Hunger's Brides

by W. Paul Anderson

  The fine, angular distinction between a cricket song and its echo, at dusk before the dewfall, and the cricket’s coppery trill from the frog’s croak of tin.

  I’ve done everything I can, everything I know, everything to bring you back. To make your America sing back to you. All that’s left now, all that remains, is to hear your echo’s last receding….

  Guess.

  In the instant before a clean incision begins to bleed, a pause, like a fallen child reading her mother’s eyes for pain.

  Guess.

  Out of a darkened barn into the light a mosquito’s ruby lumbering under the weight of blood drawn from my throat. Like an osprey hooked into a fish too large to raise. I can’t let go, can’t swim.

  Guess.

  The wobble of a whetted razor bumping slow across the ridges of the tongue.

  The tongue’s severed slap against a wetted granite trough.

  It’s just a game. Guess which, I ask holding out my closed hand to slip the answer in your palm. What have I brought for you, what have I seen? What’s true, what’s real? Guess for me. Please.

  Your eyes welling at last, with too much of everything, hands cupped out before you as though to catch it all, you say to me:

  All of it ’Tonia, it’s all real, you don’t need me to make it real for you. Can you see?

  Night. Humid dark like a large beast breathing. Cicada battery ribs the utter black.

  Eyes snap wide. You are not beside me. Or sitting at the window or the doors. Body coated in nightsweat, I look for you. The stillness of a gathering rain. I look for you outside—patios, orchards, garden. Faithless I look for you even in the chapel. Running barefoot silently, desperately back to the room to see if you’ve come back—blank panic—have you run away without me? Left me? It can’t be! Please. Tilting wildly out the windows into the cloud-blackened streets—west, south—volcano looming invisibly in the blackness to the east, are you going back home? I can’t see anything!

  First few drops of rain, bloated spatter against the dusty window ledge. Then a movement on the roof across the courtyard as the sky splits—a flash of lightning trailing sparks, lighting you, sweat-drenched, naked, running in the dark away from me. The roof!—your draftsman’s drawings memorized, some walled passage or false ending—some secret way. How long, how long have you known, been free up there, how often, free of everything, of me? How many nights?

  Núñez is coming TOMORROW.

  You could have shown me! I’ll make you still! One shout, one scream from me could betray you. Another flash—you stand now, gleaming body arched back like a viol, panting mouth to the sky. I bite my tongue—bite hard down—till the taste of iron fills my teeth and my face is slick with salted rain.

  And suddenly, more certainly than I have ever known any other thing, I know you will never run up on that roof again.

  I wake late. Air mocking bright … salt parchment stretched across my eyes.

  Today is Sunday.

  CODEX: RENUNCIATION

  SUNDAY BELLS’ INCESSANT TOLLING from across the city. Each hour from the belfry topping the red-tiled dome of Saint Jerome, the chapel bell clangs hollowly from doom’s brass throat.

  She walks back to the cell, eyes blazing, from seeing Núñez. Once inside she strips to the waist—in the middle of the day, I think stupidly. It’s the wrong time of day….

  I feel it going on and on forever with the whole convent listening, breathlessly … how long, how many strokes I can’t say.

  So in the end the record will be incomplete.

  I walk out to the orchards, out to where she would normally be, and begin shearing branches indiscriminately, cropping flowers, plucking leaves.

  And now something else is clear to me: I can’t stay for this.

  The past days’ rhythms lie shredded to ribbons all about me. In the deepening dusk I pass by the convent prison—door ajar—just to look, at the cell reserved for me. Prison within a smaller prison, like the blacker shade inside us on the darkest night.

  This is where I will end up if I run or if I stay. They expel nuns not slaves. Running away from my rightful owner is petty theft, even if it’s theft of me.

  Carlos tries to make me see she’s not really submitting to Núñez, she’s defying him. But how?—tell me. See, Núñez would want moderation, control—he’s already created enough extáticos. Nothing he despises more in all the world. Losing her to this, and losing her in death are what he really fears. These two threats he cannot walk away from, must answer for: death and rapture. Two grim levers. And she knows how to work them.

  Is this supposed to comfort me?

  Come away with me, Juanita, come out of here! I can’t stay a second longer in this place. This stone boat is sinking—Juana please. I won’t go down with it.

  Do I dare ask this? Do you know how it feels to watch these years of ours end? To watch him come to you instead? Can’t you see how this makes me feel?

  Come, Juanita, Carlos would welcome both of us.

  But I already know what you’ll say to me, if you’ll say anything at all—the same words Carlos tells me you used with him twenty-five years ago:

  Would you ask me to exchange the nun’s vows against the housewife’s: enclosure, poverty and chastity for enclosure, silence and servility?7 What kind of bargain is this?

  Carlos comes.

  Antonia I was serious about what I said yesterday. I’m not prepared to lose both of you … You—we—have done everything we could. Now we’ve got to get you out of here.

  And leave her alone in this place?

  You know better than anyone she’s been alone in here for a long time now.

  But where would I go?

  Of course you’d come to live with me.

  The Bishop’s whore?

  You’ll come as a houseservant. There’ll be food enough for two. Your duties will be light. No please, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a carnal man. My demons are not insistent.

  Carlos, I don’t need promises—the idea doesn’t horrify me, you know. But I’m embarassing you…. We could keep things simple then, if you want.

  We’ll have to think on how to get you out. If you were a nun, it would be harder, but as an oblate … perhaps it would be enough to find the money to repay your dowry.

  Carlos, I thought maybe you already knew….

  Knew?

  I’m not here as an oblate. Not really.

  I’m not sure I follow….

  Two days later, I have him meet me at the market, partly to see if he’ll actually be seen walking with me through the streets. Only walking beside him today, away from here, do I understand how lonely I have been.

  Carlos wants to buy me. He’s asking you to sell me to him.

  I never told him, ’ Tonia. You know that, don’t you?

  I know. He wants me to come and live with him.

  Toñita, sweet friend, Carlos is right, it’s time for you to go now. You should have gone a long time ago….

  TO THE PASS

  [Amecameca, Mexico, 17 December 1994]

  DARKNESS. My ear bent to her lips.

  Daylight. Trying to see, stare down the sun.

  Days of there and now / nights of here and then—recanting now incanting then. Cant and descant, these my impure orisons…. And what of dusk and dawn—liminal fall, sudden, tropical. Plunge from then to now, and back again.

  Each slow noon slants to past, each midnight sloping back to soon. Too soon.

  Scribbler, sort your shards of rubbletime, read and reread the same texts narrowed now to three. Juana’s anthology, Octavio Paz, The Contendings of Horus and Seth. Dogeared trinity, final mysteries of my posthumous existence. A season, a month or two, a few more weakened weeks—to stall the engines of siege

  then rest then peace.

  Now down into the there and glare of day.

  Sear and gasblast of buses, dueling musics clash and churn the air to white. Powerlines and phonelines sickle-slash this alpen vista crushed ben
eath a redfisted dawn.

  Provincial city sausage-pinched into a gutted valley. Meek streetparks euphemistic and cowed—hardpressed islands huddling in the traffic scream. Lightpoles plastered with dance posters and sunbleached mugshots of politicos in mirror shades. Two chubbycheeked cosmetologists model mother’s facial cream distilled from avocado and honey.

  Taxi stand in front of the church. Battered white jeep parked off to one side of the cabfile. Aging Pancho Villa slouched against the mangled grille. Who can it be but him? His banter with the passersby, brassy rail and joust with fellow drivers all down the file.

  Buenos días.

  The hotel told me to look for you.

  You are going up the mountain.

  They say you’re the only one to go right to the pass.

  Not the only one, no. But the best. Here let me put that in the back. Ah a computadora—then we will keep the computer between us. The doorlatch there is a little rusted—here allow me, disculpe I was only going to help you in.

  Shall I wait a minute here?—you can see the SmokingStone very well just now, though the other is still in cloud, as it has been for days. But no, I see señorita is not here for the scenery.

  She’s seen this movie before. She’s here to see it end.

  Esta bien OK then we are off. Hornsquawk—tequila-toss of a wave in riposte—hijos de la mierda, they laugh at my truck those idiots in their new four-wheel drives bartered for land. Ten years theirs will be worse junk than this but the gringo will still own the land of their grandfathers. How is this a trade? This is the rape of a child who has been taught no better. Lo siento señorita, a no ser grosero, pero asi es. Never mind lawyers, today Cortés is an economist.

  Strong dark hands on the wheel burst into flower. Incessant stream of friendly, jetstream of charm—smiles right into my eyes no squints no flinch no doubts—he talks and talks and we have known each other all our lives asking nothing about my hands this mouth.

  Ask him.

  Does he know where Sor Juana’s hacienda is?

  In Panoyá—but of course. Is there a museum like Nepantla? Sorry no, nothing like this, everything there is very old, not new at all. Slysmiled irony.

  Is it on the way? Not exactly. Will you take me I can pay, just for a look. ¿Cómo no? no extra charge, you have me for the day.

  Off the highway and onto a lane of arching oaks planted as a windbreak—cinematic shuttering of oakboles, stuttered film of sunshot apple trees.

  Little bridge over a grassy trickle of a stream…. The well. The wide west-facing porch. A bell tower, a little chapel … I have seen all this in photographs. I have seen this place. Your place. In a hundred dreams. And never once dreaming the mountains were so high, so close.

  ¿Ya ves? Tranquilo, no, this place of her childhood? After Nepantla this is a tranquillity unhoped for. You wish to stop a minute?

  After the mountain. What is your name? Raúl. After, Raúl, when I come down. Thank you.

  You will let me bring you then. I know the caretakers well. There are things they could explain….

  First I will purge my hands of accidents.8 I will come down to you fasted and lightheaded. It’s enough to have seen this place, to know it exists. It is enough for now….

  The trip, señorita, is about three hours one way. But the time passes quickly you will see. You are well?

  Never better.

  But no I can see you are tired of questions. It is better that I talk, no extra charge. My wife says it is what I do best—obviously decencia requires she say this in front of the children, the neighbours.

  There are people who tire of their own voices, of course I understand this—they do not have mine. I have sung mariachi in Reno Nevada. Laboured on cargo boats to Spain and Argentina, sold my watercolours in Santa Fe, Nuevo México. Owned a taxi in El Paso de Tejas, Gringolandia—gringo is a word we use for different reasons, of course, sometimes with affection even. Americano we must never use for them—we are Americanos too. ¿Sí o no?

  And it’s true, his is a beautiful voice a baritone riversong of fathertongue lifting me up on a tide of buttermilk and it is fine a relief to ride beside this strange old handsome man with redbrown eyes in smiley wrinkley naugahyde.

  Calling them Norte Americanos is better, but México also is in North America. At least the poor geographers still think so. Estadunidenses es lo peor—we are the United States of Mexico! But outside of México no one cares about this. There is an expression: Pobre México, tan cerca de los Estados Unidos—

  Tan lejos de dios.9

  Ah, then you know this dicho! But you are not Mexican, I think…. We Mexicans come up in tour buses, sometimes los chilangos in cars. And from our countryside, from los pueblitos, some come on their knees. Or crawling on all fours. This has been a place of pilgrims for two thousand years.

  So now I, Raúl Sada, have come back home to the mountain—a kind of pilgrim too … to drive a taxi up to el paso del gachupín. You know gachupín, I wonder? No I don’t think so.

  Spurs—what you used to call Spaniards.

  So you know our poet, our language, our history—and you are not here for the scenery—or for questions, I know this. But maybe later you will permit me to guess—

  Canada.

  Canadá? It is like Gringolandia?

  Tan lejos de dios.

  Just as far from god—as us? you mean, or them—but right now you are wondering if I need to look at the road. No te preocupes, jovencita, I could drive this road in my sleep—no but I swear I never do! Paha! Like I told you I am not the only driver to go right to the pass, but most will leave you partway, at the chalet abandoned now—another failed desarrollo turístico—and tell you it is not far to walk. But it is. Very far. You have found the right man. I go up even in bad weather. And I am the only one to go up empty. My wife is from a village just the other side of the pass. We live out near Chimalhuacán now. Her family says she does not visit them enough anymore. Because I keep her so busy. What are they supposed to think when she has so handsome a husband? And sometimes there is someone up there who needs a ride to town or to market. Farmers or alpinistas—or tourists who find out their taxista didn’t wait. With me this will never happen! so don’t worry I take payment only when we come down—that is, if we make it—pah! you know I am joking by now, yes?

  Rocket attacks of laugh, launched from an upper lip pressed onto the lower—swept by the wireshocked handlebars—plosive salvoes of laughter beware their nervy infections. Big dark wavy hands shortsleeved red-brown farmer’s tan. Silver capped molars, one missing incisor—broken old hound, court jester, but in the dancing eyes—look at me I am old but wise too, careful do not be fooled by the fool!

  And I am not fooled, old man.

  Which hotel told you about me I must thank them for such a beautiful cliente—no no have not one instant of worry, I’m much too old for all that now I have a grandson your age. Three sons and a beautiful wife! But look at me—sixty and not one grey hair. Just white ones and black—pahaa! puras canas. Salt and pepper, is this not what you say in English? Sal y pimienta. And is that English you are writing in your cuaderno and what are you writing now?

  Every single word you say.

  Pahh!—I thought so you are finding me very picturesque right now, no? Pancho Villa rides again only better looking this time. Everyone says. You are finding my Mexican gallantry irresistible. You can admit this. You are not the first—how could you help it? Even so young and from a cold country you are a woman after all. This is very obvious of course. In the end you will succumb—though it is only a game for me now, a game I have loved. So don’t worry I am just talk. And it is dignified that you should take your time but do not bother to resist—it is inevitable. And this encanto I have is a great gift, ¿sí o no? You do not answer but I see you know how to answer without talk. This too is a gift, only not one of mine.

  But enough of this for now you still do not look up to the mountains. You are from Canada I understand. But this is not
only postcard scenery. Every rock every tree we are passing now contains a story. The old people are glad I am back, they send all the anthropologists to me now. Of course I do not know so much but who is a better talker? I see you have no answer to that.

  Probably you know the legend of our two great mountains up there. WhiteLady, Iztaccihuatl, and SmokingStone. Usually it is Popo that is lost in the clouds but it is eight days now we do not see the WhiteLady. You knew they were lovers probably. Yes. But did you know they were from rival tribes? Ah, I see this interests you. A love not meant to be. A wizard’s curse and she sleeps for an eternity. Her lover stands over her fuming and smoking and thundering vengeance. In the old times on special dates they would send a pair of lovers up there to be sacrificed.

  How many of such stories lost? No more, not as long as I am around. Some countries have gold, some silver or oil, but this pass is the El Dorado of legends! This rough road is paved with them—

  So let the spirit rise to its new level let it SOAR up into the hills. Lift me unresisting laughing with this laughing man so proud to bring me here, bubbling with talk. Why has he come to me why now?

  Racketing over potholes and redclay washboards. Cardboard Guadalupe jigged and swayed from the twisted rearview—smell of hot vinyl, neoprene and pine. Cool air, molared roadgrit.

  Lightswells, shadowfalls … across a smoking cone spun in candyfloss cloud.

  Farmsteads, green pastures, islands of brush. Goats and sheep.

  All this land here was once owned by the richest man around. There that clump of pines is where they found him. About a hundred years ago. Impaled on a treetop. Maybe on the big one there but it would have been much smaller back then so maybe that big stump. The forest here is supposed to be protected. It is our patrimony, no? But people need wood, I do not have the answer. A farmer who had prospered through his pact with the devil and had become rich in lands, about to marry the most beautiful girl around. The devil asked only one small thing in exchange—to take the bride on her wedding night. Of course this is easier in theory. When the night came the groom broke his word and took her first. They found the groom the next morning with half the tree stuck through him like a donut. This devil was a symbolist, what do you think?