by Jill Zeller
“They’re fighting for their land rights. There are few things stronger than a man’s ties to his lands, unless it’s a man’s love for a good woman.”
I gazed at Edison Lowe. He looked across the tops of the banana fronds below us, and I realized he must have been sipping on this cactus brew for several hours.
As if realizing what he had just said, he glanced at me with a helpless look. “I miss my wife. And I’m restless. It’s as if Robles is just waiting for something, orders from Zapata, I think.”
He nodded, lips pressed together. “I would give my right arm for an interview with General Zapata. I’ve spoken to Robles about it, and he smiles. Just smiles.”
It was comforting, somehow, to have Mr. Lowe nearby, like a protective uncle. As I grew stronger I began to feel restless myself. I had drawn for hours and tried to talk to Milo, who was frustratingly taciturn. I asked for pen and paper and began a long letter to my parents, trying to explain what I was going through without alarming them.
And then there was the question of our release, not spoken out loud but here, on the table untouched. Perhaps now was the time to make some demands.
I was tired of being ill. And I felt better every day. The pain in my muscles was nearly gone. I was weak, and a little breathless, but I attributed that to being in bed too long.
I asked, “How far is Mexico City? Is there a train? Are the mails going?”
“The train to Mexico City is blocked.”
Paloma de Castro’s voice floated through the dusk. She stood at the corner of the balcony, several feet from us. Garbed in her riding clothes, leather trousers and close-fitting jacket, she walked toward us. This was the first time I had seen her since I had fallen ill, even though Milo told me she helped to nurse me through.
Mr. Lowe scrambled to his feet. Señorita de Castro’s face, lit by the vague yellow string-lights, was smudged with dirt. She sank down into Mr. Lowe’s offered chair with a sigh.
“There’s a donkey train to Veracruz,” Mr. Lowe said.
I had a vague notion that Veracruz was on the Mexican Gulf. “Could I send a letter?”
Paloma de Castro sighed. “There will be no time for that. Veracruz soon won’t be safe for an American.”
Mr. Lowe explained. “The jefes want to take the port. We have warships and soldiers there now, sent by President Wilson.”
I looked directly at Señorita de Castro, who gazed away, across the courtyard.
“What is the plan for us, Miss de Castro? Are you going to keep us here until we’re too old to even walk across the street?”
My voice sounded sharp; a thorn of anger struck me, dug deep. Perhaps it was because I felt helpless and impatient, but I suddenly knew that the time for waiting was over.
Paloma de Castro turned to me. At that moment the lights went off and darkness flooded our courtyard, shadowing Miss de Castro’s face. I could see a tiny gleam in her right eye, a shred of moonlight or starlight, or from a distant candle.
“You will soon be leaving, Miss Lynch. But let us hope that for you and all of us, it will be on foot and not by a funeral wagon.”
“Bad news, Señorita?” Mr. Lowe’s voice was low and steady.
She rose, her boot stamping the tile with a jingle. “Machismo, Señor. That is all this is. Men, brothers, envidia. It’s bad enough that the peones are hungry and tired and wanting to plant, as they have been promised, and they still have to fight.”
Running her hand along her braid, Paloma de Castro sighed. “But the familia Robles is cursed by envidia between those hermanos.”
She looked me over again, and I sensed, as my heart raced, that she did not despise me, as I had feared, but she judged me nonetheless.
“Miss Lynch, are you well enough to travel, if we have to make a sudden departure?”
I found myself on my feet. I didn’t feel the rush of dizziness I had this morning. Perhaps the courage of the mezcal fortified my heart.
“I am ready to go anywhere. Especially towards home.”
“May you have your wish. I am glad to see you feeling better.”
With that, she excused herself and walked into the shadows.
Mr. Lowe and I looked at each other as night-creatures filled the silence with rasps and whistles. The parrots were silent now. Below in the lower story, candles were lit. A floral cloud wafted past me, night-flowers filling the air with scent.
Offering me another sip of his flask, which I accepted readily, Mr. Lowe gave a soft laugh.
I said, “Francisco Robles is making trouble for his brother.”
I thought Mr. Lowe was probably nodding, but I couldn’t see him in the velvet dark.
He said, “I’ve been having long talks with that Señor Beltran, the agronomist, when Colonel Robles and Miss de Castro are missing from the house.”
I heard a rustle as Mr. Lowe searched for his tobacco and papers. He continued, “Apparently there has always been a fierce rivalry between those two. Francisco despises his brother for being the oldest, for being educated in America, at the University of California. For living in France.
A match sprang to life, and I saw Mr. Lowe’s face cragged and weary in the red glow as he lit his smoke. “Francisco was the first of the family to disgrace himself by joining with Zapata. Jesus followed when he returned to help the family escape Pancho Villa, the revolutionary leader in the north who was threatening the hacienda. He got his family safely away, and then went to follow his brother.”
“And Jesus Robles is a Colonel and his brother—?”
“Yes, another knife to Francisco, apparently. You can sense the power of Jesus Robles, can’t you? The man is a born leader.”
I could sense it, all right. The attraction was fierce, and I felt it throughout my body, much to my dismay.
I said, “But Francisco. He’s just a brute.”
Mr. Lowe nodded. “But not a stupid brute. He’s been biding his time, building support of his own from among his brother’s own army.”
A chill flowed through me, far stronger than the chilling memory of Hammer’s murder. I knew it was not my fever returning. Major Robles without thought or heart fired his pistol at an unarmed man. More frightening than the sight of a rifle barrel aimed at my chest was the memory of Francisco Robles’ eyes as he watched me in the mountain camp, a predator gauging his prey.
L
Despite this unsettling news, my next two days at Señorita de Castro’s hacienda were quiet. I was able to walk along the balcony and amused myself by drawing, from memory, the weary, beautiful Paloma de Castro in her riding leathers in candlelight; and Milo’s solemn, studied face as he thumbed through the bound volumes of Miss de Castro’s library, books in French and Spanish and even English.
I sketched the courtyard, and produced a pale and gaunt portrait of myself and my new hairdo reflected in the ornately framed mirror in my room. I wondered at the cultured splendor of the place, an island in a sea of chaos. There seemed to be plenty of food and even though the electricity at intervals went off throughout the day, it was wonderful to have. Also at intervals I heard the boom of cannon, and distant rattling rifle shots from the mountain barrancas, lush crevasses scarring the rocky mountainsides. Somewhere, someone was still fighting.
I had seen nothing of Colonel Robles since he came to see me on my first recovery day. Looking over my sketches of him, I recalled our supper together, and wondered about the photograph of the woman I had seen in his tent. Was it his wife? Where did she live, if she lived?
Afternoon was a time of rest for Mexicans, siesta, when everyone took a long nap through the heat of the day. Even the distant sounds of war seemed muted in that stretch of silence, until dusk descended in our little town. I rested on my bed after Milo made certain I had taken my quinine. Earlier, Mr. Lowe had visited and we had gone through my sketches, with an eye toward which ones we would present to Colonel Robles along with Mr. Lowe’s narratives.
The man could write, I was pleased to see. His prose
was lyrical and forthright at the same time. There was nothing romantic in the way he described the Mexican Revolutionaries, but his words generated empathy for their cause.
“The American public won’t care about this,” he said, rolling up his papers and shoving them into the pocket of his worn linen suit. “Most of them want to believe that American imperialism will bring the poor, ignorant Mexican to heel. But we’ve seen how they live; these people are educated, even elegant. It’s a shame.”
He had been drinking again, and the ever-present flask came out of his pocket and went to his mouth. “No one’s going to read this. Until I’m dead, maybe. Then I’ll become a literary icon and everyone will fall over themselves explaining my life to everyone else.”
After he left, taking with him my sketches and his words, an angry sorrow came over me. Ill and tired, I wished I were healthy again. We had done what was required, no, demanded of us without choice. Now it was time to return to the United States and tell the world what we had seen, bring Mr. Lowe’s words and my illustrations into the public light. Rather proud of my work, I secretly hoped my portrayals of the simple folk of the Mexican Revolution would boost my reputation from that of lurid illustrator to admired artist.
The rest of the house was asleep, Milo dozing in a hammock on the balcony, Edison Lowe in a drunken stupor in his room. Dressing in my calzones, running a brush through my shorn hair, which stood up in wavy curls, and taking one of the tightly woven straw hats with a wide brim that I had seen Señorita de Castro wear, I ventured from my room and into the silent casa.
The only sound was the tinkling fountain in the courtyard below. Even the parrots seemed to be napping. A floral rush filled my nostrils, reminding me of the florist shops of New York, and I felt a stab of homesickness. Taking the tile stairway down into the courtyard, I entered the cool, dark sitting room.
My eyes adjusted to the dimness, slowly, and silence filled every corner. The place smelled of leather, and coffee. And as I stood just inside, holding my hat, I saw that I was alone. Not for the first time did I wonder about my instinct that Paloma de Castro and Jesus Robles were lovers, and I stood, imagining Miss de Castro and Colonel Robles twined together in a secret bedroom.
Silly, romantic girl, I chided myself, although by now, having had one lover who was married and another with an unseemly tie to his sister, that I was anything but a romantic. But the thought of the two revolutionaries, the singular Paloma and the charismatic Robles, entangled together in sexual love, was the height of romance to me now.
A protracted sigh filled my ears, followed by the squeak of leather as someone on the leather sofa facing the huge stone hearth turned heavily.
Holding my breath, without a sound I turned and started to tiptoe away, my huaraches silent on the tiles.
“Ah, Señorita Lynch. We are both early risers from siesta.”
Colonel Robles’ voice crawled up my back with warm, seeking hands as I turned. Watching me, he sat up, one bare arm draped on the sofa back.
A strand of dark hair crossed his forehead. I could see his shoulders, muscular and bare in the spray of light from the courtyard behind me.
“Forgive me,” he said, standing up. “I took an opportunity here to sleep, because I have little time. And, as you see,” he bowed, “I removed my shirt because of the heat.”
He stood in his leather riding trousers, beltless and shirtless. The scar of his blade wound was a dark splash of healing skin along his right side.
I was glad of the dimness; he couldn’t see how red my face must be. He did not himself seem embarrassed; in his look I saw a challenge. I was more than up to it.
“Señor Robles, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I want to speak with you.”
“Please, it is no bother.” He waved his hand across the sofa, offering me a seat.
Walking past him, I sat down. My heart banged its fists under my ribs as he sat beside me. The leather moaned under the weight of his body. He turned partially to face me. I did not move away.
“When are you going to release us, sir? We’ve done what you wanted. You’ve seen our story, read Mr. Lowe’s articles, correct?”
Nodding, Colonel Robles rested a hand on one of his knees. “I think very highly of the work.”
“Then isn’t it time to get the message out? It’s time we went home so this can be published.” I forced myself to hold his gaze, as his golden eyes appraised me.
“Your hair—it—is it difficult?” His hand came to my cheek, pulled a strand of curl away from my face, tucked it behind my ear.
I shook my head; the feel, smell of his fingers sent a flush through me, flooding straight down into a deep, moist part of my body. I willed him to do more.
And he did. His lips gently pried into mine, his hand pressing the back of my head. He tasted of salt, and vaguely, mezcal. His mouth warm, moist, ran down my neck, and his other hand probed deeper along my back to my hips.
The leather engulfed me. His body pressed, living and hard, skin like soft French silk. I sank backward, and he slid on top of me, gentle, but at the same time certain and quick.
Our bodies glided together with sweat and soft breaths. His fingers delved deep inside me, then he was there, thrusting, his tongue brushing my neck. I pressed my hands onto his buttocks; my body shook with pleasure and blood rushed into my ears with a roar like a flash flood.
After, we lay together, bathed in damp. My heart thundered; muscles ached but pleasure encircled me. His breaths were like soft breezes. He lay nearly on me, arm cradling his head, watching me through his golden eyes.
“The woman,” I said, seeing the look of sweetness fading from his face. “In the photograph. Is that your wife?”
He rose on one elbow, slowly closed my open shirt over my bare breasts.
“Yes.”
A cold understanding filled me, but I asked the question anyway. “Where is she now?”
And he gave the answer I knew I would hear. “She’s dead.”
Sitting up, Señor Robles closed the buttons of his trousers. “It was a long time ago. Before I became a soldier for the revolution.”
I watched him smooth his hair away from his face. “I have a son. He is thirteen. His grandfather has taught him to hate me.”
“Why?”
“For becoming a Colonel in Zapata’s army. For fighting for the right to give land back to our peones, land that was stolen from them by my ancestors.”
Touching his shoulder, I gave him a smile. A sort of love bloomed inside me, not lustful and yearning, as I had for Philip, but respectful, warm, friendly. I understood the devotion of Colonel Robles’ men because I had become one of them.
Taking my hand, he kissed it. “You are unlike any American woman I have ever met. Beautiful, brave, and kind.”
Just then, for a moment, I thought of joining them. Becoming a fighter, like Paloma de Castro, going to war beside Jesus on a black horse like his. Living with him in his tent, cooking his special meals, even—the thought brought a stiff smile to my face and I had to look away—giving him a son who would adore him.
All this, even though I was a poor rider and a worse cook, and any thoughts of motherhood were buried deep—with the help of banned family-planning aids supplied by my mother.
But as Colonel Robles rose and pulled his nicely folded shirt from a nearby chair, I knew my chance was gone, and as unreal as any fading early morning dream.
“Señorita Lynch—”
“Don’t you think under the circumstances you should call me Nola?”
Nodding, Jesus smiled. “Yes, Nola, I have a plan for you and Mr. Lowe, and the doctor. It will not be easy, but it is time I make good on my promise to myself and General Zapata to bring the true story to the American public.”
He bowed. “And now I am reassured that you are strong enough to travel.” The smirk on his face warmed me. I had to agree that I did feel better. A thousand times better, to be exact.
Jesus Robles did make good on his promise
. That night we were to leave; a small party of about a dozen well-armed soldiers on horseback and several mules, three laden with supplies and one for me which I politely refused until Milo explained that while I might feel well enough now, after miles of walking and only out of my sick bed for four days, I might be glad for a ride.
Octavio Beltran was to accompany us. As a civilian, and from a wealthy family in Vera Cruz, he would be able to persuade any Federales that we were American citizens caught up in the battles, and that he was bringing us to safety.
I wondered, however, how well this story would hold up when the Federales saw the rebels who were to be our protectors. I also wondered why we needed soldiers at all, when we were to be traveling several miles inside rebel-held territory. All of the state of Morelos was in the hands of the Zapatistas and our route, according to Mr. Lowe, would take us northwest across the mountains to towns held by the Federals west of Mexico City.
After the late supper of tortillas, beans and pork, we were to start off. Paloma de Castro furnished me with leather riding chaps and a blouse made of French cotton. Better, she told me, that I look like a gringa, a Yankee from the north, rather than one of the farmer-rebels. She also gifted me with the pale green dress which I wrapped inside my calzones—for I had grown quite fond of their comfort.
Colonel Robles was not to come with us, I learned with a deep disappointment. In fact, he was not even there to see us off as we gathered behind the hacienda gates in the warm, cricket-filled night. Around us the quiet village slept in silence except for the barking of a lone dog, or the crow of a confused cockerel. As we waited for the final strap and string to be tied on the mules, I watched the sky thickly laden with stars, wondering what lay ahead of me now. My journey had taken a sharp turn and I was getting back to my path. But I wasn’t sure that path would take me to where I wanted to go.
Paloma de Castro waited with us. She had changed into one of her gowns, her hair done up in two braids and wound around her head like the soldiers’ women wore. And slung round her waist was a leather band. Attached to that was the glint of a Mexican saber.