The Pastures of Heaven (17 page)

“I didn't mean nothing,” the offender whined. “Honest to God, Rosa, I didn't mean nothing.”

Her anger left her then. One of her hands took flight from her hip, this time like a lark, and motioned almost sadly toward the door. “Go,” she said gently. “I do not think you meant bad, but the insult is still.” And as the culprit slunk out of the doorway, “Now, would anyone else like a dish of chiles con frijoles? Which one here? Chiles con frijoles like none in the world.”

Ordinarily they were happy, these sisters. Maria, whose nature was very delicate and sweet, planted more geraniums around the house, and lined the fence with hollyhocks. On a trip to Salinas, Rosa and Maria bought and presented to each other boudoir caps like inverted nests of blue and pink ribbons. It was the ultimate! Side by side they looked in a mirror and then turned their heads and smiled a little sadly at each other, thinking, “This is the great day. This is the time we shall remember always as the happy time. What a shame it cannot last.”

In fear that it would not last, Maria kept large vases of flowers in front of her Virgin.

But their foreboding came seldom upon them. Maria bought a little phonograph with records—tangoes, waltzes. When the sisters worked over the stones, they set the machine to playing and patted out the tortillas in time to the music.

Inevitably, in the valley of the Pastures of Heaven, the whisper went about that the Lopez sisters were bad women. Ladies of the valley spoke coldly to them when they passed. It is impossible to say how these ladies knew. Certainly their husbands didn't tell them, but nevertheless they knew; they always know.

Before daylight on a Saturday morning, Maria carried out the old, string-mended harness and festooned it on the bones of Lindo. “Have courage, my friend,” she said to the horse, as she buckled the crupper and, “The mouth, please, my Lindo,” as she inserted the bit. Then she backed him between the shafts of an ancient buggy. Lindo purposely stumbled over the shafts, just as he had for thirty years. When Maria hooked the traces, he looked around at her with a heavy, philosophic sadness. Old Lindo had no interest in destinations any more. He was too old even to be excited about going home once he was out. Now he lifted his lips from his long, yellow teeth, and grinned despairingly. “The way is not long,” Maria soothed him. “We will go slowly. You must not fear the journey, Lindo.” But Lindo did fear the journey. He loathed the journey to Monterey and back.

The buggy sagged alarmingly when Maria clambered into it. She took the lines gingerly in her hands. “Go, my friend,” she said, and fluttered the lines. Lindo shivered and looked around at her. “Do you hear? We must go! There are things to buy in Monterey.” Lindo shook his head and drooped one knee in a kind of curtsey. “Listen to me, Lindo!” Maria cried imperiously. “I say we must go. I am firm! I am even angry.” She fluttered the lines ferociously about his shoulders. Lindo drooped his head nearly to the earth, like a scenting hound, and moved slowly out of the yard. Nine miles he must go to Monterey, and nine miles back. Lindo knew it, and despaired at the knowledge. But now that her firmness and her anger were over, Maria settled back in the seat and hummed the chorus of the “Waltz Moon” tango.

The hills glittered with dew. Maria, breathing the fresh damp air, sang more loudly, and even Lindo found youth enough in his old nostrils to snort. A meadow lark flew ahead from post to post, singing furiously. For ahead Maria saw a man walking in the road. Before she caught up with him, she knew from the shambling, ape-like stride that it was Allen Hueneker, the ugliest, shyest man in the valley.

Allen Hueneker not only walked like an ape, he looked like an ape. Little boys who wanted to insult their friends did so by pointing to Allen and saying, “There goes your brother.” It was a deadly satire. Allen was so shy and so horrified at his appearance that he tried to grow whiskers to cover up his face, but the coarse, sparse stubble grew in the wrong places and only intensified his simian appearance. His wife had married him because she was thirty-seven, and because Allen was the only man of her acquaintance who could not protect himself. Later it developed that she was a woman whose system required jealousy properly to function. Finding nothing in Allen's life of which she could be jealous, she manufactured things. To her neighbors she told stories of his prowess with women, of his untrustworthiness, of his obscure delinquencies. She told these stories until she believed them, but her neighbors laughed behind her back when she spoke of Allen's sins, for everyone in the Pastures of Heaven knew how shy and terrified the ugly little man was.

The ancient Lindo stumbled abreast of Allen Hueneker. Maria tugged on the lines as though she pulled up a thunderously galloping speed. “Steady, Lindo! Be calm!” she called. At the lightest pressure of the lines, Lindo turned to stone and sunk into his loose-jointed, hang-necked posture of complete repose.

“Good morning,” said Maria politely.

Allen edged shyly over toward the side of the road. “Morning,” he said, and turned to look with affected interest up a side hill.

“I go to Monterey,” Maria continued. “Do you wish to ride?”

Allen squirmed and searched the sky for clouds or hawks. “I ain't going only to the bus stop,” he said sullenly.

“And what then? It is a little ride, no?”

The man scratched among his whiskers, trying to make up his mind. And then, more to end the situation than for the sake of a ride, he climbed into the buggy beside the fat Maria. She rolled aside to make room for him, and then oozed back. “Lindo, go!” she called. “Lindo, do you hear me? Go before I grow angry again.” The lines clattered about Lindo's neck. His nose dropped toward the ground, and he sauntered on.

For a little while they rode in silence, but soon Maria remembered how polite it was to encourage conversation. “You go on a trip, yes?” she asked.

Allen glared at an oak tree and said nothing.

“I have not been on a train,” Maria confided after a moment, “but my sister, Rosa, has ridden on trains. Once she rode to San Francisco, and once she rode back. I have heard very rich men say it is good to travel. My own sister, Rosa, says so too.”

“I ain't going only to Salinas,” said Allen.

“Ah, of course I have been there many times. Rosa and I have such friends in Salinas. Our mother came from there. And our father often went there with wood.”

Allen struggled against his embarrassment. “Couldn't get the old Ford going, or I'd've gone in it.”

“You have, then, a Ford?” Maria was impressed.

“Just an old Ford.”

“We have said, Rosa and I, that some day we, too, may have a Ford. Then we will travel to many places. I have heard very rich men say it is good to travel.”

As though to punctuate the conversation, an old Ford appeared over the hill and came roaring down on them. Maria gripped the lines. “Lindo, be calm!” she called. Lindo paid not the slightest attention either to Maria or to the Ford.

Mr. and Mrs. Munroe were in the Ford. Bert craned his neck back as they passed. “God! Did you see that?” he demanded, laughing. “Did you see that old woman-killer with Maria Lopez?”

Mrs. Munroe smiled.

“Say,” Bert cried. “It'd be a good joke to tell old lady Hueneker we saw her old man running off with Maria Lopez.”

“Don't you do anything of the kind,” his wife insisted.

“But it'd be a good joke. You know how she talks about him.”

“No, don't you do it, Bert!”

Meanwhile Maria drove on, conversing guilelessly with her reluctant guest. “You do not come to our house for enchiladas. There are no enchiladas like ours. For look! we learned from our mother. When our mother was living, it was said as far as San Juan, even as far as Gilroy, that no one else could make tortillas so flat, so thin. You must know it is the beating, always the beating that makes goodness and thinness to a tortilla. No one ever beat so long as our mother, not even Rosa. I go now to Monterey for flour because it is cheaper there.”

Allen Hueneker sank into his side of the seat and wished for the bus station.

 

 

It was late in the afternoon before Maria neared home again. “Soon we are there,” she called happily to Lindo. “Have courage, my friend, the way is short now.” Maria was bubbling with anticipation. In a riot of extravagance she had bought four candy bars, but that was not all. For Rosa she had a present, a pair of broad silken garters with huge red poppies appliquéd on their sides. In her imagination she could see Rosa putting them on and then lifting her skirt, but very modestly, of course. The two of them would look at the garters in a mirror standing on the floor. Rosa would point her toe a trifle, and then the sisters would cry with happiness.

In the yard Maria slowly unharnessed Lindo. It was good, she knew, to put offjoy, for by doing so, one increased joy. The house was very quiet. There were no vehicles in front to indicate the presence of customers. Maria hung up the old harness, and turned Lindo into the pasture. Then she took out the candy bars and the garters and walked slowly into the house. Rosa sat at one of the little tables, a silent, restrained Rosa, a grim and suffering Rosa. Her eyes seemed glazed and sightless. Her fat, firm hands were clenched on the table in front of her. She did not turn nor give any sign of recognition when Maria entered. Maria stopped and stared at her.

“Rosa,” she said timidly. “I'm back home, Rosa.”

Her sister turned slowly. “Yes,” she said.

“Are you sick, Rosa?”

The glazed eyes had turned back to the table again. “No.”

“I have a present, Rosa. Look, Rosa.” She held up the magnificent garters.

Slowly, very slowly, Rosa's eyes crept up to the brilliant red poppies and then to Maria's face. Maria was poised to break into squealing enthusiasm. Rosa's eyes dropped, and two fat tears ran down the furrows beside her nose.

“Rosa, do you see the present? Don't you like them, Rosa? Won't you put them on, Rosa?”

“You are my good little sister.”

“Rosa, tell me, what is the matter? You are sick. You must tell your Maria. Did someone come?”

“Yes,” said Rosa hollowly, “the sheriff came.”

Now Maria fairly chattered with excitement. “The sheriff, he came? Now we are on the road. Now we will be rich. How many enchiladas, Rosa? Tell me how many for the sheriff.”

Rosa shook off her apathy. She went to Maria and put motherly arms about her. “My poor little sister,” she said. “Now we cannot ever sell any more enchiladas. Now we must live again in the old way with no new dresses.”

“Rosa, you are crazy. Why you talk this way to me?”

“It is true. It was the sheriff. ‘I have a complaint,' he said to me. ‘I have a complaint that you are running a bad house.' ‘But that is a lie,' I said. ‘A lie and an insult to our mother and to General Vallejo.' ‘I have a complaint,' he told me. ‘You must close your doors or else I must arrest you for running a bad house.' ‘But it is a lie,' I tried to make him understand. ‘I got a complaint this afternoon,' he said. ‘When I have a complaint, there is nothing I can do, for see, Rosa,' he said to me as a friend, ‘I am only the servant of the people who make complaints.' And now you see, Maria, my sister, we must go back to the old living.” She left the stricken Maria and turned back to her table. For a moment Maria tried to understand it, and then she sobbed hysterically. “Be still, Maria! I have been thinking. You know it is true that we will starve if we cannot sell enchiladas. Do not blame me too much when I tell you this. I have made up my mind. See, Maria! I will go to San Francisco and be a bad woman.” Her head dropped low over her fat hands. Maria's sobbing had stopped. She crept close to her sister.

“For money?” she whispered in horror.

“Yes,” cried Rosa bitterly. “For money. For a great deal of money. And may the good Mother forgive me.”

Maria left her then, and scuttled into the hallway where she stood in front of the porcelain Mary. “I have placed candles,” she cried. “I have put flowers every day. Holy Mother, what is the matter with us? Why do you let this happen?” Then she dropped on her knees and prayed, fifty Hail Marys! She crossed herself and rose to her feet. Her face was strained but determined.

In the other room Rosa still sat bent over her table.

“Rosa,” Maria cried shrilly. “I am your sister. I am what you are.” She gulped a great breath. “Rosa, I will go to San Francisco with you. I, too, will be a bad woman—”

Then the reserve of Rosa broke. She stood up and opened her huge embrace. And for a long time the Lopez sisters cried hysterically in each other's arms.

Molly Morgan got off the train in Salinas and waited three quarters of an hour for the bus. The big automobile was empty except for the driver and Molly.

“I've never been to the Pastures of Heaven, you know,” she said. “Is it far from the main road?”

“About three miles,” said the driver.

“Will there be a car to take me into the valley?”

“No, not unless you're met.”

“But how do people get in there?”

The driver ran over the flattened body of a jack rabbit with apparent satisfaction. “I only hit ‘em when they're dead,” he apologized. “In the dark, when they get caught in the lights, I try to miss 'em.”

“Yes, but how am I going to get into the Pastures of Heaven?”

“I dunno. Walk, I guess. Most people walk if they ain't met.”

When he set her down at the entrance to the dirt side-road, Molly Morgan grimly picked up her suitcase and marched toward the draw in the hills. An old Ford truck squeaked up beside her.