BARBARIA installment 3

BARBARIA, CHAPTER THREE

An excited crowd was waiting for the brothers at the Vallejo station as the train belched steam and wood-smoke along the platform and screeched to a halt. Natividad, the elder half-sister whom the twins called “Auntie”, and who had assumed the role of mother in their lives from the day that they were born, abandoned all decorum and ran to Jorge as he stepped down from the car. Another sister stood back, holding her youngest child in her arms. Brothers-in-law patrolled the edge of the platform, keeping a hoard of nieces and nephews from getting too close to the train.

When the energetic ritual of greeting and welcome finally subsided, Jorge glanced up and down the platform, looking for his twin.

“Ah, that Raphael,” said Auntie, “He’s never on time.”

The family had arrived at the station in two enclosed buggies and a covered surrey for Jorge’s steamer trunks. Rain swirled about the tiny caravan, which made its way through the cobbled streets of Vallejo to the grand home of Lazarus O’Brian. The estate occupied three acres of wooded, bay-shore land just a quarter mile off the foot of Main Street. The principal house was a three-storied British Colonial mansion of 18 rooms, with a spacious verandah running the perimeter of the building. The primary outbuilding was a Spanish adobe residence of two stories, built at the water’s edge. There were six other Mexican families besides his own, living on Lazaro’s premises, all of whom enjoyed protected status as employees of Lazarus O’Brian, attorney at law.

“In fact, only four of the people that live here work for me,” Lazaro said to Jorge as their buggy came to a stop before the main house. “The rest earn their incomes on the farms and other estates around town. The wages they receive are too low for a decent life, so I provide housing and see to it that the children can go to school instead of to work.”

“Isn’t it bad for business, Mr. O’Brian? Associating with all of these Mexicans?” Jorge grinned and kissed Auntie on the cheek. She was nearly twenty years older than Jorge. A wealthy, golden haired white woman, married to a Mayan caballero. Their four children were nearly as dark skinned as the twins.

“This is California,” said Auntie. “Here, everything is business. Especially Mexicans.”

Before Jorge could respond, the carriage door flew open, and there stood Raphael in a tan Stetson and a blue oilcloth slicker, grinning. He held out his hand for Auntie to descend, then offered the hand to Jorge.

How are you?
Fine.
Let me kiss you.
You look well.
So you wear the diamond, like Lazaro.
El Diamante lives on.
You look well also.
I think you’re taller than me.
It’s these boots.
Good to see you, my brother.
Are you going to stay in California?
Don’t know yet.
I hope you stay.
It’s possible.
I must go, now.
Then let me embrace you again, Adios.

Raphael climbed into a buckboard behind a matched pair of gray mules, and drove away to the east. A boy of ten or eleven years sat beside him on the wagon bench. The boy twisted in his seat and watched Jorge with dark eyes as the pair disappeared into the trees that sheltered the house from the street.

“Who’s the child?” Jorge asked his sister.

“His name is Jewett. An Indian boy from Vacaville. Raphael is friendly with the family, and the boy goes everywhere with him these days.”

Dogs of various shapes and sizes galloped about as people climbed the broad staircase to the front door of the house. An ornate porch swing, occupied by an enormous cat, hung by ropes from the beams of the verandah. Several men, women and children had emerged from the house when the caravan arrived, and Jorge was dutifully introduced. A hodge-podge of wooden and covered chairs was arranged along the porch before the arched windows of the house. There were three round oak tables as well, covered with brightly colored oilcloth, weighted down with lamps, decorative bowls of fruit and nuts, and pitchers of lemonade, water and wine. More food soon was served: tortillas, chilies, corn and beans, steaming platters of shredded beef and pork. The front porch was sheltered from the prevailing breeze off the bay. Even in dreary weather, the temperature was comfortable. Heavy coats and slickers were shed, and soon there was a fiesta in progress.

Eventually the food was consumed and the tables cleared. As the evening temperature dropped lower, fires were built in the hearths of the great house, and everyone went inside. Jorge’s eldest nephew was a musician, and was trying to teach his newly arrived uncle how to chord a guitar. Lazaro sat across the room in an over stuffed chair, upholstered in black and white goatskin. He sipped a cup of hot tea, and shouted above the distorted notes of his brother’s musical efforts.

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet tomorrow, Mi Hermano. Would you mind coming to my office in the afternoon?”

Jorge nodded in assent. He couldn’t answer verbally, because his tongue protruded from his mouth, gripped between his teeth, in an effort of concentration. He remembered the last thing Auntie had said, before Raphael appeared, and erased all else from his mind. “Here, everything is business. Especially Mexicans.”

The next morning, Lazaro and Jorge arrived at his office just ahead of Christain Phelps, who was an important man. That is to say he was a very rich man, who owned hundreds of acres of orchards, vineyards, alfalfa, grain and vegetable crops in the western Sacramento Valley. He had made his fortune growing wheat in the eastern valley, ably assisted by Lazarus O’Brian. By the 1870’s, strip miners of the Sierra gold fields had destroyed many square miles of foothill watershed, and floods had ruined Phelps’ crops three years in a row. Lazarus had been an attorney for the mining interests at that time, but for reasons that had never been clear to Phelps, changed sides. He went on to become one of the leading organizers of legal strategy against the seemingly omnipotent California mineral kings. When the state legislature finally found the courage to clamp down on the mining tycoons, Phelps was among the principal benefactors. His fortune was saved, and he had been a favored and loyal client of Riordan, Cleary and O’Brian ever since.

“Mr. Phelps, may I present my brother, Senor Obregon?” Christian and Jorge shook hands.

“Hell, I’ve known this boy for years,” said Phelps, “Senor, my foot. Howdy, Raphael.”

Lazaro laughed and Jorge explained, and the landowner repeated Jorge’s name several times, trying to pronounce it and remember it. Phelps was having critical labor problems, since diversifying his farming operations. He had invested heavily in his west valley orchards when there was a plentiful Chinese and Irish work force.

“Used to be we had plenty wanting work,” Phelps explained to Jorge, “after the railroad was built, and after all the small prospectors lost their shirts. Then that panic hit in the ‘70’s. You know, all that Wall Street stuff. That was good for us. But now there’s plenty of other work for the white boys, you know, so they don’t want to stay in the orchards. And the Chinamen, you know, the government’s trying to send them all back where they came from.”

It seemed to Phelps and his fellow fruit and nut growers, that a Mexican labor source was their best hope for keeping pace with expanding markets. O’Brian, whose family and business connections in Mexico were well known, had become a focus for that hope.

“So we’re sort of counting on you boys, now. You know, the Mexicans, to get in here and get some work done for us, you know.”

Jorge smiled, “Don’t look at me. I don’t climb trees. I don’t think you’ll get much field work out of Raphael, either, from what I’ve been hearing.”

Phelps blushed and looked at the floor, “Naw, I mean, we’re hoping you boys can set up some kind of labor camp, you know, maybe over there around Vacaville somewhere. Bring some folks on up from Mexico, you know.”

“It’s against Mexican law to contract for Mexican labor,” said Lazaro.

“Yeah,” Phelps drawled, “Lot’s of things are against the law.”

Lazaro grinned, “Yes. And the law is, er, selectively enforced. The railroads do plenty of labor contracting south of the border, and Mexicans are doing most of the work in the farms around Los Angeles, now. Of course, the railroads and those L. A. farmers have a lot of influence in Sacramento.”

“Well, then, by God, so can we,” said Phelps, “ Why ain’t those field hands coming up here for work?” He wore the plain cotton clothing of a worker, himself. His nails were dirty and his hands callused. Short, stocky, in his early sixties, he leaned forward, elbows on knees. His thin hair was red and gray, his eyes bright blue. He liked to be called “Rusty”, but most people, including Lazaro, addressed him as Mr. Phelps.

“Well, they probably don’t like getting the shit beat out of them and their women raped,” Lazaro said. “Also, it’s a question of supply and demand right now. There’s plenty of work for them closer to the border.”

Phelps shook his head and laughed. “One thing I don’t like about you, Lazarus, is the way you pussy-foot around, always trying to look on the bright side.”

Jorge smiled, and decided to ask a question. “Lazaro. What about all of those people at your place? At your home? Why are they there?”

“I provide housing and some protection,” He said, “Otherwise, most of them would be gone in the morning.”

“You’re operating a small scale labor camp at home, then?” Jorge continued his inquiry.

“Yeah. Of course most of the people are family, but it’s still a business. Not altogether legal, but a business that pays for itself, and nobody’s complaining to the authorities.”

Phelps and his associates were familiar with the Lazarus O’Brian “Boarding House”. They had already approached him about expanding it, but Lazaro was reluctant to operate a larger operation in his own home.

“It’s also against Mexican law to go down there and recruit workers to leave the country,” Lazaro said, “ but there are ways around it. I’ve been in contact with some people in Jalisco State. If we can set up a labor camp over in your area, Mr. Phelps, without attracting too much attention, I think we can get a seasonal work force up here.”

After another hour of discussion, Lazaro and Phelps drew up a plan of action. Jorge, who could not help becoming intrigued by the possibilities, remained non-committal. Phelps pressed him.

“Hell, you oughta get in on this, Son. We’re gonna need someone to go down there to Mexico and organize this thing, you know? I mean, if we can get those idiots in Washington and Sacramento to give a little.”

“Oh, they’ll give more than a little, I think,” said Lazaro. “If you want the job, Jorge, you could be on your way to Jalisco within a fortnight.”



* * *



The next morning was a Wednesday. Jorge rose early and shared breakfast with his sisters and their children. Then he strolled over to Main Street to wire Professor Stanley Evans of The California University Philosophy Department, to request a personal interview during the following week.

The California University at Berkeley consisted of nine buildings, with four more under construction. The setting, in the lush hills over looking San Francisco Bay, was idyllic. The weather was warm on the day of Jorge’s visit. Squirrels and rabbits gamboled about the lawns, entertaining students who sat like squirrels on their haunches under trees, chattering between classes. The philosophers were housed with historians and anthropologists in a stately wooden structure, just a few yards from the library. Jorge had over two hours yet to wait for his interview. Captivated by what he saw around him, he could not help but hope for the best.

Professor Evans had upon his desk a few papers that he had just removed from a file envelope labeled “Royce”. He slid the folder to one side, then began to study the contents of the file. There was an application for admission from Jorge Obregon, as well as his Cambridge record and a telegram. A second telegram from the Dean of Graduate Admissions at Harvard was also in the file, and a letter from Josiah Royce. In response to a rap on the office door, and Evans called out, “Come in.”

“Good morning, Stanley. I have your note here. I must say you’ve aroused my curiosity with it.” Walter Dervish was a portly man with a bristly mustache and heavy glasses, who liked to wear brown tweed. Stanley invited him to sit down and asked that he wait just one moment.

Professor Evans, a tall fellow with pomaded hair and a prominent Adam’s apple, was near sighted, but didn’t like to wear glasses, so he did his reading and writing with his nose just a couple of inches from his pages. He had dipped his quill pen, and was engaged at the moment, apparently bringing an important sentence to completion. “Ah,” he said at last, “There we are.”

Walter raised his eyebrows, wondering just where they were. He was a professor of Anthropology who specialized in the study of California Indian People, with a special interest in their anatomy and physiognomy. He had studied with Herbert Spenser at Harvard, and focused his academic endeavors on connecting the intellectual and cultural inferiority of the Coastal Indian to the shapes of their heads, as well as certain bodily proportions. “What’s all this about an intellectual Indian?”

“Yes, well you’ll soon see for yourself, I expect,” said Evans. “Have you set aside some time for the interview today?”

“By all means. Wouldn’t miss it, you know. But who is this fellow, anyway. And what sort of Indian? Plains? Athabascan? Full blood, or a mix?”

“Mixed with negro, apparently,” said Evans. “He attempted to gain entrance to Harvard, in Philosophy. But I have a letter from the Dean of Admissions at Harvard. You know him, do you?”

“Everett. Of course. Excellent fellow. He was assistant Dean of the College when I was there.”

“Yes, that’s the man. He’s in charge of graduate admissions, now. They don’t accept Negroes, of course, so they’ve sent the boy along to us, it seems. You know Josiah Royce, eh? He’s very keen on this bloke. Says we should give him a go here.”

“Well I certainly know Royce by reputation, but never met the man. Not very interested in his sort of thinking, if you know what I mean. Very weak on scientific method. So this student is a Negro Indian, you say. Probably Cherokee or Seminole then. A lot of those mixed-bloods down there in the old Confederate states. What’s the boy’s background, then?”

“He’s taken a special certificate in Colonial Administration from Cambridge College, but managed to do quite a bit of work in Philosophy as well, and wants to earn a doctoral degree in the good old U.S. of A. Royce refers to the boy as ‘brilliant’, and says he has strong family connections here in California.”

“California? You mean his Indian blood is Californian?” Walter surged forward to the edge of his seat. “Where does this family live in California?”

“Not far from here. Just across the bay, in Vallejo,” said Stanley.

“You don’t say. Why, that’s incredible! A local Miwok who is literate? Intelligent, you say? You know, the Mendelians say that there’s such a thing as ‘hybrid vigor’. Maybe…”

“Yes, well, we we’re hoping you’d be interested,” Evans interrupted. He had no interest himself in Dervish’s area of expertise, and was not in the mood for a lecture on Mendel and Spenser.

He explained to Dervish that the Philosophy Department was not going to take a ‘darkie’ into the fold, and especially not a Harvard reject foisted upon them by Josiah Royce. One of the professors even suspected the entire enterprise was a fraudulent joke, cooked up by Royce and his Ivy League snobs to make California University a laughing stock. At the same time, neither the department nor the University wished to risk offending Royce and that bunch by rejecting the fellow outright. Someone had suggested Anthropology as a compromise.

“Oh, yes, by all means,” exclaimed Dervish. “If he’s all that he’s cracked up to be, I’ll gladly take him on as a research aide. Not as a graduate student, of course. That would be a bit much, sending a Negro-Indian Professor off to represent the University at academic conferences and such, hee-hee,” giggled Walter.

That afternoon, at the interview, Evans proposed to Jorge that he begin his career at California University as an aide to Doctor Dervish in Anthropology. In a year or two, if all went well, they would give further consideration to his application for Graduate School in Philosophy.

“I’m not sure that I understand,” said Jorge. He was seated in a stiff-backed chair, facing Evans across his desk. Dervish sat in a cushioned chair to one side. On the floor at his feet stood a polished oaken case, with a reinforced leather handle, brass hinges and a latch.

“What is it that you don’t understand?” said Evans.

“Why I cannot begin my studies in philosophy immediately. Why must I work in Anthropology?” Jorge said in a soft, even voice.

“Well, frankly, Mr. Obregon, it’s a question of availability of opportunity at this time, as well as a limitation of funds.”

“But I understand that your University is publicly funded, and that at present there are only six graduate students in the Philosophy Department.” Jorge raised his voice in a questioning tone.

“Of course we are publicly funded,” said Evans, “but such funds are nonetheless limited, you see? Doctor Dervish, on the other hand, has been granted a stipend for a research aide. A quite handsome stipend, I might add.”

“Yes, quite,” said Walter. “And we are most interested in working with a man of your particular …eh … qualifications. Yes, indeed.”

“Why do you want a philosophy student in your Anthropology Department?” asked Jorge.

“Well, Mr. Obregon. Anthropology is the study of the human species, is it not?” Stanley interjected, “And what is philosophy, if not the highest manifestation of the reasoning abilities of that species, you see?”

“Yes, yes. Quite the case,” said Dervish, “Quite the case. I say. Would you mind if I took a few measurements, this afternoon. For research purposes? Just to give you an idea of the sort of thing we’re up to in Anthropology.”

“Measurements?” Jorge, caught off guard and confused by the question, did not respond further. Walter took his silence for assent, and opened his case of instruments.

“These are cranial calipers,” said Dervish, holding aloft an instrument of finely tooled brass. “We’ll also do some bodily measurements, if you don’t mind. Of course, you’ll have to disrobe for that. But we can do all of that after the interview, back in my laboratory. Would you like me to show you our facilities? I’m sure you’ll be quite favorably impressed.” Walter was nodding and smiling, glancing back and forth between Jorge and Stanley.

“Good day, Gentlemen,” said Jorge, rising from his stiff backed chair and leaving the room.

* * *

Two weeks later, Jorge took a train to Los Angels where he purchased a supply wagon and two sound mares for his recruitment tour of Jalisco State. He was carrying an official California Government Permit, allowing him to bring 20 Mexican citizens back with him across the border. He and Lazaro had made arrangements by mail and telegraph to interview workers in the villages of San Jacinto and Guadalupe. He selected twelve men, and checked their reputations carefully among the people of the barrios where they lived. Four of the men opted to bring their wives and children, so the expedition consisted of 19 souls plus Jorge, They would acquire their twentieth person quite by accident, on a beach in California, just north of Los Angeles.

BARBARIA installment 2

BARBARIA, CHAPTER TWO

After his brother’s departure, Jorge was too agitated to sleep, so spent two hours at the secretary with his English translation of Nietzsche, reading by electric light. As so often happened with his reading, he encountered himself, and in this case his twin brother as well, on the page. The Teutonic aphorisms of Beyond Good and Evil seemed to Jorge an abstraction of his tortured relationship with Raphael.

Since an afternoon under a brilliant sky when Raphael had been raped at the age of six on the bank of the Vera Cruz River, as Jorge watched in horror from his hiding place in the bushes, the boys had come to inhabit opposite worlds. Raphael had rapidly evolved into a warrior of rage. Arrigo, the roasted stallion, was an early victim of that rage, but not the main target. Jorge had always felt himself to be the true object of his brother’s fury, as the only living witness to the boy’s humiliation. What kind of a six-year-old brother, after all, would remain safely concealed and silent, at a time like that? The kind to be tied in a horse stall, and set afire. The assault had never been discussed between them, nor revealed by either child, nor by their thirteen-year-old companion, Theresa, who was also raped.

Jorge muttered to himself while reading, and took notes:

Good and Evil.
Raphael’s morality …
spawned in his heart by the sex organs of his violators …
they annihilated his will … tore it away with his trousers and his child’s sense of power …
since that moment R. defines good and evil by what he needs …

his need to redeem what was lost … personal power … dignity? There is none without power …
and me … what am I? A vessel of shame …

Jorge’s morality ….
Spawned in his heart by the sex organs of his brother’s violators

Nietzsche ….. philosopher of reality … nobility is victory … the way things are …. Hobbesian world … wolves …
more like slinking dogs, snarling over scraps from the dust bin …..

Josiah Royce.. California idealist … the way things could be, should be, might be, if ….


* * *

While Jorge struggled to interpret his world with the help of German philosophy, Lazaro lay naked upon his bed, up two flights, in the arms of a stranger; a stranger much younger than himself, who had already climaxed once, and was eager to go again.

Lazaro had been prolonging foreplay, postponing ecstasy in the manner of a seasoned veteran of debauch, with diminished powers of recovery. But this other fellow had a solid hold with his right hand on Lazaro’s penis, and a muscular lock around his waist with the left arm. Foreplay had apparently come to an end.

The youth was a kindly sort, sprawled on the bed, entangled in the duvet when they had finished, listening to the old man go on about his brother on the second floor, next wing, who was apparently queer also, but reluctant to face the fact.

“A lot of Mariannes in the priesthood, all right. Thought of it myself, for a time,” the fellow said, wanting to contribute. He was an immigrant from Naples, with thick lashes and large teeth, who laughed easily.

“I don’t know much detail,” said Lazaro, “But there was a hint of something in his letters. He was very fond of a certain priest, and mentioned the fellow’s ‘slender and delicate fingers’, as I recall, and something about the man’s soulful eyes and lips. It was the bit about the lips that convinced me.”

“Ah, yes, the lips. If a man talks about another man’s lips, he’s a fairy for certain. You can be sure of it!” exclaimed the Neapolitan.

“Jorge’s mother was a ravishing beauty,” Lazaro went on, “half African, half Indian. A stunning beauty, you know?”

“Oh yes, I know. Like me, of course. Am I not also a stunning beauty, eh?” He released a burst of laughter.

Lazaro moved to a window seat, crossed his legs and, still naked, began to smoke his pipe. Its bowl of embers bloomed in the dark, just enough to illuminate his smile. “I was sixteen when our father brought home his bride, and her mother, from the village of Santa Rita. I was jealous of her, that bride,” Lazaro said, eliciting another jovial outburst from his lover. “Oh, I know. How can a maricon be jealous over a woman, eh?” Lazaro continued, “ Well, I was just a kid, remember. She frightened me, really. And my sisters. We were afraid … with that beauty in the house, our father might cease to notice us.”

“Yes, we ‘stunning beauties’ have such an effect on people. Everybody is always so jealous of us.”

Lazaro grabbed a pillow from the floor and threw it at the youth, and asked, “So what do you think? Shall I ask him about it?” Lazaro said.

“About what? His beautiful mother?”

“No. I mean, should I ask my baby brother if he’s queer?”

The man sat upright on the bed and nearly shouted, “Of course not! No, you cannot talk about something like that with your young brother. Never can you talk about this with your family. No.”


* * *

Jorge’s head was nodding above his book. He poured water in the bedside basin and wiped his face with a cold cloth. He wanted to look over his notes once more, before retiring. He had made a heading and underlined it:

Raphael’s Secret.
Is it wise to keep this secret for years?

Just R’s secret or mine as well?

These new thinkers…Germans … psychological analysis … open it up!!!
The SUBCONSCIOUS MIND … needs to be opened up … YES OR NO ???
Time to talk to R? … about that day?

That horrible day … unspeakable day … unspoken day …

ask Lazaro? Tell Lazaro what happened?
Betray R. again? Couldn’t stop them …
did I betray him? … because I didn’t come out to get fucked as well?

Thought they were killing him …
would kill me as well …unspeakable … unspoken … fear.
Theresa died … finally …

There was a telephone in the hall outside Jorge’s room. He left his secretary and went to call the hotel desk, to ask about the schedule of Masses at the nearest Catholic church.

“Yes, thank you. First Mass at 6AM. Will you awaken me, then, at five? Thank you.”

The next morning, in a light spring rain, it was still dark when Jorge climbed into a cab and was carried a mile to a towering cathedral of adobe brick. As he had hoped, Jorge found the Sunday morning confessional fully operative, and even at 5:30 in the morning, he was obliged to queue up. He shivered in his raincoat, but not from the cold. This would be the first time he had ever attempted to describe the rape to another person, or even to himself. For most of his life he had lived with the images in his memory, but he had never transcribed the actual event into words. He hoped the priest would not insist upon graphic detail.

In the darkness of the curtained cubicle, Jorge was barely able to make out the confessor’s silhouette behind the grating. The accent was European. French, he thought. An older man, probably in his fifty’s or sixty’s. Jorge recited an obligatory list of transgressions since his last confession, and when the Frenchman asked if there were anything else, Jorge requested some advice.

“Of course, my son, what is it?”

“Years ago, Father, I saw a terrible thing happen to an innocent child.”

“Go on, son.”

“It was a despicable thing, Father, committed by two soldiers against a small boy, six years of age.” Jorge’s whisper was strong, but hesitant. His heart was pounding in his ears, so that he could barely hear his own voice.

“Did you know the boy?”

“Yes, Father, he was … he is … my brother.”

“What was your age at the time, Son?”

“I was also six. We are twins.”

“This thing that you saw the soldiers do to your brother; was it … ah … a sex thing?”

“Yes, Father, it was sexual.” Jorge was on the verge of weeping, but his voice remained strong and he didn’t sob. His nose began to run, however, and he perspired.

“Hmm … sex-u-al, yes. It happened to your twin brother, you say. And you saw … er … everything?”

Jorge paused to wipe his face with a handkerchief, and the priest repeated his question.

“Yes. Everything,” Jorge said.

“What did you do, my son? Did you, er, cry for help? Were there adults about?”

“Just Theresa,” Jorge said.

“Ah,” the priest responded, “And who was this, ah, this Therese?”

“Theresa. She was older. Thirteen. The soldiers raped her as well. They had knives and guns.”

“Ah, that is very sad. Very sad, indeed. Did they, er, hurt you also?”

“No. They didn’t see me. I was hiding.”

“Ah. And later, ah, did you report these men to the proper authorities? Did your parents report them to the police?”

“No, Father. None of us … talked about it. We never told anyone.”

“I see, I see. And this Theresa. That’s a Spanish name, no? She’s a Mexican?”

“She was Mexican, yes. She’s passed away, now. Years ago. She died of pneumonia.”

“How long has it been? How many years?”

“Since Theresa died?”

“No, no. I mean, since the … raping … happened.”

“Almost sixteen years, Father.”

“You said you wanted advice. What advice do you seek?”

“I … I have an older brother. I’m trying to decide if I should tell him what happened. That’s one thing. Also, my twin knows that I saw the attack, but we have never spoken of it. I’m wondering if I ought to talk to him about it now, after all this time.”

The priest remained silent for a few moments, collecting his thoughts, breathing laboriously. Then he spoke, “Under no circumstances, my child, should you say anything to anyone after so much time has passed. My advice to you, as your intermediary before God, is to maintain your silence.”

The priest took a moment to gather his thoughts, then continued,
“In truth, several mortal sins may have been committed, and not just by the soldiers. Perhaps this Mexican girl, Theresa, did something to tantalize or provoke the soldiers, you see? Maybe even your brother, himself, may have done so. You know how children are. And you; perhaps you ought to have interfered in some way to protect … my son, are you there? Eh?”

The priest could hear the sound of the supplicant exiting the confessional. When he was quite sure that the man had indeed departed, he muttered absolution in absentia, making the sign of the cross over the empty space behind the grate, where Jorge had been kneeling.


* * *


The next day, in a light, mid-morning rain, Lazaro and Jorge took a taxi to the train station for the three-hour trip to Vallejo. Most of the expanse of flat land to the southwest of Sacramento was used for growing barley and wheat, and during the first hour of travel they traversed monotonous miles of post-harvest stubble. Before reaching the railroad pass through the coastal hills on the valley’s western edge, however, they entered Vaca Valley, a region of fruit and nut orchards, alfalfa, and hillside vineyards.

“There’s your future home, if you’re so inclined,” said Lazaro, pointing to the northwest acreage. He wiped the steam from their compartment window, and Jorge peered into the distance.

“And what will I do out there among the trees, Hermano? Pick some white man’s apricots?”

“I thought you liked apricots,” said Lazaro.

“It’s the Irish farmers that give me gas,” Jorge grinned, “not to mention Irish lawyers. Why didn’t you take your mother’s name? Sven? At least I’m accustomed to Norwegians in the family.”

“My clients can’t pronounce it,” Lazaro laughed. “Listen, how about the cattle business? Or sheep? Your brothers-in-law are both excellent caballeros.”

“Tell me about my sisters, Lazaro, and about this town of Vallejo. Is that where I am to live?”

Lazaro explained that he and their two sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews and nieces all lived in Vallejo, where Lazaro had his law office. But the sisters wanted to buy some farmland in nearby Vacaville, and live together on a rancho. They had found something suitable, and were hoping to convince Jorge to join them in their enterprise.

“Thanks for the warning,” said Jorge, smiling. “You certainly look the part of a man of means, Brother. And I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”

Lazaro waved off the gratitude. “I’ve been fortunate, that’s all. A lucky capitalist, and the capital came from Father. When our land was seized in Mexico, I was able to liquidate sufficient assets to bring our sisters and their families here. Father had invested in a California manufacturing company years ago, and had provided me with a position on the board of directors. I was able to represent the firm legally, and soon started my own law practice.”

“As Lazarus O’Brien?”

“That’s right. Even a white man is excluded from doing most business in this state, if he’s Mexican, especially among the farmers. But many of the biggest names in mining and banking are Irish Catholic, so I adjusted the spelling a bit, and went after some choice agriculture accounts in the western valley. There was almost no competition at the time. So…”

“So we’re rich?” Jorge said. “You’re shameless, my brother.” He smiled to indicate he was joking, but Lazaro maintained a grave expression.

“No, not entirely,” Lazaro said, nearly mumbling. “But I have found it necessary to keep shame at arm’s length. How about you, little brother? Do you struggle with shame?”

Jorge looked puzzled. “I wasn’t criticizing you. I don’t care what your name is. I was just joking.”

“It’s just that you mentioned shame, Jorge, which happens to be a favorite topic of mine for philosophical discussion,” Lazaro said without smiling. “What do the philosophers say about shame?”

Jorge didn’t answer. He looked away.

“ Mi Hermanito ?”

“Wh..What do you…?”

“If I asked you to tell me about Rome, Jorge,” Lazaro said, “…about why you left the seminary…could you tell me the truth? The entire truth?” The men were sitting in a private, first class compartment that encompassed the width of the train. The cushioned chairs were bolted to the floor. Jorge stood up and walked to the windows on the opposite side of the car. The sun was trying to break through the clouds to the south, with little success. He watched a herd of deer, browsing in an oak grove. After a minute or two, he turned to face Lazaro.

“You mean the gossip? You’ve heard it all the way out here from Rome? And you believe it?”

“No, I’ve heard no gossip from Rome. Not a word,” Lazaro said. He rose, also, placed his hands behind his back, and began to pace the floor with the unsteady rhythm of the train, which was slowly climbing a long, straight incline, and to speak as though he were presenting a legal case to a jury.

“But let us suppose that I had heard some gossip, “Lazaro went on, “ Yes, some gossip of the worst kind; accusations of scandal; of licentious behavior on the part of my dearest brother. Can we suppose it?”

“You can suppose anything you want. Let’s change the subject of conversation, shall we? I’m weary of this topic.” Jorge sat again on a window bench.

Lazaro ignored the request, and continued to pace. “Then let us suppose that a certain world renowned American University had refused admission to my brother, based upon this gossip. If all of those suppositions were true, Jorge, do you think I would be ashamed of my brother?”

“Josiah Royce told you that I’ve been refused at Harvard because of what happened in Rome?”

Lazaro stopped pacing and stood beside the bed. The younger man’s chin fell to his chest. His shoulders slumped. “That was three years ago, Rome,” he said, “There was nothing official. I was assured there would be no record of the accusations in my file. They were even going to let me stay if I wanted. It was my decision to leave. It doesn’t make sense.” Jorge began to shake his head, repeating that it made no sense.

“Jorge, The Professor didn’t mention Rome or scandal or gossip.”

Jorge looked up. “What, then? What are you telling me?”

Lazaro sat down on the bench beside Jorge and leaned against him. “I was just guessing, Jorge. About your problems in Rome.”

“Guessing? How … ?”

“You’ve been living in London for several years, Jorge. Surely you know of Oscar Wilde? ‘The love that dares not say its name?’ Do you know what I am talking about?”

Jorge looked away and said nothing.

“I have decided to make a confession to you, my brother. I am a man who loves men, Jorge,” Lazaro said, “I have guessed that you are the same, that’s all I’m telling you.”

After a full minute of silence, Jorge spoke, “I have more important things on my mind, Lazaro, than my bodily needs. I have decided to keep my attention focused upon things which I deem much more important. I don’t want to discuss the other, and would appreciate it if we could just drop the entire subject.”

Lazaro put his arm around the young man’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “As you wish, Little Brother.”

BARBARIA installment 1

My novel, BARBARIA, was released by PublishAmerica in August, 2009, but the company has seen fit to price the book out of reach for normal people. The retail price (at Amazon and PubAm) ranges from $29 to $34 per copy with shipping. The company's marketing strategy is to focus on the author as customer, but I can seldom afford even their "discounted" prices.

So I've decided to serialize the book on this blog for you to read. Please let me know what you think, and if you want a discounted copy, I have some available for $14, direct sale, not including shipping. Email if you're interested: brennan.don@gmail.com
Thanks, Don


SYNOPSIS: The setting for the tale is nineteenth century California, 1880's & 1890's. Three brothers of the Obregon family have immigrated to California from Mexico. Jorge and Raphael are identical twins of maternal African-Indian descent. Lazaro, their elder half-brother is caucasian and, with forged documents, assumes an Irish identity as Lazarus O'Brian. He aids Jorge to set up a labor camp while Raphael, always the rebel, seeks his own fortune in the highly profitable sex trade. Frances, an Irish-American woman and the adopted daughter of Lazarus, is married to a merchant seaman. A murder is committed and justice is denied to the Obregons through the dynamics of corruption and racism. The brothers conspire to take certain risks to avenge their losses.

NOTE: "Barbaria" is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, indicating one character's nickname for California, The Land of the Barbarians.



BARBARIA

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE


On the ship from London, even though he had paid in advance for a first class cabin, the vessel’s captain ordered Senor Obregon, Cambridge scholar and heir to extensive land holdings in the New World, to cross the Atlantic in the hold, “ with the rest of the niggers.” For six days and nights, Jorge had been crammed into the vessel’s crowded lower regions with Russian, Irish and Italian peasants, and not a self respecting negro in the lot, except himself; the only one in steerage who could actually claim an African grandparent. The European huddled masses, with Jorge in their midst, slept on the bloody floor or on wooden bloody benches, shit in slop buckets, and ate moldy food, while dozens of sick children cried throughout the nights and vomited without warning.

Standing today on Depot Street in Sacramento, California, U.S.A., Jorge Obregon itched all over, as though the fabric of his underclothing had been spun from sand. A swarm of microscopic vermin had surely taken residence beneath his skin. He smelled like a rancid cheese, and his neck seemed to have stiffened at an acute angle from the rest of his body. If he didn’t get into a tub soon, he could never again be assured of viewing the world in any other way than on a slant.

He fished two coins from his trouser pocket and thanked the porter in Spanish, who shouted up to the cab driver in English, “No rough ride for this gentleman, you hear? He’s a generous man, and he’s from my country!”

“Ah, go on. You Mexicans just stick together. Probably won’t give me but a nickel.”

“What’s the fare?” Jorge stood on a wooden sidewalk and squinted at the driver. The sun was high in the southwest and the trees on the street were mere twigs, recently planted. The road in front of the railroad station was paved and filled with buggies and commercial wagons. Obregon was pleased about the pavement, having heard rumors that city streets of the Far West were better suited to the needs of wallowing hogs than gentleman travelers.

“Seventy five cents to the Grosvenor.”

“OK, then. A dollar for a smooth ride, but if you jar any teeth loose, I take your horse in compensation.”

“Hell, Mister, for two dollars you can buy the rig and drive yourself.”

Jorge settled into a cushioned leather seat and waved goodbye to the porter. It was The Ides of March 1888, and he had been on the train for seven days and six nights, reading Nietzsche. Probably some symbolic connection there; the dark Ubermensch arrives in California on the date that Caesar fell under the assassins’ knives; perhaps an ill omen. He hoped it did not portend more exclusion problems at the end of his journey. He wanted a deep, hot bath and a real bed with a goose-down comforter. For more than two weeks he had been pilloried and humiliated by the white god-damned Ubermensch of Great Britain and America, both on land and at sea, and had had quite enough of it.

In New York Harbor, the Immigration sods had kept him for twenty four hours in their “cattle barn” before they would even talk to him, or so much as glance at his papers. When he finally arrived in Boston for his interview at Harvard, The Hotel Dunsmuir management made him sleep on tick and canvas in the servant’s quarters. A rough woolen blanket, no heat, and a coldwater basin.

Of course, after all of this inconvenience, Professor Royce had been pained to give him the bad news. Jorge’s application for admission to the Harvard University Graduate School of Philosophy had been refused. That bit had depressed and discouraged him of course, but at the same time he had been glad for any excuse to exit himself from Boston.

Jorge’s train accommodations across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains had been posh by comparison to both the ship and the Dunsmuir Hotel. He hadn’t been allowed in a sleeping car, but at least had been able to bribe the conductor for a private seating compartment. Now, he wanted a hot bath. If he did not get one, he would show these California provincials an avenging Mexican in action. Purchase a pistol, perhaps, and dispatch the Grosvenor Bell Captain. Shoot him first, then seek out the rest of the managerial staff, and tend to them as well. He would rather be strung up by one of their infamous lynch mobs than pass another night without a bath.

The Sacramento afternoon was cool, and Jorge tucked the woolen taxi blanket around his legs. He wore a dark serge suit with a celluloid collar and a black silk cravat, held with a diamond pin. He was clean shaven, and his tightly curled black hair was trimmed to collar length and neatly combed, barely showing the indentation of a bowler hat, which now rested beside him on the seat. Jorge retrieved his watch from a vest pocket. Storms on the Kansas plains and in the mountains of Colorado had delayed his arrival by twelve hours. The late afternoon sun was slanting through the windows on his right. He averted his eyes from the glare and observed the Californians, crowding the sidewalks. The Barbarians, he and his English friends called them.

His route from the railroad station was through a neighborhood of three and four story hotels and tenements. The pedestrians were mostly men in plain workers’ clothing, but business suits were in evidence, as well as women shopping with their children. Jorge took comfort from observing a number of dark faces in the throng, but suspected correctly that as he was carried farther from the station, color would fade.

“You’ll find yourself quite at home out there,” his dorm mate, Tuck, had said to encourage him, “All dark skinned folk that far west, you know. Wild Indians, going about with their feathered bonnets.” Tuck, staring through thick, round eyeglass lenses, spoke with the authority of one who considered a vast knowledge of Homer and Herodotus all that was truly necessary for a civilized gentleman. “Yes, yes. You’ll get on famously in Barbaria, I’m sure. Might want to add a few feathers to your wardrobe, eh?”

Jorge’s older brother, Lazaro (or “Lazarus”, as he now preferred) had, assured Jorge by mail that The Grosvenor was accommodating to international guests of every hue and culture, and that he would not encounter the sort of crude behavior that he had been forced to put up with in Boston.

Indeed, as Lazaro had promised, Jorge’s cab was not diverted from the front to the back door of the hotel, and he was allowed to enter the main lobby and register at the desk like a proper human being. Another Mexican Porter hoisted his bags, and he was led to his second floor quarters by a courteous white bellman, apparently Australian, who even lit the water heater, explaining in detail how to successfully draw a bath. Jorge responded with a tip that was more than generous, and restrained himself from falling to the floor and kissing the fellow’s feet.

The Grosvenor was a first class hotel, catering to an international elite, who, according to Brother Lazaro, visited California in substantial numbers for reasons of business and politics. Jorge had indeed observed a group of jovial Chinese men in the lobby, chattering away in their hilarious language with braided hair, wearing gowns. The multistoried building was designed and constructed in a Spanish style U shape, resembling a large California Mission, and reminding Jorge of Italy. The grounds were landscaped with a mix of fruit trees, cypress, lilies and dahlia. There was a central garden with graveled walkways, and benches located in groves. There were, however, no statues of saints or crucifixes in evidence, and the heart of the Spanish garden finally gave way to England in the form of an elaborate Victorian gazebo, painted white and trimmed in forest green. After his bath, he hoped to take Nietzsche to the gazebo.

Jorge removed his coat, tie and collar, then unbuckled the straps of his suitcase and began to unpack. He had just finished hanging his shirts and suits in an armoire, when there was a rap at the door. He went quickly to respond, expecting a note from his older brother, whom he had not seen since childhood. He pulled open the door, and there was the brother in the flesh, a white man in his mid-fifties, medium height, thinning hair, and the blue-gray eyes of their father.

“Lazaro!” Jorge shouted, “Is it you? Is it really you?” The two men grinned and embraced. Lazaro had tears in his eyes as he held his brother at arms’ length and studied him with some amazement.

“Ahhh. What happened to El Pequeno? Where did he go, that sweet little child?”

“Well, he’s struggling to become a man of letters, now, isn’t he? Almost a philosopher, some would say,” Jorge blushed. “But he also itches and stinks. Please allow me to bathe before we visit, lest you become infested with my lice.”

The two walked arm in arm toward the bathroom. A writing desk with pens, paper, an inkwell and two chairs, stood by a west window. Lazaro grabbed one of the chairs, “May I sit by your tub and supervise the ablutions? Let me remove my coat. I’ll even give your back a scrub. Do you remember those days?”

“I do indeed. Raphael and I used to give you a good soaking for your trouble. Auntie would always chide you,” said Jorge, peeling off his shirt. Raphael was Jorge’s identical twin brother. The pair was born in Lazaro’s twentieth year, to their father’s second wife.

“Yes, yes. She would always tell me to just disrobe and join you two rascals in the tub, but I felt it important to remain fully clothed; to maintain my authority while you soaked me through to the skin.”

Jorge turned on the water and sprinkled a generous handful of scented salts into the tub. “Let me fill this tub and call for coffee and something to eat,” he said. The room filled with steam and heady fragrances of lavender and orange blossoms.

“I’ve ordered food and drink already,” responded Lazaro, settling his stout frame onto the chair, “Cold beef, white bread, and a bottle of red wine made by Italian immigrants. The California National Dish!”

Jorge stripped and stepped into the tub, then lowered himself into the churning water with a great, luxurious sigh. “Marvelous!”

“So. It’s Senor Philosopher, now, is it Mi Hermano?” Lazaro asked, “How was your meeting with the venerable Dr. Royce?”

“I’ve been rejected by Harvard,” Jorge said, frowning, and squeezing a sponge over his head, “and I feel bad about that. But my meeting with Royce was thrilling, perhaps the high point of my life. Well, my intellectual life, at any rate. This bath is the high point of my entire life.”

Lazaro reached over and gripped the younger man’s arm. “ Tell me more about this meeting of the philosophers. Tell me more.”

“I don’t think I can really put it into words,” Jorge said after splashing about and reflecting for a moment, “He’s a man of great warmth and intelligence, and he complimented my writing. That’s what I liked best about him. He complimented my writing. He also told me that, in his opinion, Harvard’s committee on Graduate Admissions are a pack of racial bigots, and that my color is probably the only reason for my exclusion. ”

“Yes. He thinks your something of a shining star on the horizon of metaphysics. I believe that’s how he put it. He wrote to me, you know. I received his letter just two days ago.” Lazaro’s light brown hair was curled around his ears, and turning white at the temples. He wore the customary dark suit of a man of the legal profession, and a silk vest of gray and blue stripe. He wore a darker gray cravat, also pinned in place with an expensive diamond. Their father’s custom, passed on to the sons. Some had called the old man El Diamante, and he had adored the name.

“No, I didn’t know!” Jorge jerked his head about and looked at his brother through foaming eyelashes, “Josiah Royce wrote to you? About me?”

“Yes, among other things. He owns property out here, and I do some legal work for the gentleman. But primarily, he wrote about you. Most importantly about you.”

Jorge’s eyes widened, then scrunched tightly, stinging from the soap. He drenched his face and attempted to speak at the same time, “But…but…pero…”

Lazaro laughed aloud. “At this moment, you have the look of a small boy in the bath who has no command of the King’s English. How can that be? Dr. Royce says that you’re an articulate young man of amazing intellect!”

“He said that? He said that?”

There was another knock on the door, and Lazaro went to greet room service while his youthful brother attempted to submerge in a six-inch bath, and to recover from a mild state of shock. But the man was too excited, now, to lie about in perfumed waters. He raised himself, dripping, and stepped out onto a heavy, braided rug. When Lazaro re-entered the bathroom, Jorge ambushed him with a damp sponge, a direct hit to the chest. For over two hours, the two ate and talked and studied one another. This was Jorge’s first visit to California. Lazaro had come with a forged Irish passport in the 1866, and the entire Obregon family moved there from Vera Cruz in the ‘70s and ‘80s, except for Jorge, who was a student at Cambridge College, England.

“How long have you been in California?” Jorge asked him, “Are you actually citizen of this country? Do they let Mexicans become citizens?”

“Twenty two years, now,” he answered, “Papa had extensive holdings here when it was still Mexico, you know. But we lost all of the land, and had to start over. And I am a citizen, but only because they think I came from Ireland.”

“Ah, yes. Lazarus O’Brian, I presume?”

“You know what else?” he went on, “ I haven’t seen you since Papa’s funeral. Do you remember? You and that rascal twin of yours had just turned fourteen. What a pair.”

“How is my Raphael? He never writes letters. Auntie wrote that he had moved to some cow town somewhere.”

“Ah, no, Hombre. It’s a farming town called Vacaville. The Vacas were a Mexican family who owned a huge ranch there before the war. Our father knew them well. Raphael is doing all right, I guess. We don’t see him very often. He lives on the edge of the law, still. I don’t think he plans on changing his bandido ways.”

“My twin brother a criminal! What the hell is he doing, robbing banks? Am I in danger of arrest by mistaken identity? ” Jorge’s relaxed smile disappeared. A wave of anxiety dried his throat quite suddenly, causing his voice to crack, so that he sounded a bit like a chicken, guarding her eggs.

Lazaro attempted an abrupt change of subject. “Did you read the Bancroft history? Your professor friend used to study with Bancroft, you know.”

Jorge had been studying in Europe for five years, supported by Lazaro. Four years in England, interrupted midway by an ill-fated year of seminary in Rome. At Cambridge, he had attended several guest lectures by Josiah Royce, a prominent American philosopher, who was roundly criticized, even ridiculed, for his anachronistic idealism by the resident faculty. Jorge didn’t think much of Cambridge orthodoxy, and found himself enthralled by the American’s outrageously romantic view of social history. He had written Royce, and included in the letter a few comments, connecting the Harvard professor’s ideas with those of Rousseau and Marx. Royce, born in California during the Gold Rush, was intrigued by Jorge’s family connections, as well as by the youth’s philosophical leanings. He invited the young man to visit him at Harvard, and recommended the Bancroft History, which Jorge had read, forthwith.

“Yes, he provided me with an advance copy of the first volume. He told me that he’s working on a history himself. I’m enthused also. I’ve never been interested in the Wild West, until now. At school, we call this place ‘Barbaria’ …” Jorge’s voice drifted into silence. He had trained himself over the years to stop worrying about Raphael. Since Jorge had left for England in 1883, the twins had had virtually no contact. For the first several months, Jorge had written regularly, but without response. Their older sister, Natividad, whom they called ‘Auntie’, would only mention Raphael in vague and general terms when she wrote to Jorge: “ Raphael is fine. His health is good. Came by with a senorita. Still not married.”

“Barbaria, is it?” Lazaro interjected, snapping Jorge out of his trance. “ Land of the Barbarians? Oh, that’s a good one.”

“Lazaro, please. Tell me about Raphael.”

Lazaro shook his head and sighed. “We are three strange brothers, aren’t we, Hermano?”

Jorge remained silent. He couldn’t help feeling frightened. His carefully constructed defenses were slipping, preparing to tumble like the proverbial walls of Jericho. The truth about Raphael threatened to be God’s avenging clarion, and he felt he would be crushed under the impact. He stood up from his chair and crossed the room to the bed, and sat down again.

“Do you remember Arrigo?” Jorge said.

“Arrigo? Ah, you must mean the horse. Yes, yes. Father wrote me a long letter about that, years ago. He felt very guilty about sending Raphael away for killing that horse. Poor father. He really did love his children more than his horses. You can’t say the same for all men, can you?”

“Our brother was tormented, Lazaro. A tormented child,” said Jorge. “I worry about him … that … I don’t know … that he suffers too much, I suppose.”

At the age of eleven the twins’ father had taken the boys into the horse barn to witness the breeding of a mare. The children watched in silence as a caballero held a haltered mare and Father led the agitated Arrigo to mount the female from behind and penetrate her with his mighty, meter-long erection. Before dawn the following morning, Raphael tied their father’s prized and beloved stallion in the barn and started a fire in the creature’s stall, cooking the beast to a crisp. That same week, Don Castillo Guzman Obregon had his son taken away to a Carmelite monastery in the hills above Mexico City, and confined to a cell for nearly a year. After that, Raphael became cautious and more discreet, but never penitent.

“Ah, you worry too much, my brother,” said Lazaro, “Listen to me. Raphael knows very well how to take care of himself. These gringos would make him sweat in the fields for fifteen cents a day, but he laughs in their faces. He wears fine clothes, has plenty of money, and white men protect him from their own police. Don’t worry about Raphael.”

For all of their lives, since they were small children, Raphael had been the center of the family’s attention, because he was constantly in trouble. Jorge had spent his childhood trying everything in his power to get his brother to change. In the end, nothing had worked, not even incarceration.

“I’ve thought about it often, Lazaro. I talked to my confessor at Cambridge about it many times.” Jorge said.

“The stallion?” Lazaro laughed gently. “You spoke to a priest about your twin brother cooking your father’s horse?”

Jorge smiled in spite of himself.

“You told the priest that if you had done the cooking, you would have seasoned the meat first, is that it?” Lazaro roared. Jorge collapsed backwards on the bed, giggling. But tears came to his eyes, and the laughter faded into silence.

“Three strange brothers,” Lazaro repeated. “One white, two dark. One old, two young. One businessman, one intellectual, one criminal. You’re the philosopher, Jorge. What was God thinking when he sent us three into this world, bound together by the blood of our father?”

Jorge didn’t respond. He sat up, trembling slightly, wiping his tears. Lazaro knelt before the young man with a glass of wine, and held it to his lips. Jorge took the glass and drank it down.

“So, my little Indian brother.” Lazaro took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Jorge. “You know, your mother was perhaps the most beautiful woman in all of Vera Cruz. And your African grandmother! Ah, what a woman. Escaped from a slave ship. She used to tell us such stories. Cruel and beautiful stories, in that singsong accent. We couldn’t understand half of her words, but we never tired of listening.”

“I remember her,” Jorge said, barely above a whisper. “I have memories of following her along the street, holding on to her skirt. I can still see the bright colors of her dresses in my mind. And I remember her death. Auntie was comforting Raphael and me. She told us that Mamou was going to be with our mother in Heaven.”

“Yes, that’s the sort of thing we tell children, isn’t it? To alleviate their pain.”

“It frightened me. I had never seen my mother, and when Auntie said that, I knew I would never see Mamou again. I remember reaching across in front of Raphael and grabbing the crocheted bedspread. I locked my fingers in the holes of the spread and wouldn’t let go. I was trying to keep our Grandmother out of Heaven.”

Lazaro leaned over Jorge and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re exhausted, young man. You need sleep. Stop all of this brooding, and get into bed. I’ll come for you around noon tomorrow, and we’ll take the train to Vallejo.”