I interrupted Carmela and said, “Aunt, would you do me the favor of telling this part of Lucia’s story? Since I wasn’t there, I only know what you told me.”
As I expected, Carmela didn’t want to be recorded, but she did agree to tell about her darkest day. Carmela set her atole on the table. I took up a blouse I was embroidering and kept my eyes on my stitches while Carmela talked.
After your mother came to visit Lucia, she didn’t drink for about a week. My daughter wanted to change. We worked together in our neighbor’s fields, and she finished embroidering a blouse that she hadn’t touched for a long time. My heart was happy because Lucia was finally back to her old self.
But it didn’t last. It didn’t last. Late one night after she returned from praying for one of her god daughters, I heard her in the kitchen trying to light the fire. She was talking loudly to herself. Then she must have found a chair to sit down on because she began singing, “I’m a drunk woman.”
I got up and told her to stop drinking and go to bed, but she just waved me away and said that she wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to leave her, but I went back to bed. I kept waking up throughout the night, worried that she would fall in the fire and burn herself. Finally she came to bed, just before I got up.
For the next two weeks, Lucia drank every time she got a gift of pox. If she was paid for praying, she used the money to buy pox. I was afraid she’d kill herself from drinking, like some in our community. But mostly men die that way, not women.
One day I went to a course in Yabteclum with your mother and grandmother. I told Lucia that I’d be back that evening. She was still in bed hungover and barely mumbled goodbye. All day while the madres read from the Bible, I didn’t learn anything because I was thinking about Lucia.
I talked with Madre Ester during the break, and she asked about Lucia. Something made me tell her the truth. Perhaps I wanted her to come see Lucia, which is exactly what she offered to do when she heard how bad things were. We made a plan for Madre Ester to visit the next day on her way back to San Cristóbal. Walking home, I was relieved knowing that Madre Ester was coming to see Lucia.
When I was close to home, our dog came running down the trail to meet me and jumped up on my chest, which he never did. He seemed desperate for me to follow him and even took my shawl in his mouth to make me go faster. I became afraid and ran up the path as fast as I could. While running, I saw a terrible vision of my daughter slipping away from me, flying up into the sky and disappearing into the clouds.
By the time I reached the kitchen door, I was panting from exhaustion and fear. I threw open the door and there was Lucia, lying on the floor beside the fire. A rope was tied around her neck and a piece of it was hanging from the rafter. I rushed past the chair where she had stood to tie herself to the rafter and took the noose from my daughter’s neck. Then I shook her and called to her over and over, “Daughter! Daughter! Daughter!” I blew into her mouth as I’ve seen people do and kept blowing until I heard the most beautiful sound—a cough!
I drew back and saw her gasping for air. I held her while she coughed and coughed, trying to come back to life. Finally, I felt that she had come back because she wasn’t coughing any more, and her eyes had opened.
Our dog got up from where he was lying beside us and wandered outside. He must have known that the danger had passed and soon I would shoo him outside.
We stayed there on the ground while my daughter rested in my arms. I thanked God that in her drunken state she had used a worn-out rope that wasn’t strong enough to hold her weight, even though her body was mostly bones.
That night we were both relieved that Lucia hadn’t been able to end her life. We didn’t talk much. Just being alive and together seemed enough for us. But after we ate and before she went to bed, Lucia said, “Forgive me, Mother, for all I’ve done to you. I scared you to death when I tried to kill myself. I’ve made you suffer, and I haven’t respected you. I want to stop drinking. And I will. I will. But if I slip sometimes, please believe me, I won’t go back to the way I was, ever again.”
When Carmela finished we sat quietly without speaking. Finally, she broke the silence and said she was going home. I watched her from the kitchen door, her figure becoming smaller and smaller as she walked up the path to her house. I felt sorry for having made her remember such a hard time in her life.
Before Verónica and I finished our work that day, she asked me, “Why did you talk in an angry way about Lucia this morning?”
I looked at the ground and spoke in a voice so low that I could barely hear myself. “I wasn’t really angry. I was just remembering how I felt back then, that Lucia only thought of ending her own suffering, not about the suffering her death would bring her mother and me. I thought about how her mother would struggle on without her, about who would pray for all the sick people after she was gone, about where I would find another friend like her. I felt that Lucia didn’t care anymore about God’s will, about the candle in the sky that would go out in God’s time, not in hers.
“But I forgave Lucia. Madre Ester helped me do this when she came to visit me the morning after Lucia tried to kill herself, which was also the last time that I saw Madre Ester.”
DRINK THESE DROPS FROM THE HANDS AND FEET OF GOD
LUCIA GOT UP EARLY the morning after the dark night of her soul, as Madre Ester called it. It was a good thing, because Madre Ester came to visit her very soon after. I learned about what had happened to Lucia when Madre Ester came to see me after she left Lucia’s house that afternoon. We must have talked for a couple hours about Lucia. When I realized how late it had gotten, I was worried that Madre Ester wouldn’t find a car back to San Cristóbal. So I walked her to the road, and we talked while we waited for a car. It took a long time for one to come, but of course when it did, it stopped. I envied the madres because when they needed a ride the cars always stopped for them.
When she arrived at Lucia’s house, Madre Ester didn’t know what had happened the night before. Lucia told her and then little by little everything, about her drinking, about her nagual, and about being different from other women. The only thing she left out were her feelings for Madre Ester, but Madre Ester seemed to know about them already.
She told Lucia, “I don’t have to tell you that people in Lokan are afraid of anyone who is different. They think they can keep everyone the same by raising children to be exactly like they are. But when they do this, people suffer. You’ve suffered because you’re different from most women. You must feel very lonely. I understand why you drank, but I’m so glad that you’re going to stop, because with a clear head and heart you can keep going on, in a way that’s true to you.”
Lucia didn’t say anything. I think she was still ashamed and unsure of what to say to Madre Ester. Madre Ester broke the silence and said, “Lucia, God loves everything about you and wants you to be free.”
Finally Lucia said, “It means a lot to me that you came to see me. You’ve helped me a lot. I even learned something from the book you gave me about my nagual, and I’m not afraid of him as I was before. I would be lying if I said that I’m not lonely and sad. I think I’ll always feel that way a little. But I’ll never go as low as I was again. I’m climbing back up. I’m looking for a new order for my life.”
Then Madre Ester told Lucia something that was a big surprise—she was being called to work in Guatemala. She would serve a pueblo like ours and learn another Mayan language. Lucia’s heart probably sank into the pit of her stomach when she heard the news. I know mine did.
But she didn’t go back to drinking. No. She was learning to accept loss as a part of life.
While we were waiting on the road, Madre Ester gave me an idea for how I could help Lucia come back to her old self. I have to give you a little background before I tell you her idea.
At that time, the Believers in Lokan were building a cooperative store. Madre Ester had heard about it and also about the threats from certain Believers who were no longer involved
in the store.
The store was the first cooperative store in our township. We didn’t go into it without a lot of thought. We wanted to offer a store for our community and to have the money stay in Lokan, rather than just go to mestizo shopkeepers in the lum.
The plan was for each member of the cooperative to take their turn at the store so we wouldn’t have to pay anyone to run it. Our only expenses would be boards for the walls, tin for the roof, and cement for the floor. We thought it was only fair to our customers to have a cement floor. The men would build the house and the committee would buy the merchandise in San Cristóbal to sell in the store. One of us would be a treasurer to keep track of what we made and what we spent.
The Believers who felt threatened by us didn’t really understand what we were doing and left when the work got too demanding. After that, they seemed to want us to fail because they started rumors that we were going to run all the stores out of Chenalhó. Another rumor said that we would only sell to fellow Believers, leaving the traditionalists, Presbyterians, Evangelicals, and Seventh Day Adventists without a store.
Madre Ester’s idea was for Lucia to pray for our store, to protect it from envy. Of course, Lucia was the perfect person to pray for our store, because only a healer with the strongest nagual can defeat envy.
After I said goodbye to Madre Ester, I was sad to see her leave. I knew she wouldn’t be back, but I also couldn’t wait for your father to come home to tell him her idea. He immediately liked it and said, “Madre Ester is right. We need spiritual help to protect our store. But will Lucia agree and is she strong enough to pray against envy?”
“I think so, but only God knows,” I told your father. “The store committee is coming to our house tonight. Let’s ask them what they think of the idea.”
Your father agreed. At the meeting that night I brought up the idea of Lucia praying for the store. A couple of our compañeros were not sure at first, but eventually they agreed because we were very worried about what might happen to our store from all the envy. Perhaps someone would burn the store down and all the merchandise before we could sell anything!
“Mother, wait. Before you go on, tell me about envy. I don’t understand why it was such a strong force back in the time of the cooperative store.”
Envy was not my favorite topic to talk about, but it was important for Verónica to understand it. So I told her, “Envy will be with us as long as the world exists. But in the time of the cooperative store, people thought illness was caused by demons in the earth—some that took the form of a snake—that could wrap around your soul and keep it a prisoner. People who wanted to harm someone—to make them sick or die—could go to caves and light incense and candles and implore the demons to take your soul and put it in prison. The sick person would need an j’ilol to go to the cave and light candles and incense to plead with the demons to let the person’s soul go free. Then they could start to get well.
“In our case, we were worried that some of the members of the coop who left would ask for a prayer to make one or all of us sick and or to make our store fail.”
“But Mother, did you really believe that?”
“I did, I did. Who is to say what makes an insect that carries a sickness bite one person and not someone else? Envy explains what the doctors can’t tell us.”
Verónica doesn’t believe what I believe about envy, but at least now she understands what it means. I keep trying to show her that we need the old ways as well as the new ones to make sense of all the bad and suffering in the world. I took a deep breath and went on to finish the story of the store prayer.
The next morning your father and I went to see Lucia. On the way to Lucia’s house, your father spotted a honeycomb. He got excited and said that on the way home we should stop and get some honey. When I saw the honey I thought that maybe God put it there to remind us of the sweetness of life, and our comadre’s return to it.
When we were close to Lucia’s house, I called out, “Are you here?”
“I’m here. Come in!” Lucia said.
We entered the house and found Lucia sitting by the fire embroidering a blouse with saints, toads, and the true design in many different colors. This was the first time I had seen my comadre since she tried to kill herself. Seeing her whole and sober and creating something beautiful with her hands, I felt as if my old friend was back again.
When Lucia saw your father, her expression changed from one that told me she had some good gossip to tell me to a more serious one fit for the occasion. Lucia knew that Victorio wouldn’t have come with me unless we had important business to take up with her. So, after we settled into our chairs, we didn’t gossip as usual, but began our petition right away.
Your father wanted to show respect to Lucia because she was a healer and knew the traditions, so he got down on one knee in front of her and said, “We want to talk with you. We come to ask a favor. We have a cargo in the store, and we want you to help us pray for the store so that nothing bad will happen to us from those who envy us.”
“Don’t tell me that, Compadres! I’ve never prayed for a store or prayed a prayer against envy!” Lucia said with a little laugh. She was embarrassed with Victorio kneeling in front of her.
Then I said, “Let’s drink the sodas we brought, your favorite apple flavor, and we’ll see if our hearts can agree.”
“Well, thanks, Compadres. It’s nice that you brought me something,” Lucia said.
Then your father got up and poured a little bit of the apple soda into a shot glass and said, “Comadre, drink these drops from the hands and feet of God!” Your father said this because by then sodas were becoming almost as powerful as pox in petitions and prayers.
Lucia said, “Well, I’m drinking.”
After she returned the cup to your father, Lucia said what we had come hoping to hear. “I’ll help you and the other compañeros because you have an important cargo, even if it isn’t a traditional one. I’m honored that you believe in me having power to help the store.”
“Thank you,” we both said.
“Drink another little cup,” your father said.
“Alright, give it to me, I’m going to drink it.” Lucia drank her whole cup down, and then your father said, “Well, I’ve finished measuring out our soda. We only gave you a little. Forgive us our poverty, Comadre. We only came to see you for this need we have.”
Then Lucia said, “Thank you, Compadres. Now we’ve drunk your sodas, the sweat from your labor. Take back your cup and bottle.”
Your father took the cup and bottle from Lucia and put them in his net bag and then got up from his chair. Lucia and I stayed on our wood blocks by the fire.
“We’ll see you tomorrow or the next day,” your father said.
“That’s good, we’ll see each other soon,” Lucia said.
“I’m going, Comadre,” your father said.
“So go,” she said back to him and gave him a big smile. Then she said, “May God go with you.”
I stayed behind with Lucia so we could talk about everything that had happened since the night she almost died and the morning after when Madre Ester came to visit. We talked a long time. Lucia told me that she had stopped drinking and never wanted to go back to it. She was starting to feel that her life was a gift from God and that she needed to honor that gift, like Madre Ester had done after her fiancé died. Lucia said that even when she was lost in her drinking she sensed beauty around her and wanted to touch it, but it was always out of her reach. She felt that she didn’t deserve it.
Lucia finished by telling me something that worried me at first, but then I understood what she meant. “All of my drinking and trying to kill myself was practice for how it will feel when I die. But when my mother rescued me, I never wanted to live so much. When I woke up in her arms and saw her face, it was more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen. Her touch felt like love itself. For a long time, I hadn’t felt anything. When I was drinking the boundaries of my body felt as if they could fad
e into the trees, and I would cease to exist. But don’t worry, Comadre, I’ll never try to kill myself again. I want to live too much.”
“Comadre, I’m so happy that you want to live. And I have to tell you that when Madre Ester stopped by my house to say goodbye, she talked about all the ways you helped her in her life and how much she learned from you. I think God gave you to each other for a while, even if it was painful not to be able to be with Madre Ester the way you wanted and to have to say goodbye. Lucky for us, we’ll be here in Lokan forever and can always be friends.”
As I walked home from Lucia’s house I knew that she was going to be fine.
LET THEIR EYES BE BLINDED
VERÓNICA WAITED PATIENTLY for a few days to hear about Lucia’s prayer while I took my turn in the Zapatista co-op store. But just as she was about to ask me to sit down with her, we had to leave the past and face what was happening in the present. Victorio was yelling for us to come help him! We ran outside and saw him above the house kneeling near his box of bees. Maybe they had stung him! People don’t die from the sting, but it hurts a lot. I know because those bees have stung us all a few times. Once it took about a week for one of my bites to stop hurting.
As we ran up the hill I thought about how Victorio has always loved honey. He bought his bees to have honey and to make candles out of beeswax and sell them in our store. He learned to make boxes for the native bees that don’t sting. But then the other bees, the African ones, had come into Lokan and were starting to fight our bees, and we were worried that they were winning.
When we reached the boxes of bees, some were still swarming above Victorio’s head, but most had escaped and were flying up the mountainside. Victorio was kneeling on the ground beside his mule, choking back tears. The poor animal was covered in thousands of bites, and he wasn’t moving.
When a Woman Rises Page 14