The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

Author:Isabel Cañas [Cañas, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

17

ANDRÉS

Enero 1821

Two years earlier

COLD RAIN SLICKED THE road from Apan to Hacienda San Isidro, leaving my clothes splattered with mud. The walk took the better part of the day; I arrived as evening darkened in the west.

I had returned to Apan nearly six weeks ago, but finally I was home.

Passing through the gates of the property was like passing into a memory that no longer fit. I was a foot too big for a shoe, deformed by the world beyond as I returned to the landscape of my boyhood. The road to San Isidro felt like a path into a dream. I had left the quotidian world of the Church and townspeople and passed into a beyond where the bellies of the clouds hung low and listening, where the coyotes were afraid to draw near Titi’s house. Where all the pieces of me had once made sense. Where I hoped they would again.

It was a false hope, of course. The muddy earth of the hacienda grounds was no different from town. My troubles were not immediately lifted from my shoulders the moment I arrived.

Tía Ana Luisa greeted me with her usual stiffness. Never a warm woman, I doubted she would ever forgive me for the crime of being born with the innate potential she lacked, for becoming my grandmother’s pupil when Titi refused to teach her.

“Paloma is up at the house with the others,” she said, taking my waterlogged bag of few belongings. “I imagine you’ll be staying at the capilla, now that you’re . . .” Here she gestured vaguely at the collar at my neck. “This.”

I let Ana Luisa take my bag to the capilla and followed her instructions to go to the kitchen of the main house. There, Paloma would warm dinner for me, and I could sit by a lit fire and read the Bible to the women of the house as they mended or did embroidery.

Night deepened as I approached the house.

Hello, old friend, I thought as I strode through the softening rain.

It grumbled in reply, shifting cantankerously on its foundations.

I couldn’t help but smile. The house had more moods than a swallow had feathers. I was fond of its peevish spells; its impatient creaks and groaning inspired an urge in me to pat its side affectionately as I would a stubborn but lovable mule. As a child I knew this ancient house of spirits was unlike anything else I had ever seen. Now, after having stepped through the doorways of countless old houses, I knew it was unique.

“Cuervito!” A woman hovered impatiently at the glowing doorway of the kitchen, calling my childhood nickname: little raven. It was Paloma. Aside from the procession, I had not seen her since she was twelve or thirteen, and to see her so grown still caught me by surprise. “Hurry up!”

She ushered me into the warmth of the kitchen, taking my soaked wool sarape and hanging it by the fire. Then she turned, hands on her hips in an uncanny imitation of Titi.

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