Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins

by Carlos Fuentes

  You walk to the half-open door and enter, covering your eyes with your hand, pausing to get used to the dining room’s unfamiliar glow, its high, narrow chairs, mahogany table, walls covered with elegant beige wallpaper, and only gradually do you realize that numerous objects are strewn over the floor where you can trip on them, instead of on the table: on the floor are cornhusks, and vases of water, and flowers—the yellow dianthuses of All Souls’ Day, spikenards and calla lilies, gardenias: the heavy odor of dead flowers or, what is the same, flowers for the dead—on the floor are hampers full of fabric, baskets holding thimbles, colored thread, yarn, knitting needles, pins. There is a basket of eggs. There is a chamber pot.

  You look up. You search for something else in this dining room, so cleanly conceived but so full of the wrong things, as if the present inhabitants of the place were totally foreign, or were almost enemies of the work of the decorator and the architect, depreciating it, consciously or not. That’s what you would like to think, anyway: the inhabitants of this house must hate it, or at least hate its maker and the style he wanted to give it. What most shocks you, more than the objects strewn over the floor, the eggs, or the chamber pot that almost makes you want to smile, are the rustic chairs of woven straw, low to the ground, which seem to defy, even insult, the narrow, high-backed chairs: those chairs like Giacometti statues (Giacometrics) are insulted by the terrestrial, agrarian abundance of everything else in the room (everything else: you sensed a silent conflict in this room between an exclusive, elegant refinement and a gross inclusiveness, an affirmation of the abundance of poverty, as if a chicken coop had been set in the middle of Versailles).

  A woman is sitting on one of the low chairs, sewing. The child sitting with her has just pricked his finger with a needle, he sucks it, the woman looks at him sadly, the blood stains the basket of eggs at the woman’s feet. A dog enters, barks, and goes out again.

  5

  For the first time in my life, I stayed and slept in the little office on the construction site: I was wakened by a whistling that I took to be the teapot signaling that the water had come to a boil. It found me asleep in one of our pair of director’s chairs; as a joke, we’d had VELEZ ONE and VELEZ TWO stenciled on their canvas backs, identifying ourselves the way English schools distinguish brothers with the same surnames.

  I was sleeping with my legs stretched out and when I woke up I felt a dull but persistent pain in my ankles.

  The whistling was coming from the construction area, and from the office I could see a crowd of people running every which way, but converging on the project’s entrance, on the watchman’s shack. I ran out of the office, not even closing the door behind me—I was upset, afraid I was going to lose what I sought. I might already have lost it. I imagined ways of obtaining that object, of getting hold of it somehow or other.

  I made my way through the chill morning mist, through the crowd, people with wool jackets slung over their shoulders, with mufflers around their necks, their hands joined amid the hustle, barring the way to the hut. I am Vélez the architect, it’s urgent, let me through, let me through. I couldn’t get anywhere and I heard a noise that I found unendurable, almost unspeakable. If I closed my eyes, everything disappeared except that intolerable murmur of the unspeakable: I wanted to identify it, and I pushed my way toward the door of the hut. Sighs. Moans. Wails. A solemn hum came from the watchman’s shack, but that high-pitched sadness disguised a celebration. Dressed in black, clasping her hands in prayer one moment, making the Sign of the Cross the next, tears rolling down her cheeks like oil on a burnt tortilla, Doña Heredad Mateos was kneeling before the window of the shack, hissing through her wrinkled lips:

  —A miracle, a miracle, a miracle!

  Behind her, on the cot, I saw Catarina Ferguson’s wedding dress, lying inert, held together with pins, ready to pass into new hands, to dress a young bride, ignorant of the marvelous woman who had filled it once and then forgot it, who, perhaps, gave it to a friend, the friend to a poor relative, she to her servant. And next to Señora Mateos, I could make out a form in the glass that had recently been put into the window; it was as fuzzy as an out-of-focus photograph, vague but three-dimensional, like a holograph, and, obsessed with the bride’s gown on the cot, I could not really say what it was; but she, Doña Heredad, proclaimed it:

  —The Virgin and the Child! Reunited at last! Praise be to God! A miracle, a miracle, a miracle!

  6

  You wanted to speak to them and you stepped forward to say something, to call out, to ask them … The bells rang and the woman and child hurried on, without looking at you. The child smoothed his curly hair and white tunic, the woman threw a heavy cloak over her shoulders and with nervous, awkward fingers arranged a white cowl on her head, leaving the ends loose under her chin.

  The child took the woman’s hand and held it as the sound of the bells swelled. They opened a door and went into a colonial patio, another negation—you notice at once—of the previous styles, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau. Now the colonnades supported four arched porticoes, and chest-high screens that allowed—allowed you—to observe the woman’s anxious arrival, holding the child’s hand, at the center of the bare patio—it had neither garden nor fountain, only implacably naked stones—and to see the pair join the women who were walking there, together in the rain, protected by their umbrellas, walking in circles, Indian-file, one behind the other, one of them lightly touching the shoulder of the woman in front of her from time to time: but the woman with the child, not protected by an umbrella, seemed to be looking for something, as the ends of her cowl whipped against her cheeks, and the child, who was holding her hand, let the rain wet his face and mat down his blond curls, his eyes closed, wearing a grimace that was half gleeful and half perverse.

  They all walk like that—the nine women and the child—in circles, in the rain, for more than an hour, not acknowledging your presence, but not asking you to leave, as you feared they might at first—one of the women, in a straw hat and pink brocade dress, even approaches you and touches your hand, though without looking at you—and the others, also without looking at you, make a huge clamor as soon as she touches you. You try to distinguish between their laughter, exclamations, bawls, groans, sobs, complaints, moans, exultations, but, unable to, you turn your attention to what those figures in the rain are looking at and what each is carrying in the hand that doesn’t hold an umbrella. They give you an oppressive sensation of dynamic abulia, a paradox, but it seems to describe them because they don’t take a single step that isn’t slow and solemn, and there isn’t a single one of their gestures that isn’t deliberate. In one hand, each holds an umbrella; in the other, they carry various objects, shielding them from the rain. The first a basket and the second a shepherd’s staff. The third a bag full of teeth and the fourth a tray holding bread that’s been sliced in two. The fifth wears bells on her fingers and the sixth has a chameleon clasped in her fist. The seventh holds a guitar and the eighth a sprig of flowers. Only the ninth woman does not hold an object—instead, she holds the hand of the drenched child with his eyes closed.

  They all wear cloaks draped over their shoulders like shadows.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, the woman with the shepherd’s staff raises it and dashes it against your hands; you cry out; they, too, cry, and you drop the frog that you had been holding in your fist. They laugh, flee, the patio is a confusion of umbrellas and water splashing, and the bread falls, and the teeth roll in the puddles, chattering madly, and the dog with the wounded rump, which had been watching them silently, now lets loose a howl, takes the frog in its muzzle and runs toward the convent.

  7

  They said they couldn’t see anything from the outside, it was just an old lady’s craziness, seamstresses get too wrapped up in themselves, they’re alone too much, with nothing but their thoughts, pretty soon they end up needing glasses, why should anybody believe her? And she answers that they should go in one by one, or two together, and then they will see what she
saw on the windowpane in her bedroom. He saw what he had been afraid of, just what he had been trying to avoid, publicity, idle gossip—and the worst thing was that the people who were gathered around the shack wanted to believe, they were hoping that this would turn out to be a true miracle, that they would be the witnesses who would tell everybody else about it, since the worst thing about miracles was the way, after you saw them, you had to tell somebody else about them for them to be believed, and it was the same thing here at the shack of Doña Heredad Mateos, mother of Jerónimo the watchman of the same last name, where from outside you couldn’t see anything, and if you went into the little space you could see the señora was telling the truth. When you looked at the glass, the figures stood out clearly, so close together they were like one, the Virgin with the Child in her arms, a recognizable silhouette, the Madonna and the Child who was conceived without sin, with halos around them as white as snow: it’s splendid, if a little blurry, but you can’t see it from outside, you understand? only from in here. You have to go in one at a time, or by twos, that would be better, by twos so there won’t be malicious talk, you can see it only in here, in the shack where, as luck would have it, Señora Heredad Mateos was staying, the one who set out the orange votive lights and the images of the Virgin in the back, the one who brought all these precious bridal gowns, which, if it’s proper to think such a thing, are the dresses of the wife of heaven, Holy Mary full of grace, who conceived without sin.

  —They’re going to ruin the dresses, he said to her.

  —We never know how the Lady will choose to come to us.

  —It’s dangerous, let me take care of them …

  —Here they stay. Otherwise, what will the Virgin wear, tell me that…?

  —I swear that as soon as this is over you’ll get them back.

  —Praised be the Lord, who sent His wife and His Son here, where they could receive lodging and even clothing, a thousand times praise the Lord!

  Doña Heredad Mateos gave me (José María Vélez) a look with her eyes of hot chile, her tortilla face marked by pocks of corn.

  —And you know, the Son of God is a most venerable Child.

  —By all you hold dearest, señora, do not give that dress to anyone!

  8

  The nine women are gathered around the wooden table, sitting in the high-backed Art Nouveau chairs. At last you can see them clearly, although the child, sitting next to you, constantly tugs at your sleeve and tells you stories—wicked tales, slanders—about the women in the refectory. They pour cups of chocolate from a steaming pitcher and pass the sweet rolls hot from the oven, and the fair child, whose hair is limp from the rain, picks up a corner of the tablecloth to rub it dry, with an impudent laugh at the women, who continue eating impassively, without even glancing in his direction. He will talk only to you, the stranger, but his remarks are intended for the women, who are now revealed in all their splendor—they’ve taken off their rain capes and are dressed in silks, brocades, multicolored shawls; their collective beauty is enhanced by the brilliance of pink and green, orange and pale yellow. The table is heaped with flowers and fruits and they extend pale, fine hands to take the fruit, to arrange the bouquets, to serve the chocolate, but they never speak to one another, the malicious child is the only one who says anything, pointing his finger from one to another, until he stops to dry his hair and wipe the grit from his eyelashes and shouts at them: Nuns! Whores!

  They just eat and sip their cups of chocolate, except the woman who accompanied the child from the beginning. She sits with her elbows on the table and her head between her hands, perfectly still, staring into empty space, in despair. The others are lovely women, from Sonora or Sinaloa would be your guess if they were Mexicans, although you doubt it—Andalusian, Sicilian, Greek, their skin never touched by the sun or by the hand of man, the little boy tells you with a wink, they would rather die than be touched (you try to pierce the lowered gaze, the shadows of the thick eyelashes, of the woman dressed in orange silk, who briefly raises her eyes, looks at you, and veils her eyes again, after that single savage glance). That’s it, that’s it, says the child, look at her, so sweet and pure, she has always been accused of entering convents just to seduce the nuns. And the one next to her, do you like her? (the perfect oval of her cinnamon face has a single flaw, a five o’clock shadow above her lip), well, don’t kid yourself, she has nothing to do with the work of man, as the priests say; she dressed up as a man to keep from being violated by men and ended up accused of fathering her landlady’s son! That’s why she wound up here, to give her old bones a rest—what a way to go!

  This story amuses its narrator enormously, and he laughs until he sputtered and choked, pointing his finger at the girl with the mustache and the short chestnut hair. She serves the steaming chocolate while the child subsides; your drink immediately congeals in your cup; the bread turns cold at your touch. You seek the dark eyes of the woman with braids twisted like wagon wheels around her ears, who is dressed in a pink brocade dress buttoned up to the neck: that one would do anything to save herself from men, continued the child. Look at the rolls on her plate: do they resemble tits? Well, that’s what they are, they’re hers, cut off when she refused to give herself to a Roman soldier. Agatha, show the gentleman, entertain our illustrious guest. You lower your eyes as Agatha unbuttons her blouse and reveals her scars, to the hoarse laugh of the boy.

  —Sometimes she carries bread, sometimes bells, it’s terribly symbolic: the tintinnabulation of toasted tits, get it? And look at the next one, Lucía, you hear me? Look up, poor little Lucy! Lift your veil, let our visitor see the empty sockets where your eyes used to be, you preferred being blinded to being screwed, didn’t you? So now you chew your eyes, served up like fried eggs on your plate …

  He laughed like crazy, exposing his bloodstained baby teeth, pointing with his finger, getting more worked up since he met with no argument, like a precocious drunkard, commanding the woman with long mahogany hair to open her mouth and show her gums, Apollonia, not a tooth, see, not a single molar, ideal for cocksucking (he laughed harder and harder), a second vagina, the toothless mouth of the dentifrical saint, shake your bag of teeth, Apollonia; which she does, and they all hurry to do something without his asking. The girl with the straw hat, instead of putting the lizard she is holding into her mouth, tries to put herself into the mouth of the lizard; the blind woman takes the fried eggs from her plate and puts them in her empty eyesockets; Apollonia takes the teeth out of her bag and puts them in her mouth; and the child shrieks with laughter and shouts: They just won’t fuck! They just want to get away from men! From repulsed suitors! From unsatisfied fathers! From raging soldiers! Better dead than bed! The convent is their refuge from male aggression, see, they tried to seduce me, I’d like to see them try again; and one woman begins to play the guitar, another the harp—beautiful women, women the color of spikenard and lemon, cinnamon women and pearl women, lilting as an endless autumn, silent as the heart of summer, silky and lacy as a contemplative sea: they don’t look at the child, the child points at them with his tiny finger, the finger injured by the needle; the woman who accompanies him holds her head in her hands, she lowers her arms, she makes me look at her, she is the only one who isn’t beautiful, she is a dusky woman with moles on her temples, she reaches out and drops a thorn from the rose on the table. Come, she says to the child, and the child resists, he says no, she doesn’t repeat her command, she just looks at him, he closes his eyes and puts out his hand, she gives him the thorn, he takes it, and without opening his eyes, he pricks his index finger with it.

  His blood flows. The women around the table cry, their voices join in a mournful chorus, the guitarist and the harpist keep on playing, Sister Lucía raises her eyelids and reveals the endless labyrinth of her empty gaze, Sister Apollonia opens her toothless mouth, Sister Margarita tries to force her nose into the lizard’s mouth, Sister Agatha shows the purple scars on her chest, Sister Marina licks her mustache, Sister Casilda places a r
ope around her neck, the dusky woman calls out their names, as if introducing them to me and the child, who is beside himself and runs to sit on his chamber pot; he makes a face, he stops crying, he screams with worn-out pleasure, and hurrying back to the table with the pot in his hand, he empties it among the roses and the bread. The shit is hard, the shit is golden, the shit is gold. Miracle! Miracle!

  —Desire is like snow in our hands, says the melancholy woman who accompanies the child, gold is nothing to us. Look at the dog; he doesn’t know what gold is. But he recognizes shit.

  Carlos María: for a long time they hadn’t looked at you, and you hadn’t spoken to them, and in that indifference that combines silence and separation, all you see is a whirl of colors, taffetas, silks, roses, baskets, guitars, doe eyes, peach skin, and cascading hair, and you, too, feel distanced, as if you were watching yourself through opera glasses from the upper balcony of a theater, the paradise of the spectator, absent and present, seeing but seeming absent, tacitly ignored and yet represented, there and not there, part of a rite, a link in the ceremony being celebrated—you suddenly realize—with or without you, but which has been practiced a thousand and one times in preparation for this moment when you are there, absent and present, seeing without being seen, in a theater of the sacred, which seems cruel and bloody to you, the spectator, because it is caught between the style the work demands and the style the spectator provides, it is the midpoint—you stare intently at the child’s pricked finger—between the conception of the sacred and its execution. One can conceive of God without a body, but action requires a body. The child looks at you and runs over to you to put his arms around your waist, growling like a little animal. It is only then that you realize that the floor of this refectory is not made of ordinary red tiles but of dried blood turned to brick.

  9

  The father and the daughter are going to look at two or three art books together, as they do every night, without discussing what they are going to look at, with the books open on his knees and her lap, pointing out one print or another, from time to time sipping a glass of claret or port, an old custom in the British Isles that has continued through the generations on this side of the Atlantic, he chooses a book of Piranesi prints, lord and master of the infinite, he tells Catarina, the author of engraving’s most absolute light and shade: Roman landscapes and prisons, he points, prisons and vistas without beginning or end, Santiago Ferguson caresses the head of his daughter, the engraving as an infinity symbol lying on its side as you are, alongside my legs, an endless sleep, entrance and exit, liberty and prison, an imprisoned vista, a prison with a view.