Читать книгу Playing for the Devil's Fire - Phillippe Diederich - Страница 7

1.

It was a hot Sunday morning when we discovered the severed head of Enrique Quintanilla propped on the ledge of one of the cement planters in the plaza.

Father Gregorio had just finished mass. His congregants shuffled slowly out of Nuestra Señora del Socorro. The men, dressed in pressed polyester slacks and shirts and shiny cowboy boots, put on their western hats and gathered in groups while the women waited under the ovals of shade cast by the small bay trees near the fence.

Mosca, Pepino, and I ran to the opposite side of the church where the ground wasn’t paved and the hard dirt was perfect for playing marbles. Mosca had been bragging all morning about the devil’s fire marble he’d won the day before from some kid in his neighborhood. The devil’s fire was a legend—el diablito rojo. None of us had ever seen a devil’s fire marble before. I thought it was a myth, one of those lies older kids tell to tease the younger ones. But Mosca was one of the best marble players in Izayoc. And he wasn’t a liar. If he said he’d won a devil’s fire, it had to be true. I wanted to see it. Pepino wanted a chance to win it.

Mosca was my best friend. His real name was Esteban Rodríguez, but he was short and tough and fast and had big round bug eyes like a fly. That’s how he got the nickname. He didn’t always come to church because he didn’t have a mother and his father left town after the brick factory closed, crossing over to el Norte. Now he worked at a meat plant in Kansas.

Pepino moved quickly around Mosca and patted my shoulder. “Make your line, Boli.”

That’s what they called me: Boli. It’s short for bolillo. Since my parents own a bakery, I guess it makes sense. I don’t mind. It’s better than my real name Liberio, which is so old fashioned.

I marked a straight line on the dirt with the heel of my shoe. Pepino tore a branch from a bush and started to draw a circle, but Mosca stopped him. “I’m not playing for the diablito rojo. Just so you know.”

Pepino dropped the stick. “You chicken or what?” He was older than Mosca and me. He had bushy eyebrows and small eyes and a big fat nose like a potato, but we called him Pepino, I’m not sure why. He didn’t play marbles anymore. I guess he was coming out of retirement because of the devil’s fire.

“No chingues,” Mosca said. “I’ll play, but I’m holding on to the diablito for a while.”

I couldn’t blame Mosca. I’d hold on to it too, maybe forever. When you won a marble like that, you had to hold on to it for a bit, let the news spread. How else were you going to build a reputation?

“Entonces,” Pepino said. “At least let us see it, no?”

“It’s in my house.”

“Liar.”

That’s when we heard a woman scream.

We ran to the front of the church. The men were making their way across the street to the plaza. The street vendors had abandoned their carts at the center of the square and gathered around one of the planters that divided the plaza into the shape of a cross. The man who sold the lottery tickets raised his head over the crowd and yelled, “It’s el profesor Quintanilla!”

This was Izayoc, which in Nahuatl means the place of tears. It was just a small pueblo in a tiny valley in the Sierra Nanchititla. Even though we were only a few hours west of Mexico City, where the State of Mexico meets the states of Michoacán and Guerrero, we were hidden from the world by a pair of huge cliffs, El Cerro de la Soledad at the south and El Cerro Santacruz in the north. Nothing ever happened here.

Until now. This was one of those moments everybody would talk about for months, maybe years. I wasn’t going to let it pass me by. I ran after Pepino and Mosca, but just as I was about to cross the big iron gate of the church and cross the street, my mother grabbed my arm.

“Liberio!” She pulled me back to her side. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To see. It’s el profe Quintanilla.”

“This is not for your eyes.” Her voice seemed to splinter into a zillion pieces. My sister Gaby was standing behind her, an arm around my grandmother who was looking up at the sky, her face covered by a black mantilla. My mother and Gaby were staring at my father. He was standing in the middle of the crowd. He turned and gave us a sad nod: up and down real slow as if relaying a secret message, letting us know it was true, that it was el profe Quintanilla’s head.

And then, just like that, my mother released my arm and covered her mouth with her hand, her fingers trembling over her painted lips.

El profe’s head had been severed clean across the neck, just over the Adam’s apple, so there was very little neck. His black hair was slicked back the way he used to wear it in class when he taught us civics and lectured on history or marched us in parade before the flag on patriotic fiestas. Except for the big black flies buzzing and crawling into his nostrils and ears and his open mouth, he looked just like when he was alive, his glazed eyes staring up at the empty bell towers of the church across the street.

He looked sad.

The men removed their hats. Everyone crossed themselves.

My father shouted, “Someone get the authorities.”

Ignacio Morales, the big fat man who owned the Minitienda, a small grocery store near my house, flipped shut his cell phone and shoved it back in his pocket. “Captain Pineda’s not answering.”

“He’s probably sleeping it off,” one of the street vendors said.

Father Gregorio, still dressed in his elaborate chasuble, came forward and carefully plucked a folded piece of paper from el profe’s mouth.

“What is it, Father?” Don Ignacio asked.

“A note.”

“Well?”

Father Gregorio lowered his head and read the note in a trembling voice: “He talked too much.”