by Carla Kelly
But there was no point in pining over what could not be changed. She finished buttoning her dress, then sat with Erlinda on the bed, taking the comb the woman offered her. They began to untangle Maria’s long auburn hair.
“Such glorious color,” murmured Erlinda. “Wait, Maria. Do not pull so hard.”
“But there are so many tangles!”
“And are you expecting a visit from the viceroy? What is your hurry? Do it a strand at a time, like so.”
An hour later Maria’s hair hung down to her waist, free of tangles and shining copper and gold in the morning sun.
Someone knocked on the door. Erlinda glanced up from her contemplation of Maria’s hair. “Pasa, hermano,” she said, recognizing the knock.
Diego walked in, holding a piece of paper and a pointed lump of charcoal. He set the paper on the floor and motioned to Maria to stand on it while he traced the outline of her feet, his hand on her ankle. “My sister is tall,” he said as he worked. “She has a beautiful face, it is true, but her feet are large. Like boats, almost.”
Erlinda pushed him, and he nearly fell. He laughed, finishing the outline. “The truth hurts, Erlinda,” he said, stepping out of her way before she could push him again.
Maria laughed. How different Diego was this morning from the angry man of last night.
Diego stood with the piece of paper in his hand. “Such small feet!” he marveled. “Erlinda, when Pablo gets through with Maria’s slippers, he might have enough leather left to make you one shoe. ”
Erlinda rolled her eyes. “Do you see what we have to bear here, Maria? Are you sure that you would wish to join our household?”
Maria was silent, thinking of her own sister. Erlinda put her hand on her arm. “I am sorry. It was thoughtless of me to remind you of your situation.”
Maria shook her head. “I am grateful to be in this household.” She paused, then glanced shyly at Diego. “That is, if it is agreeable to everyone.”
Diego smiled but made no reply. His eyes were on her hair. He lifted a handful of it and let it fall, cascading to her shoulders. “See the different colors in it, Erlinda,” he said, then left the room with his drawing of Maria’s feet.
“Pablo, our cobbler, will make you slippers,” said Erlinda. “He is not as proficient as the cobblers who come up from Santa Fe in the winter, but it will do for now. Here, let me braid your hair, then I will take you to my mother.”
Maria sat quietly while Erlinda plaited her hair and talked of her family. “There are five of us. No, there are six,” she amended. “Diego would say six. Diego, me, Francisco, who is studying in a seminary in Mexico City, and our two younger sisters.” She finished one braid, tied the end with a rawhide strip, and rested it on Maria’s breast. As she began the second, Maria ran the tally in her head. Erlinda had said there were six in the family but had only named five. “I am Erlinda Masferrer de Castellano. My husband Marco died two years ago and I have returned home. I am seventeen years old.”
“I am sorry for your misfortune,” said Maria, holding her head still while Erlinda braided.
“He was a fine man, my husband,” said Erlinda. “You are not the only one to have suffered because of the Apaches. We have all suffered here in this kingdom, one way or another.” She finished Maria’s hair in silence, then made a visible effort to smile. “And now, let me take you to Mama. And my sisters, if we can find them.”
She led the way down the hall, Maria following. The hall was cool, even chilly in the morning air. Portions of it opened onto a patio bright with early flowers and a small fountain. Two young girls were seated close together on a bench by the fountain, their heads bent over the samplers they held in their laps.
Erlinda whispered to Maria. “And here they are. In truth, I did not expect to see them thus engaged. Old Martin is harvesting honeycomb and I was sure they would be bothering him. ”
Maria nodded. She remembered all the samplers she had labored and cried over when she was their age. The slightest distraction was always sufficient excuse to leave tangled threads behind. But Mama had insisted. “I tell you, daughter,” she had scolded, “no man will ever approach your father for your hand if you cannot even sew.” And so Maria had learned, little good would it do her these days without a dowry. Maria sighed, watching the girls at their work.
Erlinda clapped her hands. “Sisters,” she began, and both girls looked up quickly, their eyes eager for diversion, even of the smallest sort. “Come forward and make yourselves known to Maria Espinosa.”
The girls put down their embroidery and came to the edge of the patio. They were dressed alike in sober green gowns, embroidered around the hem and sleeves with floral designs. The sisters were as different as Diego and Erlinda, the older child blond and bidding to be tall like Maria’s companion, and the other short and dark like Diego, with curly black hair.
Erlinda placed a hand on each head and smiled when the girls put their arms around her. “This is Luz and this is Catarina,” she said, her voice vibrant with affection. “Luz has five years, and Catarina six. ”
Luz was silent, staring at Maria, hut Catarina dropped a small curtsy and then darted behind Erlinda, who laughed and drew her out in front of her own full skirts again. “Maria is from Mexico City,” she said, and both little girls regarded Maria with the same kind of awe that she remembered reserving for the viceroy himself. She smiled as the little girls looked at each other and giggled.
Catarina took a step forward. “You have come all the way from Mexico City to stay with us?” she asked, and then turned to her sister. “Imagine such a thing, Luz!”
Luz only nodded and drew closer to Erlinda, who absently straightened the collar on the child’s dress and patted her head.
“I suppose I have come all that way to stay with you,” Maria said. “It would seem that way.”
Catarina looked at her older sister. “Was this Diego’s idea?” she asked.
Erlinda smiled, her face lit with an inner repose that Maria was already coming to recognize. “I suppose it was,” she replied gently, her hand still on Luz’s head but her eyes on Maria.
Catarina advanced again. “Diego brings things home,” she confided, then retreated in earnest behind Erlinda’s skirts when Maria laughed and clapped her hands.
“He probably surprised even you this time,” Maria said.
“Maria, you will come to know my brother better,’’ exclaimed Erlinda, torn between embarrassment at Catarina’s words and amusement over her brother. “I suppose the other rancheros laugh at him, but he is the son of his father, and we would wish nothing different.”
Luz looked at her older sister and tugged at her sleeve. Erlinda leaned down and listened to her little sister whispering in her ear. She straightened and patted both girls. “By all means, you may go. I imagine Martin el Viejo is wondering how he can possibly get the honey from the hives without the two of you to tell him how to go on.”
The girls scampered away, samplers forgotten. Maria watched them. “They are charming,” she said to Erlinda, who had walked over to the bench and was examining the morning’s work.
She held up Catarina’s effort and made a face.
“Do you remember your first sampler?” Erlinda asked, holding up the grubby cloth with thumb and forefinger.
“Indeed,” answered Maria, “Mama kept it in her ...” She stopped. The sampler must have been discarded with all the other useless rubbish by the solicitors. Everything she owned was gone, all treasures large and small. She stood in someone else’s dress now on someone else’s patio, her feet bare. She tugged at one of her braids, unable to meet Erlinda’s eyes.
Erlinda put down the embroidery, her voice smooth as she gently glided over the awkward moment. “Sometimes I think of my sisters as my own children. Luz was born after Papa’s death. It seems they have always been in my charge.”
Maria made an effort to carry her thoughts away from Mexico City. “But what of your mother?”
“I wil
l take you to her, and you will understand us better.”
They left the patio and continued down the hall together. Erlinda paused at a bright blue door, knocked and entered. Maria followed.
The room was dark. Erlinda crossed to the window that opened onto the hallway by the patio and pulled back the heavy curtain. “Mother, I have a guest for you to greet.”
Even with the curtain open the room was deep in morning shadows. A woman sat in a straight-backed chair by the altar, a little woman with curly black hair drawn back in a chignon low on her neck, the shorter hair curling around her face. As she turned, Maria saw that she was blind.
Erlinda led Maria closer, took her hand and put it on her mother’s. The woman grasped Maria’s hand with a firm grip.
“Mama,” said Erlinda, bending close to the small woman. “This is Maria, she of whom Diego spoke.”
Maria leaned closer to the woman. Diego resembled her, with the same black hair and brown eyes. But while his eyes seemed to be a window on his soul, Señora Masferrer’s eyes were without depth, mirroring no emotion.
She reached up and patted Maria’s face gently. Lightly she ran her hand over the contours of the young woman’s face, pausing on the chin and jawline. “I feel considerable force of will.”
“You can tell that from my face?” asked Maria, kneeling by the woman’s chair.
The blind woman smiled, her smile reaching everywhere on her delicate face except her dead eyes. “And I am seldom wrong, child. But now, are you sitting by me? Good. Diego told me about you this morning. How pleased we are that you have chosen to honor our hacienda with your presence.”
Maria eased herself onto the stool by the blind woman’s knees. She felt tears rising in her eyes again. She could not trust her voice.
“You need have no fear in the household of Diego Masferrer. Our kindness extends to all who pass by. And those who have need of it.” Maria was silent in the presence of such giving hearts. She was ashamed for her own sister, who could not extend even half so generous a heart to her own relative.
As if sensing what Maria was thinking, the woman patted her hand again. “Your wounds will heal here,” she said softly, so softly that even Erlinda could not hear. “We mean only to help. Perhaps there are circumstances with your sister that you and I know nothing about.”
“It may be so,” Maria managed to say.
La Señora patted her hand again, her fingers warm and strong. “Of course it is, Maria,” she answered. “All of us do the best we can.”
Erlinda’s voice was a whisper in the room. “We do not wish to tire you, Mama. I will bring Maria back another day. Perhaps she will read to you some afternoon.”
“Oh, yes,” said Maria, “I would like that.”
“Then you are welcome any time,” said La Señora, releasing the young woman’s hands. “Erlinda always has a thousand tasks, and Diego is seldom indoors.”
Erlinda sensed what Maria was thinking and spoke as soon as she had closed the door behind her. “Mama has always been blind, so please do not feel sorry for her. We would wish that she could get around more, but her heart is not strong.” She smiled at Maria. “Do not look so troubled! If Diego could see your face he would say, ‘Do not pine over what you cannot remedy.’ And he would be right, of course.”
“But Erlinda, such a burden on all of you, and I only add to it!”
“No, not a burden. And not on me. Diego, perhaps, but not on me.” She shook her head decisively then. “No, not even on Diego.” She turned to look at the bright blue door. “Papa had Mama’s door painted blue, as if he could make her see it somehow. I remember him standing over Emiliano—and how our santero hates that kind of scrutiny—as he mixed the paint. Papa gladly shouldered Mama’s burdens and did what he could to make things brighter for all of us. He taught us to read. I remember how he used to sit at the table and read to us for hours, teaching us in turn. He did it for Mama, so we could read to her when he was busy. Papa died when Diego was fifteen.”
“Indians?”
Erlinda shook her head. “We do not know what it was. He grew thinner and thinner. He had our Indians build him a special bed so he could be carried from room to room. I still remember the hours he spent in the corral with Diego, instructing his riding, making him rope fenceposts over and over until they were both exhausted and in tears. Such urgency! Papa continued to oversee our lives right up to his final breath.”
“And now the burden is Diego’s?” Maria asked.
“Diego has had to learn so much so fast. But although he never speaks of it, he does not see his duties as a burden. He rules us with his love, like Papa. He is generous of heart. Diego does not ride his Indians like horses. Some say he is too lenient with his people, that he allows them privileges not within his power to grant. But we are happy here, no matter what our neighbors think of us.”
They continued down the hall into the kitchen that jutted out from the rear of the hacienda, breaking the symmetry of the square adobe building. Maria looked about her in delight. The colors leaped out at her from all sides. As in the other rooms, the walls were whitewashed with gypsum, but here the powerful white was met halfway up from the floor by blue tiles with windmills and flowers. The walls were lined with copper pots that winked in the morning light and rows of knives arranged from the biggest to the smallest. Although the floor was earthen as in other parts of the hacienda, it was immaculate.
The fireplace at one end of the room was big enough to stand in, and hung with hooks for pots and spits for roasting. An Indian woman squatted before it. Covering the opposite wall was a cabinet that rose from the floor to the ceiling, with real panes of glass showing off the silver and porcelain behind. A long table, half the length of the room, was covered with a homespun cloth of Indian design.
“Such a room!” Maria exclaimed, “With colors so vivid! How did you get tiles from the Low Countries?”
“That was Papa’s doing, to create brightness that Mama could feel, if not see. He went all the way to Mexico City for those tiles, and for the glass in the windows. Our neighbors still accuse us of putting on airs, but he did it for Mama.” Erlinda put her hands on her hips and mimicked, “Those Masferrers with their blue doors and Dutch tiles!’ But it pleases us.”
The kitchen opened onto a garden where Maria saw Indian children weeding the young plants. Beyond the garden were other outbuildings. In the distance she could see Catarina and Luz bobbing around the beehives, staying just ahead of the old Indian with them.
“Beyond them is the acequia for irrigation,” said Erlinda, following Maria’s gaze. “Part of it runs under the wall, so we always have water, even in times of siege.”
Maria continued gazing out the window. A tall man on horseback opened the heavy gate and came into the hacienda’s enclosure. He closed the gate behind him and sat there on his horse, leaning forward in the saddle, his arms crossed on the saddle horn. He seemed to be watching the girls and the bees, then his glance shifted suddenly to the kitchen window where Maria stood looking out. He was far enough away so that she could not discern his features, but she drew back, unaccustomed to such scrutiny.
“Who is that man?” Maria asked Erlinda, who had crossed to the fireplace and was stirring the contents of a pot hanging on a firehook.
Erlinda put the spoon back in the pot and walked to Maria, looking out. “Oh,” she remarked and turned back to the fireplace with a studied coolness, “that is Cristóbal.”
When she said no more, Maria looked out the window again. The horse and rider were gone.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“Diego will tell you about Cristóbal,” Erlinda said. “He is the other one of us that I mentioned, the sixth. He, too, is a child of my father.”
She said no more, and Maria did not press her. She looked out the window again, wondering where he had gone, wondering why he would bring out such unexpected sharpness in Erlinda.
“Let us go outside, Maria,” said Erlinda, swinging the fir
ehook back over the hot coals and admonishing the Indian cook squatting on her heels by the fireplace to tend it well.
They went into the garden. After a quick look around at the Indian children weeding and a nod to them, Erlinda led Maria to the beehive-shaped ovens behind the tomato plants. Indian servant women were removing the round loaves of bread, steam rising from the sign of the cross on each loaf. Maria closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The smell of baked bread was overpowering.
“Maria chiquita,” said Diego behind her, “you like our bread?” She turned around. Diego was standing there, and with him was Cristóbal. The man looked at her, a smile crossing his face, then leaving it as quickly as it had come.
Maria spoke to Diego. “I think I will always be hungry. After my six-months’ diet of carne seca and biscoche, I had forgotten that anyone still made bread.”
Cristóbal stepped forward and drew his sword. Maria watched as he speared a loaf from the cooling shelf. He set the loaf down on the stone ledge by Maria and with two rapid cuts, sliced the bread in quarters. He called in an unfamiliar language to old Martin by the beehives, who brought over a hunk of comb honey, dripping and sweet. Cristóbal whacked off a corner of the honey, put it on one section of bread and handed it to Maria, who stood with her hands behind her.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Take it and eat.”
She took the bread from him, and he licked the honey off his fingers as he stood watching her. Maria ate the bread, her eyes on Cristóbal. Diego accepted the bread the man offered him and sat with Maria on the stone ledge. He nodded his head in Cristóbal’s direction.
“Maria, this is my brother, Cristóbal Masferrer.”
Cristóbal nodded back at Maria and joined them on the ledge. So this is the sixth Masferrer, thought Maria to herself, and she understood Erlinda’s hesitation. He was a magnificent man, a head and shoulder taller than Diego. He was obviously part Indian, although Diego’s skin was tanned to the same mahogany as his brother’s. But his features were Indian, although he had the look of Erlinda about his eyes and mouth and in the graceful way he held himself. His hair was longer than Diego’s and drawn back with a rawhide thong. He was dressed like Diego, in leather vest and knee-length breeches, with homespun shirt and high boots, but he was Indian.
