by Mary Morris
Many times in the night, as she drifted off, she pictured it. The moment when she could no longer feel the earth beneath her, when she was in mid-flight. Flying even. The bird’s-eye view of the world. The weightlessness until gravity took over. She couldn’t think of it past that point. She just hoped she would land on her back, not on her face. For some reason the thought of smashing her nose bothered her more than the shattering of her skull. She imagined that the nose would hurt before the bones shot like arrows into her brain. But she tried not to think of such things. She tried to think about her great moment of flight, an eagle catching the wind, and not everything that would follow.
She had picked a day in August. The summer camp where she was an arts counselor would be over as would her course in touch typing. She didn’t want to miss work or school. She had always been an excellent, if somewhat methodical, student. It was a Tuesday, the third Tuesday in August, to be specific. Her mother had her mah-jongg game that day. Her father would be at work. Her sister heading back to school. And the cleaning woman didn’t come on Tuesdays so she would have the house to herself. It was just a couple of weeks before students had to be back. Many of her friends would be away, touring Europe as part of an exchange program or on family vacations.
She made herself lunch. A chicken sandwich with mustard and mayo on whole wheat bread. She took a peach and an oatmeal cookie. She took a small bottle of Coca-Cola from the fridge. She would go to the bluff, have her lunch, perhaps write something in her journal or a letter to somebody. Her parents? She wasn’t sure. Maybe a general letter to the universe. She put it all in the small pink satchel that she carried to school. Then she walked out the door. It was a hot day, muggy, and she could hear the cicadas chirping, so filled with life, their song rising and falling, then disappearing altogether.
None of the neighbors were out. It was the dog days of summer—that was what her mother called them. It was when she thought of dog days that she had a sense that she was being followed. Someone was definitely behind her. She turned and looked and there she saw him. Just a few feet back. Bubbles was following her. Somehow he’d gotten out. “Bubbles,” she said, “go home.”
She clapped her hands. Bubbles stopped and stared. He was a black-and-white spaniel and they’d gotten him when she was a baby. Now he was old and probably deaf. She should take him home. But she was going to kill herself, and the last thing she wanted to do was go home. So she continued walking. She crossed Stanton Road. It was about noon. She turned to see if Bubbles was following her. When she didn’t see him anymore, she kept going across the parking lot. Mr. Walkins, the head of maintenance, was on a mowing tractor, preparing the playing fields. He gave her a wave, but she just walked on. She cut across the parking lot along the edge of the playing fields. The smell of cut grass filled the air. From the end of the playing fields she entered the woods where it was cool and the smell was more loamy and fetid. She kept walking through the trees until she came to the path that led up the bluff. She scrambled up, sometimes crawling, until she reached the rocky outcrop.
She stood for a moment at the edge. Far below was the highway. A glacier had carved this passage through solid rock. Standing at the edge made her dizzy so she stepped back. She got that odd sensation one felt in the groin when standing at an edge. Almost like an orgasm of which thus far she’d had only a few, but enough to know how that feeling rippled through your body. Sitting on the ground she took out her picnic. On the brown paper bag she put down her sandwich, the peach, and the cookie. The peach had gotten a little mushy in her bag. The Coke was warm.
She ate slowly, thinking about death. Or rather thinking about why she didn’t want to live. The sandwich was good and she ate it slowly. Then the cookie and finally the peach. She didn’t drink the Coke. It tasted funny when it was warm. She thought of taking out her journal and writing something down, but instead she lay back. She looked up at the clouds rolling by, the different shapes. A bear, a snake, a flower. She laughed to herself. It was a game she used to play as a child. Naming the different types of clouds. She knew their scientific names but couldn’t recall them just now. She just watched, the breeze blowing through the trees, the clouds sailing overhead. And she fell asleep.
When she woke, it was much later in the day. Perhaps even four o’clock. She decided that she would not kill herself that day. She didn’t know why, but it wasn’t the right moment. And she wasn’t sure that jumping off the bluff was the way to go anyway. It wasn’t how she’d really envisioned her death. She pictured something more elegant and romantic, not that messy splat like a bug on a windshield. Years later she learned that women tended to commit suicide with drugs, not with guns or by jumping. Women didn’t like to leave a mess for someone else to clean up.
Rachel decided to go home and find another way. She climbed down the bluff, leaving behind the cool of the woods. As she reached the playing fields, she saw that the grass was all cut and that Mr. Walkins was puttering around in his garage. There was no longer the sound of the mower nor the scent of diesel. Only the smell of cut grass. Cutting across the playing fields to the parking lot, Rachel came to the exit where she’d traverse Stanton Road onto her own street, Willow.
She looked both ways. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something by the side of the road. She crossed the street and there in the drainage ditch was a body, black and white, something she couldn’t quite recognize, something she could barely make out, but when she stooped down she saw. Bubbles must have followed her. He didn’t go home. She hadn’t heard anything. Not his yelp or cry when he was struck. She hoped it happened very fast. She wondered if the person who did this bothered to stop. If they looked at his tags and called her home.
Rachel had never seen anything dead before. Not like this. A fish maybe. But not something she had loved, walked, fed. Not something that had always been at her side. She had done this. It was her fault. She should have taken him home. But he was old, wasn’t he? And he couldn’t hear. He probably didn’t hear her tell him to go home. He probably didn’t hear the car.
She slipped her arms into the ditch and lifted him out. He didn’t weigh more than twenty pounds but she was stunned at how heavy he was. Blood dripped from his mouth and nose, even his ears. Cradling him in her arms, Rachel carried Bubbles home. As she walked, she kept shifting her weight. His body was still warm and bulky and limp. She was surprised at what a dead body felt like. He had been alive moments ago and now Bubbles was dead. As she carried him, Rachel knew she would not kill herself. She did not want her body to become this warm, heavy, bulky thing.
Later her mother complained when Rachel padded Bubbles’s homemade coffin with a silk pillowcase. But still she didn’t want to kill herself and she doesn’t want to die. Not now. Not yet. She’ll figure a way to move on as she always has. She has her boys and she has her life, flawed though it is.
* * *
She’s driving down the main drag of Española. It’s part of the same four-lane highway. The map says it’s called Riverside Drive, but as far as she can tell there’s no river. It’s a town of diners, auto mechanics, bodegas. She passes a taqueria called El Girasol with a big picture of a sunflower painted on the front. There are hair salons and thrift stores. Lowriders cruise along, some with elaborate designs painted on their hoods and sides. She has no recollection of stopping here. But perhaps she did. Perhaps she put up a few flyers in the stores and gas stations that line the main drag.
She pulls off the highway and stops at a convenience store. She walks into the store. Hispanic boys hang out in front, smoking cigarettes. They pause, checking her out. The shelves are almost empty and the clerk stands behind a thick plate of bulletproof glass. Rachel has no memory of posting a flyer here. She stops at a gas station farther up the road, where apparently you can also file for divorce. Rachel would have remembered that one. She drives up and down Riverside Drive but nothing about Española is familiar to her at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE EXPERI
MENT—1992
On his way home from school, Miguel heads to his father’s trailer. In the backseat is the large empty aquarium that he purchased at a flea market, and he doesn’t want to break it. He also has a shovel, a decal kit of the night sky, a trash bag of manure, and two dozen dung beetles in a margarine tub. As he drives past the 7-Eleven he slows down. He thinks he sees a Jeep Cherokee. Nobody up here drives a car like that. In fact the only person he knows who drives one is Rachel Rothstein. But what would she be doing in Española? Looking for a new babysitter? Or looking for him? He’s tempted to stop. He could walk into the convenience store by accident, run into her. That would make it easier, wouldn’t it? Instead he steps on the gas and the aquarium rattles.
His heart is pounding as he pulls up to his father’s house. He wonders if his mind isn’t playing tricks on him. Why would she come looking for him? To talk him into turning himself in? Miguel breathes a deep sigh. He’s relieved to find that his father isn’t home. Miguel has work to do. He parks in the drive and carries the aquarium into the garage, putting it in the middle of the floor. With the shovel he begins to dig up dry patches of dirt, which he dumps into the aquarium. When he has enough, he takes a hose and waters it down. Then he goes to his trunk.
He takes out a large plastic bag filled with manure and brings it into the garage. He digs out a shovel full and tosses it into the aquarium. Then he gets the margarine tub that contains the dozens of dung beetles he has captured over the last few days. These are his testers. He dumps some of them into the aquarium. Then he gets a ladder. On the ceiling of his father’s garage he sticks on the stars. He puts up the constellations—Cassiopeia, Orion, the Big Dipper. He attaches the North Star. The moon. Then he closes the door of the garage, shining a small flashlight onto the ceiling with just enough light to illumine the stars. He observes the beetles, moving forward and backward in a straight line. In a notebook he makes a rough sketch of their trajectories.
Last week Mr. Garcia told Miguel that the ancient Egyptians worshipped dung beetles. They called them scarabs. The Egyptians observed how the beetle rolled its dung on the ground and it reminded them of how their great god, Ra, who is often portrayed with the head of a beetle, rolled the sun out every day, rolling it back at dusk. The beetles seemed to possess an orbit of their own. The Egyptians considered them sacred, infused with the power of the gods. They signaled rebirth.
Miguel pauses. What if the Egyptians had made the same discovery as he? Only nobody knew about it until now. Then he opens the garage door so that the light gets in. The stars are obliterated, and, without a vision of the sky, his dung beetles are utterly lost.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE CHARGES—1600
When the charges are read, Sofia almost laughs. If laughter weren’t one of the accusations against her, she would. Instead she stands solemnly before her hooded judges and listens. The accusations are read with tedious precision. No accusers are named but there are specific dates, anonymous sources, testimonials. There are one hundred and thirty-two counts of heresy against her. She is accused of drinking hot chocolate on Good Friday, of bathing and changing her clothes on Friday, of changing her linens on Fridays, of trimming her nails, of not eating pork, of laughing when reading a book, of reading books in different languages, of lighting candles on Fridays, of not lighting a fire (but allowing the servants to do it for her) on Saturdays. She is accused of not going to mass often enough, of not dipping her hand in holy water each time she enters the cathedral. She and her husband slept late on Christmas three years ago.
The reading goes on for hours. She stands, listening to the man in his dark hood. Beside him a scribe keeps meticulous notes of every word, every sigh and exclamation with his stylus. Her bones ache. She wants to sit down, but she must remain standing. She is shivering and wants to rub her arms, but her hands are shackled. She listens to the sound of the pen on the paper. The bailiff, her jailer, and soldiers surround her, as if she could somehow escape from this dank prison. The four-month journey by donkey and cart to arrive in Mexico City has taken its toll. She is certain that the stiffness in her limbs will never leave her. She longs for a hot bath and to have warm oils massaged into her skin. She would give anything for a cup of hot chocolate. Her mind wants to drift but she forces herself to stay focused. She must convince these men of her innocence. Has she done many of these things? Yes. But does this mean that she is not a good Christian and has not always been a good Christian? No. Since the time of her family’s conversion when she was very small, she has led a good Christian life.
She wonders about the lives of her inquisitors. Do they caress their children? Pet their dogs? What do they talk about with their wives at the end of the day? That they found someone guilty of bathing? Of preferring lamb to pork? How they sent someone to the flames for not confessing? How dull they must be in bed. These unimaginative lovers. Or perhaps they require unspeakable practices in order to feel pleasure at all. Do they inflict these tortures on those they love? Again she feels as if she could laugh. Or faint. The room smells of piss and sweat. Misery lives in these cold stone walls.
It occurs to her that perhaps she is losing her mind. She does not know how long she has been here. How long it has taken them to accumulate their evidence and prepare these charges against her. Weeks. Months. She spent two months in the jail in Santa Fe before they brought her here. It was chilly when they left Santa Fe and it is still chilly here. She wonders if she will live to see spring. If she will make it through the summer.
She has been told that she will be presented before the inquisitors three times. Once when the accusations are read, which is happening now. Once when she may defend herself. And once when she is read their decision. And she knows that the time between these can take up to a year. It is part of their strategy to wear their victims down. Boredom is also a form of torture. She did not realize it until now.
Her mind drifts. She wishes she could lie down and sleep, then wake and it will all be over. Finally the most ludicrous charge of all is read. She is accused of making a love potion by mixing chocolate and menstrual blood and serving it to one of the young Indian servants so that he would come to her bed. She snaps awake. She cannot refrain from an outburst. Grabbing at her head of graying hair, she shouts, “And where would I get menstrual blood?” Some of the soldiers can’t help themselves and chuckle until the inquisitor bangs his gavel. He glares at her from beneath his hood. For the first time she sees his small, beady eyes. Then he puts down his papers and she knows he is done.
If these were wild dogs, she could tame them. She would feed them scraps and they’d grow docile at her feet. But these men aren’t any kind of animal she’s ever known. They are capable of doing anything to make her confess. They will torment her flesh and her mind. She saw what they did to Alejandro when she was a young woman. She trembles at the thought of what they have done to Federico. He was brought to the Flat House before her, and though she has tried to bribe her jailer with the few coins she was able to keep, she hasn’t learned anything of his fate.
But it is Alejandro who comes rushing back to her like a flood. It is his hands, his lips. His love for her. Her first love, her young love. It is as if thirty years never happened. But now she is in the Flat House where he was once taken. She feels his presence. She imagines him in these walls. She knows what he suffered. It is as if she is losing her lover all over again. She has not thought of him in this way in a long time, but now she does. Is it possible that she has loved two men for all these years? A dead one and a living one? A memory and a husband? Why does she think of such things now? They should accuse her of this. It is perhaps her only sin.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the judge asks.
“Where is my husband?”
“That is no longer your concern.”
The finality in his voice sends a shudder through her, but she will not weep. She will not give these criminals the satisfaction of seeing her tears. “It is very mu
ch my concern.”
“It would make it easier on all of us, but especially on you, if you would sign your confession now.”
She glances around the room, then back at her inquisitor. “I would like a bigger cell.” They stare at her as if she truly is mad. They cannot believe her audacity. No one, and certainly no woman, has ever addressed the tribunal in this way. “My cell is too cold and dank. I am unwell.”
“Is that all?”
“I would like to keep the list of the charges against me. I wish to study them.” There is a mumbling among the judges. “You know that I am capable of reading because it is one of the charges against me,” she says with a wry smile.
Her accuser hands her the thick document. “You may review these if you wish.” Then he orders her back to her cell.
* * *
In her cell Sofia sits at the edge of her cot, shivering. Though she wraps her shawl around her shoulders—the only shred of warmth she has—she is still cold. More than anything she wishes she had a cup of hot chocolate. That dark, sweetened brew that she loved to sip daily and that has become, it appears, part of her undoing. It seems impossible to believe that you could be sent to prison for your laughter, your love of reading and chocolate. Except it is true.
She would bribe her jailer if she didn’t think that it would become another accusation against her. Instead she calls him to her cell. He is not a bad man. He is never cruel to her and seems almost apologetic when he sees her suffering. But he will not break the rules. “I would like a candle,” she tells him.