The Mortifications by Derek Palacio Read Free Book Online Page B

remind me, he told her. But I can’t imagine God speaking to you through Ma’s moaning.
    That’s not how it works, at least, not for me. You think it’s some message that gets sent, but it’s not words. It’s just a sound, and when you hear it, you can’t unhear it. It stays with you and lives between your ears, and eventually you figure out how to make the noise go away by
doing
something. You do something, and the noise finally stops. I heard Ma in my head for months, and then when I sat next to that dying boy, I couldn’t hear her anymore. It went away, and I was cold and then hot, but the sound was gone, and I could finally hear other things again.
    You were sick, Ulises said. You were soaked from helping the boy, and an infection got into your lungs. It gave you a fever, and you sweated through some hallucinations.
    I’ve been told that before, Isabel said.
    They went for a walk, but only around the cloister and its lawn. Isabel told Ulises that she had been happy at the convent, but she did miss Sunday dinners at home. She was not allowed to visit with any sick or dying. The hospital had quietly asked her to resign her volunteer post and was undertaking an investigation to ensure that each patient Isabel had visited had died of natural causes. On occasion an ailing person came to her, though none had died at the convent with Isabel at his or her side. Instead, she was now working with deaf children, learning how to sign.
    So, has the noise returned? Ulises asked. Can you hear Ma again?
    No, she said, it hasn’t returned.
    You’ve gotten your fix, then.
    Isabel smiled at him, and for a moment she looked like the older twin, partly because of the perfunctory clothing and partly because when she smiled, she seemed to know something that he did not, or, at least, she believed she did. Ulises thought that there was no real difference between the two, the product of both being a sense of confidence, and he suffered a pang of envy, because Isabel was moving in a strange and destructive direction but along a path that was clear nonetheless. She followed it recklessly, without apology.
    The noise was a warning, Isabel said. I know that now.
    Of what?
    Henri, she answered. Or something like Henri—the kind of man he is and where his energies go.
    He grows tobacco, Ulises said, but his heart skipped as he remembered his dream from the night before. Henri rolls cigars and goes on walks with Ma.
    And that’s the extent of it. He lives only in this world.
    Where else should he spend his time?
    I couldn’t say, but don’t you find it sad for him to ignore what’s happened?
    What’s happened? Ulises asked.
    Ghosts, his sister said. Ghosts in his past. His father’s past. His grandfather’s past. The spirits of the slaves.
    He’s embarrassed by it, Ulises said. Family folklore, and you saw how sad he felt about his father, who
wouldn’t
ignore the past. I’d stay away from it as well if I were Henri.
    He’s running from it, Isabel said. What’s he doing in Connecticut? There’s no Dutch embargo on Cuba. He can go down there whenever he wants.
    There’s a communist regime, Ulises said. That’s what’s down there. No money in that.
    Maybe. But what about those ghosts? He pretends they don’t exist, Isabel said.
    What would you have him do? Hold a séance? Sacrifice a lamb at the start of every spring?
    I think it’s eating away at him, Isabel said. You told me once it made him better at his job, which is true, but I think that’s because he’s scared all the time. You know why he runs his hands through the soil and touches every seed he plants? Because he wants to make sure it’s real. He wants to make sure there are no ghosts hiding in the sacks or any limbs growing up from the ground. He walks his fields every day to check for body parts, not ladybugs and grasshoppers. And I was doing the same. I was changing bedpans and tending to sheets.
    I don’t understand, Ulises said.
    I was working with bodies