The Moths and Other Stories by Helena María Viramontes

in a long, long time, and he sees her surprise when he mentions the nameJoaquín. Or perhaps she is surprised about the land. Chato sees himself, excited—trying to hide the excitement, and for a moment he feels like touching her, his wife. Perhaps, after he builds the house they will begin another life together. Before, Amanda would touch him and try to make him love her again. Each time she touched him, he saw his child’s face, and would jerk away from her grasp. He remembers even crying once, behind the house in the dark. Perhaps later, but now he has promised himself and he walks away, his spurs loud on the wooden porch. Grainy dust. He sees Don Joaquín approaching, his horse trotting confidently.
    You acted like God, Amanda. I acted like a man should.
    â€œChato! How do you like the land? Practically given to you! Look, just to the south of here, you can set up irrigation ditches and…”
    â€œIt’s desert.”
    â€œExcuse my laughter, but what did you expect for the few pennies you’ve given me?”
    â€œI’ve given you everything I’m worth…without being castrated.”
    â€œAnd I’ve given you what you’re worth, my friend. Desert!”
    Chato sees himself surrounded by people who thicken like nervous ants as he brings Don Joaquín in. Mouths first murmur sentences, now shout words, while the cool bursts of breeze gently dry the drooling saliva from the dying man. The voices follow them to Chato’s porch. After the doctor leaves, Amanda Márquez prays near Don Joaquín. Chato has surrendered his bed and his wife to this man, and he sits quietly on a crate viewing the mountains from the next room. He turns to his wife, who holds a heavy rosary, then returns to the mountains, where into a blissful sleep he can see his heart smiling.
    He remembers his heart smiling.
    He remembers his mother’s crumbling voice calling for him: “Chato.” The word with no emphasis, just an empty “Chato” almost cursed, her son the runt boy who learned to hoe the land at three and could sing passionate corridos about men impoverished by love, men scorned or continuously intoxicated, like the clown who was the proprietor of the yearly event in the village, the carousel with its bells and rings enticing all the filthy children to steal, beg, hunt for centavosto hop on the painted wooden horses going nowhere but making little ragged puffed-cheeked children cheer and laugh for three minutes like they were kings, landowners, savoring every morsel of the carousel’s delight, proud of their majestic selves for three minutes until the carousel slowed to a stop and then the children cherished the memory beneath their fast-pacing hearts…hungrier.
    And “Chato” was the soft breath of Amanda Márquez at the tender age of fourteen whispering penetration, and the moon was her first gift to him, gleaming raw that night when he presented himself to her family, telling them that his love would make up for her lack of it, and hearing her father laugh at him with a laugh that comes from deep inside saying “She’s a jewel,” grabbing her by the arm and laughing out loud knowing how ugly she was, but only to her family because Chato loved her so much that he bought her a small carousel to keep in the new house he would build for her, and he also promised her father (while she looked on in amazement at the carousel he held in one hand and the two red apples he held in the other) that he, Chato, would be as virile as the land he would buy. But all her father did was laugh at him, his virility, his dream, with a laugh that locked itself somewhere inside Chato; laughed that same, heavy boisterous laugh Don Joaquín laughed just before he, Chato, struck him with a knife, cutting him like butter. He was so soft, this man whom Amanda hated for no reason at all except she kept saying to the dying man, you told him, you told him, and Chato