Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
The tears continued streaming down Domingo’s face, and Salvador took his older, bigger brother in his arms, and they held each other in a big abrazo for a long, long time.
“So, then, you’re okay?” asked Salvador.
“I’m more than okay!” said Domingo with power! “They feed us good three times a day, ’cause we now got a head Mexican cook, and we got a good roof over our head that don’t leak. I swear, for the first time in all my life I feel, like, well, I’m alive, Salvador! And the future is good!” he said, pounding his chest. “Here, inside my heart and soul! And you tell mama that when I get out, I’m going to find my children that I left scattered to the winds like a dog, and I’m going to make mi casa! For now I really do see con todo mi corazón that God loves me! He does, and I’m going to be un hombre de los buenos from now on! Hell, we’re good people, Salvador,” he added. “If we can turn a prison around like this, imagine what we could do for this whole pinchi country!”
Laughing, Salvador wiped his eyes. “I’ll tell mama,” he said. “And she’s going to be so proud of you!”
“Good,” said Domingo, “it’s about time, damnit!”
And so they hugged again, corazón-a-corazón, feeling more love for each other than they’d ever felt before!
DRIVING BACK THAT AFTERNOON, Salvador tried to explain to Fred Noon all that Domingo had told him. But it was difficult, especially the part about the Angels and the Light of God.
Finally, Fred Noon just said, “Stop talking to me in English, Sal. Hell, there’s no way a man can talk about milagros and angels in English without sounding silly.”
“Hey, I think you’re right,” said Salvador, and so he switched over to Spanish and the whole story instantly became much easier to believe and understand.
Noon had been right, there was really no way a person could talk in English about miracles and angels without sounding, well, kind of phony, or holier-than-thou.
Hearing the whole thing in Spanish, Fred was stunned. “My God,” he said, “no wonder they won’t let out a peep. Do you realize what this means, Sal? If word ever gets out, there’s going to be rioting in every prison across the entire country.” He took a big breath. “Mark my words, Salvador, your brother is right, the truth cannot be kept secret for very long. Entire social upheaval is going to start happening everywhere. Like it or not, this country is going to be forced to start living up to its own ideals; of the people, for the people, the land of the free.”
And so feeling ten feet tall, Fred Noon and Salvador drank coffee and whiskey the whole way back to Southern California, and they talked and laughed and became even better amigos. They, too, were now both rooted in the reality of the Light of God, a Doorway once opened, then All was Possible within the Miraculous Wonders of Creation!
LUPE WAS AT HER PARENTS’ HOUSE in Santa Ana. Salvador had dropped her off a few days before, and ever since that time, Lupe had been talking non-stop with her mother, asking her mother all kinds of questions, like how had she, Lupe, been born, and how had her mother felt during the pregnancy.
“Well, tell me, mama” said Lupe, “how did you and papa get along when you first married?”
“Mi hijita,” said Doña Guadalupe, “are you trying to tell me that you think you’re pregnant already?”
Lupe’s whole face flushed.
They were on the front porch, overlooking the street. It was midafter-noon. Lupe’s brother, Victoriano, and her sister Carlota still hadn’t come in from working in the fields. Lupe’s father, Don Victor, had gone for his afternoon walk around the neighborhood.
Lupe had been shocked to see how much her parents had aged when Salvador had first dropped her off. Why, her parents had really gotten old in the month and a half that she’d been away. She’d never noticed that her father stooped, looking almost hunchback, and that her mother had all this loose skin hanging below her chin on her neck.
Lupe had almost been embarrassed to look at them at first, for fear that they might read her thoughts.
Taking a deep breath, Lupe nodded. “Yes, mama,” she said, “I think that I might be pregnant.”
The old woman’s eyes exploded with excitement, and she looked at her young daughter—this baby of the family—and she was overjoyed with gusto. “Oh, mi hijita, mi hijita,” said the old Yaqui Indian lady, “but why didn’t you just tell me when you first got here?”
“Because, well, I don’t know . . . but I haven’t told anyone yet, not even Salvador,” said Lupe. “And why, I don’t know, but it’s almost like I don’t want to share this feeling I have here inside of me with anyone. You’re the first person I’ve told, mama,” added Lupe.
Doña Guadalupe marveled at her daughter’s words. “Oh, this is exactly how I felt with my first pregnancy, too, mi hijita.”
“Really?” said Lupe.
“Yes, of course,” said her mother. “Remember, querida, that for us, the women, so much of our life’s work is done quietly, almost invisibly. We make love, and from the man’s seed life is planted here, inside us, to grow a child like the land grows maiz. Truly, un milagro de Dios! This is our sacred destiny, mi hijita, the knowing how to grow a child here inside of us.” Tears came to the old woman’s eyes. “I’m so proud of you, querida. And when your time approaches, you won’t know why, but suddenly you’ll be so wise and strong and full of . . . well, you’ll even be afraid of spiders and snakes, and you’ll want to wash your hands constantly. It’s nature telling you that it’s time to clean your nest for your coming child.
“We’ve come full circle, mi hijita,” added the old woman, looking at her baby of the family with so much love. “You are now the parent and then—boom, the years will just fly by, and one day you’ll awake and you’ll be here like me, the grandmother.”
Lupe nodded, and for the first time in her life, she truly understood that all Life, la Vida, was, indeed, Round and Circular and Complete! Why, only yesterday she’d been the child!
“Yes, mama,” she now said, “like you’ve always said, acorn, plant, growing up so fast, then harvest, and acorn again. Child, parent, grandmother, and child again. It’s like, well, mama, finally . . . here in my corazón all these things that you’ve been telling me again and again all of my life are now beginning to make sense. Not just here in my mind, but here in my heart, too, and it’s like, I suddenly see all these things that I’d never really seen before. And I have this hunger to learn everything I can so I’ll be ready to teach my child like you taught me!” Tears came to Lupe’s eyes. “Oh, mama, the whole entire world looks so different to me now. Teach me. Oh, please, tell me everything. How did you feel during pregnancy? How did papa and you build your nest? Was your honeymoon so, well, wonderful that sometimes you began to fear that you were losing your mind?”
Seeing her daughter’s excitement, Doña Guadalupe looked at her with a new kind of love, respect, honor, and yes, adoration. Her baby was planting her feet into the rich soil of her female ancestry and starting to grow. And grow she would in the next nine months. “Your words are music to my heart, mi hijita. After so many years of struggle, it seems that God is finally taking us back into His arms once more. I loved my every pregnancy,” she said, “and especially with you.
“I swear, only in pregnancy,” continued the old lady, smoothing out the apron on her lap, “do we, women, know here inside of us that we are the soil to which the Seeds of Creation were entrusted. I remember the first time I got that little feeling that I had life here inside of my body. I swear, I could feel it within the hour. And so I, too, went to my mother, just as you’ve come to me, and I asked her to tell me everything, and I just couldn’t stop talking, either.
“But I want you to know, mi hijita,” continued the old woman, “that you have nothing to worry about. You’ve seen much life, much joy, much heartache, and so in your heart and soul, you already know everything that you’ll ever need to know. This is the miracle that was given to women by God as we went out of the Garden, that we, here, instincti
“I hope so, mama,” said Lupe. “But sometimes I just don’t know what’s going on inside of me. Like when I realized that something strange was happening to me, here inside, I didn’t know what this little tickling was. But then, suddenly, I just knew. Just like that, I knew that—oh, my God, I was pregnant! And I wanted to tell Salvador, because he’s been wonderful, mama, but I don’t know why, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him. And I felt awful that I wasn’t telling him, but, well,” she said, laughing, “the truth is, that I wanted to come and tell you first, mama.”
Hearing this, the old woman took Lupe’s hand, stroking it. “Mi hijita, I felt the very same way.”
“You did?”
“Yes, of course. I didn’t tell my husband for weeks. Lupe, the truth is that we, women, sometimes feel like that big black spider that kills her husband and feeds him to her young—that’s how possessive we are about this feeling of life we carry here inside of our bodies. And men know this, mi hijita. They can feel it, that’s why they’re always so determined to come between us and our children.
“They become doctors, priests, whatever profession they can invent, but the one time that they can’t come between us and our child is when we have our child here, in our womb,” she said, smiling a glorious smile. “Oh, I tell you, when I was embarazada, I would have killed any man, if he had tried to come between me and this gift. So yes, of course, I went to see mi mama first. After all, that’s where life had begun for me, too.”
“Yes, that’s it, mama!” shouted Lupe. “That’s exactly how I feel! That’s why I’ve come to see you—because my life began with you. And now I need for you to tell me everything, so I’ll be able to protect this little soul that’s deep inside of me. Because, well, I feel so, so un-unready and—” Tears came to Lupe’s eyes. “What if I don’t know what to do when my time comes, mama? And this pregnancy is so important, mama. It’s like I’m, I’m—holding the greatest, most precious gift of all the universe and maybe I won’t know how to—oh, I’m scared, mama!”
Taking a deep breath, the old woman kissed her daughter’s hand. “Just close your eyes, mi hijita” she said, smiling, “and remember back to those days and nights in our beloved box canyon, and keep in mind how the Moon was full on the night that those twins were born.”
Lupe closed her eyes, and her mother took her back in time and retold her the story of the Sun and the Moon and the stars and of . . . of that magic night when the meteorite came shooting across the Heavens and kissed the Mother Earth above their home in the box canyon, setting the white pine forest afire, and how she and Don Victor had made love that night, because they’d thought it was the end of the world.
“But then, to our surprise,” said the old woman, “nine months later to the day, you, Lupe were born—just as the Mexican Revolution came into our mountains. And so you are nuestro child of the meteorite, the Gift from a Shooting Star.
“And so I don’t want you thinking for a moment, mi hijita, that your father and I always knew what we were doing, either. No, many times we were as scared and frightened and confused as any young couple. But we had nuestro amor,” she said. “And with love, mi hijita, then two people can always find a way to live. After all, we are children of the stars, planted here on Tierra Madre like el maiz, to grow and reach up for the Heavens from which we came!”
“Oh, mama,” said Lupe, “that’s so beautiful! But really you mean that you and papa were—”
“Yes, that’s right,” said the old lady, smiling. “Strange as it might seem to you, your father and I were once young and inexperienced, too!”
Lupe started laughing and laughing. Why, this was absolutely true. All of her life she’d never really, really realized—until now—that her parents had once been inexperienced and young, too.
She continued laughing uproariously. She was so glad that she hadn’t shared with Salvador these secret feelings. Her mother was absolutely right, these feelings, this miracle of life that she felt down deep inside of her, could only be shared with one’s own mother—the person with whom her own life had begun.
Poor men, no matter how much they loved their children or wished to share in a woman’s pregnancy, they never really could. Not the way a woman did.
Lupe took a deep breath. She loved Salvador, she truly did, and she would’ve loved to have told him about their coming child, but no, she just knew that she’d done the right thing to have come to tell her mother first.
Lupe now took her mother in her arms, feeling so close to her. It was like her mother had suddenly become so much younger, and she, herself so much older, and they were now almost the same age—mothers, yes, mothers, both of them, madres sagradas!
EARLY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Salvador was driving down the street lined with tall, green trees to pick up Lupe at her parents’ house. Immediately, Lupe came rushing out of the house, telling Salvador that her father was in the hospital.
“What happened?” asked Salvador.
“We don’t know,” said Lupe, “but we think he maybe had a heart attack! When he went for his walk yesterday, he came back looking pale, then collapsed. Where have you been?” she added anxiously. “You’ve been gone three days, Salvador! And you said you were just going to see your mother in Corona!”
“You’re right, Lupe,” he said. “I’m sorry. But, well, I had to make a quick trip up to San Francisco with my attorney Fred Noon.”
“To San Francisco?” said Lupe. “You mean way up north?” She was astonished.
He nodded. “Yes, but everything turned out fine. We’ll talk later. Right now, just tell me, can we go and see your father?”
“Yes,” said Lupe. “He’s been asking for you. But first come inside and say hello to my mother, and then we’ll drive over.”
But even as Lupe spoke, trying to remain calm, her heart was pounding. Why in the world would a fertilizer mover drive all the way to San Francisco? And take an attorney?
Suddenly, Lupe felt like she was looking straight down a long, black gun barrel ... at something that she’d never allowed herself to really see before. But she held, she swallowed, refusing to think about it anymore right now.
Right now she had to attend to her mother and father. Her corazón was going crazy! It felt as if the Devil, himself, had just entered her body. And good God, she was pregnant!
She swallowed again, determined to keep calm.
Going inside, Salvador could see that his mother-in-law was also upset, but she was very glad to see him. “Salvador,” she said, “how things get twisted en la vida. Here, at last, I thought Don Victor and I were finally going to have a few days of rest and peace, then this happens.”
“Yes, these are the twists of life, my mother always says, señora,” said Salvador to Doña Guadalupe.
“And how is your mother, good I hope.”
“Yes, good,” he said.
“As Lupe must’ve told you, we don’t quite know what the situation is with my husband,” she said. She was at the stove, cooking. “Are you hungry? I’m preparing a little meal for Carlota and her brother when they get in from work.”
“No, thank you, I just ate,” said Salvador.
“Good, sit down and have just one little bite, for no one passes through my kitchen without having at least one bocadito. Sit.”
Salvador wasn’t hungry, but he did as he was told, sitting down. And each time Lupe passed by him, he’d secretly try to catch her eye or stroke her leg. And of course, the old woman knew what was going on, so she diverted her eyes, pretending that she didn’t notice.
Then, after eating two tacos, Salvador and Lupe were finally able to get out the door. At his car, Salvador put his hand to Lupe’s butt, rubbing the fullness of her nalguitas as he helped her into the Moon automobile.
“Don’t!” she snapped. “Please, not ’til we’re out of sight! Besides, I’m pregnant,” she
“You’re what?!” he said, completely taken back.
“Pregnant,” she snapped again. She was pissed! First, this man had gotten her pregnant, then it seemed to her as if he’d deliberately brought el Diablo of doubt and fear home to her, too.
“You mean, you’re going to have a—” He swallowed, not being able to say it. He jumped in the car and quickly drove around the block, then pulled over to the side of the road. “Lupe,” he now said, “what are you talking about? That we, you and I, are really going to have a baby?!”
“Yes,” said Lupe, “we are.”
“My God!” he said full of excitement. “But how did it happen?”
“How?” she repeated. “Well, how do you think?”
“No, no, I don’t mean how,” he said, confused with happiness. “I mean when. When did it happen, or when did you find out?”
“Well, I had a feeling that maybe I was pregnant before you left, but I wasn’t sure until my mother and I went to see my sister Sophia’s doctor.” Lupe took a deep breath. “But now tell me, Salvador, why did you go all the way up to San Francisco . . . and you, you took an attorney? Why Salvador? I’m pregnant,” she added, tears suddenly bursting to her eyes, “and I need to know what is going on!”
Salvador took a deep breath. It was he who now felt like he was looking down the long, black barrel of a gun. “I went to see my brother, Domingo,” he said, simply.
Lupe had met Salvador’s brother, Domingo, before their wedding at one of Archie’s dances. But then, she’d never seen him again. Not even at their wedding. “And why did you take a lawyer?” she asked.
Her heart was pounding. She was sure she was now going to hear that which she’d never wanted to hear. She closed her eyes, instinctively asking Papito Dios for help.
“Because, well—” Salvador’s heart was now pounding, too. He hated this damn lie that he was living! And now they were going to have a baby. A child. The Miracle of Life, la Vida. “Domingo is in prison,” he said.