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CHAPTER 17

      HECTOR GUZMAN woke early and got out of bed, careful not to disturb Rosa, who was snoring gently beside him.

      He checked the baby asleep in his crib, then he went into the bathroom and washed and shaved carefully, dressed in fresh underwear, a clean white shirt, and his best suit. He put on his best black socks, and then rubbed his shoes with yesterday's underwear until they gleamed. He finished by carefully knotting on a black necktie, and painstakingly combing his hair.

      He took his time, but when he was finished it was still far too early - not yet six o'clock. He made himself a couple of fried eggs with peeled green chiles from the ice-box, and put them in a split roll and ate over the sink, lost in thought.

      He walked softly through the living room and saw Consuelo asleep on the couch, her mouth open. Tonio slept comfortably on the floor on top of a thin blanket.

      Guzman tiptoed back into the bedroom and reached into the corner of the closet where the box of gold was hidden, now not even tied with the rope. He took a bar of gold into the kitchen where he set it on the table and looked at it. He took a piece of white paper from a notepad and laid it on top of the bar and rubbed it with the flat side of a pencil.The crescent symbol, which had been struck into the metal, stood out clearly against the penciled background.

      He folded the sheet and placed it in his shirt pocket, and quietly returned the bar of gold to the box in the closet. He got a thrill out of just touching it, thinking about it and what it would buy.

      It was now a little before seven. He couldn't wait any longer. He woke up Rosa and told her if he didn't get back by 9:30, she should pay Bustamante, his neighbor next door who had a car, to take her to drop the baby off at her mother's and then to the store so she could open up. "Soon, we won't have to work in the store any more," he said."

      She nodded sleepily. "We may be rich, but I have no money to pay Bustamante."

      He took some pesos from his wallet and laid them on the dresser. It was enough to satisfy Bustamante, who was always affable, but greedy. He started to leave, then turned and said softly, "I love you, Rosa." She looked so small and thin he wanted to wrap his arms around her, protect her.

      Since the baby came he had loved her even more. He vowed that, despite his wealth, he would never keep a mistress as so many successful men did.

      She didn't answer him, and when he tiptoed back to the bed he saw that she was sound asleep again.

      Guzman, who was so brash with the tourists and who outwitted the gringos in the bars, felt strangely timid when he went out to the old Ford Model-A he had bought second hand. He drove to a cafe and read a newspaper that somebody had left on a nearby table. He drank coffee for an hour, killing time, and at nine o'clock he parked under the shade of the large poplars that edged the sidewalk before the Museo Nacional de Juarez.

      A half hour later, the first person walked up the flower-edged walk to the front door and rang the bell. The door was opened by a watchman. The first employee was soon followed by two others, carrying their lunches in metal boxes. Then an elderly man with a short beard arrived, and was soon followed by an attractive woman.

      Guzman was sweating heavily now. He longed to lie down on the grass before the museum and feel the cool earth on his back, but he couldn't do that in his best clothes.

      At last the museum's door was opened to the public. Guzman had never been in a museum before. The polished wooden floors, the high large windows, and the quietness of it was daunting.

      A painting hanging on one of the walls showed how an Aztec pyramid looked when it was newly built. Another depicted a feather-bedecked Aztec priest holding up a bleeding human heart for all to see. There were other paintings, explosions of colors that depicted the desolation and misery of Mexico's often bloody history.

      The big room had exhibits of Indian art and sculpture. The glass cases that lined the wall held ancient Indian sandals and stone knives. A diorama showed Aztecs working in the fields, growing corn. A few feet away were life-sized manikins wearing the clothes worn in the time of Maximilian.

      There were photographs of Francisco Villa, a stout mustached man in knee-high boots. And in one area were dozens of photos of peons - men, women and children - laboring on farms, in factories, tending livestock. The eyes of some of them were dulled with fatigue but many burned with the desire for a better life.

      Guzman felt for them. Beautiful Mexico, he thought, with its magnificent people, its mineral riches and its temperate climate where anything can be grown - why is it so poor?

      The attractive woman who had arrived last was seated behind the desk by the entrance. She beckoned him to come to her. He could tell by the look she gave him that she knew what he was - an ignoramus who belonged out on the street by the bridge, selling brass rings and cheap onyx earrings to the tourists. Was she going to throw him out?

      Instead she smiled at him and turned the heavy leather- bound guest register toward him on its swivel base. "Please sign here," she said. "If you have questions, call me or one of the guards."

      He signed the register with a flourish. "I am looking for someone to help me identify something I believe may be an artifact," he said softly.

      "Ah!" she said. "Do you have it with you?"

      He touched his pocket, then realized she thought he was touching his heart. "I have a drawing of it."

      "May I see it?"

      Without reluctance, he unfolded the paper and handed it to her. She looked at it, turned it over. "I will show it to Doctor Anaya."

      "Doctor Anaya?"

      "The curator. It will be a moment only." She clicked across the floor on high heels and disappeared into one of the doors that opened onto the room. Guzman waited, staring at a bust of Benito Juarez who looked wise and kind and strong, as he undoubtedly was.

      Across the large room The guard was standing relaxed, hands behind his back. He glanced up, their eyes met, and he smiled slightly before turning back to stare out the window.

      Guzman felt strong now, a respected man who would soon see the curator of this fine place. "I will bring Rosa, here some day," he said to himself. "She will be pleased to see them treat me as an important man." With their share of the gold, they would buy beautiful paintings like these, only perhaps less dramatic. They would live in a big house with a statue of Juarez like this.

      He fumbled in his shirt pocket and withdrew a cigarette and started to light it. But then the guard looked up and wagged a finger from side to side, still smiling, still friends. Guzman slipped the cigarette back in the pack. It was all right. He did not really need a cigarette. And it was plain to see that the guard still thought Guzman was a fine fellow.

      "Doctor Anaya will see you," the woman said behind him.

      Standing in an open doorway was an elderly bearded man wearing a rumpled suit and gold-rimmed bifocal glasses. "I am Mauricio Anaya," the man said, shaking hands with him. He gestured Guzman into a chair before a massive mahogany desk, then sat down in a chair behind it that dwarfed him.

      He stared at Guzman for a time, his face expressionless. Artifacts of Mexico were all around the room. Beautiful objects lay on shelves in various stages of disarray. Broken pottery rested in a cigar box on his desk. One wall was lined with books. The large open window overlooked the lawn.

      "Your name, Seņor?" the old man asked.

      Guzman had already signed the register with his real name; he could not give a false one. "I am Guzman," he said.

      Anaya nodded. He touched the paper which lay unfolded before him on the desk. "Where did you find this?"

      Guzman hesitated. "A friend gave it to me and asked me to bring it here for identification. He is curious about the crescent."

      "It is a "C," not a crescent," Anaya said. "Do you know where your friend got it?" "

      "No sir."

      Anaya held the paper delicately between two fingers. "It is cheap paper and not yet yellowed. This rubbing is new."

      "Rubbing?"

      "It is what this is called. It is not uncommon to do this, especially if the object is too heavy to carry. Like a gravestone, for example. What was this rubbing taken from?"

      "I don't know," Guzman said.

      Anaya nodded, as though he had expected that answer. "You see, you can see the outlines of it. It's an uneven rectangular shape." He thrust the paper before Guzman who nodded bleakly. He was thankful that in Cuidad Juarez there must have been three hundred - perhaps many more - people named Guzman.

      "I have seen that symbol before," Anaya said. "Would you like to see it?"

      "Yes sir," Guzman answered humbly.

      The old man went to the bookcase, withdrew a thick, old book, and carried it to the desk. Standing, so he could see the pages while the book rested flat, he began carefully turning its brittle leaves. "This book was published in England 75 years ago. It contains most of the identifying marks and other symbols that were commonly used in the world up to that time. This book is very valuable."

      "The symbol is in this book?" Guzman asked, amazed.

      "This and a thousand more," Anaya said. He turned another page and let out a sigh. He ran his finger down the page. "See, here it is."

      Guzman saw it - a "C" that was almost identical to the one on the bars of gold.

      "The writing is in English of course," Anaya said. "Have you ever heard of Charles the Fifth, the Holy Roman Emperor?

      "No sir."

      "Carlos el Rey?"

      Guzman had never heard of Carlos el Rey either, but this time he nodded tentatively.

      Anaya seemed pleased. "Of course you have. They were the same man. In 1517 when Carlos went to Spain to claim his maternal inheritance, he became Carlos el Rey - the king - and that is how we remember him. Your friend has found an object with his mark." He stared at Guzman as a father stares at a son. "Now what was the object?"

      "I don't know," Guzman whispered.

      "Was it a box to hold ink? Was it a something perhaps to hold medicine, or tea, or . . . ."

      Guzman shrugged, bewildered, and Anaya fixed him with fierce eyes, glittering behind the glasses. "No, of course not. You know what that symbol was stamped on because you are the person who made the rubbing."

      Guzman got up, shaking his head. "No," he cried.

      Anaya went to the door and closed it so no one could overhear him. He returned to his chair and said solemnly, "Let me tell you something, my friend. The object in this rubbing has a distinctive shape: Four inches long and two inches wide. I believe the third dimension is about an inch and a half - and that shape has a meaning. It was a convenient shape to cast and it fit well in saddlebags. And when someone has stamped the symbol of Carlos el Rey on it, the meaning is unmistakable. Carlos was the king who sent Cortez to the New World to bring the holy Faith to the Indians . . . and to bring back gold. You have found the gold of our ancestors, haven't you?"

      Guzman was trembling. "You're crazy!" he said."The box was made of metal and it held tobacco. My friend stole it from a house. I don't know what you're talking about - gold! I wanted to sell you my friend's tobacco box!"

      "You're lying," Anaya snapped.

      Guzman snatched the paper from Anaya's hand and walked rapidly out of the room into the great room, past the beautiful woman at the desk. She watched him in amazement. The guard was nowhere to be seen.

      Guzman hurried through the front door to the car and roared away through the street. Anaya stood at the window, trying to read the Chihuahua license plates on the car - but he couldn't make them out. The woman came running in asking if he was all right.

      "God damn him," Anaya said. "Together, he and I, we could have made a fortune!"

     


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