your heart in your mouth, you fucking pig." Amador led Tibey and the startled doctor away. The mother superior stood there for a moment then followed them down the corridor sighing and offering prayers.
Cochran sat there for an afternoon and a night—drinking coffee, holding Miryea's hands, caressing her brow, pacing the room when the doctor entered. At first light she regained consciousness and they embraced wordlessly. She slept for a while and he dozed off sitting in the chair until the afternoon heat awakened him. Then he had to be restrained as the doctor gave her a tracheotomy to ease her breathing and then she was near death for another night and day. He lay on the floor in the night refusing all thought, listening to her rasping breathing through the oxygen unit Amador had brought from town. The pauses in her breathing at times became agonizing in their length and then short and staccato. When he no longer could bear it he ran down into the courtyard and screamed. The lights were turned on and the patients returned his screams hearing his particular voice for the first time. Amador, Tibey and the doctor came running from their temporary quarters in the kitchen. He fought them until Amador subdued him with a choke-hold. Tibey helped hold him down and the doctor gave him a shot to allow him to sleep.
Hours later when he awoke on his pallet in a strange room he stood and glanced at the hot sun through the barred window. He found the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee while Amador, Tibey and the doctor sat at the table. The doctor nervously averted his glance.
Later on the afternoon of the third day Miryea regained consciousness. He spoke eagerly and in a rush of nearly incoherent words. She whispered that she wanted to go out in the garden. He ran for the doctor who shrugged in defeat and followed him back to the room and bandaged Miryea's throat. Cochran carried her down into the garden where the patients were being herded in for dinner. The autistic children passed them without seeing, keening their private dirges like hoarse earthbound birds whose sufferings would never be answered on earth. He held her tightly in his arms remembering how light a dead bird felt when he picked it out of a thicket in the Indiana woods. He spoke again in a rush trying to keep her alive by the power in the energy of his words: it was as if his brain had split open and he plunged, raked, dug, mining any secret he might hold to bring her to health. He put the necklace from Mauro's mother around her neck remembering with horror that she had said he would only take vengeance on his enemies. He invented a universe of words but they were only words. He invented a child for them to walk with in Seville and she smiled and nodded yes. Twilight passed into near dark and Amador watched impassively, partly hid by a column. He stopped the doctor from approaching them. The half-moon came up windblown but shrunken and a gust whipped the flowers from a flowering almond. Cochran whispered on and then as full dark descended she sang the song he knew so well in a throaty voice that only faintly surpassed the summer droning of a cicada. It was her death song and she passed from life seeing him sitting there as her soul billowed softly outward like a cloud parting. It began to rain and a bird in the tree above them crooned as if he were the soul of some Mayan trying to struggle his way back earthward.
----
EPILOGUE
There was one man digging under the tree and two men watching. The man dug with a mechanical intentness, using an ax for the tree roots, a pick for the rocks, and a shovel for the heavy soil. He noted the marbling and striations of soil as he descended into the earth on a hot afternoon. The man named Amador sat on a bench and drew down his sombrero and sang in a hushed voice. The man named Tiburón, Tibey, Señor Baldassaro Mendez sat on the bench and held his face in his hands as the man dug with terrible energy, methodical, inevitable.
Cochran sat there for an afternoon and a night—drinking coffee, holding Miryea's hands, caressing her brow, pacing the room when the doctor entered. At first light she regained consciousness and they embraced wordlessly. She slept for a while and he dozed off sitting in the chair until the afternoon heat awakened him. Then he had to be restrained as the doctor gave her a tracheotomy to ease her breathing and then she was near death for another night and day. He lay on the floor in the night refusing all thought, listening to her rasping breathing through the oxygen unit Amador had brought from town. The pauses in her breathing at times became agonizing in their length and then short and staccato. When he no longer could bear it he ran down into the courtyard and screamed. The lights were turned on and the patients returned his screams hearing his particular voice for the first time. Amador, Tibey and the doctor came running from their temporary quarters in the kitchen. He fought them until Amador subdued him with a choke-hold. Tibey helped hold him down and the doctor gave him a shot to allow him to sleep.
Hours later when he awoke on his pallet in a strange room he stood and glanced at the hot sun through the barred window. He found the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee while Amador, Tibey and the doctor sat at the table. The doctor nervously averted his glance.
Later on the afternoon of the third day Miryea regained consciousness. He spoke eagerly and in a rush of nearly incoherent words. She whispered that she wanted to go out in the garden. He ran for the doctor who shrugged in defeat and followed him back to the room and bandaged Miryea's throat. Cochran carried her down into the garden where the patients were being herded in for dinner. The autistic children passed them without seeing, keening their private dirges like hoarse earthbound birds whose sufferings would never be answered on earth. He held her tightly in his arms remembering how light a dead bird felt when he picked it out of a thicket in the Indiana woods. He spoke again in a rush trying to keep her alive by the power in the energy of his words: it was as if his brain had split open and he plunged, raked, dug, mining any secret he might hold to bring her to health. He put the necklace from Mauro's mother around her neck remembering with horror that she had said he would only take vengeance on his enemies. He invented a universe of words but they were only words. He invented a child for them to walk with in Seville and she smiled and nodded yes. Twilight passed into near dark and Amador watched impassively, partly hid by a column. He stopped the doctor from approaching them. The half-moon came up windblown but shrunken and a gust whipped the flowers from a flowering almond. Cochran whispered on and then as full dark descended she sang the song he knew so well in a throaty voice that only faintly surpassed the summer droning of a cicada. It was her death song and she passed from life seeing him sitting there as her soul billowed softly outward like a cloud parting. It began to rain and a bird in the tree above them crooned as if he were the soul of some Mayan trying to struggle his way back earthward.
----
EPILOGUE
There was one man digging under the tree and two men watching. The man dug with a mechanical intentness, using an ax for the tree roots, a pick for the rocks, and a shovel for the heavy soil. He noted the marbling and striations of soil as he descended into the earth on a hot afternoon. The man named Amador sat on a bench and drew down his sombrero and sang in a hushed voice. The man named Tiburón, Tibey, Señor Baldassaro Mendez sat on the bench and held his face in his hands as the man dug with terrible energy, methodical, inevitable.
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