Unlimited (14 page)

Simon slipped into the rear pew, as close to the exit as he could get and stay inside the sanctuary. Pedro came in soon after. He started up the aisle. Then he stopped. And turned around. And smiled.

Pedro slipped into the pew beside him. “Is this seat taken?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“You already did that, amigo. Seeing you here.”

Simon was still searching for a comeback when he heard the swift footsteps across the stones outside the chapel. He knew it was Sofia before she stepped inside. He also knew she was going to glare at him.

What he didn't know, what he couldn't have suspected, was Pedro's reaction. He leaned forward from Simon's other side, and he glared at Sofia. Really shot her the stink eye. Sofia winced and faltered slightly. Then she gathered herself and continued up the aisle.

Simon stood and sat with the others. When the singing started, Pedro walked forward and was greeted with huge smiles from all the children. Simon listened to the singing and observed how Pedro managed to make the music both a joy and a game.

The song ended and Pedro started to dismiss the children. Then he shot Simon what could only be described as an impish grin. “Who wants to hear the angel sing this morning?”

The kids erupted in delight.

“It's been too long since the angel joined us, don't you agree?”

Even the villagers smiled and clapped this time. It took a while for a translation to be passed among the locals, as many of them clearly did not speak English. But the longer Pedro stood, hands on hips, waiting, the louder their applause grew. By this point the kids were jumping up and down in glee.

Finally Sofia called out crossly, “What if the angel doesn't want to sing?”

Pedro merely squatted by two of the youngest children and whispered. The kids raced over and took hold of Sofia's hands and pulled her up to the stage.

Sofia began to sing with the children's choir in harmony. Pedro exaggerated his movements, miming as though he wound a great wheel, trying to accelerate their tempo. He bounced on his toes to reach the highest notes. The children loved this. All the while, Sofia stood slightly apart, as though permanently separated. She sang with angelic purity.

The sound pierced Simon's heart. His entire being felt caught by her beauty and her voice. When it was over, Simon joined the congregation in applauding. He wished there were some way to tell her what it had meant, how much he wished he could sit here all day long. Separated from the world and his burdens by the slender silver thread of her voice.

It was during that moment, the brief respite before the beginning of Harold's message, that the idea came to him. He would never be able to apologize to Vasquez. So Simon should do something for him, here, in his adopted home. Make an act of contrition. Such words had never meant anything to him before this moment. Now they filled his entire being. They forged a legacy the professor would have approved of. They gave feet to his apology and made it
live
.

Simon was partly aware that Pedro returned to the seat next to him. He said something, but Simon couldn't focus on anything other than his new thought. Part of him watched as Harold walked down the aisle and hugged Sofia, and the woman scarcely responded. Harold approached the podium and called Juan forward. Simon saw all this. But at the same time, he remained captivated by the idea.

Harold put his arm around the grinning youth. “This is not Juan you see here. This is a baby elephant.”

The children shouted their laughter. Harold waited until they quieted, then translated the words for those adults who spoke no English. Then he bent over and fastened a heavy chain around Juan's ankle. Harold slipped easily from one language to the other as he continued, “When the elephant is still very young, it has a chain attached to its hind leg. The chain is then bolted to a heavy concrete block. What do you think happens?”

A dozen young voices called back. Harold nodded vigorously. “That is absolutely right. The baby elephant is trapped. It can't move. It is imprisoned by this chain. Now watch.”

On its face, Simon knew his idea was so simple, really. But the tendrils rose like a stop-motion photograph of a plant exploding from the earth and bursting into bloom. This was not just about an apology. This was not just in response to one wrong deed. This was an attempt to make up for all the mistakes that culminated in that one final night.

Up front, Harold bent over Juan's leg and replaced the chain with a length of twine. “I hope everyone is paying careful attention because this is very important. The elephant learns early on that it can't move, so when it grows up, it will be held in place with just this thin bit of string. The elephant believes that it can't break free if there is
anything
tied to its leg.”

Simon nodded slowly, drawing Harold's attention. The words from the podium only hastened the growth of his internal idea. Simon needed to do a penance. Not for Vasquez. The professor was gone. It was too late to say the words. But not too late to do the deeds. And heal the rift he had opened up. Within himself. And whatever future he might have.

Despite the heat, Simon shivered.

He turned to Pedro and whispered, “Can I borrow your pen?”

Pedro slipped it from his shirt pocket. Simon unfolded the sheet of paper and flattened it on the seat next to him. After the number three, he wrote:
Do something for the orphanage.

He started to hand back the pen, then stopped and added:
Something big.

After chapel, Sofia followed the men across the courtyard. Sofia disliked how they were walking. The three of them—Harold, her brother, and Simon—moved as a unit. As though they shared something now. As though she had been excluded.

Pedro turned around when she passed through the outer doorway. The scalding look he had given her in the chapel was gone. She still felt ashamed by that look, in a way that banished her normal feistiness. Now, though, he simply glanced over and then turned back to Harold's office. She moved up beside them.

Simon took a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He held it to the corkboard covering Harold's wall and smoothed out the creases with the flat of his hand. His motions were very deliberate. His face looked somber.

Harold stood beside him, his hand resting upon Simon's shoulder. He waited until Simon had pinned the page to the board, then leaned forward and read whatever was written there. He nodded slowly, then said softly, “Well done, son. Well done.”

“It's the least I can do.”

“It's more than that. A good goal is one worth investing that most precious of gifts—your life. And it needs to be
impossible
.” Harold turned to Pedro. “Do you know where we stowed them?”

It seemed to Sofia that her brother had been expecting that very question, for he replied, “Ten boxes are in the cupboard under the stairs. The rest are in the back of the garage. I didn't have the heart to throw any of it away.”

“Why don't you and Juan pull some of them out.” To Simon he said, “Come give us a hand, will you?”

Through the open window, Juan protested, “Breakfast is almost over, Dr. Harold.”

Harold had already turned to the closet behind his desk where all the orphanage records were kept. “Juan, Sofia, would you go ask them to make us up plates?”

She did not want to leave. But she did as she was told.

Sofia left the cafeteria with three metal plates. Juan scampered ahead of her and waved from the courtyard's other side. The three men had relocated to one of the empty classrooms. When she and Pedro had been growing up, there had been twice as many children. Now there was twice the need and less than half the funds. Harold had come to Mexico with an adequate pension and a sizeable nest egg. Now the savings were all gone, and his bank had refused to loan him any more with his pension as collateral.

Harold had invested everything into the orphanage. He begged what he could from U.S. churches. He received some funding from mission organizations. But the number of orphans was rising exponentially. The thought of losing young children to the Mexican orphanage system ate away at him. He was in his late seventies and his health was being affected by his worries. Sofia hated how helpless she felt in the face of such dire need.

Harold had chosen this particular classroom because it had three windows facing the courtyard. The front table was covered with large sheets of paper bearing electronic diagrams. Sofia had seen them before. The pages were kept from rolling up by dusty boxes. Sofia set the plates down by a black duffel bag she did not recognize. Then she retreated to the doorway.

Harold said, “What we need is a source of funds that we control. Something we can rely on. So we can start building again. We own another acre behind the admin building. We could build. We could triple the number of children.”

Simon nodded and traced a finger over the schematics, his gaze flashing about the pages. Then he shifted one of the boxes and allowed the top page to roll back up. He bent over the next sheet. Intent. Focused.

Pedro said, “We invested in these solar lanterns hoping we could train some of the older children to assemble them. Then we could sell them directly or give them in return for donations.”

“Financial stability.” Harold rubbed the point over his heart. “We need this if we're going to guarantee the children a place to grow up.”

“But the assembled lanterns don't work,” Pedro said. “We showed the pages to the owner of the electronics shop here in Ojinaga. He could not help us.”

Simon turned to the third page of diagrams. “My guess is, you have a problem in the connectors between the power supply and the battery.”

“Can you fix it?”

“If I'm right, absolutely.” Simon grinned. “And maybe even if I'm wrong.”

Sofia saw the hope shine with the laughter on the men's faces. As she watched Simon study one component after another, she realized that the seed of hope had sprung within her as well. She hated the sense of rising conflict, of hope and fear in equal measure. She turned to the door. “I must go to work.”

Sofia's business was located in the industrial zone by the border. She rented a portion of a newer building, a glass-fronted area with a warehouse and a loading dock. She made what should have been the reception area into her office. Neither the orphanage nor her apartment was air-conditioned. She hoped she never took the office's easy spill of coolness for granted. She loved watching the activity in the other buildings and the rush of traffic on the highway beyond the fence. She had two employees—a warehouse manager, who also served as her second driver, and a nighttime guard. It was enough.

She was busy with paperwork when her phone rang. The industrial zone was the one area of Ojinaga that almost always had both power and cell-phone connection. In most of the border zones, the local Mexicans paid for a cell phone from the other side of the border. Even the locals who had never crossed into America had their children or grandchildren bring back a phone, because the U.S. system was both cheaper and more reliable. This did not work in Ojinaga, because the U.S. town across the border was just as isolated. Presidio was surrounded by desert and mountains and the Big Bend preserve, a wildlife region larger than Rhode Island. But the maquiladora
was a federally controlled region all to itself. The bribes and corruption that dominated so much of Mexican village life was severely constricted. So long as she was here, she could take and receive calls with ease. “Hello?”

“Darling, I love the sound of your voice. Tell me hello again.”

“I'm working.”

“You're always working. I am the mayor and I am running for governor and you run circles around me. Let me send you an aide.”

“I don't want an aide. My business relies on personal contact. People trust me.”

“Yes, I am aware how much everyone trusts you. I trust you. You are the most trustworthy person I know. Which is why I want you to join with me and let us show the world what two people who trust one another can achieve.”

“You sound like you are practicing a speech.”

“I might be. It sounded good, no?”

“Yes, Enrique. It sounded very good.”

“Isn't that what Harold is always going on about, achieving all you can? Think of what we can achieve together. And say yes.” He went silent for as long as he was able, which was not very long. “Well? I am waiting for you to accept my proposal.”

“You told me to think. I am thinking.”

He laughed. “How can I criticize you for doing what I asked? And yet you do exactly what you want, and you force me to do what I
don't
want, which is to be patient. You will make an excellent politician.”

“Thank you, Enrique, for your patience.”

“You are welcome.”

“I know this is hard for you. It is hard for me too.”