They are within arm’s reach of my oranges before I can make out their faces. The short one is Zorrillo’s son, and the tall one is the son of the town doctor. These are not boys who must steal because they are hungry. The wagon creaks, and they hold still. They are watching to see if I stir. I am patient. I am calm. I am completely still.
But I am up quick and strong as a panther the moment they reach for my fruit. I have the muzzle of the gun pressed into the tall boy’s temple before they can even pull their hands back. It is the fastest I have moved in years. They look at me, mouths open. “You are surprised?” I say. “Surprised that a man will defend his fruit?” I walk out from behind the stand and kick over the wagon. “A wagon? Were you going to steal everything I have?”
The short boy starts to stay something, so I box him in the ear with my free hand. My hand thinks for me. “Shut your mouth,” I say. “Do you know what San Humberto does to boys like you?” I hit him again. I see tears in his eyes. I feel tears in mine. “Go home now,” I say, “and tell your fathers what you have done.” I lower the gun. “Now leave me alone.” I do not want them to see an old man cry.
They are slow to move, so I hit the tall one. “Go!” I yell, and they run. I sit and wipe my eyes with my shirt. I am so tired.
Late in the afternoon, their fathers come to the stand to pay for all the fruit the boys stole. Zorrillo holds out a sackful of coins, then pulls it away when I reach for it. “In the future I would prefer that you not threaten children with your gun,” he says.
“In the future I would prefer that children not steal my fruit,” I say, and I wait for him to hand over what is mine.
Some nights I dream about forgiveness. I do not mean that I dream about people forgiving people. I dream about forgiveness itself, curling around buildings and nuzzling people like the cool west winds. Vargas does not believe me. He says you cannot dream about something you cannot see or touch or hear or taste or smell.
I have not told Vargas this, but when I dream, forgiveness has a smell. Forgiveness smells like limes.
On the day of the Festival, I close the stand early so I can visit Rubén before the run. As I pack away my stock, I sense someone nearby watching me and I look up. I do not know if it is the heat or the hangover or my bad eyes, but for an instant I see Ysela standing hand in hand with her mother. But no, it is my daughter, alone.
She holds out a pair of eyeglasses. “I found them among Mamá’s things,” she says. “I think they’re yours.”
“Perhaps,” I say, although I know they are.
My eyesight has gotten worse, but the old lenses work well enough. The gallows in the square comes into focus. I feel my eyes shift again, and now I can see all the way to the east gate. I turn to Ysela, and I see thin, shallow wrinkles in her forehead that I have never noticed before. It makes me sad, to see my daughter look as if she worries so much. But she has chosen the path she has chosen. I cannot blame myself.
She is biting her lip again. “You know I have made a lot of money,” she says. She waits for me to nod before she continues. “I want you to visit Mamá tomorrow. There is a surprise for both of you.”
Her name, I think. Her name, the way it should be, the way she would have wanted it. I feel like dropping this crate and running to the cemetery now. But then I think: San Humberto would frown on such a tainted monument. He would curse it.
“No,” I say.
She looks surprised. “It is a gift,” she says. “For both of you.”
“I do not want your mother’s grave defiled by whore money,” I tell her.
The slap hits me before I see her arm move. My eyeglasses, bent, hang from one ear. Ysela clenches her teeth and shakes with anger. “You haven’t changed,” she says. “You’ll never change.” She grabs an overripe mango and heaves it into the wall behind me. Pieces of the fruit spatter on the back of my head and neck.
“I have told Lars I am finished working for him,” she says. “I am going to be the new schoolteacher.”
My voice is louder than I intend. “What can you teach children? How to shame their fathers?”
She stomps away, then stops in the middle of the road. “You think you are San Humberto Himself!” she shouts. “You are not! You are an old and drunken fruit vendor, not a saint and not a father!”
I want to go after her, but I do not know what I would say. I put on the glasses again and see that people have come out onto the road to stare. I take the glasses off. I cannot watch them watching me.
I sit on an empty crate and bite into a lime. The sour juice floods my mouth. I bite again, and again. I bite, I sit, and I stare straight ahead at nothing. I do not even blink when Lars’s monkey snatches the fruit out of my hand and runs away, tittering.
I am dry-throated and dripping with sweat when I get to Rubén’s tree. My pulse drums in my ears. I sit on a flat mossy rock and stare up into the branches, but I can see no shadow, hear no movement. The only sound is the shrill cry of a chachalaca defending its nest. I wait, trying to think of what to say. It is difficult. I feel it has been years since I have said the right thing to anyone — not even to the saint, in my prayers. Finally, this comes out: “Rubén, I do not speak to you as your father but as a man. I am sorry for all I have done and all I have failed to do.”
The apples fly. I close my eyes and let them find their marks. When I arrive home, I count the new bruises. Seventeen in all. One for each year of my son’s life.
It is time. The last traces of sunset have disappeared and the gallows is lit only by the flickering torches on the roofs. We are all gathered in the square, packed in tightly, breathing on each other. I look through the crowd for Rubén, hoping, but I do not see him. It occurs to me that I might not recognize him if he were here. Would he have a beard? Would he be taller than I am? Would he be thin and weak from a diet of apples and insects? My heart drums. I feel feverish. I cannot find Vargas, either. I do not want to be here, alone in this crowd.
A young man climbs up the frame of the gallows and leans out over the crowd, holding on with one hand. This is Urrieta, who runs Lars’s cochineal farm and likes to brawl in the bar. He pumps his free hand in a fist. “Give us the bandit!” he shouts. “Give us the bandit!” A twisted, gap-toothed grin spreads across his face as the crowd takes up the chant. I see Lars standing on the terrace of the hotel that overlooks the square, shouting along, beating the railing with his fists, while one of his youngest whores runs a comb through his yellow beard and the monkey bounces and screeches. Ysela is on the terrace with them, but she stands apart from them, scanning the crowd with her arms folded over her chest. I wonder if she is looking for me.
The door to the police station opens, but no one comes outside.
Underneath the shouts I hear Vargas’s voice and his heavy breathing, coming closer. “Pardon me. Pardon me. Pardon me.” He pushes his way into the space beside me. He is covered in sweat and dirt. He wipes his forehead, leaving a streak of clean.
“Where have you been?” I ask him.
“I had to bury Ayala right away, before the hyenas are set free. I did not want—”
“Ayala is dead?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“El Gris strangled him through the bars.”
“Ah,” I say. “One last kill. The demon-bandit could not resist.”