Read Online Harriet Doerr by The Tiger in the Grass - Free Book Online Page A

greeted first mother, then daughter. The day was beginning without confusion, without tears, like any other.
    “The señorita’s bus will leave at two,” Morgan told him.
    Carlos immediately offered an invitation. “Then that will allow time for you to witness a mass in the most historic chapel of Santa Felicia. My family is sponsoring the service.”
    Morgan’s silence extended so long he understood it to mean consent.
     
     
    “In that case, señora, would you be kind enough to bring your camera? For a few pictures.”
    So it came about that at twelve o’clock Carlos drove mother and daughter to his infant’s christening.
    The chapel was pink and old and streaked by recent storms. Carlos led Morgan toward the small crowd gathered at its arched entrance. Stevie followed, saw Lalia, and waved. A woman, grown thick at the waist with bread and rice and pregnancies, stepped forward.
    “My wife,” said Carlos. He pointed to three small boys at her side. “My sons.” They were grave replicas of Carlos, graduated in size.
    Now here was Goya, wearing high-heeled pumps and a lace mantilla. A baby with skin the color of cambric tea was sucking its fist in the curve of her arm.
    “Imagine it, señora,” said Carlos. “This baptism and my mother’s birthday all at one time.” He gazed into the worn face of his parent. “She has completed forty-two years today.”
    My God, Morgan exclaimed in silence. That old woman and I are the same age.
    After the mass, Morgan took pictures of mother and child, father and child, grandmother and child. Of the three sons and a street dog, which wandered into range by mistake.
    “Now you,” everyone said to her, and Stevie caught her mother holding the baby, with Carlos at her side.
    “One of us all together,” they finally demanded.
    Morgan had to cross the street to include everyone. She focused her lens and waited while a hunchback begged from the christening party. Trucks and bicycles passed. As she lifted her camera, she was shoved from behind by a lottery ticket vendor. A sparrow of a child tugged at her skirt. Across the street, hands waved and faces smiled. Morgan believed she saw the lovely, hapless infant smile.
    At the instant she pressed the shutter, a legless man seated on a child’s wagon propelled himself into the foreground and was included in the group. Then a military van stopped in front of her, and she took quick, repeated shots of its brown and battered side until the film ran out.
    Stevie’s bus left three hours late. It was after five when Carlos drove Morgan up the hill. As they passed the zoo, she turned toward the cages. There was only time to see the aviary, where a few listless herons pecked at a water trough and molting macaws dropped their indigo and scarlet feathers on the dust.
    But Carlos had news. “A new manager is coming to the zoological garden,” he said. “A person of experience. A Swiss.”
    He turned to look at his employer, who only said, “Good,” and kept her eyes on the road.
    As they climbed the hill, Morgan observed the cloudless sky and for the first time was conscious of Mexican evening light, the clarity of insect, leaf, and pebble.
    Carlos noticed it too. From the top of the grade he pointed down to the plaza of Santa Felicia and advised Morgan to examine the panorama from her room.
    “Consider this, señora,” he said. “On a day like today you can tell from here what kind of ice cream the vendor is selling. You can see the banker’s polished shoes and the blind man’s patch. From as far away as your house you can watch the big hand move on the cathedral clock. You can count the coins that drop into the beggar’s hand.”
    Accordingly, Morgan went directly upstairs. She dropped her camera on the mermaid bed, glanced without mercy into the tin-framed mirror, and, as Carlos had suggested, crossed to the window to consider the view.

3
    The Local Train

    “It was God’s will,” said Trinidad. “Otherwise I might have