Heart of Aztlan
A Novel
Praise for the Writing of Rudolfo Anaya
“An extraordinary storyteller.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
“One of the nation’s foremost Chicano literary artists.” —The Denver Post
“[Anaya’s work] is better called not the new multicultural writing, but the new American writing.” —Newsweek
“One of the best writers in the country.” —El Paso Times
“The godfather and guru of Chicano literature.” —Tony Hillerman, author of The Blessing Way
“Poet of the barrio … the most widely read Mexican-American.” —Newsweek
Alburquerque
Winner of PEN Center West Award for Fiction
“Alburquerque is a rich and tempestuous book, full of love and compassion, the complex and exciting skullduggery of politics, and the age-old quest for roots, identity, family … There is a marvelous tapestry of interwoven myth and magic that guides Anaya’s characters’ sensibilities, and is equally important in defining their feel of place. Above all, in this novel is a deep caring for land culture and for the spiritual well-being of people, environment, landscape.” —John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War: A Novel
“Alburquerque portrays a quest for knowledge.… [It] is a novel about many cultures intersecting at an urban, power-and politics-filled crossroads, represented by a powerful white businessman, whose mother just happens to be a Jew who has hidden her Jewishness … and a boy from the barrio who fathers a child raised in the barrio but who eventually goes on to a triumphant assertion of his cross-cultural self.” —World Literature Today
“Alburquerque fulfills two important functions: it restores the missing R to the name of the city, and it shows off Anaya’s powers as a novelist.” —National Public Radio
“Anaya is at his visionary best in creating magical realist moments that connect people with one another and the earth.” —The Review of Contemporary Fiction
“Anaya’s prowess shows through on every page.… Thumbs up.” —ABQ Arts
Tortuga
Winner of the American Book Award
“A compelling story of a young man who suffers and learns to make peace with who he is, Tortuga has that touch of magic, of fantastical characters, of dreams as real as sunlight, associated with the best of Chicano literature.” —Roundup Magazine
“Tortuga is one those rare works that speaks to the human condition across time and space, and it well-deserves to find a new generation of readers.” —Southwest BookViews
“A highly emotional tale of a young soul who turned from a turtle into a human all in the span of 200 pages.” —Reviewers of Young Adult Literature
My Land Sings
Winner of the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award
“Rich in traditional Mexican and native American folklore. Every story spins its magic effectively.” —Booklist
“Haunting. Compelling twists will keep the pages turning.” —Publishers Weekly
“Anaya champions the reading of a good book or listening to a folktale as an opportunity to insert one’s own experiences into the story and, hence, to nurture the imagination. This appealing volume will add diversity to folklore collections.” —Booklist
“The wide variety of stories demonstrate a mature understanding of life’s trappings and dangers, but retain a healthy sense of humor about the human predicament.” —Kirkus Reviews
Serafina’s Stories
“[Serafina’s] stories are simple but vivid.… There is magic and mystery too.” —Los Angeles Times
“Anaya’s prose offers … purity. [Serafina’s Stories] will restore to all but the most jaded reader a necessary sense of wonder.” —National Public Radio
“Like Serafina, Anaya is a powerful storyteller whose cuentos and other writings are a balm for the soul.” —New Mexico Magazine
“It is not hard to predict that Serafina’s story will be hypnotic and entertain.… With Serafina’s Stories Anaya again reminds us of the importance of maintaining an oral tradition.” —San Antonio Express-News
“Rudolfo Anaya is both a wise man and a gifted storyteller. Serafina’s Stories [is] a series of engaging tales.” —Santa Fe New Mexican
“Anaya’s new book is a spellbinding account of a Native American woman who spins tales to enlighten the Spanish governor into setting her people free. Clearly conceived, Serafina’s Stories contains 12 folk tales that are as absorbing as the main plot.” —El Paso Times
Heart of Aztlan
“In Heart of Aztlan, a prose writer with the soul of poet, and a dedication to his calling that only the greatest artists ever sustain, is on an important track, the right one, the only one.” —La Confluencia
“[Heart of Aztlan gives] a vivid sense of Chicano life since World War II.” —World Literature Today
“Mixed with the Native American legends and Hispanic traditions of this wonderful book are the basic human motivations that touch all cultures. It is a rip-roaring good read.” —Cibola Beacon
Jalamanta
“A parable for our time … We are in deep need of simple truths, of rediscovering our ancient teachings, and Jalamanta may provide that opportunity.” —The Washington Post Book World
Zia Summer
“A compelling thriller … Though satisfying purely as a mystery, the novel sacrifices none of Anaya’s trademark spirituality—a connectedness to the earth and a deep-seated respect for the traditions of a people and a culture.… Read this multicultural novel for its rich language and full-bodied characters. Anaya is one of our greatest storytellers, and Zia Summer is muy caliente!” —Booklist
“[Anaya] continues to shine brightest with his trademark alchemy: blending Spanish, Mexican, and Indian cultures to evoke the distinctively fecund spiritual terrain of his part of the Southwest.” —Publishers Weekly
Rio Grande Fall
“This is a completely entertaining mystery novel, but Anaya offers two parallel lands of enchantment. One is temporal New Mexico; the other is Nuevo Mexicano, a land of santos, milagros, spirits, visions, and even brujas (witches).” —Booklist
Shaman Winter
“Be aware that if you only skate on the surface, you will miss the depth of the story. You have to dive head-first, literally, into the waves of poetic prose to catch a glimpse of the forces that keep our universe together.” —La Voz
“The fast-paced story line of Shaman Winter is fascinating and absolutely eerie as the master paints a vivid picture of the spirituality of another culture.” —Thrilling Detective
Jemez Spring
“Jemez Spring is meant to appeal to readers of conventional mystery novels, but there is nothing conventional about it.… It taps into primal and universal fears and longings but plays them out in a uniquely New Mexican setting. And the master tells his tales with worlds and images so rich and strange that it is almost as if he had invented a language of his own.” —Los Angeles Times
“Jemez Spring again blends the Spanish, Mexican, and Indian cultures that made the three earlier works in the series such good reads. Anaya is at his best when writing about the people of New Mexico, their traditions and their lives and how they clash with the influx of Anglos.” —San Antonio Express-News
“Anaya takes the reader beyond detective fiction.… His mysteries fall into the criminal and the spiritual, which makes them both inspiring and electrifying.” —St. Petersburg Times
“Unique and exciting … Readers thirsty for philosophy and the supernatural will devour this book.” —Daily Camera (Boulder)
“Anaya, godfather and guru of Chicano literature, proves he’s just as good in the murder mystery field.” —Tony Hillerman, author of The Blessing Way
This book is dedicated to the good people of Barelas …
and to people everywhere who have struggled for
freedom, dignity, and the right of self-determination.
CHAPTER ONE
Benjie carefully finished rolling his cigarette, then he leaned back and admired it. Lately he didn’t have any money for drugstore cigarettes. He struck the match with his thumb nail and held it to the twisted end of the cigarette. He inhaled deeply. It tasted good. He opened his lips and ringlets of smoke floated lazily towards the ceiling of the outhouse. He couldn’t remember the first cigarette he had smoked while sitting on the rough, wooden toilet seat, but he knew this would be his last.
Today they were leaving Guadalupe.
He closed his eyes and listened to the buzzing of the large, black fly that flew around his head. Life in the small town of Guadalupe was like the summer drone of the fly, he thought, it was monotonous; it never changed. He was glad they were leaving. He was fourteen, and already he felt he had done everything there was to do in Guadalupe: play pool at the Eight Ball, drink beer by the lake, fight at the Saturday night dances, and on the last day of school he had taken Consuelo beneath the bridge and scored his first piece. Some consolation, he reflected. She cried and said he had ruined her and now they would have to get married. It scared him. He had seen the other vatos go down the same path, which led to marriage, getting a job pumping gas at one of the stations, and watching your wife get fat year after year. He didn’t want that. He wanted to be a part of the excitement and adventure he sensed in the letters his brother Roberto wrote from Albuquerque.
Life beyond the hills that surrounded Guadalupe had always intrigued him. Once they had left the water-enclosed city and traveled east to visit relatives in Tucumcari and he had treasured the strange sights he had seen there. The people were different, and their language and customs seemed different. And of course he had been to Las Vegas in the north, and to the old village of Las Pasturas in the south, the deserted pueblo whose crumbling adobe walls held so many of the memories of their past. But today they were breaking the confines of the hills and the river valley, and they were moving westward, out of the llano, past the mountains that were but a shadow in the horizon. Tonight they would be in Albuquerque, in a new time and in a new place.
He sang with joy.
“Benjamin!” He heard his mother call him.
Benjie leaned forward and peered through a crack in the weathered boards. He saw his brother Jason standing by the woodpile. He stood like a statue molded from the earth of the llano, silhouetted like a brown Indian against the blue turquoise sky.
… the sky was like a turtle, the old Indian had said, and the sun a white deer that raced it every day.
Jason’s brown chest heaved and glistened with sweat. He was strong, quiet and a year older than Benjie. The women admired his handsomeness. His aunts and his mother’s comrades and the women from the town who came to visit all commented on his handsome features; they said he would grow up to be a fine man. Sometimes Benjie felt jealous.
Ah! What the hell, Benjie thought, I’ll show them who’s the real man in the city. He turned his gaze up the road where a truck raised a cloud of dust. It was don José, the man who was coming to buy their land. In a few minutes their father would sign the paper and the Chávez ranchito at the edge of town would be no more. He took the last drag from his cigarette and dropped it down the hole. He flipped through the worn pages of the Sears Roebuck catalog and tore a few and crumpled them.
Goodbye Guadalupe, he smiled.
“Benjamín!” His mother called again. He walked out of the outhouse, zipping his pants. He looked up at the glaring, white sun. Damn, it was hot already!
“Mamá is calling,” Jason said. Sometimes they spoke in Spanish, which was the language of their people, and sometimes they spoke in English, which was the tongue they adopted in school; and so they moved in and out of the reality which was the essence of each language.
“Yeah, I heard,” Benjie answered. He walked to the woodpile and looked at the neat stack Jason had chopped. “Why did you waste your time chopping wood, Jason, you know we ain’t ever going to use it—”
Jason shrugged. “Somebody will come along and use it,” he answered. Benjie shook his head. It was one of those things Jason learned from the Indian, he thought. “Come on,” Jason smiled at his perplexed brother, “I think mamá wants us to be with papá. It won’t be easy for him to leave his land.” He put on his shirt and together they walked around the side of the house where their father stood talking to don José.
“It’s the best price I can give you for your ranchito, Clemente, I swear by God Almighty, it’s the best offer I can make!” Don José trembled and wiped his sweating face.
“There is no justice in dealing in land,” Clemente shook his head. “You offer me Judas money for my three acres, for a home I built from this very earth with my bare hands, for a well blasted a foot at a time out of the hard earth so that I might have water for the jardín and the animals—You offer me nothing, just enough to pay off my debts, then there is nothing left. When I sell my land I will be cast adrift, there will be no place left to return to, no home to come back to—” He felt the words choking in his throat. He turned and looked at his wife for support and she nodded for him to sign. She understood there was no turning back. He took the contract from don José. His soul and his heart were in the earth, and he knew that when he signed he would be cutting the strings of that attachment. It was like setting adrift on an unknown, uncharted ocean. He tried to understand the necessity of selling the land, to understand that the move would provide his children a new future in a new place, but that did not lessen the pain he felt as the roots of his soul pulled away and severed themselves from the earth which had nurtured his life.
He felt like cursing and crying out the pain he felt. ¡Hijo de la chingada, he cried inside, pero cómo me duele el corazón!
He looked at his sons and knew there would be nothing left to pass on to them. Without the land the relationship a man created with the earth would be lost, old customs and traditions would fall by the wayside, and they would be like wandering gypsies without a homeland where they might anchor their spirit. But he had to go because there was no work in Guadalupe, and because he had to be the leader in helping to create a new future for his familia. He was not the first to leave, many of his vecinos and compadres had already left to make a new life in the bigger cities of Las Vegas, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and many had gone as far west as California. The people were dispersed, but as they left each one secretly vowed to return to the sacred land of his birth and heritage.
La sagrada tierra …
Clemente clenched his teeth and swore, “I will come back, someday—”
Don José chuckled. “They all say that, Clemente, but they don’t return. I bought Baca’s rancho by the river and he moved to Santa Fe and drank himself to death, I hear, and his sons became marijuanos and they’re all in the pinta now. And I bought Luna’s place and they say he moved his familia to California, but no one has heard from him since. It is as if the cities swallow them up. But I will tell you what really happens, Clemente. They find work in the cities, and if they are lucky they buy a home, and then they begin to change. Yes, they change and they forget the land,” he scowled. “Oh, sure, they talk a lot about returning, but they never do, because they have forgotten. You will see, Clemente, you will forget too—”
“¡Desgraciado!” Clemente cursed. He snatched the pen and signed the contract. “There,” he pushed the paper at don José, “it is done, but if you think the earth can be transferred on a piece of paper then you are crazy! It will abide long after this piece of paper is dust, and my love and memory of it will also survive. How can I forget,” he shook his head and pointed south to the llano of Las Pasturas, “my parents are buried in this holy ground,” he whispered.
“Dios los bendiga.” He heard his wife’s blessing.
He crossed his forehead and added softly, “And my brother Guillermo sleeps beneath the grass of the llano—murdered by that pinche tejano who couldn’t keep his wife home! And,” he whispered even more softly, “my son, my flesh and blood, rests in the campo santo at Las Pasturas—”
He could not talk anymore; he was afraid his voice would quiver.
“¡Adelita!” He called his wife and she stepped forward and signed.
“It is done,” she said boldly.
Don José surveyed the signatures. “Clemente y Adelita Chávez,” he read their names aloud. “Sí,” he nodded, “it is done.” He reached for a bottle under his soiled jacket, opened it and handed it to Clemente. He had bought and sold land for a long time, and he understood what the separation meant to a man like Clemente. They both took long drinks of the warm, red wine.
“Clemente,” don José mumbled, “I wish you luck in Albuquerque. I meant no disrespect, hombre, I only spoke of what I have seen happen. The sons grow to be men, they forget the old ways—”
Clemente nodded. He understood what the old man said. It was that fear of losing the stability he had always known that had kept him from making the move many years before. He had seen the changes and troubles that befell those up-rooted people who had left the land of their birth, and it had made him afraid. But without a job the debts had mounted until there was no more credit, and as his family grew they became more and more insistent about trying life elsewhere.
“¡Adiós! ¡Buena suerte!” Don José called, and his old truck rumbled away, back towards the town.
“It was necessary,” Clemente shrugged. He squatted, picked up a handful of earth and let it sift through his fingers. “Somehow we began to lose the land a long time ago. The tejano came, the barbed wire came, the new laws came. A few survived, but death came and took so many of our family in such a short time—” He shook his head. “The three of us could have made it, Guillermo and Moisés and I, we could have made it, but after Guillermo was murdered it seemed that Moisés and I weren’t strong enough to hold on—”
He felt his wife touch his shoulder. “You did not fail us, Clemente. It was Moisés who squandered away the ranch after el abuelo Chávez died. He drank and gambled away everything the Chávez family had worked for. We can be thankful that we still have our familia around us, Clemente. It is for them that we move, it is for them that we make the sacrifice.”
She had witnessed the dissolution of the Chávez family after the grandfather Chávez died. Without his guiding hand to run the ranch, Moisés lost everything in less than a year’s time, and Guillermo was tragically killed over a woman who was not worth one of his poems, or one of his enchanting smiles. So to save her familia Adelita had forced Clemente to salvage what little he could and move to Guadalupe where there was schooling available for her children. Now her daughters were grown, Juanita had just graduated from high school and Ana would finish in a year. They argued that opportunity and their future lay in the bigger city, and she agreed. She implored and finally convinced Clemente that the move was for the good of the family, and because a great deal of his faith rested in keeping his familia together he consented to pull up his roots and move.
“Sí, it is for the family,” Clemente agreed. He stood and looked at the land and then he turned his gaze heavenward.
The sun hung like a gold medallion in the blue sky.
A cool breeze blew from the south and cooled his skin. Its soft caress evoked memories of the day he buried his son. He remembered every detail of that sorrowful day. He remembered the squeaking of the horse-drawn wagons that brought the mourners to the lonely grave in the llano, he remembered the faces of his vecinos and compadres as they lowered the casket into the grave, and he recalled the last rites of the priest. He remembered how the mourners parted, as it if were a part of a play well rehearsed, as he led the horse that had trampled and killed his oldest son to the edge of the grave. His compadre Campos had handed him the pistol. There was a flash of fire, then the loud report of the pistol echoing across the llano, like the sound of a tolling bell.
Campanas del llano …¡Gnítenme piedras su secreto!
The horse buckled and tumbled into the fresh grave, then his compadres helped him fill the grave and plant a small piñon tree over it.
Yes, the sun had been like that, like a gold medallion in the Indian-turquoise sky.
“Juanita and Ana are ready,” Adelita murmured.
“They’ve been ready for hours,” Benjie laughed. “They’ve been sitting in the truck since we finished packing—” He turned and walked towards the truck without a last goodbye.
Adelita stood by her husband and looked at the house. “It seems haunted already,” she whispered. “People are the soul of a home, when they depart they leave behind an empty skeleton—”
“Every adobe, every nail, every board contains a memory,” Clemente added.
“We will build a new home,” she smiled and tried to be brave, “And with it will come a new future.”
She understood her husband’s apprehension. The money from the sale of their home would barely pay off the debts, then they would be alone and broke in a new city. Her family and old neighbors and relatives would be left behind. Their families had lived in this land for many generations, now they were tearing themselves away from it. It was not easy, but she had resolved to do it for her sons and daughters. She took courage from that.
“We can build a new home,” Clemente nodded, “but can we take the spirit of the land with us?”
“¡Sí!” she answered forcefully. From the discarded pile of trash she picked up an empty coffee can and filled it with earth from her flower garden. “We will take it with us,” she smiled and handed him the can. “Our land is everywhere,” she said, “we will journey across the earth, but we will never leave our land—”
… centuries before, the brown hands of an Indian woman had scooped the earth of the heartland into a clay vessel, like the ashes that remain of the man are poured into the urn, and the people had carried that sacred urn as they wandered across the new land to complete their destiny. The earth was the new covenant between the people and their gods—
He took the can and smiled. He wished he could carry in this can, filled with his beloved earth, the spiritual connection he felt for the llano and the river valley. But just as he was sure the love for the land could not be transferred on a piece of paper, he knew he could not carry his attachment in the canful of simple, good earth. He was afraid of being separated from the rhythm of the heartbeat of the land.
He did not relish the journey, but he called out, “¡Vamos!” “Alabados sean los dulces nombres,” Adelita blessed their journey, and the stain of dark earth marked the corners of the cross on her forehead and bosom.
“Jasón,” Clemente turned to his son, “you also leave much behind. The old man—” He looked into his son’s eyes and realized that he was not the only one who hurt at parting.
Jason nodded but did not speak.
“I am sorry,” Clemente whispered and climbed into the truck.
“We’re ready!” Ana cried excitedly.
Jason and Benjie climbed on top of the furniture in the back. They checked everything and called down, “¡Está bien! ¡Vamos!”
“Have we left anything behind?” Adlita was still worrying about the possessions through which she had sorted, wondering if she had made the right choice on what to take and what to leave behind.
“Not a darn thing,” Juanita said and breathed a sigh of relief, “just a small town with no future in it—”
“Yeah,” Ana agreed. Juanita was right. Juanita was eighteen, just graduated from high school, and she knew everything. She turned and whispered to her sister, “Only a few boyfriends—”
“Bah!” Juanita laughed. “Boys is right! Gas station attendants who can only take care of the needs of the travelers, but who are trapped because they can never travel themselves. But we are not trapped, and where we go there’ll be some real men—”
“We leave a lifetime behind,” Adelita said, “but that past has been like a dream. Now we move into a new future—”
“We leave the land and the dead,” Clemente whispered, and he turned the truck into highway 66 and headed westward.
They moved out of the green river valley, away from Guadalupe surrounded by its stagnant waters which no longer whispered to the time of innocence and childhood. They journeyed out of the land of the eagle and the nopal and headed westward, towards the thin, blue outline of the mountain range. If they had looked back they would have seen the town of Guadalupe disappear in the shimmering mirage of water that surrounded it, but they didn’t look because they were afraid that as the town disappeared into the hills something in it would call them back. They looked ahead, always keeping in sight the mountains that marked their destination, never looking at the strange, green oasis that appeared and disappeared in the floating waters of the heat waves.
By mid-afternoon they entered the cañon that cut through the Sandía mountains. They marveled at the huge boulders that stood guard on either side of the highway, giant sentries marked with the cryptic signs of those who had gone before them. As they topped a rise they could see the valley spread below them. It was a lush, green snake, winding its way along the spine of the Rockies and here at the coccyx it dropped into the desert to the south. The city of Albuquerque lay nestled along the river, with the mountains guarding her eastern door and ancient volcano cones as sentries at her western gate. And so the mountain had parted to allow them a glimpse of their new valley, their new home.
“Por el amor de Dios—” Adelita sighed and crossed herself. It was only a few hours journey, but it had seemed a lifetime in the making, and she wondered what fate this new city held for them.
“¡Miren! ¡Miren!” Clemente shouted, and then he added, “You know that the first Chávezes were from this valley. Before they went to settle in the llano of Guadalupe, they lived here!” He felt excited.
“My God, it’s big!” Juanita exclaimed. The city seemed to spread along the valley as far as she could see.
“We’ll get lost—” Ana murmured.
“Oh no,” Adelita said confidently, “we have Roberto’s instructions on how to get there.” She opened the letter she had clutched in her hand throughout the trip. “We’re supposed to go straight ahead,” she read, “straight into town until we get to 4th street …”
Clemente nodded and guided the truck down the main street, past the endless motels and gas stations until they reached the downtown area. All the streets seemed to lead into that small area of congestion. He dipped into the underpass beneath the railroad tracks and came up into thick five o’clock traffic and throngs of workers. For a moment he was bewildered.
“Where—” he turned anxiously.
“Straight ahead,” Adelita motioned, “don’t turn until we find 4th street! That will take us to Barelas! Everyone look for the street!” She commanded.
“We passed 1st! There’s 2nd!” Benjie shouted from on top the furniture.
They crept through the heavy traffic, lost in the melee of the afternoon rush, bewildered by the snarl of confusion that surrounded them. At the corner of 4th where the traffic was heaviest a newspaper boy called, “R-rrread all about it! Explosion kills two in railroad yards!” And at the same time Adelita shouted, “There’s 4th!” And Clemente made an illegal turn south in search of Barelas.
The barrio was a welcome place to drive into that afternoon. The summer afternoon air was thick with dust that rose from the feet of children playing and from the workers who trudged down the dusty streets. The dust swirled in clouds behind pachuco-laden cars, and it covered the sweating boys of the barrio who played baseball in the street. The dust settled over the towering elms and the house tops of Barelas like a veil pulled by the golden fingers of the afternoon sun.
To Jason, perched atop the furniture, Barelas Road was like a meandering river, winding its way through the barrio until it met the river at the Barelas Bridge. There the barrio ended. Jason listened. The soft melody of a guitar seemed to draw him close to their final destination. Around him children called and ran to meet their fathers; neighbors visited across fences and paused in their small talk to turn to wave at the new arrivals. Smiles were in the soft air, and so was the fragrance of roasting chile verde and hot tortillas, supper for the hungry workers. The air was heavy with the damp smell of just-watered gardens, dirty with the bad smell of sewage that drifted up from the sewage plant in south Barelas, and acrid with the salty sweat-smell of the grimy workers from the railroad yard.
At times the air bristled with the static of the pachucos, the zoot-suiters who went swinging down the street as if they owned it, speaking a strange, mysterious argot. Jason motioned at Benjie, but he didn’t have to because Benjie was already looking, already entranced with the finger-snapping, duck-tailed chucos that Roberto had called los vatos locos in his letters from Barelas. “Hey man,” he heard Benjie whisper, “that’s cool—”
At a place where the street widened and seemed to pause momentarily in its flow to form a wide pond, Clemente stopped the car to ask for directions. Across the street was a woodyard and several men were gathered there, neighbors exchanging news in that pause before supper. They drank beer and relaxed and talked about work at the railroad yard where most of the men from Barelas worked. They turned when Clemente approached them; they had seen the packed, decrepit truck coming and they guessed they would have new neighbors. The man who owned the woodyard, a heavy-set, strong man approached Clemente. They exchanged buenas tardes.
“I am Manuel,” the old man said. They shook hands.
“Clemente Chávez … I am looking for my son, Roberto. Perhaps you know where he lives …”
“Sonamagon, sure I know Roberto, everybody here knows Roberto. He’s a good boy … Hey!” he turned and shouted at the men, “This is our new vecino! He’s Roberto’s father!” The men drew forward and shook hands with Clemente and introduced themselves.
“And look,” old Manuel pointed and Clemente turned to see Roberto bounding across the street. He opened the truck door and swept his mother out in an embrace, “You came to ask directions and you came right to the place. Roberto lives right across the street, and I think the house he has rented for you is the one Jesús Sena left when he moved …”
“Jesús Sena?” Clemente asked, “Isn’t he the man from Milagro?”
“Yes, the same one,” Manuel nodded.
“Well, I knew him once, when he worked at Las Lagrimas,” Clemente said, and as they talked about the people they knew they found many neighbors and compadres in common and Clemente realized that many of the families he had known in the small towns and ranchos were now here in the city.
Roberto and his wife Rita, who was heavy with their first child, finished greeting everyone and Roberto approaced his father and embraced him. “Apá, I am glad to see you. Was it a good trip? Any trouble on the road?”
“No, no problems,” Clemente answered happily, “we drove slowly, and here we are. We came right to the place—”
“He stopped to ask for directions and he didn’t know he was here,” old Manuel smiled.
“Yes, this is the right place,” Roberto beamed proudly and he looked at the small crowd that had gathered to see the new family that was moving in. “—This is Barelas,” he said, “this is our barrio.” And the people nodded silently.
“We are glad to be here,” Adelita said, “I am happy because my familia is together again—” and she embraced them all then wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “it is the will of God.”
“Roberto, show them the place,” Rita prodded him.
“Yes, yes, follow me. It’s right across the street, very close to our house, and right in the middle of the barrio. Right here, we say, is the heart of Barelas … everybody that comes new into the city comes here—” He put one arm around Rita and one around his mother and walked with them. To Jason and Benjie he said, “I’m glad to see you two indios … you’ll like it here. In a while we’ll go over and visit Crispín, maybe later on we’ll go watch the Dukes play …” He was excited and happy.
Clemente turned to Manuel and thanked him; he was happy to have the woodcutter for a neighbor. “Ah, it’s nothing,” old Manuel shrugged, “come on, We’ll help you move the heavy pieces of furniture—” He motioned and the men followed. They parked the truck by the house and very quickly had it unloaded, then the men silently drifted away, each to his own family and supper. They knew the new man would need time to settle down; now they simply told Clemente if he needed anything they were willing to help. As they left they called out, “Hasta luego, vecino.”
The inconvenience of the disorder of moving in was lightened by the excitement they felt. With the furniture moved in, Juanita and Ana could make beds while Adelita and Rita prepared the first supper in the new home. Rita had cooked a pot of beans for them and now they only made fresh tortillas. Dorotea, old Manuel’s wife, brought them a big bowl of natillas and hot coffee. She was a round, gay woman, always ready with a colorful story, and she quickly took to Adelita and her family. After she left Rita said she and Manuel had been very good to her and Roberto but that doña Dorotea made her nervous because she was forever patting Rita on the stomach and saying she would make her husband proud with that precious load she was carrying. They laughed and ate supper on unpacked boxes and crates. When they were done Juanita and Ana hurried to wash the dishes so they could go outside and sit on the fence to watch the young men of the barrio who strolled up and down the street. Adelita and Rita continued the unpacking and Roberto invited Jason and Benjie to Crispiín’s to hear the old man play his guitar.
“Nah, not me,” Benjie winked, “there’s a lot of action in the street. I want to get into it—”
“Be careful,” Roberto warned him, “most of that action can get you into a lot of trouble.”
“Listen to Roberto,” Clemente nodded, “he has been here long enough to know. Stay away from bad company.”
“Apá,” Benjie grinned and went to his father, “I’m not going to get into any trouble, I’m just going to look. Bueno?” He placed his hand on his father’s shoulder and Clemente had to nod and say bueno. Benjie went out whistling.
“I swear that boy isn’t afraid of the devil himself,” Clemente shook his head. He had looked out at the swirl of activity in the street and had retreated; he was content to sit on the back steps after supper. Here it was quiet and peaceful. Across the valley he could hear the sounds of the guitar. The man they called Crispín was playing old melodies.
“Well, the devil rides fancy cars out there,” Roberto tossed his head towards the street, “and he sells junk. Marijuana, mota the pachucos call it, and worse stuff—”
Clemente felt uneasy. He turned to call his son, but Benjie was gone. “Well,” he said, “let’s go listen to this poet of the barrio …”
Roberto led them across the alley. He pushed open an old wooden gate and they entered a lush green garden. The cool air was rich and spermy with the smell of earth. “He’s got magic in his fingers,” Roberto whispered, “for plants and for the strings …”
The porch of the small adobe held four of the men of the vicinity. They clustered around an old man who sat under the dim farole light and strummed his guitar. The guitar was blue, a glowing blue under the soft light, it semed alive under the old man’s touch. He paused and turned slightly. His blind eyes searched the darkness.
“Roberto!” he called cheerfully, “ah, how good to hear your footsteps. Come in, come in, find a chair—” He paused again and listened. “And your father. He’s with you. He arrived. Good, very good.” He stood and held out his hand. Clemente took it and felt the strong clasp of the old man, and he felt a strange power of recognition flow from the musician. Clemente thought he knew the poet and he looked intently at him, but Crispín’s eyes were clouded with cataracts.
“And this is my brother,” Roberto said.
“Ah, the one you said is named Jasón, eh.” He took Jason’s hand. “So, you and you father have come from Guadalupe to try your luck in this city. Well, it will be good,” he nodded, but there was a ring of sadness in his voice. He bent and whispered in Jason’s ear, “Someday we will talk about a friend of yours I knew from Guadalupe …” He smiled and pulled back and Jason was left with a humming in his ears. It was the same sound he had often heard in the hills of Guadalupe, in the evening when he was far from home and he thought he heard the old Indian calling him. He always stopped and turned to listen intently and then the sound would disappear and he could hear his heart beating. Once, he remembered, Anthony had told him that he too heard and felt that sound when he touched the old woman who could fly.
“Now sit, sit anywhere, make yourselves at home,” Crispín said. “There’s hot coffee on the stove, and Primo has a little wine bottle he is willing to share.” Everyone laughed and Primo’s flat, brown face got red. He stood and shook Clemente’s hand and then they took a drink together and became friends.
“Now play us a song,” Roberto entreated.
“Play us a song of love,” another man said, “of things as they are …”
Crispín smiled and said, “Things as they are never appear the same on the blue guitar … For as ten fingers can nimbly play across the strings and make a hundred variations, the imagination has a million fingers that constantly reshape things as they are …” And he hunched over the blue guitar and drew out the sweet music and as they listened each man’s mind wandered through his own world and shaped and reshaped the substance of his memories. That was the power of Crispín’s guitar, that and the fact that some men said its music could stop death in his tracks, and some swore that it could stop time because when the melody was over you did not remember that you had been sitting an hour or two and that during that time your thoughts had wandered in the eternity of the moment. Time stood still. The magic music stirred the soul. The wine warmed the blood. Each man traveled where he would on the chords of the blue guitar. And when it was done they stood and thanked Crispín.
“I swear that music soothes my tired muscles,” one said.
“It makes life worthwhile,” his friend added as they stepped into the garden and disappeared in the darkness, calling out their buenas noches y mañana el trabajo.
“My old woman always knows when I’ve stopped off at Crispín’s,” the big man said, “because I can love so well after listening to the blue guitar!” And he shouted a grito full of life; it echoed down the streets of the barrio. He went out dancing, “It makes me want to laugh and sing, ai-ee-ee …” And those that remained joined in his laughter. They remained because after his playing Crispín or one of the old men of the barrio would tell a story. Tonight one of the men asked Crispín about the old woman who lived in one of the dark pockets of the barrio near the irrigation canal.
“Is it true that cursed rock of hers contains magic?” the man asked.
“They say she tells fortunes … she can predict when you will die, or if you will come into money …” another added.
“La piedra mala,” Primo shook his head, “that evil rock is bad business; keep away from it.”
“But they say it can sing, like Crispín’s guitar, but more than that, it can talk. It knows the secrets of a man’s heart!”
“Ay, if you sell your soul to its darkness …” Primo cautioned.
“Bah! Sometimes things get so bad that what does it matter if that evil rock owns your soul or the goddamned railroad yard! Either way a poor man is damned!”
The others nodded. That was true. Jason leaned forward to listen. He was surpsied to hear the story of the singing rocks repeated here. A long time ago the Indian had told him the story of these magic rocks. They had much power because they were part of the gods’ gifts to the people at the time they settled by the river. Clemente also listened. He had heard many stories in the llano, but never one about la piedra mala. He, too, felt it strange that he had come to this little pool in the river of Barelas to listen to the story.
“I have often thought of visiting the old woman!” one of the impetuous young men boasted.
“Yeah, but you never got past the house of las Golondrinas, las putas!” His friend slapped him on the back and they laughed at him.
“I mean I wouldn’t be afraid!” he defended himself.
“But why would you go to visit la India, the old woman who keeps the black rock?” Crispín asked.
The young man searched for an answer. “I, I don’t know …” he mumbled, “but sometimes a person gets depressed, he has nowhere to turn … It’s like Héctor just said, if you have no job and your kids are going hungry then it doesn’t matter if you sell your soul to the devil or to the railroad! Either way, we’re in the same pinch all the time, just holding our noses above debts so we won’t drown, hoping things at the shops don’t get worse and hoping el Super doesn’t shut off our credit at the store … well, it’s times like that when a man in desperation will turn to something like la piedra mala!”
“But it’s a magic rock!” Jason blurted. “It’s not evil, it’s only those who use it that are evil—” He stopped short and settled back, uneasy with the silence he created in the room.
“True,” Crispín nodded, “the black singing rocks were once kept by priests, and on them they carved the calendar of time … history sleeps in their web …” he sighed. “There is power in that magic rock, and men go to it for different things—”
“Have you ever talked to la piedra?” one of the men asked. The question was direct, but that was the way they talked to the old man and there was no disrespect intended. Crispín turned to Clemente as if he had asked the question. “I talk to my blue guitar,” he smiled, “and it talks to me …” He cradled the guitar and strummed a soft melody, and the guitar purred a lullaby of day’s end. Slowly the men got up and drifted away. In the garden the orchestra of the night crickets complemented the waves of music that lapped against the shores of the barrio.
“A strange man,” Clemente said to his son as they walked home.
“No stranger than Jason’s Indian,” Roberto answered. In the darkness he said to Jason, “I am sorry he died the way he died …”
Jason didn’t answer. The Indian had said not to grieve. He rested in the sealed cave above the River of the Carp. They were building a dam there now, and soon everything would be covered with water, again.
In their back yard they found old Manuel, who had come, he said, “a dar gracias y las buenas noches.” He held up a bottle of cold wine. “There is a lot to celebrate, eh Roberto, your parents are here, safe and sound. That is good. I think for that we can all get up a little later tomorrow morning.”
“The devil’s shops don’t allow for celebrations of homecoming,” Roberto smiled. “We’ll all have to be there on time tomorrow morning. But there’s time for one drink—” They sat on the wooden steps of the back door and Manuel opened the bottle. Jason continued inside. The house was quiet and dark. He found the small room in the back that had been designated for him and Benjie and undressed. He lay down and thought for a long time about the things the old poet had said tonight and how they connected with many of the things the Indian had said. Somehow there were threads that interwove in and out of the old stories, but tonight he was too tired and the summer heat too stifling for him to find the answer. He turned his attention to listening to the men outside.
“I can’t see the stars from here,” he heard his father say.
“It is because of the city lights around us,” Manuel explained.
“In the summer nights of the llano the stars and the moon are constant companions—”
“Papá,” Roberto put his hand on his father’s shoulder, “you’ll get used to it. This is a new place—”
“It is a good place, Roberto, you found us a good home. There is a big back yard here, perhaps we can keep some animals, some chickens, maybe a pig,” he said cheerfully.
“No,” Manuel said, “no animals. There is a city ordinance against keeping animals—”
“But why?” Clemente asked.