SARITA WAS TIRED. SHE HAD BEEN LISTENING TO the speeches of a dozen or more student activists on the university campus. Miguel had been the second to last to speak, and he was something to see, rallying the crowd to this cause and that one; but she was tired now, and unsure how all this would help her get him back. She removed one of her slippers and gently rubbed a swollen foot. It would be a long night, she knew, but it could not last forever. Her grandchildren would be asleep by now, their parents still drumming by candlelight, still watching Mother Sarita as she held the trance and continued her peculiar journey. This was hard for them, too.

“I know he was a good speaker in college, Lala” she commented to the woman guiding this expedition, “but this is not such a special day in his life . . . nor would my son count it as memorable.”

Sarita fidgeted, feeling uncomfortable within these surroundings, as she was reminded of things she had long forgotten. Escaping the night massacre of Tlatelolco—that was memorable, she thought to herself. Miguel and his brothers, students at the Autónoma Nacional University in Mexico City, had traveled home that week and so, thankfully, were not in the Tlatelolco neighborhood when the military opened fire on thousands of students and bystanders during a peaceful rally against government policies. The killing had continued into the night, ending in the tragic loss of many of her sons’ close friends and professors. Yes, it was important to remember the young and vital ones who had been killed, whose promise would never be fulfilled; and it was important to be grateful for the lives of those who had avoided the massacre’s horror. That was not the only time death had spurned her youngest son. No, he and death would face each other and depart as cautious friends many more times.

“Indeed, he was so young,” Lala agreed, “but you see how persuasive he could be, even in his first year at medical school. He had a way with the spoken word. He had charisma. He brought his fellow students together, as we see. With such a forceful personality, he could have influenced a nation.”

Sarita nodded, remembering how intensely her son had been courted by government officials in those days. His brother Carlos had advised him on the dangers of politics, and Miguel had been quick to understand how recruitment into that kind of life would compromise his personal freedom.

“I must find don Leonardo again,” the old woman sighed, massaging the other foot. “He will know what is important to this quest.”

“Men know about men, I suppose,” the redhead muttered. “There’s a good chance he’s observing couples in bed.”

“Is it time for that again?” Sarita exclaimed. It seemed that young men were unduly proud of their lovemaking, as if they thought they had invented the thing. She pictured Miguel as he’d been then, so young and so amorous. She thought of Maria, his wife, and their beautiful sons. Of course, sex came with great rewards—physical joy and the pleasures of parenthood. Nothing touches us more than marriage, more than birth . . . more than death.

Sarita lifted her head, slipper in hand. “Death,” she said, turning pale. Looking away from the park, from the people, she saw something that had escaped her notice until then. In the distance, a young man was driving a junker of a car, weaving slowly through the crowd of students as if looking for someone.

“Memín,” she whispered, her mind reeling with the memory of another son . . . and then she fainted.

Sarita,” Miguel called softly, “Madre, are you there? Sarita?”

From the depths of a dream, Sarita became aware of his presence. With eyes closed and a mind spinning in and out of worlds, she gave him silent assurance. She imagined him sitting in his tree with Earth blazing behind him; pictured him laughing at her as the madness continued. She could not bring him back against his will, nor could she stop trying. She had invested too much, and involved too many. She submitted to the crushing pain of a mother on the verge of losing another precious child. Miguel was near her, watching her, she knew. He was there and not there, just as she was. She could feel his closeness, his attention . . . but oh, how she wished to hold him again! She moved her lips, still not speaking, and yet somehow words were shaped, and they were heard.

“I am here, child,” she whispered into the unknown. “I am with you, in you; and my intentions will not falter. Old as I may be, I still have strength. Frail as I am, I will conquer your resistance. Brave as you are, I will win.”

Sarita felt an overpowering yearning, wishing for a glimpse of her son’s face, the touch of his hand on hers. She felt his closeness then, as he seemed to respond to her wishes, and was comforted.

It hadn’t always been like this between them, she thought, as she slipped farther into a dream state. There had been a time when the only thing the two of them could not tolerate was being apart. It had seemed a never-ending, enchanted time, one that had begun as soon as mother and son first recognized themselves in each other’s eyes. From their earliest moments together, they were bonded by a force greater than love. Greater than love, yes. Love was a word corrupted by misuse and selfish wants. It was a glorious gift sullied by conditions. Over time, the symbol of love strengthened its hold on the human heart like the grip of a lioness at the kill. It was true that their bond was greater than love, and far greater than the terror that has sometimes run like a jackal in the wake of love.

From the moment of her son’s arrival, she had sung to him, and from that moment on they were as one. As Sarita now struggled to hold the connection between them, she remembered how the infant boy had lain naked in her embrace, wearing the bloody residue of his journey from the womb. His face was pressed against her damp breast and his tongue tapped at her nipple as he relaxed into his mother’s scent and breathed to the rhythm of her heart. The sensation washed her in comfort. She submitted to the primal silence and marveled at his guiltless eyes. With her fingertips she traced the curve of his tiny face and the soft bend of his arms and legs. She caressed his smooth, amphibious flesh and wondered at the fragile warmth of him.

“Yes,” she whispered aloud as she dreamed, “I cried happy tears to finally look upon the child I had conjured with a wish . . . and had hidden within me like a secret. You, my jewel, had arrived, and with your coming, all pain and worry passed from me. From that moment, we were joyful in each other’s arms and never doubted that the joy would last a lifetime.”

Doubt came, of course. It came later, and it has come many times over the years, as the bond that had once been so strong began to tear. It came the day Memín was killed. He was the youngest child from her first marriage. He was her treasure, and the symbol of heroism to his little brothers. That painful day led to many painful days, and by the end of it, she and her youngest child were changed forever. By the end of it, Miguel had begun to see humanity as it truly was.

Qué pues! What have you done to my daughter?” don Leonardo demanded. The university campus was gone. Sarita was lying on the grass within a cemetery park, her bag clutched to her chest and a bare foot exposed to the sun. She was barely conscious, hearing noise but unable to derive meaning from it.

As she lingered on the edges of a dream, cars pulled up to the curb close by. People gathered near an elegant elm tree, all of them dressed in black. They exchanged quiet greetings and a few tears as they prepared to bury a loved one.

Lala, apparently unaware of the scene around her, knelt beside Sarita, stroking her gray hair and clutching her hand.

“I did nothing!” she barked, her voice strained with worry. Lala was feeling an odd sort of fear, suspecting that Sarita had become too exhausted to pursue her cause. She could not let that happen. Miguel must not be allowed to die. His existence was important to all of them, but few knew how important he was to Lala.

“Well, then,” the old man retorted, “why is she lying like a stupefied eagle, wingless and insensible?” Having only just caught up with his daughter, he berated himself for leaving. He worried that his absence might have weakened her resolve.

“Where are we?” asked Lala, looking up at the growing crowd of mourners. “What event is this?”

“The funeral of Sara’s son, Memín.”

“And the other? Where is he now?”

“Miguel is there, in this peculiar memory, standing at his mother’s side.”

Lala looked through the crowd until she spotted him, an eleven-year-old standing close to his mother and looking up at her face as she sobbed savagely. As other relatives moved in to console her, she turned from her son to fall into the arms of her husband. Losing sight of his parents in the crush of people, Miguel edged carefully away, studying the scene from the shade of the elm tree, where his older brothers had gathered in troubled silence.

“This is bad,” said his grandfather from his post beside Sarita. “No one is attending to the boys. Yes, they are almost grown, except for Miguel, but this is a heartbreak for them, too. How is it that we neglect the innocent, the uninitiated, in our selfish wish to grieve?”

“Oh, they are initiated,” the redhead responded, anxiously rubbing Sarita’s wrist. “They have already memorized the script to this piece of human theater. They will survive, of course, by donning their costumes and shouting their well-rehearsed lines to the balcony, just like everyone else. To tell the truth, this is what makes me enthusiastic about humankind. Mindful drama.”

Don Leonardo looked at her, astonished. “Mindful?”

“Just look,” she said. “You are a great one for looking.”

The two of them turned to watch the assembly of mourners. Everyone was now crowded around the grave site in a tight circle—men, women, small children, and bewildered teenagers. Sara, the grieving mother, was at the center. A priest could be heard speaking, but he was barely visible within the throng. Then, after a few moments, even his words were lost, for a wailing rose from the group that was both chilling and disquieting, a sound that obliterated every other sound. Rising from the initial soft moan of one woman’s grief, there came a chorus of moans that grew and grew until it felt like a torrent of sorrow, the hymn of a thousand bereaved mothers. Beneath its refrain thrummed the resonant murmur of men, comforting and consoling. The noise swept skyward, up and around in random circles, until it finally reached a crescendo and plummeted to Earth. Up and down it went—swirling, spiraling, plummeting. In the midst of its fury, the priest shouted out, inviting the bereaved to offer parting gifts to the deceased—flowers, notes, rosaries. As the mourners began performing their ritual farewells, the sorrowful background voices began to falter. Wailing settled into whimpering. Finally, the cacophony faded to scratchy silence, like a musical masterpiece lost in the final grooves of an old phonograph record. The funeral was over, and the crowd scattered onto the grassy hillside in separate little bunches, each one advancing toward a waiting car.

Throughout this remarkable scene, little Miguel stood by the elm tree where he had earlier gone to join his brothers. After the brothers had joined the group at the gravesite, Miguel remained by himself, watching and listening. Don Leonardo kept his attention on the boy; he followed the whimsical patterns and images that moved through the youngster’s mind. The child was seeing the drama—the great skirmish of emotion that was playing out in front of him—without submitting to the spell of it. As Leonardo dreamed with the boy, he began to relax and to remember, his mouth curling into a sly smile that flitted across his face and found refuge in his knowing eyes.

The death of my older brother was a devastating event for me and for the whole family. He was nineteen years old, and already a husband and a father. Of course, he was still a child to most of the adults around him, and certainly in the eyes of his mother. His death came by surprise, as it does when it touches the very young. Then again, young men seem to woo death like zealous lovers. Memín drove fast, and with reckless pleasure. At nineteen, young men are gods; we are immortal, because we say so. Never mind those who worry over us and who would give their lives for us. And yet, at nineteen Memín was the head of his own family. His young bride was pregnant with their second child. He had already accumulated heavy responsibilities, even as he careened headlong into manhood. Before he could reach it, however, he was killed at the wheel of his speeding car. His little family was with him, and thankfully they survived. In that sense, he lived on through his children, but the brave and blazing light that was Memín went out forever.

By the time I myself was nineteen, I also was too arrogant to listen, and too full of life to respect the nearness of death. In those heedless years, I drank too much, partied too much, and eventually pushed fate against a concrete wall in my merry insolence. I would have courted danger to the point of death, like my oldest brother, had something not prevented me. But something did, and I lived to grow a little wiser. I lived to achieve the promise of wisdom that life makes to every child.

Such wisdom was an integral part of me when I was very young and hadn’t yet lost it in the deep hormone drifts of adolescence. At eleven years old, I was still thoughtful. I may even have been wise. I had my dreams, and I had my heroes. Like my other brothers, I saw Memín as an action hero. Certainly, he was always in action; he was always moving, running, speeding, laughing. He chased schemes, goals, girls, and we assumed that nothing could stop him from catching all of them. Wasn’t he faster than time? Wasn’t he quicker than destiny, and stronger than doubt? Wasn’t he the coolest guy we knew? It took a long time after his death to realize that Memín—brother and action figure—would no longer be playing among us.

Strangely, his most lasting gift to me—the youngest brother who played such a small part in his life—was his funeral. My childish thoughts moved toward a kind of wisdom that day. Standing among my relatives, I felt as if I had two families: one was caught up in a scene from one of Mamá’s telenovelas, in which each character, played by actors with varying talents, wreaked havoc in his own life and the lives of others. My other family communicated through impressions, feelings, and encouragements. This second family might not have existed at all, or they might have been right there, living with me. They might have been my mother, my father, and my brothers, talking to me beneath the noise of their randomly spoken words.

There might have also been a third family with me that day—I could have been sensing a lingering trace of my ancestors. The old ones were gone but not gone, and all of them were wiser than I. Whatever that connection was, I felt I had company that morning when we buried Memín. The mystifying presence of the old ones stayed with me throughout the day, even as we left the cemetery and went home . . . and the family’s bitter tears turned inexplicably to laughter.

That’s right. As if someone had changed the channel on our tiny black-and-white television, the mood of the group lightened miraculously when the front door opened and women poured into the house to lay out platters of food. Suddenly I was watching a different kind of spectacle. In this one, the women gossiped, the children played, and after a few beers, the men took turns telling hilarious stories about my dead brother.

I saw how people put on arbitrary faces and took them off—on cue, and following each other’s lead. Racked with grief in one instant, they needed just a little encouragement to remove the grief masks and start again with a joke and a smile. They kept up with each other, mirroring responses back and forth, eyebrows twisting and lips moving to the words someone else was speaking. Oh, there was food on the tables, and everyone ate well that afternoon, but I saw for the first time how nobody missed a bite from life’s emotional buffet.

And it wasn’t all good. With every bite of biscochito, they took two doses of poison—feasting on scandal, sharing disapproval, spreading rumors. A kind woman would say unkind things about someone else, inexplicably. A grown man would seem pleasantly congenial one moment and fighting mad the next, for no other reason but that a particular word had been uttered. A word, a phrase, a look, a shrug—what more did they need? I’d been learning how to act this way for years, without realizing that I had become a master at it. It was already easy for me, at eleven years old. It was automatic, but when I watched everyone else that day, I felt the wrenching shock that comes with sudden awareness.

Emotions seemed to be feeding something I couldn’t see. They ran unchecked through each human body, causing sickness and frenzy—but for what reason? There was nothing about sadness, anger, or joy that was wrong. I remembered a time in my childhood when emotions ran through me like river sprites—they touched me, changed me, and then vanished without leaving a scar. These people, though, were scarred in ways I couldn’t see, and the pain was still being felt. It seemed odd for someone to submit to sorrow simply because the occasion called for it. And a bit later, were they all being jovial simply because it was three o’clock? Would they be terrified by evening, and disappointed by bedtime? There didn’t seem to be any rationale for their emotional drama—except that someone, or something, was feeding on the power of it.

In time, an idea came to me. As I listened, and as I watched, I could see that normal emotions turned intense, even vicious, as people were drawn into one story or another. It might be something they were hearing, or saying, or thinking, but the story ruled each of them, and changed them, turning them into hunters, hungry for a certain kind of blood. Sensing, feeling humans were being transformed into creatures who devoured human feeling.

I began to play with random emotions, feeling them at my fingertips, as people moved around the little house that day. Without speaking to anyone, I practiced shifting moods and attentions. Sitting on the floor, I steered the subtle flow of emotional energies here and there, getting a sense for how it was done. People laughed, then they cried a little. They comforted each other, and then fell silent. The current would stop, start, then move faster. It would correct itself, making a new pattern, and the moods would shift again. No one noticed the little boy with eyes closed, seeing something that couldn’t be seen, as his fingers gently touched the air around him and his expression remained curious but serene.

Look at him. Do you see what he’s doing?” asked Sarita, who was sitting on one of the high-backed chairs in the home she’d shared with her husband and children long ago. It was interesting to find her elderly self there, in her usual seat at the head of the table, staring at bowls of salsa and platters of chicken. Sipping a cup of herbal tea, she felt she might recover her strength again.

This kind of scene, where dozens of relatives filled the house and spilled onto the porch and into the street, was as familiar as old shoes. She still loved nothing better than to hold family gatherings at her home—to cook, to eat, and to exchange stories. She could hear José Luis laughing out on the porch, and she felt deeply comforted. These had been wonderful years for the two of them, when the older girls were married and raising their own families, and when the first grandchildren were born. Life in this tiny place had seemed perfect, at least before the accident. After that, it had seemed less safe and less certain.

“I do see what the boy is doing,” said don Leonardo, “but I can’t see why he’s doing it.” He went back to picking galletas off the dessert tray.

“Of course you can,” she said, pointing at the boy, who was still sitting on the living room carpet. “You and I do it all the time. He’s watching life flow around the room in ribbons and streams.”

“He’s not normal; that I can say. Maybe before, but not now.”

“It was far from a normal day.”

Sarita looked around, moved at the sight of so many dear family members. There were nieces and nephews, children and grandchildren—most of them old now, many of them departed. She was one of only a few left of her generation, those who remembered the old times, and yet she had to admit it was hard to recognize many of the people in this room. Had she changed as much as they?

There was an old man sitting on the divan at the far end of the room, a plate balanced on his lap. He was dressed elaborately in a traditional Mexican outfit of flared black pants and a cropped jacket, both studded in silver conchas. Beneath the jacket he wore a ruffled blouse, once white perhaps, but now faded to a musty yellow. A large sombrero lay next to him on the couch, grimy with age, its tassels knotted and stained. The old man’s skin looked like sun-baked buffalo hide, but his eyes were bright and full of mischief.

“Is that—?” she began, and then stopped herself. “Could that be don Eziquio?”

Don Leonardo gave her a look made of fresh innocence and headed toward the tub of cold beer that awaited him on the porch. Muttering to herself, Sarita rose from the table and moved across the room with slow deliberation, still unsure of her balance. She approached the leathered old man and stood over him as he wolfed down his food and hummed quietly to himself with pleasure.

“Grandfather,” she said abruptly. “Why are you here?”

The rugged face looked up at her in surprise, beaming a smile of recognition. “Sara! How very old you’ve become!” he exclaimed, swallowing a mouthful of beans. “I’m honored to be answering the call of my much-bewildered son. He is in need of my advice and expertise, as it happens.”

“My father called you? Do you know why?”

“A matter of death and life, I was told,” he explained cheerily, ripping the last meaty morsel from a chicken bone. “And he promised there would be women.”

“It is a matter of death . . . and life,” Sarita said softly. “We find ourselves at the funeral, so long ago, of my sweet boy, Memín. But our purpose here is to save my youngest son, whom you may not remember.”

“Of course I remember!” he said, patting his lips with a stained napkin. “Miguel Angel! It is for that reason I feel confident there will be women.” He peered through the crowd of people. “Which one is he?”

“He is there, on the floor. At this time, he would have just turned eleven.”

“Eleven? Is that all? Ah,” he said with dismay, hardly looking at the boy. “Then we will have to wait a year or so for willing girls and rhapsodic pleasures. Well, that’s no problem; I’ve got time.” He went back to his plate of chicken and beans, looking up briefly when a woman walked by—a gorgeous woman with red hair and eyes as deep and blue as the cenotes of his homeland. He looked at her once, then twice, wondering where he had seen her before. No, he had never seen her—and yet somehow they had met. Yes, they had met.

Sarita left him where he was, unsure how his presence would improve the journey. Well, an ancestor was an ancestor, so she wouldn’t complain. She’d had enough of this particular memory, in any case. She wanted to be done with it. This sad day, which had been a horrible experience for her then, was somehow made more horrible by its recapitulation. She began working her way to the kitchen, in search of the redheaded woman. They needed to talk. They had a small amount of time available to them, and an even smaller shopping bag.

In her haste, Sarita failed to see Lala milling through the crowd, considering her next move and circling the child who sat on the floor by himself. The redhead had already noticed the old woman, and although she was relieved to see her in good health again, she was tired of Sarita’s bothersome questions, so she made herself invisible among the relatives and neighbors who jammed the front room. She liked it here. She liked it when people came together to smoke and talk and spread the virus. Any virus was transformational. Any virus could change the way an organism worked, but this kind of virus changed the human dream. It was a word-borne virus, a virus that inflamed thought and started a fever in the human body. It was knowledge, something that her world would not exist without. She smiled, comforted to know that she lived in that world—a world built out of syllables, sounds, and the strong mortar of belief.

Her world looked the same, felt the same as the physical universe, although some called it a reflection. Her symbol was also a tree, like the Tree of Life—great and lovely and deeply rooted. The roots of life stretched into the infinite and its branches breathed eternal light; but her roots drank from the spring of human storytelling, and her branches bore its fruit. There was no thought, no reality without her, she mused. Without her, there were only beasts in the field.

She could sense the living Miguel in the room, although she could not see him. He wasn’t here, where the little boy sat, teaching himself to trace the forces of human feeling. Miguel was near, however, watching and waiting for the right moment to show himself. If he was here, he would be watching this boy, she thought. He would be remembering, and helpfully packing that memory into his mother’s shopping bag. He didn’t wish to return to the world he’d left, she knew, but he would. He would, because Sarita insisted. He would, because a wise apprentice will honor the teacher, if not the mother.

Lala lay down beside the eleven-year-old that Miguel once had been and looked into his face. Ah . . . that face! And the eyes, hiding a blazing light somewhere in their darkness. These were the eyes of the man he would someday be, the man she had never truly learned to resist.

“Do you know how much I have wanted you?” she whispered to the boy. “Can you see the past and the future of us, my love? Can you see how we will dance together, through a thousand more generations?”

The boy’s expression didn’t change. His black eyes were focused on things that no other person in the room had noticed. None, that is, but her. Lala sighed, laid her head back on the rug, and closed her eyes. She was recalling the first time she had come to him . . . not just in visions and thoughts, but in the fullness of a woman’s body and a woman’s intellect. She had waited until he was bored, tired of the same tasteless food. She had waited until he was ready for the kind of knowledge that stirred men into a frenzy. It was only then that she had taken him by the hand and led him back into the ancient dream of the Toltec people.

Like everyone, Lala had been shocked when Miguel left his medical practice and the safety of his books. She worried when he returned to Sarita—who was a sorceress, however she wished to call herself—asking to learn her skills. During those years as an apprentice to Sarita, he had become intuitive, and unafraid of his own power. He was slipping out of her control. Lala wanted him to understand how human beings are connected by words, only words, and to recognize the supreme authority of ideas over human actions. She felt compelled to help him elevate storytelling to its greatest genius, and that was what she did.

Ah . . . Lala knew now where this journey would take them next, and she smiled in satisfaction. She must collect the old woman so they could start up again—so they could witness the moment when Miguel first met the woman who had inspired his storytelling. He had been afraid at their meeting, having recognized her from his sleeping dreams. He wished more than anything to run away from her that day, but he stayed. He stayed, and he fell in love. Yes, that’s where they would go next.

She opened her eyes, and when she did, she saw the boy staring directly at her.

“I’ve never danced with a girl before, but I will soon, I think.” He looked around the room and then his eyes drifted back to her. He assessed her, his face flushed with feeling.

“Yes, soon,” she whispered. This fledgling student, with his innocent and tender eyes, would someday become the master. It was time for her to shift the dream to her will. This was her chance to move memory’s current. Nothing was inevitable, she assured herself, and this dance was far from over.

Don Eziquio was on his third plate of food when Miguel Ruiz sat beside him on the divan, his own plate in his hand. Still wearing the hospital gown, he looked more out of place than ever. He was drawn to this time and this place, however. He had noticed his older brothers talking with a few of their cousins in the pebbled driveway, and he was curious to know them again as children; but by sitting here in the crowded living room, he had a view of himself as a child. He smiled at the sight of the boy, sitting there all alone, and remembered the curious feeling of shock he’d felt when he saw the human drama for the first time. As a boy he had envied adults—not just for their knowledge, but for the spectacular way they generated drama. The adult world had seemed like a soap opera set within a mental ward, and he wanted to discover ways to make it sane again. He had looked for solutions all his life, and at forty-nine years old, he felt he was making progress.

He could see Lala lounging there beside the boy, watching, and casually guiding his thoughts. Would she try to woo him with a story? A revelation?

With any intuitive feeling, there comes the temptation to tell a story . . . to think. While the boy sat there, following the tangible traces of life, she would offer him a story about life. Her stories would seem new, not like the ones he’d heard before, and they would appeal to a little boy’s vanity. It would be many more years before Miguel, the man, could appreciate any of her stories for what they were.

Miguel finally took his eyes off the boy and plunged his fork into a dish piled high with food. The two men sat there, side by side, enjoying their home-cooked meal in silence. Neither of them acknowledged the other. Glancing out the window, Miguel saw don Leonardo standing alone in the street, his creamy suit catching the pink light of the evening sky. His grandfather looked like a high-born angel, patiently waiting to see what revelations the moment would bring.

Finishing his third helping of food, don Eziquio finally looked at the man sitting beside him. “Good day to you, sir,” he offered grandly. “You are hungry, too, I see.”

“Mmm, yes. It’s been weeks,” answered Miguel through a mouthful of food.

“For me, it has been decades. It seems that nothing ever tasted so good!” Eziquio slapped his thigh enthusiastically with one gnarled hand, causing a cloud of dust to rise into the air. The dust was quickly lured away by the opening of a door, and a wisp of cigar smoke stealthily took its place. He said nothing for a moment, surveying the room, and then he turned to Miguel again and gave him a steady look. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“Your great-grandson, who is not really here,” Miguel answered. “Just as you, sir, are not really here.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the old man. “Yes, but who, among all the legions of men, was ever really here, my dear compadre?”

“You make a valid point,” Miguel said, smiling, and they sat in silence again, watching people come and go and listening to the melodic buzz of conversation.

“So, you are celebrating the short life of your brother, I suppose.”

Miguel shook his head congenially. “This memory is for my mother, not for me. I’m here to show support.”

“That, good man, is not all you are showing,” said Eziquio, looking at Miguel’s naked legs. “May I inquire, sir, are you in need of clothes?”

“No, I’m fine,” replied Miguel, smoothing the gown over his knees and dabbing a spot of blood with his napkin. “I’m in a coma, so it would make no practical sense to get dressed.”

“I see,” said the old gentleman. “Well, have no fear. Should you eventually die, they will dress you up quite nicely. Look at me,” he said, lifting his skinny arms. “I made my exit in theatrical style, would you not agree?” He swept up the sombrero and plunked it on his bony head, sending up another cloud of dust.

“Very striking,” said Miguel. He glanced around the room again. This day’s memories were about to end, he thought, but the stories would survive to entertain generations. Peering through the crowd, he noticed that the boy was now alone, and he wondered where Lala had gone.

“So many children, all harvested from the rich soil of my loins,” the old man commented, nudging Miguel with a bony elbow. “I have done my part for humanity, verdad?” he added with a wink. “Who is the little one?”

“That’s me,” Miguel answered, edging his plate away from the old man’s elbow. “This was a significant day for me. Very significant.”

“What? Oh, I see . . . significant,” the old man said, comprehension shooting across his weathered face. “Significant, yes.” He sat quietly for another long moment, frowning slightly as if studying a chess board. There were thousands of memorable moments that comprise a man’s life, but only a few that could be called significant. Significant memories were the best foundation for a new and enlightened dream, as both men knew. He looked at his great-grandson with admiration. “You are playing an intriguing game, my boy.”

Miguel said nothing.

The crowd was thinning, and there was a hush in the room. Daylight had yielded to dusk, and the illusory landscape had dimmed. Eziquio, the trickster, lifted a withered hand and rubbed his earlobe. Miguel, the dreamer, laid down his empty plate and gave his great-grandfather a look of unreserved affection. Their eyes met in a moment of understanding. The elderly man started to speak, then pressed his thin lips together. A crooked finger scratched at the white stubble on his chin. He tilted his head slightly, pondering. How he had got here, he could not say. Why anything occurred—in human existence or beyond its boisterous perimeters—he did not know. Knowledge had no influence on the dead, in any event. He was free of its rigorous sanctions. He was lawless, a citizen of a land where mutiny had no consequence. He reached toward the man next to him, a man whose eyes reflected the same willful mischief, and placed a hand on his shoulder congenially.

“Rest assured, sir,” don Eziquio said, giving Miguel an artful wink. “I am with you now.”