Chapter 3 : El día de los Reyes
The next day, it was far less difficult than any other morning to get the children to get up. Sister Maria de la Cruz smiled, remembering her own excitement on that same date each year when she was their age.
Their eyes shone when they entered the room and saw that presents had appeared in or near their shoes. For a whole minute there were only cries of joy and excited exclamation all over the place. That's why at first no one heard a knocking noise on the door. Whoever was on the other side of it insisted and Sister Lucia went to open it.
"Sergeant! How nice of you to come for a visit. Please come in!"
"Gracias Sister, gracias. Here are oranges for the children," he said raising a burlap sack in his hand.
"Oranges! How wonderful Sergeant!"
She turned to the kids.
"Children! Children! Look, Sergeant Mendoza brought you oranges!"
Another burst of happy shouts welcomed her words.
The little ones were happily sinking their teeth in the tasty fruits when Sister Maria de la Cruz noticed something on Mendoza's cheeks:
"Sergeant, what is this rash you have here? There was nothing there when I met you on the plaza yesterday... Did you eat something which didn't agree with you?"
Mendoza was rescued from having to find an explanation by another knock on the door.
"Señorita Escalante!" Sister Maria de la Cruz greeted her. "Please come in and have one of the delicious oranges the sergeant brought us."
"Muchas gracias Sister, Sergeant."
"What do you have here my child?" the padre asked her, pointing at the parcel she was carrying.
"Oh, with all the excitement I couldn't sleep last night, so I made another rosca de Reyes for the children."
"Oh really? You are spoiling us Señorita..."
"Well, I know there are more than a few sweet teeth around here."
"Look Sister," Josefina chipped in, "Señorita Escalante has the same rosy blotches as Sergeant Mendoza!"
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Sergeant Mendoza saw the señorita instinctively raise a hand to her cheek and she whispered to him:
"Damn Don Diego! If he were here, I'd tell him exactly what I think of his supposedly miraculous theatre glue! Aaaargh, I spent the night alternatively scratching my neck and applying cool wet washcloths to my cheeks."
Speak of the devil and he appears... The de la Vegas, father and son, showed up with their young deaf-mute.
"Buenos días Sisters, Padre..." Don Alejandro joyfully said. "We were up earlier today, even Diego, so we thought we'd drop by before Mass to see if everything is all right..." he added, winking at the padre.
"I think it is..." the priest answered, "the niños haven't opened their presents yet. By the way Sergeant, do you know that we caught a glimpse of the Three Wise Men last night?"
Mendoza smiled.
"Did you really?" he wryly asked.
Many happy and overenthusiastic noisy confirmations came from the children in a burst of high-pitched voices and Mendoza discretely winked at Señorita Escalante who smiled in return. The sergeant felt tremendously happy that his modest idea brought so much joy to those who were so used to feel left-behind. He remembered so vividly how he felt when he was a child... Not that he was unhappy at the orphanage, no... the padres had always been very kind and had provided him with a good education as well as good principles. But there had always been lacking something: parents, and the feeling of being a member of a family. The certainty that even once he'd be an adult there would still be someone who'd think about him, who'd care about him. He knew he couldn't give this to these children either, but at least he hoped he had managed to create future good memories for them.
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Diego noticed Victoria elbowing Mendoza and whispering something in his ear. Then they both stared at his father's face and he understood why when he took a better look at their skin: oh yes, they were probably going to give him the same unhappy speech about the glue he used on them for their fake beards... But hey, couldn't any of them understand that even the greatest scientists in history failed hundred of attempts or had to explore many wrong hypotheses before they made any successful discovery?
Alright, alright, he'd have to test the further versions of his glue before he tries it on either of them again... Perhaps next time Felipe would agree to be his guinea-pig...?
"And now niños," the padre said, "before getting ready for Mass, let's look at what the Reyes Magos brought you."
An explosion wouldn't have made more noise, Diego thought, and he noticed that this time Felipe had some trouble remaining stone-faced: the children's ear-splitting screeches were apparently too much for even the supposedly deaf boy's trained impassibility.
"What is this?" Ana Rosa asked, holding a small brown paper bag in her hand.
"Just look inside," Victoria answered.
"Oh, candied fruits!"
Pleased exclamations echoed when the other children discovered the same sort of bag in their own shoes.
"Wise Men very kind!" little Jorge babbled.
"Indeed," Diego whispered in Victoria's ear, "very kind."
And he shot her a knowing smile to which she responded with a discreet wink.
Ana Rosa then tore another brown paper and discovered her present:
"Oh, a nice doll!"
The large smile on the girl's face and the stars in her eyes were the best reward Felipe could have dreamed of when he took the initiative to make this rag doll out of his own frayed and worn old shirt. He had solidly sewn the buttons he used for the eyes, for fear a young child would pull on these, he used many bits of black cotton thread to make the hair, and cross-stitched the lips with red wool.
Diego patted the young man's shoulder. The boy had really left childhood behind him during his absence, and without being a grown-up yet he had turned into a teenager who now took good care of the younger and weaker ones... It made Diego very happy, but a bit nostalgic too: tempus fugit... and he knew he completely missed Felipe's past four years of growing up from childhood to teenage. He supposed his father deserved almost all the credit for how nicely this transition resulted in the responsible young man Diego was currently watching.
He took a good look around the place. Victoria was showing to Jorge what was happening when she pulled on the string of the jumping-jack, Mendoza was crouching near a little boy who was eagerly tearing the brown paper around his parcel, and his father was helping a six-years-old decipher the greeting card joined to the gift.
He joined Mendoza and little Julio on the floor just as the child pulled his present out of the paper wrapped around it.
"Oh!" Julio exclaimed, "fantastic!"
A bunch of slightly tatty dark velvet was rolled in the boy's hands but apparently it was making sense to him. Soon, Diego too identified what it was when Julio unbunched it and his jaw dropped.
"Look, Sister, look, Sergeant: a Zorro costume! There is even a sword!" he marvelled, discovering a wooden sword.
And young Julio grabbed a black kerchief in which two slits had been cut and even oversewed almost like very large buttonholes. He tied it behind his head, draped the black velvet around his shoulders and seized his wooden sword.
"En garde, Sergeant, I am Zorro and I will fight for the people and punish the meanies!"
Diego was stunned. When he created Zorro, the last thing he thought was that children would want to imitate him or that the outfit he made up would then become a coveted toy for the niños of Los Angeles! He was so stupefied that he didn't notice Felipe's equally surprised look and almost didn't hear Victoria's happy giggle.
He snapped out of it just in time to catch the words the padre murmured in her ear:
"I now understand why you asked for the old frayed funeral bunting, my child. That's quite an unusual use for it."
"I know, and I am sorry Padre... Considering its first destination, it may indeed seem a bit tasteless, or even morbid, but... look at Julio's smile! He doesn't need to know where the material comes from, does he?"
Diego turned to them: "No he doesn't," he agreed with Victoria. "And after all this old bunting was so frayed that it had been replaced last year, so why leave it be eaten by moths in a cupboard?"
The padre sighed a bit and then he agreed with them.
But not everyone was so pleased with Victoria's initiative. Sergeant Mendoza for instance was having conflicted feelings at watching a child be so admiring of the soldiers' new enemy and at seeing the boy be so enthusiastic at the idea of impersonating him, even for fun. Mendoza probably remembered the punches the outlaw threw at him, or the day Zorro cut his breeches to have him look ridiculous with his pants around his ankles. It seemed that Zorro's favourite game was to make him look like a fool, so the children's worship of the outlaw left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Still, they were only kids so he forced a smile on his lips and swallowed his resentment.
The little girl beside them wasn't too pleased either, but for a totally different reason:
"Hey, Julio, why did you get Zorro's costume? I want one too! Take my tea set and give me the outfit!"
"What? No, Filomena, it's mine, and I don't want your stupid doll's saucepan!"
"Let me try the mask on," she insisted.
"No!" the boy stated.
And next thing Diego knew, the frustrated little girl unexpectedly pounced on Julio and tried to take the mask from him, pulling his hair and slapping his chest with her other hand in the process.
"Aw, Filomena, leave me alone!"
Diego and Mendoza reacted quickly and pulled them apart.
"Young girl," Sister Maria de la Cruz scolded her, "this behaviour is very unworthy of someone who would like to dress up like Zorro! Do you think he'd approve?"
In the meantime Julio, whom Mendoza had let go of, grabbed the fake sword and hit Filomena with it – hitting also Diego who had been holding back the girl.
"Julio!" the Padre shouted, taking the toy from his hand, "don't use violence, whatever your quarrel is!"
"But Padre–"
"No 'but', Julio..."
"Sister Maricruz, I am bleeding!" Filomena complained when she noticed that a red liquid was dripping from her nostrils. "You broke my nose, Julio!"
"I didn't break it, you're only bleeding a little bit. And anyway you can never wear Zorro's costume, you're just a girl! Mind your saucepans and leave me alone!"
Filomena growled, wriggled and tried to free herself from Diego's strong grip. To maintain the illusion about his supposed physical weakness he let go of her but immediately regretted he did so, because as soon as the little girl slipped away from his arms she plunged at Julio's leg and sank her teeth in it.
Everyone was now shouting and through the cacophony Diego managed to hear Victoria lament that she had never wanted that when she first had this idea of a present for the orphans.
He caught sight of Felipe's unbelieving face and sighed: he suddenly felt that he had lost control of his own creation. Over the past few months Zorro had somehow gained his independence from his creator and was now having a life of his own in the minds of the Los Angelinos. And considering the appalling result, Diego wasn't totally sure he should feel flattered.