The Day of the Moon (10 page)

The old man, eyes closed, pressed on his belly with both hands. Sharp pains shot from one side of his abdomen to the other. He leaned his head back and returned to his memories. Beyond the window, rain was still falling. Don Flavio's frail body shuddered, his eyes on the window, which flashed with reflections from headlights of passing cars.

The old man again doubled over in the chair. The pain in his gut was too severe, too intolerable. Saliva trickled from his flaccid lips. He tried to straighten his body, but could not; his stomach was clamped, as in a vise.

“Ahh!”

Ursula and Alondra rushed back into the room when they heard the old man whimpering. They opened the door and found him on the floor, on his side hugging his knees to his stomach. His face was twisted in pain; the moaning turned to howling, and the howling escalated with each second.

The women got down next to him, trying to soothe him, trying to get him to stop the wailing, but Don Flavio wept, mouth open, groaning and crying out to Isadora. He called her, but there was no reply. He convulsed even more until pain overwhelmed him, plunging him into unconsciousness, where his spirit still wrestled with the vision of his daughter, locked in a cell.

Jalisco, Mexico, 1939

Isadora Betancourt stirred from the drug-induced sleep in which she had been plunged for days. Sprawled out across the rear seat, she was jostled back and forth as the car lumbered over cobblestones and potholes. When she was able at last to lift herself up, she saw her father's craggy silhouette up front beside the driver. She craned her neck and squinted, but her vision blurred as she twisted to peer through the rear window. All she could make out were the bushes that came into view under the reflection of the tail lights of the Packard.

Isadora tried to speak, but the roof of her mouth and her tongue were parched. She opened her lips; no sound came out. Slowly, her mind began to clear as the vehicle rumbled along the tight, curving road. She tried to think, but all she could recall after the shooting was being locked in a room; for how long, she didn't know. She remembered vague images: her father and another man dragging her into a car. This confused her—she was certain that she had killed her father. How could he have survived? How much time had passed?

Her last clear memory was of her father's house, where they had argued. After that, there was darkness, thick and impenetrable as that now enveloping her. The pupils of her eyes distended, trying to focus. She thought of Samuel and of Alondra, but a drugged fog wiped out all other images.

“Where are we going?” she croaked.

Don Flavio twisted his neck to glance sideways at his daughter. Terror suddenly flooded her; she was beginning to understand.
Isadora could see the loose, wobbly skin of his lower jaw; its layers hung over the starched collar of his shirt, which was held together by a bow tie. His mouth was set rigidly, and in the darkness she made out the glint of his faded blue eyes.

“Where are we going?”

Without thinking, her panicked hands lunged at the door. No matter how many times she pushed the handle up, down, it would not open; it had been locked from the outside.

She began to flail her legs wildly in the air. When her bare feet did not land on the padded back of the seat, several of the blows found a mark. One landed squarely in the driver's right ear. He hunched over the steering wheel and grunted with pain. The next barrage grazed her father's cheek, but then he twisted around in his seat and was able to grasp both her ankles in a tight grip. His fists gripped her so tightly that she let out a moan. The car halted abruptly.

As the driver waited before iron doors for the arrival of a gate-keeper, there was silence except for the whirr of the car engine and the heavy breathing of its three passengers.

Isadora stopped struggling, and Don Flavio let go of her legs. She pressed her face against the car window to read the words inscribed on the wall that loomed above them.
Sanatorio de San Juan. Zapopan, Jalisco.
Through the front windshield, as her eyes distended in fright, she saw the curving façade of the asylum.

No, it was a convent. Perhaps even a church.

But as the car approached the building, Isadora began to hear a woman shrieking in the distance. She tilted her head and turned her ears in the direction of the screaming. Brígida had described such a place to her once, a place where men hid away disobedient women. At first, the insane screaming seemed to be far off. It began to draw closer until it was almost on top of her.

Then she knew. Isadora's hands jerked up to find her mouth wide open with terror. She tried to clasp her hands over that wailing, gaping hole, but she had lost control over her body.

The large front doors of the sanitarium were yanked open and four men ran down the steep stairway. Isadora caught sight of their uniforms as the rear door of the car was unlocked. She lunged in the opposite direction, trying to avoid their groping hands. She pounded at the closed window with her fists, and when the glass shattered, she did not mind the shards as they penetrated her wrists and forearms.

She had been wearing a nightgown and thin robe, and these ripped apart as she was dragged from the car, but she was oblivious to her nakedness and to the pain inflicted on her breasts, shoulders, and abdomen by those pulling and wrenching hands. She continued to jerk her arms and legs violently as she screamed. With a strength that caught her restrainers by surprise, she wiggled and contorted her body until she pulled herself from their grip. Feeling herself free, she raced, stumbling and tripping, up the stairway and deep into the inner courtyard of the asylum.

The columns of the cloister loomed in front of her. Its potted ferns and geraniums glistened like black monsters in that hour before dawn. She ran around the plants, stubbing her toes and cutting her bare feet against the sharp tiled floor. She crashed into a top-heavy planter that blocked her way, sending it smashing to the floor; dirt and fronds lashed up at her. After circling the courtyard frantically several times, panting and out of breath, she ran headlong and fell into a fountain that she had not seen.

The men finally yanked her, gasping and stupefied, from the cold water and held on to her. Isadora heard one man breathing hard through his mouth as he grasped her left arm and plunged a needle into it, unloading the contents of a syringe. Her last sensations before drifting into unconsciousness were of water streaming out of her nose and of tile cutting into her knees.

She could hear voices, but her body was paralyzed and she could not speak. She was lying on a hard surface and covered by something that felt like a sheet. Although her eyes were shut, the
light of an overhanging lamp filtered in; whirling white and black spheres drifted by in the void beneath her eyelids.

“
Señor Betancourt, we'll have to put your daughter through a series of tests before any conclusions can be reached.”

Isadora's ears strained to hear a response, but there was only silence.

“What I mean, Don Flavio, is that we can't just keep her here without the strongest evidence that she is, indeed, demented. Remember, please, that this sanitarium is only for the most extreme cases. If your daughter has been showing signs of melancholy, or any other symptoms, this doesn't mean that she has lost her mind.”

Isadora struggled to move but she could not—not a finger, or a toe, or an elbow. She wondered why it was that she could hear and yet not move. After several minutes, she detected her father's heavy breathing.

“Doctor Alférez, she is demented; she tried to kill me. I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it. She inherited it from her mother, believe me. She, too, lost her mind, but God was good to her. He took her to Him.”

Her father's lies began to steady Isadora. She remembered what had happened. She had learned of Jerónimo's murder. She was glad that she had tried to kill her father.

“But—”

“This stranger is no longer my daughter. She died some time ago, I tell you. In her place we have this woman who has shown her demented condition in acts of depravity and violence.”

Jerónimo's face penetrated the darkness. She thought of Alondra. Then she stopped being afraid. Isadora felt a finger peeling the eyelid from her left eye. A pinpointed shaft of light inundated the pupil, and then the lid clamped back in place as the finger moved away. She heard a deep sigh.

“Still, Don Flavio—forgive me, for there is no offense intended—but I cannot take only your word. We are obliged to—”

The voice halted abruptly and there was rustling or shuffling of what sounded like paper. There was movement in the room. A window opened, and she felt a gust of air against her face.

“You will get this on a monthly basis, doctor. It will increase with each year of her life. I see also that you are in need of new equipment; this table should be replaced by a more modern one. Be assured that we will guarantee the improvement of your institution.”

There was more silence, then the click of an opening and shutting door. Fear shot through her again, compelling her to scream, but the howl echoed only in her mind; her mouth was frozen shut.

Isadora understood that she was abandoned. She realized that she would be isolated for the rest of her life and that it had been her father who had condemned her.

Isadora Bentacourt's earliest recollection was of being curious about
Tía
Brígida. After that, it was Jerónimo Santiago who filled almost every moment of her childhood. Even when she was with her father, even when they ate together or rode out to the
llano,
her mind was usually filled with thoughts of her aunt or the Rarámuri boy.

One night, when Isadora was twelve years old, she heard someone singing, or maybe it was sighing. Although she had been in a deep sleep, the lilting sound awoke her. She slipped out of bed and crept slowly down the corridor. As she moved, she looked around, then up. The shadows that clung to the vaulted ceilings like giant black birds scared her, as did the elongated windows along one side of the hallway. They seemed to be pointed eyes that followed her. All of this frightened her, but she wanted to discover what it was that she was hearing.

“¡Ay, Dios!”

Isadora was so close to
Tía
Brígida's room now that she could make out words that seeped from underneath the door. She stopped for a moment, undecided, wanting to run back to the safety of her room, but curiosity held her back. Then she heard more. This time it was a name.

“Velia Carmelita!”

Brígida's voice was soft. Isadora thought it sounded almost like the beginning of a song, and she felt her fear melting away. She moved as close to the door as she could and pressed an ear to the carved panel.

“Velia Carmelita!”

There it was again! Isadora had not been mistaken: her aunt was calling out her mother's name. Brígida's voice was so beautiful that the girl could not help herself when she put her hand on the bronze handle and turned it. The door opened almost without a push; the vast bedroom loomed in front of her. A pale light flooded the place, and Isadora saw Brígida sitting on the edge of her bed. Now she heard her voice clearly, but she still could not make out whether Brígida was singing or crying.

The girl hesitated for a few seconds, then began to inch toward her aunt. Brígida suddenly became quiet and the faint swish of Isadora's bare feet filled the room. Brígida jerked around. This frightened the girl so much that she ran out of the room. In her white nightgown, Isadora's flight formed a streak of light in the gloom until she disappeared from sight.

When she reached her room, she was breathing heavily from the strain of running and from fright. She jumped back into bed and covered her head with the blanket, giggling and crying at the same time. She felt sorry that she had run; she wished that she had stayed to hear her aunt's song. As sleep overcame her, Isadora thought that she would have liked for
Tía
Brígida to hold her in her arms.

Early next morning, Isadora rode out with her father, as they did nearly every day. That morning, however, she made up her mind that she would not listen to her father's parables, nor about the rules and barriers that governed women.

“Papá, why does Tía Brígida act funny?”

Flavio abruptly halted his horse, taking the bridle of her mount at the same time.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she sighs a lot, and she sings. Don't you hear her? I think it happens nearly every night.”

He sucked air through his teeth. Now Brígida was affecting his daughter. He knew now that he could no longer put off the subject.

“Because she's crazy.”

“Crazy? How?”

Isadora was puzzled. She frowned because she did not see the connection. Trying to be patient, Flavio pursed his lips, but he could not help the scowl that made him look angry. He did not want to speak about his sister, even if it concerned Isadora.

“When someone has everything—food, clothing, a fine house, servants, anything she wants in the world—and still passes her days and nights acting like a fool, that's a crazy woman. Don't you think it's time for our cup of chocolate?” He pressed his spurs into his horse and galloped away.

Isadora stayed behind a few moments, considering what her father had said, then she followed him. While they were eating, they chatted, but although Brígida was not part of their talk, both were thinking of her.

Isadora would not be put off. After breakfast she went to the kitchen to look for Ursula. She finally found her outside, at the rear of the house, where she was ordering flour, rice, wine, and other things from a traveling merchant. The girl waited until Ursula was finished.

“Ursula, why does
Tía
Brígida act like she does?”

The older woman looked at Isadora. For ten years she had watched her grow from a child of three, and during that time she had come to love her. Ursula had not married; she had taken Isadora as her daughter. Now one of the questions that she had known would be asked one day had been asked. She turned away as she poured water into a jug. “How do you mean?”