by Mary Morris
Alejandro waved me away. "So go if you like."
I was in bed when Alejandro returned, pounding on the door. Furious with him, I reluctantly went downstairs. "What are you doing?"
"I was having fun." He and Derek had obviously gone drinking.
"You're drunk," I told him. "You're like an Indian when you're drunk."
"I am an Indian," he said, pointing proudly at his chest. "I am an Azteca."
"Well, you are an Indian who loves Spanish spectacles," I told him. "Now go to sleep."
In the morning I wanted to hike up to Tres Cruzas, a cliff high above town where three crosses stand, overlooking the whole valley. Alejandro was quite hung over but he agreed to take some aspirin, help me pack a picnic, and go. He actually was familiar with the climb and suggested we visit Three Crosses but then have our picnic in Box Canyon, a place I had never been to. I had heard that during the rainy season a river and waterfall formed there. Even though the season had ended, we had had a great deal of rain; so it seemed possible that we would see the waterfall.
As we set off we were unsure of our route. There was an easy way which was very long, taking us through town, up Happy Valley, past Atascodera, then to Three Crosses. The other way, the "short cut," was to go straight up the mountain directly to Three Crosses. From the base of the valley, the climb did not seem so bad, so I voted for the short cut, never imagining the rocky climb that lay ahead. We set off on a dusty road that soon turned into a scruffy, arid, thorny, cactus-ridden mountainside. We passed two old men sitting by the side of the road and wished them a good afternoon. It was just then noon. The sun was very hot and already I was tired and bringing up the rear. Alejandro was kind enough to slow down for me, and he helped me across the difficult inclines.
But soon I got into the climb. I felt more awake, stronger, less bothered by the heat of the day. I was feeling more vigorous as we came to the place where the real climbing began. Alejandro would climb first, then pull me up. He was carrying almost a full pack, but he seemed agile as we made it through the rough spots. At last we reached a clearing and paused because the view was spectacular. Cactuses bloomed in yellow and pink all around us. Ahead lay the steep mountainside we had just climbed and at the top, still far away, we saw Three Crosses.
We started up again with Alejandro helping me over the steepest inclines. We worked our way slowly, and after a while we took a break and rested on a ridge. Suddenly I jumped and ran forward. I was about to fall a hundred feet when Alejandro reached up and grabbed me. "Maria," he shouted, "what is wrong?" I pointed to where I'd placed my hand, and what I assumed was a rattlesnake twisted away. Alejandro kicked the snake with his foot and it fell off the ridge. "It is a colebra," he said. "It's not venomous. It won't hurt you."
We reached Three Crosses after about an hour or so of climbing, and we rested with a beer. Then we walked behind Three Crosses, and in the distance I could see the heights of Box Canyon. We made off across the sierra, down a very rocky incline. Alejandro pointed to an anthill and said, "If you let this kind of ant bite your joints, it will cure your arthritis."
I knelt down to look and in doing so put my hand on a cactus. I flinched and pulled away. My hand was full of spines, and I showed it to Alejandro. "Run your hand through your hair," he told me. The electricity, he said, would remove them. I did this, and after a few tries, the spines stopped bothering me.
As we walked on, Alejandro saw a waterspout across the lake in the distance. The Indians, he said, believe that a waterspout is the devil, and they cross themselves and say "Satan, go away" when they see one. Later Alejandro spotted a huge jack rabbit that looked like a kangaroo, dashing behind a cliff.
"You have great eyes," I told him.
"It's in my blood," he said.
When we reached the canyon, at first I was disappointed. Pure rocks, little vegetation. Alejandro suggested we climb down into the canyon to the watering hole for our picnic, so we began our descent of several hundred feet, very rough and rocky, and at last we reached a small oasis—a watering hole at the base of a riverbed surrounded by rocks and trees.
With his Swiss army knife, Alejandro split open a barrel cactus and we sucked on it. It was sweet and not unlike watermelon. Then we laid out our feast. Fried chicken, great egg salad, raw vegetables, nut brownies, a pineapple. We ate ferociously and for a long time. Afterward we stretched out to nap in the sun. Yellow swallowtails hovered overhead and a laughing bird sang from a tree. Behind us was a beautiful green pool of water, and I watched it and dozed.
Then the animals came. Hundreds of them. They came from all the sides of the canyon. Goats and sheep and horses and donkeys. One horse climbed down the canyon with his front feet tied together. I don't know how he made it down. Behind the animals came the shepherds and some young boys with machetes, who begged from us the rest of our food; we gave it to them and to the shepherds. Soon the canyon was filled with leaping goats and sheep, donkeys braying and kicking high.
I decided I wanted to bring back a little kid as a present for Lisa, and I found one I wanted—a tiny black goat with big blue eyes. I bartered with the shepherd over it. He wanted one hundred fifty pesos, but we had only eighty. I picked up the little goat and it lay in my lap like a baby, and I tried to convince the shepherd to sell it to me, but he would not budge from his high price.
Suddenly, as quickly as they'd come, the animals went away. They leaped up and scaled the canyon walls. I was very surprised, but Alejandro told me that each group of animals has its leader, and they know when to leave by following their leader. He said we should probably leave as well. It was almost four o'clock and we had a long walk back.
We packed up and walked slowly now. A falcon circled overhead. Poor people came to their doorways and waved as we passed their houses. We reached the center of town at six o'clock and paused for a much needed soft drink. When I got home all the children were waiting and they were very excited.
At about four o'clock that afternoon a small goat had come to their door. After telling me this, they ran off and produced a black kid, blue-eyed, just like the one I had wanted to buy for Lisa. The next day, when its owner came to find it, I paid him a few dollars and Lisa kept the goat.
That night we made a fire and cooked a big pot of vegetable soup with chicken and avocado. Lupe and the children joined us. Afterward Alejandro and I sat, reading peacefully, in front of the fire. It was one of those perfect moments, one of those rare times life affords us, and I wanted to take it away clear and pure.
We closed our books at about midnight and were about to go to bed when someone pounded on the door. "Alejandro, I know you are there. You scum, you slime." Alejandro looked at me, forlorn. "Go upstairs," he told me.
He opened the door and I heard more shouting. It was Carlos, his Spaniard friend. "Fuck your slut of a mother," Carlos said over and over again. At last Alejandro came upstairs. "Can Carlos sleep downstairs? He is drunk and I had promised him that I would do some business with him on Friday and I forgot. He drove all the way from Mexico City, drunk, to tell me off."
"If he made it this far, why can't he go to his mother's?" She lived in Guanajuato, about an hour away.
"She'll be furious to find him like this."
We brought Carlos in, but he was drunk and abusive to both of us. When we finally got upstairs, Alejandro said, "I'm sorry. This ruined our day."
"Yes," I said. "You could say it did."
"I'll find a way to make it up to you," he told me.
"Just don't let it happen again," I said.
Alejandro left with Carlos in the morning, saying he'd return in a week or two, and I was glad to see him go. I settled back into solitude. I worked in the morning when I could. José Luis was in the process of building a house nearby and he had a work crew in Lupe's yard, hammering all day long. Some days when the noise was too much for me, I went with them to the work site. They were building a colonial house for a rather wealthy family from Mexico City. The house had a patio and ce
ramic tiles.
I'd sit on the ground near the house and watch as the men put up beams and mixed cement. Lupe was in charge of carting huge bags of the cement mix from the pickup truck to the men. She'd hoist a fifty-pound sack on her back and carry it as if it were a child riding piggyback. One day she stopped and put the bag down in front of me. "Here, Maria," she said. "You carry one." When I could not even budge it, she laughed hysterically and so did all the men.
One morning a man knocked at my door. He was selling strawberries. I told him I would buy a box and went upstairs to get some money. When I returned, he was in the kitchen, going through the drawers. He looked at me, ashamed, and said he was looking for a knife to clean the strawberries with. He wanted to rob me, I knew, but I said nothing. I bought another box from him instead.
In the mornings I watched all the children of San Antonio heading off to school. They went in hordes in red and white uniforms. One day I said to Lupe, "Isn't it time for Lisa and Agustín to go?"
"They need uniforms," Lupe said. "They can't go to school without them."
"Are uniforms expensive?"
She told me the cost of the uniforms, which wasn't very much. "Well, shall we buy them uniforms? Do you want them to go to school?"
"I don't want them to grow up to be a burro like me."
So we bought the uniforms and made the necessary arrangements for the younger children to attend school.
In the afternoons, I climbed into the hills. No matter how long I'd been away or how far I'd gone, something always drew me back to San Miguel and to those hills. I could not really pinpoint it. But when I left Mexico City it was to get back here. To the place I was beginning to think of as home.
In my life I have known every joy and every sorrow and each has been short-lived. I have known what I thought to be great love and tremendous loss. I have wandered in the labyrinth of myself and thought that somehow I was living life intensely, with deep feeling. Now I know differently. I was a victim of the forces outside myself, and more than that, I was victim to my ego. I knew it was the ego that blocked the soul. Joy and despair were mere reflections of how well I fared in the world.
But in San Miguel, with Lupe and the children and the animals, I found something else, and it was not so short-lived. When the children came to my door, when the tortilla lady or the flower lady or the avocado man or whoever came to my door, or when I was simply alone, on the roof, staring for hours, daydreaming, doing nothing at all, I felt a kind of peace come over me. I have felt this elsewhere—in Tibet and Machu Picchu—but those were special places, holy places. This was just a dusty old place, but for me it had become everything. I was simply enjoying the experience of being, of living without goal or expectation, without longing or desire. I was happy when I was there—happy just to be.
Sometimes I'd see the woman who came out of her cave and stood at the edge of the hills. I had seen her a few times now and it was beginning to occur to me that each time I saw her, she was younger and more beautiful, her hair more silken, her face less wrinkled. I wondered how young she would become before it was my time to leave. I wanted to get closer to her, but as I approached she disappeared back into the cave, though I could not be sure. The one thing I was sure of was that when I was near this woman, I felt her presence and it felt the same to me as whatever it was that had been warming my rooms.
I wanted to touch her. I wanted to know her. And as I walked the sierra in the afternoons, the odd thought came to me—that to know her I had to know myself. And another thought came. That somehow I already did know her. I just had not yet made the connection as to how.
One evening when I got back to my house, Lupe was sweeping out front. "Sometimes when I go into the sierra, I see a woman. She seems to be watching me. Do you know who she is?"
Lupe looked at me and laughed. "Some say it is my mother." Then she shrugged and returned to her sweeping. "But she's dead, so I know that can't be."
LUPE'S HAND AND ARM DIDN'T SEEM TO BE GETTING better and she wasn't feeling well. She had a friend in Queretaro she wanted to visit and thought she'd see a doctor as well. I told her I'd go with her and help with the children, and at the end of the week we went.
Lupe didn't look well as we boarded the bus. Lisa and Polio and one of Lupe's older daughters, Teresa, were with us—the girls all dressed up for their venture to Queretaro. On the bus Polio sat on my lap, face pressed to the glass. She had never taken this road before. She had never left her safe San Miguel home.
When we reached Queretaro, Lupe led us to the doctor. I took the children to a playground nearby and we stayed for an hour or so. We returned just as Lupe was leaving the doctor's office. He patted her on the back. "Take care of yourself." He looked with dismay at the children. "And get some rest."
"How is her arm?" I asked.
"Her arm?" the doctor said. "She didn't say anything about her arm."
Lupe looked at me sheepishly, then showed the doctor her hand. He looked at it and said, "It is better now. You should have had a tetanus shot, but now it is all right."
We left the clinic and I didn't say anything to her for a while. "So, what did you see the doctor about?" I finally asked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"It pains me to tell you, Mary." She spoke in a low voice. We were walking somewhere. Lupe seemed to know where, so I followed. I knew before she spoke that she was pregnant. I don't know why I hadn't noticed; Maria Elena, her eldest daughter, was pregnant too, and I had been one of the first to comment on her enlarged figure and growing despondence. I shook my head. "How are you going to manage?"
She shrugged. "I've managed so far."
We were walking to her friend's house. We walked for almost an hour in the heat and dust of Querétaro. We walked into a very poor neighborhood, but here at least there were houses, not like in the poorer sections of San Antonio where people live in shacks. At last we stopped at one of the houses and Lupe knocked. After a few moments some children rushed out. They called for their mother. Then their mother rushed out. She was very glad to see Lupe. She was an older woman, perhaps in her late forties, and Lupe told me she had ten children.
"Please," she said, "come in." We entered a long vestibule filled with plants and caged birds. The birds were dingy and sick-looking and the plants withering, but it was nicer than many Mexican homes I had been to. Surrounded by her children, we followed her into the living room.
On the couch lay one of her daughters, a girl of about nineteen. She wore a white nightgown and she snored in the deepest, most guttural snore I have ever heard. Her mouth was open and she did not move as we sat down. The señora, who seemed cheerful, asked one of her children to bring us tea. She seated herself beside the daughter on the couch, pushed her over slightly, patted her gently. I expected the girl to get up and leave. Instead she snored more deeply, her breathing shaking the room.
"And so," the woman said, "how have you been? And all the children?" This woman had lived in San Miguel and knew Lupe from there. Finally Lupe asked about the girl on the couch and the señora said, almost nonchalantly, that the girl had been this way for five days. "She took some drugs. She is in a coma."
I couldn't believe we were having tea with a girl in a coma. We sat and talked about children, about life in San Miguel. After an hour or so, with the girl in the coma still snoring, motionless, we said good-bye and walked back to the bus station to return to San Miguel. Later we learned that the girl was dying. A doctor had come to look at her and had said nothing could be done, so they had left her there on the sofa.
I had an odd dream that night that has proved to be prophetic. A cat is being carried off by black mice. The cat has lived a long time and has had thirty years of suffering. Her wounds are purple. When I find her, she offers no resistance. I remember thinking to myself as I am dreaming this dream, a cat would fight off the mice; the mice would not attack the cat. But in this dream the situation is reversed. I tend to the cat. Her insides fall out like filleted stea
ks. A man I know but cannot name comes and wipes these innards clean. He washes each organ in water. The cat doesn't die but stares at her insides. Somehow she will live.
The Highlands
I STOOD AT TALISMAN BRIDGE IN A FRONTIER TOWN called El Carmen, awaiting the bus to Quezaltenango. Guatemala was in front of me, Mexico was behind, and I hoped the name Talisman would mean some kind of good luck for me. Huge orange and yellow butterflies flew as the Zuchiate Rio rapids rushed by. A woman with a basket of fruit on her head offered to sell me a strange red fruit I'd never seen before.
After a terrible evening the previous night in a lifeless room in Tapachula, a border town, I was about to enter Guatemala. My plan was to travel through Guatemala either to the ruins of Copan or into Salvador, as far south as I could go, depending on the time. I wanted to be back in Mexico within a few weeks.
A line in the guidebook caught my eye. "Warning: As political instability in the country increases, it is advisable not to stray too far from the beaten track." It was not my intention to stray that far, but the whole journey was probably unsafe. I would not go as far north as Huehuetenango, where the worst would occur, but there had already been problems near my destination. I had heard that a priest had been killed in a small village on the far side of Lake Atitlan, across from Panajachel, where I was headed. Friends in Mexico City had told me not to go, but I wanted to see Guatemala for myself, and so I went.
I had come to the land of the resplendent quetzal, that elusive and magnificent bird deemed by some to be the most remarkable bird in the world—a bird of such beauty and mystery that the conquistadors thought it a mythical creature, a bird born in the imagination of the Guatemala Maya. Indeed the image of the great god Quetzalcóatl, the plumed serpent, is that of a flying quetzal. But though endangered, the quetzal was and is very real. The ancient Maya considered the blue-green iridescent tail feathers of the male to be better than gold. They traded these feathers throughout Mesoamerica, and today the dollar equivalent in Guatemala is called a quetzal. But the real value of the quetzal bird is intangible. Its specialness is not unlike the specialness of the indigenous peoples whom it represents.