The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 24

24

The convent looked and felt the same as when Nena had first arrived, saturated with the familiar smells of incense and mesquite smoke, echoing with the distant sound of chanting. Nena was grateful for the thick walls keeping out the sun and heat of the desert.

In Madre Inocenta’s office, Sister Benedicta sat behind the desk, the convent’s red ledgers in neat stacks around her. Sister Benedicta nodded at the backless chair in front of the desk, and Nena lowered herself into it, not sure how to start the conversation. There was no point in trying to hide the pregnancy from Sister Benedicta, but Nena couldn’t find the words to talk about her condition.

Sister Benedicta poured wine from a decanter into two pewter cups instead of the rough clay tazas the nuns usually used. This seemed like a good sign. Sister Benedicta held out one of the cups, and Nena took it from her, so thirsty she took a big gulp, choking once she recognized the taste of the stuff, wine from the de Galvez vineyards, now vinegar in her mouth. Nena felt her hurt and anger at Emiliano burning in every cell of her body.

“I came back to the convent because I had nowhere else to go,” Nena said, bowing her head, willing to grovel.

“You can’t be a ni?a if you’re expecting.” Sister Benedicta’s voice was strained, and Nena wondered who she thought the child’s father was.

“No.”

“But you may stay here as a servant.”

“Yes, Sister Benedicta.”

“Once you have the child, I’ll find a family for it.”

Nena stayed quiet, grateful that at least she wasn’t going to be sent back to Don Javier. If Nena had to live as a servant, then she would. She knew how to do that kind of work. She was safe for now, and she had a little bit of time to figure out how to escape the convent with her baby, how to make it across the river and sing herself home. “Are you the abadesa now?” Nena asked.

“I’m in charge while Madre Inocenta is ill.”

“She got smallpox?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“She ate the brebaje until it was gone, and now she’s trapped in La Vista. Her mind is away, living on the other side. It didn’t do any good to send you away.”

Nena heard the pain in Sister Benedicta’s voice, and she was sure that Sister Benedicta still blamed Nena for what Madre Inocenta had done to herself, unfair though that was. Nena hadn’t asked to be brought to this El Paso, hadn’t asked to have the awful power of La Vista within her. But Nena knew saying this to Sister Benedicta would change nothing.

That same evening, wearing the homespun dress of a servant, Nena returned to the kitchen. She breathed in the welcome smells of roasting tomatoes, fried onion, and the earthy sweet scent of masa. Nena was glad Sister Benedicta hadn’t assigned her to a worse job, like tending to the pigs.

Nena looked around the kitchen for Carmela. One servant peeled potatoes. A nun stood over a cauldron, cooking soup. At the back of the room, another nun in a white veil chopped carrots, a huge pile of diced onion already on the side of the chopping block. And then Nena saw Carmela, talking to a servant preparing the chocolate. Carmela wiped her hands on her apron, walking over fast.

“Come with me,” Carmela said. She took Nena’s arm, pulling her into the storeroom packed with bags of rice and beans, barrels of flour, dried chiles hanging in bunches from hooks. Carmela lunged forward, burying her head in Nena’s chest, her body shaking. Was Carmela crying or laughing? Crying. Nena stroked the top of Carmela’s head.

“Oh, Nena, how could you have let this happen?” Carmela asked, her voice muffled by Nena’s body.

There wasn’t anything Nena could say that would make Carmela understand why she and Emiliano had been so reckless, so full of love and lust. But Carmela was right to cry. Nena was ruined, no matter what she’d intended or how she felt about Emiliano.

“Sister Benedicta is going to take the baby away from me once I give birth.”

“She can’t do that,” Carmela said, pulling away from the embrace and wiping the tears off her cheeks. “I don’t know how I’ll be of aid to you, but I’ll do whatever you need. Let’s ask Eugenia if she has any ideas.”

“Eugenia?”

“You’ll see,” Carmela said, opening the door of the storeroom.

Back in the kitchen, Carmela following a short distance behind, Nena was shocked to realize that the woman she’d seen chopping vegetables was Eugenia. Her face was horribly scarred, her eyes open but not seeing. Eugenia had been blinded by the infection. How was she able to cut things and not hurt herself?

“Is that Elena?” Eugenia called out.

“Sister,” Nena said, not sure what to call her.

“You’re pregnant,” Eugenia said, a statement not a question, so Nena was silent, and Eugenia continued. Her demeanor was different now, steady in a way only a great loss can make a person.

“What?” Nena asked. Did everyone know?

“I can see it with La Vista,” Eugenia explained quietly, so only Nena could hear.

“What do you know about La Vista?”

“I wasn’t getting better, so they gave me a bit of the brebaje. Carmela compelled Sister Benedicta to do it. Sick as I was, when I ate the stuff, I saw all the animals in the brebaje running into the room—awful—and I felt them clawing their way down my throat. Now I’m like you.”

When Emiliano ate the brebaje, he’d been completely healed, but nothing had been added. He was still a normal person, with a normal person’s ability to see the world. Nena didn’t understand the randomness of La Vista, its cold cruelty and its rich gifts. This was how the world worked, gifts and punishments unevenly and unjustly distributed.

“La Vista saved my life, but now my visions keep me from leaving the convent,” Eugenia said. “So, I professed. Not that anyone would marry me now. They won’t even tell me what my face looks like.”

“You’re healthy and alive, and that’s the important thing,” Nena said quickly, shocked at how badly the dark scars had marred Eugenia’s face. But once Nena took a moment to really examine Eugenia, she was surprised at how alive she looked. Yes, she had scars, but her skin was plump and rosy, her hair glossy.

“I can’t forgive you for what you did with Emiliano,” Eugenia said quietly.

“Why would you care? Weren’t you carrying on with Father Iturbe?”

“I only did that because I needed to leave right away, and Father Iturbe promised he would help me.”

“You couldn’t wait until Emiliano married you?” Nena asked.

Eugenia shook her head, her face turned to the floor. “I’m not sorry Father Iturbe died. He was punished by God for what he did. And so was I.” Her unseeing eyes turned on Nena. “Just like you have been punished for your sins.”

Nena felt her pride rush up to meet Eugenia’s judgment, and she spoke before she could think. “What about Emiliano? Do you think he’ll be punished, too?”

Eugenia’s laugh was cold. “Why should he? Soon enough he’ll marry a woman of the right class. And when he marries her, he shouldn’t be inexperienced as a man,” Eugenia said. Nena felt the hurt radiating off Eugenia, her bitterness mingled with the amplifying power of La Vista, the grief at what she could have had, what could have been, racing just beneath her skin. Nena understood all too well what it was like to be changed by this world, to be disfigured, to be discarded. She and Eugenia were sisters now.

“I’m going to need your help getting myself back home,” Nena said, taking Eugenia by the arm to draw her closer into a circle with Carmela.

“Home?” Eugenia’s brow wrinkled in confusion.

“I need to get back to the time I belong in. Madre Inocenta said that a door would open when the moment was right, and now is that time,” Nena said.

“I knew you weren’t a Montoya from here or from Santa Fe,” Eugenia murmured, gazing sightlessly over Nena’s shoulder, deep in thought. Nena could not tell what Eugenia saw, but when she turned back to Nena, her expression was fierce. “What must we do?”

“I need to find the door and return home before I have this baby. If I don’t, Sister Benedicta will take her from me and send her away, and who knows what she will do to me. She blames me for what’s happened to Madre Inocenta, I’m sure of it. I fear she will do anything she can to hurt me.” Turning to Carmela, Nena asked, “Is there any way Madre Inocenta could help?”

Carmela looked pained. “I think not. I’m afraid Madre Inocenta is not herself. She doesn’t even talk anymore. None of the nuns will go into her room. Strange things happen there. Cups jump off the table. The chair walks across the tiles. Sometimes the sheets lift up off her body and float in the air.”

“If La Vista is making itself known in those ways, then there’s something there for me to work with,” Nena said, hoping that this was true. “Do you think I could take over Madre Inocenta’s nursing?”

“There is no way to make that happen without Sister Benedicta catching on,” Carmela started, then turned to Eugenia, who nodded, “but we can get you in the room with Madre Inocenta for a few moments.”

“That will have to be enough,” Nena said.

When Carmela smuggled Nena into Madre Inocenta’s cell, she was shocked at how skinny the abbess had become. Madre Inocenta lay in bed, her skin bagging around her bones, her eyes sunken in so deep that her head looked like a skull. Her lips parted, a very thin rasp coming from her mouth. Nena leaned down, putting her ear close to Madre Inocenta’s mouth, and what she heard surprised her, the encanto of flying and healing.

Nena spoke to Madre Inocenta, hoping that some part of her could hear what Nena had to say. “I gave you that encanto. You owe it to me to help me get home to my sisters. I don’t belong here. Olga and Nena will take care of me. They won’t care that I’m pregnant,” Nena pled, though she knew they’d be furious at her, ashamed. “If you’re in La Vista now, time and doors are nothing to you. Open up the way and help me go back home. I will do anything to go home. Please.”

Nena wasn’t expecting a response from Madre Inocenta, but she was still disappointed when none came. Madre Inocenta’s body wouldn’t maintain itself for much longer. Right now, she was in an in-between place, all the possibility and power of La Vista surrounding her, above and below, on her outside and on her inside. When she died, Nena was afraid Madre Inocenta would pull all the doors shut behind herself.

Over the next few months, the baby grew. Nena could feel its cells gathering in the clockwise motion of incarnation until one day, she felt a kick, the quickening. She knew she had only a handful of months left before she was to give birth.

Nena spent her days working in the kitchen. At night, she slept on a mat in a dirt-floored room with the rest of the servants. Once a week, on Sunday, she went to mass.

When she made her confession to the new priest, she admitted to missing her family. She confessed to having impure thoughts. She said nothing about her impure actions. To confess was to be absolved of your sins, but Nena didn’t want to be absolved for what she’d done with Emiliano. Emiliano had given her this baby. The baby was all Nena had left of him, and was all Nena had in the world.

Every time she had a chance, Carmela snuck Nena into Madre Inocenta’s cell. Madre Inocenta and the baby communicated with each other, buzzes of electricity passing between them. Nena hoped they were hatching a plan, but she didn’t know what they were saying, the buzzing happening on a frequency she had no access to.

As Nena grew bigger, Madre Inocenta grew weaker. One day, Madre Inocenta stopped singing, and Nena despaired. Carmela told Nena that she shouldn’t worry, that even if Madre Inocenta died, they would still find a way to get Nena home. Eugenia assured Nena that she knew a lot about knives now, and that if Sister Benedicta tried to take the baby, she would get a nasty surprise.

Nena became so big that everyone in the convent could see that she was going to give birth any day. Within a couple of weeks of each other, Luna and Olga had delivered their babies in the hospital, in the hygienic and modern way. Nena worried about going into labor in the convent, about what would happen if something went wrong. When Luna and Olga were pregnant, Nena remembered the feeling of excitement she’d had about the babies before they came. She’d been thrilled she was going to be an aunt twice over. When they came home, Chuy and Valentina were tiny, so clearly in need of protection. At first, all Nena had to do was to hold the babies when she felt like it, comforting them with a jiggling walk, a pat on the back. It wasn’t until later, when Luna and Olga went back to work, that the burden of caring for them fell on her. But for her own baby, Nena told herself, she would do everything without resentment. She wouldn’t get tired. She wouldn’t complain, she wouldn’t pray for supernatural help, or for a different life. She would stay.

Nena knew now that she could not depend on Madre Inocenta to take her home. She had packed a bag. She’d saved food. As much as Nena feared being out in El Paso del Norte without the protection of the convent or the de Galvezes, she would be brave. If Madre Inocenta died, Nena would go to the ferry crossing herself, take her baby to the north of the river and sing the encanto, make her own door, praying that it would return her to where she belonged.

On the day of the birth, Nena squatted in her cell, pushing. Eugenia and Carmela put cold cloths on her forehead and sang over her. Nena stood, she walked, she squatted again, pushing, bellowing, loud enough for everyone in the convent to hear, even through the thick walls of adobe and stucco, but Nena didn’t care. She had a job to do. She felt like she was made only of muscle. She pushed and pushed again, pushed forever, long hours, riding waves of pain and then its aftermath, not quite relief, but the exhilaration of being able to do this, feeling strong. The infirmary was dark, hardly any light coming from the small windows high up on the wall.

When the baby was born, Carmela wrapped her in a blanket, handing Nena the wriggling, tiny girl with skinny little frog legs, a lot of hair, a wrinkled face, a stork’s mark on her right shoulder. This baby’s mouth was a tiny little folded rosebud. She’d named herself, and Nena was in love, cooing Rosa . Nena held her, amazed that this tiny person had grown inside of her. The baby had Emiliano’s eyes. Nena kissed her forehead. Rosa cried with her strong lungs. She put her mouth to Nena’s breast, nuzzling around until she figured out how to make Nena’s body do its job.

Nena was tired, but she was young and strong and very happy. Nena held Rosa’s body to her chest, stroking down her forehead to between her eyes. She would have to get up soon, find her bag, and leave through the portería, but for at least a few minutes, Nena could rest.

She didn’t know when she had dozed off, but Nena woke to a light shining in her face. She looked up, blinded by a light brighter than anything she had ever seen, brighter even than the sun that she’d flown into. She raised her hand, shading Rosa’s face. Nena squinted her eyes, surprised to see Madre Inocenta holding open a door, a portal through the walls of the convent and into the sky.

“Come with me,” Madre Inocenta said.

“Gracias a dios,” Nena said, hugging Rosa closer to her.

Nena walked toward Madre Inocenta, stepping on air to reach the rectangle of light. But then everything went wrong. Time warped and Rosa was slipping from her grasp, no longer in her arms. Turning around, Nena saw that Sister Benedicta was holding her baby, Carmela next to her, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Elena!” Carmela cried, like she couldn’t see that Nena was right there, grasping for Rosa.

“Give her back to me,” Nena yelled at Sister Benedicta.

“Come with me now,” Madre Inocenta said, holding out her hand as the light got, impossibly, brighter.

Time ripped, a low song singing across the desert, bringing with it the sounds of home, of the babies crying and her sisters talking, the sound of water rushing away from the river, draining itself and her away from that time and back into hers. It didn’t matter that Nena refused Madre Inocenta’s hand, it didn’t matter that Nena threw herself on the ground and that she screamed and clawed at the earth, trying to stay with her baby.

Madre Inocenta folded time up like a fan, touching one moment to another, collapsing time and space, and then Nena was lying on East Paisano Drive in El Paso, in the state of Texas, in the United States of America.