What does matter is this: She loved quilts. She intended to make one.
She kept the fabric scraps in a closet. She added to the collection, scrounging and scrimping, perhaps, or perhaps buying whatever caught her eye.
She added more material. She considered how this color or pattern went with that one. She looked at finished quilts in the homes of her friends or on the walls of museums. More and more of her thoughts were devoted to the quilts that she would make.
Always, just as she was about to start to pin one of her designs together, something came up. She had a romance, or a baby, or a divorce, or another baby, or a job, or a promotion, or a death in the family, or a drinking problem, or an auto accident, or a suicidal depression. Every time she was about to begin her first quilt, life intruded. Or if life didn’t intrude, she would put her hand on the closet door and suddenly feel very tired, too tired to begin anything so involved as a quilt.
In the midst of this, she grew old. In the midst of growing old, she died.
On the day that she died, the closet door opened. The heap of fabric fell into the hallway. The front door opened. The scraps got outside.
How? They might have crept or oozed or shuffled. No one saw the pile move. No one ever sees it move. But it does move. It appears in one place and then in another.
One day, the mound of rags is on the sidewalk outside of the Greyhound station. A man who has just gotten off the bus sees the heap, considers, then goes back inside the station to buy a ticket for the next city north.
Later, a mother watching her baby play in the park thinks she sees something in the bushes. She gets a closer look. It’s just a heap of dirty, tattered rags. Even so, she scoops her child up and hurries away.
In the desert, an artist paints a landscape that has the rag monster in it. The monster is dark, indistinct, and could almost be another boulder. But it isn’t. The painting doesn’t sell. Even after the artist paints over the pile of rags to place a boulder there—definitely a boulder—people look at the painting and can sense that somewhere in it, something is terribly wrong.
Ghost Fever
Alternative Names: Juruá River fever; Yanani fever; river palsy; eros agitans; kissing flu.
Definition: A disorder characterized by fever, shaking, inappetence, and myalgia.
Symptoms, causes, and incidence: Ghost fever presents with the sudden onset of high fever and headache, followed somewhat later by muscle and joint pains and tremors. These major symptoms then subside but recur in cycles of 48 to 72 hours. In the interim, affected people experience difficulty concentrating and loss of appetite.
The cause of ghost fever is not known, though the symptoms are suggestive of both Dengue fever and Malaria. No infectious agent, viral or parasitic, has been identified, but the pattern of infection suggests that the disease is transmitted by the bite of mosquitos.
The disease is endemic to the Juruá River in western Brazil and is seen in many travelers who visit the area. The disease is self-limiting and most symptoms generally do not persist for long after a visitor has departed the region, except for a dull ache in the bones which patients may continue to complain of for an indefinite period. The disease is never seen far from the Juruá and its tributaries.
Folk etiology: The following is transcribed from an interview with a native curandeira:
“Yanani was just a girl. No one remembers just what she looked like. Were her eyes green or brown? Was the curve of her limbs delicate or voluptuous? She was beautiful, certainly. And she had a way of moving that drew the eye.
“The old women in her village watched her, and they watched how the men watched her. There was bound to be trouble. She was the kind of girl who knew she was being watched, and liked it. She practiced how she walked. She refined the orbit of her hips. A girl like that can be a fire leaping from house to house, even if she does nothing more than enjoy how the men are looking at her.
“And it wasn’t just the men. When Yanani went to the river to wash her family’s clothes, she brushed by the wives and sisters, touching them casually in a way that hinted of caresses sweeter than any man’s. She perfected a glance just for women. When she cupped her hands to hold water, no woman could fail to imagine being held that way. Even the old women felt it. There was bound to be trouble, indeed.
“Everyone wanted her, even boys too young for such longings, even the men who had never wanted any woman. Word of her was whispered from village to village. Men and sometimes women came from as far away as the waterfalls to glimpse her.
“One of the old women decided to head off the trouble. She took Yanani aside and told her, ‘Oh, granddaughter, you know how you make this man’s pulse leap or that woman’s hands tremble. You know how you make everyone burn. But you are mortal, girl. Some day a man will plant a little seed in your womb. You will have babies. You will grow matronly and fat. In time, you will look just like me with all my wrinkles. Think about that.’
“Yanani did think about the woman’s words, but what she thought was that she wanted to prove the old woman wrong. She wanted this power to stay with her forever.
“One night, Yanani rose while the village slept. She went to the river bank and prayed to the moon god, that worker of night miracles.
“The moon hears many prayers. He does not answer many. But Yanani did more than pray. She wove a dance, an offering, out of every gesture that had stopped men’s breaths or made women touch their mouths with their fingers. And the moon came down. She gave herself to him, and he filled her body with his light.
“‘What do you want?’ the moon asked.
“She told him.
“‘Be careful,’ he cautioned, but she said again that she did not want her powers ever to diminish. So he granted her wish. He held her in the white light of his arms, and she melted away. All that was left of her was her sigh, and its power.
“She rides the breezes, now and always. Come to the river, and she will find you. It does not matter if you are too young, too old, too uninterested in virginal girls. She will mix her breath with yours, will sink into your bones, and you will want her. You will tremble and sweat with longing. The fever will come. You won’t be able to eat. She will be the whole world to you, even though all you know of her is your desire.”
Prevention: Because the disease may be spread by mosquito bite, personal protection (mosquito netting, repellent, adequate clothing, etc.) may offer a degree of prophylaxis. However, until the cause of the disease is more clearly understood, the only sure method of prevention is to avoid travel to the Juruá River and vicinity.
Treatment: Rehydration, if dehydration is evident. Acetaminophen or aspirin for aches and fever.
Folk treatment: The following is transcribed from an interview with a native curandeira:
“How would you put an end to passion? What is the cure for lust? She is not here to receive you, so you will not quench your fire that way. Alcohol may make you feel better, or worse. Another lover may transform your aching, or only make you all the more feverish for what you cannot have. Sometimes there is nothing to do but suffer. With time, it won’t be so bad. But she’ll always be with you, deep in your bones. You will always ache for her a little, even when you are old like me.”
Prognosis: Full recovery is expected, though an ill-defined ache may persist indefinitely.
Don Ysidro
ON THAT LAST MORNING, anyone who came to visit me could see that I was dying. I knew it myself. As if I had cotton in my ears, I heard the voice of don Leandro saying to my wife, “Doña Susana, I think it is time to fetch the priest,” and I thought, yes, it’s time. We don’t have our own priest, or even our own church, so someone has to drive in a pickup truck to get the priest from El Puentecito. But don’t be fooled by what you may hear in Malpasa or in Palpan de Baranda. Here we remain Catholic. Yes, we make pots in the old way. That’s why tourists come here. And it’s true, as is sometimes whispered, that we have restored certain other practices from the past. But not as the
y were done back then. Those were bloody and terrible times, the times of the Mejica. They say that the sacrificial blood covered the sun pyramids from top to bottom. Thank the Virgin, we don’t do anything like that.
A little after the priest came and went, I died. Word spread. People came to our house. My family asked first for things of mine that they wanted. Then the other neighbors. Don Francisco stood near my body and said, “Don Ysidro, may I have your shovel? I need one, and your sons-in-law can dig new clay for Susana.”
I said, “Take it with my blessing.”
Susana said, “He says for you to take it.”
Next was doña Eustacia. She asked for one of my seguetas for scraping pots.
I said, “Of course. Go with my blessing,” and Susana said, “He says for you to take it.”
When don Tomás came, he asked for my boots, the ones of red leather with the roosters in the stitching.
I said, “Tomás, you thieving rascal! I know very well that you took two of my chickens that night seven years ago to feed to your whore from Puebla. And here you come asking not for a segueta or some wire, but for my good boots!”
And Susana said, “He says for you to take them.” Because, of course, she couldn’t hear me. In any case, I would have let Tomás have the boots. I only wanted to see him blush just one time.
They came and asked for everything that Susana would not need. They asked even for things for which it was not necessary to ask. They asked for things I had already promised to them. They even asked for permission to dig white clay from the place where I liked to find it. They asked, and I said yes, with my blessings. We are nothing if not polite.
Last of all, they asked for a few of my hairs to make brushes for painting pots. They cut what locks there were with scissors. They asked for my hands and cut them off with a knife for butchering goats. They said, “Don Ysidro, we want your face.” I agreed, and they flayed off the skin very carefully and tenderly. They put my hands in a metal drum and burned them. They dried my face in the sun. Meanwhile, they wrapped the rest of my body in a shroud and buried it in the churchyard according to the customs of the Church.
For a time after that, I was in an emptiness, a nowhere place. I didn’t see. I didn’t hear. I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t anywhere, not in my house, not in the coffin in the ground. Nowhere. But that would change.
All my life, I had taught the other people of my village to make pots as I made them. That was nothing special. We all did this. I made my own don Ysidro pots, except when doña Isabela showed me how to make her little tiny ones, or don Marcos demonstrated how he painted his. Then for a while, I would make little tiny pots just like doña Isabela or pots painted in the style of don Marcos. When doña Jenífera had gone to the capital to see the birds and animals on ancient pots, she imitated those decorations, showed us, and soon we all knew how to do it. The rest of the time, I made pots in my own manner, though sometimes with a little touch of Isabela or Marcos or Jenífera that I had learned from them and made my own.
Now for the week after I had died, everyone in the village would be making pots as I had made them. Even the children, if they were old enough to make pots of their own. They dug white clay from my favorite place, soaked it, filtered it, let it settle, and poured off the clear water from the slurry. When the clay was dry enough, they mixed in the ashes of my hands. Then they made clay tortillas and pressed them into big plaster molds for the base, just like the ones I used. Sometimes they used my very own molds. They made snakes of clay, attached them to the bases, wound them around from the bottom up. My pots didn’t have necks. Neither did these. The people—my family and all the rest of the town—scraped these pots smooth, rubbed them to a shine, and painted them with black paint, using brushes of my own hair and in designs I would have used: lizards and rabbits with checkered backs, or else just checkers that started big around the middle of the pot and became intricate at the lip. Those were pots in the don Ysidro style. They fired them. The ones that the fire didn’t break, they brought to my house. Susana put pots all around the front room, and even in the bed where I had lain.
But I didn’t see this. I only knew it was happening.
These pots in my house sat undisturbed. The people burned the brushes made from my hair.
On the third day, there was a feast at my house. Probably there were all kinds of tamales, some with olives and meat, some with seeds and beans. Men and women drank pulque, and there was perhaps melon water for the children. The sun went down. Candles were lit. A fire burned in my fireplace.
At midnight, don Leandro opened a box and took out the mask made of my own skin. He put my face over his face, and I opened our eyes. I came from the place that was nowhere. I was in the room. I looked at the faces, at the wide eyes of the living, at Susana holding her hand over her mouth. I saw my grandchildren, Carlos and Jalea, Ana and Quinito. And for the first time, I could see the pots in the living room. They glowed in the candlelight. Together, don Leandro and I went into the bedroom and I saw the pots there on the bed. We returned to the living room, and I said with our mouth, “I see that I am not dead after all!”
“No, no, don Ysidro,” they assured me. “You are not dead!”
I laughed. That’s what you feel like doing when you see that you aren’t dead.
Then don Leandro threw the mask into the fire, and I wasn’t in the mask any more. I was in the pots. In all those round pots made by the hands of my friends, my rivals, my family, my neighbors. I was there, in each one. The people took me away from my house, pot by pot, and I entered their houses with them. In my former home, they left only the pot that Susana had made in my style.
From that night forward, I was all over the village. People stored corn in me, or rice, or beans. They used me to carry water. And I spread out from there, for if tourists came to buy pots and happened to admire me, the potter would say, “Oh, that’s don Ysidro.” And the tourist would nod and perhaps buy the pot that he thought was merely made by don Ysidro.
I am still in my little village, but I am in Stockholm, too, and Seattle. I am in Toronto and Buenos Aires. Some of me is in Mexico, the capital, though I am mostly still at home here in the village where I grew up, grew old, and died. I sit on Susana’s shelf where I can watch her make ordinary tortillas for her breakfast or clay tortillas for her pots. She is old, but her hands are still quick as birds. Sometimes she knows that I am watching her, and she looks over her shoulder and laughs. Whether she can hear it or not, my answering laughter is deep and full and round like a great big pot in the manner of don Ysidro.
III. Insurrections
Murder, Mystery
OKAY, THIS IS A MURDER MYSTERY. The victim is lying in a field not far from U.S. 36. Face down.
It’s early morning. Along the eastern horizon there’s a band of clouds, though the sky overhead is blue. The sun is up, but still hidden. Here’s what I want you to see: to the west, another cloud bank lies against the Flatirons, with just the jagged tops of the first and third Flatirons jutting through. I’ve already said the sky is blue, but I don’t think you’ve really seen it. Brilliant blue? Piercing blue? At this distance, you can see the summits of Longs Peak and Mount Meeker, capped with snow and orange in the early light.
See it? See the bright orange mountains against the blue sky? See the clouds hugging the Flatirons? Can you sense what the light is like for someone standing in this field? (There is no one standing there, of course. There’s just the body, and the body is lying down.) A western meadowlark sings. They only sing at certain levels of light, early in the day and early in the evening. The song is like this: three bright, slow notes, then a flurry of song too fast and complex to describe. You can hold the sound in your mind for only a moment, then the memory of it melts away.
I know what you’re thinking.
We’ll get to the body, I promise. But first I want to be certain you can see the light, the two banks of clouds, the orange mountains, the blue sky behind them. It’s spring. The foot
hills are green. Soon the sun will rise a little more and burn those clouds from the Flatirons. You’ll see just how green the hills are. The western meadowlark will stop singing.
There’s heavy traffic on U.S. 36, but no one has seen the body. Cars swish by. Anyone could spot this body. It’s right here in the field.
It looks as if the dead man was shot in the back and fell forward. There’s not much blood around the hole in the back of his shirt. The exit wound is probably another story.
Was he killed here? Did he expect it? Were there two men holding his arms while another pointed the gun? What caliber of gun was it? Was he a drug dealer? Witness to another crime? Jealous husband? The lover? Maybe the wife killed him. Maybe he didn’t expect it. Maybe he was killed somewhere else and brought here, dumped here.
The soil in the field is soft. There are footprints. Someone will be able to tell the story, or part of it, anyway, by looking at those footprints. They’ll figure out the caliber of the gun. They’ll identify the man and unravel his history, interview suspects.
But we won’t.
This is not that kind of a mystery.
His face is against the ground, but turned a little.
At this time of year, at this time of morning, there’s something about the smell of earth and growing grass.
The man’s lips are parted. His tongue juts a little between his teeth. It’s as if he’s tasting the dew on the grass.
That’s not a symbol or anything. That’s just the way it is.
I wish I had a word for the blue of the sky.
Vocabulary Items
Choose the appropriate word to complete the following sentences.
1. As citizens we would be__________if we did not make these facts public.
A. derelict
B. dirigible
The Keyhole Opera Page 7