When Mountains Walked, page 34
Carson said he’d sleep on it. Just now he wanted Vicente and Maggie to know they’d done good work today, but that they all had a long way to go, and it was late.
“But you both should dance,” urged Vicente, refusing to be dismissed. “Stay here, Don Calzón! People fight at festivals. Sometimes people die. We have a saying, Que no es fiesta sin muertito.” It’s no fiesta without a little death.
Uncle Zenobio could rustle up costumes for both gringos. He owned two minibuses and a truck, which he hoped to prevent from crashing. Worry made him a great sponsor, never counting costs as he laid out cash for food and drink and music. Each year he rented piles of costumes in Cajamarca and brought them down in his buses, along with the brass band and a DJ.
“I can’t dance,” Carson said.
“Don’t worry!” At a small festival like this it didn’t matter. This wasn’t even the main festival of Piedras, just Zenobio’s idiosyncrasy. There were no more than two groups, the Incas and the devils, plus a few independent dancers disguised as spirit bears. Vicente had been asked to be the Inca emperor, but that required riding on a litter without a mask, and the police were always present. So he’d joined the devils instead, who cavorted by the dozen, unrecognizable in tin masks. Carson should join the Incas, though. They reenacted the Conquest, and with Carson’s dark beard he’d make the perfect Spanish priest. As priest, he’d only have to walk along brandishing a crucifix, making faces as if he wanted to convert everyone from paganism. It was a comic part, fun. The priest wore no mask either, which for Carson was an advantage, allowing him to be recognized as Doctor. Maggie wouldn’t fit into the Incas, but there was always room among the female devils. With her height and long legs, she’d look best as Satan’s wife, the temptress who appears once a year in the upper world to tell everybody’s secret sins. “Sounds about right,” said Carson. Luz Maria also danced as Satan’s wife; Luz would love to have a partner and could show Maggie the steps. It would bring prestige to Uncle Zenobio, since at large fiestas Satan had two wives or more.
Devils’ steps were simple, as Vicente demonstrated. “Left, left, see?” He pranced in a triangle, swiveling his elbows, then he stopped, stood panting in the middle of the floor.
“Nice,” Carson said. “I’m sure the fiesta’s very nice. But I’m anxious to get up to the mine again.” He’d wasted his last visit arguing with Ignacio. Now he’d like to run a clinic, quietly checking whether he could enlist any miners in the water campaign. “My question is, can I trust the two of you alone with whatever’s likely to go on down here.” This sent a shiver up Maggie’s inner thighs.
“Tengo miedo,” I’m scared, she said. “Aren’t we more likely to get the emergency?”
“Nah,” Carson said. “Mines have accidents. I’d say the chances are about the same. You did fine when I left you here before. Now you’ve got more training.”
“Go up on Monday, Doctor, Monday!” Vicente cried. “We’ll introduce you to miners at the fiesta, where you can speak together openly. Monday Piedras will be dead, worse than a Sunday, while the mine will be working at full strength.”
That convinced Carson. He’d even play the priest.
…
Cacophony of flutes and drums, trumpets and tubas. First came Uncle Zenobio and his wife, solemnly dressed and carrying a China baby dressed in lace—our Savior. Behind them, on his two-ton litter, the saint swayed oceanically, majestically, slowly borne along on the shoulders of three dozen sweating, stumbling men in dark coats and shiny ties. From the back, where Maggie was, Saint John’s brown plaster hair was barely visible above the mass of dancers.
Close behind Saint John, the Inca king was also borne along, more precariously, on a foil-wrapped wooden chair with raw construction planks thrust between its legs. Still, the Inca was able to hold his face in an expression dour and noble, worthy of his queen, who rode behind him, wearing lots of red lipstick and sitting delicately cross-legged on what seemed to be a ladder, draped with a blanket, carried parallel to the ground. Behind the royal pair paced warriors playing drums and panpipes in an eerie, primordial clash that seemed just about to form itself into a melody but never did. Then came the virgins of the sun, average age twelve, wearing short shifts and rubber-tire sandals with ribbons cross-tied up their calves. Behind the virgins marched conquistadores in helmets. Among them, Carson, in gray priest’s robes, hammed it up, leering and enjoying the laughter of the crowd. Sashaying all around, darting in and out, were the spirit bears, adolescent boys in union suits who didn’t look like bears at all. They wore white knitted ski masks with red knitted lips, teased everyone in falsetto voices, and battled one another with limp whips of braided yarn. There was a condor, too, dancing on tiptoe, waving ratty wings. With a black plastic bag loosely veiling his human nose and mouth, only his eyes were visible. He wore a mirror on his forehead, and a crown of parrot feathers topped by a rubber chicken’s head, spray painted black and red to make it into a condor.
The devil group was last. First danced the kings of Hell, eight feet tall in enormous masks covered with snakes and dragons: Lucifer, Beelzebub with matted whiskers growing out of his whole face, and a big fat Satan with bloodshot eyes the size of grapefruits. Then came half a dozen little female devils, the same size as the virgins of the sun, and after them, Satan’s two wild, magnificent wives, shaking horsehair wigs dyed orange. Next was the brass band, playing the devil’s tarantella, and last of all a hellish, roaring squad of ordinary fiends barely held in check by the archangel, Michael, who blew a whistle to control them.
Maggie’s consciousness had shrunk. As Satan’s wife, mostly she was hearing herself panting inside her mask, which had sagged and slipped under the weight of an enormous plaster snake growing out of its forehead, so that she couldn’t see out the eye holes. Doggedly, she tried to prance along, tilting hips and head with the nasty coquettishness Luz Maria had demonstrated earlier. Maggie kept lifting the little pointed red boots that felt like genuine cloven hooves forced over her feet. Fortunately the bass drum had become the power that lifted and lifted her knees, allowing her to continue the ragged struggle of her breath and almost forget that each time she picked up her right foot, the ball of it would soon slam down again onto one small sharp nail she’d hammered up through the sole of the rented boot by dancing on the stones. The insole was slick with moisture. Not sweat, since her left boot was quite dry.
The dance was endless. From time to time a whistle blew to change the step, and Maggie would raise her chin and try to glimpse, through the mask’s fanged mouth, what Luz Maria was doing. Twirling, okay, great. She let herself go, flying in a satisfying circle whose end was unpredictable—she’d nearly fallen twice already, once when her high heel had slipped alongside a rock, once when her ankle had collapsed on landing. But she’d forgotten those shocks, for now she was in the air again, twirling in reverse, flying counterclockwise and landing on her good foot, for this one step’s duration facing backwards with the mask bouncing up into place, momentarily awarding a clear sight of the band behind her, the bass drummer’s feet leaving the ground as he whacked the white leather circle once again with all his might.
She couldn’t see Carson or Vicente, though she could sometimes hear the devils, roaring and guffawing from behind the band.
…
The procession was supposed to start at noon from Luz Maria’s, but the band was late, so it was three o’clock before Saint John came out of his glass case. Leaving Piedras Baja, the procession lurched across the bridge, attained its rhythm at the clinic, passed the tomato fields and Doña Albita’s store, then went out of town as far as the cemetery before turning around to go all the way back, across the bridge, to stop at last in front of the church, where the dancers removed their masks. The saint was set high on a pedestal, and a light was adjusted to shine on him. The band set down their instruments, white tubas in a row like snails uncurling, and began to drink beer as fast as possible, as was the musicians’ due.
Uncle Zenobio hooked up the sound system. Huge speakers began to blast cheap chicha, disco versions of Andean songs. As the DJ began to flatter everybody, the girl devils who’d danced in front of Maggie prevented her from finding Carson or looking inside the church, whose door was open for a change. No, they grabbed her arms and made her sit down with them to drink toasts and recover. Maggie offered no resistance. She huddled next to Luz, leaning on her shoulder to remove her right boot and show everyone her blood-soaked sock. While the devil girls gasped, Luz fixed the nail somehow, pounding awkwardly at it with a rock, and returned the boot to Maggie with the advice to put it on and forget it until later. Uncle Zenobio came around, and a waiter with a tray, cajoling everyone to drink a shot of liquor. The young male devils postured at a distance, magnificent in their capes and sequined breastplates, but Maggie couldn’t find Vicente among them.
After a while it got dark and people began to dance. Maggie cavorted with the devils, then slowly moved into the heart of the crowd, where Carson was jiving with the Inca queen, holding up his priest’s robe in one hand. He waved for Maggie to join them, but was prevented by Fortunata’s violent embrace. Fortunata was not in costume but clearly had been enjoying the parade. Entirely drunk, she kissed Maggie wetly and babbled out her love. Maggie danced with her, holding hands, and then tried to slip away, but Fortunata screamed no! no! and held on to Maggie’s thumbs, which would have broken had not Maggie kept on dancing, dancing, dancing.
Then it came, the pull on Maggie’s arm. It was Vicente. “Dead,” he whispered. “Who?” “Just died, you have to come.” “Who?” Maggie, disbelieving, allowed herself to be pulled along, out of the dancing and into the dark. “Who?” she asked again where it was quiet enough to hear.
“Lady Maggy.”
“No!” They ran along the paths, in the dark, Vicente’s sequins catching bits of light from the party behind them. Although it was pitch black under the mango trees, Maggie felt they were encased in a ball of invisible radiance, which didn’t help her see but swept her forward, preventing her from falling.
“How did it happen?”
“I don’t know. She fell on her head or something.”
“Where’s Carson?”
“Already there.”
“She can’t be dead! Who was with her?”
“No sé. Luz Maria’s little brother came and said.”
They slowed to a walk, having reached the path that led to Luz’s. “Has anyone told Luz?” Maggie asked, but Vicente didn’t know. They passed rapidly through the darkened room where the saint’s glass box stood empty. Vicente led Maggie across the courtyard, ducking into a narrow corridor half blocked with rags and mops and boxes, then into the small cement room where Luz lived. It was barely high enough to stand up straight, barely wide enough for the bed Luz had shared with Lady Maggy. The walls were a dirty pink. Piles of clothing rose at the foot of the bed. Maggie noticed a scrap of printed cotton pinned under the foot of Luz’s treadle sewing machine.
Carson, still dressed in priest’s robes, was sitting on the bed next to the baby, whom Maggie instantly recognized as dead. Not even a small child could mistake it. Lady Maggy was wrapped in a fat ball of blankets with only her face showing. Though her dark eyes were both open, shining slightly, her body was stiller than still, her tiny mouth stiffly gaping, her copper skin already shading toward a subtly lurid verdigris. Luz Maria’s mother stood helplessly aside. “What happened?” Maggie whispered. Carson said it sounded like a seizure.
“The earth has eaten her,” pronounced Fortunata, bustling past everyone to take the child in her arms as if it were alive. Carson had to stand up abruptly to make space on the bed. Fortunata began trying to close Lady Maggy’s staring eyes, but they wouldn’t shut. “Go and find a long white cloth to tie her jaw,” she ordered Luz’s mother. “It’s stiffening already.” Luz’s mother disappeared, relieved to have a duty.
“Right,” said Carson.
At this point Luz Maria came in, stumbling, on the arms of two of her sister devils. She reeked of alcohol. Her costume, black and gold, encrusted in jewels and luscious dragons, filled the room with its dreadful luxury. Fortunata offered the child but Luz shrieked once and collapsed to her knees, onto the bed, on Fortunata’s lap, and pressed her face to her child’s, murmuring, “What now, what next, princesa?” Fortunata stroked Luz’s long black hair.
Maggie turned away, weeping at last.
“Let’s go find a coffin,” Vicente said to Maggie. “Good,” said Carson, overhearing. Maggie asked whether he needed anything from the clinic, but he didn’t. He’d stay to help Luz and her mother wash the little body. Later they’d interview the mother, to try to get more details. “It doesn’t matter a whole lot,” Carson whispered in English. Their eyes all met, agreeing.
Maggie and Vicente went to find the carpenter, Don Zoilo. He wasn’t at the party. Someone said he’d stayed home, for he had joined the Evangelicals. On the road, Maggie’s horrid boots required her to continue prancing as if across hot coals. Since there was no real rush anymore, they stopped at the clinic to get her sneakers, and a flashlight, and money to pay Don Zoilo. Clearly it was good that Lady Maggy would not have to grow up to be an adult, but whenever Maggie recalled the sight of Luz in her costume, hunching over her child, it was as if she’d seen the inevitable, cruel denial of everyone’s most tender hopes. She came out of the bedroom weeping.
“May I?” Vicente asked, touching her shoulder. She nodded. He took her in his arms, gently, but she rushed at him, their devils’ breastplates clashing. “Tu eres tan bella, no aguanto,” Vicente said, you are so beautiful, I can’t bear it. He kissed her hair. Then Maggie raised her mouth and kissed him back, until the child’s dead face appeared and she broke away.
They walked uphill to find Don Zoilo. On the darker parts of the path, where Vicente wanted to take her arm, she refused his help. I’m lost, she thought.
The carpenter, awakened from sleep, showed them one tiny white coffin which he refused to sell, for he predicted lugubriously that Lady Maggy would have grown to the size of a four-year-old in death. He hauled on his jacket and went down with them, to measure.
…
Thus began a phantasmagoria in black and gold that continued for days, so that for the rest of Maggie’s life, her mind would turn inside out each time she recalled it. On returning to Piedras Baja with Don Zoilo, Maggie and Vicente learned that the fiesta had produced not one muertito but two: a young man had dived off the center pylon of the river bridge, having bet a glass of rum that he was strong enough to swim to shore. This time, no rotting pig had saved his life. He’d hit his head on a rock and had been dragged into the current, his body never to be found.
The next day, Sunday, the actual day of Saint John’s Beheading, Carson had been unable to contain his need to go back up to the mine and work, work against the causes of such misery. He got on the bus, deaf to Maggie’s pleas that he remain below, if only until Monday morning, as he’d planned, to sit in vigil with the rest of Piedras in the room with Lady Maggy’s body, and the saint, and a cross of purple flowers representing the dead youth.
“The earth has eaten both of them,” Fortunata repeated cheerily. “For next year’s festival, we must produce more.” She cackled. “I’m old, but what about you, Doña Maggie?” She poked Maggie in the side; Maggie recoiled. “You, then, Zenobio! With that belly, when are you going to pop?”
Safely locked in his glass box, the saint stared upward, as if denying he’d had anything to do with any of this.
“It’s the water,” Maggie said to Fortunata. “The earth is angry, you could say.”
Fortunata whispered, “No, it’s Luz Maria’s own fault! She disrespected.” Under the Black Rainbow, Luz had moved the saint into a storeroom. She’d been only twenty, young and full of revolutionary fervor, angry with the saint for allowing the poor to be poor and the rich to be rich. Uncle Zenobio had rescued Saint John, locking him into that case. He’d had it made, and it was very expensive, bulletproof glass. Too late, though, for Luz Maria.
Maggie no longer knew how to placate the saint. That night, and again on Monday, she betrayed her husband in his own bed. She could not help herself. She dragged her lips lightly across Vicente’s taut brown chest, down his belly, all the way to his ankles, celebrating the fact that she always knew it was him, him, present in every inch of himself, until he forced her to lie still and listen to his tongue. Their bodies twisted together like two boas. Afterward, when Maggie got up to bring him a glass of water, walking past the clinic door she felt as if a cold breath had blown on her, telling her she was already dead. Back in bed, she told Vicente she was terrified, she didn’t know of what exactly, though she could begin to try to make a list. Vicente told her to still her thoughts, and remember that faith and affection, fe y cariño, could protect a person anywhere. So his mother had taught him.
She looked at him, and saw her closest relative, and almost allowed herself to imagine having a future with Vicente. She hated the idea of leaving Carson. Leaving Larry had been enough, too much, already; yet if she didn’t correct her life herself, she knew by now that the saint or the river or the earth would eventually correct it for her.
We can’t do anything yet, Vicente told her. She agreed.
Carson came home Tuesday, carrying the body of an infant who had been born without a brain. He rode down on the bus with a grim delegation: four men and one woman, the woman bearing the wrapped body of her newborn, which she’d saved unburied for Carson to see. She lived in one of the hovels up by the intersection where the mine’s road started. Because her husband was a road worker, on the mine’s payroll, the miners had heard of the death and fit it together with information that had been seeping in toward them from various directions, including a message from union headquarters in Ayacucho. They’d been waiting for Carson. Tonight, they called a meeting with him and Vicente. Carson said he’d take advantage of the occasion to offer a progress report, so Vicente hurried off to El Mirador to fetch Marco Antonio, Don Sixto, and the women’s delegation.
