by C. M. Mayo
“No!” Atín wants back his blue ball.
Against the arm of her chair, that lady smacks her fan closed. Outside the window, that flag whips in the breeze. A bird plunges: black flash. The lion man is talking to the grown-ups again, he doesn’t care about Atín’s ball. His beard moves back and forth with his head, brushing the back of Atín’s shoulder. His skinny knees jut sharp (not like Papa’s). The lion man, still talking, sets him down, and as if slingshotted, Atin dashes back to his Auntie Pepa. But, however softly upholstered, the iron gray satin of her skirt resists his groping arms like a slippery wall. He pulls at her hand. Pepa’s hand isn’t like his mamma’s; it closes around his own, cool and dry as an old leaf. Slowly, Atín and his auntie move through the silent, smiling crowd, a parting sea of fabrics.
A tremendously long time goes by. It’s time to eat, something cheesy, and the cheese pulls away from the tortilla in gooey, greasy strings.
“Stop fussing.” Pepa has a harsh voice.
“Callate niño,” that nanny hisses at him, but low enough so that Pepa can’t hear her. “Ya. Enough.”
This nanny’s blue-black hair, pulled tight behind her ears, has the shine of crow feathers. The parted V of it points at her nose, which makes Atín think of a beak. And there is a gap between her front teeth, and when she leans in close, her hair smells of lamp-wick oil. Her lips pinch as if she wants to peck him! Olivia is her name, but he won’t say it. He won’t. She is not his nanny Lupe. She doesn’t like Atín, she should take care of pigs.
Not until after the pudding does Salvo try to find Atín’s blue ball for him. Salvo is Atín’s cousin; he has a friendly, dumpling-chinned face and his fingers smell of cigars. He has a few hairs for the beginnings of a mustache; mostly his dough-pale skin shows through. Salvo is strong! Salvo hoists Atín to his shoulders— “ya set in the saddle?”—and clasps Atín’s ankles with damp, meaty hands. Salvo lets Atín pull his ear, slap at his jaw—“Grrrr!” Salvo growls, because he’s Grizzly Bear, and Atín lets out a peal of giggles. Around a corner, Salvo carries Atín, and down the cold of a corridor where the crystal sconces—Atin holds his hand out—klinkle as they pass.
And then, through doors nearly as tall as the ceiling, they burst into a room where rectangles of sun yawn across the floor. Dust dizzies itself in midair. There is a long black piano; a fly buzzes lazily over its vase of roses. Everything else is pushed against the walls, sofas and hard-looking apple-green chairs, the feathery palms, screens, and tables clumped with masses of more roses. Their fragrance is syrupy, and tinged with a grassy bitterness; pink petals, their rims brown, litter the floor. The ceiling (with his hands on Salvo’s ears, Atín cricks back his neck to look) is carved all over with cheese white leaves.
Salvo sets Atín down. “Your blue ball, ya say?”
Splat like a monkey Salvo is on his knees. He spies beneath an ottoman. Atín trails behind his cousin, his thumb in his mouth.
“Nothing here,” Salvo says, springing up again, and not bothering to brush the dust from his knees. He scrapes a table away from the wall. “No ball here, little man.” Salvo hops around a screen: “Uh uh.” Now Salvo peers under a sofa. How silly Salvo looks, with his behind in the air. He has a hole in his shoe.
Salvo lifts the lid of the piano and props it open with a stick that was inside. He peers in. “Hmmm . . .” Salvo scratches at his mustache.
Now Salvo comes around the front of it, diddling his fingers along its teeth, bink, bink, dooong. As Salvo parts the tails of his coat and aims his bottom at the bench, Atín’s stomach twists with the knowing: Salvo is not going to look anymore.
“How’s about ‘Hail Columbia’?”
“No!”
But Salvo doesn’t care what Atín wants, he starts to play, loudly mashing the chords. Atín’s mamma, she plays chiming, twinkly songs, and she sings to him, where is she? Atín wants to go home now. Almost the whole day has gone by! And he’s lost his blue ball. Atín hangs his head and begins to whimper. Salvo pounds and bellows on:
Ever grateful! foooor the! prize!
Let its altar! reeeeeach the! skies!
Atín wails, but Salvo is trying to drown him out! In a rage, Atín throws himself beneath the piano’s thundering black body and screams.
The lid bangs down. “Do you mean to wake the dead!” Pepa says. “What kind of example—” she sputters. “Your behavior is an abomination! Upstairs, this instant!”
The piano is still vibrating.
“Are you deaf? I said: upstairs!”
From under the piano Atín can see Salvo massaging his fingers. “You might’ve broke one!”
“What did you have the cheek to say to me?”
“You might’ve broke my finger!”
“Must you always answer with insolence! Are you blind to your station? The importance of your example!”
Salvo gives the piano leg a kick with his shoe, and he stalks out.
“And you!” Pepa hauls Atín up by the back of his collar. “Carrying on,” she huffs, “like a weeny baby!” She whacks him on the bottom. Atín howls louder. Her hand clamps tight around his, and he stumbles after her, all the way hiccupping with sobs.
After his nap, Atin plays with his blocks. His mamma sent along his other toys all in a wicker hamper, his velvet kitty, his bunny, Mimo, with button eyes, but Atín does not like these, not even Mimo, not anything so very much as his blue ball. He clacks the blocks together, and “Ayyy, Beee, Seee,” he sings the alphabet song to himself, the rest of it as best he can (he hum-a-hums), and then, “an’ Teee, an’ Veee.” It’s their special song (his nanny Lupe doesn’t know their language). Pepa, she sings it fast, as if she just wants to get it over with. But Atín’s mamma sings it tilting her head and with her finger tracing each letter in the air, A, which is up, then down, then slash across the middle, the lace on her sleeve flouncing. After she comes to the end, the zig and zag of Z, his mamma claps her hands together and very slowly, the words dropping like down the stairs, she sings, tell me what you think of me . . .
Atín sings softly, “Meeeeeee.” He clacks the red block on the green block.
He does not like that the rug rubs scratchy and air seeps in through the crack beneath the door, brushing cold on his legs. Outside the window there is nothing but sky. This is a bad windy place with too many people. Do they all have to live here, or is it time for them to go home, too? Now. Atín is ready now. Now he wants to go home.
In the greenish light of dusk, that bad nanny, Olivia, feeds him his supper. His mamma and papa have not come for him. Why? And why can’t his nanny Lupe be here?
“Ay, niño,” Olivia says every time she roughly wipes his chin. She wants Atín to open his mouth again, but she can’t make him. His nanny Lupe, she’s the one who should give Atín his supper! Lupe knows that Atín does not like the red sauce, but only the mild green sauce with the little seeds, and that Atín eats his melted cheese always with the tiny bacons. Olivia aims another lump of that gritty red mush at Atín, he swats it, and the spoon clatters to the floor.
Pepa gives Atín his atole. She helps him hold the cup of the thick, sweet corn drink. He slurps it loudly.
“Goo’ bye,” Atín says what his mamma said.
“What did you say?” Pepa stands over him. “Speak clearly.”
“Goo’ bye!”
“No, you are not a good boy until you drink up all of your atole.” Pepa tips the cup for him, and with his hands flat on his high-chair tray, he bends his head back for the last drop to slide down the inside of the cup. He does not want to, but he swallows.
Pepa pats his shoulder.
The wind has died when Pepa wraps him in a strange blanket and then lowers him into a strange crib. The blanket’s trim touches cold and slidy beneath his chin, but he is too sleepy to cry about that. As Pepa leans down to kiss him, her earrings tickle cold on his cheek.
“Que Dios te bendiga. May God bless you,” Pepa says a little too loudly, in the nanny language, “and may al
l the saints and the angels look over you.” She makes the sign of a cross over his forehead.
You are safe, Atín understands this to say, and you are cared for. In the morning, then, Pepa will get his blue ball back. In the morning, they will go home.
He is a special child; he dimly senses this already, though he has no idea how beautiful he is with his cupid’s bow of a mouth, slightly parted. From beneath his nightcap, his silk-soft curls spill palest gold over the pillow.
The stars are just beginning to wink; with two firm tugs, Pepa pulls the curtains closed.
Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
Just as the mantel clock chimes half-past eight, Pepa has finished saying the rosary. She rises painfully from arthritic knees, steadying herself with a grip on the bedpost. Shivering slightly, she draws her diaphanous lacetrimmed chemise de nuit around her shoulders. Foolish, she chides herself: why didn’t she think? Of course it would be colder up here in Chapultepec Castle; without the sheltering of trees, the wind carries any warmth away. However, having spent such a fabulous sum on her new wardrobe, a wardrobe not in any way extravagant, merely necessary for the dignity of her rank, she really ought to wait another month before buying the flannel for a warmer nightgown. She drops the rosary beads in a dish. Her bedroom jitters with shadows from the candlelight. She is not happy with the way the footman has trimmed the lamps, however, she is gratified to note that this bedroom is as spacious as her little brother’s parlor, and her sitting room twice again as large. Flowers adorn almost every surface, at the foot of the bed is a divan upholstered in brocade, and the porcelain wash jug—she had turned it over and put on her spectacles to examine the mark—is Sèvres.
Pepa sits, (the frame creaks), on the edge of her bed. In her lap, her palm. That vulgar woman Alicia invited to dinner was mistaken. The line—she traces her finger along the curve of the fleshy base of her thumb—is broken, ¿y qué? It is glorious fortune! Which not everyone can recognize, can they? “Mi querida prima, my dear cousin,” Maximilian von Habsburg condescends to call her now—every time she thinks of it, she feels a swell of pride. No, not pride, Pepa swiftly corrects herself. This splendid feeling is gratitude, hearfelt gratitude, to be able, at last, to serve her country. It has been forty-two years since her own father, may his soul rest in deserved peace, was crowned Emperor and Protector of the True Faith. In exile, there was no dowry for the murdered Liberator’s daughters. A cloistered life was a destiny she resisted; she had, so stingingly, wanted children. How she prayed to San Antonio the matchmaker! The young men with promise, they flocked to the belles with names their mothers recognized. Not a one wanted to court the exotic and nearly penniless Señorita Iturbide. Of course, few of them were Roman Catholics. In any event, Mamá had a visceral prejudice against the idea of her children marrying foreigners. A Chilean diplomat? Impossible. That Peruvian gentleman from church? I will have no such son-in-law. Yankees, Mamá often said, had no culture. By nature, they were greedy and lowborn. Tidewater “aristocrats”? Mere merchants, tobacco traders. It took supreme effort for Mamá to acknowledge the neighbors. In Georgetown, there was one who introduced herself from the back alley, whilst taking out her pail of potato peelings!
And so, as the years slid by, Pepa had been left with the increasingly grinding realization that her voice had gone unheard in Heaven. This was what God wanted. God, after all, had an all-seeing wisdom. For who else was left to care for Mamá? As Pepa told herself, it would be very selfish for her to go on hoping for something so unsuitable and inconvenient for everyone else.
Although disappointed by San Antonio, Pepa has never wavered in her faith—the True Faith. She has worn it like armor, and is it not so? To serve here, now, is the Divine’s reward. The Almighty, she reminds herself, gave Maximilian the inspiration to accept the throne of Mexico, as He gave Maximilian the inspiration to make her nephew and godson his Heir Presumptive.
Domine Salvum Fac Imperatorum, God save the Emperor—this same chant she heard when her own father was standing there at the top of the crimson steps in his imperial robes, and Mamá beside him, with the stars on her swan white gown and pearls braided through her hair. Yesterday, how magnificently the archbishop’s voice had filled the cathedral! To think of her father being so honored in God’s own house, Pepa feels as if a flock of doves might fly out from her breast. Yesterday, Mexico’s Day of Independence, in the ceremony, she had to bite her lip to keep from sobbing. When it was over, from the balcony of the Imperial Palace, Maximilian shouted out, “Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Viva México! Viva Iturbide!” From the Plaza Mayor, up came the roar of the crowd; how the cheers washed over her with their silken caress. Later, with Carlota and Madame Almonte, Pepa—now Her Highness Princess Doña Josefa de Iturbide—came out on the balcony again, to see the night mortared with whistling Chinese rockets, chrysanthemums of diamonds and rubies.
On her bedside table, next to a dish with the coil of rosary beads, is the Reglamento y ceremonial de la Corte (Ceremonies and regulations of the court), big as a Bible. It is being reprinted with an all-new Chapter One, “On the Iturbide Princes,” specifying their rank, which is above all others, with the exception of imperial princes (of which there are none); cardinals; those rare few, such as General Almonte, upon whom the emperor has bestowed the medal of the Order of the Mexican Eagle; and Their Majesties. Princess Iturbide may make visits in society and leave her card; however, she need not return visits except to cardinals, Mexican Eagles, ambassadors, ministers of state, and their wives. When Their Majesties are on their thrones, she must place herself at their feet, on the first step, to the left of the empress. In church, her place is in the first row, and the bench covered in velvet. But she shall not be presented with the holy water. There is so much to study, too much to remember. But God will help.
“Please,” said the Master of Ceremonies when he brought her this book, together with the loose manuscript pages of Chapter One. “I am at your service.”
“I am obliged to you,” Pepa answered, but with the firm intention of making questions unnecessary.
The Master of Ceremonies, rather than put the book in her hands, took a slight step backward. Holding this tome as a waiter does his tray, he lifted the cover and then slid his glove over the small square of a certificate that had been pasted on the inside. “Please,” he said, “you will see here that this book is for your personal use. However, it remains, now and always, the property of His Majesty.”
Pepa put on her spectacles. The Master of Ceremonies could have, but did not, turn the book around for her to be able to read the certificate.
“Each book,” he went on, “has a registration number.”
“I see.”
His tongue pushed against the inside of his cheek. It seemed the Master of Ceremonies was going to say something more; but no. With an air of infinite reserve, he closed the lid of the book and, dipping his head slightly, presented it to her.
It was so heavy she had to carry it with both hands.
Now, on the edge of her bed in Chapultepec Castle, Pepa kisses her thumb again, for luck. She presses her hand to her heart and smiles with grateful satisfaction, remembering how this morning, before the whole court, Prince Agustín had run to her.
She has her child now.
She thrusts her legs in between the chill sheets. She reaches her hand down to the candle and, with a pinch, cuts it.
Down the hall, in a cold bedroom unadorned but for a crucifix, the emperor snores—and this rare for him, for he is a shallow sleeper (and often his valet is kept awake by the lamplight from beneath the door that connects their rooms). Maximilian’s is the sound sleep of the self-satisfied, for he has, as brilliantly as Metternich, bagged not two, not three, but five birds with one arabesque toss of a stone. To celebrate Mexico’s independence, raise the status of the Iturbides to princes, and bring the two grandsons, Agustín and Salvador, under his tutelage, he has, first, demonstrated he is no puppet of the French; second, signaled favor
to General Almonte, son of the other hero of Mexican Independence, the insurgent Father Morelos; third, co-opted a possibly dangerous element of conservative society; fourth, provided an Heir Presumptive; and fifth, given a powerful inducement to the Kaiser to rescind the Family Pact. Oh, what a flock of pretty birds. And now, one’s brothers will see that a Habsburg empire in the Americas is viable, and all to be handed over to the grandson of a creole parvenu? They will be too jealous of a throne to allow that to happen, surely. Avid one’s brothers will be to enjoy the fruit of this magnificent work of the House of Habsburg! Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur, the desire for glory is the last infirmity cast off even by the wise, as Tacitus well knew. Yes, the moment one’s quill touched that contract with the Iturbide family, one had felt—it was an almost physical sensation—the ropes uncoiling, and then, as if . . . the anchor had bit! Charlotte, good soldier, has already offered to sail to Europe and bring back one’s nephew, his nursemaid, and a doctor. The bait, the news of the little “Prince” Agustín de Iturbide being brought into this court, has been telegraphed to Veracruz; within the week it will be steaming across the Atlantic. Letters will follow, and soon, in Vienna, everyone will be talking—and soon everything, the whole storm-tossed, listing ship of this Mexican enterprise, will be set aright!
His face mashed into his pillow, Maximilian sails on through blue dreaming . . . and then gaily, he is in Brazil again, chasing monstrous fluttering Saturniidae, moths as big as starlings. There are palm trees, and high in the jungle canopy, parrots the colors of candy scream. He watches the parrots, how they swoop down, fast as bullets, and then fly out—
—to where? One has lost oneself over a lavender horizon.
In a nearby, more spacious bedroom, the empress has fallen into the bilious dreams of one who has allowed herself, dazed within a labyrinth of sugar-encrusted rationalizations, to collude in her own—there is no other word for it—humiliation. She feels the way water feels when it is just about to run over the lip of its cup. Among the snowy linens and down-stuffed pillows, Carlota has curled into herself, her knees touching her chin. The oil in her bedside lamp allows only a weak bluish bud. The book she was reading, Imitación de Cristo, has dropped to the carpet. She will be sorry, tomorrow, to find that its loose-leaf color plate of the five wounds of the Savior has been creased. She will not be sorry, however, because no one will tell her, that her orders for the little “Prince” Agustín de Iturbide (that he be given a daily cold-water bath and a spoonful of cod liver oil) go blithely ignored. The susto of cold water, Mexicans believe, can cause sickness, and that fish oil—the nursemaid, Olivia, will pinch her nose and fling it out the window onto a bush. “I wouldn’t feed that to a pig,” Olivia will tell Pepa—and Pepa, despite herself, will chuckle.