When the Owl Cries Part 18

hmm?"

"No," moaned Raul, barely hearing anything he said.

"Don't be brutal," said Lucienne, backing away.

"I'm not brutal," Jesus objected. "People who don't know anything about surgery always accuse me of being brutal. Hmm, the probe is already underneath the bullet. It's not so deep. I'll wiggle the thing out in a jiffy ... now, a towel, please. Madre de Dios, no, don't tell me I'm brutal; it would be brutal to leave the bullet in...."

Raul gasped.

"Whose bullet is it?" Jesus asked. "A friend of yours, maybe."

"Pedro Chavez," said Manuel, rolling and lighting a cigarette, wanting to give it to Raul.

"Bad chap, that Pedro. The rurales should kill him," said Jesus, and he sucked through his stained teeth for the bleeding annoyed him. His gamec.o.c.k head bobbed; his comb of hair leaned to one side; he grunted and pushed.

Lucienne held another gla.s.s of tequila for Raul; she wanted to run because she could no longer look.

"Ah," said Raul, blacking out.

"Almost two hundred people were killed in the cathedral," Jesus went on, speaking of the Colima church. "Funeral ... that stupid rich Navarro died and everybody went to the funeral and the roof caved in on the people ... hmm, bad, very bad."

"Is it bad, Raul?" asked Lucienne.

"Hmm ... one should never go to funerals; I tell all my friends that.

See, look, here I have it. Here's your bullet! Rifle bullet. Quite a chunk. I thought so. No wonder it went in deep." Jesus juggled the bullet in his palm and poked it with the point of the poniard, one eye shut. He was a connoisseur of bullets. Crimes of every sort interested him. Grumbling about powder and various calibers, he worked over Raul, stopped the bleeding and bandaged the shoulder.

Gradually, Raul sensed relief. Shifting in his chair he inspected the servants who had been watching. Lucienne ordered Marta to clean up, and the b.l.o.o.d.y towels and bowl disappeared. Peza, still grumbling, went outside for a cigarette. For the moment, the cool, long room, with its gray shuttered windows, belonged to Raul and Lucienne. She helped him to her sofa, backed him with pillows and opened windows. A gla.s.s between her fingers, she sipped and talked. The sea rolled its watery sound. Raul let his eyes close, and tried to imagine he had no branding iron of pain.

"... Two men died at the mill, when beams dropped and part of the mill fell on them. You remember Ortiz and Gonzales?"

She was dressed in dark gray, a flowing pleated skirt with a pleated jacket.

"... The men are lying in the chapel....

"... Jesus is going back to Colima right away. He's worried."

He tried to say he was worried about Petaca but he couldn't manage a word.

"Some of the chapel walls have cracked," she said, still standing by him.

Voices outside the house rose: a man shouted and boys began an altercation; a dog started barking.

Lucienne sat on the sofa, touched his face, his hands. For a second, she felt he was hers and the illusion pleased her; the day's trials dropped away and left her thinking of another day, on the beach. Tide low, they had walked to a cove where red-barked trees shaded the sand.

Some baby manta rays had been washed onto the beach; seagulls flew low ... Raul had said....

Jesus was saying goodbye.

"Goodbye, Jesus," said Lucienne. "Thank you so much. I hope everything's all right at your home in Colima, with your family. Tell the padre about Ortiz and Gonzales. Perhaps he can send someone to bury them tomorrow. If not, we'll bury them without a priest. What else can we do?"

Jesus wore boots of brown English leather and seemed to be memorizing their creases as Lucienne spoke. His small figure, in neat khaki trousers and blue shirt, looked pitiful.

When he had gone, Raul had a cognac. He asked himself whether any bones had been broken? By the shot or by the fall, when he hurled himself from the saddle.

A white peac.o.c.k perched in a long open window. It was quiet now and the surf-sound fumbled over the dark furnishings, desks, tables, chairs and sofas from the 70's. Things had not been well cared for and yet their good craftsmanship fought neglect and climate. The woods were mahogany, oak, rosamorada and magnolia. On the walls hung Directoire prints, oil portraits and a poor copy of an Ingres nude, all of them palely lit by a bra.s.s center lamp that swung from the ceiling on a bra.s.s chain.

"Are you feeling any better?" she asked, from a high armchair. "How far you had to ride to get here. Manuel is wonderful to you...."

"We should have been more alert."

"You can't always be," she said.

"I suppose not. Anything can happen in the campo."

"I'll fix you something to eat. Manuel must get you out of those wet trousers."

"Lucienne ... you must send word to Petaca."

"Should Manuel go?"

"I think that's best."

"Try to rest.... I'll see about it," she said.

Pain kept Raul awake most of the night. All her doctoring helped very little; again and again he saw Lucienne by the lamplight of the adjoining bedroom; she would come and bend over him and whisper something.

"Try to sleep....

"Are you thirsty?"

In the dim light, his face had about it the tragic quality that had haunted her at the burial. Death was such a wearisome thing. Dear Raul, sleep, sleep. This is really your home. We've always been kind to one another ... we can go on being kind. We have that a.s.surance.

Only a little while ago you and I were children, playing together....

I can see you in the dining-room doorway, tears streaming down your face, Mama and Papa lying dead on the floor, just as they were when they took them from the sea. Oh, love, I want to share your pain.

"Let me get a hammock for you," she said, "to let the air come all around you. Maybe that will help you rest."

She slung a long white hammock for him and he found it more restful lying crosswise, swaying a little....

Mona wandered in and licked his fingers, when his hand hung over the side of the hammock. She lay underneath, on the cool tiles.

Strange, lying here in her bedroom, strange to be alive, strange that Caterina is dead ... stranger still is Angelina's coldness, her sorrow, her introversion ... what is it we say to one another, or don't say?

What is it that heals us? Something for one, something else for another. She wouldn't like to care for me but she would like to look after a child. Strange sound the sea makes, strange what life is.

In a few days I'll be back at Petaca. I'll see her and she'll ask about my shoulder and I'll ask about the earthquake. There must be a way to change ourselves. Lucienne says there is no G.o.d. How does she know? Has she searched? She spends her time with her plants and her friends. Gabriel has said "G.o.d is." For him it's as simple as that.

And I must talk to him, to change myself. Caterina didn't live for nothing. Her faith was real to her....

Lying alone in Lucienne's tiny servant's room (a room that had no furniture), Manuel saw his soul sitting in front of him, about three feet high, made of clay. He had often seen it. It had a bulging forehead, close cropped hair and scraggly beard. It spoke in an African tongue, faintly. He listened and tried to understand. Wasn't it repeating the same things? The voice rose. The soul seemed to grapple with something; it snuffed the air ... Manuel, breathing hard, turned restlessly on a dusty straw mat, woke and gazed about at the tiny room.

Up long before dawn, he washed in the sea, ate, talked with Lucienne about Raul's condition and then saddled his horse for Petaca.

Flashes of lightning streaked the gray sky and before he had ridden far it began to rain. He welcomed it, glad the stink of smoke and ash would vanish. A borrowed poncho wrapped around him, he felt warm and comfortable; he was sure none of Pedro's men would be out in the downpour. Pa.s.sing a stone roadside cross, he thought of Ortiz and Gonzalez, dead in Lucienne's chapel. A man's luck gave out at the strangest moments. Raul's luck had died out yesterday. He would have to fight back....