SOCORRO

Not long after that, his regiment moved on. The Señora pined and pouted. I wondered if her monthly flow would come as usual, after all that activity in the bedroom, but it did. She was more bad-tempered even than usual, but I felt sorry for her, so I put up with it without bearing a grudge. Six weeks or so went by. She still entertained the American officers, but she went to her bed alone. 

She couldn’t settle to anything. The singing of the canaries in their cage on the wall of the courtyard drove her to distraction, and she opened the door one day in a fit of exasperation and turned them loose. I hoped they knew how to fend for themselves. She began several of her exotic flower-paintings, but threw her brushes down in pique. One made a stain on her favorite white skirt which no amount of scrubbing and soaking would get out. 

After her next flow had come and gone, and mine also, she paced the shaded walk inside the row of bougainvillaea-garlanded pillars, past the pots of morning-glory and geraniums and aloe, muttering to herself. Then she called for me: ‘I’m going to Isabela’s. It’s time for a change. I haven’t seen my sister in an eternity. Pack my bags for a long visit, Socorro.’

Her sister had married into a wealthy old family, a caballero with a large hacienda in the country, across the mountains on the coastal plain. It was wetter there, they had groves of citrus orchards and green fields and water in the riverbeds all year round. ‘You needn’t come, Socorro,’ she threw over her shoulder; ‘they have plenty of servants at my sister’s place. You’d be superfluous. Why don’t you give this place a good spring-cleaning instead, and make mermelada, and catch up with all the mending – hem up some new sheets and towels.’

‘Si, Señora,’ I said. I knew she didn’t want to bring something as ugly as me to that grand hacienda. I would detract from her consequence, rather than add to it: something to be ashamed of, an admission that she couldn’t afford better. So be it. I ironed all her blusas, goffered the frills, put layers of tissue between the scented dresses and sachets of lavender and lemon verbena and rosemary. I put bags of fragrant wood-shavings and dried orange-peel into her shoes. What tiny feet she had! Her kid leather slippers looked like a child’s, white, black, scarlet, all in a row. The trunk was filled and I watched the coachman load it, groaning; strap it down, and drive her off down the thick floury dust of the Calle Real.

For a week I was my own mistress. I rose when I pleased, sometimes after dawn. I had propped his drawing up on the little shelf in my room, beside padre Miguel’s worn wooden crucifix. I lay in bed and stared at them, my two greatest treasures in all the world. 

I never thought he would come back. That adios, that bow, I thought, would have to last me for ever. I prepared simple food for myself, raw fruit and pozole and black beans. Sometimes for breakfast I had a fresh egg. I bathed in the Señora’s tin hip-bath. I used her best soap, scented with rosemary; washed my hair till it shone.  I cleaned out the entire house, top to bottom, and polished all the furniture with beeswax, all without interruption. It was heaven.

It was the evening of the eighth day when he rode up. The church clock in the plaza grande was striking seven. I heard his horse nicker as he tied it at the gate. ‘Inez?’ he called.

I had to tell him she was not at home. His clothes were white with dust, stained, worn. I think she had done something to him, making him want her with her soft arms and languid moans. He looked unhappier now than when he first started coming, before she got him into her bed. He was counting on seeing her, I thought, he needs a woman now and he has ridden all the way here and the Señora isn’t home. ‘Come in,’ I said. ‘Eat. Drink. Sit.’

He assented, to my pleasure and surprise, and sat in the kitchen with me and shared my plain dinner. ‘It’s not what I make for the Señora ...’ I apologized. 

‘It’s good,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘Really. Simple. It’s good.’ He mopped all around the bowl with his tortilla like a native, sopping up every last fragrant drop of gravy. It grew dark: bats fluttered around the jasmine and lemon bushes in the courtyard. I heard their squeaks — I was young enough to, then. We ate fruit together, companionably. He asked me about my life: I told him about padre Miguel, what a good man he was, his love of books and art – his weakness I kept to myself, I told you, I know what loyalty is – and how kind, in the confessional.

‘Ah, that,’ he said. ‘I’ve often wondered, how it would be to be Catholic and go to confession.’

‘It’s like a new day,’ I told him, ‘a fresh start, feeling forgiven. But you, surely, such a good man, with your talents, your honor, your kindness, you have little to ask forgiveness for?’

‘Well, I’m in the profession of killing, you know,’ he said, and that shocked both of us. ‘I have mens’ lives on my conscience.’

‘You can’t help that,’ I said. ‘They try to kill you, don’t they?’

‘Well, perhaps. And – ’

‘Si?’ I asked.

‘And covetousness,’ he said. ‘Envy. That’s a mortal sin, isn’t it?’

‘Padre Miguel would ask if you’re truly penitent,’ I told him.

He stared into the courtyard for a long time.

‘You came all this way to make love to the Señora, didn’t you,’ I said into the insect-loud, warm, throbbing evening.

He shrugged and smiled: ‘C’est la vie.’

‘I’m sorry?’ I said.

‘Life,’ he said. ‘La vida. It’s life.’

‘I’m here,’ I said.

He looked at me, at my thick black hair scented with rosemary, and upturned nose and pleading eyes.

‘Oh, Socorro,’ he said. His voice was infinitely sad.

‘Please?’ I said. ‘Not for you. For me.’ I didn’t tell him I’d never so much as been kissed.

Something in the way he held himself loosened. ‘It wouldn’t be kind,’ he said, ‘but thank you, Socorro, I’m – deeply honored; thank you.’

‘It is I who would be honored,’ I said. ‘And — it would be the kindest thing you ever did.’ He knew the ring of truth when he heard it. ‘I don’t mind,’ I added, ‘you wish it wasn’t me. I know I’m ugly.’

He smiled then and shook his head. ‘Hush,’ he said, nothing else, no excuses, and I knew then that I would get my wish. His need recognized mine and said yes for him.

He took me by the hand and led me upstairs. I brought a candle, in a tin holder. Hot wax spilled on my shaking fingers. I thought we would go to the Señora’s room, but he passed it. ‘That wouldn’t be fair to her,’ he said. ‘Not in her bed. Where’s your bed, Socorro?’

I led him up to my room under the sloping eaves. He had to stoop, standing inside it. He bent further, and kissed me. I had never been kissed. He tasted of fresh mango. His arms encircled me; his hands caressed the small of my back. I went rigid. 

‘So thin,’ he said. ‘Like a bird. Are you afraid of me, Socorro?’

I shook my head. I felt his fingers through my cotton blusa. I wore no corset; nothing would fit my crooked back. He tilted my chin up. ‘You have the face of a flower, Socorro,’ he said.

My Señora’s breasts were plump and generous, with dainty little nipples: I had watched him pay homage to them, through the door. I thought perhaps he didn’t get much mothering, as a boy. I know how that feels; I didn’t get any. Sometimes I’ve wished to be held and rocked against a soft ample bosom. Not one like mine; I wished mine were shapely, like the Señora’s. My breasts have always been small, meagre, barely a handful: but as if to make up, the tips are full and round, or they were then, the size and shape of hen’s eggs, rosy brown, silken, untouched: you could see them quiver with each heartbeat.

When I lifted up my blusa and offered them to him, he drew breath. I was only the second woman he had ever seen, I think. He probably never even guessed what different shapes and sizes we come in. Oh, I wanted him to be pleased: to have something to give him, in return for his courtesy to me. Thank you, God, for my poor body; it was good enough for him then. It was good enough. 

Oh, sweet Jesus, his camote looked so big up close;  for a man to be in that state makes him so vulnerable, I thought. I truly believe that if I had been afraid in that moment and said, ‘no,’ he would have stopped, even then. He had that gentleness to him. 

I didn’t say ‘no.’

When the time came he frowned, looked from me to the bed, and began to fold up his uniform. 

‘What are you doing?’ I said.

‘Trying to make it comfortable for you,’ he replied, and laid the folded clothes on the hard narrow mattress on the right, where my back was hollow, leaving a place between them and the pillow for the curved part of my spine. Then he lifted me and laid me down there, and that was how I lost my virginity.

Afterwards, when he saw the blood, he was shocked. Someone more experienced would have been able to tell, I think, but his need was urgent and it never occurred to him. ‘You should have told me, Socorro, you didn’t say – God, why didn’t you? I didn’t have to do this to you — ’

‘Because you wouldn’t have,’ I answered, and his shoulders sagged a moment, before he nodded. ‘Esta bien,’ I said, ‘Esta muy bien, mi teniente.’

Then he made me make all the sounds I had heard my Señora make behind her closed door, until I thought I would die. Where he had opened me burned; the stinging was like chile salsa, intensifying everything. When the starving wolf was satisfied, I wept. He held me. ‘Hush,’ he said.

I clung to him: ‘You don’t know – ’ I sobbed.

‘Perhaps I do,’ he whispered, and held me even closer, stroking my hair. Our bodies fitted against each other in the narrow bed like nuts in a pod. He was stiff again, from the things he had done to please me. This brought me out of myself. I explored his skin with my fingertips, the way he had touched me: a peregrina, a pilgrim, a traveller coming into a land of streams and orchards.

‘Oh, God,’ he said in English; ‘oh, honey!’

‘What?’

‘Miel. Sweet. You are sweet, Socorro.’

‘Again,’ I said. ‘Here. Now. Again.’

He refused: ‘It would hurt you – I couldn’t... ’

‘Then like this?’ I said, and began to make love to him with my hands, las manos de Socorro.

Oh, how dear he was. It was a joy. Blessed Mother of God, he let me. I was afraid of hurting him, at first, but love made my fingers wise. How beautifully he was made. I wanted to cry, just looking at him. I thought of a fruit in its skin.

‘I never saw a man spill,’ I told him.

‘You’re about to..!’ he said. ‘Oh, honey – !’

Warm, it was warm, drops of buttermilk spraying on me. I was lying on my side, close beside him: it was like when you break a necklace, pearls cascading in an arc across my left breast. His throes jolted my little bed. 

Then for a moment afterwards I thought he was going to cry. He was biting his lip, until he couldn’t get enough breath and took a couple of deep gasps.

‘Teniente, are you all right?’ I asked him.

‘Si,’ he said, with a lopsided smile that twisted my heart, ‘si.’

He was going to dry me with his shirt. ‘No,’ I said quickly, and used my hair. 

When I did that he took my face in his hand, his thumb under my jaw, and looked at me: really looked, long and hard. His eyes were of a color you almost never see here, a deep blue like the sky above the mountains when the first stars are coming out. He looked; he saw. 

There was such compassion in his face: not for my crooked back, or because I was no more than a servant. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘you love me, don’t you.’

I nodded.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Please forgive me, Socorro. I had no idea – I mean – I should have known, I should have seen – I don’t know what to say!’

‘Does it make so much of a difference?’ I asked.

He smiled that smile again: ‘Well, doesn’t it?’

‘La vida,’ I told him, ‘that’s just life. Teniente, don’t be sorry for me. I knew what I was doing. It’s not your fault, you’ve done nothing except be yourself. Your sweet self. Nada mas. Only don’t be sorry for me.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not. Love is a gift, that’s all; whenever – however. We don’t choose it, right? It chooses us. I – I’m grateful. And – not worthy.’

‘Si,’ I replied, ‘you are, mi teniente, mi amor. And it’s all right.’ 

For reply he kissed my nose and then my mouth. This time he tasted of me.

‘What did you write on my picture?’ I asked him.

‘To Socorro of the beautiful hands,’ he said. ‘Little did I know – !’

‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘They’re not beautiful like the Señora’s. They’re rough, look, they’re red, I cut them all the time when I’m working –’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s what makes them beautiful. Even before you... you made love to me with them. Just as your hands. Their honesty. Their work. They’re your hands, the hands of Socorro, who works, who carries, who makes things.’

I wanted him to talk to me like that for ever. ‘Will you sing to me?’ I asked him. I don’t know how I dared to ask for anything more, not after what I had received; but I did. I so loved to hear him sing with the Señora, teaching her Yanqui songs and learning her Spanish ones.

Softly, he sang me a lullaby. He said it was about horses, of different colors, all the pretty little horses. ‘My big sister used to sing me this,’ he said. ‘When I was afraid, in the night.’ His voice sounded like hot, sweet coffee tastes in the morning. Then he kissed me on both eyelids and both nipples and both hands, and tucked the cover up around me, and blew out the candle, and left.

 All the next day it smarted between my legs. I didn’t wash the dried blood away. It clung there, like pieces of beetle wing-case. I didn’t wash my hair, either. I wore it in a long braid, pulled over my shoulder and tucked into the front of my blusa. I kept catching my breath, and my stomach would flutter and turn upside-down, remembering how carefully he kept his weight off me; the way he would be still and kiss me, right in the middle of everything; and, later, my harvest of opals, of moondrops, now hidden in my hair.

I didn’t want the smarting ever to stop.

The canaries came back to the courtyard: I fed them wild thistle-seeds and millet, and they sang in the morning-glory vines. The teniente returned once more, not to claim me again but to say good-bye. He gave me one of his pictures, the kind with colors on it out of the little box. He had made it especially for me. It was of the mountains, washed in all the flame-rose tints of sunrise. On the left, in the distance, a figure rode away on horseback, waving. On the right, a little closer, another hung out sheets to dry – they were white, the brightest part of the picture – and waved back. The figures had no details. They didn’t need to. 

‘You didn’t write on it this time,’ I said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I wanted the picture to speak. So you wouldn’t need to ask someone to read the words.’

‘I don’t need a picture to remember you by,’ I said, ‘but thank you.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I know you don’t.’

‘I won’t tell her,’ I said. ‘She wouldn’t understand.’

‘No,’ he said. Then he tilted his head sideways, and held open his arms; and when I came into them he held me so tightly I thought my ribs would crack and I would die of what I was feeling. He kissed the top of my head. 

And then, just like in the picture, he rode off waving.

So now you know about the first and last time a man ever held me tenderly in his arms in bed – or out of it, for that matter. Later, I was raped; so I was always glad my first time was with him.

I’ve often wondered what became of him; and what it was he said when he spilled. It sounded like a name, but not my Señora’s: ‘La – i – za.’

Or something like that. English, not Spanish.

I’m good at keeping secrets.

Oh Padre Miguel, and you, teniente Luis, who were kind to me, I want you to know: they could take me and torture me and burn me at the stake; I’ll never tell.

Vaya con Dios, wherever you are, my Yanqui teniente, mi amor, mi corazón – I call him that when I pray for the Blessed Virgin’s intercession for him, and light a candle: it must come to a thousand candles, all the years it’s been, to light the way for his precious soul. Sometimes I sit and watch the wax burn all the way down to a misshapen stub, like me, and thank the Lord for sending me someone to see that I, too, have a flame. Que le vaya bién, mi querido teniente Luis, I whisper; it’s a habit now, not that I deceive myself that he ever belonged to me, not as such. Only I to him, given and received; which was enough.

A cat caught the canaries, first the female, then the male when he came looking for her. My Señora remarried twice, older men, silver-haired and mild. So she got the gentleness, at least, between the sheets, that she once had with the teniente; if not the passion.

We left the house with the courtyard and the crack through the lily in the bedroom door and the little fetus buried under the white, perfumed jasmine.

After she died, when I could have had any of her things, I took one thing only: his portrait from all those years ago, an expensive calotype she had put into in a tin frame, that he sent her at her request from Mexico City. It spent many years at the bottom of her trousseau drawer, wrapped in the baptismal gown of the child she never bore.

I know she looked at it sometimes, though. The things in the drawer would be subtly rearranged, not quite the same. I knew because I used to look at it, too.

Later there was an earthquake and the house fell in on top of itself, a heap of rubble. Still, whenever I pass it I see the sheets flying from the line, brilliant and flapping, and the teniente laughing as he fought the wind to get them up there. 

Ai, ai, ai.

FINIS