The Mapmaker's Opera

by Bea Gonzalez

  But if Sofia has been placated Diego cannot tell, because her father, Don Roberto, has suddenly appeared and a new round of introductions takes place followed by the usual commotion that ensues from the reunion of good friends. Everyone sits to drink agua de lima and iced tea and update each other on their news since last they met.

  “Tell me, Very Useful,” Don Roberto asks, “are you able to keep up with our two scientists as they traipse through fields looking for birds to classify and paint?”

  “Keep up? Keep up, you say? Well, I do not know if I am keeping up exactly. Certainly my head is mostly down, burdened by the weight of the equipment I am, as the assistant, expected to carry about—pots, cups, plates, rope, knives and instruments of all kinds, a camera, field glasses, paints, paper and even a bottle of arsenic to prepare the skins. And have I mentioned the skins? Ah, yes, dozens of skins of birds with unpronounceable names and all the other assorted bits and ends—scissors, bags, cotton, and boxes to hold the fancy bird eggs. But I am grateful, Don Roberto, grateful indeed, to have been made an ‘assistant’ at least, for I cannot even imagine the weight on my back had I been made a servant instead. Yes, as a servant I would surely be traipsing along with my nose on the floor, inhaling the scrub from the forest, the weight of the pack pushing me down every step more.”

  “Bueno, bueno,” Don Roberto says, laughing and patting Very Useful on the back. “Be thankful I introduced you to Mr. Nelson all those years ago or what would a man like you be doing with his time? You were, after all, named Very Useful for a reason, as your own old father once said.”

  “Yes, yes, my old father, may he rest in peace, he was such an old father indeed.” Very Useful turns now to Diego, who is seated there quietly sipping his glass of agua de lima, trying to keep from irritating the señorita further, trying his best to disappear into his shell. “My poor old Papá having fathered twenty children and finding me, the twenty-first, newly arrived and lying next to him one day on his bed, declared himself agotado, finished, no longer able to come up with any names. For it is reasonable for a man to think of twenty, he told my mother, but it will surely drive the mind to the brink of madness having to come up with the twenty-first. So Very Useful it was and Very Useful I have proved. And, ojo, eh? For I do not hold the old man accountable with having burdened me with such an undistinguished fate. There is, after all, more to a man than his looks, his accomplishments, his wealth. My own father, may he rest in peace, owned only the trinkets he sold on the streets and my great-grandmother’s book of dreams which had been passed on from generation to generation, and which was full of symbols and scribbles that presaged all manner of important things but that, regretfully, no one could understand in the least.

  “Yes, my poor father, may he rest in peace, father of more children than he could name, drunk on every day but Tuesdays because every man should dedicate a day to rest; the finest man on earth for getting nothing accomplished from sunrise to sunset; never needed on committees of importance nor councils nor departments of any note; an indefatigable apostle of a life lived from the spoils of others’ sweat; a gem, in short, señores, a glorious, indestructible gem.”

  The men laugh, more agua de lima is offered, a cigar is lit.

  “Tell me, Mr. Nelson, is your new assistant all that you had hoped for?” the señorita asks, thrilled to be allowed in the company of men and eager to learn more about the usurper who is sitting there, eyes lowered, lips tightly shut.

  “Yes he is! He is a wonderful artist, wonderful indeed,” Mr. Nelson replies. ‘“And entirely self-taught! He is a quick study too, has shown an impressive aptitude in distinguishing among various species of birds. Yes, I am very grateful to Mr. Raleigh for having sent him my way.”

  Diego smiles slightly, nods his head in gratitude, utters a humble “thank you” and then says nothing more.

  “How lucky he is!” Sofia says, trying to keep the bitterness from creeping into her tone. “If only women were allowed to wander out into the fields to collect birds—I too would dedicate myself to drawing the beautiful creatures. After all, it is well recognized that women have a better eye for colour, for detail, for the nuances that separate one thing from the next. Just think of our ball gowns, for example. Any woman can point out with perfect precision what another woman was wearing at the previous night’s ball, the colour, the texture, the designer’s origins, where every button and every pearl was placed, the nature and colour of all the accessories from the shoes to the headdress. And this they can do even if there were a hundred women to account for in one single event.”

  Mr. Nelson laughs. “Ah, that is indeed true, chata. But why would a woman want to be tramping across the countryside with her boots filled with mud? Why, there is only one woman ornithologist I’ve ever even heard of—a Martha Maxwell of Colorado, and from what I hear, a more eccentric woman could not be found anywhere in the world. Besides, chata, bird collecting, unfortunately, requires the proficient use of a gun. It requires climbing trees and scaling cliffs at times. Many a man has perished doing this arduous work—even a well-known and experienced collector like John Cahoon fell to his death trying to make his way up a two-hundred-foot cliff. No, Sofia, bird collecting is not really women’s work.” And he pats her head like he once used to in the days when she was a girl of ten, not noticing the anger, the disappointment that have travelled the length of her body and turned her face a bright red.

  Another man has noticed the anger, her barely suppressed bitterness, the desire that underlies her words. Well after the conversation has turned to other things and Sofia has withdrawn into her own shell, long after the thirst has been sated and plans to meet again have been made, until the time for goodbye arrives and everybody begins to disperse for their afternoon meal, Diego’s attention remains fixed on the girl. And then he looks boldly again into the señorita’s eyes, acknowledging the enormous weight of the dreams that lie trapped in her heart. He looks at her with compassion mixed with some other emotion—appreciation, respect?—Sofia cannot tell for sure, but she does know she feels drawn to this young man, that there is a fatedness about their coming together that is impossible to deny. Like the heroes and heroines of her favourite stories, she thinks, the adventures, the romances, the plays. She offers up her hand to him as the men take their leave, and their eyes lock for a moment until the señorita lowers her head first and shyly looks away.

  In the flurry and activity as goodbyes are being said, only one other person is aware of the young people’s exchange. It is Mr. Nelson, lifelong bachelor, renowned naturalist, responsible for the identification of so many Mexican mammals, plants and birds—in love with the young woman whom he has known since she was a girl, the woman he calls chata, knowing full well that he is too old to contemplate anything beyond an affectionate name, but age does not always relieve a man of being saddled with his own impossible dreams.

  Some things are best left in one’s head, he thinks, his words bittersweet. But this thought does not offer any comfort, does not ease the pain nor make the dream any less burdensome, any less likely to dissipate.

  *

  Centre stage stands an enormous ceiba—the sacred tree of the Maya—tall, majestic, so strong that no hurricane can hope to topple it, dignified in its perennial cloak of brilliant green. At its feet Very Useful and Diego sit on a blanket of estribilla surrounded by odds and ends—ropes, hooks, field glasses, notebooks and paints. They are feasting happily on tropical fruits: tamarinds, mangoes, mameys, sour oranges, gingo leaves.

  “Hombre,” Very Useful is saying to Diego, “could you have been more of a bruto earlier on with Sofia? Are men in your country not familiar with the rules of courtship? How one is to approach a young girl? One does not storm the castle like a bull inside a church, trampling over altar, chalice and cross. What on earth am I to do with you, my boy?” Very Useful rolls his eyes, slaps his forehead once, twice with his fist.

  Diego would like to respond, would like to say he made amends to Sofia for hi
s shoddy behaviour in the end, but he thinks better of it and says nothing at all. Some things, he knows, are best kept to oneself and besides, he cannot be sure his assessment is correct. Only eyes met, after all, no actual words had been exchanged.

  In the two months since Diego’s arrival in the Yucatán, Very Useful has made it his business to take the young Spaniard under his wing. “El patrón can show you all there is to know about birds, mammals and things of the like but Very Useful, mi’jo, Very Useful is here to show you how to extract the marrow from the very bones of life.”

  He said this to Diego on that very first day in Mérida, after they had watched the promenading of the young people around the Plaza Mayor and after Very Useful had declared that enough was enough, this was a thing for dandies. They were not flowers but men, virile, strong, as feos y fuertes as the best of them and it was time to move on, to the barrio del Maine where women of a certain reputation were waiting to be bought. Once there, Very Useful had purchased a whore’s time for Diego’s edification and for his own sanity as well. “Listen,” he told him, “I have served one monk well for the last decade but I am not prepared to dedicate myself to another one of your kind. Yes, mi amigo, serving another one will surely drive me writhing and screaming into the bowels of the monastery myself.”

  And so it was that Diego had gone inside the ill-lit house with a young girl with large eyes and skin the colour of weak tea, skin that glistened with a fine powder made from ground eggshells that, up close, smelled of roses, cinnamon and the sea. Inside a small hot room with a rusty fan, the two had fumbled and groped and grunted for as long as it took, neither deriving any great pleasure from the exercise, both grateful when the thing had been consummated.

  How could I have refused? Diego had asked himself later. How could he have confessed to his own self-imposed monastic past? How could he have admitted that he was a true innocent in the things of the world? That he had lived only for his books, his maps, that his youth had been squandered, lost, devoted to caring for a frail and disappointed mother and the great-uncle who tormented her from the attic above?

  “An opportunity is about to present itself, my boy,” Very Useful tells him now, excitement coursing through his words. He is referring to the invitation that has just been extended by Roberto Duarte for the men to spend a week at his hacienda, which lies just over one hundred kilometres southwest of Mérida, near the beautiful Mayan ruins of Uxmal. Nelson and Very Useful know it well, have been frequent visitors in the past; it is a delightful place, they assure Diego; the air is sweet, the birds are divine.

  Diego knows it is useless to deny that he is smitten with the señorita, to deny that the girl has caught his eye. “I am all-knowing, Diego,” Very Useful has warned him more than once, “God may have cursed me with the body of a misshapen child but He has compensated me by giving me powers beyond the range of most men.”

  Yes, it would prove impossible to keep things from him, especially something as obvious as an infatuation with a girl Very Useful knows so well. And in any case, what was there to be gained from such subterfuge? Diego asks himself, when Very Useful could prove to be of assistance in the matter, could play the confidant or a go-between.

  Once they finish eating, the two men place their heads inside their hats and lean back against the tree for a moment of rest. Soon their patrón will return and their work will commence again. But for now, the sun overhead is strong and the air is still and the wook wook of a Blue-Crowned Motmot that hovers nearby serenades them as each falls into a blissful sleep.

  SCENE FOUR

  A hacienda on the outskirts of bliss itself

  Don Roberto’s hacienda Arroyo Negro had been a sugar cane plantation until the advent of the henequen boom in the 1890s, when it had been converted, like many of its kind, to the cultivation of the astounding plant with the grey-and-blue spikes. It is a medium-sized one by regional standards though it does sit on a particularly lush piece of land. The main house at the hacienda, the casona, is modest but still large enough to accommodate the extended family and up to a dozen guests at a time. It has a large dining room that can sit thirty for a meal, a parlour for entertaining both family and guests, a study where Don Roberto writes his voluminous correspondence to booksellers around the world, and half a dozen bedrooms that can sleep up to four people side by side on hammocks made from the region’s highly prized plant.

  Just five years before, a washroom had finally been built at the back of the house, replacing the isolated outhouse situated so deep in the fields that those who used it were forced to arm themselves with a shotgun in case they were to encounter a wild animal and were made to pay dearly for their walk. Attached to the side of the house is a small kitchen where the servants prepare the meals for the family and for the workers who live in a long, rectangular building at the back. The hacienda also includes a company store, a cenote in which to immerse the body during the hottest hours of the day, and a small chapel complete with its own patron saint, Saint Tomás—whose effigy sits, with a handlebar moustache and a beaded sombrero on his head, near the altar.

  “It is not one of the most splendid haciendas of the area,” Don Roberto tells Diego when he extends an invitation to the three men, “but neither is it the most humble of its kind.”

  Like many of the hacendados of the time, Don Roberto leaves the running of the hacienda to an overseer, a certain Arnoldo Lamas from the town of Valladolid, who manages the workers with a strict hand and, when needed, the use of a whip. Don Roberto has never liked the man, but he knows that he is loyal—Arnoldo’s own father had been the overseer before him and had served old Miguel well and, in truth, Don Roberto has little interest in the business of the henequen, wants only to dedicate himself entirely to his hobbies and his books.

  The family travels to the hacienda four or five times a year to celebrate the children’s birthdays and, on the day of San Tomás, to honour the saint with a sumptuous patronal feast. On that day, after the celebration of the Mass, workers and family gather behind the saint with the handlebar moustache for a procession around the perimeter of the hacienda followed by a splendid meal of four courses followed by dancing and fireworks after dark.

  Compared to the castle that is Don Victor Blanco’s hacienda, Don Roberto’s is a most humble home indeed—no Austrian chairs here, no Persian rugs, no prized oil paintings of deceased ancestors, no fine crystal of any kind. Instead, all through the house are the mismatched furnishings that have been inherited from the dead. Over here a Louis XV chair that had belonged to a great-grandfather and had been the fashion in that age, over there an armoire that had belonged to a forgotten great-aunt and had been made for her to house the better part of, as it turned out, a never-used marriage trousseau. Some rooms seem to have been forgotten and have no furniture in them at all while others are overflowing with crudely made odds and ends—tables veneered with rosewood, walnut and oak, shoddily upholstered chairs that are as uncomfortable to sit on as they are hideous to look upon and piles of assorted discarded bits—an empty birdcage, various hat boxes, a cardboard toy horse, a number of oddly-sized books. In the parlour, the piano has long ago warped in the heat; the music sounds distended, as if the instrument is suffering from exhaustion, and no efforts to tune it can get it to sound as it should.

  In the days when her husband still lived, Doña Laura had loved spending time at the hacienda, often staying behind whenever old Miguel returned to Mérida to attend to his world of books. Back then, there had been upwards of one hundred workers tending to the estate, a number that had been reduced by more than half in the intervening years as their son took over and the hacienda was converted to the cultivation of the blue-and-grey cactus.

  Henequen. The very word weighs on Doña Laura’s tongue. Fortunes have been made with this plant, it is true, but the fortunes have not been spread so far and wide. Doña Laura has heard the rumours that course through Mérida like about of the plague and she knows well the extent to which her only son is in debt
. She rues the day sugar became rope, longs for a time that now lies in a distant and more glorious past.

  What Doña Laura misses above all are her regular visits with the dead. Doña Laura is a woman obsessed with death, has been fascinated with it since she was a child when she had witnessed sparks emanating from the grave of a recently interred aunt. “There she goes,” her mother had said, as they stood there watching over the grave in the dark. “Your dear aunt’s soul has begun its journey towards heaven and towards God.”

  These days, alas, there are fewer workers on the hacienda, fewer bodies to bury when their time is up, fewer souls to observe making their astounding journey from earth to sky above.

  During one of his previous visits to the hacienda, Doña Laura had even summoned the insufferable American scientist, Mr. Nelson, outside to be a witness to the spectacle of mist and spark that was taking place over the tomb of a recently departed worker buried in the hacienda’s graveyard near the chapel of San Tomás.

  “And what does your science make of this phenomenon, Mr. Nelson?” the old lady had asked, pointing with great excitement to the sparks as she challenged him with her eyes. “I’ll wager not everything can be explained with tables and formulas and things of the like.”

  Doña Laura had never liked this thing called science; she had been suspicious of it from the start, could remember clearly that day in 1865 when the first telegram had been sent between the towns of Mérida and Sisal, how they had all stood outside looking up at the sky, hoping to see the message make its way overhead like a bird in flight. The telegram had been received in due time to enthusiastic applause and the victorious playing of a marching band, but what disillusionment the people had felt! Such anticipation, such fanfare, such celebration for something that could not be seen or heard. No, Doña Laura, for one, would not be easily tricked again.