I haven’t seen Lord Freddy for almost a week now, but I presume he is well and happy, or I’d have heard about it.
It all happened like this. We were having breakfast as usual on the kitchen terrace; the coffee was excellent as usual and the garden never lovelier, with roses, dahlias, jasmine, forget-me-nots, and the blood-stained lilies called the Knees of Christ. Maria de Jesús had served us piping hot muffins made from the leftover elotes, steamed corn on the cob, we’d had for dinner the night before. But before I go on, I’ll give you the recipe, which is Freddy’s:
Mexican Corn Muffins
Mix together thoroughly 1 fresh egg, well beaten, 1 1/4 cups cold sweet milk, 3 tablespoons melted shortening, and 1 cup whole corn (canned will do). Sift 1 1/2 cups bread flour, 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 scant teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1 cup yellow corn meal. Sift all this again into the first mixture and stir just enough to moisten the flour. Fill some buttered muffin tins 2/3 full and bake in a moderate oven (350° F) for 25 minutes, or until the muffins are brown and crunchy. As well as being good breakfast muffins, these are excellent served with roast pork. We ate ours with wild honey an Indian brought us from the hills.
Our discussion that morning concerned the immediate future. We had been in Mexico nearly a year—our visas had been extended in Mexico City, but now the extension had nearly expired. The ley mejicana said one had to return to the United States and procure a new visa in order to stay on. From Zacualtipán that meant at least three long, hard days’ traveling by bus to the nearest border town, Laredo, Texas. Business matters had come up that made it desirable for me, since we had to go that far, to go on to New York. The upshot of it seemed to be that we’d better give up the house in Zacualtipán and store everything with Doña Rutila so we could come back … sometime. Lord Freddy was all for taking Napoleon and Maria de Jesús with us to the States, but as I pointed out, conditions there were uncertain, and the matter of American visas for Mexicans was something that God himself would probably have had trouble arranging. But Doña Rutila would give them both a home at her ranch. After all the arrangements were made and there was nothing to do but pack our personal things, Lord Freddy was disconsolate.
“I don’t want to go to New York City,” he said. “What would I do there?”
“Then why,” I asked, “don't you go on to New Mexico? It advertises itself as the land of enchantment, and certainly many writers and artists love it. Perhaps I could join you there later.”
As I’ve said before, it is one thing to make a decision in Mexico and another to carry it out. Late that same afternoon, rain fell so heavily that Angelita could not go home to her family.
In the morning we discovered that the hurricane had washed away many houses by the river; all day long news of disaster came trickling in—crops were ruined—the road to Pachuca was almost nonexistent because of landslides—the bridges were all destroyed. For a solid month we haunted the plaza, asking for news of road repair and transportation so we could leave.
Of the nine-day journey, which normally should have taken three, to the border town of Laredo, Texas, the least remembered the better. We crossed rivers in swinglike contraptions on cables, wherever bridges had been washed out. We slept in Indian huts; we ate whatever we could wherever we could in peon restaurants.
Freddy saw me off for New York late one afternoon in Laredo. His plans were uncertain—he really didn’t know where in New Mexico he’d eventually end up. My plans were uncertain, too, except for the fact that I would go back to my apartment in New York and take care of business matters. I leaned from the window to wave and felt a sudden and unexpected lump in my throat. Lord Freddy, hatless, with his fine blond hair rumpled, looking not at all correct with his prancing black mongrel puppy, seemed very much alone and not a little lost. Old Mexico, I began to feel, was a closed chapter, and I wondered if I should ever go to New Mexico or see Freddy again.
As matters turned out, it was less than six months before I found myself buying a ticket to Santa Fe, whence I would proceed to join Lord Freddy in Taos. He had written that New Mexico was truly a land of enchantment; he stayed for a time in Santa Fe, but decided on the art colony of Taos because, he explained, there were Indians. It came as something of a shock when he wrote that he had studied anthropology at Cambridge and had always been particularly interested in American Indians, who he felt were closely related to Asiatics. He said he hoped to make a comparative study of the Taos language and certain Chinese dialects. My British cousin seemed to have never-ending facets to his astonishing personality. He ended his letter by saying that he’d bought a car and would meet me at Hotel La Fonda in Santa Fe.
My taxi drew up to the entrance just behind a very quaint equipage—a Ford roadster of how ancient a vintage I could not guess, from which the top had disappeared but had been replaced by a homemade canvas cover held on by string and safety pins. From it emerged Lord Freddy dressed in blue cotton jeans, cowboy boots, a violent plaid shirt, and a fringed leather jacket.
“My deah! How really jolly—we’ll just have time for a cocktail before we sit down to lunch,” and he swept me into the lobby, where he seemed to have a speaking acquaintance with everybody from the governor of the state to Joe the beautiful Indian, brilliant in yellow satin shirt and striped blanket, who draped himself gracefully over a deep lounge chair. He was laden with turquoise necklaces, rings, and bracelets, which he made only very languid efforts to sell.
In the cantina it was the same thing. Freddy paused to speak to handsome Pop Chalee, the artist whose thick black braids hanging to her knees contrasted dramatically with her red velvet dress. There were ranchers in tengallon hats, and as much Spanish heard as English.
Later, as we bounced along toward Taos in Freddy’s ancient but valiant little Ford, which he had christened The Martyr, he said, “I have engaged a room for you at a small hotel, as unfortunately my house has only two rooms—it’s just a little Mexican adobe house—not too convenient.” He smiled rather ruefully. I didn’t realize at the time what a masterpiece of understatement this was. I was absorbed in contemplating on one side the wild sweep of jagged mountains and on the other the immensity of the plains which stretched off and away beyond the deep gorge of the Rio Grande. The feeling of height, immensity, and grandeur deepened as we approached Taos. We rounded the last bend in the highway as the sun was low; the tips of the snow-covered mountains were washed red by the slanting rays.
“That,” said Lord Freddy, “is why the conquering Spaniards called this range Sangre de Cristo—the Blood of Christ.”
There was the village of Taos nestled protectively under the great range; then I saw the two humped peaks of Taos Mountain itself—the mountain sacred to the Taos Indians, high in whose folds lies the magic Blue Lake. Like crowns, wispy wreaths of cloud floated about their twin heads.
We drove even more slowly. “Y’know,” said Lord Freddy, “the first time I came to Taos, I said to myself—this is Asia in America. This place gives me all the feeling of Darjeeling in northern India under the shadows of the Himalayas. Even the Indians here wrap themselves in their blankets the way the hill men do there. And when they speak, their singing language …”
The Taos plaza was a rather formal little square with trees, shrubs, and a fountain surrounded by shops, just like any village in Old Mexico. On the most prominent corner was Don Fernando’s tavern, where we dined on tamales and chile con carne. At some of the tables there were Spanish-speaking people (Lord Freddy had warned me that in New Mexico there were no Mexicans, but Spanish-Americans, and no Americans, but Anglos); at others there was a heterogeneous collection of the art colony, judging by the carefully unkempt beards and overheard snatches of hyperintellectual conversation. To counterbalance this was a table of what looked like the Chamber of Commerce or the Rotary Club.
“America,” remarked Lord Freddy, “is a most curious place—particularly Taos. The Indian pueblo which lies two miles beyond the village is centuries old—perhaps the oldest inhabited settlement in the United States; the aloof Indians keep their culture and customs intact. But in the village you see the three cultural strata like a passing of history—the Asiatic Indians, the Moorish Spanish, and the European Anglos. Most curious,” he shook his head musingly. “But the Texans,” he sighed, “I’m actually not even sure about them—particularly landladies …”
I began to divine his meaning the next morning when I went to his house for breakfast. Lord Freddy was in his tiny kitchen struggling heroically to get a fire started in a huge coal range. His face was smudged, and the once beautiful Bond Street dressing gown was generously stained with soot and ashes. He waved his hands rather helplessly and said, “Do go into the living room—I’ve got the bloody stove in there going.” The living room was a rather gloomy, sparsely furnished place, most of which was taken up by a coal heater that seemed to be suffering from asthma. “Y’see, it’s absolutely the only place I could find,”said Freddy dismally, with a note of apology.“Housing situation, y’know, and it’s blasted expensive, too.”
There was an imperious rap at the door. With a slightly strained but resigned expression, Lord Freddy opened it. A large and determined-looking woman dressed in slacks and a leather jacket, her head wrapped in a bandanna, stood in an assured and possessive manner in the doorway.
“Kid,” she said to Freddy, “I need your mop and broom—got to clean up that filthy apartment them people moved out of yesterday. Took some of my best silver, too. The way these people from New York expect everything out West here … the drinking and carrying on. Cigarette burns on my best tables …” She pushed past Freddy into the room, her eagle eyes apparently seeking the worst. Then she saw me. Her expression was, to say the least, curious.
“This,” murmured Lord Freddy rather faintly, “is my landlady. She’s a—a lady from Texas.”
“Well,” said the lady from Texas, “I’ll just get the mop and broom. I gotta get to work. Got Indians coming to chop wood, too.”
“Er—ah,” said Freddy plaintively, as he trailed her into the kitchen, “when do you think you can get the hot water fixed? It’s been over a month now since I’ve had any.”
“Well, kid, you know how them plumbers are. Anyway, you stay in bed so late in the morning…“The door slammed, and Freddy remained alone.
It seemed hours before we could get water hot enough for coffee. As we sat drinking it, a blanketed Indian appeared in the yard and looked contemplatively at a pile of logs stacked against the fence. He then took off his blanket, folded it, and proceeded to comb his hair. It hung in two long ropes over his shoulders, and instead of braiding it, he wrapped it expertly with strips of bright red cloth. We watched in fascination.
“What an extrahordin’ry culture, actually,” he murmured, “to hold to archaic customs in the face of the ridicule they must receive from some quarters—such as gaping tourists.” He was silent for a moment. “I say, let’s ask the chap in for coffee—it’s a deuced cold morning.”
The Indian smiled, showing dazzling white teeth against his rosy copper skin as I handed him coffee. His high-cheek-boned face was decidedly handsome; I decided he was probably a bit more than middle-aged, but certainly the man breathed of vitality and health. He was like a fresh breeze in a musty room. His manner was gracious and natural, his English excellent, even colloquial, with sudden humorous uses of current slang. He said he didn’t work often for the lady from Texas—only occasionally when he needed ready cash. He lived at the pueblo, farmed his land, cared for his stock. Sometimes when he felt like it, he painted pictures of horses or made poetry about the birds. His name, he said, was Joe Sun Hawk.
I had just refilled his coffee cup when there was a knock at the door, and without waiting for an answer the lady from Texas burst in.“Kid,” she said to Sun Hawk, “I’m not paying you to drink coffee. I’m paying you to chop wood.” I tried desperately to think of something cutting to say, and Lord Freddy, I knew, was speechless with anger.
As time went on, the situation became worse. An aura of depression, if not actual evil, hung over the mean little house, and we spent days wandering the village looking for anything habitable. We also went to a few rather spiritless art exhibitions and several literary evening parties. Lord Freddy finally declared if he had to listen to another intellectual dissection of Proust or post-mortem on Henry James, he would scream.
“Blahst it,” he said, “I came to be with Indians—not a bally bunch of intellectuals.”
But that was difficult, if not down-right impossible. We had learned that not only the Indians themselves preferred their aloof seclusion, but also the United States Government frowned upon whites living at the pueblo. True, a few men had achieved it, but women were absolutely taboo. It seemed that many years before, two white women had been invited to live at the pueblo but had not conducted themselves with the dignity to which the Indians were accustomed. The tribal council then passed a law excluding them forever.
It was bitterly cold the morning I arrived for coffee to find the kitchen full of smoke and Freddy nearly strangling. The stovepipe had fallen down. When he finally got his breath, Lord Freddy swore vehemently. “Not even in England are things worse muddled,” he choked. His eyes were full of tears, and I suspected not entirely from the smoke.
I opened the door to let in fresh air just as Sun Hawk dismounted from a sturdy, shaggy horse. “Gee whiz!” he exclaimed, as the smoke poured out. He shook his head deprecatingly and said, “What a place to live!” Without more ado, he set about fixing the fallen pipe. When it had been temporarily repaired, and we were finally drinking our coffee, Sun Hawk remarked casually, “She told me not to come here.” His eyes twinkled as he added, “She said you are a bad woman and that he is a tramp.” When he rose to go, he grinned and said, “I am only an indio,” and he shot a quick, humorous glance at Freddy, “but there is always faith, hope, and Cherokee!” And he left, chuckling to himself.
It couldn’t have been more than two or three days afterwards that I arrived at Freddy’s kitchen door to find Sun Hawk’s farm wagon drawn up before it and Sun Hawk and Lord Freddy hurling his possessions into it. Traveling bags, clothing, books, firewood, groceries went in indiscriminately. Freddy paused for breath.
”I am going to live in a cottage in Sun Hawk’s mother’s orchard.“ He giggled a little. “Sun Hawk seems absolutely terrified that She will come and accuse him of stealing her tenants. We want to get away before She returns.”
Sun Hawk had been going through the house like an Indian tornado. Finally he tossed a pair of shoes onto the pile and said with a grin, “All aboard, Freddy, for the pueblo. We’re sorry to leave you, Ruth, but we’ll be seeing you.” He clucked to the horses, slapped the reins on their backs, and Lord Freddy and Sun Hawk went rumbling off. I stood rather in a daze, thinking a little bitterly that it’s a man’s world after all.
Epilogocito (Little Epilogue)
Yesterday I had lunch in the little house in the orchard with Lord Freddy and Madrecita, Sun Hawk’s mother, who has completely adopted Freddy. Madrecita must be over seventy, but her hair is shiny tar black; her wise old Indian eyes follow her adopted son’s movements with affection. She is fat and comfortable—and utterly lovable. She speaks little English, but the understanding which my cousin and she have reached does not seem to need many words.
We sat in the tiny, snug living room, gay with Indian blankets and pottery that Madercita herself had made, before the whitewashed Indian fireplace, drinking small glasses of plum wine that she had also made. The Aztec puppy bounced about happily outside; a horse ambled up to look in the window and went on. A long line of Madrecita’s white ducks quacked questioningly at the door for food. Freddy broke up bread and threw it to them.
“Y’know, my deah,” remarked Lord Freddy, “actually, it’s quite remarkable, don’t you think, for an Englishman to be rescued by American Indians?” He was thoughtful for a moment. “Madrecita, Sun Hawk, and I have already begun to collaborate on our language project. I have already found authentic relationship between many words of the Taos dialect and Chinese. Perhaps we shall make great discoveries…”
What Lord Freddy and the Indians may discover, no one yet knows. But I do know that in a hectic world which has won a war but not a peace, in the little house in Madrecita's orchard under the shadow of the sacred Taos Mountain, there is an aura of quiet contentment that is almost tangible.