When the Owl Cries

by Paul Alexander Bartlett

11

As he stood in the living room at Lucienne's, a little tipsy, glass in hand, Roberto las Casas called the roll, talking to himself:

"Baroness Radziwill and family, Count and Countess de Selva (the old boy's not doing well), Lucienne (very pretty), Joaquín Siquiros, Federicka Kolb (ah!), Benito Serrato (new mayor of Colima), Raul, Gabriel, Jesús Peza, General Matanzas (drunk) ... quite a birthday gathering...."

Roberto flicked ash from his beautifully tailored dinner suit and lifted his glass. For a man in his late fifties, he was handsome. Standing to one side, near some candles, his diamond cuff links and studs glittered. Bald as a man can be, he had the air of a diplomat. Angular, taller than Raul, he had none of Raul's physical toughness ... he was a Guadalajara lawyer, promoter of mining interests and capable dabbler in city real estate. His mother had been the sister of Raul's mother. He liked the city, but appreciated Petaca's spaciousness, hunts, rodeos, fiestas and gambling.

Tonight the roulette wheel spun and the tiny pelota clicked like a race horse; it clicked and stopped, and the sound of the surf came through the room. For days the wind had boiled offshore and now the rollers foamed and thudded.

"Twenty," Joaquin Siquiros called.

"Twenty," someone repeated.

No one had placed money on that number and the wheel began again.

"Forty-one," Siquiros called, in his boyish voice.

Roberto strolled from guest to guest, drinking, eating, chatting, bored with roulette since he had lost heavily; the asthmatic Selva had stolen his luck and Lucienne had won more than her share of the evening's cash. He found Lucienne, beside a big mafafa, and put his arm around her.

"Were you lucky the last round?" he asked.

"Yes, but where have you been?"

"Just talking to people, catching up on Palma gossip."

"You're drinking too much."

"Not too much. I'm just tall and hold more. I leave the drinking to the Baroness. See, she can hardly take in her winnings." He laughed gently.

Half asleep, losing, gaining, she leaned on the roulette table, jewels sparkling in her hair.

"... Sister of the Polish pope," said Roberto. "Let's have something to eat," he whispered. "Food has been known to help people in my condition. May I bring you some sandwiches?"

"Please. I'm really hungry."

He served sandwiches and entremés from a silver tray that salt air and time had darkened to a pewter finish.

"Now, my dear, I'll get us some coffee. Let's sit here."

"Twenty-four," Siquiros called.

"Mine, mine!" shouted the Baroness.

"Where did you buy that lovely gown? In Paris?" asked Roberto, bringing the coffee, and sitting down by Lucienne.

"In Rome," she said.

"Rome ... I remember Rome ... but I never saw a gown like yours there." He sipped his drink and said: "Lucienne, you're a beautiful woman; you make the gown more beautiful."

Lucienne laughed happily.

"I'm fairly sober," he said. "And it is your birthday.... Shall I go on? About your hair, your tiara ... your..."

"Ah, no ... no more, dear Roberto." But her hand went to her platinum tiara; she pushed it forward on her head; the rubies, diamonds and sapphires seemed to glow a little more. The gown was dark, almost a velvet green, very long, very simple. She wore no jewelry other than the tiara, a Humboldt heirloom.

"You know, it's almost 2:00 A.M.," she said.

"Why do you think about time on your birthday! When it's four, we'll be able to see the sun. Has it been a wonderful party?"

"Very wonderful, Roberto."

"Have you opened my gift?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he agreed, and took a sandwich from the tray on a side table. "Come, Raul, join us," he said, grasping his cousin's arm. "Aren't you hungry? We have a sandwich tray here."

"I've been hungry all evening," said Raul. "Lucienne, where are the venison steaks you promised?"

"You don't sound like a man who has lost a lot of money," said Roberto.

"I didn't lose so much."

"I'll see to it that you win next year," said Lucienne, bringing him close.

"What could he win next year that he hasn't got now?" laughed Roberto. "Here, Raul, take my chair. I feel better.... I'll try a whirl at that wheel again. What's your lucky number, Lucienne?"

Outside, on the ocean porch, the orchestra began a plaintive Veracruzana, with the violins carrying the melody, the horns a trifle slow, the surf coming through.

Oblivious of the orchestra, General Matanzas sat at the old Chickering; his fingers fished for a sentimental song to match his intoxicated mood. He swayed on his bench, his belly sagging, his epaulettes bobbing. Smoke from some candles on the piano drifted across his gray-white head and beard.

"It's really bad news about Díaz," said Raul to Lucienne. "He shouldn't resign. If he must resign, he should appoint a capable successor. The more I think about it, the less I like the situation. De Selva says we're in for bad times."

"Come, come," said Lucienne. She leaned over and brushed crumbs from his trousers. "I think Díaz will die in office. He should, just to please us. And, anyhow, this is my party...."

"Maybe you don't grasp the significance," he said.

"A man in his eighties has a plan."

"But nobody knows his plan."

"We live a long way from the capital. We'll get some accurate news soon. Our president is no fool."

Federicka Kolb, a friend of the Humboldts for years, paused before Lucienne and Raul, smiled and offered them cigarettes. She was an attractive heavy-set person, with a light complexion and especially intelligent mouth and eyes.

"Darling," asked Lucienne, "what is the latest news about President Díaz? Is there anything we can depend on?"

"General Matanzas said he has resigned and left the country," said Federicka.

"The highest authority," said Lucienne, glancing at the general, who had put his head on his arms.

"I'll talk to him later," said Raul. "Is there any word of a successor? Has Matanzas been in Mexico City recently?"

"I was in Mexico City last week," said Federicka, her face pleasant and calm. "People say Díaz wants Mexico to become a democracy. Díaz wants the Indians to vote."

The orchestra had stopped playing and Baroness Radziwill overheard Federicka's last sentence.

"That's utterly ridiculous," she cried, her black eyes snapping. "Not one Indian in ten thousand can read or write. Is Díaz too old to think?"

"They can read at the point of a gun," said Serrato, the young Colima mayor, his lips twisting.

Federicka took up the challenge: "All of us can remember faithful Indians. When Lucienne's mother and father drowned in the surf, who tried to save them? The Indians who were fishing nearby. Itzla drowned. He gave his life. When my father built the railroad to Cuernavaca, he learned to like them."

"Long live Porfirio Díaz," cried Serrato dully.

"Long live Díaz," others echoed.

"Maybe I've drunk too much coffee," Roberto muttered under his breath. "What's all this?"

"I'm no Díaz man. How do you feel about Petaca and what I'm doing?" Raul asked him.

"Well," said Roberto, grinning, "Fernando, like Díaz, has served his time. I want to see what you can do."

He opened his silver cigarette case and rubbed a smudge from the initials. He felt sleepy, tired of this room and its old-fashioned furniture. A little sickish, he headed for the porch and the cool sea air. Being alone could be comforting.

"I tell you, we're in for bad times," de Selva sermonized before a group. "Our haciendas are threatened by renegades. Don Raul was wounded by one of those fools who wants to grab our land. We have to carry guns ... I go about armed."

Raul led Lucienne to the long, cool porch and they danced to a Strauss waltz ... the ocean beating hard.

"Hold me close, Raul."

"Are you falling asleep?"

"I've been thinking of my presents, what fun it's going to be, opening them."

"When will you open them?"

"At lunch tomorrow ... just the two of us."

"Open them now."

"It's fun to wait. When there aren't so many people around."

"Shall I tell you what Roberto gave you?"

"Tell me ... please."

"Two gold-plated faucets for your bathroom ... in fourteen karats."

"Oh, no. I'll never believe that. How silly!"

"Come on, let's open his package."

"All right, let's open it, let's open all my presents."

They went into the living room, laughing heartily.

Roberto listened to their laughter, as he got ready for bed, his bedroom door half-open. He envied their love. A fine house in Colonia Vallarta had not added up to happiness for him. His wife thought him a clown, not a wit. Now, the Díaz news had disheartened him and he tossed his shirt over one of Lucienne's plants, beside the four-poster. Stretching, he breathed in the cool air, glad to be back by the ocean. It would be fun to see how Lucienne felt about those faucets tomorrow ... he had paid a pretty penny for them....

In the morning, Raul met Lucienne in the greenhouse, whose salt-rimed windows faced the sea, a ramshackle Swiss-style conservatory built by her father when he, too, had dabbled in plants and flowers. When Raul came in, she was adjusting salt screens.

"Good morning. You're up early."

"Good morning, darling. You're lazy. I've already had a swim."

"You should have wakened me."

"But you were so comfortable, I just slipped out of bed."

"Have you had breakfast, Lucienne?"

"I'm waiting for you."

"I often think of you working here. Your world is something you can touch. When we were little you had a garden of your own ... all these years this has been your life ... this and your friends."

"But has anything come of it?"

"I'd like to marry you."

"Raul, don't talk that way, especially before breakfast. An agnostic must be left to her plants."

"I want to break away.... I want Angelina to live permanently in Guadalajara."

She lifted a watering can and began sprinkling seedlings.

"Let's be realistic: who broke away first, you or Angelina?"

"I can't say."

"Really?"'

"Really, I don't know ... and what could it matter?"

Drops from the watering can fell on her fresh white cotton dress.

"This is no way to begin the day," she said. "Let's make it a happy day. I think we should have breakfast."

They ate at a square table in her dining room, facing the ocean through many French windows. On three sides, in round bamboo barrels and special boxes, tropical plants grew lavishly, most of them dark green, many of them climbing as high as the ceiling. It was like being inside a miniature park. Barefooted girls served. A girl brought in a blue glass pitcher filled with red roses and placed the bouquet in the center of the table.

"I feel better," said Raul.

"One should never talk marriage in a greenhouse."

Raul grinned.

"Has everyone gone home?" he asked.

"I think so ... even Roberto."

"What was his hurry?"

"To get the train in Colima."

"He should have waited for me."

"I told him you needed sleep ... that I needed you."

Mona wandered in and Lucienne fed her pieces of tortillas. Her short-haired terrier appeared and the two dogs raised such a hullabaloo the maids had to chase them outside.

"What happened to your baby fox?" said Raul, eating mamey.

"It got away, somehow. What's become of Vicente's honey bear?"

"He's around. Vicente likes him."

"How's Vicente doing?"

"Fine. He's a great boy."

"And what does Angelina write ... or should I ask?"

"She wrote strangely."

"How do you mean?"

"She told about a round of parties, and then made curious remarks about Caterina."

"Are you worried about her?"

"Something's wrong." But he avoided saying anything more.

While a girl removed their fruit husks, they smiled sadly at each other. His hand grasped hers. They wanted to push aside unhappiness. The girl set down a platter of golden-brown pámpanos ringed with sliced limes.

"I'd like to walk to the old church this afternoon," he said.

"The old church? Why?"

"I've always liked it ... let me serve you, Lucienne ... nobody knows how long it's been there. It was a lighthouse for years, wasn't it? I haven't seen it for ages."

"Big fig trees are smashing it, lifting walls: one side's trapped in the roots of a huge fig. Treasure hunters have dug up the floors ever since somebody found a tiny gold ship there."

"Do you think anyone found a ship of gold?"

"I doubt it. But you'll see lots of lizards; they attend Mass faithfully." She blushed.

He laughed out, and said: "Who's the priest ... a sea gull?"

"Do you remember the huge tree that grew in front of this house?" she asked. "Our palma sola? It was the tallest palm I've ever seen. Papa loved it. It really hurt him when it blew down.... Raul, have more beans while they're hot. I'm so pleased with my new cook. She's one of the best I've ever had...."

After breakfast, Lucienne showed him her seedling acacias for it was early and the conservatory was still cool. A butterfly coasted about complacently, above the tiers of seedlings now ready for transplanting. Below the trays, on the floor, rare coconuts split their husks, their yellow sprouts resembling boars' tusks. In a bottomless dugout canoe, filled with sand and shells, grew dwarf cacti, mammillaria, opuntia and cholla.

"Isn't that your father's canoe?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "I just keep it.... I like it here, a memento."

"Wasn't it filled with ferns?"

"Yes, it was."

Mona came trotting in and Raul picked her up and stroked her shaggy gray head and shoved some of her hair out of her eyes ... her tongue licked.

"We never escape the past, do we?" he said.

The past accompanied him as he rode home. With Manuel, he rode across country, under ceibas and palm, the trail winding, sometimes across streams, sometimes through boulder-piled land. They talked about Pedro. The people at Mountain Rancheria reported he was living there, buying and selling guns. The rurales had to be informed. It was a six-day trip. Would they go after him?

White ibis and rosy spoonbill flew up from a small lake ... a blue heron sat on a dead and leafless tree, its wings outspread in the sun. An alligator splashed away from the shore as the horses trotted along a shell-strewn beach.

"Do you remember this lake?" Raul asked.

"Sure. We shot a grandfather alligator here, years ago."

"I bagged a tigre in the bush," grinned Raul, "a fast, running shot."

"There are no tigres around now."

"I suppose not," said Raul. "We should go tigre hunting, way up the volcano, where there are plenty of them. Let's try our luck one of these days."

Dismounting, they rested under cocos de aceite, a woodland of thousands of short-trunked palms. They nibbled tortillas and a coil of cheese, an armadillo scrabbling in the distance.

"I remember that when it rains here the gnats take over," said Raul.

"Ssh, see, over there," whispered Raul.

Regardless of men and horses, three raccoons, one behind the other, filed toward the water. All stared at the ground, their tails low; the leader had an injured paw and limped badly.

"They're late for their food," said Raul.

"Something must have delayed them," said Manuel.

Raul dug for his pipe and filled it and Manuel rolled a cigarette and they lit from the same match. Again, something ignited in their eyes—they felt their close communion. Saddlebag under his head, Raul smoked, the smoke climbing and climbing, the cocos de aceite completely windless.

A blue flycatcher lit on a mossy log, where it preened its wing and tail feathers lazily.

"Have you heard that the flycatcher is from Quetzalcoatl?" asked Raul.

"Yes, I've heard that," said Manuel.

"I wonder why the old gods died," Raul said.

"People say they died because no one cared any more. Why does anything die, Don Raul?" Manuel shook his head; he removed his hat and forked his fingers through his hair. Faced by his own question, he felt tired, old. The forest could answer that question. Bending over his cigarette, sheltering it, smelling it, he listened to the woods.

"We couldn't go on living, all of us," he said, exhaling after a long drag, the smoke flooding over his eyes. "Some of us must be lost, in jungles, in rivers, fall on the sides of mountains, take sick of fever, be buried in ruins and little roadside places."

"But the gods weren't buried," objected Raul.

"They were buried at Tenochtitlan, at Monte Albán, at temples in Yucatán."

The flycatcher went on preening its lovely feathers.

Manuel lowered his voice: "Perhaps the old gods may return. I've heard it said...."