The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx Read Free Page A

no desire to die, but I love my country and I have to do this.”
    He remained with her on the train until the conductor called out, “All aboard!”
    She walked with him to the Dutch door at the end of the car and watched as he stepped down onto the sunken platform. The conductor lifted the wooden step and jumped on board. As the train started pulling out of the station, Millicent waved.
    Paul stood alone on the platform until the locomotive slowly vanished into the night.

5
    P aul took the next train back to Princeton and returned to his dorm room just past 3 that morning. Unable to sleep, he skipped his French and Spanish classes and remained listlessly in bed. As he eventually began his daily routines, he once again felt strangely captive. It was as if he were sealed in some kind of long, narrow tunnel, wanting to get through it quickly and out the other side. Without her, all alone, he felt as though he were drowning.
    Roughly a week later, he got the first postcard from Millicent, sent from St. Louis. She explained that they were about to board a second train that would take them to Galveston, Texas. She had to be in Mexico by now, he thought. A second postcard came two days later from Texas saying they were about to cross the Rio Grande.
    Two and a half weeks later, a letter arrived detailing how it was too dangerous to go to Mexico City, so they were instead heading west to Baja. Apparently, several revolutionary organizations had formed their own governments in the area and Millie’s group felt it could have the greatest impact there.
    October went by without a single postcard. The Mexican postal service wasn’t very efficient, and Paul figured that the political turmoil must have further delayed the delivery of foreign correspondence. Hard as he tried to invest himself in schoolwork, Paul found himself suffering from repeated attacks of vertigo. He would usually just lay in bed trying not to imagine the worst: short, fat, oily soldiers with large, dirty sombreros taking turns violating Millie as she spat out blood and noble slogans.
    The only ideas distracting him came from The Physical Sciences, the primary text for his Introduction to Physics class that he was taking to fulfill his science requirements. Reading the principles of physics from Galileo and Newton, he found himself mesmerized as if he was engrossed in a mystery novel.
    Finally, on November 3, he received another post from Millicent. The letter had been given to a friend who was heading into Texas. It began: My beloved Pablo, I’m assuming you didn’t get any of my other letters as I haven’t received any from you … It went on to explain that her committee had broken up. Two men had joined Pancho Villa’s contingent in the northeast; four others had joined Señor Zapata in Chiapas; but she and one other were still in Baja in a commune run by the Mexican revolutionary Ricardo Flores Magón. Despite these different factions, Madero was still generally regarded as the new hope for Mexico.
    You’ll be happy to hear that Señor Flores is a pacifist. He doesn’t even have a military attachment. He’s simply trying to lead by example. The other day a calvary of federal soldiers galloped through, almost daring us to provoke them. We’ve been wearing clothes we bought here, trying to blend in with the locals, but we spend our days heading down the peninsula trying to familiarize the peasants with the issues of the impending revolution …
    The letter had been sent from somewhere called Cór-dova. As November progressed, stories about the brewing troubles in Mexico began appearing in the New York Times .
    Bella called to invite Paul up to New York for Thanksgiving, saying she missed her eldest boy and wanted to hear how he was doing. He ended the short conversation without uttering a single word about Millie, knowing that nothing would bring his mother greater pleasure than hearing of the girl’s reckless voyage.
    Opening the New York Times on