The Mapmaker's Opera

by Bea Gonzalez

  Mr. Nelson had stood in front of the grave with her on that day and had smiled his infuriating smile—the smile of a hawk, Doña Laura thought, for she had never taken a liking to this man, had never understood why her son had welcomed him so warmly into their lives.

  “Our science would say, Doña Laura, and with all due respect, that what you are watching is none other than the sparks formed by the phosphorous that emanates from the bones of the dead. Sparks occur in these hot climates when the dead are buried in too shallow a grave.”

  He had gone on to explain how it was a phenomenon that could be seen in marshes as well, since the more decay there was, the more likely gases would be released into the air, gases that glowed and burned, making it appear as if the ground itself were on fire. “So you see, Doña Laura,” he had concluded in his soft Spanish with the weak r’s, “there is no magic involved at all. Merely nature behaving in her astounding way which is, I grant you, magical enough.”

  “Harrumph,” she had replied, bitterness filling her mouth. “You scientists always have a way of adding up what should be left alone, Mr. Nelson. It is as if you want to deprive the world of the beauty that everywhere abounds. But there are too many ghosts for your science to explain.” And then she had told him the story of a certain Pánfilo García, a hacendado from the state of Hidalgo, who had been so evil in life, so vile, that the earth had not allowed his body to remain interred in her arms.

  “No matter how deeply they buried this Pánfilo, Mr. Nelson, no matter how many times they tried, as soon as he had been completely covered, the earth herself would spew him out of the ground. In the end his family was forced to throw the corpse into a ditch, where the wild animals eventually disposed of his flesh. And what about María Juliana, who wandered the halls of her house for years after her death, leaving sophisticated French recipes behind for the cook? What, Mr. Nelson, does your science say about that?”

  The scientist had raised his arms as if conceding defeat. “There is much we know very little about, Doña Laura, much we have yet to learn. And it is true, as Heraclitus once said, that much is lost to disbelief.” And then he had smiled his gentle smile—the smile of a weasel, Doña Laura thought—and, bidding her a warm goodnight, had retired politely to his room.

  And now Doña Laura is expected to withstand yet another visit from this egregious man who will be arriving, her son had informed her, with no fewer than two others of his kind. Doña Laura curses again her son’s strange interests in things that have no merit at all, the friendships he makes with eccentrics like Mr. Nelson, but she stops well short of criticizing her prized son himself. No, if anything is wrong in this house it is due to his chatterbox of a wife, Gabriela, or her fool of a sister, Marta—both of them useless, capable of nothing but talk, and look what they have done to Sofia, turned her into a vituperative, waspish girl, a girl who, with every day that passes, is evermore in danger of living her life out as an old maid.

  It is a growing concern for Doña Laura, her granddaughter’s advancing age. Seven years have passed since the girl’s introduction into society and no suitor has materialized, no offer has been made for her hand.

  “It is all Gabriela’s fault,” Doña Laura complains to her septuagenarian friends. “She has managed to raise a daughter without any feminine graces whatsoever. Already twenty-two and incapable of attracting a look her way, incapable of using that fine face of hers to secure a future with a man of substance, one of those hacendados, for example, who regularly travel around the world.”

  At this very moment, the failure of a girl is watching her grandmother from across the courtyard of the hacienda, observing the old woman as she sits in her high-back chair, arms crossed, a perpetual scowl stamped on her face, inspecting the work of the servants as they sweep and polish and scrub.

  At times, during the long nights in Mérida where there is no bookstore to escape to, no promenade to offer her a breath of fresh air, Sofia longs for her childhood days at the hacienda, the way the time used to crawl there, the sounds that serenaded her at night, the humming that cradled her in the hammock, the same humming that often kept her grandmother awake, fretting, on the other side of the house. She longs for those days when she had accompanied her father on his daily nature walks, learning, over time, to distinguish among the various species of birds. She thinks with pride of her contribution to her father’s obsessions, of her considerable talent with the quill. It is her drawings her father uses to distinguish between birds of a similar hue. “How else,” he asks her, patting her head, “could I possibly hope to remember the difference between a Violaceous Trogon and the Black-Headed variety of the same bird?”

  When Sofia remembers her childhood days on the hacienda, she thinks of Rosita, above all.

  She was only eight years old when she befriended the little girl, the daughter of a servant who worked in the kitchen at the side of the house, cooking for the workers who tended to the henequen, work that kept mother and child in that hot room from morning until night.

  Rosita had a wide face and a soft smile. She had the disposition of a saint, spoke with a hushed voice, had the charming habit of hiding her smiles behind a small, perfect hand.

  She spent the day by her mother’s side, helping to make the tortillas, helping to make the stew out of the meagre ingredients meant to feed fifty workers, but which would be more appropriate for twenty men at most. She ran food and water to the fields, where she was referred to as an angel of mercy by many an ailing worker trying to meet his quota despite the fact that his head was heavy with fever and his body shook violently in the heat.

  It was during one of these jaunts that Rosita ran into Sofia, playing with a stick at the back of the house, singing a song taught to her by her mother, though she could remember only bits and pieces, was forced to hum the parts when the words would not come out.

  Sapito, sapito

  Anduvo,

  Anduvo bajo del cubo

  Sofia invited the girl to join her. “Sit,” she told Rosita, delighted to find someone of the same age with whom to pass the time. Sofia’s brothers Juan and Bernardo were too young to play eight-year-old games. Sofia explained this to the young girl whose eyes remained fixed on the ground, who wanted desperately to play with Sofia but who knew she would be punished for daring to desire such a thing. After some coaxing, Rosita did sit down. “Just for a little while,” she told Sofia and Sofia smiled, promised her she would teach her this song so that they could sing it together, a song accompanied by the beating of two sticks upon the ground.

  They agreed to meet there the next day although Rosita explained that she did not know when she would be sent on an errand—sometimes it was in the morning, sometimes not until late in the afternoon. “Don’t worry,” Sofia told her, “I will look for you, Rosita. I will watch the kitchen and wait until they send you out.”

  Over time they grew closer and found a way to meet each other three or four times a week. Sofia taught Rosita the names of birds, told her about the stories her father read to her before bedtime, tales of conquistadores and mermaids, knights upon white horses and princesses with long blonde hair.

  One night, the workers rose from their hammocks and spilled into the darkness. They began to knock furiously on the trunks of the trees and upon cedar boxes. The noise woke everyone in the house, who ran to the windows, ran to the doors. “The indios are rising up against us,” Doña Laura had screamed, fear in her eyes.

  In the sky above, the moon seemed on fire.

  “It is a lunar eclipse,” Don Roberto told his mother, trying to calm her fears, trying to focus her attention on the beauty of the sky above. “Perhaps the indios are celebrating this miracle of nature.” But his mother’s fears were not so easily laid to rest. She fed on her suspicions of these dark people, impenetrable, dangerous, she thought, beneath their golden skins.

  And then the moon turned white again and the drumming stopped. The indios rejoiced briefly in celebration and then retreated quickly to th
eir rooms. The family returned to their hammocks as well, though Doña Laura did not sleep another wink, held tightly on to her crucifix throughout the long, dark night reciting prayers until the arrival of the morning light.

  The next day, Sofia asked Rosita about the drumming, about what had brought the workers outside the previous night. “Evil spirits were eating the moon,” Rosita told Sofia, “but the men scared them off with their drums.” And then Rosita told her friend other things Sofia did not know. About the Chiquinic, the wind that blew from the west bringing the black butterflies that presaged all manner of difficult times ahead. About the power of Rosita’s aunt to interpret people’s dreams, knowledge that had been handed down from woman to woman since the beginning of time.

  Over the next days, Rosita shared other stories with Sofia as well. She told her friend of the beatings that the overseer, Arnoldo Lamas, inflicted upon the workers, young boys at times, no more than ten years old. Rosita hoped that Sofia could help them, could help Rosita’s brother, Jorge. He was an unruly child, had not learned to bow his head properly, was beaten often with a whip. Rosita thought that Sofia, with her white face, her kind face, had the power to make things right, that with a few words Sofia could wrench that whip from the overseer’s hands.

  Sofia had nightmares at night after their talk; she tossed and turned in her sleep. She woke with deep circles under her eyes. Her father heard her in the night and rushed to her side whenever she screamed for help. “What is it, hija?” He asked her, concern in his voice. It was not like Sofia to be screaming this way. She was usually so sunny, usually so content.

  “The overseer is beating the children,” Sofia sobbed. “Please, Papá, make the man stop.”

  Don Roberto tried to comfort her. “Hala, hala,” he told her, “it is a dream, Sofia, a bad dream that will disappear in the morning light.”

  But, no, Sofia insisted on it, insisted she had heard it from the children themselves. She told her father she could not sleep with this man so close to their house. What if he wished to punish her? Or worse, what if he hit little Bernardo, who was too lame to walk or run, who crawled around the house dragging a heavy leg behind, trying with all his might to keep up with his brother and sister as they ran freely around the grounds?

  The next day Don Roberto took the overseer, Arnoldo Lamas, aside. “You are not to beat any of the children, Arnoldo. This is a strict order from now on.”

  Don Roberto knew Arnoldo Lamas considered him a weakling, knew that the overseer despised his eccentricities, the fact that he could not bring himself to reprimand a worker properly, the fact that he had never tended to the operation of the hacienda, the fact that Don Roberto was ignorant of the daily grind that kept Arnoldo busy from dawn until dusk.

  “The Indians listen only with their backsides,” the overseer told his patrón without emotion, repeating a maxim used often by the planters to justify their need to use the whip and the cane.

  “I am ordering you, Arnoldo, to desist from beating the children on these grounds. This is a command, I repeat. Not open to question at this or any other time.”

  “As you wish, Patrón,” Arnoldo replied, a half-smirk spread on his face. It was too bad he needed him so, Don Roberto thought, not for the first time. It was too bad indeed.

  One day, Sofia and Rosita hid in the chapel. They brought the saint with the handlebar moustache down from the altar where he was perched and took turns playing mother to him—they patted his face and rubbed the sombrero that sat on his head and they called him their little Tomás. Their laughs and giggles filled the chapel so that they did not hear the door open, did not hear the rustling of Doña Laura’s gown as she made her way inside.

  It was Rosita who had the saint in her hands, who was humming that song taught to her by Sofia the first time they met. Doña Laura approached her quietly, ripped the saint from her arms and slapped the girl hard across the face.

  “What do you think you are doing in here?” Doña Laura spat out. “How dare you touch the saint with your unwashed hands! How dare you leave the kitchen! Run. Now! Go quickly back before I let the overseer know where you are.” Rosita’s mouth was open in shock; her face had turned red. She ran out of the chapel quickly, eager to avoid more serious punishment at the overseer’s hands.

  Doña Laura turned then to Sofia, whose mouth was half opened as well, who was shaking perceptibly as if it were her own face her grandmother had slapped, as if she felt the imprint of Doña Laura’s hand on her own cheek.

  “You silly girl, do you not know that you are forbidden to play with los indios? Has your father not instilled any sense in that hard head of yours?” Her grandmother grabbed Sofia’s cheeks and squeezed them hard. “Your father will hear of this, Sofia. Mark my words. We will teach you to distinguish between wrong and right. If it takes all eternity, we will teach you. I, personally, will make sure of that.”

  Sofia longed for the abuelas that appeared in fairy tales. The kind who told their grandchildren stories and showered them with sweets and toys. She knew it was wrong to despise her grandmother, but she could not help it. She could not remember hearing a kind word from this woman, could not remember a time when anything other than bitterness had emanated from her grandmother’s bones.

  Later, her father would tell her gently that she was not to play with the girl, that Rosita must help her mother in the kitchen, had few moments to spare to entertain Sofia. “And you have your brothers to play with, hija. And your books too, all the books you so adore.”

  Sofia would never play with Rosita again. The girl ran to and from the fields now with her eyes fixed on the ground. Sofia wished she could touch Rosita, talk to her, tell her she was sorry that it was Rosita’s face that had been slapped and not her own.

  One day, a year later, passing by the kitchen where Rosita and her mother prepared the worker’s meals, Sofia noticed that her friend was not about. She returned the next day and the day after that, but still there was no sign of her. Sofia enquired after Rosita, was told by the girl’s mother that her daughter was very sick. Some sort of fever had been spreading among the children of the workers at the hacienda. Sofia and her brothers had so far been mercifully spared.

  That afternoon, after she was sure everyone in the house had settled for their afternoon siesta, Sofia ran to the worker’s compound that lay to the south of their house. She looked through the bars of the windows, ran from room to room until she found Rosita lying inside one of them, alone on the floor.

  “Rosita,” she whispered, “it is me, Sofia.” When the girl did not respond, Sofia entered the room, ran to where the girl was lying and picked up her hand.

  Rosita looked up at her with swollen eyes, tried hard to smile but could not muster the energy to get the smile right. Sofia lay her friend’s head on her lap, stroked her face as if she were her own child, sang her the song they once used to sing together, until Rosita drifted into sleep.

  The next day she returned and again the day after that. Rosita seemed worse with each passing day, no longer even recognized Sofia. She could not smile, no matter how hard her friend tried to make her laugh.

  On the third day Sofia entered the chapel and took Santo Tomás from his perch. She ran to the room where Rosita was lying and placed their make-believe son into her friend’s arms. “Look,” Sofia whispered, “our little baby Tomás. Let’s sing him that song he so likes.” Rosita’s body was still; she did not even open her eyes. Sofia kissed their baby on the top of his head, kissed Rosita as well, told her she would be back later for Tomás once they had both rested some more.

  She returned a scant hour later to find her friend in her mother’s arms. The cook was crying softly as she gently stroked Rosita’s face. Sofia told her she could go to the kitchen now, assured her friend’s mother that she would take care of Rosita and their son, Tomás, the saint who stood nearby, staring at them with his expressionless eyes.

  “God bless you, mi niña, but Rosita is already at rest,” Rosita’s mother
told her and some time elapsed before Sofia realized that her friend had passed away.

  Sofia walked then to the chapel, with the saint underneath her arm, tears rolling down her face. She thought of those hurried but precious moments spent with her friend, the songs, the stories, the laughter they had shared. She seethed when she thought of her Abuela, the woman who had deprived her of the girl’s friendship, who dared even to mark the girl’s face with her rage.

  She looked up then to find her grandmother rushing towards her, pointing at Santo Tomás and raising her fist into the air. They stopped in front of each other, grandmother and granddaughter, like a pair of flamenco dancers, engaged in a duel where the only weapon was the rage that shone from each set of eyes. Although Sofia knew that she was to respect her elders, to love them despite their many faults, their tarnished hearts, she could not forgive her grandmother for this, not when the memory of Rosita’s still body was so fresh in her mind.

  Eventually, it was Doña Laura who took a step back. Sofia walked by her to the chapel, where she placed the saint on his perch, from which she would never again take him down. Grandmother and granddaughter would lock eyes many times in the years ahead. They were destined to engage in battle, destined to forever disagree.

  Oh, yes, at times Sofia longs for her childhood days at the hacienda, longs for Rosita’s smile, Rosita’s touch. But she is all grown up now, knows that she is to leave the memory buried in Arroyo Negro along with the rag dolls with the porcelain faces and the fables of Jean de la Fontaine.

  This trip will be different, she thinks, indulging in a moment of hope. This time they will be receiving a visit from Mr. Nelson and his two assistants; there will be much to do, much to learn, many opportunities to escape the oppression that lingers in the corners, many chances to avoid unpleasant encounters with the women of the house.