Doña Blanca está encerrada
en pilares de oro y plata...
María Eva and Evita returned bearing gifts from Laredo. They arrived late Sunday afternoon on the daily bus that left Revilla early in the morning and made the return trip by six o’clock in the evening. But Mamá Anita would not allow Blanca Estela to rush across the street to welcome them immediately. First they had to be given the opportunity to unpack, air out the house, which had been shut up for over a week, and get some rest, Mamá Anita explained. The following morning, however, María Eva and Evita came to visit before Mamá Anita had even finished her housework. This was a sign that they were so eager to see their neighbors that they had overlooked the local proprieties, which limited visits to afternoons (after the siesta but before supper) or to evenings, after people had finished eating, as Blanca Estela had learned when she had first arrived in Revilla.
María Eva brought with her a large, brown paper parcel, and Evita a much smaller one, no larger than five or six inches square. Evita opened hers first, saying to Blanca Estela, “Look what I got for you.” It was a pair of hairclips, two narrow, gold-colored bars outlined with little pearls. “They’re very simple,” Evita pointed out, “but simple things are always more elegant. If you decide to cut your hair, you can use them to hold it in place. Right now, you can still wear them, if you let your hair loose, or even if you wear it in braids.”
Blanca Estela was slightly taken aback, not being aware that cutting her hair had been under consideration, but she felt very touched that Evita had thought of her while shopping in the city. “Thank you, very much,” she said, shyly. “The clips are very pretty.”
María Eva and Mamá Anita, in the meantime, had already made their way to the bedroom, and María Eva had begun to unwrap her package on the high, four-poster bed. She spread out on the blue coverlet a length of delicate white silk. “What do you think?” she asked Mamá Anita. “It’s very good quality, very fine silk. And here, I also bought some white cotton batiste for the slip underneath, and this narrow lace edging for the collar and the sleeves.”
The two women bent over the cloth and fingered it gently. Mamá Anita nodded. “Yes, very good indeed.”
“Do you like it?” Evita asked, and it took Blanca Estela a minute to realize that she was being addressed.
“Yes, of course,” she finally answered.
“Do you like the style, too?” Evita continued, and Blanca Estela felt completely bewildered.
Mamá Anita turned to answer instead. “Blanca Estela doesn’t know anything about it, yet. It was to be a surprise. It’s for your First Communion dress, child. Do you like the fabric?”
“Oh, yes, it’s so delicate and light,” she answered, overwhelmed.
“María Eva is going to help me make the dress for you. The style is very simple, no frills. The fabric and the cut will do it all. María Eva is going to cut the pattern; she is an expert seamstress, not like me. However, I will sew it, with her help.”
“Doña Anita, you are too modest. You always made Lilia’s dresses before she got married, and she had beautiful clothes,” María Eva protested.
Mamá Anita took a measuring tape from one of the drawers in the cabinet of the sewing machine that stood by the bedroom window. “Now, child, stand still so we can measure you.”
They encircled first her chest and then her waist with the tape while Evita called out the numbers that the two women had difficulty reading. María Eva wrote them down in a little notebook. They also took measurements around her neck and the length of her arms and the distance from the back of her neck to her waist and then to her knees. All this was written down.
María Eva then said, “Well, Doña Anita, I am glad that you are pleased with the fabric that I brought you. I thought you would be since it’s very good silk. Now let me go home and cut the dress pattern on paper from these measurements. If you like, later we can also cut the pattern on the fabric on the large table that I use for cutting in my shop. I don’t know if your dining table will be large enough to work on it. I will let you know when I am done with the paper pattern. We’re going now, so you can get on with cooking dinner.”
“Again, María Eva, thank you for doing us this favor. Just let me know when to bring the fabric,” Mamá Anita replied.
María Eva and Evita then left, and Mamá Anita found a bed sheet to wrap around the length of silk. “This is to protect it from dust,” she was saying as she folded the material carefully. Blanca Estela could only nod, overcome by a myriad of emotions that she found difficult to sort out: excitement at the thought of having a new dress, the most beautiful that she had ever had, deep gratitude to her grandmother for going to so much trouble for her, sadness that her mother was not with them to share in all the plans. But, underneath it all, there was a gnawing anxiety at the prospect of the ordeal which she would undergo before wearing her beautiful new dress: her first confession.
The next day, Evita came to tell them that her mother had finished cutting the paper pattern and would they bring the fabric later that afternoon. Blanca Estela relayed the message to Mamá Anita, and at three-thirty in the afternoon the two of them crossed the street to María Eva’s workshop. Mamá Anita carefully carried the length of silk, still wrapped in the sheet, to protect it from the sand that collected in little drifts against the high sidewalks and which their footsteps and the hot wind picked up and sent swirling through the air.
Blanca Estela had sometimes looked inside María Eva’s workshop through the door and windows, which were kept open all day long, but she had never actually been inside it, deterred by both her shyness and the reluctance to disturb the noisy work that went on there. Now she saw that it was a large room and that four sewing machines were set up, each one in front of a window (two facing the street and the other two the patio), with a very long table in the middle. She later noticed a fifth sewing machine, shrouded in a protective cover, against a far corner of the room. Three young women sat in low-backed chairs, each in front of a sewing machine.
Blanca Estela was amazed at the speed and coordination they demonstrated, pushing the large metal pedal at the bottom of the machine that turned a belt, which turned a large wheel at knee level. The belt passed through the interior of the polished-wood cabinet that housed each machine and emerged above where it turned a smaller wheel. This wheel on the head, or top, of the machine controlled the thread that went through the needle, which moved with piston precision over the cloth.
Blanca Estela noticed that the three young women were embroidering, rather than sewing. They pushed pieces of fabric, stretched tightly in round hoops, back and forth under the needle, creating designs of flowers and fruits in bright-colored threads of every hue: red, purple, yellow, orange and green.
María Eva addressed Mamá Anita, raising her voice to be heard above the whirring of the machines, “We’re back to embroidering. Right now I’m the only one sewing. I have to make several dresses for Perla. Did you know that she will be moving to Monterrey to study nursing?”
“Where will she live?” Mamá Anita asked.
“She will live with her aunt, her father’s sister. She needed some new clothes, not many because I imagine she will wear a uniform most of the time. Until the next wedding or dance comes along, there will not be much call for new clothes, so the girls are embroidering again: pillowcases, napkins and things like that for the buyers in the big cities.”
Mamá Anita responded, also raising her voice to compete, not only with the whirring of the machines, but now also with the conversation of two of the girls and with the singing of the third one. “I wish you would let me pay you for your work, María Eva, and for all the trouble I’m giving you.”
“Nonsense, Doña Anita, it is no trouble at all, and, besides, like I told you, I have nothing urgent right now. You see, even Panchita,” María Eva here motioned with her head towards the singing worker, “who usually helps me with sewing is now embroidering linens. I hope that I will soon be getting an order for blouses from Guadalajara. Those we cut and sew and also embellish with a little embroidery, and the profit is somewhat better. Now, let me show you the pattern.”
They moved towards the cutting table while the three girls, in unison, broke out in a song which Blanca Estela had often heard them sing in the long afternoons when she lay drowsily on her cot in front of the window. It was called “Dos arbolitos,” according to Evita, and it was about two trees that grow side by side, providing each other company, and the singer envies them because they have each other while he is alone.
Blanca Estela followed her grandmother, peering around her as the two women spread the length of silk on the table surface. María Eva then placed some pieces of brown paper, cut in different shapes, over the cloth, trying first one arrangement and then another until all the parts fit on the material.
It was like the pieces of a puzzle, Blanca Estela decided.
María Eva seemed to notice that she was there and sensed that she was curious, but feeling a little superfluous and said, “Blanca Estela, Evita was just finishing having her bath. She will be out here in a minute and play with you.”
And, indeed, Evita appeared almost simultaneously, her short curls still wet, wearing a dress of blue and white gingham checks and smelling of soap and scented powder. She had what looked like a coloring book in her hand, but she shook her head when Blanca Estela asked her if that was what it was. It turned out to be, instead, a book of paper clothes for the cardboard dolls, which Evita also produced, along with a pair of scissors.
They settled themselves on the floor, but before doing so, Evita also brought out a large shopping bag stuffed with pieces of cloth of all colors and textures, leftovers from her mother’s sewing.
“Instead of just cutting out the paper patterns and pinning them on the dolls, which isn’t very interesting, we’ll use the paper clothes as patterns to cut clothes for the dolls out of these cloth remnants,” Evita explained.
They occupied themselves in this manner for some time while Mamá Anita and María Eva worked at the cutting table. When they had cut several patterns, Evita got up and, after some rummaging in the drawers of the idle sewing machine, came back with two needles and a spool of thread and showed Blanca Estela how they should sew the doll’s dresses by hand.
“Why can’t we use the sewing machine?” Blanca Estela wanted to know.
“I’m not allowed to sew on a machine yet. If you don’t know how to use it, you can run a needle through your finger. It happened once to a girl who worked here before,” Evita replied.
At that moment, Blanca Estela pricked her finger with the needle, which she wielded awkwardly as she tried to stitch together two pieces of dark blue velvet. She gave a little cry of pain and said, resentfully, “Look what happened. I just got the needle in my finger, anyway.”
“Yes, but you don’t have the needle sticking right through your finger. That was just a little prick, and it happened because you’re not using a thimble. Here, put this little bit of cloth over it, so you don’t drip blood on the rest of the fabric,” Evita said, very matter-of-factly and, in Blanca Estela’s opinion, quite unsympathetically.
After this mishap, she did not feel like sewing anymore and was glad when Mamá Anita announced a short time later that they were finished cutting the dress according to the pattern, and that they were going home. Mamá Anita then gathered the different pieces of silk, wrapping them inside the sheet, and they made ready to leave at the same time that the sewing girls covered up their machines in preparation for going home to supper.
Late Thursday, Mario and Mimi came home from their trip with Nereida. Blanca Estela expected that they would be eager to relate all the details of their journey, but when Mario came to fetch water from the cistern the following day, he limited himself to a brief description of the mountains they had seen, especially the Saddle Mountain in Monterrey, and to telling her that they had gone for a promenade around the Alameda in Saltillo, which, he explained, was a very large park with a lake in the middle. Mimi said even less, confining herself to answering Mamá Anita’s questions, saying yes, they had enjoyed the trip; everything had been very pretty, but it was cold in Saltillo at night.
Blanca Estela had also expected that now that they were all back they would, again, play games in the evening. Mario pointed out then that Pedro was still away, helping his uncle to pick crops at the ranch, and Blanca Estela was ashamed to realize that she had not noticed his absence. Which crops, she had asked, embarrassed at her ignorance. They had just picked the watermelons, Mario explained, and now they were getting ready for the corn. Cotton was also coming up very soon, Mario added, and they—he and Mimi and other kids on vacation— would be going out every morning to pick cotton for a man who had a plantation on the outskirts of town. Who else was going, she wanted to know. Was Evita going, too? She might, Mario answered. Evita liked to earn spending money, just like they did. They got paid for picking cotton? Well, of course, he replied, a little scornfully. That was the reason they did it.
Blanca Estela pondered for a few moments, digesting Mario’s information, and then asked, “Can I go with you when you go to pick cotton? I would like to earn money, too.”
“Maybe,” Mario said, not very encouragingly, “but you wouldn’t earn very much, not at first, anyway, because you get paid by the sack, and you don’t know how to do it.”
She was stung by his assumption that she would not be very useful in the cotton fields and pretended to lose interest in the matter, saying, “I don’t know if my grandmother would let me go. She needs me to help her sew my First Communion dress. You’re going to have to catch up in Catechism class,” she added, a little spitefully, “if you want to make your First Communion. You missed class last week.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” Mario answered, unconcerned.
And, indeed, he was, together with Blanca Estela. In class, Father Mirabal explained again the significance of confession and the importance of repentance to achieve forgiveness. Blanca Estela was invaded again by a feeling of embarrassment, remembering her angry outburst at Aminta the Saturday before, but she questioned whether she was truly repentant for it.
She had wondered, on her way to church, what she should say or do when she faced the girl in class, but, on arriving in church, she discovered, to her relief, that Aminta was absent, and the problem was postponed. Perhaps, when she confessed her sins, she could ask Father Mirabal if she needed to apologize to Aminta. This solution struck fear in her immediately, though. What if Father Mirabal did tell her that she must ask forgiveness from the girl? She could not do that. The thought of speaking to Aminta still filled her with loathing; she disliked her so.
But wasn’t this dislike a sin? The Ten Commandments said you had to love your neighbor, but even if Aminta qualified as a neighbor (Father Mirabal had explained that your neighbor didn’t have to live close to you, that all people, including those in China, were your neighbors), the Ten Commandments didn’t say anything about liking your neighbor.
Father Mirabal also explained on this occasion about the miracle that happened before Communion, during the Consecration, when the host and the wine turned into the body and blood of Christ. She frankly did not understand how this happened, but she assumed that the miracle took place when everybody had bowed their heads and closed their eyes. The altar boy rang the bell just before Father Mirabal raised the host during Consecration, and the congregation bowed their heads and looked down or closed their eyes at this point. The reason for not looking at the altar at that moment must be so that the miracle could happen in secret. As for the wine being turned to blood—well, all she could think of was that she was glad that she was not expected to drink from the chalice. That was something only the priest did, and whether he drank wine or blood was something that only he knew.
Sunday Mass was moved back an hour as the summer heat gathered strength with the approach of the dog days of mid-July to late August. Since daybreak now came before six o’clock, Mass was at seven, which enabled the parishioners to walk to and from church while it was still relatively cool. It also made it easier for those receiving Communion to remain fasting until after Mass without risk of fainting from weakness, since they could still eat breakfast before nine o’clock. Mamá Anita planned to receive Communion on this particular Sunday, so she gave Blanca Estela bread and milk to tide her over until they returned from church while she, herself, made do with a few sips of chamomile tea. Blanca Estela wanted to fast, also, even if she wasn’t taking Communion, just to see if she could go without food until after Mass, to start training for her First Communion, as it were, but Mamá Anita would not hear of it, saying that bread and milk was already a very light breakfast, almost a fast.
Blanca Estela tried to concentrate on following all the parts of the Mass, as befitted one who would very soon be a full participant in the rites of the Church, but she still found herself looking around her to see who was there, rather than watching the altar. María Eva and Evita were present, as were Mimi and Mario, with Nereida, the three of them looking very sleepy, no doubt from having stayed up late the night before, helping their brother run the movie projector. They got to see so many movies that way while she, herself, had not watched a movie since she had been in Revilla. Perhaps Mamá Anita would let her go to the movies the next time they showed one. Since Mamá Anita did not go to the movies, neither did Blanca Estela, but Evita did, so her mother must take her. Perhaps she could go with them. Mamá Anita did not like for her to stay up late at night, though, and movies in Revilla were shown only on Saturday nights, and not every week. She would have to figure out a way to go to the movies.
Her gaze continued to sweep over the congregation after a quick look at the altar, where she noticed an unfamiliar boy helping Father Mirabal. Pedro must still be at his father’s or his uncle’s ranch, picking crops. There was Doctor Marín, sitting next to Rosalía, and to her sister, Perla. Blanca Estela wondered if Rosalía missed Jaime and Sandra, who were now back in Mexico City with their parents. Doctor Marín looked tired, as if he, too, had stayed up late the night before, and Rosalía looked sad, a little bit like the Madonna at the foot of the crucified Christ. Blanca Estela remembered Mamá Anita saying that Rosalía wished that she had her own children. If Blanca Estela had not had her own lovely mother already, she would have chosen Rosalía for her Mamá. Suddenly, Blanca Estela knew that she would like to have Rosalía be her godmother for her First Communion. She would ask Mamá Anita if they could approach Rosalía to ask her for this favor; perhaps they could ask her after Mass.
When it was time for Communion, and Mamá Anita and Rosalía and many of the women present got up to go to the altar to receive the host from Father Mirabal, Blanca Estela took the opportunity to look behind her and confirmed that neither Aminta nor her grandmother were in church. She felt relieved, as on the day before, but also a little puzzled. Why would the girl miss Catechism class and Mass when it was so close to the time for their First Communion?
After Father Mirabal had given them the final blessing and told them to go home, Mamá Anita remained kneeling a few minutes more, praying silently. Blanca Estela waited until Mamá Anita had crossed herself and they were walking out before whispering to her that she wanted to ask Rosalía to be her godmother.
Mamá Anita thought for a moment and then nodded. “We’ll ask her now, if they are still outside,” she said. “We can’t wait any longer; the day is so close, already.”
Doctor Marín and Rosalía were just saying goodbye to Perla, who was going on ahead of them, when Mamá Anita caught up with them. After wishing them a good morning, Mamá Anita addressed Rosalía. “I know that there is not much time before the children make their First Communion, Rosalía, but Blanca Estela just told me that she wants you to be her Communion godmother. I know that Lilia would be very pleased if you agreed to do it, and I will too. We had left it to the child to choose her godmother, and she wants you to be it. Of course, she did not realize that you have to ask with plenty of time. I should have reminded her to ask you earlier, but I have been worried about Lilia since she left.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Doña Anita,” Rosalía exclaimed, and, smiling sweetly at Blanca Estela, told her, “Of course I will be very happy to be your godmother. Do you have your dress already?”
“I am sewing it,” Mamá Anita answered. “María Eva cut it for me from some silk that she brought back from Laredo.”
“And the veil for the head?”
“One of María Eva’s girls will make the headdress from Lilia’s wedding veil. Lilia told me that she wanted it done that way.”
“How is Lilia?” Rosalía asked. “My brother, Leopoldo, said that he had heard that she was in San Antonio.”
“That’s right, she is there, and she is well. I just wish that she was still here.”
“That’s natural. I will be so happy to be her daughter’s godmother; it will be a bond between us.” Rosalía turned to Blanca Estela and said to her, “I will give you your prayer book.”
At this point Doctor Marín, who had been speaking to Father Mirabal, interrupted his wife’s conversation to ask, “Rosalía, will you walk home? I am going ahead in the car to see that child. She is no better this morning.”
Rosalía’s face clouded over with a sad expression, and Mamá Anita asked quickly, “Who is sick, Doctor?”
“Doña Petra’s granddaughter, the little girl, Aminta.”
Blanca Estela thought her heart had suddenly stopped, and she heard the rest of the doctor’s words as if they came from far away.
“They took her to the ranch last week,” he continued. “There they get their drinking water from the ponds where the cattle drink, too. We haven’t had enough rain in some time now. The water in the ponds is stagnant, contaminated, and they didn’t boil it. The grown-ups are probably immune by now to all the germs in that water, but the poor child developed a bad stomach infection. And then they waited to bring her to town until yesterday. She was almost dehydrated by then. Now I am going to their house to see her again. I’m afraid that she is so weak that she may not have much resistance in her.”
Blanca Estela looked at her grandmother, trying to divine from her expression whether Mamá Anita knew, as she herself knew that Aminta was sick because she had cursed her when she had said, “I hate you, and I hope you die.” What would Doctor Marín do if he knew the real cause of Aminta’s illness? Should she tell him? But he was already hurrying away, and Mamá Anita and Rosalía were now also walking home, talking about Aminta’s grandparents and other people that she did not know.
While Mamá Anita cooked dinner, she sent Blanca Estela to buy corn tortillas, which she had not had time to make at home because of going to Mass and eating breakfast late. Blanca Estela met Mario sitting outside his house, mending a large burlap sack with a long needle. She asked him what the sack was for, and he explained that it was used for putting the cotton bolls inside it when he went picking cotton.
“We’re starting tomorrow,” he added. “By six o’clock the big truck will come to get us, and we’ll come back in the late afternoon. They keep track of how many sacks we fill, and they pay us by the sack.”
“Is Mimi going, too?”
He nodded.
“And Evita?”
“I don’t know. She might. Last year she went a few times, but she didn’t like it much. Do you want to go?”
She did not answer at once, and Mario added, “I can show you how to do it.”
“All right,” she answered, doubtfully, “but... when?”
“After dinner. While your grandmother is taking a nap, I will come and show you how to fill the sack with cotton. We’ll be quiet, so we won’t disturb her.”
She agreed, feeling as if they were both accomplices in an activity that must be kept from her grandmother.
Mamá Anita was quiet during dinner, her forehead furrowed, as if she were thinking of something that worried her. Blanca Estela was relieved at not having to make conversation, since her own thoughts weighed heavily on her: should she seek out Doctor Marín and tell him what was the real cause of Aminta’s illness? It was her curse, of course, and not the germs in the water. And what about Father Mirabal? What punishment would he give her when she made her confession to him? Perhaps he would not let her go through with her First Communion, and she would have to tell Rosalía that she would not be her godmother, after all.
She was glad that Mario was coming after dinner, during the time for the siesta. She might tell him then about her predicament. On the other hand, it would probably be better to say nothing. He would, at least, distract her with his lesson on picking cotton.
She helped Mamá Anita to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen after dinner, and they both lay down for naps, each on a canvas cot. She lay very still and waited until she heard Mamá Anita’s soft snoring before getting up quietly and tiptoeing to open the front door softly. She sat down on the steps from the entryway to the patio to wait for Mario.
He arrived in a short time, also taking care to not make any noise. He sat next to her and held the burlap sack open at his side.
“See,” he said, whispering, “you tie the sack with this rope around your waist, and you reach down for the cotton boll to pull it out whole and put it in the sack. After a while you get tired of bending down, especially at first, but you can stop to rest a little and drink water. Oh, and remember to wear a hat to protect yourself from the sun.”
“Do we come home for dinner at noon?” Blanca Estela asked.
“No, of course not. You have to take food with you, but don’t worry. I can take enough for both of us. Just bring a water bottle. Did you already ask your grandmother for permission?”
She shook her head, and at that moment they heard Mamá Anita’s cot squeaking, followed by the sound of her clearing her throat. Mario stood up and quickly let himself out through the door. Mamá Anita called out, “Blanca Estela, where are you?”
She ran inside where she found her grandmother sitting on the edge of the cot. Mamá Anita was rubbing her eyes and her forehead. Her gray hair, which was always pulled back in a neat bun or, at night, plaited in the back, was falling around her face. Blanca Estela was shocked to notice that her grandmother looked old, not old as she had seemed when she first saw her, the day of their arrival in Revilla, but older than she had appeared earlier that morning. Anxiety grasped her. What if something were to happen to Mamá Anita? What would happen, then, to her? Her mother was far away. She would be left alone.
“Was there somebody out there with you?” Mamá Anita asked.
“Yes, Mario was here,” she was glad to answer truthfully.
“What did he want?” This was more difficult to answer.
“We were just talking... He showed me the burlap sack where he will put the cotton bolls when he goes out to the fields.” She made herself tell her grandmother all this, but still stopped before adding that she, too, wanted to go with the harvesters.
“I hope those children don’t get sick out in the sun in this heat,” Mamá Anita said in a tired voice, unlike her usual brisk tone. Blanca Estela decided to put off asking for permission to go out with Mario and the other cotton pickers.
In the morning, shortly after sunrise, she was awakened by the rumbling and the groaning of a truck passing in front of the house. She jumped out of bed and looked out the window and saw Mario and Mimi and other older boys and girls standing on the bed of the truck, holding on to the high wooden railings around it. They did not see her looking after them, and she concluded that Mario had realized that she would not be going with them that day. She could already hear Mamá Anita cooking breakfast in the kitchen and went to join her there.
Mamá Anita turned to greet her saying, to Blanca Estela’s surprise, “Good morning, my love.”
This sounded so much like Lilia that Blanca Estela felt a knot in her throat from longing for her mother. Mamá Anita was usually not so openly affectionate, although the warmth and the love were still there, underneath. Mamá Anita seemed to realize that she had acted unlike her usual self and added, briskly, “When you have gone to the privy, wash your hands well and fetch some water from the aljibe. Remember to be very careful and don’t get too close to the opening.”
Blanca Estela nodded and went to do as she had been told.
Soon after breakfast María Eva came in, looking very somber, and said without preamble, “That poor child, Doña Petra’s granddaughter... Doctor Marín could not save her. She was already too sick when they brought her to town.”
Mamá Anita gave a little gasp, “Is she...?”
María Eva nodded.
Blanca Estela looked from one to the other, her heart pounding and her eyes frozen, seeing again the ungainly and unlikeable girl clutching at the beautiful blue doll. The doll in the song had died after someone took her to the plaza. Was Aminta dead, too? Why didn’t María Eva or Mamá Anita say the words, so she would know for sure?
Instead, Mamá Anita turned to María Eva, staring very hard at her, and asked, “Is Evita at home? I think that Blanca Estela should go play with her.”
“Yes,” María Eva agreed. “Evita is making clothes for those dolls she got in Laredo. Why don’t you go help her, Blanca Estela?”
She wanted to hear more about Aminta, but she was also relieved to be able to escape from the cloud of gloom that seemed to have descended on the house with María Eva’s arrival. Blanca Estela ran out of the house and across the street. In María Eva’s workshop she found the sewing girls bent over their sewing machines, their songs silent this morning.
Evita was leaning over the cutting table, standing on a footstool, pinning paper patterns on cloth scraps that appeared to have been left over from Perla’s bright blue ball gown. She looked up briefly when Blanca Estela walked in, but then returned to frowning as she tried to make the pattern pieces fit on the scraps of cloth.
Blanca Estela suddenly felt awkward and murmured, “Your mother said to come and help you.”
Evita looked up again and nodded. “Yes, she went to tell your grandmother that Aminta died last night. She was in your Catechism class, wasn’t she? Last year, too, and at the last minute they took her to the ranch, and she didn’t make her First Communion then, either. This time she had her Communion dress already made, so they will bury her in that.”
This was too much for Blanca Estela. She choked back a sob and ran out of the workshop and back across the street. Outside her door she paused, longing for Mario and Mimi, wishing that they had not gone picking cotton, so she could hear their conversation about movies and motors and, doing so, forget the awful news about Aminta’s death.
She could not think of any place to go where she could escape her grim thoughts, so she slipped back into the house and sat down on the steps from the entryway to the patio. From this spot she could hear María Eva and Mamá Anita’s voices drifting out of the kitchen in unintelligible murmurs which were pierced suddenly by isolated words like knives: “coffin,” “burial,” “mourning.”
“I will see to it about ordering two wreaths,” María Eva’s voice suddenly said clearly, directly behind her.
Blanca Estela turned around and saw that María Eva was saying this to Mamá Anita as she let herself out the door. Mamá Anita, following behind, found Blanca Estela still sitting on the steps. She did not seem surprised to see her there, as if she had forgotten that she had sent her out of the house.
“Come, child,” Mamá Anita said in an attempt at her usual bustling manner. “We’re already late with our housework this morning. You must clean the beans and, afterwards, I need you to go to Chabela’s and buy some tomatoes and onions.”
The morning passed this way with the usual housecleaning of sweeping and dusting and preparing the main meal. After dinner, which was a very tasty stew of meat and squash with tomatoes and onions—one of Blanca Estela’s favorite dishes, but which this day she barely noticed—they lay down for their naps. Blanca Estela was sleepy because she had awakened earlier than usual that morning, but she could not go to sleep. She lay on her cot with her eyes closed, seeing the sallow face of Aminta with her mouth slightly open, her beady eyes gloating over the doll in blue. She tried to imagine Aminta in repose, eyes shut, clothed in her Communion dress. A shudder of fear ran through her, but she forced herself to continue thinking of Aminta, dead, buried in her Communion dress. This terror was a way of doing penance, of atoning for the sin of having wished her dead.
Blanca Estela herself would get to wear a beautiful silk dress that only lacked a row of pearl buttons to be sewn to it and the lace edging around the collar. But perhaps she would not get to wear this dress, after all. If Father Mirabal denied her forgiveness when she went to confession, she would not receive Communion and would never get to wear the dress. People would find out why she had been denied Communion, even if Father Mirabal never told a soul and kept the secret like priests were supposed to do. It would be better for her if she never tried to make her First Communion. She could go away—but where? She could leave early tomorrow morning with the cotton pickers and not return home. That was it. That was the solution. She felt herself relax and was soon asleep.
The cotton pickers returned home as the sun was going down. She heard the truck stop next door, and she ran outside in time to see Mimi and Mario slip down from the truck bed, which was now piled high with woolly cotton balls that clung to the children’s clothing and drifted out from under the tarp to be carried like plump snowflakes in the wind. The two were flushed and grimy, and Mario was more subdued than she had seen him before. She told him that she would join them to go picking cotton on the following morning.
Mario nodded faintly and said in a tired voice, “You must be ready when the truck comes; it will not wait.”
“How early should I get up?” Blanca Estela asked him.
“You have to get up before the Morning Star sets,” he answered.
“The Morning Star?”
“Yes, the bright star that you see in the sky before the sun rises. Haven’t you ever seen the Morning Star?”
She hung her head to hide her shame at her stupidity, but, fortunately, Mario seemed not to notice and merely said that he was going home to wash up and eat.
She had heard somewhere that if you concentrated hard enough, you could make yourself wake up at a particular time without an alarm clock. Mamá Anita did not have an alarm clock, only the pendulum clock on the parlor table that chimed the hours and struck once on the half hour. Even if she had had an alarm clock, setting it would have been impractical because it would have awakened Mamá Anita, as well as Blanca Estela, since they both slept in the same room.
Blanca Estela told herself as she lay in her cot in the dark to wake up before the Morning Star set. The problem was, at what time did that happen? She had trouble going to sleep, partly, no doubt, because she had had a long nap that afternoon, but also because she kept remembering the story that Aminta had told her about the dead man under the bed who had pulled the sleeper down. She was afraid to let her arm hang down over the side of the cot, fearing that Aminta would be waiting to pull her down and drag her away with her to her grave. Before Mamá Anita had put out the light, Blanca Estela made sure that the space under the cot was empty, but Aminta would have only returned in the dark, anyway.
Sleep finally overcame her, but she slept restlessly, dreaming that Aminta was pursuing her and that she kept running from her, saying, “If I can reach the Morning Star I will be safe.” Blanca Estela woke up suddenly and jumped out of bed and ran groggily to look out the window. The sky was a whitish gray, and the stars grew paler by the moment. She did not know where to find the Morning Star. Mario had said that it set when the sun rose, so it must be in the east. She ran out to the patio and scanned the sky in the direction from where the sun rose. The horizon there was a faint pink, and the stars had already dimmed their light, except for one point of brightness which faded away, even as she gazed at it.
A cry of dismay escaped from her, and, as she turned away, she saw Mamá Anita standing on the patio steps in her night clothes, looking at her with consternation. “What is it, child? Why are you up so early? Are you feeling sick, Blanca Estela?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said, forlornly, “I was looking for the Morning Star. Mario told me to look for it. I had never seen it before, and I missed it.”
She kept listening for the sound of the truck that would pick up Mario and Mimi while she helped Mamá Anita to prepare breakfast, and later as they ate, but it never came. She had tried to think of a way to get the message to Mario that she would not be going with them, after all, without alerting Mamá Anita to what she had been planning to do, but no opportunity presented itself. Finally, she concluded that the truck had come when she had been in the privy and that it had left with her friends, who must now be disgusted with her for failing to keep her appointment with them once again.
After breakfast, but while they were still at the table, Mamá Anita said, “We are going to put off doing any housework until we finish your Communion dress. All it needs is sewing on the buttons. Remember those twelve buttons that you found for me? They are going down the back of your dress. They have to be sewn on by hand. Come and help me. You can hand them to me as I sew.”
Blanca Estela shook her head. Something inside her chest could no longer be contained, and, putting her head down on the table in front of her, she broke out in sobs.
“What is it, child? Blanca Estela, what is the matter?” Mamá Anita cried out, alarmed. “Are you sick? Is it your stomach? Does your head hurt?”
She could not speak. She could not stop sobbing. At last she was able to shake her head, and her grandmother, understanding that it was not physical pain that brought the tears, put her arms around her and made cooing sounds until Blanca Estela calmed down.
“Now, tell me, what makes you cry?” Mamá Anita coaxed, sitting down next to her. “Is it... is it your mother? Do you miss her very much?”
Blanca Estela nodded, taking in a big gulp of air that sent a shudder through her body, and finally said, “Yes, I miss my mother, but it isn’t that. I... I... I can’t make my First Communion.”
“Why not, child? Don’t you want to?”
“Oh yes, I want to very much, but I can’t. I will have to go to confession and tell Father Mirabal what I did, and he won’t let me receive Communion.”
Mamá Anita seemed completely nonplussed. “What could you have done, child? Tell me about it.”
Blanca Estela swallowed hard and, taking a deep breath, she blurted out her confession. “I cursed Aminta. I told her that I hated her and that I wished she would die. And now she’s dead, and I never asked her for forgiveness. It’s too late now.”
Mamá Anita shook her head and seemed about to smile but checked herself. “Bless you, child. Is that what has been troubling you? You did not cause that poor girl to die. It was an infection that she got from drinking bad water. Doctor Marín said so, don’t you remember? But if you are sorry that you were angry at her... was it about the doll?”
Blanca Estela nodded and then decided to confess all. “I just didn’t like her, and then she told me scary stories and wanted to keep my doll... my mother’s doll...” She threatened to break out in sobs again.
Mamá Anita hastened to reassure her. “It’s all right. We don’t always like everybody. And, if you were angry with her... you are sorry about it now? You wish you hadn’t said those things?”
Blanca Estela nodded again.
Mamá Anita continued, “Well, that’s all it takes to be forgiven. You tell Father Mirabal that you are sorry, and he will give you absolution. You would not have said those things again if she were alive, would you?”
Blanca Estela shook her head, a little doubtfully this time, and asked something else that had been bothering her, “Will she become an angel?”
“Who?”
“Aminta. Didn’t somebody say that when children die they become angels? Will she be a guardian angel?”
How to explain to Mamá Anita that she was concerned that Aminta might end up being assigned to be a guardian angel to her, Blanca Estela. Even as a guardian angel, she didn’t think that Aminta could ever be very good company. How could she tolerate her by her side, night and day?
Mamá Anita responded slowly, as if she were giving the matter great consideration. “I think guardian angels are... older... than Aminta was. And now, we must finish your dress soon because we still have the housework to do afterwards.”
They sewed the buttons on the dress, and then Blanca Estela tried it on. It was so light and pretty that wearing it Blanca Estela felt that she was enveloped in a cloud. She took it off carefully, and then they hung it up in the wardrobe to await the following Sunday, which would be her First Communion day.
They did the housework and cooked and ate their meals almost in silence, exhausted from the early morning storm. As the sun went down, she waited for the cotton truck to return Mario and Mimi home, so she could apologize for having left them waiting, but, again, she never heard it. At dusk, Mamá Anita showed her a long, white nightgown that she had made for her.
“I had some cotton batiste left over from the slip for your dress, and I made this nightdress. Put it on, even if you are not ready to go to bed. It will be cooler than what you’re wearing.”
She did as Mamá Anita said and looked at herself in the mirror, waving her arms at her sides and attempting a little pirouette, as if she were dancing. It was then that she heard the voices out in the street. She ran to the window and looked out, pressing her forehead against the iron bars that still retained the warmth of the sun which had touched them earlier. Out in the street, in the thickening light, she could see Mimi, Mario, Evita and Pedro. None of them looked hot and tired, as they would be if they had just come back from the cotton fields.
“Did you just return from the harvest?” she called out, puzzled.
Mario turned around to reply. “We didn’t go. Mother said it was too hot to be out in the fields. We spent the day helping my brother oil the turbine. That was in the shade, though.”
“I hardly ever go pick cotton,” Evita volunteered. “Look, Pedro came back from the ranch. He was with his uncle. They brought back some watermelons.”
“Why don’t you come out to play? We’re trying to decide on a game,” Mario told her.
Blanca Estela turned to her grandmother. “May I go out to play?”
Mamá Anita nodded, smiling.
“But,” Blanca Estela paused on her way out, “I need to change again,” she said, looking at her long white dress, regretfully.
Mamá Anita chuckled softly. “No, it’s already dark. Nobody will remark on what you are wearing. Go on, child.”
Outside, a crescent moon hung crookedly on the darkening sky. Blanca Estela’s white gown stood out against the shadows of the houses and the dark sand underneath their feet. Mario, looking at her, said to the others, “Why don’t we play Doña Blanca? We haven’t played that game in a long time.”
Blanca Estela remembered the children singing about Doña Blanca, the lady who was encircled by pillars of gold and silver, from her first night in Revilla.
“I don’t think we have enough people to play Doña Blanca,” Evita pointed out. “We need somebody to be Doña Blanca and stand in the middle. Then we need several people to encircle her and somebody to stand outside the circle to try to break in. We need at least six people, and there’s only five of us.”
“Why don’t we get Nereida to play, too?” Mimi suggested.
Mario ran to the door of his house where Nereida, who no matter what she wore always seemed to shimmer in the moonlight, stood outlined against the light of the room behind her. He tugged at her hand and pulled her towards the group in the middle of the street.
“We’re going to play Doña Blanca,” he told her, “and we need to have you stand outside the circle to break in. Don’t push too hard, though. Remember, you’re much bigger, and it isn’t fair.”
Evita seemed ready to take her place in the middle of the circle when Mario said, “Blanca Estela will be Doña Blanca. She has the same name, after all, and she’s dressed in white.”
Evita appeared ready to protest, but then she gave way, saying generously, “That’s right, it’s her turn now. She has never been Doña Blanca.”
Blanca Estela found herself as in a dream in the moonlight, surrounded by her friends who sang that they would break down a pillar to see Doña Blanca. Doña Blanca was the favored personage. She was at the center of the game, surrounded by pillars of gold and silver. Blanca Estela, like Doña Blanca, felt safe and loved inside the circle of friends. Unlike her first night in Revilla, tonight she felt that she was home.