When it was time for Flavio and Velia Carmelita to retire, a hush came over the guests. She went first to her father, then to her mother. There were kisses and blessings: Que Dios te bendiga, hija. As the bride and groom disappeared down the corridor to the private chambers of the hacienda, the music struck up again and the fiesta continued. Only Brígida, once more, remained seated.
When they were in the room, Flavio coaxed Velia Carmelita to come to him. She did as he asked and sat down stiffly by him on the edge of the bed. He began to kiss her face, forehead, temples, the tip of her nose and then a soft brush on her lips. She pulled back.
“Please. Don’t be afraid.”
“Don Flavio …”
“I’m not Don Flavio. I’m your husband. Call me by my name.”
He put his hand on her breast and she jerked back so violently that she nearly lost her balance. This excited Flavio more, so he pressed her down onto the bed, where they lay for a while. Then he began to unbutton her gown; she remained motionless until he was almost finished. Unexpectedly, she sprang from the bed and rushed toward the door, but Flavio was faster, and he caught her by the waist. He was so aroused by that time that he began to rip off her clothes.
Velia Carmelita struggled against him with as much force as she could, but Flavio overcame her. He fumbled and tore at her gown, then her underwear, with one hand, while he took his own clothing off with the other. It was awkward, hard, cruel, but he could not stop himself. She sobbed and pushed against him, but that excited him more and he wrestled her to the floor.
Flavio finally pinned Velia Carmelita to the floor, where he forced himself between her thighs and penetrated her. It was fast, without sentiment, without words. He climaxed in a burst of pleasure, but her whimpering told him that she had felt nothing but pain. When it was finished, he scrambled to his feet, hastily put on his clothes and left the room feeling ashamed and angry.
After that night, Flavio took Velia Carmelita to his hacienda, where he repeated what had happened on their wedding night many times, because she refused him each time. After a while, he became convinced that something was wrong with her and that she would never love him. So he entered Velia Carmelita’s room, night after night, forcing himself on her until he impregnated her. After that, he left her alone.
Chapter 5
The year that followed the marriage was peaceful for Mexico. Francisco Madero was president and, although in the south Emiliano Zapata did not let up on his threat to unleash his people unless they received the land they had been promised, and in the north Francisco Villa also talked loudly about his Division del Norte, still, the nation went about its business.
During those months, Flavio brooded and spent most of his time with Celestino and the other hands, talking only to them and eating with them most of the time. He often traveled to Ciudad Creel and as far as Ciudad Chihuahua to close deals or to meet with associates who still were nervous about events in the nation’s capital. Word had spread about a certain Victoriano Huerta, a general who had made a reputation as an Indian hunter decades earlier. He was an assassin, and rumor had it that he had wheedled his way too close to President Madero.
Flavio attended meetings and helped draft documents, plans, and manifestos, but that was his public life. Privately, he became more and more solitary. He had stopped going to Velia Carmelita’s room when he discovered that she was pregnant, so he hardly saw her. Sometimes he joined her and Brígida at the table, but whenever he did, he sat in morose silence. At those times, the only sounds to be heard were those of silverware scraping on china, or the gurgling of water poured into glasses. The two women followed Flavio’s lead and neither spoke when he was present. He was aware, however, that their silence was aimed at him, knowing that they spent most of the day together and that they enjoyed each other’s company. He had got this information from the servants, and it filled him with resentment because he could not understand why Velia Carmelita preferred his sister to him.
Despite the bits of gossip that he garnered from his workers, Flavio still did not know the full story. No one had told him that from the beginning, the two women had drifted toward each other. At first Brígida and Velia Carmelita had only chatted, telling each other of their childhood and adolescence, their pastimes and favorite things. Only they knew that each night, after Flavio had forced himself on Velia Carmelita, she secretly came to Brígida for comfort. At those times she got into bed with Brígida, who held her in her arms, soothing her, singing softly to her, until she fell asleep. The servants’ prying eyes were not there the night when Velia Carmelita kissed Brígida. It was the first time, and it was a kiss that barely grazed her lips. This was followed by caresses, then a kiss in which their lips lingered, clinging to one another. It escaped everyone that after that, the two women became lovers.
What the servants did tell Flavio was that as the days became months, Velia Carmelita and Brígida had become inseparable. At times they embroidered, at others they played instruments. The servants informed him of the two women’s singing, harmonizing, giggling when the notes fell flat. The vaqueros spread the word of how the Patron’s wife and sister mounted horses and rode through el llano of Hacienda Miraflores for hours. Everyone saw that when Velia Carmelita began to show her pregnancy, she and Brígida rode in a small carriage, taking turns with the reins. Then, as she became heavy with the child, the two women gave that up and walked arm in arm through the corridors and patios of the house. What no one could report to Flavio, however, was that each day brought a new intensity to Brígida’s and Velia Carmelita’s love, a companionship in which they discovered a happiness neither had known before.
One evening, toward the end of November, Flavio joined his sister and wife for dinner. As usual, only the muffled coming and going of the servants broke the silence. At one point, when Flavio happened to look up, he saw the two women looking at each other, smiling. Joy was stamped on Brígida’s face. Then he glanced at Velia Carmelita and caught a similar expression. Rage welled up from his belly until it flooded his mouth, and he had to open it for fear of choking. But instead of the foul breath he had expected to come out, he heard himself speak. His voice was dry, incensed.
“Why are you smiling?”
He stared at his sister, who said nothing. Instead she answered his glare with an insolent shrug of the shoulders. Brígida hardly spoke to her brother, much less looked at him. This time, however, her eyes were filled with what Flavio thought was provocation.
“I asked you a question. What is making you smile?”
Velia Carmelita abruptly stood up to leave the room and Flavio saw that her abdomen had swelled since the last time that he had looked. He realized that he had allowed time to slip through his fingers, and he could not be sure if it had been weeks or even months since he had last been in her bedroom. Suddenly the rage that had filled him moments before melted into tenderness. He wanted to go to his wife, embrace her, tell her that he loved her and that he wanted the child above all things. He stood as he called out to her.
“Velia Carmelita …”
It was too late. She had slipped around the door and into the darkened corridor. When Flavio looked at Brígida, he saw that her eyes were now filled with apprehension. A look of protectiveness had invaded her face, hostile just a moment before.
He sat down, the palms of his hands flat against the surface of the table. Flavio was pressing so hard that the knuckles of his hands turned a bluish white. The only sound to be heard was the buzzing of a fly trapped amid the upper beams of the ceiling. Dread began to take shape in him, pushing away confusion and filling him with alarm. He looked up at Brígida; she was still sitting in her place. Her expression reflected her thoughts so clearly that Flavio was suddenly aware of the emotions hidden behind the skin masking her face. As he stared at his sister, he understood instantly what had happened between his sister and his wife during the past months. Brígida, undaunted, returned her brother’s glare for a few moments, then calmly folded her napki
n, placed it by the plate and wordlessly left the room.
Brígida went to Velia Carmelita’s room, where she put her arms around her. They sat in darkness for a long time; neither of them spoke, and although they had done this many times, for Brígida it was the reason for her existence. Taking Velia Carmelita’s face in her hands, Brígida kissed her lips, and she felt her kiss returned with a passion that equaled hers.
That night Flavio Betancourt decided to abandon Hacienda Miraflores. At daybreak, before leaving, he met Celestino Santiago in the patio between the mansion and stables.
“I’m leaving and I don’t know how long I’ll be away. I need someone to take care of the place.”
Celestino kept silent as he peered at Flavio from under the wide brim of his sombrero. He shook his head.
“No, señor. It can’t be me. I’m a Rarámuri, un indio. People will think you’ve gone crazy. They’ll disregard your wishes. Pick someone else. Maybe somebody in town, or even in Chihuahua. If not from there, then one of your other mestizo caporales will do the job.”
Flavio shook his head. Then he stooped and took out a packet of letters from the saddlebag he had put down on the ground.
“Look, Celestino, these are my orders to the magistrates in both places. They’ll respect me and give you everything you need to keep the hacienda going. It won’t be for long; or maybe it will. I don’t know. You’re the patrón now.”
Celestino squinted his eyes and slowly shook his head. It would not work; someone like him could not be a patrón. But Flavio misinterpreted Celestino’s gesture, certain that he knew why he was leaving. He was sure that everyone—horsebreakers, cooks, blacksmiths, dressmakers, housekeepers—knew that his wife and sister were lovers. He was convinced that they were laughing at him or feeling pity. Blood flushed his face. Disregarding Celestino, Flavio mounted his horse and rode away. It was the early dawn of one of the last days of November, 1912.
Hacienda Miraflores did decline—not only because what Celestino Santiago had feared came true, but because shortly after Flavio left his hacienda, Mexico was again plunged into war. During February, 1913, the inevitable clash between Francisco Madero and General Victoriano Huerta happened. The cagey hunter of Indians ambushed and murdered Madero and his vice president, Pino Suárez. Days of indescribable violence followed in Mexico City. It was a time of assassinations, bombings, street-to-street shootouts, confusion, and disorder. For ten days, if anyone found it necessary to go out onto the streets, it had to be under the cover of a white flag. Even so, numerous people were found dead holding that sign of neutrality.
Those days were brought to a halt when Huerta was able to seize power. But to the north, Francisco Villa and his hordes— Yaquis, bandits, horse thieves, professors, lawyers, and idealists—were advancing towards Mexico City. Towns and cities fell under the rush, and when Villa captured Torreón in April of 1913, the nation became convinced that he was invincible.
To the south of the capital, a similar wave spilled over the land. Emiliano Zapata and his Zapotec and Mixtec Indians clamored for the lands that had gradually been taken from them since the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. When Zapata told his men to get what was theirs, hardly an hacienda or ranch was left untouched. Deeds, land grants, maps, records, inventories were seized and burned. Any document or decree asserting that land passed on from one hacendado to his sons, and from them to their sons, was destroyed. The Zapatistas marched north toward the capital, clad in white cotton pants and sombreros with brims so broad as to hide their faces. With the fighters marched their women, their children, and most of the time even a burro or a cow. They advanced taking towns and cities, then losing them, and then regaining them. Years passed in the fighting.
Flavio drifted, not even paying heed to the towns and villages into which he wandered. He was a stranger everywhere, and he did nothing to befriend anyone. As he roamed aimlessly over sierras and stretches of desert, his loneliness hardened, encrusting his soul in bitterness.
In April of 1916, Francisco Villa was beaten by General Alvaro Obregón at the Battle of Celaya. The one-armed, calculating Obregón was an expert at organization. Villa directed charge after charge of his Dorados against the waiting guns of Obregón, and each time the Villistas were torn to pieces. The defeated Villista survivors limped back home, and the Obregonistas marched into the capital. The spinal cord of the Revolution was broken.
Flavio Betancourt had been caught unaware at Celaya because he was neither Villista nor Obregonista; he had wandered into the area without purpose. When the battle began he was a follower of Francisco Villa; by the time the killing ended, he was behind Alvaro Obregón. Flavio was wounded—once in the leg, then in the shoulder. Several horses were shot from under him, and when the slaughter was over, he decided to keep moving north until he reached Chihuahua and his hacienda.
It was early May when he dismounted in front of Casa Miraflores. The place was nearly in ruins; no one was in sight. The stables were empty, as were the corrals. Weeds had overrun the main patio. Many of the windows of the big house were shattered and chunks of masonry were missing. When Flavio realized that his hacienda had not been spared by the bloody tidal wave, he was struck by the realization that during his wandering he had never cared whether the place disappeared.
He walked slowly up the stairs and into the entrance hall. Everything seemed in place and clean here; the interior of the house belied its exterior. He stood for a few moments waiting for his eyes to adjust to the shadows of the hall, when his attention was caught by a child sitting at the bottom of the staircase. It was a girl. She had golden curls, blue eyes and she appeared to be about three years old. Flavio recognized himself in her features. He moved toward her and sat down beside her. They looked at each other for a long while.
“What is your name?”
“Isadora Betancourt. What is your name?”
“Flavio Betancourt. I’m your father.”
He felt a stirring inside of him, a strange, new feeling. Flavio had thought of the child who would have been born after he left, but his despair had dispelled any curiosity about it during those years. But now, as he looked at Isadora, he wondered why he had not returned earlier.
Taking the girl by the hand, Flavio walked through the house. It was clean and orderly but empty; he felt the hollowness. He went to the kitchen, where he found two workers, a woman preparing something at the stove and a man grinding corn on a stone slab. Both were strangers to Flavio. They, too, looked at him, startled.
“I’m Don Flavio Betancourt. El patrón.”
Mouths open, the servants stared at him. He turned away, still holding Isadora by the hand. He walked through the gloomy corridors of the house, through the lower and upper levels. As he moved from one place to the other, he wondered about Velia Carmelita and Brígida. He decided not to check the bedrooms. He went out in search of someone who would recognize him.
“Allí está Don Celestino.”
The girl’s voice took Flavio by surprise. She was pointing. Walking toward him was Celestino. He was the same, unchanged by the years of the Revolution. He approached Flavio, shook his hand, nodded his head.
“Bienvenido, patrón.”
As Celestino looked at him, he saw that Don Flavio’s face and features had grown hard, almost coarse. He was heavier, and he smelled of tobacco and alcohol.
“I’m back.”
Flavio knew that his words were flat, obvious, but he did not know how else or where to begin. He looked around and smiled artificially.
“This is where you and I parted a few years ago.”
These, too, were empty words. He waited a while before he forced himself to bring up what he had been evading.
“Where is my wife?”
Celestino frowned. The wrinkle that cut downward from his hairline to his nose deepened; it was almost a crevice. He looked away for a moment, then returned his gaze to look at Flavio.
“She’s dead, patrón. She died when the child was born.”
He whispered so that Isadora could not hear him, and instead of pointing at the girl he used his eyes. Flavio felt strange, a coldness seemed to grip his stomach. It was not sadness; that emotion had long ago left him. Perhaps it was emptiness, he told himself. He stared at Celestino realizing that his glare was that of a fool; his look was wordlessly returned by Celestino. He waited, knowing that Flavio was in turmoil.
“It was better, patrón. Things weren’t good.”
Flavio did not ask Celestino what he meant, because he feared the response.
“What about my sister?”
“The women say she roams the house like a soul cast out of Purgatory. She never speaks. She only moans and weeps. Everyone knows, because when she cries out, her wailing fills the night. It frightens most of the women, and even some of us.”
Celestino was still whispering, letting Flavio know that he did not want Isadora to hear. Then he put his face closer.
“Patrón, la señora Brígida está un poco tocada.”
Hearing that something had gone wrong with his sister’s mind made Flavio shudder, and he cursed himself for not returning sooner. He decided that he did not want to hear more about Brígida.
“Have we lost everything?”
“The livestock is gone but the lands are intact. We were lucky. The armies came from all sides, but all they took was what they could eat and what they could carry. We lost several girls.”
Celestino waited patiently as Flavio kept silent for a time. By that time, Isadora was squatting on the ground, playing with a handful of pebbles.
“What about the child? Who takes care of her?”
“Different people. Some times it’s the women in the kitchen, but most of the time she’s with me, my wife Narcisa, and my boys. She lives on the mountain and sleeps in the cave with us.”
The Day of the Moon Page 4
