Sastun

by Rosita Arvigo

  He said a patient had told him that La Cobanera was seen in Belmopan on the arms of another man. She was known by many names: Limpia mundo, meaning one who cleans out the world; and Rastrillo, for one who rakes in, in reference to her voracious appetite for money.

  “Watch out for her, old man,” the patient had warned. “Don’t believe her lies, for she is not what she seems.”

  Panti had confronted Claudia and informed her he knew of her capricious habits but that he was willing to forsake the past. “She can have a fresh start with me. I’ll take good care of her just as I did my Chinda.”

  It pained me to see him court an unappreciative woman. Such a good and attractive man shouldn’t have to bargain with a woman for her affection. It was apparent that he had a trusting nature, a trait we both shared. Perhaps it’s a function of our healing gift to be too accepting and forgiving of human frailty.

  Finally, I blurted out, “She shouldn’t do that to you, Don Elijio. She doesn’t realize what a wonderful catch you are.”

  “Mamasita, it stings me when I must plead with her like a schoolboy not to go,” he droned on in a sorrowful voice.

  We trampled along the road with our wet sacks sinking us into mud puddles and potholes that got deeper and slushier with the steady drizzle. I kept looking over at him to see if his mood was getting any lighter, having vented some of his despair. I was getting more protective of him with every passing day, and I was angry. I was willing to devote so much of myself to this lovely man, whom I deeply respected, while another woman mocked his search for a true companion by teasing his lonely, aging heart.

  A few weeks later, I met La Cobanera for the first time. It was just after the last patient had left and I was outside cleaning up while Panti was resting after a naprapathic treatment. I heard an engine shut off and a car door slam just outside the gate. I anticipated the face of a patient turning the corner in search of Don Elijio.

  But a short, stocky, barefoot woman dressed in patched and torn clothing appeared and plopped herself on the stoop. She twisted around and peered around the room until her gaze landed on me. “Who are you? Are you sick? And where’s the old man?” she said in one breath.

  I told her who I was. “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Claudia, at your service. Maybe the old man has told you about me, no? I’ve heard a lot about you. I can tell he likes you. So, what does he say about me?”

  While she drew a breath, I mulled over her indelicate question. My response was snagged somewhere between unrestrained frankness and polished tact.

  “He says he really likes you but wishes you would stay with him and not leave him each morning to go home.”

  “But I have to. I have a house, five sons, a cornfield, and animals to care for. I’ll stay with him when I’m ready, but he has to help me. This takes money, and only with money will the dog dance. Con dinero baile el perro.”

  We heard stirring in the bedroom, and she hoisted herself up and peered behind the curtain to his bed.

  “So, you’re back!” I heard him say, with a detectable chilliness.

  “I can stay a week this time, my king. My corn is all harvested, and my sons are storing it away. The youngest will make meals for the others, and they’ll manage fine without me,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Panti pushed the curtain aside, still pulling on his cotton shirt and scratching his bites and stings from the bush.

  “This is my student, Rosita,” he said, motioning toward me. “She’ll be here too for a few days helping me collect medicine. You can get to know each other.” She turned toward me, and her smile reminded me of a Cheshire cat’s.

  She stashed her bags in his small room, then sauntered over to the kitchen hut, where I heard her stoking up the fire. Panti and I soon returned to the hut to resume our chopping chores.

  Having another woman there—and one who knew him so intimately—gave the hut a cozy feel. While she stuffed papers in the fire and fanned the nibbling flames, she gabbed effortlessly to a sour-looking Panti. We heard about her corn, her unemployed sons, and a horse that had foaled in her yard. But within the half hour, Panti began warming up to her, failing miserably at his efforts to remain aloof. She seemed the sort of person who was oblivious to such subtle rebukes anyway.

  He began weaving tales that were a keen match for her ambitious ramblings. I watched their faces light up from chuckling and simple, wide-eyed wonder at any morsel of news about livestock, crops, weather, history, and child rearing. I was reminded of those wind-up dolls that keep chattering away until they fall over.

  I tried giving them some privacy by concentrating on my work and remaining relatively silent, but I was bowled over by his animation in the presence of such a romantic guest. If she was sincere, it would be a prayer answered, I thought—a companion to share his overburdened days and long, lonely nights. If she were using him for his money or reputation, then I was witnessing a budding tragedy.

  They talked all afternoon, through dinner, and into the evening. I became as absorbed with her stories as he was. She spoke a different Spanish than his, and her dissimilar background and life history fascinated me. Soon she was disarming me with her charm as I too joined in the talkfest. When I asked about the father of her five sons, she said without flinching that he had left her many years ago. She had raised the children by herself. It was a pitiful tale of hardship not unlike those of many Central American women I’d met.

  As we prepared for bed, I offered to hang my hammock in the kitchen hut, but Panti insisted I stay in the living quarters, where I slept just a curtain away from him and his new amante. I heard them cuddling together in his large, denim hammock, whispering and giggling until three o’clock in the morning, about the time I faded into a deep, numbing sleep.

  At first light, he jerked my hammock as usual: “Child, wake up. The time is right.” In spite of a busy night, he seemed bright-eyed and full of energy as we took off to his milpa. I could barely keep up with him. Although I still had serious doubts about La Cobanera, I was convinced, if nothing else, that she was an enthusiastic companion for him. I hoped that he had the power within him to convince her to stay.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wild Yam Cocolmeca Dioscorea sp.

  The starchy tuber of this thorny vine provided the base molecule for the birth control pill. Traditionally, the tuber is boiled and drunk as a tea for rheumatism, arthritis, anemia, kidney complaint, diabetes, and as a blood purifier. It is rich in iron and minerals.

  One day, out of the blue, Panti said, “It’s time to do a Primicia, Rosita. I want to introduce you to the Maya Spirits.”

  I was surprised and honored. The Primicia was an old Maya ritual that had all but faded from modern daily life. The purpose of the ceremony is to give thanks to, worship, and ask favors of the Nine Maya Spirits…and God.

  Panti talked as we tried to loosen a thick, wrinkled root of Wild Yam.

  “When we were young, the villagers did a Primicia in the Catholic church after each planting,” he said. “We stayed up all night, chanting and calling out to the Spirits for rain.” Before dawn, torrents of rain would pour, announced by loud cracking thunder. The thunder would awaken the tender seedlings in the fields.

  “We did nine Primicias a year for planting for harvests, for rain, for sick people, and sometimes just to show our love for the Spirits. For crops, the farmer would take the blessed atole and pour it on the four corners of his milpa. Hunters would do a Primicia after killing nine deer, saving each of the jawbones to place on the altar. Then the deer would lie down for you to shoot them for food.”

  Without the Spirits, he said, life would be impossible. It is they that bring the rain, the thunder, and the seasons and cause all things to thrive and grow. They are the caretakers of the world who look after the people, the animals, the plants, the harvests, the seasons, the day and the night, the crossroads, women in childbirth, and all aspects of daily life. Each Spirit is entrusted with certain aspects of life, he explained.
For example, Yax Tum Bak is the Lord of the plantings, and Chac is the Maya God of rain.

  There were nine Spirits. For this reason, nine was a holy number for the Maya, he explained while we collected leaves of the thorny Escoba palm. “I can’t tell you all the names of the Spirits because you have no sastun and it would weaken their powers.

  “People rarely honor the Spirits anymore,” continued Panti sadly as he stuffed the leaves in his sack. “They have no respect for the Lord of the cornfield. If you ask them to honor the Lord they will only laugh at you and say, ‘What Lord of the cornfield? I’m the only lord here. I don’t believe in your old Spirits, old man. We don’t need them anymore.’ But now look at the ugly corn they harvest and the droughts. They need the Spirits more than they know.

  “And our Spirits need the Primicias. It is through the Primicia that they are invited into the world of mortals. It is through the Primicias that our prayers are answered and the Spirits have life.”

  I had long been curious about his Maya Spirits, which he also referred to as Segundo Dios, second to God or the Right Hand of God, and I asked what they looked like.

  “We don’t see them as people with faces and bodies, but only see and feel their presence in the Winds. They are in and of the Winds and come to the earth in these same Winds,” he sang out. “The lightning is their machete. Their backs are visible in the flashes of lightning that tear across the skies during storms. The thunder is the sound of their voices.”

  With his machete in his right hand, standing tall, he mimicked the sound and fury of thunder and lightning.

  “Boooooom, kaboooom, boooooom, kaboooom,” he shouted with great stage presence, whirling his machete over his head.

  “They sound frightening,” I said.

  “No, no, noooh, they are very good friends,” he exclaimed excitedly. In the Maya religion, God and Spirits intermingle with mortals in every phase of life, he said. The Spirits are almost always friendly except when they see radio, television, and incest. “They get lonely and long to help us with everything,” he said. “Whatever we need they are there. If we only ask.”

  I thought of them as the Oversoul of the Latin peoples, similar to our concept of guardian angels or, perhaps more accurately, the archangels like Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel—the big honchos of the spiritual realm.

  Don Elijio said that other lesser Spirits look after every plant and animal. He called these duenos or Lords, and like the Celtic elves and fairies, they were elusive and mischievous.

  He also believed in the Nine Malevolent Spirits who reside in the nine levels of the underworld.

  “They are the ones who answer the calls of the black magicians,” he warned. “They also come on the Winds, but they do evil. They like to come in the night.”

  At one time the Nine Benevolent Spirits had lived in Tikal, he said. But once the archaeologists had come, they had fled seeking refuge in more remote ancient temples as yet inviolate. At first they went to live at Uaxactun. “When archaeologists came to Uaxactun, the Spirits fled to a place called Caxcun on the border of Belize and Guatemala where three hills come together to form one peak.

  “Caxcun is enchanted and is now the home of the Maya Spirits, and no one can or should go there,” he told me. “Many have tried. All have failed. Some gringos tried to climb to the top of the peak and were pushed back repeatedly by the Winds, and the dirt under their hands turned to sand and they could not get a grip. Later, the same gringos tried to come back with an airplane to fly over the area, and even the airplane was prevented from going there by a strong Wind that continually blew it back from the area and prevented it from flying directly over Caxcun.”

  When the good Spirits had left Tikal, he said, the evil ones had taken over Tikal as a favorite earthly haunt.

  “That is why I would never go to Tikal again,” Don Elijio said. “I am afraid.”

  Spirits also lived in lesser ruins like Xunantunich, a small ancient city just across the river from Succotz Village where he had grown up.

  “When they first opened the tomb at Xunantunich, the workers fell to the ground in a stupor. Just before passing out they heard hmmmmmmmmmm,” said Don Elijio, making a loud and eerie humming sound. “Some of the workers died.”

  By now we were standing in front of a Guaco Vine, which I found hard to discern from Chicoloro until Don Elijio sliced through it and showed me a characteristic starburst pattern at the core of the vine. He held the severed vine under my nose and told me that this was the female of Contribo and used for ciro. The odor of Guaco was faint in contrast to Contribo’s overwhelming pungency.

  As we chopped Guaco, Don Elijio explained that he wanted to hold a Primicia for me now because Good Friday of Holy Week was coming and that was the perfect day to meet the Nine Benevolent Spirits.

  “It is the holiest day of the year,” he explained. “It’s the day the Maya Spirits go out visiting their people all over these Maya lands.”

  I was a little confused. “Why is Good Friday a holy day to the Maya?” I asked. “It’s a Christian holiday. What does it have to do with the Maya people?”

  “You mustn’t believe everything you hear, child!” he answered. “Jesus, Mary, and Saints like Michael, Joseph, Gabriel, Margaret, and Magdalene came to this land of my people many centuries ago. When they came, the nine Maya Spirits called a heavenly council with them. They’re not like you and me, you know. They’re not jealous or full of envy. No, they all got together at this big meeting and decided to work together for the salvation of the peoples’ souls. Together they answer our prayers, heal the sick, and hold our hands when we die.”

  Don Elijio also prayed to the Four Virgins. “Didn’t they tell you of the Four Virgins in Catholic school?” he asked me, exasperated. Patiently, as if speaking to a child, he explained about the Virgin of Carmen, the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Virgin of Fatima, and the Virgin of Lourdes. “We pray to them and they answer with miracles, Rosita. Faith is what moves them to work for us.”

  As he told me about the Virgins, I realized that the four aspects of Ix Chel, queen of the Maya Goddesses and the mother of all people, had simply been transferred to the Virgins. Ix Chel was the overseer of four domains: as a young maiden spirit, she was in charge of childbirth and weaving; as an elderly crone, she looked after medicine and the moon. The indigenous people of Central America had conveniently cloaked their Goddess by making her four in one and one in four. Four was also a holy number to the Maya. It was like the mystery of the trinity: three in one and one in three.

  Don Elijio’s religion was clearly a mix of the old Maya and Spanish Catholicism. I asked him if he had heard about the Christian Saints when he was a boy, and he admitted he had not. It was not until the Catholic priests told the villagers they should honor them too that he had added them to his cosmology. I thought to myself, it had been wise of the Maya elders to allow their religion to absorb certain aspects of Catholicism rather than have their own completely obliterated as pagan competition.

  I had to admire Don Elijio’s simple and potent faith in unseen powers. I also admired the way he involved his Spirits in his daily actions. This was very different from my experience with Catholicism as a child. Religion and everyday life were much more separated in my upbringing.

  It was getting close to the noon hour. The day was heating up, and our sacks were full of Wild Yam and Zorillo, Skunk Root.

  “I brought us each a mango, Don Elijio. Let’s sit down and rest for just a bit and enjoy them,” I said, showing off the plump, golden red fruit we had harvested that year off our young trees. He spread out a plastic flour sack for us to sit on near a flowering Yax Nik or Fiddlewood tree. Tiny, purple blossoms sprinkled the air around us with a faint, sweet perfume.

  As we savored the juicy bites, the subject switched from Spirits to La Cobanera. Recently Claudia’s jealous and self-consumed nature had become all too evident. There had been outbursts with female patients; I had watched her on several occasions interrupt his abdom
inal massages of women. Jutting her angry face behind the curtain, she’d demand, “How long will this take? Do you have to massage every woman who comes in here?”

  Panti was aghast at her performance, and the patients didn’t like it much either. Her suspicions could inflame whatever doubts his female patients harbored toward him based on the street gossip that had initially made me afraid of him. He was also gravely insulted by her accusations, as he especially prided himself on his flawless code of ethics with women patients. Often he told me, “Rosita, we cannot sin as easily as our brothers. It is a grave, mortal sin for us to contemplate harm or to disrespect our patients. We lose the help of God and the Nine Benevolent Spirits if we harm our patients. No, it is a sin, and I don’t sin. If I sin against humanity, only the Nine Malignant Spirits will want to work with me, and I’m not interested in harming people, only healing them.”

  Claudia was jealous of me as well, hinting that Panti and I were lovers, hiding our affair from her and Greg. We only laughed at that, realizing the pitiful extent of her paranoia.

  In the bush that day, I advised him, “Papa, you’re a grown man with lots of experience in life, but this time I fear your loneliness and need for a woman has blinded your judgment. How could you possibly do your work in peace with that scowling face peeping behind the curtains? Just think of how she sees our relationship. She sees mud where waters run clear. No good, papasito. No good!”

  “She could change. Maybe she only needs a good man to love her in spite of her bad ways. I see all that you say, but I can’t help myself.” I couldn’t help but wonder if Panti was seeing too much good in her. I had the same habit of being too trusting. I remembered what my Assyrian grandfather, Simco, used to tell me, “Honey, you listen to papa. You so good you crazy!”

  Panti leaned over on his pick for a moment, wiped his brow with his stained, embroidered handkerchief, and sighed deeply. I half expected to see tears fall from his eyes. Instead, he only shrugged and said meekly, “Well, I’ve already invited her to come to your ranchito for your Primicia. Maybe with some time together away from the village gossip and my grandchildren, we’ll have a little lovers’ escape. When she sees my work and my gift, I think her heart will be softened. She’ll become the good woman I know is hiding behind the shrew.”