Starfields (16 page)

May there be only light within your mouths and before your faces, O gods.

W
hen Rosalba and Mama got home that night, Papa was sitting in the patio drinking sugarcane beer. He called out, “Come here, daughter,” and she went to stand on the opposite side of the fire with its thin ribbon of smoke.

“Tonight the elders are gathering,” Papa announced, lifting his gourd high. “They’ll talk about the drought. They’ll talk about you.” He looked hard at Rosalba. “You know what people are saying.”

“Yes, Papa.” Standing there, she suddenly felt as formless as the smoke, as though she might fade into the air. She tried to focus on Catarina’s words of comfort, her offer of sisterhood.

Nana had prepared the meal, setting the table with the enamel cups and plates.

Everyone ate in silence, Papa scooping up chili flakes with his tortillas, the boys hungrily downing one bean-filled tortilla after another.

As Rosalba picked at her food, she wondered if the elders would banish her from San Martín that very evening. Would she be forced to wander the Highlands alone, as Catarina had been? At least Catarina had folk painting to sell. She, Rosalba, had nothing.

Sparks flew up from the fire, as if to join the hot stars overhead.

A small figure appeared out of the darkness, coming to stand in the circle of firelight. It was the boy Efrain. He announced, “The elders want Rosalba. Rosalba Nicho. They want her to bring her loom.”

Mama and Nana looked at each other, then lowered their eyes.

Rosalba went into the hut. Somehow she had to prepare, to do something special. She put on her best everyday
huipil,
hoping the powerful designs would protect her. For extra luck, she clipped Alicia’s sparkly barrette into her hair.

Outside, Mama and Nana busied themselves with cleaning the table, acting as though nothing was wrong. The boys tended the fire, while Papa lit a cigarette and stared into the star-bright night. Adelina clung to Rosalba. “Come back soon, Rosie. Don’t let the spooks get you!”

Just as Rosalba turned to leave, Nana tucked a large white carnation behind Rosalba’s ear, whispering, “For good luck.”

Rosalba followed Efrain through the darkness, passing the huts where firelight leaked through the twig walls. Might she soon live, like Catarina Sanate, on the other side of the village fence of stones, cornstalks, and bricks?

For courage, she imagined herself as a Zapatista going to war with the loom as her rifle. She pretended that Efrain was the leader of the revolt and that she was following him into battle.

At last, Efrain stopped in front of the elders’ hut. He stepped close to the blanket and gave a low whistle.

Smelling the sweet copal, Rosalba knew the elders had already been consulting the ancestors.

A voice called out, and Efrain pulled the blanket aside. He beckoned to Rosalba.

At the sight of Tío Mariano, Tío Jorge, and Señor Tulán, a red kerchief tied across his forehead, and three other old men sitting on wooden chairs, Rosalba’s heart beat hard against her ribs. Yet she drew herself tall. The unusual weaving, she reminded herself, had not been her idea.

In spite of the heat, firelight danced along the walls. The men didn’t greet her, but sat silently, their hands folded, beads of sweat rolling down their faces. No one smiled. Outside, the crickets sang their rickety songs.

Señor Tulán unfolded his hands and gestured toward an empty chair.

Rosalba wondered if they’d allow her to say good-bye to her family. Maybe she could get to Mexico City and find Alicia. Cradling the loom in the crook of her arm, she decided that if she had to go, she would hold her head high. The chair rocked on the uneven ground, first closer to the men, then away.

More silence. Rosalba thought of the sun far below them, slipping through the nine layers of the Underworld.

Señor Tulán finally spoke, his voice as deep and slow as far-off thunder. “We have heard of the unusual nature of your weaving. Please show us your loom.”

Rosalba stood up.

Tío Mariano also rose and held out his hands, ready to receive one end.

As Rosalba unrolled the weaving, the traditional designs appeared first: the Earthlord and his toad, the sun traveling through the thirteen layers of sky.

The men paid little attention.

When she revealed the patternless browns and blacks, each of the elders studied the weaving. None spoke. Rosalba imagined the Earthlord also looking on, peering over the shoulders of these old men.

“You may roll the loom up again,” said Señor Tulán.

Rosalba did so, and sat back down. Her nostrils were full of the clove-like scent of the carnation behind her ear, grown fragrant in the heat.

“As you know, drought has struck,” said the old shaman. “Not for many years have we had such a disastrous rainy season. The cornfields are dying.”

Rosalba nodded slightly. He was about to say the lack of rain was all her fault.

Instead he surprised her, saying, “Obviously, one girl’s weaving couldn’t cause such drought.”

Rosalba shifted her loom from one arm to the other.

“And yet,” the shaman went on, “the people of San Martín are talking.”

The embers popped. The old men sat with folded hands.

“Do you have anything to say, Rosalba Nicho?” asked Señor Tulán.

Rosalba stared at the dirt floor. Now was the moment to save herself. She hoped her words would be just right. “The other night I had an ancestor dream,” she said slowly, “A young shaman came to me.”

“How do you know it was a shaman?”

“By the way he spoke. His painted face. His jewelry.”

Señor Tulán nodded.

Rosalba went on, her voice steady: “He instructed me to weave dead cornfields.”

Tío Mariano leaned forward.

“He
clearly
instructed this,” Rosalba added. “Somehow this”— she nodded toward the loom in her lap —“will help us all.”

“But the drought . . .” Señor Tulán murmured.

“There’s no rain not because of my weaving, but because the Earthlord’s toads are dying.”

All the old men looked puzzled. Señor Tulán tilted his head to the side.

Rosalba explained about the scientists, the fungus that was killing amphibians, including the toads.

“I know of that,” Tío Jorge said. “It’s called amphibian die-off. I too met the scientific team from Mexico City.”

“But that’s not all,” said Rosalba, feeling emboldened. “The road those men are building is also killing frogs and probably toads. When the bulldozer filled in the stream with dirt, lots of frogs died.”

She could hear the night birds rustling in the trees outside.

“We have been debating the road,” said Tío Jorge. “It would bring prosperity to San Martín. Many here are poor. Many older people don’t even get out. The school is far away. A road could be a good thing.”

Rosalba glanced at Señor Tulán to see if he agreed. But his eyes were closed.

This was the moment to do the young shaman’s will. It was a precarious moment, time to do her
one big thing,
as Alicia would have said.

Taking a deep breath, Rosalba set her loom on the ground. She sat tall, saying, “Maybe the
road
is causing the drought.”

For the first time, Señor Tulán smiled. “Not a little road like that.”

“Maybe not, Señor, but you never know.” Rosalba could hardly believe her own daring. “My friend Alicia — her
papi
is one of the scientists — says the sun is going to get hit by a big beam of light when it gets to the center of the galaxy. And she says that could be either really bad — the world could end — or really good. It can only be good if we take care of the planet.”

“Are you talking about the 2012 prophesy?” another elder asked.

Rosalba nodded. “It’s like the Flood. It’s the next destruction.”

And then she stood, rising to stand above the seated elders. The next words weren’t her own, but those of the boy talking through her. “If the road is built, we will become less Mayan. We here in San Martín will become like those in the town. People there do not dwell in the blossoming of the Earth or in the Earthlord, who guides us. They do not dwell in the sacred movement of the stars. If we do not live as Mayans, there is no hope of maintaining the order of the universe.”

Señor Tulán stared at her in surprise. Then he lowered his gaze and stirred the dirt with the toe of his sandal. “I have thought of that.” He drew a circle, first one way, then the other.

“What if the road goes all the way to the cave of the Earthlord?” Rosalba asked.

All three men stared at her.

After a time in which the sun had dropped another notch into the Underworld, Señor Tulán said, “Please step outside, Rosalba Nicho, and wait.”

The stars pulsed in time to the crickets’ songs. As a warm wind blew, Rosalba rocked from one foot to the other, clutching her loom. Were the elders discussing her fate? Were they deciding where to send her? If they only
knew
! She needed them to
help
her, not push her out of the village. The elders had to help her! They
had
to!

She heard a flute in the distance, sweet notes like a trickle of refreshing water.

Just as a group of fireflies appeared, twinkling in the bushes, Rosalba felt a light touch on the carnation tucked behind her ear. A touch as if in reassurance, a touch that passed through her like a soft breeze.

The curtain was drawn back, and one of the elders beckoned.

When Rosalba reentered the hut, the fire had grown smaller. The light flickered, not on the walls, but on the faces of the elders. She took a seat on the chair that rocked forward, then backward.

A large log, mostly burnt, balanced on another log. Rosalba watched it, wondering when it would tumble.

When at last the log fell, Señor Tulán said, “I have felt the lightning in my blood. The lightning tells me what to do.”

Another log crashed into the hot red coals.

Señor Tulán continued: “Tomorrow I will go down to the bulldozer. I will talk to the man driving it. I will tell him that I am going to talk to the government.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Rosalba. “Thank you!” She took the carnation from her hair and handed it to Señor Tulán. “Thank you.”

One of the men tossed a handful of copal onto the embers, and the whole room grew sweet.

I am learning to see the small things first. Inside the cave, I watch water slipping over the nodules of the stalactites. I watch until I understand how each drop adds infinitesimally to that lumpy formation.

Outside I gather the dropped tail feathers of birds. I study the iridescence in the sunlight, the webbing between each of the parts, the attachment to the central quill.

Last night, when I touched the flower in the girl’s hair, passing my fingertips over its complicated form, I wanted to behold such a thing completely with my eyes. And all things like it.

For now I gather only the tiny things into myself, preparing to enter the visible world.

Today I allowed the very largest. At dawn and just past sunset I lifted my eyes to the empty sky. The light fell into me, filling me, healing me.