by Mary Morris
Then he scoops them up again along with the manure. He goes into the driveway where he dumps the manure and the dung beetles beside it. In the twilight under the stars the beetles move forward and backward, carrying their spoils. Once more they move in a straight, orderly fashion. He watches them, and then he looks up. It is a bright, starry night. Cassiopeia is overhead, surrounded by her family, Andromeda, her daughter; Cepheus, her husband; and Perseus, who rescues Andromeda and marries her. At the horizon is the Big Dipper. And Polaris is due north. Again he looks at the beetles. Now he thinks he knows what they are doing. Like the ancient mariners they are navigating by the stars.
* * *
In the morning instead of running away Miguel goes to school. He shows up early before first period because he knows Mr. Garcia will be in his office. Miguel doesn’t even bother knocking. He just bursts in. Mr. Garcia is standing at his desk, sorting through papers, getting ready for class. He looks up as if he’s been expecting him. “So, Miguel, what’s going on?”
“Dung beetles,” Miguel says.
Mr. Garcia looks at him askance. “Dung beetles?”
“I think they navigate by celestial navigation. We know that other animals like birds and seals do, but it’s never been applied to insects. If my theory is correct, then it’s instinctual. And I think I can prove it. Here.” Miguel thrusts some papers onto Mr. Garcia’s desk. “I’ve filled out the forms for the scholarship.”
Mr. Garcia shakes his head. “I don’t know. This isn’t what I had in mind.”
“It’s about explorers,” Miguel says. “It’s about history. I think I can prove that celestial navigation is in our DNA.”
And Mr. Garcia sits down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
APRICOTS—1599
Sofia Pera de Torres knows that this morning, won’t be like any other. She is a woman who sees things even though she’s not sure that this is so. It’s what Federico refers to as “her mystery.” Once she saw a log roll out of the fire, careening toward her youngest, Enrique, who was playing with a puppy on the carpet in front of the hearth. Except she saw it in her dreams the night before and when the next morning she found Enrique on the floor near the fire, playing with the puppy, she swooped down, scooping him up just as the log rolled to the place where he’d been. The puppy managed to leap away.
That is how Federico sees his wife at times. Or rather how he teases her. As if she has an animal’s sense of what is to come. The way horses bang in the barn and birds fly madly before a storm. And that morning as he ran his fingers along the smooth lines of her back, Sofia knew that it was not going to be a day like any other.
As she sips her cup of hot chocolate, she longs for what she left behind. Perhaps it is her daily chocolate and the smell of stewing lamb that makes her recall her parents’ home in Mexico City. Though she brought the recipe for the stew with her, Sofia has never been able to replicate it. They tried adjusting the spices, rendering the sauce. They’ve added more tomatoes or less. They’ve carved the fat off the meat or left the fat on. But it never matches the sweet and savory dish her mother made when Sofia was a girl. She wishes she could taste what she tasted so long ago the same way she wants to smell her mother’s garden or her father’s pipe. Instead she smells something fetid. Perhaps a mouse has died in the walls. She walks around sniffing. Sofia has an acute sense of smell. She can smell the venison that the natives are roasting in Santo Domingo and she can smell when something isn’t right.
“Does it feel like a storm?” Sofia asks Bernadine as she rubs her hands against her arms.
“No, m’hija, I do not feel a storm in my bones.”
“But do you feel something? Something strange in the wind?”
Bernadine shakes her head. The old woman is adjusting the stew. It is Friday and she is preparing the special meal that the family eats together on that evening. A chicken roasted over the flames, fried potatoes, fresh beans from the garden, and the lamb and garbanzo stew. It would not be Friday night without the stew. The candlesticks are polished and the table set. On Saturday Federico does not work in the fields. It is the one day that they are together. Sometimes they go into Santa Fe where Sofia shops for cloth to make new dresses and curtains or blue-corn flour to make flatbread, though on Friday they eat the rich buttery bread that Bernadine makes with eggs and braids into a golden loaf. Another recipe from Sofia’s mother, but this one tastes the way she remembers it.
She helps Bernadine prepare the lamb. It is Federico’s favorite dish, and though it is summer, he still expects it, and, despite the fact that she can never get it quite right, she makes it for him. It is one of the recipes that Federico also remembers from the old country. She smiles when she thinks of her husband with the sores she no longer sees and his fondness of cumin, turmeric, and ginger.
* * *
She did not love Federico when she first met him. It was a slow love that grew over time. It wasn’t only the sores that he tried to conceal with his long, frilly cuffs and high-neck collars. Or the ones on his face that he covered with tinctures that made his skin glow like gold. It was his way of not really looking at her, his quiet voice that at times barely rose above a whisper, or the way his legs folded into themselves like a girl’s when he was seated. Had he not been the son of the revered and wealthy Dr. Eduardo de Torres of Girona, Sofia was certain that her father would never have invited him into their home.
Sofia was still in love with her cousin Alejandro when Federico came to her father’s house. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him even though it had been years since he was taken to the Flat House. She had been a young woman and was hoping that the day had come when she would marry him. Instead she was present at his burning. Her father had explained that they had no choice. If they did not attend, they would come under suspicion as well. And so she had buried her eyes and determined that she would never look upon another man for as long as she lived.
Yet, the first time she laid eyes on Federico it was as if her heart had stopped. When he looked at her with those blue eyes, she thought Alejandro had risen from the dead. Though Alejandro had been dark-skinned and Federico was fair, it was as if he was her lover’s pale double. “How is this possible?” Sofia wondered.
Her family didn’t seem to see the resemblance. Her mother, who had adored Alejandro, saw only this man’s effeminate side, with his silk handkerchiefs and lavender cologne, and her father only knew that he was the son of the distinguished Dr. Eduardo de Torres. But Bernadine noticed, and she crossed herself, fearing that it was a ghost come to take her away. Sofia almost shut the door in his face. The similarity with her dead lover was too much for her to bear. Besides Alejandro believed himself to be descended from a long line of Sephardic Jews and this new suitor made no such claim. He had been a Christian for as long as he could recall. But she didn’t turn him away.
Federico was not like her other suitors—men who arrived unannounced, ate mutton with their hands, and thought nothing of putting their feet on the petit-point chairs her mother had brought from Spain. Sofia’s feral dogs that growled at other men curled up and went to sleep at Federico’s feet or followed him around, sniffing at his pockets where he hid pieces of cheese. He offered to help the servants carry heavy trays and to everyone’s horror rinsed his teacup himself.
When the roses, whose cuttings her mother had also brought from Spain, grew mottled, their leaves speckled with black mold and their buds drying up before they bloomed, Federico slashed them to the ground, washed the remains in saturated lime juice, and moved them to where the soil was sandy and the sun relentless, where they were watered within an inch of their lives until they brought forth a profusion of blooms that filled all the vases of the hacienda and perfumed every room with their redolent scent.
He did the same with the tomatoes. He searched the markets for varieties, and those he couldn’t find in Mexico he had shipped from Spain. Whole plants arrived that grew in the sunny front garden, and Bernadine always had a pot going o
n the stove with thick sauces of plum tomatoes or prepared salads of ripe red ones. She roasted yellow tomatoes that she harvested in straw baskets and made broths of sweet cherry tomatoes and cream that she served at luncheons. In this way he won over the cook, the mother, and finally Sofia.
She came to look beyond his feminine manners and his skin as mottled as the plants he rescued and found a strength that surprised her and a gentleness that drew her in. He did not court her as the other suitors had. He did not come with a boisterous laugh and thirst for her father’s wines. He sipped slowly and waited. He never asked anything of her until she was ready to give, and then made it seem to her as if this was what she had wanted all along. And when at last he announced his intentions, she asked matter-of-factly, “What took you so long?”
And he replied, “I was waiting for you.” It was he who tamed her. He understood her wildness and, instead of trying to break it like other men, he had waited for her to come to him. This was not the same love she had known as a girl, but it was love all the same and one that had only grown with the years.
Their wedding was a simple affair. No more than one hundred guests in her father’s garden where they drank his wine and ate the chickens Bernadine had been plucking for days. Musicians played on the harpsichords that had been brought over from France, and bouquets of irises were everywhere. Just before the ceremony her father took Federico into his study, offered him a cigar and a glass of port, and said, “You were aware, I assume, that you are marrying a Jew.”
And Federico nodded. “I have my suspicions that I may be New Christian myself, though I cannot prove it. My mother always claimed we were Old Christians but I’ve had my doubts.”
Sofia’s father asked no more; he had also wondered. He knew of the Torres family and had heard the rumors of an ancestor who sailed with Columbus, a converso who died in the Bahamas. It would not be so surprising, would it? The great Coronado’s wife was also a converso. And didn’t Renaldo Pera once glimpse his future son-in-law as they urinated side-by-side into a stream on a family picnic in the Sierra? It was not lost on him that the young man who was hung like a horse had also had his foreskin removed. Renaldo had barely been able to contain his smile; it pleased him to think that his daughter was in the end marrying one of the tribe.
It was only after the marriage that Federico announced his intentions. He told the family that they would be moving north until he found a place where he felt safe growing garbanzo beans. Now her father could expand his mercantile empire throughout New Spain into the profitable area of commodities—grains and beans. But her mother wept until she learned that her friend, Maria of Lisbon, who had once dined with the king of Portugal, was imprisoned along with her daughter at the hands of the Inquisition where they would languish and die.
And of course she recalled the fiery deaths of her sister, Leonora; her niece, Magdalena; and nephew, Alejandro. It was only then that she agreed to release her daughter and let them move as far north as they pleased but within the viceroyalty of New Spain, and that they would take Bernadine with them with the understanding that for three months every winter her daughter and grandchildren would return to Mexico City to visit, and this was what they did for as long as Sofia’s parents were alive.
A cloud passes over the sun or so it seems to Sofia. Is it the thought of her parents for whom she always longed despite her years in a contented marriage and the birth of her sons? But whatever darkness has fallen over her does not seem to be coming from such a distant place. “I think we will have a storm,” she says to Bernadine who is setting the table, but Bernadine is too deaf to hear. Sofia smiles. The old cook has been her dearest friend. She has been with Sofia almost her entire life. She cannot bear to think of the day when she is gone. But of course Sofia herself has grown older. Indeed she can’t bear to think of the day when anything might change. She has been blessed with a happy life. Perhaps not the one she imagined, but still it has been good.
* * *
Sofia bends forward to taste the stew. Putting the wooden spoon to her lips and blowing on it to cool, she glances outside. Right beyond the kitchen window, there it is. The flowering tree, ripe with its fruit. She laughs to herself. “Apricots,” she says out loud. That is the sweetness that has been missing from the stew all these years. The ingredient her mother had forgotten when she sent her daughter the recipe. Why did it come to her now? It has been before her eyes all along.
That is when she hears the cries and shouting, the calling of her name. But she does not race into the fields. She does not move from where she stands. If it were possible, she would remain in this spot forever. If she could stop time at that moment, when she is tasting the broth and gazing at the fruit of the apricot tree, Sofia would stay here forever. But that is not possible. Because across in the fields soldiers are beating her husband with their truncheons until he falls to the ground, screaming for mercy.
Now Sofia grabs her shawl and races outside, her dogs nipping at her feet. They are barking and racing toward their master until a soldier slices one of her dogs in two with his sword. The others skulk away. Shrieking, Sofia rushes to her husband. “What are you doing?” she shouts at the soldier. Another soldier smashes her husband in the jaw. Blood spurts from his mouth. The soldiers have come with the bailiff and their priest. “Father,” Sofia cries, “why are you arresting him?” Federico, his head bloodied, is being shackled.
“The order comes from the office of the Holy See in Mexico City,” her priest says, turning away. “You are accused of practicing the dead Law of Moses.”
“We are Christians,” Sofia calls out. “We are good Christians.”
“Sofia,” her husband calls in a garbled voice, “do not anger them.”
As Sofia rushes to help her husband, one of the soldiers spins her around, wrenching her arms. Pulling her hands behind her back, he puts shackles on her as well. Bernadine comes running out. She reaches Federico and grabs hold of the soldier who is dragging him away. “No,” she is shouting, “not him.” The soldier strikes her across the jaw and Sofia winces at the sound of bone cracking.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A LETTER TO THE UNIVERSE—1992
Rachel Rothstein is driving north. She cruises along the four-lane highway of lowriders and pickups. Red clay cliffs line the road. She passes Camel Rock, a holy site of the Tesuque Pueblo. The boys were amused the one time they saw it. It looks just like a camel. In the months she’s lived in New Mexico she’s only driven north twice. Once was with Nathan when they’d first arrived and they’d driven the kids to see the dances at one of the pueblos. She loved the beat of the drums, the moccasins stirring up the dust. And she’d driven north that spring when she’d posted the flyers to find a babysitter and Miguel had phoned. And now he has vanished into thin air.
The road is wide and open. Buttes of red clay line the highway that has been carved through the middle of them. She’s left the boys at a friend’s house for the afternoon, saying she is going to take a drawing class. Nathan will pick them up on his way home from the hospital. There is no rush except she wants to find Miguel. She tries to remember where she posted all those flyers, the towns she stopped in. Tesuque, Española, Chimayó, it began with an E; that’s all she remembers. Española. That must be the place. She is worried about Miguel. He probably blames himself. She passes a sign that reads ten miles to Española. The drive seems longer than she remembers. The distances seem farther. She doesn’t recall driving this far when she put up those flyers. But she must have.
Rachel feels as if she could just keep driving. Nathan has barely said a word to her in weeks. Even now that Davie is better, he still won’t talk to her. A week ago she confessed to him that she’d known almost nothing about the Hispanic boy who cared for their sons. That she’d wanted someone who wasn’t like other nannies. Those girls from Germany and France who take care of kids but really want to learn English. She didn’t want her boys to grow up and wear suits and ties and do what everyone else did. They
should be exposed to real life, she told him. Nathan listened and said nothing. His anger festered. She believes that it’s possible he will never forgive her. And then her marriage will really be over and she’ll be divorced at thirty-two with two little boys and basically her life will be done. And perhaps it occurs to her that it already is.
* * *
At moments as she drives or makes dinner or waits for Nathan to come home, bad thoughts flicker through her mind. At times she thinks she could kill herself. But not really. It isn’t something she’d really do. Long ago she ruled that out. When Rachel was a teenager, she wanted to be dead. She thought of many ways of doing this—messy ones, clean ones, but mostly what she wanted was painless. She did research in the library. Breathing helium with a plastic bag over your head was said to be the most painless and effective. There was a bluff behind the high school. Her junior year she would go to the bluff and sit at its edge.
Years ago this was where she believed she’d kill herself.
One hundred feet down the rocky bluff was a highway. She wondered why high-school students weren’t flinging themselves off this all the time. There were so many reasons to do so. A failed exam, a broken heart, not making the varsity team. And yet no one had done so—perhaps until now. Rachel had had her own reason for wanting to die. She hated her life.
It was hard for her to be specific about what she hated. It was more an accumulation of small details that added up to a miserable childhood. Nothing she could put her finger on exactly, except that she wanted out of it and the bluff seemed, after long days of contemplation, the ideal place. It would be messy and it probably wouldn’t be painless, but it would be effective and she didn’t need to buy things—like poison or a gun—for which she might need her parents’ permission. She would just jump and it would be over.