Gods of Jade and Shadow

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  Mother sighed. “Casiopea, you know how it is.”

  Mother brushed Casiopea’s hair. It was thick, black, straight as an arrow, and reached her waist. During the daytime she wore it in a braid to keep it from her face and smoothed it back with Vaseline. But at night she let it loose, and it cloaked her, hiding her expression. Behind her curtain of hair Casiopea frowned.

  “I know he is a pig, and Grandfather does nothing to curb him. Grandfather is even worse than Martín, such a mean old coot.”

  “You must not speak like that. A well-bred young woman minds her words,” her mother warned her.

  Well-bred. Her aunts and her cousins were ladies and gentlemen. Her mother had been a well-bred woman. Casiopea was just the poor relation.

  “I want to tear my hair out some days, the way they talk to me,” Casiopea confessed.

  “But it’s such pretty hair,” her mother said, gently setting down the hairbrush. “Besides, bitterness will only poison you, not them.”

  Casiopea bit her lower lip. She wondered how her mother ever gathered the courage to marry her father, despite her family’s protestations. Although, if the nasty rumor Martín had whispered in her ear was true, the marriage had taken place because her mother had been pregnant. That, Martín declared, made her almost a bastard, daughter of a worthless Pauper Prince. And that was why she had hit him with a stick, leaving a scar upon his brow. This humiliation he would never forgive her. This triumph she never forgot.

  “Did you go over that reading I marked for you?”

  “Oh, Mother, what does it matter if I can read or write or do sums?” Casiopea asked irritably.

  “It matters.”

  “I’m not going anywhere where it would matter.”

  “You do not know that. Your grandfather has said he’ll give us one thousand pesos each upon his passing,” her mother reminded her.

  In Mexico City, a shop worker at a reputable store could get five pesos for a day’s wages, but in the countryside half of that, and less, was more realistic. With one thousand pesos Casiopea might live in Mérida for a whole year without working.

  “I know,” Casiopea said with a sigh.

  “Even if he doesn’t give us all that, I’ve got my savings. A peso here and a peso there, maybe we can figure something out for you. Once you’re a little older, a year or two older, perhaps we might think of Mérida.”

  An eternity, Casiopea thought. Maybe never.

  “God sees your heart, Casiopea,” her mother said, smiling at her. “It is a good heart.”

  Casiopea lowered her gaze and hoped this was not the case, for her heart was bubbling like a volcano and there was a tight knot of resentment in her stomach.

  “Here, give me a hug,” her mother said.

  Casiopea obeyed, wrapping her arms around her mother like she’d done when she was a child, but the comfort she derived from this contact in her youth could not be replicated. She was upset, a perfect storm inside her body.

  “Nothing ever changes,” Casiopea told her mother.

  “What would you like to see change?”

  Everything, Casiopea thought. She shrugged instead. It was late, and there was no sense in rehashing the whole thing. Tomorrow there would come the same litany of chores, her grandfather’s voice ordering her to read, her cousin’s taunts. The world was all gray, not a hint of color to it.

  The soil in Yucatán is black and red, and rests upon a limestone bed. No rivers slice the surface in the north of the peninsula. Caves and sinkholes pucker the ground, and the rainwater forms cenotes and gathers in haltunes. What rivers there are run underground, secretive in their courses. The marshes come and go at their whim during the dry season. Brackish waters are common, giving a habitat to curious, blind fish in the depths of the cave systems, and where limestone meets the ocean, the shore turns jagged.

  Some cenotes are famous and were once sacred places of worship where the priests tossed jewels and victims into the water. One near Mayapán was said to be guarded by a feathered serpent that gobbled children. Others were supposed to connect with the Underworld, Xibalba, and finally there were those that were suhuy ha, the place where virgin water might be gathered.

  There were several cenotes near Casiopea’s town, but one farther away, an hour’s ride on a mule-drawn carriage, was reckoned to possess special healing properties. Once a month Grandfather had them make the trek there so that he could soak himself in its waters, hoping to prolong his life. A mattress was dragged onto the cart to ensure that Grandfather would be comfortable, and food was packed for them to eat by the cenote after Grandfather’s soak. Grandfather would then take his midday nap, and they would head back when the sun had gone down a bit and the air was cooler.

  The monthly trip was one of the few occasions when Casiopea had a chance to enjoy the company of her family members and a deserved respite from her chores. A day of merriment. She looked forward to it like a child anticipates Epiphany.

  Grandfather spent most of his days in bed in his nightshirt, but on the occasion of the trip to the cenote, as with any visit to church, he would pick a suit and a hat to wear. Casiopea was in charge of Grandfather’s clothes, of washing and brushing them, of starching his shirts and ironing them. Since they left the house early, this meant a day or two of preparations were necessary for the trip to the cenote.

  The day before their departure, Casiopea had almost finished with her list of chores. She sat in the middle of the interior patio of the house, a joyful patch of greenery with its potted plants and fountain. She listened to the canaries chirping in their cages and the random, loud screeches of the parrot. It was a cruel animal, this parrot. As a child, Casiopea had tried to feed it a peanut, and it had bitten her finger. It spoke naughty words, which it had learned from the servants and her cousin, but for now it was quiet, preening itself.

  Casiopea hummed as she shined Grandfather’s boots. It was the last task she needed to accomplish. Everyone else was napping, escaping the midday heat, but she wanted to get this done so she could read for the rest of the day. Her grandfather had no interest in books and much preferred the newspaper, but for the sake of appearances he had purchased several bookcases and filled them with thick leather tomes. Casiopea had convinced him to buy a few more, mostly astronomy books, but she had also sneaked in a few volumes of poetry. He never even looked at the spines, anyway. On good days, such as this one, Casiopea could sit for several hours in her room and lazily flip the pages, run her hands down the rivers of the old atlas.

  The parrot yelled, startling her. She looked up.

  Martín strode across the courtyard, heading in her direction, and Casiopea immediately felt irritated—he was intruding upon her silence—though she tried not to show it, her fingers twisting on the rag she was using to apply the polish. He ought to have been sleeping, like everyone else.

  “I was going to go to your room and wake you up, but you’ve saved me the trip,” he said.

  “What did you need?” she asked, her voice curt despite her attempt at keeping a neutral tone.

  “The old man wants you to remind the barber he needs to come and clip his hair this evening.”

  “I reminded him this morning already.”

  Her cousin was smoking, and he paused to grin at her and let the smoke out of his mouth in a puff. His skin was pale, showing some of the European heritage the family valued so highly, and his hair curled a little, the reddish-brown tone he owed to his mother. They said he was good-looking, but Casiopea could not find any beauty in his sour face.

  “My, aren’t you being industrious today? Say, why don’t you clean my boots too, since you have the time. Fetch them from my room.”

  Casiopea cleaned floors when it was necessary, but the bulk of her obligations were to her grandfather. She was not Martín’s servant. They employed maids and an errand boy who could shine his shoes, if
the oaf couldn’t figure out how to do it himself. She knew he was asking in order to encroach on her personal time and to irritate her. She should not have taken the bait, but she could not help her fury, which stretched from the pit of her stomach up to her throat.

  He had been at her for several days now, starting with the moment she’d had the audacity to tell him she wanted to change her clothes to run the errands. It was a tactic of his, to wear her down and get her in trouble.

  “I’ll get to it later,” she said, spitting the words out. “Now let me be.”

  She ought to have simply said “yes,” and kept her voice down, but instead she’d delivered the answer with all the aplomb of an empress. Martín, a fool but not entirely stupid, noticed this, took in the way she held her head up high, and immediately smelled blood.

  Martín crouched down, stretched out a hand. He clutched her chin, holding it firmly.

  “You talk to me with too much sass, eh? Proud cousin.”

  He released her and stood up, wiped his hands, as if he was wiping himself clean of her, as if that brief contact was enough to dirty him. And she was dirty, polish on her hands, it might have gotten on her face, who knew, but she was aware it was not about the dirt under her fingers or the black streaks of grease.

  “As if you had anything to be proud of,” her cousin continued. “Your mother was the old man’s favorite, but then she had to run off with your father and ruin her life. Yet you walk around the house as if you were a princess. Why? Because he told you a story about how you secretly are Mayan royalty, descended from kings? Because he named you after a stupid star?”

  “A constellation,” she said. She didn’t add “you dunce,” but she might as well have. Her tone was defiant.

  She ought to have left it at that. Already Martín’s face was growing flushed with anger. He hated being interrupted. But she could not stop. He was like a boy pulling a girl’s pigtail and she ought to have ignored him, but a prank is not any less irritating because it is childish.

  “My father may have told tall tales, and maybe he did not have much money, but he was a man worthy of respect. And when I leave this place I will be someone worthy of respect, just like him. And you will never be that, Martín, no matter how many coats of polish you apply to yourself.”

  Martín yanked her to her feet, and instead of trying to evade the blow he would surely deliver, she stared at him without blinking. She’d learned that cowering did no good.

  He did not hit her and this scared her. His rage, when it was physical, could be endured.

  “You think you are going to go anywhere, huh? What, to the capital, maybe? With what money? Or maybe you are thinking the old man will leave you the one thousand pesos he is so fond of mentioning? I’ve seen the will, and there is nothing there for you.”

  “You are lying,” she replied.

  “I don’t have to lie. Ask him. You’ll see.”

  Casiopea knew it was true, it was written on his face. Besides, he didn’t have the imagination to lie about such a thing. The knowledge hit her harder than a blow. She stepped back. She clutched her can of shoe polish like a talisman. Her throat felt dry.

  She did not believe in fairy tales, but she had convinced herself she’d have a happy ending. She’d placed those pictures under her pillow—an ad showing an automobile and another one with pretty dresses, a view of a beach, photos of a movie star—in a childish, mute effort at sympathetic magic.

  He grinned and spoke again. “When the old man passes away you’ll be under my care. Don’t shine my shoes today, you’ll have plenty of chances to polish them every day, for the rest of your life.”

  He left and Casiopea sat down again, numbly rubbing the cloth against the shoes, her fingers streaked black. On the floor next to her lay his cigarette, slowly extinguishing itself.

  The consequences were swiftly felt. Mother informed her of the punishment while they were getting ready for bed. Casiopea slipped her hands into the washbasin upon the commode.

  “Your grandfather has asked that you stay behind tomorrow,” her mother said. “You are to mend a couple of his shirts while we are out.”

  “It’s because of Martín, isn’t it? He’s punishing me because of him.”

  “Yes.”

  Casiopea raised her hands, sprinkling water on the floor.

  “I wish you’d stand up for me! Sometimes I feel like you have no pride, the way you let them walk all over us!”

  Her mother was holding the hairbrush, ready to brush Casiopea’s hair as she did every night, but she froze in place. Casiopea saw her mother’s face reflected in their mirror set by the washbasin, the hard lines bracketing her mouth, the lines upon her forehead. She wasn’t old, not really, but right that instant she seemed worn.

  “Perhaps someday you’ll learn what it is to make sacrifices,” her mother said.

  Casiopea recalled the months after her father died. Mother tried to make a living with her macramé, but more money was necessary. First Mother sold the few valuables they owned, but by the time the summer came, most of their furniture and clothes were gone. Even her wedding ring was pawned. Casiopea felt ashamed of herself then, realizing how difficult it must have been for Mother to go back to Uukumil, to her harsh father.

  “Mother,” Casiopea said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s a difficult situation for me too, Casiopea.”

  “I know it’s hard for you. But Martín is so mean! Sometimes I wish he’d fall down a well and break his back,” Casiopea replied.

  “And would that make your life any happier if he did? Would it make your chores shorter and lighter?”

  Casiopea shook her head and sat down on the chair where she sat every night. Her mother parted her hair, gently brushing it.

  “It’s unfair. Martín has everything and we get nothing,” Casiopea said.

  “What does he have?” her mother asked.

  “Well…money, and good clothes…and he gets to do anything he wants.”

  “You shouldn’t do everything you want just because you can,” her mother said. “That is precisely why Martín is such a terrible man.”

  “If I had grown up with his money, I promise I wouldn’t be terrible.”

  “But you’d be an entirely different person.”

  Casiopea did not argue. She was bone-tired and Mother was constantly serving her a meal of platitudes instead of any significant answers or action. But there was nothing else to do but to accept this, to accept the punishment and carry on day after weary day. Casiopea went to sleep with her head full of quiet resentment, as she must.

  When her family left the next morning, Casiopea went to her grandfather’s room and sat on the edge of the bed. He’d piled his shirts on a chair. Casiopea had brought her sewing kit but upon the sight of the stupid shirts she tossed the sewing kit against the mirror atop the vanity. She would not ordinarily have allowed herself such a visible demonstration of her rage, but this time the anger was too overwhelming and she thought she’d catch on fire. She must cool down. Afterward, she would be able to take a deep breath and push the thread through the eye of the needle, stitching new buttons in place.

  Something metallic rattled and slid off the vanity. With a sigh she rose and picked it up. It was grandfather’s key, which he normally wore around his neck. Since he’d gone to the waterhole he’d left it behind. Casiopea stared at the key resting on her palm and then at the chest.

  She’d never opened it, never dared to attempt such a thing. Whatever lay in there, whether it was gold or money, it must be valuable. And she recalled that the old man was going to leave her nothing. She had not stolen from Grandfather; it would have been idiotic since he would notice it. But the chest…if it was gold coins, would he truly notice the absence of a couple of them? Or better yet, should she take all of them, would he be able to stop her from running off with
his treasure?

  Casiopea endured, patiently, like her mother asked her to, but the girl was no saint, and every mean remark she swallowed had accumulated like a bloated tumor. If the day had not been so warm, with a heat that scrambles the senses, the kind of heat that makes a tame dog bite the leg of its owner in an act of sudden betrayal, she might have eluded temptation. But she was feverish with her quiet anger.

  She slashed at the cycle of her pitiful existence and decided that she’d look inside the chest, and if there was indeed gold inside, damn it all to hell, she’d take off and leave this rotten place behind. If there was nothing—and most likely there was nothing and this was but a quiet act of rebellion, which, like the tossing of the sewing kit, would serve as a tepid balm to her wounds—then she would at least satisfy her curiosity.

  Casiopea knelt in front of the chest. It was very simple, with carrying handles on each end. No decorations except for the one image painted in red, the decapitated man. When she ran her hand along its surface, she discovered shapes that had been carved and painted over. She could not tell what they were, but she could feel them. She gave the chest a push.

  It was heavy.

  Casiopea rested both hands on the chest and for a moment considered leaving well enough alone. But she was angry and, more than that, curious. What if indeed there was money locked away in there? The old man owed her something for her suffering.

  Everyone owed her.

  Casiopea inserted the key, turned the lock, and flipped the lid open.

  She sat there, confused at the sight of what lay inside the chest. Not gold but bones. Very white bones. Might it be a ruse? Could the prize be hidden beneath? Casiopea placed a hand inside the chest, shoving the bones around as she tried to uncover a hidden panel.

  Nothing. She felt nothing but the cold smoothness of the bones.

  This was her luck, of course. Black.

  With a sigh she decided enough was enough.

  Pain shot through her left arm. She pulled out her hand from the chest and looked at her thumb only to see a white shard, a tiny piece of bone, had embedded itself in her skin. She tried to pull it out but it sank deeper in. A few drops of blood welled from the place where the bone had splintered her.