The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 20

20

Nena sat next to Emiliano in the courtyard of the de Galvez house, looking at a page of a prayer book, not really reading it. Other than the Bible, this was the only other book in the house. It had pretty pictures that Nena had spent many hours examining, but she wasn’t interested in the pious verses that reminded her of the convent. Emiliano held a red ledger of accounts on his lap, making notations in the columns. Never having seen Emiliano do any work before, Nena was surprised that he had the ability to concentrate and do math.

María came into the courtyard, holding a folded letter that she handed to Emiliano. Emiliano slid his finger under the sealing wax, ripping the paper. Nena watched as his eyes darted across the paper. He threw the letter on the ground.

“What’s happened?” Nena asked.

“She says she’s going to profess.”

“Who?” Nena asked.

“Eugenia.”

“She wants to be a nun?” Nena asked. That couldn’t be true. Emiliano must have misread the letter. “That’s the last thing Eugenia would do.”

“Here, read it yourself. She states her plans very clearly.”

Nena took the letter from Emiliano and scanned it. Emiliano stood up, the ledger sliding off his lap to the ground.

“She can do as she wishes, but Papá is going to be very angry when he hears that we aren’t going to get that dowry. It would have been very useful,” Emiliano says. Nena didn’t believe that Emiliano wasn’t hurt, or at least embarrassed.

Joaquín came in through the arch from the stable yard, holding his hat in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other.

“Thirsty?” Joaquín asked.

Emiliano grunted. Joaquín opened the bottle, pouring some of the liquor into the glasses Nena and Emiliano had been drinking water out of.

“I’m sorry about my sister,” Joaquín said.

“What are you sorry for?”

“She’s the last one I ever thought would become a nun.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying,” Emiliano said, glaring at Nena. He drank his brandy, slamming his glass on the table with a bang.

“You’re probably better off without her.”

“I’ve warned you that you shouldn’t speak ill of your sister,” Emiliano said. His tone was so cold, snow might as well have been falling from the blue sky. Nena felt ashamed for him.

“It was very nice of you to come,” Nena said to Joaquín. Nena felt Emiliano’s stare freezing the side of her face.

“I’m glad to know I have one friend here in the de Galvez house,” Joaquín said.

“Friend?” Emiliano asked. “Who?”

“Maybe you’d like to take a walk around the plaza on Sunday?” Joaquín asked, bowing to Nena. “With the permission of Don Javier, of course.”

“Yes, that would be nice,” Nena said. She needed to go home, but if Joaquín were to court her, then maybe Don Javier wouldn’t try to pawn her off onto some old man with fourteen children.

“Fuck him,” Emiliano said when Joaquín left.

“Why were you so rude? He only came to apologize to you.”

“He came to flirt with you,” Emiliano muttered.

“Why does it matter to you so much?” Nena burst out. She hoped it wasn’t because of her. He had no claim on her.

Emiliano stood up, walking toward her.

“What are you doing?” Nena asked, alarmed, as he put his arms around her and pulled her up off her chair. Oh. She tilted her face up. He leaned down to kiss her, and she kissed him back.

“There,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about Joaquín anymore.”

The night of her first real kiss, Nena woke up in the dark, hearing with La Vista that Emiliano was awake. She pulled a thick rebozo around herself, moving through the dark house, following the sound of his breath. She found him standing in the courtyard.

“Elena, how did you know I wanted you to come?” Emiliano asked her.

She hadn’t told him he could use her first name, but he’d taken it. And he’d said tú. Tú, closing the distance between them, even though he was a man, and she was a woman. He knew what he’d done speaking to her this way. He knew his power over her, that she wanted what he wanted.

But she was a good girl. She couldn’t let herself do what she knew was wrong. She wasn’t married to Emiliano.

“I’m not what you think I am,” Nena said.

“I know exactly who you are.” He touched Nena’s cheek with the back of his hand.

“I’m not like you. I’m like your sister—” Nena couldn’t say her name. She didn’t want to bring Sister Benedicta into the courtyard with them.

“When I saw you in the vineyard singing, I remembered what you did to me, when I was sick. You kissed me and you made me better.”

“No,” Nena said. “You kissed me.”

“Is there a difference?” Emiliano leaned down to kiss Nena. She extended up on her tiptoes and felt the kiss flow down her body. She wanted to stay there and keep kissing, but Emiliano pulled away. He put his finger to his lips, and then he took Nena’s hand, leading her through the house and to his bedroom. He lifted the latch to his door, holding it open so Nena could pass through first. He was gentle as he took her nightgown off her, gentle as he kissed her neck, her breasts. He pulled his shirt over his head, wriggled out of his pants, and then he brought Nena to his bed.

After that first night, they couldn’t keep their minds or their hands off each other. With that first kiss, the door to the hot center of the earth had swung open. Nena was sure that they were the only two people who had ever felt this way.

When they were together, they were animals in the barnyard. Nena liked it. She hadn’t known women could crave sex like that. She was always told that men would take what they wanted, and women had to guard their honor. She’d been lied to, protected from something that was hers by right. Nena burned with a beautiful fever, unable to think about anything but her desire, the world on fire just for her.

Nena longed for Emiliano with every bit of her body. She’d been wrong about everything. La Vista had brought her to this place for a reason, and Emiliano was the only spell she wanted to have in her mouth. This was the only place she wanted to be.

She tried to be with him in every part of the house. She was glad that the good girl in her had died. Why not admit to herself how sex really was? There was sweat and the other smells of the body, and Nena made strange sounds. It wasn’t a pretty thing. But it was beautiful in how maleducado it was.

Nena thought about Emiliano when she got up, when she washed her face, and when she rode Palomita with him through town. She thought about him when she said her prayers, and when she dreamed, Emiliano dreamed with her. Weeks passed, a month, and then another. When María tied Nena’s corset and the cords pulled the breath out of her, it made her feel like Emiliano was on top of her, heavy on her chest.

“Tighter,” Nena said to María.

When they were at breakfast, Emiliano found Nena’s foot under the table. She slid her shoe to the inside of his leg, toward the heat of his lap.

One week, Emiliano had to return to Chihuahua to sell wine, and every day that he was gone, Nena grew hungrier. When María brought her breakfast, Nena wanted a hundred more rolls, a bucket of chocolate instead of the little cup that she drank in one gulp. It disgusted her that she’d become as obsessed with food as Don Javier.

“Chicken,” Don Javier grunted in greeting when Nena came into the dining room near the end of the week.

“Chicken?” Nena asked.

Don Javier pointed at the man carrying in a platter of roasted hens. The cook had browned the skin perfectly. The meat smelled of oregano and chile. María placed a leg and thigh on Nena’s plate. Nena cut off a piece and took a small bite, trying to keep the overwhelming hunger from gaining control of her. She took a second bite of the chicken. It was juicy, the skin salty and crisp.

Nena chewed every bit of meat off the chicken bones, cracking the little huesos between her teeth and sucking out the marrow. She ate a half dozen bolillos, cramming her mouth with the softness of the bread, and then when the rolls were gone, she scooped rice into her mouth, holding her head as close to the plate as she could, making it easier to get the food into her.

Nena looked up from her hunched position to see Don Javier staring at her, holding on to his knife. Their eyes met. Nena put her hands around her plate, like a dog protecting something she’d dragged out of the trash. Don Javier looked away from Nena, like he was afraid that she was going to eat him next, and if María hadn’t brought out the beef in a wine sauce, Nena might have. Nena gobbled up the meat and the roasted zucchini, stuffing herself so full she thought she would snap the laces of her corset.

Nena only stopped eating when there was no more food on the table. While she waited for her cup of chocolate, she felt she could finally take a breath, a stomach breath, like her stomach had run out of air. She’d eaten more than seemed possible, but she was still very hungry, and not just for chicken and rice, beef and potatoes, the bowl of bread she’d eaten like a pig. This was a magical hunger that had taken control of her, caused by what she didn’t know, sex, or her love for Emiliano, or a manifestation of La Vista.

“Tomorrow we’ll slaughter an ox for you,” Don Javier said, thinking he was making a joke. Nena didn’t laugh. She worried about what had happened to her. She knew what it was like to not have enough to eat, going all day without during the very lean years, until she came home and had a dry tortilla and a few beans, but this was something else.

When Emiliano came back, sex took the place of her hunger for food.

Nena fed herself as much of Emiliano as she could get. They left each other notes under the statue of la Virgin in the courtyard with the lemons.

Meet me in the stables after la cena , Nena read one morning, and then she slipped the note into her pocket, beginning the countdown until they would be able to touch each other.

To go to him, she wore a petticoat but no underwear, walking through the house and out to the stables. She heard the horses in their stalls, snorting and stepping. Emiliano had arranged it so that Antonio was out with the groom. Nena smelled the odor of the barn, the manure and the horse pipí, and she didn’t want to lie down on the dirt floor, so they stayed standing, kissing. Nena put her legs around him and he pulled up her skirts and slid himself inside of her. Nena had been trying to be quiet, but she screamed.

“Have I hurt you?” he asked, putting her down.

“Do it again,” Nena told him.

“You are a diablita,” he said, kissing her. “Tell me again where you came from.”

“I came from the future,” Nena said, and though she hadn’t planned on telling him that, it felt good to tell the truth, even if Emiliano wouldn’t believe her.

“That’s how women behave in the future? Take me with you. What else happens in the future?”

“We don’t have horses. We have cars and we fly in machines in the sky.” Nena was exaggerating here. She’d never flown, not like that.

“You tell good stories. Tell me more.”

“Yes,” Nena said. He thought she was making up stories, so she could tell him anything. “We have palaces where you look at a wall and watch pictures move, and you can hear the people in the pictures talk.”

“Now I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me more about what you want me to do to you.”

“Like this?” Nena asked. She slipped her hand between his legs, feeling him, and a shiver ran through her. She laughed. He pulled her to him, and they kissed, long and hard, just kissing, holding each other. Nena buried her face into his chest, smelling his sweat. He kissed her again, and then she bit him hard on the shoulder.

“See, you are a diabla.”

Nena traced the bite mark with her finger. The light came through the small window, picking up the dust suspended in the air. Nena kissed his shoulder, and he pulled her face to his, kissing her back, brushing the hair off her face with his thumbs. Nena wanted to tell him what she really was, that she could do magical things. She wanted to make him fly, not in an airplane but by lifting him up with her song.

“Do you know how you got better when you were so sick?”

“You kissed me.”

“Yes, and I fed you something that made you better.”

“Medicine?”

“A magical elixir. I’m a bruja,” Nena said.

“I believe it. You’ve enchanted me,” he said, the joke in his voice.

“No. Listen to me. I can do things no one else can.”

“I know that already,” he said, grinning. He reached into Nena’s dress, holding on to her breast, running his thumb along the underside of her nipple, kissing her.

Nena heard the gate opening and the jingling of tack. She jumped back from Emiliano and adjusted her dress, pulled the veil over her face, and slipped out the back door, across the stable yard and into the kitchen, where the cook pulled out a stool for her.

“Siéntese, se?orita,” she said.

The room was too hot. An olla of beans bubbled over the ashy fire. The kitchen smelled like mesquite. The cook plucked pigeons, putting the feathers in a basket. Without thinking, Nena started to help, holding on to the body of a pigeon and ripping out the tiny breast feathers. She’d always hated plucking chickens at home, but the feathers of pigeons were a lot easier to remove. It was satisfying to rip the things off, getting down to the bare flesh. This was the first bit of decent work she’d done her whole time there.

“Se?orita Elena, no!” the cook said, trying to take the bird away from her.

“No one’s coming in here. The men won’t,” Nena said, but right as this came out of her mouth, Don Javier appeared in the kitchen.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I miss the convent kitchen,” Nena said.

“I came to tell Cook that I changed my mind about the soup, but I’m happy you’re here,” Don Javier said. He’d never used a word like “happy” before. He reached toward Nena and plucked a piece of straw off her shoulder. “Put on your nice dress for dinner. We have some good news to celebrate.”

In the dining room that evening, Don Javier opened a bottle of champagne, pouring the stuff into real glasses, crystal. Nena wondered what they were celebrating, but she took her glass, drinking, savoring the feel of the bubbles on her tongue, remembering the night of the concert, the first time Emiliano had kissed her hand. She finished her glass, feeling happy, amazed at how young she’d been at the concert. She hadn’t known anything.

“Mi amor,” Don Javier said, looking at Nena. She frowned, not sure why he was using that word with her. “I’ve found a man for you who doesn’t need you to provide a dowry.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

Nena’s body went cold, but she tried to school her face to stay neutral. “You?”

“Don’t we get along well? I like a woman with an appetite, and you’re much better at riding than when you first arrived.”

“Yes,” Nena said, remembering the day last week she’d gone out to ride with Emiliano. How they’d sent Antonio and María away while she and Emiliano had sex under the blanket they’d brought, how Emiliano had licked her breasts. They’d been on the north side of the river, but Nena hadn’t wanted to sing herself home. She’d wanted to stay with Emiliano forever.

Emiliano stared down at his knife, and Nena couldn’t catch his eye. Had he known this was coming?

What could Nena do? Don Javier hadn’t asked her to marry him. He had simply made an announcement, like she didn’t have a choice in the matter. If she said no, then what? She had nowhere to go. Don Javier knew this even better than she did. Nena had to accept his plan for her, even though he didn’t love her. To him, she was nothing, just a woman, barely human. They’d hardly ever talked. Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t even know she was in the room. Even now, he wasn’t waiting for an answer from her, he was pouring himself another glass of champagne.

“I don’t think long engagements are healthy. Right, Emiliano? Women become nuns if you’re not careful.”

“No, Papá,” Emiliano said. Nena waited for Emiliano to say more, to tell Don Javier that he and Nena were—what? How could Emiliano tell his father what he and Nena had been doing? Under the table, Nena felt around with her foot, hunting for Emiliano’s toes, but she couldn’t find them. Even just one tap back from him would have given her some hope.

Don Javier finished the champagne, and then called for a jug of wine. Emiliano drank only water, but he made his way through all the food, a dove pie, trout in a cream sauce. Nena took small portions of everything, no longer hungry, a hole in the center of her being aching for Emiliano’s touch. She felt sick, like she could throw up. When the cognac was brought out, Emiliano poured himself a big glass. Nena could barely drink her chocolate, and she waved away the plate of pastries.

“What happened to your appetite today?” Don Javier asked Nena.

“Tonight, I’m too happy to eat, se?or,” Nena said, smiling weakly.

“Well don’t starve yourself. I like a woman who has some substance to her. We’ll marry at the end of the month.”

In her room that night, Nena sat on the edge of her bed, her back straight, her hands in fists, madder than she’d ever been. Mad at Emiliano for being cowardly. Mad at Sister Benedicta and Madre Inocenta for taking Nena from her real home. Mad at herself for being curious that night. Mad at Luna and Olga for making her take care of the babies all the time. If she hadn’t been so tired and mistreated, she wouldn’t have left. Mad at the sick-hungry feeling eating her away from the inside.

It grew dark. The adobe walls kept out the sound from the street, and eventually the noises of the house died down as the servants finished their work for the day, the house as quiet as the convent after the completas had been sung. Even though Nena still felt queasy, there was a gnawing in her stomach that she had to do something about. Maybe she could manage a dry tortilla.

She walked out of her room and down the hallway, holding her candle in front of her, heading toward the kitchen, walking through the courtyard. An owl hooted. Nena smelled the blossoms of the lemons and the limes that had started to bear fruit. She stopped and picked an orange, peeled it, then ate the segments one by one, savoring the juice. Nena smelled the smoky wood fire from the kitchen house. She pictured the food of the kitchen, the beans and the tortillas, the stewed green chiles, the spicy pozole. The cook slept in a cot in the kitchen. Nena didn’t want to wake her up, but the orange wasn’t quite enough to satisfy her hunger.

Nena felt hands on her arms, strong. She was dragged into the dining room, her candle going out in the struggle.

“I don’t want you to marry my father,” Emiliano whispered. “You believe that, don’t you?”

“I have to do what he tells me. I have nowhere to go.”

“I’m my own man,” Emiliano said, squeezing Nena’s arms. He was being too rough, and Nena pushed him away. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. Slap him? Run from the room? She wasn’t going to cry.

Emiliano kept holding Nena tight as he slipped down her body, squeezing her chest, her belly, her waist, until he was down on his knees, his arms wrapped around her thighs. “I’m your servant. Tell me what you want me to do.”

Nena touched the top of his head. She knew what she wanted. She wanted to go home, to start over again. But she also wanted Emiliano, every piece of him in every way possible, forever. She wished she could take him back to her own time, away from this El Paso where she had even less control over her life. Nena pictured Emiliano in an army uniform, more handsome than Beto.

But Nena was here, in this El Paso. Nena had always known that Emiliano was bad, knew he was going to get her in trouble. None of that had mattered to her. Nena pulled Emiliano up, and then they kissed. He picked Nena up and carried her over to the big, blackened table, laying her down in front of the paintings, the ancestors looking down through the dark. Nena felt the vibrations from them, and this excited her, too.

She pulled up her dress. He put his hand on her mouth.

“No grites,” he said, but Nena couldn’t help herself. She made a lot of noise against his hand, keeping it just for the two of them. The nature of desire is that it never ends. But that night, in that moment, Nena felt like she was getting everything she wanted.

When they were done, Emiliano kissed Nena on her cheek, the side of her nose, her forehead. He squeezed her closer to him. She heard the beating of his heart, happy to feel his strong arm around her. But as they lay there, the table grew uncomfortable, hard on her back. She shifted, propping herself up.

“Papá—” Emiliano started to say, but Nena stopped his talking with a kiss. She didn’t want to think about what would happen next.

“You have to listen to me,” Emiliano said, getting up off the table, pulling on his clothes. It was so dark, Nena couldn’t see his face, but he’d moved so close to her that his whisper touched her skin. “You’re not going to marry him. I won’t allow it. I want to marry you.”

Nena smelled wine on his breath, and her stomach did a turn. The sick feeling came back, bringing the salty taste to her mouth.

Nena jumped up off the table and ran out to the courtyard. The owl hooted again. She threw up in the pot holding the lemon tree, heaving, even though there was nothing in her stomach.

And then Nena knew what was happening to her.