When a Woman Rises

by Christine Eber

  We had to get back to the house with the water, so we got up from the rock where we’d been sitting and ran the rest of the way down the trail. Lucia hadn’t forgotten how to run downhill with two pails of water. She belonged in Lokan. How could she not see this? I was thinking these thoughts because I was jealous. I didn’t want it to be true that Lucia had a job and would soon be going to school.

  In the following days Lucia and I visited often. She wanted to go back to San Cristóbal to start school but didn’t want to leave her grandfather until she was sure he was strong again. I think she might have felt that by running away she had abandoned her grandfather who depended on her to help him in his work as a healer.

  But then something happened that we didn’t expect. One morning when Hilario didn’t come into the kitchen to drink his matz, Lucia went to see how he was. He was still in bed with his eyes closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. He had died in the night.

  As soon as I found out the sad news, I ran to Lucia’s house. I sat with Lucia beside Hilario’s body for three days while almost everyone in Lokan came to say goodbye to him. After they entered the house, they knelt before Carmela and told her how sorry they were that Hilario had died. Lucia only left Hilario’s side to bring food to the mourners or to give mashed tortillas to a kitten sleeping by the fire. Everyone just ate, prayed, and wept as the days passed. Even my father wept.

  My father was in charge of making sure that we carried out all the rituals correctly. Although he was a Believer, he respected the traditions too and hadn’t forgotten what the ancestors wanted us to do when people die. The ancestors say that one’s body is planted in the earth like a tree and needs help to uproot itself.

  When it was time to take Hilario’s body out of the house, my father motioned for the men to lift his pine box off the boards where it rested. Then Mol Miguel, a healer who was a little younger than Hilario, laid the boards against the wall of the house and whipped them hard with a leather strap, all the while saying, “I’m punishing you so that you don’t become accustomed to holding the bodies of dead people, so that you don’t let demons enter you. Get out of these boards, demons. Leave this house in peace. Let all illness leave this house.”

  At that moment, the bodies of the mourners became like one. Those at the front tried to step out the door, but those behind pulled them back. Our hearts wanted to keep Hilario there with us, but we had to let him go, the man who had done so much good for us.

  My father chose two elderly couples to stay in Hilario’s house after we carried him to the cemetery. Their work was to sweep the house clean of evil spirits and sprinkle chiles on the ground to purify it.

  Mol Miguel led the procession to the cemetery carrying a gourd of water with three marigolds. He called to Hilario, “Come, Hilario, come. We’re leaving this house. We’re going to find another house. Your soul is leaving. Let’s go.”

  Mol Humberto, another elder, followed Hilario’s coffin with a basket of money for Hilario to carry with him to Heaven. The men had a discussion about how much money Hilario should take with him. They didn’t want to give him too much to carry, because Hilario was a humble man who never had much money when he lived. But they didn’t want Hilario to go with too little, because he was a man of great value to his people.

  They settled on a hundred pesos which was quite a bit of money at that time. My father had taken up a collection among all the families.

  The men carried Hilario down the mountain through the cornfields to the cemetery. Lucia was at the front of the procession behind her mother. I followed behind my parents in a long column of people. Lucia wasn’t as tall as the corn that came right up to the sides of the trail, so I lost sight of her until we arrived at the cemetery.

  All the graves in the cemetery were covered with soul houses made with roofs of thatch. Even though some men wanted to build a house with a metal roof for Hilario, Carmela wanted him to have a humble soul house like everyone else. She didn’t like the metal roofs that were starting to appear in the cemetery. Now most soul houses have metal roofs.

  I’m like Carmela though. When I die I want a thatched roof on my soul house, just like the house I was born in.

  Please remember that, daughter.

  I made my way through the mourners to where Lucia was standing by the grave the men had dug the day before. Although she was looking into the hole, I could see that her face was streaked with tears. I took her hand as the men lowered Hilario’s coffin into the hole. Carmela placed his hat, tunic, wool poncho, and two string bags along the sides of his body. Then Mol Miguel placed the gourd of water with three marigolds at the head of the coffin. Finally, my father put the things Hilario used in his prayers in the box: incense, candles, a little bit of pox, and two sticks to defend himself against animals that might bother him on his journey to heaven.

  After the men closed the coffin, my mother looked at me, her eyes wide with fear, and said, “Daughter, there are children here whose souls are in danger of being caught up with Hilario. We must show them how to throw dirt on the coffin so their souls won’t leave the earth.” Mother and I scooped up handfuls of dirt from the mounds surrounding the grave and beckoned the little children to come near the edge of the hole where Hilario lay. We gave each of them handfuls of dirt while Mother explained the purpose of our tradition. After all the children and adults had finished throwing three handfuls of dirt, we knelt and my father led us in prayer.

  Soon after the funeral, Carmela came to our house to talk to my mother. I was outside weaving and strained to hear their conversation through the cracks in the wall.

  Carmela told my mother something that would change Lucia’s life again. “A few days before Hilario died, I heard him praying outside in the middle of the night. I got out of bed and looked through the door, and there he was tying two tree branches together while asking the Earth Lord to tie Lucia’s soul to her house and to Lokan, to end her life in San Cristóbal!

  “The next morning, I was afraid to ask him directly about his prayer. Instead, I asked him what he thought about Lucia living in San Cristóbal. He was very forceful when he answered me. He said, ‘My life is going to end soon, and our community will need Lucia to take my place. She’s wasting her powers in San Cristóbal. The kaxlanetik don’t respect our traditions and think healers are witches.’”

  My mother sat quietly for a few minutes after Carmela spoke.

  “I know Hilario did much good for our people, but you can’t deny that when he prayed to the Earth Lord he did exactly what the kaxlanetik say that witches do. He tried to control another’s destiny.”

  Carmela nodded because it was true what my mother said, even though she didn’t want to disrespect Hilario’s memory. My mother moved the logs further into the fire and waited for Carmela to say something. Finally, Carmela asked my mother, “Should I tell Lucia that Hilario wants her to return to Lokan, to be his replacement? Do you think that God will punish me for cutting off my daughter’s dream of an education?”

  “Only God knows what fate holds for each person,” my mother told her. Then she said, “Let’s pray about this.”

  And so they got down on their knees, pulled their shawls over their heads, and prayed. I sat quietly until their prayer ended. My heart was a tangle of thoughts. I didn’t want Lucia to lose her dream because it felt almost like my own. But I also wanted her back in Lokan so we could help one another through all the things to come in our lives.

  MY DAUGHTER’S SORROW

  IT WAS MY TURN at the Zapatista co-op store for a month, so Verónica and I took a break from talking about Lucia’s story. When it’s my turn at the co-op store, I enjoy being in a different place for a while. I keep busy straightening the cans on the shelves and hanging the weaving threads. When my compañeras need to buy something or stop to say hello on their way home from the fields, I hear all the latest gossip.

  The co-op store is just above Lucia’s house. During the first year of the store, Lucia would keep me company. In between c
ustomers, we’d talk while we embroidered. Even now after she’s been gone so long, I hear her calling to me as she climbs the trail, “Vishin! Sister!”

  But then I look outside, and there’s no one there.

  When I came home each evening after working at the co-op store, Verónica stayed in the sleeping house working on her weaving and watching TV. I knew she was angry about something, probably being left alone to take care of our own store.

  One evening I asked her what was wrong. She poured out a lot of anger and pain that she had kept inside her. Her words cut into my heart and made me remember how she suffered last year after she left school to marry Rodrigo.

  When it was her time to graduate from primary school, Verónica begged us to let her attend the middle school in the lum. After much discussion, Victorio and I relented. But we told her she would have to make some money selling her weavings to pay for her school expenses since we couldn’t afford to pay them. She was already selling her weavings so she was confident she could find the money she needed. We also told her that each day at school she would have to study hard and not look for boyfriends.

  But it was impossible for her not to think of boys! One day, a few weeks after she started middle school, she was walking home and passed by the place where the taxi drivers park their cars. Rodrigo saw her and started to talk to her. Soon they began to walk around town holding hands. Her brothers, Abolino and Sebastian, knew Rodrigo and the other taxi drivers. When they saw Rodrigo with Verónica, they came right home to tell us that their sister wasn’t obeying us.

  Victorio and I didn’t understand how it is to go to middle school in the lum, how it’s possible to study and also have a boyfriend. We only knew what we heard and were afraid that Verónica might get pregnant and then have to marry without the proper respect that comes with doing joyol, the traditional bride petition. So we told Verónica that she had to choose—stay in school and stop looking for boyfriends—or marry Rodrigo.

  If we had only let her be Rodrigo’s girlfriend, she would have learned that he wasn’t a good person, and then she wouldn’t have married him. But she chose to leave school and marry him, and then it was too late.

  Only a couple months after she went to live with Rodrigo, we had to rescue her and bring her home. One day when they were talking with the other taxi drivers, Abolino and Sebastian overheard Rodrigo boasting that he could make his wife do anything he wanted. He just had to beat her if she refused. My sons came home to tell us what they’d heard. Immediately we prepared to go to Rodrigo’s community to bring our daughter home. Even though her brothers had informed on their sister, forcing us to make her choose between Rodrigo and school, in the end they saved her life.

  I’ll never forget how I felt when we got out of the taxi in Baxilum. I was afraid of Rodrigo from what I had heard about him, and I didn’t know what his parents were like. I didn’t know if we would see them or if Verónica would be home alone or if we could just take her home with us and then deal with Rodrigo and his parents later.

  “We need to ask someone where Rodrigo’s parents live,” I said to Victorio after we got out of the car.

  “All right, let’s go to the store across the road and ask there.”

  The storekeeper told us where their house was, but he said that Rodrigo didn’t live there, that Rodrigo and his new wife lived in a little house not far up the road because his parents already had two daughters-in-law living with them.

  That information worried me, because it meant that no one was there to stop Rodrigo from beating our daughter. I started to walk faster and told Victorio we needed to hurry. Soon we found the house and Victorio called from the door for Verónica.

  “Daughter, are you there?”

  At first no one answered, but then we heard Verónica tell us to come in. It took some time to adjust my eyes to the darkness of the kitchen, so at first I only saw the outline of Verónica sitting by the fire. Gradually, the damage done to her was revealed to me, as if I were slowly taking a blanket off a person who had been in a serious accident. My poor daughter’s face was covered with bruises. One eye was half shut and black bruises covered her other eye and cheekbones. Her lips were bruised too, and blood was caked in the corners of her mouth. She was as thin as our poor dog.

  Victorio held my elbow as we came close to Verónica. I sat down and put my arms around her. She clung to me and sobbed, “Please, Mother, take me home.”

  “Oh, daughter, forgive us for what we let happen to you!”

  “Daughter, we need to leave now. Where are your things?” Victorio asked.

  “Under the bed in a box, Father. I don’t have much. Please don’t forget my loom, it’s standing by the door. And the comal is ours too.”

  We gathered up all of Verónica’s things and hurried out the door to find a car back to Lokan. There was no one in the road while we waited. Probably some people watched us from their houses. I wonder what they thought. Perhaps they knew what had happened in that house, as I’m sure Verónica cried out for help when Rodrigo hit her. I wish she had gone to them for help. They could have gotten word to us.

  Once we were inside the car, Verónica covered her face with her shawl and leaned her head against the window.

  “Thank God, Verónica isn’t pregnant,” I said to Victorio that night.

  “Yes, in time she may be able to marry again.”

  I watched Verónica closely for a few months and nothing changed, so at least she could marry again, if she wanted to. Although things are changing, many men still don’t want to marry a woman with a child from another man.

  It only took a few weeks for Verónica’s bruises to disappear, but it took much longer for her sadness to pass. I encouraged her to weave. She said she had barely touched her loom when she lived with Rodrigo. I think it helped her to weave and do other things she enjoyed, like singing in the church choir. But she rarely laughed or joked anymore. Her soul had been badly treated and it needed time to come back to her.

  I tried to be patient with her. Sometimes Victorio wasn’t as understanding as I wished he would be. He suffered a lot when we had to go talk to Rodrigo’s parents and tell them how their son had mistreated our daughter. They didn’t protest our right to take her home and never brought up the matter of returning the money that Rodrigo paid in place of living with us and working with Victorio.

  But they didn’t admit to us what a bad son they had raised, and they never apologized to us. Victorio was very angry on the way back to Lokan and stayed that way for a while. I had to remind him that sometimes protecting a daughter’s soul means being disrespected in ways we could never imagine.

  By harvest time, Verónica had almost recovered and seemed like her old self again. But some evenings sitting around the fire, she still looked sad. I think she was wondering about her future and was worried. I kept wishing I had stood up for my daughter’s right to go to school, even if it meant having a boyfriend. But there was no going back.

  One day I was in the lum shopping, and I stopped at the door of the Casa de La Cultura. Something on the door caught my attention. It was an announcement in big letters about a project hiring young women to interview older women about their lives. I borrowed a pen from a man sitting at a desk inside the doorway and wrote the telephone number of the office in San Cristóbal on the palm of my hand.

  When I got home, I told Verónica about the job and gave her the number. Then I forgot about it for the rest of the day. But Verónica didn’t forget. The next morning she was up before me and off to make a call at the house of our neighbor who had a phone. I watched with pleasure as she trotted down the road below our house, her braids blowing in the wind.

  When Verónica returned, she told me that they were interviewing girls in the lum the next day, and she wanted to apply.

  “I think you have a good chance of getting the job, daughter. You’re intelligent and hard working.”

  “I hope so, Mother. I want to do something in my life, be something more than a mothe
r and housewife. I don’t mean to disrespect you, but you know I’ve always wanted to study and have a job.”

  “I don’t feel disrespected. I accept who I am.”

  The next day Verónica went back to the lum for her interview. She must have impressed Diana, the director, because she got the job. She came home in the afternoon swinging a bag of papers the organization had given her and telling me it was time to celebrate! I bought her a bottle of cherry soda, her favorite soft drink, and we sat together in our store listening to Zapatista ballads on the radio. Although Verónica has had days of sadness since, I think her soul has finally returned.

  LUCIA CHOOSES

  THE DAY AFTER I FINISHED my turn at the Zapatista co-op store, Verónica and I continued talking about Lucia. We stayed by the fire because a fine drizzle made everything damp and chilly. Our neighbors must have had the same idea to stay inside because the only person who came to the store was a neighbor who needed candles. As always happened when I started talking, I remembered things I hadn’t thought of in a long time. I began after Carmela told Lucia about Hilario’s wishes before he died.

  Even before Lucia heard what her grandfather had wanted, her heart was divided between living in the city and staying with her mother in Lokan. I came to visit her the day she finally decided to stay in Lokan. She was in the patio sitting on a wood block embroidering a tortilla cloth.

  When she saw me, she wiped her eyes with her shawl. She’d been crying. I didn’t know what to say to lift her spirits, so I just sat beside her and helped her take kernels off a pile of corncobs. As the kernels from the last cob fell into the basket, she said, “I need to tell Doña Dolores that I’m not coming back to San Cristóbal.”