The Mapmaker's Opera

by Bea Gonzalez

  “Would you permit me to see some of your work, Señorita Sofia?” Diego asks.

  “They are trifles, Señor Diego, amateurish attempts of little use to anyone with a serious scientific bent.”

  “Nevertheless, I would so like to see them. I am, after all, an amateur myself.”

  “Very well,” Sofia says. “But I would also like to see your own drawings, Señor Diego. Mr. Nelson speaks very highly of your own talent as well.”

  The young people agree to go and retrieve their respective work and meet back in the parlour, where Aunt Marta has by now abandoned her crochet hooks and placed a sleepy face in her hands.

  As they walk out, Sofia nudges Diego with her elbow, pointing to her aunt, whose eyes are closing at that moment, her hand finding it increasingly difficult to prop up her head.

  “Just you watch, she will be in a deep sleep by the time we return,” Sofia whispers to Diego, smiling at the sight of her aunt’s head bobbing up and down. And indeed by the time they return, drawings in hand, her aunt is fast asleep, her head resting now on the side of her chair, her mouth opened wide. His stomach full, Very Useful has also lowered his head into the side of the chair and is snoring loudly, his hands clasped across his chest.

  Sofia and Diego sit at a large table by the window and agree immediately to drop the Señorita and Señor from their names. They place their work gingerly on the table, Sofia first, Diego next, each of them nervous, each eager to please the other with their respective drawings of the area’s birds.

  “Yours first, Sofia,” Diego says and the young woman nods shyly, handing him the first drawing from her folder—a Yellow-Throated Euphonia, the colours vibrant and magnificent from the slate blue back to the yellow forecrown, underbelly and throat.

  “This is beautiful,” Diego says after a pause, examining the drawing up close as if he were trying to memorize each of the pieces that make up the whole. A Turquoise-Browed Motmot, a Cave Swallow, a Yucatan Wren and an Olive-Throated Parakeet follow next, each exquisitely rendered, the colours brilliant, painted from the stuffed specimens her father had himself prepared, the birds carefully suspended by wires among plants and fern to make them appear as if they were still in mid-air.

  “All right then, it is your turn now,” Sofia insists, eager to see an example of what Mr. Nelson called “an exquisite talent”—words, it is true, that had seemed torturous when she had first heard them and which manage to still feel heavy in her chest even now that the enmity between them has been erased.

  Diego produces a watercolour of two Orange Orioles first, one depicted in mid-flight as the other perches on a tree branch below.

  “I call these paintings ‘feather maps.’ I try to get the details of the birds first, aided by the photographs taken by Mr. Nelson, and then to convey an overall impression of the bird,” Diego explains. He examines her reaction nervously as if trying to gauge her opinion of his work from the expression on her face.

  “This is magnificent, Diego,” she says, a strange vibrato distending her words, a look of awe emanating from her eyes. It seems to Diego that another emotion moves across her face—disappointment, perhaps? No, he dismisses this thought immediately—he is incapable of attributing any ill will to this young woman now.

  And then Sofia says nothing more, sifts silently through each of those pictures, some of them sketches, mere skeletons awaiting flesh, and as she sifts she feels her heart sink deeper and deeper into her gut. She had so wanted to dismiss Diego’s talent—even now, after their playful exchange of words, after admitting to herself that perhaps not all about this young man was unworthy, that he was not the villain she had imagined, nor the usurper in the classic sense of the word. Even now some part of her needs to believe her own talent has been ignored, that she has been passed up for a foreigner ignorant of the area’s birds, but these beliefs simply cannot be sustained after seeing the young man’s work. It is not only the exacting detail with which the birds are painted, the perfection of an eye, a crown or a leg—no, much worse, infinitely worse than the perfection of the detail is how real each bird seems, how intensely alive it appears.

  It is at this point that Aunt Marta’s eyes open and she brings herself up abruptly, returning to her needlework as if she had not missed a stitch to sleep. She looks around then, disoriented, and notices that Sofia and Diego are now seated at a table instead of on the chairs where they had been before she had surrendered to her impromptu afternoon nap.

  “Hija?” she asks Sofia, confusion in her eyes.

  “Ah, tía, you have resurfaced at last. Señor Diego and I were just sharing with each other some of our work on the area’s birds.”

  Her aunt smiles, nods her head. In truth, nothing interests her less than the area’s birds. She had once attempted to teach her niece needlepoint, embroidery and other useful things for young girls, hoping to discourage her from her eccentric interests, but had quickly given up in defeat. Her niece is unusual, of this there is no doubt. Birds, books, atlases and dictionaries are clearly more to her liking than playing fine music on the piano or embroidering a sheet. But then, it is true that colours have been invented to satisfy every taste. And her niece’s interest in drawing birds has always seemed quaint to her aunt, an example of the talent that courses through their blood—what does it matter if that talent is best expressed with the needle or the brush?

  “Bueno, hijos,” Aunt Marta says to Sofia and Diego, waving her hand as if implying that they are free to continue perusing each other’s work.

  But Sofia has seen all that she needs. She bundles her drawings back into her leather pack—orioles, terns, hawks—smiles a broken smile and excuses herself before Diego, who watches, confused, as the girl quickly exits the room, hurrying out as if something inside of her has been dispersed and she needs time alone to regroup.

  *

  Inside Roberto Duarte’s study, Edward Nelson is finally revealing the cards that are close to his chest. “What would you think, Roberto, of you finishing the bird guide, with the help of Diego, if I am not able to do so myself?”

  Roberto Duarte looks up, surprise in his gaze. He has not been taking his friend’s complaints too seriously until now. We all have bad days, he thinks, days when our lives seem unbearable. But we move through them, we move on.

  “Are you serious, Edward? Do you really think you will not be able to finish the work yourself?”

  “One can never tell, Roberto, one can never tell. However, I would like it to be finished one way or another and I know you are the best-equipped person to do it in my stead. You would have Very Useful at your disposal and I would continue to pay Diego, of course.” Here Nelson pauses briefly and clears his throat. “You could also have Sofia help, Roberto. She is extremely skilled, knows those birds as well as we do, can draw splendidly herself.”

  “Sofia?” Roberto Duarte seems surprised by this suggestion, because he would have never considered it himself. True, his daughter is a talented artist and experienced with the area’s birds, but she is a young woman, not meant to be traipsing through field and forest in search of rare specimens in bushes or in trees.

  “I doubt very much that my mother would allow Sofia to be involved in such a thing. She is of late pestering me with the worry that she is still unmarried, and you know our culture, Edward. Her age could prove to be a liability soon.”

  “She is only twenty-two, Roberto.”

  “That is old enough, Edward. Some would even say she is almost too old.”

  “Still, she is not married yet and before she is packaged off to some local dandy she could prove immensely helpful to Diego and yourself.”

  Roberto Duarte looks up sharply, startled by the bitterness in his friend’s words.

  Nelson draws back, lowers his voice and adopts a more honeyed tone. “I’m sorry, old friend. If I sound abrupt it is merely a reflection of how tired I feel, the exhaustion that has lodged itself deep inside my bones.”

  Would it surprise Roberto Duarte to lea
rn of the loneliness Nelson feels, a loneliness that had never assailed him so thoroughly before, not even in the Arctic when the days seemed as long as weeks and he was alone for torturous dark periods? Would it have surprised his friend to learn of the regrets Nelson now feels, how he longs for the first time in his life for the warmth of a family, for the company of a woman upon whose lap he could lay his doubts to rest? There are many things Roberto Duarte does not know about him, the small secrets that are barricaded inside a starched breast, the turbulence that hides behind gold-rimmed spectacles, the longing that is barely suppressed inside an aging heart.

  It would certainly surprise, upset and unhinge his dear friend, he is sure, to learn of Nelson’s feelings for Sofia—his subversive thoughts, thoughts more appropriate to a man half his age—to Diego, for example, than to him in his weathered, fifty-four-year-old shell.

  He realizes now that returning to the Yucatán a full four years after he had finished his work for the Biological Survey was a serious mistake, no matter how useful a bird guide to the region would prove to the cause of conservation he so believes in, no matter how much he tries to rationalize it to himself. Shoot the birds with a camera and not a gun, he had said in his speeches to the ornithological societies in the United States. Learn to care for them; list them in your private diary as if you were the first to lay eyes on that particular species of bird. We will help you, provide the guides that will make identification easy, complete with range maps and accurate drawings of the birds.

  He thinks now of the two birds in Victor Blanco’s possession and feels himself sinking further in despair. In his mind, his feelings for Sofia and the fate of those birds are inextricably bound, two sides of the same coin—their fates futile, impossible, leaving behind a hole in the heart too cavernous to fill.

  The men leave the study to wash up before the midday meal. From across the courtyard they watch as Sofia leaves the parlour, drawings in hand, anxiety in her stride. They watch as Diego runs after her, watch as she turns back.

  “Sofia, have I done something to offend you?” the young man asks.

  “No, of course not, Diego. I am merely offended at myself. Angry for having thought myself an artist when I see now that my drawings are nothing but depressing, static attempts.”

  “Sofia, that is not true at all,” Diego says, placing a comforting hand on her arm.

  From across the courtyard, a duet becomes a trio as Don Roberto shouts out, “Are you all right, my child?”

  “Of course, Papá, of course. Just the ravings of women, as you always like to say!” Sofia replies.

  The four voices come together now at centre stage.

  Nelson speaks and a trio becomes a quartet. “I am sorry for overhearing what you said, Sofia, but I must tell you that you are very mistaken in your belief. Your drawings are not static at all; they are, in fact, very fine indeed.”

  “Yes, of course they are, hijita,” her father jumps in. “Why, Edward was just asking me to lend your services to the completion of his bird guide. That says it all, does it not, my child?”

  Sofia issues the barest of smiles. “Of course, Papá, of course it does.”

  Diego smiles reassuringly, “I told you, Sofia, did I not?”

  Nelson’s smile is bittersweet. “You are an artist just like the best of them, chata. Never, even for a moment, allow yourself to doubt it at all.”

  It is Roberto Duarte who now brings the matter to a close, “Dear friends, it is time to retire to the dining room for a well-deserved meal.”

  Offstage, far from the glare of the lights, underground movements are afoot. It is 1910, a venerable year in Mexican history. The centenary celebrations of the nation’s independence are being prepared in Mexico City, where the dictator of thirty-three years resides, never doubting that he will be presiding over the bicentennial celebrations a hundred years from now. Dictators like him have been known to live for thousands of years in different guises and names.

  But beneath the firmament, in hidden coves and alleyways, a revolutionary movement is brewing, a chorus of dissent rumbles, growing evermore intense. The voices are building, one on top of the other—contralto, soprano, tenor, baritone, bass. Listen, listen, for they will soon reach a crescendo, a zenith, a holy peak, signalling to all that life as they know it is about to come to an end.

  But for now the voices recede, the tidal wave is held at bay as an intermission is granted, one last invitation for those in the cheap seats to arise and stretch their legs.

  ACT THREE

  SCENE ONE

  Inside the oldest cathedral of the New World

  From stage left a shot now rings out in the dark.

  It is a cool evening in December 1910 and the Mexican dictator of more than thirty-three years, General Porfirio Díaz, is seated behind a solid walnut credenza table contemplating his uncertain fate. In just five months he will be forced into the arms of exile inside la belle France, but for now the old man with the generous white moustache and the inscrutable gaze is still trying to change the progress of history, still trying to forestall his inevitable fall from grace. In the half-light of the early evening, he stares listlessly at a map of the land under his now tenuous command. Mexico—the horn of plenty, the North American tail, the nation that has been completely his for so long and that is now slowly but surely escaping from his grasp. Just a month ago a wealthy landowner by the name of Francisco Madero had called for a day of insurrection. The insurrection failed, but the thirst for change remained. In the South, a peasant’s son by the name of Emiliano Zapata is at this moment organizing a guerilla force to attempt to do away with the hacienda system for all time. In the North, an ex-bandit by the name of Pancho Villa is bringing Mexico’s cowboys together in an army of freedom fighters. There, too, another army is being formed by a peasant named Pascual Orozoco, who is sick of the inequality, of the abject poverty that the majority of the people have lived with for centuries now.

  With the tip of a fat finger, Daíz traces the areas on the map where insurrection is rife—east, west, north, south. Surrounded, he thinks. And then, more ominously, he adds, all of the portents were right. Porfirio Díaz, the strongman of the Americas, the colossus, the general with a thousand lives may have spent the last three decades steeped in every imaginable luxury—gold, diamonds, yachts, telephones, cars—but he has a peasant’s cunning, a peasant’s heart. That very year, they had all seen the comet that had appeared in the heavens, had watched in awe this spectacle of light, this harbinger of the disasters that would surely be coming to pass. Across the nation, nervous people began speaking of the unthinkable—plague, famine, war.

  General Díaz’s scientists had scoffed at the people’s ignorance, had dismissed all the talk of disaster that this spectacle in the heavens supposedly presaged. “We have been waiting for this comet to arrive, Su Excelencia.” They told their president, incredulity in their eyes, “It portends nothing other than how accurate our scientific calculations are.”

  Porfirio Díaz had nodded, but felt fear in his heart. Mexico is a land of prophecies, a land where the future is forever being revealed. Had not comets appeared in the heavens in the year 1519, when the Spaniards had arrived? Had not the Mayan Chilam Balam warned the people to prepare themselves, that the white twins of heaven would come to castrate the sun, bringing night and sadness and the weight of an incalculable pain? And is it not true that Francisco Madero, the very man who had called for the day of insurrection that began this revolution, had Madero not been assured that he would be president of Mexico by a ouija board? No, the general’s fears are not so easily laid to rest. He remains anxious about the future, afraid of what is coming, unsure any longer of his role in this New World. Above all, he feels exhausted. Eighty-four years old. Too old, surely, to be fighting any unreasonable wars. He moves his finger over the map, across an ocean, stops abruptly in France. There could be worse fates, he thinks, worse places to spend the rest of one’s life. But for now, the general will stay put.
Watch as things unravel. Perhaps this revolution is nothing but a hiccup, a minor disruption that will peter out with the morning light.

  Yes, yes, he thinks as he sits back in his chair, I will have the patience to wait it out. As he leans back, the stage slowly grows dark and we find ourselves transported from inside a palatial study to the city of Mérida once again.

  A year has passed since Diego Clemente’s arrival in the region and already bits and pieces have been added to his map. On all four corners birds have suddenly appeared—an Aztec Parakeet in the west, a Turquoise-Browed Motmot in the north, a Ferruginous Pygmy Owl in the east, a Violaceous Trogon to the south.

  And there is more. Shading has been added to the rivers, colours have become more intense, the earth has acquired texture and the oceans depth. The country that had so awed him when he first arrived has grown more impressive yet. Is it the beauty of the region that has added shading to his map—the sheen of the white city of Mérida, the majestic ceibas, the windmills, the city’s spectacular main square? No, surely it must be the birds, the miracles of colour that roam the skies—robins, jays, kingfishers, orioles, woodpeckers, hawks. Or perhaps it is the days that stretch out languorously until they come to a close, or the quality of the light, unmatched, unequalled in any region of the world? Yes, all of these things have contributed, some more, some less, but they are not the main reasons for Diego’s tumble into ecstasy, into a heady state of grace.

  There is only one real possibility for this marvellous explosion of colour, this added depth. Can it be that our Spanish lead has fallen madly and irremediably in love? Yes, what else but love can intensify the blues and the reds, add texture to surfaces that once were flat? What else but love lies at the heart of any opera, buffa, seria or any other kind? And so it is with our own tenor, who has plunged headfirst into this amorous abyss with pencil, paper and field glasses in hand. There is no turning back for this young man; his voice has soared in the last few months, he no longer feels in command of his own emotions, he has grown wings and learned to fly.