Daughter of Fortune (12 page)

Maria knelt beside Cristóbal, too tired to pray.
Cristóbal pulled out his rosary. Head bowed, he whispered to Maria,
“Just close your eyes. No one will know you are not praying. I do
it all the time.” He gazed down at the beads in his hand and
crumbled them into a tight ball, his knuckles white.

Luz and Catarina, scrubbed and ready for bed in
their nightgowns, came in with Erlinda, her eyes lowered and her
hands folded in front of her. They knelt in front of the altar,
crossed themselves, then sat behind Maria and Cristóbal. Diego’s
Mexican servants filed in last, kneeling and praying on the
hard-packed earth, then sitting cross-legged by the doors.

When everyone was in the chapel, Diego rose and
closed the doors. He led the family and retainers in several
psalms, the words memorized in a lifetime of evening prayer. His
voice was pleasant to Maria’s ears, soft as she had heard it first
when he pulled her into his saddle on the river’s flood plain. The
gentleness of it was soothing and restful. Her eyes closed.

When they had finished the psalms, Diego prayed for
them, a homely prayer asking for rain in this time of dryness,
blessing flocks and fields, exhorting Catarina to watch her tongue,
praying for the Lord to bless Old Martin with his gout, Flacca the
cook with her toothache, the seamstress in childbirth, and thanking
God for another day of life on the Rio del Norte.

With the same gentleness that made Maria smile,
Diego asked the Lord’s blessing on the Viceroy in Mexico, praying
for God’s bounties to fall on him as rain and asking that his
decisions—particularly those pertaining to the river colony—would
be wise. And if not wise, at least not harmful.

And finally, he prayed for the king of Spain, Carlos
Segundo, His Most Catholic Majesty, living and ruling in a land
none of them had ever seen, and probably never would, but which was
home in some mystical way.

Then he was finished. He led his mother to the altar
and knelt next to Maria as the household’s oldest member led them
all in the Rosary.

Before she began, Diego took another rosary from his
pocket and handed it to Maria, closing his fingers around it.
“Here,” he whispered. “You may have this one.”

She smiled at him, feeling at the same time
Cristóbal stirring restlessly on the other side of her.

Then it was over. They all rose from their knees,
genuflected and filed from the chapel, pausing to kneel again and
kiss Diego’s hand. Cristóbal knelt and kissed his brother’s hand,
rising quickly and leaving the chapel without a word. Diego looked
after him, but said nothing.

Señora Masferrer was the last person to leave the
chapel. Diego knelt in front of her, and she made the sign of the
cross on his forehead.

“Mi hijo
,” La Señora whispered, “my son.”

She said no more. Diego bowed his head, and Maria
could see the burden that he shouldered, the responsibility of Las
Invernadas. She blinked back sudden tears of exhaustion, realizing
how much greater was Diego’s weariness than her own.

Maria said goodnight to Erlinda and went quickly to
her room. She unbuttoned her dress and let it fall to the floor,
leaving it to lie there in a crumpled heap. Not even bothering to
pull the pins from her hair, she fell into bed and was asleep in a
moment.

Father Efrain woke her, standing and smiling by her
bed, then taking off his smiling head and tossing it into her lap.
Maria screamed, desperate to brush the head from her lap, yet too
terrified to leap from bed for fear that Carmen de Sosa’s restless
fingers would pat her legs as the poor woman continued her
miserable search for her bloody hair.

Maria sobbed, staring into the dark room, kneeling
in the middle of the bed, careful not to touch the sides. Before
she could scream again, Diego threw open the door, his sword drawn,
a blanket thrown around his bare shoulders.

Father Efrain sank to the floor out of sight and the
head in Maria’s lap rolled off the bed. She gasped and drew another
breath to scream, but Diego clapped his hand over her mouth, then
pulled her close to his chest, sitting on her bed and lifting her
onto his lap. When he took his hand away, Maria let out a
shuddering sigh and burrowed closer to him. Wordlessly he held her,
his hands gentle on her back.

Finally he let her go and stood, drawing his Indian
blanket around him like a toga. He lit the candle by her bed and
walked slowly around the room, the candle held high.

“Nothing here, Maria
chiquita
,” he said in
his soft voice, “
ninguna cosa
. Now say your Rosary again
like a good girl and go back to sleep.”

She did as he said and blew out the candle. When she
whimpered, reaching out for him, he sighed and sat on the floor by
her bed, muttering, “
Dios mio
," when his bare legs touched
the cold ground. He leaned his head against the bed, looking back
at her.

“Lie down, Maria,” he said, groping for her hand in
the dark and twining his fingers through hers.

Maria pulled his hand close to her, holding it tight
against her stomach until her hands relaxed and she slept.

He was gone in the morning when she woke, but he had
left his sword at the foot of her bed.

He was seated in the kitchen when she entered. His
hands were cupping his earthenware goblet but he was staring with
heavy eyes at the opposite wall. She paused, remembering her
nightmare, but he turned at the sound of her footsteps and beckoned
her in, patting the bench beside him. “Sit here, Maria,” he
said.

“Oh, I should not,” she began, her face fiery red.
“I have to start on the bread.”

He reached out and pulled her down beside him,
looking away from her embarrassment as he spoke to her. “Do not let
last night trouble you, Maria, I beg. We all of us have our
ghosts.”

“Even you? ”

He took her hand and kissed it. “Even I.” He
released her hand and stood. “I have an idea. Suppose you sleep
with Luz and Catarina? Would that make it better?”

She nodded.

“Then I will see that your bed is moved into their
room this morning.”

“Gracias
, Señor,” she said.

‘‘
No hay de que, Maria
," he
replied, getting up and putting on his hat. “But do remember this.
I will always be there if you need me.” He paused at the door. “I
forgot to tell you last night. An old friend of yours will be
coming here today. ”

“Quíen es
?” she asked. “I know no one
here.”

“Emiliano my saintmaker will be saddened to hear
that you do not remember him,” Diego replied, opening the door. “He
remembers you.”

“What is he coming for?”

“You shall see.”

Maria was shaping the last loaves of bread into
round balls when Emiliano came. She watched him walk down the path
from the footbridge, hurrying in that same loping gait she
remembered from the night on the road. He carried a leather sack on
his back this time.

“Good morning, Old One,” she said, cutting a sign of
the cross on the loaf before her.

“And good morning to you, Señorita,” he said. “Help
me with this.”

She put the bread in the oven and helped him take
the sack off his back.

“Look in it,” he said as she stood there.

The bag was full of smaller sacks of color such as
she had seen in his
santero
workshop. She put them on the
table as he sat there.

“That is good, my child,” he said. “I tell Diego
that I am too old for this, but he insists that there is no one
else yet to paint his walls, and besides, I owe him the tribute. A
persuasive young man, Maria,” he said. “Don’t listen to him.”

She laughed. “I understand now. It was for you that
the walls were whitewashed not long ago?”

“Of course. Where do we begin?”

They began with a serious consultation with Erlinda,
who chose the colors that would decorate each room this year. With
a grunt of assent, Emiliano set to work, mixing his colors in
wooden troughs and readying his brushes. Maria watched him from the
doorway, drawn to his splash of colors as she had been drawn to his
painted saints. The
sala
walls would be red this year, the
color to be painted from the floor up to a height of two feet. The
bands of color would prevent the glittering gypsum-washed walls
from showing everyday soil too soon.

Emiliano mixed the red to the shade of fresh blood,
a fitting contrast to the dark furniture brought from Spain in
years past, the white walls, and the Indian blankets covering the
low adobe outcroppings built into the unbroken wall facing patio
windows.

Einiliano turned around, his hands still busy with
the paints. “Do you stand there all day or do I get some help?” he
demanded.

“I would like to help,” she offered, feeling shy in
the presence of this saintmaker, this artist. “What would you have
me do?”

“Take a brush and paint,” he said, holding out a
knotted bunch of yucca fibers.

She took it. “How do you know I will do well?”

He squatted on his heels, facing the wall. “I
remember how you looked at my
santos
when I brought you to
Tesuque. You seem to be one who is interested.” He paused,
searching her face. “Am I right?”

She nodded and dipped the brush in the red paint,
red the color of a flowing wound, a beating heart. She applied the
color in long, flowing strokes under the direction of the
saintmaker.

“Besides,” he continued, after the silence of nearly
an hour. “The master said you would be inclined to this work.”

She smiled but said nothing as she silently blessed
Diego Masferrer and brushed on the beautiful paint, watching it
soak into the skin of the adobe. Together they painted the lower
portions of each room’s walls, some blue like the kitchen; others
the yellow of the sun, some the red brown of the earth itself.

After an even more serious consultation with Luz and
Catarina, and after considerable coaxing of Erlinda, Maria painted
the girls’ bedroom the rich red of the
sala,
reserved for
important persons. And when the red was waist-high on the walls,
Maria bordered the color with a rim of design she had noticed on a
Pueblo cooking pot.

“Oh, Maria, no one else has such a design,” said
Catarina, almost reaching out in her delight to touch the wet
wall.

Luz pulled Diego away from the noonday meal and
dragged him down the hall to the room. With mock seriousness that
made the little ones giggle, he flourished his napkin across his
mouth and stalked around the room, surveying the design from every
corner. He grabbed Luz suddenly and picked her up.

“I like it,
hermana mia
,” he declared,
nuzzling her with his beard until she shrieked. “But who do you
think you are, children of our king himself, that you should have
so noble a room?”

“We are Masferrers,” said Luz proudly when he set
her down.

“And that,” he said, ruffling her hair, “is
infinitely better.”

Maria watched the two of them, a lump rising in her
throat. To be part of such a family, of such a pride rooted deep in
love.

“It will do,” agreed Erlinda, who had heard Luz’s
laughter and stood in the doorway. “Just as long as you do not
become too grand for us, small ones.”

“Erlinda!” Catarina exclaimed, “it is only a
decoration! Maria told me we are special.” She smiled at Maria.

Diego spoke up, helping Maria to her feet and taking
the brush from her hand. “Next year you will do this in the
sala,
too.”

The other bedrooms would wait until tomorrow.
Although her knees ached from so much time spent on them, inching
along the floor, Maria was sorry to see Emiliano cord up his
fascinating bag of colors. He had said little to her during the
painting, but she knew he was not displeased with her work.

“Well, Maria, you are a painter,” he admitted as he
shouldered his leather sack and prepared for the walk to Tesuque in
the late afternoon. “But are you an artist?”

“I do not know,” she said.

“Return with me to Tesuque,” he asked, “and we could
see this evening. ”

Maria looked at Erlinda, but the widow shook her
head. “Not this evening, Emiliano. My mother has need of
Maria.”

“Very well. Pry Diego away from this place sometime
and have him walk with you,” Emiliano told Maria. “I would like to
talk to him, too.”

“I will see to it,” said Erlinda as he left. She
turned to Maria. “Mama told me last night that she wished you to
visit her this day. Come along. ”

Erlinda led the way down the hall, stopping to knock
on the blue door.

“Come in and God’s blessings on you,” said the voice
within. Erlinda opened the door for Maria but did not enter
herself.

The room was dim and cool, smelling strongly of
candles. Maria hesitated, then went to the small woman sitting in
the chair by the bed.

“Ah, Maria, wait, wait,” La Señora said. “You did
not pause before Our Lady of Remedios. Go back and do as you should
to our colony’s patroness.”

Maria returned to the wooden figure by the door. It
was a
bulto,
a statue fashioned by Emiliano, crudely carved,
with arms held stiffly in place by gypsum-covered cloth hinges.
Maria knelt in front of the statue, noting with appreciation that
the saintmaker had copied the face of La Señora on the
bulto,
the deepset unseeing eyes, the hair closely curled,
an imitation of tight ringlets. The statue’s body was short and
compact, possessing none of the grace of a Spanish madonna, but
overflowing with endurance and generosity.

Maria prayed what was in her heart at the moment,
and then rose and seated herself on the stool by La Señora.

“If you look here on the table by my bed, you will
see the library of Las Invernadas,” said La Señora, a slight smile
playing around her mouth.