Summary: Diecinueve (19)
A thousand questions pushed through my
mind, but the Voice within me did not answer. There was only silence.
See Important Quotations Explained
On Easter Sunday, Antonio takes his first Communion and
waits for God to answer the questions that haunt him. However, only
silence rings inside his head.
Summary: Veinte (20)
Antonio continues to attend confession and Communion,
but the answers still do not come. The boys from town begin to have
gang fights with the boys from Los Jaros. Antonio, who lives between
the town and Los Jaros, is caught in the middle. On the last day
of school, Antonio calls to Vitamin Kid to race him across the bridge. However,
the Vitamin Kid is walking with a girl named Ida, and he expresses
no interest in racing.
There is a rumor that Tenorio’s sick daughter is near
death. Téllez, a rancher from Agua Negra, comes to Ultima to ask
help in lifting a curse on his home. Pots and pans fly across the
room in his home. Stones rain from the sky. A priest has blessed
their house, but the blessing has not been effective. Antonio wonders
how an almighty God has again failed to dispel evil. Ultima states
that many years ago, Téllez’s grandfather hanged three Comanches
for raiding his flocks. The curse has awakened the ghosts to force
them to do wrong. Gabriel accepts responsibility for interfering
with destiny if Ultima helps his friends.
Gabriel and Antonio accompany Ultima to Agua
Negra. Antonio realizes that María teaches him that every man is
tied to the earth in his need for nourishment and security, but
Ultima and Gabriel teach him that the land serves a more spiritual
function: immortality comes from freedom, and freedom is nourished by
the land, air, and sea.
When they arrive, Ultima instructs Antonio and Gabriel
to build a platform in the yard and to cover it with juniper branches.
Ultima asks Gabriel to place three bundles on the platform and set
it all on fire. Gabriel informs Antonio that his father once told
him that the Comanche burned their dead on platforms like this.
When the platform is burned completely, Ultima declares that the
curse is lifted. Téllez mentions that a month earlier he challenged
Tenorio for speaking badly of Ultima. Soon thereafter, the evil
things began to occur in his home.
That night, Antonio dreams that his brothers call for
him to give them rest from their restless sea-blood. Antonio replies
that he cannot help them. He baits his hook with their livers and
begins to fish in the river. They continue to cry out, so he unbaits
his hook and throws their livers into the River of the Carp. Finally,
they rest.
