Chapter Text
Imelda’s directions were simple, direct: go to Señor García’s shop on the outskirts of Mexico City for their sack of shoelaces and come back home.
No detours, she had said, voice cool. But Felipe had heard the pain cracking underneath her mask, leeching into the sharp words. It is the same harsh tone that laces her refrain that is becoming more and more common in their household: No music!
Imelda’s husband went to Mexico City to perform his music and did not come back. On principle, Imelda despises Mexico City. But she runs a zapatería and she needs shoelaces to make beautiful boots. They are non-negotiable.
I would go myself, but Coco is too young, she had said, back when she first introduced this trip to Felipe and Óscar. And I do not think I could handle things if both of you go. You are adults now. Tell me tomorrow which one of you will travel to Mexico City.
Felipe had drawn the short straw, but he wasn’t too annoyed. It was an adventure! Sure, Mexico City was an eight hour, smoke-filled and rickety train journey from Santa Cecilia… but travelling there, even for something as mundane as shoelaces, was an adventure nonetheless!
Still, it was not a very exciting adventure, fetching several kilos worth of shoelaces. Felipe was eighteen and craved real adventure! But no, he was a good brother who fetched his sister shoelaces after her no-good husband ran off nearly two years ago.
Felipe still doesn’t quite understand why Héctor left and why he stopped writing letters: he had seemed so loving and supportive of both Imelda and Coco, but then that músico disappeared into the night! But he knows that looks can be deceiving, so he tries not to linger on Héctor. Most of the time he fails, though.
Felipe and Óscar miss Héctor, too. Miss the way he would play music and make Imelda laugh. But they don’t dare talk about him around Imelda. She cannot bear to hear the mere mention of his name.
Felipe and Óscar do not mention how Imelda sometimes cries herself to sleep when Coco asks her: Mamá, when is papá coming home? He loves us, right? He’ll be home soon, right? No need to push the dagger in deeper.
Coco does not understand why her papá left her, still checks the mailbox on occasion and sings their lullaby each night before she goes to sleep.
I have tried to tell her that her papá is not coming home and to forget about him, Imelda had told him and Óscar once, wringing her hands. But she has not stopped hoping. Foolish child! She sighs, and for a mere second she is fragile, vulnerable. I miss him, but he probably doesn’t miss us.
Anyway. It is July 1923 and Héctor has not written to Imelda since December 1921 and has not been home since August 1921: if Felipe happens to run into him in this big, bustling city, he will first chastise him and then beg him to come home.
It is not too late, Felipe hopes. His sister is miserable and his niece is confused.
Héctor will get a talking to, but if he would just come home -
Felipe shakes his head. He has handed the required pesos to Señor García and, in return, been given a not-so-small sack of shoelaces. The midday sun beats against his back as he walks back to the cheap hostel he is staying at near the train station.
No detours, he repeats in his head. Tonight, he will have a meal and catch the evening train home.
But that is before he spots a discarded wallet on the cobbled ground. Felipe carefully puts down the sack onto the ground before picking up the wallet, flipping through: it has travel papers tucked inside and a handful of pesos. Sighing, he starts his detour.
Imelda will understand, he thinks, walking to the nearest police station, unaware that his whole world was about to flip upside down. Of course, the police are not in good shape after the Revolution, but it is better than leaving the wallet on the ground as easy picking for thieves.
It is simply the right thing to do.
(He is about to encounter another man, simply trying to do the right thing. And it will change everything.)
.
The local police station is not hard to find, but it is slightly run-down and the dark curtains are drawn in an effort to block out the sweltering heat.
Felipe enters, cautiously. “¿Hola?”
The man seated at the front desk looks worn out, tired, maybe in his mid-thirties. His dark hair is still thick and his curled moustache is voluminous. Felipe stares at him enviously.
Maybe one day, his moustache will also look like that. He can only dream!
“Perdóname,” Felipe continues, nervously, “but I would like to report a lost wallet near the train station, Señor.”
“Sí.” The man nods. “Of course, there are a few details we will need from you first. Come, sit.”
Tentatively, Felipe walks behind the front desk and sits in the vacant wooden chair that has definitely seen better days. “There is not much to tell. I found the wallet near the local train station, about a five minute walk from here, at 1pm. There are some travel papers inside. Hopefully the Señorita who dropped them comes here and fetches them.”
“Ah, helpful. Thank you for turning these in, Señor,” the man mutters, before grinning. “Ah, Rodríguez!” he shouts.
Felipe’s whole world is about to crack and fall, but he doesn’t know that. Why would a random police station in a slightly drab corner of Mexico City hold the key to his family’s greatest tragedy, after all?
The police officer next to him chuckles. “Don’t you wish your man of interest had died with his travel papers?”
Another police officer, probably Señor Rodríguez, approaches the front desk. He is dressed in dark slacks and a threadbare navy blazer with burnished golden buttons and has a disgruntled look painted onto his face. “My likely murder victim, you mean? The murderer stole them, most likely.”
The man tuts, looking at Felipe’s wide eyes with pity. “Kid, Señor Rodríguez here gets really invested in cold cases. His latest was a man found buried in a shallow ditch near the station in February 1922, must have been dead for a couple of months… unpleasant stuff.”
Felipe shifts in his uncomfortable wooden seat. “Ah, sí, very interesting, Señor…”
“Santiago. But you cannot convince Señor Rodríguez to let go of a cold case when it has caught his interest. Say,” Señor Santiago says, pointing at Señor Rodríguez, “why don’t you show your photo to the kid? At the very least, strike off another place from your endless list.” He lowers his voice. “If Rodríguez’s mystery man was a local, we would not be here.”
Señor Rodríguez sighs, his brows furrowing together. “Sí, Santiago, otherwise you will complain the rest of the day,” he says, before wandering off to obtain said photo.
(Only minutes to go until Felipe falls from the precipice, but at the moment he is slightly too hot and slightly too involved in a local murder mystery.)
“I try to indulge him,” Señor Santiago says, voice low, “because he really is quite cut up about it. We all are, really. Young man, married. The murderer didn’t bother to steal his wedding ring, but they stole everything else.” He shakes his head. “A tragedy, really, but nothing particularly unique in Mexico City. Lo siento. I did not mean to drag you into grisly office mysteries.”
“It’s alright, Señor,” Felipe replies, quickly, even as his heart quickens in pace. At least he is getting a mini adventure out of this! Even if it is with slightly more death than he had hoped.
It does not take long for Señor Rodríguez to return. “This is the man we were discussing,” he says, handing Felipe a photo.
But Felipe cannot make out the details clearly with his glasses on, so he takes them off.
When he sees the photo, he gasps. A dagger pierces his lungs.
It cannot be.
But he cannot stop the words from falling out of his mouth, words no one will envy him for. “I know this man,” he says, shakily.
Señor Rodríguez drops his pen, clearly startled. “You do, Señor?”
Felipe is clutching the photo very, very tightly. He releases it, smooths out the creases. He swallows, but it does not ease the pain. “Sí. He is my brother-in-law.”
He wanted to find out what happened to Héctor, but not like this.
Not like this.
Everything is slotting together. The letters had stopped so suddenly, only days after Héctor’s twenty-first birthday. How adoration glinted in his eyes when he looked at Imelda and Coco. How Ernesto de la Cruz had always been a charismatic fool, a manipulator, and how he might not see fit to tell his best friend’s wife of his death if it made things less… complicated.
“We did not know he was dead,” he continues, “my sister still does not know he is dead. Nor does Coco.” Tears burn in his eyes. “Lo siento, Señores. It is quite a shock.”
“Get him some water,” he hears Señor Santiago mutter, distantly, like he is in another dimension.
How am I going to break the news to Imelda that her husband has been dead this whole time she has crucified his name in her agony?
How are we going to break the news to Coco? A little girl who wears her hair in pigtails tied with pink ribbon, a little girl that begs her mother to get her a cat, a little girl that still hopes her papà will come home - but Héctor can never come home.
Five is too young to see your own father buried.
“Lo siento,” Señor Santiago says, looking down. “I did not expect you to actually know him.”
Felipe looks back down at the photo: Héctor is smiling, widely. Innocently, not noticing the grim reaper haunting him.
“It is good you did,” Felipe responds, hoarsely. “We thought he had abandoned his familia. My sister has not heard from him since December 1921. This… this will give her some closure, at least.”
Imelda was widowed when she was twenty-two years old, just as the Revolution was over, just after the Spanish Flu had passed over them.
Héctor was not supposed to die this young. They should have had so many years left together.
Felipe wonders if he will ever see Imelda happy again. Free, the way she was when she danced with Héctor in the sun-streaked plaza in Santa Cecilia.
Now that is a mere fantasy.
“Still, I am sorry to have brought you and your family pain,” Señor Santiago replies, quietly.
Felipe takes a deep breath. “Why does Señor Rodríguez think Héctor was murdered?”
“Large traces of arsenic were found in his body,” Señor Santiago says, tapping his hands against his worn desk. “How old was he?”
Felipe swallows. “If he died in December… he would have just turned twenty one.”
Señor Santiago swears, violently, as Felipe stares into nothingness.
Cool glass is pushed into his other hand, the one not clutching Héctor’s photo for dear life.
He takes a big gulp. It is refreshing, but it does not help soothe the burning burrowing into his heart.
“I hate to do this,” Señor Rodríguez says, gently, kneeling down to meet Felipe at eye level, “but we need your help with identifying your brother-in-law so we can return him home to your sister.”
“Okay,” Felipe says, taking another sip of water. It does not ease the pain, but it makes it easier to speak. “His name is - was Héctor Rivera, born November 30 1900. His wife, my sister, her name is Imelda. Héctor did not keep his birth name: he was an orphan.” He stops.
No detours, Imelda had said. And Felipe had disobeyed, taking one and stumbling upon her husband’s grave.
He closes his eyes. “We live in Santa Cecilia, Michoacán. He was a musician.” He takes a deep breath, laughing somewhat hysterically. “Héctor left in August 1921 with his best friend, Ernesto de la Cruz.” Felipe pauses. His eyes sting.
What he does not say: that Héctor left a few weeks after Coco’s third birthday, even after Ernesto begged him to leave earlier. How can he forget, even after a year of thinking that Héctor had abandoned his familia, the way his eyes burnt bright when Héctor told Ernesto: leave without me, then.
Would Ernesto have been desperate enough to kill Héctor if he had tried to leave when Ernesto wanted him to stay?
The thought settles bitterly in his mind, but it does not taste untrue.
I cannot succeed without your songs, Héctor, you must know that -
It is only another fortnight. You'll manage. Coco needs me! I can’t miss her birthday for your fantasy.
Ernesto hadn’t liked that.
“Imelda - we - thought that if something bad had happened to Héctor, Ernesto would have told us. The last letter came in early December 1921.”
A beat, melancholy and long, swallows the sorrow between them. It is enveloped by the humid air trapped in a patchwork police station, tucked away in the buzz of Mexico City. Just like Héctor.
“Is that all?” He asks, weakly. Please let that be enough. Felipe feels like he will break if he has to keep discussing Héctor as someone stuck in the past. Even if he is.
Even though he never lived to see 1922, 1923. How many more years will pass without Héctor?
If Felipe hadn’t picked up that wallet, how many more years would Coco have waited at the door for a dead man to come home?
(How many more years would Imelda have gone, thinking her husband never loved her?)
Señor Rodríguez looks up from the notepad he has been scribbling notes on, his hands stained with black ink. He raises a hand. “One more.” He frowns. “Who is Coco?”
“My niece,” he whispers, as tears finally start to fall. He sets the photo aside. He cannot bear to tarnish it. “Héctor’s daughter. She just turned five last week.”
Señor Rodríguez’s swears are even more violent this time. “A daughter?”
“Sí.”
“Mierda.”
“That makes everything so much..." Señor Rodríguez trails off, eyes glazed. He adds a final note to his notepad. “That will be all, thank you. When are you going home?”
“Tonight.” How is he going to speak to Imelda, to smile at Coco, knowing what he knows now?
It feels impossible. But he must.
The raspy, hoarse voice of Señor Rodríguez fills the ringing silence. “Can you give me your address? I will follow in a week with his body.”
Felipe nods. His dry lips have been bitten raw, the copper taste of blood lingering in his mouth.
Things can never be okay again.