"But, as always," Juan Diego reminded them, "Ignatius seeks God's will on the matter."
"Spare me God's will!" Miriam and Dorothy spontaneously cried out--as if they were in the habit of saying this, either alone or together. (That got the young Chinese couple's attention.)
" 'And where the road parted, Ignatius let his own mule's reins go slack; if the animal followed the Moor, Ignatius would kill the infidel,' " Juan Diego said. He could have told the story with his eyes closed. It's not so unusual that a novelist can remember what he's written, almost word for word, Juan Diego was thinking. Yet for readers to retain the actual words--well, that was unusual, wasn't it?
" 'But the mule chose the other road,' " mother and daughter said in unison; to Juan Diego, they seemed to have the omniscient authority of a Greek chorus.
" 'But Saint Ignatius was crazy--he must have been a madman,' " Juan Diego said; he wasn't sure they understood that part.
"Yes," Miriam said. "You're very brave to say so--even in a novel."
"The subject of someone's postbirth vaginal condition is sexual," Dorothy said.
"It is not--it's about faith," Miriam said.
"It's about sex and faith," Juan Diego mumbled; he wasn't being diplomatic--he meant it. The two women could tell he did.
"Did you know someone like that missionary who admired Saint Ignatius?" Miriam asked him.
"Martin," Dorothy repeated softly.
I think I need a beta-blocker--Juan Diego didn't say it, but this was what he thought.
"She means, Was Martin real?" Dorothy asked him; she'd seen the writer stiffen at her mother's question, so noticeably that Miriam had let go of his hands.
Juan Diego's heart was racing--his adrenaline receptors were receiving like crazy, but he couldn't speak. "I've lost so many people," Juan Diego tried to say, but the people word was unintelligible--like something Lupe might have said.
"I guess he was real," Dorothy told her mom.
Now they both put their hands on Juan Diego, who was shaking in his seat.
"The missionary I knew was not Martin," Juan Diego blurted out.
"Dorothy, the dear man has lost
loved ones--we both read that interview, you know," Miriam told her daughter.
"I know," Dorothy replied. "But you were asking about the Martin character," the daughter said to her mom.
All Juan Diego could do was shake his head; then his tears came, lots of tears. He couldn't have explained to these women why (and for whom) he was crying--well, at least not on the Airport Express.
"!Senor Eduardo!" Juan Diego cried out. "!Querido Eduardo!"
That was when the Chinese girl, who was still sitting in her boyfriend's lap--she was still upset about something, too--had an apparent fit. She began to hit her boyfriend, more in frustration than out of anger, and almost playfully (as opposed to anything approaching actual violence).
"I told him it was you!" the girl said suddenly to Juan Diego. "I knew it was you, but he didn't believe me!"
She meant that she'd recognized the writer, perhaps from the start, but her boyfriend hadn't agreed--or he wasn't a reader. To Juan Diego, the Chinese boy didn't look like a reader, and it couldn't have surprised the writer that the boy's girlfriend was. Wasn't this the point Juan Diego had made repeatedly? Women readers kept fiction alive--here was another one. When Juan Diego had used Spanish in crying out the scholastic's name, the Chinese girl knew she'd been right about who he was.
It was just another writer-recognition moment, Juan Diego realized. He wished he could stop sobbing. He waved to the Chinese girl, and tried to smile; if he'd noticed the way Miriam and Dorothy looked at the young Chinese couple, he might have asked himself how safe he was in the company of this unknown mother and her daughter, but Juan Diego didn't see how Miriam and Dorothy utterly silenced his Chinese reader with a withering look--no, it was more of a threatening look. (It was actually a look that said: We found him first, you slimy little twat. Go find your own favorite writer--he's ours!)
Why was it that Edward Bonshaw was always quoting from Thomas a Kempis? Senor Eduardo liked to make a little gentle fun of that bit from The Imitation of Christ: "Be rarely with young people and strangers."
Ah, well--it was too late to warn Juan Diego about Miriam and Dorothy now. You don't skip a dose of your beta-blockers and ignore a couple of women like this mom and her daughter.
Dorothy had hugged Juan Diego to her chest; she rocked him in her surprisingly strong arms, where he went on sobbing. He'd no doubt noticed how the young woman was wearing one of those bras that let her nipples show--you could see her nipples through her bra and through the sweater Dorothy wore under her open cardigan.
It must have been Miriam (Juan Diego thought) who now massaged the back of his neck; she had once more leaned close to him as she whispered in his ear. "You darling man, of course it hurts to be you! The things you feel! Most men don't feel what you feel," Miriam said. "That poor mother in A Story Set in Motion by the Virgin Mary--my God! When I think about what happens to her--"