The Five Acts of Diego Leon Page 6

  “You’re still alive,” Javier said, jokingly, as Diego sat beside him.

  “Yes,” Diego said.

  “My mother told me you’ll be coming to our house today after school. I’ll show you a new train set my father brought me from Mexico City.”

  “My son doesn’t take after me in this regard,” Carolina said to him that afternoon as they sat on the plush sofa in her sitting room. The window curtains were pulled back, and the afternoon sunlight streamed in through the glass, falling on the floor in long, bright beams across the study. There was a piano, a small easel holding sheets of music, and a gramophone in one corner of the room. The top of the piano was crammed with pictures of Carolina in elegant costumes and dresses as well as a strange wooden device with a pendulum. When she saw Diego looking at it, she asked him if he knew what it was.

  “No,” he said, approaching the piano.

  “It’s a metronome.” She adjusted a small metal weight at the base of the pendulum before moving it from side to side with her finger. It produced a series of small clicks. Carolina clapped her hands, faster, then slower, keeping beat with the clicks. “This helps us keep a rhythm when we’re composing music. Together. With me,” she urged him.

  Diego did so, and they clapped along, their beats in steady synchronization with the metronome.

  “Very good,” she told him, smiling. She wore a sweater draped over her shoulders, its arms hanging loose on her sides. “Come here,” she said, taking Diego by the hand, squeezing it. Her touch was warm, calming. They walked over to a trunk in the middle of the library. “I had one of the servants pull this down from the attic last night. This is where I keep the things of my former career. I don’t normally show these to the other children I tutor,” she explained. “Would you like to see inside?”

  “Yes,” he told her.

  Inside there were advertisements for extravagant operas with her name on them, wigs and funny hats, wooden canes and suspenders, pamphlets and newspaper clippings, and more photographs of Carolina in lavish costumes.

  “I was a diva,” Carolina said. “Do you know what that is?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “A diva is a great singer. Powerful. My voice had the strongest pitch and widest range in the company.” Carolina closed the trunk and led him back to the sofa. She sat very close to him and placed her arm around his shoulder. “You’re special, Diego.”

  “No I’m not, señora,” he said. “I’m not special at all.”

  “Of course you are. Why would you think such a thing?”

  “I know it,” he confessed. He kept his head down and felt tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ve heard it.”

  “Oh?” Carolina asked. “Where did you hear this, Diego?”

  He took a deep breath before he spoke, his voice quivering. “My father. He sent me away because I was nothing more than an inconvenience. And Doña Julia. I heard her tell my grandfather that she doesn’t love me. That she can’t. Just like my father.”

  Carolina squeezed his shoulder. She sat back and placed his head on her chest. “You’re anything but an inconvenience. You’re special, Diego. A wonderful boy.”

  “But how can you be so sure?” he asked.

  She laughed and sat up. She looked him in the face, wiping his tears away. “I was shy as a girl. I was misunderstood. My parents wanted me to be a nun. I grew up faithful, very obedient to them and to God. But then something happened when I was around your age.”

  She told him that she discovered her voice. But here, she said, it wasn’t just her ability to sing, but a calling, she explained, a realization that she had a purpose in life that would not involve the church and God.

  “I saw myself,” she said. “I understood myself. It was as if I was suddenly standing in a very bright room with a thousand pairs of eyes all on me. Everyone noticed me. And I wasn’t afraid. I felt confident. Sure of myself. It was wonderful.”

  “But I’m nothing,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “You’re not nothing.” She paused and took a deep breath. “You must have faith in me and in yourself, Diego. Can you? Can you have faith in yourself as I do in you?”

  “Yes,” he said. If Carolina believed in him, maybe his grandparents were wrong after all. He raised his head, pushed his shoulders back, and looked her directly in the eye. “I can.”

  “Good. Then let’s begin your lesson!” Carolina said, rising now, clapping her hands.

  She gave him speeches to memorize, and when he told her he couldn’t read very well, she helped him by reciting them first out loud herself then asking him to repeat her words. Over the next few weeks, he improved. His favorite speeches were those written by Cicero, and reading the epic poems by Homer and Virgil because they were filled with wars and battles, gods and monsters, and journeys to the underworld. Just like Elva’s stories, he thought. Carolina made for Diego a toga by stitching together strips of fabric and cloth. She made a sash and tied this around his waist and fashioned a crown by weaving together a few leaves and twigs she found outside in the garden. He stood before her, atop a stone bench in the courtyard, reading from the Aeneid. He was concentrating hard on the words, letting the speech and emotions overcome him when he heard someone giggle. He looked out and there, standing behind Carolina, was Javier, laughing and shaking his head.

  “Hush,” Carolina said to him.

  “But he looks like a girl,” Javier said. “Wearing a dress.”

  “It’s a toga. It’s what the Romans wore,” she told her son. “Never mind him, Diego.” She clapped her hands three times. “Continue.”

  But he couldn’t because Javier kept on snickering and laughing. Diego stopped now, jumped down from the bench, and removed the leaves in his hair.

  Carolina rose. “Look what you’ve done,” she said to Javier. “You ruined his concentration.”

  “So,” he said, folding his arms.

  It was all Diego could think to do. He moved toward Javier and pushed him until he fell back and into a plot of dirt, muddying his trousers and shoes, his face and arms.

  “Stop,” Carolina shouted. “Both of you.” She reached out, grabbed Javier, and made him stand. “You both apologize to one another. This minute.”

  Javier sighed, wiping away streaks of mud from his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” said Diego, looking down at the mud where Javier’s handprint had remained.

  “Go inside and get cleaned up,” Carolina said.

  “Will you help me?” Javier asked.

  “I’m with Diego right now. Go.”

  He walked away, his head lowered.

  She turned to Diego once they were alone and said, “There are always going to be boys like Javier in this world, boys who’ll make fun of you, who’ll ridicule you. But you must not let them distract you. Don’t let them lure you away from your dreams. I never gave up on mine. Even after I married.”

  There were times, she said, moments in the day when she caught a glimpse of the woman she used to be. There was a way her face looked, a feeling that would overcome her, she admitted, and she would be back to being that woman anew, the opera singer. Up on the stage again, singing, making the audience happy.

  “What do you seek?” she asked. “More than anything in the world, son? What do you want? What is your destiny?”

  Diego was confused. “I don’t—” he stammered. “I don’t know. I want my father and my grandparents to be proud of me. I want my mother in heaven to remember me.”

  “They will,” Carolina said. “If you work hard enough. If you stay true to yourself.” She rose now. “We are through for today. I will see you tomorrow.” Carolina turned and went inside. A few minutes later, Javier came back out. He stood across from Diego, his head down.

  “I’m sorry I said you looked like a girl,” he said.

  “That’s fine.” Diego put the book down and walked over, careful not to step on the hem of his costume. “I do look silly.” He untied th
e sash and removed the toga.

  “Now you look fine,” Javier proclaimed, pointing to Diego’s shirt and bow tie. “Now you look like me.” He walked over to the side of the house, pulled back a tangle of wild weeds and vines until a small iron gate came into view.

  “What are you doing?” he asked Javier.

  “Let’s go,” he said, beckoning him.

  “But your mother.”

  “My aunt’s inside talking with her. Come on now. Let’s go to the zócalo and feed the pigeons,” Javier urged him.

  Diego heard Carolina’s voice inside the house.

  “Quickly,” Javier insisted. He turned the knob and the gate creaked open.

  Diego ran out after him, a few feet behind, catching up to Javier at the corner. They walked along the narrow street, their arms draped over one another’s shoulder. At the zócalo, they bought a bag of roasted garbanzo beans and stole a piece of bread from one of the bakers when he turned to help another customer. They sat down on a bench, eating the smoked garbanzo beans and feeding crumbs of bread to the flock of plump gray pigeons.

  “My mother hates me,” Javier said, breaking off chunks of bread.

  “No, she doesn’t,” Diego said, reaching for a handful of garbanzo beans. He watched the sun descend behind the buildings, the shadows of the elegant arches supporting the portico lengthening out. The sound of gurgling water from the nearby fountain was soothing. “She loves you very much,” Diego told him.

  “She wishes I’d turned out like her. That I enjoyed singing and dancing and all that stuff.” Javier sighed and tossed more crumbs at the pigeons. “I don’t like it. I never have. I never will. But I’m glad you do. I’m glad she cares about you so much. Do you know why?”

  “No. Why?” Diego asked.

  “Because we’re like brothers,” Javier said. “We’ll always be friends.”

  This made Diego smile. He had someone now. He had a friend. A brother.

  When the bread and garbanzo beans were gone, they rose and left. The sound of church bells gonging and a man in a hat playing a tune from a wooden flute filled the air. The laughter of a handful of schoolchildren faded away as the two boys walked the short distance back home.

  2.

  April 1922

  HIS GRANDPARENTS’ FIRST PRIORITY WAS TO MOLD HIM INTO whatever they felt necessary in order to secure a position for him within the affluent citizenry of the city, thereby preserving their place as a prominent Morelian family even after their deaths. After all, as Diego was coming to learn, Mexico was a nation built on the notion of legacy, of families passing down wealth and power and land from one generation to the next, over and over again. They planned to let their half-indio grandson inherit the money, the house, and the business. Better that than to leave it all to the government or the church or to charity. No one would know his true pedigree, though.

  He was ordered by them never to mention his father and his P’urhépecha lineage. Diego would stop using his paternal last name, León, and would instead use his maternal one, Sánchez. His father, they told him, was a banker. A wealthy Frenchman. Diego was born there, in the southern part of the country. Somewhere near Nice. His mother died there. He stayed with his father until he too died of influenza. They made Diego memorize these details, over and over, until his real father, until San Antonio de la Fe, Elva, and his entire life before his move to the city faded away like long threads of smoke. With the exception of Carolina, who had learned about Diego’s existence from his grandmother years before he came to live with them, no one knew the truth. And certainly not his grandparents’ rich and powerful friends—bankers, merchants, politicians—whose respect they had worked so hard to maintain. By the time Diego reached sixteen, most of the memories of his past had altogether vanished as he tried to become someone different, someone who would please his grandparents.

  Since Diego was to inherit the family business, he spent more time with his grandfather as he grew older, learning from him how to notarize court documents and certificates. As a young boy, he had browsed through the large wooden bookcases in the office, thumbing through the ledgers and stacks of papers, smoothing out the crinkled birth certificates and land deeds. Now, he sat next to his grandfather, watching him record a set of papers. Everything was assigned a number and logged in, stamped with an official seal, and left to dry overnight before being passed on to the owner or stored away in the large vault in back. Diego found the solitude of the office comforting and grew to admire his grandfather, enjoyed watching as his ink-stained fingers moved expertly back and forth from ledger to document then back again.

  “You see that spot there?” Doroteo said one afternoon. They were inside the office, and the old man pointed out the open door, to the sidewalk crammed with pedestrians. The day was warm, but under the shaded portico, the air was cool as Diego leaned his head out.

  “Where?” he asked, adjusting his bow tie.

  “Right there. Right by the column. The cracked one.”

  “Yes,” said Diego. The column was plastered with bulletins and flyers. “I see it, Grandfather.”

  “That was where your father used to stand. The first time I saw him he had on a pair of dirty trousers. You know? The kind peasants wear, made of simple white fabric with a drawstring around the waist. And he wore a white shirt. And one of those pointed hats made from a palm. He was barefoot. Quite a sight, son. I say this because I want you to know how lucky you are. You’ll never have to worry about being poor. All this will be yours once I die.”

  “I’m so grateful to you and Doña Julia for that,” Diego said, turning to him.

  The old man sat in a chair, his small body lost among the tall stacks of ledgers and crates full of papers and documents, all of them waiting to be catalogued and notarized and filed away. Suddenly he looked at Diego, his gaze stern. “Promise me that you won’t let this business, everything I’ve worked for, fail,” he said.

  “Of course not,” said Diego. “I promise, Grandfather.”

  “You’re all that’s left of our family. You have to stay focused,” he said. “Continue to study. Part with things that distract you, if need be.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like your friends. Like all that time you spend with Carolina singing and dancing. It’s time you give up such childish pursuits. What kind of a life will you have if you follow that, huh?”

  “But I like it, Grandfather. It makes me happy. I don’t find it gets in the way of my work here or my studies.”

  “I know,” he said. “But you’re old enough now to begin assuming more of the responsibilities around here so that you’ll be well-prepared for this job, for this life.” His grandfather rose, loosened his tie, and removed his jacket. He walked over to Diego and put his arm around his shoulder. “I know you enjoy it, but I think it’s best that you end those lessons. Think of your future.”

  Diego looked out the door, at the cracked column where his father once stood. He imagined him there, holding a tray full of cigarettes and lottery tickets, lost among the faces of the masses, a poor peasant, so desperate, so hungry and tired. After all, Gabriel had sent him here to make something of himself, to use his grandfather’s influence to chart another course for his life, hadn’t he? And Diego had no reason to defy his grandfather, to ignore his advice. The man had given Diego everything he needed, had sheltered him when he arrived on that day many years before. Where would he be without Doroteo? He remembered San Antonio de la Fe, the cold and damp house, the overgrown fields and dying animals, the stench of rot and decay. Doroteo was right: Diego was fortunate to have escaped that destiny. He owed the old man his life. Who would he have become had he stayed there?

  “If you say so, Grandfather,” Diego told him. “Whatever you think is best.”

  The next afternoon at Carolina’s, before his lesson, she hugged him in a way only a mother could.

  “Five years,” she said. “Diego, it’s been five years. You’ve come so far. I’m so proud. You’ve learned qu
ickly. Everything I’ve taught you. And you’ve rekindled my love of performance again. For that, I can’t repay you.”

  “Thank you,” he said, releasing himself from her hold and rising now. “You’ve given me so much.” He was about to tell her of his plans to end the lessons with her when she pulled out an envelope from her pocket and handed it to him.

  “Here,” she said. “Open it.” Inside there were two tickets to an opera that Saturday at a small theater near the main plaza.

  Diego leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “I figured you could see if Javier wants to go with you. Convince him, will you? It’s Faust. I think he would like it. Do you remember Faust?”

  “I do,” he said. “It’s the one where Professor Faust makes a pact with Mephistopheles, a devil determined to lead him astray. This is the best present. Thank you very much.”

  “Thank you,” Carolina said. “For all that you’ve given me.”

  He would not tell her of his decision. Not just then. But soon.

  Compared to the other buildings in the center of town, the theater was badly in need of repair. The plaster was chipping and breaking off, the columns holding up the main arches crumbling from years of neglect, the tiled ceiling fading. As they entered, Diego handed his ticket to an usher, who bowed and tipped his hat in a dignified way to the two boys. Everything around them darkened. What little light there was from the street was now gone. The lanterns along the wall emitted a low and weak glow. Sound was muffled, and the people walking into the theater moved slowly, so slowly, and the swish of their arms, the stomping of their feet on the ground, the tilt of their heads, all seemed choreographed, in perfect synchronicity.

  Diego and Javier made their way down the main aisle of the theater and from their seats near the front, Diego could feel the warmth coming from the stage lights that would soon dim, pulling him further into the world of Faust, a world where the devil walked and communicated with man, where someone could conjure up evil spirits and learn the true value of knowledge and the dangers of obsession and excess. He held his breath, waiting for the start.