The Sisterhood (41 page)

Marisol has offered to have Sanchia live there. But Sanchia, much as she loves Marisol, does not wish to live where there is so little excitement. Especially in the same hacienda as watchful, censorious Dona Luisa. She wants to return to the convent with Pia and me and see what the future brings. She means she will see whom we marry and make her decision then.

We had been with Marisol a month and should have gone sooner, but there was to be a ball at the regional governor’s home and all the local landowners for miles around were obliged to attend with their wives and daughters. Marisol was very large now, but overrode Dona Luisa’s objections and insisted on going to chaperone us. She would not hear of the two younger Beltran girls staying behind as their mother wished, either, much to their joy. A social outing was a rare treat for them.

The day of the ball we rose very early to bathe and dress and Marisol unlocked her leather chests of jewelry and said we must all borrow what we liked. Tomas has given her a king’s ransom in jewels and we spent an entire morning playing with the glittering pile, trying pieces on and debating about what would suit our new dresses or match our eyes.

There is a tall looking glass with a gilded frame in our room, and when we were dressed we took turns scrutinizing our reflections, amazed at our own and each other’s transformations. I am tall, like my father, but the seamstress was skillful and my new dress disguises
my awkward height. I think it is very pretty—deep-blue silk with an underskirt of pale yellow edged in lace. My hair was braided and coiled round my head, with waxy white flowers that smelled heavenly, and a pearl-and-sapphire necklace and earrings grand enough for a princess. I picked up my fan and practiced furling, unfurling, half-furling it over the lower half of my face, leaving only my eyes visible over the top—this is how Sanchia does it. The girl in the looking glass staring back at me over her fan is not the least beata-like.

By the time the eight of us were crowded into the carriage early that afternoon, even black-clad Dona Luisa could not dampen our spirits with her lecture about proper behavior that she kept up all the way to the governor’s.

The journey seemed endless, but finally we arrived to a splendid, festive scene. There was a garden filled with tall sweet-smelling plants, a fountain, and torches everywhere. There was a group of musicians and a troupe of performers making a display of lively peasant dancing and singing. We followed Marisol and Dona Luisa inside to make our curtsies to the governor’s wife. The house blazed with candles, and servants in elaborate livery and bare feet handed around trays of delicious cordials. Around us the women were sparkling with jewelry. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Sanchia’s eyes flashed as she flirted over her fan when she thought I wasn’t looking, and even Pia was laughing at a story a young man was telling her.

When the ball began there were so few unmarried girls we were engaged for every dance and did not sit down once. Dona Luisa took a chair among a group of other dowagers close to the dance floor where they could keep a close watch on all the girls. Every time there was a break in the dancing, Dona Luisa grabbed poor Rita and hurried her off for a lecture.

Later, after a splendid supper had been served at midnight, I was sitting alone waiting for Dona Luisa to return with Rita when
a gentleman stopped and bowed and wished me good evening. I looked up. “Don Miguel!” I exclaimed. Don Miguel Aguilar—now that I knew whose son he was, I tried to discern a resemblance to Sor Beatriz in his face, but I could not. His native blood has shaped his features. He has heavy brows and piercing dark eyes, and his brown skin is set off by the whiteness of the ruff around his neck. He was dressed in black with many gold chains and looked very distinguished.

I said that I understood we had him to thank for Marisol’s unusual marriage, that had he not sworn to drag an unwilling Don Tomas home for the betrothal arranged by Dona Luisa, Don Tomas would never have carried off Marisol the way he did. Don Miguel unbent and smiled a little, saying that courting in the colony was conducted in a different manner than in Spain. “Evidently,” I said, laughing, “but Marisol is very happy all the same.”

Don Miguel is serious, rather intense and proud. I was surprised that he continued to sit by my side, but then he is very courteous. I was grateful to him for not leaving me to sit alone without my friends. I asked him to tell me more about the country and he grew quite passionate in telling me. It became clear, as the ladies said on our first evening in the country, that he resents Spanish treatment of the natives. He is very eloquent on the poor souls forced into the silver mines, slaves and peasants alike, and the massacres and looting by the Spanish. It is shocking to hear such stories, and he must have seen it in my expression because he fell silent.

Then I said that Mother had written to his mother to ask if I might visit and pay my respects when her mourning was over, if that would not be too great an intrusion, because I had messages to deliver from the nuns in Spain. He said that he was sure she would be delighted to receive me. I wondered if he knew he was Sor Beatriz’s grandson, whether Salome had ever told him of the circumstances of her birth. Most of the fine Spanish ladies speak and act with exaggerated propriety, so perhaps Salome has said nothing.

Then Dona Luisa interrupted us and thrust Rita toward Don Miguel, elbowing me out of the way. Don Miguel stood, bowed, murmured his compliments, and withdrew. Dona Luisa
humpffed
indignantly. “He should marry again,” she said, looking after Don Miguel’s retreating back. “Only half Inca, but his father was a prince. A good Spanish wife would soon put an end to his nonsense about the natives. You might have said something to make him notice you, Rita! Don’t stand about like a donkey! He was taking enough notice of Esperanza when she talked to him.”

Poor Rita is completely under her mother’s thumb, at her beck and call day and night, and would willingly marry the devil himself if it would take her away from home. “Yes, Mama.” She sighed.

I thought Rita and Don Miguel would be a most unfortunate combination. There is a sense of contained anger and power in Don Miguel that is somehow at one with this place, the vast mountains, the brightness of the light, the great plateau. He is fiercely proud of the fact that his father was a descendant of the Inca emperors, the sun gods on earth they called them. A heathen deity and a cruel one by all accounts. Giving sweet, inoffensive Rita to such a man would be sacrificing her, just as they say the Incas once sacrificed maidens.

As the dancing began again Dona Luisa whisked Rita away as Pia hurried over to me with an alarmed look on her usually placid features. “Sanchia has disappeared,” Pia whispered. A cluster of young men hovered nearby, waiting to ask Pia to dance, gazing at her like a herd of lovesick llamas. She ignored them completely.

“Sanchia was dancing, and while Dona Luisa was busy trying to get Rita a partner and not watching, Sanchia and her partner escaped onto the veranda. Now I cannot find her.”

Pia and I edged away from the throng of adoring beaux to look for Sanchia. Perhaps she too had been kidnapped—a willing victim if ever there was one. God help her kidnapper! But at last
we discovered her behind the stables with the musicians and their dancing girls. Her face was flushed and her skirts hitched up. She said she had been learning native songs and dances.

Pia and I kept her between us for the rest of the night.

It is September and we know we should return to the convent, but news has reached us of an outbreak of smallpox. Marisol wishes for our company and will not allow us to return until the danger is past. She is so large and round now she can barely move, and we have all felt the baby kicking vigorously. Tomas waits on her hand and foot, and even Dona Luisa grumbles more quietly. Rita is to be the baby’s godmother and Don Miguel to be godfather—Dona Luisa’s idea. She hopes it will bring them together.

Marisol dreads the coming ordeal. She remembers her mother. Though I do not say so, I, too, think of my mother who died giving birth to me and feel frightened for my friend. Pia and I are saying a novena for Marisol.

Life has grown very quiet on the hacienda as every hour we expect a sign the baby is coming. There are few visitors, so Sanchia has prevailed on Tomas to send for the musicians and the dancing girls she befriended to amuse us in the
sala
. They are installed in the servants’ quarters, to Dona Luisa’s annoyance—but Marisol enjoys the way they enliven our evenings after dinner, so she countermanded Dona Luisa’s order they leave. Sanchia now dances as well as any of the troupe, as she demonstrates at every opportunity.

Pia is anxious about Zarita. We get little news here save for the fact that the epidemic has been very bad and many have died.

Marisol has been screaming for two days in her darkened room. I take my turn to sponge her face and hold her hands, until I cannot bear it any longer! Tomas paces to the stables and back, unable to be still for a moment. There are many children on the estate who
are plainly his. How many times has he been responsible for this agony? I begin to hate Tomas. And all men. Dona Luisa says the natives and peasants do not feel pain in the way that high-bred Spanish women do. At mealtimes she regales us with
her
descriptions of childbirth—what Marisol suffers is nothing in comparison, she insists.

Marisol has a son
and
a daughter, both healthy.
Deo gratias
! She, however, was frighteningly white and weak, bleeding heavily, and feverish after the birth. Nothing I could remember from the medical texts was efficacious and I was in despair until one of the native women servants pushed her way into the room with a poultice and an herbal drink that stank horribly, and refused to move from Marisol’s side to make sure Marisol drank a little throughout the day. Otherwise I am sure she would have died. Dona Luisa has kept a priest at the ready, for baptism and last rites. Tomas has dark circles under his eyes and looks much older suddenly. The babies have been christened Marianna and Teo Jesus. When Dona Luisa told Marisol what names she had chosen for them, Marisol only opened her eyes for a second and closed them again, too weak to argue.

Dona Luisa has found a wet nurse for the babies. We sit by Marisol’s side and feed her broth, alarmed at her lethargy and pallor, though she is recovering, we hope. I heard Tomas’s younger sisters whispering that they were glad they were going to be nuns and avoid the torments of childbirth.

A month after the birth Marisol can finally leave her bed and sit on the veranda. The twins are large lusty babies and thrive on their wet nurse’s milk. Sanchia, Pia, Rita, and I take it in turns to walk them up and down, while Dona Luisa complains that we will spoil them. Don Miguel has paid us a visit to see his new godchildren
and brought each a small golden cup. He and Tomas rode out for the day and went hunting, which did Tomas good. Marisol is well enough to argue with Dona Luisa about the babies’ feeding schedule and contradict Dona Luisa’s orders about what the cook was to prepare for dinner.

It is time to return to the convent.

From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the Mission Convent of Las Golondrinas de Los Andes, October 1553

They said the smallpox had abated. But when we entered the gate, a funeral procession was gathered around a bier in the courtyard. The last victim, said the portress, one of the ladies waiting for her divorce.

“Which lady?” faltered Pia.

“A young one,” said the portress. “The epidemic had slowed. There had been no new cases, then suddenly she contracted the disease and it pleased God to take her from the hands of men. Now neither her brother nor her husband nor her would-be husband may have her.”

“No! Not Zarita!” Pia stifled a scream and before we could stop her, jumped down from the carriage and ran toward the bier. Like a madwoman she pushed the startled priest and sisters around it away and tore off the shrouds, crying “Who is it? Who?” Then a great scream echoed around the courtyard. “Zarita! Zarita! No, no, no! I was not here…I did not know…come back! Do not leave me! Live again, Zarita! Oh, Zarita!”

Sanchia and I caught hold of a frenzied Pia to drag her away, but could not help seeing the horrible dead thing on the bier. Poor Zarita, so beautiful in life, was hideously swollen and disfigured in death and, most grotesquely, was beginning to putrefy.

It took all our strength together with two strong beatas to pull Pia away and get her to our chamber, where she collapsed in hysterics. Sanchia and I sat and tried to comfort her all night, but Pia sobbed and moaned and shrieked “Zarita!” like one possessed. Sometime in the night Sanchia and then I fell asleep, worn out from the journey, sorrow for Zarita, and for poor Pia.

The next morning Sanchia and I woke to the sound of scissors. We rubbed the sleep from our eyes to see Pia standing naked, her silvery hair covering her feet. She had cut it as close to the scalp as she could and her head was bloody in places. Her eyes had sunk into their sockets and blazed with a strange light. “All flesh decays, all beauty, even Zarita. Only the spirit remains and things of the spirit. God has opened my eyes and my vocation has been revealed to me. I must go to Mother at once and tell her.”