“Over a period of more than five decades, a few Franciscans, austere Spanish monks, moved by an unwavering faith and a blind loyalty toward their king, traveled across the still-wild terrain of California, erecting missions in the name of their king and their God. They began in 1769 with the mission of San Diego de Alcala and, advancing by foot and on the back of mules, made their way northward through unknown territory, gradually erecting the twenty-one missions that ended up forming what would be known as the Camino Real. Their aim was to convert the native population and introduce their own civilization, and although such intentions in present-day eyes are questionable, due to the painfully high price that the native population paid in the form of sickness, submission, and loss of identity, we cannot ignore the meritorious labors performed by those men, who once upon a time crossed an ocean to carry out what they understood to be their sacred duty. They brought with them their language and customs, their fruits and animals and their way of working. And they left their indelible imprint in hundreds of names that dot the map and in a thousand little details that leap to the eye, from the color of the walls to roof tiles and vineyards and window grilles.”
I made several pauses to let Luis, to my right, translate. Daniel, standing next to Joe, had moved to one side, giving the two of us the entire spotlight. Around us, more than a hundred pairs of eyes and ears looked on and listened with interest.
“More than a century and a half after that first mission was built, life’s vicissitudes brought a Spanish professor, Andres Fontana, to these shores. He was moved in his later years by his discovery of the numerous echoes of his native country in this foreign land. Long since exiled by then, he decided to throw all his energies into researching what his compatriots had done here. And after a few years’ work poring over old documents, he had come to believe that the fabled chain of missions founded by the Spanish Franciscans did not end with the construction in 1823 of San Francisco Solano Mission in Sonoma, as had always been thought. Somehow he knew that they’d gone farther, and he dedicated the rest of his life to finding proof that would confirm this. Unfortunately, he died before he was able to finish his work. But thanks to his effort and perseverance, we’ve reached the conclusion that the mission he sought really did exist. The graves that were discovered yesterday confirm that there was in fact a mission here.”
After Luis had again translated, I mentioned Altimira and gave a bit of his background, including his disregard for authority in building the Sonoma mission. Then I spoke of the fire that razed it.
“Defying his superiors once more, moved perhaps by a mixture of frustration and rebelliousness or the iron will of his faith, Father Altimira, one of the last friars to arrive in California from old Spain, came by foot all the way to this inhospitable place and, without any means or permission of any kind, founded an extremely modest mission. He was accompanied by a few converted Indians, who along with him had survived the Sonoma fire and who now lie resting beneath these gravestones after perishing in an Indian attack. As you can see, nothing is left of that spare construction that Altimira erected except the remains of what was their cemetery. The survival of the mission was brief, limited at most to a handful of months. And although we don’t have any record of it, inspired as we are by Andres Fontana’s passionate quest, we want to believe that Father Altimira, in an evocation of his own helplessness, consecrated it to Our Lady of Oblivion, calling it Mision de Nuestra Señora del Olvido.
“My old compatriot would have been proud of all of you: for your dedication in fighting to preserve these surroundings, and for your determination to retain the integrity of this place, which belongs to everyone and which meant so much to him. Having lived intensively with his memory for these past few months, I feel honored, in his name, to express gratitude for what you’ve accomplished.”
Luis translated in chunks, and at the end applause rang out, screams of joy were heard, and the young man in dreadlocks beat his drum yet again.
Next, Joe Super spoke and mentioned some of the technical aspects regarding the very complex legal tangle that would ensue the moment the appeal was presented. The Catholic Church could not claim ownership of the land: the Franciscans never owned the territory their missions occupied but simply enjoyed their use. But the simple confirmation of the fact that this had been missionary ground would subject the area to a special legal status as a landmark site. That, however, would have to be dealt with by experts who could reconstruct accurately what in fact took place in that setting and determine its consequences accordingly. There were, all in all, weighty reasons for optimism. The hardest work was now done.
While Joe was bombarded with questions, I could hear Daniel’s voice behind me.
“A quarter to one. Time to go.”
Chapter 44
* * *
“Just one moment.”
I scanned the surrounding people in search of Luis Zarate. Joe meanwhile kept answering questions and the students shook hands and hugged one another amid laughter while they started clearing up the campsite. The onlookers began to beat a retreat to their cars; the grandmothers insisted on handing out coffee that no one seemed to want anymore; and the police, although still overseeing things, no longer created a feeling of tension. Then I saw that a group of protesters had corralled the chairman a short distance away from this commotion of movement, shouts, and babbling voices.
“Can I steal him from you?”
Without waiting for an answer, I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along with me.
“I want you to know that I always knew you’d come around sooner or later.”
“Don’t think for a minute that I’d cower before Carter or that you’ll end up convincing me,” he declared with an ironic smile.
I did not answer him; we both knew that the definitive reason he’d decided to step up was not because of Daniel or me but rather himself.
“Promise me that you’re going to do this with enthusiasm and dedication.”
“And you promise me that you’ll return someday. You’ll be able to teach whatever course you like: Introduction to Franciscan Missions; Fontana and His Legacy 101; or How to Seduce a Chairman.”
I laughed wearily.
“Let me know when you come through Madrid. A few things are left up in the air; we can still remain friends.”
“Nothing has been left pending, Blanca. Everything has come to where it had to.”
I stopped walking and looked him in the eye.
“Fontana would be proud to know that everything is in good hands.”
I took the old cross from out of my raincoat pocket.
“Take this cross as a proof. It might be my imagination but I think Fontana found it buried around here. We’ve kept it with us these past few days; it has somehow been like having him close.”
He grabbed it and, just as Daniel and myself had done earlier, ran his fingers over its roughness, grazing the frayed string.
“You keep it,” he said, giving it back to me. “You also have plenty of road ahead of you.”
I would not accept it.
“My road, no matter where it ends up going, no longer leads here. Nor does his, I don’t think.” I indicated Daniel’s turned back with my eyes. “Now you’re in charge.”
I again handed the cross to him and pressed my hands over his.
“Take care of it and take care of yourself,” I said without letting go of him.
“I’ll try.”
There were no emotional hugs or long farewell declarations; we simply pressed our hands together once more, thereby conveying a final good-bye. I somehow sensed that he would never call even if he were to visit my city a hundred times—that we’d never see each other again.
I left him among the pine trees and hurriedly went in search of Daniel, preferring not to look back.
“I’ll pick you up at your apartment at two o’clock,” Daniel t
old me, looking at his watch. “I’ve got to go by my place too.”
The first stop was my office, where I had a few matters to attend to. The minute I opened the door I took a look around at the papers already in their boxes and the piles neatly stacked against the wall. We still didn’t know where all of that would end up or who it would have to go through before it reached its final destination, wherever that would be; but there was no doubt in my mind that it would be well taken care of.
Without time for speculation, I put in my bag a few floppy disks and a couple of notepads full of information for a future report on my work. Only then did I begin to carry out my second objective, the main one.
I took the thick, outdated telephone book from a shelf and, from between its pages with their minuscule names, recovered the folded page.
Wherein oblivion dwells,
In the vast gardens without aurora . . .
I read Cernuda’s poem again. Afterwards, I took out a box of matches from my desk’s bottom drawer. Left over from some other transient like myself, they’d been forgotten there next to a rusted pencil sharpener and a handful of clips.
The fire took only a few seconds to consume the words.
Where I am but the memory of a buried stone amid nettles . . .
The ashes ended up in the wastebasket and among them a man’s most intimate feelings.. For some vague reason, I thought that Fontana would be happy to know that someone had protected his privacy.
I found Fanny in her place, as was seldom the case, devouring a chocolate doughnut. In her eagerness to tell me something, upon seeing me, she choked a little.
“I’ve got something for you, Professor: a good-bye present!” she uttered between coughs.
She picked up a box from the floor. An old box clumsily covered with green-striped fabric. She’d wrapped it herself, she told me. Years ago.
“You know we’re going to change houses, right? Mother has told me to start packing and I’m beginning to empty the closets.”
“Yes, I’ve heard something to that effect, Fanny.”
“Well, last night, when I was taking a few things out of the attic, look what I found . . .”
She lifted the lid of her childhood treasure chest and, between birthday cards and Bee Gees tapes, she recovered a few photos. Faded snapshots, small and square, taken with a poor-quality camera that had probably ceased to exist ages ago.
“Do you remember the day I spoke to you about when Uncle Andres took us to the amusement park in Santa Cruz? I was nine years old, but I still remember quite clearly. What I couldn’t remember were these photos. I mean, I remember we took some photos, but couldn’t remember where they were, because had I remembered . . .”
I’d quit listening to her after the first sentence, as soon as she held the images before my eyes. Little Fanny in a close-fitting yellow dress with an anchor in the front, with the same straight hair cut at the line of her jawbone, smiling rapturously with a plume of cotton candy in her right hand. With a man to her left. A dark man still in his fifties, with dark hair, a broad torso, and bushy eyebrows. Hairy arms, a chickpea-colored shirt half-open, and a heavy beard starting to gray in some areas. One hand on the girl’s shoulder, a cigarette in the other. With a half smile, as if forced by the situation. Four photographs with very little variation. The fifth, however, was radically different. There were no longer two people posing but three. On the back of it, in the childish hand of the younger Fanny, a few written words: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Summer 1966. The third person in the photograph was Darla Stern, with the same Nordic dyed hair and lips as fierce then as they were now. About forty-something at the time, somewhat excessive in her tight capri pants and high-heeled sandals. Striking an artificial pose to accentuate her silhouette for the camera and with a possessive and triumphant smile on her face. My daughter and my man, she seemed to be screaming to the world. Perhaps erroneously, perhaps not.
Fontana wasn’t smiling in that image; he didn’t seem at ease, and maybe he was not too keen to be photographed by the stranger of whom Darla had asked the favor. But he consented and that is how he was captured in the image I was now contemplating while Fanny continued chatting away about Ferris wheels and roller coasters. I anxiously absorbed the details: the faces, the gestures. And, hovering among it all, what struck me most was his hand. On her waist. With confidence, without rigidity. Still holding the cigarette between his fingers, as if that corner of Darla’s body were altogether familiar to him.
“Which one do you wish to keep, Professor Perea?”
“I don’t want any, Fanny,” I said, finally taking my eyes off of them. “They’re yours, part of your heritage. Take them to your new house; don’t ever lose them.”
“But it was a present I wanted to make to you,” she protested.
“My present will be that you write to me once in a while to tell me how everything is going for you.”
I gave her a hug before she could reply.
“And take care of your mother,” I added at the last moment. Not knowing myself, in truth, why.
• • •
Rebecca was the final stop.
“You know you have a Spanish friend again, right?”
She accompanied me to the elevator while promising to take care of whatever I was too rushed to do: return a few books to the library, say good-bye to some colleagues, empty the fridge . . .
The doors were sliding closed when she unexpectedly put her hand out to stop them. They opened again. She signaled to me, and I stepped out.
“You’re back on course, Blanca,” she said, grabbing me by the wrists. “The worst is over. Now consider what life has placed before you and listen to your heart.”
She embraced me again and let me go.
I walked across the campus in a hurry. It was already twenty to two. I moved along at a swift pace until I reached my apartment, a thick stew of emotions bubbling inside me. The satisfaction of having attained our goal. The unexpected friends I’d just said farewell to. The uncertainty that now opened before me.
In search of serenity, I made an effort to seize on the most peaceful of all sensations. I thought back again to Rebecca, her deep-down authentic goodness. Her generosity, honesty, compassion. The way she was always ready to give a hand or keep a secret, to think of others beforehand, to never say no.
In contrast, I still had Darla’s image fresh in my mind from the photograph that Fanny had just shown me. Her exaggerated attempt to come across as attractive before the camera, her haughty exhibitionism, and at the same time her insecurity regarding her power and property.
The light and shadow of human nature seen in two vastly different women. The one who faces things and moves forward, as opposed to the one who broods in resentment. Crossing the practically empty campus before the impending Christmas holidays, I was suddenly conscious that, during my last half hour spent in Guevara Hall, each woman in her own way had managed to move me. Setting aside the differences, they’d both fought in their day for a similar objective. The same one, in a certain way, that I had fought for too for twenty-five years: to see our children grow up, to have a partner close by, to build a home where the morning sunlight would come streaming in. Basic desires that had driven women since the beginning of time.
The three of us, however, had fallen into the mire at some unexpected moment: on some unlucky day all three of us had ceased to be desired. Faced with desertion and uncertainty, the lack of love and the harshness of reality, each one defended herself as best she could and fought with the weapons at her disposal. With good or evil means, with whatever the intellect, the gut, or the pure survival instinct offered.
Rebecca had had the moral integrity to overcome it, and just as she’d pointed out to me, I was forging ahead not knowing exactly where my steps would lead. Darla, for her part, never did manage. Like a poor injured animal, she took shelter in her cave withou
t ever healing her wounds, mistaking the simplicity of human nature for a despicable betrayal or a conspiracy to destroy her. Without assuming that love is fickle, strange, and arbitrary, lacking understanding and rationality. Motivated perhaps by a fear of poverty, loneliness, or the inability to raise a dependent daughter on her own; imagining detractors where there were none, just to have a guilty face to aim her fury at; hurting herself and wounding those who never knowingly had anything to do with her misfortune.
Daniel’s Volvo’s horn sounded twice and with it my daydreaming came to an end.
“Are you sure you’ve got a plane to catch in San Francisco at six?” he asked when I came outside.
Chapter 45
* * *
The sky was cloudy as we left Santa Cecilia and took the road leading to the bay. For a few miles we remained silent, Daniel at the wheel, his eyes behind dark glasses, and I, staring vacantly out of the side window, trying to put my confused mind in order. We didn’t even turn on the radio; our only accompaniment was the monotonous drone of the engine. In the end, it was he who decided to break the silence.
“Tell me about your plans. How do you intend to spend this last Christmas of the millennium?”
“I’ll get my place in order, turn on the heat, go on a big shopping trip, put up a tree and Nativity scene . . .”
I spoke without looking at him while my gaze wandered erratically beyond the window. Enumerating the chores with the same lack of passion with which one takes roll call in class or makes a checklist of compulsory errands.
“Everything will be different this year,” I went on. “All I know for sure is that Christmas Eve will be at my sister Ana’s place; she is a hopeless host and might very well send us away with a frozen lasagna and a couple of crumbly shortbread cakes. New Year’s Eve we used to celebrate at my in-laws or on a trip with some friends, something I’ll no longer be doing. My sons will have dinner with their father, I suppose, so it’s most likely I’ll finish the year alone, watching a movie in bed from ten until the next century. One hell of a plan, isn’t it?”