When the Owl Cries Part 55

A gentle mist was falling and he and Manuel stood under a jacaranda, the body of a scorched rat near their feet. The wind shook the damp leaves and pigeons flew low, avoiding the mill. The chapel bell tolled, telling the story.

"Well, we've seen the mill," said Raul.

"What a fire!" said Manuel. "Look how the beams burned."

Raul noticed the charred beams in the ruin.

"The quake knocked down the mill," he said. "The fire got going, then the quake pulled down the beams." He nodded toward the volcano, now drowned in mist.

Raul pulled Manuel's sleeve.

"We have things to do, Manuel. I want to go back to the house. I must bury my father."

"What ... he's dead!"

"The quake killed him. Help me take his body away, Manuel. It won't be easy."

And he welcomed the rain, for now the mist had changed to rain; he welcomed the cool of it, walking back to the house: he liked the fresh smell.

The chapel bell had stopped tolling but now someone dragged at its rope again and the sound seemed to bring great gouts of rain and Raul and Manuel hurried toward the kitchen. They sat down at a table near the tiled stove and gulped coffee. Manuel touched the side of his head and the side of his neck, barely brus.h.i.+ng the skin. Raul wanted to ask him how he felt but he couldn't put the words together.

A bearlike man, dirty and rain-soaked, came in, asking for food. No one had seen him before. He spoke out, both hands on a crooked staff, his voice quavering and wild:

"I've just come across Petaca. The peons are leaving. I've seen 'em ... many of them. They're just walking away."

Raul gouged a line across the rough table with his thumbnail: the line divided Petaca: so much for the workers, so much for himself. He wouldn't relinquish more.

He d.a.m.ned the blundering peasants: without proper clothing or food they were forsaking Petaca for more insecurity, hunger and beatings. They were deserting their families.

The bearlike fellow droned on about the peasants. Then, suddenly he stopped, put down his staff, and spat:

"Have you heard about General Matanzas?"

"No, I haven't," said Raul.

"He's sided with the revolutionists!"

My G.o.d, today ... tomorrow ... so we change to save our skins, thought Raul. He asked his maid for cigarette paper and tobacco and rolled a cigarette as he finished his coffee.

"We came back to the house to bury my father," he reminded Manuel.

"We're burying the past too," he added.

It took hours to dig Don Fernando free, even with the help of Luis and Gabriel. In the late afternoon they carried his body to the grove and Gabriel knelt by his shallow grave and prayed. The sky was clear, the sun hot; the wind whipped Gabriel's robe. His spectacles in his hand, he prayed for decency, a better world, kinder men. Parrots snickered and whispered in the grove while Esteban covered the old man.

Raul had antic.i.p.ated his father's death too long to be moved. He felt relieved, but it was an unbalanced sense of relief, for he could not forget Pedro's death or the burning house and the ravaged mill. Did it mean anything that both these men had died on the same day? Sitting close to Caterina's grave, he thought of the prayers that lay buried everywhere in the world. I believe in G.o.d ... why? Because ...

because some people are kind and faithful. Lucienne. Manuel. Farias.

Caterina. Vicente.... Birds from the nearest palms drifted past him, their wings sighing.

The men left the cemetery.

A little smoke rose from the volcano as Raul and Gabriel returned to the house. Gabriel made a remark about the swift changes.

"Life has become treacherous too," said Raul sadly. "I wanted changes to be slow, remember? You said: Don't take the law in your hands. I have killed today. Pedro. Did you know?"

"I didn't know," said Gabriel, and crossed himself. "Our old world has gone. G.o.d help you, my son." It hurt him that Raul had killed; he had promised Pedro to the law but more than that he had promised Raul a clear conscience.

"I'm giving up Petaca," said Raul.

They paused in front of the old house, where further earthquake damage was obvious: part of the reconstructed veranda had fallen; Fernando's room gaped; the living-room roof had caved in at one end and smoke seeped out, blowing low over the house and garden.

"I'm giving it up. I won't risk more lives. We can't go on defending the house indefinitely. We'll save what we can, before all is lost."

He remembered the broken box of dominoes. Hands in his pockets, he faced Gabriel, savage disappointment on his face.

Gabriel had removed his gla.s.ses and was wiping his eyes. He wished he need not reply.

"Of course ... yes," he said, wanting proper words, feeling Raul's gaze. "Yes ... Raul ... you must."

What would Raul do? Live in Colima perhaps? Perhaps Guadalajara? In spite of his weariness, in spite of his sadness, a ray of hope returned: could it be Italy, before he died?

Velasco appeared on the veranda and waved something. Raul turned toward the steps.

"Someone's hurt," he said.

"I'll come," said Gabriel, putting on his gla.s.ses.

Raul said, going up the steps:

"I'll look after you, Gabriel. Perhaps I can hold my land ... I'll fight for the property ... I'll do what I can for you."

He repeated his words to himself. They seemed impossibly clumsy; the whole situation was impossible.

Velasco had a letter for Raul. Roberto had gotten word through from Guadalajara. Before Raul opened it and read it, he told Velasco what he had decided, and the doctor nodded approval before returning to the injured, digging with a finger at his goatee.

Yes, the letter from Guadalajara, creased, greasy, lacking a stamp.

Who brought it? How did it get here? News from Roberto. He found brandy in the living room and sat down to read but smoke, blowing in from the dining room, sent him to the patio and the fountain. He took the brandy, and sat on the edge of the fountain, smoothed out the letter, hesitant, wanting to reconsider his decision, wanting to pause.

That was it. Pause. Hold back. Draw a clean breath.

People kept crossing and recrossing the patio. They stopped before him and questioned him, oblivious of the letter fluttering in his hands.

As long as he sat and talked, they felt strengthened. How can I abandon them, all of them, my friends, my servants ... they'll be lost without me! Lost? They want land, houses of their own, freedom.

The smell of his own burning house made him cough.

He turned to the letter again and read:

"Dear Raul,

"I hear that things have been going badly at your hacienda, at most of the haciendas in the Colima area. I am very sorry. When I left you, after the equestrian party, I had hoped for better things. Here we have serious problems, too. But our most serious problem is Angelina.

You must come here at once. Angelina is ill, is completely deranged.