The Day of the Moon (11 page)

“At night she sings and hums and walks through the corridors.”

“That's not so strange.”

“It isn't?”

“No. She sleeps during the day.”

Isadora wrinkled her forehead and put her hand on Ursula's shoulder. She wanted her attention.

“Why does she call out my mother's name?”

Ursula put down the jug, wiped her hands on her apron and looked at the girl. She was like her father. Her eyes, her hair, her face, her developing body.
This
, Ursula told herself,
makes her like Brígida as well
. But as she looked hard at Isadora, she saw what she had seen in her since she was a child. Somewhere around the edges of her forehead, the corners of her lips, the slope of her cheeks—there, if anyone looked and remembered, was Velia Carmelita. Ursula knew, because she remembered Don Flavio's wife, even if she was yet very young when the woman died. She wrapped her hands in the apron and tilted her head. Her eyes squinted in the morning sun.

“Well,
niña,
I'm not sure, but I think it's because she loved your mother very much.”

“But …”

“When you love someone and that person dies, a part of your spirit goes with her. It is a sadness that comes to take the place of what used to be yours.”

When Ursula heard her own words, she realized that she was speaking without really knowing of what she spoke. She had as yet not lost someone she loved, someone like Isadora.

“But she sings, Ursula. People sing when they're happy, not sad.”

“Sometimes we sing when we're sad. We do this especially in our dreams.”

Having said this, Ursula freed her hands from the apron, patted down a few strands of hair that had come loose in the breeze, and returned to the kitchen. She left Isadora alone, but when she looked back, she saw that the girl was still standing where she had left her.

That day, Isadora decided to face her
Tía
Brígida. She did not wait until nighttime because she was afraid of losing her nerve; darkness frightened her. So she waited until after the meal, when almost everyone in the hacienda was taking a siesta and there would be no one watching, not even her father.

Making an effort to be brave, Isadora headed for Brígida's bedroom. She even took off her shoes, so that there would not be any noise. This time, as she walked through the corridor, everything seemed different. The windows weren't elongated, peeping eyes; they just let in the afternoon sun. The high ceilings did not conceal ugly birds, but seemed to give shelter, protection.

When she reached Brígida's door, Isadora knocked softly. There was no response, so she rapped again, louder this time. As she pressed an ear to the panel, she was startled when the door opened unexpectedly. Brígida stood facing the girl; she was dressed in a full-length black dress with a collar that reached to her chin; and the sleeves were so long, only her white, tapered hands showed.

“Tía …”

Isadora was near her aunt nearly every evening at dinner. This was, however, the first time that she had ever faced her alone, in her room, away from her father and the servants. Isadora knew intuitively that if her father were to find out, she would be punished.

As she stared up at her aunt, she realized for the first time that Brígida's dress was old-fashioned, that she was tall and very thin. She also noticed that her face was not hard, as it usually was at table. It was not like the plaster that covered the walls, after all, and although Brígida said nothing with her lips, Isadora saw that she was speaking with her eyes.

“Come in, Isadora.”

The girl walked past her aunt, timidly at first, then with more confidence as she neared the center of the chamber. She looked around and saw photographs, some so small that she could not make out who was in them. Others were yellowed or even covered with a purple tint. What most caught Isadora's attention was that there were pictures everywhere: on shelves, walls, chests, tables, even scattered on the floor.

“Tía,
that was me last night.” Isadora blurted out the first thing that entered her mind. “I'm sorry if I frightened you. Forgive me, please.”

“I know that it was you. Come, sit here by the window with me.”

She pointed at a low bench beneath the window. As they sat, Isadora saw that her aunt was looking at her intently. After a few moments, Brígida took Isadora's chin in her hands and moved the young face slowly from one side to the other, looking, scrutinizing. Isadora was surprised to feel the warmth of Brígida's hands; she had imagined that they would be cold, like the ice that clogged up on puddles sometimes during winter.

Then Brígida folded her hands in her lap without speaking. Isadora was remembering why she had come to her aunt in the first place, but she was afraid of asking the question. She fumbled with a fold in her skirt, pretending to smooth it out, only to crumple it again. Several minutes went by, still Brígida said nothing; she merely gazed at Isadora, who finally decided to speak. Her face took on a serious expression.

“Tía,
do people sing when they're sad?”

Inwardly Isadora scolded herself;
this
was not the question she wanted to ask! But it was too late.

“Yes.”

The girl smiled weakly, breathed in hard, and tried again. “Ursula says that you loved my mother. Did you?”

Isadora did not take her eyes from Brígida's. She thought that her aunt's look was soft, serene.

“Yes. I loved her. I still love her above all things.”

The girl was taken aback for a moment. Her aunt's response was simple, yet there was something about it that bewildered Isadora. She flashed a smile, wrinkling her nose and forehead. She felt happy that she had asked the question, although she would not understand the answer until years later, until she had loved and lost Jerónimo Santiago. But for the moment, Isadora felt at ease with Brígida. She decided that her aunt was not crazy, after all. Isadora wiggled on the seat, edging closer.

“What were you like when you were a little girl?”

Brígida shrugged her shoulders and moved her head from side to side. She shifted in the seat, thinking.

“Well, I looked like you.”

“Did you have a mother and a father?”

“Of course. Everyone does.”

“I mean … what were they like?”

“Well, my father was from Spain. He had a grocery.”

“Where?”

“He owned a grocery store in Arandas.”

“Where's that?”

“Far from here.”

Isadora saw that her hurried questions were annoying her aunt, so she decided to keep quiet for a few minutes. If Brígida asked her to leave, she would; if not, Isadora had more questions. After a while, she felt confident enough to ask for more information.

“What about your mother?”

Brígida cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes. She appeared to be remembering, summoning images and places.

“My mother was an Indian.”

“An Indian!” Isadora's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

“Yes, my mother was an Indian woman. Do you find that hard to believe?”

“You mean she was
brown
? Like the Rarámuri women?”

“Yes.”

Isadora fell silent: She was shocked.

“If your mother was an Indian, then that means that since Papá is your brother, his mother was the same Indian woman. Or maybe—”

“We had the same mother, Isadora.”

“Then, that means that she was my grandmother.”

“Yes.”

“She was brown?
Really
brown?”

“Like a chestnut.”

“Then why are the three of us so white,
Tía?”

“I don't know. We just are.”

Isadora, astounded, slouched against the wall. The curtains floated in the afternoon breeze, whipping some of the photographs from their place. The image of a brown woman drifted by in her imagination. She saw her dressed like the Rarámuri: long, white cotton, embroidered with flowers and butterflies. She longed to know her.

“Why doesn't Papá talk about her?”

“Because he's ashamed.”

Isadora did not ask about this; she knew the answer. Her father's many examples and warnings echoed in her mind.

“Where is she now?”

“She died.”

“Of what?”

“Of sadness.”

Isadora's face whipped up to meet her aunt's eyes, but she saw that they were calm. She was captivated by the thought of being the grandchild of an Indian woman.
Maybe in time,
she told herself,
my skin will change and become brown.
This idea thrilled her so much that she wanted Brígida to tell her more.
Maybe a change of skin has happened before in the family
. Isadora knew then that she did not want to leave, she wanted to linger with her aunt.

“I want you to teach me the song you were singing.”

“What do you think your father will say when he hears you singing a song that I've taught you?”

“I won't tell him that you taught it to me.”

“But he knows everything.”

“Then I won't sing it in front of him.”

Brígida smiled, and Isadora was startled because this time she knew that here was something she had never seen; she could not remember her aunt ever smiling. She returned the expression, and for a while aunt and niece were silent. By then, the late afternoon sun was casting long shadows on the old furniture and on the hard-wood floor.

Brígida began to hum, and the girl, moving closer to her on the seat, echoed the melody, because it lilted and because she liked it. She wanted to sing with her aunt, especially when she heard that her voice was full, rich and warm. After that day,
Tía
Brígida and Isadora became secret friends.

Isadora's other secret was her life with the Santiago family. She could not remember when it had begun, but she was happy going up to the
barranca
to stay, sleep, and eat with the Santiagos in their cave. Whenever her father was away, she took a backpack and trekked up the canyon with Jacobo, the oldest boy, in the lead. After him came Justino, and then followed Jerónimo, the youngest, who was a little older than Isadora. The two youngest children walked side by side most of the time.

She had known Celestino from the beginning. His wife Narcisa came into Isadora's memory later on. She remembered her as being very small, but that when she let out her cackle, the laughter echoed off the rocky walls of their dwelling. Isadora liked being with Narcisa because she could take off her shoes whenever she wanted, and she could sit on the ground, and use her fingers instead of a fork when she ate.

Whenever Isadora joined the Santiago family, she became one of them. Everyone forgot that she had blue eyes and hair the color of gold. They gave her a new name, and she became so much like the Rarámuri that she even dressed like the women of the tribe when she was with them. Isadora was still small when she joined in the running; the women raced among themselves as well. As the years passed, she became so skilled at racing that she was able to compete with Jerónimo and his brothers.

Isadora was happy during the tribal fiestas, when they danced the
dutuburi
around a bonfire nearly all night, and she ate food that was never served at home. She had fun watching the grownups jump around, flailing their arms in celebration, especially after they passed a gourd from person to person. Whatever they drank made them very happy. She enjoyed the ceremony of the cross most of all, because it was then that the dancing and chanting took
its most beautiful form. For the Rarámuri, Narcisa had told Isadora, the cross was a saint, not a symbol, a spiritual being that needed peyote and
copal
to keep their people from sickness and death.

Isadora and Jerónimo were together whenever her father went away, or when she was not taking lessons from Father Pascual. Jerónimo taught her how to tie a string on a lizard and pretend it was a horse; how to take hold of a bee without being stung; how to climb a tree to its highest limb. But it was his way of walking and smiling that she liked most.

As they grew, things began to change between Isadora and Jerónimo. At first they only looked at one another shyly; at other times they observed each other secretly. She saw that his body was growing: He was getting longer, his arms were getting stringy, with veins that outlined muscles that she had not seen before. His jaw was squaring; it was losing its roundness, and his nose was taking the shape of a beak.

Her own body was developing as well. It had begun with the frightening experience of waking one morning to find her inner thighs smeared with a paste that looked like chocolate. When she screamed out, it was Ursula who ran to her side and calmed her, telling her that it was her time, that she was now a woman. After this, her breasts began to swell and her waist to shrink. Deep inside of her, in the center of her body, she felt a strange sensation when she thought of Jerónimo, and she knew that he felt something, too.

Isadora told
Tía
Brígida about Jerónimo. She began slowly, cautiously, taking days to speak up because she was unsure of what her aunt would say or think. After a while, however, she saw that Brígida was interested and listened carefully.

“He's taught me many things,
Tía.”

“What things?”

“How to run and catch lizards—”

Isadora stopped, realized abruptly that Brígida was about to laugh at her. But she was wrong; her aunt did not laugh. Instead
she looked concerned, so Isadora decided to tell her what had happened the last time she was up in the
barranca.

“When I sleep up there, Narcisa puts me on a blanket next to the fire. The other night I was almost asleep when I felt something, and I opened my eyes a little. There, next to me, was Jerónimo, and he was looking at me. He has strange eyes, especially when there's not too much light. They glow, like a cat's, but I'm not afraid because I like them.”