Part 77 (1/2)

”More! I need more! I've been holding it, now I need to spend it.”

”You have one more peso?” she asked.

”I have nothing!”

She started rocking again and reached down and took hold of the cross I wore. ”A beautiful necklace. I'm sure the madam would let you have me all night for this.”

”No!” I slapped her hands away from it. I could feel the stirring in my pene, the power building up, ready to gush. ”It belonged to my mother,” I moaned, thrusting.

”Perhaps G.o.d wants me to have it. My own son had one like it.”

”Ask him for his.”

”I haven't seen him in years. He lives in Veracruz,” she panted.

”I lived in Veracruz. What's his name?”

”Cristobal.”

”My name is Cristo-”

She stopped cold and stared down at me. I stopped thrusting and stared up at her. Two dark eyes in the mask stared down at me. The volcano between my legs was shaking my whole body, ready to erupt and pour lava into her.

”Cristobal!” she screamed.

She leapt off the bed and ran from the room. I lay numb, my volcano slowly shrinking. Maria. My mother's Christian name was Maria.

I struggled into my clothes and staggered out of the room to find Mateo. My mind and body were in the grip of a growing sense of horror.

EIGHTY-FOUR.

I left the House of the Seven Angels feeling cold and depressed. Mateo was waiting for me in the courtyard. He sat on the edge of the fountain, flipping his dagger. His face told the story of his luck.

”I lost the horse. When the madam finds out he's lame, she'll send her underlings to rip off my privates, stick them in my mouth, and sew my lips shut.” He noticed my dejected state. What had occurred was too horrible to reveal, too heinous to share even with a good friend, too infamous to acknowledge even to myself.

He slapped me on the back. ”Don't feel so bad. Tell me the truth. You could not get your garrancha up, eh? Don't worry, compadre. Tonight you could not get your sword up, but tomorrow, I swear, when a woman pa.s.ses within ten feet of you, your sword will reach out of your pants and slip into her.”

Morning came and I stayed in my hard bed in my stinking room, refusing to leave, hoping that miasma from the stables would kill me. I had found my mother and then-no! It was too awful to think about. She had not seen me since I was a young boy. Today, I was just a bearded young stranger to her, but a good son would have recognized his own mother. Like Oedipus, I was d.a.m.ned and doomed, tricked by the G.o.ds, and deserved only to stick needles into my eyes and spend my days as a blind beggar, tormented by my sins.

Midday I sent a servant to the House of Seven Angeles to ascertain the price of Miaha's freedom. The servant returned with news that the woman had fled during the night, leaving the madam unpaid for her bond debt.

There would be no use searching for her on the streets of the city; she would not be foolish enough to run from her legal bond master and stay around the city. Besides the horror of the act we had committed, my appearance in her life would have ignited anew the troubles that had driven us from the hacienda when I was a boy. As an india, she could disappear forever into the land.

Among his many babblings, Fray Antonio claimed I had no mother. From that I took it to mean that Maria was not my mother. But last night she had claimed me as her son. Ay de mi! I felt so miserable.

Late in the next afternoon Mateo took me to go to the Alameda. ”The don's horses are well enough for pulling a carriage or working cattle, but we can't ride such animals on the Alameda. We would be laughed off of the green.”

”Then what will we do?”