"Sir?" the stewardess asked, leaning over his seat. She gently touched his wrist, where she could feel how taut the muscles in his forearm were. "Sir--are you all right?" the flight attendant asked, more forcefully.
"Calzada de los Misterios," Juan Diego said loudly, as if he were trying to be heard over the din of a mob. (In his mind--in Juan Diego's memory or dream--he was. He was in the backseat of a taxi, creeping through the Saturday-morning traffic on the Avenue of Mysteries--in a mob.)
"Excuse me--" the stewardess said.
"You see? This is how it goes--he's not really talking to you," the young woman told the flight attendant.
"Calzada, a wide road, usually cobbled or paved--very Mexican, very formal, from imperial times," Juan Diego explained. "Avenida is less formal. Calzada de los Misterios, Avenida de los Misterios--it's the same thing. Translated into English, you wouldn't translate the article. You would just say 'Avenue of Mysteries.' Fuck the los," Juan Diego added, somewhat less than professorially.
"I see," the stewardess said.
"Ask him what he's holding," the young passenger reminded the flight attendant.
"Sir?" the stewardess asked sweetly. "What have you got in your hands?" But when she once more touched his taut forearm, Juan Diego clutched the imaginary coffee can to his chest.
"Ashes," Juan Diego whispered.
"Ashes," the flight attendant repeated.
"As in, 'Dust to dust'--those kind of ashes. That's my bet," the woman passenger guessed.
"Whose ashes?" the stewardess whispered in Juan Diego's ear, leaning closer to him.
"My mother's," he answered her, "and the dead hippie's, and a dead dog's--a puppy's."
The two young women in the aisle of the plane were speechless; they could both see that Juan Diego was starting to cry. "And the Virgin Mary's nose--those ashes," Juan Diego whispered.
The drunken young men were singing an inappropriate song--there were children onboard Philippine Airlines 174--and an older woman approached the flight attendant in the aisle.
"I think that very pregnant young woman is in labor," the older woman said. "At least she thinks she is. Mind you: it's her first child, so she really doesn't know what labor is--"
"I'm sorry, you'll have to sit down," the stewardess said to the young woman who'd been seated next to Juan Diego. "The sleeper with the ashes seems harmless, and it's only another thirty or forty minutes till we land in Manila."
"Jesus Mary Joseph," was all the young woman said. She saw that Juan Diego was weeping again. Whether he was sobbing for his mother or the dead hippie or a dead dog or the Virgin Mary's nose--well, who knew what had made him weep?
It was not a long flight from Tagbilaran City to Manila, but thirty or forty minutes is a long time to dream about ashes.
THE HORDES OF PILGRIMS had assembled on foot and were marching in the middle of the broad avenue, though many of them had first arrived on the Avenue of Mysteries by the busload. The taxi inched forward, then stopped, then crept cautiously ahead again. The throng of pedestrians had brought the vehicular traffic to a standstill; the pedestrians were gathered in different groups, unified and purposeful. The marchers moved relentlessly forward, both blocking and passing the overwhelmed vehicles. The marching pilgrims were making better progress along the Avenue of Mysteries than the hot and claustrophobic taxi ever could.
The dump kids' pilgrimage to Guadalupe's shrine was not a solitary one--not on a Saturday morning in Mexico City. On weekends, the dark-skinned virgin--la virgen morena--drew a mob.
In the backseat of the sweltering taxi, Juan Diego sat holding the sacred coffee can in his lap; Lupe had wanted to hold it, but her hands were small. One of the fervent pilgrims could have jostled the car, causing her to lose her grip on the ashes.
Once more, the taxi driver braked; they were halted in a sea of marchers--the broad avenue approaching the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe was clogged.
"All this for an Indian bitch whose name means 'breeder of coyotes'--Guadalupe means 'breeder of coyotes' in Nahuatl, or in one of those Indian languages," their malevolent-looking driver said.
"You don't know what you're talking about, you rat-faced shit-breath," Lupe said to the driver.
"What was that--is she speaking Nahuatl or something?" the driver asked; he was missing his two front teeth, among others.
"Don't give us the guidebook routine--we're not tourists. Just drive," Juan Diego told him.
As an order of nuns marched past the stopped taxi, one of them broke her string of rosary beads, and the loose beads bounced and rolled on the hood of the cab.
"Be sure you see the painting of the baptizing of the Indians--you can't miss it," their driver told them.
"The Indians had to give up their Indian names!" Lupe cried. "The Indians had to take Spanish names--that's how the conversion de los indios worked, you mouse dick, you chicken-fucker sellout!"