The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  As she ate her own breakfast of hot rolls, fresh butter, coffee, strawberries, and papaya, she vowed that if her suitcase did not turn up by the next day she would call Judy. It was always possible that Iva had failed to impress on her roommate the importance of packing Anne’s things and shipping them off without delay.

  In the meantime she had little choice but to don one of the pantsuits Doña Isabel had chosen for her. The short skirt of her cream-colored suit, coming just above the knee was not exactly the thing for climbing pyramids, and in any case, she was heartily sick of it. With a kind of wry self-knowledge, she realized she was not sorry to have an excuse for wearing some of the beautiful things that had been bought for her on their shopping trip. If she was not careful, she would be thoroughly spoiled by the time she left Mexico, with little chance for happiness anywhere else. It would be easy to become used to the beauty and wealth that surrounded her, far too easy. She could have refused to go until her own clothing had arrived, of course, but she had a fair idea of what Ramón’s reaction to that excuse would be; he had so little patience with her compunction about taking anything from him. In addition, she did not like to alter the arrangements he had made to take her sightseeing. He was under no compulsion to do so, and there was also the risk he would decide not to take her at all.

  Anne appeared for luncheon in a two-piece suit of azalea-pink cotton polyester with a linen weave. With it went a blouse in a soft aqua and pink print and a small scarf of the same material that she tied around her hair to hold it back out of her face. A touch of pink lip gloss and a brash of aqua shadow over her eyes completed her makeup. She looked fresh and feminine, and at the same time practical with her tied-back hair and sensible shoes of camel leather with crepe soles and low wedge heels.

  Ramón did not appear for luncheon. It was a delicious though solitary meal. Served on the patio, it consisted of seafood soup, tacos, guacamole salad, and an odd fruit with a smooth custard taste that the shy, Indian maidservant called a chirimoya.

  She lingered over the meal as long as possible, but when at last the maidservant began to hover as though she would like to clear away, and possibly take the time for her afternoon rest, Anne finally crumpled her napkin and dropped it beside her plate. Leaving the table, she passed through the arched opening with its wrought-iron gate that led from the patio to the garden. A stone walk bordered by ferns led around the side of the house, paralleling the whitewashed wall that protected the house from the street. At the foot of the wall were planted clove pinks, their spicy fragrance filling the air, vying with the sweet scent of the roses and sweet peas growing in a tangled mass upon the wall. Carnations grown lanky sprawled over the wall, laying their bright, fluffy heads of red and yellow and pink in her path. Above her head arched a sky as blue as the turquoise Doña Isabel had given her while through the trees she could glimpse the serrated purple teeth of the distant mountains.

  Drunk on fragrance, she stopped under an overhanging bower of roses, lifting her face to the gentle touch of the sun, letting a vagrant breeze stir soft tendrils of hair about her face. The moments passed. A bee buzzed gently about her head, a quartet of yellow butterflies danced past her at no more than arm’s length, and a small green lizard darted out to lie panting inches from her shoe upon the stone walk. Caught in a moment of infinite enjoyment, she dared not move for fear of shattering something precious.

  Abruptly the lizard scuttled away. Turning her head slightly, she saw Ramón, framed in the arched entrance to the patio. As their eyes met, he pushed away from the wall and came toward her. Reaching above her head, he pulled one of the small blush pink roses from the vine and stood for a moment, twirling it between his fingers, a small, almost derisive smile quirking the corner of his mouth. Then with a quick movement, he thrust it just above her ear, pushing the stem under the scarf that held back her hair. With a finger beneath her chin, he tilted her lips to meet his. Anne felt a quick, gentle pressure, and then he raised his head. Trapped in the unexpected poignancy of the moment, she could not move, could not speak.

  And then, his voice shockingly prosaic, Ramón asked, “You have eaten?”

  Anne managed to nod.

  Dropping his hand, he caught her fingers. “So have I. Let us go before it is too late,” he said, his grip tightening on her hand.

  Teotihuacán, twenty-six miles northeast of Mexico City, was reached by an express toll road. Beyond the edge of the city the route they covered was flat, arid, and open, bounded only by the ring of amethyst-blue mountains. To the east lay the dry bed of Lake Texcoco, and beyond it, obscured by heat haze and the rising forms of dust devils and cloud vapor, were the snow-capped volcanic peaks of Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl. Small yellow wildflowers made their homes in the ditches beside the road, competing for moisture with a half-dozen or more different kinds of cacti. Organ cactus, thorny sentinels, stood here and there, their blossoms perched among their spies like exotic birds resting in flight. Prickly pear sprawled in patches, and once they passed an agave, the famed century plant, in blossom with its small greenish-white umbels towering thirty feet and more above the gray-green swordlike leaves of the plant.

  Seeing her interest, Ramón told her what this plant, known locally as the maguey, had meant in times past to the Indians and Mexican peasants. It had once been a rarity to see one in bloom. Just before time for it to flower, the heart had been cut from it and the side leaves used to cover over the cavity. The juice that would have gone to the great stem of the flower then filled this basin. The honey-sweet juice thus produced, numbering from one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred gallons, was then drawn off and fermented to form a slightly alcoholic beverage called pulque, one of the most wholesome and refreshing drinks in the world, though somewhat strong in odor. This juice, at a certain period in its fermentation, was said to be good for the cleaning and healing of wounds. Distilled, it forms an alcoholic drink that was one of the mainstays of the Mexican economy, tequila. There were many uses for the leaves and stems. Dried, the older side leaves were good for thatching roofs. The new growth, when the spines were removed and the fleshy stems chopped, were used as cattle feed. From the fibers of the leaves could be taken a strong thread called pita, from which could be made a tough brown paper, or when twisted together, a strong material that could be taken to make cloth, heavy-duty mesh bags, even rope. Even the roots of the plants could be used as a starchy food not unlike potatoes. Many of the cacti, so dangerous and untouchable to the eyes of norteamericanos, served a useful purpose. The organ cactus when planted close together made a strong and impenetrable fence for penning cattle. Birds hollowed out holes for their nests in them, causing injuries that were fed upon by larva, which in turn fed the birds. Nature wasted nothing, nor, as Ramón pointed out, had the Indian. It was not, in these days of environmental concern, a new observation, and yet, to find the same attitude among the Mexican Indians as was so often portrayed among the American tribes was oddly comforting, though Anne could not have explained why.

  It had not been an easy drive. When he was not pointing out some feature of the landscape to her attention, Ramón was withdrawn, busy with his own thoughts. He had dispensed with the limousine and chauffeur, driving himself in a low-slung coffee-colored sports car. He sent the car hurtling along the road with swift precision, his well-formed hands steady upon the wheel. When the subject of the cacti was exhausted, Anne, uncertain of his mood, fell silent.

  At last they saw the pyramids from a distance, great weathered stone cones rising from the plain. The site of the ruins covered several square miles, including a parking lot dotted with cars and the large chartered buses of tourists.

  Leaving the car, they visited the museum at the entrance. Inside, Anne stared in solemn concentration at the shattered fragments of knives and arrows made of obsidian, shards of pottery, and other exhibits that indicated that Teotihuacán had been a thriving center covering several hundred acres, with lime-plaster-paved streets and a complete system of underground drai
nage. She was fascinated also by the tiny idols with blank eyes made of clay, which had been found lying all about, and the stone representations of the huge figures of the gods of the sun and the moon, which, covered with gold, had stood at the site until destroyed by the early Spanish priests.

  The builders of Teotihuacán, she found, were not Aztecs but a much earlier people who were thought to have been traders with dominion over a large expanse of the country. Their culture had reached its zenith sometime between three hundred to four hundred A.D. Archaeologists agreed that for some unknown reason, perhaps in flight from the warlike Toltec Indians, they had deserted their city after destroying it themselves and attempting to burn it.

  As the evening progressed, the tourist buses began to roll back toward Mexico City. When the crowd had thinned to a few scattered groups with the look of students or working archaeologists about them, Anne and Ramón walked down the straight street lined with the ruins of ancient platforms known as the Avenue of the Dead, which led to the Pyramid of the Moon. This cone was slightly smaller than the Pyramid of the Sun, which sat to its left, but it had been built on an elevation so that the two structures were of the same height. Anne had known the pyramids were huge, but she had not realized how really enormous they were until she stood with her head back, staring up at the ascending steps. High above, where an ancient temple had stood on the Pyramid of the Sun, could be seen the antlike figures of a few who had climbed the steep steps up the face of its five terraces earlier.

  Those steps, without stair rails, were every bit as steep as they looked. As she climbed, she could use the steps above her for a handhold, and with Ramón following close beneath her, she was doubly glad that she had decided to take his advice and wear the pink pantsuit. It did not help her feelings to have to lean to one side to allow the student party in their cut-off jeans to clamber unconcernedly past her on their way down, leaving the silent platform at the top to Ramón and herself.

  The climb, all two hundred ten feet of it, was worth every alarm it caused. The view from the top was breathtaking. Teotihuacán lay stretched out around them, much clearer in its ancient outline than from ground level. Beyond it spread the brown and green plains shimmering in the pure, limpid light with the sun dropping low in the brilliant azure sky, banded like a skirt by the encircling purple mountains.

  Standing with his shoulders back and his hands resting on his hips, staring out over the platform of gray-old stone, Ramón broke the silence. “They once thought these mounds were used for burial, like the pyramids of Egypt, until they excavated and discovered their mistake. They know now they were used for religious purposes, one of mankind’s more obvious attempts to come nearer to the thing he worships. But I’ve always wondered if the height and stature of these pyramids, which lift whoever climbs them high into the clouds, were not an illustration of the meaning of the name Teotihuacán.”

  “Meaning?” Anne asked softly, half-afraid the sound of her voice would break into the mood that gripped him.

  “Teotihuacán,” he quoted. “The place ‘where men became gods.’”

  Slowly he turned to Anne, a look in his eyes that was half-mockery at his own fancy, half an invitation for her to join him in it. The slanting rays of the sun struck across his cheekbones, gilding the planes of his face. Deep within she felt a strange, burgeoning pain. Her throat dosed, swelling as if against the onrush of sudden tears. Taking a deep breath, she turned, moving away a few steps to stare out blindly over the flat terrain. It was silly of her to be so moved. Why should an expression on his face in the sunset affect her in such a way? The effects of the knock on the head, no doubt. It must be that, combined with some atmosphere that lingered here in this ancient place. That was what it was, nothing more.

  The scrape of a footstep behind her caused a sensation like the approach of danger to ripple over her skin. She did not turn, though she knew he was beside her.

  “What is it? Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Of course I’m all right,” she said, trying to smile though she did not quite meet his eyes.

  “Some people find out they are affected by heights only after they reach the top of the ladder,” he explained his concern. “You don’t have to be brave about it.”

  “I’m not being brave,” she replied, her voice more positive as she hit on a way to distract his attention from herself. “Tell me how these pyramids were used in the Indian religion.” After a moment he complied.

  “Little is known about the Teotihuacán, but if, as is suspected, they set the pattern for the Aztecs who came several hundred years later, they worshiped the powers of nature, the sun and the moon, the wind and the rain. Without these things they could not live, and so it was necessary for the spirits of these gods to remain strong. They had to be nourished, and what better nourishment than the spirits of men that were enclosed in their hearts?”

  “You mean — human sacrifice.”

  “Yes. The sacrifice of the hearts of enemy warriors torn living from their open breasts. The hearts of the bravest of the enemy warriors were the hardest to acquire, and because of it, were more valuable. War could not be won without sacrifice, sacrifice was not possible without captive warriors, captives were not available without military victory. It was an unending cycle.”

  “A terrible one,” Anne commented tightly.

  “Was it? In a time when so-called civilized nations sacked towns and put the entire population to the sword? When men and women in Europe were being tortured and burned for no more than the religious beliefs of those in power? In Indochina in the last few years hundreds of thousands have been killed solely because of their political views. Human beings have never been noted for their kindness to their enemies.”

  When she still looked doubtful, he went on in a reflective tone. “I’m not condoning human sacrifice, only pointing out that barbarity depends on your viewpoint. For instance, the Aztecs never struck a child in punishment until he was of an age to understand what he had done wrong, at eight years old. And criminals were not imprisoned; they were enslaved to the person they had injured most so they could repair the damage done as well as expiate their crimes.”

  “Both of those make sense,” Anne was forced to admit.

  “I suppose what I’m trying to say is," Ramón said slowly, “don’t judge another culture, another people, too quickly. Get to know them before you make up your mind.”

  Was there a hidden meaning in his words? Anne would have liked to think so, but was afraid it was only in her own mind.

  They remained on the pyramid for some time, talking idly. With a question or two Anne drew more of the details of the life style of the Aztecs from Ramón and from there he was launched into the history of their conquest by Cortes.

  Tiring of standing, they took a seat on the top step of the great staircase and Anne sat with elbows on her knees, listening in fascination. It was true, as Doña Isabel had said. Ramón was proud of his Indian heritage. But he was just as mindful of his Spanish blood also and gave equal credit to the bravery and daring of the men who had voyaged so far to pillage another civilization. She heard for the first time of Doña Marina, the Aztec maiden who had betrayed her people for the sake of her love for Cortes, and sitting there in the growing purple dusk, on the site of an Indian temple, it seemed as if it could have happened only yesterday instead of five hundred years ago.

  At last Ramón got to his feet and held out his hand. “We had better go before it gets too dark to get down without breaking our necks.”

  Anne agreed with reluctance. It had been so companionable sitting there. With the return to responsibility Ramón’s attitude had changed, become casual and at the same time distant. The feel of his fingers drawing her to her feet was electric, but something in his manner made her move carefully, resisting the impulse to lean on his strength. She was just as careful going down the steep stone stairway. She felt instinctively that if he should stumble she would be in danger of more than a broken neck.


  When they reached the bottom, Ramón broke the increasingly tense silence. “Tired?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “A reservation was made for us at the restaurant here as planned, but we need not keep it if you would rather return to town.”

  The reservation was a concession, she realized. The evening was still much too early for Ramón to be thinking of dinner. Used to the late hours kept in his country, his appetite would not begin to awaken for another two hours or more. Anne, though she was growing used to late breakfast and luncheon, could not seem to control a wistful longing for her supper when evening came. She had not realized that Ramón knew, however.

  “Are you certain you want to eat so early?” she asked, aware in the back of her mind of an inclination to prolong the day.

  “It shall be as you like,” he said, a smile softening the formality of the reply.

  “Then I would like it very much,” she answered.

  Grilled beef was their main dish, served with potatoes that had been browned, then steamed with peppers and onion. Tasting it carefully, Anne decided the meat had also been rubbed with pepper before grilling.

  “We will send it back to the kitchen if it is not to your liking and order something else,” Ramón said, noticing her look of concentration. The explanation of what she was doing started a conversation on food that led to her job with Metcalf. Before she realized it, Anne found herself telling him about her relationship with Joe and Iva, her position in the business, some of the perils and pleasures of catering, and one or two of the more humorous incidents that had occurred.

  “You enjoyed your job?” he asked, an odd inflection in his voice.

  “Yes — yes, I did,” Anne said, her smile fading. “That is, I do.” Her chin came up as she realized that she had been in danger of forgetting Ramón’s suspicion of her. No doubt he had expected to find that she hated working at Metcalf’s, that she was desperate to get away. He would be disappointed, no doubt, to find it wasn’t so. Though she hated to acknowledge it even to herself, there was something else she had come close to forgetting. That was the fact that she would be returning to Metcalf’s when this Mexican episode was over.