What the Moon Saw Read online

  My chest felt tight, and I felt things falling apart, felt him moving away, as if he were already just a red dot on the next mountain over.

  “Pedro.” I stood up, tossed my sketchbook onto the bank, and waded across the stream. The hem of my shorts got wet, but I didn’t care. And I didn’t even wince at the sharp stones that poked the soles of my feet while I walked to him. I was determined. One hundred percent determined. You can do anything, Clara.

  He watched me and his hands shook at his sides.

  I reached out and took his hand and held it steady. Now that I had his hand in mine, I wasn’t sure what to say. So I just whispered, “You’re going to knock out one of your goats with those rocks.” I whispered this in the voice I’d used with Felipe’s baby sister to calm her down.

  This was the first time we’d touched except for when I’d let my ponytail brush against his arm when we sat together playing guitar. “Pedro, I like the smell of goats. I like being with them. I like being with you.”

  “Really?” he asked. His mouth moved into a guarded smile.

  “Yes. And now I smell like goats every day too. That’s what Abuelo told me yesterday.” I was very aware of the way Pedro’s hand felt in mine, at first cool, but now warm.

  He put his other hand over mine. My hand rested carefully between his like a little bird. He explored my hand, looking at every finger like it was something he’d never seen before. I wondered if he was going to look into my face and then what would happen.

  He put my hand down and picked up his guitar. “I’ll teach you a new song.”

  We sat on a fallen log, close, so that the whole sides of our bodies were touching. As he sang he turned his face toward me. I strummed and he did the fingers.

  The melody sounded sad and happy at once. The refrain was Gracias a la Vida, and the last verse went:

  Thanks to Life, that has given me so much.

  It’s given me laughter and tears

  to tell happiness from sorrow,

  the two materials that form my song.

  And the song of all of you is the same song,

  and the song of all of you is my own song.

  Abuelita noticed my hands too. That night, as I was stirring the hot chocolate, she took my hand in her own and examined the palm and the fingers, and then turned it over and traced my knuckles.

  “You have hands that heal,” she told me. She set the spoon back in my hand. “How good that you are using them!”

  “But I’ll be with you only a few more weeks, Abuelita.”

  “Spirits can teach. My body will not be with you, but my spirit will.”

  I kept stirring. “How?”

  “You see, Clara, my grandfather taught me after his death. And it was then that my powers truly blossomed….”

  Helena

  SPRING 1938–SUMMER 1939

  Whenever Ta’nu visited me in dreams, he arrived in a cloud of sweet copal smoke. In the mornings, I’d lie on my petate with my eyes closed, trying to keep the scent from fading. In the dreams, Ta’nu and the spirits showed me which herbs to use, where to find them, how to prepare them. Oh, I was glad of their help! After his funeral, you see, patients began coming to me. At first they came in trickles, then in waves.

  At times a crowd of people waited outside the door to my hut, comforting crying babies, rubbing children’s stomachs, wiping feverish foreheads. Other times there were no patients for days, and I spent that time working in my garden, weeding, tending to plants. Sometimes I collected wild herbs in the mountains. Deep in the forests, I left offerings for the spirits, for my spirit animal. And there I gathered strength, letting the mountain become part of me.

  Once I was sipping water at a stream when I looked up and saw a jaguar on the other bank, staring at me. Water dripped from our mouths. We stared at each other the way you might stare at your own reflection. After that, I began leaving him gifts at the stream, wrapped in banana leaves. Gifts of cocoa beans, turkey eggs, green feathers.

  A few months after Ta’nu’s death, Aunt Teresa discovered she was with child. Five times before, she had been with child, and all but one of those had ended with her losing the baby. María was the only baby who had seen the light of day. Aunt always said that María’s birth had been a miracle. So it was no surprise to us that the midwife instructed Aunt not to do any hard work or lift anything heavy until the baby was born. That extra work fell on my shoulders. But how could I mind it? A baby cousin would be a beautiful gift.

  In Aunt’s eighth month, traders from Oaxaca City began talking about a sickness that had come to the region. A sickness that killed the weak, the very old, and the very young. In our village there was no sign of the sickness. Yet I stayed alert, like a mother deer watching for danger. You see, if people fell ill, they would come to me for help. I had to be ready. I gathered heaps of herbs in the mountains, basket after basket, until I knew I’d have enough to settle stomachs, cool fevers, clear lungs.

  One morning, while the women were washing breakfast dishes, after the men had gone to collect firewood, we heard the clip-clop of horseshoes. It was a stranger. We knew this, of course, because no one in the village had horses, only burros. Who could it be? María and I left our dishes half washed to find out. Even Aunt, holding her enormous stomach, struggled out of her chair and waddled like a duck with us. A short distance from the road, we stopped under a tree, where we could watch the stranger.

  The man on the horse wore an official uniform. It looked as if it once had been crisp and black, but now it was wrinkled and dulled with dust. He had trouble getting off his horse and half fell onto the ground. When he tried to brush himself off, the dust spread around more. He limped in a circle around his horse, shaking out his right leg. Then, there he stood, looking lost. Poor man. I knew how it felt to be a stranger.

  María looked at me and laughed. “Helena,” she whispered. “Go talk to him.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re the only one who speaks Spanish here. All the men are off in the woods.”

  True, the only man in sight was don Norberto. And he was drunk and passed out under a tree at the roadside, as usual. He was too drunk to speak his own language—imagine him trying Spanish!

  “Find out what he wants,” María urged, pushing me toward the man. How she loved strangers, excitement, new things! She should have gone to Oaxaca instead of me. Oh, she would have loved it.

  “Probably bad news,” Aunt Teresa murmured. Her hands circled her belly protectively. “Always is with people in uniforms.”

  After my run-in with the police, of course I agreed with Aunt. But María was bouncing up and down like an eager puppy. “I’ll come with you, Helena!”

  The man was tying his horse to a tree, looking around, most likely searching for a man to talk to. He spotted don Norberto, limped over to him, and said something. Norberto blinked open his eyes for a moment. He swatted at the air, as though the man were a pesky fly. Then he let out a loud snore and dozed off again.

  Startled, the stranger looked around. All he saw were us women, huddled in a small group, pointing, laughing, whispering. He threw his shoulders back and puffed out his chest like a rooster.

  María and I clutched each other’s hands, still wet from the dishwater. We walked right up to him. In polite Spanish, I greeted him. “Good morning, señor, how can we help you?”

  Up close I saw that his face was burned red from the sun. It peeled off like snakeskin. Ayyy! How painful it must be to have skin so delicate, so fair. I had the urge to spread cool aloe juice over his skin to soothe it.

  The man’s eyes darted around. Why was he nervous? What did he think three women would do to him? “Where are the men?” he asked.

  “Gathering firewood, señor.”

  “When will they be back?”

  “Not until lunch.”

  “I don’t have time to wait.” He rubbed his leg.

  “What’s the matter with your leg, señor?”

  “Just a strain.”<
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  I wanted to ask him to roll up his pants so that I could look at his injury, but I held my tongue. How could I ask this of a stranger from the city? Of course, anyone here in the village would be grateful for my advice, but I had the feeling that a man from the city would not. Remember, whenever I’d offered my cures to the García López family, they’d accused me of working with the devil.

  “You look thirsty and tired,” I said. “Would you like some tea? Would you like to sit down?”

  “No, thank you,” he said, looking impatient. “You will pass a message on to the men?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s he saying?” whispered María. She was nearly bursting with curiosity.

  “Shhh…wait, María!”

  The man cleared his throat. “You have heard of the sickness that is killing people?”

  “Yes. It hasn’t come here.”

  “Well, it will.” He spoke with arrogance, the way men boasted to each other while drinking. “It will come, unless you follow these instructions. Do you have the baños de temazcal here?”

  “Yes,” I said. Oh, what relief. Maybe this sickness could be cured with the baños de temazcal—steambaths with special herbs. I gave baños to women after they’d given birth. And for men, sometimes, if they’d pulled a muscle. Perhaps it worked for this sickness, too.

  “You may no longer do the baños,” he said.

  “What?” Had I misunderstood?

  “Anyone who does will be sent to jail. Doctors say the baños are filthy. They spread diseases like wildfire.”

  “But the baños are good. They cure.”

  He spoke to me with impatience, as though I were a small child. “Have you gone to school, señorita?”

  I shook my head. There was no school in my village. I had heard that there was a school in a nearby town, but the girls didn’t go. They had too much work to do at home.

  “Can you read?”

  Again, I shook my head. Now my throat was tightening up. Blood was rising to my face.

  “Well, these doctors have books. Shelves and shelves of books. I’ve seen them myself. And the doctors have recommended that the baños be forbidden.” He began walking away, showing me that he was done with the conversation.

  I followed him. “Wait,” I said. I was trying to stay calm, thinking about Aunt Teresa. She would have her baby any day now. It would be a hard birth. The midwife had felt the baby the wrong way inside her. And Aunt had nearly died after giving birth to María. She would need many steambaths to recover. This I felt sure of. “There is no sickness in our village, no need for this law.”

  “All you must do is pass the message on to the men, can you do that?”

  To him I was an ignorant Indian girl, nothing more. María saw that he was on the edge of anger. And maybe worse, that I was on the edge of anger. She pulled my arm gently. “Let’s go, Helena.”

  I stood like a tree rooted to that spot. I felt my face changing, my eyes narrowing. The hair on the back of my neck bristled.

  “Come on,” María said. She tugged at my arm.

  At that moment the man turned away, toward his horse. He straightened his jacket, squared his shoulders, took three steps, and tripped over a tree root. This sent him stumbling into a chicken, which squawked and flew up against him in a rage. He staggered back with a cry and fell, just missing a pile of fresh burro droppings.

  María let out a squeak of laughter and clapped her hand over her mouth. I felt the beginnings of a smile on my face. A guilty smile, because as a healer, I cannot laugh at other people’s suffering. But my fury was fading, and I felt some compassion for the poor man.

  Together María and I ran back to Aunt, under the tree. Her huge belly jiggled with her own laughter. In the shade, we watched the man struggle to climb back onto his horse and ride off. Really, he was not to blame for bringing bad news. I decided that if he returned, I’d gather some herbs for a poultice for his leg, and a tea for the pain. What he truly needed was a baño de temazcal. But of course, he would never accept that, would he?

  I was right about Aunt’s delivery. All night, the midwife struggled with her. And all night, I worked. I made poultices to slow the bleeding. Brewed tea to ease the pain, ground up fresh herbs to help her push the baby out. Cup after cup of ruda with hot chocolate she drank. And yes, finally, the baby came out alive, healthy. A little girl with a perfectly round face and big moon eyes.

  But afterward, Aunt was pale and wrung out as an old rag. Her bleeding wouldn’t stop. Her belly ached. Her whole body ached. She wouldn’t eat, and her breasts had just a trickle of milk for the baby. After a few days, both the baby girl and Aunt lay on the petate, limp, nearly lifeless.

  “Helena, you must give your aunt baños de temazcal to heal her,” the midwife told me. “To make milk for the baby.”

  “But the steambaths are forbidden now,” I said. I thought of the prison, the dirt floor, the stale, sad smell. Doña Three Teeth, who had nothing left after ten years in there.

  “She could die, Helena,” the midwife warned. “If you don’t give her the baños, she could die.”

  The midwife was right. And I was the only one in the village who knew how to give the baños now. The señora who used to give them had died the year before.

  “I will give her one baño every Sunday night,” I said finally. “For five Sundays. I will do it at night, in secret.”

  After the first baño, Aunt Teresa’s delight in food returned. Her breast milk began to flow. Her baby seemed more alert now. Soon the baby’s moon eyes were following María and me around the kitchen. Still, Aunt felt weak, and still, pain lingered in her belly, but little by little her strength grew, while her pain faded.

  On Sunday evenings, I walked to the stone temazcal. It was shaped like a small dome, just big enough to fit two people sitting or lying down. In the nook at one end of the dome I prepared the fire. Onto it I placed large rocks. For hours the rocks sat, growing hotter and hotter. Then, late at night, Aunt met me at the doorway of the temazcal, under a shelter of thatched palm. She came wrapped in wool blankets to keep off the chill. María stayed back in the hut with the baby.

  The first four Sunday nights were peaceful. Pleasant, even. It was the beginning of the wet season, and the smell of rain filled the air. A sharp, clean smell. Soaked earth, damp leaves, new petals.

  But the final night, oh, the final night was far from peaceful. As always, I prepared the baño alone, arranging the hot rocks, the petates, the blankets. Yet I felt myself jumping at every noise, flinching at every shadow. You see, Ta’nu had come to me in a dream the night before. He’d looked worried and warned me to be careful. But this was to be Aunt’s last baño, I told him. I wanted to be sure her treatment was complete. Just one more night.

  When she came to the temazcal, I greeted her quickly, then crawled inside. In the darkness, I felt the heat, a dry heat at first. Then I dipped a gourd into the clay pot and sprinkled water onto the rocks. Sssssss! The rocks spit up clouds of hot steam.

  “Come in now, Aunt,” I said, feeling the steam burn my throat and chest with every breath.

  She crawled in and lay down on her stomach. I knelt beside her. I picked up my bundle of fresh pirúl and spiraled the herbs in the air above our heads. With little circles, I drew down the steam and swept her body with the leaves. As always, she tensed at first with the shock of the heat. Soon her body relaxed. Onto her back she turned, and I brushed over her stomach and chest and legs. Three times I brushed over her body, from head to toe. Then I told her to crawl out. Outside, she lay resting under her blankets beneath the palm shelter.

  So far everything was going well. So far, no hint of danger. I lingered inside the temazcal, inside the wet heat, the ocean of steam. The heat surrounded me, pressed on me from all sides. Imagine the feeling: somewhere between a peaceful glow and burning suffocation. Oh, you could almost give in to the terror. The terror of feeling trapped in a small, dark place. For a moment I was back in that prison cell.
Panic hit me. I crawled out as fast as I could.

  Outside I breathed in the cool air. What relief. I stepped outside the shelter and saw the night sky stretched above me. Rain clouds held the light like pearls. I ducked back under the shelter and lay next to Aunt under a blanket. Our skin glistened with beads of sweat. Our chests rose and fell. Oh, how I dreaded going back in.

  “Ready?” Aunt asked me.

  Each night we went in and out of the bath three times, resting in between. Two more times left tonight. The second time I entered, the panic came back. A sharp, burning fear. I threw water onto the rocks and brushed Aunt with the herbs, just as I’d done so many times before, only faster now. Much faster.

  “Turn over,” I told Aunt. I brushed her stomach quickly. The rocks and coals glowed red, like the hellfire that visiting priests always spoke of.

  “You can go out now,” I said.

  “Already?”

  “Yes,” I said, nearly pushing her out.

  We lay outside and rested. I thought of the story of the grandmother spirit of the temazcal. One day her evil sons put a stone over the entrance. They trapped her inside, in that terrible heat. She suffocated and died. What helplessness, what fear she must have felt! And that was what I felt, knowing I had to go back inside again. I took a deep breath and tried not to let Aunt see my trembling. But no matter how much I tried to ignore it, I knew. I knew that something bad was about to happen.

  Back inside the temazcal, Aunt lay on her stomach, with me crouched next to her. I threw a gourdful of water onto the rocks. Ssssssss! The steam encircled us.

  And when the hissing faded, I heard it. The clip-clop of horse hooves. I froze in the heat. My hand that held the herbs rested on Aunt’s back.

  “What’s that?” whispered Aunt. Her back tensed under my hand.

  The clip-clop stopped. We heard the sound of someone getting off the horse. Then squishy footsteps, coming through the mud, toward us. Should we try to hide? Squeeze ourselves against the back of the temazcal? But he must know we were inside because of the steam slipping around the blanket over the doorway.