"Bruce Holland Rogers - Don Ysidro" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

Don Ysidro
by Bruce Holland Rogers

Copyright (C)2003 Bruce Holland Rogers

Polyphony, Volume 3, ed. Deborah Layne and Jay Lake

World Fantasy Award Nominee

On that last morning, anyone who came to visit me could see that I was dying. I knew it myself. As if I
had cotton in my ears, I heard the voice of don Leandro saying to my wife, тАЬDo├▒a Susana, I think it is
time to fetch the priest,тАЭ and I thought, yes, it's time. We don't have our own priest, or even our own
church, so someone has to drive in a pickup truck to get the priest from El Puentecito. But don't be
fooled by what you may hear in Malpasa or in Palpan de Baranda. Here we remain Catholic. Yes, we
make pots in the old way. That's why tourists come here. And it's true, as is sometimes whispered, that
we have restored certain other practices from the past. But not as they were done back then. Those
were bloody and terrible times, the times of the Mejica. They say that the sacrificial blood covered the
sun pyramids from top to bottom. Thank the Virgin, we don't do anything like that.

A little after the priest came and went, I died. Word spread. People came to our house. My family asked
first for things of mine that they wanted. Then the other neighbors. Don Francisco stood near my body
and said, тАЬDon Ysidro, may I have your shovel? I need one, and your sons-in-law can dig new clay for
Susana."

I said, тАЬTake it with my blessing."

Susana said, тАЬHe says for you to take it."

Next was do├▒a Eustacia. She asked for one of my seguetas for scraping pots.

I said, тАЬOf course. Go with my blessing,тАЭ and Susana said, тАЬHe says for you to take it."

When don Tom├бs came, he asked for my boots, the ones of red leather with the roosters in the stitching.

I said, тАЬTom├бs, you thieving rascal! I know very well that you took two of my chickens that night seven
years ago to feed to your whore from Puebla. And here you come asking not for a segueta or some
wire, but for my good boots!"

And Susana said, тАЬHe says for you to take them.тАЭ Because, of course, she couldn't hear me. In any case,
I would have let Tom├бs have the boots. I only wanted to see him blush just one time.

They came and asked for everything that Susana would not need. They asked even for things for which it
was not necessary to ask. They asked for things I had already promised to them. They even asked for
permission to dig white clay from the place where I liked to find it. They asked, and I said yes, with my
blessings. We are nothing if not polite.

Last of all, they asked for a few of my hairs to make brushes for painting pots. They cut what locks there
were with scissors. They asked for my hands and cut them off with a knife for butchering goats. They
said, тАЬDon Ysidro, we want your face.тАЭ I agreed, and they flayed off the skin very carefully and tenderly.
They put my hands in a metal drum and burned them. They dried my face in the sun. Meanwhile, they