The City of Palaces by Michael Nava

Author:Michael Nava [Nava, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Afterward, as he and Alicia were driving back to the city, he said, “You were very good today.”

She sighed. “It was all I could do to keep from fainting when you handed me Santiago’s leg.”

“But you didn’t faint,” he said. “You kept your head.” He put his arm around her. “You must know that your project will be discovered. A servant will talk or the captain’s superiors will become suspicious about the missing Indians. The villagers in Coyoacán will begin to wonder about your comings and goings. Or one of your patients will escape. You cannot continue this indefinitely.”

“What would you have me do, Miguel?”

“I have never commanded your obedience in anything,” he said. “I will not start now, but in this marriage we are not two people, Alicia, we are one. If you insist on continuing your work, I will have to resign my post. It is hypocrisy to take bread from Caesar with one hand and strike him with the other.”

“No one knows better than I how little you have been able to accomplish in your position.”

“Perhaps I have not done all I hoped,” he conceded. “But I have been able to accomplish a little and there is a little more I hope to achieve. Particularly now. Díaz wants the city to be a showplace for the Centenario and he has given us more money this year than in the past ten. I hope to use some of those funds to actually make the city a better place to live. Besides, Alicia, Don Porfirio’s time is coming to an end. Even he must see that, and accede to the demands of the people to make Madero his vice president. Then real change can begin.” After a moment’s silence, he continued. “I am asking you as your husband and your friend to give me a little longer in my work to do whatever good I still can.”

Reluctantly, she nodded. “As soon as the men are recovered and well enough to travel, I will close the house,” she said. “In the meantime, I will not take on any others. But I will find another way to help the Yaquis. I must.”

“Tell me, why do they matter so much to you?”

“At first, I had no reason other than my sympathy for what they have suffered,” she said. “But now that I have talked to them and learned something of their beliefs, I feel that they are … a kind of holy people.”

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“The Yaquis believe God gave them their homeland. They say his angels came down from heaven and established the boundaries of their land with prayer and music. They describe a river valley at the edge of the desert that is like a paradise. In thanks, they make their lives into a constant sacrament of praise to God. When they are born, their mothers promise them to Jesus or Mary or one of the saints and they are expected to fulfill that promise by undertaking lifelong religious duties that would be onerous for anyone else.

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