“My mother was an Indian.”
“An Indian!” Isadora’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.
“Yes, my mother was an Indian woman. Do you find that hard to believe?”
“You mean she was brown? Like the Rarámuri women?”
“Yes.”
Isadora fell silent: She was shocked.
“If your mother was an Indian, then that means that since Papá is your brother, his mother was the same Indian woman. Or maybe—”
“We had the same mother, Isadora.”
“Then, that means that she was my grandmother.”
“Yes.”
“She was brown? Really brown?”
“Like a chestnut.”
“Then why are the three of us so white, Tía?”
“I don’t know. We just are.”
Isadora, astounded, slouched against the wall. The curtains floated in the afternoon breeze, whipping some of the photographs from their place. The image of a brown woman drifted by in her imagination. She saw her dressed like the Rarámuri: long, white cotton, embroidered with flowers and butterflies. She longed to know her.
“Why doesn’t Papá talk about her?”
“Because he’s ashamed.”
Isadora did not ask about this; she knew the answer. Her father’s many examples and warnings echoed in her mind.
“Where is she now?”
“She died.”
“Of what?”
“Of sadness.”
Isadora’s face whipped up to meet her aunt’s eyes, but she saw that they were calm. She was captivated by the thought of being the grandchild of an Indian woman. Maybe in time, she told herself, my skin will change and become brown. This idea thrilled her so much that she wanted Brígida to tell her more. Maybe a change of skin has happened before in the family. Isadora knew then that she did not want to leave, she wanted to linger with her aunt.
“I want you to teach me the song you were singing.”
“What do you think your father will say when he hears you singing a song that I’ve taught you?”
“I won’t tell him that you taught it to me.”
“But he knows everything.”
“Then I won’t sing it in front of him.”
Brígida smiled, and Isadora was startled because this time she knew that here was something she had never seen; she could not remember her aunt ever smiling. She returned the expression, and for a while aunt and niece were silent. By then, the late afternoon sun was casting long shadows on the old furniture and on the hardwood floor.
Brígida began to hum, and the girl, moving closer to her on the seat, echoed the melody, because it lilted and because she liked it. She wanted to sing with her aunt, especially when she heard that her voice was full, rich and warm. After that day, Tía Brígida and Isadora became secret friends.
Isadora’s other secret was her life with the Santiago family. She could not remember when it had begun, but she was happy going up to the barranca to stay, sleep, and eat with the Santiagos in their cave. Whenever her father was away, she took a backpack and trekked up the canyon with Jacobo, the oldest boy, in the lead. After him came Justino, and then followed Jerónimo, the youngest, who was a little older than Isadora. The two youngest children walked side by side most of the time.
She had known Celestino from the beginning. His wife Narcisa came into Isadora’s memory later on. She remembered her as being very small, but that when she let out her cackle, the laughter echoed off the rocky walls of their dwelling. Isadora liked being with Narcisa because she could take off her shoes whenever she wanted, and she could sit on the ground, and use her fingers instead of a fork when she ate.
Whenever Isadora joined the Santiago family, she became one of them. Everyone forgot that she had blue eyes and hair the color of gold. They gave her a new name, and she became so much like the Rarámuri that she even dressed like the women of the tribe when she was with them. Isadora was still small when she joined in the running; the women raced among themselves as well. As the years passed, she became so skilled at racing that she was able to compete with Jerónimo and his brothers.
Isadora was happy during the tribal fiestas, when they danced the dutuburi around a bonfire nearly all night, and she ate food that was never served at home. She had fun watching the grownups jump around, flailing their arms in celebration, especially after they passed a gourd from person to person. Whatever they drank made them very happy. She enjoyed the ceremony of the cross most of all, because it was then that the dancing and chanting took its most beautiful form. For the Rarámuri, Narcisa had told Isadora, the cross was a saint, not a symbol, a spiritual being that needed peyote and copal to keep their people from sickness and death.
Isadora and Jerónimo were together whenever her father went away, or when she was not taking lessons from Father Pascual. Jerónimo taught her how to tie a string on a lizard and pretend it was a horse; how to take hold of a bee without being stung; how to climb a tree to its highest limb. But it was his way of walking and smiling that she liked most.
As they grew, things began to change between Isadora and Jerónimo. At first they only looked at one another shyly; at other times they observed each other secretly. She saw that his body was growing: He was getting longer, his arms were getting stringy, with veins that outlined muscles that she had not seen before. His jaw was squaring; it was losing its roundness, and his nose was taking the shape of a beak.
Her own body was developing as well. It had begun with the frightening experience of waking one morning to find her inner thighs smeared with a paste that looked like chocolate. When she screamed out, it was Ursula who ran to her side and calmed her, telling her that it was her time, that she was now a woman. After this, her breasts began to swell and her waist to shrink. Deep inside of her, in the center of her body, she felt a strange sensation when she thought of Jerónimo, and she knew that he felt something, too.
Isadora told Tía Brígida about Jerónimo. She began slowly, cautiously, taking days to speak up because she was unsure of what her aunt would say or think. After a while, however, she saw that Brígida was interested and listened carefully.
“He’s taught me many things, Tía.”
“What things?”
“How to run and catch lizards—”
Isadora stopped, realized abruptly that Brígida was about to laugh at her. But she was wrong; her aunt did not laugh. Instead she looked concerned, so Isadora decided to tell her what had happened the last time she was up in the barranca.
“When I sleep up there, Narcisa puts me on a blanket next to the fire. The other night I was almost asleep when I felt something, and I opened my eyes a little. There, next to me, was Jerónimo, and he was looking at me. He has strange eyes, especially when there’s not too much light. They glow, like a cat’s, but I’m not afraid because I like them.”
“He was next to you?” Her aunt brought Isadora back to what she wanted to tell.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And we just looked at each other. It was very strange.”
Isadora stopped speaking; she was tracing an invisible picture on the seat of the chair with her finger. Brígida was silent, but she showed the girl that she was waiting.
“Then he took my hand and held it.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I left it there. I liked the feeling of his hand.”
Isadora was on the brink of telling her aunt what had happened next, but decided to keep it a secret. She did not tell of how Jerónimo moved so close to her that she felt the heat of his body and that parts of his body throbbed. She hid from Brígida that she, too, had edged as close to him as possible, and that she had allowed him to put his fingers between her thighs. She yearned to tell her aunt that she had slid her hands downward on him and that, as she cupped her hand over the mound it discovered, she had felt something move.
Brígida sighed, stood, then walked over to the photographs. She absent-mi
ndedly traced her finger over one of them, thinking of something else. Then she looked over at Isadora.
“What’s the matter, Tía?”
“You know, Isadora, there are certain things that are forbidden.”
The girl stiffened, thinking that her aunt had read her thoughts, that her secret was not a secret, after all.
“Tía, are you going to tell Papá what I’ve just told you?”
“No.”
“Going to the barranca is forbidden for me, isn’t it?”
“No.”
Isadora’s apprehension was quickly turning into impatience; her aunt seemed now to be saying only one word. She was beginning to regret having told her about the incident, when Brígida returned to her place next to Isadora.
“What I mean is that we are forbidden to love certain people.”
“Are you saying that I shouldn’t love Jerónimo?”
“No.”
There it was again! Isadora wanted more; she wanted her aunt to speak out what she meant.
“What are you saying, Tía?”
“I am saying that you are forbidden to love him. I am saying at the same time that even when a woman is forbidden to love someone, it doesn’t mean that she should not love, or that she will not love.”
Isadora cocked her head to one side and closed her eyes, trying to decipher the fine distinctions being made by her aunt. It was muddled and too complicated for her. Brígida’s riddle scared her, especially because she sensed that her aunt was talking about herself.
“Tía, have you ever done something that was forbidden?”
“Yes.”
Isadora felt elated at hearing her aunt’s affirmation. Although she did not know what she had done, it explained why she now spent her life as she did. She decided that she loved Tía Brígida more now that she knew that she had done something that others forbade.
As the summer passed, Isadora mulled over her aunt’s words, trying to unravel their meaning. During that time, she and Jerónimo were together almost constantly, until the autumn of that year, when her father told her that she must go away to study. On that day, Isadora went to her room and sat in the dark until she was certain that her father had gone to bed. Then she made her way to Brígida, who was waiting for her.
Isadora did not say anything to her aunt. Instead she sat on the floor next to her and put her head in her lap, where she stayed for a long while. She cried, but she did it quietly, as she felt her aunt’s hands on her head.
“Your father has seen you with the boy.”
Brígida’s words astounded Isadora; they were precise, certain, without doubt. The girl raised her head to look at her aunt.
“Did he tell you?”
“We never speak. You know that.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Why else would he send you away? He loves you above all things, you know.”
“If he loves me, why is he sending me away?”
“Because he’s afraid of what you and the Rarámuri boy will do, and this is stronger in him than his love for you.”
Isadora put her head back on Brígida’s lap. She was considering, trying to understand what it was that her father feared. She, too, felt afraid, but for this she knew the reason: She did not want to be away from Tía Brígida, or Ursula, or the Santiago family. She would have to think more, and maybe she would be able to make out why this was happening to her.
Isadora Betancourt’s four years at the convent school went by quickly. During the first weeks, when she was homesick and lonely, she disliked everything and missed Casa Miraflores intensely, but soon she made friends among her fellow students and the nuns. After that, she enjoyed being a student. She also liked the girls’ joking and pastimes, and she threw herself into the fun.
Her time at school was shortened by summer breaks, when she returned to Hacienda Miraflores. She enjoyed those times spent riding through the llano, watching the men at work, meeting her father’s associates. She would pass most of the early evenings in the kitchen with Ursula, helping her organize meals and doing other chores. At those times the two women chatted, laughed, and told each other the news of the day. After dinner, Isadora would find her way to Brígida’s room.
When her first year at school had ended, Isadora came home eager to see Jerónimo and his brothers, as well as Celestino and Narcisa. But no matter how much she searched for him, she could rarely find him, and whenever she did see him, he would stop whatever he was doing to go somewhere else. Isadora soon became convinced that he was avoiding her, that he did not want to see her.
Isadora did not understand Jerónimo’s behavior until she realized that it was because her father almost always watched her—that he was by her side whenever she left the house, keeping his eyes on her. She knew that El Rarámuri was the target of Flavio’s vigilance. That was why Jerónimo kept away. Isadora then pretended to have forgotten him during those years at school.
On the day her father came for her at the end of her studies, Isadora was nervous. She had grown used to being away from his sharp eyes and questions. But most of all, she was tense because she knew that he had plans for her, including marriage. She was not surprised when he broached the subject almost as soon as they were in the car heading home. Although he tried to sound casual, Isadora knew that her father was preparing her for the match that he would make.
As they spoke, Isadora looked at the desert unfolding on each side of the road, but Flavio’s questions made her think of men and women mating. She remembered her experiences with Jerónimo: touching, caressing, but no more than that. She had wanted more, and she knew that he had felt the same desire, but they had never gone beyond what their hands touched. They had never even kissed.
This thought made her think hard about her father. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask him about her mother, and about what it was like when they first lay together. No matter how much she tried, Isadora could not imagine her father and mother coupling, and so she longed to ask him about it, but she was too afraid.
During her last year at school, sex had been the favorite topic among the girls. They waited until the lights were turned out in the dormitory, then they jumped from their cots and gathered, heads under blankets, to giggle and talk about what a man does to a woman on the night of their wedding. Some of the girls had heard terrible things, like the one of the man whose private part was so long and hard that when he inserted it into the bride, he nearly ripped her apart. Others told stories they had heard from older sisters and friends who had married.
Isadora joined her roommates most of the times, but never had anything to say; she only listened. She wondered about Jerónimo and what it would be like if he were to do such things to her. Isadora usually put this thought aside, knowing that loving Jerónimo was forbidden—not only by her father but by all of the people she knew. This reflection then turned her mind to her father, and why he had remained alone after her mother died. Isadora also had had questions about Brígida. Why had she never married? Had anyone ever touched her body or kissed her mouth? As the car sped toward Hacienda Miraflores, Isadora thought of these things, deciding that, unlike Tía Brígida, she would have to marry. And since that was inescapable, she would have to face whatever came with it.
On the night of her birthday fiesta, Isadora danced with the young man who would become her husband. She felt nothing for him. She thought only of Jerónimo. But she pretended to the others and even to herself, thinking that if she could pretend once, she could do it again. She tried to put Jerónimo out of her mind. But that night, when Isadora was in bed, she wanted Jerónimo. She even dreamed that they were together in a cave, arms and legs entangled.
Isadora’s wedding did not take place until Don Flavio had a house built and furnished for her; he chose a place close to the main house. Once the project was completed, he set the date for her to marry. The ceremony took place in 1931, when she was nineteen years old. She felt neither joy nor sadness; there was only a strang
e sensation that clung to her stomach and throat. She decided not to have anything to do with the preparations, allowing her father to make all the arrangements, to decide who would be invited and what would be the entertainment.
During those months, Isadora spent her time writing letters to school friends and chatting with Ursula in the kitchen. Sometimes she sat gazing out of a window, her eyes blank and her body listless. At other times she rode through the llano, but she did this without the exhilaration that she had once experienced. It was as if she were searching the vast plain for something, for someone who never appeared.
On one of those days Isadora, lost in thought, let her horse slow to a canter, then to a walk, until it stopped, content to munch on a clump of grass. She had not even noticed that she had come to a standstill when she was startled out of her absorption by the clopping of hooves. Twisting in the saddle, she saw her father approaching on his horse. He reined in brusquely, making her own mount spin around nervously, pawing at the ground.
“Hija, I’ve been looking for you.”
Isadora stared at him without answering. A distance had been growing between them since she had agreed to marry Eloy Pardo. It was a separation that even she could not explain, and she no longer felt the affection for her father that she had when she was a child. Somehow, that had slipped away. In its place was a shadow, something that deepened and widened each time he approached her, spoke to her, looked at her. It was a sensation that was like fear, she told herself, an apprehension that gripped her nerves and made her head ache. Now, realizing that he had taken the time to ride out to meet her, the feeling became more intense, and she tried to guess what had brought him to her. Something important had happened.
“What’s wrong, Papá?”
“Wrong? Nothing. What makes you think that?”
Flavio smiled, but his smile was strained. He, too, had sensed the gap that was widening between Isadora and himself, and it made him irritable: Brígida might be influencing her. And it was because of this fear that he had decided to speak to her. Taking the bridle of Isadora’s horse, he dismounted and helped her to do the same. Then he walked her over to a clump of trees, where they sat down. The sun was beginning to slope downward, smearing the western sky with lavender and orange streaks.
The Day of the Moon Page 9
