The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [87]
Three pipes extended from the rooftop water tank and snaked into the house. Two went to the fabulous scientific toilets, and one ran down to the sink in the kitchen. When one was going to use the toilet, a simple handle was spun counterclockwise until water fell into the tank above the toilet. Afterward, the old pull-chain unleashed an astonishing flood into the bowl and down the effluent pipe and into the arroyo, where it would delight frogs and salamanders and the snakes that ate them. No one knew how, but a catfish had managed to work its way into the toilet pond, and it grew huge eating the colonic offerings of the house. Every few weeks, one unlucky worker was sent to raise a floodgate and wash the sludge downstream. Somehow, the gargantuan catfish managed to hold its ground—it knew a good thing, and it wasn’t about to let the occasional flood wash it downstream, away from such a constant and flavorful repast.
No matter how big it got, nobody ever considered eating it.
Buenaventura was caught trying to break the ax-pump handle one night, in a snit. Tomás had never forgiven him for ruining his marriage. The patrón never let him inside the big house. He was never even allowed within the gates to the courtyard, and that really made him mad, since he’d have loved to eat some of the fruit on Tomás’s plum tree. Buenaventura knew Tomás was punishing him for being born.
When they caught Buenaventura, they dragged him to the front door by his ear. Tomás glared at him for a few moments, then suddenly announced he would be banished from Cabora for a month. He pronounced his sentence like an Old Testament king: “Banished to Aquihuiquichi!” The vaqueros immediately put Buenaventura on his horse and sent him galloping away.
Segundo missed all this drama. He was in his little house, wearing a golden silk bathrobe and soft leather slippers. If anyone had seen him, he would have had to get out his pistola and shoot. But nobody saw him. He sipped blackberry brandy. Nobody saw that, either. He tried it—and he liked it—he really liked it: he held up his little finger as he sipped. “Delightful, my dear,” he said out loud. “The aperitif is perfectly lovely. May I offer you a pâté?” One of the barn cats sat on the small couch and watched him with bored yellow eyes.
Tomás, after the banishment of his bastard son, sat at the table with Aguirre. Another country breakfast. Tomás was tired of eggs and steaks and beans and tortillas. He wondered what they ate for breakfast in France or that recent discovery, Japan.
“My dear Engineer,” he said.
“My beloved brother, Tomás!”
“Me caes bien, pinche Lauro.”
“And you, my friend, you too are all right by me!”
“Did you sleep well?” Tomás asked.
“Like the dead!” enthused Aguirre.
Tomás was vaguely aware that he was now as courtly with Aguirre as he had been with Loreto.
They spoke of engineering and of the political situation as the girls brought in squash blossoms fried in eggs. White goat cheese was crumbled over them, and chorizo leaked orange grease all over the plates. Fríjoles smashed and fried in lard. The obligatory mounds of tortillas.
“Lovely!” Aguirre said.
“We eat well,” Tomás agreed, taking a huge crunching bite out of a yellow chile. His eyes went red immediately, and then he started to sneeze. The chile made him sneeze over and over: Yachú-yachú-yachú! “Híjole!” Yachússs! “That’s good.” His brow was moist with chile sweat.
He crunched into the chile again.
Yaaa-chuuusss!
Huila shuffled out, looking like hell.
“Bless you,” she muttered.
“Gracias.”
Tomás noted that she had forgotten to brush her hair as he scrubbed his