Avenue of Mysteries (61 page)

“Lie down, Pastora,” Juan Diego said, but those border-collie types are furtive; the sheepdog continued to roam.

Juan Diego didn’t know what to believe; except for skywalking, everything was a hoax. He knew that Lupe was also confused—not that she would admit it. And what if Esperanza had been right to worship the Mary Monster? Clutching the coffee can between his thighs, Juan Diego
knew that scattering his mother’s ashes—and all the rest—was not necessarily a rational decision, no matter where the ashes were deposited. Why
wouldn’t
their mother have wanted her ashes scattered at the feet of the enormous Virgin Mary in the Jesuit temple, where Esperanza had made a good name for herself? (If only as a cleaning woman.)

Edward Bonshaw and Juan Diego were asleep when the dawn broke—as the caravan of circus trucks and buses came into the valley between the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca and the Sierra Madre del Sur. The caravan was passing through Oaxaca when Lupe woke up her brother. “The parrot man is right—we should scatter the ashes all over the Mary Monster,” Lupe told Juan Diego.

“He said ‘only at her
feet,
’ Lupe,” Juan Diego cautioned his little sister. Maybe Lupe had misread the Iowan’s thoughts—either when she was asleep or when Señor Eduardo was sleeping, or during some combination of the two.

“I say the ashes go all over the Mary Monster—make the bitch prove herself to us,” Lupe told her brother.

“Señor Eduardo said ‘maybe not
all
the ashes,’ Lupe,” Juan Diego warned her.

“I say all of them, all over her,” Lupe said. “Tell the bus driver to let us and the parrot man out at the temple.”

“Jesus Mary Joseph,” Juan Diego muttered. He saw that all the dogs were awake; they were pacing in the aisle with Pastora.

“Rivera should be there—he’s a Mary worshiper,” Lupe was saying, as if she were talking to herself. Juan Diego knew that, in the early morning, Rivera might be at the shack in Guerrero or sleeping in the cab of his truck; probably he would already have started the hellfires in the basurero. The dump kids would be getting to the Jesuit temple before the early-morning Mass; maybe Brother Pepe would have lit the candles, or he would still be lighting them. It was unlikely that anyone else would be around.

The bus driver had to make a detour; there was a dead dog blocking the narrow street. “I know where you can get a new dog—a jumper,” Lupe had said to Juan Diego. She hadn’t meant a
dead
dog. She’d meant a rooftop dog—one used to jumping, one who hadn’t fallen.

“A rooftop dog,” was all the driver said, about the dead dog in the street, but Juan Diego knew this was what Lupe had meant.

“You can’t train a rooftop dog to climb a stepladder, Lupe,” Juan Diego told his sister. “And Vargas said the rooftop dogs have rabies—
they’re like perros del basurero. Dump dogs and rooftop dogs are rabid. Vargas said—”

“I have to talk to Vargas about something else. Forget the jumper,” Lupe said. “The stupid stepladder trick isn’t worth worrying about. The rooftop dog was just an idea—they jump, don’t they?” Lupe asked him.

“They die, they definitely
bite
—” Juan Diego started to say.

“The rooftop dogs don’t matter,” Lupe said impatiently. “The bigger question is
lions.
Do they get rabies? Vargas will know,” she said, her voice trailing off.

The bus had navigated the dead-dog detour; they were approaching the corner of Flores Magón and Valerio Trujano. They could see the Templo de la Compañía de Jesús.

“Vargas isn’t a
lion
doctor,” Juan Diego said to his little sister.

“You have the ashes, right?” was all Lupe said; she’d picked up Baby, the cowardly male dachshund, and had poked the dog’s nose into Señor Eduardo’s ear, waking him up. The cold-nose method brought the startled Iowan to his feet in the aisle of the bus, the dogs milling around him. Edward Bonshaw saw how tightly the coffee can was held in the cripple’s hands; he knew the boy meant business.

“I see—we’re
scattering,
are we?” the Iowan asked, but no one answered him.

“We’re covering the bitch from head to toe—the Mary Monster will have ashes in her eyes!” Lupe raved incoherently. But Juan Diego didn’t translate his sister’s outburst.

At the entrance to the temple, only Edward Bonshaw paused at the fountain of holy water; he touched it and then his forehead, under the portrait of Saint Ignatius looking to Heaven (forever) for guidance.

Pepe had already lit the candles. The dump kids didn’t pause for even a small splash of holy agua. In the nook after the fountain, they found Brother Pepe praying at the Guadalupe inscription—the “Guadalupe bullshit,” as Lupe was now calling it.

“¿No estoy aquí, que soy tu madre?” (Lupe meant
that
bullshit.)

“No, you are
not
here,” Lupe said to the smaller-than-life-size likeness of Guadalupe. “And you’re
not
my mother.” When Lupe saw Pepe on his knees, she said to her brother: “Tell Pepe to go find Rivera—the dump boss should be here. El jefe will want to see this.”

Juan Diego told Pepe they were scattering the ashes at the feet of the big Virgin Mary, and that Lupe wanted Rivera to be present.

“This is different,” Pepe said. “This represents quite a change in
thinking. I’m guessing the Guadalupe shrine was a watershed. Maybe Mexico City marks a turning point?” Pepe asked the Iowan, whose forehead was wet with holy water.

“Things have never felt so uncertain,” Señor Eduardo said; this sounded to Pepe like the beginning of a long confession—Pepe hurried on his way, with scant apology to the Iowan.

“I have to find Rivera—those are my instructions,” Pepe said, though he was full of sympathy for how Edward Bonshaw’s reorientation was progressing. “By the way, I heard about the
horse
!” Pepe called to Juan Diego, who was hurrying to catch up to Lupe; she was already standing at the base of the pedestal (the ghastly frozen angels in the pedestal of Heavenly clouds), staring up at the Mary Monster.

“You see?” Lupe said to Juan Diego. “You can’t scatter the ashes at her feet—look who’s already
lying
at her feet!”

Well, it had been a while since the dump kids had stood in front of the Mary Monster; they’d forgotten the diminutive, shrunken-looking Jesus, who was suffering on the cross and bleeding at the Virgin Mary’s feet. “We’re not scattering Mother’s ashes on
him,
” Lupe said.

“Okay—
where,
then?” Juan Diego asked her.

“I really think this is the right decision,” Edward Bonshaw was saying. “I don’t think you two have given the Virgin Mary a fair chance.”

“You should get on the parrot man’s shoulders. You can throw the ashes higher if
you’re
higher,” Lupe said to Juan Diego.

Lupe held the coffee can while Juan Diego got on Edward Bonshaw’s shoulders. The Iowan needed to grasp hold of the Communion railing to rise, unsteadily, to his full height. Lupe took the lid off the coffee can before handing the ashes to her brother. (Only God knows what Lupe did with the lid.)

Even from his elevated position, Juan Diego was barely eye-level with the Virgin Mary’s knees; the top of his head was only thigh-high to the giantess.

“I’m not sure how you can sprinkle the ashes in an upward fashion,” Señor Eduardo tactfully observed.

“Forget about
sprinkling,
” Lupe said to her brother. “Grab a handful, and start throwing.”

But the first handful of ashes flew no higher than the Mary Monster’s formidable breasts; naturally, most of the ashes fell on Juan Diego’s and the Iowan’s uplifted faces. Señor Eduardo coughed and sneezed; Juan
Diego had ashes in his eyes. “This isn’t working very well,” Juan Diego said.

“It’s the
idea
that counts,” Edward Bonshaw said, choking.

“Throw the whole can—throw it at her head!” Lupe cried.

“Is she praying?” the Iowan asked Juan Diego, but the boy was concentrating on his aim. He hurled the coffee can, which was three-quarters full—the way he’d seen soldiers in the movies lob a grenade.

“Not the whole can!” the dump kids heard Señor Eduardo cry.

“Good shot,” Lupe said. The coffee can had struck the Virgin Mary in her domineering forehead. (Juan Diego was sure he saw the Mary Monster blink.) The ashes rained down, dispersing everywhere. There were ashes falling through the shafts of morning light and on every inch of the Mary Monster. The ashes kept falling.

“It was as if the ashes fell from a superior height—from an unseen source, but a
high
one,” Edward Bonshaw would later describe what happened. “And the ashes went on falling—as if there were more ashes than could possibly have been contained in that coffee can.” At this point, the Iowan always paused before saying: “I hesitate to say this. I truly do. But the way those ashes wouldn’t stop falling made the moment seem to last forever. Time—time itself, all sense of time—stopped.”

In the ensuing weeks—for
months,
Brother Pepe would maintain—those worshipers who’d arrived early for the first morning Mass continued to call the ashes falling in the shafts of light “an event.” Yet those ashes that appeared to
bathe
the towering Virgin Mary in a radiant but gray-brown cloud were not heralded as a
divine
occurrence by everyone arriving at the Jesuit temple for morning Mass.

The two old priests Father Alfonso and Father Octavio were annoyed by what a
mess
the ashes had made: the first ten rows of pews were coated with ashes; a film of ash clung to the Communion railing, which was curiously sticky to touch. The big Virgin Mary looked soiled; she was definitely darkened, as if by soot. The dirt-brown, death-gray ashes were everywhere.

“The children wanted to scatter their mother’s ashes,” Edward Bonshaw started to explain.

“In the
temple,
Edward?” Father Alfonso asked the Iowan.

“All this was a
scattering
!” Father Octavio exclaimed. He tripped on something, unintentionally kicking it—the empty coffee can, which was rattling around underfoot. Señor Eduardo picked up the can.

“I didn’t know they were going to scatter the entire contents,” the Iowan admitted.

“That coffee can was
full
?” Father Alfonso asked.

“It was not just our mother’s ashes,” Juan Diego told the two old priests.

“Do tell,” Father Octavio said. Edward Bonshaw stared into the empty can, as if he hoped it possessed oracular powers.

“The good gringo—may he rest in peace,” Lupe began. “My dog—a small one.” She stopped, as if waiting for Juan Diego to translate this much, before she continued. Or else Lupe stopped because she was wondering if she should tell the two priests about the Mary Monster’s missing nose.

“You remember the American hippie—the draft dodger, the boy who died,” Juan Diego said to Father Alfonso and Father Octavio.

“Yes, yes—of course,” Father Alfonso said. “A lost soul—a tragically self-destructive one.”

“A terrible tragedy—such a waste,” Father Octavio said.

“And my sister’s little dog died—the dog was in the fire,” Juan Diego went on. “And the dead hippie.”

“It’s all coming back—we did know this,” Father Alfonso said. Father Octavio nodded grimly.

“Yes, please stop—that’s enough. Most distasteful. We remember, Juan Diego,” Father Octavio said.

Lupe didn’t speak; the two priests wouldn’t have understood her, anyway. Lupe just cleared her throat, as if she were going to say something.

“Don’t,” Juan Diego said, but it was too late. Lupe pointed to the noseless face of the giant Virgin Mary, touching her little nose with the index finger of her other hand.

It took Father Alfonso and Father Octavio a few seconds to catch on: the Mary Monster was still without a nose; the incomprehensible child from the dump was indicating that her own small nose was intact; there’d been a fire at the basurero, an infernal burning of human and canine bodies.

“The Virgin Mary’s
nose
was in that hellish fire?” Father Alfonso asked Lupe; she vigorously nodded her head, as if she were trying to dislodge her teeth or make her eyes fall out.

“Merciful Mother of—” Father Octavio started to say.

The falling coffee can made a startling clatter. It’s not likely that Edward Bonshaw had intentionally dropped the coffee can, which he
quickly retrieved. Señor Eduardo may have lost his grip; he might have realized that the news he was continuing to withhold from Father Alfonso and Father Octavio (namely, his vow-ending love for Flor) would soon come as a greater shock to those two old priests than the burning of an inanimate statue’s nose.

Because he’d seen the Mary Monster cast a most disapproving glance at his mother’s cleavage—because Juan Diego was aware of how
animated
the Virgin Mary could be, at least in the area of condemning looks and withering glares—Juan Diego would have questioned anyone’s supposition that the towering statue (or her lost nose) was
inanimate.
Hadn’t the Mary Monster’s nose made a spitting sound, and hadn’t a blue flame erupted from the funeral pyre? Hadn’t Juan Diego seen the Virgin Mary blink when the coffee can had struck her forehead?

And when Edward Bonshaw clumsily dropped and retrieved the coffee can, hadn’t the resounding clatter drawn a fiery flash of frightful loathing from the all-seeing eyes of the menacing Virgin Mary?

Juan Diego wasn’t a Mary worshiper, but he knew better than to treat the dirtied giantess with less than the utmost respect. “Lo siento, Mother,” Juan Diego quietly said to the big Virgin Mary, pointing to his forehead. “I didn’t mean to hit you with the can. I was just trying to
reach
you.”

“These ashes have a foreign smell—I would like to know what else was in that can,” Father Alfonso said.

“Dump stuff, I suppose, but here comes the dump boss—we should ask him,” Father Octavio said.

Speaking of Mary worshipers, Rivera strode down the center aisle toward the towering statue; it was as if the dump boss had his own business to attend to with the Mary Monster; Pepe’s mission, to go fetch el jefe from Guerrero, may have been merely coincidental. Yet it was clear that Pepe had interrupted Rivera in the middle of something—“a small project, the fine-tuning part,” was all the dump boss would say about it.