And I, dear Elizabeth, I am my own enemy. I am my own battlefield. You, friend, are the truce.
I’m calm now. Know that I will write to you again wherever Charles may take me. He can’t survive in New York or in any other respectable place. He needs an environment like this unearthly place. That’s my lot. The alternative is inconceivable: separation from my husband.
Before anything happens, I need to make sure that Gold and Silver, my two terriers, are bathed, brushed, and dressed. My two children. I must leave you to attend to them.
I’ll keep the portrait of myself with Gold and Silver on my lap — the one La Plange took a few days ago — here between these pages of this journal. It’s for you. You are its recipient. The armchair where I sat for the photo is here, facing me. Look after it, too, like something precious.
Fondly,
Elizabeth
Things are back to normal at Mrs. Big’s Hotel. Even its owner no longer remembers the bodies hanging from the icaco — these things happen along the border with those crazy Mexicans. If the memory haunts her — and it occasionally does — she puts it out of her mind; she no longer has the strength to pick up and start again somewhere else; she’ll manage where she is.
Tonight the Tigress of the East will sing in her café, she was scheduled to sing the night that the troubles started.
Smiley left Bruneville at the first light of dawn the day after losing at cards to Sarah-Soro Ferguson. He headed to Point Isabel through the swamp because traffic on the river was suspended (it resumed a few days later). It’s a difficult journey, but we know he made it to a steamboat that took him up the Mississippi.
Mrs. Big doesn’t miss Smiley; all the law enforcement officers and Rangers posted at the dock keep Mrs. Big’s Hotel bustling. And the tuneless musicians who sang and played for tips have returned. Something about them has changed, though their music is as bad as ever; they’re louder because they’ve agreed to crow in unison, singing verses they practice for weeks on end. What’s more, they’re not just practicing, they’re listening to other bands and copying them. They even sing one of Lázaro Rueda’s tunes, the one about a vaquero and his violin, but in English, and it loses almost everything in translation.
A few days later, after ten in the evening, the whole sky fills with colors, orange streaks that seem to be painted onto a glowing red backdrop. The telegraph is out of order for hours. In Bruneville a piece of paper on the telegraphist’s desk catches fire. In Matasánchez, El Iluminado walks the streets, immediately surrounded by church ladies, like flies on a piece of rotting meat.
Three days after that, at five in the morning, the aurora borealis lights up the better part of the hemisphere, from the North Pole all the way to Venezuela. The telegraph is working. In Matasánchez, the priest says Mass early. El Iluminado doesn’t appear; he’s in a mystical delirium, in deep conversation with the Virgin.
A day later, the aurora borealis appears again, though not as extensively.
People call this phenomenon the “Sun Storm,” or the “Carrington Event.” El Iluminado pays no mind to these scientific names; he refers to it as “The Calling.” He climbs the belltower of the church and rings the bells wildly. Then he goes downstairs to collect his cross — which he left soaking in the baptismal font (without anyone objecting) — and in front of the church proclaims loudly, “Let’s join Nepomuceno! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe! Death to the gringos!” Felipillo Holandés wets his pants. Laura, his neighbor, in ecstasy, convinces her grandmother to come outside and see what’s happening. “The bells are tolling, granny!”
That same day, the procession led by El Iluminado leaves for Laguna del Diablo, singing and carrying banners of the Virgin. There are more than a hundred of them. Some don’t seem to fit in with this motley crew. You might suspect, if you looked carefully, that they’re using El Iluminado and his church ladies as a cover. What is Blas, Urrutia’s man, and friend of Bruneville’s crappy mayor, doing there? The Indian trader is there too (what’s he up to?) as well as others who are well-known bandits, but they’re Mexicans one and all. You might say that the rascals looking to make a quick buck have “found their calling.” Father Vera brings up the rear (he doesn’t want to be left out).
They’re in no hurry. Periodically they stop to pray, sing, and who knows what else (the outlaws are the busiest, plundering without prejudice); there are so many old and helpless in their ranks that they tire frequently — Laura’s grandmother is among them, her granddaughter has dragged her along to this “ridiculousness.” And then there are the voices that speak to El Iluminado. When they begin the procession must halt. The procession walks a few minutes, and then they rest for a while.
One day before the first aurora borealis, in Laguna del Diablo, Nepomuceno and Jones take advantage of the fact the sun has not yet risen and most of the camp is still asleep. They’re reviewing the draft of their proclamation: “Our object, as you have seen, has been to chastise the villainy of our enemies, which heretofore has gone unpunished. These individuals have connived with each other, and form, so to speak, a perfidious inquisitorial lodge to persecute and rob us, without any cause, and for no other crime on our part than that of being of Mexican origin, considering us, doubtless, destitute of those gifts that they themselves do not possess.” They’re not sure what to date it: “What should we put?”
Óscar comes in with two mugs of chocolate and bread fresh from the oven — which he built of clay — soft, fragrant, aniseed bread.
Óscar listens to the draft proclamation.
“It seems to me, Don Nepomuceno …”
“No ‘Dons’ here, Óscar, in this new world we’re all equals, and we’re just the tip of the iceberg of this New World … For the hundred millionth time, don’t call me ‘Don.’”
“It seems to me, Nepomuceno, if you’ll forgive me, that’s not right, we must be more aggressive. We ought to invade the territory that’s ours, and take it back once and for all.”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“It certainly is.”
“Who’d have thought you’d talk like this, a simple baker?”
“There’s no alternative with the gringos. If we give them a foot they take a mile. We have to take Bruneville back from them; after all, it was ours to begin with … it’s your mother’s property, Nepomuceno! You hold the legal title! Aim high, Nepomuceno, aim high! They built it right where you had that beautiful stable … Or else we’ll just stand by while they take our cake and eat it too!”
“Of course. But that’s not what this is about. We’re drawing a line in the sand. They’re already ensconced there, part of the land, La Raza just has to teach them to show us respect.”
“No, no, no. And I’m not just being contrary. No!”
“Why are you so adamant? Please explain yourself, Óscar.” That’s Jones speaking.
“If we don’t get rid of them, before we know it they’ll pass a law preventing us from working on the other side of the Río Bravo, not just poor folks, but all Mexicans. As for property … you’ve seen how they respect it, the gringos all have silver tongues. We ain’t seen nothing yet, the worst is still to come. They’ll put up a fence or build a wall so we can’t cross over to ‘their’ Texas … as if it were theirs! … and then, you’ll see, listen closely, they’ll take the water from our river, they’ll divert it for their own purposes, who knows how they’ll do it … but you’ll see! They’ll take everything we have … there won’t be a single mustang or a plot of land they don’t claim as theirs. South of the Río Bravo will become violent. Mexicans will begin to treat each other with the same contempt … Our women will be raped and butchered and buried in pieces in the desert.”