"He'll check them carefully," said Raul.
"Will Velasco come this afternoon?"
"He'll come unless he has a sick person to take care of."
"I feel bad. I feel as if ... Raul, it's bad."
"But you've felt that way before."
"Yes, I have. Still, I feel...." He said no more.
"Velasco usually comes about seven."
"Very well," said Fernando.
Raul waited, and as he waited, standing in the door, his father dozed. He called Chavela and instructed her to check from time to time. Stepping into the patio, he paused to take in the warm sun; he felt more like himself as he assimilated the light and air, heard laughter in the kitchen, and listened to the twittering and jabbering of parrots, thrushes and doves in their wall cages, cages that decorated all sides of the patio. A stone fountain centered the patio. Many years ago, the pink stones had been brought by oxcart from a prehistoric pyramid in Sector 9. Carved snakes wound from stone block to stone block, to vanish, with reptilian grace, over the rim. Raul sat on the curb, under the cypress. A dragonfly rode a lily pad. Where bougainvillaea climbed the wall a white butterfly, as big as a woman's cupped hands, descended: it seemed to be coming down an aerial stairway a step at a time. Raul shut his eyes, wanting to forget his problems, the ugly face of his father, the threat of dissolving traditions.
Presently, he went to the stable where Chico stood, brushed and saddled, tail switching. Manuel was polishing the cantle, chatting with other men; hens and roosters scratched in the floor straw; the air boomed with flies.