Thirteen Senses (47 page)

“Thank you, but I'm all right,” said Lupe, not feeling well enough to see anyone.

“Lupe,” said Helen, “open the door, honey, I brought you some bread fresh out of the oven I just made and—LUPE!” shouted Helen, seeing Lupe as she opened the door. “Child, you've lost weight! And your color is gone! Come, let's put you back in bed and I'll kill a chicken and make you some good soup and get Salvador to take you to the doctor first thing!” she added with authority.

“But I'm all right,” said Lupe. “Really, I don't want to bother you. I'm not that sick.”

“Honey, you don't want to wait 'til you get THAT sick! We got to take care of you now, before you get all run-down! Come,” she said, stepping inside. “I'm putting you back in bed and Salvador is going to get an earful from me when I see him!”

Helen did exactly as she said she was going to do. She put Lupe to bed, tucking her in, gave her a slice of hot bread with freshly-made butter, then went across the orchard, killed one of their fattest chickens and came back to make Lupe a pot of soup.

Lying in bed and hearing Helen working in the kitchen, Lupe felt like she'd magically been transported back to their home in their beloved box canyon, and she could now hear the sounds of
her familia
—her sisters, her mother, and her brother. Victoriano chopping wood with that chop-chop-chopping sound. And Carlota, Maria, and Sophia helping their mother at the wood-burning stove, making
tortillas
with that slap, slap, pat, pat-patting sound, and the smell of
nopalitos,
cactus, and other wild plants and game.

She hadn't realized how much she'd missed these sounds, and smells. Why, the smell of Helen's cooking was Heaven, itself, a gift straight from God. No house could be a home without the smell of food cooking.

Lupe ate with
gusto
for the first time in weeks.

She devoured the hot bread fresh out of the oven and she loved the way Helen held her head to spoon-feed her like a baby. Oh, how she missed her mother and her sisters. A man's love was wonderful, but it could never replace those tender feelings between sisters and mother.

IT WAS LATE
that second day when Salvador came home dog tired.

In Hanford, he'd talked to his friend, the Chinese Godfather, and it had been exactly as he'd feared, a head-on confrontation with the
Italianos
had erupted. But it had been the Chinese who'd come to Salvador and not the
Italianos,
whom Salvador had been doing business with on a weekly basis ever since he'd served time with Al Cappola in Tulare. Both sides realized that Salvador was holding the wildcard, because
los Mejicanos
now ran the prisons in the Southwest, and so if any of their people went to prison, they were going to have to deal with the Mexicans, whether they liked it or not.

It had almost come to a gun battle, but—unarmed—Salvador had finally gotten both sides to put down their weapons and come to terms where they could all do business.

But seeing Salvador come in dog-tired, didn't stop Helen one little bit.

The German woman had been having it out with her husband, Hans, since they'd gotten together when she was a teenager. She was on Salvador like a hawk, telling him that Lupe had to be taken to the doctor first thing tomorrow morning, that she was run-down and had to be fed properly and given attention!

“She's with your child, Salvador!” yelled Helen. “And you will stay here with her and be responsible!”

Salvador was speechless.

Lupe tried to get up and come into the kitchen and explain to Helen that she didn't have to be so angry with Salvador. Mexican people didn't go to the doctor for any little thing, and Salvador was being as attentive as he could when he was home. But Lupe felt too weak to get up, so she just lay back down in bed and continued listening to Helen telling Salvador off.

Also, there was a part of Lupe that was really feeling pretty good at hearing this woman telling off her husband. For it was true, here she was pregnant with their child, and he, the man, was just free to run around doing whatever he wished while she was stuck at home.

“And if you can't be here with her,” continued Helen as if reading Lupe's mind, “then you bring Lupe's sister to stay with her, and you pay her sister to help you! A pregnant girl needs her family with her, so that she's not home alone!”

“Her sister!” shouted Salvador, speaking back for the first time. “Oh, no! You don't understand, Helen!”

“Oh, yes, I do understand! It's you who don't understand! You're a man, Salvador, and you don't know what it is to be pregnant and feel all alone and helpless! You will bring her sister, and you will do it right now, for the good of your family! And I'm telling Hans! So he, too, will be speaking to you. We're your friends, Salvador. And friends talk bluntly!”

After Helen left, Salvador was in a daze. His confrontation with the two armed camps had been easy compared to this. Bringing Carlota into his home was a terrible thought.

Breathing, he went into the bedroom to see Lupe.
“Mi querida”
he said, “I had no idea that you were so sick. But now I can see that Helen is right, you have lost your color.” He sat down on the bed beside her. “First thing in the morning we're going to the doctor. But, about Carlota, well, I just don't know, Lupe.”

“I'm okay,” said Lupe. “Helen was just upset when she found me alone. We don't need to bring my sister.”

“Well, yes, maybe we don't,” said Salvador, taking her hand and stroking it, “but maybe we do.” And saying this, he breathed and he breathed again. “I love you, Lupe,” he said softly, “and we'll do whatever we need to do for you, and our child.”

Tears came to Lupe's eyes. These were the sweetest words she'd ever heard, because she well knew how much Salvador didn't like Carlota. She lay quietly in bed, looking at Salvador's eyes as he continued stroking her hand. “Come here,” she said, “I want to kiss you, Salvador.”

And so they kissed, soft and gentle.

IT WAS NINE O
'
CLOCK
in the morning when Salvador and Lupe got to the doctor's office in Santa Ana. They'd left Carlsbad at daybreak, stopped in San Clemente, gassed up and had a big, delicious breakfast roll. But Lupe was having a hard time keeping the roll down.

Taking one look at Lupe, the tall, handsome nurse immediately took her in to see the doctor. Salvador was left in the waiting room. There were two other women with children in the small waiting room. One of the women was Mexican. It looked like she was in her early twenties, but she already had five kids, and the smallest was nursing from her. Salvador began making faces at the oldest boy, trying to get him to laugh, but he was about ten years old and ignored Salvador, acting like he was too old to play such a silly game.

Laughing, Salvador began making faces at the little three-year-old girl. But she only smiled and quickly got behind her mother, poking out her cute little round brown face now and then to glance at this strange-acting man, Salvador, who was making funny faces at her.

The mother was too tired to enjoy Salvador's behavior, and so she just kept quiet as Salvador continued playing with her kids for nearly an hour. Salvador began to get anxious. He got up, and asked the nurse if everything was all right.

“The doctor will call you when he's ready,” said the tall woman.

Salvador almost felt like reaching over the counter and grabbing the nurse by the throat. He didn't like her coldness. He began to pace. He prayed to God that Lupe was all right. He didn't want anything to happen to her. What a fool he'd been to keep bringing home all that money, forcing it upon her when he damn well knew how she felt about gambling and liquor. If anything happened to her, he was totally to blame, because he was sure that it was all this worry that had worn her down.

“All right, Mr. Villaseñor,” said the nurse, coming up to him, “please, follow me. The doctor will see you now.”

Salvador followed the tall, slender woman who was dressed all in white down the hallway. He hadn't noticed before, but this nurse was an attractive woman, just too skinny. Opening the door at the end of the hallway, she told Salvador to please go inside and be seated, and the doctor would be with him in a moment.

“But where is Lupe?” he asked. “Is she all right?”

“Yes, she's fine,” said the nurse. “The doctor just likes to see the prospective father by himself on a couple's first visit.”

“I see,” said Salvador, going inside.

Glancing around, Salvador figured that this was the doctor's private office. It had a large, dark desk and a huge leather chair behind the desk and two walls of solid books and magazines. He decided to go behind the desk and sit in the big chair, to try it out, but then he heard voices outside in the hallway, so he quickly took one of the small upright chairs in front of the large desk. The door opened and in came the doctor. He was a tall, slender, nice-looking man in his midforties. Salvador stood up.

“No, please, keep your seat,” said the doctor, going behind his huge desk. He looked like he was in a big hurry, until he got to the huge chair. Then he took hold of the wide arms of the chair and lowered his body into the wonderful-looking chair with an ease and care that showed his true appreciation of this fine piece of furniture. “It's been a busy morning,” he said. “Twice I've already been to the hospital.”

“Lupe?” said Salvador. “She had to go to the—”

“Oh, no,” said the doctor, seeing the fear in Salvador's eyes, “Lupe is fine. She had nothing whatsoever to do with my trips to the hospital. Sorry, that I didn't make myself clear.

“Look,” he said, rolling back into the deep, soft, comfort of the leather chair, “I asked you in because I like to have a little talk with the fathers about their wives and the future of their family.”

Salvador swallowed. “Okay,” he said. “But I thought that you said that Lupe is fine.”

“She is,” said the doctor, obviously loving the feel of the fine chair.

Salvador tried to relax, but he was feeling more and more uncomfortable by the moment. His mother had never been to a doctor in all her life, and she'd had nineteen kids. He just couldn't figure out what was going on.

“Would you like a drink?” asked the doctor, seeing how upset Salvador was.

“You mean medicine?”

“No, I mean a shot of schnapps. It's a German liquor.”

“Oh, liquor! Sure!” said Salvador, immediately licking his lips and salivating.

The doctor opened a drawer and pulled a bottle and two small glasses out of his desk. He served them each a drink. “Here,” he said, handing one to Salvador, “to your first child!”

“To my son!” said Salvador, and he shot the whole drink down in one gulp, but it was so sweet and thick that it tasted like hell. He started gagging.

“You sip schnapps,” said the doctor. “Sloooowly.”

“Oh,” said Salvador, his eyes beginning to water. “Good stuff,” he added, still gagging.

“Here, I'll give you a little more, but sip it this time,” said the doctor, pouring Salvador very little this time.

“Okay, sure,” said Salvador, pounding his chest to clear his throat. He tried to sit back like the doctor this time, but his chair wouldn't lean back. Someday he would like to have a chair like the doctor's but at the dinner table, so he could lean back between bites to chew leisurely like a bull eating off the fat of the land.

“Salvador—is it all right if I call you Salvador?”

“Well, yes, of course,” said Salvador, watching how the doctor was sipping his drink slowly and looking so grand in his big chair.

“Salvador, I've been a doctor for nearly twenty years,” said the man dressed in white, “and over those years, I've learned that to be a good family doctor, it's important for me to know all about my patients, and their entire family.

“For instance, I've been attending to Sophia—Lupe's sister—and her family for nearly five years now, and sometimes I know when they're going to come in sick, days before they even come in. You see, a family is like a living organism, a cluster of cells, a group of individuals who are united, even though they also have separate lives. I've come to respect that woman Sophia and her family very much. You have married into a wonderful family, Salvador, and you and Lupe can have a wonderful, long life together with lots of happiness and success.”

He stopped and sipped his schnapps again. And Salvador copied him, sipping a little bit, too, and it was a fine, smooth drink when you took it down in this way.

“Tell me, Salvador,” continued the doctor, “how long have you and Lupe been married?”

“Well, let's see,” said Salvador, feeling a lot better now that the liquor was taking hold and smoothing him out. “It's the first of November, right? So we've been married almost three months,” said Salvador.

“Almost three months, and you're already expecting your first child?”

“Yes, of course,” said Salvador, wondering what all this was about. Hell, it normally only took one mounting for a bull to get a cow pregnant.

“Well, Salvador,” said the doctor, “I've been here in California for ten years, and in that amount of time, I've seen many beautiful, young Mexican couples come to me, like you and Lupe—and believe me, these young people have no trouble whatsoever getting pregnant—and they get pregnant year after year, every sixteen or eighteen months, like clockwork.” He stopped and leaned in close to Salvador. “How many children are you and Lupe planning on having?”

“Planning on having?” said Salvador. He was astonished. Why, he'd never heard of such a ridiculous question. “Well, I don't know,” he said. “I guess whatever God gives us.”

“I see,” said the doctor, sitting back. “And, if God gives you twenty, you'll have twenty?”