A Corpse for Cuamantla Read online

  Within minutes the boy returned, visibly upset. He pointed to the back gate insisting Miguel follow him into the garden. Puzzled at the urgency of the boy's request, Miguel motioned Anna to monitor the music while he checked on the problem. Minutes later an ashen-faced Miguel returned, seating the boy next to her.

  "Don't let him go anywhere," he said, admonishing the boy to say nothing and talk to no one except the American Maestra.

  "You can explain to her what you saw, but no one else. I'll return shortly. Do as I say," he ordered before heading to the speaker's platform to talk with the officials. The men rose and followed Miguel out of the schoolyard.

  María watched the procession noticing that Miguel avoided eye contact with her. If she hadn't been saddled with the boy and the music, she would have followed the group. Instead, she put her arm around the fidgety child and asked him to tell her what happened.

  "Maestra, something terrible has happened to the Maestro. I found him lying among the roses. I thought he was drunk or maybe sleeping, so I went to wake him and then I saw all the blood under his head. I started to be sick so I ran back here. That's all I know, Maestra, except that I believe the Maestro is dead.

  Anna tried to make sense of the boy's words. "Tell me again what you found," she said, as if repeating the statement might alter the message.

  "The Maestro is dead, Maestra."

  "Which Maestro?"

  "The Maestro Director. Of the morning school."

  "Maestro Pedro García?

  "Sí."

  "Are you sure?"

  "A la verdad, it's true, Maestra."

  "How certain are you that he's dead?"

  "I have seen dead people before, Maestra, and he looks very dead."

  "How did the Maestro die?" she asked. "Could you tell?"

  "I'm not sure. I think he died from all the blood that leaked out of his head."

  Anna felt a wave of nausea wash over her. "Are your parents here, niño?" she asked, queasy at the image conjured up by the boy's vivid description.

  "Sí, Maestra. My mother is over there." He pointed across the courtyard to a group of women sitting in the shade of the lone courtyard tree. "She is the one in the red skirt. My father is working in the railroad offices in Apizaco."

  "You're a brave young man," Anna told the boy, hoping to win his confidence and keep him glued to his seat while she ducked out to find Miguel. "The success of the fiesta depends on you right now," she told her young charge. "When the dancers stop, I want you to turn off this switch, then wait until Maestra María signals you before turning the switch back on. After that, you must stay right here until the Maestro Director and I return. At that time, we'll permit you to rejoin your mother."

  "But Maestra, the Maestro Director will not return until the Day of the Dead. Believe me when I tell you that I have seen the dead and the Maestro Director is one of them."

  "No, no, niño. I mean, Maestro Director Miguel of the afternoon school. When he and I return, you can leave to join your family." She needed to find Miguel and learn what happened. The boy's story was unimaginable. Was there really a hole in Pedro's head or was the boy exaggerating in an effort to explain the blood? Maybe Pedro fell and hit his head on a rock. She remembered the large pointed lava rocks scattered around the rose garden. Lurid images flashed across her brain. She rose to leave, but the boy turned away from the sound equipment and fixed his anxious eyes on her face.

  "Maestra, I think someone shot the Maestro Director and that's what caused the big hole in his head."

  Part II. Grave Concerns

  Chapter 9

  María watched Miguel and the officials leave the courtyard, but her mind was elsewhere. Yolanda's timing couldn't have been better. María could use this morning's humiliation to her advantage. Even the most hostile villager would support her decision to rid herself of Pedro. María thought back to the beginning of their relationship, soon after Pedro ended his ill-advised romance with a local girl by the name of Olivia Sanchez, only nineteen at the time.

  "She wore down my defenses," Pedro insisted, explaining the affair to María. "She chased me until I finally gave in."

  "Oh, you had to give in to her?" María chided.

  "Yes. It was a foolish mistake, but at the time I was lonely and it clouded my thinking. You know how that feels." She did know, which partly explained her involvement with Pedro.

  "I realized my mistake quickly," Pedro admitted. "After only a couple of months."

  "Before or after you had your eye on me?" María asked. He never answered directly.

  "I tried to end the relationship gently," he said, "but then she told me she was pregnant. I knew the baby wasn't mine. I'm not that foolish."

  "Oh yes, I believe you about that, my dear Pedro. You're good at protecting yourself." Her sarcasm wasn't lost on him.

  "I'm confessing everything to you, lovely woman, please have a heart."

  "Go on," María said, wanting a clearer understanding of his foolish predicament.

  "The girl expected me to ‘behave honorably,' buy her a house in the village and support her and the baby. I found out about her boyfriend and realized I'd been set up. When I told her to go to hell she went to her parents. And you know the rest."

  The affair resulted in a furor, and the villagers' wrath hadn't abated. Pedro told everyone the child couldn't be his and he had no intention of supporting the girl let alone divorcing his wife to marry her. He went so far as to suggest the girl should pursue one of two sensible solutions, marry her boyfriend or get an abortion in Mexico City. If the latter, he would make the arrangements and foot the bill.

  Pedro's suggestion incensed Olivia's parents. Antonia Sanchez, the girl's mother, emerged devastated and the father unforgiving, complicated by the girl's long-time boyfriend who claimed Pedro offended his honor. Pedro openly disdained the boy's complaint telling everyone the couple set out to trick him and insisting the child belonged to the boyfriend who, he suggested, should worry more about the girl and his baby than his bogus sense of honor.

  Pedro was relentless in his own defense, spurred on by a sense of outrage over what he perceived to be a personal injustice. Antagonizing him most was the impudence of the young pair who attempted to use his own weaknesses against him. Pedro was not accustomed to playing the role of victim. In truth, he was lucky to have survived with his life in a place where people took the law into their own hands, and Pedro wasn't so naïve as to not realize it.

  To Pedro's great relief, the parents sent the girl to Mexico City to live with relatives. Some villagers, spurred on by the parents tried to blame the outcome on María, whose only fault was to become involved with Pedro at an inopportune time. Unfortunately for María, she provided the girl's supporters with a convenient new scapegoat, one more vulnerable than the brash Director. The vendetta against Pedro now encompassed her, fueled as it was by her new car and fat bank account, the price she paid for earning a good living amid the poverty that characterized villages like Cuamantla.

  §

  Dominoes champ Enrico Salinas, a fourth grade teacher in Pedro's morning primary school, watched Miguel's entourage exit the schoolyard and wondered if their departure had anything to do with Pedro's disappearance. Enrico was no fan of Pedro's. Nor did he care much for Tomás Bello the visiting union official who showed up at Rosa's for breakfast with the teachers, and Enrico had good reasons for disliking both men.

  At the beginning of the school year, Enrico sought a second teaching position, which meant applying for an additional teaching plaza. Pointing to his union contacts, Pedro agreed to help for a small fee. Compensation for efficient service is the way Pedro explained it.

  Unknown to Enrico, union official Tomás Bello and Pedro were collaborating on a scheme to collect bribe money from teachers in need of extra plazas. Pedro recruited, Bello facilitated, and together they extorted more and more money from teachers who fell prey to their scheme. From Enrico's point of view, union officials could be excused because
bribes came with the territory. Pedro, on the other hand, should have known better than to steal from his friends.

  §

  Tomás Bello carried his own grudge against Pedro. Their grand scheme to enrich themselves at the expense of the teachers ended when Pedro's friend Enrico Salinas contacted the Education Department in Tlaxcala and filed a complaint against the pair. When Bello learned of the matter, he took out his fury on Pedro for his poor choice of clients. Pedro remained nonplussed, even refusing to turn over his share of the money to Bello and blaming him for the failure. Pedro could always scam a scammer and in most cases his victims only got what they deserved, but Bello had no intention of remaining Pedro's victim. He would reap his revenge one way or another.

  Chapter 10

  Yolanda sat alone in Pedro's house in Cuamantla listening to the sounds of the fiesta. She was not in a festive mood. The gossip about Pedro had reached her ears through the teachers' union grapevine, accurate down to the color of his mistress's car.

  Yolanda's only surprise was her reaction. She stopped off at the church to calm herself before her planned showdown with Pedro and she remained unruffled until she walked outside and spotted the red car. The sight of two children jumping up and down in the back seat caused a fury to rise within her. Neither Pedro nor the woman noticed her as they drove past. They seemed to be arguing, but Yolanda didn't care. She emerged from the shadows into the sunlight, watched the car and its bouncing inhabitants drive through the zócalo and park in the sandy strip of road behind Rosa's kitchen. She knew where to find Pedro and she knew how to create a scene.

  This wasn't the first time Pedro had strayed and Yolanda could deal with the issue of another woman. She had someone new herself and they were starting a life together once she settled matters with Pedro. In the past, she weathered the humiliations that attended Pedro's indiscretions by taking vengeance in her own way, but the thought of another woman's children replacing Pedro's only son and making claims on Pedro's resources was beyond her endurance.

  Yolanda wanted a divorce, but she needed resources to send the boy to medical school. He wasn't meant to suffer the fate of his parents, teaching school in some god-forsaken pueblo where the electricity operated sporadically and the potable water flowed if and when the water officials decided to report for work. She worried about Pedro's commitment to the boy's education, which prompted the trip to Cuamantla. She wanted to confront Pedro in public, find out exactly where he spent his money and why his support checks were fewer and farther between. When Pedro's parents inquired about the reason for her trip, she told them she missed Pedro. In fact, she rarely thought about him except when his checks arrived or failed to arrive. No, her trip was a mission, but then everything fell apart.

  Once she and Pedro reached the house after their public brawl, Pedro attempted a truce of sorts.

  "We both want a divorce," he said, "so let's proceed with this in a sensible manner. I'll help with the boy's education, but medical school is out. It's a pipe dream. You both need to forget about it."

  "He's smart, he can do it," Yolanda said. "He just needs financial support and you can provide it. It's the least you can do for him."

  "I can't raise that kind of money legally," Pedro replied.

  Yolanda scoffed. "As if that's ever mattered to you in the past."

  "Not a risk I'm willing to take," Pedro said. "I'm older and wiser now."

  Yolanda remained adamant. No divorce unless he took actions that guaranteed her son's future. Without such support their son would be sentenced to living the campesino life, struggling to make ends meet in a barren and unyielding land. She clearly intended to prevent such an outcome, a message not lost on Pedro. In the next instant, he changed his tune. Asked her not to worry, promised to find money to support the boy. They could divorce amicably since a breakup served both their interests.

  Yolanda didn't believe him. She reflected on the last few hours, beginning with the moment she and her current lover arrived at the house in the dark of the previous evening, knowing Pedro would be gone. She thought about her plan right up to the moment Pedro had left the house after their argument, believing she'd bought his lies. Pedro should know she wasn't that dumb. If she allowed him a divorce on his terms she would lose her hold over him, lose all claim to the money she needed for the boy, lose the benefits that Mexican law provided a wife, or a widow. Yolanda couldn't let that happen because in the end Pedro would abandon the boy just like he abandoned her. She needed more than Pedro's promises and Pedro needed to pay for the years of misery she spent as the wife of so dishonorable a man.

  Chapter 11

  The family of Arnulfo Sánchez gathered around the aging pine table in the middle of their stone courtyard. The small patio separated their adobe kitchen from the three-room concrete-block house where the family worked and slept. The six family members sat quietly listening to the tinny strains of the primary school band disappearing into the distance, a phenomenon noted with varying degrees of interest by those present.

  "Come along, Mamá," Arnulfo entreated his wife, "wipe away your tears and join the school festivities. You heard your son. If Francisco tells you the Director has not joined the parade, then the Director has not joined the parade. Is it surprising? No. He's ashamed to show his face. The whole village knows about the embarrassing fiasco with his wife this morning. The man is without honor, that should please you."

  Antonia Sánchez sat motionless, rigid as the rocks under her feet.

  "¡Caramba, mujer!" her husband exclaimed. "You can't let this dog ruin your life. It's fiesta time! ¡Vámanos! Let's join the festivities. Forget your grief and rejoin the land of the living. I implore you woman as your faithful spouse of twenty-five years. Do this for me."

  Antonia lifted her sullen eyes, glancing momentarily at Arnulfo while he continued his pleading. She knew him to be an unpredictable man and wondered what prompted his festive mood hours before the drinking officially began.

  "I'll go with you," she submitted, "but first tell me the results of your meeting with our compadre, the Municipal President."

  Arnulfo grinned. "I was keeping it a surprise for later, for that time between the blankets when a husband could be shown proper gratitude for avenging the honor of his family!" He stroked the top of his wife's head as though she were a small child. Obviously pleased with himself, he surveyed his sons for approval. The two boys, seventeen-year old Francisco, and his older brother, nodded solemnly. Their teenage sisters blushed at their father's suggestive comments and looked away.

  "Then out with it." Vibrancy returned to Antonia's voice with such vigor the whole family jumped to attention. Lately, her moods came and went varying with the degree to which she had contact with the school officials, or which favor she wished to wangle from her feckless husband. Until he settled the score with the school Director, her poor husband would know no peace.

  The family's social standing in the community had suffered a serious blow as a result of their elder daughter Olivia's unwise liaison with the despicable Morning School Director. The only bright spot seemed to be her boyfriend. He continued to show an interest in both her and the child who, Antonia reasoned pragmatically, might be his offspring as easily as that of the despised Director. In her heart of hearts, she couldn't say for sure and neither, she guessed, could her daughter.

  The boyfriend even moved with her to Mexico City, but as long as the Director remained in the village the couple couldn't return to marry officially or to assume their rightful place among the boy's family. To make matters worse, the boy's father, an important official in an adjoining barrio, was deeply distressed over their children's troubles.

  "Tell me which grand solution have you found this time for ridding my sight of the coyote of a Director who pretends to be a leader of children but is only fit to lead dogs?" Antonia spit the question at her husband. If she meant to challenge his manhood Arnulfo chose to ignore the implication, if he even noticed.

  "Calm yourself, woma
n. This time the solution is a permanent one. Our compadre met with an important official from the teacher's union in Tlaxcala and for a small price, he has agreed to transfer the Director out of town. The Director will go to some snake pit of a school in one of the Indian villages where the women are not so attractive nor the amenities so pleasurable. Now, does that not satisfy your desire for revenge?"

  Arnulfo strutted across the patio detailing the Director's proposed banishment by the education officials. The news disconcerted Antonia momentarily. True, she wanted nothing more than to avenge the Director's mistreatment of her daughter. Nevertheless, she was shrewdly vexed at the prospect of losing this new means of control over her husband, which months earlier so fortuitously arrived at her disposal. On the other hand, retaliation would rejuvenate her and a clever woman she knew, could always dream up new ways to manipulate her spouse.

  "And from which thriving enterprise of yours," she said, "will the small price come to pay the esteemed official in Tlaxcala? From the barren corn fields surrounding these courtyard walls, which even the birds have abandoned? Or, perhaps from that pitiful stack of knitted sweaters resting beside the loom, delayed in their trip to market until fingers more nimble than mine can attach the sleeves and pockets?"

  Undaunted by her sarcasm, Arnulfo answered with characteristic bravado. "I've spoken with several of our compadres and they've agreed to contribute to our just cause in order to restore pride to our community. The people in our fine village are offended by the arrogance and irresponsibility of the Director and the poor example he sets for our children. Like us, they're willing to pay for his removal."

  Antonia persisted. "I've seen the pockets of our compadres when we women launder clothes at the river. Like yours, they're empty of pesos. Like you, they're good men, sincere in their desire to help, but their families are large and their pocketbooks small. The pesos they collect for your cause will be meager and fall short of satisfying the officials. Then what will you do?"