Travels Through An Imaginary Landscape

     The next morning, as soon as the curfew was lifted, Michael and I headed to the dry goods store in the south-west corner of the Plaza. We approached Senora Luna hesitantly, conscious that after her ordeal yesterday she was unlikely to be particularly receptive to visitors from the Governor’s hacienda. She still seemed pretty dazed by recent events and listened with a distracted air to our rather convoluted and not-entirely-coherent explanation for wanting to search her property. But, as Bob had foreseen, as soon as we were able to point out the hidden door she agreed quite readily to its destruction and we assuaged any guilt we felt about bringing further disruption to her life by leaving a generous contribution to the church collection in exchange for Father Esteban agreeing to come along and perform a blessing on the site as soon as was practically possible.

     Even now, after all this time, I have only to close my eyes and I find myself there once again, standing in the Plaza beneath the burning sun. I was very small then, smaller even than you are now my little Moncho, so I held tightly to my Papa’s hand. Mama stood beside us, carrying your Great Uncle Diego upon her hip. All your other Great Aunts and Uncles, little Moncho, were back then not even a glint in my Papa’s eye.

     When Michael swept into my room almost an hour later, I jumped excitedly up from my perch on the edge of my bed, only to immediately slump back down again when I caught sight of his face.

     “It’s no use,” he declared with a despairing sigh. “Don Pedro will not be persuaded to change his mind.”