Lilia's Secret (13 page)

There were wooden shelves around the narrow room, and hooks on the walls near the door. I was in what must have been the pantry. Very little light came through the windows, black with howling dust. I was frightened by the fury of the storm and scared that it would break through the glass. Then again, this house must have stood up to hundreds of dust storms. I felt small with gratitude at being inside.

A wooden table ran almost the entire length of the adjoining kitchen. Despite the gloom I could see that it shone – not a speck of dust or any other signs of neglect. The sink shone too. A shiver went through my shoulder blades and into my neck and I swung around to the door, for half a second imagining that Lilia would come walking through it, rubbing her hands dry on her apron. ‘Don't be silly,' I admonished myself out loud.

I searched the walls for a light switch until I remembered
Juan saying there was no electricity. The oven was wood-fired, as pristine as if it had been freshly wiped down. I sat down at the table and my leg began to jiggle. Andrés always put his hand on my thigh to stop the spasm when he was around. I was beginning to miss him.

I put my head on my arms on the table to wait for the storm to pass and when I woke up the sun was streaming through the window as if it had never abandoned its post. This is the kind of thing that could make me go crazy – the world is one way one moment, and the next it is as if it never happened.

It struck me as strange, now that the danger was over, that I hadn't thought about trying to get into the barn by the house. I shrugged – I probably wouldn't have made it in time anyway. And something had certainly drawn me to the homestead.

The door out of the kitchen led to an internal courtyard. I felt as if I'd peeled open a secret: before me was the most luxuriant garden I'd seen in Mexico.

Everything I'd heard about Lilia was that she was brittle, stone-hearted and controlling, yet this garden was beguiling in its succulence. There was foliage snaking up the poles to the balcony; there were runners along the ground and green fat leaves around the rocks in the corner opposite me. There were herbs and small shrubs with white open flowers like small faces. I dug into the ground with my index finger; it was moist and yielding. Even I could tell it was rich, nourishing dirt, and it couldn't have been rained on. I looked over my shoulder and heard Juan's voice in my head again: ‘She's not dead.' He'd just been trying to scare me, I told myself. I was spooked though.

I looked around for a way to get out. The passage to my left might lead to the front door, but it was dark down there. My
wrist was still screaming to be itched and no matter how tightly I pressed down on the bandanna I'd tied over it, it didn't make any difference. I bit my lip and sucked in air, counting ten painful seconds before blowing out in a great puff and pushing aside the bandanna to attack the skin in a frenzy. Finally satisfied, I slumped back against the wall, defeated.

It was then I noticed something else odd. There were cobwebs in our flat at home and we were there every day; here there were no cobwebs and yet there was nobody to brush them away. I stood up too quickly and had to catch myself from stumbling. And that's when I saw them. Two tiny feet under the far bush in the garden. They were perfectly clean and resting side by side, as if the little person they belonged to had chosen to have a nap under the bush.

My hand flew up to my mouth in fright. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.' The next instant, the feet were gone. The blood around Juan's neck had gone almost before it was there; this vision had lingered a little longer. I'd had time to flash through half a dozen scenarios: a tired toddler crashed under the bush, a half-buried body, a sacrificial offering, a spell. Never, never did I think it was a trick of my imagination. I stepped back, staring at the now bare ground and feeling my way to the window frame as if I were old or blind. And then I ran. I don't remember getting out of the window. I ran for as long as I could, as if something was after me. It was only when I reached the outskirts of Aguasecas that I realised I'd left my backpack on the chair in Lilia's kitchen.

As Bill knocked, Padre Miguel swung the door open. ‘Come in, come in. You're very lucky today. I found another box of things for you to look through.' He propelled Bill down the passage.

‘I found it in the most extraordinary place,' Padre Miguel was saying. ‘It was in among my communion wines. Let me tell you, it wasn't there last month.'

‘Magic then?' Bill teased, as his eyes adjusted to the cool dark.

‘The magic of a determined woman,' Padre Miguel snorted. ‘Magdalena found it a few days ago and hid the box, thinking I'd never go there. Little did she know that I would need a little medicinal drink last night.'

‘What's her problem?' Bill asked, rubbing his chin.

‘You, Bill. She's in a big club. She is scared you are stirring up the ghost of Lilia de Las Flores. Maria Menoso's foot has gone black – that's Lilia's doing. Extraordinarily, Pedro's new litter of pigs all survived.' The priest abruptly swung around so that Bill almost knocked into him. ‘Lilia, also.'

Bill grunted as Padre Miguel showed him the box on the table. ‘I'll leave you, Bill. I'm on my way out to visit that black foot of Maria Menoso.'

Bill smiled. After Padre Miguel had gone Bill closed the door. He wanted to shut out the world and trap the silence in the house with him. Or was it his shame? Shame that he was fascinated by the woman who had murdered his father.

He upturned the box and a river of documents and photographs poured out. After sorting one from the other, he picked up the first photograph, looked at the names on the back and returned it to the box. The next photo was of a woman, but there was no name on the back of it so he put that one on the table. The rhythm overtook him, and he let his mind wander back to her house, to her skin, to her smile.

He didn't know how long had passed but he snapped out of his daydreaming when he came across her name, the fourth on a list of five. Here she was in his hands. 1920. His throat tightened. He turned the photograph over. There was a line of adolescents in the middle of scrubby land with a tree in the far right-hand corner. They all squinted into the sun, grim. The girls wore braids down their backs and the boys downy moustaches. All carried weapons. The one he thought was Lilia wore a string of bullets like a sash across her body. He stared at her hard and smiled, feeling nothing. Relief blushed through him.

‘
Quieres café
?' asked Magdalena, poking her head into the room, but not looking at him.

‘No thanks,
gracias
.' He was too excited for coffee. He waved her over and held the photograph towards her. Magadalena threw her hands in the air. ‘No, no, no,' was all she said, and the passageway swallowed her up again. Bill banged the table in frustration. He examined the photograph again, tracing the line of her with his finger.

Padre Miguel came back early, sweeping through the house with his usual bustle. He found Bill slumped over the table.

‘I can't find anything that mentions my father. This is the only thing that seems to be of interest,' Bill said, holding the photograph out.

‘Come into the kitchen, Bill. Magdalena has made tamales,' Padre Miguel said, gesturing to him briskly. Bill wondered how he had that kind of energy in a place like Aguasecas, where the heat sapped the will from your body.

In the kitchen Magdalena wiped the table clean. She didn't look at Bill. The men sat down to unwrap their pockets of steaming tamales and after he'd taken a bite Padre Miguel slipped the photograph on to the table in front of Magdalena, who pushed it away with a click of her tongue and returned to the sink.

‘Revolutionaries,' Padre Miguel said.

‘They look like kids,' Bill said.

‘Fifteen or sixteen,' the priest said. ‘Old enough.'

Bill frowned.

‘For fighting.' Padre Miguel bit into his tamale again, and went on with his mouth full. ‘Extreme poverty, oppression – you were whipped until your skin was flayed for not bowing to a landlord, so …' Padre Miguel waved his hand to finish the sentence, taking another huge bite. ‘When the revolution came nobody was slow to start shooting. Since she was eight Lilia was a
soldada.
'

Magdalena flung her tea towel down and spun around, loudly protesting.

Padre Miguel grabbed her hands. ‘There's no curse. God will protect,' he said, while translating for Bill.

Magdalena shook her head.

Padre Miguel shrugged. ‘If you can't trust God, then trust me.'

Magdalena's eyes widened with shock.

‘Just joking, just joking,' Padre Miguel opened his eyes wide and burst out laughing. It seemed to slice away the fear in Magdalena, who held his eyes for a moment then sat down and pulled the photograph towards her. She looked at it and shook her head.

‘What's the problem?' asked Bill.

‘She thinks Lilia will curse her if she talks about her,' said Padre Miguel.

A shiver shot up Bill's spine. He reached over, grabbed Magdalena's hands and tried out his Spanish. ‘For my father. I need to know about her for my father. I need to know what happened to him, what happened to us.' His voice broke.

Magdalena pulled her hands away and gave him a long look. She pointed to the photo. ‘There's my grandmother,' she said in slow Spanish. ‘And that's Doña de Las Flores,' she said, pointing.

He'd known it. He wanted to punch the air.

‘See that one?' Magdalena pointed to a boy who seemed older than the others. ‘He's Doña de Las Flores' first husband. The one who started all the trouble.'

Jealousy stabbed Bill in the stomach.

‘You can see that he doesn't look like the others,' Magdalena said. ‘He was Jewish, living in Spain. He was not slow to pick up a gun against the Spanish bastards here.'

‘He looks so ordinary,' Bill said.

Magdalena threw up her arms and the flesh on them
wobbled as she shook them in the air. ‘You men never know. All the girls were in love with him. He was so handsome and spoke as if his mouth were full of jewels.'

Bill saw the inside of Magdalena's mouth as she and Padre Miguel laughed.

‘If my grandmother had had her way that man could have been my grandfather.' Magdalena pulled a face. ‘Then all the bad luck might have ended up in my family. But nobody else existed for him. Doña de Las Flores and he, they had the grand passion.'

Magdalena pressed Bill's plate closer to him. Having just made friends with her he wanted to oblige, but his stomach was too full of excitement. She was breathing life into Lilia. She was no longer some half-imagined idea in his head.

‘Her first miracle was when she gave light to her child,' Magdalena said. Padre Miguel added, ‘Giving light is giving birth. I'll translate.' He said a few rapid words to Magdalena, who replied with a rapid stream of words and gestures.

The priest turned back to Bill. ‘She was seventeen. Very round, very pregnant, very heavy. It was after the official end of the revolution, but nobody was fooled. The fighting continued for years but in 1921 government soldiers were desperate for food and for their homes. The rebels were living in the mountains – about fifty kilometres that way,' Padre Miguel translated, pointing in the direction of Lilia's ranch.

‘They'd been out shooting the soldiers. Lilia was almost bursting, she was so pregnant. But even so, that day she killed three soldiers. Two she shot with her gun, and then she pulled the trigger on the third man but her aim was off and she didn't have more bullets. So she took her knife out to get at him, and
he grabbed her leg and bit into it, through the cloth, and blood spurted out. She didn't even flinch. She looked away as she stabbed the knife into the soft part of his throat. There was a great gurgling shouting – how do you say, he howled? And she sat back on her heels and howled as well.' Padre Miguel widened his eyes for emphasis. ‘The two sounds echoed around the mountain together, and Magdalena says the hairs stood up on the back of everybody's neck.

‘On the march home Lilia kept groaning. She had his blood on her skirt, and spattered all over her face and she wouldn't let anybody help her wipe it off. She walked on her own at the back of the group, shooing away people who came to see if she was all right. They all thought she was upset because of the knifing. Then suddenly there came more howling, and when they looked back Lilia was hanging from a branch of a tree by her hands, screaming like a beast who'd been shot. Two of the girls ran back to her, but by the time they got there it had already happened. Lilia had a tiny, bloody baby. Lilia was covered in the dead man's blood and the blood of her own birthing and now she lay so still they thought she was dead. But then they noticed she was smiling. And the story is that one girl was so moved by her angelic smile that she knelt down to pray.'

There was silence around the table until Bill finally broke it. ‘Why didn't she ask for help?'

‘Magdalena says she was just like that. Everybody was so tired, after the battle they could barely walk home, and Lilia didn't want to make trouble for them.' The priest spread his palms open and shrugged his shoulders. ‘She was like that.'

Padre Miguel listened again to Magdalena. ‘Magdalena's grandmother was the one who wiped the man's blood from Lilia's face and the baby's blood from her thighs. Lilia's husband, this boy,' Padre Miguel stabbed his finger at the photo, ‘was so happy that night, singing and shouting under the stars, but Lilia just lay her head in his lap and snuggled her baby into her. She said nothing. In the early hours rebels even took the risk of lighting a fire in celebration of the new baby.

‘Magdalena says she doesn't understand this next thing. Her grandmother claimed their excitement was more than for a new baby. It was as if the baby was a sign that they would win the war. Up to that moment they had all fought because they had to. They couldn't live anymore seeing their parents beaten, their brothers spat on, their sisters raped. But in this moment everything changed. From then on they would fight because they felt they had a future.

‘And they were right. All over the country the government soldiers started losing badly. Many of them deserted: the tide had turned. And here in Aguasecas they believed that Lilia's baby had done that.' Padre Miguel and Magdalena smiled at each other. ‘From that night some people started to think that Lilia had been anointed with a special blessing from the Virgin de Guadalupe. Always they'd thought she was brave, always she was strong, but that day she did something no one else had done; she took a man's life almost with her bare hands and gave birth to the future. She held the blood of the dead and the blood of the just-born and she never trembled.'

Bill had been rubbing the photograph over and over without noticing, stunned at finding out so much more about
this extraordinary woman. Padre Miguel's raised voice brought him back to the room. ‘But you see the mystery here?'

Bill didn't.

‘Bill, Bill, where are you?' The priest shook Bill's arm with a grin. ‘What happened to the baby?'

‘Wasn't it that El Tigre fellow?'

‘He came later. This first was a baby girl. She disappeared.'

Magdalena crossed herself.

‘Nobody knows what happened to the saviour of the town.' Padre Miguel's face was suddenly serious. ‘No wonder Aguasecas sometimes feels cursed.'