My God, today ... tomorrow ... so we change to save our skins, thought Raul. He asked his maid for cigarette paper and tobacco and rolled a cigarette as he finished his coffee.
"We came back to the house to bury my father," he reminded Manuel. "We're burying the past too," he added.
It took hours to dig Don Fernando free, even with the help of Luis and Gabriel. In the late afternoon they carried his body to the grove and Gabriel knelt by his shallow grave and prayed. The sky was clear, the sun hot; the wind whipped Gabriel's robe. His spectacles in his hand, he prayed for decency, a better world, kinder men. Parrots snickered and whispered in the grove while Esteban covered the old man.
Raul had anticipated his father's death too long to be moved. He felt relieved, but it was an unbalanced sense of relief, for he could not forget Pedro's death or the burning house and the ravaged mill. Did it mean anything that both these men had died on the same day? Sitting close to Caterina's grave, he thought of the prayers that lay buried everywhere in the world. I believe in God ... why? Because ... because some people are kind and faithful. Lucienne. Manuel. Farias. Caterina. Vicente.... Birds from the nearest palms drifted past him, their wings sighing.
The men left the cemetery.
A little smoke rose from the volcano as Raul and Gabriel returned to the house. Gabriel made a remark about the swift changes.
"Life has become treacherous too," said Raul sadly. "I wanted changes to be slow, remember? You said: Don't take the law in your hands. I have killed today. Pedro. Did you know?"
"I didn't know," said Gabriel, and crossed himself. "Our old world has gone. God help you, my son." It hurt him that Raul had killed; he had promised Pedro to the law but more than that he had promised Raul a clear conscience.
"I'm giving up Petaca," said Raul.
They paused in front of the old house, where further earthquake damage was obvious: part of the reconstructed veranda had fallen; Fernando's room gaped; the living-room roof had caved in at one end and smoke seeped out, blowing low over the house and garden.