What I wouldn’t give for a cigarette. Or better yet a drink.
She hadn’t smoked, nor wanted to, since she had gone to live with Man those exquisite, fleeting months. Yet those months had birthed the foundation of all that she had endured before, with its whirlwind of pain and struggle – and had birthed the promise of what she was yet to be. And, most importantly, had birthed the belief that the struggle would be worth it. She had never had a life plan yet had had life expectations. And though none of those expectations had worked out so far, and some of the painful lessons she thought would kill her, that fledging promise birthed in the months with Man she had to grip fiercely and believe in mightily.
“Never did give a flip for family image,” Paul replied. “But I’m worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Because it looks to me like you’re heading up a box canyon with the bad guys riding hard after you.”
“You’ve been watching too many Tom Mix movies.”
“What does this guy Mondragon mean to you?”
Her control wavered. “That’s just like you, Paul. Not ‘are the headlines true?’ but ‘what does he mean to you?’ You always did approach a situation from an original point of view.”
“You know how I hate compliments. If the old man gives you one, you know his next words are going to cut your feet out from under you. So? Are you going to answer my question?”
She closed her eyes to imagine Man before her instead of with Mrs. Wainwright. The delegation was appearing at the dedication of the newly finished Lincoln Memorial. She had agreed with the old woman it was best Alessandra absented herself from public appearances with Man until the committee hearing, less than a week away.
“Man . . . that’s his name . . . and all the Indians,” she hedged, “bring to me an other-worldly gift . . . of being connected to the rhythms of the sun, moon, and stars . . . the forces of the earth and the waters around them.”
He groaned. She imagined him rolling his eyes. “Do you want to try speaking English?”
“Paul, the Indians believe it is better not to have a written language . . . because once it is written down, it limits. And you can’t limit love, spirit, beauty . . . am I making sense?”
“Once you start making sense to me, Sis, I might as well check myself into the loony bin. But I just thought I’d give you a call, let you know what’s going on here in Transylvania. Expect the General to get in touch with you.”
Their father didn’t, but Brendon did. She took the telephone receiver and waited for Mrs. Folson, the woman who ran the boarding house, to trot off down the hall and out of ear shot.
“What do you want from me, Brendon? You’ve charmed my father, bought my brother, stolen my son. Do you want my life’s blood next?”
“My God, Alessandra, those newspaper headlines . . . Do you realize what people are saying? You’re making a fool of me.”
If it weren’t for my battle for Jeremy —
She tried patience and a half-truth. “All I can tell you, Brendon, is that Man and I are not engaging in a love affair.”
“Of course, you’re not. The idea is ludicrous! You and that dirty, sissified darkie.” His laugher tumbled out sharply, but it did not hide the pain in his voice. “But you know the public, and I won’t stand for —”
She replaced the phone in its cradle.
* * * * *
In the bowels of the nation’s capitol, at the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs, she and Man were to stand toe-to-toe with stern-faced senators, including Secretary of Interior Fall, Senator Bursum . . . and Brendon.
Between the rows of chairs provided for spectators, including the seventeen tribal elders and the face-off of the semi-circular desk reserved for subcommittee senators stood the single desk with its single chair where the expert witness would be grilled. Alessandra stared hard at it.
More likely fried. What hope did an illiterate Indian have against a panel of brilliant and grandiloquent politicians?
As she took her seat beside Man, a collective whispering arose. Clearly, she had aligned herself against her husband.
The white-haired Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee, Senator Noland, brought the house to order and read the agenda. He nodded, giving Senator Bursum the go-ahead.
To Alessandra, the man looked like a lard bucket. He glanced pointedly at Man and was launching into a stentorian diatribe. “. . . accounts of communal nudity and the annual deflowering of young virgins at Blue Lake each August. These orgies cannot be allowed to continue in the name of all that’s decent and honorable. We should do all that we can to help those working to convert these redskin pagans to Christianity and into the cultural mainstream. As good Christians, it is our moral duty to raise these superstitious and backward people above their half-animal savage state they call their religion.”
Brendon took the floor next and spoke more convincingly. “If we truly have the welfare of the Indians at heart, their only hope of a future, of survival, lay in assimilation into Caucasian culture. And that, my esteemed colleagues, can best be done by honoring the water rights and land claims of all American citizens impartially, be they Anglo, Hispanic, or Indian. That would mean that an entire community like Rancho de Taos cannot be expected to vanish simply because Indians want a piece of land back.”
He spread his palms in a gesture of sincerity and openness. “Look, the Bursum Bill seeks to honor all American claims, not just the Indians, and in doing that, paves the way for the Indian to leave the coddling of reservation life.”
Sadly, she realized that Brendon was bound by his narrow interpretation of duty and honor over broader human values. His urgent, petty agendas had robbed him of compassion. He had forfeited the wellsprings of life that were the gift of the Coyote.
Now the chairman of the Senate subcommittee called Man. She sent up a prayer to that Being without name, without heart, without sorrow or pain, but with purpose and wisdom. Man rose and made his way forward to stand behind the witness desk.
“You may sit,” said the chairman.
“I stand.”
“All right.” The senator smiled uncomfortably. “Go ahead. Go ahead, please.”
“My people say, ‘Yes, squatter on our land keep her claims.’ Say, ‘We don’t want $300,000 in return for land the squatters on.’ We ask only for land watered by our sacred Blue Lake we keep. Blue Lake source of Rio Pueblo, where my people drink and water their lands. Blue Lake source of all life . . . also retreat of souls after death. Home of our ancestors who gave life to our people of today.”
“You’re talking about the past,” the paunch-bellied Bursum rudely interjected, “A thousand years ago. That’s all well and good, but we’re dealing with the here and now.”
Gaveling him quiet, the chairman said, “Let Mr. Mondragon finish.”
Man paused, searching for the right English words. “Blue Lake, it is a symbol of unity and everlastingness of Pueblo people. As your cross is symbol of Christianity, Blue Lake and land it waters is symbol of Indian religion. It is our church. Life itself our religion. America . . . it know about religious freedom?”
Brendon jumped to his feet. “This isn’t about religion, dammit!”
The chairman hammered his gavel. “Senator Bursum did introduce the subject, Senator O’Quinn. I believe what we’re talking about here is the pre-Columbian religion of the Taos Tribe.”
“That’s true, Chairman Noland,” Brendon hastily acknowledged, “but to give the Indians complete trust of the land they occupy could be dangerous. I remind my illustrious colleagues that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs feels Indians should not be given title to land allotted them until they are judged competent.”
The chairman glanced back to Man. “Do you have a response, Mr. Mondragon?”
Man spread his great palms. “Competent? This word I do not understand. But your Burke thinks we no be given title to land? How say you this? We use and own land before coming of Spaniards. Ours customs and your science
man Neil Judd say so.”
“Well,” the chairman said, rubbing his chin, “it seems that Mr. Mondragon has put forth claim to the land based on use and ownership . . . as substantiated by both Indian tradition and archeology. Is that all you have to say on behalf of your people, Mr. Mondragon?”
“I no more talk.”
“Then we thank you for appearing before us, sir. A vote will be taken once all witnesses have testified.”
One by one, Alessandra examined the expressions of the senators, those white men who would decide the fate of the Indian villages.
Beside her Man sat quietly, calmly, his face a tabula rosa, his eyes invisible shutters.
Alessandra’s palms grew damp. “So it all comes down to this,” she murmured to him. “How can you be so calm?”
His hooded eyes scrutinized her face. He shrugged those yard-wide shoulders. “All is in hands of Great Spirit. All is as should be. Why make worry?”
* * * * *
The boarding house was gloomy that evening. The results of the subcommittee’s pontification might not come down for weeks or even months. The summer-long efforts of all the traveling, speaking, pleading even, had taken its toll. The Indians were sick in heart and body.
They murmured of the white man’s museums filled with statues and dead things, things without spirit.
“Nothing living in your homes.”
“Cities suffocate spirit.”
“No trees, no water, no sky. All concrete and car smoke.”
They yearned to return to the beauty of their homelands.
None more so than Man.
He and Alessandra stood on the upper veranda, between them a pillar, its white paint peeling. Here, they could be truly alone, if only for a few moments. The August night closed around them, sticky, brutally hot and humid . . . and raucous, with men and women escaping the heat of crowded tenements to swarm the streets.
At the corner, a woman of color whacked her little boy on the butt with her purse. Somewhere a siren wailed, probably police enroute to break up a new kind of racketeering in progress. Down the block, a saturnalia of screeches and shrieks mingled. Across the street, a top-hatted man and well-dressed woman knocked surreptitiously on a basement door of the somber brownstone front, seeking entrance to its speakeasy.
Man stared up at the gray, cloud-streaked half moon, the same moon shining over his homeland. His beautiful, deep-lidded eyes moved to capture Alessandra’s gaze. “My spirit, it would die here. I go back tomorrow.”
She swallowed her quick tears. Never again would she see majestic northern New Mexico. The visits would be too costly in terms of saying good-bye to Man.
Turning her face away, she murmured, “My spirit goes with you. Think of me. Remember me as your friend forever when Old Woman Moon rises each month.”
“Alessandra?’
Tears threatening to spill over her lids, she glanced back at him. He plucked a bloom from the straggly honeysuckle girding the pillar they leaned against and passed it to her. Their fingers touched. Sparks prickled her skin. Panic struck her. She realized that exact moment was the closest she would ever be to Man . . . in this lifetime.
“I will think of you each time I see desert lily push up through dark weight of Mother Earth. Each time mariposa lily, watered by wetness of love, stretches toward sunlight.”
Trying to control her choking breath, she inhaled the honeysuckle and wondered if its scent would forever remind her of the horrific torture of this moment.
* * * * *
Five weeks passed. For months Alessandra’s Indian friends and other people championing their cause had surrounded her. In the solitary waiting for the outcome of the Bursum Bill, her loneliness became a constant ache. Attempting to soften her pain, she organized a crusade for Indian suffrage.
Every person in the United States, man, woman, black or white, now had the right to vote. Every person except the Indian, despite the fact he had served and had died in the Great World War. That sacrifice had to shame all those who had the vote.
Outside her bedroom window, sunlight nourished plants, people rushed through the day, and life went on. But not for her. Determined to create a life for herself outside her concern for the Indians, she began to hunt for a suitable location for an art gallery. Yet in her quest, each outing took her past her former Rock Creek home. Always, she was hoping to catch sight of Jeremy in front.
In those five weeks, not a day, not an hour, passed that she did not think of Man. What is he doing? Does he ever think of me? He is so much stronger emotionally than I am. Has Mud Woman given birth yet?
Wanting so badly to see her own child, Alessandra had to face the belated guilt at betraying her marriage vows, regardless of how many times, how often, Brendon had betrayed his over the years of their marriage. So, in the sixth week, when Brendon came by, hat in hand, she let him in and listened to what he had to say.
He sat on the far end of the shabby couch downstairs, she on its other end. Nervously his fingers twirled his hat.
The conversation was hushed, probably because Mrs. Folson hovered in the kitchen, within ear’s reach.
“You’re still in the newspapers a lot.”
That’s what you came to say? How predictable. She folded her hands. The headlines about her and Man had faded from view. “At least the headlines have changed. You disapprove?”
“No. You have your job to perform.”
“But a job not quite respectable for a Senator’s wife?”
“Alessandra, I don’t want to get into that right now.”
“What do you want?”
He studied his hat band, then looked her in the eye. “I want you to come home.”
“Why should I? Would it be any different from before?”
“Ali, your father . . . Jeremy . . . Paul . . . we all really need you there at the house.”
The temptation of seeing Jeremy was so great, but she was cautious. Why do you want me back? Is it because you want me under your thumb again?”
“I want you back because I love you. I’ve loved you since that night I watched you dance at the Caveau de la Huchette.”
But he had not loved her enough to take only her to their bed over the years. A very young housemaid had been one of their bed’s occupants, when Alessandra had been out demonstrating for women’s suffrage one bitterly cold afternoon. She arched a brow. “Do you want to take me back -- despite the fact I will continue to fight for the rights of the Indians?”
No blatant reaction to her declaration, except his well manicured fingers just barely crimped the hat brim. “Hell, Ali, at least the reporters have cut the crap linking you with that darkie, that Mondragon. My informants told . . . well, I heard he has married the squaw he knocked up.”
Contempt flooded her. “That remark is below even you, Brendon.”
He looked up at her then. Genuine, abject misery shone in his eyes, red and watering. “Alessandra, I don’t want to be this way . . . out of control, wild. Mean. I don’t like feeling mean. Come home.” He swallowed then whispered, “Please.”
She looked away. Her hands fidgeted with the yellowed doily on the couch arm. For all his genteel traditionalism, his quintessential machismo put him beyond her comprehension. In no way could she relate to him. They shared neither the same values nor the same interests. They shared only their parentage of Jeremy. But . . . perhaps that was enough.
“Don’t do this.” She couldn’t handle this pathetic side of him. Belated guilt . . . that age-old sense of a woman’s duty to please . . . and the driving need to be with Jeremy nudged her to compliance. “All right. I’ll . . . I’ll give it a try again.”
With a smile, he captured her hand. “You won’t be sorry. Look, darling.” He dug into his vest pocket and drew forth a pendant necklace. It sparkled with a diamond-studded heart. He dropped the necklace in her palm. “A symbol of my everlasting love for you.”
The expensive piece of jewelry held none of the simple beauty of the heavy,
primitive silver bracelet Man had fashioned. Brendon had called it a cheap piece of souvenir Indian jewelry, a mere memento like any other trinket she had collected.
Prying open Brendon’s palm, she returned the necklace. “Brendon, that’s not what I want from you. I want . . . somehow, I’m hoping we can reach a place of respect and communication. Not just speaking through our thoughts but talking about our feelings.”
Shock registered in his eyes. She read the predictable thought. A woman could turn down a piece of jewelry? Her final words hadn’t even registered with him.
“Then . . . then, you won’t come back home?”
She sighed. Should I have expected anything else? “No, I will. But, Brendon . . . one thing, I plan to continue working for the Women’s Clubs’ Indian Welfare Division.” The words restored her sense of purpose, a hint of the independence she had struggled so hard to win. Man had predicted it. “I am reclaiming my power. Until the B.I.A. is reformed, until it preserves Indian culture instead of destroying it, I’ll work day and night if I have to.”
Brendon nodded stiffly. “Just come home. It’ll be like it used to be, I promise.”
That definitely wasn’t what she wanted.
* * * * *
“Mrs. O’Quinn?” the telephone voice asked.
“Yes?” She lowered her voice. Jeremy was taking an afternoon nap on the library sofa. She had commandeered the library for her office.
“Albert Fall here.”
Her breath caught. She said nothing.
“I’d like to meet with you.”
“Meet with me? About what?”
“Meet me on the east side of the Potomac . . . at that new building dedicated to Lincoln. I’ll be waiting at the New Jersey column.”
“I—I can’t. My son’s sleeping.”
“Bring him, then. Mrs. O’Quinn, it’s in his best interest. I’d imagine he’d enjoying visiting the Memorial.”
The implied threat was unmistakable.
The limestone, granite, and marble building had been designed to resemble a classic Greek temple. Each of the thirty-six Doric columns was carved with the name of a state in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death.
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