The Hacienda(30)

Sometimes, I thought longingly of my first nights at San Isidro, curled up next to Rodolfo’s heavy warmth. How soundly I slept with the certainty of someone’s weight on the other side of the bed, the steady rhythm of breathing.

I would not be alone in the house tonight either, but tonight would be different. Padre Andrés was due to arrive at sunset.

I had met him at the capilla around noon. Ana Luisa cast me a curious look when I asked her to prepare the small rooms that adjoined the chapel for a guest, but she asked no questions. Perhaps she should have. It might have prevented the look of surprise on her face when she saw Padre Andrés walking up the path to the capilla from the main gates of the hacienda, a maguey fiber bag slung over one shoulder, his long legs bringing him into the heart of the estate with an easy grace.

“Buenas tardes, Do?a Beatriz. Se?ora,” he greeted Ana Luisa, formal and stiff.

Her eyes narrowed. It did not escape me how hard and cold they remained as I thanked Padre Andrés for agreeing to take up residence in the capilla, to make sure that Mass was celebrated on a more regular basis for the servants of San Isidro.

Though Ana Luisa and I were meant to return to the main house together, she excused herself from my presence as quickly as she could and made for the servants’ quarters. To tell Juana, perhaps. But to tell her what? That I, as the mistress of the hacienda, had invited a priest to bring God’s word to the men and women who worked for my husband’s family? There was no crime in that. Nothing suspicious.

So why did Ana Luisa keep casting stray glances over her shoulder at the capilla as she walked away?

This evening, she came and left after an early dinner as was her custom. Asking myself if she was acting strangely was futile—who didn’t, in this house? Even during the day I found myself jumping at the slightest shift of shadow. I began wearing a set of house keys at my waist, not just for the comforting click of iron as I strode through the empty house, but because every time I was certain I had left a door open on purpose, I would retrace my steps and find it locked shut.

The first time this happened, it was when Ana Luisa was still in the house, cooking dinner. I shouted and pounded on the door until she unlocked it with a wry look. I was embarrassed, but it did not escape my attention that if she had not been present, I would have been stuck all night in the windowless storeroom where I was putting away maize.

Without copal. Without candles.

Keys became my constant accessory.

If I were honest, if I were not trying to hold the house at arm’s length out of fear it would somehow infect me with madness, I might admit that even in daylight, I could feel the house settling around me. As if I were but a fly on the hide of a giant beast that twitched in sleep.

Now it was waking.

From the moment the sun dipped behind the western mountains on the horizon, it began to shift. Lazy at first, stretching its phantom limbs, then slowly gaining alertness as the dark grew more complete.

Beyond the walls of San Isidro, Apan settled into the cool of its evening. Dogs barked as sheep were herded home; the indistinct voices of tlachiqueros rose as they returned from the maguey fields. The dark form of mountains rose beyond the town, lazily sprawled in a protective circle around the valley.

The slim form of Padre Andrés darkened the arched doorway of the courtyard of the main house. A smaller bag than he was carrying earlier was slung over his shoulder; the sound of gravel beneath his shoes filled the courtyard.

I took the candle and rose to greet him. I was more than a head shorter than him; the result of the candle held before me was that the shadows carved his cheeks hollow like a skull. A chill went down my spine at the thought of the skull in the wall grinning at me.

I barely knew this man. Yet I was placing my reputation, and possibly my life, into his hands.

Why? Was it the black habit and the smudge of white at his collar? What guarantee was that, in times like these, when priests turned over their parishioners, insurgents, to the Spanish armies, when someone as powerful as Rodolfo feared the lingering claws of the Inquisition?

This one was different. I knew it with a certainty that made my bones ache.

“Welcome, Padre,” I said.

He thanked me and looked past me into the deepening shadows of the house.

“Ah, San Isidro. You didn’t use to be like this,” he said. His voice was soft, even soothing, as he addressed the house. As if he were placing a hand on the brow of a feverish patient. “After you, Do?a Beatriz.”

I crouched to pick up the copal censer, handed it to Padre Andrés, and collected my book from the step.

“What do you mean to do tonight, Padre?” I asked as we entered the dark entryway. I had lit thick tallow candles and left them wherever there was space; they huddled in clusters by doorways, in saints’ eaves carved into the walls, lined tidily along the long hall leading to the parlors.

“Andrés,” he corrected absentmindedly, his chin tilted up to the ceiling as he scanned the wooden beams. “I’m not sure yet. First, I would like to see the house as you do.”

“You would have to be alone for that,” I said, leading him up the candle-lined hall. Candelabras were on the long list of things I had sent to Rodolfo, the list that he informed me must have gone missing en route to him, for he never received it. Twice it had gone missing, and I was beginning to lose patience with the men who rode with the mail to the capital.