THE SECOND MILAGRO (n/a) Read online

  “Señor?” she called again. “My English, you know.” She came closer. “You okay? I go now, you know, to school.” Miguel raised his eyes. Dark as anthracite, they softened as he

  smiled at the dark, round face carried forward by an arched Mayan nose. She was his project for the moment. His position as Mexico’s Special Liaison to Labor made it easy to manipulate the system. Gena was the latest of many he had brought to the city from some rock and dirt farm. He had managed to save her from the backbending work of a Chiapas granja while she was still unstooped, but not before her hands were calloused as iguana hide. She stood with her hands hidden behind her. However, she was gaining more poise everyday.

  “ Esta bien, Gena. Vete. Adios.” Miguel waved her away. His close trimmed moustache curved around his smile.

  “Speak English, Señor. I practice, you know.” Dark gaps showed several missing teeth when she spoke.

  “Why are you not wearing your teeth, Gena?” Miguel asked in a fatherly tone.

  “El dentista me lastima mucho. They hurt, you know.” She clamped her lips shut.

  Miguel leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Tell me something, Gena. The English teacher, does he tell you to say ‘you know’ in every sentence?”

  She arched her dark brows. “No entiendo. What you say?”

  Miguel laughed, turning his hands up in resignation. “Go, you know. Learn English.”

  When she left, he sobered again. He was tired, but not in his body, though after days of long meetings and drives to Real de Catorce, he had a right to be. Emotionally drained. That’s what he was. Part of it was the heat. Mostly, it was the cave-in. A new national disaster, even a small one, was too soon after the horrible earthquake that had hit a year ago.

  He still had nightmares about that morning, September 19. A late night had made him lazy and he was still in bed in his small apartment near the Zocalo. He thought at first that someone was trying to shake him awake. Then, plaster, dirt and timbers fell around and on top of him, pinning him to the bed. He had tried to put his hands to his face, to shelter it from falling debris, but he could not move his arms. It seemed like hours that his face was assaulted. He opened his eyes to be warned of what was coming at him. When he did, dirt filled them. He was one of the lucky ones. The shell of his building stayed upright and rescuers soon dug him out. His physical injuries, including his eyes, healed. He imagined his heart was still broken from witnessing the devastation of his beloved city.

  He stood and stretched, first one side then the other. His fingertips almost touched the ceiling. Before the mining disaster at Real, he had been volunteering his time, rebuilding some of the houses near Tlatelolco that still needed repairs before families could move back in. He had used muscles that had gone to sleep in his body, and now after several days of rest, they were wanting to be used again. He patted his lean abdomen, realizing the benefits of many months of physical labor.

  Sticking his head out the window, he captured a small breeze and thought of sitting on the balcony of his house in Cuernavaca away from the hot city. It had been three weeks since he’d enjoyed the calm and cool of his home. He thought of the new rose cuttings. They would be suffering from last week’s heat wave. Carmina would water them. They would make it. Flowers were even blooming in the city, amid the ruins and new construction.

  Thoughts of Carmina, his cook and housekeeper, reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It was getting late. Past six o’clock. Still he couldn’t leave. Not until he figured out his next move.

  He paced his small office, studying the cracks along the dirty cream walls, meticulously deciding which had been made by the newest earthquake, which were the legacy of age. Some were as old as his Revolution vintage desk. The metal shelves filled with books and papers were the newest acquisitions of his office. He paused in front of a yellowed print of the Mexican flag, then before an ornately framed portrait of an attractive middle-aged woman, his mother. With a sigh, he returned to his desk and picked up a pile of news releases about the Real silver strike. It was the latest bad news and the one that needed his wandering attention. Almost hidden in the pile was a blue folder filled with documents.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

  “Ola, amigo.” The American accented voice came from Rick Winn, a news reporter. Without being asked, he glided into the room like he was on skates. Dressed in jeans and white tee shirt, plump faced and rosy-cheeked, he could have been an innocent young man. Miguel knew he had a bloodhound’s nose and the conscience of a vulture. He had been a cactus thorn in Miguel’s side for years. Only that familiarity made him tolerable.

  “Where’s that pretty little secretary of yours? Gena?” He laughed. “I don’t know where you find ’em, Ramirez.”

  “What do you want, Winn?” Miguel picked up a pencil and twirled it between the palms of his hands.

  “Oh, just the latest. How did your meeting go today with the strikers?” He half sat on the edge of Miguel’s desk, eyes wandering over the papers. “I know you met with them. Or their union lords, caciques, or whatever you call them. Just how many are into this, Miguel? All the miners or just the Morelos crew?”

  “You seem to have enough information.” He picked up the blue folder and tossed it into a drawer.

  “Any of that have to do with Patricia Morelos?” Rick leaned over the edge of the desk.

  Miguel slammed the drawer shut.

  Winn shook his fingers, frowning as if they had been caught. “Got word her Lear filed a flight plan to Acapulco, via Mexico City. Think she’s planning something?” Rick grinned. Cigarette stained teeth matched the color of his skin.

  Miguel pressed his hands against his desk and levered himself out of his chair. He walked to the window. “The Morelos Silver Company knows we are doing everything possible to work things out with the miners. I see no reason why Señora Morelos would come to Mexico. If she chooses to come, well, it is a free country.”

  “Aw, what prose. Can I quote you on that?” Winn picked up a pencil and pretended to write on the palm of his hand.

  Miguel knew the newsman’s eyes were searching the papers on the desk with a renewed interest. Let him. All the ones concerning Patricia and her son were now safely tucked away. If the media learned about the kidnapping, the ante would go up. For everybody. The presses were usually controlled in Mexico with ease. After the earthquake, a leniency prevailed that was making the excesses difficult to curtail again. The story of the Morelos kidnapping had been checked. Miguel intended to keep it that way.

  Rick picked up one of the news releases and read it. “Eight miners killed. Shit. Life’s tough. ‘Course that probably means twenty were really killed, if they’re lying about the dead the way they did last year.”

  Miguel clenched his jaw. He did not rise to the bait. He knew what Rick was up to. He knew his temper sometimes caused him to spout off about things and he would have the embarrassment of reading about them later. Although, to give Winn credit, the source was always said to be “anonymous.”

  “Got to be a big problem for the Morelos people to have all their silver dry up. Understand they may lose some of their contracts. That so?”

  Miguel watched a squat Indian woman cross the courtyard below. She had a metal pan with dulce de tamarindos piled high. Her welpel apron looked clean and fresh even though she had been out selling all day. He never ceased to be amazed at what these women did to earn the few pesos they got for their trouble. Some of them had husbands working the mines, saving and scraping and hoping to come home with enough money to quit living in the dark.

  “‘Life’s tough’, you say, Winn? How would you know?” Miguel stared into the boyish face. “You ever slip through the darkness of morning into the pitch black of a mine, leave the smell of fresh air for the putrid stench of gases, dirt and urine? Ever wonder where the miners piss during the day? Think they have some portable potties down there? You would not last two hours in one of those hell holes. C
reaking timbers a century old holding millions of tons of earth above your head.” He grabbed the newspaper out of Rick’s hand and crumbled it in his fist. “Imagine what it would feel like to be buried alive with all that dirt crushing your arms and legs, filling your mouth, like pouring water in a jug. Think about it, amigo.” He turned back to the window. He was shaking inside, remembering the dirt falling on his face, into his eyes. The feel of being buried alive. He tightened his fists and spoke through clenched teeth. “Yeah, life is tough for some, Winn, and it is hell for many.”

  “You know, you got a real way with words.” Rick’s face flushed. He recovered quickly. “Must be how you always manage to hang on to your job every time a new regime takes over.” He slid off the desk and walked to one of the bookcases, ran his fingers along the spines of several volumes, chose one and read the title. “Plata y Los Mercaderes de Esclavos by Miguel Ramirez. Silver and the Slave Traders. Just like the rest of us pencil pushers, those words can make enemies. Tomas, for instance? Must have been hard to be all pro-labor with him for a brother, with all his silver mines.”

  “He was not my brother,” Miguel growled. “And you know it.”

  “Well, step-brother. I’ll keep the facts straight. Say, how come you didn’t take to the rich life? I hear the great Maria Ramirez liked having loads of money.” He turned from the bookcase to stare at the portrait on the wall.

  The muscles in Miguel’s cheeks hardened like steel. Ridges striped his neck and beads of sweat filled his moustache. His fist shot out into the room before he had completely turned to face Winn. The blow only clipped the newsman’s jaw.

  Stumbling backwards against the door, Rick rubbed where his skin was already turning red and smiled behind his hand. “That was some nerve I hit. You haven’t punched me in quite awhile. What’s going on?”

  “Get out, Winn. Go crawl in the garbage with the other pepenadores.” He stepped behind the desk, putting the newsman out of his reach.

  Rick gave his head a slight shake, tossing off the pain of the blow. “Okay, I guess I’ve overstayed my welcome. I came by to warn you, word is some of the Morelos people think you’re knee deep in this burro shit yourself. Must be your reputation for being the original Cisco Kid. They know you’re usually in the middle of every Indian uprising, ejito squabble, or strike. Tell me before I go, off the record, is this your idea?”

  “Out, Winn, before I really lose my temper.”

  “You sure don’t give a working fellow much help. Sure hope you’re more gracious to your sister-in-law. I got a feeling Señora Morelos is going to be looking to you for more than you gave me.” He rubbed his jaw. “Information, I mean.” The sound of laughter followed him out.

  Miguel reached for the phone as soon as the newsman’s footsteps faded. “We have problems,” he said almost immediately. “Rick Winn was just in here. He is being very inquisitive. How about putting him in jail for a few days. And, tell the Secretary I will meet him in the usual place at nine tonight.”

  The room fell quiet and the last light of day faded from the window. Patricia. She had not been to Mexico since Tomas’ death. She will come though to see about their son, he thought. What mother would not go to the ends of the earth for her child?

  He stared at the picture on the wall, shadowed in black and gray by a streetlight below. He could not see the painting, but knew every brush stroke by heart. The great Maria Ramirez liked having money. Winn’s words cut at him. His mother had been dead now for ten years. The decade before that had been one of dying.

  It was not the image on the canvas that filled his mind, but one of Maria Ramirez as a young woman. Her hands had fascinated him. Always moving. Patting maize into tortillas, rolling tamales inside corn husks, grinding spices with a pestle, smoothing the pages of a book. Books. She had given him a love for them. When he was not out looking for charcoal, he spent his days in the corner of an adobe school where she taught in the village of Ixtaban de la Sal. His father was a sheep farmer until he got caught up in the changes of Miguel Aleman’s politics in the forties. A new emphasis on industrialization made the farmer’s plight worse under the newly reorganized PRM and Pepe Ramirez became one of many civil servants. A born leader, he moved from mayor of their village, to federal official of the state.

  They were in Mexico City for a political meeting when tragedy struck. His father was run down by a car, driven by a rival. Maria and Miguel were devastated. The incident drew attention to the family, and Maria began to speak as her husband had done, for the poor, the uneducated, for women’s suffrage. The people loved her.

  One day after they had moved to an apartment in Mexico City, Maria came home from a rally in a limousine. She was a heroine to her people. The women of Mexico had been given the vote. Miguel had watched the black car. Though he could not see beyond the murky windows, he knew his mother and a man were sitting in the back seat. Only ten years old, he had taken his father’s place as head of the family and the limo symbolized a threat he did not know how to fight. After his mother got out, he ran in the streets throwing rocks at the car.

  Maria Ramirez and Maximilian Morelos were married in 1958 when Miguel was twelve. And everything in his life changed. From two rooms they moved into one of the Profirian mansions just off the Paseo de la Reforma. He was enrolled in the prestigious National Preparatory School and was being groomed for the law school at UNAM, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

  Eventually, he met his new brother Tomas, eighteen years his senior. He was set to idolize Tomas. Stories of his brother’s business success in the United States were the topic of every meal. Maximilian was proud of his only son. The first evening Tomas was home, Miguel overheard him and his father talking in the grand salon where Miguel was not allowed. He heard Tomas laughing at Maria and him. He melted into the shadows of the hall, staring up at the honored Morelos ancestors and heard Tomas call his Mother a peasant and Miguel estupido, mocking their speech and manners.

  Miguel swelled and waited for Maximilian to slap his son as he’d done Miguel once for saying a cruel thing about a servant. His stepfather laughed. He heard the man remind Tomas about how he’d married Maria to gain the sympathy of the labor class. She had been getting much attention and he needed her to quiet the workers who were always demanding from him. Miguel ran away from the room when Maximilian began telling crude things about his wife in bed.

  He’d sought his mother and tried to tell her what he’d heard, but he couldn’t speak for crying. When he calmed down, she chastened him before he could begin his report, saying he should never eavesdrop. He must be respectful of his stepfather, to look around him and see how fortunate they were. She twirled her wedding band with its shiny, canary diamond and smiled at him with a happiness he did not understand.

  He never told her what he had heard. He watched as she changed her dress, her hair, her manners, her speech, and eventually, her beliefs.

  When he started at the university, he stayed with friends, hardly ever going home. He was happier than he had been in years. Then, during his second year Maximilian died. After the will was read, he had reason to hate his stepfather more. Tomas had been made sole heir with only a pittance for Miguel’s mother as long as she lived on in the family home and stayed out of politics.

  Miguel even had to ask Tomas for school funds. When he came home, his mother made a grand show of being the widow, even though she was only a shell of herself. Having filled her life with Maximilian, she had nothing of the great Maria Ramirez left.

  When the student unrest of 1967 mushroomed, Miguel was a leader. It was because of his involvement that he was summoned to Washington to answer to Tomas. He had already heard of Tomas’s American protégée, Patricia.

  He had not expected to fall in love with her.

  He stood up from his desk and walked to the painting. The dim light outlined his mother’s face. He frowned, trying to equate the image of the beautiful, passionate Patricia with the mother of a seventeen-year old son. Now tha
t Tomas was dead, would she marry again and forget her son? Hand clenched, he hit the wall, making the frame bounce against the thin partition.

  “Enough of women,” he muttered, as he gathered some papers before turning out the light and heading for the National Palace.

  Miguel’s office was in one of the yet-to-be restored century old buildings in the Zocalo’s Historical Center that had survived the earthquake. He walked up the street past new-old Colonials, crossed Guatemala Street and past the excavated ruins of the ancient Aztec city of Tenochititla. Some archeologists were still digging by dim lights beneath wooden walkways. They were like miners in shallow shafts, retrieving earth’s hidden riches. The robbing of the past. The cycle continued.

  Arriving at the Palace, he slipped out of the glow of a street lamp through a side door into the deserted courtyard. His footsteps echoed as he climbed the stone steps to a brass-railed balcony. He was early, but better he wait than the Secretary. A top official in a government filled with corruption, the Secretary was forced to work behind the scenes to try to help the people. He was one of the strongest in a chain of goodness missing most of its links.

  Miguel positioned himself in his usual place to watch for anyone coming. In his line of sight stretched the towering murals of Diego Rivera. Tourists trailed by these paintings every day without understanding what they saw. Miguel knew every figure. His mother had brought him here as a young boy and taught him the story of the Mexican people that Rivera had immortalized.

  “Dreaming, my friend?” Soft Spanish words came from the shadows.

  “No. Unless I am asleep and you are my nightmare.” Miguel chuckled softly.

  “Let’s walk.”

  The two men moved silently into an inner courtyard away from the possibility of prying eyes. Miguel was too well known as a dissident, as a promoter of strikes and a people’s rights’ advocate. The Secretary could not afford to be seen with him.