The Scholar
She towers above him, her stony countenance glowers down. He wants to apologize, but he fumbles with the words. He knows the ones she wants, but the more angry she becomes, the more they swim away in his mind. One language for one people, she says, and maybe he should go back to Mexico where his people are. She is not aware that he is from Guatemala, not Mexico. Or that Spanish is only his second language- his language of survival, and English his third. Kekchí is the language of his dreams, the tongue of the private voice inside him. But now the three languages swirl in his head, confounding tongue and pen. He must have written in the wrong one today. Spanish. No one had ever taught him to write in Kekchí. She singled him out by his tongue--his pen, and banished him. To the principle's office, young man. He walks down the hall with his head bowed in tired sorrow. Her eyes follow him, barring his return to her class. The memory of her standing like a statue locked in his mind. A reminder of his inability to achieve his full, human potential.
The Saint
He follows behind the Priest, proudly bedecked in his brilliant white vestment for God's service. The waves of the penitent fill the pews to his left and right and he strides between them, obscured--protected by the rising pillar of smoke as the Father swings the incense from left to right and back again. The sweet, stale smell of tradition permeates his senses. He feels pure and safe under the watchful eye of God. His grandmother had been so pleased when her little Moses became an altar boy. The first in the living memory of the Marmól family. His grandmother says he is leading his family into a new life, far away from the persecution contained in 500 years of memory. He will be educated in the land of opportunity, find a good job and bring his aunts, uncles and cousins to follow his shining path. He is their hope for the future. The beaming white face of the Father reads out in perfect English. The universal Latin is gone, divided into a hundred or a thousand tongues. The faces, dark like Moses', unsure of the words, follow the familiar rhythm of Mass, mumbling their response in a cacophony of English, Spanish, Kekchí and more. Moses is teaching the people in his neighborhood their new Vernacular, but it is hard to forget the old words. The new words don't yet sound like Truth.
The Provider
Moses crouches around the corner of 79th and Broadway. It is evening, but still bright with the slow set of the summer sun. His eyes focus on the fruit hanging on the street before the market just a few dozen yards up Broadway. His grandmother tells him that once his ancestors fed themselves freely in the jungles of his homeland, pulling what they needed from tree and bush. She says it could still be that way, but the breath on the mirror obscures the vision of how things could be and leaves people to live the way things are. Moses feels conspicuous, but even his deliberate movements are lost to the bustle of the New York evening. His target chosen, he searches the market for Mr. Guttíerez, the owner. He stands inside, near the register, occupied with the needs of his customers. Moses darts through the crowd, pulling bananas awkwardly from their wire display. Mr. Guttíerez turns and is hurt inside. He is only one man. What can he do? The Father tells Moses it is not right to steal, but, somehow, Moses feels this is not stealing. He cannot explain what inside is a certainty. His family will have fruit tonight.
His Brother's Keeper
Chan K'in Pablo has already changed his name to Paul and he speaks an English different from the broken, stuttering tongue possessed by his brother Moses. Chan K'in Pablo says, "Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." And people do, because Chan K'in Pablo talks tough and Chan K'in Pablo has friends who talk tough, too. He says that Moses may seek the sky for his invisible knowledge, but his people on the ground need gold and guns to light the way. And the city is filled with fatted calves on which Chan K'in Pablo feasts. Moses' knowledge is not invisible. He stacks it, brick by brick, and looks down on the scattered confusion of Shiner Street. Moses tries to explain his view to his brother, far down below, but his words come to the ears of Chan K'in Pablo like gibberish. Moses is not able to keep his brother and Chan K'in Pablo seeps into the infertile pavement of the city streets.
The Boy
Moses squats on the curb of Broadway, uptown. He waits for the light to halt the flow of traffic with his bottle and squeegee in hand. Heat radiates from the mortar of civilization beneath his haunches, soaking in the depths of the sun to return it with steady intensity, multiplying the natural haze of summer. His grandmother has told him of days like this when his father was young and the family still lived in Ixtahuacán Chiquito--when families still lived in Ixtahuacán Chiquito. His father knew the secrets of the family onen, the monkey. The secrets of the jungle and his place within it. The onen taught him how to provide for himself and for his family. But there were no onen here. And no onen in Ixtahuacán Chiquito since the people had been driven out and the jungle burned. A scorched and blackened earth. Dead. Like the streets of New York. Moses would never be his father. He would have to find a new path for his family. Moses dreams as the cars flow by like the current of a river with myriad tongues forking east and west; left and right. He dreams of being a boy. Of playing games with other boys, back in Ixtahuacán Chiquito. The light will turn red and Moses' dream will stop. He will hurry to the cars. He will teach his neighbors English. He will mourn his brother in the bustling, crowded, barren streets. He will try, everyday, to return to his class. To choose the right language and, brick by brick, to ascend. |