He was very rich, too, before the revolution. He had a big hacienda in Oaxaca, with a very fine library. But they took it away from him in the revolution, and they sold the things, or broke them. They didn’t know the value of them, of course.”
“And did he adopt you?”
“Yes! In a way. My father was one of the overseers on the hacienda. When I was a little boy I came running to my father, when the Bishop was there, with something in my hands—so!”—and he made a cup of his hand. “I don’t remember. This is what they tell me. I was a small child—three or four years of age—somewhere there. What I had in my hands was a yellow scorpion, one of the small ones, very poisonous, no?”
And he lifted the cup of his small, slender, dark hands, as if to show Kate the creature.
“Well, the