The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [155]
“Touché,” he said.
Each of them felt a warm glow in their chests. They secretly loved arguing with each other. They were both grinning.
“But these roses,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“Roses denote grace,” she said.
“To whom?”
“To God. To Our Lady.”
“What did I tell you? Fairy tales!”
“Is this smell a fairy tale?” she said, raising her arm. “Explain it.”
“Why not honeysuckle? Lavender?”
She shrugged.
“I thought you liked the smell of roses.”
“Who told you that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I thought everybody did.”
“Not me.”
“You never liked the smell of roses?”
“No.”
“Not even now?”
“Hell no!”
She clapped her hands. Laughed.
“This is marvelous!” she cried.
“Sorry,” he said.
She put her hands on her cheeks.
“Wonderful.”
They laughed and ate.
“Did you see the Apaches?” she asked.
“Today?”
She nodded. “Apaches come to see me sometimes.”
“How do you tell them from all the other Indians?”
“They say, ‘We are Apaches.’”
He smiled.
“Very funny.”
“They wanted to ask me why the Yaquis and the People at Cabora were interested in Jesus.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“I told them that Jesus rose from the dead and walked again.”
“And what did they say?”
“They said, ‘That’s all? Medicine men do that all the time!’”
“The sinners did not accept your savior, eh?”
“My error, I’m afraid.”
“You will have to go to confession,” he said.
“Yes, I seem to have lost a chance to evangelize.”
“Dangerous doctrines!” he bellowed. “Indigenous heresies!”
“Shhh! Not everybody is awake, you know.”
He shrugged. Sipped more wine.
“Aren’t you tired of it?” he asked.
“What?”
“You know what.”
“All this?” She gestured with her spoon.
“Sí. Esto. Todo esto. Este desmadre de santos y pecadores. Todo esto, hija.”
She was quiet for a moment. Toyed with her spoon. Dabbed at her lips with her napkin.
“Every day,” she said.
“What would you do if you could?” he asked. He patted the table loud enough to get her attention. “And don’t tell me ‘Nothing’!”
She thought, looked at her hands.
“I don’t know. . . .”
“Come, come. Tell me. I am your poor old Papá.”
“Oh,” she looked at him. “I would be quiet.”
“Quiet? That’s not exactly clear to me, Teresita. Quiet how?”
“Quiet. I would live in a small cool house under trees. Where no one would look at me. I would grow mint and corn and some tomatoes. I would grow cilantro and find a little humble man and have a baby and I . . . I would be forgotten.”
They stared at each other for a long time. Her eyes became wet. He reached across the table and took her hand.
“Teresita,” he whispered.
She shook her head.
“We could send them all home.”
“No.”
“We could stop all this,” he said. “We could start again. We could move to Alamos, and you could have a little house there. Or —”
“It is not my destiny.”
“You make your own destiny.”
“God makes our destinies.”
“God is a fairy tale!”
She shook her head.
“You forget,” she replied. “I have seen God. His hand touched my palm.”
Tomás let go of her hand, just in case there was some kind of jolt, some mysterious tingle. He wasn’t ready for heavenly gestures at the moment.
“It was a hallucination,” he said, not unkindly.
She turned pitying eyes to him.
“You cannot win your argument with God,” she said. “You are angry—you were orphaned. Your parents died when you were just a boy. You shake your fist at God, and you cry and curse Him every night in your bed. But you cannot win. In the morning, He is still there, waiting for you. All unbelievers are the same.”
He rested his chin on his fist.
“And?” he prodded.
“And you always thought it made you different. You always felt unique. Above all the fools who followed God. But everyone who stops believing thinks he is the smartest one. You all compete with each