The Five Acts of Diego Leon (7 page)

Diego held his spoon, his hand trembling slightly. “Yes, Doña Julia,” he responded, lowering his head.

His grandfather pounded on the table, rattling the dishes and cups, startling the maid. “Head up, son. Head up,” he said, his voice elevated. “A refined gentleman always speaks with confidence.”

“I’m sorry, Grandfather.” He adjusted himself, straightened his bow tie, and looked them both directly in the eyes. His grandmother shifted her gaze back to the table.

“Take these away!” she ordered. The maid came over and quickly began removing the dishes.

His grandfather said to Diego, “Carolina’s husband is a very wealthy man named Manuel Alcazar. He was in love with your mother at one time. They almost married but—”

“She ran off with that peasant,” his grandmother interrupted. She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Doroteo, don’t start.”

The old man ignored her and continued: “Carolina was once an opera performer. She has a beautiful voice. She gives lessons from her home to some of the children of the more affluent families.”

Diego cleared his throat before he spoke. He tried not to look at his grandmother. “What kinds of lessons?”

“Singing. Dancing. That sort of thing.” The old man lit a cigarette and squinted at Diego through the smoke. “Does this interest you?”

“Yes,” he said smiling confidently. “Very much.” He felt his heart beating faster. “Back home I danced in some of the festivals.”

“Good.” His grandfather smiled and nodded very sagely. “Would you like to take lessons from her?”

“Doroteo, don’t,” said his grandmother.

“This could help him,” he explained. “Boost his confidence. Refine him. He’ll learn about the opera. Learn oration.”

“I think this boy’s incapable of such—”

His grandfather interjected. “Julia, I’ll do what I please with him.” He turned to Diego. “We’ll talk to Carolina.”

“Thank you, Grandfather,” Diego said. “Thank you.”

The old woman’s face was flushed, but Diego didn’t care. Doroteo had made his decision. Around the house, his word was final, absolute.

Javier and Carolina came to visit that September, a week before Diego was to start school at the primaria not far from the house, the same one his mother had attended as a girl. His grandmother was in the
kitchen, lecturing one of the cooks about the meal she had prepared the night before, and Diego sat at the mahogany piano, pressing his fingers against the black and white keys, pretending he was giving a concert, singing one of the songs Elva had taught him. He didn’t hear them walk in; he turned and found them standing in the entryway. The mother wore a long tweed skirt and a shawl over her shoulders. Her hair was pinned back and adorned with flowers. Javier wore a pair of pressed black trousers, a blue jacket with gold buttons, and dark shoes.

“You’re Diego, correct?” asked the woman. “The one who is living here now?”

“Yes,” he said.

Diego rose, walked across the room, and extended his arm. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Carolina removed her glove, took his hand, and shook it. “My, what good manners you have, young man.” She then turned to Javier, unbuttoned his jacket and said, “Why don’t you two go outside for a while? Get to know one another.”

Javier looked at Diego and smiled.

Diego said, “I can show you my grandmother … I mean … Doña Julia’s birds.”

Diego led him through the glass doors into the back courtyard where his grandmother kept the wicker birdcages. Inside, parakeets hopped from one end to the other, their plumage fluffy and vibrant, their small eyes darting back and forth. Javier walked over to one of the cages and regarded the birds.

“Are their feathers soft?” he asked.

Diego shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’m not allowed to touch them.”

“Why not?”

“Doña Julia says she doesn’t want me upsetting them.”

Javier laughed. “Why do you call her that?”

“She doesn’t want me calling her grandmother.”

Javier walked over to one of the stone benches and sat. He looked up at Diego and said, his voice lowered, “Some of the kids at school say your grandmother’s a witch who eats children.”

“Do you think it’s true?” Diego asked, sitting next to him on the bench. “Do you think she’ll eat me?”

Javier laughed again, his grin wide. “Probably,” he whispered. “You better beware.”

They chased each other around the courtyard and hid behind the clay pots and wooden posts of the trellis. Diego was just so happy and relieved to have someone else to play with that he forgot about his grandmother and Carolina inside the house. It felt like they had been outside for only a few minutes when Carolina came out and called Javier over. “I lost track of time. We’ve been here over an hour. We need to go.”

“Can I stay?” Javier pleaded, stomping one foot on the ground.

“No.” Carolina handed Javier his jacket. “But Diego’s starting school next week with you. You two are going to be in the same class. You’ll have plenty of time together.”

Javier leaned in close and said to Diego, “Be careful. Your grandmother. Lock your bedroom door at night.”

“I will,” Diego told him.

“I’ll see you at school,” he said. “Try to survive until then.”

“We’ll start your lessons soon,” Carolina said. “I have a great feeling about you, Diego.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, señora.”

“Carolina,” she said, crouching down, looking at him directly in the eyes. She smelled of lavender. Her hair caught the sunlight. She was beautiful. Then she kissed him on the forehead and was gone. Diego couldn’t wait to start his lessons.

He had never seen so many children gathered together in one place. They carried satchels filled with books and colored pencils. They scribbled on the concrete with thick pieces of chalk that dusted their fingers. They played on wooden seesaws and pushed one another on swings. Diego’s stomach turned and his hands trembled as he watched them through the slats of the iron fence circling the school grounds. He was obligated to wear a uniform—black trousers and shoes, a shirt and bow tie, and a sweater with the school’s crest on the front—and he tugged at the collar of his shirt nervously.

“Don’t be afraid,” his grandmother told Diego, bending down to adjust his bow tie. He was taken aback by the tone of her voice,
by her gesture; she was almost genuine, almost affectionate. She led him through the gate to his teacher, a pudgy lady with a nest of curly brown hair. She smiled at the teacher, and Diego realized that it was the first time he had ever seen her do so.

“After your classes end, you’ll go with Javier to his house. Carolina will start you on your lessons today,” she said. Then she turned around and waved.

His teacher gave Diego a strange look when he instead looked to her.

“It’s fine,” the teacher told him.

He waved good-bye.

He followed the teacher across the school courtyard, which all the classrooms faced. She led him down a tiled hallway, up a flight of steps, pointing with a bony finger to a playroom full of wooden blocks, the floor scattered with puzzle pieces, balls, and felt puppets. There was a library with many books, and a salon with tables and chairs where they ate and assembled. There was more of everything here—more teachers, more rooms, more children. It overwhelmed him. Diego was glad then when at last they walked into the classroom where Javier sat in a circle with a group of other boys. Behind them there was a map of Mexico and large charts with numbers and letters.

“You’re still alive,” Javier said, jokingly, as Diego sat beside him.

“Yes,” Diego said.

“My mother told me you’ll be coming to our house today after school. I’ll show you a new train set my father brought me from Mexico City.”

“My son doesn’t take after me in this regard,” Carolina said to him that afternoon as they sat on the plush sofa in her sitting room. The window curtains were pulled back, and the afternoon sunlight streamed in through the glass, falling on the floor in long, bright beams across the study. There was a piano, a small easel holding sheets of music, and a gramophone in one corner of the room. The top of the piano was crammed with pictures of Carolina in elegant costumes and dresses as well as a strange wooden device with a pendulum.
When she saw Diego looking at it, she asked him if he knew what it was.

“No,” he said, approaching the piano.

“It’s a metronome.” She adjusted a small metal weight at the base of the pendulum before moving it from side to side with her finger. It produced a series of small clicks. Carolina clapped her hands, faster, then slower, keeping beat with the clicks. “This helps us keep a rhythm when we’re composing music. Together. With me,” she urged him.

Diego did so, and they clapped along, their beats in steady synchronization with the metronome.

“Very good,” she told him, smiling. She wore a sweater draped over her shoulders, its arms hanging loose on her sides. “Come here,” she said, taking Diego by the hand, squeezing it. Her touch was warm, calming. They walked over to a trunk in the middle of the library. “I had one of the servants pull this down from the attic last night. This is where I keep the things of my former career. I don’t normally show these to the other children I tutor,” she explained. “Would you like to see inside?”

“Yes,” he told her.

Inside there were advertisements for extravagant operas with her name on them, wigs and funny hats, wooden canes and suspenders, pamphlets and newspaper clippings, and more photographs of Carolina in lavish costumes.

“I was a diva,” Carolina said. “Do you know what that is?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“A diva is a great singer. Powerful. My voice had the strongest pitch and widest range in the company.” Carolina closed the trunk and led him back to the sofa. She sat very close to him and placed her arm around his shoulder. “You’re special, Diego.”

“No I’m not, señora,” he said. “I’m not special at all.”

“Of course you are. Why would you think such a thing?”

“I know it,” he confessed. He kept his head down and felt tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ve heard it.”

“Oh?” Carolina asked. “Where did you hear this, Diego?”

He took a deep breath before he spoke, his voice quivering. “My father. He sent me away because I was nothing more than an inconvenience.
And Doña Julia. I heard her tell my grandfather that she doesn’t love me. That she can’t. Just like my father.”

Carolina squeezed his shoulder. She sat back and placed his head on her chest. “You’re anything but an inconvenience. You’re special, Diego. A wonderful boy.”

“But how can you be so sure?” he asked.

She laughed and sat up. She looked him in the face, wiping his tears away. “I was shy as a girl. I was misunderstood. My parents wanted me to be a nun. I grew up faithful, very obedient to them and to God. But then something happened when I was around your age.”

She told him that she discovered her voice. But here, she said, it wasn’t just her ability to sing, but a calling, she explained, a realization that she had a purpose in life that would not involve the church and God.

“I saw myself,” she said. “I understood myself. It was as if I was suddenly standing in a very bright room with a thousand pairs of eyes all on me. Everyone noticed me. And I wasn’t afraid. I felt confident. Sure of myself. It was wonderful.”

“But I’m nothing,” he said.

“No,” she said. “You’re not nothing.” She paused and took a deep breath. “You must have faith in me and in yourself, Diego. Can you? Can you have faith in yourself as I do in you?”

“Yes,” he said. If Carolina believed in him, maybe his grandparents were wrong after all. He raised his head, pushed his shoulders back, and looked her directly in the eye. “I can.”

“Good. Then let’s begin your lesson!” Carolina said, rising now, clapping her hands.

She gave him speeches to memorize, and when he told her he couldn’t read very well, she helped him by reciting them first out loud herself then asking him to repeat her words. Over the next few weeks, he improved. His favorite speeches were those written by Cicero, and reading the epic poems by Homer and Virgil because they were filled with wars and battles, gods and monsters, and journeys to the underworld. Just like Elva’s stories, he thought. Carolina
made for Diego a toga by stitching together strips of fabric and cloth. She made a sash and tied this around his waist and fashioned a crown by weaving together a few leaves and twigs she found outside in the garden. He stood before her, atop a stone bench in the courtyard, reading from the
Aeneid
. He was concentrating hard on the words, letting the speech and emotions overcome him when he heard someone giggle. He looked out and there, standing behind Carolina, was Javier, laughing and shaking his head.

“Hush,” Carolina said to him.

“But he looks like a girl,” Javier said. “Wearing a dress.”

“It’s a toga. It’s what the Romans wore,” she told her son. “Never mind him, Diego.” She clapped her hands three times. “Continue.”

But he couldn’t because Javier kept on snickering and laughing. Diego stopped now, jumped down from the bench, and removed the leaves in his hair.

Carolina rose. “Look what you’ve done,” she said to Javier. “You ruined his concentration.”

“So,” he said, folding his arms.

It was all Diego could think to do. He moved toward Javier and pushed him until he fell back and into a plot of dirt, muddying his trousers and shoes, his face and arms.

“Stop,” Carolina shouted. “Both of you.” She reached out, grabbed Javier, and made him stand. “You both apologize to one another. This minute.”

Javier sighed, wiping away streaks of mud from his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Diego, looking down at the mud where Javier’s handprint had remained.

“Go inside and get cleaned up,” Carolina said.

“Will you help me?” Javier asked.

“I’m with Diego right now. Go.”

He walked away, his head lowered.

She turned to Diego once they were alone and said, “There are always going to be boys like Javier in this world, boys who’ll make fun of you, who’ll ridicule you. But you must not let them distract you. Don’t let them lure you away from your dreams. I never gave up on mine. Even after I married.”