Hunger's Brides (17 page)

November twelfth.

And this next one, my fifteenth, would be incomparably worse. A girl's
Quinceañera
is her coming-out, our fondest tradition. It is when a woman begins to fulfil her destiny, takes her first soft step into womanhood.

I had been here four years.

María said she was willing to organize a
Quinceañera
for me. She was sure many of Magda's friends would come. Had I been willing to go to even a few
tertulias
†
with Magda over the years, I might have had friends of my own to invite. María said this without evident malice, as if stating a fact, and it was. One that contained only part of the truth. Truer was the generosity of the offer. When I refused it, María said nothing. She stood just inside my room, her colour rising. I expected rage. What I saw was the wounding of her pride. And if it hadn't been for Amanda, if it hadn't been four years, if it hadn't been the
Quinceañera
, I might have accepted—apologized and thanked her for her offer.

Birthdays were the days I could not keep from looking at the mountains.

I knew that if Amanda and I were able to see the city from Ixayac, she could see me now. From here, if I let myself, I could see its face—and in it, hers—staring down at me….

We had run together every day to Ixayac and never told a soul. It was a holy place, our sacred place. And if I am ever to speak of it, there are things that must be said first. It was a year of pleasures so intense, I ached with them. And I had only to place my palm below Amanda's ribs and then my own to feel the same fluster of wings, settling there.

Then it ended. When I was not careful, when something slid. And then Xochitl finally said no to me, for the first time in my life.
No
, Ixpetz, that city is no place for Amanda, no place for any of her people—no. And even as she began to shake her head, I knew it to be true. I had not seen it before because I did not want to. Amanda, though, had. She had been watching the day come for years, drawing nearer—ever since the firepit. That was what Xochitl had meant by bumblebeeing around.

But Xochitl would have had to explain to Amanda
why
, and feel under her own palm, then, the fluster of her daughter's heart … settling.

I knew the exact moment Xochitl talked to her, about the firepit, about bumblebees: the afternoon of our first full day in Panoayan, when
Amanda and I came in dazed and excited from exploring. When we had each drunk two glasses of lime cordial. When I had gone off to the library.

Amanda knew from then on, and came with me anyway, ran with me everywhere, while I could afford to be blind. It was her most perfect gesture.

She let me have our childhood.

For four years now it had often been too painful even to think of her—the face of Ixayac or the mask of her hurt. I had made of it a hole in my memory but felt it now in my chest. In the weeks leading up to my
Quinceañera
, there opened in me a blackness I had never guessed at. It welled up from this hole in my chest, in a black tide leagues deep. It felt like the cries from the street, but the sounds were coming from me.

I could only just manage loneliness, not this. This floated up as mockery.

It mocked me to my face.

Didn't want to see?
I hadn't seen because it was
inconvenient
. I must find—must
have
my destiny, so everything else must just fall into place as if preordained.

No, even this was too easy.

Exactly what hadn't I seen? Just what was it I didn't know? I did know that the Indians were not from the Indies. I knew about the Mexica. And I knew Xochitl was descended from the great Ocelotl. I knew he had dared to challenge Moctezuma with the truth, and had survived his prisons. I knew their empire was unbearably cruel, and I knew they had been lied to and starved and massacred. And I knew about the diseases that killed a million not-Indians a year for a hundred years. And I saw they were serfs now. I knew sixty thousand laboured without pay, or purpose or benefit or rest, or hope for release. And I saw to be a slave was to be better off. I knew what liberty was—it was what every Athenian had an inviolable right to. Unless he was a slave. And so I knew a little about justice—I knew at least this, I knew everything I needed to. And I knew better than Thucydides about necessity and false sacrifices and false goddesses like destiny and fortune. I knew Xochitl worked for us, and was wise and funny and had nursed me and sung for me in the night many times and raised me and taught me and was my mother. And I knew Amanda was Xochitl's daughter and my best friend and my twin—and
this I knew with all my heart. I saw she was the best part of me, the part I could never be. I knew her gifts, I saw her grace. I knew she had let me stay a child for a little while longer, one day at a time. And I knew that although she had so much less time left and could run so much faster, she would always wait for me. This I saw every day we ran to Ixayac and never told a soul.

So what exactly couldn't I see? What didn't I know? What great night had so blinded my eyes and mocked me now?

I couldn't
see
Amanda was an Indian.

I didn't
know
she was my burro.

And now four years later how it mocked me to my face. All day, as my
Quinceañera
approached, and would not stop.

Give her a wise and understanding heart, to have sovereignty over a great people
.

I tried to think of the other things I had learned and known and seen, and done—some of them fine, even in this place.

But they meant nothing to me.

And I thought, How do I defend myself from this, make learning my shining shield? Because it's
what
I know, my knowledge—my mind—my great
gift
that mocks. She was the best part of me—
my enemy is inside
. She does not know, she does not see?—she knows too much! She knows of the four-year fast, she knows of PreciousFeatherMat, she knows of the road of shame into the underworld, the nine levels of hell, knows about the wisdom of proverbs and the sacredness of a rabbit satchel. She knows all about rates of return and rates of depreciation, and loving persuasion and friendship. She knows of the harlots down in the street with nowhere to turn, she knows of Solomon's sword and his judgements. She knows too much. Divide the child.

She knows now what Amanda knew. She sees what Xochitl saw. Twins who could not both have a childhood—one could or neither. Two lifeless halves, one living whole. Decide. Divide.

And Xochitl allowed this out of love and the terrible purity of a wise and understanding heart. And Amanda heard Xochitl and gave herself up to this love, out of the most perfect and incomprehensible grace.

Then, when I thought I could bear no more, my
abuelo
came, the night of my fifteenth birthday.

He came twice in that month. Not in a shining vision, not as an
apparition from the beyond, but as a warmth and a voice so natural that I knew both came from within. This, more than anything that he said, helped close the hole in my chest.
My friend is inside me too
.

Twice that month he sat with me, and though he has never yet come back except in dreams, I've always felt I knew where to find him. Both times he said very little, which was a little unlike him. The first time he began with a simple question. The second time he insulted me.

   
Who has the eyes of Thucydides now?

   
Hugeous jolt-head
.

It was a month when things changed. Mercy was a beginning.

Uncle Juan came the morning after my birthday. As he glanced discreetly around at the books and papers scattered over the floor, I realized he had not come fully into the room in four years.

“We may have to build you another bookshelf.”

I didn't know what to say. I just stood by the window looking at him.

“Now that you're a woman of the world”—his smile held a trace of irony but kindness too—“I have a business proposition for you.” He was a big man, soberly dressed, with a long, serious face. The forehead was high, the jaw heavy and long. His hair was a pale, papery brown, singed grey at the temples.

“Does it have to do with
pulque?”

“Palaces.”

“Palaces …”

“A competition of poetry. The incoming viceroy is its patron, I am its sponsor. And still I have not been able to meet him. My friends think you could do well. You don't have to win, just be among the last ten or so. Be on the platform. The judges pick the last three, he picks the winner. I want him to see you.”

“A business proposition.”

“The finalists get a private audience with the Viceroy and his wife.”

“Is that your prize or mine?”

“If you're a finalist, anything you ask.”

Anything I ask … a little child who knows not how to go out or come in
.

“Uncle Juan … you've been kind. Generous. But I don't want anything. Thank you. I don't want this.”

He shrugged, his face showing no trace of irritation. “I just thought you might enjoy the day. I know your grandfather would have. These tourneys are quite an affair.”

I saw how good my uncle was at his business. “And how would you know that, Uncle?”

“How? I knew the man.”

“Oh
. How well did you?”

“It may be hard for you to imagine a time before your birth, but he came here often then. María
is
his daughter. You haven't forgotten.”

“No.”

“I'm sorry to say this, Juana, but I think you have. He was a friend to me and a friend to my parents, who have few. He always tried very hard with María. He was always welcome in my house. He used to stay for weeks. Consulting archives … special collections at the Royal University.
There
was a man to talk with. You remember that, of course.”

I remember
.

“As soon as you could read, whenever he came to buy books it was always for the two of you. You were all he talked about. His best new stories were all about you. Your reading, your sketches. It wasn't always easy for María. Your mother of course had sketched as a child. There was a story he loved to tell about the two of you translating musical theories from—Italian, was it? Portuguese?”

“He told you?”

It was Italian, Uncle
.

“You seem also to forget how you answered María when she tried to speak to you of him. You were not the only one hurt by his passing. Does it never enter your mind that some people are afraid of you? But no, never mind that. We're talking of him now. Don Pedro told me himself about your month at school with the nuns, the day of your ABCs.”

“Sister Paula? You've known …”
Even this
.

“Yes, Juana, all this time. In his last few years it was obvious the books were no longer for him at all. He stayed only a few days. And very near the end he came for a single book. Do you remember what it was?”

“On falcons.”

“He wasn't well. He left the next morning.” After a moment Uncle Juan's face brightened. “But I know he liked it in here. So we were happy to give you this room, of course.”

“What?”

“His room, Juanita, his bed. Only he ever slept here—how could you not know? María said she told you.”

“No, she … I didn't.”

“That woman of mine—what goes through her mind?” His features hardened. He turned and moved swiftly to the door.

“Uncle Juan?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think Abuelo would have liked the day?”

“We went to many bullfights together, Juanita.”

“But …”

“Of course—I didn't say. Our poetry joust, it's in a bullring.”