The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [148]
“And what is God like?” he asked.
She turned to him and smiled.
“He’s not as serious as you.”
He nodded.
“Ah,” he said.
“God doesn’t carry a gun,” she said.
They laughed.
“Cruz Chávez.”
She nudged him. He didn’t feel any kind of electrical charge or miraculous energies.
“A hundred years from now, when they remember you, they will all say, He was so serious.”
He frowned.
“Is this a word of prophecy?” he asked.
She shook her head, then punched him on the arm.
“I’m getting some lemonade,” she said. “I will bring you some. Don’t worry, you don’t have to drink it.”
She jumped up and went back to the door, and when she rose, their voices rose with her, and her name floated higher into the air, and they cried, they pleaded, they begged. Softly, as if hoping not to insult them, she closed the door behind her.
Cruz set the sweating glass down on the boards of the porch.
“What do you think our work is here on earth?” he asked.
“Love for God, love for each other. Reconciliation. Service.” She poked him with a finger. “Joy!”
“Joy,” he said. He squinted into the distance and said, “See those armed riders out there? Do you know what gives them joy? Killing the People, taking scalps. That is what makes them happy. Did you know that when they burn a village, or shoot the men and take the women, they always laugh? You never heard so much laughter as when those men are killing the People.”
She crossed her arms.
“I have heard that laughter.”
“No you haven’t.”
You don’t know me, she thought. But Huila had taught her well: men postured and wise women let them.
“They pierce infants,” he said, “and they laugh. They cut off the heads of women, and they laugh. That is joy to them.”
“I see,” she said.
She sipped her lemonade, turned to him.
“I will consider adopting a theology of misery, then,” she said. “In honor of you.”
He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh. He felt like an idiot talking to this willow of a girl. He wondered if she knew he was smelling her.
“So,” he said. “You are finished for the day.” He waved at the pilgrims.
“For the day, yes. Even Jesus ate supper. Even Jesus slept. Jesus probably—I don’t mean to upset you, Tiger—took baths and went to the bathroom.”
Cruz did, in fact, draw breath. An unwelcome picture of Jesus and the apostles urinating on roadside bushes invaded his mind. He had never, not once, imagined the Lord pissing. This girl was bold, he was sure of that. Possibly a heretic.
“I will eat supper,” she said, “and I will go to bed. I’m tired. I cannot do the impossible.”
“God can do the impossible,” he proclaimed.
“Really?” she said. “Then why does He not cure all of these suffering people, right now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me which is worse, Pope Chávez—is it that God cannot cure them all, or that He will not cure them?”
Cruz was silent. He had no answer. He resented the question.
“This,” she said, “is what I live with.”
He shrugged.
“You should know the answer,” she said. “You should know what it is you really think of God.”
She got up from the seat.
“Then,” she continued, “you should decide why the president of Mexico does not help these people.”
She drained her glass with a long swallow, set the glass on the plank floor, and held out her hand.
“Decide where you stand on the matter.”
He took her hand. Her grip was dry and firm, but soft. He resisted the urge to feel her knuckles with his thumb.
“God likes tools,” she said. “You and I, we are the tools of God. We cannot afford to rust or break. Do you see?”
She leaned in quickly and kissed his grizzled cheek.
“Good night,” she whispered. “Pope.”
Forty-eight
Cabora, Sonora
This Pinche Madhouse
Aguirre, You Cowardly Son of a Whore!
Aguirre, Quaking in Fear in Tejas!
Pinche Aguirre, My Dear Friend and Mentor!
Ay, cabrón, if you could see this madness! This insanity. Somehow, I have used my substantial and legendary loins to sire the Female Christ. By Christ! And oh, Christ. . . .
Have you ever noticed, you nearsighted visionary, how many words we have for “fool”? Idiota, simple, tonto, baboso, pendejo, mam