Avenue of Mysteries

30. The Sprinkling

The sprinkling part of Lupe’s last requests did not have a very spiritual start. Brother Pepe had been talking to an American immigration lawyer — this was in addition to Pepe’s talks with the authorities in Mexico. The legal guardian words weren’t the only ones in play; it would be necessary for Edward Bonshaw to “sponsor” Flor for “permanent residency,” Pepe was saying as discreetly as possible. Only Señor Eduardo and Flor could hear him.

Naturally, Flor objected to Pepe’s saying she had a criminal record. (This would call for more bending of the rules.) “I haven’t done anything criminal!” Flor protested. She’d had a run-in or two — the Oaxaca police had busted her once or twice.

According to police records, there’d been a couple of beatings at the Hotel Somega, but Flor said she’d “only” beaten up Garza—“that thug-pimp had it coming!”—and, another night, she’d kicked the shit out of César, Garza’s slave boy. These weren’t criminal beatings, Flor had maintained. As for what had happened to Flor in Houston, the American immigration lawyer told Pepe that nothing had turned up. (The pony in the postcard, which Señor Eduardo would forever keep secret, in his heart, didn’t amount to a matter of criminal record — not in Texas.)

And before the sprinkling got started in the Jesuit temple, some unspiritual attention was paid to the contents of the ashes.

“Exactly what was burned, if we may ask?” Father Alfonso began with the dump boss.

“We hope there are no foreign substances this time,” was the way Father Octavio put it to Rivera.

“Lupe’s clothes, a lanyard she wore around her neck, a couple of keys — plus an odd this or that from Guerrero,” Juan Diego told the two old priests.

“Mostly circus things?” Father Alfonso asked.

“Well, the burning was done at the basurero — burning is a dump thing,” el jefe answered warily.

“Yes, yes — we know,” Father Octavio quickly said. “But the contents of these ashes are mostly from Lupe’s life at the circus — is that true?” the priest asked the dump boss.

“Mostly circus things,” Rivera mumbled; he was being careful not to mention Lupe’s puppy place, where she’d found Dirty White. The puppy place was near the shack in Guerrero, where el jefe had found a new dead puppy for Lupe’s fire.

Because they’d asked to be included at the sprinkling, Vargas and Alejandra were there. It had already been a bad day for Vargas; the business with Dolores’s lethal infection had forced the doctor to deal with various authorities, not a satisfying process.

Father Alfonso and Father Octavio had chosen the siesta time of day for the sprinkling, but some of the homeless types — drunks and hippies, who hung out in the zócalo — liked churches for their afternoon naps. The hindmost pews of the Jesuit temple were temporary resting places for these undesirables; therefore, the two old priests wanted the sprinkling to proceed quietly. The sprinkling of ashes, if only at the Virgin Mary’s feet, was an irregular request. Father Alfonso and Father Octavio didn’t want the public to get the idea that anyone could sprinkle ashes in the Temple of the Society of Jesus.

“Be careful of the little Jesus — don’t get the ashes in his eyes,” Lupe had told her brother.

Juan Diego, holding the coffee cup Lupe once liked for her hot chocolate, approached the unreadable Mary Monster respectfully.

“The ashes seemed to affect you — I mean the last time,” Juan Diego began cautiously; it was difficult to know how to speak to such a towering presence. “I’m not trying to trick you. These ashes are not her—they’re just her clothes, and a few things she liked. I hope that’s okay,” he said to the giant virgin, sprinkling a few ashes on the three-tiered pedestal where the Mary Monster stood — her big feet standing in an essentially meaningless motif, an unnatural configuration of angels frozen in clouds. (It was impossible to sprinkle ashes at the Virgin Mary’s feet without the ashes getting in the angels’ eyes, but Lupe had said nothing about being careful of the angels.)

Juan Diego went on sprinkling, ever mindful that the ashes went nowhere near the agonizing face of the shrunken, suffering Christ — there weren’t many ashes left in the little cup.

“May I say something?” Brother Pepe suddenly asked.

“Of course, Pepe,” Father Alfonso said.

“Speak up, Pepe,” Father Octavio urged him.

But Pepe wasn’t asking the two old priests; he’d dropped to his knees before the giantess — he was asking her. “One of us, our beloved Edward — our dear Eduardo — has something to ask you, Mother Mary,” Pepe said. “Don’t you, Eduardo?” Brother Pepe asked the Iowan.

Edward Bonshaw had more balls than, heretofore, Flor had thought. “I’m sorry if I disappoint you,” Señor Eduardo said to the impassive-looking Mary Monster, “but I have forsaken my vows — I am in love. With her,” the Iowan added; he’d glanced at Flor, his voice trembling as he bowed his head at the Virgin Mary’s big feet. “I’m sorry if I disappoint you, too,” Edward Bonshaw said, looking over his shoulder at the two old priests. “Please let us go — please help us,” Señor Eduardo asked Father Alfonso and Father Octavio. “I want to take Juan Diego with me — I am dedicated to this boy,” the Iowan told the two old priests. “I’ll look after him properly — I promise you,” Edward Bonshaw implored the giant virgin.

“I love you,” Flor told the Iowan, who began to sob, his shoulders shaking in his Hawaiian shirt, in those trees ablaze with parrots riotously represented there. “I’ve done questionable things,” Flor said suddenly to the Virgin Mary. “I’ve not had many opportunities to meet what you would call good people. Please help us,” Flor said, turning to the two old priests.

“I want another future!” Juan Diego cried — at first to the Mary Monster, but he had no more ashes to sprinkle at the feet of the unresponsive giantess. He turned to Father Alfonso and Father Octavio instead. “Let me go with them, please. I’ve tried it here — let me try Iowa,” the boy beseeched them.

“This is shameful, Edward—” Father Alfonso started to say.

“The two of you — the very idea! That you two should raise a child—” Father Octavio sputtered.

“You’re not a couple!” Father Alfonso said to Señor Eduardo.

“You’re not even a woman!” Father Octavio said to Flor.

“Only a married couple can—” Father Alfonso started to say.

“This boy can’t—” Father Octavio blurted out, before Dr. Vargas interrupted him.

“What are this boy’s chances here?” Vargas asked the two old priests. “What are Juan Diego’s prospects in Oaxaca, after he leaves Lost Children?” Vargas asked, more loudly. “I just saw the star of La Maravilla — The Wonder herself!” Vargas cried. “If Dolores didn’t have a chance, what are the dump kid’s chances? If the boy goes with them, he’s got a shot!” Vargas shouted, pointing at the parrot man and Flor.

This was not the quiet sprinkling the two old priests once had in mind. Vargas woke up the homeless types with his shouting; from the hindmost pews of the temple, the drunks and hippies had risen — well, except for one hippie; he’d fallen asleep under a pew. They could all see his scuffed, forlorn-looking sandals where the hippie’s dirty feet extended into the center aisle.

“We didn’t ask for your scientific opinion, Vargas,” Father Alfonso said sarcastically.

“Please keep your voice down—” Father Octavio started to say to the doctor.

“My voice!” Vargas screamed. “What if Alejandra and I wanted to adopt Juan Diego—” he started to ask, but Father Alfonso was faster.

“You’re not married, Vargas,” Father Alfonso said calmly.

“Your rules! What do your rules have to do with the way people actually live?” Vargas asked him.

“This is our Church — these are our rules, Vargas,” Father Alfonso told him quietly.

“We are a Church of rules—” Father Octavio started to say. (It was the hundredth time Pepe had heard it.)

“We make the rules,” Pepe pointed out, “but don’t we, can’t we, also bend them? I thought we believed in charity.”

“You do favors for the ‘authorities’ all the time — they owe you favors in return, don’t they?” Vargas asked the two old priests. “This boy has no better chance than these two—” Vargas had started to say, but Father Octavio suddenly decided to shoo the homeless types out of the temple; he was distracted. Only Father Alfonso was listening to Vargas — hence Vargas interrupted himself, though it seemed pointless (even to Vargas) to continue. It was hopeless to think the two old priests could be persuaded.

Juan Diego, for one, was through asking them. “Please just do something,” the boy said despairingly to the giant virgin. “You’re supposed to be somebody, but you don’t do anything!” Juan Diego cried to the Mary Monster. “If you can’t help me — okay, okay — but can’t you do anything? Just do something, if you can,” the boy said to the towering statue, but his voice trailed off. His heart wasn’t in it; what small belief he’d had was gone.

Juan Diego turned away from the Mary Monster — he couldn’t look at her. Flor had already turned her back on the giant virgin; Flor was no Mary worshiper, to begin with. Even Edward Bonshaw had turned his face away from the Virgin Mary, though the Iowan’s hand lingered on the pedestal, just below the virgin’s big feet.

The homeless types had straggled their aimless way out of the temple; Father Octavio was returning to the unhappy gathering at the main attraction. Father Alfonso and Brother Pepe exchanged glances, but they quickly looked away from each other. Vargas had not been paying much attention to the Virgin Mary, not this time — all the doctor’s efforts were directed to the two old priests. And Alejandra was in her own world, whatever world that was: an unmarried young woman with a solitary-minded young doctor. (That world, whatever you call it — if there’s a name for it.)

No one was asking the giant virgin for anything — not anymore — and only one of the attendees at the sprinkling, the one who hadn’t said a word, was watching the Virgin Mary. Rivera was watching her very closely; he’d been watching her, and only her, from the start.

“Look at her,” the dump boss told all of them. “Don’t you see? You have to come closer — her face is so far away. Her head is so high — up there.” They could all see where el jefe was pointing, but they had to come closer to see the Virgin Mary’s eyes. The statue was very tall.

The first of the Mary Monster’s tears fell on the back of Edward Bonshaw’s hand; her tears fell from such a height, they made quite an impact, quite a splash.

“Don’t you see?” the dump boss asked them again. “She’s crying. See her eyes? See her tears?”

Pepe had come close enough; he was staring straight up, at the Virgin Mary’s crooked nose, when a giant teardrop hit him like a hailstone, landing smack between his eyes. More of the Mary Monster’s tears were striking the uplifted palms of the parrot man’s hands. Flor refused to reach out her hand for falling tears, but she stood near enough to Señor Eduardo to feel the tears hitting him, and Flor could see the broken-nosed virgin’s tear-streaked face.

Vargas and Alejandra had a different kind of curiosity concerning the giant virgin’s falling tears. Alejandra tentatively held out her hand — she sniffed a teardrop in the palm of her hand before wiping her hand on her hip. Vargas, of course, went so far as to taste the tears; he was also straining to see far above the Mary Monster — Vargas wanted to be sure the roof wasn’t leaking.

“It’s not raining outside, Vargas,” Pepe told him.

“Just checking,” was all Vargas said.

“When people die, Vargas — I mean the people you will always remember, the ones who changed your life — they never really go away,” Pepe told the young doctor.

“I know that, Pepe — I live with ghosts, too,” Vargas answered him.

The two old priests were the last to approach the towering virgin; this sprinkling had been irregular enough — those few things that had mattered to Lupe, reduced to ashes — and now there was more disruption, the oversize tears from the not-so-inanimate Mary. Father Alfonso touched a tear that Juan Diego held out to him — a glistening, crystal-bright teardrop in the cupped palm of the dump reader’s small hand. “Yes, I see,” Father Alfonso said, as solemnly as possible.

“I don’t think a pipe has burst — there are no pipes in the ceiling, are there?” Vargas not-so-innocently asked the two old priests.

“No pipes — that’s correct, Vargas,” Father Octavio curtly said.

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” Edward Bonshaw, his face streaked with his own tears, asked Father Alfonso. “Un milagro — isn’t that what you call it?” the Iowan asked Father Octavio.

“No, no — not the milagro word, please,” Father Alfonso said to the parrot man.

“It’s much too soon to mention that word — these things take time. This is, as yet, an uninvestigated event — or a series of events, some might say,” Father Octavio intoned, as if he were talking to himself or rehearsing his preliminary report to the bishop.

“To begin with, the bishop must be told—” Father Alfonso speculated, before Father Octavio cut him off.

“Yes, yes — of course — but the bishop is just the beginning. There is a process,” Father Octavio stated. “It could take years.”

“We follow a procedure, in these cases—” Father Alfonso started to say, but he stopped; he was looking at Lupe’s hot-chocolate cup. Juan Diego was holding the empty cup in his small hands. “If you’re done with the sprinkling, Juan Diego, I would like to have that cup — for the records,” Father Alfonso said.

It took two hundred years for the Church to declare that Our Lady of Guadalupe was Mary, Juan Diego was thinking. (In 1754, Pope Benedict XIV declared Guadalupe patron of what was then called New Spain.) But Juan Diego wasn’t the one who said it. The parrot man was the one who said it, at the moment Juan Diego handed Lupe’s cup to Father Alfonso.

“Are you talking about two hundred years?” Edward Bonshaw asked the two old priests. “Are you pulling a Pope Benedict the Fourteenth on us? It was two hundred years after the fact when Benedict declared that your Virgin of Guadalupe was Mary. Is that the kind of process you have in mind?” Señor Eduardo asked Father Octavio. “Are you following a procedure, as you put it, that will take two hundred years?” the Iowan asked Father Alfonso.

“That way, all of us who saw the Virgin Mary cry will be dead, right?” Juan Diego asked the two old priests. “No witnesses, right?” the boy asked them. (Now Juan Diego knew that Dolores hadn’t been kidding; now he knew he would have the balls for other stuff.)

“I thought we believed in miracles,” Brother Pepe said to Father Alfonso and Father Octavio.

“Not this miracle, Pepe,” Vargas said. “It’s the same old Church-of-rules business, isn’t it?” Vargas asked the two old priests. “Your Church isn’t about the miracles — it’s about your rules, isn’t it?”

“I know what I saw,” Rivera told the two old priests. “You didn’t do anything—she did,” the dump boss said to them. Rivera was pointing up there, at the Mary Monster’s face, wet with tears. “I don’t come here for you — I come for her,” el jefe said.

“It’s not your various virgins who are full of shit,” Flor said to Father Alfonso. “It’s you and your rules — your rules for the rest of us,” Flor told Father Octavio. “They won’t help us,” Flor said to Señor Eduardo. “They won’t help us because you disappoint them, and because they disapprove of me,” she told the Iowan.

“I think the big girl has stopped crying — I think she’s out of tears,” Dr. Vargas observed.

“You could help us, if you wanted to,” Juan Diego told the two old priests.

“I told you the kid had balls, didn’t I?” Flor asked Señor Eduardo.

“Yes, I believe the tears have stopped,” Father Alfonso said; he sounded relieved.

“I see no new tears,” Father Octavio joined in; he sounded hopeful.

“These three,” Brother Pepe said suddenly, his arms surprisingly encompassing the two unlikely lovers and the crippled boy — it was as if Pepe were herding them together. “You can, you could, resolve the plight of these three — I’ve looked into what has to be done, and how you can do it. You could resolve this,” Brother Pepe told the two old priests. “Quid pro quo — am I saying it correctly?” Pepe asked the Iowan. Pepe knew that Edward Bonshaw was proud of his Latin.

“Quid pro quo,” the parrot man repeated. “Something given or received for something else,” Señor Eduardo said to Father Alfonso. “A deal, in other words,” was the way Edward Bonshaw put it to Father Octavio.

“We know what it means, Edward,” Father Alfonso said peevishly.

“These three are bound for Iowa, with your help,” was the way Brother Pepe put it to the two old priests. “Whereas you — that is, we, in the sense of the Church — have a miracle, or not a miracle, to soft-pedal or suppress.”

“No one has said the suppress word, Pepe,” Father Alfonso rebuked him.

“It’s simply premature to say the milagro word, Pepe — we have to wait and see,” Father Octavio reprimanded him.

“Just help us get to Iowa,” Juan Diego said, “and we’ll wait and see for another two hundred years.”

“That sounds like a good deal for everybody,” the Iowan chimed in. “Actually, Juan Diego,” Señor Eduardo told the dump reader, “Guadalupe waited two hundred and twenty-three years to be officially declared.”

“It doesn’t matter how long we wait for them to tell us that a milagro is a milagro — it doesn’t even matter what the milagro is,” Rivera told them all. The Mary Monster’s tears had stopped; the dump boss was on his way out. “We don’t need to declare what a miracle is or isn’t — we saw it,” el jefe reminded them, as he was leaving. “Of course Father Alfonso and Father Octavio will help you — you don’t need to be a mind reader to know that, do you?” the dump boss asked the dump kid.

“Lupe knew these two were a necessary part of it, didn’t she?” Rivera asked Juan Diego, pointing to the parrot man and Flor. “Don’t you think your sister also knew they would be part of your getting away?” El jefe pointed to the two old priests.

The dump boss paused only long enough at the fountain of holy water to think twice about touching it. He didn’t touch the holy water on his way out — apparently, the Mary Monster’s tears had been enough.

“You better come say goodbye to me before you go to Iowa,” Rivera told the dump reader; it was clear that the dump boss was through talking to anyone else.

“Come see me in a day or two, jefe — I’ll take those stitches out!” Vargas called after Rivera.

Juan Diego didn’t doubt what the dump boss had said; he knew that the two old priests would comply, and he also knew that Lupe had known they would. One look at Father Alfonso and Father Octavio told Juan Diego that the two old priests knew they would comply, too.

“What’s that Latin shit again?” Flor asked Señor Eduardo.

“Quid pro quo,” the Iowan said softly; he didn’t want to rub it in.

Now it was Brother Pepe’s turn to cry — his tears were not a miracle, of course, but crying was a big deal to Pepe, who couldn’t stop himself. His tears just kept coming.

“I’m going to miss you, my dear reader,” Brother Pepe told Juan Diego. “I think I’m already missing you!” Pepe cried.

THE CATS DIDN’T WAKE up Juan Diego — Dorothy did. Dorothy was a jackhammer in the superior position; with her heavy breasts swaying just above his face, and her hips rocking back and forth as she sat on him, the young woman took Juan Diego’s breath away.

“I’m going to miss you, too!” he’d cried out, when he was still asleep and dreaming. The next thing he knew, he was coming — Juan Diego had no memory of her slipping the condom on him — and Dorothy was coming, too. Un terremoto, an earthquake, Juan Diego thought.

If there were any cats on the thatched roof over the outdoor shower, surely Dorothy’s screams dispersed them; her screaming momentarily silenced the crowing gamecocks, too. Those dogs who’d been barking all night recommenced barking.

There were no telephones in the rooms at The Hiding Place, or some asswheel in a nearby room would have called to complain. As for those ghosts of the young Americans who’d died in Vietnam, now and forever on R&R at El Escondrijo, Dorothy’s explosive-sounding cries must have made their unbeating hearts twitch for a beat or two.

It wasn’t until Juan Diego limped to the bathroom that he saw the open container of his Viagra prescription; the pills were beside his plugged-in cell phone on the countertop. Juan Diego didn’t remember taking the Viagra, but he must have taken a whole tablet, not a half — whether he took it himself when he’d been half awake, or whether Dorothy had given him the 100-milligram dose when he’d been sound asleep and dreaming about the sprinkling. (Did it matter how he’d taken it? He definitely took it.)

It’s hard to say what surprised Juan Diego more. Was it the young ghost himself or the lost soldier’s Hawaiian shirt? Most surprising was the way the American casualty of that distant war stared searchingly for a trace of himself in the mirror above the bathroom sink; the young victim was not reflected in the mirror at all. (Some ghosts do appear in mirrors — not this one. It’s not easy to compartmentalize ghosts.) And the sight of Juan Diego in that same mirror, above the bathroom sink, caused this ghost to vanish.

The ghost who wasn’t reflected in the bathroom mirror reminded Juan Diego of the weird dream he’d had about the photograph the young Chinese man took at Kowloon Station. Why weren’t Miriam and Dorothy in that photo? What was it Consuelo had called Miriam? “The lady who just appears”—wasn’t that what the little girl in pigtails said?

But how had Miriam and Dorothy disappeared from a photograph? Juan Diego was wondering. Or had the cell-phone camera failed to capture Miriam and Dorothy in the first place?

That thought, that connection—not the young ghost himself, and not his Hawaiian shirt — was what spooked Juan Diego the most. When Dorothy found him standing stock-still in the bathroom, where he was staring into the little mirror above the sink, she guessed he’d seen one of the ghosts.

“You saw one of them, didn’t you?” Dorothy asked him; she quickly kissed the back of his neck, before gliding behind him, naked, on her way to the outdoor shower.

“One of them — yes,” was all Juan Diego said. He’d never taken his eyes from the bathroom mirror. He felt Dorothy kiss his neck; he felt her brush against his back as she glided behind him. But Dorothy didn’t appear in the bathroom mirror — like the ghost in the Hawaiian shirt, she wasn’t reflected there. Unlike the ghost of that young American captive, Dorothy didn’t bother searching for herself in the mirror; she’d passed so unnoticeably behind Juan Diego that he didn’t see she was naked — not until he saw her standing in the outdoor shower.

For a while, he watched her wash her hair. Juan Diego thought Dorothy was a very attractive young woman, and if she were a specter — or, in some sense, not of this world — it seemed more believable to Juan Diego that she would want to be with him, even if her being with him was of an unreal or illusory nature.

“Who are you?” Juan Diego had asked Dorothy at El Nido, but she’d been asleep, or she was pretending to be asleep — or else Juan Diego only imagined that he’d asked her.

He felt all right about not asking her who she was anymore. It was a great relief to Juan Diego to imagine that Dorothy and Miriam might be spectral. The world he’d imagined had brought him more satisfaction and less pain than the real world ever had.

“You want to take a shower with me?” Dorothy was asking him. “That would be fun. Only the cats and dogs can see us, or the ghosts, and what do they care?” she said.

“Yes, that would be fun,” Juan Diego answered her. He was still staring at the bathroom mirror when the little gecko came out from behind the mirror and stared back at him with its bright, unblinking eyes. There was no question that the gecko saw him, but, just to be sure, Juan Diego shrugged his shoulders and moved his head from side to side. The gecko darted behind the bathroom mirror; the little lizard hid itself in half a second.

“I’ll be right there!” Juan Diego called to Dorothy; the outdoor shower (not to mention, Dorothy in it) looked very inviting. And the gecko had absolutely seen him — Juan Diego knew he was still alive, or at least visible. He was not some kind of ghost — not yet.

“I’m coming!” Juan Diego called to her.

“Promises, promises,” Dorothy called back to him from the outdoor shower.

She liked to make his cock slippery with shampoo and rub herself against him under the water. Juan Diego wondered why he’d not known any girlfriends like Dorothy, but even as a younger man, he supposed there’d been a bookishness to his conversation, a seeming seriousness that had driven the good-time girls away. And was this why, in his imagination, Juan Diego would have been prone to make up a young woman like Dorothy?

“Don’t worry about the ghosts — I just thought you should see them,” Dorothy was telling him in the shower. “They don’t expect anything from you — they’re just sad, and there’s nothing you can do about their sadness. You’re an American. What they went through is part of you, or you’re part of what they went through — or something.” Dorothy went on and on.

But what part of them was truly part of him? Juan Diego wondered. People — even ghosts, if Dorothy was a kind of ghost — were always trying to make him “part of” something!

You cannot take the scavenging out of scavengers; los pepenadores will be foreigners wherever they go. What was Juan Diego part of? A kind of universal foreignness traveled with him; it was who he was, not only as a writer. Even his name was fictitious — not “Rivera” but “Guerrero.” The American immigration lawyer had objected to Juan Diego’s having Rivera’s name. It didn’t suffice that Rivera was “probably not” Juan Diego’s father. Rivera was alive; it didn’t look good that the adopted boy had Rivera’s name.

Pepe had to explain this awkwardness to the dump boss; Juan Diego would have had trouble telling el jefe that the “adopted boy” needed a new name.

“How about ‘Guerrero’?” Rivera had suggested, looking only at Pepe, not at Juan Diego.

“Are you okay with ‘Guerrero,’ jefe?” Juan Diego had asked the dump boss.

“Sure,” Rivera said; he now allowed himself to look at Juan Diego, just a little. “Even a dump kid should know where he comes from,” el jefe had said.

“I won’t forget where I come from, jefe,” was all Juan Diego said, his name already becoming something imagined.

Nine people had seen a miracle in the Templo de la Compañía de Jesús in Oaxaca — tears had fallen from a statue’s eyes. This was no less than a statue of the Virgin Mary, but the miracle was never recorded, and six of the nine witnesses had died. Upon the deaths of the surviving three — Vargas, Alejandra, and Juan Diego — the miracle itself would die, wouldn’t it?

If Lupe were alive, she would have told Juan Diego that this crying statue wasn’t the major miracle in his life. “We’re the miraculous ones,” Lupe had told him. And wasn’t Lupe herself the major miracle? What she had known, what she had risked — how she had willed another future for him! These mysteries were what Juan Diego was part of. Next to these mysteries, his other experiences paled.

Dorothy was talking about something; she was still going on and on.

“About the ghosts,” Juan Diego interrupted her, as casually as he could. “I guess there are ways to tell them apart from the other guests.”

“The way they vanish when you look at them makes it pretty clear,” Dorothy said.

At breakfast, Dorothy and Juan Diego would discover that El Escondrijo wasn’t very crowded; there weren’t many other guests. The ones who came to breakfast at the outdoor dining tables didn’t vanish when you looked at them, but they did seem a little old and tired-looking to Juan Diego. Of course, he’d looked at himself in a mirror this morning — a little longer than he was used to doing — and he would have said that he seemed a little old and tired-looking, too.

After breakfast, Dorothy wanted Juan Diego to see the little church or chapel among the compound of old buildings; she thought the architecture might remind Juan Diego of the Spanish style he’d been accustomed to in Oaxaca. (Oh, those Spaniards — they really got around! Juan Diego was thinking.)

The interior of the chapel was very basic, not at all ornate or fancy. There was an altar like a small café table, one for two customers. There was a Christ on the Cross — this Jesus didn’t appear to be suffering too greatly — and a Virgin Mary, not a towering but a merely life-size presence. The two of them could almost have been having a conversation with each other. But these familiar two, this mother and son, were not the two most commanding presences — this Mary and her Jesus weren’t the two who got Juan Diego’s immediate interest.

It was the two young ghosts in the foremost pew of the chapel who seized all of Juan Diego’s attention. The young men were holding hands, and one of them rested his head on the other’s shoulder. They seemed somehow more than former comrades-in-arms, though they were both wearing their fatigues. It was not that the long-dead American captives were (or had been) lovers that took Juan Diego by surprise. These ghosts had not seen Dorothy and Juan Diego enter the little church; not only did these two not vanish, but they continued to look beseechingly at Mary and Jesus — as if they believed they were alone and unobserved in the chapel.

Juan Diego would have thought that, when you were dead and you were a ghost, your countenance — especially, in a church — would be different. Wouldn’t you no longer be seeking guidance? Wouldn’t you, somehow, know the answers?

But these two ghosts looked as clueless as any two troubled lovers who had ever stared uncomprehendingly at Mary and Jesus. These two, Juan Diego knew, didn’t know anything. These two dead soldiers were no better informed than anyone living; these two young ghosts were still looking for answers.

“No more ghosts — I’ve seen enough ghosts,” Juan Diego said to Dorothy, at which point the two former comrades-in-arms vanished.

Juan Diego and Dorothy would stay at The Hiding Place that day and night — a Friday. They would leave Vigan on a Saturday; they took another night flight from Laoag to Manila. Once more — except for the occasional ship — they flew over the unlit darkness, which was Manila Bay.