The Sisterhood (47 page)

A year to the day we married I have a daughter.
Deo gratias
, the birth was easier than I dared hope and we are well. The baby is named Maria Caterina after my mother. Don Miguel dotes on her, and small as she is he tells her stories—how the god Viracocha rose out of a lake and created the sun and the stars, how he created the Inca to be lords, how the flute-playing herder of white llamas fell in love with the daughter of the sun. Swaddled to her chin, Maria Caterina stares at him with eyes as dark and steady as his own. Salome laughs at him and says the Incas were much harder on their
children than he is likely to be. Don Miguel says there is time for strictness later.

Sanchia is devoted to the baby, and dances her round and round, humming and singing, until Salome and I protest she will be sick. Sanchia seems happy here, and Salome and Marisol are matchmaking by messenger and letters, but Sanchia seems uninterested.

The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, December 1557

I have little time to write in my beloved Chronicle! Salome is often tired and able to do less and less here, so I assumed her role as patroness of the convent’s orphanage and school for Indian girls. I have written to Marisol to say that she must set up a similar school on her estate. She and I both know—everyone knows—that Don Tomas is the father of many children there, as many born after his marriage as before it. And whatever her feelings, Marisol has a duty to see they have enough to eat and wear, and are taught to read and say their prayers. Between the convent, the household, Maria Caterina, Don Miguel, and Sanchia, the days pass before I realize they have begun.

Don Miguel is settling a portion of his estate on Maria Caterina to prevent more Inca land being snatched by the Spanish settlers.

Sanchia is gone! She accompanied Don Miguel to the city on some errands, then disappeared. Don Miguel was beside himself thinking she had been snatched, and tried everything and everyone he knew trying to find her. When he returned, exhausted, I told him
about the note she had left on her bed, saying that she has not forgotten what she owed her parents. Sanchia’s Old Testament is missing, too, along with her best shawl, some silver hair combs, and my Chinese fan. I fear for her. I am also with child again.

The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, October 1560

It has been almost three years since Sanchia left. Don Miguel has sought her everywhere, and each time he travels to the city he asks the convent if any news of Sanchia has reached them. So far none has. He also brings back word of Pia, but the news is no happier. She has never left her cell, prays night and day, mortifies her flesh, and eats and drinks almost nothing, only a little bread and fruit. The last baby, little José, has begun to walk and I am with child again, and this time, wretchedly ill.

The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, April 1561

Isabelita was born after Christmas, much sooner than expected. It was a long and difficult birth. Isabelita is not well, not thriving as our other children did. She is listless and weak and rarely cries, looking at me with large suffering eyes. I love her all the more, so little and so sweet, but my love does nothing to help her. I hold her constantly, and try to get her to feed a little. It breaks my heart to hear her sad little wail, see her small hands curl and uncurl as if all her energy is concentrated in tiny fingers, clutching at life.
I hold her close to my heart, as if its beating will keep her alive. Don Miguel has aged and his hair is white. Salome says he looks more and more like his father. Salome herself is ill, gaunt, and in pain though she tries to hide it. I do what I can for her, but she can scarcely eat or drink or leave her bed.

As long as I do not allow tears to come, Isabelita and Salome will live.

And now, on top of everything, I must leave the hacienda. I received a message from the convent that Pia is dying and has asked for me, begs me to come. They write that she has a disease eating at her from inside, that she has suffered terribly without complaining. Salome insists that I go. I fear the journey will kill Isabelita, but I dare not leave her behind with a nurse. What if I never saw her again?

From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Dona Esperanza Aguilar, the Mission Convent of Las Golondrinas de Los Andes, April 1560

There has been a miracle. I could write the words over and over. A miracle.

When we reached the convent a novice led me to Pia’s cell. I carried Isabelita with me—I hold her tightly always so that Death cannot wrest her from my arms. I had forgotten how small and dark Pia’s cell is, with only one narrow barred window. It was morning but a candle burned on either side of her narrow bed. Pia’s face was as white as the sheet that covered her and her rosary was wound in her fingers. For a second I thought she was already dead, but then she gestured to the nuns praying on either side of the bed to leave us. I could tell from her eyes that she knew it was me.

I bent down to kiss her and she looked at Isabelita who lay in my arms, listless as usual. “Oh Pia,” I said. I could not stop the tears now.

Pia reached up and touched my wet cheek. Then she laboriously unwound the rosary from the thin fingers of her right hand. Twined with it was a gold chain, and at the end of the chain, the Abbess’s medal!

“You took it from Mother the day that you…Zarita…Oh Pia, have you had it all this time?”

“Mother wishes me to be buried wearing it,” Pia whispered. “But this is a better use for it.” The ghost of her old serene, otherworldly smile crossed her face. She slipped the chain over Isabelita’s head with frail fingers and said, “A gift for you, little one.”

The baby’s eyes fluttered open and she turned her head and looked at Pia curiously. Pia smiled at Isabelita and they held each other’s eyes for a long moment. And then…my baby did a terrifying thing. She arched her back and kicked vigorously with her little feet. She waved her arms, threw back her head and began to howl. Such a sound from a tiny bundle of bones! Terrified she was having a fit, I rocked and shushed her. Her pale little cheeks grew pink, then her whole face turned red from crying. If it had been one of my other children I would have said this meant she was indignant at not being fed quickly enough.

“Feed her,” whispered Pia, “feed her at once. All will be well now.” She closed her eyes, the smile still on her face. “Farewell. The demons are gone. I have vanquished them. Feed her.”

I put the baby to my breast, and to my astonishment and joy, Isabelita suckled greedily, smiled at me and fell asleep, milk dribbling out of her little pink mouth. When I looked up again, Pia was dead.

That night wonder and grief denied me even the terrified half-sleep that was all the rest I had known since Isabelita’s birth. That and the baby herself. Isabelita woke often, demanding to be fed. At the requiem funeral Mass three days later, Isabelita was quiet but alert, holding her head up from my shoulder and looking around her with interest. I held her up to see Pia’s coffin, and the incense made her sneeze and kick and wave her arms, squawking in protest. Then she suckled again until I was dry, and that night she and I slept soundly for the first time since her birth.

So soundly, in fact, that when I woke I was terrified to hear none of the wheezing sound her breathing makes when she is asleep, or the sad little fretting noise she makes when awake. Had I had been mistaken about her recovery? Had she died in the night? But instead she lay beside me sucking her thumb contentedly, medal still around her neck. She looked at me, her thumb slipped from her grinning mouth, and she gurgled and waved her arms and kicked.

At home again she feeds constantly and smiles and crows with delight at her sister and brother. She chews anything she can grasp, laughs when someone catches her eye, and has become a plump, naughty monkey. When Don Miguel looks at Isabelita and smiles, I see how deep the lines on his face are, like crevasses in a rock.

The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, September 1563

Isabelita comforts us. Salome has died. The Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon feels empty. I can write no more.

From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the Pen of Dona Isabelita Beltran de Aguilar, the Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, 1597 AD