Mendoza in Hollywood (16 page)

“I pretended to, of course. I made up a wax dummy with my horrible old features, then had a hot shower and stripped away all the appliances, all the latex and paint and white hair, and paid a servant to see to my funeral. I walked out of my own house young and free, and I got on a horse and rode north.”

Out in the night a coyote howled, mocking.

“But I wasn’t free,” Porfirio said with a sigh. “Who was going to look after the great-grandchildren? I stayed away ten years. The Company sent me to Nicaragua, to Chile, to Mexico, to Texas. I did a lot of good work and had some free time, so I went back to visit Agustin’s grave. They’d buried my wax dummy beside him, wasn’t that nice of them? And Dieguito, who would have remembered me best, was blind now. Cataracts. His kids had no sense, they’d led soft lives and were letting the estates go to hell.
Their
kids were wild and living like Indians. Somebody had to take a hand. So I followed the oldest of the young boys around, watching him, and one night he left
a cantina drunk and was set upon by thieves. I killed them and brought him home.”

Just like that, he killed them. Well, he was a security tech.

“The family—none of them knew who I was, I looked twenty-five at most—welcomed me, thanked me, gave me a job as majordomo. I held it for a while, long enough to set things to rights again. Dieguito died, and the baby I’d held in a baptismal robe I saw as an ancient creature lying gaunt in his coffin. It didn’t matter. The son had a son, and I was such a member of the family by that time that I was the godfather, and I held the little fat brown boy while the old priest anointed him and named him Agustin.

“It’s gone on like that, you see? For centuries now, and the Company has been very understanding. I have a big family, and they need me. Their fortunes have changed—our estates were lost after the Grito—but the family has survived. There was nothing I could do about Agustin’s dying, but his blood still runs in his descendants. I stay with them awhile, I watch them get old and pretend to get old for a while myself; then I ride away and stay away until they need me again. One night a stranger will come; and if any of the old people think he looks like Uncle Porfirio, who used to teach them how to ride, well, it can’t be more than coincidence, can it? Because Uncle Porfirio would of course be a very, very old man now, if anybody knew where he was.”

After a long silence he shrugged. “I’ll have to be more careful, now that photography has been invented,” he concluded.

Imarte was sitting with stars in her eyes. “That is so
beautiful
! What a unique chance you’ve been given! Think what a cultural thesis you could make of it, three centuries of history as experienced by one family!”

“You think so?” He looked sidelong at her. “How’d you like to have that responsibility? I’m never free. Three hundred years, and I’m still obeying my mortal mother’s last request.”

I thought privately that he’d been too hard on poor Juan Bautista about the birds. It’s all very well to break the news to a young operative
that love is a mistake, that attachments can’t be formed because of what we are. But Porfirio had found a way around that, hadn’t he? For him there was always a home fire burning somewhere, no matter how far he wandered on the dark plain, while the rest of us made do with ashes and ghosts.

Someone was standing on the other side of the fire, looking at me. The others didn’t see him. I refused to lift my eyes.

“So, where are they now?” I asked. “Your family.”

Porfirio shifted, uncomfortable. “Most of the direct line are working on a ranch in Durango. One of the girls married a man with some property, and all the brothers have moved in to work for them. They’re doing all right, I guess. I haven’t been down that way in ten years. I’ll need to wait a few more years before I can go back there again.”

I put his story out of my mind as I went to my room and set up my credenza for work, and I kept it out of my mind while I processed my specimens. In the end I had to shut it off and go to bed, though, and the second my head hit the pillow, the question leaped out at me like a thief from ambush: What had become of
my
family?

Long dead, their remains probably stacked in a charnel house beside some village church in Galicia. Had there been descendants? I’d had lots of brothers and sisters, so perhaps there were some distant relatives running around somewhere. There might be some woman even at this moment with my face, my hair, buying onions in the marketplace in Orense or Santiago de Compostela.

When I finally fell asleep, I had the nightmare again, the old nightmare that I always forget until I’m actually inside it once more, where I’m in my parents’ house in the middle of the night. It’s dead-black night, but the moon shines like an arc lamp, and I can see them all lying together in the one big bed. There is my skinny father and my ever-pregnant mother, and there are all the little children I used to fight with so bitterly for our shared toys, or a scrap of food, or our mother’s attention. I know all their names, but I always forget them when I wake up.

My family is asleep, as silent as though they were underwater, and nothing will wake them. I’m the only one awake. I try my best, but I can’t get anyone to wake up and be company for me. The moonlight is so white, the night is so still. I wander around the room disconsolately, but they never wake up to notice I’m there. They will sleep forever. Only I am awake; only I can never sleep.

This time, I couldn’t bear it and ran outside into the moonlight. It was a mistake. Apple trees stretched in every direction, white with blossom, and the air was full of perfume. He was standing there under the trees, tall in his black robe, waiting for me. As I halted and stared, he extended his arm in its long sleeve, that graceful gesture that was one of the first things I’d ever noticed and loved in him. Inviting me, beckoning me, summoning me.

I struggled upright on my narrow cot, gasping like a fish out of water, soaked with chill sweat, and for one terrifying moment I thought the spectral moon was shining in here too, because it seemed to me there was a flash of eerie blue that faded and flickered away. I sagged against the wall and wept, not bothering to wipe away my tears. Here came the footsteps again, Porfirio running out to see what the disturbance was; but he stopped, and after a long while turned and went away without speaking.

I lay down again, shaking, pulled up the blanket, and curled on my side. I was so cold.

“I WISH WE HAD SOME TOAST
,” Oscar was complaining at breakfast. “Oatmeal. Soft-boiled eggs. Real food.”

“This isn’t a civilized country yet, remember?” Porfirio said to him with a grin. “You’ll get your oatmeal eventually.”

“Anything would be preferable to this monotony of leftovers.” Oscar rested his chin on his fist, staring glumly at the beef in the skillet.

“You want to talk to Dr. Zeus about allocating me a bigger budget to run this place?” Porfirio flipped the steaks adroitly. “So, hombre, how’s that pie safe? Got a buyer for it yet? Should I start peeling those parsnips?”

Oscar pursed his lips. “I feel lucky today,” he said. “Mendoza, will you come with me and bear witness?”

“To what?” I looked up groggily from my coffee. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, to put it mildly.

“I want someone present who can testify to my triumph.”

“Oh. Actually I was going out into the temperate belt today, Oscar.”

“We can go that way. There are houses out there. Why, I haven’t even visited that area yet. Those people are probably desperate for good-quality merchandise at affordable prices.” His eyes grew wide and reverent.

“Okay,” I said, getting up to fetch my field gear. It’d save me a long walk; why not? When I came out, he’d already hitched up Amelia and was pacing back and forth, energized.

“Your chariot awaits, ma’am.” He bowed me to my seat. “Where shall we go?”

“Take Franklin to Hollywood to Sunset,” I said. We had all adopted Einar’s use of future street names, and that was the route that followed the foothills through the temperate belt. He gee-hawed to Amelia, and away we rolled.

This was a much prettier drive than the road that cut across the plain, with inviting green canyons that opened up to the north; unfortunately it was also a lot more dangerous, as bullets sang out of the thickets at regular intervals. We dodged them and shot back if they seemed too persistent; I scarcely wasted a thought on it now. I was able to get good specimens of
Vitis girdiana
near the future intersection of Laurel Canyon and Sunset Boulevard; I found an interesting mutation of
Chrysothamnus
, with possible commercially valuable properties, at Sunset and Queens Road. Oscar bore with my frequent stops patiently, but kept his eyes trained on a thin column of smoke that rose ahead.

When we finally came around a foothill and saw its source, he sighed in disappointment. The house was old, built of tules in the local Indian style, and in fact there was an Indian lady in the yard, standing on a rock to load acorns into a kind of basketwork silo. If not for the fact that she was wearing European clothing, we might be back in pre-Columbian days. She turned to stare at us as we pulled up before her yard.

“Good morning, señora,” I called to her in Spanish.

“And to you,” she said, getting down and wiping her hands on her apron.

“Look at that!” gasped Oscar. I thought he was enchanted by the primitiveness of it all, but it was the silo that had his attention. He was out of the wagon and into the yard much too fast for the dogs who
lived there, for they surrounded him in a snarling mob before he could reach the lady.

“Please excuse him, señora, he means no harm,” I said from my seat in the cart. She nodded and called the dogs off. Oscar had his hat in his hands at once.

“My apologies, a thousand pardons, señora, but I couldn’t help seeing that you are in dire need of superior food-storage facilities!”

She just nodded and looked at him. Probably she was deciding that the white man was up to no good if he apologized to her this abjectly, but her face was blank, her expression mild.

Oscar gestured with his hat at the acorn silo. “This structure, señora, it’s very ingenious and well made, but it’s nothing more than
natural materials
. Are you not at the mercy of the ground squirrel, the raccoon, the scrub jay, and a host of other pests? Do they not voraciously deplete your larder?”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“Well, allow me, señora, to offer you a solution to these depredations, a way of ensuring that your hours of backbreaking labor gathering the fruits of Jove’s tree are not for naught!” He bowed her toward the cart. She went with him, placidly folding her hands, no doubt wondering who Jove was. The dogs snarled and followed, but kept their menace low-key.

“What you need,” Oscar said, unfastening the side of the cart, “is a modern, sanitary method of preserving food. Now I think, señora, I
think
you’ll agree that what I have here just fits the bill. Behold!” He flung back the side, displaying the pie safe gleaming among his wares like the central diamond in a crown. “The Criterion Patented Brass-bound Pie Safe!”

Her face remained perfectly still, but a light flickered in her eyes. Then they grew a little bleak.

“It’s very beautiful, señor,” she said.

“Oscar—” I said. He ignored me.

“Regard the metal fittings. This is a first-rate device guaranteed to be impervious to pests, whether of the gnawing, crawling, or pecking
variety. No less than eight separate compartments for the storage of your acorns and, er, whatever other fine foods you wish to keep pure, fresh, and unsullied. Now, I’ve a talent, if I may say so, señora, for supplying needs, and I can see plainly that
you need this
. It may have been designed for other forms of edible goods, but such is the versatility of its design that it will admirably preserve foodstuffs from any ethnic cuisine whatsoever.”

“I’m sure it would, señor.”

“Oscar—”

“Now, it may be,” he said, raising a hand, “that you’ve put aside hard-won savings, in the anticipation that Necessity may call at your, uh, door. I might suggest that you could make no better investment against Want than this splendid item, which will safely reserve your stores against all possible losses. Ordinarily the Criterion Patented Brassbound Pie Safe is sold for no less than thirty dollars; but for you, señora, in your most obvious need, I will offer it for the special low price of
ten
dollars. Only say the word, señora, and you need never fear the loss of your acorns again.”

I buried my face in my hands. She was taking them all in in a long bitter stare, all those pretty and improbable things she’d never thought of having and shouldn’t have thought of having, because she’d never have them.

“It is certainly a beautiful thing, señor,” she said meekly. “I am afraid, though, that I have no money.”

Oscar gaped. “Well—why, I’ll tell you what, then. You can pay for it on the hire-purchase plan! Twenty easy installments of fifty cents each, how about that? With the first payment deferred six months. You can’t afford not to take advantage of this once-only offer.”