Let Their Spirits Dance

by Stella Pope Duarte

  We pass through New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe, a city of classic colonial architecture and vivid colors created by the mingling of Spanish and Indian blood. History is alive here. Spirits inhabit stone and mortar, luring tourists to come closer, to touch and feel the world they knew. Beauty becomes a coveted souvenir. Visitors buy it in the form of trinkets and works of art they can pack into their luggage.

  The Guadalupanas are talking about stopping at Chimayó, which is not far from Santa Fe, to see el santuario with a miraculous little well, known as el posito, in one of the chapels. Chris says a man named Don Bernardo Abeyta saw a light shining on the ground during Holy Week around the hills of Potrero sometime during the early 1800s. He was a member of the penitentes, like Chris’s dad. As the story goes, he saw a light shining near one of the hills close to the Santa Cruz River one night when he was out performing penances. He dug in the dirt with his bare hands and found a crucifix. He called the neighbors together to venerate the crucifix with him.

  The local priest took the crucifix twice to the church at Santa Cruz, but each time the crucifix returned miraculously to the hole in which Don Bernardo had found it. They ended up building a church at Chimayó to house it. Chris says the church is a humble structure that hasn’t changed much since the time of Don Bernardo Abeyta. It is surrounded by a rural community of small farms and winding roads that resist the march of progress. The sacred posito in the church is never empty of holy dirt. Visitors take and take from the hole, and still there is more to take. Some people claim to be healed at Chimayó, and to prove a healing, they will often leave behind crutches, canes, and other items related to their illness. Another attraction for the Guadalupanas was the fact that there is a chapel to El Santo Niño de Atocha in the same location, and they wanted to go pay their respects. Chris tells me there are shoes left there for El Niño by people who claim that He walks to the homes of the faithful at night and wears out His shoes.

  “How can anybody believe all this?” I ask him.

  “There’s so much history here, so many stories, that I think people say things to keep their faith growing.”

  “Do you believe all this?” When I ask him the question it reminds me of Holly Stevens looking into my eyes, asking me if I believed in Aztlán.

  “Personally, I think it’s superstition, but then again, half the time scientists don’t know what they’re talking about either, and they’re supposed to know the facts.”

  That puts me back to square one. Nobody has any straight answers. I convince my mother that we can’t go to Chimayó, or to the miraculous stairs in Santa Fe built for the Sisters of Loretto supposedly by a mysterious stranger, whom the nuns claim was St. Joseph, the carpenter. The stairs were built so the nuns could climb up to the choir loft. I ask Chris if he’s seen the stairs.

  “Seen them three times,” he says. “Amazing. Two 360-degree turns with no supporting pole through the center! Now that one really makes me think. I can’t figure how anyone working alone with a few tools could have created such a thing, but there they are for all the world to see. Experts say the whole thing should have crashed to the ground a century ago. Then, the man who constructed the staircase never even waited to get paid.”

  Lisa and Lilly are pressuring me to take them to see the stairs. They have images of themselves flying down the banisters.

  “You won’t be able to,” Chris tells them. “The whole area is roped off.”

  I look back at Mom and Irene sitting in the back seat. Their faces are like Lisa and Lilly’s—fresh-looking, wanting to see something nobody can explain, to cheat a little and get closer to Heaven.

  • WE TRAVEL UP I-25 and stop at Raton, New Mexico, to buy some groceries. The name is amusing. I don’t know too many towns named for a rodent, the rat. The smell of a small town gets stuck in your nose like incense. The place is beautiful. A light drizzle of rain makes the hills surrounding Raton look misty. In the distance, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains tower over the countryside, deep purple, stately.

  As we walk into the store, I look back to make sure the Guadalupanas are OK. They have refused to walk out in the rain, claiming the rain will cause us all to catch frío, cold air that settles in different spots of the body and causes cramps and pain. Michael and Angelo are whipping around the store with a grocery cart, loading up on packages of corn nuts, sunflower seeds, Squeeze-Its and everything else that makes it impossible for them to sit still. Cisco’s walking behind them, flirting with the girls from Raton, pretending he doesn’t really know Michael and Angelo.

  One of the package boys asks me if we’re the family on the Internet who’s traveling to the Vietnam Wall.

  “My dad’s a Vietnam vet,” he says. “He saw your web page on the Internet.” He calls another package boy over, “Hey, Scott, here’s the family my dad was talking about the other night. They won about two million dollars from the government!”

  “Actually, it was only ninety thousand,” I tell him. “We didn’t win it, they owed it to us.”

  “Where’s your mom?” asks the first package boy, whose name, I find out, is Jeffrey. “Nana…is that what you call her?”

  “No, her name’s not Nana! That word means grandmother in Spanish. She’s in the van outside. She’s not feeling well.”

  “Can I meet her?” I tell him they can both meet her and her friend. The boys start packaging our groceries and refuse to allow anyone else to help them. Jeffrey says he wants to tell his dad he packaged food for the Ramirez family. Lisa and Lilly are standing close by and the two boys are doing all they can to keep their eyes off the girls and to finish packaging the food. Before long, several people gather around us, talking about the Wall. One lady says it’s like going to church.

  “You’ll feel like praying, after you get through the tears,” she says.

  “Everybody should go there,” says the girl who’s checking us out. “A once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

  The store manager comes over, a robust, red-faced man with a quick smile. He asks if we are the Ramirez family. Manuel tells him we are, and he asks if we wouldn’t mind waiting for the news people to get to the store. They’d like to take pictures of us with the store personnel.

  “These things don’t happen in Raton every day. Your mother is teaching us all about faith,” he says. “And I understand that she heard voices?”

  “What voices?” I ask him.

  “That’s what the news report said. Your mom heard voices calling her to the Wall.”

  “Well, it might have been a dream.”

  “I don’t think so. When my mother died a few years ago, I swear I heard her voice a couple of times. Don’t you believe the supernatural world can send us messages?”

  I look across the store’s aisles, and notice at least twenty people gathering around us.

  “Don’t you believe in supernatural occurrences?” the manager asks me again.

  “Well, of course, I believe in invisible forces. I wouldn’t be on this trip if I didn’t.”

  Michael walks up to me with Cisco. “Parallel universes,” he says. “Other worlds that reverberate one thin line away from ours. That’s what we’re experiencing. There’s lots of things we don’t know anything about.”

  “Is this the young man who set up the web page?” the manager asks.

  “That’s me,” Michael says.

  “Well, congratulations on such a great idea!” As the manager finishes his sentence, two newsmen come in with a camera and a huge lamp they shine in our direction. “Here they are, come in, gentlemen. Yes, the Ramirezes are visiting our humble store!” The camera lens sweeps over all of us.

  “Anything you’d like to say—any of you? Teresa, Priscilla, Paul, Manuel, Michael…and who else? We know your names by now,” one of the newsmen says.

  Paul answers. “We’re doing what my mom wants, heading for the Wall. The money, all that doesn’t really matter to us. What’s important is getting to the Wall so Mom can keep her promise. But there’s a probl
em.”

  “A problem?”

  “Yeah. Jesse’s not with us. This should be a family vacation, but it’s not. We never had a family vacation, we were too busy surviving, and now that we have this money, we’re still not on vacation. Nothing can make up for the death of my brother—or anybody else’s brother, for that matter.”

  Chris looks at Paul. “I think Jesse was right,” he whispers to me.

  “I’ve never seen Paul like this,” I tell him.

  I look out the windows and see Gates on the phone. I wonder if he’s calling Queta or Erica, or even Kamika. We end our talk with the newsmen, and walk out to our vehicles, followed by the manager and the newsmen. The drizzle has turned into a light rain, slanting through sunlight. My mom would say the does are bearing their young in the forest when it rains like that. Before we reach the van, the rain stops. I introduce Jeffrey and Scott to the Guadalupanas. At first, the boys are surprised to see the two old Doñas. I don’t know what they were expecting. They’re courteous and shake the old ladies’ hands. They are two blond, blue-eyed boys making contact with two matriarchs from another world.

  “God bless you both,” my mother says, and to Jeffrey she says, “Tell your father I’m glad he came back from Vietnam, because today I met you, his son.” Jeffrey is moved by this and raises my mom’s hand to his lips.

  “That kid’s a real charmer,” Chris says.

  “My mom loves it,” I tell him.

  The manager introduces himself to Mom. “I’m Emery Billings, Mrs. Ramirez. I was telling your daughter here that I believe you heard the voices. Why shouldn’t you? I heard my mother after she died.”

  “The voices, yes. They were whispering to me. I don’t know what they were saying, but I know it was my son, and the other men on the Wall.”

  “You keep the faith, Mrs. Ramirez. Nothing’s more important than doing what you think is right.” He shakes Mom’s hand, then reaches over and shakes Irene’s hand. He looks at me.

  “Have a safe journey. I wish I was going with you. I’ve never been there.”

  “Don’t say that too loud,” I tell him. “My mom wants to take the whole world with us. Look over there.” I point to Yellowhair and his mother Sarah. “Zuñi Indians. The woman’s son, Strong Horse, known as Eddie Bika, was killed in Vietnam. Strangers to us, but they’re traveling with us.”

  “Wonderful,” he says.

  Jeffrey and Scott stand out in the rain with the store manager, Emery Billings, waving to us and giving us a thumbs-up as we drive away. Other people wave to us from the entrance of the store, some come out into the parking lot, holding umbrellas or paper bags over their heads, protection against the rain that has started up again. The newsmen are filming us as our vehicles get back on the highway.

  The day has been an exhausting one. Traveling in and out of the rain has taken its toll on us. Dark clouds make me feel like going to bed, and with Chris next to me, the thought of going to bed is so strong I have to start massaging my neck to deal with the pressure. Chris puts his hand on my arm. “Maybe you could spare a little neck rub for me,” he says. I smile. “Sure.” His hand has left a hot spot on my arm. Irene sighs, even though I thought she was dozing off.

  Late on Monday afternoon, June 2, we arrive in Colorado Springs and head for our rooms in the TraveLodge. Manuel had a good experience on one of his business trips with people from India who run the motel chain. Now he wants to return the favor by giving them our business.

  “I mean it,” Chris whispers as we’re unloading. “I have a room to myself, and I need a neck rub.” I feel like shouting “WHERE’S THE ROOM?” but all I say is “After dinner, I’ll see how Mom is doing.” I say it nonchalantly, like nothing’s happening inside me. Manuel is watching us while he’s helping Priscilla get her things into her room. He brushes past me with two suitcases. One of the suitcases hits my knee.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Did I hurt you?” He pauses to look at me, then stoops down to take a closer look at my leg.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “I should be more careful, or you should be more careful, or we both should be.”

  “Never mind, it’s OK.”

  WE’RE CONTROLLED by time. The hours, minutes, and seconds of our lives tick away in regimental order. We try to catch up to time, but it eludes us and forces us to spill over into tomorrow. There are times when we want nothing more than to stop the world and demand that time stand still. Michael says time is relative to how fast we’re moving. Objects traveling at the speed of light have a different experience of time. This poses a problem for astronauts who will travel in outer space for long periods of time. If the voyage is an extended one, the astronauts may come back younger than their own grandchildren! Time on earth is dictated by the forces of nature, the aging process, and the way we live our lives. It’s true that when something is important to us, time seems to pass too quickly, and when we are going through great suffering, time passes too slowly.

  We’re in a time warp traveling to D.C. We’ve entered an orb that’s propelling us to the Wall like a boomerang. We’ll come back, but we won’t be the same. When we get to the Wall, will that be the beginning or the end? Are there really parallel universes as Michael describes, whole images reverberating in the universe, defying our concept of space, location, and substance? And last of all, are we moving closer to Aztlán, or did we already pass it by?

  Blue Doors ·

  Chris’s socks are hanging on the back of a chair in his room. They look like white Christmas stockings. He says he always gets his socks and shoes ready. You never know when you’ll have to run out somewhere.

  “It’s from my old war days. It stayed with me. We never took off our shoes when we were out in the field no matter how bad the jungle rot got on our feet. To take off your shoes meant you were half dead and they were taking them off so you could die in peace.”

  I position Chris’s socks on the nightstand and sit back on the chair. He’s sitting on the bed wearing corduroy walking shorts, a T-shirt, and no shoes. I’ve never seen his legs before. They’re hairy, pale, thinner than I expected. The bed is a king-size with a glossy, orange comforter. It’s bigger than the queen-size I shared with Ray at our house on Canterbury Street. It makes me wonder if people really need all that room.

  “I hope someday you won’t have to put them out at all,” I tell him.

  “Someday.” Chris looks closely at me. “Relax. We’re adults, not kids.”

  “I don’t think anybody saw me come in here.”

  “And what if they did?”

  “You know how people are.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine Manuel, busting in here to rescue you.”

  “He’s always had a crush on me.”

  “He better get over it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The vato’s gotta learn to take ‘no’ for an answer. You’d think he would have learned after all these years. But I can see how he could fall in love with you.”

  I’m watching every move Chris makes, slow, deliberate moves. He walks a few paces to lock the door. His bare feet pound softly on the carpet. With my eyes I measure what his body might mean over mine. He’s taller than Ray, with more angles, and firm muscles. He sits on the edge of the bed and leans close to me. It’s strange how faces change, but eyes never do. Chris’s eyes are the same. I see myself reflected in them, the high school girl he said good-bye to at the airport and the look in his eyes, mournful, afraid. The appetite I felt earlier in the day is filling up the space between us. It makes me shiver.

  “Are you cold?”

  “No, not cold.” I want to smile, but can’t.

  “Don’t be so nervous,” he says. The middle of my chest starts to ache the minute he says the words, as if somebody ignited a match inside me. He kneels at my feet, switching off the lamp. Now we’re encased in inky darkness.

  “Leave the light on, I can’t see you.”

  “That’s the way it was in Nam, Tere
sa. So dark I swear I could see black atoms floating in the air.”

  “You must have been afraid.” I notice numbers glowing, bright red, from the digital clock on the TV, 12:31 A.M. I watch the numbers change…12:32 A.M.

  “After a while that went away,” Chris says. “Then you became part of the darkness, like a tree or a rock—you just stayed there and tried not to move. The night didn’t care what side we were on, it covered us all, except Charlie knew the place with his eyes closed, and we didn’t. We were in his backyard. Imagine being in somebody else’s backyard at night.”

  I feel Chris’s forehead and he’s sweating, cool drops of sweat on my hand.

  “You’re sweating, Chris—are you all right?”

  “It happens sometimes. I guess my body’s got the nights in Nam recorded like a history lesson. I wish it didn’t, but never mind about that, take off your shoes, Teresa, and I’ll rub your feet.”

  “I’m here to give you a neck rub, remember?” My voice sounds like an echo in my ears. I feel like I’m talking in a cave.

  “Forget it. I want to do this for you,” he says. The flame in my chest reaches my stomach and groin. It makes me sit up straight in the chair.

  Chris starts taking off one of my sandals and can’t undo the strap. His fingers feel icy cold against my flesh. He’s fumbling, trying again. It’s comical somehow, like we’re two kids in the back seat of a car.

  “Chris, turn the light back on.”

  “I can see in the dark. I learned how to do that in Vietnam.”

  “This isn’t Vietnam.”

  “Are these shoes glued to your feet?”

  “Maybe you’re nervous. Let me do it.”

  “No, I can do this.” He tries the other shoe.

  “Chris, you’re making the straps tighter…you’re hurting my ankle.” I feel for his face in the dark, and it’s wet with tears.

  I kneel on the floor with him. He puts his arms around me, and I lay my head on his shoulder.

  “You smell like you did when I left for Nam, Teresa. You were so beautiful, so beautiful, still are. I swear I carried your smell with me all the way to Nam. I guess I want to do for you what I didn’t do for your brother—take off your shoes, give you peace. All I did was cover Jesse’s face with my shirt. God, I regret not riding with him in the chopper!” I hold Chris tight in my arms. He’s crying on my shoulder, into my hair. Our tears get mixed up in the dark. We stand up together, holding tight.