Gateway to the Moon_A Novel Read online

  ALSO BY MARY MORRIS

  The Jazz Palace

  The River Queen

  Revenge

  Acts of God

  Angels & Aliens

  The Lifeguard

  House Arrest

  The Night Sky

  Wall to Wall

  The Waiting Room

  Nothing to Declare

  The Bus of Dreams

  Crossroads

  Vanishing Animals

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Mary Morris

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.nanatalese.com

  Doubleday is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Nan A. Talese and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Cover design by Emily Mahon

  Cover photograph by Matt Anderson/Moment/Getty Images

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Morris, Mary, 1947– author.

  Title: Gateway to the moon : a novel / Mary Morris.

  Description: First edition. | New York : NAN A. TALESE/Doubleday, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017016953 | ISBN 9780385542906 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780385542913 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3563.O87445 G38 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016953

  Ebook ISBN 9780385542913

  v5.2

  a

  This book is for Ellen Levine and Nan A. Talese—

  Fierce readers, believers, friends.

  In memory of Jane Supino whose wisdom remains,

  And to Larry for everything.

  The great mystery is not that we have been flung at random among the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness.

  —ANDRÉ MALRAUX

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Mary Morris

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Historical Note

  Chronology

  Principal Characters

  Genealogy

  CHAPTER ONE Perfect Darkness

  CHAPTER TWO The Archivist

  CHAPTER THREE Frixlandia

  CHAPTER FOUR Colibri Canyon

  CHAPTER FIVE The Well Drillers

  CHAPTER SIX Dead Reckoning

  CHAPTER SEVEN Lowriders

  CHAPTER EIGHT Time Capsule

  CHAPTER NINE The Scribe

  CHAPTER TEN Caravan

  CHAPTER ELEVEN The Three-Body Problem

  CHAPTER TWELVE A Jew in the Bahamas

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Pale Blue Dot

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Supermoon

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Street of the Dead

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Solstice

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Silent Whore

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Fixed Point

  CHAPTER NINETEEN The Goldilocks Zone

  CHAPTER TWENTY Lisbon

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Topography

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Man Very Early Makes Jars

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Beatrice de Luna

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Atonement

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE El Illuminado

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Visitor from the Moon

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Why?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT An Old Man in New Spain

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Ground Zero

  CHAPTER THIRTY The Mother of the Moon

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Apricots

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO A Letter to the Universe

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE The Experiment

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR The Charges

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE The Ghost Road

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Dentistry in the DMZ

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Vision Quest

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT The Pilgrimage

  Acknowledgments

  A Note About the Author

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  In 1492 with the Alhambra Decree, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered all Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity or be expelled from Spain. It was their decision, along with the Vatican, to make Spain an entirely Catholic nation. It is estimated that among the Jewish population a hundred thousand converted; the Inquisition killed another thirty thousand, and hundreds of thousands fled. Of the Jews who converted, many were Christian only in name. They practiced what the Inquisition referred to as “the dead Law of Moses” and became what are known as secret or crypto-Jews.

  As the New World was being settled, crypto-Jews followed, making their homes in Mexico City and Nuevo León. But as the hand of the Inquisition reached farther into Mexico, some of these crypto-Jews moved north into what would become New Mexico. They lived as Catholics in the remote hills while still maintaining their Jewish traditions. Eventually they forgot that they were Jews. Though they continued to practice Jewish rituals, such as the lighting of candles on Friday night and the refusal to eat pork, for generations they did not know why.

  CHRONOLOGY

  This is the historic timeline regarding the Jews and the Inquisition.

  1478  Pope authorizes the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain

  1492  Edict calls for the conversion or expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain

  1492  Columbus’s first voyage of discovery

  1493  Columbus’s second voyage of discovery

  1497  Forced conversion of all Jews of Portugal

  1506  Massacre of the conversos in Lisbon

  1510  Birth of Beatrice de Luna in Portugal

  1536  Authorization of an Inquisition in Portugal

  1540  Escape route begins for conversos from Portugal, orchestrated by Beatrice de Luna

  1569  Inquisition arrives in Mexico

  1579  Establishment of first crypto-Jewish settlements in northern New Mexico

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES

  Luis de Torres—crypto-Jew and interpreter for Christopher Columbus *

  Catalina de Torres—his wife *

  Juan de Torres—his eldest son

  Eduardo de Torres—his youngest son

  Christopher Columbus—explorer *

  Pedro de Terrenos—cabin boy on the Santa María *

  Rodrigo de Triano—sailor and secret Jew *

  Benjamin Cordero—possible son of Luis de Torres

  Inez Cordero—Benjamin’s adoptive mother

  Diego Cordero—Inez’s father

  Olivia Cordero—Inez’s mother

  Leonora Cordero—Benjamin’s wife

  Alejandro Cordero—Benjamin’s son

  Francisco Mendes—head of the House of Mendes in Lisbon *

  Dona Gracia Nasi (Beatrice de Luna)—his wife *

  Ana—their daughter *

  Federico Pera de Torres—son of Eduardo de Torres

  Sofia Pera—his wife and the cousin of Alejandro Cordero

  Bernadine—Sofia’s maid

  LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

  Rafael Torres

  Rosa Torres—his wife

  Elena Torres—their daughter

&n
bsp; Roberto Torres—their son

  Morning Glory “MG” Torres—Roberto’s ex-wife

  Miguel Torres—their son

  Vincent Roybal—owner of general store

  Esmeralda Roybal—his wife

  Pascual Roybal—their dead son

  Rachel Rothstein—Miguel’s boss

  Nathan Rothstein—her husband

  Davie Rothstein—their youngest son

  Jeremy Rothstein—their eldest son

  N.B.* indicates historical figures

  GENEALOGY

  THE DE TORRES FAMILY

  CHAPTER ONE

  PERFECT DARKNESS—1992

  Miguel Torres stands in the old cemetery and aims his telescope at the sky. It’s a clear, cloudless evening. And there’s no moon. It is easier to see the stars when there’s no moon. Miguel stumbles as he adjusts his scope. He has difficulty navigating the uneven terrain of tree roots and crumbling stone. Still he likes the old cemetery. It gives him the best view of the night sky. Near the trailer where he lives with his mother, there is too much light. He comes here for the darkness.

  A brisk wind blows through the branches of the old oak tree. It blows through piñon trees, and the air is redolent with the scent of pine. But it is also a dry, dusty wind and Miguel has to keep wiping his lens with a soft cloth. He buttons his thin jacket and peers into the eyepiece. Squinting, he pans the sky. It is late spring and a good night to be out. The days are already hot on the high desert plain, but the nights remain cool.

  He focuses on Cassiopeia. He likes to begin with this constellation because her major stars form an M. The Celestial M some call it. Or the Lazy M. Whatever the case, Miguel feels as if it’s his signature in the sky. From Cassiopeia he moves up to Ursa Major and then over to the North Star. This orients him. Once he gets his bearings, he locates Jupiter and sharpens his focus on its moons. Named after Zeus’s lovers, the largest moons of Jupiter and their orbits were what Galileo used to determine that the Earth is not the center of the universe. But, of course, Galileo went to prison, recanted, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

  Miguel has never been to prison, though he has spent a month in juvenile detention. But juvie was a little more like what he imagined summer camp to be—bunk beds, sports, three meals a day—except for the razor wire. It was a year ago when he’d gotten caught with a gang of his pals playing chicken on the highway, and next thing he knew, the cops were rounding them up. His father, who lives down the road, thought it might be good for him to spend some time straightening out, and his mother didn’t argue. He’d shared a room with three other boys and they all had lice. The room had a small window, and the only pleasure he’d gotten that entire month was staring at the night sky. Since getting out, it seems as if that’s all he wants to do. As his father likes to say, there are worse things to be hooked on.

  Miguel stumbles again, almost toppling over as he makes a fine adjustment to his scope. But then he often stumbles. His feet don’t seem to know where the rest of him is going. His mother calls him a long tall drink of water. Over six feet tall, lanky. His muscles haven’t caught up with his bones. And those bones have just grown and grown. He is almost odd-looking. He has green eyes like his father. Some of his friends call him the Praying Mantis because he is so skinny and because he falls for girls usually a few years older who are known to devour boys.

  As he stands with his feet apart in the cemetery, he can see the skies. He is hoping to find a moon. Not a moon that anyone else has ever found but one of his own. A moon that no one else knows is there. What will he name it? Maybe after a character in Star Wars? Han Solo? Luke Skywalker? Princess Leia? He’s always surprised at the names given to the moons. Ganymede, Callisto, Locaste. So why not Star Wars? Miguel can never dream of discovering a galaxy or a comet. Or even a new planet somewhere deep in the Milky Way. That’s for people who spend their lives with high-powered scopes fixed to the stars. But it is not out of the question for a boy to find a moon.

  Moons have long been a preoccupation of Miguel’s. He is drawn to them more than he is drawn to other celestial bodies. Moons are manageable. You can stare at one and it won’t hurt your eyes. And they have low expectations. He prefers the cooler, reflected light to the burning stars. In this high desert where Miguel lives, the sun cracks his lips and makes his throat dry. Whenever possible he seeks the shade. If he could, he’d be nocturnal.

  Miguel doesn’t like his position so he moves the telescope to the right until he is on firmer ground. Carefully he sweeps the skies as he looks for Arcturus in the constellation of Boötes. It is one of the brightest stars. He feels certain that Arcturus has planets in its orbit, and he’s sure that those planets must have moons. The universe interests him. He doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s because each night when he steps out of his mother’s trailer and stares at the sky, he wonders if there isn’t a better life for him somewhere out there. When he was younger, he’d go outside to get away from his parents’ fighting. He spent months trying to invent a device that would contact a spacecraft to come and get him. In his early teens he went out to sneak a smoke. But since juvie he just does it to watch.

  Miguel never cared that much about the earth sciences, but he cares about space. The first time he gazed through a lens, he saw a crater on the moon the size of Texas. He learned that the Earth could slip through the gap between the rings of Saturn. That is how big they are. His science teacher, Mr. Garcia, taught him to ask questions. Why is it that a supernova is in the same shape as a snail? Why does nature repeat its patterns? He ponders the three-body problem, trying to understand what keeps the Earth in its orbit. How is it that we keep spinning at all?

  For years he wanted his own telescope but knew he’d never be able to afford it. Then last year his science teacher, Mr. Garcia, gave him a gift: a membership to the Amateur Astronomers of America. In one of its newsletters he read about a man named John Dobson who taught people how to build their own telescopes from scratch and at almost no cost. In the Santa Fe Public Library, Miguel found a book by Dobson, in which he learned the intricacies of magnification.

  He began with the mirror. He spent weeks grinding it down, polishing it, getting the shape just right. In flea markets and pawnshops he scavenged lenses from an old pair of 7/35 binoculars and these he used for his eyepiece. Then he built his own sixteen-inch scope with an eight-inch focal length that is strong enough to see galaxies and star clusters that are light-years away. The telescope cost him seven dollars to make and he can see Cassiopeia and Andromeda, her daughter. He can see Perseus. He can even see Algol, the evil winking eye in the center of Medusa’s head in the constellation Perseus. When he presented the telescope to his teacher, Mr. Garcia was amazed at its strength.

  Miguel pans along the outer ridges of his own galaxy. The ground is too rocky and he can’t get the scope stable so he moves over a few graves. At least he assumes they are graves. Mostly there are grassy mounds and broken headstones with their strange writing that nobody can decipher. No one has been buried in this cemetery for at least a hundred years. That’s what his mother tells him. In fact no one in the town remembers the last time anyone was buried here. No one comes to tend the graves. When he was younger, he came here on dares to see who could mingle longer with the ghosts. Then he came with his girlfriend because it was a good place to slip his hand under her shirt and run it along her smooth, warm skin. But since he joined the Amateur Astronomers of America, he’s been trying to get better purchase on the sky.

  He folds up his telescope. Though he is reluctant to leave this crystal night behind, it’s Friday and his mother expects him home. He makes his way down the hill toward the lights. When he gets to Roybal’s General Store, he’ll give her a call. As he was heading out that evening, she asked him to pick up milk. It is one of the things that makes Miguel crazy. She’s always asking him to do something. They can’t have a conversation without her saying “Would you mind fixing this?” or “Will you pick this up after school?”
Someday this will drive him away.

  He’ll leave the way his aunt Elena did. He barely knows his father’s sister. He can only recall seeing her a few times. She left Entrada to go to New York City and become a ballerina. Even after she had her accident and couldn’t dance anymore, she still didn’t come back to Entrada. Instead she travels the world. She sends him postcards from places he’s never even heard of. Kuala Lumpur and Cádiz. Bombay and Melbourne. He uses an old globe to locate them. He keeps the postcards in a shoebox in his room. Cards with rust-colored animals sleeping in trees, carved figures that rise out of the ground, pyramids of spices and fruits he’s never seen. Someday he’ll travel too—though it is intergalactic travel that interests him. The speed of light. He’ll be the first tourist on Mars.

  As he reaches the steps of Roybal’s, he begins digging in his pockets for change. He is hoping he can get a candy bar as well. The best thing, as far as Miguel is concerned, about living in Entrada is that Roybal’s is pretty much always open. He can pick up a candy bar, a can of soda, or some loose cigarettes at just about any time of day or night.

  The Roybals live in a house attached to their store and it seems to Miguel as if they must be a family of insomniacs because there are always lights on and there is always someone to ring up a purchase even if it is just for a package of bubble gum and some beef jerky. Miguel is an insomniac as well. Or at least a night owl, for which he has recently learned there is an actual genetic disposition. At times Miguel feels more closely related to bats and raccoons than to humans.

  Old man Roybal is at the cash register when Miguel walks in and gives him a wave. “Hola, m’hijo,” Vincent Roybal calls out to him as he always does. But then the old man calls everyone “my daughter” or “my son,” and in some ways he is correct. If you go back far enough, everyone in Entrada is related in one way or another to everyone else. Almost everyone is a Roybal or a Torres. Miguel’s great-grandmother was a Roybal. They are so inbred it is a wonder that they don’t have tails and pointed ears. “Qué tal?”