Avenue of Mysteries - Page 133

Father Alfonso and Father Octavio had been speechless upon hearing Juan Diego's translation of Lupe's inspired utterances, but Shakespeare hadn't impressed the two old priests--they'd heard Shakespeare before, very secular stuff.

"It's a question of materials, Vargas--her face, the new nose, are they the same material?" Father Alfonso asked the doctor, who was still examining the nose in question through his all-seeing binoculars.

"And we're wondering if there's a visible seam or crack where the nose attaches to her face," Father Octavio added.

The cleaning woman (this sturdy roughneck looked like a cleaning woman) was dragging the ladder down the center aisle; Esperanza could not have dragged that long ladder (she certainly couldn't have carried it) by herself. Vargas helped the cleaning woman set up the ladder, leaning it against the giantess.

"I'm not remembering how the Mary Monster reacts to ladders," Lupe said to Juan Diego.

"I'm not remembering with you," was all Juan Diego told her.

The dump kids didn't know, for sure, if the Mary Monster's former nose had been made of wood or stone; both Lupe and Juan Diego believed it was wood, painted wood. But, years later, when Brother Pepe wrote to Juan Diego about the "interior restoration" of the Templo de la Compania de Jesus, Pepe had mentioned the "new limestone."

"Did you know," Pepe had asked Juan Diego, "that limestone yields lime when burned?" Juan Diego didn't know that, nor did he understand if Pepe meant the Mary Monster herself had been restored. Was the giant virgin included in what Pepe had called the temple's "interior restoration"--and, if so, did the restored statue (now made of "new limestone") imply that the former Virgin Mary had been made of another kind of stone?

As Vargas climbed the ladder to get a closer look at the Mary Monster's face--inscrutable, for the moment; the indigenous-looking virgin's eyes betrayed no potential for animation, so far--Lupe read Juan Diego's mind.

"Yes, I'm also thinking wood--not stone," Lupe said to Juan Diego. "On the other hand, if Rivera was using woodworking chisels for cutting and shaping stone--well, that might explain why he cut himself. I've never seen him cut himself before, have you?" Lupe asked her brother.

"No," Juan Diego said. He was thinking that both noses were made of wood, but that Vargas would probably find a way to sound scientific without saying too much about the material composition of the miraculous (or unmiraculous) new nose.

The two old priests were watching Vargas intently, though the doctor was a long way up the ladder; it was hard to see what Vargas was doing, exactly.

"Is that a knife? You're not cutting her, are you?" Father Alfonso called up the long ladder.

"That's a Swiss Army knife. I used to have one, but--" Edward Bonshaw began, before Father Octavio interrupted him.

"We're not asking you to draw blood, Vargas!" Father Octavio called up the long ladder.

Lupe and Juan Diego didn't care about the Swiss Army knife; they watched the Virgin Mary's unresponsive eyes.

"I must say, this is a pretty seamless nose job," Dr. Vargas reported from near the top of the precarious-looking ladder. "As surgery goes, there's often quite a distinction between the amateur and the sublime."

"Are you saying this surgery is in the sublime category, but a surgery nonetheless?" Father Alfonso called up the ladder.

"There's a slight blemish on the side of one nostril, like a birthmark--you would never see it from down there," Vargas said to Father Alfonso.

The so-called birthmark could have been a bloodstain, Juan Diego was thinking.

"Yes, it could be blood," Lupe said to her brother. "El jefe must have bled a lot."

"The Virgin Mary has a birthmark?" Father Octavio asked indignantly.

"It's not a flaw--it's actually intriguing," Vargas said.

"And the materials, Vargas--her face, the new nose?" Father Octavio reminded the scientist.

"Oh, there is more of the world about this lady than I detect of Heaven," Vargas said; he was having fun with the two old priests, and they knew it. "More of the basurero in her perfume than I can smell of the sweet Hereafter."

"Stick to science, Vargas," Father Alfonso said.

"If we want poetry, we'll read Shakespeare," Father Octavio said, glaring at the parrot man, who understood from Father Octavio's expression not to recite more passages from Romeo and Juliet.

The dump boss was done praying; he was no longer on his knees. Whether the new nose was his doing or not, el jefe wasn't saying; he was keeping his bandage clean and dry, and he was keeping quiet.

Rivera would have left the temple, leaving Vargas high on the ladder and the two old priests feeling mocked, but Lupe must have wanted all of them to be there when she spoke. Only later would Juan Diego realize why she'd wanted all of them to hear her.

The last of the idiot nose-gawkers had left the temple; maybe they'd been miracle-seekers, but they knew enough about the real world to know they weren't likely to hear the milagro word from a doctor with binoculars and a Swiss Army knife on a ladder.

Tags: John Irving Fiction
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