The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (119 page)

Back in Tuxtla the authorities would begin to search for Alegría after she failed to appear at the church for Menardo’s funeral. The police chief and the general would issue bulletins to locate her for “questioning.” The federal police would find the Mercedes parked at the airport in Oaxaca. They would lose her trail in Culiacán, and neither the police chief nor the general wanted to trouble himself further except to issue alerts to customs officials on all flights departing to foreign cities. They were happy to be rid of her; whatever funny business had gone on between Menardo and the Americans or Menardo’s wife and the communists, the police chief and the general both wanted to keep it confidential. The increased unrest in countries to the south had only added to the burden of providing protection and security in Tuxtla. The general wanted no scandal at a time when Universal Insurance and Security was about to make him even more rich than before.

Sometime in the night Alegría had felt the bus turn off the pavement to a gravel road. At dawn the bus stopped, and Alegría saw four men standing by a pickup truck. One of them was Mario, who appeared to be angry and shouting at the others. Alegría washed up in the ladies’ closet-size toilet; as she combed her hair, she imagined how good a shower would feel. She heard someone vomit in the other bus toilet and decided fresh air and a walk might help.

Mario the travel agent was all smiles as Alegría stepped down from the bus steps; he snapped his fingers at one of the men near the pickup,
and instantly Alegría had a paper cup full of hot coffee. She could feel cool breezes stir as the sun climbed over the horizon; Alegría shivered. She was not accustomed to the dryness of the air or the chill of the desert night. Jungle was either moist or moister; either warm or warmer. The jungle was lush, its vegetation seemed to promise all-around protection and plenty; the desert was all distance and exposure and emptiness—dry, gray foothills ascended flat, blue mountain ranges that ended in jagged peaks.

Mario’s deluxe luxury tours. Mario handed out paper cups filled from quart tins of orange and pineapple juice. The bus hostesses served coffee boiled over the campfire by the truck. The Salvadorians were sick with hangovers and asked for medicine. Mario had produced a large bottle of aspirin, but apologized for his helpers, who had remembered cups, sugar, orange juice, coffee, pineapple juice—everything but the breakfast pastries. That was all right because they had plenty of coffee and juice for everyone.

ALEGRÍA LOOKED around to see if she could locate any indication of the international border. The foothills were scattered with dark volcanic rocks the size of fists, yet the underlying ground was curiously hard and white, volcanic ash packed hard as concrete. The Salvadorian women pretended to be afraid to step from the bus to the hard gray desert in their high heels and party dresses, but they had already seen how easily Alegría had walked in the desert in her high heels.

Mario instructed everyone to remove their purses and other carry-on items from the tour bus, which was due back in the city. While his assistants refilled cups with juice or coffee, the travel agent explained that the sumptuous new motor homes bought expressly for this tour had had minor difficulty negotiating a steep ravine down the road. Fortunately this would be no problem at all because they would simply walk a short distance where they would find the motor homes and drivers waiting for them on the U.S. side of the border. The group would be
reunited with their luggage and other belongings, and the motor homes would then depart, but in five different directions, with one bound for San Diego, another for Los Angeles, and the others to Phoenix, Tucson, and El Paso.

After the tour bus had disappeared, the only sound had been the men arguing behind the pickup truck. Mario acknowledged the men with a smile and wave of his hand; Indian guides—no one knew the desert better. Nowadays they didn’t want to work; they only wanted money. The travel agent glanced at the sun still low in the eastern sky but already heating the dry air. Time to get under way; otherwise they would keep the drivers in the motor homes waiting with the engines and air conditioners running needlessly. He nodded to the guides, then slid behind the wheel of the pickup and started the engine for the trip back to Culiacán.

Good-bye, Mexico! Alegría was not sorry to walk across that invisible line because, bless her, poor Mother Mexico had been gang-raped by the world. Alegría knew she had been destined for the luxuries and refinements of life, and she was not sorry to leave behind the sadness and the mess. Mexico would only become more violent. Alegría was sad for Mexico, but she had watched Bartolomeo and the Marxists struggle to teach the people and it was hopeless; there was nothing to be done. The masses were naturally lazy everywhere, and they often starved; that was nature. Her destiny had always been different; she had tempted fate by associating with university radicals. Bartolomeo had been Alegría’s peculiar weakness, but even he had not been able to stop her. She had stepped across the threshold to her new life in the United States. She could not think anymore about Mexico. She was almost within reach of Sonny Blue. Sonny had been all she had allowed herself to think or dream about on the tour bus. She had put aside all damaging thoughts or fears. The police chief and the others had bigger fish located closer, if they wanted someone to fry.

The foothills were broken by wide, sandy washes and gray basalt boulders as big as motor homes; around every curve and over each rise Alegría had visualized five shiny new motor homes waiting for them. If not over the first or second foothill, then behind those boulders up ahead a little farther. At any moment Alegría expected the blinding reflections of the sun flashing wildly off the windshields and mirrors of the motor homes. Walking agreed with Alegría. She imagined how she would design the gardens for the new home she would build in Tucson.

The volcanic ash packed firmly under the heels of Alegría’s shoes.
Concrete or pavement were not always necessary; she wanted her rock garden to appear to be a natural desert landscape. Perhaps she might have a knack for landscape architecture too. Alegría stopped to look around. The sun was still climbing and the dry desert air was pleasantly warm. The tour had broken into four groups: the Indian guides walked a distance ahead, then the men; Alegría followed with the other women; and last came the five Salvadorian couples, who were complaining loudly and calling at the guides to stop. Tempers were short. Where were the motor homes? How much farther must they walk? The Salvadorian husbands shouted angrily and began to fling pebbles at the guides, who ignored them and kept walking.

Alegría had observed that treacherous chauffeur Tacho long enough to know when Indians were going to make trouble, and her heart had beat faster when she saw the three guides disappear over a hill. Behind the hill must be the motor homes and drivers. As she neared the summit, a sudden gust of wind had chilled the sweat on her neck and scalp. A moment later as she stood on the hilltop, she realized what had happened. There were no motor homes and drivers waiting for them; there never had been; the Indian guides had been instructed to abandon them.

The guides had carried away all the drinking water in their big backpacks. The four Mexicans still clutched their briefcases, but they were not much farther ahead of her now. She wondered why, in this heat, they did not remove their sport coats to make covers for their heads against the intense sun. Alegría stopped to look at the others behind her; they had all drunk too much of Mario’s free liquor the night before. The Salvadorians appeared to have the worst hangovers; the young husbands in their tuxedos were far behind, almost as far back as their wives, who still wore last night’s party dresses and high heel shoes. Alegría had wished she had a camera then for a snapshot; otherwise no one she told would ever believe this had happened.

Alegría had snapped the high heels off her shoes after the second hill. She had been mistaken about the sun in the North. To hear those fools along the equator talk, no sun was more fierce than theirs; but they had never seen skies seared white above the parched earth. This northern sun smoldered fiercely for hours above a red horizon before it disappeared only briefly.

Alegría argued with the voice of panic inside her head. Over the next hill they would find the motor homes and drivers waiting with the guides in the shade. The voice of panic was understandable in view of the strain Alegría had been under since Menardo had been killed. This
tour company had been highly recommended; traveler safety had been one of Mario’s big selling points. Alegría adjusted the pink nylon un-derslip she was wearing on her head to prevent sunstroke. The Salvadorian husbands were carrying their wives piggyback now. The men had covered their heads with their jackets, and then the women had copied Alegría and wore underskirts on their heads. Just over the next hill and they’d be home-free; ice-cold beer and ice-cold water waited. They would take cool showers and rest in the air-conditioning of the motor homes.

Alegría soon overtook the four Mexicans. They had sunburnt their faces before they had removed their jackets to cover their heads. They were standing on the big gray hill Alegría had nicknamed the Elephant’s Ass. Alegría used silly, funny words to keep her mind off the heat and to keep herself moving. Elephant’s Ass was a good name all right because that had been exactly where they were: a place where only shit could rain down. From the grayish clay hilltop they were able to look out over a vast barren plain that wobbled like a mirage in the waves of heat rising. Up the Elephant’s Ass and into the Blast Furnace. There were no more hills to hide the air-conditioned motor homes and drivers or the three Indian guides; there were only miles and miles of pale, arid plains broken by odd black volcanic formations and scattered with volcanic rocks.

Alegría looked at the faces of the four Mexicans. They had begun to realize they had been abandoned. One of the four kept muttering, “This has never happened before”; he was one of Mario’s satisfied customers. He had made the journey twice before and nothing like this had ever happened. “This is
not
right!” the Mexican said forcefully; even the route they had taken this time was unfamiliar. “Why tamper with success!” the Mexican had repeated until one of the others told him to shut up. The other three men had grim expressions on their faces; Alegría saw they believed Mario had abandoned them deliberately. All along Mario had been setting them up for this big one. Mario had safely delivered them and their “goods” across the U.S. border a number of times to gain their trust. But Mario would not get away with it. “Too many of our families know,” the man said, wiping his face across the sleeve of his white shirt. “He won’t get away with this!”

Alegría thought it must be the heat; she burst out laughing at the four Mexicans and their threats of what they were going to do to Mario when they caught him. She told them if they didn’t get out of the sun, they were all going to die. They had to find shade and rest until the sun
went down; then they had to find water. She knew the highway should lie parallel with them and to the west. After dark, they’d walk in the sandy wash because the night air was cooler in the wash, walking was easier. The four men stared at Alegría in a daze; they were not accustomed to Mexican women making decisions without men. They nodded and moved slowly down the hillside to the dry wash to find shade. Alegría looked back at the others. The Salvadorians were moving again, but in slow motion; the husbands no longer carried their wives. They had broken the high heels off the women’s shoes too late, and the women’s feet had become too blistered and swollen for shoes. Alegría saw six of them huddled together under a shade canopy they’d created by hanging sport coats and petticoats on the branches of tall yucca plants. If they stayed under the makeshift shade by the yucca plant, they might survive; but the best bet was the dry wash where the temperatures were a few degrees cooler, and the steep clay banks of the arroyo provided good shade. Below her, Alegría saw two Salvadorian men about to pass the others huddled under the shade by the yucca. Alegría considered for an instant returning to tell the Salvadorians and the others about the dry wash on the other side of the hill. But the voice of panic whispered she must conserve her own strength or she’d die in the desert too, with the rest of them. They were silly, ridiculous people anyway, those bourgeois Salvadorians and Mexicans; they wouldn’t listen to a woman either.

Alegría sank into the cool shade of the steep north bank of the arroyo. She tried not to think about water; the coolness of the shade refreshed almost like a sip of cold water. The shade and coolness in the arroyo must have revived the four Mexicans because when Alegría awoke later, the men were gone and Alegría found four sets of fresh footprints following the arroyo west. Men always had to be first; let them go. Before any of the others straggled into the arroyo, Alegría had made certain she could not be seen, then had reached inside her blouse and under her skirt to make sure her money belt was securely fastened. Mario and his thugs could have her trunks and suitcases full of “art” Menardo’s first wife had collected, but the emeralds and the safe-deposit keys in the money belt were a different matter; anyone who wanted the belt would have to kill Alegría first.