by C. M. Mayo
Angelo listened with a pained and stoic expression. But, for each complaint he had a solution.
For lies: “Darling, if you were to serve roasted polecat, it might well be so toothsome, the others would want to steal your recipe.”
“Oh,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
For the disrespectful Mariqueta: “I shall have her sent back to her village next morning.”
For the noise-mongers in the street: Angelo paid his landlady’s mozo, or manservant, to keep them well away, and that night, he arranged for a band, a very good one, to play whilst he serenaded her. But—he insisted upon this—from the vestibule, not the street, as that was safer.
Things began to improve, and in fact, much sooner and more definitively than anyone had either hoped or expected. Being absolutely devoted to her husband, Alicia (as Alice began to call herself) studied the language diligently. It came easily to her, for was it not le cousin du français? She became friends with many of the wives of Angelo’s friends. This was as easy as a hand sliding into a glove for, not only was Alicia ready with a smile and a generous gesture (breads, jams, and other little gifts, including the Maryland version, that is, Mrs. Green’s recipe, of pumpkin pie), but the name of her husband’s family was famous and, among those of their kind, revered. The most beautiful theater in the city was the Teatro de Iturbide; the finest hotel, the Hotel Iturbide; and in the National Palace, the grandest salon was the Salon Iturbide—just to give a few of innumerable examples. Whenever she was introduced to anyone new, the moment they heard her name, she could feel the frisson of alertness, the way the air in the room would, literally, change.
Good houses were scarce in the neighborhood of the gente decente, the better class of people, for the constant strife of the wars, revolutions, and the U.S. invasion had left so many in ruin and decay. Angelo was fortunate to have secured the top floor of a mansion on the Calle de Coliseo Principal. Its owner was the widow of General Don Manuel Gómez Pedraza, a renowned statesman and loyal friend to his father. In the tumultuous years after the fall of the empire, Don Manuel had been elected president, fair and square, though a disgruntled general got up a revolution against him before he could assume office. Three years later Don Manuel did hold the presidency but briefly—for by then, his lungs ravaged by disease, he had come to an understanding with that unstoppable force of nature, Santa Anna. Don Manuel’s career had been an odyssey, the convoluted episodes of which only the most persistently interested in Mexican affairs could comprehend. His widow, Doña Juliana, was terribly kind; even in the early days, before Angelo’s little wife could converse in the language, Doña Juliana would invite her to come down the stairs to her antique-filled drawing room for café de olla (spiced coffee) and un poco de pastel (a little bit of cake), by which she meant a fat slice of her pine nut-studded chocolate cake.
As Doña Juliana’s English was almost nonexistent, in the beginning their conversation was of little consequence. But Doña Juliana would pat the little wife’s pretty hand, and pat her golden hair, and kiss her on the cheek, and say, “Ay, sí, qué chula, qué linda.” Later, when they could converse, Doña Juliana would ask about Alicia’s family; after her mother, “Señora Green”; after Alice’s brothers and sisters, each by name; and, for her part, Doña Juliana delighted to reminisce about the Emperor Iturbide. “Our Liberator,” said Doña Juliana with a solemn shake of her head, many a time, “was betrayed, as was Our Lord.” He was so brave, and an expert horseman . . . A paragon of discretion, she said little about him other than this. About the empress, Madame de Iturbide, she said nothing, though once she allowed, “Oh yes, Don Agustín and Doña Ana, they dined with us many a time.”
Secretly Alicia pretended that Doña Juliana was her true mother-in-law. To protect his wife’s dignity, Angelo had not spoken a word of his mother’s thunderous rejection to anyone, except to the widow de Gómez Pedraza, who could be trusted to guard it with strictest silence. Indeed, not even Alicia was aware that Doña Juliana knew. Nor did she ever guess it.
After they had been living in Mexico City for a few years, in 1861 a letter came from Angelo’s eldest sister, Sabina, that their beloved mamá, to whom God had granted seventy-nine years, was in peace, her mortal remains interred in Philadelphia’s church of Saint John the Evangelist. Alicia sent her condolences to her sisters-in-law, and to her brother-in-law, the head of their family now, Don Agustín Gerónimo, who was also a diplomat, then with the Mexican legation in London (under, it so happened, General Almonte, who had abandoned Washington for the Court of Saint James’s). With her husband, Alicia attended the several masses said for Madame de Iturbide’s soul, all the while relishing the idea that this soul, a lump of charcoal, had thunked onto a smoking garbage pile on the bottom rung of Purgatory. But she went and confessed that.
Three months later, for the first time, she conceived.
And so it seemed to Alicia that all her troubles were a bridge that had been crossed. But alas, a bridge was not the most apt analogy; rather, her troubles were akin to a great mountain, such as Popocatépetl or Iztaccíhuatl, whose snowy crests made such a majestic background for the rootftops of Mexico City. Our Alicia was still—having conquered a few hillocks, as it were—in the neighborhood of the first foothills.
Her husband had another living sister, younger than the nun, Sabina, but two years older than himself, whose Christian name was Josefa, but she was known as Pepa to her intimates. Pepa had been very close to her mother, endlessly attentive to her care. In Madame de Iturbide’s last year, when she had been confined to a wheelchair, it was Pepa who, even in inclement weather, pushed this conveyance and its obstreperous, shawl-and-blanket-swaddled occupant the five blocks to Saint John the Evangelist. Yes, Madame de Iturbide and her daughter attended mass every day. Although never in the realm of the darlings, in her bloom Pepa had been a handsome senorita. God had given her a dainty figure, pretty hands, and waist-length tresses, which she had diligently brushed each night with one hundred strokes. She never forgot anyone’s birthday. Over the years Pepa’s hair turned gray; what was left of it was pulled into a severe chignon and, when the occasion called for it (and rare were the occasions), augmented with hairpieces. Her corset, though tightly laced, could no longer disguise her predilection for potatoes, bread, and pies. But there was—let this be clear—nothing coarse about this señorita. She wore tasteful diamond earrings and, where a wedding band might have been, her great-grandmother’s filigreed silver ring, set with a lustrous black pearl. (As a belle in Washington, she had been teased that her ring resembled a swollen tick. Mexican society, however, had the sophistication to appreciate this rare treasure, which had its provenance in the waters of the Sea of Cortez.) Her hands, dry and freckled with age, she kept meticulously manicured, and she used them with regal elegance, gesturing as she spoke, or flicking her fan, fingering a rosary, raising a teacup, one pinky out.
Upon her mother’s death, Pepa maintained a composure that surprised everyone. Although militantly pious, she did not join her elder sister, Sabina, as a postulant in the convent in Philadelphia, because it was her conviction that now her God-chosen mission was to be of service to her little brother’s family. With that Yankee wife and a new babe, no doubt, they would be in sore need of it.
Pepa had not approved of Angelo’s taking an interest in such a young, foreign, and altogether frivolous girl. However, Pepa loved her little brother very much, and so, when he had first written to her that he had proposed to this person, this Miss (ugh, what a common surname!) Green, it was with a true feeling of Christian charity in her heart that she made a gesture of welcome. Actions speak louder than words, as their father used to say: she sent her little brother’s fiancée the antique cream white mantilla that had been lying all these many years carefully folded in muslin in her own trousseau. Imagine her horror, upon her arrival in Washington, to have seen Miss Green with the precious family heirloom slung around her neck like some sort of scarf and pinned to her bodice with a brooch.
A Scottish-style brooch of barbaric proportions! It left a ragged hole in the lace big enough to put a fist through!!
Pepa went straight back to Philadelphia and reported to her mamá, “He is not thinking with his head, I can tell you that.”
Their mother had tried to talk sense to him, but Romeo had found his Juliet. After the wedding, when Angelo came to Philadelphia, without his wife, to take his leave before going back to Mexico, he did not have to tell them, they could see in his stiff demeanor and cold tone that he had been offended. Their mamá, never one to back down, was even more offended, and when Sabina spoke kindly to Angelo and asked about Alice, Madame de Iturbide got up, and put her fingers to her temples. In an unnaturally low voice she said, she had seen ingratitude in her life, but never such as this. She went into her room and, from the inside, locked the door. From this date, her health began its final and precipitous decline.
The two sisters, Pepa and Sabina, shared many a discussion about their brother’s unfortunate marriage, both between themselves and with their confessors. The convent’s abbess was also consulted. The conclusion the sisters reached was that, like it or not, Angelo and this woman had exchanged their vows before a priest. If the Church of Rome recognized the marriage, then so should they. The sisters owed their grief-stricken mamá respect, but they also owed it to their brother and his future children to acknowledge his wife, for she would be those children’s legitimate mother.
And so, over the four years since her little brother’s marriage to this flibbertigibbet, Pepa had written her numerous brief but warmly polite letters containing a great deal of information about the weather. And more: whenever the little wife sent one in Spanish, Pepa would correct it, and return it with her own.
Now that Pepa had arrived in Mexico City and could examine her little brother’s household with her own eyes, she found it—in no way to her surprise—wanting. She took the reins, which Alicia happily relinquished because, now that she was enceinte, she was feeling lethargic and, in the mornings, oftentimes so nauseous that she could barely lift her head to nibble a cracker. And, Alicia said with an extravagant sigh, she’d never had a head for managing staff. At Rosedale, naturally, her mother, Mrs. Green, had assumed all responsibilities. In any event, Negroes were one thing, Mexican servants quite another kettle of fish!
“Right you are about that!” Pepa said.
Under Pepa’s firm hand, the rooms sparkled, the meals were served on attractive platters, the linens washed, ironed, and changed daily. The little wife had a husband who was now properly taken care of. Pepa treated Alicia as she might a feckless child. She criticized her piano playing (did Alicia not know how to use a metronome?), her pie recipes (too much cinnamon, scrimpy on the lard), her wallpaper (a bit “loud” and puckered at the corners). Another woman might have resented such overbearing interference, but Alicia was thrilled to be not only acknowledged but so actively supported by her husband’s older sister. In front of other people, Pepa did not criticize; to the contrary, she praised her sister-in-law to the skies: How well Alicia speaks Spanish, with very little accent (much less pronounced than Mrs. Yorkes, for instance). Alicia attended the Georgetown Female Seminary, you know, one of the best, well, in Washington. Alicia’s fruit pies are divine. She grew up on a country estate, where they had peach and apple orchards, and fields of strawberries just baking in that humid sun. Then, turning to Alicia, I never thought I would say it, but your strawberry pie makes me miss Washington. Best of all, with Pepa “minding the fort,” Alicia was free to go out, without a worry in the world, on her rounds of visits, evenings at the opera, at the theater, to bullfights, and lots of parties.
Soon, however, Alicia’s social life began to slow. She felt increasingly uncomfortable. The baby was growing very big, and then very, very big. For the first time in her life, Alicia was afraid.
“I have been praying for you,” Pepa said, taking a seat next to her on the sofa.
Alicia rested her hands on her now taut watermelon of a belly. She slid her palm over it, and as she did, the baby gave her a kick that made her gasp.
“Alicia, what is it?”
Alicia burst into tears. “I want my mother!”
Pepa was about to say, I miss my mother, too, but just in time, she bit her tongue. Instead, she said, in her most soothing tone, “I am here with you.” She gave Alicia her own handkerchief. “God is good. He has sent us Our Mother, Mary. Let us say the rosary . . .”
From that day on, Alicia and Pepa were inseparable, and the more so after the miraculous day, April 2, 1863—the day of San Francisco de Paolo— throughout which Pepa held her sister-in-law’s hand, whether limp with half-unconscious exhaustion or gripping tight in screaming agony.
It was a healthy boy. They christened him Agustín, after his illustrious grandfather, the Liberator and emperor of Mexico. Agustín was a name revered in this family, both the eldest son of the Liberator and the youngest— born in New Orleans, shortly after his father’s execution—were named Agustín. The former, Agustín Gerónimo, a bachelor of fifty-six years, was a diplomat recently retired and returned from London to Mexico City, for his health had rapidly deteriorated, the result of a near lifetime of untempered drinking, pipe-smoking, and who-knows-what. The latter, Agustín Cosme, now forty-one years, had always been frail, obsequious, dreamy, and for near a decade now, tortured by a ringing in his ears of such volume it approached that of a trumpeting elephant. This he medicated with strong wines and tequila. As the youngest of so many, and lonely for the ones who were now in peace, from the moment he first met his lovely sister-in-law, Agustín Cosme had felt a great sympathy for her. But being of a livelier character, she found little about him to interest her. Mostly, like everyone else, she ignored Agustín Cosme.
The elder uncle, Agustín Gerónimo, was invited to be the baby’s godfather, and Pepa, the godmother.
Baby Agustín was not a day in this world before his godmother pinned to his wee shirt a gold medal of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Pepa had already knit him five sweaters; needles clacking at a furious pace, she knit him five more and also stitched lace trim onto his caps and embroidered his sheets with his monogram. As his mother was confined to bed for the two weeks following the birth, Pepa took it upon herself to carry her godson downstairs to visit the widow de Gómez Pedraza. Touching her fingers to the crown of his shaved head, the delighted Doña Juliana would croon, “Agustín, chiquitin.”
Pepa had decreed that the baby’s head be kept shaved for his first year, as this would induce his hair to grow deeper roots. Well in advance of his birth, Pepa had hired the chichimama (wet nurse), and also a nanny. Pepa had happened to ask tiny Lupe, the galopina (kitchen maid), a redundant relic of Doña Juliana’s household, “What do you know about babies?”
“All that God wants me to,” Lupe answered in her quavering voice—and so the crucial matter was settled.
“You have given this family such happiness,” Pepa said to Alicia, as she took the baby to show him to his godfather. (But before allowing him to touch the babe, Pepa instructed him with a click of her fingers and a gesture, to leave his pipe in the ashtray outside in the hall.)
Agustín Gerónimo stared at the little one who fell right to sleep in the crook of his arm. He said, in English, “My God, I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”
Agustín Cosme, haunting the doorway, looked on with mute but beatific joy.
Pepa leaned down over the bed and kissed her sister-in-law’s golden hair. “I do love you, Alicia.” She patted her shoulder. “You are a true sister now.”
Alicia felt her heart shine with a hundred suns of pride. She was, at last, not only accepted but adored by her husband’s family: Mexico’s most illustrious family. After so much disappointment, so much heartache, she had, she thought, achieved the pinnacle, the very Olympus, of happiness.
But there was more. Something wonderful, something that could have been lifted straight out of a novel: the French Imperial Army arrived to occupy
Mexico City, which Alicia, with her two-month-old babe in her arms, had the privilege of watching from the flat-roof of the U.S. legation. She and her husband were the personal guests of the U.S. minister, Mr. Thomas Corwin. Alicia looked fetching in her new Parisian-style chapeau trimmed in pink grogram, and the baby, plump and rosy-cheeked, was so handsome in the blue knit jacket his doting auntie had made for him; everyone, including Mr. Corwin, admired him with cootchy-coos. Below, in the Calle de San Francisco, flowed the river of men. Bugles, flutes, drums, and the hobnails went chum, chum, on the cobbles: the noise was deafening, and it came with waves of cheers, thrown down with flowers from every flat-roof, balcony, window, doorstep:
“¡Viva los franceses!”
“Death to Juárez!”
“Long live the pope!”
These were the veterans of the stupendous battle for the city of Puebla: bronzed, a dozen abreast: Zouaves in their white gaiters and baggy red trousers, Hussars, chasseurs d’Afrique, infantry regiments, battalions, fusiliers, grenadiers—
Over the past year, the war had not come to Mexico City, except in the high prices and scarcities of corn, lard, coal, and cloth. From the Gulf Coast at Veracruz, the French had advanced easily, until the city of Puebla, that last stronghold before the capital. There, the year before, on the fifth of May, to everyone’s astonishment the French Imperial Army was defeated! They’d had to retreat to Orizaba, that much closer to the coast, to wait for reenforcements. There was no taking Mexico City without first taking Puebla, and the battle for Puebla turned into a grinding year-long siege. The delay was a humiliation for Louis Napoleon; nonetheless, his was an army that retained deep reserves of power. The Republicans might put up a courageous fight, but few expected an outcome other than France’s conquest of Mexico.
