Thirteen Senses (81 page)

Salvador took a big breath. He didn't want to admit it, but he also had this same little feeling of “mistrust” here inside of himself.

The more and more that Lupe heard about Domingo's proposal—as they made their way from Mesa Grande to the border town of Nogales, just south of Tucson, Arizona—the more Lupe thought that there was just something very wrong about the whole situation.

Each day there was less and less talk between her and Salvador.

Ever since Domingo had come into the picture, it was like Salvador and she, Lupe, weren't very close anymore. The feeling of those intimate conversations they had on the river's edge under the Stars in Yuma was all gone.

And they'd been so happy, she and Salvador, when they'd had
nada. nada,
nothing living under the trees and brush and Stars. Something had happened. It was like the arrival of his brother—with all this money and big dreams—was a tonic that was bringing out a side of Salvador that Lupe had never seen before.

She was frightened.

22

Adam and Eva now both Knew that it wasn't the Devil who'd ever tempted them—it was their own Mirror that Reflected their Doubts and Fears.

T
HEY HAD NO TROUBLE
getting into Mexico. In Nogales, Sonora, right across the border, Lupe and Salvador went to the bank to wire Archie for the rest of their money. They couldn't just keep depending on Domingo's generosity for everything, especially since it wasn't really Domingo's money, but Socorro's with which he was being so generous.

Across the border liquor was legal, and so Salvador and Domingo began drinking beer like water and shooting down
tequila
with chasers of
sangre,
meaning “blood,” and all they could now do was talk about how wonderful their childhood had been and that they were going to return to that wonderful place of their childhood when they got their gold from that mine in Navajoa.

Domingo purchased dozens of shovels and picks and iron bars for working the mine, then he got a case of dynamite smuggled in for him from the U.S. side of Nogales. It was decided that Salvador and Lupe would take all these things in their truck and all of their clothing and personal belongings would be put in the trunk and backseat of the big Packard.

The two Villaseñor brothers who'd survived the Revolution, would now be returning home to
los Altos de Jalisco
in style, driving side by side in their fine automobiles with their women at their sides and with enough gold to buy back all the lands of their once
rancho grande.
They weren't being deported back to Mexico like cattle as was happening to thousands of their
gente;
no, they were returning to their homeland of their own freewill like
hombres de estaca
with guns at the waist and money in their pockets.

Every day, Salvador and his brother continued drinking, singing, and celebrating, and each night Domingo and his lady friend could be heard screaming to the Heavens.

Then each morning, Salvador and Lupe would go down to the bank to see if their money from Archie had arrived or not. But by the end of the week, Salvador was no longer going to the bank in the mornings with Lupe anymore. Lupe was going by herself. Salvador was too hung-over from drinking so much.

One morning, Lupe went to the bank wearing a new dress and shoes— not expensive, but decent looking—that Socorro had bought for her. Socorro, Lupe was finding out, was one of these Mexican-Indian women who were all Heart
-Corazón,
thinking that “gift” giving was the ultimate human virtue, a reflection of the Almighty!

This day when Lupe went into the bank and asked the bank manager if their money had come in, he said, “Yes, it has,” but then he added, “but not here, nor in the great empire of China will money be put into the hands of a woman. You'll need to bring in your husband,” he added with arrogance.

Lupe was shocked, and a few months before she would have felt crushed and had no idea what to say or do. But she'd come a long ways in these last few days.

“Señor,”
said Lupe, feeling her heart
-corazón
beginning to pound like a great drum, “for nearly a week you have been seeing me come in to this bank with my husband every morning and you have been nothing but courteous to my husband and me, until now that our money has arrived. What do you mean by speaking to me in this manner? Do I look like an irresponsible person? And even if I did, that is not your business. That money is ours, and I want to have it right now!”

The well-dressed man was surprised, but not without words, either.
“Señora,”
he said in an arrogant, condescending tone of voice, “you have forgotten your place, my dear. You have been too long over there in that frivolous country of the United States. Here in Mexico, we know how to treat women, so I will not release this money or any other to you without your husband's presence!”

Maria Guadalupe Gomez
de
Villaseñor held, looking straight into the eyes of the man standing before her. He was a tall, slender man in his thirties, an educated man, a good-looking man, a man who thought he knew the ways of the world, and how things should be done. But she was also her mother's daughter and her grandmother's granddaughter, and so here in her veins ran the blood of women who'd been taking up ground and being accounted for since the dawn of time! Why, she'd seen her mother hold their
familia
together—after their father abandoned them—with nothing but her wits! She'd seen her mother fight tooth and nail to keep food on the table for them, so Lupe wasn't going to be intimidated, either.

“Señor,”
she said, “then do I understand you correctly that you are refusing to give me our money? Money that belongs to my husband and me?”

“Yes,” he said, “your ears are not dirty, you understand me.”

And he now actually laughed at her, playing with his mustache as if he were flirting with her. A few of the other people in the bank laughed, too. Lupe glanced around. They were all men. There was not one single woman working in the whole bank.

And why Lupe took this vow, at the moment as she faced this bank manager all alone, she'd never quite know, but that Other Holy Self of herself now spoke up inside of her mind and said, “This isn't right. Women can count money and put it away as good as any man or faster. I've seen women do this with fast, agile hands every day in the packinghouses with the peaches, lemons, tomatoes all over the Southland. And we, women, have our dreams, too, just like Salvador and Domingo have their dreams, and so I now take an oath before God that I will one day be rich and I will help see to it that women get the chance to work in banks just like men, for my mother—God Bless her Soul—knew how to handle money for the benefit of our whole
familia
much better than my father, and so did Salvador's mother, too. We, women, need to have a say about money matters for the world to progress, and that's that! It will be done, so help me God!”

And hearing this Voice speak inside her, Lupe felt this great peace come over her and she now said to this man standing before her, “All right, I will return with my husband, but—you understand this right now—you and your other male friends are coming to an end.”

“Is this a threat?” said the man, grinning with amusement as he turned smiling to his fellow male coworkers.

“No,” said Lupe, “this is a promise from me, a woman.”

Saying this, Lupe turned and started out the bank, and by the time she got to the front door to go out, she was shaking like a leaf—she was so enraged! She could hear the banker and his friends behind her laughing, no doubt congratulating each other on how they'd just put another woman in her place.

Suddenly, in a flash,
un RAYO del CIELO,
she knew that these men were cowards! If she and Salvador had been driving up all week in their fine Moon automobile and they'd entered the bank all dressed up in fine clothes, none of this would have happened to her.

And in this same flash of insight, Lupe now also realized why she'd married Salvador above all others. He, Salvador, was, indeed, his mother's child,
un hombre
who truly respected women, and especially strong women who spoke up for themselves!

Tears of joy came to Lupe's eyes. This was what made Salvador different from his brother, Domingo, and almost all other men. His mother had raised him to be a woman-man, as her mother-in-love had so well explained to her. Salvador's mother had showed him that a woman's power, here inside of a male, didn't weaken that man, but instead strengthened him to be the strongest of all
hombres
!

Lupe was exhausted by the time she got back to the little hotel where they were staying. That man at the bank had truly turned her stomach with his arrogant, male airs. And how those other men at the bank had enjoyed it. Not one of them had tried to intervene or lessen her embarrassment.

She was glad that Salvador and Domingo and Socorro were out.

She wanted to lie down and gather her thoughts. This was no longer just about the money that they'd finally gotten wired to them at the bank. No, this was now about a whole way of life, about her whole way of thinking ever since she'd grown up in
la Barranca del Cobre
and she'd given witness to her mother getting up before daybreak day after day, performing miracle after miracle just to keep them alive during that AWFUL REVOLUTION of men's abuses!

LUPE MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP,
for the next thing she knew she was waking up with such a clarity of thought that she Knew Everything!

No, she and Salvador were not going to go back to Mexico. Both of their
familias
were now in the United States, and so this was where they were going to make their home and raise their children with cousins and aunts and uncles.

But how would she be able to say this to Salvador with his big plans of establishing a gold mine along with his brother, and getting so rich that they would be able to buy back their lands in
Los Altos?

Lupe took a deep breath, fully realizing that this was the turning point of her life. She was taking up ground! This was it! But she was going to have to be very careful in presenting herself to her
esposo
, especially with all of their
gente
being run out of the United States.

Lupe put both of her hands over her heart area, Breathing in and Breathing out of
Papito Dios.
She almost went to sleep, but not quite. She was in that place halfway between sleep and waking where she could feel the Power starting to come into her—as she lay in bed with her eyes closed. It was extraordinary, all fear and confusion quickly evaporated from her.

And she now knew that this was exactly what her own mother had done just before she'd gone down to the
plaza
with a gun underneath her dress and saved her brother, Victoriano, from that hanging by those no-good renegade soldiers. Her mother had gone to this Sacred Place, here inside of a woman, where God impregnated a Female with the Holy Force of Creation.

Tears of ecstasy came to Lupe's eyes as she kept Breathing in and out of
Papito.

Her mother, Doña Guadalupe, and her mother-in-love, Doña Margarita, were now here with her, too, guiding her, helping her, and so was the Blessed Mother of Jesus.

THAT AFTERNOON SALVADOR CAME IN
all drunk and happy, along with Domingo and Socorro. Immediately Socorro and Domingo went to their room next door and their headboard began to sound as it banged against the wall once more.

Coming into their room, Salvador saw Lupe sitting quietly at the end of their bed with the sunlight coming down all about her in a golden glow. “What is it?” he asked.

Hortensia was down the way, playing with the two little girls of another family who were also staying at the hotel.

“Nothing,” said Lupe. “It can wait.”

She didn't want to speak to Salvador about all this that she was feeling inside while he was drinking. But on the other hand, he now seemed to always be drinking. Tears came to her eyes. They'd been so close there on the banks of the Colorado River in Yuma.

“Lupe,” said Salvador with a twisted, happy-liquor grin, “I could feel it all the way outside—even before I opened the door. Something very big is going on with you. Remember, we've been through a lot and so we're very close together, here inside,
querida
,” he added, tapping his chest area. “Talk to me.”

The tears now flowed freely from Lupe's eyes. There was just nothing any finer that Salvador could have said, because it was true, they had been through so much together and they were, indeed, very close.

“Salvador,” she said, “the money has arrived.”

“Well, that's wonderful! So then why are you crying? Isn't it the full two hundred?”

“I don't know how much it is,” said Lupe. “The banker wouldn't give it to me.”

“That's okay,” said Salvador, “we'll just go and get it together right now, before the bank closes.”

“Salvador, the money isn't why I'm crying,” said Lupe. “It's how the bank manager treated me that has upset me, because, well . . . now I understand why it is that I don't want us to return to Mexico.”

“You what?” said Salvador, squinting his eyes, trying to understand what it was that Lupe had just said. “You don't want us going back to Mexico?” he asked.

“No, I don't,” said Lupe, “I want us to use this money to go back to California so we can be with our
familias.
”

Lupe said no more. Salvador was staring at her as if she was crazy. He was swaying back and forth on his feet with a drunken, confused look until the whole idea finally seemed to come through to him. Then he EXPLODED!

“But what are you saying,
mujer
!?!” he shouted. “Have you gone completely crazy
-loca
, eh? We got a gold mine waiting for us just outside of Navojoa! We'll be rich within a year, and then we can do whatever we damn well please! That's what rich people get to do, whatever they damn well please, here or across the border!”