Chapter 10 - The Unbroken Curb
Two miles away, on the dusty sidewalk of Calle de la Cruz, Old Elena walked out of her wooden door carrying a short-handled broom made of stiff palm straw.
The wind had died down. The yellow dust cloud left by the Cadillac had settled back onto the earth, leaving a thin, reddish layer of grit over the cracked stone steps and the peeling plaster of her wall.
She did not look toward the valley road. She did not listen for the distant echo of the explosion that had sounded from the canyon pass ten minutes ago.
She knelt slowly, her knees making their usual dry, popping sound against her wool apron.
With steady, methodical strokes of her broom, she began sweeping the shattered pieces of the white porcelain plate together into a neat pile against the curb. She swept the spilled rice, the salt pork, and the dirty gravel into a small, rust-colored heap.
From the dark alleyway across the street, a small face peered out from behind a wooden shutter.
It was the youngest boy—the one with the hollow brown eyes and the soot-streaked forehead. He stepped out slowly into the sunlight, his dirty feet making no sound on the dry earth, his small hands holding a fresh, unpainted wooden bowl he had found in the scrap heap behind the carpenter’s shop.
He walked up to the curb, stopping three feet from Elena’s broom.
Elena did not look up from her sweeping. She reached into her dark apron pocket, pulled out a small, dry crust of hard wheat bread she had saved from her morning baking, and placed it gently into his wooden bowl.
"Eat," she rasped, her voice as flat and unyielding as the stone step beneath her feet. "Before the dust takes the flavor."
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The boy sat down on the curb. He bit into the hard crust, his small jaw working slowly, his eyes trained on the empty mouth of the alleyway.
The sun moved an inch higher in the sky, casting a long, sharp shadow from the old brick wall across the sidewalk, covering the old woman and the child in a cool, dark blanket of shade that held against the heat of the afternoon.
