Curva Peligrosa
Page 28
Sí, a familiar story. Women still try to catch los hombres. We get so caught up in the chase, we forget who we are and where we belong.
Where do you belong?
In Weed. I’ve put down roots with all of my plants and my friends and my hija. And you. But I have to warn you, I can’t stop being like the moon in your story. Disappearing now and then. Waxing and waning.
I know. It’s what I like most about you. You’re never the same. It keeps me on my toes!
She laughed and said, I’ve never thought of you as a ballet dancer, Bee-lee. Picturing him in a tutu made her laugh even louder, sending them both into hysterics. The sound bounced off the walls, escaping into the night, embracing anything it came into contact with. Their mirth tumbled over the prairies, causing any bone it touched to tremble and twitch, and inducing the sky to change color, turning it from a deep indigo to a pale cornflower blue. A rosy tinge hovered around the edges.
Bone Song
The earth can’t hold
us now. We’ve turned
it inside
out, our voices
freed to speak
again.
* * *
10 sky beings
Coda
This isn’t the end of the story, of course. Curva and Billie could have many years ahead of them, and she’ll likely continue her search for immortality, not realizing that she and the others will live on not only in this book but also in your imagination.
What about Sabina and Victor? Their lives have just begun. We don’t know if they’ll end up together as Curva and Billie did any more than we know what our own future will bring. Victor might join Kadeem’s group. Sabina could become a strong advocate for the Blackfoot and others that have been disenfranchised. Or perhaps some other fate awaits them.
As for the other Weedites, though they’ll resist at first, eventually they’ll adjust to the many changes life and the weather will bring them and their community. Catherine Hawkins will run into the young man Curva had forecasted and enjoy an illicit summer of lust, meeting him in the fields and the barn after her husband and kids are safely asleep. Life continues afterward with a bittersweet flavor. She’s tasted the forbidden, and she likes it.
Edna, in an attempt to tap down her impulses, becomes a faithful Baptist, attending prayer meetings every night and on Sunday, beseeching God for deliverance. So far she’s been successful, but it’s a daily struggle. Her brother Ian surprised the townspeople when he visited Ni-tsi-ta-pi-ksi Cultural Center and told Billie what a fine addition it was to the community. He volunteered to help Sabina catalogue and photograph the various fossils.
Sophie Smart returned to gardening in her birthday suit in spite of mosquito and black fly attacks, still trying to emulate Curva’s ease with nudity.
And if you’re wondering about Shirley, the feelings Xavier’s music had awakened in him so pierced his heart with sorrow when Curva married Billie that he ended up wrestling alligators again for sport, finding them more malleable than Curva.
Suelita and Xavier? They have earned their wings, grasping an opportunity and taking it. Whether they are angels or not remains to be seen, though the next time you hear a swishing sound nearby, it could be them, hovering, keeping watch over the living. And the dead.
The bones? They’ll continue to sing their disjointed songs of longing, commenting on life from their underground home. Rattling. Trying to get our attention. They’ll never make the hit parade. Some people will hear them. More won’t.
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is primarily a solitary task, though each day I’m constantly surrounded by the characters I’ve created. I want to thank them and my muse for being so faithful.
But once the initial narrative is completed, expert readers are indispensible, and I have several to thank. I submitted some sections of Curva Peligrosa early in the process to the members of my online writing group, and they gave me helpful recommendations. Nina Schuyler, who was then part of that group, also read an early draft and gave me valuable feedback. So did fellow Canadian novelist Hugh Cook, as well as editor Steven Bauer. I also must mention New York agent Stephen Fraser, who believed in the novel, although I was then a “debut author.”
Regal House Publishing also recognized Curva Peligrosa’s merit and has been a superb advocate for the book. The Regal House editorial team’s detailed feedback on the manuscript has strengthened the narrative and been indispensable; any errors that remain, after their diligent efforts, are entirely my own.
My research for Curva Peligrosa came from too many sources to mention here, though Walter McClintock’s The Old North Trail: Life, Legends & Religion of the Blackfeet Indians was essential. In 1886, Chief Mad Dog, “The high Priest of the Sun Dance,” adopted McClintock, a member of a U.S. Forest Service expedition, and he spent four years living on the Blackfoot reservation. His personal account of this period gave me valuable knowledge of the Blackfoot legends and religious rituals.
I also want to thank my husband Michael for his unfailing support of my many writing projects. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my son Leo’s constant backing.
Discussion Questions
1. Curva’s letters from the trail have a unique function in the novel. How does your understanding of Curva evolve based on these letters? What role do Curva’s letters have in the narrative? How does the Old North Trail educate Curva? What difference is there in the first and third person perspectives?
2. Poems (”Bone Songs”) appear between major sections of the narrative. What is their purpose? What dimension do they add to the work?
3. Sabina appears mysteriously as Curva’s daughter. How does their relationship shift over time? How would you describe their relationship? How are mother and daughter similar and different? Who is Sabina’s father?
4. The Weedites collectively play an important role in Curva Peligrosa. How would you describe what they contribute? Who are your favorite Weedites and why?
5. Billie One Eye figures significantly in the novel. In what ways is he an important character and why? How does he complement Curva?
6. When Billie goes on his vision quest, he hopes to have the sight restored to his one eye. It isn’t, so he believes the quest was a failure. Is he correct? Why or why not?
7. Not only is Curva Peligrosa a fiction, but there also are additional fictional worlds within this novel, such as Berumba, created by the imagined novelist Luis Cardona. How do Berumba and its characters interact with Curva Peligrosa’s narrative? How is the novel about storytelling and the ways people get succor and enlightenment from it?
8. Bones of various kinds turn up in Weed. In what ways do they complicate the story?
9. The novel starts out with a tornado, and Curva’s arrival in Weed two years earlier was almost a tornado in itself. What did she introduce to the town? Is she a positive or negative influence there?
10. Curva’s twin brother Xavier is more than a ghostly figure in the narrative. How do you understand his part in the book and his relationship with Curva?
11. What are the parallels between Curva and Don Quixote? Is Curva mad? Is Cervantes’ Don Quixote mad? Do Curva and the knight share the same goals? Does Curva have her own Sancho Panza?
12. Curva makes it clear from her first meeting with Shirley that he’s a danger to her and what she believes in. How do you understand his presence in the narrative and the nature of Curva’s attraction to him?
13. Does the natural world function as a character in Curva? If so, how would you describe its part in the narrative?
14. From the beginning, Curva makes known her desire to discover the elixir of life. Has she fulfilled her quest for immortality?
15. Curva Peligrosa fits into the magical realism genre, though realism also plays its part. Describe the magical elements in the narrative and how they intera
ct with the more realistic ones? What qualities give Curva Peligrosa a mythic/fairy tale tone?
16. Several different worlds intersect in Curva Peligrosa: Berumba, the Blackfoot reservation, Weed before and after Curva’s arrival, the American oil scene, etc. How do you understand the ways in which they relate to each other?
17. Curva, who grew up in Mexico, resists living out the kind of traditional female role prevalent then, in Mexico and elsewhere. Is she successful?