by Carla Kelly
Maria went back outside, joining Cristóbal, who stood by the acequia, watching Luz and Catarina in their play tunnel.
“I must admit, I wondered if you would come with me,” he said, turning to watch her approach.
Maria stood next to him. Her head came only to his shoulder, and she looked up at him. “I said that I would, did I not?”
“Yes, I know. But why?” he asked, staring at her in a way that made her wonder if he was serious or merely teasing.
“I wanted to see Emiliano again,” she replied, matching him look for look, amazed at her own boldness. She admired the elegant curve of his high cheekbones and the easy way he stood.
He took her arm and led her across the acequia and along the path that paralleled it. “I left my horse in the orchard.” She paused to look back at Catarina and Luz, who dabbled their feet in the water by their small tunnel. She blew them a kiss and then walked beside Cristóbal to the orchard.
“The apples are so small, even for this time of year,” she said.
“We have not had a good rain, a really good rain, in several years, Maria.” He paused, looking away, then spoke in a softer, more tentative voice. “I think the gods are angry.”
She looked at his profile. “Gods? I do not understand.”
He turned around so suddenly that she stepped back. “Yes, the gods! The kachinas that rule this land.”
“Cristóbal? I still do not understand. I thought you followed the True Faith.”
“So they think!” The words spilled out of him in an angry flood.
He waited for Maria to catch up with him, the anger covered now with a smoother tone. “Explain to me why I must pray to a god I cannot see, one who hangs like a weak man on a cross and does nothing about it. Why can I not pray to the sun anymore? I can see the sun. And what about the clouds? If we do not honor them, there is no rain. Is there something wrong with these things that were so right before?”
He looked down at her and touched her cheek, his hand gentle on her face. “But you do not understand, do you, Maria? You do not understand any more than they do.” There was unmistakable sorrow in his voice. “And what have the saints done for you, little one?”
She lowered her eyes and he stopped. “I do not know,” she said at last. “But I have hopes that the saints are there somewhere.”
“I know they are not.” His voice took on a musing tone. “And these people who have raised me so kindly have given me nothing but expectations. Do you think for one moment that I will ever inherit any of this land? Do you really believe that Diego would grudge me even one hectare?”
“I believe he will.”
“Ah, then you do not know him very well, for all that he calls you Maria chiquita. I am still half Tewa, and in this place I amount to less than dung.” He took her by the shoulders, his hands heavier this time. “Listen, Maria, if there were something I wanted and Diego wanted it, too ...” he paused, then smiled grimly. “I shall prove it to you soon. You will see what I mean.” He stopped then and let go of her shoulders. “Never mind, never mind.” He untied his horse’s reins from an apple tree. “There are times coming,” he said, half to himself, “and things will change for all of us.”
She stood where she was, her hands folded in front of her, watching Cristóbal Masferrer. She wanted to hurry back across the footbridge and into the safety of the hacienda, but she could not move.
Then his mood changed, as quickly as clouds moving across the face of the sun. He held out his hand to her. “Come, Maria. I promised you Emiliano today, did I not?” Before she could say anything, Cristóbal mounted his horse’s bare back and pulled her up behind him.
“Put your arms around my waist,” he said, and they trotted out of the orchard.
As they skirted the cornfield, several of the Pueblo Indians looked up to watch them, then stooped silently to their work again. As soon as they reached the road in front of the high-walled hacienda, Cristóbal touched his heels to his horse’s flanks. Unlike Diego, he wore no spurs, but the animal leaped forward. Maria tightened her grip.
As the horse galloped toward Tesuque, she felt the wind on her face. She had ridden bareback once as a young child on her grandfather’s estancia south of Mexico City. The horse then had been an old respectable mare with more prudence than daring, but she’d still been wild with excitement. Maria sighed and leaned against Cristóbal. She could feel the vibrations of the horse’s hooves and the warmth of Cristóbal’s body. She closed her eyes.
When he slowed his horse, talking to him in Tewa, Maria opened her eyes and sat up straight, loosening her grip on Cristóbal’s belt. Ahead and to the south of them was the now familiar pueblo of Tesuque, its two and three-terraced levels rising beside the river. The color of the red-brown adobe, contrasted with the blue of the sky, drew a sound of appreciation from her.
As she remembered, there were people on all levels of the pueblo, weaving, making pots, grinding corn with a steady back-and-forth motion of mano on metate that was the heritage of centuries long before Spain ever dreamed of new lands beyond the earth’s end. Dogs barked, naked children squealed and chased each other, and the old men sang at their tasks.
Cristóbal reined in his horse and handed Maria down. He jumped off his mount Indian-style and dropped the reins. “You get such a look in your eyes when you see this place.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
His eyes held hers. “I believe you are Indian in spirit.”
She turned away to the ladders leaning against the lowest terrace, noting that there were no entrances on the first level.
“Did you not notice that the other day? It is for protection.”
“Against whom?” she asked.
“The Apaches, of course,” he replied. “The Spaniards would never do anything to hurt us, would they now?”
She smiled at the children gathering near them, and they scattered. “Oh, I do not want them to be afraid of me,” she said.
“They run from all Spaniards,” Cristóbal said. “They are taught to from birth.”
He climbed a ladder to the second level and Maria, tucking her skirts around her legs, followed him.
“Do they add on to the pueblo for new families?” she asked.
Cristóbal gave her a hand up. “Yes. The interior rooms are used mainly for storage now, the outer, lighter rooms for living. The pueblo can rise higher still.’’
They climbed another ladder and crossed a long terrace. The Indians stopped to watch them without appearing to do so, a mannerism that Maria found more disturbing than a. blatant stare. Cristóbal looked around. He appeared to be searching for someone. Like the Indians watching her, his eyes darted here and there, his head scarcely moving. “Wait here,’’ he commanded.
She stood where she was and he quickly climbed another ladder to the next level and spoke to an Indian with a white-painted face who watched them. As they spoke, their heads together, both men glanced her way.
It was as if a chill wind blew suddenly across the terrace, setting Maria’s teeth to chattering. Suddenly she wanted to leave the pueblo and forget about Emiliano.
After a few more words, Cristóbal descended the ladder. “I will take you to Emiliano now,” he said. “Follow me.”
He led her into the pueblo and they walked from room to room, through storage spaces and family dwellings. Cristóbal knew everyone. He greeted men and women and patted the children, and they welcomed him into their homes.
“Are these people your relatives?” Maria asked as he helped her through one of the openings, high off the floor.
“Yes, many of them. They are my mother’s people, and the pueblo belongs to the women. I have many cousins and aunts here.”
They descended an interior ladder. The darkness in the middle of the pueblo was complete. Maria put her feet carefully on each rung, afraid to miss a step and plunge into total blackness. Cristóbal took her hand, and she hung onto him.
“We could light a farol, Maria, bu
t I know the way, and we are almost there.”
They approached the front of the pueblo from the inside. Maria sniffed the air. It smelled of piñon and juniper wood like every other dwelling in the river kingdom, with the familiar smell of animals intermingled. She heard a mother humming to her crying baby, and the wordless song filled her with an inexpressible loneliness. She stood still, pulling Cristóbal to a stop.
“Listen,” she said.
“It is a sound that you hear in your heart,” he whispered. They remained there side by side until the baby stopped crying. The mother’s voice continued for a beat longer, then softly died. There was silence for a moment, and they heard the scrape and grind of corn on stone again, the rhythm of the Tesuque pueblo.
Cristóbal tugged on her hand, and they walked toward the sound. They stepped outside again on the second level, and Maria blinked her eyes. She let go of her companion’s hand and walked to the edge of the terrace.
“I know where I am now,” she said.
“Then I will leave you,” Cristóbal replied. “When you are through, wait for me with Emiliano.” Then he was gone, stepping back into the dark interior. Maria walked to the opening next to the one Cristóbal had entered. She pulled back the skin and peered in. It was the santero’s workshop. San Lorenzo roasting on his grill did a slow, dignified dance of death in the light breeze that blew from the west. Maria and her child Jesus fluttered nearby, stiff dancing dolls painted on deerskin. From across the workshop, San José frowned at his young wife and small Son, engaged in such frivolity.
And there was Emiliano, his back to the open doorway, hunched over a flat piece of wood, a retablo. As Maria came closer, he did not turn around, but he raised his head from his work.
“Is that you, Maria Espinosa?” he asked.
“How did you know, Emiliano?” she asked, coming closer to look over his shoulder.
He did not answer. He was carving a lunette at the top of the retablo, a delicately fluted ornamentation. Below the shell-shaped decoration, a saint was outlined in black. He held out the work for her to see.
“Santa Teresa de Ávila.”
Maria examined the wooden tablet, crude, yet full of possibility, ripe with potential. “What color will her dress be?” she asked.
“Whatever you wish. This is yours to paint. And when you have finished, carry it home to Diego Masferrer. I promised him something of the sort, for he is fond of her poetry.”
Maria tried to hand the tablet back. “Emiliano, I am not yet accomplished enough for such a task.”
“And can you learn without doing? Besides, my fingers are stiff.” He got up from his low stool and motioned for her to sit down. She placed the retablo carefully on the workbench and sat down, pulling the stool closer.
Emiliano busied himself in another corner of the small room, tugging a buffalo hide off a stack of them and trimming the edges of it with a small knife. Maria picked up a brush. Teresa from Avila, the walled city of the Spanish central highlands. Teresa of the vision, of Christian ecstasy, of a poetry deep as the soul. How to paint this? And for Diego, too.
I will give her closed eyes, thought Maria, dipping the brush in an earthenware pot of dark pigment. And her hands will be folded in front of her.
She stroked the brush on the retablo, pleasuring in the feel of paint on the smooth wood. When the eyes were painted, with drooping eyelashes, Maria put the brush on the table and picked up one leaning in a red pot. The mouth should smile slightly, as if she is thinking of the goodness of God.
Maria felt she could paint that smile. She had smiled that way only this morning as she weeded her way down the beet rows. How Saint Teresa would relish the small task, the little act of service to honor God. But do I work to honor God, she asked herself, or to please the lord of the hacienda?
What color was Saint Teresa’s hair? She could paint her with her hair hidden by the severe lines of a wimple, but surely there were times in Teresa’s youth when her hair was unbound, floating free behind her. I will make it the color of Erlinda’s hair, she decided, adding the smallest dab of brown pigment to the yellow.
The result was the rich honey color of Erlinda’s beautiful hair. Sometimes at night Erlinda would call her into her room, and Maria would spend a pleasant interval pulling the hairbrush through Erlinda’s thick hair.
She spoke of Marco once. “Do you know,” she said, “Marco used to brush my hair.”
“He did?” asked Maria. She tried to imagine Diego brushing her hair but could not.
“You think it amusing?” Erlinda asked, a smile on her lips. “Men are different, Maria, when they are away from their daily concerns. You will see.”
And so Maria colored Teresa de Ávila’s hair honey-brown, knowing that the saint would take delight in a simple task like hairbrushing.
Her gown would be blue. Maria blended several colors, wishing she knew the art of texturing paint to make it look like velvet. She remembered the statues in the churches of Mexico City, fairly glowing with a life of their own, so rich was the paint’s texture. The more favored statues wore dresses of material dipped in yeso and dried to a starched finish. Some of the truly pampered saints had a different dress for each Sunday, their doll’s wardrobes kept in gilt-covered caskets and possessing more wealth than many of the people who sought saintly intercessions.
But here she sat, dreaming of rich clothing for the saints of Spain while hunched over a small slab of wood in an Indian pueblo. As she held board and brush, pausing in artist’s anticipation and dread, she was struck again by her unity with this place and these people.
Maria filled in the outline of Santa Teresa’s dress, careful to stay within the lines Emiliano had traced. Then she drew Santa Teresa’s hands clasped in front of her, like any proper lady of careful upbringing. When the hands were painted, she outlined a small book in the corner. After all, she reasoned, without her volume of poetry, it was entirely possible that Diego would not be able to tell which saint it was.
When she painted Teresa’s feet bare, peeking out from under the long folds of her gown, she turned the tablet over.
“Wait, Maria,” said Emiliano. She had thought he was still trimming the buffalo hides, but there he was, peering over her shoulder. “Do not write your name on the back. Let it be for the glory of God alone.”
She turned the retablo over and laid it down on the workbench. Santa Teresa glowed up at her, the heavily lashed eyes downcast, contemplating some inward journey of the soul.
“It will do, Maria,” Emiliano said. “Now, let me show you how to mix a little gold dust with the yeso to paint the lunette and trim.”
She watched as he took out a leather sack and put a pinch of its contents in an empty pot. He added yeso, and told her to stir the gold gypsum combination. The sparks of gold danced before her eyes as she whirled the paint around in the pot, admiring the flashes of color.
Emiliano painted one side of the retablo, dipping his brush in after every stroke, careful to get the bits of glitter on the bristles. When it was half-done, he handed her the brush and sat down again with his buffalo hides. “There now, you finish the trim and paint the lunette. It will dry before you are done.”
Maria’s brush strokes were not as steady as Emiliano’s, but she filled in the scallops on top, pausing often to admire the sparkling effects.
At last it was done. Maria stood up. Emiliano watched her. “You will come back again?”
“If you would like me to.”
“Next time I will show you where to gather wood for a statue, a bulto. And see if you can bring Diego with you then. I would like to talk to him.”
“I will,” Maria replied, picking up her saint from the workbench. She held it in front of her, careful not to rub it against her dress.
“And Maria,” Emiliano continued, his eyes on the buffalo skins again, “do not stay away so long next time.”
She stepped over the high doorsill and into the sunlight, happy for the warmth of the afternoon. When
she saw the sun’s position in the sky, Maria realized how long she had been gone from the hacienda. She looked around for Cristóbal, but he was nowhere in sight. It was late and she had kitchen duties. Perhaps she should go look for him.
Maria set her retablo down on the window ledge of Emiliano’s room. “I am going to look for Cristóbal.”
Emiliano put out his hand quickly. “No, Maria,” he began, “he will show up.”
But Maria did not listen. “I have to get back to Las Invernadas.” Before Emiliano could stop her, she went through the entrance where she had last seen Cristóbal.
She had not gone through many doors when she realized her mistake. The darkness grew deeper inside the pueblo, even in the rooms that were lit with farols. And the women in the rooms did not regard her with the same equanimity they had shown when Cristóbal was with her. “Cristóbal?” she asked over and over, receiving only blank stares or shrugs in answer.
She tried to retrace her steps to the outside, but was lost. As she leaned against one of the ladders, she realized another strong point of the Tesuque pueblo. Even if any attackers could gain access to the pueblo interior, they would be lost, wandering in semidarkness.
Maria stood still. Perhaps she could follow voices to the outside terraces, where most of the daily activities took place. She listened. Not too far away she heard drums. The beat was low and steady, accompanied by rattles shaken in ponderous rhythm. She strained to hear the low voices of men chanting. She set out to follow the sound to its source. Cristóbal would be there.
She felt her way from room to room, all of them empty or partly filled with large woven baskets of dried corn, the remnants of last year’s harvest. An army of mice scurried around her feet.
The singing grew louder. She felt the pulse of the drums under her feet now. Perhaps a few more doors would take her to the source. She groped her way into the next room, then the next. She stumbled through room after room, banging her knees against the high openings of the doorways. Tears filled her eyes, her pulse beat as loud as the drums. Then suddenly she could see a light ahead, a thin strip of light such as would shine around the edge of a door flap. She staggered toward it.
