What the Moon Saw (10 page)

“But what about curing?”

“I have taught you much already, nearly as much as I know. The rest you will learn from other teachers who cross your path. Spirit teachers and human teachers.”

“I don’t want to go to the city, Ta’nu!” I threw down the spoon into the pot of tea. My tears spilled over. Yes, I still had a bit of a whiny little girl in me. But soon that would be gone.

“Who would I work for?”

“At the bar, your uncle met a man from Oaxaca City. Don Manuel García López is his name. His family wants a maid, a quiet girl from the country.” Ta’nu stroked my hair, trying to calm me.

“What will happen to you, Ta’nu?” He was fading, you see. His voice, his breath, fading. Lately his body seemed almost transparent, like fine lace. Like a mist blowing apart in a breeze. And at the bottom, this was my fear: that if I left, I might never see him alive again.

“María will help me with the chores. And soon I will need to stop curing.” He paused. “Will you go to the city, then, Ita?”

I felt a sharp tugging inside, as though a rope held me to the smoky bamboo kitchen. To the mountains whose forms I knew as well as the lines on my own palms. To the stream whose water flowed through my veins. To the cornfields that nourished my body. This land was a part of me, as much as my legs and arms and fingers were part of me.

But if Ta’nu wanted me to go, there must be some reason, some dream he had, some vision, some words from the spirits that told him this was right.

“Yes,” I agreed finally. “I’ll go.”

Three days later, I found myself walking along the path to town with Uncle José. I carried a big basket packed with my other
huipil
and skirt, a shawl, a blanket, mangoes, tortillas, salt, and limes. In a small sack tucked at the waist of the skirt I wore, I carried my herbs. They were wrapped carefully in dried corn husks, along with a flask of
mezcal
for making medicine. I hadn’t eaten that morning. My stomach was too full of worries, too full of questions. Where would I make offerings to the gods and my spirit animal, so far away from the caves of my village? How would I find the spirits? How would they find me?

I worried about María and Aunt Teresa. María had cried all morning long. She’d buried her head in my shoulder, and her stream of tears had soaked my
huipil.
Already I missed how she touched me on the arm as if we were sisters. Already I missed her funny stories, how she imitated the silly things Uncle did when he was drunk. And already I missed Aunt Teresa’s soft, timid face. How she brought bowls of chicken broth to me when I was sick, how she placed her hand on my forehead when I had bad dreams.

Uncle had me wait at the doorway of the darkened bar full of men. Rowdy men, laughing and shouting. I watched him walk over to a man standing in the corner. The man was a head taller than the others and wore an expensive-looking leather hat. He had fine cheekbones and full lips. And a smug smile. The kind of smile that said he knew how charming he was. He strutted toward me and threw back his shoulders. His torso formed a perfect V.

When Uncle introduced us, don Manuel lifted one corner of his mouth. I offered my hand, but instead of touching it lightly, he gripped it. The way a hand clamps onto a chicken just before snapping its neck. His eyes moved over me. I wanted to run out the door and hide behind a tree.

“We’ll be on our way, then,” don Manuel said, touching the back of my neck. I cringed.

For a moment Uncle looked uncertain. He glanced at don Manuel, then at me, then back at don Manuel. Maybe he wouldn’t make me go after all.

“Don’t worry, José,” don Manuel laughed. “She’s a little too young for me.”

Uncle hesitated. I held my breath. Then his face relaxed into a grin. He reached out his hand to shake don Manuel’s. Uncle turned to me, and for a few seconds, he looked as though he might hug me, or at least touch my hand. But he only nodded at me, then disappeared into the bar.

For a moment, I thought about running back home. Instead, I took a deep breath and looked up at don Manuel. He motioned for me to climb into the back of his wagon with the baskets.

I sat on the wood planks. On one side of me was a tall basket of guavas that kept rolling onto my head during the journey. On the other side, a giant sack of corncobs, which I tried to use as a lumpy pillow. Don Manuel’s business, Ta’nu had told me, was buying fruits and vegetables from the villages and selling them in Oaxaca City to market vendors.

I’d never been to the city before, but Ta’nu had said it took a couple of days of travel. At dusk we stopped at a small wooden shelter by a trickle of a stream. Don Manuel said we would sleep there. He gave the horses water, then ate some dried meat and tortillas and drank
mezcal.
He didn’t offer me anything. This surprised me. You see, in my village there was a saying: We all eat from the same tortilla. This means that everyone should share. Everyone should respect each other, because at the bottom, we are all people.

I squeezed some lime onto my tortilla, sprinkled it with salt, and chewed slowly to make it last longer. Then I walked behind the trees and relieved myself. By the base of a tree I squatted, looking around at the needle-sharp leaves, the thorny shrubs. The plants were different here. We were no longer high in mountains that touched the clouds. Tall cacti covered the land, and the air felt dry. What a thirsty, lonely feeling it gave me.
I could run now,
I thought,
run and live on food from the land and sleep in caves.

I didn’t run. I tell you, if I had known what was going to happen over the next year, maybe I would have. But that is not how life works. Life is a tree, branching out here and there, and there is no sense in asking, What if I had followed this branch, not that one? Later in my life I would run away, not once, but twice, from different places, different dangers, but now was not the time for that.

I ducked inside the shelter, spread out my
petate,
and lay down. I covered myself with the wool blanket. Don Manuel laid his
petate
down beside mine, so close I could feel his breath moving my hair. I stood up suddenly and snatched up my blanket and
petate.

“I’m sleeping in the wagon,” I said, looking down at him.

He stretched his arms behind his head. “Suit yourself.” He let out a smug laugh. “But as I said, you’re too young for me anyway.”

In the wagon, I curled up by the baskets of food. My muscles stayed as tense as violin strings until I heard his loud snoring. Only then did I let myself sink into sleep.

We hardly spoke for the whole trip. The next evening, in the low mountains, we turned a curve and Oaxaca City came into view. It was a forest of houses, more houses than I’d ever seen in one place. On the outskirts were huts of wood and clay and bamboo, like the ones in my village. But in the center, the stone buildings towered high like churches. I had never seen houses of two floors before. And some of these had three! And glass windows and carved wooden doors, and fountains in the courtyards. When we passed the market there were so many people I couldn’t find my breath. Like ants in an anthill they scurried around. I imagine everyone had some task to do, but I could find no order.

I felt small suddenly, like an ant myself. I could be crushed, killed, and things would go on. Who would notice? In my village, life had felt solid, like a mountain. But here it was a fog that could disappear by late morning.

Don Manuel seemed excited to be back in town. Finally, he started talking to me. He spoke Mixteco with an accent, so I had to listen closely to understand. He had left the village as a boy to live in the city, where people speak Spanish. His tongue had forgotten the rhythms of my language, just as his mind had forgotten our customs.

“This is the market,” he pointed out. “Here you will come to buy our food every day.”

How would I find my way through this place? It terrified me! How strange that my spirit had traveled to distant lands and fought evil spirits, yet in this city I felt like a frightened baby bird plucked from its nest.

Some people looked like me—two long braids and a red
huipil
and black skirt that just covered my knees. Other women wore
huipiles
in patterns and colors I had never seen.
Huipiles
with white ruffles embroidered with pink roses.
Huipiles
with flouncy yellow and purple skirts and short tops covered with finely stitched flowers. And some women wore long dresses of thin, flimsy fabric, tight at the top. How could they bend over to gather firewood without tearing those seams? Or roll up those narrow sleeves to wash clothes? Or catch stray goats on cliffs with those tiny pointed shoes?

And the men wore black! In my village they wore white, except for gray wool ponchos when it was cold. Some of these city men were dressed all in black, right up to their hats. But their faces were bone-colored.

“The rich-folk section of town,” don Manuel said.

We turned down a street with fewer people now. The building on the corner had no glass in its windows, only iron bars.

“The jail.”

A pair of hands stretched through the bars. They clutched half a
tamal
that a passerby placed in them. The hands pulled the
tamal
through the bars and then reached out, empty now, grasping for more.

“My neighbor was in there. After his wife died, no one brought him food.” Don Manuel shrugged. “He’s dead now.”

What kind of place was this? Neighbors letting neighbors starve? How could they do this, when we all eat from the same tortilla? Already I did not like it. I would bring the prisoners food, I decided—old tortillas and fruit and any leftover meals.

Our wagon pulled up to my new home. Don Manuel clanked open a tall black gate. He led the horses and me into a courtyard. Oh, it was a pretty place, filled with trees and flowering bushes. From one of the trees, a call rang out. A shrill, piercing voice.
“¡Buenas tardes buenas tardes!”

I looked closer. Feathers rippled, feathers the brilliant green of newly formed leaves. It was a
loro
—a talking parrot—and his greetings were the first Spanish words I learned. He would become my teacher, and my best friend.

Don Manuel’s wife came out of a doorway, stuffing a pastry into her mouth. She looked like a big ball of tortilla dough squeezed into a dress, bursting out at the openings. She said something to don Manuel in Spanish. I didn’t understand the words, but the meaning was clear from the greedy look in her eyes. She poked through the bags in the back of the wagon. Her husband handed her three guavas from the sack. She crammed the rest of the pastry in her mouth, then started on the guavas.

“My wife, Carmen,” he said. “She and my daughter speak only Spanish. You will learn quickly how to follow their commands. That is all the Spanish you will need.”

A daughter! Someone to be sisters with! Like María, to laugh with as we cooked together. Maybe I wouldn’t be so lonely after all.

Doña Carmen pushed me inside the kitchen. She motioned to the corner of the room, gesturing that I would sleep there. In that corner I would spread my
petate
out at night and roll it up in the mornings. She showed me the bucket and rags, the basin where I would do the washing. She showed me every corner of the house I was to clean.

Meanwhile, I watched her munching on the guavas. My mouth watered, and oh, how I wished she would offer me some. I had eaten my last tortilla that morning. In my village, you see, people always offered food the moment someone walked in the door. First offered them food, then offered them a wooden chair to rest their legs.

Doña Carmen led me into a room where a girl a little older than me sat in a chair. She sat slouched, staring at herself in a mirror. First she pouted her lips out like a grumpy baby, then puckered them in like a bitter old woman. Then she raised and lowered her eyebrows, then turned her head this way and that.

Doña Carmen spoke to her in a guarded voice. A voice you might use to talk to a wild, snarling dog. “Silvia.”

They rattled away in Spanish until the girl pulled something out of a drawer. She walked over to me and dropped it in my lap without meeting my eyes. It was a white skirt, trimmed with pink ribbon, torn at the hem. Silvia yelled at her mother. Oh, how that girl could yell! She spit out a string of words I didn’t understand. With a frown, doña Carmen handed me a needle and thread, and gestured to me to mend the skirt.