"His own son ... anything to have power over us."
"Times will go worse for us, now that Raul's wounded," said a one-eyed man, with machete dangling from a cord around his neck.
Almost superstitiously, they felt the old man would regain his power and impose his violence. Hunger, sickness and fear had crucified their faces and yet there seemed to be room for this new dread. A paunched man tipped back his hat and fumbled a cigarette. Another coughed and spat....
Ashes from the volcano sifted on the pool, gray, powder-fine, moving in tiny eddies; the same ash flecked the men's hats, beards, shoulders and sleeves. A swallow dipped over the pool and then banked away, as if repulsed by the ash. Silence kicked at the walls of the mill, at the jacarandas and palms, at the fields beyond them.
"I must go and speak to the señora about Don Raul," Manuel said, heading toward the main house. "See me later, in the kitchen, Farias."
8
Sitting in a hammock on Lucienne's porch facing the ocean, Raul saw himself, a self-portrait: the slightly over-fleshed face, brown skin, tough hands, twisted eyebrows. Not a big man, part Spanish, part Indian. His eyes had taken on a hurt look these days, his mouth had hardened, shoulder muscles had sagged. Briefly amused, he saw himself as a Colonial canvas—reading in a stiff-backed chair, a cat on the floor at his feet, a vase of paper roses on a side table.
Tomorrow, Lucienne's victoria would take him home, away from lolling hammock, the sound of the ocean, back to his people. He thought of his wife, of her discontent. Petaca's deed, in its cedar box, had been the deed to many souls. Yes, Petaca had drained away her spirit, warped her. It had changed her, a painful change.... Her rebellions had been brushed aside. The weather was bad, the food was monotonous. She said: But I haven't any friends here. I said: Can't you read something! Go look at the stars.
But it's so dark outside, Raul, so dark.... I love the stars, but if we could just go to the theater tonight. I want to see a play. Remember that play set in Salamanca.... We liked that play, remember? You have your work. I don't see what's wrong with my wanting friends. I went to school with them. Remember, I'm from Guadalajara.... I like Estelle.... She's....