Читать книгу The Iguana Tree - Michel Stone - Страница 8

LILIA LINGERED beneath the shade tree and watched her husband leave, though the morning dawned mild, and she had no need yet for the canopy’s cool shadows. Héctor slipped from their courtyard, past two brown hens scratching among weeds, down the narrow, dusty lane on which Lilia had always lived, then rounded a slight bend and was gone. She knew he would make his way to the bus stop at the edge of the village, then on to Oaxaca City, and then … Then she did not know what would become of her Héctor, or how far the trip to the border was, or how far beyond the border he would go. She must put these thoughts from her mind now.

Lilia gripped her mug in both hands like a prayer, inhaling the scent of coffee and cinnamon, and watched the sky and buildings to the east color pink then orange. The dark sky to the west remained unaffected. She drifted from the shadows into the center of the courtyard and lifted her face to the rising sun, closing her eyes, basking in its radiance. It was a constant. A familiarity. Cold weather existed elsewhere, not here. America had cold places, but they seemed as distant, as foreign, as the weightlessness of outer space or the sunless floor of the Pacific Ocean. All were places for which she felt ill-equipped and fearful. Héctor viewed America as The Great Opportunity. Lilia saw it as The Unknown.

Overhead, yellow-headed blackbirds flitted among the tree’s dense foliage, flapping wildly as if to distill the perfume of waxy blossoms half-hidden amid wide, verdant leaves.

Beyond her courtyard wall Lilia’s village slowly awakened: the crow of a cock and the bray of a burro in reply, the clanking of the fishmonger’s wagon winding its way to the pier, and other sounds that were all Puerto Isadore’s own, all Lilia’s own. She caught a trace of orange incense in the air. Crucita is awake, she thought. Each morning before her coffee, often before dressing, Lilia’s grandmother lit an incense stick. Today she burned orange. Yesterday had been orange, too. Or maybe sandalwood. Lilia could not remember.

The western sky had lightened to pastel. A goat pulling a trash cart made its way past her in no hurry. Lilia watched him pass in silence, then walked inside to nurse her infant daughter—an only child—Alejandra, leaving the courtyard smelling of goat and incense.