Mexico (81 page)

But one fundamental practice at the Mineral he did change. In the old days, it was only after three or four women had fallen to their death because of some faulty stone in the stairs that that step had been repaired. Now with Jubal making the descent and ascent several times each week, and inspecting each step as he climbed, he saw that the problem had two parts: either the riser was too high, making the downward step dangerous, or the tread was too narrow or lacking a corner, making the foot slip off. By correcting these errors before they could imperil the women, he saved lives.

One day while he was working with the stonecutter, a solitary Indian woman came up the steps and had to pause until the workman finished, and for the first time there in the semidarkness with the great stone-lined hole reaching downward, Jubal spoke with an individual Indian basket carrier. To his surprise she was not reticent, and in response to his interrogations revealed that she was nineteen, born to parents from a village not far from Toledo, baptized by priests in that area and sent by them to the mines as was traditional for young women of that village. She had worked in the shaft climbing up and down with her basket since the age of fourteen and expected to continue till thirty-five or a few years longer and then either to return to the village or to take a job in one of the caverns doing the jobs that centered in those spacious areas.

"Why do you stop at age thirty-five?" Jubal asked, and the young woman had no explanation, but the mason working on the faulty tread interrupted: 'Their legs. They can't climb anymore. Well, they can climb, but not with baskets." He grinned at the woman and said: "I couldn't climb them either, with that loud of ore," and when Jubal tested the weight he said: "Me neither."

The woman said she had an Indian name, which Jubal did not understand, but also a baptismal name given her by the priest: "They said I was Maria de la Caridad. We're always Maria and another name to make sure the Virgin Mother looks aAer us." Her name meant Charity, and by popular custom she was known simply as Caridad. As she repeated the name Kartz-thath she gave it such a sweet, melodious sound that Jubal looked for the first time at her as another human being, a person like his dead wife, Zephania, who had given her shortened name, Zeph, that same musical lilt, and in that moment of recognition the basket carrier became not a slave sentenced to this life of toil by her Church and her government but an individual person with^a character, aspirations and a soul.

In later conversations with Caridad, Clay learned that her ancestor many generations back had been an important Altomec woman named Lady Gray Eyes, who had destroyed the terrible ancient gods and paved the way for Christianity, but Caridad wondered if the new religion was in any significant way better than the old: "It was the priests who discovered the mine and who dug this hole and put us to work for them." But when Jubal made inquiries about that, he learned that it was not Antonio, the first Palafox and the priest, who had done these things, but his brother Timoteo, who had been a kind of businessman and the operator of the mine in its earliest stages. And when he asked about this mystical Lady Gray Eyes, the Palafox men said: "No myth there. She was very real, and she did lead her people away from the hideous old gods and to Christianity. She had a beautiful daughter-in-law, Xochiti, mother of the amazing Indian woman called Stranger. That one married the first Palafox, so all of us dark ones are her descendants; the light-skinned ones come from the brother who married a Spanish lady, and kept doing it--I mean his descendants married Spaniards, too."

Why, Jubal wondered, did the Palafox line of Lady Gray Eyes' children now live in rural palaces while Caridad's slaved in the mines? Realizing that he lacked enough background to sort out a complicated story, he paid no more attention to it, but something happened in the mine that showed Caridad was an unusual Indian woman and perhaps just as proud as the Palafox men, to whom she was, presumably, distandy related. One day when he was working in one of the deepest caverns where the donkeys were kept, a group of Indian men were trying to fix an intricate network of ropes around a donkey so they could lower it to the newly excavated cavern below. They were having such difficulties with the obstinate beast that the foreman, one Joshua with a big voice, yelled at Caridad, who was nearby: "Don't just stand there like a fool. Help swing that rope." When she tried to pass it under the beast's belly, the donkey kicked, striking not Caridad but Joshua, who responded by knocking Caridad away from the operation and abusing her both physically and verbally. This Jubal could not tolerate, so he moved Caridad aside, told her not to worry, and himself fixed the sling under the animal and helped Joshua lower it to the next level.

Thus occupied, he did not notice the effect of Joshua's attack on Caridad, but when he finished the drop he chanced to look at her, and her face was many shades darker than before and she was biting her lower lip so hard that flecks of blood showed. Judging it prudent not to involve himself in Indian problems, he climbed up the stairs that now showed no danger spots, and by the time he was back at the smelter he had dismissed the incident altogether.

However, a few days later Indian women came to his office screaming: "Senor, Joshua fall down the shaft. Dead." Descending the stairs rapidly, he reached the cavern that housed the donkeys to find the dark place in turmoil. In the first moments of his investigation he learned that Caridad and others had been working to affix the sling to another donkey when Joshua had fallen backward and down the dark shaft. A woman named Maria de la Concepci
o
n whispered: "Don Jubal, he was no good," and when he queried the men in the lower cavern one said: "I saw him fall, and he cried 'Caridad,' " but this informant also said that Joshua was no good, and he had not told the other men of the foreman's last word.

Jubal decided that Caridad had pretty surely taken revenge on Joshua, and he concluded further that it was not preposterous to think that this determined little basket carrier might be descended from some strong-minded woman who had defied and destroyed the unacceptable ancient gods.

Clay was pleasantly surprised to receive an invitation from the Palafox men to what became almost a recapitulation of that memorable family dinner in 1847, when the owners of the Mineral first broached the possibility of Clay's taking over the management of their mine. The same three couples were guests, and after drinks on the veranda overlooking the pyramid and congratulating Jubal on his accomplishments in improving the appearance and profitability of the Mineral, Don Alipio's wife said as darkness fell: "Alipio, ask the servants to light the flares," and brands soaked in oil were lit along the high wall that enclosed the gardens protecting the house. In this congenial ambience, with birds bidding the world good night, the group passed the hours from seven through eleven discussing the death of Emperor Maximilian and the deplorable consequences for his widow, the Belgian princess.

"I loved her musical name," one of the women said, and in a gentle singsong she recited: "Marie Charlotte Amelie Augustine Victoire Clementine Leopoldine."

"Did she have no last name?" another woman asked, and the first said: "Seven is enough."

"But you didn't say what happened to her," and the doleful answer came: 'Tragedy overwhelmed her. She lost her mind, they say."

"Did they shoot her, too?"

"No, Juarez wasn't cruel enough for that. She's to go into exile, I believe--a sad misadventure, but we'll survive, Mexico always does."

At eleven the party moved inside to the spacious dining room with its heavy oak chairs and silent Indian waiters, but before anyone was seated, Senora Palafox announced: "We have late arrivals," and through the wide doorway came a most handsome couple, both in their late twenties, the man in a gold-and-blue uniform, the woman in an ingeniously decorated white dress whose minute stitching in light brown and gold made it almost shimmer in the flickering light. "This is our son-in-law Major Echeverria and his wife, our daughter, Alicia." Turning to Clay, the mother said: "I think you met our daughter when you were here before," but Clay was speechless, because just then a maid brought into the room a little girl of seven or eight dressed in the same exquisite China Poblana costume her mother had worn in 1847. As Jubal looked at the child the years passed, the war vanished, the terrible losses h
e h
ad sustained were obliterated, and he was again twenty-four with the stunning victories of General Scott less than three months past.

The protracted dinner, eleven till half past one, was for Clay p mixture of delight and torment, for although he was glad to see Alicia so radiant and happy as a wife and mother, he was distraught to think that a child who had impressed him so indelibly twenty years earlier, and who had lived in his memory ever since as that adorable child in her China Poblana, had graduated into a world from which he was forever barred.

As the amiable chatter swirled about him he wondered: Why am I so fascinated by her? Could it be that she represents all I lost in the fire? Is she Zephania reborn? But he had scarcely phrased the possibility than he dismissed it. No, damn it. It's Alicia herself. My God, how lovely she is! Then he almost broke into laughter at himself for his fanciful daydreaming. It's that damned dress. How that Chinese girl must have agitated the minds of Mexico. How she still agitates me.

His eyes kept focusing on the child, and her mother, noticing this, said rather boldly: "You seem to be fascinated
. W
ith my daughter's dress. Do you recognize it as one I wore here years ago?"

"I had hoped it was," he replied, and was about to explain why when Alicia said: "It was my grandmother's. It survived four generations."

Now he found himself gazing furtively at Alicia, and he saw that the promise of unusual beauty she had shown as a child had become reality. Not only did she have exceptional physical beauty but she seemed to have almost a spiritual force. Moreover, she talked sense: "Poor, doomed Carlota, she should have known their irresponsible adventure could come to no good end. No outsider could ever rule Mexico because it's doubtful he could understand us--certainly not an Austrian."

"She was Belgian," Senora Palafox corrected and her daughter said: "I was thinking of Maximilian. He should never have brought a creature like that to this savage land."

Alicia's use of the word "savage" caused her uncles and her father to protest, but she defended her position with spirit: "I see it so. The horror of that pyramid out there. Our greatgrandfather Timoteo branding all the Indians on the cheek. What things that infamous Cort
o
s did. And the imbecilities of
Santa Anna, eleven different presidents in thirteen years. Let me tell you, we're a doomed land."

Her father said: "Much as I despise Juarez, I think he might bring stability to this country. At least let us pray that he does," and on that hopeful note the dinner ended. And the Palafox men united in telling Clay: "You've exceeded our expectations. Now if we can only get the railroad to come our way, we'll be protected," and Jubal said: 'That's up to you, gentiemen. You know the people in control."

When time came to bid the Palafoxes good night and ride back to the Mineral, he said good-bye to Major Echeverria, shaking his hand. When he came to Alicia he bowed, afraid to touch her, but she extended her hand and took his: "We're so glad you came," and he could say nothing. Alicia's daughter in her China Poblana curtsied and said in a piping voice: "We're glad to see you, brave americano," and the group applauded.

In the following days Clay was tormented by the vision of Alicia Echeverria, who reminded him of all he had lost in Virginia: his wife, his home, his way of life and the companionship of his children. At night he slept poorly and in the daytime found litde joy in performing the very tasks that the previous week had given him such a feeling of satisfaction. He kept thinking alternately of Senora Echeverria and her eight-year-old daughter, and the child merged into the little Alicia he had seen twenty years before. It was perplexing, but one fact rose constantiy before him: Alicia, this vision of perfection, was married to someone else and would forever be unattainable. Yet her presence remained with him, and goaded him into an act so bizarre that he could have explained it to no one.

It had been the custom in Toledo for almost two centuries to have in the month of April a fiesta that filled the plaza with activity. It was the modern version of the ancient celebration that I had come down to photograph in 1961, and although by now it had degenerated--or grown--into primarily a series of three splendid bullfights attended by rich Americans, in my grandfather's day it had retained much of its original religious impulse. In 1868, when he had begun to whip the Mineral into productive order, he happened to ride through town when the fiesta was under way, and normally he would not have been interested in the goods and services on sale, for he needed none of them, but on this day he happened to notice a roving band of musicians whose like he had not heard before. They were wandering minstrels, seven rural men from the outlying villages, and they played music featuring a steady beat, an elegant use of strings and two of the best trumpeters he had ever heard, and as a military man he had heard many. They also had one violin player gifted with a voice capable of producing a soaring falsetto and he sang like a joyous lark reaching for the heavens.

Clay became so pleased with this music that for some time he followed the musicians as they strolled through the plaza, collecting coins. As he passed an improvised shop peddling dolls, he saw something that caused him to stop abruptly. Forgetting about the musicians, he stared at one fairly large doll, rudely made but dressed in a splendidly sewn China Poblana, each detail of the dress done exactly right. The dress was a work of art, unlike the primitive doll it clothed--it was the best of Mexican workmanship married to the worst.