The town where Salvador lived was small and tucked into a valley, like a babe in its mother’s arms. And it was ringed by small jagged mountains, like a crown upon its head. When the sun rose each morning, the mountaintops glistened like a thousand jewels set into a framework of gold and platinum; and when it set each evening, the streets were robed in deep purple and crimson. People gathered in the shadows of the church, whose steeple rose sharply into the sky, and of the clock tower, which sat stoutly upon the supporting columns of the courthouse façade. Tall pines and firs graced the corners of the public square, below which well-maintained lawns stretched from side to side, and wide concrete pathways crisscrossed the grass, leading old couples from the surrounding streets to the amphitheater at the north end of the park, from which a band often played popular hits on summer evenings, competing with the sounds of children swinging and twirling from monkey-bars in the nearby playground, or dancing across the paved edges of an enormous water-fountain, a stone edifice set precisely at the middle of the park, and which appeared in the mid-day sun as a diamond shimmering and sparkling; which made one squint and rub a tear from the corner of their eyes, if they stared too long at its watery surface.
Salvador was one of the kids who frequented this playground. He came from one of the prominent families in town; a very large family. One uncle owned a restaurant and a café near the square. Another uncle owned the grocery store. Aunts and cousins sold fruit and vegetables at the outdoor market. His grandfathers played backgammon and cards under the shade of the sycamores in front of the church, as they sipped tea or coffee, sometimes spiked with a touch of tequila or of vodka, or whatever else Salvador’s eldest brother brought back with him from his many trips overseas. Even friends of the family, who lived down one side street or another, even these would turn out to be—upon closer questioning—a distant or not so distant relative: a brother-in-law of a second cousin perhaps, or the twin daughters of his great-aunt’s maid—who rumor whispered had had relations with his great-uncle, and so, well…these girls might also be blood relatives, but it was best not to ask questions about that.
Nearly everyone in town knew Salvador and he was very well liked. He was an energetic kid, with a ready smile, and a quick wit. Caught taking a basket of oranges from his aunt’s produce stand one morning, he explained good-naturedly that he wanted to give them to a friend, for her family, who had all come down with the flu. Oranges have a lot of vitamin-C he explained, and that will help them get better. His explanation itself hadn’t convinced his aunt to turn a blind eye to his thievery, but his innocent eyes and his honest expression as he explained himself to her, melted her heart, and she forgave the offence and even added a few lemons to the basket, patting him on the head and commending him for his thoughtfulness, before he ran off to fulfill his mission.
Fresh breezes blew down from the mountains, bringing fragrant aromas in their arms and casting them in swirling eddies throughout the streets of the little town. In all seasons there was something to enjoy: rich citrus flowers spicy and piquant, soft roses upon wild vines, summer rains gathering into creekside pools, and musty leaves fallen and decaying amidst the ferns. Morning was especially full to bursting, with the mountain scents that rolled into town, anointing it with their sublime and earthy touch. Salvador ran through an intoxicating burst of cinnamon emanating from a small grove of trees lining the road. Without breaking stride he took several deep sniffs of the sweet spice upon the wind. It made him want to stop and climb into those trees and take a nap. But he had places to go and gifts to deliver; he could nap later. The basket of fruit swung from his shoulder as he ran, and the weight of it nearly toppled him as it careened from side to side. As he rounded the next corner, an orange escaped and rolled across the alley, stopping at the feet of an old lady, who was standing there watering some potted plants. She called out to the boy. “Salvador! Did you drop something?”
The boy stopped abruptly, and turned towards her with a quizzical look upon his sun-browned face. She bent over, picked up the fruit and held it in the air. “Or is this one for me?” She smiled, and her face wrinkled in a hundred familiar places as she laughed. He smiled broadly back at his grandmother. “Mimi! That is medicine for a sick family. But, of course, if you need it more than they do, you can keep it.” He walked up to her, looking very serious and severe, which took her aback at first, but then she chuckled.
“How could I take medicine from a needy family? What would you think of me, Salvador?” She held out the orange and the boy put it back into his basket, and turned to leave. “But Salvador, have a glass of milk before you go,” his grandmother said as she ducked quickly inside the door, and returned a moment later with the refreshment. “Thank you Mimi,” he said, and then he drank, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and handed back the glass. “I have to go now, they are waiting.”
“Good boy, Salvador,” the old lady chuckled, as he took off running up the alley and out of view.
Several years later, at noon, the church bells rang out, filling the air with a plaintive cacophony. They chimed in tribute and remembrance for one of Salvador’s brothers. The young man had been climbing in the mountains with his friends when he lost his footing and fell to his death. Now he lay in his casket at the front of the church while the townsfolk who filled the building, celebrated his life, mourned his passing, and hoped for a better life beyond the grave. Salvador was there too, waiting in line to see his brother, who was supposedly lying inside the wood box, though he couldn’t see inside it from where he stood. The room was lit solely by candles, but for a lone chandelier over his brother, which cast a bright white light onto the stone floor and gave the box an otherworldly radiance which excited Salvador. The line moved slowly so he tried to occupy his mind as he waited. Glancing about, the faces of his relatives appeared soft in the low-light, and they looked like disembodied ghosts in the surrounding gloom; specters emerging briefly from the shadows and returning again into obscurity.
When Salvador finally got to see his brother he was perplexed, for this thing laying in the box certainly wasn’t his brother. He stared at the figure and held his breath, hoping to see some movement, some slight quiver; just a little smile. Anything. He scanned the body, the hands, the neck…its face. Nothing. No, this wasn’t the boy who had climbed trees, who had eaten cookies by the handful, or who had raced Salvador up the road to the orange trees, which grew in the foothills above town. It was strange. This was a different person, or no person at all. Salvador nearly laughed, but instead he only smiled briefly, not long enough for anyone to see him. Everyone had come to see his brother, but his brother wasn’t even here. It was a surprising joke, a trick that Salvador hadn’t anticipated nor expected when he had imagined seeing his dead brother. For a moment, he enjoyed this inside joke, which he shared with his brother only. Had nobody else noticed? Did they all actually think that this was his brother in the box? This is a good joke. But Salvador felt a sudden tinge of anxiety. A thought came to him, as though out of nowhere, and it disturbed him. What if the joke is on him? If this wasn’t his brother, where was he? Or worse, what if this was his brother lying motionless here in front of him? That thought terrified Salvador the most. The creature in the box resembled Arturo; it was enough to convince anyone who hadn’t known him very well.
Salvador had seen enough and wanted out. Why couldn’t anyone make his brother wake up?! He looked at the exit and wondered, could he run out of this place without causing a scandal? He needed to get away, but he didn’t want to disappoint his parents. He didn’t want the family to talk about how he had brought shame on everyone, especially for Arturo, by running out of the church and causing a scene. He wanted to climb an orange tree with Arturo; if he could get back there now, maybe he would find his dead brother in the mountains.
Salvador’s father had a keen eye on his family at all times and right now he could see panic rising in his son’s face. He stepped forward and put his hands firmly on his boy’s shoulders. Bending down, he whispered into his ear and gave the boy a hug. Salvador relaxed a little, gratefully accepting his father’s comforting words and the warmth of his embrace. But he was still on high alert and felt a compelling need to get out of there. Relief came finally when the lid on the box was closed and they placed it into the ground. Later, surrounded by all of the members of his large family back at his home, Salvador smiled again.
Quite a few years later, as a young man, Salvador worked in his family’s orchard. The job afforded him long days to observe the life of the mountain, and to consider his own life. Salvador’s education, by any formal standard, was short and unimpressive. He had attended school through the tenth grade, but after that he never again set foot inside a classroom. However, he trained his intellect through the exercise of his keen perceptions, and by his astute observation of the world around him. So, in this sense he became well educated, and a bit philosophical.
Salvador often thought, and would sometimes say, that philosophies were like overcoats: they could provide comfort while they fit, but we usually grew out of them, and eventually we looked for something new to replace the old. Or, they protected us against the harsh realities of life; at least until they grew threadbare, after we began to see through them. But then, oftentimes, we never truly threw them out, but simply hung them in the closet so to speak, waiting for a future time to try them on again. This especially was true with philosophies explaining death and suffering, which Salvador recycled with hope, but also impatiently. How many times had he heard at the funeral for a loved one, by someone making a stab at wisdom, ‘at least they are in a better place now, and they are no longer suffering’? He even found himself saying the very same thing, for lack of anything better to say, and it would irritate him. Much was unsatisfactory about an imaginary ‘better place’, even if it were real. And an ‘end to their suffering’ rang very hollow, since that ‘end’ effectively increased his own suffering, now that they were gone and he would never get to hold them again. He would prefer to admit the anguish of this loss and the abject horror of it, but it seemed carelessly unmerciful to address this out loud, in the presence of others, who were also suffering and needed something positive and hopeful to ease their pain. So he continued to talk about this ‘better place’ that everyone was going to, because it fit the bill better than yelling at God, and bringing shame to himself. Although complaining to God often crossed his mind.
As the years passed after Arturo died, the family grew. New little boys and girls were born and these new lives replaced that of Arturo, and of the other family members who also shipped off to that better place during this time. The fact that time and life was constantly renewing like this, was sometimes brought to Salvador’s attention by a well-meaning family member who wanted to brighten his mood. In these moments of melancholy, when Salvador yearned to run with Arturo, or hold his grandpa’s weathered hand, or share his dreams with a sister, Esther, as they watched the clouds together drift slowly overhead; when all of these people who were gone, never to return again, would permeate his thoughts, he would look at the new people around him, and smile. Truly, life was constantly renewing. Although this comforting thought felt oddly impersonal.
Salvador had a crazy aunt who talked to her dead cats that weren’t there. She ‘carried’ one or two into town sometimes, and stroked their backs, which made them purr, she said. She’d hold one out so you could pet it too if you’d like, but few people would try. Rather they might shake their head and politely decline, and then look sadly in her direction as she would walk back home to feed them. Salvador would pet the ‘cat’, which made his aunt smile gratefully. ‘Do you ever miss your cats?’ Salvador might sometimes ask her. ‘I keep them always with me, my dear, and I never forget them,’ she would say.
‘Time allows us to forget. Isn’t it sometimes better not to remember?’ But she would disagree, usually saying something like: ‘Forgetting the dead is selfish; we must carry them along with us every day. It is cruelty itself to leave them behind on their own.’ And with these words her eyes would well up and she’d start crying. But when Salvador would mention this perspective to his mother, she would twist up her face and spit, ‘Selfishness is forgetting the living, because you’re too busy remembering the dead.’ Salvador struck a balance so as not to offend anyone, living or dead, and to keep the peace. He decided that he would remember the dead, within reason; but he’d also forget about them, to keep them in their place. Yet, who but saints and angels can make their mind do exactly what they intend? As it turned out, he remembered the departed more than he wished; and forgot about them more than they would allow.
In the heat of the summer sun, just past mid-day, the mountain which hung high above the orange orchard where Salvador was working, would loom menacingly. Its bare granite top blazed starkly against the cool blue sky, as shadows of coal-black descended its weathered face in haphazard shards, like inverses of lightning, filling all of its crags and fissures with deep furrows of night. Between the orchard and the base of the stone cliffs was a brief span of denuded land, a large white scar of raw earth, with vestiges of burnt trees scattered across its surface. A fire had caused the damage, and had brought most of Salvador’s family, along with many others from the town below, up to fight it and save the orange trees from destruction. They fought for hours against the flames, armed only with shovels and several buckets, which they filled from a cistern at the edge of the orchard. In the end, it was the wind, more than their heroic efforts, that turned the flames away, back towards the cliffs, and eventually the fire burned out on its own, leaving a quarter to a half-mile of bare dirt on the sloping hillside above the orchard. For years afterwards, the fire was a source of many real and imagined stories the townspeople would tell one another, of fantastic bravery, individual sacrifice and communal solidarity. It was a day that was memorialized in their memories as a day of victory against a powerful enemy in which tragedy was averted. Few, if any of them, understood how that day also set the scene for another tragedy which loomed in the not too distant future.
For weeks after the fire everything smelled burnt; and it was impossible to make the smell go away. It hung over the town and in the mountains like a dense fog and filled everyone’s nostrils, which stung the mucous membranes and was irritating. Some people developed a persistent cough and a few began to have seasonal allergies after that, which stayed with them for life. It gave Salvador a headache and made him feel more tired than usual. His grandma Mimi developed pneumonia and died a short time later. And it was around this same time, when he was in his thirties, that Salvador found himself beginning to measure his own life by the deaths of others, when he might say or think things like: ‘Do you remember? That was the time just before so-and-so died, when we did such-and-such together’?, or later in his life, something like this, ‘Mimi made that wall hanging two years before her death, just a little while after her husband Alfonso had passed away, I was about thirty-two back then, and I’m sixty-two now, and that’s the same age he was when he died, isn’t that strange?, life moves quickly’.
Salvador began to seek solitude in the mountains. He spent long hours there because, as he put it, he ‘Wanted to lodge some complaints with the management (of this world), and that’s where their offices are located.’ Out there he felt free and at liberty to speak frankly about his displeasure towards death, and sorrows, and especially against the loss of the relationships he loved. He hated his powerlessness in the face of these losses, he felt guilty leaving his loved ones to death, and he was ashamed of it all, of everything. Although most of the time ‘the management’ didn’t give the impression that it was listening to him, still, by the time he was done submitting his complaints, he felt better and somewhat comforted. Besides, these were things that were difficult to air down in town. Perhaps because everyone else felt the same way as he did, and it was uncomfortable to discuss; and possibly because nobody else had any real solutions either. One afternoon he sat at the edge of a familiar creek, on a large flat rock he’d visited for decades, in a spot under an oak tree which he and his brothers often frequented, sometimes trying to fish (though there weren’t any fish there, and never had been) and sometimes swimming, or looking for creatures. Arturo once found a big, old, ugly salamander near this rock a long time ago, and Salvador smiled at the memory of the slimy critter, and the splash it made when Arturo dropped it onto a fallen branch and it missed, and disappeared into the water. His father also once sat here with him, after Salvador’s mother had died, when his dad tried to explain the cycle of life to him: one of those time-worn philosophies designed to make us feel better, which rarely accomplish the task. It is just the natural course of all things, we’re born-we live-die-give-ourselves-for-the-life-of-others-repeat-repeat…Salvador frowned at the memory of that discussion. He remembered how he wanted to scream at his dad right then, ‘Sure, our bodies decompose! And they nourish the lives of the next generation. Fine! Worms will enjoy mom’s body now, that’s comforting!’ But as he sat there, he stopped himself from remembering any further, telling himself, ‘these are the very times meant for forgetting.’ And with that, he rose up and continued his walk in the mountains.
Not far from that creek was a small clearing surrounded by many large trees which form a network of interconnected branches, that act as a highway for an extended family of squirrels, which Salvador had befriended long ago, when he first began to bring them a variety of nuts to supplement their normal diet. They loved his visits and came clambering down the trunks of the trees whenever he approached. It was difficult to determine how many of them there were, they all looked basically the same, and each one scuttled this way and that way, so rapidly, that he could rarely keep them all straight. As he walked beneath the trees, all of the expectant rodents came scurrying from every direction to meet him, abruptly interrupting whatever their current tasks had been, in favor of whatever handouts Salvador had brought for them today.
In the flurry of activity, a smaller group of squirrels at the far end of the clearing caught his attention. Three of them stood motionless in a tight circle, appearing to pray, with their heads down. Two others looked on from above, as they clung upside-down to the sides of nearby tree trunks; they were also motionless. Curious, he approached them slowly, his bare feet crunching as he stepped through the thick layer, still remaining, of last year’s fallen leaves. As he came closer, none of the animals moved a muscle, although two of them gave a brief glance in his direction, before returning to their intense reverie. It became clear that one of their number was lying dead at their feet. A tiny trickle of blood draining from the back of his neck, and spilling out onto a dry leaf beneath his head, indicated a violent death, by predator, had occurred very recently. It was a horrible scene. The living animals all appeared to be stunned. They continued standing there in silence, without moving, seemingly unable to decide what else to do. Salvador could relate to their predicament; and so he also stood in silence, motionless, joining the small group as they mourned, and adding his own helplessness to theirs. Finally, he buried the poor animal, while the other creatures looked on.
Much later, Salvador sat at a table in a café with several other men, sipping tea spiked with amaretto, and sheltering from a nasty storm taking place outside. The conversation had grown lively after someone had said that man’s highest role in any society is to know their place and to not ‘rock the boat’, as this is essential for the smooth functioning of society. But this idea was ‘thoroughly repugnant’ to others at the table, who countered that man must, in any society, always assert their individuality, and ‘that was the highest role of man and the only role worthy of man!’ They went on, after the waiter brought a bottle of tequila and shots were passed around, ‘How else can man correct the intractable problems of life but by asserting himself?’ ‘Psshh, flies on a donkey! That is the same as advocating for endless war, where is the peace if every man asserts himself over every other? It’s no good.’ After which, a brief silence came over the group as another round was poured, and every man drank it down. It started up again when one of the men uttered, ‘I’m not sure it’s even possible…what intractable problem of life has man ever solved…by war or peace?’ ‘That’s my way of thinking too,’ a man who’d begun to have too much to drink agreed, and went on: ‘You can’t move mountains you know…some things you just can’t change.’ Quickly, a rebuttal was proclaimed, by a man standing up as if making a toast, ‘But remember what the Lord says, with enough faith you can move mountains!’ And he emptied his glass, before sitting back down. The other men drank to that, and one replied, ‘Well…I have yet to see it done. If you see it, let me know.’
Meanwhile, outside the café the rain kept coming down in torrents. It hadn’t let up for days. What began as a refreshing shower, became a thorough cleansing, which scrubbed the rooftops of all debris and clogged downspouts so that now, several days later, as the rain continued to pour from the skies, it also gushed over gutters and fell in sheets onto the streets below, forming little rivers in the pavement. Umbrellas were useless because the wind blew the rain horizontally, instantly drenching anyone who happened to be outdoors.
As if there wasn’t already an overabundance of rainwater in the town, the mountain sent even more down its slopes, filling streambeds and creeks to overflowing and creating new waterways which had previously never existed, making it generally unsafe to be outside, for risk of being swept away. So, most of the townspeople stayed indoors, to wait out the storm, as if their lives depended on it.
Salvador and several of his co-workers worked hard, digging in the orchard, in the early days of the storm, when the waters were light and only just beginning to accumulate. Their concern was to redirect water flowing down across the fire-scarred slope above, to catch it before it ran through the orange trees, to preserve and protect them, and to channel it around the orchard, allowing it to continue down the mountainside. They dug a deep trench, wide enough to receive and successfully divert the water coming from above. Several days into the storm however, the earth began to fall away along the sides of this trench, as water filled it and threatened to overflow.
Salvador took advantage of a break in the storm one afternoon as the rains subsided. He, along with two of his cousins, drove up to the orchard to dig a second trench parallel with the first, to capture the overflow and redirect it further down the mountain. The earth was thick and saturated with water. Each shovel-full held fast at first, and then came loose with a sharp sucking sound—’suck’—and then fell back to earth with a ‘thud’ as it was thrown to the side. Suck-thud, suck-thud, suck-thud, they made slow but steady progress. Much further up the mountain, near the base of the cliffs, another trench was emerging, silent and unnoticed. A crack about as long as a football field and as deep as a man had formed earlier that morning. It had been gradually expanding throughout the day, but was now gaining momentum, growing faster than Salvador’s work down below. If the workers had been watching they would have noticed an unusual bulge beginning to form in the land on the other side of their original trench. In fact, the entire mountainside above the orchard where they were working appeared as if it were alive and growing.
‘Mudslide! Run, run, run!’ yelled Salvador to the others. Before the land let go and the mountain came crashing down, it first heaved and groaned as if in labor, and then everything shuddered, as a tremendous cracking and hissing could be heard for miles around; and then an overwhelming thundering that sounded like the end of the world, which went on and on, which then became a grumbling, and then a sigh, and then finally an uneasy silence.
The bodies of the three men were never found. Rescue teams searched for days, moving tons of mud to find them. But the rain continued to fall, increasing the risk of further slides so they abandoned their efforts until the storm abated. Weeks later the search resumed, but there was little hope by any of those doing the work that they would find any of the bodies. Millions of tons of mud, perhaps hundreds of millions, had fanned out and entirely covered the orchard, so that most of the trees were no longer visible. Only a handful of trees remained, and of these few, only the uppermost branches and leaves remained above ground, so that they looked more like tiny shrubs, or groundcovers, rather than trees. Of what hope was further digging? Heartfelt prayers were said for the three men, and everyone agreed that they were in a better place now. Their bodies had returned to the mountains from which they came, but their souls were now free and they lived on in our memory.
