Ask for Me Tomorrow

Six

Once he got off the plane in Rio Seco, Aragon lapsed naturally into Spanish. It was the language of his boyhood, his family and friends, the streets where he’d played, even his school at recess and before and after classes. During classes the official language was English. You are in the United States of America, children, and you are expected to speak the language of the United States of America. They did, when teacher was listening. When she wasn’t, the younger children said, Qué mujer tan fea, and the older ones, Chinga tu madre.

The car that he’d reserved by phone from Los Angeles was waiting for him, a compact Ford that looked older than its odometer indicated. When he checked it over, he found the oil gauge registered low, two of the tires needed air and the gas tank was only half filled. The man who seemed to be in charge at the rental agency, Zalamero, assured him that in all his years of experience in the business, almost one, such oversights had never before been detected. Zalamero spoke a mixture of Spanish and English slang sometimes called Spanglish. Aragon asked him for directions to Bahía de Ballenas.

“Bahía de Ballenas, why are you going there? It’s an el dumpo.”

“I’m thinking of buying some property.”

“My wife’s cousin has some super-duper property near here that he’s willing to sell cheap, so cheap you wouldn’t believe.”

“That’s right, I wouldn’t,” Aragon said. “Now, about Bahía de Ballenas.”

“Okey-dokey, you drive south two hundred kilometers or so until the road turns inland. You stop. You’re at a place called Viñadaco, another el dumpo, but they have tourist cabins, cafés, gas pumps. Get some gas and more water and start up again. Now you drive slow, very slow, in second gear, because the highway is going east and you are going west.”

“Are there any road signs?”

“No, no, no. You ask a person. This person answers and you have a nice talk, maybe a cup of coffee, a little social life. It’s much better than signs.”

Aragon tried to imagine the effect of this kind of social life on the Hollywood Freeway. After the initial chaos it might be quite pleasant for those who weren’t going anywhere in a hurry.

Zalamero said anxiously, “You won’t tattletale the agency in the U.S. about the oil and tires?”

“No, but you should be more careful.”

“Yes, yes, yes, you bet I will be. I will personally inspect every part of every car every day.”

“Your social life is bound to suffer.”

“You’ve convinced me I have a duty to my customers. Besides, I can talk while I inspect. All Zalameros can do two things at once... How soon will you bring the car back?”

“A week, perhaps less.”

“Go with God.”

“Thanks.”

He paid a deposit on the Ford and a week’s rental in advance. It was nearly two o’clock when he started the engine.

For about twenty kilometers beyond Rio Seco the road continued to be fairly good. Then gradually it began to deteriorate, as if the surveyors and the foreman and the key workers had lost interest and dropped out, one by one.

The traffic was heavier than Aragon had expected but still sparse: dilapidated pickups and compacts and subcompacts with Mexican license plates, and newer vehicles mostly from the Western states, vans, trucks with cabover campers and complete houses on wheels like Dreamboat. The road hadn’t been built with Dreamboats or highway speeds in mind. It was narrow, the curves were poorly banked and the roadbed inadequately compacted. Drivers accustomed to American standards of engineering took the curves and unexpected dips too fast in vehicles that were too wide and heavy. The accident rate, according to a safety pamphlet distributed on the plane by an insurance company, was extremely high.

He began to understand why his rented Ford looked old for its age. Sand blew across the roadway from the low barren hills to the east and the coastal dunes to the west, pitting the car’s finish and burrowing its way through the closed windows. At times it was so fine and white that it swept past like a blizzard of talcum powder. Aragon could feel it clinging to the roof of his mouth and the membranes of his nose. It scratched the inside of his eyelids and mixed with the sweat of his palms on the steering wheel to form a sticky film of clay. The cars and vans and campers heading north were suddenly all white. They passed like ghosts of accidents. A few kilometers farther, the powder turned to sand again.If I were going in the opposite direction, I’d be halfway to San Francisco by now. Laurie might manage a couple of days off and we could splurge and stay at the Clift. Just stay. No night clubs, no theaters, no fancy dinners...

He braked to avoid a jackrabbit leaping across the road. Except for an occasional gull soaring overhead, the rabbit was the only sign of wildlife he’d seen. It was an inhospitable countryside. Clumps of creosote bushes and spindly spikes of cholla were the main vegetation, with here and there some mesquite or a palo triste like a billow of grey smoke.

Just short of two hundred kilometers the landscape suddenly changed, indicating the presence of fresh water and some kind of irrigation system. Fields of beans and chili peppers alternated with groves of palm trees. An abandoned sugar mill overlooked a scattering of adobe houses with children playing outside, and chickens and goats and burros wandering loose among them. This, according to a sign on the gas pump where Aragon stopped, was the village of Viñadaco.

The gas pump was operated by an entire family. While the man filled the tank, his wife cleaned the front windshield and a couple of small girls cleaned the back. A boy no more than five wiped off the headlights with the torn sleeve of his shirt while two teenagers lifted the hood and stared expertly at the engine without doing anything. They were mestizos, half-Indians, copper-skinned and thin-featured, with black eyes and straight black hair. Their solemn dignity reminded Aragon of Violet Smith.

He asked the woman for directions to Bahía de Ballenas.

“Nobody goes there.”

“I do.”

“But the road turns the other way towards the gulf. And it’s late, it will soon be dark. You might get stuck in the sand or lost.”

They were valid reasons but not the real one: she happened to have a vacant cabin which she rented out to tourists. Nothing fancy, of course, no running water or electricity, but a nice clean bed. For this nice clean bed the asking price was about the same as for a suite at the Beverly Hilton. The señora admitted that the price was high, but she didn’t offer to change it and Aragon didn’t argue. It was Gilly’s money. If she wanted to come down here and haggle over it, let her. He was tired and hungry.

He ate at the nearest place, a shoebox-sized cafe overlooking a pond where a dozen or so coots were floating on the water and foraging on the banks. When he was a child he’d often eaten coot, which his mother called black mallard. This sounded better but didn’t improve the taste or texture. As he ate the machaca he was served, a kind of hash, he tried to identify its contents. Coot maybe, dried goat meat probably, and chilis unmistakably, the small green innocent-looking kind that lit up his mouth and throat and brought tears to his eyes to put out the fire. Dessert was a dish of fried beans and a cactus fruit with sweet juicy pulp. He drank two bottles of beer and bought two extra to take with him in case his teeth were extra dirty.

He returned to the gas pump and the Viñadaco Hilton. The señora had left a kerosene lamp burning for him, and a basin with a pitcher of water and two small towels. After he’d stripped and washed he sat down to drink some beer. Almost immediately he discovered that the Viñadaco Hilton had one other thing which the Beverly Hilton didn’t — mosquitoes. The first bite coincided with the first twinge in his stomach. He went to sleep trying to remember some of the things Laurie had urged him to take along — antibiotics... head lice... tooth beer... Laurie, I miss you...

He woke up at dawn. So did every man, woman, child and beast in the village. Children chanted, donkeys brayed, roosters crowed, dogs barked. Aragon got up and opened the door. The sun was shining and a cool moist wind was blowing steadily in from the sea. It was the kind of day he wanted to rush out to meet.

During the night the señora’s conscience must have been bothering her: she appeared at the door with a cup of coffee and two tortillas rolled up with guava jelly and a pot of hot water.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“And you want hot water. Why do Americans always want hot water?”

“To shave.”

“You have hardly anything to shave. And who is going to see you in that forsaken place? I’ve never been there myself but I hear the people are very dark-skinned and ignorant.”

While he shaved she gave him directions to Bahía de Ballenas and even borrowed his pen to draw him a little map. He didn’t put much faith in the map — she held the pen as though it were the first one she’d ever used.

Also during the night someone — probably the two teenaged boys who were now leaning casually against the gas pump — had washed the Ford. He appreciated the gesture, but unfortunately the car was now parked in the middle of a large puddle of water. He took off his shoes and socks, waded through the puddle and climbed in behind the wheel. His feet felt pleasantly refreshed. People checking out of the Beverly Hilton might have their cars waiting at the front door, but they didn’t get guava jelly tortillas, farewell footbaths and all the fresh air they could breathe.

He stopped at the café where he’d eaten dinner the previous evening and picked up a dozen bottles of beer. If the señora’s prediction came true and he was going to get lost, he might as well do it in style. He was on a little dirt road a couple of miles south of Viñadaco when he stopped to consult the map and discovered that the señora had neglected to return his pen. He might ask for it on the way back, assuming he arrived at any place to come back from. Or, better yet, he would put it down as a business expense, Gilly’s small and undoubtedly grudging contribution toward international relations. She was, in her own words, pretty tight with a buck.

The road climbed uphill along a cliff for a while, then dropped down again between sand dunes, sometimes disappearing entirely, only to reappear a few yards farther on like a magician’s scarf. At one point there was a fork not indicated on the map. The east branch showed signs of more frequent use than the west. If the señora was correct in claiming that no one went to Bahía de Ballenas, then the west branch seemed the better choice. He took it.

The sun, which had seemed so gentle and friendly at dawn, was turning into a monster that couldn’t be pacified or controlled. He wasn’t sure at what point or why the Ford’s air conditioner blew out, but he suddenly became aware that he was riding in an oven with the heat turned on full and that he’d better do something about it fast. He stopped in the meager shade of some mesquite, opened all the car windows and two of the bottles of beer. The beer had been in the oven with him and did nothing to quench his thirst, but it improved his general outlook from terrible to bad. He was, if not lost, certainly misplaced. The road, which had never been more than a series of tire tracks, was now visible only at times when the capricious wind deposited the sand short of it or beyond it. He wondered how B. J. had ever maneuvered a vehicle the size of Dreamboat as far as Bahía de Ballenas. Of course the girl, Tula, had lived in this area with her relatives and was familiar with it. She would have known which road to avoid, and this was undoubtedly it.

A mixed flock of gulls and smaller, more agile sea birds often flew low over the car like an advance patrol. They had a cool confident air as if they knew exactly what they were doing. Aragon started the engine again and followed them.

At the top of the next sand dune Bahía de Ballenas came into view, a half circle of sparkling blue water surrounded by desert. A few small fishing boats were tied up at a battered pier. The only other boat visible rode at anchor in the middle of the bay, a grey sloop sleek as a dolphin. It was flying both American and Mexican, ensigns, a purple-and-white yacht-club burgee and an officers’ flag. At the water’s edge were some salt-water conversion tanks, an old fish cannery that looked abandoned and half a dozen wooden shacks. On higher ground stood the crumbling remains of a small adobe mission. Between the mission and the shacks was the inevitable collection of children and chickens and dogs and goats all covered with dust. An invisible and insurmountable barrier seemed to separate the clean clear water of the bay from the dirty little village and its people.

The children, ranging in age from a baby barely able to walk to a twelve-or thirteen-year-old girl, were ragged and shoeless, like the mestizos of Viñadaco, but different in appearance. These were darker-skinned, with rounded features and soft expressive brown eyes. Under their grimy clothes their bodies looked well-nourished and healthy except for one boy who had a withered left leg.

Aragon addressed the girl. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Is this place Bahía de Ballenas?”

She nodded. The other children broke into giggles as if they’d never before heard such a funny question. Was this place Bahía de Ballenas? Of course. It had to be. There wasn’t any other place.

“What’s your name?”

“Valeria. What’s your name?”

“Tomas.”

“I have a chicken named Tomas. He doesn’t lay eggs and he’s mean.”

“Boys don’t lay eggs.”

“Chickens do.”

“Boy chickens don’t.”

“I know that. I just told you he doesn’t.”

“Okay, okay. Whatever game we’re playing, you win.”

She accepted her victory with the equanimity of a champion. “I’m grown up. Next year I might marry my cousin Raul. He lives in a real house beyond that hill over there.”

She pointed. Aragon couldn’t see any house and there were half a dozen hills all exactly the same. He turned his attention to the boy with the withered leg. “What’s your name?”

“Okay okay.”

“Is that what they call you?”

“Okay okay.”

Suddenly the boy thrust his hand in the window of the car and honked the horn. The children began running away, shrieking with laughter, followed by their squawking barking baaing retinue of animals. He got out of the car intending to follow them, but a voice stopped him, the high cracked voice of someone very old: “Good morning. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Aragon turned. A man was standing in the doorway of the crumbling mission. He wore a straw hat and the remnants of a brown priest’s robe tied at the waist with a piece of rope. He was tiny and shriveled as though he’d been left too long in the sun. One of his eyes was bloodshot and dripped tears that ran down the deepest groove in his cheek. Flecks of salt from previous tears glistened on his face when he pushed back his hat.

“Are you lost, friend?”

“This is Bahía de Ballenas?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m not lost. I’ve been looking for it.”

“Not many people look for us. This is a pleasant surprise. What is your name?”

“Tomas Aragon.”

“Everyone calls me padre. I once had a real name, but it slips my mind now and then. No matter. Such things are not important where everybody knows everybody. Will you come inside where it’s cool?”

“Thank you, padre.”

“Padre is a courtesy title only. I have long since left the Church, but it has not left me. I am allowed to live here. The villagers and I have mutual respect. I give them comfort when I can and take it when I must.”

The doorway was so low that Aragon had to stoop to enter. The man noticed his hesitation.

“Have no fear for your safety, friend. These walls will last beyond my time and yours. Adobe is a very fine building material in a climate like this. It is strong. And more, it is friendly, absorbing heat during the day and giving it back during the night.”

The room was only a little larger than the cabin Aragon had occupied the previous night at Viñadaco, but it was cool and comfortable, furnished with a cot, a table and chairs and an adobe bench in front of the altar. Dwarfing the room and its contents was a life-sized and extremely ugly statue of the Virgin Mary. It was all grey like an angel of death.

The padre looked up at her with affection. “I made her myself. The original statue fell and broke during an earthquake, so I spent some years, ten, perhaps twelve or thirteen — tempus fugit — fashioning a replacement. It is the only gift I will leave behind for the villagers when I die.”

“It’s very impressive.”

“Yes. Yes, I think so. Inside, to hold her together, I piled stones which the children helped me collect. And the sculpting material is what we use to make our cooking stoves, water poured over hot ashes and mixed into a paste. Each day, every time I had a fire, I added a little, and there she is.” He crossed himself. “Now I don’t have to worry so much that the villagers will lose touch with God after I’m gone. They will have the Blessed Virgin to remind them... I was about to eat my midday meal. Will you be my guest?”

“Thanks.”

“Simple fare, a bit of mullet I cooked this morning and some pitahaya. The Americans in La Paz used to call it organ-pipe cactus, so it seems most fitting to serve it in my little church, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. My memory has dulled with age.”

“Tomas Aragon.”

“Would it be suitable if I called you Tomas?”

“I’d be pleased.”

The two men sat down facing each other across the wooden table. The padre blessed the piece of mullet on the battered tin plate and waved away the flies buzzing around it. Though the fish had a slight greenish iridescence, it tasted all right, and the pitahaya was similar to what he’d been served at the café in Viñadaco, only sweeter and juicier. After the meal Aragon went out to the car and brought in several bottles of beer.

“My saints and sinners,” the padre said. “This is a great surprise.”

“It’s very warm, if you don’t mind...”

“Oh, no no no. I like it any way at all. Tecate. I haven’t tasted that for a long time. This is an occasion, Tomas, yes, a celebration. We ought to make a toast. What do you suggest?”

“To your health, padre.”

“To your safe journey, Tomas.”

“To your village and the future of its children.”

“That’s the best toast. To their future.”

The two men drank. The beer was the temperature of restaurant tea.

“One of the girls has her future planned,” Aragon said. “She will marry her cousin Raul and live in a real house.”

“That would be Valeria. Always planning, already like a woman.”

“I haven’t seen any real houses in Bahía de Ballenas. Perhaps she is dreaming.”

“Perhaps. Now if you will excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll go and bury the remains of our meal.”

“Let me help.”

“No. No, it won’t take long. Sit and contemplate the Blessed Virgin.”

It would have been difficult in that small room to contemplate anything else, so Aragon did as he was told. In spite of the strong beer, the statue of the Virgin remained ugly. There was a frightening determination about her face that reminded him of Violet Smith. It was now Sunday afternoon. In a few hours Violet Smith would be setting out for church to sing hymns — sharing her hymn book with B. J.’s first wife, Ethel — and stand up afterward in front of the assemblage to voice her problems and concerns. Perhaps she would tell about the young man who was hired by B. J.’s second wife to go on a confidential mission, giving names and places and dates and whatever other details she might have wormed out of Gilly or Reed, or overheard on an extension phone or through a thin closed door.

When the padre returned, his breath was wheezing in and out of his lungs like the air through an old leaky accordion.

Aragon said, “Do you teach the children?”

“Whatever and whenever possible.”

“I noticed one of the boys has a deformed leg and acts retarded.”

“A child of God.”

“His skin seems somewhat lighter than that of the others. His parents—”

“He is an orphan.”

“Where does he live?”

“In Mexico all people love children. Pablo can live anywhere.”

“But where does he live?”

“It would break hearts if he were ever taken away. If you have any such thought, any reason—”

“No. None.”

“He is much beloved, a child marked by God.” The padre crossed himself, then frowned briefly through the open door at the sky as if for a fraction of a second he was questioning God’s common sense. “He lives with his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. A happy family. It would be a pity to disturb their tranquility.”

“Where are his parents?”

“Gone. They left here years ago. They couldn’t take the boy along because the authorities wouldn’t allow it. You yourself are not from them, from the authorities?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t think I should answer any more questions. It might appear to be gossiping... When tragedy strikes, everyone likes to talk about it, that’s human nature. But it all happened in the distant past. Pablo doesn’t remember his mother. To him everything is ten minutes ago, or an hour, or at most, yesterday. Even if he were normal, no one would remind him of her. She fell from grace.”

“Does she communicate with the family?”

“No. She wouldn’t want to, anyway, but even if she did, we have no telephones or mail service. There was talk of mail service once when someone was going to build here. Nothing came of either the building or the service. No matter, we survive.”

“What about the boy’s father?”

The padre considered the question in silence, squinting out at the sky again, this time for guidance. “He was an American. You see, Tula went away for a while to America. She had an unexpected opportunity to make a fortune. A fortune around here is very little, and when Tula saw her chance to go and get a job in America, she reached out and grabbed it.”

“Who gave her the chance?”

“One Christmas a couple came along in a truck loaded with old clothes and bedding and things like soap and canned goods to distribute to the more remote villagers in Baja. Tula persuaded the couple to take her back with them. She was very pretty, not too smart, but she could talk the ears off a donkey. So the people agreed and off she went. We heard nothing from her for a year or more. Then she came back married to a rich American and riding in a veritable chariot. My saints and sinners, what a vision she was, dressed like a princess and waving from the window of the chariot. Some of the women began screaming. They thought Tula had died and gone to heaven and this was her spirit. Oh, it was a great day. Everybody got drunk.”

“What happened to the chariot?”

The padre’s excitement faded. The great day was finished, everybody was sober, the chariot in ruins and the princess a long time missing.

“It never moved again. Its wheels got stuck in the sand and the engine broke down and there was no fuel anyway.”

“And now it’s the ‘real house’ the girl Valeria referred to in her marriage plans?”

“Yes. But you mustn’t go there, you will disturb the family’s tranquility.”

“Does Pablo live with them?”

“You most certainly can’t talk to him. He doesn’t understand. He is like a parrot, only repeating noises he hears. And the family will not want to discuss Tula, because she fell from grace... But I can see you’re not hearing me, Tomas.”

“I’m hearing you, padre,” Aragon said. “I just can’t afford to listen.”