They say that the past is a foreign country. For a vampire, everybody before our transformation is foreign, including ourselves. Most vampires can no more remember their human life than most humans can remember their life as an infant. The pain of the transformation is our sharpest memory out of which our life begins. Everything before that is shrouded behind a veil of forgetfulness. Everyone knows that we are undead, but they forget that this means we first had to die. It is possible, with great effort, to remember what it was like to be a human, but for most vampires, it is not worth the effort.
Vampires do not wish to remember their human life. For humans, it is the black abyss after their death that they fear to contemplate. For vampires, we who are already dead, it is the black abyss of our human life that we most fear. We do not like to imagine that we were not always as we are now. I suppose that the butterfly does not like to remember that it was once a crawling worm.
I rebel against this fear. Rather than forget, I have made great efforts to remember the faintest glimmers of what came before my transformation. Doesn’t a civilization learn from a study of its own history? Doesn’t it become deeper and wiser through an investigation of the chaos and savagery upon which it was founded? Then why shouldn’t vampires become wiser through a study of the humans we once were?
I have traveled into the past in every way that I could. I have cultivated every seed of reveries. I have gone to the village and lands of my breathing life. I have talked to those whose parents and relatives knew me as I once was and who knew my family when they lived. I have ransacked my oldest memories for keys and clues.
What I have remembered is not very comforting. Before the transformation, I was not very smart, even by human standards. I was angry, spiteful, unloved, and for the most part, unnoticed. Still, it is some comfort to know that I never fit in with the humans. I was always disconnected and different.
Even today, people look at me as an alien because I was born a Mexican human in los Estados Unidos. But of course, they don’t know the half of it. I am so much more alien than they could ever imagine. If you are one of those readers who believes that only those who are themselves alien should write about the alien experience, then I would ask you to quit buying those trashy vampire romance novels that are so obviously written by those who are not vampires. They will just fill your head with romantic fantasies that have nothing to do with real vampires. Only vampires should be allowed to write about vampires.
Part 1: Before the Bite
Angela was on a barren hill overlooking the broad Rio Grande. The river’s smell of rotting nature and the village’s of human waste merged in the morning air. The river swept a muddy curve past a great stand of whispering cane. In the distance, its watery line ricocheted against a rock bluff careening away to the south. In the bluffs, you could find round stone cups where the ancients ground their meal. Angela had seen them herself, like gouges in dirty skin. Along the edges of the water were cat’s-claw and blackbrush. Above the banks was the pale-green grass that some ranchers used for forage, although the cattle would not eat it unless there was nothing else. It was good that there were no cattle there now, for Angela thought she could see a gray wolf waiting in the shadow of the bluff. Above him a spiraling hawk whistled loudly.
The morning sun crawled up her left shoulder and cast a hazy orange light on the still dust. The shadow of the hill stretched out along the river. Somewhere on the lump of shade was her shadow, unnoticed and insignificant.
Above the floodplain to her right was her village. Still today, it doesn’t have a name; I’ll just call it La Aldea. Angela lived with mamí, papí, her three brothers and the new baby. Their house was made of mud and used timbers, full of holes, many of which papí had filled with dirty rags. The house blended in with the desert dust.
Invisible, but following along the river was the border. South of their village was el otro lado. It is where her family had come from before Angela was born. Over there was another path Angela might have gone. But that path is gone now. That road is closed to her forever. The wind blows across that border. Birds fly across it every day. The deer and the wolves find their way across. But the way is barred for her.
The country to the south lay flat and dead, red dirt and flint rocks. In the distance were mountains, beginning to shimmer in the rising sun. Today, though, a great storm was coming off the gulf. Angela could smell it coming. It would bring rain and destruction, life’s water and death, giving with one hand and crushing them down with the other.
Down by the river, Angela saw the blue uniform of Officer Lobos, looking for signs of smugglers. He had walked by their house this morning as papí was getting ready for work. “He will catch el vampiro today,” papí had said. Angela knew he meant Eduardo, but mi abuelo told her, “Los vampiros tienen mal aliento, colmillos largos y piel pálida,” and that wasn’t Eduardo at all.
Angela liked to sit on this hill above the river to the south and the school to the north. Mamí thought Angela was in school, but she had quit going weeks ago. Angela had already spent more years in school than any other member of her family. She did not value education and especially reading, as I do now. Back before the transformation, I was too ignorant to know what education was.
Down in the school, the gringo teacher was having her little gringo students sing the national anthem.
José can you see? Bite the dawn’s early light
So proudly hail stripes and stars and fight
With rockets red glare; with bombs bursting the air…
The students all had straight black hair and deep-brown skin, but they were all gringos anyway. They laughed at Angela because she could never get their gringo words right.
Later in the afternoon, Angela slipped down the hill staying behind an embankment where she could watch the little brown gringos through the dusty windows. The gringo teacher was having them practice their grammars while she swung her arms around like she was conducting a choir. Go, went, gone; goony, goonier, gooniest. They all learned to speak like obedient little gringos.
The gringo grammar had hurt her tongue and left her chest hollow and empty. Angela had tried to just mouth the words without making any sound, but the teacher saw. “You have no disposition for learning,” she told her. And I guess she was right, back then.
Weeks before, Angela had exploded. With blood rushing to her head, she had tried to tell the gringo teacher why she hated her and this school, but everything she said came out in Spanish, which the teacher pretended not to understand. “Miss Aguilar, you are a little barbarian,” she said. “A true barbarian.” Laughter erupted around her and Angela ran from the school never to return.
Angela crawled down the hill closer to the school where she would be able to see the little gringos let loose from their cages and sent home with their gringo learning. She picked through the gravel and stones while she waited with sweet expectations for them to come out, like the hawk waits for the sparrow and the cat for the mouse.
The school door finally opened. With a single piercing cry, the students poured out. Deaf to the teacher’s last calls, they tumbled into the school yard coming closer to her. They pushed through the gate not ten yards away, but they didn’t know that Angela waited there. They stopped, out of breath, at the road. Friends chatted. Confidantes exchanged whispers. They wandered toward the hill where Angela hid. A little closer and she could have touched the straight black hair tied up in filthy ribbons.
Angela threw the first rock, hitting a girl in the leg. The girl cried out and the little gringos all turned, as one, toward the hill. Angela jumped up, “pinche piojas,” she cried, throwing dirt clods and gravel. It rained down on them as they ran away shrieking. She threw one last handful of mud as she laughed with pleasure.
Angela waited another hour for the gringo teacher to come out, but by that time she had lost her nerve and could throw nothing as the teacher locked the gate and strode away down the road to the village.
The Storm
Angela didn’t want to go down that same road, so she walked around the foot of the hill to the ravine and followed it under the barbed wire, across the dry field toward the woods. These woods were only a few dozen acres, with poor and sandy soil, full of starving rabbits barely bigger than rats.
By the time she’d reached the woods, the storm had begun. The wind was rising and the rain fell in bursts, making the dead wood crackle. The black clouds cast shadows darkening the ground. Then the heavens opened and the rain came down in torrents turning the dust into mud and carrying sticks and leaves and ground away.
She lifted her skirt and began to run as fast as she could. But the ground washed away under her feet, so that she had to walk on the slippery tree roots where the dirt was firmer. The wind-thrashed branches stung her face and she missed her step, falling to the ground. As she got up, a branch snagged her crucifijo and like el mismo demonio, ripped it from her neck. She knew that papí would beat her for losing it, but in the dark and rain, she couldn’t find it.
The rain came down ever harder. Huge drops smacked the leaves and exploded on the ground. Angela pressed forward, head bowed, straight ahead. The trees around her seemed to shimmer and flicker as though their very image was being washed away by the rain. Her soaked skirt stuck to her knees. Rain poured into her eyes. At every step she had to pull with both hands to free her shoes from the clinging mud. She fought against the mud, she fought with the mud, until the ground closed over one of her shoes with a dreadful sucking sound and it came off. Unbalanced, she fell rolling to the bottom of a ditch. Streaming water engulfed her. Stunned by the cold, she sat up, stared blindly around, trembling with rage as she held her bare foot in her hand.
Dizzy with cold and fatigue, exhausted, Angela sat in the mud. The rain laughed at her. It was not exhausted. It was just getting started.
Completely lost, she had no hope of finding her way while the storm lasted. She wouldn’t make it home for supper, but it wasn’t the first time she’d gone to bed hungry. Just so papí was drunk! But that wasn’t certain. It had been more than a week since he was paid and the tavern would no longer give him credit. There was still a jug of tequila that mamí had hidden behind the logs. But she was trying to keep that for medicine. Mamí said it eased the pain in her chest when she breathed.
Children who are loved and cared for might think of their parents coming to their rescue, but Angela didn’t have any such hope. She had only the instinctive resignation of the animal. But neither did she think she might die. Death was only some fantastic event as improbable as winning the lottery. At that age, dying or becoming rich were two improbable stories that people talked about, but which would never happen to her. Little did Angela know that both would come.
Of course, her thoughts were never as ordered as I write them now. Like all miserable children, she only thought in vague, disconnected images. If the wretched had the power to connect the dots of their misfortune, they would soon be overwhelmed. But their misery is for them only a succession of unfortunate coincidences. They are like the blind, feeling the jolt of every step, but never knowing if they are going toward safety or the cliff.
Angela crawled beneath a fallen pine tree. The thick needle mattress let the water drain underneath and left an almost dry bed. But she could not get warm because the wind blew from all directions. The wind and the rain were playing a murderous game with the leaves, as the wind would blow them up a whirling column only to be grounded by the downpour. But she got as comfortable as she could.
Soon, she saw a light bouncing toward her. She heard branches breaking underfoot and saw an outline against the dark sky. Striding through the rain, his big boots almost kicked her.
“Watch out!” Angela cried.
He ground to a halt, peering about and finding her. “Ah, there you are,” Eduardo said as if he’d been a search party.
Angela stood up stiffly, saying nothing and holding her only shoe in her hand.
“You will die of cold, my beauty. And where is your other shoe?” he shouted into the wind.
“Lost,” she shouted back.
“Una tonta pequeña,” he said. “Why didn’t you take the road from school?”
She didn’t answer. He pointed the light at her. For a long time, she remained frozen in the center of the luminous halo, immobile, paralyzed by the light, the wind putting everything around her into motion.
Angela couldn’t see Eduardo’s face behind the light, but she knew well enough what he looked like: flat, coal-black eyes, pale skin, handsome, more handsome than she could bear. Some said he was a vampire; others called him el salvaje. Whatever he was, Angela wasn’t any more afraid of him than she was of any wild beast. If you leave them alone; they usually leave you alone.
“Do you speak, tonta pequeña?” he asked. There was a bite in his voice, a menace, maybe a threat. Angela stood fully up and made the mistake of meeting his gaze.
“What’s the matter with you?” His voice had grown harsher. Angela knew he was growing angry. “Are you going to tell me where you lost your shoe?”
“There.” she shouted, pointing vaguely toward the path.
“Dios mio!” he yelled, but then he laughed. “Enough with the clever conversation! Let’s get to shelter. The water is rising.”
He walked in front leaning into the rain; Angela followed him. His lamp flashed ahead to light his way, but it only made the night appear darker and more treacherous to her. Her feet were cut by the fallen branches, but she could not ask Eduardo to slow down. She stumbled on after him. She fell to her knees in the rain and she got back up and kept going. She was numb to the cold, numb to the pain, numb to her exhaustion. She fell; she got up; she kept going.
“Stop,” he said. She heard the word, but it meant nothing to her. She stumbled past him into the middle of a clearing. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t care.
“Go in here,” he said, motioning toward a stick-and-mud hut.
Angela took his hand without thinking. His fingers were cold, colder than hers, colder than the night. But that wasn't why she jerked her hand away. When she touched him, it stung like a wasp, like a freezing cold wasp, like a warning.
He bent forward and went into the hut ahead of her. It was dry inside, except where they had just come in. He threw a bag down, which made a soft noise as it hit the ground. It was full of rabbits, freshly killed, their sticky hair matted with blood. Angela looked around and saw that the hut was full of dry and desiccated rabbits, as though they had been bled and prepared for drying, but then forgotten.
She collapsed into a corner. She was too tired to think, but all her senses were awake and watching. Her eyes stung, but she only closed them halfway so that she could watch while looking asleep. No movement of her host escaped her. Angela lay motionless on the ground in front of him, dressed only in wet rags. In her tiredness, she felt her spirit drain out of her. She knew he could have done whatever he wanted to her.
Eduardo hung his rifle on a nail. Throwing some twigs into a clay fireplace, he struck a spark, creating a blaze. He pulled some skins off a wood pile and started to build a fire. He pulled off his wet jacket and shirt. The flames made his bare, white chest glow the color of pale copper. Angela did not take her eyes off his pale-copper chest.
On all fours, Eduardo searched the ground like a dog, pawing at the dead leaves and sniffing. Finally, a hatch with a rope handle was uncovered. His pale hand reached in and came out holding a bottle.
“Drink that!” he said.
Eduardo’s words soothed her. She didn’t need to think; he would tell her what she needed to do. She was starting to realize that her ordeal in the rain-drowned woods had lasted a long, a very long time. Exhaustion overcame her. She clenched her teeth convulsively on the neck of the bottle, which reeked of tequila.
Angela tipped up the bottle and alcohol poured into her chest like a jet of molten lead. Dios! Her fatigue ran down her limbs, and into every joint.
“Come near the fire! No seas pendejo! Warm up!”
Angela came closer. She had been taught not to judge her elders. You either obeyed them or hid from them. Eduardo looked to be a young man but everyone said he was much older than he looked. There was something in him that was terribly old, but also something eternally young, younger than her.
“I shouldn’t stay here,” he said, taking a drink from the bottle. “But better to let most of the bad weather pass. It’s an evil storm, my dear - a so-called ‘hurricane.’ It's been almost three centuries, three hundred years, since I've seen a worse storm.” He took another drink. “That was in India, a long way from here. The sky was so dark that everyone came out into the street. There was a great silence, then the sea, just imagine, the sea started to boil, like a kettle on the fire. That was all for twenty minutes and then a vapor formed in the air, as if the air were boiling, too. And lo and behold, the ocean rose slowly, slowly. From a distance it looked like a swelling beast, a dragon. Then, the downpour started suddenly, just like today. The clouds unloaded their waters on the earth below. The wind blew down houses and sucked people into the water. The city was destroyed and many people died." He took a long drink.
Angela didn’t know what he was talking about. He wasn’t three hundred years old. There was no village called India. She knew that Eduardo was getting drunk, but it was a different drunk than papí. Eduardo didn’t stare blankly into space. He didn’t repeat everything he just said. He didn’t slump over muttering to himself. Instead, Eduardo’s focus was more intense than ever.
“I know what I’m talking about. I am not from here,” he said. “I am from another time. Another place. I am old. Older than you can know. The wind is still building. In a few minutes, if you put your ear to the ground, you will hear the wind pounding the hills. Tontas pequeñas, like you, should not be out in such a storm.”
With one hand he raised the bottle and drank with a greedy pout of his lips that made him look like a little boy.
"You are going to get drunk, señor," Angela said in a quiet voice.
“I must get drunk tonight,” he said. “Blind drunk, you see. Otherwise, there will be trouble."
He held up his hand in the firelight to show her a strangely shaped wound: a red, raw semi-circle, surrounded by a blue bruise.
“A bite,” he said, “a nasty bite. The bite of a wolf."
But it was not a wolf bite. It looked more like the bite of a human.
With his good hand, he carefully pushed aside the ashes of the fire, and blew on the last embers.
He used a stick to twist a rag around his wrist, holding it tight in his mouth until his fingers turned purple. The wound was jagged, but Angela could see the marks of the teeth very well. A human bite, for sure!
"And now burn me clean," he said to himself.
With the tips of his saliva-soaked fingers, he grasped a scarlet ember that was about the size of the toothmarks. He held it delicately without haste, breathed deeply and pressed it against the wound. The flesh sizzled horribly. But it was not the ember that Angela watched. She stared at the face that was lit up by the sizzling ember. His face was beautiful, concentrated, powerful. He had the expression of one trying to solve a difficult puzzle. For a moment his neck swelled and a black vein appeared. He let the ember burn his flesh for another moment and then threw it back into the fire.
He threw back his head and emptied the bottle of tequila, swirling the last sip in his mouth and then blowing it on the red ashes. Angela watched the flames of alcohol dance on the embers, like blue flies. He reached out with his good hand to touch her shoulder, and pat her back with an awkward caress.
"Here you are dry, little fool, so much the better. With a wind like this, you could catch your death. But I wonder if you even care?"
Angela would have liked to answer, but she was afraid. If she opened her mouth, she didn’t know what would come out, some words of love or words of hate or just a stream of gibberish. And her eyelids had gotten even heavier. She desperately wanted to sleep.
“You don't have much conversation,” he said, “but for a girl it's not unappealing, on the contrary. "
He took a huge silver watch from the pocket of his jacket hanging on the wall.
"What time did you get out of class?"
"I don't know," Angela replied. “Maybe half past six. I left after the others.”
“Alone?”
“Of course.”
“Has anyone seen you?”
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
His eyes narrowed and his nose wrinkled like a cat’s. All her life to that point had been one long lesson on avoiding the anger of men. She certainly didn’t want Eduardo angry with her.
“No one saw me. I went up the ravine.”
“And then through the field to the woods?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, remember what I'm going to tell you. You didn’t come through the woods. You came back by the road. You didn’t go straight home because you wanted to buy something, say marbles, at the store.”
“Marbles? With what? I have no money, Señor Eduardo.”
“There you go, some pennies. You will say that you found them. So, you were going to the village, and you stopped at the crossroads, because of the weather which was getting really bad.”
“I understand.” Angela felt the warm pennies in her hand. She had never held so many. They were smooth like rocks, but they almost felt alive. His hand had touched them and now she held them in hers.
As he talked, Eduardo had paced back-and-forth in the small hut, like the wild beasts pace their cage.
“So, you stopped at the crossroads. You saw me leaving Garcia’s taberna. Garcia is a friend and will back you up. I told you that I was coming back from the river, that I had picked up snares.”
“Snares? Should I talk about snares even to the policía?”
“Look at that, not such a fool! But if you confess to a little crime, you can often get away with the bigger one."
Angela knew all that. Her own father often smuggled across the border. She knew how to lie. She knew how to stick to a story. She would remember every detail. She would never, has never, betrayed anyone. She was not a ratas, an informer, un dedo. Ratas deserved to die. Everybody said so.
"You are not a girl like the others, you are a good girl," he said suddenly. “I'm going to get you your shoe. We still have some way to go."
He put on his shirt and jacket and strode out the door.
Angela stayed in the hut alone. Her clothes were getting dry and the hut was warm from the fire. She was hungry, but that had been pushed into the background by her unbearable tiredness. All of her senses seemed to be sleeping, except that of hearing. She heard but barely distinguished the thousand noises from outside, the last whistles of the wind on the hill, the dripping of the rain and sometimes the collapse of a dead branch broken by a gust.
Suddenly, Angela jumped up, alert. She’d heard a howl. Or maybe a war cry, like the Indios were said to make. And then a shot.
Automatically, Angela looked up at Eduardo's rifle still hanging from its nail. But it came from a distance and Eduardo couldn’t be so far away yet. Could it be some hunter taking refuge from the storm and firing his gun to summon help? But then what was the howl?
Angela thought how she’d feel if Eduardo had been shot. She thought of taking care of him in the darkness of this hut. She knew how to take care of the sick and wounded. She would take care of him.
Eduardo burst into the hut and threw her lost shoe on the ground, all soaked. A wave of relief washed over her.
“I thought the water would have carried it away, but there it was in the mud of the path. Everything else was being washed away. I even saw a bird washed out of the sky, its wings still open and its neck broken.”
Another shot rang out.
She felt Eduardo’s intense gaze on her. “Did you hear that? Is it the wolf calling out for help?” he asked.
Angela said nothing, but she knew that wolves didn’t shoot guns.
He picked up the empty bottle from the ground, sniffed it, then threw it furiously out the door.
“If I had more tequila, I would go back and make sure he’s finished.” He glared at her. “Yes, I would."
Angela looked at him as if she believed him. She didn’t judge him. Back then, I never judged anyone. A judgement, like money, was reserved only for the rich and powerful.
“We're going to throw out what's left of the fire, and put everything in order here. But first let’s get one last bit of warmth."
He blew on the embers, and a flame appeared as if conjured by his breath. Their eyes met over the flame. She wanted to say something, some important message, but she could only feel its unbearable pressure. At that time, she could not say it or even give it a name. What did she know of what people called love? What did she know of desire? What does a moth know of the candle’s flame?
“Open the door,” he commanded. “I'm throwing the ashes into the wind. If anyone asks, we haven't set foot here today, you understand? Tell no one, not even your father. Now, follow me!" And he walked into that darkening night.
Eduardo’s Cave
Angela’s feet hurt horribly from the last walk. The wet leather of her ill-fitting shoes was rubbing the skin off. But she was determined not to lose sight of Eduardo. He chose the most direct route, cutting through thickets and ditches instead of following the path. Angela simply followed him without thought. She was beyond all thought, running on an instinct to continue, to persevere. Time did not exist. She was surprised to find herself suddenly on the main road, just in front of Garcia's Taberna. The shutters of the place were closed, and the tavern was dark. It must have been late.
Eduardo entered the courtyard and went around to the back where Señor Garcia slept. He knocked on a low door which soon opened silently. Señor Garcia didn’t look like he’d been awakened. The two spoke so low and fast that Angela couldn’t catch a word. When Eduardo turned to her, he had an evil smile, which gripped her heart.
“Garcia will cover for us. He hates the wolves as much as I do,” Eduardo said. “Now we have to go to my cave and wait for daybreak. It’s a long way. Can you make it?”
He was speaking to her as an equal, no longer una tonta pequeña. I’m not tired. No! No! I’m not afraid. Don’t worry, I could walk all night!... These were the sentences Angela said in her head. But she only managed to nod yes.
They left the village, going south toward the river. Eduardo remained silent. Perhaps he was angry. Angela was also silent, because she was too tired to say anything. For a while, the path was broad and easily followed, but then Eduardo turned off onto a small and winding path that paralleled the river. The night was starting to clear and a half-moon began to throw its shadowy and fantastic forms across the path. Angela’s fatigue fed her dreadful imagination, causing her to stumble over unreal shadows and real tree roots. Eduardo forged ahead and she followed down a path that grew more frightening and treacherous as her fatigue increased.
As they continued, cliffs rose out of the ground on their right until Eduardo made a sudden turn and began to climb up the cliff to a dark cave that seemed to also be a product of Angela’s loosened imagination. She followed as best she could. Inside, the cave had the acrid stench of human habitation. Eduardo lit a match and Angela saw that there was a blackened smoke hole over a fire pit in the middle of the cave.
"Lucky that I was here the day before yesterday," said Eduardo. “There is dry wood and candle. I’ll build a fire to burn all night. In the morning, I want there to be a heap of ashes, enough to fill a wheelbarrow, I will say that I spent the day here, in the dry. This will be my alibi."
They sat on either side of the fire pit and Angela kept her eyes fixed on the fire. She tried to understand what she was feeling inside, but reflection was so unfamiliar to her in those days that she could only stare at the flame. It seemed to her that all the fires of her life, all the fire of her life, were concentrated at the same painful point in her small chest. It burned, but it was also hard and cold as a rock. Angela dared not look at Eduardo. If their eyes should meet, rock or not, her heart would surely shatter.
"Listen, child," he began suddenly, "I don’t know if I have told you too much or too little, but now I must finish the tale. Besides, tomorrow the village will be full of it. I know these people. They wouldn't hurt a fly, but they can't see a puddle of blood without putting their tongues in it. Mierda! I wouldn’t usually trust a girl, and especially a girl your age - una niñita. But, try to look up, look me in the face, right in the face, like un hombre honesto."
Angela tried, but her eyes would slide away as they neared his face. She couldn’t help it. The most that she could manage was to stare at his pale chest where his shirt lay open.
“It's unfortunate,” he shrugged. “However old you women are, you can't help but look away. But, look at me or don't look at me, do it your way. Still, I want you to know that I’m being honest. Even though I am drunk, I keep my head.”
Angela could feel him staring at her as he continued. “I’ll tell you why I trust you. Since I saw you beaten by your father on Día de Reyes, do you remember? He was whipping your bottom with the rod of his gun, and you kept turning on your little feet to face him. He ended up slapping your face and walking away. And you stood the whole time with eyes as dry as the desert. You were a real…"
He looked for the word for a long time, did not find it, finished the sentence with a whistle. His whistle went through her with a shiver. And then his face suddenly turned to stone.
“I think I killed a man.” He shook his head. “I’ve tried to quit the killing and only drink the blood of rabbits, but I think I killed a man.”
Angela didn’t move. She let out a deep breath.
“Did you hear me? I think I killed a man, but maybe he wasn’t really a man.”
“It was Officer Lobos,” Angela said.
“Ay, Dios mio!” he cried. “Why do you speak that name?”
He composed his face. “Yes, it was him. He thought he’d get me, but I got him.”
He pronounced the last words with an air of regret. After the confession, his face relaxed and he seemed to gaze into a well of ancient, almost forgotten images.
“This hurricane had set me on edge. I felt it approaching. I knew something bad would come of it. I was coming up from the border this afternoon with some of the good Mexican tequila that the gringos up north will pay so much for. Suddenly, I heard behind me, ‘What are you doing here?’ I jumped up and saw it was Lobos. I never liked him and he never liked me. If you look closely at his face, you will see the mark of the wolf.
“‘Is this just a stop on your way to prison?’ he asked because I had turned around with my hand in my pocket and he thought I had a gun in it. But I turned my pocket out and showed him it was only my pipe. ‘Why would I hurt you?’ I asked him. ‘Here! If you want my stuff, you can have it.’ ‘Don’t think that will get you out of trouble,’ he said. ‘My kind and your kind will never get along.’
“I thought he looked funny. I began to see that he was drunk, too. I saw it in his ruddy cheeks and his dark pupils. I began to understand that this wasn’t a law officer in front of me, but some kind of wild beast. At such times, I’m telling you, I lose it. My temper, I just lose it. I feel this thirst for blood, deep in my chest and I know I have to go for it, or my heart will burst.
“But just then, the cold rain started. At first, we just glared at each other, getting more and more wet. I don’t think either us wanted to fight, but neither of us wanted to give in either. Have you ever seen two wolves fight? They circle each other, growling with raised hairs until one of them jumps. That’s what we did. I couldn’t even say which of us jumped.
“We rolled on the ground like two beasts. I went for his neck, but I couldn’t get at it through his thick jacket. Then he bit my hand, as you saw. It hurt like hell, but no matter how hard I knocked his head on the ground, he wouldn't let go. We rolled down a slope, still struggling, and we found ourselves in a ditch, with water splashing in our faces. That sobered us up! We got out of there as fast as we could.
“We both sat on the bank of the ditch just a few feet apart. I saw that the tequila was starting to leak, so I asked myself, ‘Why waste it?’ And I started to drink. Lobos came over, grabbed the bottle from my hands and took a long drink for himself. With utmost courtesy, he handed it back to me. I laughed. For a while, we became friends again. The rain almost drowned us, the wind almost blew us away, but we hung on to the bottle and shared it like amigos viejos.
“But then something happened to me. I don’t know what. I looked at him and I saw what an animal he was. I saw that he had always hated me. I saw that our kinds would never get along. I know I went for his throat again. After that, I don’t know what happened. It comes on me like that, especially lately, and I can’t remember anything.”
He stopped abruptly, put his hand to his throat and froze for a few seconds. Slowly, his face lightened, although it remained marked by an unconscious anguish. After a long silence, he resumed quietly.
“It happens to me.” His face had a weird expression. He passed his hands convulsively over his face, as if to wave off an invisible fly. "Does that sound funny to you?" he asked. “It’s probably that damn tequila talking!”
“Don’t you remember, señor?” Angela asked.
“Don’t worry! It will come back to me. It is just that all the details get tangled up, like a ball of string.” He laughed. “But then, you are a cat and what’s a ball of string to a cat?"
Angela was crouching there, her hands resting on the ground, her chest tilted forward as if she were about to pounce on something. Maybe that’s why he said that.
"What do you expect of drunkards? We are on and then we are out, like a light. We are there and then we are gone. I’ve seen your father have nights he couldn’t remember. I see myself hitting Lobos again and again with the bottle. Wham! Wham! Wham! He fell then. He must have fallen. His legs kicked their last and then I think I ran off. I did not bite him and drink. I’m sure of that.”
He passed his hand over his face again.
“He must be dead. Even so, before, when we heard that howl and those gunshots, I thought: he is not dead, he is shooting to call help. But he cannot be alive. He is better off dead. Then there is no witness to what I did."
No matter how calmly he spoke, Angela was not fooled. She watched his face, which betrayed him. On its surface was worry and anxiety, but deeper there was also something ancient and beautiful. Just looking at it made her feel warmer. The warmth did not come from the fire, or even her, but from him, from something deep inside of him, something that he hid from others and that Angela alone could feel. She wanted to reach out and touch that face, but she didn’t dare.
Even then, she might have thought of love. She’d heard the word before. But she also felt a secret shame, an unworthiness, a revulsion for her own feelings. Angela felt dirty and disgusting, like the time she saw her three brothers peeing. Angela could look upon Eduardo’s face, but that face could never look at her. She could be moved by that face, but nobody would ever be moved by her. Even that smirk of drunkenness that she hated so much on papí's face and that she now saw on his, inspired only a kind of tender compassion. Is this what the Virgin felt for the baby Jesus? An immaculate instinct stood against her feeling of disgust, each as fragile as a May rose.
“I don’t think you killed him. You couldn’t.”
“Don’t you, tonta pequeña?”
“Maybe he’s not dead,” she said.
“If he is alive, it will be my word against his. Everyone knows he hates me, that he is after me.” As he talked, he had begun to sweat. “I might get off even for attacking an officer. A man must defend himself. Even me!”
He leaned back against the wall and was quiet for a while. Drops of sweat formed on his hairline.
“I could help if I knew what happened,” Angela said. “Can you remember, señor?”
“Remember! Remember!" His flat, black eyes ignited with anger, then extinguished almost immediately. “You ask too much, pretty one. My head is abuzz, worse than a bee's nest. Nobody ever remembers everything, do they? We fought like beasts. He bit me. We were in the ditch. I leapt for his throat. I know I killed him. I must have. It must be true.”
His face had turned deathly pale and one eye looked up toward the cave’s ceiling. But what frightened Angela even more was the foam at the corner of his twisted lips which had become white as the dove. She went over to him, but he didn’t seem to see her. She reached out a trembling hand to feel his heart, but she could not. She didn’t dare touch him.
“Don’t worry, señor, I will take care of you,” Angela said solemnly. “I will say we were together all day and all of the night. I don’t care! But you must remember what happened, señor.”
He tried to stand upright without the wall, but he was unsteady. He looked like a child who’d just fallen out of bed.
"Little pretty one," he stammered. "I can hardly see any more. It’s the rabbits. My head is buzzing. It’s nothing but rabbits. I feel the pressure in my chest like I must feed. I’m going to have another fit. I feel it.”
He stumbled, “It’s on me."
He fell to the ground before she could move. She cried aloud, afraid that the fall had killed him. But then he flipped himself on his back without any visible effort. He folded his arms on his chest and lay like a body in a casket. He took one more deep breath, filling himself like a balloon, and then let out a sigh like a punctured bellows. After that, he quit breathing and his face took on such an angelic image as to strike her like a blow.
Angela crouched on the ground next to him. She had seen plenty of corpses before. Two years ago was the pestilence and people dropped like flies. But this was different. Here, he was stretched out on the bare earth. No incense. No mumbling old women. No priest. No shroud. Not even a bed. But it didn’t make any difference. Nothing could have made this any better, any less tragic, any less frightening. What had taken hold of her was a foreboding of death, both his and hers, together. Angela slipped her trembling hands between his neck and the floor.
How light his head was! The slightest pressure of her fingers made it tremble. His head and her hands trembled together. His eyes were closed. His mouth held a kind of smile as Angela wiped away the white foam from his lips. It seemed that inside her, something smiled that same smile. She didn’t even think of touching her lips to his forehead. If she would have thought of it, she would have surely done it. But her desire was deeper than touch could express. To hold his head in her hands was all that she could bear. She only wished that this moment would stretch on forever.
And suddenly Angela sang.
It happened so naturally that she didn't notice it at first. She thought she was just humming a tune she had heard. Some childhood lullaby. She didn’t know any words, just a memory of a melody. Angela used to hum it to herself when papí would come home drunk and wake her from a dark sleep. She would hum it in a quiet voice before going back to sleep, her head buried under the sheets.
But now Angela was singing words. Words that came unbidden to her mouth. Words about love and loss and death. Words that knitted the past and the future into this feeling she had now. She was ashamed and embarrassed to be singing about things that she knew nothing about. She suddenly felt naked, as if this singing had stripped her of her clothes and left her with nothing to hide behind.
Nevertheless, Angela could hear that there was a beauty in her voice’s fragile sweetness. She gave this song to him. It was their secret. She gave the song to him as she would have given herself. She gave away this unspeakable sweetness without any thought of cost or payment, with no reticence or calculation. But also, Angela did not give it away, for it stayed with her and bound them together.
This lasted a long time, or so she thought. Suddenly, the sweet voice stopped. She looked down and her hands were empty. Eduardo no longer lay on the ground. He stood before her. He stared down at her with wild eyes.
Bitten
"I heard singing,” he said. “Was there singing?” He tried to laugh, but couldn’t quite pull it off. Finally, he ran a hand through his hair, and it came out full of dirt.
“Are you alright, Señor Eduardo?” Angela asked.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a fit. They happen and then they go. Maybe it’s too much tequila. Maybe it’s living off rabbit blood. Maybe it’s something else. Who knows? Who knows?” He gazed out through half-closed eyes, as if he were trying both to see and to remember.
“Should you see el curandero?” Angela asked.
“What could he do? Mumble some words and give me some herbs?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t we see someone?” Angela begged. “I thought you were dead. You can’t remember if you killed Officer Lobos.” She took hold of his hand to lead him out of the cave. Again, she felt the cold sting when they touched. He must have felt it too because he jerked his hand back.
“We have to get help,” Angela said.
“What do you mean? Who do you want to run to? La policía?” He had moved to the mouth of the cave to stop her from leaving. His eyes were cloudy and unfocused as if he were trying to wake up from a dream.
“Let us go, señor,” Angela pleaded.
“Go? Where would you go? I know your game! I know who you’ll run to!”
“Never, señor! We’ll go together. I’ll help you. I would never betray you! I’ll tell la policía only what you told me to say.”
“Shut your mouth! Tell no one nothing. If you say one word to anyone, I will ring your neck.” His voice was low and hoarse. Angela was terribly frightened of what he might do.
“Eduardo, I would rather kill myself than harm you,” she promised. “I would do anything for you.”
Her words echoed in the cave. Eduardo eyes began to clear and he stared at her with surprise.
“Why are you so afraid of harming me?” he asked. “Why would you do anything for me?”
She didn’t know what to say. Angela knew what men and women did together. She’d heard her brothers laugh about it.
He came over to her, looked deep into her eyes and put his arms around her. She felt that sting when they touched again, but this time it shook her entire body. She began to shiver and couldn’t stop. He held her tighter—to calm her.
Angela thought, “I should run,” but she couldn’t. She was deathly afraid, but she could not go. She knew if she stayed, it would seal her fate. As he held her, Angela saw a vision of him as an old man, or an old monster, with pale-green skin and scaled face. She knew he would kill her. But even if it meant her death, she couldn’t leave this man who had his arms around her, whose hot breath stirred the back of her neck—for he was the one thing in her life from which she didn’t want to run.
He gripped her so tightly, she could hardly move. Perhaps at this point she might have said something to stop him. She might have cried, “No.” But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
Angela felt a burning pain in her neck. She shut her eyes and clenched her teeth until she could hear them grind. It felt like two shards of ice pierced her flesh. A brief moan escaped her lips. The only sound she made. And then, so, so, so slowly, she felt a deep sleepiness. A growing inner coldness. She put her head on Eduardo’s shoulder, which seemed to be growing warmer. She was getting dizzy. She was woozy. Time crawled. But Eduardo seemed to be coming to life. Angela couldn’t keep her eyes open. Somewhere, far-off, she could feel Eduardo laying her down on the floor of the cave. And still he was on her neck. Finally, it stopped. She felt sucked dry. A liquid flowed into her mouth which she thirstily drank. She fell asleep.
Angela awoke, curled up like a dog in the corner of the cave. The fire had burned out, but light was coming into the cave. She was alone. Eduardo was gone.
She felt a great pain, a great loss. She knew that something terrible had changed, something in her had been destroyed. She didn’t know then that in a few days, something new, stronger, incorruptible would emerge inside of her and she would be forever transformed. She would become what I am today.
Angela got up on her knees and prayed, like the priest had taught her, with tears flowing from her eyes. This pain felt different than the others in her life. It wasn’t physical, like a beating. She didn’t know what it was or even where it was. The pain seemed to be in the world and it had leaked from there into her. She wouldn’t be rid of it until the world was pure, and that would never happen.
She jumped up and ran to the cave entrance, looking along the path to see Eduardo. She didn’t know if she wanted to find him or not. Would she run to him or away? She didn’t know.
Not seeing Eduardo, she left the cave and ran back along the path. The path was slippery, but Angela ran all the faster. The wet branches slapped her face, but she didn’t care. She ran until she found herself at the gate of her house.
