by SUZAN STILL
§
Hill and Calypso settled into wooden armchairs on the patio, facing the spectacle of the canyon, as it collected the amethyst light of evening and the cliffs deepened to rose.
“Last time I sat here, Javier was here,” Hill said, hoping to nudge the story of his absence from Calypso.
She took her time, sipped her Corona, gazed into the canyon, chose her words carefully. “Javier is growing restless,” she said at last. “I’m not sure why. Something is troubling him but he won’t talk about it. I think it’s the cartels.
“A few months ago, there was an attack in Creel, just a few miles from here. They arrived in a caravan of black SUVs. Men just poured out of them, all armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. They shot up the house of the local doctor who’s been trying to combat the drug problem among the local kids. Fortunately, he wasn’t home at the time. But the message was clear and he left town.”
“And Javier thinks Rancho Cielo might be next?’
She shook her head. “I don’t know but I suspect so, yes.”
“So why is he away? Isn’t he worried about your safety?”
“I think that’s why he’s gone. He went to spend time with a friend of his, a Huichol shaman, down in Jalisco. I’m thinking of it as a spiritual pilgrimage.”
“Or a fact-finding mission?”
“That too. His friend does a ritual that helps him tell the future.”
Hill hitched forward in his chair so that he could face Calypso fully. “What about you and the locket? Wouldn’t it give you a warning, like it did that night in Chiapas when the guardia blanca came?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I’ve been having dreams. Disturbing ones. And I haven’t been telling them to Javier because I don’t want to worry him.”
“A Mexican standoff?”
Calypso’s smile was tight. “Yes. I guess it is. Neither of us is being as forthright as we should be.”
“And what are your dreams telling you?”
He was alarmed when tears sprang instantly to her eyes and her jaw tightened, as if otherwise she might commence to wail. “They’re showing me ruin, Walter. Complete ruin.”
§
“Let’s talk about something else,” Hill suggested. “How about finally telling me the story of the locket?”
“You already know the first part. You start.” Her voice was still pinched with tears. “If you’ll tell what you know, then tomorrow night—early—I’ll tell my part. Read it, actually. I’ve just finished a manuscript of Berto’s story. But it’s long. It’ll take more than one night. So if you’re called away before it’s done because the Continental Divide was just subdivided by Yellowstone’s super-volcano or because Atlantis has just arisen from the sea, don’t blame me.” She managed a ghost of her old smile.
As dusk faded into night, the canyon brooded before them, as unfathomable as the recesses of space. Bats flittered over the abyss, a blacker blackness. Silence fell between them and each was aware of a ponderous shift of energy, as their conversation thickened and coalesced into remembrance and, with it, story.
§
“I can remember that night like it was yesterday,” Hill began. “I was feeling like such an oaf. I blundered into your camp uninvited and began, as swiftly as possible, revealing myself to be a gigantic gringo ass. I was mad as hell. At you and Javier. At life. But especially at myself, for having put myself in that position.
“So I went out into the selva to cool off, and that was where I met Father Roberto. The minute I met him, I felt things shift. I knew it was all going to be okay.
“He was listening to Maria Callas singing, on his little tape deck. And that got him talking about the capital “F” Feminine. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, so he decided to explain by telling me his story. And I guess that’s why I really need to hear the end of it, because he hooked me. And then, of course, he was called away and I’ve been wondering ever since.
“So this is what I remember…” Hill sat forward to take a swig from his bottle of Corona and then settled back and folded his arms behind his head, staring pensively into the starlit sky. “I can remember every word, as if I were hearing Berto speak them now…”
§
Chiapas, 1992
“First, my friend, you must understand that the world as you know it—the world of commerce and war and international intrigue—is just a veneer, here in Mexico,” Father Roberto began. “This country rests on a timelessness that would be incomprehensible in Washington, DC or in Moscow. Once you leave the main streets of Mexico City, you are thrust back into time before time. First, you encounter the overlay of the Conquest and the heavy burden it has laid on the souls of the indigenous people. Then, if you travel deeper into the country and into the psyches of the people, you will find the mysticism that is the fundament of the Mexican soul.
“I grew up in an upper class family that was quite Europeanized, but the servants—the washerwomen, cooks, gardeners, and maids—introduced me to their worldview, which existed side-by-side with my parents’ Catholicism like two layers of an onion. It was a knowledge that I kept to myself, the way most children hide their awareness of sex or their cache of dirty words, because I had no reason to believe that my mother or father would approve.
“It wasn’t until my fifth year, when a terrible thing happened, that I learned how wrong I had been. . .”
§
The Story of Father Roberto Villanova y Mansart
By five, Roberto Villanova y Mansart was aware of the discrepancies between the official religion of his family’s home and the subterranean but titillating beliefs of its staff. Priests in stiff black suits came to dinner and disappeared afterwards into the study, where his father wrote them checks on vellum-colored paper with a fountain pen dispensing indigo ink. Nuns came calling on his mother on certain afternoons and left with pockets jingling. Roberto understood that this was not begging, but was a favor done by the clergy, allowing his family to stand in good stead with God.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen with the cook, Esmeralda, or outside with Pepe, the gardener, or in the pantry where old Chimalma sat polishing the silver, another worldview, another dimension of reality even, was developing in his brain like film dipped in chemical solution. In that alternate world, healers could alleviate illness by sucking on one’s forehead; adepts of magic could turn themselves into insects and animals which then were able to spy on enemies, unaware; and most shocking of all, tantamount to heresy, the Virgin Mary was really the Great Woman, Tonantsin, in disguise.
At night when his nurse Alma put him to bed, she spoke strange words over him, her face contorted in earnest discourse regarding his welfare with gods whose names he did not know and who, once described, gave him nightmares. When he got a fever, she bound stinky herbs under his nightshirt and made gestures in the air, as if she were writing there. Roberto knew that wasn’t the case, however, because Alma could neither read nor write, and this made her airborne calligraphy all the more intriguing and troubling.
Every day a priest arrived to say mass in their private chapel and on Sundays, the entire family—Grandmére, Tía Isobella, Maman, Papa, and any extra aunts or cousins who might be visiting—would troop down the street in somber finery and around the corner to the church, which was tall and layered and intricate as a wedding cake. Inside, the entire wall behind the altar was a reredos, a writhing mass of gold-encrusted carving that Maman said had come all the way from Spain in a sailing ship, after the Conquest. It depicted angels and saints supported by billows of cloud and, above them all, riding on the outstretched wings of a dove, the risen Christ.
This Christ was much more approachable than the life-sized one on the crucifix by the altar, who grimaced and glared in a way that made Roberto sink down in his pew and bury his face in his mother’s coat. And it only added to his confusion that the servants, who had brought up the rear of their train, now sat in the back of the church looking serenely pious and not at all ashamed
of their covert and nefarious ways.
Although, it had just come to his attention that Maman had some peculiar habits of her own, which might be considered outside the pale of strict Catholicism, and these interested him greatly. For one thing, she often seemed to know things before they happened and this was a concern for Roberto, because he wasn’t sure how much she might see about him and his doings with the staff. Furthermore, she always wore a gold locket under her clothing, against her chest and even—his wide brown eye to the crack of the door told him—in the bath.
So Roberto began a campaign to elicit from his mother specific information regarding her actual beliefs and practices. This siege, which quickly reached relentless proportions, centered upon the golden locket and its significance to her. Day and night Roberto questioned his mother until, in the space of about a week, he wore down her resistance completely.
“The truth is, Roberto,” she began, her eyes flashing with tantalizing mischief, “that you are justified in your curiosity. The locket is a treasure far more valuable than the gold from which it is made. It has a long and amazing history, this necklace. Can you believe that it is not just hundreds but thousands of years old? And that it did not originate in this country or even on this continent?
“No, Berto, my darling, it comes from a distant land, and was made by craftsmen of an ancient civilization that is long dead. And the story of its coming to me, and of the powers it possesses is the most astonishing story you will ever hear.”
Roberto felt the skin of his arms prickle at his mother’s words, for they were spoken almost in a whisper, as if she were imparting to him the greatest secret in the world. “If you tried for a lifetime, Berto, you could not imagine a stranger and more complicated tale. This locket originated in Egypt, Berto, and by its own magic arts found its way first to Europe, and then here to Mexico. And who can say where it will go next? And do you know what? The power that resides in this locket speaks to me in my dreams, hijo. Yes, it tells me things—what will happen and to whom, where lost things can be found, whom to trust and whom to avoid…”
§
Rancho Cielo
To Calypso’s disappointment, Hill’s voice trailed off into the midnight air. “That’s it,” he said finally. “I’ve searched my memory and that’s all I can remember. Berto got called away and I never heard the rest. I hope you can fill in the blanks.”
“Tomorrow night, I promise. That’s it for me tonight. It must be almost midnight.” Calypso rose, bent to give him a quick kiss, and went up the path toward the house. Instantly, it brought Hill back to the night two years before when late into the night he had shared these same chairs with both Calypso and Javier. Finally, Calypso had departed, as she had just now, calling, “Don’t stay up all night talking, you two,” leaving him alone with Javier in the starry darkness.
Javier had drained his beer and risen. “I’m done, too.” He banked the fire with a shovel, poured the dregs of the beer onto it and blew out the lanterns. The fullness of night swept instantly over them, rich with insect sounds, wind in trees, and the fragrance of pine. Hill pushed wearily to his feet and the two men stood transfixed for a moment, staring at a sky suddenly looming huge with stars, like a vast meadow filled with wildflowers.
“Amazing,” Javier said softly.
“Yes,” Hill responded, “There’s no end to the amazement, like a well that goes down into the depths and never touches bottom. The well of life.”
“Or a well in time.”
They had turned toward the house and, picking their way with care, left the living night for the quiet of their beds.
§
Hill lay now beneath an antique woolen blanket patterned with indigenous symbols, not gazing out at the night sky, but at a large painting that hung across from him on the plastered adobe wall. By the light of the bedside lamp its colors were muted, its shadows deepened. He knew it must be one of Calypso’s works and so he studied it minutely, hoping to learn something new about this woman who was his life’s fascination.
She had painted the cliffs of Copper Canyon as seen from their courtyard, as they plunged nearly a mile to Rio Urique. In the painted world, it was perennial dusk, luminous with cobalt and ultramarine pigments. Reflected light glowed from rose-colored cliffs, with the far barrancas in pale blue shading almost to black as they disappeared into the abyss of the canyon.
It was an image beguiling in its mystery and deep peace. The more Hill studied it, the more he admired the ability and the vision that had brought it forth.
Slipping from bed, he approached the painting and examined the brushstrokes closely. If he’d had a jeweler’s loupe, he would have used it. The oil paints were laid down so smoothly that he could scarcely discern the brushstrokes. The entire surface had the closely integrated appearance he had seen in some Renaissance paintings.
He frowned, perplexed. When had Calypso achieved this level of expertise? He had seen her earlier paintings—loosely-brushed, Impressionistic affairs that were lighthearted and sketchy. This painting was of another caliber altogether. It went far beyond technical mastery into a dimension of psychological understanding and inner knowing that commanded respect, if not astonishment. Possibly even reverence. He crawled back into bed feeling shaken.
More than the threads of silver in Calypso’s long, dark hair, this painting spoke to him of the passage of time and of his long separation from his friends. Something had happened in the interim. Something of moment. A deepening. The kind he needed himself after so many years on the road.
Hill sighed heavily and turned on his side to extinguish the lamp then lay, still staring at the painting. Even by the light of the just-rising sliver of moon, the painting held mysterious power, as if the vertiginous energy of the canyon were pulling him in, sucking him into a vortex of time and energy against which he was resistless, in a trajectory toward the complete unknown.
§
Morning sun slanted across the saltillos of the kitchen floor, casting leaf shadows from the vine surrounding the window. Hill lumbered in just as Calypso was taking the enameled coffee pot from the stove.
“Good timing, Walter. Did you rest well?” She plunked a mug in front of him as he settled at the rough kitchen table and poured coffee, black, steaming and fragrant.
“Like a rock. And what about you?” Hill used the question to do an intensive study of her face—and found it just as beguiling, just as beautiful, as it had been on their first meeting in Paris, over two decades before. The green eyes held a deepening, a mix of sorrow, understanding, and something else he couldn’t define, but that made his chilled flesh tingle, as if it had been stroked by sun.
“Yes, I did. And I feel happier than I could ever have imagined.”
“It must be because I’m here.”
Calypso beamed silently and kissed the top of his head.
“Happy, even in spite of the drug cartels?”
“Even given that. Javier’s trained and armed our ranch hands, you know. They’re a small army. No one will mess with us.”
“But you still have guards on the walls.”
“Yes. We’re always cautious. The power of the cartels shifts. Sometimes we’re under threat. Then the head of that cartel will be murdered and someone new will take his place who’s no problem to us. Or another cartel will come to power, one that doesn’t threaten us at all. I’ve always told you, Walter, Chihuahua is a crazy place, like living in the Wild West. The rules of the twenty-first century just don’t apply here.”
As she spoke, she was pulling a tray of scones from the oven and depositing them with a spatula on a brightly decorated terra cotta platter. She brought them to the table and placed them before Hill with a flourish. “Apricot scones for your delectation. I don’t want you to feel deprived, this far from Paris. There’s freshly churned butter in that little crock. And homemade rose hip jelly in that one.”
“Drug runners be damned! This place is paradise!” Hill reached with eager fingers for his f
irst scone.
“It is paradise, in its way. I feel more at peace here than ever.”
“I believe that,” Hill rejoined, as he savored the creamy butter, the delicate, flowery jelly, and the light texture of the sweet pastry. “And I base that belief on my observation of your painting in my room. It seems to come from a place that the Calypso I first knew could not have reached.”
Calypso beamed at the compliment. “I’m so glad you like it! I’ll tell you its secret: I’m making my own paints from pigments I find here. This place is a mineralogical treasure trove, Walter. Javier and I are always scouring the cliffs, looking for new colors. When I paint with the local pigments, my paintings seem to come alive.”
Hill helped himself to another scone, slathering it heavily with butter and jelly while formulating his response. “I see that the colors are true to the landscape, and now I understand why. But it’s more than that, Calypso. There’s an intelligence…a knowledge…a wisdom…I don’t know how to say what I see in that painting. It’s as if you’ve achieved another level within yourself to do what you did.”
Calypso busied herself at the stove, her head down, her face closed. She cracked eggs onto a skillet and turned the bacon, without responding. Finally, when they were both seated at the table with plates of breakfast before them, she answered.
“Walter, it’s this locket. Ever since Chiapas, when I first started to wear it, it’s been altering my perception of reality. I get dreams, insights, visions. Messages whispered into my mind. Sometimes, I know what’s going to happen before it happens. Sometimes, I see into a person who’s being devious or see value in someone who’s an outcast.