Hunger's Brides

by W. Paul Anderson

  At each stop they spill debotched from this subterranean bottle-plant—hopes replenished, lungs decarbonated, goals recalibrated—consumptive discards returned. Recycled refills, these, bobbing up, rising to the light, redeposited at the famished gates of a pearling sky. And such a school of entrepreneurship they rise from!—neo-con worldbank wetdream—a million MBAs in humility. Ambulant vendors elbowing apologetic through the cattlecote with their sharecropper’s haul. Pitchmen’s singsong patter more dove-croon than hawking—selling scissors, slide rules, palm calculators / palmed contraband, psalmed bookmarks / keychain thermometers—what’s body temperature? Refugee-army knives, penlights / biographies of Mexican Nobel laureates / Aztec herbologies / tricks with rope and lariats / tiny brass padlocks against the crime wave.

  Then, sweet moment of stillness—write it … quiet, a solemn concentration, the passing of a precious gift: suckling a newborn, a young Indian mother teaches her daughter—cleanfrocked glossyhaired—her alphabet, from a scrap of stock quotations.

  And these, the deracinate holders of common property, how have they trespassed against thee, O great Captains of Calvinist Industry?

  I ride for hours, train after train, scanning light-panels advertising the same: cosmetology, astrology, typewriter repair, keypunch dexterities. Parchment illustrators, programmers in Pascal and other dead hieratics—join a fraternity, wear a uniform—cloak, cowl and lifeguard whistle—preserve undead knowledge through the dark age to come.

  I try to turn away from glaze-eyed children selling gum—chicles … chicles!—from these, the glued and leaded IQs of a lost generation. Train after train, through this tatterdemalion pandemonium, we are god’s freak retinue limping through the holes in our lives. Jesters poets minstrels / the blind and pocked and crippled, playing ballads, early Beatles / protest, folk/ranchero, a cappella salsa. Guitar/banjo, clay flutes and fingerdrums …

  And oh the neap tide of voices rising and falling, a peso a song. Sing along. Quaver and plaint, sharp discord and flat melodrone. An intoning, a litany, a rosary, an incantation—all the heartbreak, the lovesick invocations. Now and then an angel’s voice to wake us from our subcutaneous sleep. And somehow for each and all, even the most tone-deaf, we find a coin. A tiny disk of embossed foil to pass along.

  Shellshocked smiles—would you smile at me if you knew my mind?

  Songs for bread. Belts cinched, one man’s family eats a little less this night that another’s—ranged round a guitar case—may feast on yesterday’s unsold bakery. In train after train salarymen in vast transit and pilgrim families and teens shyly break out their little lunches, make self-conscious offers to total strangers. Like me.

  How can I eat with you?

  But how I want to. I want to. Why does this wound me so sweetly, make me want to weep? I glance around me to ape the right reply. How should I behave? How do I act, I am a child among you, O Mexico—old soul, México hondo.

  To the barefoot, grimycheeked urchins—eyes like dazed fawns—I learn to give money only when changing trains. Some try to follow but they are too small in the crowds, too light, leaflike in this forest so heavy-limbed.

  Were you there? Somewhere in the crowd—hiding your omnipresence, did I talk too loud? Did you sell me chicklets—thine, those glazy leaden eyes? This little compass, did its needle swing to you? I found you not. Was’t from you I bought this tiny penlight to light my way each night?

  Or maybe that was you sharing food—a thin day of fishing. The loaves ran out.

  No, I didn’t find you—but O the five million souls shunting through the underground. Shot star trailing its disastrous train in hideous combustion down / through the earth’s honeycombed heart—abuzz awhirr adrone. Underground railroad, mine eyes have seen the glories of thy via negativa. Fly us to the moon and back through swisscheese skies of green. Ratheride down here with you than in a host of Elohim. In limousines.

  By this upflung tide of songs, am I not washed clean? Sing me sweetly to my rest this night / I wish I may I wish I might / in these lost bones, keep and hold you for to-night … lost human race.

  We who falterfall to kingdomcome in second place.

  I ride and ride for hours until the shiny coins and worn-kid bills are spent, paperthin vellum treasured notes swapped for lenten songs.

  I know this stop, I know this name, have known it all along—Bellas Artes Underground.

  Night, a light rain falling.

  TAKING THE VEIL

  In a chapel of the cathedral, the Viceroy’s confessor has recognized one of the Vice-Queen’s handmaidens, the celebrated Juana Ramírez, weeping. Later, alone in his cell, he finds cause for both jubilation and mortification.

  7th day of August, Anno Domini 1668†

  TODAY I, FATHER ANTONIO NÚÑEZ DE MIRANDA, take my share of satisfaction in a great good: to have preserved our New Spain and the Viceroy’s household from the mortal peril of a great temptation. Today I convinced Juana Inés Ramírez de Santillana to take the veil. Divine Providence ordained that I be in attendance at the cathedral wherein, an hour after Prime, I found her in a state of great agitation, which in turn exerted a powerful effect on me, for here was a girl of extraordinary beauty and distinction whom I had met (though not often: she confessed also to having avoided me), and of whom I had of course heard much discussion, at the Viceregal Palace.

  At first I stood outside the chapel, unsure of how to proceed as she, thinking herself alone, collapsed before the altar and gave vent to a storm of wracking sobs. Her skin, already pale, was ashen, the more so in contrast to her black hair. Her large eyes, black in the dim candlelight, were wide, filled with tears and what seemed, from where I stood, like horror. At last I entered. As I drew close she looked up and at length recognized me as the confessor of her patrons. The girl and I began to speak. Though the details of our conversation remain in confidence, I can record that she expressed herself with astonishing precision for one in her state of unconcealed disarray, and with a remarkable maturity in one so young. I had the overwhelming sense that here was one whom God had marked for a special destiny, and resolved thereat, though I am not by nature impulsive, to offer her my protection, in this way to serve as His instrument.

  The child spoke of an evil that followed her everywhere, saw visions of a black beast that stalked her, dogging her every step. Though she retained a rigid control of her faculties she was also clearly in anguish. She declared she would leave this world sooner than face it again. Finally I overcame her reticence to make a confession. As I listened with unrest to the distressing tale that ensued, I knew that she must be persuaded to enter a convent, a sanctuary from the temptations and predations of the world. The Carmelite convent of San José is known for its austerity and, moved by the ease with which she acceded, I have agreed to her own suggestion that her penance there be especially harsh….

  The errors you have made with this girl. Read them again for yourself. Unforgivable mistakes for a man of your experience. After all you are not a young Theology professor anymore, fresh from the provinces—no, not fresh at all—yet on the eve of her profession, of her seclusion, you arranged all the candles on the altar yourself with the trembling hands of a young groom….

  She is far more beautiful than any nun should be, and her physical beauty pales before her qualities of spirit—such clarity of mind, breadth of learning, the incomparable wealth of her talent. With such jewels as these does one stud the mitre of St. Peter. But did you really think, Fool, that it would be so easy, that the Dark One would not fight you for her every step of the way? How pleased you were with yourself, thinking to have brought her soul safely into harbour. And now you will both have to pay.

  If you are to be this child’s spiritual guide, you will have to begin again. Start with what you have in common. Recommence with the awareness of your own emptiness, of your essential worthlessness except in the service of a higher power. Make common cause in your war against the flesh, the enemy you and she now share. And, books … you m
ust begin all over again with her—make them your ally not hers. You have both lived your lives in libraries, but where you find heretics, she finds friends, comfort, bread. Her shield of learning?—vanity, futility is what it is, a paper army interposed between her and God. You know her, you know her soul.

  So how then could you have been so wrong? How could you have so misjudged the fantastic power of her concentration, her mind? You thought, separating her from her books, to put her soul on the path of Virtue. Instead you have sent it careering, spiralling down to this, to vice. Did she not warn you?—of how, deprived once of her books a few short days by doctor’s order, she had quickly felt the terrible energies of her mind breaking free of their ballast. But you were so anxious to dismiss this as silly self-indulgence, excess of poetic temperament.

  How can you recognize her as exceptional one minute then in the next treat her as you have all the rest? She begged you to impose any penance but that one—solitude without books—one voice, her own, its echo turning round and round in ever-tightening spirals…. Thinking, thus, to humour her like some child, you permitted her one—but just one. Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus.35 You suggested others, but sinking a little deeper into your fatherly good humour you allowed your child to prevail. What harm could it cause.

  She is not your child—you deserve to lose her. Seeking to dilute the power of her books, instead you concentrate all into one. You should have seen the signs, you must have. These dreams, first this black beast of hers and then the Sacred Heart. You told yourself nuns have these dreams all the time. Christ comes to the sleeping woman’s bed, extracts her heart from her wide-open chest—excruciating pain then overwhelming joy. Three days later He returns and holding His own large, still-beating heart in His hands—those beautiful hands covered with His precious blood—he inserts the Sacred Heart. It fills her entire corpus with pulsating warmth as she weeps with the ecstasy of total communion, the absolute joining of body and soul. At last wedded to him, a true Bride of Christ.

  In the morning they come and beg you to tell them it was not Lucifer.

  Lucifer masquerading as Christ. You warn them against allowing their passion for Him to become too … literal, too material. You give them a special penance, the renunciation for a few days of any sustenance. They leave gratefully, smiling.

  But she is not like them—is that so hard for you to remember?

  You did nothing. You heard the reports. The endless hand-washing, the fasting, mortifications increasingly severe. But you, you persuaded yourself they were only in just proportion to the enormity of her sins and her gifts. But her soul is not yours. Her soul is not a mathematical equation. For her, you must master new subtleties: not every battle is a frontal assault. You will not have her become an extática, not while her soul is in your custody. All this is your fault. And now this letter. What an unmitigated disaster.

  Padre Antonio Núñez de Miranda,

  Collegio de San Pedro y Pablo,

  Pax Xpti,†

  Father, it is with extreme regret that I must write you about a novice whom I know you have taken it upon yourself to protect and counsel, Juana Inés Ramírez de Asbaje. After careful consideration and much prayer and consultation, I have decided that for the girl’s own welfare it is necessary that we ask her to leave the convent of San José.

  As Your Reverence well knows, ours is an austere order, in keeping with the vision of our founder, Saint Teresa; and the girl’s harsh penitence was not at first out of keeping with it. Hours of fervent prayer, days of fasting with only lemon water as sustenance are not uncommon with us. Neither is a certain amount of self-discipline. However, the ardour with which she has surrendered herself to these mortifications has become alarming. I must confess that to witness one so lovely become in so short a time unkempt, her hairshirt caked with the blood of scourgings … the icy baths, the hours spent praying on split knees, her gauntness … These are painful evidence of a disordered zeal. Nuns in cells adjoining hers claim she has not slept in a month. Sounds of weeping are heard issuing from her cell in the dead of night.

  When these same sisters came to me about the chanting and the invocations, I felt compelled to investigate. For some weeks we clung to the hope that her fervour was for the Blessed Virgin. But the girl admits to spending entire nights poring over a tome by, I believe, a learned member of your own most esteemed and revered order. Reminded that ours does not tolerate the reading of books of any kind in private, she claims perhaps falsely that you, Your Reverence, allowed her to bring it in with her. It is this pagan—it pains me to use the word—Egyptomania that was the final straw in our decision.

  By day she carries herself haughtily as though she were still at the palace, but her nights are haunted (though of this, she still admits nothing). And although she freely confesses to having broken our rules by reading, she refuses to concede that her conduct has in itself been in any way impious, or even wrong. As you must already know, it is useless to engage her in debate: no matter the extremity of her suffering and disorder, her mind burns bright and clear as the Pole star. If it were not for this, I could perhaps accept—many of the nuns here are often confused. She is not. And were it not for my deep respect and admiration for you, Father Núñez, and for all you have accomplished with the sisters of Mexico, I could not have stayed my hand this long.

  She warned us that if we took this book from her she might very well go mad, and it is as if she has. I could cite other examples, but suffice it to say that the rigours of our Order have plainly unseated her too-sensitive nature. Her pain is patent, her need is real. But, however great her need, it is unacceptable that this girl, extraordinary though she is, raves of ‘Naustic unions’ and venerates an Egyptian goddess within the walls of our cloister!

  I must ask that you prepare to receive her at your earliest possible opportunity. Once again, please allow me to express my deepest regret that she has not been able to find here with us the rest and solace she so badly needs.

  Your obedient servant,

  Madre Felipa de Navas

  Convent of San José of the Discalced Carmelites.

  No, the Reverend Mother will have none of her novices cooking up Naustical unions in their cells. She would not know a Gnostic union from a nauseous onion. And, yes, the woman is ignorant, but you are the fool. Your tactics are hardly less crude than hers, and far less subtle than the Enemy’s. You could bully the woman into acknowledging Kircher’s orthodoxy in the eyes of the Holy Office and that Isis is a blessed prefiguration of the Virgin. But you would only be compounding your own errors, the errors of which these journals must be the unflinching testament.

  The austerity you imposed on this girl is really the one you covet for yourself. Grown fat on so many easy successes are you now to meet with your greatest failure just when it matters most? To lose the greatest mind on the continent to pagan madness?—a woman hand-delivered to you by Providence?

  No. A thousand times, no …

  Perhaps as a spiritual director you have no true vocation. But you have a will. To bring the great ship of her soul into port may have become your career’s crucial campaign, its greatest challenge and danger, its turning point. You must put this right. You will right this ship …

  But more gently, more patiently. A soul like crystal, lucent and brittle, must be polished. Polished, not broken. Ground down like a lens.

  Let her return to the palace. Her life there is more untenable than ever. When she comes to you again, as she must—who else is there for her now?—sooner or later you two will talk of San Jerónimo, a convent known for its loose discipline and worldly pursuits…. And if marriage is truly reprehensible to her, or indeed no longer practicable, then a convent is the last respectable option. Bring her to see it as the only path from the palace that does not lead to perdition, to the ignominy of a beaterío,† or the infamy of a recogimiento,†† a place of reclusion so complete that the windows themselves are to be mortared in.

  Arrange a visit, if necessar
y. If our young poet thinks the convent of San José severe, give her a glimpse of life without sunlight.

  †photostat copy, likely source: archives of the Seminary of the Archdiocese, Zacatecas, Mexico

  †Peace in Christ

  †shelter for indigent widows, reformed prostitutes and retired actresses

  ††women’s prison for delinquents, thieves, murderesses, adulteresses, street prostitutes….

  JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ

  THE SCEPTRE OF SAINT JOSEPH

  B. Limosneros, trans.

  (ENTER INTELLIGENCE, SCIENCE, ENVY, CONJECTURE, LUCERO.)

  LUCERO:

  Beauteous Intelligence, my bride

  who, from the first joyous instant

  I knew myself in that most blest of Realms,

  have been to me, not less than Envy, companion

  through good fortune and ill, so constant

  so fine, so loyal, so loving

  as not once to have strayed from my side

  through that most terrible of times

  when, deserted by Grace and by Beauty—

  they unto the Almighty Seat cravenly cleaving—

  only you, in your constancy, me never leaving,

  into the Abyss in my company descended;

  perhaps that within me should rage such a torment

  as to blaze hotter yet by the light of your eyes …

  CONJECTURE:

  Let that be for Conjecture to decide,

  since your daughter am I, and your Science’s;

  through me alone shall you divine the consequences.

  ENVY:

  And through me, those of feeling, since I am Envy,

  your daughter too, asp that writhes

  through the embers of your breast