Daughter of Fortune (20 page)

“Erlinda, I am going to Tesuque with Cristóbal.”

“Does Diego know?”

“Yes, of course. I told him last night.”

“I have nothing to say, then.
Vaya con
Dios.”

Maria went back outside, joining Cristóbal, who
stood by the
acequia,
watching Luz and Catarina in their
play tunnel.

“I must admit, I wondered if you would come with
me,” he said, turning to watch her approach.

Maria stood next to him. Her head came only to his
shoulder, and she looked up at him. “I said that I would, did I
not?”

“Yes, I know. But why?” he asked, staring at her in
a way that made her wonder if he was serious or merely teasing.

“I wanted to see Emiliano again,” she replied,
matching him look for look, amazed at her own boldness. She admired
the elegant curve of his high cheekbones and the easy way he
stood.

He took her arm and led her across the
acequia
and along the path that paralleled it. “I left my
horse in the orchard.” She paused to look back at Catarina and Luz,
who dabbled their feet in the water by their small tunnel. She blew
them a kiss and then walked beside Cristóbal to the orchard.

“The apples are so small, even for this time of
year,” she said.

“We have not had a good rain, a really good rain, in
several years, Maria.” He paused, looking away, then spoke in a
softer, more tentative voice. “I think the gods are angry.”

She looked at his profile. “Gods? I do not
understand.”

He turned around so suddenly that she stepped back.
“Yes, the gods! The
kachinas
that rule this land.”

“Cristóbal? I still do not understand. I thought you
followed the True Faith.”

“So they think!” The words spilled out of him in an
angry flood.

He waited for Maria to catch up with him, the anger
covered now with a smoother tone. “Explain to me why I must pray to
a god I cannot see, one who hangs like a weak man on a cross and
does nothing about it. Why can I not pray to the sun anymore? I can
see the sun. And what about the clouds? If we do not honor them,
there is no rain. Is there something wrong with these things that
were so right before?”

He looked down at her and touched her cheek, his
hand gentle on her face. “But you do not understand, do you, Maria?
You do not understand any more than they do.” There was
unmistakable sorrow in his voice. “And what have the saints done
for you, little one?”

She lowered her eyes and he stopped. “I do not
know,” she said at last. “But I have hopes that the saints are
there somewhere.”

“I know they are not.” His voice took on a musing
tone. “And these people who have raised me so kindly have given me
nothing but expectations. Do you think for one moment that I will
ever inherit any of this land? Do you really believe that Diego
would grudge me even one
hectare?”

“I believe he will.”

“Ah, then you do not know him very well, for all
that he calls you Maria
chiquita
. I am still half Tewa, and
in this place I amount to less than dung.” He took her by the
shoulders, his hands heavier this time. “Listen, Maria, if there
were something I wanted and Diego wanted it, too ...” he
paused, then smiled grimly. “I shall prove it to you soon. You will
see what I mean.” He stopped then and let go of her shoulders.
“Never mind, never mind.” He untied his horse’s reins from an apple
tree. “There are times coming,” he said, half to himself, “and
things will change for all of us.”

She stood where she was, her hands folded in front
of her, watching Cristóbal Masferrer. She wanted to hurry back
across the footbridge and into the safety of the hacienda, but she
could not move.

Then his mood changed, as quickly as clouds moving
across the face of the sun. He held out his hand to her. “Come,
Maria. I promised you Emiliano today, did I not?” Before she could
say anything, Cristóbal mounted his horse’s bare back and pulled
her up behind him.

“Put your arms around my waist,” he said, and they
trotted out of the orchard.

As they skirted the cornfield, several of the Pueblo
Indians looked up to watch them, then stooped silently to their
work again. As soon as they reached the road in front of the
high-walled hacienda, Cristóbal touched his heels to his horse’s
flanks. Unlike Diego, he wore no spurs, but the animal leaped
forward. Maria tightened her grip.

As the horse galloped toward Tesuque, she felt the
wind on her face. She had ridden bareback once as a young child on
her grandfather’s estancia south of Mexico City. The horse then had
been an old respectable mare with more prudence than daring, but
she’d still been wild with excitement. Maria sighed and leaned
against Cristóbal. She could feel the vibrations of the horse’s
hooves and the warmth of Cristóbal’s body. She closed her eyes.

When he slowed his horse, talking to him in Tewa,
Maria opened her eyes and sat up straight, loosening her grip on
Cristóbal’s belt. Ahead and to the south of them was the now
familiar pueblo of Tesuque, its two and three-terraced levels
rising beside the river. The color of the red-brown adobe,
contrasted with the blue of the sky, drew a sound of appreciation
from her.

As she remembered, there were people on all levels
of the pueblo, weaving, making pots, grinding corn with a steady
back-and-forth motion of
mano
on
metate
that was the
heritage of centuries long before Spain ever dreamed of new lands
beyond the earth’s end. Dogs barked, naked children squealed and
chased each other, and the old men sang at their tasks.

Cristóbal reined in his horse and handed Maria down.
He jumped off his mount Indian-style and dropped the reins. “You
get such a look in your eyes when you see this place.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

His eyes held hers. “I believe you are Indian in
spirit.”

She turned away to the ladders leaning against the
lowest terrace, noting that there were no entrances on the first
level.

“Did you not notice that the other day? It is for
protection.”

“Against whom?” she asked.

“The Apaches, of course,” he replied. “The Spaniards
would never do anything to hurt us, would they now?”

She smiled at the children gathering near them, and
they scattered. “Oh, I do not want them to be afraid of me,” she
said.

“They run from all Spaniards,” Cristóbal said. “They
are taught to from birth.”

He climbed a ladder to the second level and Maria,
tucking her skirts around her legs, followed him.

“Do they add on to the pueblo for new families?” she
asked.

Cristóbal gave her a hand up. “Yes. The interior
rooms are used mainly for storage now, the outer, lighter rooms for
living. The pueblo can rise higher still.’’

They climbed another ladder and crossed a long
terrace. The Indians stopped to watch them without appearing to do
so, a mannerism that Maria found more disturbing than a. blatant
stare. Cristóbal looked around. He appeared to be searching for
someone. Like the Indians watching her, his eyes darted here and
there, his head scarcely moving. “Wait here,’’ he commanded.

She stood where she was and he quickly climbed
another ladder to the next level and spoke to an Indian with a
white-painted face who watched them. As they spoke, their heads
together, both men glanced her way.

It was as if a chill wind blew suddenly across the
terrace, setting Maria’s teeth to chattering. Suddenly she wanted
to leave the pueblo and forget about Emiliano.

After a few more words, Cristóbal descended the
ladder. “I will take you to Emiliano now,” he said. “Follow
me.”

He led her into the pueblo and they walked from room
to room, through storage spaces and family dwellings. Cristóbal
knew everyone. He greeted men and women and patted the children,
and they welcomed him into their homes.

“Are these people your relatives?” Maria asked as he
helped her through one of the openings, high off the floor.

“Yes, many of them. They are my mother’s people, and
the pueblo belongs to the women. I have many cousins and aunts
here.”

They descended an interior ladder. The darkness in
the middle of the pueblo was complete. Maria put her feet carefully
on each rung, afraid to miss a step and plunge into total
blackness. Cristóbal took her hand, and she hung onto him.

“We could light a
farol
, Maria, but I know
the way, and we are almost there.”

They approached the front of the pueblo from the
inside. Maria sniffed the air. It smelled of
piñon
and
juniper wood like every other dwelling in the river kingdom, with
the familiar smell of animals intermingled. She heard a mother
humming to her crying baby, and the wordless song filled her with
an inexpressible loneliness. She stood still, pulling Cristóbal to
a stop.

“Listen,” she said.

“It is a sound that you hear in your heart,” he
whispered. They remained there side by side until the baby stopped
crying. The mother’s voice continued for a beat longer, then softly
died. There was silence for a moment, and they heard the scrape and
grind of corn on stone again, the rhythm of the Tesuque pueblo.

Cristóbal tugged on her hand, and they walked toward
the sound. They stepped outside again on the second level, and
Maria blinked her eyes. She let go of her companion’s hand and
walked to the edge of the terrace.

“I know where I am now,” she said.

“Then I will leave you,” Cristóbal replied. “When
you are through, wait for me with Emiliano.” Then he was gone,
stepping back into the dark interior. Maria walked to the opening
next to the one Cristóbal had entered. She pulled back the skin and
peered in. It was the
santero’s
workshop. San Lorenzo
roasting on his grill did a slow, dignified dance of death in the
light breeze that blew from the west. Maria and her child Jesus
fluttered nearby, stiff dancing dolls painted on deerskin. From
across the workshop, San José frowned at his young wife and small
Son, engaged in such frivolity.

And there was Emiliano, his back to the open
doorway, hunched over a flat piece of wood, a
retablo.
As
Maria came closer, he did not turn around, but he raised his head
from his work.

“Is that you, Maria Espinosa?” he asked.

“How did you know, Emiliano?” she asked, coming
closer to look over his shoulder.

He did not answer. He was carving a lunette at the
top of the
retablo,
a delicately fluted ornamentation. Below
the shell-shaped decoration, a saint was outlined in black. He held
out the work for her to see.

“Santa Teresa de Ávila.”

Maria examined the wooden tablet, crude, yet full of
possibility, ripe with potential. “What color will her dress be?”
she asked.

“Whatever you wish. This is yours to paint. And when
you have finished, carry it home to Diego Masferrer. I promised him
something of the sort, for he is fond of her poetry.”

Maria tried to hand the tablet back. “Emiliano, I am
not yet accomplished enough for such a task.”

“And can you learn without doing? Besides, my
fingers are stiff.” He got up from his low stool and motioned for
her to sit down. She placed the
retablo
carefully on the
workbench and sat down, pulling the stool closer.

Emiliano busied himself in another corner of the
small room, tugging a buffalo hide off a stack of them and trimming
the edges of it with a small knife. Maria picked up a brush. Teresa
from Avila, the walled city of the Spanish central highlands.
Teresa of the vision, of Christian ecstasy, of a poetry deep as the
soul. How to paint this? And for Diego, too.

I will give her closed eyes, thought Maria, dipping
the brush in an earthenware pot of dark pigment. And her hands will
be folded in front of her.

She stroked the brush on the
retablo,
pleasuring in the feel of paint on the smooth wood. When the eyes
were painted, with drooping eyelashes, Maria put the brush on the
table and picked up one leaning in a red pot. The mouth should
smile slightly, as if she is thinking of the goodness of God.

Maria felt she could paint that smile. She had
smiled that way only this morning as she weeded her way down the
beet rows. How Saint Teresa would relish the small task, the little
act of service to honor God. But do I work to honor God, she asked
herself, or to please the lord of the hacienda?

What color was Saint Teresa’s hair? She could paint
her with her hair hidden by the severe lines of a wimple, but
surely there were times in Teresa’s youth when her hair was
unbound, floating free behind her. I will make it the color of
Erlinda’s hair, she decided, adding the smallest dab of brown
pigment to the yellow.

The result was the rich honey color of Erlinda’s
beautiful hair. Sometimes at night Erlinda would call her into her
room, and Maria would spend a pleasant interval pulling the
hairbrush through Erlinda’s thick hair.

She spoke of Marco once. “Do you know,” she said,
“Marco used to brush my hair.”

“He did?” asked Maria. She tried to imagine Diego
brushing her hair but could not.

“You think it amusing?” Erlinda asked, a smile on
her lips. “Men are different, Maria, when they are away from their
daily concerns. You will see.”

And so Maria colored Teresa de Ávila’s hair
honey-brown, knowing that the saint would take delight in a simple
task like hairbrushing.

Her gown would be blue. Maria blended several
colors, wishing she knew the art of texturing paint to make it look
like velvet. She remembered the statues in the churches of Mexico
City, fairly glowing with a life of their own, so rich was the
paint’s texture. The more favored statues wore dresses of material
dipped in
yeso
and dried to a starched finish. Some of the
truly pampered saints had a different dress for each Sunday, their
doll’s wardrobes kept in gilt-covered caskets and possessing more
wealth than many of the people who sought saintly
intercessions.