew she was smiling. She said: none of them. She didn't have a man either, said the old woman. One day she went away with him and later she came back alone. Was she still teaching? said Belano. The old woman said something in Pápago. She lived in the school, translated the teacher, but she didn't teach anymore. Things are better now, said the old woman. Don't be so sure, said the teacher. And then what happened? The old woman spoke in Pápago, stringing together words that only the teacher understood, but she looked at us and at last she smiled. She lived in the school for a while and then she left, said the teacher. It seems she lost weight, was very thin, but I'm not sure, the old woman gets things mixed up sometimes, said the teacher. Though considering that she wasn't working, that she didn't have a salary, it seems only natural that she would lose weight, said the teacher. She must not have had much money for food. She ate, said the old woman suddenly, and we all jumped. I gave her food, my mother gave her food. She was skin and bones. Her eyes sunken. She looked like a coral snake. A coral snake? said Belano.
Micruroides euryxanthus
, said the teacher. Poisonous. So clearly you were good friends, said Belano. And when did she leave? After a while, said the old woman, without specifying how much time she meant. For the Pápagos, said the teacher, measuring time is as meaningless as measuring eternity. And how was she when she left? said Belano. Thin as a coral snake, said the old woman.

Later, a little before dusk, the old woman came with us to El Cubo to show us the house where Cesárea Tinajero had lived. It was near some corrals that were so old they were falling apart, the wood of the cross-pieces rotten, next to what must have been a toolshed, although it was empty now. The house was small, with a dried-up yard to one side, and when we got there we could see light through its only front window. Should we knock? said Belano. There's no point, said Lima. So we went walking back again, through the hills, to the old Pápago woman's house, and thanked her for everything, and then we said good night and headed back alone to El Cubo, although really she was the one who was left alone.

That night we slept at the teacher's house. After we ate, Lima settled down to read William Blake, Belano and the teacher took a walk in the desert and went into her room when they got back, and after Lupe and I washed the dishes, we went out to smoke a cigarette while we watched the stars, and made love in the Impala. When we came back into the house we found Lima asleep on the floor with the book in his hands and a familiar murmur coming from the teacher's room, indicating that neither she nor Belano would appear again for the rest of the night. So we covered Lima with a blanket, made a bed for ourselves on the floor, and turned out the light. At eight in the morning the teacher went into her room and woke up Belano. The bathroom was an outhouse in the backyard. When I returned, the windows were open and there was
café de olla
on the table.

We said goodbye outside. The teacher didn't want us to give her a ride to the school. When we got back to Hermosillo, I had the feeling that not only had I already been over every inch of this fucking land, but that I'd been born here.

We've been to the Sonora Cultural Institute, the National Indian Institute, the Bureau of Folk Culture (Sonora Regional Branch), the National Education Counsel, the Records Office of the Ministry of Education (Sonora Region), and the Peña Taurina Pilo Yáñez for the second time. Only at the last was anybody friendly.

Traces of Cesárea Tinajero keep appearing and disappearing. The sky in Hermosillo is bloodred. Belano was asked for papers, his papers, when he requested the old registers of rural teachers, which had to contain a record of Cesárea's destination after she left El Cubo. Belano's papers weren't in order. A secretary at the university told him that at the very least he could be deported. Where? shouted Belano. Back to your country, young man, said the secretary. Are you illiterate? said Belano, didn't you read here that I'm Chilean? You might as well shoot me in the head! They called the police and we went running. I had no idea that Belano was here illegally.

Belano is more nervous every day and Lima is more withdrawn. Today we saw Alberto and his policeman friend. Belano didn't see him or didn't want to see him. Lima did see him, but he doesn't care. Only Lupe and I are worried (very worried) about the inevitable showdown with her former pimp. It's no big deal, said Belano, to put an end to the discussion. After all, there are twice as many of us as there are of them. I was such a nervous wreck that I started to laugh. I'm not a coward, but I'm not suicidal either. They're armed, said Lupe. So am I, said Belano. In the afternoon they sent me to the Records Office. I said that I was writing an article for a Mexico City magazine about the rural schools in Sonora in the 1930s. Such a young reporter, said the secretaries, who were painting their nails. I found the following clue: Cesárea Tinajero had been a teacher from 1930 to 1936. Her first posting was El Cubo. Then she taught in Hermosillo, Pitiquito, Bábaco, and Santa Teresa. After that she was no longer part of the teaching force of the state of Sonora.

According to Lupe, Alberto already knows where we are, what boarding-house we're staying at, and what car we're driving. He's just waiting for the right moment to launch a surprise attack. We went to see the Hermosillo school where Cesárea had worked. We asked about old teachers from the 1930s. They gave us the former principal's address. His house was next door to what was once the state penitentiary. It's a three-story stone building with a tower that rises above the other guard towers and inspires a feeling of dread. A work of architecture built to last, said the principal.

We drove to Pitiquito. Today Belano said that it might be best to go back to Mexico City. Lima doesn't care one way or the other. He says that at first he got tired of driving so much, but now he's gotten to like it. Even when he's asleep he dreams about driving Quim's Impala along these roads. Lupe doesn't talk about going back to Mexico City but she says that the best thing would be to hide. I don't want to be separated from her. I don't have plans either. Onward, then, says Belano. His hands, I notice when I lean over the front seat to ask him for a cigarette, are shaking.