Hunger's Brides

by W. Paul Anderson

  I had been walking in the snow.

  When Gutiérrez left, I set out for the kitchen to see Sor Vanessa and Concepción, who were among my few friends within these walls. That there were no platters of delicias today for my guests was a painful turn, and yet I found myself stopped outside, standing in the lightly falling snow. I looked back.

  I’d come out along the high temple wall, the cool stone slots we confess through partly snowed in. Parting from the wall, tracks wound through the orchard and ended with me, here in the midst of the winter growing season. After a moment I added to them, wending through the branchless lances of papaya trees, green goads in massy cluster at the tips—a line of maces groaning beneath the extra weight of moistened snow. I ducked in among the pomegranates and apples, ruddy-cheeked amidst the little hods and barrows of snowy leaves … in through branches broken where not bowed or bent to their stays like Bedouin tents. A finch startled ahead of me and, catapulting into the air, freed the softly nodding bough—such glory for that tiny weight, such masses to dislodge … launched not up but down.

  There was such a stillness out here now, and for a moment, I was not sure how long … it had come inside. A cool, a quiet in my mind. Thoughts falling to rest, not memories quite, but everywhere falling, the presence of what was past piling up in drifts…. The quiet in the orchards after snow in Panoayan.

  As I came in through the refectory it seemed I had quite forgotten my grievances. I did not come to visit the mistresses of the kitchens often enough. Vanessa, descended from the aristocracy of Navarre, small-boned, elegant. Concepción, an Indian servant old enough to be her mother, round and bent. And yet they were very much a couple, a partnership in here. It was like another country, indeed one in which Spanish was rarely used, since it would have returned to Sor Vanessa the very advantage she had chosen to surrender. What speaking they needed to do, Vanessa did in the Nahuatl she had learned, and Concepción in her few set phrases and words for food in Basque.

  I had once had the idea of learning Basque, which Vanessa warned me from the outset I would not have time to learn. And so the joke among us was that I would tease Vanessa about her Nahuatl, which was good now, while Vanessa sadly warned how far Concepción was ahead of me in Basque. And then I would ask when she was going to take the time to teach me. Now they were mortified to see me come in through the kitchen doorway. I saw it was not their doing—that the Prioress had ordered that there be no more special courtesies for my guests—and so my coming could have been a painful moment that just now I would have given anything to avoid. It was too late to turn back. My wet feet saved us.

  Concepción scolded me in Nahuatl, dragged me over by the fire and pulled my shoes and stockings off as though they were a child’s. She had hardly towelled my feet dry before Vanessa thrust into my hands an aromatic cup of chocolate spiked with some kind of aguardiente. They would not let me leave until my stockings had dried, and in truth they dried too quickly. As I sat before the fire Concepción came by to stir the pot from time to time, and Vanessa brought morsels of this or that on which I was asked a grave opinion. Concepción told her to make me try everything. I was too thin, too thin. I listened to them softly chaffering over sauces and spices. I stared into the fire … along the walls … at the clusters of clay ollas and copper pots, strings of peppers and of garlic, baskets of red and white onion, all strung from the rafters. More than once my eyes had sought out the open doorway to the pantry at the back …

  As I was leaving I asked Vanessa when she was going to take the time to teach me Basque.

  “You do not have the time to learn,” she said.

  If it came out a little awkwardly, it was only that her face had fallen, to hear what she had said. I smiled and shook my head.

  On my way out through the refectory I glanced at the rostrum. It was a shame to let drop all Antonia’s work on Camilla. She had done a fine translation of Virgil, another of Catullus. I would ask her to give us a class on Camilla at our academy on Monday.

  At first I was afraid it was the typhoid again. Even before the symptoms, the sense of something gone wrong. Then hot and cold, fever and chills, bouts of drowsiness between the headaches, a vise about my skull, forehead and back.

  I was a fortnight in bed. In that time Antonia had gone down to meet little delegations of well-wishers, a bookseller, a theatre-manager come with an actor or two, and tears and flowers. And gossip. A day or two later, a few impresarios from the bullrings and cockpits, with bottles of good wine and still better gossip. There was a visit I was sorry to have missed. Write one sonnet on a bullfighter, make fast friends for life. We shared a bond, I realized. The Archbishop’s hatred. The news was no longer a matter only for the clerics—the Archbishop’s persecutions of me, his bans on my carols for the people. Next the Creole seditionists would be bringing me chocolate.

  The Viscount and Samuel and the treasury man had all come to our chapel—perhaps had even chosen it as a meeting point. What drew them here? Rebellion was in the air, and our convent was fast becoming a symbol, if not of insurrection then I did not know what. It was not just my locutory now—all the parlours were brewing rumours and gossip. The French were coming, the Viscount was leading them through our defences! It was not completely implausible. Eight years earlier the pirates had held Veracruz for six weeks, then sailed off with fifteen hundred Spaniards to be made slaves. Still, one might doubt that all were virgin girls….

  Then Antonia brought up from the locutory a story I made her repeat twice. That Father Xavier Palavicino had been in Veracruz at the time, having boasted of going among the dead and the dying, giving last rites even before the French had returned to their longboats. I teased Antonia for wondering if Palavicino were somehow in league with the Viscount. Xavier Palavicino, pirate curate. But if not, what did this mean?—nothing at all, except to the simple people of Mexico, which was not nothing. It did not matter if it was true, it could seem true enough to them. Was this why so many came now? My well-wishers could not really have thought I was involved—and in what exactly? Was I thought to be the new pirate queen? I had a not unpleasant moment imagining myself at the side of the Viscount as pirate king but put it down to the fever….

  Comedy where there is none. Palavicino among the pirates—it was absurd yet somehow chilling that events so incongruous should so conspire. What had brought them all to the chapel that day? There was no connection.

  The connections are in the weave of the net. The fish in it are not cause but consequence of the weave. The fish do not weave it, nor are the fish woven into it. The fish are only caught up in it. Change the weave, change the fish. A different weave catches different fish. The word is coincidencia.

  I am not the fish, I am the net.

  February 12th. There were to be no more classes at the academy, and the other teachers would take up my classes of music and dance. The Prioress had chosen this moment to announce it, while I was in bed. She thought me weak. We would see. Rebellion was in the air.

  I got up and dressed, still tottery. Mother Andrea was expecting me. Yes, she had told the kitchen no more special favours. These had been for friends of the convent. She was no longer sure that I knew any. She was unusually sure of herself—as I recalled it, Palavicino had been her idea, not mine. She could not hold my eyes.

  I told her I did not care about the food, but the classes, these would continue.

  Yes, the classes, she said. They had not been her idea in the first place; as she recalled, they were the idea of Bishop Santa Cruz—who was also, it appeared, not such a friend of this convent. And cancelling them had not been her idea, either. They were suspended by order … she held up the letter by a corner. I might read it myself, if I wished. And if I wished, I could take it up with him, His Grace, the Lord Archbishop of Mexico.

  That afternoon I sent for Gutiérrez, where had he been? It had been two weeks already. I am stronger, I am not weak. A little dewy at the temples, a little clammy under the tunic—but far from the only on
e, in this place. I was better, much, or would be if the headaches would ease.

  February 15, 1691. Gutiérrez came. I went down alone to meet him. No news on the letters, but he had been wondering, what if Núñez had not burned all my spiritual journals? Just a thought, but what if the journals—not the letters—had been what he used to so change Bishop Santa Cruz’s stance toward me? How did Gutiérrez know about these? But I had told him, had I forgotten? In making his inquiries this week he had discovered there were men at the Holy Office who had not forgotten Núñez’s talk of my journals so many years ago. Who—Dorantes? It was no sooner said than regretted. Gutiérrez risked enough by coming here. I apologized. I had not been well.

  Yes, he could see that for himself. He insulted me wryly enough and the moment of awkwardness passed. He had other news.

  Palavicino still persisted in his mad intention to publish the sermon. He had found a printer, and most of the necessary signatures. One was the Viceroy’s. Gutiérrez was surprised, but I explained that the Viceroy had been grateful for my poem on his great naval victory in Tortuga. He was only too happy to license the excellent sermon written in my defence. He had been trying to do me a favour.

  February 24, 1691. The twenty-second anniversary of my profession. The day I entered here I was not quite twenty….

  The second time I left the palace I went out the main gates—not by the servant’s quarters, the way of shame—straight into the main square, with Perico alone to see me off. He led me out through the Hall of Mirrors, as if to remind me I had nothing to be ashamed of. Of course not, Perico. On the way to the door I saw her passing through mirror after mirror: a young woman fighting for her composure, at her hip gliding just above the mirror frames the tousled head of a dwarf.

  Mostly it had been a relief, not having to face her after that day. Her nakedness in too many mirrors, too many rooms, the nakedness in her face. I had not had to look into a mirror for twenty-two years.

  I caught glimpses of course. Drawing water from a well … a face in the lamplight on the baths we drew. And there were nights I missed her, that passion, that pride and rage. Was she still here, had she gone away?

  And I missed Antonia, the way she had been when she first came. For though we looked nothing alike, she had been about that age, had something of those traits, that pride, that rage.

  A breeze from the sea …

  Look at her today. It seemed the cloister did this to all of us. This anxiousness, this anger. This frustration and bitterness. She was not happy here any longer. I should have let her go. Where, where would my Antonia go?

  We were at the table in the sitting room. Beyond her left shoulder a fire burned low in the corner. We had not spoken much all day. She’d prepared a beautiful meal for the anniversary of my profession. Vanessa and Concepción had sent up a lovely stew, chicken and chayote, peppers and squash. There was no hope of finishing all this food. Antonia was eating quietly, not looking up. Her hair was draped back over her broad shoulders in long black coils and streamers. Sometimes on festive occasions when it was just we two, we wore dresses. But tonight she still wore the rough brown sayuela, and I a damp white tunic of cotton … too thin, too thin.

  Losing our classes was a bitter thing. Explaining it to the novices more bitter still. These past few days I had so wanted to bring the other Antonia back to stay. I wanted to tell her we would get them back, our classes. I wanted to say, I know you are not happy, Antonia. Let us pretend, a little while, make believe for a week or two, that we are….

  “I have been thinking, ’Tonia, that you and I should write a play together.” The window over the table was closed against the cold. Her form moved through the warps in the crystal panes as she cleared the dishes from the table. She did not yet look at me, but paused—about to lift a bowl of grated jícama and beet. “We have all the elements we need for a marvellous comedy—like los empeños that the Archbishop would so have hated, if he’d given himself half a chance.” Her eyes, hazel in the light, met mine. She straightened. She was allowing herself to hope I might be serious. “I am serious. You and I. A play of mistaken identities—like Amor es más laberinto, which you know as well as I, having copied out all those drafts for me.” I could see her excitement now—to be doing something.

  “But how can I …” she asked. She shifted the bowl in her right hand to rest on the plates in her left, and nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Don’t worry—we’ll take another play as a model. There’s one by Tirso that might be just perfect. With a maid named Serafina, I recall, and a secretary named Antonio. Tirso has all the tricks. You’ll get the hang of it.” I saw the light going out of her eyes. She thought I was making fun of her. Could she think me so cruel after what had happened with our classes—with Camilla? I pressed harder. Truly—I actually wanted us to write it. A play of masquerades, cloaked figures, assignations in the shadows of a garden. Couples reflecting other couples reflecting each other. Servants mistaken for their masters, and vice versa. Two hooded soldiers, each passing for the other. Archbishops feigning madness, bishops veiled as nuns. A Sicilian count we take for an enemy but who represents a friend. A French viscount introduced by a friend but whom we discover to be a seducer on a king’s behalf—but who then reveals himself to be a pirate king bent on treasure and conquest. Seizing the moment in the capture of the silver fleet, the Creole seditionists rise up, proclaim the pirate viscount king! and thereby achieve their dream of making the viceroyalty a kingdom. We have all the elements—we could write it together in a week or two….

  And yet with every word it had gotten worse. Dishes still cradled against her side, she stood, head bowed, hair veiling her face. Her shoulders heaved—she set down the dishes violently. The bowl of salad tipped onto its side.“You wouldn’t defend yourself from him!” Her hands shot up—the long blunt fingers splayed, tendons standing out in the strong wrists.“Someone had to.”

  The gesture was of imprecation or pleading, but it was only when I said his name that she would look up at me.

  “Who—Santa Cruz …? ’Tonia, what is it? Why are you crying?” I got up and rounded the table to her side. I took her hands, folded the angry fingers up against her palms. “Toñita, look at me. Tell me …” I smoothed back her hair, with a fingertip touched the fine scar at her cheek, the damp tip of her nose, raised her chin. Her eyes brimmed.

  “I sent it.”

  “Sent what? What did you send?” But already I knew … I was remembering her in the locutory—turning from the clavichord the day of his last visit as the thought had flickered through my mind that she’d been crying.

  “The Seraphina letter, to Santa Cruz.”

  Our letter—did she have any idea what she’d done? There was much more she tried to tell me. No, Antonia, not now. I had never asked to know about her and the Bishop. I already knew where she had come from. Of course there was more, Antonia, there was always more. I did not need to hear it. I had chosen to trust her—chosen. I would not live my life racked with suspicions. Their gossip, their stories, their envies, I did not hear them. I did not listen. No, Antonia, I am too angry to hear it tonight—it was cruel but I would not give her the relief of confessing it. I do not care right now to hear what he has done to you—do you have any idea what you’ve done to me? If you hate him so, if he has done so little for you that you should find yourself trapped in here with me, then write your own letters—don’t send him ours—or go to Puebla yourself and tell him how you feel, for you are not nearly so trapped in here as I.

  No, Antonia. I will ask you when I am ready. Not before. Just now, I do not have time to help you with your conscience.

  Now there really was work to do. Now let Santa Cruz have my answer. And in it let the Inquisition know I would not go without a struggle. Let them take their time, make their preparations, polish their arguments, for they would have such a fight.

  And tell the shades of your fathers the one who sent you was a woman.

 
JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ,

  1 MARCH 1691

  abridged and adapted from the translation of Margaret Sayers Peden11

  REPLY TO SISTER PHILOTHEA†

  My most illustrious señora, dear lady:

  It has not been my will, my poor health, or my justifiable apprehension that for so many days delayed my response. How could I write, considering that at my very first step my clumsy pen encountered two obstructions in its path? The first (and, for me, the most uncompromising) is to know how to reply to your most learned, most prudent, most holy, and most loving letter…. The second obstruction is to know how to express my appreciation for a favour as unexpected as extreme, for having my scribblings printed, a gift so immeasurable as to surpass my most ambitious aspiration, my most fervent desire, which even as a person of reason never entered my thoughts….

  This is not pretended modesty, lady, but the simplest truth issuing from the depths of my heart, that when the letter which with propriety you called Atenagórica reached my hands, in print, I burst into tears of confusion (withal, that tears do not come easily to me)….

  I cast about for some manner by which I might flee the difficulty of a reply, and was sorely tempted to take refuge in silence. But as silence is a negative thing, though it explains a great deal through the very stress of not explaining, we must assign some meaning to it that we may understand what the silence is intended to say, for if not, silence will say nothing …

  And thus, based on the suppostion that I speak under the safe-conduct of your favour, and with the assurance of your benignity and with the knowledge that like a second Ahasuerus you have offered to me to kiss the top of the golden sceptre of your affection as a sign conceding to me your benevolent licence to speak and offer judgements in your most exalted presence, I say to you that I have taken to heart your most holy admonition that I apply myself to the study of the Sacred Books … I confess that many times this fear has plucked my pen from my hand … which obstacle did not impinge upon profane matters, for a heresy against art is not punished by the Holy Office but by the judicious with derision, and by critics with censure…. I wish no quarrel with the Holy Office, for I am ignorant, and I tremble that I may express some proposition that will cause offense or twist the true meaning of some scripture….