Bless Me, Ultima(87)

“Lord—” I whispered, still seeking God’s voice.

“Dumb ass,” Ernie poked me, “you got everybody mixed up!”

“Damn! I nearly choked!” Bones whimpered through watery eyes.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I had just swallowed Him, He must be in there! For a moment, on the altar railing, I thought I had felt His warmth, but then everything moved so fast. There wasn’t time just to sit and discover Him, like I could do when I sat on the creek bank and watched the golden carp swim in the sun-filtered waters.

God! Why did Lupito die?

Why do you allow the evil of the Trementinas?

Why did you allow Narciso to be murdered when he was doing good?

Why do you punish Florence? Why doesn’t he believe?

Will the golden carp rule—?

A thousand questions pushed through my mind, but the Voice within me did not answer. There was only silence. Perhaps I had not prepared right. I opened my eyes. On the altar the priest was cleaning the chalice and the platters. The mass was ending, the fleeting mystery was already vanishing.

“Did you feel anything?” I urgently asked Lloyd and clutched his arm.

“I feel hungry,” Lloyd answered.

My own stomach rumbled from the morning fast and I simply nodded. I glanced around, trying to find in someone’s face or eyes the answer that had escaped me. There was nothing, only the restlessness to get home to breakfast.

We were standing now, the priest was talking to us. He said something about being Christians now, and how it was our duty to remind our parents to contribute to the collection box every Sunday so that the new school building could be built and sisters could come to teach us.

I called again to the God that was within me, but there was no answer. Only emptiness. I turned and looked at the statue of the Virgin. She was smiling, her outstretched arms offering forgiveness to all.

“Ite, missa est,” the priest said.

“Deo gratis,” the choir sang back and the people stood to leave.

It was over.





Veinte


After Easter I went to confession every Saturday and on Sunday morning I took communion  , but I was not satisfied. The God I so eagerly sought was not there, and the understanding I thought to gain was not there. The bad blood of spring filled us with strange yearnings and tumult, and the boys from Los Jaros split off from the boys from town and there were gang fights. Since I was not from across the tracks or from town, I was caught in the middle.

“It’s all part of growing up, Anthony,” Miss Violet told me one afternoon after school when I stayed to help her.

“Growing up is not easy sometimes,” I said. She smiled. “I will come to see you next year when school begins,” I told her.

“That would be nice,” she said and touched my head. “What will you do this summer—”

I wanted to tell her that I was searching for something, but sometimes I didn’t even know what it was I sought. I would see the golden carp, but I couldn’t tell her about that. “Play,” I answered, “fish, take care of my animals, and go to El Puerto to learn about farming from my uncles—”

“Do you want to become a farmer?” she asked. It was difficult to leave her, but outside I would hear the clamor of the departing kids. I had to get home.

“I don’t know,” I said, “it’s part of the thing I must learn about myself. There are so many dreams to be fulfilled, but Ultima says a man’s destiny must unfold itself like a flower, with only the sun and the earth and water making it blossom, and no one else meddling in it—”

“She must be a wise woman—” Miss Violet said. I looked at her and saw that she was tired, and somehow she seemed older. Perhaps we were all older.

“Yes,” I said. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” she smiled and waved after me.

I ran very hard, so that by the time I was at the bridge I was exhausted. My lungs were bursting with clean air and my heart was pounding, still I had the nerve to call out a challenge to the Kid.

“Raaaaaaaaaaaaa-ssssss…” I shouted. He was walking with Ida. I had never seen the Vitamin Kid walking before, but there he was, just starting across the bridge, side by side with Ida. I raced by him and called the challenge again. I put all I had into that race, I ran as hard as I could, but the Kid never passed me. I reached the end of the bridge and turned to look back. Through watering eyes I saw the Kid and Ida, still walking side by side across the bridge! Andrew said that someday I would beat the Kid across, I remembered. But there was no sweetness to the victory, instead I felt that something good had ended.

In a way I felt relieved school was over. I had more time to spend with Ultima, and in her company I found a great deal of solace and peace. This was more than I had been able to find at church or with the kids at school. The llano had come alive with spring, and it was comforting to walk in the hills and see the new birth take root and come-alive-green. But even in the new season and in the hills there were ominous signs. We found tracks near the junipers that surrounded the house. I asked Ultima about them and she laughed and said it was someone out hunting rabbits, but I saw how she studied the footprints carefully and then took a dry juniper branch and erased the prints in the sand. And at night I heard the owl cry in warning, not the soft rhythmic song we were so used to, but cries of alarm.