It was Sunday morning in Zacualtipán. You were aware of that fact long before you were really awake because before dawn there came to your half-sleeping consciousness the clop-clop of horses’ hoofs in the cobbled lane to the accompaniment of the daintier tread of the burros. At daybreak came the not unmusical clanging of the old cathedral bells and gongs, with intermittent bursts of ringing for high and low masses. For Sunday is market day in Mexico; from far, isolated farms and chacras came the peons and Indians with their wares.
From my living-room windows you could see them trudging in groups, singly, and by twos and threes, down the winding paths from the hills. Whole families from the father and mother down to the littlest ones came laden with great loads of red-brown pottery, cleverly laced together and towering high over their heads and bent backs. Some came with burros carrying the produce of the hills. Dark Huasteca Indians, always immaculate in their pajama-like costumes, brought beautiful handmade cedar chairs with rush bottoms to sell. One could acquire a beautifully proportioned armchair for about two dollars in our money; the tiny children’s chairs, which made you smile, for only about thirty-five cents.
Unlike an American Sunday morning with its rather oily sanctimonious atmosphere, a Zacualtipán Sabbath had always a feeling of suppressed excitement. One spent the morning in the market buying provisions for the week; you never knew what new and exciting thing you might find. In the first place the household underwent a complete metamorphosis because Angelita, the cook, usually brought her family to spend the day—that is, she brought the children. Angelita was young and pretty, and Lord Freddy and I were a little curious about her husband, but we never saw him. As Angelita explained it, he stayed home “watching the corn grow.” But she brought the three children—two little barefoot girls of about seven and eight, and a lump of a baby boy who bore the elegant name of Aureliano. Angelita and her daughters walked the four miles of rocky road in bare feet, but the spoiled and adored male of the family, who was too small to walk, was very well shod indeed.
The girls were like shy, furtive little animals with their dark, sidewise glances, but they made themselves useful sweeping the terraces and watering the plants which lined the balcony railings. Angelita, as usual, went about the business of building up fires for the coffee, keeping an eye on the scion of the family whom she kept in the kitchen with her, stuffing him with tortillas, soothing him when he howled, which was frequently.
Breakfast over, Angelita and her family retired to the kitchen terrace where she scrubbed them until you would have thought they would be skinless, braided their long black hair, and put them into fresh dresses which she carried in a bundle from home. In all they presented a picture of peon respectability that would have been hard to beat.
After breakfast there was an exodus of the entire household to market. The next lane up from the house was that of the pottery makers, who lined the wayside with their wares. Freddy could always find a jar or pot for flowers of a different shape from what he’d ever seen, while I never could resist a water jar of Indian design. Usually by the time we had reached the plaza, the party had scattered in the motley throng—Angelita first going to the market building for meat, selecting the best of the barbecued lamb, pork, and beef which had been roasted in pits all the night before. Then she proceeded to buy enough green stuffs for the week.
Some Sundays were better market days than others, and I remember that this particular Sunday had more to offer than any other I’d ever known in Zacualtipán. The entire square was crowded with Indians whose puestos were spread with goods and produce new to me. There were lovely wooden bowls of exquisite shape and workmanship—many long bateas which are used for laundry—which could be bought for anywhere from ten to fifty cents in our money. My purchasing grew so that soon I was trailed by several small ragged boys carrying things for me. Now and then I caught sight of Lord Freddy sampling strange fruits or examining hand-woven ponchos.
Angelita with her laden family and I with my retinue reached the house at the same time. Our purchases spread out on the long table on the kitchen terrace seemed truly to proclaim Zacualtipán La Tierra Bendita, for the oranges, limes, pineapples, bananas, figs, apples, pears, persimmons, and quinces alone made a glowing display. There were several kinds of meat, cooked and uncooked, two large baskets of vegetables with everything from potatoes and cabbages, onions and garlic, to bunches of fresh olores, including coriander, dill, and wild marjoram. There was a huge bowl of maza—the wet-ground corn meal for tortillas; enough charcoal had been bought for the week. And of course there was a sizable collection of new pottery, even including some quaint little figures of horses.
I had just come to the rather startling but satisfactory conclusion, with the aid of paper and pencil, that the day’s shopping had come to something over twelve pesos, or about two dollars and forty cents, when I heard Lord Freddy enter the sala. “Come,” he called, “and see what I’ve brought you.”
The sala faced the west and was rather dim in the mornings so I did not immediately catch the full implication of Freddy’s gift. He was accompanied by a tall, dashing, and handsome young man who swept off his sombrero and bowed deeply to me. “Don Joaquin Romero,” he said, “á su servicio.” Then I saw nestled under his arm a small red fox.
“Y’know,” drawled Lord Freddy, “in my distant and frivolous youth I rode with the most famous hunt in northern England, but actually I consider fox hunting the most asinine of sports. Sometimes I think it is the most barbarically civilized, or the most civilizedly barbaric game in the world. I’m rather inclined to agree with Oscar Wilde: the unspeakable after the uneatable. But,” he said, “when I saw Don Joaquin in the cantina with this little fox, I couldn’t resist the vixen.”
Don Joaquin held out the fox to me. ” She is,” he declared, “muy mansa—very tame—she will be for you the pet encantadora—the enchantress.” It was obvious that he thought all gringos with their love of animals somewhat mad.
As I took the little fox in my arms, she looked up at me with pleading golden eyes and then with a shiver tucked her head under my arm; the little body was rigid with fright. Even through the luxurious red coat one could feel the cold of fear. I knew in that instant that the little fox would never become friendly, that I could never tame her, but there was nothing to do but thank Lord Freddy for his gift.
Since we were having guests for luncheon—the town lawyer, who was also the local judge, and his wife—I asked Don Joaquin if he, too, would not stay. He would be honored and enchanted, so leaving him with Lord Freddy to carry on a conversation as best they might, I departed to supervise Angelita’s activities in the kitchen. The soup I knew was perfect, for I had watched it being made the day before and had sampled it rather generously.
Sopa de Garbanzos (Chick-pea Soup)
Soak 1 ½ cups carefully picked-over chick-peas in cold water for 5 hours. Drain, cover with fresh water, and soak overnight. Pick over and wash 2 pounds of spinach, removing the stems carefully, and place the spinach dripping from cold water into a saucepan. Add 1 medium-sized onion, sliced, 1 small green pepper sliced very finely and free from seeds and ribs, 1 cup beef broth, 1 ½ tablespoons leaf lard, salt and pepper, and the drained chick-peas. Cover, then bring to a boil; stir in 1 quart rich chicken stock. Cover again, bring to a rapid boil, lower the flame, and let the soup simmer for about 1 hour, or until the chick-peas are tender. Angelita served it piping hot in preheated Mexican pottery bowls with ripe olives, and, of course, tortillas to be dipped in hot chile. I deeply shocked Angelita by adding a touch of my own—cutting the tortillas in strips and frying them in deep fat until they were crisp like potato chips, which brought out all the rich nutty flavor of the corn.
The rest of the luncheon also seemed to be well under control. There were squash and corn cooked together in the Mexican manner, and an assortment of cold barbecued meats we had bought at market. It was always advisable, I had found, when having Mexican guests for meals, to plan your menu with dishes which could successfully stand the strain of waiting for guests who were invariably late.
The voluble Don Juan Sarmiento Castillo and his dark, vivacious wife were only a little over an hour late in arriving for luncheon. This lack of punctuality in arriving for a specially prepared meal, not only in Mexico, but in all of Latin America, is something I frankly do not understand. Once I invited my friend, Doña Rutila Nieto, for a two o’clock luncheon. Angelita and I had taken great pains with it because Doña Rutila was a newcomer from Mexico City; she was an urban, gracious lady who sent me by her servants great baskets of fruit and flowers from her gardens. She also instructed me subtly in the art of Mexican etiquette—such things as never leaving a house too abruptly. One should linger at least half an hour in conversation at the door, then backing out into the street, never forgetting to turn, bow and wave several times. I waited until four o’clock for my guest, and in the face of making a terrible breach of etiquette, sent Angelita to find out what was wrong. Angelita reported that just as soon as Doña Rutila finished cutting the roses she would be promptly at my house. It goes without saying that the cheese soufflé went by the board.
It was with some difficulty that I herded my guests to the luncheon table on the upper terrace. Don Juan, being a jurist and of a philosophical turn of mind, was interested in the fox Lord Freddy had brought me. Why did we want a fox? I explained that we thought it would be charming, if the fox could really be tamed, to have it as a playmate for the dog and cat, who were already good friends. We knew, we assured him, of many instances of strange animal friendships; I quoted Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa and the classic relationship of her tame gazelles, gibbons, and birds that lived in harmony with her hunting dogs. But apparently the gulf between Latin and Anglo is increased, not bridged, by a totally different conception of animals. To the Latins animals are strictly utilitarian—for food or work.
But as I have said, Don Juan was a philosopher. He patted the little fox’s head and remarked, “She is a prisionero like the ones we have in the carcel, like the ones you met at the prisoners’ banquet.” The conversation during luncheon reverted again and again to the prison and prisoners in Zacualtipán; it touched on Mexican penal law, its leniency, and the fact that there was no capital punishment. Don Juan sighed and said, “Ah yes, in Mejico we have, I believe, as fine a penal system as any country in the world, but,” he smiled, “like many other things in Mexico we have not the organization or money to do it properly.”
Lord Freddy, who had followed the conversation more or less, turned to me and said, “I’ve been most frightfully curious about the prisoner who sat directly opposite me at the banquet—the dark, rather heavily built youth in the pink shirt and brown poncho. Sometimes his eyes were furtive like an animal’s; then they were positively blank like shuttered windows. Perhaps Don Juan would tell us what his crime was.”
Don Juan picked up a tortilla, smeared it with fiery chile, thoughtfully ate it, and said, “Yes, I can. I am going to pardon him soon. There is no use in keeping him for years in prison for what he’s done.
“This prisoner is Don Cristiano de Cordoba, and he is pure Indian. His parents, who died when he was very young, had lived on a tiny chacra far from the village, so the boy, left alone in the world, drifted to town where he found odd jobs of work such as errands and carrying charcoal. This went on for a number of years until Don Giliberto, who had a leather shop, noticed that Christiano seemed to be very honest and hard-working—clean even though his home was a deserted loft. He took him into his leather shop where Christiano learned to make shoes and boots. He could never earn very much because Don Giliberto himself was poor, but Christiano, who was very self-respecting, managed very well. He built himself a thatched hut at the edge of the village near the pool and the waterfall; it was a beautiful little place.
“Then Don Christiano fell in love with Maria, a servant girl in the village who came to do the laundry in the pool. The courtship went on for months because Christiano, who was so proud of his house and his position now that he was no longer a waif, wanted to do things properly and be married in the church. But, Señora,” said Don Juan rather sadly, “a marriage in the church in Mexico costs quite a lot of money, there are many fees, and Don Christiano could never get a tenth of the money together. So finally they ended up by Maria just going to live with Don Christiano.
“She made him a good wife. She cooked and tended the house and garden until it was a fairy-tale sort of place. In her spare time she did laundry in the pool for the townspeople, and so they prospered. A year, two years went by; their only sorrow was that they had no children. But in spite of that, they were considered to be a happy pair.
“But one morning shortly after dawn, the policia came pounding on my door, saying in excitement that Don Christiano had murdered his wife. I went immediately to the little hut by the waterfall, and there he was sitting on the doorstep, motionless as stone with his head in his hands. At the foot of a ladder propped against the side of the house Maria lay crumpled, her head crushed by a huge rock which lay beside her. Don Christiano did not protest when we led him away. `Yes,’ he said, `I killed her.’
“When it came time for his trial, at which I presided, and he was questioned as to his motive for killing her after they had apparently been so happy, it took a long time and much questioning to get him to tell the story. He admitted that they had been happy; they worked hard all day and slept well all night. But one night he woke sleepily and felt that something was wrong, he had a feeling that Maria had left him. But she was sleeping quietly beside him. A few nights later he woke, and this time Maria wasn’t there. He waited, wondering, but fell asleep again. When next he woke, Maria was in the kitchen lean-to making fragrant coffee.
“But the next night when he woke again and Maria again was not there, he rose and sat in the garden, waiting, watching. Just as faint pink dawn came over the rolling green hills, lighting the somberness of the almost black pines, a huge bird came out of the distance, circled over the waterfall and then over the house, settling down on the thatch. The bird came to the edge of the roof and started to hop down the ladder. When it reached the bottom rung, it turned into Maria. `So,’ he said, `I knew she was a bruja, a witch, and I killed her.’
“Yes,” reflected Don Juan, “that is what he told the court and that is what he believes. He has been in prison a year and soon he will be released.”
We moved into the sala for coffee and babanero, the rather sweet Mexican drink which is not quite like either brandy or whisky. The little fox, on whom I had slipped the puppy’s leash to tether her, lay watchfully in a big armchair, nose in paws. Don Joaquin picked her up and sat down in the chair with her on his lap. “You see,” he told me, ” how mansa she is,” and proceeded to scratch her under the chin as you would a cat. To exhibit how tame the fox was he insisted on everybody in turn holding her. Doña Maria squealed and refused, but she was quiet in Lord Freddy’s lap with her head under his arm. Then Don Joaquin insisted that I next pick her up.
Gently I grasped the tense little body and before Freddy could move, the fox had snapped; her needle-pointed canines went through the nail of my forefinger. Lord Freddy emitted a sort of stifled groan, still holding the fox. Don Joaquin and Don Juan both leaped to the rescue. Don Joaquin was a big man, and a powerful one; he grasped the tightly clamped jaws and tugged for what seemed ages to me, the sweat rolling down his face. Doña Maria stood by wringing her hands, her face contorted with emotion for me. Don Juan suddenly dashed out of the sala toward the kitchen. He came back with a shaker of black pepper to make the fox sneeze just as Don Joaquin succeeded in prying the steel jaws apart. Lord Freddy, still holding the fox, looked a little white and shaken. And I? I’m not quite sure. My finger, which had been bitten entirely through the nail, felt a little numb.
Don Joaquin was covered with confusion. “But this is the occurrence so terrible!” he exclaimed. “I sold you the fox for ten pesos and now she has bitten you.” He looked genuinely distressed, then brightened. “I shall kill the fox and you can sell the pelt for perhaps twenty pesos!”
I was glad that Lord Freddy did not understand much Spanish, for I’m sure Don Joaquin would have been surprised at what Freddy might have said or done. But Freddy and I had the same thought simultaneously. “Let’s,” he said, “go now and set her free. …”
Rapidly I explained. Don Juan reacted immediately to the situation; the idea of freeing prisoners, either human or animal, appealed to him. With the puzzled Don Joaquin leading the procession, we left the house, going down the cobbled lane which soon gave way to a winding dirt road that led over the pine-covered hills. We climbed swiftly and silently up a steep incline which ended in a beautiful bluff; the scene below was something to conjure with, although I was not in exactly the poetic mood to do so.
The little fox, nose twitching, golden eyes alert, sniffed. “Now,” I said.
Don Joaquin slipped the leash and in one quick red flash my pet was gone, down, down through the trees and brush, pausing only once to sniff the wind.
Night was closing in as we reached the house. The rest of the evening remains a little confused in my mind, as the pain was by that time intense in my hand and spreading up the arm. Freddy gave me a stiff dose of babanero while Don Juan went to the chemist’s to buy a disinfectant and bandages.
The Indian who had murdered his wife because she turned into a bird was released from prison. Don Juan Sarmiento Castillo took him to the pine-covered bluff and said graciously, “Now you are free. You are Indian and you can return to the forests where your ancestors lived.” And the Indian disappeared as the fox had done down the pine-covered bluff.
This I didn’t dream, but I like to think that the fox and Indian met and lived happily ever afterward in the high, wild, and free Mexican Sierra, unhaunted either by gringos or witches.