by Jan Baross

A guitar beckons me down a long dark tunnel. My skin is as smooth as moonstone. Shadows cut across the light. When Gabito whispers my name, I step out of the dry husk of Señora Sepulchura's body and move with a luminous step.
"Tortugina, wake up," says Gabito. A candle flickers. A warm quilt of air spreads when I move my fingers. Someone strums a mariachi chord.
I open my eyes and break the thread of dreams. A bowl filled with steaming soup sits on a low table next to the bed. A flying beetle clicks its castanet wings and lands on an island of potato. In a pitcher of water floats a thick slice of fresh lime.
Gabito is nestled on the bed with me. "Tortugina, my little turtle. Thank God, you are awake."
"Do I look like me, Gabito?" I ask.
"Yes, my love," he says and kisses me. "Not a wrinkle left."
Sweat soaks the sheet. My head feels weighted to the pillow.
The music is so loud in this little room. I turn and look past Gabito at the open door. Now I recognize where I am. More of an alcove than a bedroom, it is Señora Nauseobondo's guestroom for travelers. The door is opened wide into the main taverna, where Rosa, Mimosa, and Auntie Patina pass by carrying large platters of steaming tamales. Señora Nauseobondo hurries across the dance floor with a tray of dripping beer glasses.
A drunken José in a suit of ink-black formality is carried on the bucking shoulders of the men. He does not see me in Señora Nauseobondo's little guestroom.
From a distant corner of the room villagers yell, "To the marriage of José and Pilar!"
"José married without me?"
"Tortugina," Gabito says, "you have been asleep for three weeks." Gabito wipes my face with a damp cloth then wipes away his own tears. "How do you feel?"
"Three weeks?" I say.
The candle begins to waltz around the room. Three weeks. My son has been in the world without me for three weeks. Who fed him?
"You must eat something," says Gabito.
He helps me wedge myself up against the pillows. He spoons hot chicken soup into my mouth. My landscape gurgles. I will be in bloom again soon.
Church bells ring. It is not the steady clang of the hour, but the wild ring of celebration.
"As always, I am left outside," I say.
"Tortugina," says Gabito, "you were there at the wedding. José carried you to the church and tied you to a chair so that you sat by his side when he and Pilar exchanged rings. You nodded and drooled a little, but you were there. No son could be more devoted. José slept by your side, cleaned the house, fed you and cared for you. If you were one of his statues, you would not have received more attention.
I sniff for José's fingerprints on my skin and wipe my tears. My baby can survive without me. This is the destiny of all healthy children, but it is not a pleasant feeling for a mother. I will not believe it until I see it for myself.
A wild shout from a hundred throats rattles my soup bowl. Gabito floats to the door for a peek.
"José and Pilar are climbing the stairs to the Poke Room."
My baby is mounting the stairs to become a man in the chamber that Señora Nauseobondo decorated from catalogues and rents by the hour.
"Having been a virgin myself," I say, "I have much to tell José about breaking her little hyacinth."
Gabito's lips crack into his uneven smile. "Tortugina, any son of mine will make us proud in the bedroom."
I know Gabito is thinking of our sweet sex together. But do boys inherit their father's skill? Or if they do, is it like a diving talent that must be developed?
Above our heads, there are thuds as José's heavy boots drop on the chamber floor. They might as well have landed on my stomach.
"Gabito, I am worried," I say. "Pilar is a girl who expects miracles, even in the bedroom. If he frightens her and she sucks in her little clam, there will be no stained sheet. José will start his marriage under a cloud of disgrace."
In the candlelight Gabito smooths my quilt. "Leave him alone, Tortugina, or you will make an enemy of them both."
There are sounds of shifting from the room overhead. I nibble at cheese grown hard at the edges. The villagers begin to pound steadily on the tables with spoons, knives, and bottles. It hurts my poor head. Señora Nauseobondo twirls into the middle of the floor, clapping her hands above her head. "Everyone sing!" she shouts:

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
The Bride's been wed. She's in her bed. The gate's been spread.
She's off her feet.
Show us the sheet! Show us the sheet! Show us the sheet!

Fecunda beats two large metal trays together. Rosa, Mimosa, and Auntie Patina rap their knives against bottles as they join the dancers around Señora Nauseobondo.
"Show us the sheet!"
At least they drown out the sounds overhead, but it is going to be a long night.
"Gabito, find me a poultice for the pain in my head."
When he is gone, I shut my eyes so tightly that red and white veins float past in the darkness. I will just peek, to make sure everything is going well. Children always protest a mother's guiding hand, but in the long run of life, my son will thank me.
Little by little, I sense where José is in the wedding suite and allow my mind to snake upward through the plank ceiling, past the plank floor.
Through José's eyes, I see Pilar hiccupping badly, one right after the other. Her face is pale, almost blue. José sneaks up behind her and screams, "BOO!"
"H-help me," she hiccups.
José considers what to do, then grabs Pilar and throws her on the bridal bed. She screams. Her white bridal gown flips over her head, and a great gasp is heard from the crinoline pile. Her hiccups stop.
"It worked!" says José.
He helps Pilar sit up and straighten her dress.
"Thank you, José," she says.
Her eyes water. José sits next to her on the field-sized bridal bed and wipes away her tears with the sheet.
"You are just frightened, Pilar," he says. "I am too."
She lets him stroke her hair.
"I dropped the Madonna statue on your head," she says, "so you would go away and leave me alone. I wanted to hide inside God's love. It is the only place I feel safe."
She lets José touch her shoulder.
"I saved you from hiccups, twice," he says. "Do you feel safe with me now?"
She lets him kiss her shoulder.
The villagers' drunken singing from below is too loud for romance. "Show us the sheet! Show us the sheet!"
If I were José, I would tell them to quiet down. But he just sits with his bottom clenched on the freshly ironed sheet and inhales the body-scented air. Even I can smell her fear disappearing. He takes Pilar's hand gently and kisses her fingertips.
"Your tiny nails are pure and hard like you. I have saved myself for this night, for you, Pilar. I too am pure."
She blinks at him but does not speak. I am speechless too. José a virgin? I assumed since so many women wanted him that he had gone with at least one. What about little Julia with the big breasts? Then there was María with all that hair, and Estrella, who blew him kisses from her pew. This is worse than I thought.
"It is a good thing to be pure, José," says Pilar. "I am happy you are like me."
José and Pilar sit on the edge of the bed and look at themselves in the mirror. They look like two-year-olds, their legs dangling off the mattress.
"I am so lucky," he says, "to sleep beside your beauty for the rest of my life."
"I never cared that I am ugly," she says, "until you attacked my mother with your flowers and nailed poetry to our door. Then I wanted to be beautiful for you, but I wasn't sure how."
Pilar touches José's face with her small white hand for the first time. He almost faints from joy.
From below the drunken crowd shouts impatiently. "Show us the sheet! Show us the sheet!"
"That custom is so vulgar," says Pilar.
José frowns at the door.
"Pilar, I do not care what anyone chants. We will do whatever you say. You are all that is important to me in the world."
He gently kisses the tears on her cheek. Pilar's trembling whiteness is like a halo. She looks up at him with big dark eyes.
If I had José's body and a man's desire, I would have difficulty not touching this soft, surrendered pale thing that Pilar has become.
"I know you are not Jesus, José," she says, "but you are as kind as Jesus."
She kisses José's unprepared mouth. José's face heats to match the rest of his body. He clutches the sheets to keep from throwing himself on the mound of her snow-white petticoats.
Pilar slides back into the middle of the enormous bed and lifts the mountainous folds of her gown. José squints. Even in candlelight, the skin of her thighs is as blinding as a hard winter star.
"You are made of silver moonbeams," he says.
"José, my husband," she says. "Let us make a little angel."
Over snow-white sheets, José makes the longest journey of his life, the hesitant crawl of his hungry manhood toward that dazzling crystal cave. I will leave them now. José will never know of my devotion in these pre-consummate moments.
But I am held by the rush of heat between them before their bodies meet. José collides with the pale mist of her. With bone-thin fingers, Pilar frees him from his clothes. She lies back, and his loins sink between her snow-bank thighs.
Now it is really time for me to go before Gabito returns. I steal one last glance as Pilar rubs her damp little clam against him and his chico gigante grows into a soft carrot. He slides up and down against her growing wetness. The carrot is gradually hardening. He just needs to relax.
"José," says Pilar, "am I doing it right?"
José the virgin, without a practical suggestion, can only strain against her. His body is sweating before he has begun. I feel the panic in him. He is not quite hard enough. Should I remind him to breathe and relax?
Gabito rises through the foot of the bridal bed. His epaulettes shake.
"Tortugina!" he screams silently to me. "Get back down through those cracks!"
His fury startles me so badly that I forget to answer only to Gabito.
"I was just leaving!" I say, and José hears me.
He freezes as though he has been slapped. "Mamá?"
"Oh my God, Tortugina!" Gabito says only to me. "He heard you!"
Pilar's gentle rhythm stops. "Why did you call me ‘Mamá'?"
"Sorry. Sorry, José," I say. "Go back to what you are doing."
José's heart pumps wildly. He remembers to speak only to me.
"Mamá!" he says. "I am glad you have recovered, but you have to get out of my head right now!"
José's sweat drips onto Pilar's lips. Her face turns even paler.
"José?" she asks. "What is wrong?"
José's carrot wilts. He moans.
"José, I am so sorry," I say.
The little nun's face colors with a terrible blue-veined hurt. José hits the pillows on either side of Pilar's head. He screams into the darkness for all to hear.
"How could you do this to me? This is my wedding night!"
The crowd outside screams, "Show us the sheet! Show us the sheet!"
"José," I say. "Calm down. I was just leaving."
"Get out! Get out!" he screams.
Pilar pulls her dress down and scuttles out from under him.
"No, Pilar, not you," he says.
She cowers next to the mirror.
"José, what is wrong with you?" she sobs.
He slaps his head to get at me, furiously, as though he were slapping at stinging hornets.
"I hate you, Mamá!"
He slides out of bed, shaking with humiliation, and bangs his head on the wall mirror so hard that it cracks and bloodies his forehead.
"You are a madman!" cries Pilar.
She disappears inside the closet and slams the door shut.
"Pilar!" he yells.
José beats a pillow against the mirror. The feathery down scatters like snow around the room. Down sticks to his wet cheeks. He quickly pulls on his clothes and boots. Blood drips from his forehead down his cheek.
Gabito looks like he is going to strangle me.
"I am dressed now, Pilar!" says José. "You get dressed too. I can explain. Come out. Please."
There are muffled sobs.
"Leave me alone! My mother was right! You are crazy, José. I never want to see you again!"
José wipes his bleeding forehead with the sheet.
Downstairs the men and women of the village scream.
"Show us the sheet! Show us the sheet!"
Gabito moans.
"José," I say. "Throw them the sheet. Tell them it is her blood."
José looks down at the stained sheet.
"What kind of man dishonors his wife with lies, Mamá? Go back to your coma." His voice is so bitter I do not recognize it. He throws the sheet at the mirror. "What kind of man cannot make love to his own wife?"
He climbs out the back window and slides off the roof. I hear his boots running, running away from me.

To be continued

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