A Ballad of Love and Glory(114)
No, he needed Erin’s shores to heal his spirit and wash away the stain upon his soul.
43
The Road to Vera Cruz
They left the capital at daybreak. Ximena turned to catch the last glimpse of it from the window of the diligence pulled by eight mules and guarded by a hired escort, as they traveled along the National Highway. The magnificent Valle de México, flanked by the two snowcapped volcanoes and encircled by rugged mountains, was spread out under the pink-tinged sky. She looked at the towers, domes, and spires of the churches pointing to the heavens above, the numerous trees and gardens in and around the city, their verdure contrasting with the red roofs of the buildings, the countryside dotted with sleepy haciendas and lakes as clear and glittery as looking glass. Ximena elbowed John and pointed outside the window to get him to look as well, but instead, he turned up the collar of his cloak to hide his face and closed his eyes, feigning sleep. He was a big man, and no matter how small he tried to make himself, his long legs took up too much of the insufficient space inside the coach. Ximena couldn’t miss the last glimpse of the valley’s beauty and splendor. These four hundred kilometers stretching out before them could be the last she might ever see of her country. But her soul was Mexican and would always be so, and even when her feet no longer touched her native soil, she would always carry Mexico inside her heart. So while John and little Patricia slept, she poked her head out the window to take it all in.
She leaned back in her seat, trying to keep her teeth from rattling every time the stagecoach went over a rut or rock on the road. As she listened to the rumble of the wheels, she wished the driver would slow down, and at the same time, she wanted his mules to go faster so that the passengers would stop looking at John’s branded cheeks with open curiosity. She knew he was feeling self-conscious about their stares, which was why he was feigning sleep.
But still, she was grateful to be on this journey, grateful they finally had the funds to pay for their travel expenses and had convinced the British consul to assist them with passage on one of the English vessels. After requesting his discharge from the army, it had taken John months to get the Mexican government to pay the wages owed to him and the surviving San Patricios and to provide him and Ximena with passports out of the republic. Once Santa Anna went into exile, the government vacillated in honoring the promises that were made to the San Patricios. The treasury was empty and the country in ruins, they said. The Yanquis had brought Mexico to its knees, and who knew how long it would take for the collective agony and wounded national pride to recover. Nevertheless, the government finally gave John his back pay, made him a colonel, and thanked him for his service to the republic.
They passed by humble villages of cane huts and immense haciendas of stone and mortar, decaying chapels and ancient churches, large gray convents and small shrines to la Virgen de Guadalupe, white gleaming crosses off the side of the road or perched atop rocks, fields of volcanic rock and haystacks, vast plantations and sugarcane fields, arrieros with their loaded mules and shepherds with their flocks of goats or herds of pigs, Indians collecting cochineal from the cacti or siphoning the sap out of the maguey and into their pigskin pouches. As the sun-kissed Popocatépetl and his sleeping lady, Iztaccíhuatl, faded behind them, another volcano appeared in the distance—Orizaba, the highest peak in all of Mexico, the most majestic mountain Ximena had ever seen. The volcano rose before her, cutting through the sky with its snowy crown that pierced the clouds.
In Puebla de los ángeles they changed mules and spent the night in a modest inn and acquired a new escort. At sunrise the next morning, the stagecoach left the city behind and entered the state of Vera Cruz. When Santa Anna had talked to Ximena about the place of his birth, she’d thought that, like with everything else, he’d exaggerated its grandeur and beauty. And now, here it was before her, the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. Every shade of green—the fertile fields of waving cornstalks and plantations of coffee; forests of cedar, oak, and pine; rolling hills carpeted in grass and wildflowers where cows and horses pastured; emerald streams meandering through the lush vegetation and falling in small cascades. This was the xalape?o’s home, this paradise of eternal spring, with its verdant foliage, its tropical flowers and orchards heavy with papayas, its banana groves and fields of pineapples.
When they finally arrived in Xalapa at dusk and wound their way along the steep mountain road, Santa Anna was more present in her mind—the evening air smelled like him, the fragrance of plumeria amplified by the humidity. They stopped for the night in an inn near an old convent. Too tired and jolted by the journey to eat, they retired to their room, where Ximena and Patricia slept on the bed and John, unable to break his prison habit, slept on the floor. Ximena longed to feel his body next to hers, to make love to him under the light of the moon streaming through the bars on the window. But he had withdrawn inside himself once again, and she wondered how many limpias it would take to make his soul whole again, to lure his spirit out of the dark shadows of his prison cell. She had faith that one day, he would finally transcend his sadness, his guilt, and the disharmony within him would end once he remembered who he was.
They left the paradise that was Xalapa at the break of day. To the southwest, the snowy Orizaba was enveloped in clouds tinged with the pink of dawn, and in the distance, beyond the lofty mountains, a glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico. It was only then that John’s melancholy eyes brightened, like rain clouds lit by lightning. Soon, they would be traveling upon those waters, sailing to his beloved home, and the Atlantic breezes would blow away the darkness inside him.