The Five Acts of Diego Leon Read Online Free Page B

Luis Vara finally returned to San Antonio.
    Luis hugged Diego and kissed Elva. He had lost much weight, and he was now thin, his round belly completely gone, his trousers and shirt loose and baggy on his body. His father frightened Diego. He was like an apparition, a spirit. His hair was tangled and matted, his fingernails and toenails thick and yellowed and curved like a dog’s. He wore tattered rags, a hat woven from strips of palm fronds, and a pair of flimsy leather sandals. His hands trembled as he ate the plate of beans and tortillas Elva served. He gulped the coffee down quickly, even though it was hot. He sat hunched in the corner of the cookhouse for most of the day, watching the puddles of rain outside. There was a new scar running across his left cheek, a deep gouge splitting his skin.
    “What happened, Gabriel?” Elva asked, reaching out to touch it.
    “Nothing,” his father responded, pushing her hand away.
    “He was captured,” Luis said. “Tortured. He was found chained to …” He stopped now, glanced over at Diego. Luis cleared his throat before continuing: “I won’t say more in front of the boy, but I had to bring him back or he would have died.”
    His father remained silent for a long time, chewing his tortillas.Finally he spoke. “Where is Amalia?” he asked Elva. “Did she return to Morelia?”
    Elva took a deep breath and reached for the clay jug on the crooked wooden shelf near the washbasin. Diego knew she kept it full of pulque and took drinks from time to time when her nerves acted up. She looked over at Diego, who fixed his eyes on his father. She took a drink from the jug then walked it over to Gabriel. He took a long drink.
    “Two years after you both left, a troop of fighters came to San Antonio. Afterward, many children, including the boy, got very sick,” Elva explained. “Then some adults became ill. Amalia got it, too. The boy recovered. She didn’t.”
    Luis sighed and muttered something under his breath.
    “She’s dead?” his father asked.
    “Yes,” Elva said. “We buried her in the cemetery. Near your parents.” She reached out and took his hand. “But the boy was spared. And you’re both alive. We thought you died. It’s a miracle.”
    His father set the jug down on the table. Diego caught the scent of fermented alcohol mixing with the smell of wood smoke and toasting maize as his father charged out of the cookhouse and into the street.
    “What a tragedy,” Luis said, removing his hat and looking at Elva, then Diego. “I’m sorry, son. I’m so sorry for all of this.”
    He went with his father the next day to Mass, and after everyone left, they stayed. Gabriel lit a candle and said a prayer for Amalia. His hands trembled and he cried into the sleeve of his shirt.
    “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry.”
    Diego didn’t know what to say. He wanted to reach out and pat his father on the shoulder, but something stopped him. Instead, he watched the candles flicker and burn away to nothing.
    On the fifth of February of 1917—a month after Diego’s eleventh birthday—the country rejoiced but just for a brief moment. The land, Luis told him, had a new Constitution that guaranteed many rights for workers, such as paid holidays and better wages. Thingswill get better, he said. The fighting will cease. But Elva knew the truth.
    “This isn’t anything to celebrate,” she said one day as Diego stood a few feet away from her, feeding the chickens. “The men are still abandoning their plows and pickaxes and still following the revolutionaries.”
    “Who’s fighting now?” Diego asked her. He wondered what was left to defend.
    Elva squinted. “Let me think. I can’t ever keep track of it.” She paused, counting with her fingers. “Madero, Villa, and Zapata against Díaz. That’s how this started. Then it was Zapata and Orozco against Madero, wasn’t it? Then Huerta turned against Madero and had him and Suárez executed, I think. Then