“Try, mijita,” she says, placing Lavinia’s hands on the gourd. At first Lavinia is afraid she’ll tumble the top gourd, but she holds onto the floating drum as if she’s in a dream, surfing a perfect arc, all fluid beneath her, the way she imagines a surfer riding a big wave. With her hands rolling around the head of the drum, she begins to tap with her fingers. She has never experienced anything like this fluid drum with its resonating sounds before.
The partially submerged bowl, decorated with red roses on a glossy black ground, fascinates her.
Mercedes takes two black wooden castanets and hands them to Kinky. While Kinky slips the elastic bands of the small clappers on the thumbs of each hand, Lavinia taps on the floating drum.
“A warrior woman needs to drum to find her heartbeat,” Mercedes says.
Lavinia likes to think of herself in this way and feels encouraged to place her hands on the round belly of the drum, using her knuckles and then her palms, trying different, simple rhythms, enjoying the deep sounds that seem to pull her to sway in her chair.
With her embroidered silk shawl hanging on her rounded back—black tassels hanging over her arms, embroidered roses cupping her shoulders—Mercedes goes to the CD player and cues up flamenco music. That done, she sits back at the table with her feet flat on the linoleum floor, closes her eyes, and relaxes in stillness. Lavinia hears her breathing in the song of a malaguena, a folk tune played by a guitarist who alternates rapid fingering with slow picks.
Mama Montoya’s head bobs fluidly on her neck as her face transforms. The round woman seems to inhabit the music. She holds her upper lip muscles taut, bringing about rosy red, full lips, as if an invisible finger has painted them. Lavinia can’t take her eyes off her. She has never seen such focus of attention before. Mercedes wears a regal concentration, which brings a nobility of posture: she sits with an erect spine that seems connected to the earth energy. Lavinia thinks of a queen, a warrior queen, who can protect herself and give sustenance to the daughters of the world. She feels in good company.
Lavinia listens to the guitarist’s loose fingers strum as Mercedes remains in stillness with her eyes closed and a smile on her face. Lavinia is overcome by the notion that the guitarist playing on the CD is Kinky’s father. Could it be Mercedes is calling up the spirit of her husband? Or maybe she’s having a visit with his memory. It makes her think that we don’t really lose our dead—that somehow, instead, they’re always with us.
Lavinia holds the small drum fluidly but steadily under her hands. Only when Mercedes’s foot begins to beat out the rhythm does she begin to forget herself and allow the music to move her, too. One-two-three, one-two-three—a sweet trail of music complements her foot stomping, sending her to a place where her heart and her feet dance as one. Lavinia is only faintly aware that her face is softening, her cheekbones relaxing as her chin drops to the sound of the castanets that accompany the flamenco music—the black wooden castanets that have become an extension of Kinky’s fingers.
“Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay,” Mercedes begins. Is she singing to her daughter, to her lover, to God? Lavinia doesn’t know and it doesn’t matter. Mercedes’s foot thumps on the floor as her arms rise and snake over her head, her fingers gracefully extended to answer the music. Now the guitarist is singing, calling to her. Mercedes seems embodied in the music as the tapping and clacking and stomping increase into one great riff.
Without realizing it, Lavinia has begun to stamp her feet, too, and then suddenly Mercedes gets up and stands by the table, dancing a torque de lavarte. She moves rapidly, standing mostly in one place, stamping and tapping her feet as her hands clap the beat. This gypsy woman seems in a trance as she chants, creating a spell and pulling Kinky and Lavinia along.
Lavinia’s elation wraps around her like a beautiful emerald shawl that shimmers like the sea. Her heart and pulse dance through her, sending her into an ecstasy of joy. “Alegría!” she yells out. She imagines a line dance in which all her ancestors from the beginning of time line up. Her mother and Aunt Rose are at the head of the line, and then all the nonnas and papas, all the way back to before the Norman conquest. Then the line stretches way back to the cave people, short men and women wearing loincloths, carrying baskets, the women with babies on their backs. Time is fluid, moving backward and forward at the same time. Like a psychedelic drug? Like liquid crystal? She has a vision of a DNA thread she carries in every cell. She strains to see her father there, but she’s never seen him and she can’t conjure up an image of him.
Mercedes claps and stamps her feet with her raised arms above her head, her face proud and strong. She is showing Lavinia what a warrior woman looks like, dancing her soul through her feet. Kinky is clapping. Lavinia feels la querencia once again with Mercedes, this lioness right before her eyes. Here in this moment, Lavinia stands before the eyes of her ancestors within the beat of the dance. She’s not alone now but fulfilled by the presence of others, and her new family fills her with their blessing.
When the music stops, Mercedes sits again in her chair at the kitchen table. She places one foot on her knee and begins to rub her small toes, looking at Kinky and Lavinia. “Now you have seen the warrior woman,” she says, looking exhausted, as if she’s pulled some images from the deep recesses of time.
Lavinia wonders if the curandera intentionally produced the images of ancestors who passed in a long line through her mind during the dance, and then watches Kinky, who’s inching her chair toward her mother.
“Mama, let me massage your feet,” she says, reaching over and taking Mercedes’s foot into her hand. She tilts her head. “Whose shoes have you been standing in?”
Mercedes looks at her daughter. “In God’s shoes.”
When Lavinia leaves the house, she carries with her the blessed feelings of being part of a human family. She has a sense of being connected to the Montoyas. A thread runs through her, one she hasn’t ever experienced before. Maybe she left behind her longing on the kitchen floor, right there in the center of the green diamond pattern on the linoleum tile.
She thinks of her Nonna Caterina, who wears a shroud instead of a colorful mantilla like the one Mercedes has. What kinds of rituals does Nonna make? she wonders. As she walks the streets toward her studio, she revisits her thought about how Kinky’s father is with them and how they aren’t lost just because he’s gone. This is what she feels she can have from her own human chain. Her recognition is in how to live a full life even when you feel these absences.
Then her attention turns to Uncle Sal’s letter from Italy. Why did he decide to write to me now, after a whole year has passed? And why drop that bomb about my mother suffering a great misfortune? She’s very conscious of how much sadness she’s been carrying with her since she received the letter.
Shouldn’t her mother’s misfortune be something he talked about with her face-to-face? What a stupid ass he is! She wants to blame him for all her discomfort.
At home, she gets out of her costume. The tuxedo jacket she wears every day feels too tight. Tonight when she visits Mario, she’ll wear her bomber jacket instead. She hugs Raggedy, then takes a pad of white paper from a small desk and a pencil and scribbles out a letter.
Dear Uncle Sal,
You’ll be happy to know things are turning around for me. I have a job and Kinky remains my good friend. Señora Montoya feeds me in so many ways. I visit North Beach every day. I have a friend there.
But the letter you sent me is like a train wreck! How can you drop this on me? Better to deliver this news in person.
She puts the pencil down. She has to bite on something to quell the wild horse running through her body. She chews on her gum. She begins again.
Uncle Sal, your letter upsets me and touches off great longing for my mother and many despairing memories. What happened to her? I want to know. My heart is breaking, and I must know about my parents. Why didn’t you protect me better?
Because of the fig tree, I found my doll. My connection to my mother was stuffe
d in plastic in Rose’s middle drawer in the same way I’ve been stuck in plastic all my life. The way you let her rule you. You never protected me. You let her steal my Raggedy, the way you stole me from my early home. You’re a coward, uncle. I hate you! And I didn’t finish at State. I wash underwear and clean dirty tarps and men stare at my birthmark.
The fig tree talked to me and today Aunt Rose appeared from the dead, returning my doll to me. I am grateful for that.
Love from your niece,
Lavinia Lavinia
She folds the short letter, places it in a stamped envelope, and addresses it to Via Toledo, No. 9, Naples, Italy. She places it on the stoop by the front door, leaving it for the mailman to pick up in the morning. Then she sits in the darkening living space of her home. No matter how many bubbles she snaps, she feels an agony creep inside her, dark and thick. Her breath feels tight as she dresses hurriedly, pulling on the bomber jacket with the sleeves rolled up over a slinky top. She leaves the studio, stepping over the letter that will go to Sal in the morning on her way out.
As Lavinia closes her door, she catches the glimpse of the shadow of a man rushing off. Her heart races as she crosses Valencia, heading away from the man and toward the restaurant scene on 16th Street, where she knows there’ll be lots of people and traffic. She looks behind her only once as she jaywalks across Valencia.
She walks briskly, her cell phone in her hand, ready to dial 911 or Kinky. She swallows hard. There’s no one I can call, she tells herself. I’m alone and no one cares.
She reminds herself to stop. Those thoughts don’t ring true anymore, she tells herself.
Not after her time with Mercedes and Kinky, not after her connection with Zack and his time machine, not after what she’s experienced with Mario. I am loved, she tells herself. Something inside her, insistent and demanding, won’t let her believe that old story any longer.
Yet on and on the thoughts come, rampaging through her mind. At the bus stop she’s riding the horse, trying to tame her passions, but she keeps bucking. It’s not until she hops on the bus heading for North Beach, focuses on the other miscreants sitting alone and staring out the window or slumping half asleep in their seats, that she admires her new outfit in the mirror and finally takes a deep and relaxing breath. She will be with Mario soon.
Chapter 15:
A NIGHT WALK IN THE WOODS
She reaches North Beach by 7:00 p.m. It’s already dark. From the end of the line, she stares at Mario, who’s making espresso. She wants to see his expression when he first notices her presence. That will tell her whether he belongs on the list of people who love her. He looks up at her, meeting her face, meeting her eyes. His eyes glisten. A wide smile parts his lips. He tilts his head as he pours the coffee into a small cup, placing it on the bar for her. His eyes say, What are you waiting for Lavinia? Come closer to me.
What he says out loud is, “Long time.”
She places herself at the bar and looks into his soft, happy eyes. “I know,” she says, “I’ve missed you.”
“Been dancing lately?”
“Sort of, flamenco dancing.” She tells him about her time with Mercedes and Kinky, remembering the odd feeling of having been in a trance or on drugs. Thinking about Mercedes as a curandera with magical powers gives her goose bumps.
“That sounds fantastic!” he exclaims.
“After it was over I felt pretty lonely, though,” she confesses.
“Well, you’re here now,” he says, bending toward her at the bar.
She nods. Her lips part in a shy smile.
“How about a walk in the woods after my shift? There’s a little patch of redwoods in Golden Gate Park,” he says.
“When are you off?”
“In ten minutes.”
She smiles at how unique Mario is, loving the idea of strolling in the woods in this otherwise dense city.
Ten minutes later, Mario emerges from the back looking more like a customer than a barista in his navy-colored, wool peacoat. He chats in the line with others and then excuses himself to go over to her and give her a peck on the cheek.
A little abashed, she points at his feet. He’s wearing Nikes. He, in turn, points to her T-strap shoes and then acknowledges her jacket. “Cool!”
“Same-same but different,” she answers, referencing their two jackets—her bomber jacket, worn by military pilots, and his peacoat, worn by sailors. They laugh as he slips his arm through hers, and they walk onto Columbus Avenue.
At the corner, as they wait for a cab, she tells him about Zack’s proposal to accompany him to Ely. “What do you think about my going?”
“I think it’s a fantastic offer. He’s rich. Interesting and stable, too,” he says, as a cab pulls up. “I mean, he’s a good guy . . . I think you should do it.”
En route to Golden Gate Park, where the small redwood grove lives, they sit in silence. Lavinia looks out the window into the darkness, wondering about going off into the woods at this time of night. Seven thirty. Darker still.
“First time for me,” she says.
“Best time.”
His hand squeezes hers gently, and she feels safe. When he looks at her with his warm and inviting smile, she trusts the good feelings in her heart. These feelings are trustworthy—her own querencia, a special kind of knowing, the one Mercedes said she would find in herself.
The cab pulls up on Tenth Avenue at the corner of a long dark block of woods that extends three city blocks toward Park Presidio. As they get out and walk slowly, adjusting to the darkness of the night, Lavinia recalls a line from Dante’s Inferno. “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate”: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” A foreboding thought, and yet upon entering the woods she feels a sense of softness, a deep hush within her being, a letting go of all expectations, as her feet squish into the spongy cushion of the pine needles. She smells the deep resin from the trees, clean and spicy, and it gives her a sense of well-being. She feels relief and her breath sags deeply. It’s as if she’s remembering another time when there was no time, when time rested in timelessness. Maybe all the ancestors at her back are protecting her.
Streetlights on Fulton reflect on the wide path that runs diagonally through the grove of trees and away from the busy street. She takes another deep breath, this time smelling the fresh, fecund earth. Walking slower, she wonders if she’s standing still. The scent of the rich dirt works its magic. She imagines an underworld of funghi nourishing the earth with their paths of undergrowth twining and tunneling under the forest floor—an entire city of nourishing networks and tendrils she can’t see. A city under the city! Maybe even reaching for the fig tree in her back yard.
She focuses on the darkest groves of trees ahead of her, wanting nothing more than to go inside, lie down, and let the earth hold her.
She looks at Mario. “Can we sit a minute?”
He nods and follows her into the center of a family of redwood trees. Several stand in a circle, surrounding the original trunk of a dead tree. With her foot Lavinia finds the center, an old stump filled with fallen pine needles, and moves into its cup.
“Come sit with me,” she says, reaching a hand toward him. “This is so soft, I could stay here forever.” She inhales the moist smell of the earth and listens to the silence of the special stand of tall trees as he sits beside her.
“We’re sitting in the womb of the tree,” Mario says. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Really!” She feels touched, like they are breaking bread together.
“This is the parent tree. Those are the daughters,” he says, moving a hand up the length of the tall trees toward the dark sky.
“You’re kidding.” Lavinia’s nerves seem to be jumping. Something is taking hold inside her, and she feels ready to burst. “Please, tell me more.”
“When the mother tree dies, it stimulates seeds and creates a circle of daughters.”
“A circle of daughters, I love that.”
“And you’re the
most beautiful of them all,” he says.
Her eyes fill. She bends into him, feeling something like joy.
“You’re not crying, are you, Lavinia?”
“No,” she says, the tears receding. She recalls her experience earlier today with Mercedes and the line of ancestors. The three women—Mercedes, Kinky, and Lavinia—are a circle of daughters.
“A fairy circle,” he adds to the pot. “Have you ever danced in a fairy circle?”
“No,” she says. She wants to feel his body. Her nose twitches.
“Let’s do it,” he says, standing up and reaching out to her.
She nods her head. He pulls her up and soon she is in his arms in the middle of the fairy circle. She hears him humming as they sway gently in one place in the midst of the whispering trees. For another song he sings la-la-la, and they dance. She’s dancing in his arms and not with her own shadow, as was her custom in her long room before meeting him. Then they move out again onto the larger path, skipping hand in hand through the forest like two children, until they stop in front of a large granite stone. Mario takes her hand and places it on the face of the stone. It feels cold compared to his body heat. She touches the etchings in the granite, rough marks engraved in the smooth granite surface.
“Someone’s carved small letters into this hard material,” she says, stopped by this act of remembrance and the skill exercised in the carving of rock. She fingers the list.
“This is a memorial,” he says, still cupping her hand.
She runs her hand down the list slowly; his hand stays on top of hers as she moves it across the rock. He lets her lead until she stops on the polished side of the monument.
“Wow! A shrine.” She imagines once again the long line of ancestors from her trance with Mercedes, wishing to see their names on the list, but this is different. This hard rock carved by hand with tools is for others. Her focus is on Mario, her new family, and the family of trees.
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