28. La Virgen del Palo

Marina had no idea how she had buried her pride and called Rodolfo for help finding Ori. And here he was in her house, giving her instructions to show up at the Partido storefront. He'd bothered to come to her house (really Ori's house. She was a guest...) and listen to her tantrum. She had no idea what she'd said. Or what he'd said. She'd railed and cried and maybe she had pummeled him. She wasn't srue. After Rodolfo was gone and she’d finished her tantrum Marina got the quilt from her bedroom and curled up around Machi on the living room floor, right where he’d dropped off to sleep during her rant. She was afraid to move him and wake him. She lay looking at the room in the dark, the air clear, the objects hard edged, popped out, like after a hard rain. Would she ever sleep again? She woke up when the sun hit her face, too late for school and work. She called the classroom, told Claraberta to lead the class, got Machi into the bathtub and climbed in with him. She lay in the water, he lay in her arms, until she noticed she was cold. Would Machi ever be willing to go back to school? Would she be able to struggle with him, get him to go?
She made him scrambled eggs and cornmeal with brown sugar and sat across from him watching him eat. “We’ve got to go see Rodolfo. He’s got to see us right away or he’ll forget his promise.”
Machi sat at the top of the stairs, put on his sneakers, slowly tied the laces. “Where’s Papi? Every other time he got arrested at a demonstration he was home the next day,”
“That’s what Rodolfo's going to help us find out.”
Machi opened the door onto the stoop and Marina faced the rectangle of light. He ran out into the glorious day and she followed him to the avenue. On the way to the Partido’s office they passed the uphill end of Moon Park. Machi tugged her in there and ran ahead to the edge of his jungle. She followed and saw him stop short. Close to his and David’s path there was a shelter built from cardboard and scrap wood. Machi turned back. “Who lives there? David and I wanted to live there.” They peered into the branches. “There are lots of houses. Look, there’s smoke.” Machi pulled her into the brush. Was she crazy? But she followed him to where three women sat around a small fire. The oldest woman smiled. “Quieren café?”
Marina sat on a stone and accepted a cup with a bit of coffee at the bottom, very sweet. She saw the women wore mantillas and held small prayer books. The one in the center, the youngest, held out her hands. Up close Marina saw she was at most 12 years old. There were red marks in the center of her palms.
“Mi hija Graciela la Nena. Estigmatizada. Vio a la Virgen en aquel palo.”
They pointed to a fat low branched tree.
“That’s my tree. Mine and David’s. We sit on that fat branch.” He ran and climbed onto a thick branch just a few feet off the ground. “Make your boy get down, that’s a holy tree.” Marina stared at the older woman, wondering how to respond. She stood by Machi, put her arm around him. Graciela La Nena smiled. “Graciela Vieja, Boy’s play won’t hurt the tree.” The older woman nodded. She pointed to the swirls of the bark. La Nena knelt and prayed. La Vieja touched the tree, drew with her finger on the bark. “La ven? La Virgen. If you’re here, if you found us, you must be needing a miracle.”
“What’s a miracle?”
La Nena lifted Machi off the branch, brought him to the Tree Virgin. “Kneel and pray.” Machi knew better than to ask what pray was. He watched. “You pray with me.” La Nena knelt alongside him. “Virgen querida dale un milagro a…Como te llamas?”
“Maceo.”
“Virgen del Arbol Dale un milagro a Maceo. Give him what he wants.” She turned away from the tree and opened her eyes. Machi couldn’t take his eyes away from her luminous smile.
“Whatever I want?”
She nodded. “Ask the Tree Virgin for whatever you want and if you’re good, if she believes you, she’ll give it to you.”
“I close my eyes?”
“It’s better if you do.”
“Like magic?”
“A kind of magic. Better than magic. She talks right to God.”
Machi closed his eyes and bowed his head the way La Nena had.
“Tree Virgin, I want my Papi back. I want David’s Papi back. I want all the fathers back from jail.”
Marina let Machi lead her back into the sunlight.
“Can we come back?”
All the way to the Partido storefront Machi talked about La Nena, the Virgin and Skyman, chief among his imaginary friends. Had his longing to find Ori conjured Skyman? Was is strong enough to conjure La Nena and her tree virgin? Could he make his Papi reappear? They stood outside the storefront window and peered through the dirt streaked glass. It was hard to see through the soot, the stacks of old issues of Liberacion, the accumulation of rolled banners and signs. She knocked hard and Sandra came to the door. Marina stepped inside and Sandra enfolded her and just for that moment their political differences didn’t matter, the separation was bridged. Machi tugged at her skirt. “Y Maceo? Y Fidelito?”
“In school. Why aren’t you in school?”
Machi ignored her question. “We saw a Tree Virgin in the park.”
Sandra laughed. “You’ve heard of that? That crazy girl and her crazy mother have been living in the park for a week. They’re starting something. People are desperate. Did she show you the scabs on her hands?”
“She’s going to bring my Papi back.”
Marina followed Sandra behind the half wall that partitioned the meeting area from the office. She saw that nothing much had changed since she had worked there, with Ori, Rodolfo, Paco, Elvira and Sandra to put out the City supplement to Verdad. She felt a pierce of longing for that old, innocent time, when being a revolutionary was euphoric, a way to feel in charge of the world, to know people more deeply, love more, want more. Before the ideological differences, the informants, the escalation of the Karaya War, the jailing and torture and killing of so many companeros. Revolution became terror.
Machi took out the action figures in his pocket and settled to play on the office floor. He waved his right hand and called out “Skyman”, his left hand and called out, “Tree Virgin.” He smashed the two together. Skyman and the Tree Virgin dueled, or kissed.
Marina, Sandra and Rodolfo huddled around his desk, covered with manuscripts, clippings, newspapers. “Como antes, eh?” Sandra looked like she might cry. “I miss you. I miss both of you.”
Rodolfo cleared his throat. “I called my cousin. You know in our families there’s somebody on every side.”
“Your cousin in the Terror Squad?”
He nodded.