The Middle of Somewhere(44)

“You’re lucky,” Dante said, finishing off his in-flight tequila. “This one’s only radishes. The summer I was eight she dragged us to Zacatecas for La Morisma. Thousands of people reenacting medieval battles between Christians and Moors in old Spain, including firing cannons. It was so loud I let go of my mother’s hand to cover my ears and got lost. I wandered into the battle scene and nearly got my head chopped off by a broadsword.”

“I can see why you’d prefer radishes.”

A taxi deposited them in front of the Camino Real Oaxaca, a sixteenth-century nunnery converted into a luxury hotel. The bellman led them under broad archways and along Saltillo-tiled corridors lined with frescoes, and paused across from a courtyard with a tiered fountain. The shrubs were alive with birds. He unlocked a dark oak door, placed their bags inside and informed them Se?or and Se?ora Espinoza were currently at the pool. They could, when they were ready, join them there.

“I never expected the nuns to have it so good,” Liz said, exploring the room. It was decorated in colonial design with brilliant white stucco walls and beamed ceilings. An intricately painted wooden cat crouched on the dresser. Liz recognized the style as local, knowledge she’d presumably picked up from her mother, although she couldn’t say when.

“We treat our sisters very well,” Dante said.

The pool was crowded, but they easily spotted Dante’s family. They were arrayed in a loose group of twenty or more, lounging on chairs, or standing at the pool’s edge supervising their children.

“Dante!” someone cried, and every head turned to face them. Half were versions of Dante himself. Liz smiled and gave a self-conscious wave.

On the plane, he had schooled her about his sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, but when the battalion of Espinozas and their spin-offs mobbed her, she forgot nearly every name she’d learned. Worse, she was blindsided by several unexpected aunts and uncles. Everyone talked at once in rapid-fire Spanish. She offered her cheek to them all.

Dante’s mother threw herself at her only son, clutching at his back and sobbing as if he had returned unexpectedly from war.

“Mama,” he said, taking her hands firmly in his and looking her in the eye. “Todo está bien.” All is well. He introduced Liz, and Se?ora Espinoza rallied, swiping the tears from her cheeks. “Call me Felicia,” she said in English. “Please.”

“Gracias, Felicia.”

Felicia put her fingertips under Liz’s chin and drew the attention of her husband, several yards away. “Mira, Carlos! Que bonita!” Heat rushed to Liz’s cheeks. Se?or Espinoza nodded at his wife and smiled at Liz, tight-lipped. Dante caught his father’s eye and offered a nod, and a tentative smile, in greeting. Se?or Espinoza turned aside. Dante had warned Liz that his father’s reception would be cool and implored her not to take it personally. He had chosen to live in the States of his own accord, long before they’d met, so she was blameless. She understood the situation, and thought she was prepared for it, but she was not. The anguish in Dante’s mother’s embrace pained her, as did the sting of his father’s scorn. At that moment she would have welcomed Claire’s tepid disinterest. She reached for Dante’s hand and held it.

The radish festival formally started in two days’ time, December twenty-third, but the next day Dante’s mother hustled everyone to the main plaza, the Zócalo, for a preview. Liz couldn’t imagine it any more festive than it appeared. The Zócalo was bursting with people: busking musicians, vendors selling candy, balloons and hats, and onlookers sitting on benches in the shade of gigantic Indian laurel trees. The base of each tree was encircled with dozens of poinsettias, and lights had been strung between the lampposts. Booths of radish carvings lined the plaza perimeter and faced sidewalk cafés where people sat drinking and laughing.

Dante’s father’s attitude had softened overnight—at least toward Liz. He escorted her around the displays, explaining in fluent English the festival was the brainchild of two Spanish friars who wanted to create a marketing buzz for local produce. They instituted a competition for radish carving, and the indigenous people took to it with a passion. The radishes, some the size of watermelons, were carved in elaborate displays, many with religious themes. Liz admired radish cathedrals, radish nativity scenes (with tiny radish baby Jesuses), and a four-foot-high Our Lady of Solitude radish with an elaborately rendered crown and robe. The vegetable artists also exhibited vignettes of daily life: radish mariachi bands, radish markets and, her favorite, a radish agave farm and tequila distillery complete with radish people falling down drunk. If all the festivals were this bizarre, she could see why Felicia was hooked on them.