Señor Garcia's advice to navigate by landmarks was entirely sound. We started referring to “the house with the falling plaster” or “the church with the over-tall steeple.” The only street in the whole city that made sense to me was the main thoroughfare, called San Francisco—like the city. The first block was designated First San Francisco, the next was Second San Francisco, and so on. When lost, we learned to ask policemen the way to San Francisco to regain our bearings.
There were police on almost every corner, certainly more than at home. They wore blue suits with nickel buttons and were topped by white caps with numbers on them. At dusk, they donned overcoats and hoods, which to even my unromantic eye made them look just like the pictures of veiled knights. I imagined that in the olden days they would have carried a sword in place of a club.
At night they disappeared into doorways to sleep, leaving red lanterns in the street to mark their posts. Mother remarked, “It's good to know police, like cabbies, are the same in every country.”
The police had one unfortunate habit that affected us directly. Our window was just above one policeman's post, and every hour he blew his very loud whistle. When I asked Gestefeld about this, he informed me that in small towns, instead of whistling, they called out the time of night. “One o'clock! Tiempo sereno! All is serene at this time.”
I put a hand to my mouth and imitated yelling. “Three o'clock and all's well!”
“Exactly. The local kids call them Los Serenos. The Serene Ones.”
“They seem lighter-skinned than most,” Mother observed.
“How observant, Mrs. Cochrane. Yes, the government does not permit the police to employ natives.” He noted our surprise. “Oh, that's hardly the only thing the natives are barred from. Most government positions are closed to them, along with anything that smacks of authority. Some reformers tried passing a law to fund literacy for them, but it went down like a skewered bull. Speaking of which, have you been to a bullfight yet?”
“I have not,” I said, “and would not care to.”
He shook his head. “I understand your hesitation. But if you want to truly understand the Mexican character, you must attend the opera and at least one bullfight.” With very little grace, I accepted his invitation to take us the following week.
My agreement stemmed from gratitude. Gestefeld had inadvertently handed me a topic worthy of Nellie Bly: the mistreatment of the natives. It had the oppression angle, as well as the benefit of being so overlooked. I salved the pangs I felt for my opportunism with the thought that no one else was telling their story. And it's a story that deserves to be told!
I dove in right away, posing questions of anyone who spoke enough English to answer. But mostly, I observed. I watched the native women with baskets on their heads, the men bearing bundles on their backs: baskets of laundry, eggs, charcoal, or roots, bundles of fruit or game, and cages of live fowl. Men arrived from the mountains every day, coming in droves of twenty-five to fifty, bearing burdens that averaged three hundred pounds. Mules were only used for profitable enterprises, like meat or the alcoholic pulque, which arrived in swollen pig skins.
Once, it was not a bundle on a native man's head, but a tiny coffin. As he passed, rich and poor alike stopped to doff their hats. I was touched. Mother dabbed her eyes.
Death was surprisingly common, and treated with a great deal of religiosity. One day, Mother and I spied a crowd gathered around something on the sidewalk by a construction site for a new hotel. Drawing near, we saw a body—a native laborer had fallen to his death. He was covered in a white sheet that was too short for him. His sandals stuck out comically, and I had to pinch my arm to remind myself that a man had died. All around us were mutters of “The Virgin rest his soul” and “Virgin Mother grant him grace.” Then a policeman arrived to command the body be taken away. Some workers rolled him in the sheet and put him in a wheelbarrow.
“Let's follow,” I said.
“Don't be ghoulish,” snapped Mother.
“I'm going.”
Mother sighed, and together we followed the makeshift hearse to a backstreet yard where coffins were constructed. In fact, every establishment on the block made coffins, causing Mother and I to dub it Coffin Street.
The joiner in charge of the yard ignored the dead man, literally leaping over him to doff his hat to us. He then dragged us through his house to view his coffins and described in a torrent of Spanish how fine they were, all while smoothing their linings and wiping their handles with a cloth from his pocket.
I pointed to a coffin. “Nombre? What is it called? Qué es?”
“Qué… Ah! Es un ataúd.”
In halting Spanish, I said, “Tu ataúdo es muy bonito.”
Delighted, he bowed and began repeating a phrase we had heard often. “Sí, señorita! Es tuyo.”—“It is yours.”
It took another ten minutes to convince him we were not in need of a coffin. Finally, Mother dragged me out by the arm, laughing softly. “Serves you right.”
“Well, honestly!” I cried, less amused than she. “What would I do with a coffin? Perhaps he looked at me and decided I am not long for this world.”
Mother scanned me critically. “You have lost weight.”
“So have you,” I retorted.
“It's the excitement,” she protested.
“It's the food,” I growled, in counterpoint to my ever-aching stomach. I felt like I was starving.
Yet food was always available. Almost everywhere we went, we saw women making tortillas for sale, spitting in their hands as they worked cornmeal into batter, and cooking on greasy pans blackened by charcoal.
Watching one such operation, Mother declared, “I will never touch a tortilla again so long as I live.”
Many days, our wanderings were dictated entirely by our stomachs. Finding a good restaurant became our chief goal. Our palates had not adjusted to the flavorless concoctions we were offered, nor had they come around to the peppers that made our eyes stream just by smelling them. Too little flavor, or too much: that, to us, was Mexico.
Even the bread was troublesome, because they let it harden to the point of cracking one's teeth, and there was an utter lack of butter and a complete absence of jams.
I had thought we were safe with simple meat dishes, but we had the unfortunate experience of learning where our meat came from. Twice a day we'd see a plodding old mule or a horse that had reached its second childhood. Strapped to its back would be a long iron rod with multiple hooks, from which dangled meat that was exposed to all the mud and dirt of the streets, as well as the hair of the animal. Each beast was accompanied by two basket-bearing men with their trouser legs rolled to their knees to keep from being stained by the dripping blood. In their baskets they bore the parts of the dead animals that had fallen by the wayside on their dusty trek.
There were only two street vendors I was willing to patronize: the fruit seller and the aguador, or water carrier. The aguadors were ubiquitous, with their water jars suspended from their heads. Unfortunately, I sometimes saw them refill their jars from the public fountains—fountains that people were also bathing in.
At meals, I was reduced to fresh fruit, rice, fried pumpkin, and boiled cheese. Mother was more of a soldier than I, forcing down food I declared inedible, like the hideous mixture called chili.
Yet, being both proud and frugal, I insisted we avoid the American fare in the expensive hotels. Occasionally we would venture into a French restaurant, or an Italian one. I found myself amazed by the cosmopolitan aspirations of Mexico City.
“It is the president,” explained Señor Garcia one afternoon in the park. “He envisions this as a new Paris, which is part of the reason my return has been so successful. After living in Europe so long, I have insights to share with the city council. They hope I can help them lure architects and chefs from Paris and Rome.”
“Do you think you'll succeed?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I love Mexico. But there is only one Paris.”
“Perhaps I can travel there next,” I said lightly.
Señor Garcia took my hand. “I hope you have no desire to escape Mexico. Or Mexicans.”
With Mother helpfully watching, I was able to slip my hand out of his and pat his shoulder. “Of course not! I've hardly begun. By the time I'm through, Mexico will want to throw me out.”
♦ ◊ ♦
I soon finished my first article about Mexico City. I began by framing the city in a warm light, talking about how the best sights in Mexico aren't the cathedrals or fountains, but the people. Then I got down to business and described the native people:
Their lives are as dark as their skins and hair, and are invaded by no hope that through effort their lives may amount to something.
Nine women out of ten in Mexico have babies. When at a very tender age, so young as five days, the babies are completely hidden in the folds of the rebozo and strung to the mother's back, in close proximity to the mammoth baskets of vegetables on her head and suspended on either side of the human freight. When the babies get older their heads and feet appear, and soon they give their place to another or share their quarters, as it is no unusual sight to see a woman carry three babies at one time in her rebozo. They are always good. Their little coal-black eyes gaze out on what is to be their world, in solemn wonder. No baby smiles or babyish tears are ever seen on their faces. At the earliest date they are old, and appear to view life just as it is to them in all its blackness.
They know no home, they have no school, and before they are able to talk they are taught to carry bundles on their heads or backs, or pack a younger member of the family while the mother carries merchandise, by which she gains a living. Their living is scarcely worth such a title. They merely exist. Thousands of them are born and raised on the streets. They have no home and were never in a bed. Going along the streets of the city late at night, you will find dark groups huddled in the shadows, which, on investigation, will turn out to be whole families gone to bed. They never lie down, but sit with their heads on their knees, and so pass the night.
When they get hungry they seek the warm side of the street and there, hunkering down, devour what they scraped up during the day, consisting of refused meats and offal boiled over a handful of charcoal. A fresh tortilla is the sweetest of sweetbreads. The men appear very kind and are frequently to be seen with the little ones tied up in their sarape.
Groups of these at dinner would furnish rare studies for Rodgers. Several men and women will be walking along, when suddenly they will sit down in some sunny spot on the street. The women will bring fish or a lot of stuff out of a basket or poke, which is to constitute their coming meal. Meanwhile the men, who also sit flat on the street, will be looking on and accepting their portion like hungry, but well-bred, dogs.
This type of life, be it understood, is the lowest in Mexico, and connects in no way with the upper classes. The Mexicans are certainly misrepresented, most wrongfully so. They are not lazy, but just the opposite. From early dawn until late at night they can be seen filling their different occupations. The women sell papers and lottery tickets.
“See here, child,” said a gray-haired lottery woman in Spanish. “Buy a ticket. A sure chance to get $10,000 for twenty-five cents.” Being told that we had no faith in lotteries, she replied: “Buy one; the Blessed Virgin will bring you the money.”
The laundry women, who, by the way, wash clothes whiter and iron them smoother even than the Chinese, carry the clothes home unwrapped. That is, they carry their hands high above their head, from which stream white skirts, laces, etc., furnishing a most novel and interesting sight.
Here I inserted Gestefeld's story of the dead child before going on to describe the natural beauty of the native women, and how the men wore their hair long. Bursting with revelations, I related many things I'd observed and more I'd gleaned through sources I trusted—Gestefeld and Señor Garcia, mostly. Then I closed up the matter of the natives:
As a people they do not seem malicious, quarrelsome, unkind or evil-disposed. Drunkenness does not seem to be frequent, and the men, in their uncouth way, are more thoughtful of the women than many who belong to a higher class. The women, like other women, sometimes cry, doubtless for very good cause, and then the men stop to console them, patting them on the head, smoothing back their hair, gently wrapping them tighter in their rebozo. Late one night, when the weather was so cold, a young fellow sat on the curbstone and kept his arm around a pretty young girl. He had taken off his ragged sarape and folded it around her shoulders, and as the tears ran down her face and she complained of the cold, he tried to comfort her, and that without a complaint of his own condition, being clad only in muslin trousers, which hung in shreds from his body.
Thus we leave the largest part of the population of Mexico. Their condition is most touching. Homeless, poor, uncared for, untaught, they live and they die… Their lives are hopeless, and they know it. That they are capable of learning is proven by their work, and by their intelligence in other matters. They have a desire to gain book knowledge, or at least so says a servant who was taken from the streets, who now spends every nickel and every leisure moment in trying to learn wisdom from books.
That servant belonged to Gestefeld. I met him one day when he came running up to Café Mijo to deliver a message. Gestefeld read it and smiled at me. “There is to be a party tonight. Dancing and singing. Would you care to go? And your delightful mother, of course. Your chance to see Mexican social life in action.”
I had little interest in Mexican social life, certain that it was exactly the kind of thing the other lady reporters would be covering. But I could hardly refuse. Besides, I might meet more English speakers with whom I can strike up friendships. So Mother and I put on our best apparel and walked to the House of Tiles for a soiree.
It was lively and charming. The relationship between music and dance seemed inverse to their counterparts in America. The music often stuttered and hopped from note to note, whereas American music of the day was fluid. Yet the dancing was smooth and liquid, quite different from the jump steps and heel-toeing in the dance halls at home.
For songs that were sung, I made it a game to listen for key words I recognized—agua, amor, mujer, hombre, caballo—and then make up a story to go along. That was the night I learned that all Mexican music requires the word corazón—the heart—to feature in every song. Either a villain was stabbing the singer through the heart, or else the hero was leaving his heart behind to make a better life for his family. Always, always, the heart.
One similarity to home was the love of the waltz. In America that poet of the piano, Chopin, was still all the rage, whereas in Mexico they seemed to have blended the European waltz with traditional street music in a fascinating way. As it filled my ears, I found myself swaying along with it.
I was still swaying when Gestefeld arrived to introduce an elegant American lady. “May I have the honor of presenting Mrs. Charter. She is here on missionary work. Mrs. Charter, this is Miss Cochrane and her mother, newly arrived in Mexico. Miss Cochrane is a reporter for a major newspaper in Pennsylvania.”
“How daring!” The missionary's eyes were slightly derisive. “And how are you finding Mexico so far?”
I answered with a torrent of observations, all of which sounded ridiculous when spoken aloud. I ended by adding, “I hope Mr. Gestefeld will show us sights less common to tourists.”
Gestefeld rescued me. “I am thinking of taking them riding to see Chapultepec.”
Mrs. Charter applauded that idea. “Marvelous. Of course they must ride, and take joy in the park, see all the fine people.”
“I wish we could,” I said, panicking a little. “But we have nothing appropriate to wear for horseback. It's not something that comes up much in Pittsburgh.”
“Oh, you mustn't let that prevent you! No, you will wear my own riding habit. The coat might be a trifle loose, but your feet are small, like mine. And I am certain I can find gear for your fine mother. Send to my hotel, and I will lend you them gladly.”
We then discussed her missionary work, which seemed largely to consist of her reading passages from the Bible, in English, to natives she cornered in the marketplace. She only did it two days a week, she informed me, as she found it exhausting. But she was certain she could see the light of Christ kindling in the “pathetic peasants' eyes,” especially when she offered them a meal along with a Bible verse. “They have only the example of Rome, and of course, that is no way to find Christ.” I smiled, then turned away, pretending interest in the dancing.
Mother was critical. “If she was offering them food and preaching Islam, I wonder if she wouldn't have seen the light of Mohammad in their eyes.” I had been thinking the same. But it was hardly our place to criticize charity, however it was given.
We met another half-dozen people, passing polite comments as the music swelled around us. In a strange way, I was a novelty: the tiny American girl with the eager eyes and the mocking tongue. Suitors were persistent, and twice I accepted offers to dance. Mother, too, was politely courted, but she declined all offers, a wistful smile on her face.
“We used to have parties,” she told me. With a quick laugh, she waved a hand. “Not like this, of course. Not so many people, and no guitars. But, oh, the parties we had!”
“When?” I asked, falling into a chair, breathless.
“When you were little. You don't remember?”
Sipping champagne, I shook my head. “I'm sorry, I don't.”
“Oh, your father loved them. The Judge was a very sociable man. Though I suspect he held parties in order to argue. He would find a man who felt strongly about a topic, a contentious topic—slavery, suffrage, temperance—and then argue the opposite side purely to see if he could win the debate. The Devil's own advocate. It drove me mad. I never knew where he actually stood on any issue.” She glanced at the musicians. “Then the Judge would hold out his hands to me and we'd dance until he lost breath.”
I listened, enraptured. Mother never spoke of my father. As if the years of hardship following his death made the memories too bitter. “I wish I remembered him.”
“You don't? Not at all?”
“Flashes. Like lightning. A present. Pushing me on a swing behind the house. His step on the stair. But not more.”
She stroked my cheek. “You were very young.”
“What was he like?”
“He was the best man I have ever known,” said Mother simply.
After that pleasing pronouncement, a frown crossed my brow. “A shame that cannot be said of his sons.”
Mother looked at me in shock. “Elizabeth!”
“I didn't mean my brothers!” I corrected at once, though I made a mental allowance that I did mean Albert. “Not my full brothers. I meant Robert and John and George and, and…”
“Thomas and William,” supplied Mother, as I had forgotten the names of my other two half-brothers, children of father's first marriage. It was excusable, as they'd been fully grown when I was born.
“Yes. Them! To say nothing of Maryann, Isabel, Angeline, and Juliana. Aren't they all peaches?” I'd omitted my youngest half-sister, Mildred. She was nearest me in age, being eleven years my senior. She had never been unkind, as Mother had helped to raise her after her own mother's death.
“They are not bad people, Elizabeth.”
Incredulity was printed on my face. “Of course they are! Mother, they threw us from the house! Made us sell it, so they could get their hands on their blood money!”
“It was their inheritance. Look how angry you are at the loss of yours.” She sighed. “They saw me as a gold digger.”
“And us? Their brothers and sisters? Were we gold diggers as well?”
“Elizabeth. They had lost their father, too.”
“Which makes it excusable? Can you imagine if we'd just been allowed to live in the house until we were grown? We would never have had Ford in our lives…” Seeing her face redden, my blood froze. “I'm sorry, I didn't—”
“I understand,” she said, clipping her words as if with shears. “Allow me to say, Elizabeth, how terribly grateful I am that you allowed me to be your chaperone on this trip. As I am clearly dreadful at protecting you.”
I opened my mouth—to protest, or argue, or apologize, I wasn't sure. But she was already on her feet. “I am tired. It's been a long day. Please don't trouble yourself, I can hail a cab.”
Quickly, I gathered my things. The delightful evening was spoiled. By me, and my unending parade of grudges. Always the troublemaker. Or, at least, always making trouble by pointing out uncomfortable truths.
We offered our thanks to Gestefeld and his wife, who had thankfully been dancing during our spat. Then we headed out into the street. A blue-flag cab was readily available for the short trip to our lodgings, and we paid the extra fee for second-class travel.
Twice on the way I tried to speak, but lost my nerve. It was only as we were getting ready to extinguish the lamp in our room that I found my tongue. “Mother. I'd like to say something. Two things.”
She didn't speak. Neither invitation nor refusal.
“I don't require protecting. And I'm glad of your company.”
Still she said nothing, but I could sense her relax a little. I hoped that by morning, all would be, if not forgiven, at least more easily ignored.