Amigoland

32

The restaurant at Hotel de los Monteros overlooked the plaza and a corner of the church. Since it was barely five o’clock, the hour Don Fidencio normally ate his dinner, they were the only customers in the place. The waiter had sat them at a table near the large picture window, smudged from people stopping to peer through the tinted glass. The old man was sitting closest to the window and next to the new shopping bags that sat on the extra chair.
They were still looking out the window when the waiter came around to their table. His gaunt and slouched posture made him appear to be much shorter than he actually was. He was dressed in a white shirt, black pants and vest, and a faded bow tie that tilted upward like a broken weather vane.
“Would you care to order something to drink — coffee, maybe a drink from the bar?”
“A mineral water,” Socorro said.
“For me, a coffee,” Don Celestino answered.
“And something for the gentleman?”
Don Fidencio looked up from the menu and then turned around to make sure he was talking to him.
“Bring me a Carta Blanca.”
The waiter nodded and walked into the back.
“Are you sure you should be drinking?” Socorro asked.
“What’s so wrong with drinking one beer?”
“Because of your medicines,” Don Celestino said. “All the trouble of going to the pharmacy, and now you want to be drinking?”
The old man placed a hand on either corner of the table. “In the first place, it was your idea to buy a bagful of medicines, not mine. And in the second place, it has been forty years that I’ve been taking medicines and it never stopped me from having a beer.”
“Before you weren’t ninety-one or living in a nursing home.”
“So far you’ve told me all the reasons that I should be drinking.”
“Say what you want, Fidencio, but you need to take care of yourself, at least for this trip.”
“What you want is for me to stop living,” he responded. “If I keep taking the medicines that you bought me, what does it matter? Just let me take care of the rest.”
The waiter returned with the order and made a display of pouring the beer into the small glass. He set a tiny bowl of limes to one side of the drink.
When the waiter left, Socorro reached over to the extra chair and set the three shopping bags on the table. “Don’t you want to open them?”
“You found everything?” the old man asked.
“Almost,” she said. “We had to go to two different stores for the toothbrushes and the deodorant and the shavers.”
Don Fidencio glanced again at the three medium-size shopping bags propped up in front of him. “And the other thing?”
“Look inside the bag,” his brother replied.
“Unless you bought one for a baby, I don’t know where you could have put it.”
Socorro opened one of the bags and handed him a clear plastic package, a little bigger than a manila envelope. He turned it over several times. “And this?”
“Open it.”
He tried to undo the snap buttons at one corner, but his fingers weren’t cooperating and she finally had to pull it open for him. The three aluminum bars, zigzagging end over end, reminded him of the security grille they used at night to close the post office. He wondered what he was supposed to do with a mangled cane. But then she quickly extended the three parts and the handle into a full cane. “See if you like it.”
“And if it comes apart?”
“I tried it in the store.”
“For you, a young girl, but just imagine a grown man.” He leaned the cane against the table. “I try it, I fall, I break my hip, my leg, my head, something, and from there I go back to that place.”
“You’re not going to fall,” Don Celestino said.
“Then let me see you who knows so much. Try it, see if it doesn’t give out on you.”
“I don’t need to try it.”
“Only because you’re afraid,” Don Fidencio said. “That, I can see from here.”
“If I can walk without a cane, why would I be afraid of falling?”
“Not afraid of falling, afraid that people will see you with a cane, like a little old man.”
Don Celestino flicked his wrist at this idea. “Believe me, I’ll use a cane if that day ever comes, and I’ll use it without so many protests, like somebody I know.”
The old man took a sip of his beer. “Then don’t expect me to be the first one to try that thing.”
Don Celestino turned to Socorro, but she was already looking at him, waiting. Finally he stood up and tossed his napkin on the chair; he didn’t know how it was he let himself get talked into so much. He jiggled the cane in front of him as if it were a divining rod. As he took his first steps, he tried to remember if he had ever needed any help walking. With the exception of the diabetes, he had been healthy all his life, which made using the cane all the more ridiculous to him. What would they want him to do next? Go to the restroom every hour?
“You walk like it was a rake and not like a cane in your hand,” his brother called out, loud enough to be heard across the room. “At least put some weight on it.”
Don Celestino spread his legs now, so his stance would be similar to his brother’s. Then he leaned forward some, like a man looking for his keys in the grass. He tightened his grip to make sure his hand didn’t slip when he leaned on the handle. The lights had been dimmed around the other half of the restaurant, so he took his time maneuvering around the table and chairs in his way. The waiter had left a tray stand in the narrow aisle, and Don Celestino considered taking another route but then managed to get through the narrow gap. With the tip of the cane, he flicked away a cigarette butt. He imagined that if someday he did have to use a cane, he would walk as normally as he had without it, using it more as a precaution than anything else. His brother liked to exaggerate things. The walker probably wasn’t as bad as he had made it out to be.
When he reached the far end of the restaurant, near the doors to the kitchen, he turned around. Socorro waved to him while his brother only motioned for him to come back.
“I knew he would try to make it look so easy,” Don Fidencio said. “What does he know about needing it to go everywhere?”
“He was just trying to help,” she said.
“To make it look like there was no reason for me to be worried and that anybody could do it. Watch him, how he pretends to know how.”
He was walking back in the same crouched manner and paused when one of the kitchen doors swung open. A different waiter walked out carrying a broom and dustpan but stopped and held the door when he noticed someone nearby. Then he rushed over to assist the older gentleman with the cane, obviously lost to be off in this dark corner of the restaurant.
When Don Fidencio had finished off the last bit of his enchiladas verdes, the waiter removed all the plates from the table.
“Can I offer the travelers a dessert?”
“Nothing for me,” Socorro answered.
“Coffees for the gentlemen?”
Don Celestino shook his head. “Just the check, please.”
“And for me, another Carta Blanca,” the old man said, ignoring his brother’s gaze. “I want to make a toast.”
“We don’t need to be making toasts, Fidencio.”
“Me, not you,” he replied.
The waiter returned with the beer, poured it with the same flair as earlier, and left again. Don Fidencio raised his glass and waited for his brother and the girl to do the same. “To Celestino,” he said, “the brave one who kept his word about the trip and this morning rescued his brother.”
His brother and the girl raised their glasses and drank.
“There’s more.” He kept his glass in the air. “May he live a long and happy life with such a lovely companion by his side.”
Socorro reached for Don Celestino’s hand.
“And at last, I raise my glass to my little brother for finally believing our grandfather’s story and for helping me to keep my promise to him.” Then he leaned back and swilled the drink.
“Because I said I would take you there doesn’t mean I believed it,” his brother responded.
“Then what?”
“That I would take you, that was all. Why does it always have to be more with you?”
“It sounds like you’re taking a child, only to amuse him.”
“What does it matter why I said yes?”
“It matters,” the old man said. “I was going to tell you what else I remembered today on the bus.”
“Tell us tomorrow on the way to the station,” Don Celestino argued. “I want to get some rest.”
“At seven o’clock?”
“I woke up early to go get you, and I wasn’t the one who slept most of the way on the bus.”
“Bah, now you want to blame me for being able to sleep. If tonight is like most nights, I’ll be lucky to sleep a few hours.”
“Go on and tell us, and after that we can go rest for tomorrow,” Socorro said.
The old man looked at his brother and then over at the girl.
“I’m only telling it for you,” he said. “Whoever else can listen if he wants.”
He took another swig of his beer and then poured the rest of the bottle into his glass. “Papá Grande had only ever been on an old mule that belonged to his uncle. La Chueca, they called it, because it walked with a limp. You can imagine how slow the poor animal must have walked?” He jounced about on his wooden chair to demonstrate to her how it might have been to ride the gimpy mule. “And now here he was, this little boy on a real horse, being taken by the one who had killed his father.”
“With the arrow?” she said.
“Exactly, and already you know where.” He checked to see if his brother was listening. “But that wasn’t all of it, because he had also seen almost everybody at the circus killed, even his mother, who had been hit across the face with the back of a small ax. Then there was the midget that they scalped. And not just scalped, because this one was still alive when they peeled back the top of his head.”
“And so now he’s a midget?” Don Celestino asked.
“He was always a midget, that’s the way he was born.”
“All the other times it was Papá Grande’s uncle or just a man in the circus, nobody else.”
“So now I remember the circus man had a midget with him. Somebody had to help him with the bear. What difference does it make?”
“It sounds like you’re making up the story as you go.”
“Why would I say he was little if he wasn’t little? This is only what Papá Grande told me.”
“Maybe he remembered wrong — maybe you remembered wrong.” He looked at Socorro but found no support. “Before, you said the circus man came alone. You never mentioned anybody else. Now you made it the helper and maybe one of our uncles who got scalped. Next you’re going to tell us that it was our uncle who was the midget.”
“Then tell me how you remember it.”
“I don’t remember any midget, that I do know.”
“By then they had killed and skinned a small bear that was in a cage.”
“Now the poor bear?” Don Celestino glanced up at the ceiling. “What more, a lion?”
“He never said anything about a lion, just a small black bear.” Don Fidencio stared at his brother a moment longer before turning back to the girl. “And after that they rode away as fast as the horses would go, crossing fields and small riverbeds and valleys. All night they rode this way. Papá Grande had never been any farther than Linares, and now they were taking him from everything he knew. Already he had some idea that this would be the last time he’d see his home and that there was no one left. But still he couldn’t help looking back, wondering if anybody was following them. The sun had gone down, and the world around him had started to grow dark.” He paused to sip his beer.
“The Indians kept going and only stopped for the horses to drink water. There were times when Papá Grande thought he was going to fall asleep on the horse. He felt weak because since that morning he hadn’t eaten and only chewed on some kind of beans that the Indian had given him from a tree they passed. It was when they were climbing a large hill that they saw what looked like twenty soldiers following their trail, maybe only a mile behind them. This gave Papá Grande a little bit of hope, but they were still so far away.” Don Fidencio noticed his brother wanting to interrupt. “Now that I think about it, I remember he told me that it was just before dark that they saw the soldiers. How else would they be able to see so far?” He took a sip, then wiped the edge of his mouth with his cuff. “But whatever time it happened, it was right then that one of the other children, a little girl, she thought it would be a good idea to scream so the soldiers could hear them. And without thinking about it, the Indian she was with reached around and cut her throat, from one ear to the other. The screaming ended right there. No more screaming, just the horses running. The Indian tossed her body to one side without slowing down. And what could they do now but stay quiet-quiet and pray that the soldiers would catch up? Papá Grande said those Indians knew about horses better than most men, probably better than the soldiers.”
“I thought you said he had never been on a real horse,” Don Celestino said.
“I knew you wouldn’t stay quiet forever.” The old man used the interruption as an opportunity to take another drink. “Papá Grande knew they were good because he was there, on the horse, and saw how they controlled the horses, how they rode them.”
“Yes, but how could he know they were better than most men if he had never climbed onto a horse?”
“I thought you were sleepy?”
“Until you kept me up with your story.”
“The way I remember it, they rode through the night,” Don Fidencio replied, surprised his brother didn’t object. “The Indians stopped only two times to water the horses, but they wouldn’t let the children get down, maybe because they were afraid one of them might escape.”
“Those poor children, all that time without eating or sleeping?” Socorro turned toward Don Celestino, but he was staring out the window as if they were still on the bus.
“The worst of it was that, after a while, he felt like he had to make water, but there was no way for him to tell this to the Indian, not that he would have stopped anyway.” The old man shook his head. “The whole night that way. Not until they crossed the river did they let him go free.”
“Only him?”
“The way Papá Grande told me, only him. The rest of the children, they took with them to the north. Maybe they thought leaving one little boy would force the soldiers to stop or that they would be satisfied with only that one child. But who knows, why him and not the others?”
“He was lucky, no?” Socorro said.
“Lucky that they freed him, but not so lucky with what had happened earlier.” He took the last sip of his beer.
The waiter, who had been standing off to the side and halfway listening, stepped up now. “Another cold beer for the gentleman?”
“No, just the bill,” Don Celestino said before his brother had a chance to answer.
After paying, they walked out of the restaurant and through the lobby. Don Fidencio kept testing his new cane by stabbing it into various splotches and cigarette burns on the carpet. Don Celestino had rented two rooms, his brother’s located on the ground floor, and a bigger room upstairs for him and Socorro. They agreed to meet for coffee and a quick breakfast at seven and try to be in the taxi by seven thirty. If they were still hungry, they could buy a snack at one of the stores inside the terminal or wait until they arrived at their destination. It was only a two-hour bus ride to Linares.