21. Paco's Ashes at the River

“Elvira doesn’t want us there?” Marina caught up to Ori. “You never told me that.” He was halfway down the hill, nearing their spot by the river, the very spot where he and Paco used to meet. “It didn’t cross my mind it was important.” Ori stopped and let Marina catch up. His face was set with rage. “Paco didn’t only belong to Elvira. His ashes are going into the river and we belong there.” Machi ran ahead. He was familiar with the narrow trail into the dense growth where he and David played guerrilla or gangster, hidden among the native shrubs and weed trees. They came upon the small group: Elvira, Sandra, their children. Machi barely knew these children anymore, children he’d been born with. She and these women had nursed each others’ babies and used to call the children milk brothers and sisters.
Elvira turned, grimaced as Ori reached her and then composed her face into a smile. He said, “Paco era de todos,” bent down to peck her on the cheek, and drew her against his chest for a hug.
“Paco era de todos.” Elvira echoed his words. She nodded. “We’re waiting for Rodolfo and then we’re going to…” She couldn’t finish the phrase. Marina had never seen Elvira look vulnerable. Sandra, taking her cue from Elvira, decided it was allowable to be civil to the purged. She suddenly turned up right beside Marina and offered her cheek to be kissed.
Rodolfo erupted through the bushes, followed by his new wife, Ednita, in a billowing maternity blouse. He’d traded up. Ednita was from Karaya’s elite, her father was a former governor. She barely looked at Rodolfo’s first wife, Matilde, who stood at the edge of the group beside her teenaged children, Roddy and Matty, both now taller than she. Matilde had been a different sort of Isla elite, the daughter of independence martyr Clauvell. From where Marina stood she could see that Ednita’s pregnancy top covered a still inexistent belly.
Rodolfo walked up to where Elvira stood still talking with Ori. He couldn’t very well avoid shaking Ori’s hand. He held Elvira for a few seconds against his skinny chest and then he cleared his throat.
“Franciso Sandander, nuestro Paco…” Rodolfo’s voice was raspy, high pitched, compelling. He looked at each person as he spoke and each person there, if only for this moment, surrendered their minds to his. The pleasure of being of one mind, even if the price was submitting to lies, flooded Marina. It was easy to confuse this feeling for love. Or was this feeling the truth, and the pervading sense of separation just capitalist alienation?
“He was a great husband, a great father…” Paco’s son Paquito had materialized beside Rodolfo and now Rodolfo took his hand…”A great husband…” He took Elvira’s hand…”A great leader. Those of us standing here would have followed him to the ends of the earth…The question for us is, what next? What now? The struggle is the only fit memorial for Paco and his death is his challenge to us, a call to action.”
Ori whispered into Marina’s ear. “Paco would have said a call to arms.”
She looked around, felt like a traitor to Ori because she was ashamed by him here, wished he would comply. Wouldn’t it have been better to not lose the Party? Why did having a mind mean losing the group? She’d lost her country over her family's politics. Lost her family over politics. She’d gained what seemed like her true family through politics, and then lost that. It was excruciating to stand here on the fringes, as much a pariah among these people who had been hers, and she theirs, as she was with her parents and her extended Venturan family.
That was the reason people lied. Lying was important. Lying protected you from loneliness. Machi was running through the bushes with Sandra’s boys who should have been his close friends, another Maceo also named after the apostle of the Primera Insurreccion, and Faustino named for Faustino Samuel who was known now as El Mandatario because he was the Venturan lider maximo,. She saw the group draw together, gather close to Elvira who had opened what looked like a cracker tin full of a gray powder that turned out to be Paco’s ashes. Elvira's voice was loud, clear. “Paco wanted his ashes scattered here, en las entranas del monstruo, where he lived and fought. We spoke about it often because I kept wanting to convince him Karaya was the place, our homeland. He said no. He insisted. This was where he lived and fought. “ She reached into the mass of gray dust and let go the first handful of ashes. She bent down and offered the tin to Paquito who looked down, up at his Mother with a look of terror, closed his eyes, grabbed some ashes into his fist and let them fly. The wind was blowing briskly out toward the water and the ashes disappeared almost as soon as they hit the air.
Elvira offered the tin in an order of protocol. Ori was next to last. His expression was bleak, inward. Marina watched him and couldn’t tell what he might be thinking or feeling. His body and his face could be like a suit of armor. When he went inside there she couldn’t find him. After he was done Elvira shoved the tin at Marina, last and least. Her mind couldn’t take in that this thin dust, these bits of bone shard in her hand, had once been Paco. She turned to face the water, opened her hand and watched him become wind.
They were the last to scatter ashes and the first to make their way back through the brush onto the uphill stretch of lawn. Sandra caught up to them. “Come join us at Elvira’s for some food.”
Ori studied Sandra's face for a moment. Marina studied him. This was his call.
He shook his head.
Was she sorry? Machi waved to Faustino and Maceo.
“It was good while it lasted,” Machi said.
Marina looked at Ori. “Where did our son get that phrase?” Machi took her hand. “He’s got the same name as me. I’ve never met anyone else named Maceo in my whole life. Can he come to the house to play? He didn't wait for an answer and ran ahead up the hill, by himself.
Marina grabbed Ori’s hand. “What have we done to our son? Tantalized him with closeness and then let our politics disrupt his friendships…with David, with these two boys.”
Ori said nothing. He would have said something, if he’d had an answer. He put his arm around her and they walked slowly out of the park.