The Soto house was the largest in the town, but it still wasn’t large enough to accommodate everyone. The children clumped together in the open doorway, trying to see around the imposing back of Mauricio Maduro. Diego Castillo, Camila Ortega, Paula Soto, and Valeria Maduro were all crowded together just inside the doorway, Diego vulgarly pushing up behind Señorita Ortega so that she was being pressed against the table in discomfort. The merchant sat on the broad side of the table facing them, sipping pensively from a wooden cup, and Raul stood right behind him with the wine bottle in hand ready to refill it at a moment’s notice. It was an unspoken assumption that the merchant would be the only one offered the wine. Gustavo Martin, Luciana, and the elder Penas stood squeezed together along the opposite wall, bending forward beneath the angled ceiling.
Despite the light outside, the inside of the house was nearly dark aside from the orange light of the three candles on the table. There was only one window, and it was sealed with shutters that only let in a few slivers of white light. The merchant, red-cheeked and now beaming radiantly in the glow of the candles, raised his cup to toast the room. “The blood of Christ and the cup of salvation! May God bless all of you wonderful people!”
“He already has!” Luciana cried. “He sent us you!”
The merchant made a bellowing laugh and seemed to swell up like a frog. “My dear, my dear, you are too kind,” he said, deflating. “But it is truly my wish to bring you all the relief that you deserve. As I arrived I saw that your corn fields have wilted, and that your lime trees are dead. I saw that you have only a few cows, a couple goats, and a rooster with no hens. As I suspect you all have heard, I possess the ability to remediate this unfortunate situation. Whatever you wish, whatever you desire most, I can supply. Name it, and I can bring your dream to reality. As I am a business man, I will ask for something in return of course, but I will not ask for anything that you cannot live without. And, of course, you will have every right to refuse my bargain-- or haggle with me for a better one!”
He took the bottle of wine from Raul’s outstretched hand, topped off his wooden cup, then took both the cup and the bottle in his hands and rose from his chair. “Now, remember that you may ask for anything, I say again anything, so don’t be embarrassed to ask for something that seems impossible. As this is a personal decision to be made amongst the lot of you, I will remove myself and tend to my horses while you discuss. Once you have come to a decision, send someone over to the stable to fetch me, and I will tell you what I want in return.” Everyone began shuffling and squeezing together to form a path, and Paula Soto stepped out of the door to join the Maduros and the children and free up more space. With the cup and the bottle in either hand the merchant sidestepped the table then strode through the part in the crowd and out into the light. The Maduros nodded and smiled at him, the children remained silent and still in an unusual display of respectful restraint, and the man continued walking stolidly in the direction of the stable. They all watched him go, Luciana and Gustavo Martin looking through the window and Luciana’s parents struggling to see past them. Frederico coughed again. Raul, who was still standing on the other side of the table, looked at all of his neighbors and said, “Well, I suppose we should get down to business.”
“And if I may start us off,” he continued, “I would like to state my opinion that there is nothing money can’t buy. If we ask for a large sum of wealth, we could buy food, water, new goats, new cows, we could even pay off the conscriptors to keep our sons out of the army. Money will solve all of our problems.”
Several people nodded, and Mauricio Maduro stepped through the door to say that he agreed.
Luciana, who could never separate her logic from her faith, interrupted tentatively to say that asking for money would be an act of greed and that God would ensure the money came with great spiritual costs. Everyone besides her parents and Camila Ortega scoffed at the opinion. Diego Castillo got off Camila’s ass long enough to turn around and say, condescendingly, “And what would you recommend, instead?” Gustavo Martin meant to defend her, but before he could open his mouth old Señora Pena spoke.
“We’d be better off telling him ‘go to hell and take your magic with you.’”
One could tell by her face that she hadn’t changed her mind about the omen of the late sunrise, and doubtless the omen had made her distrustful of the merchant’s intentions. Frederico made another wet cough and cleared his throat long enough to say, “I agree with my wife.”
Father Javier spoke, attempting to bridge the developing chasm. “Our situation is too dire to do nothing,” he said. “He can help us, but it seems to me that the most important thing is to ask for something we won’t regret. If we ask for money, who will defend it? If an outsider hears of our newfound wealth, which is inevitable if we mean to use it, then it will be only a matter of time before thieves, gangs, and tax collectors descend on us like locusts, and that’s not even considering what the merchant will ask us in return.”
The conversation turned then to what singular wish, factoring in all possible consequences and extenuating circumstances, would no one possibly regret. Money could be lost, fertile fields could result in the San Lucas overgrowth catastrophe, “good luck” was too vague to consider as a realistic request.
The perfect wish would ultimately be wrought by the same broken imagination which had first conceived of the merchant. Gustavo suggested hesitantly— hesitantly because few respected his opinion in the slightest— that perhaps they should ask for the humble gift of happiness. Diego snorted at the remark, but surprisingly the rest the neighbors seemed receptive to the suggestion, and soon it was the subject of a spirited debate. The faith-oriented, such as Father Javier and Luciana, felt that this wish was the most kind-spirited and the furthest from sin, while the more cynical were persuaded by the fact that there seemed to be no possible downside of perpetual joy. Who could possibly regret being happy?
The only dissenters were Señorita Ortega and Señora Pena. Señorita Ortega dissented because her fiance had recently died from an infected leg and she felt that to make herself happy in this time of grief would be an affront to the memory of her beloved. Señora Pena dissented because she still felt that the merchant was either a swindler or a devil. Gustavo, too, harbored doubts about the merchant, though unlike Señorita Ortega he relished the idea of bringing an end to his sadness, which had weighed him down every hour in the year and a half since the passing of his wife. The only question for Gustavo was whether the merchant would deliver on his promise, but he said nothing and let the discussion continue around him.
Naysayers aside, the consensus swiftly congealed around the idea of perpetual joy, and when Raul announced that it was time to put it to a vote, it was already clear which wish would be chosen. The vote was done by show of hands, and since happiness was the first item called, and since nearly everyone raised their hands for it, there was no need to continue on with the voting, and Raul announced that it was time to go fetch the merchant so they could relay the decision.
Mauricio Maduro stepped through the doorway in order to yell for the merchant, but he stopped halfway out and made a strange noise. Gustavo, tired of standing around in the crowd, the darkness, and the stifled air, squeezed his way through the mass of people and emerged beside Maduro, where he was disturbed to find the town shrouded once again in darkness. The sun was behind the tree line again, seemingly minutes away from disappearing behind the horizon.
“Ay,” Mauricio laughed, “It was only out for an hour!”
Gustavo nodded and looked up at the stars which were already becoming visible again. “Yes, it’s disturbing,” he said, not knowing what else to add.
“Ahh, you’re too superstitious! We’ll ask the merchant about it, and I’m sure he’ll tell us the reason. Come, let’s find him.”
They set out together down the path, Mauricio walking toward the crest of the hill while Gustavo walked toward the stables.
“Merchant! Friend!” Mauricio yelled. “We’ve come to a decision!”
Gustavo quickened his pace, imagining now that they’d find the whole town looted and the merchant riding off into the darkness. They gradually diverged, Mauricio calling out the whole way and Gustavo moving with growing speed and growing anxiety until he’d reached the stable. He heard nothing inside. He heard nothing but the whisper of the breeze and the voice of Mauricio, followed then by the voice of Raul shouting “have you found him yet?”
Through the window of the stable Gustavo could see the wagon sitting there in the orange glow of the lamps, the merchant nowhere in sight. If the stories about the merchant were true, then the cargo sitting right there in that wagon bed would bear testament to his magic and his works. If it were a pile of looted goods from other towns, then the charlatan and thief would be exposed for what he truly was. Gustavo could see no one, and so no one could see him. There was no option but to open the door and see what lay inside.
TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW
Cover Photo: Image Source