John Irving - Avenue of Mysteries

Vargas and Alejandra had a different kind of curiosity concerning the giant virgin’s falling tears. Alejandra tentatively held out her hand — she sniffed a teardrop in the palm of her hand before wiping her hand on her hip. Vargas, of course, went so far as to taste the tears; he was also straining to see far above the Mary Monster — Vargas wanted to be sure the roof wasn’t leaking.

“It’s not raining outside, Vargas,” Pepe told him.

“Just checking,” was all Vargas said.

“When people die, Vargas — I mean the people you will always remember, the ones who changed your life — they never really go away,” Pepe told the young doctor.

“I know that, Pepe — I live with ghosts, too,” Vargas answered him.

The two old priests were the last to approach the towering virgin; this sprinkling had been irregular enough — those few things that had mattered to Lupe, reduced to ashes — and now there was more disruption, the oversize tears from the not-so-inanimate Mary. Father Alfonso touched a tear that Juan Diego held out to him — a glistening, crystal-bright teardrop in the cupped palm of the dump reader’s small hand. “Yes, I see,” Father Alfonso said, as solemnly as possible.

“I don’t think a pipe has burst — there are no pipes in the ceiling, are there?” Vargas not-so-innocently asked the two old priests.

“No pipes — that’s correct, Vargas,” Father Octavio curtly said.

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” Edward Bonshaw, his face streaked with his own tears, asked Father Alfonso. “Un milagro — isn’t that what you call it?” the Iowan asked Father Octavio.

“No, no — not the milagro word, please,” Father Alfonso said to the parrot man.

“It’s much too soon to mention that word — these things take time. This is, as yet, an uninvestigated event — or a series of events, some might say,” Father Octavio intoned, as if he were talking to himself or rehearsing his preliminary report to the bishop.

“To begin with, the bishop must be told—” Father Alfonso speculated, before Father Octavio cut him off.

“Yes, yes — of course — but the bishop is just the beginning. There is a process, ” Father Octavio stated. “It could take years.”

“We follow a procedure, in these cases—” Father Alfonso started to say, but he stopped; he was looking at Lupe’s hot-chocolate cup. Juan Diego was holding the empty cup in his small hands. “If you’re done with the sprinkling, Juan Diego, I would like to have that cup — for the records,” Father Alfonso said.

It took two hundred years for the Church to declare that Our Lady of Guadalupe was Mary, Juan Diego was thinking. (In 1754, Pope Benedict XIV declared Guadalupe patron of what was then called New Spain.) But Juan Diego wasn’t the one who said it. The parrot man was the one who said it, at the moment Juan Diego handed Lupe’s cup to Father Alfonso.

“Are you talking about two hundred years?” Edward Bonshaw asked the two old priests. “Are you pulling a Pope Benedict the Fourteenth on us? It was two hundred years after the fact when Benedict declared that your Virgin of Guadalupe was Mary. Is that the kind of process you have in mind?” Señor Eduardo asked Father Octavio. “Are you following a procedure, as you put it, that will take two hundred years?” the Iowan asked Father Alfonso.

“That way, all of us who saw the Virgin Mary cry will be dead, right?” Juan Diego asked the two old priests. “No witnesses, right?” the boy asked them. (Now Juan Diego knew that Dolores hadn’t been kidding; now he knew he would have the balls for other stuff.)

“I thought we believed in miracles,” Brother Pepe said to Father Alfonso and Father Octavio.

“Not this miracle, Pepe,” Vargas said. “It’s the same old Church-of-rules business, isn’t it?” Vargas asked the two old priests. “Your Church isn’t about the miracles — it’s about your rules, isn’t it?”

“I know what I saw,” Rivera told the two old priests. “You didn’t do anything —she did,” the dump boss said to them. Rivera was pointing up there, at the Mary Monster’s face, wet with tears. “I don’t come here for you — I come for her, ” el jefe said.

“It’s not your various virgins who are full of shit,” Flor said to Father Alfonso. “It’s you and your rules — your rules for the rest of us,” Flor told Father Octavio. “They won’t help us,” Flor said to Señor Eduardo. “They won’t help us because you disappoint them, and because they disapprove of me,” she told the Iowan.

“I think the big girl has stopped crying — I think she’s out of tears,” Dr. Vargas observed.

“You could help us, if you wanted to,” Juan Diego told the two old priests.

“I told you the kid had balls, didn’t I?” Flor asked Señor Eduardo.

“Yes, I believe the tears have stopped,” Father Alfonso said; he sounded relieved.

“I see no new tears,” Father Octavio joined in; he sounded hopeful.

“These three,” Brother Pepe said suddenly, his arms surprisingly encompassing the two unlikely lovers and the crippled boy — it was as if Pepe were herding them together. “You can, you could, resolve the plight of these three — I’ve looked into what has to be done, and how you can do it. You could resolve this,” Brother Pepe told the two old priests. “Quid pro quo — am I saying it correctly?” Pepe asked the Iowan. Pepe knew that Edward Bonshaw was proud of his Latin.

“Quid pro quo,” the parrot man repeated. “Something given or received for something else,” Señor Eduardo said to Father Alfonso. “A deal, in other words,” was the way Edward Bonshaw put it to Father Octavio.

“We know what it means, Edward,” Father Alfonso said peevishly.

“These three are bound for Iowa, with your help,” was the way Brother Pepe put it to the two old priests. “Whereas you — that is, we, in the sense of the Church — have a miracle, or not a miracle, to soft-pedal or suppress. ”

“No one has said the suppress word, Pepe,” Father Alfonso rebuked him.

“It’s simply premature to say the milagro word, Pepe — we have to wait and see,” Father Octavio reprimanded him.

“Just help us get to Iowa,” Juan Diego said, “and we’ll wait and see for another two hundred years.”

“That sounds like a good deal for everybody,” the Iowan chimed in. “Actually, Juan Diego,” Señor Eduardo told the dump reader, “Guadalupe waited two hundred and twenty-three years to be officially declared. ”

“It doesn’t matter how long we wait for them to tell us that a milagro is a milagro — it doesn’t even matter what the milagro is,” Rivera told them all. The Mary Monster’s tears had stopped; the dump boss was on his way out. “We don’t need to declare what a miracle is or isn’t — we saw it,” el jefe reminded them, as he was leaving. “Of course Father Alfonso and Father Octavio will help you — you don’t need to be a mind reader to know that, do you?” the dump boss asked the dump kid.

“Lupe knew these two were a necessary part of it, didn’t she?” Rivera asked Juan Diego, pointing to the parrot man and Flor. “Don’t you think your sister also knew they would be part of your getting away?” El jefe pointed to the two old priests.

The dump boss paused only long enough at the fountain of holy water to think twice about touching it. He didn’t touch the holy water on his way out — apparently, the Mary Monster’s tears had been enough.

“You better come say goodbye to me before you go to Iowa,” Rivera told the dump reader; it was clear that the dump boss was through talking to anyone else.