Page 55 of The Hacienda
I had returned to Apan nearly six weeks ago, but finally I was home.
Passing through the gates of the property was like passing into a memory that no longer fit. I was a foot too big for a shoe, deformed by the world beyond as I returned to the landscape of my boyhood. The road to San Isidro felt like a path into a dream. I had left the quotidian world of the Church and townspeople and passed into a beyond where the bellies of the clouds hung low and listening, where the coyotes were afraid to draw near Titi’s house. Where all the pieces of me had once made sense. Where I hoped they would again.
It was a false hope, of course. The muddy earth of the hacienda grounds was no different from town. My troubles were not immediately lifted from my shoulders the moment I arrived.
Tía Ana Luisa greeted me with her usual stiffness. Never a warm woman, I doubted she would ever forgive me for the crime of being born with the innate potential she lacked, for becoming my grandmother’s pupil when Titi refused to teach her.
“Paloma is up at the house with the others,” she said, taking my waterlogged bag of few belongings. “I imagine you’ll be staying at the capilla, now that you’re...” Here she gestured vaguely at the collar at my neck. “This.”
I let Ana Luisa take my bag to the capilla and followed her instructions to go to the kitchen of the main house. There, Paloma would warm dinner for me, and I could sit by a lit fire and read the Bible to the women of the house as they mended or did embroidery.
Night deepened as I approached the house.
Hello, old friend, I thought as I strode through the softening rain.
It grumbled in reply, shifting cantankerously on its foundations.
I couldn’t help but smile. The house had more moods than a swallow had feathers. I was fond of its peevish spells; its impatient creaks and groaning inspired an urge in me to pat its side affectionately as I would a stubborn but lovable mule. As a child I knew this ancient house of spirits was unlike anything else I had ever seen. Now, after having stepped through the doorways of countless old houses, I knew it was unique.
“Cuervito!” A woman hovered impatiently at the glowing doorway of the kitchen, calling my childhood nickname:little raven. It was Paloma. Aside from the procession, I had not seen her since she was twelve or thirteen, and to see her so grown still caught me by surprise. “Hurry up!”
She ushered me into the warmth of the kitchen, taking my soaked wool sarape and hanging it by the fire. Then she turned, hands on her hips in an uncanny imitation of Titi. “Will you ever stop growing?”
I shrugged, sat where she ordered, and waited patiently while she prepared a plate for me. Years apart had not changed my role in the family: the sole surviving boy among a loud, bossy host of women, my job was tosit and listen, eat the food placed before me, and reach things stored in high places.
Warmth seeped into my waterlogged clothes and windswept bones.
This was home.
When I was dry and fed, Paloma brought me to the green parlor to meet the wife of the patrón.
A fire roared in the hearth. The silhouette of Doña María Catalina Solórzano, the spun-sugar mistress of Hacienda San Isidro, rose to greet me. I knew from Paloma’s chatter in the kitchen that the staff referred to her as Doña Catalina. A handful of household staff rose as she did—I recognized one as Paloma’s friend Mariana, transformed by adolescence like Paloma.
“Padre Andrés.” Doña Catalina’s voice was crisp as a new sheet of paper. Firelight took to her pale hair like dye; it was as if a halo of red gold framed her small, pointed face. “How good of you to join us. Ana Luisa says you have a wonderful voice for reading, among your other fine qualities.”
Desagradecido, sin vergüenza... Throughout my childhood, Ana Luisa had many things to say about me, but never that. I donned the pious, bashful smile I had learned to wear in Guadalajara, the one that concealed any apprehension or distrust I felt while speaking with parishioners, and took the Bible from her with a respectful bob of my head.
I sat opposite her and opened the Bible to the letters of St. Paul to the Ephesians.
The room was silent but for the crackle of the fire.
I paused, letting my fingertip skip down the page of the Bible without seeing the lines it crossed. How odd that the house should choose to be so quiet in this room. I could always hear its complaining, its sly gossiping, its murmuring commentary in the background of every conversation.
It wasquiet.
This was not the pious silence of holy places, nor the respectful hush of graveyards. This was... odd.
I cleared my throat, aware that Doña Catalina still watched me, and began to read.
Paloma took her place next to Mariana and picked up her needlework. Dark, wispy hairs flew free of her plait; she worried her bottom lip as she stitched, like Titi did when she had something on her mind. There was a heaviness in the room that wasn’t from the warmth of the fire; a tenseness that I could not place. And when Paloma insisted on walking with me to the small rooms that adjoined the capilla, a pile of blankets in her arms, I did not protest.
The room was humble: a fireplace, a table, a bed. Packed-dirt-and-gravel floor, polished smooth with varnish and generations of footsteps. One shelf for books and an austere wooden cross on the wall. Paloma shut the door and put the blankets on the table. She lit a few candles, then hovered as I crouched before the hearth and began a fire. Once or twice I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She was worrying her bottom lip again; now that her hands were not occupied with needlework, they toyed with the tassels at the end of her shawl.
I knew the look of someone who had much to say but was afraid to speak. I lowered my voice to make sure it was soft, and would not frighten her away, the way I spoke to birds.
“Something is worrying you,” I said. “Maybe I can help.”
“Help is exactly what I want,” she blurted out, lifting her head. She pulled a chair out from the table and sat on it, then drew her knees to her chest protectively. “Your help, specifically. You see...” She trailed off, her gaze on the fire. “My friend is too afraid to ask you directly, even though I told her you were harmless. She... Mariana, the one sitting with us tonight. She’s shy.” I nodded.Shywas not the word I would have chosen. Mariana had flinched whenever I shifted my weight, her shoulders coiled tight. She pricked herself while sewing at least twice from the sudden movement.
