When the Owl Cries Part 40

What did Angelina mean. "Gla.s.s bones shining?"

In his easy chair, in the living room, he reread her letter; the last paragraph continued to bewilder him. He thought of showing the letter to Gabriel, but dismissed the idea and crumpled the sheet and tossed it into the fireplace. Holding out his hands to the blaze, he leaned his elbows on his knees. He did not need a confidant but needed to be alone. Wind puffed across the house, making a wintry sound. Raul felt disappointed when Father Gabriel appeared, rolling Fernando in his wheelchair.

_Gla.s.s bones shining_, Raul thought, seeing that his father was mere bones, sunken eyes, perhaps accented by his new gla.s.ses. Fernando stretched out his bony fingers toward the fire and sighed.

"The cold spell will help the corn," he said, his voice thin.

Raul could think of nothing to say.

"Nothing like a fireplace," said Gabriel, sitting down; he was tired, still fighting off his malaria; he, too, was hunting for thoughts.

"Raul, I see you've had the Swiss clock repaired. I've always liked it."

"I brought it back from the jeweler's last week," Raul said.

All three eyed the clock on the mantel, a white marble clock veined with black, thin and tall.

"Humph ... you had your clock repaired, what of it?" Fernando said.

Raul and Gabriel waited, ill at ease.

"Time is for getting; get what you can before it gets you. You don't find it on a dial." With his good hand, he pushed angrily at the arm of his chair; each man heard the tick of the marble clock.

"While you were away last week," said Fernando, "I sold the horses in Sector 9." The Clarin stared at Raul maliciously. "Senor Filar paid me sixty pesos per head. We've never done better. I stopped the corn planting in 21.... That sector must be kept for pasture." He beat the side of his chair. "Sitting right here, I can manage Petaca. My people understand me." His voice shrilled, broke.

Raul walked over to the piano. Someone had placed Caterina's picture there, and her face comforted him.

"'A house divided against itself...'" Gabriel began.

"G.o.d, don't spout at me!" cried Fernando. "Have some sense. Life is cruel."

"Life is what we make of it," said Gabriel, very gently.

Raul accepted the truism, knowing it was one thing in his father's mind, another in Gabriel's, and another in his own. He tried to remain silent.

"I don't like the bronze figure you had put on Caterina's grave,"

Fernando objected.

"I haven't seen it yet," said Raul.

"You're ostentatious," said Fernando.

"It was done out of love," said Raul, moving close to the front windows where he could see the forecourt.

With a jolt, Fernando remembered his love for Caterina, remembered the child reading to him, feeding him, remembered his old, old longings for affection. His fear of death came again; he floundered, hoping he might touch something kind before the end.

"Yes ... yes, I'm sure ... it was love," he admitted.

"What did you say?" Raul asked.

"It was love ... not ostentation. But I would have put something else on her grave ... not a statue of a girl."

"What would that have been?" asked Gabriel, curious at this about-face.

"An animal, a frog, a bird ... I think I would have put a bird there."

"I thought of putting her sundial there, her noonday cannon," said Raul.

"Get me a cigarette," said Fernando, to Gabriel.

"I'll light one for you," said Gabriel.

The ticking of the clock came into being again.

Fernando's thoughts faded backward into time: he heard his father speak. His head throbbed. Everything had grown indistinct. What was the purpose of death? Was death talking to someone who never listened?

Was death shoving something inside something already black?

"I want to go to bed," Fernando said. "Push me. Help me to bed, Gabriel."

Raul tried to say good night but could not utter a word and neither could Fernando. A rubber tire on the wheel chair squeaked; the wind and the clock continued. His feet toward the fire, he thought of Lucienne and their mountain trip; then he got up and got his jacket and went outside, the wind whipping his hair. So the little figurine had been placed beside the grave.

He found the statue just as he had hoped it would be, the right size, the right pose. True to the artist's sketches, a young girl carried a bouquet of roses and contemplated them lovingly. The bronze had many lights and shadows. A gust of wind blew Raul's jacket, as he stood there, looking.

Manuel, carrying a large box of sea sh.e.l.ls, found him testing the statue's base, for balance and security.

"I like it very much," Raul said.

"It's beautiful," Manuel said, setting down the box. "I had them place it for you. Is it all right?"

"It's just the way I wanted it."

Manuel began laying down sh.e.l.ls, one by one, in a design around the base of the figure, white sh.e.l.ls, most of them identical in size, about as big as the hand.

Raul found a spade and began leveling behind the statue, where Manuel had not placed his sh.e.l.ls.

"Shall I lay them in rows, here?"

"I like them that way, Manuel."

Blackbirds shot past on the wind; a large white b.u.t.terfly wobbled by, as if injured; on a mound of sand an iguana scratched its way over a vine, its head c.o.c.ked toward the men.

Spade in hand, Raul stepped to a crooked marker that read Alberto Saenz, in jagged lettering. The musician had died during Raul's Guadalajara trip. Raul missed him now. So there would be no more cedar harp at the fiestas.

Manuel said that his box of sh.e.l.ls was empty and that he was going for more.

"I'll go with you," Raul said.

They walked together, and Raul asked, "Was Alberto born at Petaca?"