Carry Me Like Water (61 page)

Diego stared down at the dust his feet raised as he walked. The path was full of rocks and he could see where people had left small monuments as they had climbed. Some had written prayers, and others had simply written their names on crosses they’d stuck in
the ground. All these people, he thought, publicly begging God for more than he would ever give them. He thought of asking for a voice.

As Diego looked up, he could see the outlines of people climbing down from the mountain up above him. Angels, he thought, angels coming to get them. But they were too heavy and too solid to be angels. He watched them get closer and closer, counted the small crowd of people—there were five of them. Diego wanted to ask these people who they were, why they were there in the middle of the day. As they passed him, he caught the eyes of one of the men. He smiled and nodded at him. He had dark eyes and a warm smile, and for a moment, strange as it was, he wanted to stop the man and examine his face, and examine the face of the woman whose hand he was holding and ask them questions about their lives, about the purpose of their pilgrimage. Four of them passed him slowly, the man who had looked into his eyes and the woman whom he clung to who was too tired to look up, her face glued to the movements of her feet. And with them, an old woman who seemed too white and too fragile to him to be climbing up and down mountains, and a younger woman with hair as white as the clouds who almost smiled at him when their eyes met as they passed. Following behind was a big man with blond hair who also looked into his eyes as he passed, Diego nodded at him. The man nodded back. The big man looked sad and tired and Diego wondered what he was carrying around. Whatever it was, he had the weight of it on his face. Perhaps, he thought to himself, these travelers were sent as mirrors. He turned around and watched them move farther and farther away from him. He wondered why he felt the urge to run after them. They were gringos, he thought, what were these gringos to him? What could they possibly be to a deaf Mexican? He turned around and faced the lop of the mountain and began climbing again.

The eyes of one of the men looked familiar. Lizzie thought of Eddie’s boyhood picture, how she had always felt it was familiar. She had the same feeling. She wondered why her ability to read minds was so capricious, why it came and went as it pleased, why
it was something beyond her control. She had the urge to turn around and look straight into his face and ask him questions. She wondered—no, it could not possibly be Diego—not possible. She wanted it to be so, but it was not so. But why not ask? She turned around and watched the group climbing up the mountain. She decided to chase them down and ask the man if he was Diego. It could be, she thought, it could be. She looked down, and saw her mother stumble. “Mama!” she yelled. She ran down and helped her up, “Are you OK?”

The old woman laughed. “Oh, I’m so tired, Lizzie. But I’m not hurt, just too tired to walk.”

“You shouldn’t have come. Mama.”

“I needed to come.”

“It’s so hard on your bones.”

“I wanted to climb the mountain. I wanted to look down and see the desert. It was lovely, Lizzie.”

“Mama, you’re so stubborn.”

“Help me,” she said, “I can’t make it without you.”

Lizzie yelled Jake’s name. She did it out of instinct. He climbed back up from where he was and saw how weak Rose looked. He became her cane the rest of the way down. Lizzie walked beside them, the young man’s dark eyes forgotten for the moment. She was angry with herself for letting her mother climb a mountain in the light of this relentless and punishing sun.

Diego tried to look up and see the blueness of the sky but the sun made everything so bright that he had to turn away. Luz appeared tired to him, but she kept praying her rosary. Mundo kept his eyes on her, and Diego wondered what he was thinking, wondered what he saw when he was thinking, wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Did he see the same woman he did—or did he see someone completely different?

Luz stumbled on a rock and fell, almost in slow motion—but Diego couldn’t keep her from falling. He saw his mother falling in front of a car. He shook his head as if to erase the memory from his head, wanting to make the part of the brain that remembered
into a chalkboard he could wipe free when it was too full of words. He found himself reaching his hand up toward Luz to help her up. He could see her eyes in the shade of the hat’s brim. She looked up at him and laughed. He helped her up, and she dusted herself off. Mundo came and offered her his arm.

She shook her head.

“Take my arm,” he said. “It’s not an easy climb. Don’t be so stubborn.”

She grabbed his arm and steadied herself. She didn’t fall again. They walked ahead of Diego, and he smiled as he watched them climb ahead of him. Luz leaned on Mundo until they reached the very top of the mountain, the very foot of the statue. The T-Birds followed quietly behind.

Luz knelt in front of the statue and prayed. The T-Birds fell back and lit their cigarettes away from Diego and Mundo. Diego’s eyes moved from Luz to the face of the statue, then to the huge outstretched arms. He saw the giant hands and looked across the desert. He could see El Paso; he could see Juarez; he could see New Mexico. I can see the whole world, he thought, and it belongs to me.

He looked up at the statue again. Cristo Rey’s face was kind, not at all like the hard stone that withstood the wind. Diego studied the eyes, the lips, the well-defined chin. The statue stood so still—stone—and yet almost flesh, almost soft, somehow alive. Diego tried to memorize every feature. He thought he saw the outstretched hands move and the fingers wave in the air. Diego rubbed his eyes, rubbed them to clear the mirage. Too much sun, he thought. The statue pointed his eyes at Diego. The lips moved: “I can tell you where the jewels are, Diego.” Diego stared up at the inanimate statue and shook his head. He turned his head away.

“The lips moved,” he told himself. “They really moved.” He turned his back to the statue, afraid to look at it again.

“Diego,” he heard the voice, “Diego, Carlota’s jewels,
I
know where they are.”

I
can hear! he thought, I can hear! He shut his eyes. One more time, let me hear one more time. My God, just one more time.

Mundo stepped up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You OK, Diego?” He could see his lips moving but he couldn’t hear him.

Diego nodded. I‘m going crazy, he thought, I’m deaf, I can’t hear anything. He looked at Mundo and then looked down toward the ground.
But I did hear.
Mundo looked at him. “You’re making noises, you know? ¿Qué te pasa?”

Diego shrugged his shoulders.

“The treasure—it’s at the peak of Pico del Aguila,” the voice whispered. “Diego, Carlota’s jewels, the Juárez Mountains, Pico del Aguila.” Diego laughed at the whisper in his ears. He jumped up in the air and laughed.

Mundo tried to hold him down. Luz ran up beside them.

“Dig them up, Diego. You’ll find them.” He looked up at the sky, saw it bluer than he’d ever seen it. He faced the statue and stretched his arms toward it—laughing. He gave in to the laughter.

“So this is what it’s like.” He felt the tingle in his ears. “My God! I can hear!”

Luz grabbed his arm, “Dieguito, what’s wrong—what are you trying to say?”

“Do you hear me, Diego?” He stared at the lips. “Do you hear me, Diego?”

Diego nodded and yelled. He jumped in the air and tried to hug the air in his arms.

Luz and Mundo looked at each other.

Diego placed his hands on his ears, tears running down his face, and opened his arms toward the statue, then hugged himself. He fell on his knees, closed his eyes and focused on the sound of the voice. He wanted to be sure to remember what it had sounded like—more beautiful than any picture he had ever seen. The voice was like the stained-glass windows of the cathedral, like the chrome on the T-Birds’ cars; like the color of the sky. The voice was stronger than Mundo’s handshake; softer than Mary’s eyes. The voice was like the green in the leaves of the rain bush. He stayed on the ground a long time. He opened his eyes and rolled over in the dirt, laughing. Mundo and Luz stood over him, afraid.

“Dieguito,” Luz asked, “what’s happening to you? Are you all right?”

Diego watched her soundless lips and shrugged. The voice, he wanted to say, the voice. Didn’t you hear?

“Did you faint, Dieguito? What are you trying to say?”

He took out his pad. “I Heard!”

“Too much sun, ese,” Mundo said. He motioned El Güero to bring some water.

“I don’t need water,” Diego wrote.

“Look, Diego, it’s hot.” He wet a handkerchief and handed it to him. Diego took it and wiped the sweat off his face to make Mundo happy. He took the jug and drank some water.

“I’m not crazy,” he wrote.

“Dieguito, no one is saying you’re crazy. We’ve just got to get you out of this sun.”

Diego looked at the stone platform the statue stood on. He climbed it and kissed the feet of Cristo Rey. He climbed back down and wrote: “We’re going on another pilgrimage.”

Luz read the note and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

Diego smiled at her. He pointed toward Pico del Aguila. “Over there,” he wrote. “We’re going to get the jewels.” His hands trembled as he wrote.

Mundo handed him a cigarette.

“The statue talked to me,” he wrote. “I heard! The statue talked to me!”

The T-Birds carried Diego down the mountain following Luz’s instructions. She had decided it was best to carry him rather than let him walk on his own—and Mundo had agreed with her. He couldn’t write anything while he was being carried so he stopped trying to explain anything to them. He shut his eyes and tried to calm himself. He thought of the voice, how good and calm and easy it had sounded. He felt the sun on his face, warm like the voice. Exhausted, he fell asleep.

When he woke up he was lying on the couch in the living room of his house. Mundo and Luz and the T-Birds were drinking beer and standing around him, all of them wearing looks of worry.

Diego sat up slowly. They all stared at him. He looked around
for a pad and pen. He made a writing motion to Luz. She walked to the bookshelf and found a pad and handed it to him.

“I’m OK,” he wrote, “so stop looking at me as if I were in a zoo.”

“We’re not looking at you like that, mi Diego, we were just a little worried. It was the sun. It was all my fault—I could have killed you taking you out in that heat. You’re not used to it.”

“It wasn’t the sun,” he wrote. “The statue talked to me.”

Mundo handed him a beer. “Look, Diego, drink this.”

“I don’t need a beer,” he wrote.

He looked at Luz. “Get him his cognac. He likes that stuff.”

Luz nodded and went into the kitchen. She came back with a glass of cognac and handed it to Diego. Diego reluctantly took a drink. He looked up at the T-Birds who were watching him like he’d done something wrong. Mundo motioned them to leave, and Luz pointed them toward the backyard. Indio picked up the case of beer on the floor and they walked out of the room.

“I’m not crazy,” he wrote. “Stop looking at me like I’m crazy. It wasn’t the sun—the statue told me where to find Carlota’s jewels.”