The last part of the journey into Mexico City, in such high terrain, was particularly difficult. I am told that it takes some time for one to become accustomed to the altitude, and that until one is used to it, even the simplest tasks can be fatiguing.
The city is much larger than I had expected; I have been told that the population numbers almost eighty thousand inhabitants, about a fifth being Spaniards and criollos, the remainder Indians, mestizos, and mulattos. I have seen a number of African slaves here, as in Sevilla, and I do not know whether these numbers include those wretched souls.
3 September
Life here is not easy, and I have no heart to chronicle its hardships.
9 October
I had hoped that by now my nausea would have subsided, but still I feel no desire to eat. I fear for my child’s nourishment, yet I grow bigger every day.
13 October
All of my body is so swollen that I scarce resemble myself. It is as though my head were stuck onto another’s body, and even my face is quite round. The swelling in my hands is such that I cannot remove from my finger my mother’s ring, which Silvia gave me on our journey, and which I have worn these last few months. At times it pains me, and Luisa brings me cool water to soak my hand, which gives me some relief.
I have seen women with child before, yet scarce do I recall their having looked thus. Luisa assures me that it is not altogether uncommon, and probably she is right. How many young girls pay close attention to women who are to bear a child, though it be their future destiny? And then, women of my acquaintance would not be seen in public at this advanced stage of their expectancy.
I am beginning to grow more anxious about how I will bear up when my time comes. Luisa has told me something of what to expect, and at times it seems that this serves only to frighten me the more. What if there is some mischance?
Virgin Mother, you who bore this pain to bring forth Our Savior, give me strength, and in your love extend your protecting hand over me.
18 October
There are moments when I am filled with terror about my lying-in, and I cannot help but recall that it was in childbirth that my own mother was taken to Our Lord. I have found a midwife in the area who says that she will attend me when it is my time, though she eyes me with suspicion, wondering why a girl who is obviously from a more prosperous background currently finds herself in meaner circumstances. Still, I have shown that I can pay her, and she has said that when Luisa goes to fetch her, she will come.
I pray that the Virgin Mary, she who also bore her child so far from home, will have pity and aid me. Dearest Virgin, do not judge me harshly for daring to think our situations similar. It is only that you are a woman and I trust to your clemency.
21 October
My babe’s foot is most often pushing against me now, right below my chest. The little lump changes position when I press on it, seeking relief. Though my fear of the birthing has not lessened, the days are so difficult now that I yearn for it. It cannot be worse than this miserable waiting.
23 October
I long to see my child now, to hold it in my arms and suckle it. Though I would have sought not to feel a mother’s love, knowing I cannot keep the babe, already these months I have held the child most dear.
9 November
My daughter is seven days old. I have just nursed her and laid her down to sleep. She seems strong, and the midwife says there is no doubt that she will flourish, even though she was subjected to the harshest travel while in the womb. Luisa laughs when I praise my girl as a most special babe, and says that all mothers think so when first they hold their newborn child. But my daughter is the only family left to me. I have heard of women who reject a child begotten under unwelcome circumstances, but to me her beginning is now but as a dream, and she is all that is real. I am both mother and father to her, and I shall love her doubly.
I am still quite weak. I had a difficult time delivering my child into the world. The midwife said that even for first-time mothers, never had she seen such a trying labor end in the survival of both mother and child. My pains came on slowly and built excruciatingly over the next several hours. This, I understand, is normal, and under the direction of the midwife Luisa did all she could to comfort me, wiping my forehead with water, talking soothingly to me, and allowing me to grip her arms when the pain was strongest. But after many hours of this, the character of my labor began to change. I have no recollection of this time. Luisa tells me that she became much affrighted and placed all of her hopes in Our Lady, who alone might save me. My body shook as though possessed by some demon, and I seemed to go in and out of delirium. Throughout a whole night I lay thus, drifting in and out of reality. Luisa said that the midwife warned her to prepare herself for my end. Finally, Luisa knows not how or why, I seemed to awaken from these troubles, and the tremors ceased. Then the final pains came quickly on, and it was time to push my babe into the world. As the midwife attended to what needed to be done, Luisa laid my daughter on my chest, and we studied each other. She did not cry but seemed only to look about in wonder at this strange new world. I have named her Mercedes, for the mercies shown to me by Our Lady.
34
RACHEL
I had let myself read a longer section of the diary, but the thing that most weighed on my mind was Juliana’s account of her trials during childbirth. Unreasonably, it caused me to dread my own delivery. It was ridiculous of me. Juliana lived over three centuries ago and didn’t have at her disposal even the expertise that would have been available had she been in Madrid, in the home of a husband of her class. Besides, I experienced a fairly easy delivery with Gabe. Still, I searched frantically for information, trying to diagnose what had happened to Juliana, and to identify what remedies would be used nowadays to prevent or relieve such a frightening and painful labor.
Did I no longer doubt Juliana’s existence? The aspects of the period and place, with which I was familiar from a career spent as a Hispanist, seemed to support the diary’s authenticity, but it was Juliana herself who was convincing me of her reality.
I didn’t want to discuss my pregnancy with anyone other than Ned. He was thrilled about the upcoming baby, and when I was with him, I appreciated his manifest gratitude for all that I was going through. He was always patient with me, whether I was irritable or crying for no apparent reason. Even with the emotional swings, naturally aggravated by Helen’s death, I’d been luckier with this pregnancy than I had been with Gabe, experiencing almost no nausea. However, I was starting to show, and I reacted in various ways when anyone other than Ned commented on my condition.
When I was carrying Gabe, I was still taking some classes for my graduate work. At the end of the quarter, the professor took me aside and confided in me that I had been the best pupil in the class. The surprise in his voice was evident. Apparently, he didn’t think the mind and the body could both produce at the same time. This very professor was now one of my colleagues, and I could see that his consternation persisted.
I knew that my mother had a very difficult time carrying me, and I used to wonder how she could help hating me by the time I was born. I had already caused her so much misery. One of my aunts told me once that, even when she was a little girl, she would always give her mother a present when it was her own birthday. She felt that her mother was the real heroine of the day, having endured so much to give her life. I always thought that was a wonderful idea. But I never followed her example. Helen was not that kind of mother.
As the days and then weeks dragged on, I still didn’t tell Ned about the diary, and that betrayal gnawed at me. The papers didn’t relate directly to him, but I was deceiving him by keeping from him something that so dominated my consciousness. Still, I reminded myself that he hardly told me everything, and that I’d invented for myself those parts of his inner life that weren’t observable. I imagined that many people in love created their partner in this way, and sometimes it was this created self that we held most dear.
3
5
Juliana
17 November
All fares well with Mercedes, though I am still somewhat weak. I was worried that I might not have enough milk for her, yet my body seems to use whatever it gets to nourish the child, and that is how I would have it. To me she is the fairest of babes, though Luisa has let slip that she is to her as are most other newborns, and that her head is still somewhat misshapen from the birthing.
Though the sight of Mercedes flooded me with happiness from the first moment, still the suffering I endured to bring about her birth caused a feeling almost of wonder. It was as though I had to reconcile myself to the idea that such pain could bring forth such joy. Many were the times, when I was striving to learn a new lesson or to earn some favor at my father’s hand, that he would remind me that nothing worthwhile comes at light cost. Yet now I think that mostly do these words ring true when coming from a woman.
30 November
My Mercedes is so helpless and so beautiful. I nurse her and her hand touches my breast in the most innocent of caresses, and I fancy that she looks at me with trusting eyes. I shall not abandon her totally, for I am slowly devising a plan whereby I shall be able always to be near her, though I may not acknowledge her.
18 December
At times I worry for my Mercedes. I tell myself that she is not sickly, but her legs and arms seem to me too thin. Lately she sometimes cries when I put her to my breast, and I do not know whether this is from frustration for an inadequate supply of milk, or a reluctance to drink in her mother’s apprehension. At night she does not sleep well, and she often has dark circles beneath her eyes.
20 December
Today I was able to get Mercedes baptized, something that has been weighing very heavily on my mind. Father Quijada had kindly given us the information of where he would be in the city, and with some difficulty I found him and convinced him to perform the rite. I had to tell him that my husband, with whom I had been reunited, had unexpectedly been called away on business for I knew not how long.
I very much wanted Luisa to be my child’s godmother, though Father Quijada thought it most unfitting. My distress at possibly endangering my child’s soul by allowing her to remain unbaptized finally convinced him to perform the sacrament. One of Father Quijada’s acquaintances agreed to act as godfather. He was very reluctant to do so, seeing that he would be unable to carry out his future duties as such, but I persuaded him that it would be greater sin to deny Mercedes the cleansing waters of Baptism and risk that if the Lord should take my little child, the gates of heaven would be forever closed to her. I am somewhat frightened, having spoken aloud of such a possibility. I would not wish to bring about the realization of my fears by having used this reasoning to gain Baptism for her. Dearest Savior, if I have offended You, in memory of your own dear mother, please pity and forgive a mother’s love.
6 January 1662
I have passed my first Epiphany in Mexico City, with only Mercedes and Luisa for company. Mercedes has gotten over her fussiness at nursing and looks better each day. Luisa and I sometimes lay Mercedes on her stomach on my bed, then kneel beside it and watch as she holds her head up, looking like a little turtle. She now curves her mouth in a way that we tell ourselves is a smile. I feel that Mercedes shows curiosity in the way she observes her world, and she will swat at things that come close to her reach, though with so little effect that Luisa and I cannot help but laugh. Not having spent time around other women, especially not those with small babes, I do not know whether these habits are common to all children or whether they are, as they seem to me, small wonders.
I find myself thinking more than ever before about my own mother. Silvia was the only one who would ever talk about her, because my father never spoke her name, for sorrow. My nurse told me of her goodness, and of the joy that she felt when she learned she was to have a child, but I know none of the particulars of my mother’s death, only that she died while giving birth to me. Did she live long enough to know that she had a daughter? Did she have a moment to feel the joy that I felt when first I held my Mercedes? I believe that even if I had known that I was gravely ill, the sorrow at leaving my newborn babe would have been tempered with the joy of seeing this life’s miracle.
18 January
Everything that has happened these last several months has numbed me, and finally I am drained of my strong will. All I feel able to do is sit in our room. I can see that Luisa grows ever more anxious about my inaction, though she says nothing. I cannot even pray for resolve. I would not know what to do with it.
27 January
I have begun to feel more myself, perhaps because of prodding myself to activity. Through careful inquiries, in the form of casual questions that I have put to various people, couched amid many questions about the city, I have at last begun to ascertain some of the facts that I shall need to know. I go about this secretively, even though there is no real danger I can name. Perhaps it is only from the habit I have acquired of hiding my intentions from all men’s eyes.
There are some twenty convents within the city. I know that I am not suited to going to the Carmelites, and neither could I contrive to have Mercedes there. I believe that the order of the convent of Santa Catalina de Siena, a Dominican order of nuns, will best suit my temperament and my purpose. I will be able to use the money that I got in Sevilla from the sale of my mother’s gems. It should be enough to secure both Mercedes and myself a place. There is another problem, however, for which I cannot seem to find a solution. If I am to enter the convent on the level that I desire, and that is appropriate to my class and to my education, I must have an introduction from someone who will attest to my birth and breeding. I have Silvia’s purity-of-blood papers, which I shall use as my own, but that is not enough. I need someone to write a letter for me, and to answer any questions as I instruct him, if that becomes necessary. At first it occurred to me that I could write such a reference from some invented person in Spain. The convent could not easily investigate its authenticity, so it might be accepted. But then how could I explain why a young girl would travel all the way to New Spain, merely to enter into a convent? No, the letter must come from someone here, someone who will bear up under scrutiny. Yet whom could I convince to perform this task? Surely I have not come so far only to be thwarted now.
4 February
The rightness of my intention to enter the convent is becoming more evident each day. The position of a young mother with no apparent protector is precarious. From the attitudes of the neighbors, and from the family with whom we are boarding, I can see that I am now a person with no standing and of questionable respectability. I cannot live like this, nor can I keep Mercedes in such an atmosphere of suspicion and disdain.
As my conviction in this matter has become stronger with each day, I have striven to find a solution to my dilemma of obtaining the reference that is so necessary for entrance into the convent. I have been cruelly taught that reputation does not always reflect a man’s true character, and for my purpose, that knowledge will aid me. The man who is to guarantee my acceptability must be well respected in the community and yet also open to the suggestion that truth and goodness are not always one. I need a man who can tell himself that at times the greater good is served through illusion. A certain avarice, coupled with a certain type of honor, is necessary for my purpose. I need a man who will lie for me yet never reveal the fabrication. How can I find such a person?
17 February
I believe that I may have my man. I have not yet suggested my proposal to him, but I hope that, with the help of Our Lady, I shall soon be able to obtain the letter I need.
I spent many days going to different areas of the city, where I was not a familiar figure, frequenting markets and small places of business. I took Mercedes and Luisa with me, a servant lending respectability. Those who did not know me assumed that I was a woman whose honorable husband provided for me. Of the market vendors, I asked questions about those who had businesses in the area, sometimes
pretending that my husband or I might have need of their services. At times I overheard a conversation relating to someone who was respected or reviled. Though it is a fallible source, I had to rely upon reputation. It was not difficult to find men esteemed for their honor, for most men publicly guard this. For men to call another benevolent was somewhat more difficult, as each is reluctant to name in another a virtue that he fears he himself is lacking. Though it seems a contradiction, the man I approached had to also have an element of greed, and I felt that I had to rely upon my own discoveries, for I had to be certain of this. A man who was only honorable and magnanimous would not serve my purpose. I could not risk having him relate my request to the authorities, for great is the penalty for pretending you are that which you are not.
I came up with several ideas but finally decided that the best ploy would be one that was easy to carry out. I chose a man from the list I had drawn up and studied his habits, noting at which times of the day he left his home, and where his errands usually took him. I placed several gold escudos into my bag and planned my own walk to coincide with his. It was difficult to risk this sum, but I knew that it was necessary to sacrifice a not-insignificant amount if my plan were to yield results. As I got closer to him, I made myself trip and fall, dropping my bag as I did so. I hurriedly arose, brushed off my skirts, as though distracted, and walked away, leaving the handbag lie. The first three times I performed my own piece of theater, the gentlemen I had sought to test retrieved my bag for me and returned it to me in a most kindly and concerned manner. Although each time this occurred I was thwarted in my plan, I was happy to know that men of such integrity could still be found.
The Lines Between Us Page 18
