He shrugged, careful not to dislodge her.
“You see everything in a positive light. You look up and see a flood of stars. I look up and see the endless space around them. I wish I could be as positive as you.”
“Oh, Noah,” she said, her voice pulled into the vacuum of her disappointment. She didn’t say anything else, but instead took his hand and stood there in the dark of the blistering night. He let go first.
“We should probably go inside. Father Manillo was right. You need to rest.”
“Just stand with me for a little while. It will be good for you to stop moving—you’ve been running ragged since we left Sarnia.”
“I can’t. Not if I’m going to find Sonia and Eli before they disappear again. What if Father Manillo calls? He said he would.”
“If he calls, you’ll be able to hear it. Right now, I need you, Noah. We both need you.”
“I know that,” he said. “But what am I supposed to do? Forget Eli? Let Sonia have him? I know that would be easier, but I can’t. This is my son we’re talking about. I can’t let myself forget.”
Rachel started to say something, then stopped. She pulled him close and kissed him on the cheek, then brusquely pulled her shawl around her shoulders. “Go on in,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
He hesitated. “Are you sure? You’re going to stay out here alone?”
“You don’t have to worry,” she said. Had her tone changed, or did Noah simply imagine it? “I’m sure I’ll be safe out here for a few minutes.”
Noah opened his mouth to speak, but behind him he heard a sharp trilling from somewhere inside, and his heart skipped. With hands wet and body shaking he turned and looked at Rachel. She had turned too, but her expression was inscrutable.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Go on. I’ll be inside in a minute.”
He was already in the door when he realised she’d said something else, something like “I love you.”
Noah picked up the phone, but no one responded to his greeting. There was a wheezing sound. A snuffling. Garbled and metallic as though the line had been degraded. Noah started to get worried. He looked at Rachel through the window, her back to him, shawl pulled tight. “Hello?”
There was some more scratching, then, “Noah? This is Father Manillo. I had an idea.”
Noah’s blood raced.
“About where to find my son?”
“Yes. Of course. Villages like Astilla de la Cruz, farming villages in the depths of Mexico, are filled with children who must work the land with their fathers all day, or must scavenge the streets at night to scrape together what little they can to help their families survive. But there are some, especially those belonging to the more wealthy or foreign, who still must be educated. So a tiny school was erected a few years ago for them. There they can learn, but so few attend, or can attend often during the farming season, that it is only in session a few days a week.
“I’m not certain,” the priest continued, “but I believe there is class tomorrow. Perhaps your Eli is there? If your past wife is how you say, she might want him in school.”
Rachel entered the room and closed the door behind her. She did not look at Noah, even though it was clear she knew he was watching. Instead, she brushed past him and lay down on their bed. With some effort she turned onto her side, her back twisted toward him.
“Thank you, Father. How do I get there?”
III. Back to School
Rachel had managed to drift off while Noah was on the telephone with Father Manillo, gathering details about the nameless school’s location. She lay still, chest slowly rising and sinking, shirt ridden up to expose her swollen pregnancy. Noah lay down beside her but could not bear to put his arm around her. The room was a furnace, and the last thing he wanted was for her body’s heat to compound his own. He rolled over and tried to sleep.
He’d been warned repeatedly that the odds of finding Sonia, of finding Eli, were virtually zero, yet he could not stop himself from holding out hope. It buzzed through his head, his hands, his feet, and each remained in motion as he twisted and turned through the night. Eventually it was simpler to give up, get out of bed. Frustrated, tired, and angry, he crept to the window and sat in the dull moonlight. There, he studied the unfolded article he’d carried all the way from Sarnia, looking for some overlooked clue about where his son might be. Even that proved more than he could bear in the lingering heat, so he simply gazed out the window at the field of stars and waited for the daylight to arrive.
The broken spire was the first thing that came into view as the red morning sun crested the clay roofs. The air already smelled of frying corn, rich and bittersweet. The light of the rising sun burned Noah’s face, a giant ball of fire that seemed to hang a few feet away, not a hundred million miles. He watched it rise in starts, as though lifted on the shoulders of some great giant or dragged upward by a team of animals. As it ascended, it lit the sky further, and the silhouette of the hanging cross transformed into the cross itself, casting its long shadow over the poor village below.
Finding the school proved to be more challenging than Noah had anticipated. What should have been a walk of a few minutes was instead an hour-long odyssey without any clear sign where he and Rachel were headed. He had written down Father Manillo’s instructions carefully, but the streets of Astilla de la Cruz did not obey his crudely drawn map. In places, it was difficult to tell where roads ended or began, and at one point he was certain houses had simply been erected without consideration of anything beyond the whim of the builder. Each place was more rundown than the last, dirt yards filled with old and broken toys that were as untouched and abandoned as everything else they passed. If not for the occasional movement of curtains, or sound of someone scrambling unseen, Noah would have suspected he and Rachel had been just as forgotten.
Noah stopped and looked back for the broken cross to orient himself. It was a dark spike in the eye of the sun, and no matter where he and Rachel went, its position never seemed to change.
“Maybe we should ask someone where this school is,” Rachel suggested. Underneath her wide-brimmed hat her face was slick with sweat.
“Who are we going to ask? Do you see anybody around?”
“Let me see those directions again. Maybe we took a wrong turn.”
He handed them over reluctantly. Rachel studied them.
“I haven’t seen any of these street names. Are you sure these are right?”
“I haven’t a clue. I was hoping once we were close enough we could figure things out by looking at the signs. I didn’t count on there not being any.”
“Do you know how to get us back at least?”
Noah paused, unsure how to phrase the answer, but his silence was answer enough for Rachel.
“So we’re completely lost. Great. You do know I’m carrying a baby, don’t you?”
“Obviously.”
“Do you know my back is killing me as well? What happens if I need to sit down? Should I do it right here in the street?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, like we figured out where the school was?”
He tried not to look at her. He would only get angry if he looked at her. How could she be so selfish when Eli was out there, somewhere?
“It can’t be far. We’ve almost reached the edge of the village.”
“I hope you’re right. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going. Remember what Dr Mielke told us.”
What she’d told them was that Rachel should stay home, something she flagrantly disobeyed. But Noah managed to bite his tongue before saying it.