Hunger's Brides (112 page)

I had once had the idea of learning Basque, which Vanessa warned me from the outset I would not have time to learn. And so the joke among us was that I would tease Vanessa about her Nahuatl, which was good now, while Vanessa sadly warned how far Concepción was ahead of me in Basque. And then I would ask when she was going to take the time to teach me. Now they were mortified to see me come in through the kitchen doorway. I saw it was not their doing—that the Prioress had ordered that there be no more special courtesies for my guests—and so
my coming could have been a painful moment that just now I would have given anything to avoid. It was too late to turn back. My wet feet saved us.

Concepción scolded me in Nahuatl, dragged me over by the fire and pulled my shoes and stockings off as though they were a child's. She had hardly towelled my feet dry before Vanessa thrust into my hands an aromatic cup of chocolate spiked with some kind of
aguardiente
. They would not let me leave until my stockings had dried, and in truth they dried too quickly. As I sat before the fire Concepción came by to stir the pot from time to time, and Vanessa brought morsels of this or that on which I was asked a grave opinion. Concepción told her to make me try everything. I was too thin, too thin. I listened to them softly chaffering over sauces and spices. I stared into the fire … along the walls … at the clusters of clay
ollas
and copper pots, strings of peppers and of garlic, baskets of red and white onion, all strung from the rafters. More than once my eyes had sought out the open doorway to the pantry at the back …

As I was leaving I asked Vanessa when she was going to take the time to teach me Basque.

“You do not have the time to learn,” she said.

If it came out a little awkwardly, it was only that her face had fallen, to hear what she had said. I smiled and shook my head.

On my way out through the refectory I glanced at the rostrum. It was a shame to let drop all Antonia's work on Camilla. She had done a fine translation of Virgil, another of Catullus. I would ask her to give us a class on Camilla at our academy on Monday.

At first I was afraid it was the typhoid again. Even before the symptoms, the sense of something gone wrong. Then hot and cold, fever and chills, bouts of drowsiness between the headaches, a vise about my skull, forehead and back.

I was a fortnight in bed. In that time Antonia had gone down to meet little delegations of well-wishers, a bookseller, a theatre-manager come with an actor or two, and tears and flowers. And gossip. A day or two later, a few impresarios from the bullrings and cockpits, with bottles of good wine and still better gossip.
There
was a visit I was sorry to have missed. Write one sonnet on a bullfighter, make fast friends for life. We shared a bond, I realized. The Archbishop's hatred. The news was
no longer a matter only for the clerics—the Archbishop's persecutions of me, his bans on my carols for the people. Next the Creole seditionists would be bringing me chocolate.

The Viscount and Samuel and the treasury man had all come to our chapel—perhaps had even chosen it as a meeting point. What drew them
here?
Rebellion was in the air, and our convent was fast becoming a symbol, if not of insurrection then I did not know what. It was not just my locutory now—all the parlours were brewing rumours and gossip. The French were coming, the Viscount was leading them through our defences! It was not completely implausible. Eight years earlier the pirates had held Veracruz for six weeks, then sailed off with fifteen hundred Spaniards to be made slaves. Still, one might doubt that all were virgin girls….

Then Antonia brought up from the locutory a story I made her repeat twice. That Father Xavier Palavicino had been in Veracruz at the time, having boasted of going among the dead and the dying, giving last rites even before the French had returned to their longboats. I teased Antonia for wondering if Palavicino were somehow in league with the Viscount. Xavier Palavicino, pirate curate. But if not, what did this mean?—nothing at all, except to the simple people of Mexico, which was not nothing. It did not matter if it was true, it could seem true enough to them. Was this why so many came now? My well-wishers could not really have thought I was involved—and in what exactly? Was I thought to be the new pirate queen? I had a not unpleasant moment imagining myself at the side of the Viscount as pirate king but put it down to the fever….

Comedy where there is none. Palavicino among the pirates—it was absurd yet somehow chilling that events so incongruous should so conspire. What
had
brought them all to the chapel that day?
There was no connection
.

The connections are in the weave of the net. The fish in it are not cause but
consequence
of the weave. The fish do not weave it, nor are the fish woven into it. The fish are only caught up in it. Change the weave, change the fish. A different weave catches different fish. The word is
coincidencia.

I am not the fish, I am the net
.

February 12th. There were to be no more classes at the academy, and the other teachers would take up my classes of music and dance. The
Prioress had chosen this moment to announce it, while I was in bed. She thought me weak. We would see. Rebellion was in the air.

I got up and dressed, still tottery. Mother Andrea was expecting me. Yes, she had told the kitchen no more special favours. These had been for friends of the convent. She was no longer sure that I knew any. She was unusually sure of herself—as I recalled it, Palavicino had been her idea, not mine. She could not hold my eyes.

I told her I did not care about the food, but the classes, these would continue.

Yes, the classes, she said. They had not been her idea in the first place; as
she
recalled, they were the idea of Bishop Santa Cruz—who was also, it appeared, not such a friend of this convent. And cancelling them had not been her idea, either. They were suspended by order … she held up the letter by a corner. I might read it myself, if I wished. And if I wished, I could take it up with him, His Grace, the Lord Archbishop of Mexico.

That afternoon I sent for Gutiérrez, where had he been? It had been two weeks already.
I am stronger, I am not weak
. A little dewy at the temples, a little clammy under the tunic—but far from the only one, in this place. I was better, much, or would be if the headaches would ease.

February 15, 1691. Gutiérrez came. I went down alone to meet him. No news on the letters, but he had been wondering, what if Núñez had not burned all my spiritual journals? Just a thought, but what if the journals—not the letters—had been what he used to so change Bishop Santa Cruz's stance toward me? How did Gutiérrez know about these? But I had told him, had I forgotten? In making his inquiries this week he had discovered there were men at the Holy Office who had not forgotten Núñez's talk of my journals so many years ago.
Who
—Dorantes? It was no sooner said than regretted. Gutiérrez risked enough by coming here. I apologized. I had not been well.

Yes, he could see that for himself. He insulted me wryly enough and the moment of awkwardness passed. He had other news.

Palavicino still persisted in his mad intention to publish the sermon. He had found a printer, and most of the necessary signatures. One was the Viceroy's. Gutiérrez was surprised, but I explained that the Viceroy had been grateful for my poem on his great naval victory in Tortuga. He was only too happy to license the excellent sermon written in my defence. He had been trying to do me a favour.

February 24, 1691. The twenty-second anniversary of my profession. The day I entered here I was not quite twenty….

The second time I left the palace I went out the main gates—not by the servant's quarters, the way of shame—straight into the main square, with Perico alone to see me off. He led me out through the Hall of Mirrors, as if to remind me I had nothing to be ashamed of. Of course not, Perico. On the way to the door I saw her passing through mirror after mirror: a young woman fighting for her composure, at her hip gliding just above the mirror frames the tousled head of a dwarf.

Mostly it had been a relief, not having to face her after that day. Her nakedness in too many mirrors, too many rooms, the nakedness in her face. I had not had to look into a mirror for twenty-two years.

I caught glimpses of course. Drawing water from a well … a face in the lamplight on the baths we drew. And there were nights I missed her, that passion, that pride and rage. Was she still here, had she gone away?

And I missed Antonia, the way she had been when she first came. For though we looked nothing alike, she had been about that age, had something of those traits, that pride, that rage.

A breeze from the sea …

Look at her today. It seemed the cloister did this to all of us. This anxiousness, this anger. This frustration and bitterness. She was not happy here any longer. I should have let her go. Where, where would my Antonia go?

We were at the table in the sitting room. Beyond her left shoulder a fire burned low in the corner. We had not spoken much all day. She'd prepared a beautiful meal for the anniversary of my profession. Vanessa and Concepción had sent up a lovely stew, chicken and
chayote
, peppers and squash. There was no hope of finishing all this food. Antonia was eating quietly, not looking up. Her hair was draped back over her broad shoulders in long black coils and streamers. Sometimes on festive occasions when it was just we two, we wore dresses. But tonight she still wore the rough brown
sayuela
, and I a damp white tunic of cotton … too thin, too thin.

Losing our classes was a bitter thing. Explaining it to the novices more bitter still. These past few days I had so wanted to bring the other Antonia back to stay. I wanted to tell her we would get them back, our classes. I wanted to say, I know you are not happy, Antonia.
Let us pretend, a little while, make believe for a week or two, that we are….

“I have been thinking, 'Tonia, that you and I should write a play together.” The window over the table was closed against the cold. Her form moved through the warps in the crystal panes as she cleared the dishes from the table. She did not yet look at me, but paused—about to lift a bowl of grated jícama and beet. “We have all the elements we need for a marvellous comedy—like
los empeños
that the Archbishop would so have hated, if he'd given himself half a chance.” Her eyes, hazel in the light, met mine. She straightened. She was allowing herself to hope I might be serious. “I am serious. You and I. A play of mistaken identities—like
Amor es más laberinto
, which you know as well as I, having copied out all those drafts for me.” I could see her excitement now—to be
doing
something.

“But how can I …” she asked. She shifted the bowl in her right hand to rest on the plates in her left, and nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Don't worry—we'll take another play as a model. There's one by Tirso that might be just perfect. With a maid named Serafina, I recall, and a secretary named Antonio. Tirso has all the tricks. You'll get the hang of it.” I saw the light going out of her eyes. She thought I was making fun of her. Could she think me so cruel after what had happened with our classes—with Camilla? I pressed harder. Truly—I actually wanted us to write it. A play of masquerades, cloaked figures, assignations in the shadows of a garden. Couples reflecting other couples reflecting each other. Servants mistaken for their masters, and vice versa. Two hooded soldiers, each passing for the other. Archbishops feigning madness, bishops veiled as nuns. A Sicilian count we take for an enemy but who represents a friend. A French viscount introduced by a friend but whom we discover to be a seducer on a king's behalf—but who then reveals himself to be a pirate king bent on treasure and conquest. Seizing the moment in the capture of the silver fleet, the Creole seditionists rise up, proclaim the pirate viscount king! and thereby achieve their dream of making the viceroyalty a kingdom. We have all the elements—we could write it together in a week or two….