THE LAST TIME he was to see her was in the same corner room on the second floor of the Dos Mundos. He watched from the window and saw her pay the driver and he went to the door so that he could watch her come up the stairs. He held her hands while she sat half breathless on the edge of the bed.
Estás bien? he said.
Sí, she said. Creo que sí.
He asked was she sure she had not changed her mind.
No, she said. Y tú?
Nunca.
Me quieres?
Para siempre. Y tú?
Hasta el fin de mi vida.
Pues eso es todo.
She said that she had tried to pray for them but that she could not.
Porqué no?
No sé. Creí que Dios no me oiría.
El oirá. Reza el domingo. Dile que es importante.
They made love and lay with her curled against him and not moving but breathing very quietly against his side. He did not know if she was awake but he told her the things about his life that he had not told her. He told her about working for the hacendado at Cuatro Ciénegas and about the man’s daughter and the last time he saw her and about being in the prison in Saltillo and about the scar on his face that he had promised to tell her about and never had. He told her about seeing his mother on stage at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio Texas and about the times that he and his father used to ride in the hills north of San Angelo and about his grandfather and the ranch and the Comanche trail that ran through the western sections and how he would ride that trail in the moonlight in the fall of the year when he was a boy and the ghosts of the Comanches would pass all about him on their way to the other world again and again for a thing once set in motion has no ending in this world until the last witness has passed.
The shadows were long in the room before they left. He told her that the driver Gutiérrez would pick her up at the cafe in la Calle de Noche Triste and take her to the other side. He would have with him the documents necessary for her to cross.
Todo está arreglado, he said.
She held his hands more tightly. Her dark eyes studied him. He told her that there was nothing to fear. He said that Ramón was their friend and that the papers were arranged and that no harm would come to her.
Él te recogerá a las siete por la mañana. Tienes que estar allí en punto.
Estaré allí.
Quédate adentro hasta que él llegue.
Sí, sí.
No le digas nada a nadie.
No. Nadie.
No puedes traer nada contigo.
Nada?
Nada.
Tengo miedo, she said.
He held her. Dont be afraid, he said.
They sat very quietly. Down in the street the vendors had begun to call. She pressed her face against his shoulder.
Hablan los sacerdotes español? she said.
Sí. Ellos hablan español.
Quiero saber, she said, si crees hay perdón de pecados.
He opened his mouth to speak but she put her hand to his lips. Lo que crees en tu corazón, she said.
He stared past her dark and shining hair toward the deepening dusk in the streets of the city. He thought about what he believed and what he did not believe. After a while he said that he believed in God even if he was doubtful of men’s claims to know God’s mind. But that a God unable to forgive was no God at all.
Cualquier pecado?
Cualquier. Sí.
Sin excepción de nada? She pushed her hand against his lips a second time. He kissed her fingers and took her hand away.
Con la excepción de desesperación, he said. Para eso no hay remedio.
Lastly she asked if he would love her all his life and she’d have touched her fingers to his mouth but he held her hand. No tengo que pensarlo, he said. Sí. Para todo mi vida.
She took his face in her hands and kissed him. Te amo, she said. Y seré tu esposa.
She rose and turned and held his hands. Debo irme, she said. He stood and put his arms around her and kissed her there in the darkening room. He would have walked her down the hallway to the head of the stairs but she stopped him at the door and kissed him and said goodbye. He listened to her steps in the stairwell. He went to the window to watch for her but she must have gone along the street beneath him because he could not see her. He sat on the bed in the empty room and listened to the sounds of all that alien commerce in the world outside. He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could ever have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his own doing. The room was dark and the neon hotel sign had come on outside and after a while he rose and took his hat from the chair by the bed and put it on and went out and down the stairs.
AT THE INTERSECTION the cab stopped. A small man with a black crape armband stepped into the street and raised his hand and the cabdriver took off his hat and set it on the dashboard. The girl leaned forward to see. She could hear trumpets muted in the street, the clop of hooves.