13

1946
walking away again.

It wasn't forever, and it wasn't a fight, but Coco truly disliked the fact that she was turning away from her husband, even if it was for the girls' sake. She could still hear Julio's voice, comforting Rosita not far away, though far enough that she couldn't make out the words.

She walked among the candles and marigolds, looking at the names of dead strangers while her arms grew heavy with Elena's weight. Beside her, Victoria walked along slowly, holding her skirt and looking around with bright, eager eyes, at the families gathered around the stones.

"Who is" - Victoria squinted importantly and read from an unvisited tombstone - "Estevan Vasquez Mendoza?" She smiled, pleased with herself for sounding it out. She was learning to read at an astonishing pace. Her beloved Mamá Imelda was her teacher in this, and she seemed unable to get enough words into her eyes.

"I don't know, mija," Coco said. "I don't have anyone here."

"Why doesn't anyone visit Señor Vasquez? Doesn't his family like him?"

"Maybe they're still at work."

Victoria bit her lip and considered it. "I think they are at work. But I think Señor Vasquez was a soldier, and he fought against Nazis."

Coco glanced at the dates, sitting down on a bench across from the grave and sitting Elena on her lap to give her arms a rest. "He would have needed to travel in time to do that, Victoria. He died before the war."

"Oh." She frowned. "What was before the war?"

"Oh, many things." Coco shook her head. "You really wouldn't remember, would you? You were barely a year old when the Potrero de Llano went down."

"The what?"

"It was a big boat. For oil. The Nazis made it sink. That's why we decided to fight them."

"With the Aztec Eagles!" Victoria said proudly. "They flew and fought and helped out! I want to be a pilot and fly a plane and fight with Nazis, like Tío Cedro."

"I think, thank God, that the chance for that fight is over. Remember… it's over? And they didn't have girls." She didn't correct Victoria about who her uncle had been fighting, either, even though he and the unit had been in the Pacific. There would be time for that later. She didn't understand it, anyway.

"That's stupid." Victoria stomped her foot, her perfectly sized shoe making a loud and delightful sound on a rock. She stomped it again for the joy of it, then mimed taking the controls of an airplane (which, in Victoria's imagination, apparently ran the same way as the new truck Mamá had bought for the shop; the uncles drove around with her in their lap and she thought she was the one doing the driving). She rose up into the air and dove for the ground, making bombing noises. "I could fly. You don't need strong arms to fly."

"You do if you're a bird," Coco said.

"I'm not a bird, Mamá. I'm a shoemaker."

"I thought you were a pilot."

This threw her, and at least seemed to derail her from the thought of gloriously defending her country from the evildoers of the world, like Julio and Rosita's brother, Cedro, who they were currently visiting at a quiet grave marker under a tree. Rosita had started weeping, thinking that he might not be visiting with his body not there - Cedro's body was long gone, somewhere in the vast ocean - which was why Julio had suggested that Coco take the girls for a walk.

Coco shuddered.

Finally, Victoria said, "I'll be a pilot who makes shoes."

"I'm not sure if you'll be able to…"

"Mamá Imelda says girls can do whatever we want, just like she did." The tone of this sentence had a kind of finality to it that Coco knew there would be no disputing. Mamá Imelda had said it, so it was so.

And maybe it would be so by the time Victoria grew up. Maybe she would be a doctor who made shoes, or the president who made shoes. (Either way, Coco didn't think Victoria had gotten as far as not making shoes.) Coco amused herself by imagining it - Victoria sitting imperiously on a high workshop stool, handing down laws while she stitched seams in leather.

"Why are you laughing, Mamá?" Victoria asked.

"Because the world can be funny sometimes, mija."

She laughed, then, for no reason, stood on her head. "I will be a clown, too!" She started to walk along a line of stones, weaving back and forth comically as she pretended to lose her balance.

From somewhere deep in the shadows of Coco's memory, a gentle, much-loved voice said, My favorite audience likes clowns. I will be a funny clown for my Coco today.

She closed her eyes and tried to lasso that voice, bring it up further. She didn't talk about Papá, as it seemed to upset everyone, but she fought tooth and nail for the scraps of him that she came across in her mind - the real memories, as opposed to the photo and letters, all living in some static past. Had that been a real one? She thought it was, but when had it happened? When had Papá said he would clown for her? She couldn't very well ask Mamá, and the only image that came to her wasn't of Papá. She wasn't sure what it was, exactly, just the glint of teeth in a smile under the impossibly black shadow of a sombrero, and the nonsense rhyme, Perro está bailando, y papa está cantando. What on Earth was that supposed to mean? She'd remembered the rhyme before, and she thought it had been hers, and it had been before Papá left, but… a dancing dog? Why had she made a rhyme about a dancing dog?

"Mamá, what's that?"

Coco opened her eyes and frowned. Victoria's head was cocked toward the huge mausoleum, where candles and torches nearly made the cemetery as light as day. There was a crowd headed in that direction, as there often was. Aside from being de la Cruz's final resting place, there was a legend that the guitar stayed miraculously in tune. Someone had ceremoniously brought it to the plaza at noon and strummed it once to show this miracle, as they did every year on Día de los Muertos.

Coco had to get up very, very early in the morning every year so no one would see her picking the lock with her hairpin, or hear her testing the strings. And it wasn't just that she'd be in legal trouble for breaking into the mausoleum. She could only imagine the look on Mamá's face if she was caught in this particular bit of foolishness. But seeing that guitar hanging on pegs, losing its timbre, had been too much to bear, so she'd needed to do something. To leave it alone would have been an abomination.

To everyone else, of course, it was just part of the magic, a kind of benign haunting that gave them a thrill and something to whisper to each other about.

Fans.

And they were listening to...

Coco felt her back tense up. "It's a song, Victoria."

"Music?"

"Music."

Victoria listened as hard as she could. "There are words in it! Like the choir in church!"

"Yes, mija."

"Could we hear the words?"

"We don't need to," Coco said, trying not to let the tension into her voice. "I know them. The song is called 'Remember Me.' Ernesto de la Cruz made it very famous. He always sang it. It's about… it's about someone who has to go away, and leave someone else behind."

"Why is everyone there? Are they all his family?"

"No. His parents are buried somewhere here, but there's no one else I know of."

"His parents are dead people?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"His papá had an accident with a car in the capital. A long time ago. His mamá had a sickness."

Her eyes went wide. "Are you going to have a sickness?"

"No, mija. I'm fine."

This seemed to reassure her enough to continue what she clearly considered a fascinating conversation. "Is the man in the big cemetery house a dead person?"

"Yes. That's why he's in the cemetery."

"Why is he dead?"

"A bell fell on top of him while he was singing."

"Was he a wonderful person? Is that why everyone visits him instead of Señor Vasquez?" She pointed at the grave they'd stopped at. "Or will they visit Señor Vasquez later?"

"They visit de la Cruz because he was famous," Coco said. "He was a singer."

"Singing makes you famous?"

"It can."

"Why?"

"I suppose because… because people think of the music as something that made them happy, so they love the person who gave it to them. Or the person they think gave it to them."

"What?"

"Nothing, mija. Ignore me when I talk about this."

Victoria looked like she might argue - she was as stubborn as Mamá, and in fact looked a great deal like her right now, the line in the middle of her forehead deepening as she frowned - but in the end, she was too enchanted by the night, with its candles and flowers, to work up a good argument. It was a good thing.

After de la Cruz had died, Coco had talked Julio into driving her to Mexico City, telling Mamá and the uncles that they wanted to have a vacation. In fact, she'd visited with a studio executive and tried to tell them that de la Cruz's songs were Papá's. She'd even brought the letters, and told them that they should have some kind of old screen test of de la Cruz that would show Papá. The man had been rude and dismissive, and all but accused them of forging the words to common songs and trying to profit on the death of a man who could no longer defend himself. Then he had threatened a lawsuit if the subject ever saw the light of day again. Victoria had only been an infant then, still at the breast, and Coco had sat in an anonymous hotel room with her afterward, crying onto her sweet little head as she fed. Julio had spoken to a lawyer, but the lawyer had told him that there was no case based on nothing but letters that might have been forged. And besides, the studio would only claim that they owned the songs - whoever wrote them - and they were not about to relinquish those rights, or the royalties they brought.

Coco didn't care about the royalties. She just wanted Papá's name on the screen. Something to prove that he had existed once, somewhere other than in her head. She wanted his life acknowledged.

Julio had knelt beside her and put his hand over hers on Victoria's back. "You're the acknowledgment, mi vida. As a papá, I can tell you now with perfect authority that it matters more than a name on the screen. And you should tell your mother what we came here for. You should tell her what this means to you. She loves you. She wouldn't hate you for it."

"Of course she wouldn't." Coco shook her head. "But it would hurt her, for no reason." She smiled. "She knows in her heart what we're doing, cariño. About this, about you taking me dancing last night, about everything. You'll see. You'll see, because she won't ask."

And of course, she hadn't asked, any further than asking if they'd had a nice trip. Coco had told her the capital was too busy for her tastes, and had too many rude people. Mamá had nodded. There wasn't any further need for talk. They understood each other.

"Can we see the cemetery house?" Victoria asked, pulling Coco out of the past. "I never looked at it."

"I don't know, mija. We're not tourists. Besides, maybe it's time to go back and see Papá and Tía Rosita."

"And Tío Cedro tonight!" Victoria added, clapping her hands. "Do you think Tía Rosita is all right?"

"I'm sure she is." Coco sighed theatrically and picked up baby Elena as she stood. "This one is getting so big, though! She'll need to start walking soon, or I'll have muscles like a luchador."

"I'll make her walking shoes!" Victoria announced, and started back. Coco followed.

In fact, Rosita seemed more or less back to normal. She was cheerfully talking to Cedro about the girls, and about learning to make shoes. She included her parents in this as well, saying it was like upholstery, which she hadn't believed when Julio had first explained it that way to her. "So," she was saying when Coco got back, "it's like we're still in our shop. And I'm getting very good at making the most comfortable slippers!"

Coco smiled. Rosita was a lovely addition to the family and she helped a great deal with the business end of things, but unless things changed, Mamá would never let her craft anything but bedroom slippers. She was altogether too excited, and worked too fast. Mamá loved her anyway, but business was business.

It was strange, spending Día de los Muertos here. Coco and Mamá and the uncles had never had anyone to spend the day with. There was never any ofrenda until Julio had put one up for his parents, and later, his brother. Coco had debated with herself about putting Papá's picture up there, but she'd decided not to. It would open a lot of old wounds, and no matter what Julio believed, Coco couldn't bring herself to think it made a difference to the dead. The dead were dead.

She didn't say it to the girls, because Julio wanted them raised with a proper respect for traditions, but for her own part, she wasn't even sure there was anything after the end. Mamá had stopped bringing her to church after Sister Teresa had made such a mess of things, and she'd only gone to a church school because Mamá didn't want her in school with boys. Whether Mamá still believed or not, she didn't know, but for herself, she just never seemed to have formed the habit. She had never felt Papá's presence, and in the graveyard, she only felt the wind. She supposed the girls would have a better outlook than she did, or at any rate, that it would do them no harm to believe. But to put up Papá's picture… it would do him no good, and it would hurt the living.

Still, it was a pleasant enough tradition, and it was a fine thing to honor people like Cedro, and to keep your love for them. If it helped Rosita deal with Cedro's death to put pan de muerto on his grave and pretend she was talking to him, then it was a good, healthy thing.

They spent an hour at the grave, and the tour group at the mausoleum made a disinterested pass by the non-famous, looking at the revelers avidly, like they were visiting a zoo. Some might have been Yanquis or even European, but Coco thought most of them were just city folk who'd forgotten their own ways, just as she would have without Julio to keep her grounded.

Candles started to gutter at graves whose visitors had already gone home, and a lovely cool breeze came up.

Julio sighed. "We should go home. We can keep talking at the ofrenda. Coco, did I ever tell you the story about when Cedro and I decided to hitch rides up to the border?"

"That's a very long trip. And no. And you left Rosita behind?"

"They always left Rosita behind," Rosita said fondly, with a grin at her big brother.

"I'll tell the story at home," Julio said. "The girls are tired. They should sleep."

They gathered up their things and started for home. When they turned onto the cemetery's main path, Coco looked over her shoulder at the giant memorial to de la Cruz. Someone was still piping Papá's songs from a hidden speaker. And…

She stopped and frowned, shifting Elena in her arms. There was a small figure in the shadows, a…

"Julio," she said, "will you take the girls for a while? I… I think I lost an earring while we were walking."

"All right. We could help you look."

"No, it's all right. You're right, the babies need their rest."

"I'm not a baby," Victoria complained.

"The young ladies need rest, too."

Julio gave her a piercing look, then looked over her shoulder. She didn't know if he saw what she did, but he took Elena and gave her a big kiss, then said, "Victoria, take Tía Rosita's hand. We'll go home. Mamá will catch up."

And they walked away, leaving Coco alone on the path.

She sighed, and walked through the flickering shadows until she reached the deeper, solid shadow of the wall of the mausoleum.

Mamá was sitting on the steps, beside a decorative urn filled with marigolds, looking resentfully through the giant doors.

She didn't look surprised to see Coco. "All right," she said. "Go on, tell me I'm being a foolish old woman."

"You're not even fifty, Mamá. What foolish thing are you thinking of?"

"Staring at…" She gestured through the door, which was made of glass panes, so people could see in to the sarcophagus and the memorial painting… and the guitar. Coco didn't need to wonder which she was staring at.

Coco sat down beside her and took her hand. "If it's foolishness, we're both fools."

"I'm a widow, Coco. Whether he's dead or not, he left me a widow. He never should have left."

"You're still angry."

"If I wasn't angry, I wouldn't recognize myself in the mirror." Mamá smiled ruefully. "You're a better person than I am, mija."

"No. I'm the person who didn't have to figure out how to survive it, because I'm the person who had you to do that for me." Coco leaned her head on Mamá's shoulder, then caught the music in the air. "It's 'Poco Loco,'" she said. "It was yours."

"I've trained myself not to hear his songs anymore," Mamá said, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting the music in, if only for a moment. Years fell away from her face. "It needs an update, though. I've gotten more than poco loco. Mucho loco."

"I'll try and write it, if you want…" Coco grinned.

Mamá rolled her eyes. "I'll forget this in the morning. You'll forget this in the morning. Don't tell anyone I was listening. I don't feel like looking at smug faces."

"I don't tell your secrets. Even to you."

"It's much appreciated." Mamá reached up and stroked her hair, as she had so many years ago, and they sat together through the rest of "Poco Loco," not talking. Coco didn't know where the music was coming from, exactly. For all she knew, it was still in their heads. But it seemed more likely that there was a cleverly hidden record player, and a cleverly hidden man changing the songs. After a pause, de la Cruz began to sing "Only A Song," and they sat through most of that one as well without any words (except Papá's) between them.

Finally, near the end, Mamá sighed, let go of Coco's hand, and stood up. "That is enough foolishness for one year. I shouldn't indulge it."

"Why shouldn't you do what you love, Mamá?"

"Because it's…" She shook her head sharply, the hard look coming back into her face. "Look what it did to your papá. This thing that's in all of us, like a snake, waiting to strike and make us crazy. We all hear it in our heads. I've even seen the baby tapping her feet. But tapping feet are wandering feet. And wandering feet…" She gestured, now almost contemptuously at the guitar. "We know where they lead."

Coco thought about trying to bring Mamá back to the music, but knew it would be useless. Instead, she took a deep breath, then stood up, linking her arm through Mamá's. Together, they walked away from the tomb, away from the wedding guitar, away from the past.

The song followed them almost to the cemetery gate now that the rest of the graveyard was quiet, but they lost it when they passed through into the land of the living.

In the cemetery, the worshipful young man who'd been tasked with playing records never saw them leave, or for that matter, saw them at all, so engrossed was he in the spell the music wove.

Beyond the cemetery, where the living saw only darkness, the glowing marigold bridge stretched into the fog. A xolo dog sat at the base of it, as she did every year, as her father had before her, and as his mother had, waiting for the one who had danced with them on a sunny morning long ago, and left his scent on their line, crossing their destinies together. They knew the scent of his mate, his pup, and her pups, and the broken and bleeding edges of their lives. Someday, there would be healing. Her instincts told her that she would know what to do if it fell to her. But it would not be today, or tomorrow.

She waited patiently until dawn, when the petals began to collapse away into the nothingness between worlds, then, shoulders slumped, returned to the plaza, where her pups were play-fighting over a chicken leg someone had tossed them. She lay down and watched them fondly until weariness overtook her and he fell asleep.

It would be another year. And another, and another.

But instinct was not dampened by calendars she didn't understand anyway.

The time would come, and she or hers would finally heal this break, and then they could become whatever it was they had started to become on the day of dancing.

For now, she slept, and the music of the plaza washed over her, and over her pups, and the humans, and even the broken house they watched so quietly.

And life went on.

THE END