by Carla Kelly
Maria woke up hours later. The sun was slanting across the courtyard and the dust was thick in the air. She was thirsty, but she said nothing. Luz and Catarina slept next to her, but Diego was gone. She looked around quickly, and Señora Castellano came to her.
“He will be right back. My Reynaldo took him to the storehouses to try to find you a dress. And here, I have a brush and comb. Let us see what we can do.”
Her hair was a hopeless tangle. “Should we cut it off and start over?” Maria suggested, only half in jest.
“No, no. This is still your best feature. Hold still now. This will take time.“
Obediently, Maria sat cross-legged in front of Señora Castellano. She remembered the times when Erlinda had brushed her hair, carefully removing every snarl, talking in her gentle way about the Masferrers and their river kingdom. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Señora Castellano looked at her in consternation.
“Do I pull too hard, Maria?”
“No. It is nothing,” she replied. “I was just remembering.”
“Perhaps it is better not to,” La Señora replied, gently tugging the comb through Maria’s hair. “Let us dwell on tomorrow, instead.”
“Is that so much better?” Maria asked.
“There is no telling what tomorrow will bring, but at least there is some strength in numbers.”
Neither woman said what she was thinking, how few were the soldiers, how many the Indians. Outside the gates, pawing through the still-smoldering villa, were more Indians than either of them had ever seen.
“Have we hope of rescue?” Maria asked finally.
“Governor Otermin seems to think that his lieutenant governor in the lower river kingdom of Rio Abajo will come to our aid, but who is to say that they are not worse off than we are?”
Maria began to feel the same uneasiness that had gnawed at her earlier when Diego was out of her sight. She stirred restlessly. “I really should find Diego, Señora.”
La Señora put a firm hand on the girl’s shoulder. “No. Now, listen to me. He will be right back.”
Maria began to cry. The tears streamed down her face, and Señora Castellano stopped in surprise, her hands fluttering helplessly about Maria, uttering gentle crooning sounds. “Maria, Maria, do not do this. I know he will be right back. Look here at Luz and Catarina. They are not crying. Maria, please!” But Maria wiped her face on her dirty chemise and sobbed into the fabric, shaking off La Señora’s hands.
Finally, wiping her eyes, Maria looked up to see Diego with Señor Castellano, coming toward her from the government warehouses across the courtyard. Diego’s expression was anxious, too, as if he had been gone past bearing from those he loved. He came to her quickly, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. It was a new shirt, one of coarser fabric than Diego Masferrer had ever worn before.
He held her to him. “Dios mio, this is strange, Maria, but I cannot bear to be away from you.”
Maria leaned her forehead against his chest. The rhythm of his heart steadied her.
“And see what I have for you, mi corazon, a dress.” He pressed the brown bundle into her hands. “It is really quite ugly and much too large, but certainly more dignified than that scrap you are wearing. Here, take it.”
She fingered the dress. The material was rough and heavy. “I think three of me will fit in this.”
“Probably. Señor Castellano tells me that I should search around for a woman who is more of an armful. He cannot understand me when I insist that you will do.” His eyes were laughing. “And you will do, Maria. I could even grow used to your black eye.”
Maria kissed her fingers and touched Diego’s eye. “You are no prize, either, Diego!”
“Pues bueno, perhaps we will have much to be joyful over in the coming days.” He turned from Maria to his sisters, holding up the rest of the bundle he carried. “And look, mis hermanas, for you. One dress, two dresses. It is past the hour of nightgowns. Maria will help you. I must go again.”
Maria put her hand on his arm, detaining him. She felt the blood rushing from her face again. Diego held his hand to her cheek. “No, Maria. I will not be long. The governor has asked the men to meet in the chapel. I suppose he is assigning the night’s watches. Now change your clothes and let Señora Castellano finish your hair. You are only half done.”
He left quickly again before Maria could object. Maria reached out for Luz and Catarina. “Let us dress. Señora, is there any place for some privacy?”
“Alas, no. Every room is taken, every corner used. My daughters and I will hold up blankets around you while you change.”
Crouching down behind the blanket barricade, Maria helped the sisters out of their nightgowns, her heart turning over when she saw their thin bruised bodies.
When the girls were buttoned up the back, Maria pulled her chemise over her head and reached for the brown dress. Catarina touched her leg. “Oh, Maria, you have so many bruises! Look, Luz, mira.”
“Hush, Catarina,” said Luz surprisingly. “Diego would not like you teasing Maria. He told the governor so.”
“Sister,” said Catarina, “he would tease her too, if he could see her.”
Maria blushed and buttoned up the dress quickly, avoiding the glances the Castellano women exchanged with each other. Her face was on fire, and she put her hands to her cheeks.
“Well, he would!” insisted Catarina. “What is so funny?” she demanded as the Castellanos began to giggle, in spite of their rigorous upbringing.
Maria hugged Catarina. “Never mind, my sister. I am sure you are right. I will let you know.” She stood up and shook the dress down to her feet. The material hung on her, as Diego had predicted.
“How strange, Maria,” said La Señora. “These clothes are sent from Mexico for the servants and soldiers’ wives. Do they imagine we are so well-fed here?”
“Ay, Luz,” said Maria as she gathered the brown serge in with her hands. “This is one time even Diego would have to admit that I cannot cut the cloak to fit the cloth!”
Señora Castellano dropped her end of the blanket and tore off a narrow strip from her light cloak hanging nearby. She wrapped the material several times around Maria’s waist and tied it firmly in back. “This will do, until something better comes along. God alone knows when that will be. Sit now, and I will finish your hair.”
Maria’s hair was brushed, combed and carefully arranged on top of her head before the men returned from the chapel. The chill of night was in the air, and Maria heard Indians moving in great numbers in the plaza as they surrounded the governor’s palace and the walled government houses. Luz and Catarina drew close to her and they sat together in silence.
The Indians hooted and beat against the adobe walls with their spears. The words sounded familiar. Maria looked at Señora Castellano. “What is it they say, my lady?”
“They have murdered Christ and his mother Maria. And soon they will start reciting the Mass. They do it every night.” The woman leaned back, her hands clenched in her lap. “Do they hate us so much, Maria? Was what we did to them so wrong?”
Maria thought of her San Francisco lying broken in the bloody gypsum at Tesuque. “No, it was not wrong for us. But did anyone ever ask them?” she said, gesturing toward the outside wall.
She sat in silence, thinking of Cristóbal. Then she saw Diego and the Castellaños leave the chapel and cross the courtyard, picking their way among the survivors, stopping here and there for a word, a touch. Diego spoke to several of the women, who covered their faces with their shawls at his words and rocked back and forth lamenting, adding his agony to their own. Diego’s face was a mask of pain as he approached Maria. He sank down beside her.
Wordlessly she took his hand and held it to her. He leaned against her and closed his eyes.
“What did the governor speak of?” she asked.
“Nothing that will not keep, querida. Let me rest, then we will go find Father Farfán.”
He rested his head in her lap and was asleep
in a moment. Maria settled herself against the wall. Her hands went to Diego’s hair, and she began to twist his curls around her fingers. His hair was dull and matted with blood and dirt. She remembered how fastidious he was normally. But that was before.
Before. Would she always reckon time as before and now? She rested her hand lightly on Diego’s head in the gesture of a blessing. Will we ever be the same again?
The sound in the courtyard was deafening—animals restless and loud in their hunger and thirst, and children crying for food, water, comfort, their own beds, long since destroyed. Always there was the ceaseless wail of women mourning their losses. As one woman would stop her crying, exhausted, another would pick up the lament.
The Indians outside increased their dance of death, beating against the massive gates, lobbing stones over the wall. Children shrieked and cried in terror.
Diego opened his eyes and looked up at Maria. “We are at the gates of hell, Maria,” he whispered, the strain showing on his face again. “Forgive me.”
She held his face in her hands, brushing back the hair from his forehead and running her fingers over the deep wrinkle between his eyes. “Forgive you for what, my love?” she asked softly. “If all we have is this night, then it is more than I ever had before.”
“Let us find Father Farfán, Maria.”
She got to her feet and straightened her dress, patting down the too-large folds. She took Luz by one hand, Catarina by the other, and they crossed the noisy, dirty courtyard with the Castellanos, La Señora fretting aloud that it could not be a proper wedding party, and Señor Castellano smiling at some secret pleasure of his own.
“We amuse you?” asked Diego.
“You do,” replied Don Reynaldo. “I think your father would be pleased, and I know that I am. Maria will always do her best to help you resist that strain of stuffiness in all Masferrers. You can make it your life’s calling to keep shoes on her feet and a dress on her back, something you have not done so well, heretofore.”
Diego laughed. “Bueno, Señor! I notice that you did not tell me to expect much obedience.”
Father Farfán was waiting for them at the chapel. Diego and the Castellaños went inside, but Maria hung back. Diego returned to her, all amusement gone from his face. “This is a serious thing we do, my heart. I do not wonder at your reluctance.”
She stared back at him, but did not move.
“Can it be that you do not love me enough?” he asked, holding out his hand to her.
She shook her head, but did not touch him. “Not that, never that, Diego. It’s just that ...” She stopped. “I am afraid.”
“Of me?” he asked, coming closer.
“A little. And I—oh, this is silly! What must you think of me?” she said.
“You still wonder if you belong here,” he said, his eyes gentle.
“Yes, I do. Are you sure, Diego?” she asked.
He nodded. “Do you know something, querida? When I was hiding in Emiliano’s workshop—before you found me—all I wanted was to see your face again. I had not one other ambition. Everything I have ever worked for in my life all boiled down to that. You belong here with me. ”
“You’re sure?” she repeated.
“Listen to me, my beloved. I do not pretend that I am a good man. You accused me once of cold-bloodedness and you were right. It is a curse I have, and I share it with my neighbors.”
“Diego mio,” she said, her fingers on his lips.
He kissed them, his eyes closed. “But change has been forced on me ... on all of us. I would wander as a lost soul without you, Maria. Marry me.”
She took his hand and walked with him into the chapel.
They were married in a hurried ceremony at the altar, Father Farfán’s voice rising and falling in a steady, reassuring cadence as he united them. He interrupted the flow of words only long enough to ask Maria her full name and then to ask Diego if there was a ring.
Diego shook his head. “Not now. Later, perhaps.”
The father continued, blessing their union, listening to their quiet responses. The chapel was still full of refugees crowding the benches, supplicating at the altar, crying and mourning. Maria heard arquebus fire outside the thick-walled church. She clung tighter to Diego’s hand.
When the ceremony was over, Diego clasped the Franciscan’s hand. “I wish that I could pay you, Father,” he said, the words coming hard from him.
“Never mind, my son. This was the most pleasant task I have performed in days.”
They stood at the chapel door with the Castellanos. “And now what will you do?” asked Father Farfán.
Diego shrugged. “I suppose I am on guard duty somewhere tonight. The Castellanos will show me, I am sure.”
The Father shook his head. “No, that would not be right. Would you abandon your bride so soon?”
Diego blushed and looked at the priest. “I hardly think I have a choice, Father, in this crowded place.”
“May I offer a solution?”
Diego grinned. “And are you a worker of miracles?”
The Father sighed and looked around him, the strain of the day showing on his face in a quick flash. “Only small miracles, my son. Very small ones. Come with me. Bid your friends goodnight, if you will.”
Maria knelt and hugged Luz and Catarina. “Stay with the Castellanos, my young ones. I will be with you in the morning.”
Luz kissed her, offering no protest, but Catarina clung to her hand. She stood on tiptoe and as Maria leaned forward, she whispered, “I am glad it is you, Maria.”
“What do you mean?” Maria whispered back.
“I wondered whom Diego would marry. Luz and I ... we were sure we would not like her. ”
Diego turned away to hide his smile, while Maria put her arms around the young girl. “Could you not trust your brother’s judgment?” Maria asked.
“Sometimes he is so serious!” said Catarina. “We were afraid he would marry someone serious. But he married you, Maria, and ....” She paused, then finished in a surge of feeling. “And you will tell us stories and laugh with us, and love us, too.”
Maria hugged Catarina. “Always that, Catarina,” she vowed, shutting her mind resolutely on the scarcity of their tomorrows, on the dangers that were their only absolute beyond each sunrise.
Luz came back to tug at her sister. “Come on, Catarina,” she insisted, “Señora Castellano says they want to be with each other!”
Diego was unable to smother his laughter. “My sisters,” he said as they joined the Castellanos, looking back for another wave and kiss of the hand from Maria.
“Yes, your sisters,” she agreed, not looking him in the eye. “I love them.”
“And now, you Masferrers,” said Father Farfán, “come with me. There is no reason for everyone to be miserable tonight.”
He led them back into the chapel and through a side door by the altar. The passageway was filled with families bedding down for the night. Maria and Diego stepped carefully around sleeping forms and household goods. Father Farfán paused before a closed door and selected a large key from the bunch in his hand. He opened the door and Diego and Maria followed him in.
“It is only a cubbyhole,” he apologized as he knelt to light a candle. “I use it for repairing vestments and for sitting and thinking, when I am tired of Santa Fe. Over here, I have something else.”
They looked where he pointed. The priest unlocked a cabinet and drew out a stopper pitcher of water.
“Holy Water,” he said. “I remembered it was there this afternoon.”
“Father, we could not!” said Diego, his eyes on the bottle.
“Did not David eat the showbread in the temple?” replied the priest, unstoppering the bottle and pouring a small amount of water into a copper basin. “Was his need so much greater than your own?” Maria went to the priest. “Thank you, Father,” she said as he handed her a towel and a bit of soap. “Someday ...” she could not finish her sentence.
“Somed
ay you will help others in need?” he finished for her. “There is no other payment. But you already know that. I bid you goodnight, my children, and wish you great joy in each other. And I had better lock you in. We have become a city of sleepwalkers.”
As soon as Father Farfán let himself out and turned the key in the lock, Diego took Maria by the shoulders and pulled her to him. Her arms went around him and she clung to him in the silence of the small room. His lips were on her hair, her ears, her mouth and then in the hollow of her neck. She shivered and kissed him.
“You know something, Maria?” he said, his eyes closed.
She leaned her head on his chest, listening to his racing heart. Then he held her from him and began to undo the buttons on the front of her dress. She hooked her fingers in his belt; too shy to look at him.
When her dress was unbuttoned, she pulled away from Diego’s embrace and went to the copper basin. She took a long drink, then pulled down her dress and began to wash.
After watching her in silence, Diego rummaged in the corner where the old vestments hung on pegs. He found a pallet and unrolled it on the floor. “Narrow,” he commented. He sat down and took off Emiliano’s moccasins, sighing. “I haven’t had them off in days. I forgot I had toes.”
She laughed and flicked some water from the basin at him.
He smiled. “Don’t waste it. Save me some, will you? Por dios, you are thin, Maria.”
“Is that a lover’s language?” she teased, drying herself off.
“No it is a husband’s talk. You’re all eyes and elbows. People will think I have not been treating you well.”
“And have you?” she asked, pulling her dress up again over her shoulders.
“No,” he said, sitting cross-legged on the pallet. “But you do not complain. I think you will make an excellent wife in the river kingdom. And now, it is my turn.”
He got to his feet and took a long drink from the bottle of Holy Water.
“Stale. Maria, come scrub my back. Let that be your first official task as Maria Masferrer. Dios, I like the sound of that. My arm hurts and I cannot reach it.”