Titi taught me everything she knew rote. She never learned to read or write; I was able to keep in contact with her during my years away because she insisted that I teach Paloma her letters before I left for Guadalajara. This foresight benefited Paloma as well: as the war drew on, fewer and fewer educated young men lived on the hacienda, and in the absence of an official foreman, José Mendoza began to rely on Paloma to help him transcribe records and calculate earnings, though he never told the patrón. He claimed it was because his eyesight was growing too weak to work into the night. I knew it was because of Paloma’s fierce alacrity with numbers. Her penmanship was blocky but clear; a steady, determined hand wrote the letters I received from her and my grandmother while at the seminary.
Titi says it will be cold near the feast day of San Cristóbal, and you should dress warmly, Paloma’s letters would read. She says you must go for long walks, as this will cure your sleeplessness. There was a rainbow yesterday as the rain began, and even though there were fresh puma tracks near the house of Soledad Rodríguez and her daughters, all of the lambs were accounted for this morning. She says it is a good omen. She says the pueblo is praying for you. She says I pray for you. The birds pray for your return to San Isidro.
I memorized each letter with the same fervor as I had memorized every prayer my grandmother taught me, every recipe, every ritual, every symbol. I carved them into my heart, into the muscles of my arms, into my palms and the soles of my feet.
My mind wandered as my hands parted the herbs into groups, then divided them into the correct proportions. Raíz de valeriana. Milenrama. My grandmother quizzed me often, pride settling in the corners of her wide, kind mouth each time I answered or repeated back the recipes for drafts that soothed coughs and fevers and colicky infants.
My hands stilled in their work. I stared at the herbs.
I thought of the faces of villagers when they watched me during the procession on the feast day of la Virgen de Guadalupe. The strained face of Mariana in the firelight, the suddenness of her flinches.
She needed my grandmother. They all did.
You must find your own way, Titi told me.
But I couldn’t. Not now. Not when what they needed was someone like her.
* * *
*
I WAS NOT AFRAID of crossing the empty countryside in the dark. Once past the last stables and chicken coops of Apan, I gave a soft call into the night, barely a breath. The night replied: it settled over my shoulders like a cloak, gifting me a measure of itself. Invisible to man and beast alike, I walked on. Even the most curious of the nocturnal creatures smelled the presence of night on my back, recognized the watchful eye of the skies, and cut me a wide berth.
This time, my arrival went unannounced. I slipped into the kitchen where Paloma and I had agreed to meet. When she bade me sit, I hesitated. I should give her the herbs and instructions and leave as soon as I could. But the warmth of the kitchen coiled around me. Paloma’s promise of a mug of warm atole would make the long, cold walk back to town more tolerable . . . I gave in. She put a pot on the embers of the kitchen fire, stoking it enough to warm the liquid contained within.
When Paloma turned her attention back to me, I placed the small pouch of carefully selected herbs on the table. I had prayed over them as they dried, imbuing them with the correct intent. Ideally, I would have brewed them immediately. Titi had the luxury of being able to brew cures in her own home; as a priest, I had neither the privacy nor the impenetrable disguise of a woman hiding in plain sight in her kitchen.
Fortunately, Titi had predicted this might be a problem I would face, and gave me alternative instructions. These I began to recite to Paloma, beginning by stressing how important it was to brew the herbs in the correct order.
“Stop,” she interrupted. “I can’t remember all that. Write it down.”
“No.” Written instructions, if found, could implicate Paloma and Mariana, even though Mariana could not read. The girls could be punished. “It’s too dangerous.”
“What if I confuse the instructions?” Paloma said when I voiced my concerns. “That’s also dangerous.”
“Titi would not want us to get caught,” I said.
“Titi would not want Mariana to die on our watch,” she hissed.
I had no reply to that. Titi made that explicit when she first taught me the recipe—error could harm the recipient, perhaps irreparably.
Sensing my weakening resolve, Paloma rose. “There’s paper in the drawing room,” she whispered.
“Paloma, wait,” I said, but she was already gone. She slipped into the hall, her bare feet whispering along the flagstones. I was achingly aware of how hard my frightened heart beat as I waited for her return; it was so loud it nearly drowned out the sound of a door opening and softly clicking shut. Let this not be a mistake, I prayed silently. I sent the prayer up to the heavens; it caught in the rafters of the house like a cobweb. Voices of the house approached it, cooing with curiosity, passing it from presence to presence like children with a new toy. Before I could scold them, ask them to release my prayer to the heavens where it belonged, Paloma returned.
She set charcoal and paper on the table crisply.
“Be quick about it,” she said.
I kept my instructions shorthand and as spare as possible. Paloma knew the names of the herbs; it was a matter of which ones to crush in a molcajete and how much broth to boil. What symptoms Mariana should expect after drinking the mixture. That the cramping would pass within a week, but if the bleeding continued for longer, to send for me.
No sound but the scratching of the charcoal on paper disturbed us. I did not notice how silent the voices in the rafters had fallen until a new voice—a real, mortal voice—shattered the peace of the kitchen.
“What is this?”
Paloma and I jumped, our faces whipping to the door.
Do?a Catalina, the patrón’s wife, stood in the doorway of the kitchen, the lit candle in her hand illuminating her frighteningly pale face.
“Padre Andrés came to discuss my mother’s illness,” Paloma blurted out. “She has a weak heart but is quite proud and often refuses help, do?a. He is our kin, so—”
Do?a Catalina swept into the room like a cloud of white smoke, a dressing gown swathing her like a saint’s robe. She narrowed her eyes at me; seeing I was in the middle of writing, she drew close enough to read. When I moved my hand and forearm in a vain attempt to conceal the writing, she snatched the paper away.
Even in the light of her candle, it was clear how color rose to the high points of her pale cheeks as she read.
She put the paper down, then seized Paloma by the forearm with a sudden violence that brought me to my feet. “Is this for you?”
“No!” Paloma and I cried in unison.
“Silence,” Do?a Catalina spat at me. “Get out of my house.”
I stepped forward instinctively, meaning to put myself between my cousin and the snake that bared its fangs at us, ready to strike.
“Release her,” I said. “This has nothing to do with her.”
Do?a Catalina took a step back, yanking Paloma to her feet with her. She was tall and had no trouble looking me dead in the eye.