What the Moon Saw (20 page)

“What do you mean?” I set the pencil down on my sketchbook and looked up.

“When you saved his sister’s life…”

“
I
didn’t,
Abuelita
did,” I said. “I just helped.” I shifted positions on the rock, pulled my legs out of the water, and folded them, my knees under my chin.

“All he talks about is you. Clara this. Clara that. Like you’re his new best friend.” Pedro’s face held a sour expression. Even though he was sitting just across the stream from me, he seemed far away.

“Well, at least he’s not teasing you about me anymore, right?”

Pedro shrugged. “He has a giant TV. Did he invite you over to watch it yet?”

I shook my head. “I don’t feel like watching TV anyway.”

“His father’s working in your country. He sends back money and brings presents when he visits. He hasn’t forgotten about his family yet.” Pedro stood up and walked away, to the steeper part of the mountain.

He threw a rock over by a wandering goat. It glanced up at him and moved closer. He threw another rock, harder this time, not to guide any goat, just to throw.

He picked up a huge rock, nearly the size of a watermelon, and lifted it with two hands over his head. His face was red and straining. He hurled it over the cliff. It bounced from boulder to boulder. Pieces chipped off here and there, flying away. He breathed hard.

“You’ll probably start hanging out with Felipe now,” he said, “watching TV with him, maybe taking him back to your country to see his father….”

“Pedro, that’s not true.” I saw the silvery thread between our souls stretching, getting thin and weak again.

“He has three pairs of Nikes,” Pedro said. “Seven baseball caps. He doesn’t have to work. He doesn’t smell like goats.” He picked up another big rock and hurled it over the cliff. It split like thunder on the rocks below.

My chest felt tight, and I felt things falling apart, felt him moving away, as if he were already just a red dot on the next mountain over.

“Pedro.” I stood up, tossed my sketchbook onto the bank, and waded across the stream. The hem of my shorts got wet, but I didn’t care. And I didn’t even wince at the sharp stones that poked the soles of my feet while I walked to him. I was determined. One hundred percent determined.
You can do anything, Clara.

He watched me and his hands shook at his sides.

I reached out and took his hand and held it steady. Now that I had his hand in mine, I wasn’t sure what to say. So I just whispered, “You’re going to knock out one of your goats with those rocks.” I whispered this in the voice I’d used with Felipe’s baby sister to calm her down.

This was the first time we’d touched except for when I’d let my ponytail brush against his arm when we sat together playing guitar. “Pedro, I like the smell of goats. I like being with them. I like being with you.”

“Really?” he asked. His mouth moved into a guarded smile.

“Yes. And now
I
smell like goats every day too. That’s what Abuelo told me yesterday.” I was very aware of the way Pedro’s hand felt in mine, at first cool, but now warm.

He put his other hand over mine. My hand rested carefully between his like a little bird. He explored my hand, looking at every finger like it was something he’d never seen before. I wondered if he was going to look into my face and then what would happen.

He put my hand down and picked up his guitar. “I’ll teach you a new song.”

We sat on a fallen log, close, so that the whole sides of our bodies were touching. As he sang he turned his face toward me. I strummed and he did the fingers.

The melody sounded sad and happy at once. The refrain was
Gracias a la Vida,
and the last verse went:

Thanks to Life, that has given me so much.

It’s given me laughter and tears

to tell happiness from sorrow,

the two materials that form my song.

And the song of all of you is the same song,

and the song of all of you is my own song.

Abuelita noticed my hands too. That night, as I was stirring the hot chocolate, she took my hand in her own and examined the palm and the fingers, and then turned it over and traced my knuckles.

“You have hands that heal,” she told me. She set the spoon back in my hand. “How good that you are using them!”

“But I’ll be with you only a few more weeks, Abuelita.”

“Spirits can teach. My body will not be with you, but my spirit will.”

I kept stirring. “How?”

“You see, Clara, my grandfather taught me after his death. And it was then that my powers truly blossomed….”

Helena

S
PRING
1938–S
UMMER
1939

W
henever Ta’nu visited me in dreams, he arrived in a cloud of sweet copal smoke. In the mornings, I’d lie on my
petate
with my eyes closed, trying to keep the scent from fading. In the dreams, Ta’nu and the spirits showed me which herbs to use, where to find them, how to prepare them. Oh, I was glad of their help! After his funeral, you see, patients began coming to me. At first they came in trickles, then in waves.

At times a crowd of people waited outside the door to my hut, comforting crying babies, rubbing children’s stomachs, wiping feverish foreheads. Other times there were no patients for days, and I spent that time working in my garden, weeding, tending to plants. Sometimes I collected wild herbs in the mountains. Deep in the forests, I left offerings for the spirits, for my spirit animal. And there I gathered strength, letting the mountain become part of me.

Once I was sipping water at a stream when I looked up and saw a jaguar on the other bank, staring at me. Water dripped from our mouths. We stared at each other the way you might stare at your own reflection. After that, I began leaving him gifts at the stream, wrapped in banana leaves. Gifts of cocoa beans, turkey eggs, green feathers.

A few months after Ta’nu’s death, Aunt Teresa discovered she was with child. Five times before, she had been with child, and all but one of those had ended with her losing the baby. María was the only baby who had seen the light of day. Aunt always said that María’s birth had been a miracle. So it was no surprise to us that the midwife instructed Aunt not to do any hard work or lift anything heavy until the baby was born. That extra work fell on my shoulders. But how could I mind it? A baby cousin would be a beautiful gift.

In Aunt’s eighth month, traders from Oaxaca City began talking about a sickness that had come to the region. A sickness that killed the weak, the very old, and the very young. In our village there was no sign of the sickness. Yet I stayed alert, like a mother deer watching for danger. You see, if people fell ill, they would come to me for help. I had to be ready. I gathered heaps of herbs in the mountains, basket after basket, until I knew I’d have enough to settle stomachs, cool fevers, clear lungs.

One morning, while the women were washing breakfast dishes, after the men had gone to collect firewood, we heard the
clip-clop
of horseshoes. It was a stranger. We knew this, of course, because no one in the village had horses, only burros. Who could it be? María and I left our dishes half washed to find out. Even Aunt, holding her enormous stomach, struggled out of her chair and waddled like a duck with us. A short distance from the road, we stopped under a tree, where we could watch the stranger.

The man on the horse wore an official uniform. It looked as if it once had been crisp and black, but now it was wrinkled and dulled with dust. He had trouble getting off his horse and half fell onto the ground. When he tried to brush himself off, the dust spread around more. He limped in a circle around his horse, shaking out his right leg. Then, there he stood, looking lost. Poor man. I knew how it felt to be a stranger.

María looked at me and laughed. “Helena,” she whispered. “Go talk to him.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the only one who speaks Spanish here. All the men are off in the woods.”

True, the only man in sight was don Norberto. And he was drunk and passed out under a tree at the roadside, as usual. He was too drunk to speak his own language—imagine him trying Spanish!

“Find out what he wants,” María urged, pushing me toward the man. How she loved strangers, excitement, new things! She should have gone to Oaxaca instead of me. Oh, she would have loved it.

“Probably bad news,” Aunt Teresa murmured. Her hands circled her belly protectively. “Always is with people in uniforms.”

After my run-in with the police, of course I agreed with Aunt. But María was bouncing up and down like an eager puppy. “I’ll come with you, Helena!”

The man was tying his horse to a tree, looking around, most likely searching for a man to talk to. He spotted don Norberto, limped over to him, and said something. Norberto blinked open his eyes for a moment. He swatted at the air, as though the man were a pesky fly. Then he let out a loud snore and dozed off again.

Startled, the stranger looked around. All he saw were us women, huddled in a small group, pointing, laughing, whispering. He threw his shoulders back and puffed out his chest like a rooster.

María and I clutched each other’s hands, still wet from the dishwater. We walked right up to him. In polite Spanish, I greeted him. “Good morning,
señor,
how can we help you?”

Up close I saw that his face was burned red from the sun. It peeled off like snakeskin. Ayyy! How painful it must be to have skin so delicate, so fair. I had the urge to spread cool aloe juice over his skin to soothe it.

The man’s eyes darted around. Why was he nervous? What did he think three women would do to him? “Where are the men?” he asked.

“Gathering firewood,
señor.
”

“When will they be back?”

“Not until lunch.”

“I don’t have time to wait.” He rubbed his leg.

“What’s the matter with your leg,
señor
?”

“Just a strain.”

I wanted to ask him to roll up his pants so that I could look at his injury, but I held my tongue. How could I ask this of a stranger from the city? Of course, anyone here in the village would be grateful for my advice, but I had the feeling that a man from the city would not. Remember, whenever I’d offered my cures to the García López family, they’d accused me of working with the devil.

“You look thirsty and tired,” I said. “Would you like some tea? Would you like to sit down?”

“No, thank you,” he said, looking impatient. “You will pass a message on to the men?”

“Of course.”

“What’s he saying?” whispered María. She was nearly bursting with curiosity.

“Shhh…wait, María!”

The man cleared his throat. “You have heard of the sickness that is killing people?”

“Yes. It hasn’t come here.”

“Well, it will.” He spoke with arrogance, the way men boasted to each other while drinking. “It will come, unless you follow these instructions. Do you have the
baños de temazcal
here?”

“Yes,” I said. Oh, what relief. Maybe this sickness could be cured with the
baños de temazcal
—steambaths with special herbs. I gave
baños
to women after they’d given birth. And for men, sometimes, if they’d pulled a muscle. Perhaps it worked for this sickness, too.

“You may no longer do the
baños,
” he said.

“What?” Had I misunderstood?

“Anyone who does will be sent to jail. Doctors say the
baños
are filthy. They spread diseases like wildfire.”

“But the
baños
are good. They cure.”

He spoke to me with impatience, as though I were a small child. “Have you gone to school,
señorita
?”

I shook my head. There was no school in my village. I had heard that there was a school in a nearby town, but the girls didn’t go. They had too much work to do at home.

“Can you read?”

Again, I shook my head. Now my throat was tightening up. Blood was rising to my face.

“Well, these doctors have books. Shelves and shelves of books. I’ve seen them myself. And the doctors have recommended that the
baños
be forbidden.” He began walking away, showing me that he was done with the conversation.

I followed him. “Wait,” I said. I was trying to stay calm, thinking about Aunt Teresa. She would have her baby any day now. It would be a hard birth. The midwife had felt the baby the wrong way inside her. And Aunt had nearly died after giving birth to María. She would need many steambaths to recover. This I felt sure of. “There is no sickness in our village, no need for this law.”

“All you must do is pass the message on to the men, can you do that?”

To him I was an ignorant Indian girl, nothing more. María saw that he was on the edge of anger. And maybe worse, that
I
was on the edge of anger. She pulled my arm gently. “Let’s go, Helena.”

I stood like a tree rooted to that spot. I felt my face changing, my eyes narrowing. The hair on the back of my neck bristled.

“Come on,” María said. She tugged at my arm.

At that moment the man turned away, toward his horse. He straightened his jacket, squared his shoulders, took three steps, and tripped over a tree root. This sent him stumbling into a chicken, which squawked and flew up against him in a rage. He staggered back with a cry and fell, just missing a pile of fresh burro droppings.

María let out a squeak of laughter and clapped her hand over her mouth. I felt the beginnings of a smile on my face. A guilty smile, because as a healer, I cannot laugh at other people’s suffering. But my fury was fading, and I felt some compassion for the poor man.

Together María and I ran back to Aunt, under the tree. Her huge belly jiggled with her own laughter. In the shade, we watched the man struggle to climb back onto his horse and ride off. Really, he was not to blame for bringing bad news. I decided that if he returned, I’d gather some herbs for a poultice for his leg, and a tea for the pain. What he truly needed was a
baño de temazcal.
But of course, he would never accept that, would he?

I was right about Aunt’s delivery. All night, the midwife struggled with her. And all night, I worked. I made poultices to slow the bleeding. Brewed tea to ease the pain, ground up fresh herbs to help her push the baby out. Cup after cup of
ruda
with hot chocolate she drank. And yes, finally, the baby came out alive, healthy. A little girl with a perfectly round face and big moon eyes.

But afterward, Aunt was pale and wrung out as an old rag. Her bleeding wouldn’t stop. Her belly ached. Her whole body ached. She wouldn’t eat, and her breasts had just a trickle of milk for the baby. After a few days, both the baby girl and Aunt lay on the
petate,
limp, nearly lifeless.

“Helena, you must give your aunt
baños de temazcal
to heal her,” the midwife told me. “To make milk for the baby.”

“But the steambaths are forbidden now,” I said. I thought of the prison, the dirt floor, the stale, sad smell. Doña Three Teeth, who had nothing left after ten years in there.

“She could die, Helena,” the midwife warned. “If you don’t give her the
baños,
she could die.”

The midwife was right. And I was the only one in the village who knew how to give the
baños
now. The
señora
who used to give them had died the year before.

“I will give her one
baño
every Sunday night,” I said finally. “For five Sundays. I will do it at night, in secret.”

After the first
baño,
Aunt Teresa’s delight in food returned. Her breast milk began to flow. Her baby seemed more alert now. Soon the baby’s moon eyes were following María and me around the kitchen. Still, Aunt felt weak, and still, pain lingered in her belly, but little by little her strength grew, while her pain faded.