Hunger's Brides (21 page)

I
t had turned out to be a fine day of jousting, after all, but what I missed in the bullring that day was spectacle, high drama. There was low comedy, and the high comedy of our English-pirate free-for-all. And low drama, for the two full minutes it took the Viceroy to look over every part of me before awarding his prize. No, I wanted colours and costumes and light—fireworks, fine voices and much finer poetry.
Ceremony
. I was not so very different from everyone else here. Juvenal was not mistaken in prescribing bread and circuses as the philtre for enthralling us.

Uncle Juan had largely financed the tournament, so as we rode back home from the parade marshal's house I gave him back the snuff box. I couldn't help asking if my victory had been paid for, since he'd paid for everything else. The carriage drew up before the house.

“You have done more for my standing with the new Viceroy in one day, Juana Inés, than my underwriting a dozen of these affairs.”

He helped me down from the carriage, then walked quickly to the door. But once there, he paused to hold it open for me. There he stood: big and stocky, earnest and calm. And for no particular reason he struck me as brave, not in bluster and brandish of steel, but quietly, steadily brave. I liked him. As I brushed past, he held up a hand to detain me. “Oh—and Juana Inés, whatever else I may do,” he said with a wry quirk of a smile, “I never tell a viceroy what poets he should like.”

He did not posture or pretend. This was a business proposition, and while business was obviously good, I sensed it was also precarious. His network of alliances went to the top of both the
Cabildo
and the
Audiencia
, and into the lower echelons of the court. But one does not approach a viceroy with money. I was an asset now. I found I didn't mind. I had met a few of his associates at the house. Serious, earnest … if anything, a little preoccupied. Since they were much like him, I guessed that these were not just associates but friends. No posturers or hypocrites. I'm sure Uncle Juan knew these, too, and saw to their handling and care. What I liked is that he didn't have them at his house.

But he was not much of a family man. He seemed no more interested in poor Magda than he had been in me up till now. And there was
something strained between him and Aunt María, who seemed more anxious with secrets all the time. His parents we hardly saw. I did have an intuition that the canvas dam across the courtyard and fountain had been more their idea than his, and that they might have preferred to get their water elsewhere. It arrived in the city all the way from Chapultepec springs via the aqueduct to the Alameda. The mains had been clay, then lead for a while; then someone somewhere in the city administration read a book of Roman history, and they were clay again (whose almost weekly repairs, in our neighbourhood at least, Uncle Juan paid for).

He also paid his debts, and he knew just what to get me. The Poetess and her escorts had been reserved a private box at the theatre. I
loved
the theatre—I just knew it, even though I'd never been. But I had read a hundred plays, made them burn like fire in my mind—
these
were our painted books.

He wouldn't come with us, being too serious for such things, but he did insist Aunt María and Magda go. It would do them good to get out. It would do Magda good.

They squeezed—parts of me—into another of Magda's old gowns. But it was of a lovely, sky-blue satin, which set off to advantage, I supposed, my black hair and black eyes. And then we were in the carriage, as the three of us had been on so many trips to the cathedral. I could not ride even a short way facing backwards without feeling ill, so as always María and Magda sat facing me. The ride was mercifully brief.

It was the single greatest thrill of my life to arrive for the first time at the theatre, ablaze with light, in a gleaming coach drawn by matched horses, steel tack flashing silver. As I stepped down I could hear the orchestra warming up above the shouts and cries of the coachmen jostling for position.

Inside, we met a group of Magda's friends, a girl and three young gentlemen. “Magda, why haven't we met your cousin before? You didn't tell us she was so beautiful … and that dress, what a splendid hue! You should try that colour yourself.” Magda's evening was proving visibly less transcendent than mine.

Although the vicinity of the private boxes was perfectly dignified, looking down into the pit I could see why the public theatres were called
corrales
, and this one, El Coliseo, no less. I had not expected so much hooting. The idea of calling out to the players, warning them of
an intrigue or ambush, well, that was perhaps the best part of the show. The
entractos
were also popular affairs and in parts delightful. There was a Mexica
mitote
†
with ancient instruments, but I was glad it ended quickly as I had no intention of being homesick. Between acts one and two was a farcical skit that went over well, and a later interlude of ballads. The play itself was a local production stealing shamelessly from Ovid's version of the tale of Narcissus, and yet I was strangely fascinated.

Afterwards, in the milling and stir in the forecourt, I spotted a poster for last week's show:
The Nun-Ensign
. The awful play I had read a hundred times. This was my fellow prisoner and hero—fugitive nun, duellist and lady muleskinner. How I would have loved to see her just once outside my head.

On the way home all I could find to talk about was the play. Though I knew it to be no masterpiece, I was thrilled to hear for the first time poetic texts from the lips of trained actors, to see passions so nakedly expressed. On and on I chattered like a songbird between two ravens—countenances growing ever darker—about how certain lines seemed to weaken this effect or that, how the themes had been muddied, the symbols clumsily worked. I was talking now to work this out for myself, for during the slower moments in the theatre I'd had an idea for my own version of Echo and Narcissus. There'd be a prologue featuring two couples, one European, the other native Mexican. The Mexicans would be America and Occident….

I would make Echo the brilliant angel who had fallen from Paradise—
then
rebelled. That was important. And at first sight of Narcissus it's as if she's always known him, who is after all as beautiful as any angel. In love, she takes him to a mountaintop and offers him a new paradise, a new world, if only she can tempt him to stay with her….

I didn't have it all worked out. What little I did manage to say probably didn't make much sense to Magda and María anyway. But instead of looking bored or annoyed, they were watching me carefully. Thus encouraged, I even managed to find fault with Ovid's own vision of Narcissus, which had always seemed too harsh, simplistic. I saw Narcissus more as the victim of his yearnings for perfection, as Christlike—

“What?” croaked Aunt María, across from me, “What did you just say?” She leaned forward till her nose nearly touched my face.

“I said—”

“Is that what they teach young girls out in that godless countryside—to
blaspheme?”

“I'm sorry,
Tia
,” I stammered, “but I didn't blas—”

“The Son of God, narcissistic! You heard her, Magda.”

“She said it.”

“I did
not.”

“Did Isabel teach you to call your elders liars, too?”

“I was only trying to correct—I did
not
call Christ narcissistic. Narcissus, in his pain, was Christlike—there's nothing wrong with
saying
this. The teachings of the Greeks anticipate His Gospel. The Church has accepted—”

“What the Church teaches—at least here in this city, Juana Inés, is humility. Here, what we expect of ourselves is only the most careful soul-searching. Here in
our
city, we would never allow a child, still less a female child, to run riot through the pagan texts of antiquity
spouting blasphemies on the Passion!
Evidently you are one of those who have no respect for the Holy Office—”

“Have you ever
seen
an
auto
, Juana?” asked Magda suddenly.

“No,” I said, grateful for what I thought was a change of subject. We had pulled up in front of the house but Aunt María, resting her hand on the handle, made no move to get down.

“We
have
. Several,” she said coolly. “The effect has been lasting.” She glanced at Magda. “Perhaps we may still broaden your marvellous education in some small way. You seem to enjoy riding in our carriage. Tomorrow I think we shall take you on a little tour. Magda has been a very enthusiastic student of our local history. There is much in this city you have yet to see….”

In the morning, Aunt María wore her usual black silk, and a black veil. We all had on our heavy crosses. Magda's dress was of a purple velvet and suited her slight frame. Over her crucifix she wore a string of warped pearls of a fashion called
barruecas
, much prized in the city.

She was almost pretty. Her hair was a dark, flat brown. Her profile was not so prepossessing as her mother's. Her one unfortunate feature was her eyes: very small and deep-set, the irises so large as to leave scant room between her lids for the whites. The colour was an attractive one, a nut brown, but one could not help thinking of the polished pips of small, soft fruit, the cherimoya, perhaps, or the lychee from Cathay. Her
nose was of a normal size but—between those tiny, beady eyes—betrayed a certain thickness at the bridge.

Sundays we usually ate little before mid-afternoon, but this day's breakfast was whipped chocolate, pork hocks and eggs fried in lard. As we left the house my escorts each carried a small assortment of fresh roses, out of season now and brought in at great expense from the south each year for Guadalupe's festival. Whites and yellows and reds … the effect was quite gay. In the coach they insisted on sitting on my bench, on either side of me. It was my first inkling that this was not to be a ride like the others.

What they'd said was true: I liked the coach rides. I loved the horses, the rasp and chiselling of silver-shod hoofs over the flags. María had once confided her belief that their collection of coaches, gigs and carriages was the finest in the New World. “We choose our things,” she'd announced then, “on the basis of elegance, not vain show.” The carriage cab was small and of a hardwood finished in black lacquer. The spokes were a lacquered grey. Inside, there
was
opulence: the walls were surfaced in the finest Chinese silk, deep brown and embroidered with gold dragons. The seats were thickly upholstered in velvet of a matching brown. The door handles, painted black outside, revealed themselves to be of bronze, as were the door bolts, gleaming and heavy. Fore and aft were sliding panels. The rear one was bolted shut, the one forward was open to allow communication with the driver. The heavy wooden side panels were drawn back for our tour.

We were not going to church.

When this dawned on me I was stunned, unable to imagine what might deflect Aunt María from the cathedral on a Sunday morning.

Aunt María and Cousin Magda were taking me over the route and to the stations of the last great
auto de fe
of 1649. Thirteen people burned at the stake, a hundred more in effigy.

Magda could only have been five or six at the time of the
auto
, yet fifteen years later the sheer volume of ghastly detail she'd retained or had since learned was appalling. While I was to learn that to hear a story told can be more terrible than seeing the horror itself.

Our carriage had barely reached the corner when Aunt María said, “It started here. A neighbour came to tell us the Proclamation was being read through the streets. We rushed out of the house, Magda beside me, running on her chubby legs to keep up. Everyone was moving towards the
casas de la Inquisición
, where the processions began.”