“What’s your name, muchacho?”
Angela glanced at Colonel Contreras. His face was neutral, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t betray her identity.
If she admitted she was female, Zapata might send her home. Worse he might order her to join the soldaderas. She had not ridden all this way to pat out tortillas by day and lie under some smelly, snoring weight of a man at night.
“My name is Angel. Angel Sanchez. This is Antonio Perez.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Antonio, Plinio, and the rest of her father’s men. Not one of them so much as blinked.
“Excellent!” When Zapata laughed his teeth flashed as white and tidy as twin ranks of hominy corn under his black mustache. “Our cause needs angels.”
“What did the comandante say?” asked Antonio.
“Colonel Contreras doesn’t know where my father is. He says he heard that he rode north to join Villa.”
Angela said it with a nonchalant shrug, but she was aggrieved and furious. How could her father have deserted her and her mother? Why had he made no effort to contact her?
Then she spotted Ambrozio Nuñez among Contreras’s troops and forgot about her father, as he apparently had forgotten about her. Ambrozio carried a shiny new bolt-action Mauser. He looked much more prosperous than when he had stalked out of the cave near San Miguel.
“What’s that chinche, that bedbug, doing here? Where did he steal the new clothes? And is that a timepiece flashing sunlight off his wrist?”
Antonio shrugged. “A bad egg will float to the top.”
“He’s a thief.” Angela spurred her mare forward.
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry, Ugly. I have something to discuss with him. I won’t make trouble.”
“Brat, you don’t know how to not make trouble.”
Angela wove in among Contreras’s troops as they prepared to ride. This would be the first time she and her father’s men went on a raid with them. She didn’t intend to delay them by making a scene.
She waited until Ambrozio went off to relieve himself before he saddled up. When he had unbuttoned his fly and gotten a good stream started she padded up behind him. She knocked his hat off, grabbed a handful of his hair, and pulled his head back. With her other hand she held the serious edge of the cold knife blade against his exposed throat. His stream canted upward in a steep, golden arc that spattered on a boulder.
“Remember the cave at San Miguel, tzipitl, crybaby?”
He rolled his eyes sideways trying to locate her in his periphery. “Angela Sanchez?”
“No, chocho. I am Angel Sanchez.”
She pressed the knife harder against his jugular. He gurgled. If he hadn’t already been peeing, he would have started now.
“Who am I?”
“Angel Sanchez.”
“If you tell anyone anything different you will not sleep again, unless it’s the sleep from which you never wake. No matter where you go, I will follow you. As soon as you close your eyes, I will cut your throat.”
She let go of his hair, shoving him forward in the process. He tripped and fell face down into his own warm puddle. She walked away without looking back. She left her old name and identity behind, too.
From now on she was Angel.
13
An Aztec Angel
Mexicans made congregating in the town square a national pastime. The zócalo, the small plaza in front of the Colonial, was no exception. With Christmas only one week away it was even more crowded than usual. Young people flirted around the fountain. Old ones warmed the seats of the iron benches. Families picnicked under the tabachine trees. Strolling musicians serenaded and the occasional clown entertained. Birds seemed to sing more loudly in the plaza, as if trying to be heard over the noise below them.
In such a busy crowd the group of eleven women was hardly noticeable. They and their escort of soldiers walked across the plaza and turned north onto Guerrero Street. Grace saw them head in the direction of the train station.
She assumed they were soldaderas, the army’s camp followers. Grace considered Francisco Madero a friend and he seemed a decent man. When he took over the presidency she expected him to forbid the practice of allowing women to follow the troops. But Madero had left General Huerta in charge of the army, and Huerta was everything Madero was not.
When Huerta billeted at the Colonial he had been more difficult to deal with than his replacement, Colonel Rubio. Grace had had three showdowns with Huerta before he stopped trying to use her hotel for his assignations. Grace knew only kitchen Spanish and a few polite phrases that didn’t include, “You may not take prostitutes to your room.” Fortunately, “No,” was the same in both languages and bordello was close enough to the Spanish word, burdel, to get the message across, although her body language would have sufficed.
Grace knew that on any given night some of her hotel’s guests were engaged in what Lyda called hanky-panky. Grace wished them joy while they were about it; but with so many officers quartering here, allowing their commander free rein would have opened a floodgate to hanky panky. It would have ruined the Colonial’s reputation as a respectable place to lodge.
Grace had to admit that General Victoriano Huerta possessed at least one virtue. He kept his word. Before he left for Mexio City eight months ago he made Grace a promise. Every evening, without fail, she would hear music from the bandshell on the zócalo. A military band provided the concerts and their repertoire was limited. By now Grace had memorized not only the songs, but the order in which they were played.
Each program began with “Jarabe Tapatío,” the Hat Dance, then proceeded at a leisurely pace through a number of stirring marches. The national anthem always signaled the end of the concert with such tender sentiments as, “Take the national pennants and soak them in waves of blood.”
Lyda remarked that the polka was all one could dance to a military march, but any music was better than none. The music had stopped during the darkest days of the 1910 rebellion. The lovely bandshell had become a roost for doves. Enterprising vendors had used it as a kiosk for the sale of food, balloons, and trinkets. The bandstand had been referred to as el kiosco ever since.
At the noon hour the bandstand stood empty. Most shops closed from eleven each morning until three in the afternoon. Grace’s favorite form of inactivity then was to watch the plaza’s drama from a steamship deck chair under the wide roof of the Colonial’s front veranda. Today Lyda and Annie occupied two other deck chairs, and all three of them sipped tea.
The chairs had arrived by train, as had the bandstand’s copper roof, and the zócalo’s ironwork benches. Anything large came over the mountains and into Cuernavaca that way. Grace hoped that today the train would bring Rico back from Mexico City.
He had gone there on assignment with Colonel Rubio two weeks ago. The hotel, the cantina, and life itself were lifeless without him. All Grace wanted for Christmas was to see his smile in the hallways and hear his voice resonating from the bar. She even would have welcomed the sight of him in the kitchen with a beef steak over another black eye.
He had written her from Mexico City, witty letters detailing the pranks and pecadillos of his compatriots. They had arrived one each day, and sometimes two via the train’s mail car. They were the sort of missives she would expect to receive from a brother. She treasured them, but they weren’t as good as having him nearby.
“Gracie,” said Lyda, “Los correctos claim that a Frog fella designed the bandshell. Do you believe them?”
“If you mean Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, I think not. The building was a gift from England to President Díaz. My countrymen would not engage a Frenchman to design a horse trough, much less a concert hall.”
“They call Mr. Eiffel the Magician of Iron, and that shebang doesn’t look English to me. Not enough falderol and gewgaws.”
She was right. Unlike British Victorian architecture, Cuernavaca’s bandstand lacked falderol and gewgaws. Annie called its roof a fai
ry’s hat, but its curve more resembled the bell of a flugel horn. Nevertheless, to Grace it represented England and home, even though both seemed as distant to her now as Outer Mongolia.
“There’s José.” Annie pointed to a burro coming toward them, with another following on a lead. “He’s brought Cora with him.” Annie waved and Socorro waved back. “Seems strange to see her outside the market.”
“Buenos días, Maestro Perez,” said Grace.
While her hotel was undergoing reconstruction, Grace had learned to call all the artisans who worked for her maestro, professor. It was the custom here to recognize a person’s skill, no matter what his economic standing. It was a sign of respect that cost nothing yet was priceless in generating goodwill.
“Buenos días, Señora Knight.”
After the usual inquiries about the health of the Perez family, Grace paid José in coins of small denominations to make dividing them up easier for him. She had discreetly enclosed the money twisted into a strip of cloth, knotted at each end.
Holding his hat against his chest, he accepted payment. “Dios le bendiga, señora. May God bless you.”
The pots were each wrapped in straw, stowed in two grain sacks, and lashed to the burro with hand-twisted rope. Grace did not insult José by counting them. Nor did she doubt that he would divide the money fairly among the other potters.
She was becoming more proficient in Spanish, and Annie helped her when she faltered.
“Please take the wares to the entrance at the rear courtyard,” Grace said. “María is expecting you in the kitchen. Will you and Socorro please eat something before you return home?”
He thanked her with the refined dignity that Old Money and Much-Older Poverty often had in common. Still he lingered, twisting the brim of his straw hat.
“What else may I do for you today?”
“Will you grant my family the favor of giving my daughter work?”
Grace looked at Socorro who, her hands clasped in front of her, stared at her own feet. Her sandals were brand-new, with no dust on them. Grace assumed José had bought them for her this morning from the clusters of them hanging in the market. Her blouse and long skirt were spotlessly white and embroidered in the style of her village. She carried the rest of her belongings tied in a faded blue shawl. And she exuded an aroma of new-mown hay, a sure indication that she slept on a petate each night, a mat woven of dried reeds. The maids joked about country bumpkins coming to the city and smelling of petates.
Socorro looked very young, thirteen at most. What could José be thinking? He didn’t seem like the sort to hire out his child for the money.
“Of course I can find work for her, maestro, but are you sure you want her to leave home?”
“I know you will watch over her. She will be safe here.”
Grace wanted to say, “Safer in this big city than in her own village?” But she didn’t. José was no fool. He must know what he was doing. Still, it grieved her to see the tears glistening in the child’s dark eyes, innocent as a fawn’s.
“I’ll see that no harm comes to her. And you and your wife are always welcome to visit her. We can find a room for you in the rear courtyard.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Knight.” He settled his hat back onto the curved cradle it had indented in his hair and led the burros around the side of the hotel toward the delivery entrance.
“I’ll show Cora where to sleep.” Annie interlaced her fingers with Socorro’s. “Then I’ll take her to Consuelo to be fitted for a uniform.”
As Annie led the way into the hotel, Socorro walked like a cat wearing socks. Grace assumed she was not used to having shoes on her feet. She would require training, but Grace had become adept at assessing people by the quality of the light in their eyes. This one took after her father. She would learn quickly.
She was darker-skinned than the other women in Grace’s employ, and more exotic than any of them. She wore her hair pulled back and plaited into one thick braid that reached her waist. Her face in profile was a continuous curve from her high, backward-sloping forehead down the prominent ridgeline of her nose and bisecting her narrow chin. The curve was broken only by lips the color, shape, and fullness of rose petals.
It was a profile that could have stepped down from one of the friezes on the ancient ruins outside of town. Should God decide He wanted to create an Aztec angel, He could use Socorro as the mold.
14
Taking the Train
Rico was heading for the switching yard at the station in Mexico City when he saw a group of women climb down from one of the freight cars. The train had just arrived from Cuernavaca and was scheduled to turn around and go back. The women must be transferring to another line. Rico did not know that before the day ended, he would exchange rifle fire with the daughter of one of them.
Soldiers used the points of their bayonets to prod the women along. They carried nothing with them and Rico knew their journey would be a long one. They were probably being transported to the labor camps in the jungles of Quintana Roo. Huerta had the idea that access to sex would reduce the number of mutinies among the male prisoners there. Huerta, Rico had long ago decided, was an idiot. But then, he thought the same of most of the men in power.
As Rico continued on toward where his men and their horses waited he felt a loathing for General Huerta like an ulcer in the pit of his stomach. Huerta’s brutal policies were all the more reason to end this conflict before it went any further.
He had been elated at the prospect of returning to Cuernavaca and to the Colonial and its very proper proprietor. The sight of the women had made him melancholy. He knew his men wouldn’t be happy about this trip either. He would have preferred to ride in the baggage car with the two large crates he had left there, but on this trip he wouldn’t sit there or in the first class coach either. He wondered if convincing Colonel Rubio to let the men stay with their horses in the stock cars had been a good idea.
The train would stop at each of the dozen or so mountain villages along the way. It would take on wood and water at the station at Tres Marías, the halfway point straddling the mountain pass. Then there would be the inevitable delays that seemed to have no reason.
All in all, Rico and his men might endure a miserable four to six hours for nothing. But if his instincts and a rumor he had heard were right, a cattle car was the best place to be. He waited until his men were aboard, then led Grullo up the wooden ramp. When the switchman slid the heavy wooden door shut with a bang, Rico took up a position next to it.
Rico’s favorite place on a train was the angel’s perch, the name for the cupola on top of a caboose. The angel’s perch had windows on all sides so the brakeman could sight along the roofs of the cars. When Rico was a child his grandfather had arranged for him to ride up there. From that height the train had looked like an undulating river of metal.
He was happy anywhere on a train though, even in a smelly cattle car crowded with men and horses. Besides, if Rico was wrong and the journey proved uneventful, so much the better. The cattle car would arrive in Cuernavaca only a minute or so after the first class carriages. Rico would have to bathe before seeing Mrs. Knight, but see her he would. Tonight.
He reached inside his khaki field army tunic to make sure the letters were still there. Grace had written two of them while he was in Mexico City. He always carried them under his tunic and over his heart.
He looked out between the horizontal slats of the car’s sides. The rhythmic percussion of the wheels hitting the joints in the rails had a hypnotic effect. Rico let his body sway with the motion of the train, and remembered his first railroad journey.
When he was twelve his grandfather took him along on the inaugural trip from the capital to Cuernavaca in 1897. He remembered the day and the month, but that wasn’t surprising. During the thirty-four years of the Porfiriata presidency everything of importance was inaugurated on September 15, Porfirio Díaz’s birthday.
The train had been packed with dignitaries dressed in
cutaway frock coats, high collars, pince-nez, and bowler hats. President Díaz had patted Rico on the head and told him his country expected great things of him. Lines of black-bonneted carriages waited for them in Cuernavaca. A thousand people or more milled around. A band played. A breeze billowed the bunting draped on the front of the engine.
They all had reason to be proud. Nineteen thousand miles of track had been laid through some of the roughest country on the continent. Of course, none of the dignitaries had dangled over an abyss in a wicker basket nor dynamited tunnels through granite for twenty centavos a day. That, laughed los correctos, was why God had created indios. Thousands of indios had died in the undertaking, but even they would have agreed that their lives and their deaths were in God’s hands.
Little did those starched shirts know, Rico thought, that their magnificent acomplishment would prove their ruin. The railroad had opened up markets for sugarcane far beyond the borders of the state of Morelos. That made land valuable for agriculture and the wealthy began taking it from the villagers. Now, the villagers seemed intent on taking it back.
Colonel Contreras had put an earnest young second lieutenant in charge of Angel’s men. If the shavetail noticed that they all looked at Angel before obeying any of his orders, he didn’t mention it. Before joining Zapata’s army he had taught elementary school, so maybe he was used to being ignored.
Angel, Antonio, and the men of Contreras’s battalion hid with their mounts among the welter of boulders on both sides of the railroad tracks. The rebels ranged in age from fourteen to seventy. They wore no official uniform, but they looked remarkably alike in their loose white shirts, white cotton trousers, and wide straw hats tied on with bandanas. Closer scrutiny revealed a gaudy assortment of vests, sashes, scarves, striped stockings, and satchels. Flowers, ribbons, and religious medals decorated their hats.