Our Lady of the Night: A Novel

Revelation

ATTORNEY CANGGIANO’S CADILLAC came to a stop in the driveway of the casino. A bellhop opened the door and reached out a hand to help the elegant lady who would surely emerge from that luxurious vehicle. He was surprised to see a gloved hand whose wrist was encircled by a solid-gold seven-day bracelet with a medallion of the Virgin of Charity dangling from it. Nor could he have expected that the glove would reveal, up toward the elbow, a firm black arm that shone against the overcast night, the lights of the ball, and the raw silk dress. A diamond choker adorned the lady’s neck, which was also black. A cascade of curls fell level with that neck. The bellhop’s eyes alighted on her chin and then on her face, as Isabel Luberza Oppenheimer emerged from the Cadillac. La Negra Luberza. The Madam from the Portuguese River. The bellhop had no other choice but to gulp.

At the same instant, District Representative Pedro Nevárez was entering the Red Cross ball, followed by Magistrate Hernández and Senator Villanueva and his wife, along with Bishop MacManus.

They all looked on in fear as Canggiano offered his arm and led her past the wide door of the casino. At the entrance, La Negra handed a confused young man the invitation bearing the insignia of the cross printed on gold paper. He checked the invitation list and found her name on it. She then crossed steadily through the entrance of the casino, a steady hand on Canggiano’s arm. He alone noticed the slight tremble in her fingers, her surging pulse.

There is no hurry, Doña Isabel. The worst is over.

Don’t be so sure, Canggiano.

To their right, Representative Nevárez and his wife looked at them out of the corners of their eyes. It had been a week since he had spoken to La Negra. I’ll be by Saturday, Isabelita, so we can chat about the campaign donation. She already had had his meal ready. The girl Lisandra. She had brought her from Colombia for him. Don’t cry, darling, don’t be frightened. Stop crying! If all goes well, this will be the last time that you have to sleep with the representative. A few steps ahead, the secretary of public works spoke with the engineer Valenzuela. Doña Isabel, what elegance! I would like to come see you about a matter that might be of interest to you. Let them come see her the following week at her mansion in the Bélgica district. I am always very interested in listening to proposals. At the end of the entrance hall the Ferráns brothers—Juan Isidro, Valentín, and Esteban—chatted. They flattered her with their smiles. Their wives remained silent and inaccessible, clutching their husbands’ forearms tightly. The brothers commended her for her great heart, for giving so much of herself to those in need.

How am I not going to give, when my own flesh has known what need is?

Canggiano introduced her to the Colomés, the Tomés, the Valles; the cream of the crop of the town was there. At each spot, she paused with the attorney, who carried on with his introductions as if she had never seen any of these people, as if the day before, or last week, many of those men had not been at her bar. But she was making her debut in the casino, on the other side of the river, dressed in silk and diamonds. She had come in through the main entrance. No one had dared get in her way. She could not stop trembling.

Then she saw him, the worst one of all. Tuxedoed, with a broad chin, green eyes on white freckled skin framed by the blackest hair, greased back. His elbow rested on the bar, a drink in hand, probably a whiskey. He smoked. His wife was with him, snowy, prattling ceaselessly on some topic that led her to rest her hand on the shoulder of her beloved—Don’t you think, my dear?—seeking his approval. It was the attorney Fornarís with his legitimate wife in his arms. The flattering gazes now seemed devious, revealing their mocking grimaces. Even dressed in silk… The attorney’s eyes pierced her, at once, without warning, as if a strange power were making them gravitate toward her on the opposite side of the hall. He continued to stare at her and the sound of the conversations evaporated in the air. Isabel had to pause, feign. She pressed hard on Canggiano’s forearm and he came to a sudden stop. She slowed her breath, one…two…three…four…five, but could not fall back into its rhythm. Fernando Fornarís made a gesture as if to walk toward her but held back also. With her eyes, Cristina followed the direction of the gesture. They both saw her, the lingering apparition. Mother, attend to me in my anguish, protect me. With her gloved fingers, Isabel rubbed the medallion of the Virgin, La Cachita, which was always dangling from her wrist. She felt her face dissolve, wanting to float in the air.

The attorney Canggiano knew how to read her. I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but I have yet to dance one number with the lady. He bowed to the guests and gently led Isabel toward the dance floor. Even with her back to them, the glares of Fernando Fornarís and his wife still burned into her, though less intensely. And with her back to them, she began to overcome that vision.

Now we’re going through the worst, Canggiano.

If you are not feeling well, tell me, and we’ll leave right away.

I don’t have that luxury, no matter how I feel. You hold me tight until they leave.

The Three Marys

THREE OF YOU went to the tomb at dawn. Mary the Holy Mother, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas, as if you were one. You went to grieve, sleepless, walking alone, as women have always done on the face of the earth. You came to face the sepulcher of the Son, scabbard of the flesh, the scabbard that the Lord renounces.

Three, and I kneel down before you and call you Virgin Protector. I kneel, because only you know of the sleepless flesh, the renounced scabbard. Because only you know what I have had to leave in my path to save me from the trash that they say I am. I go alone down my path like you. I come from the ball, from the grave, and from the void. Three Marys will be there when I come out of this grotto, keeping each other company, protecting me from this ill that besieges me. Protect me from the Enemy, all you women, Mother, Magdalene, Wife, together on the path among the beasts, shielded by their holy vesture.

If you help me, I will establish a shrine in honor of your name. If you help me, I will devote myself to the work that praises your glory, even though those who receive my gifts won’t allow me in. Whip of the Enemy, tentacle of the Beast. I will do it though they scratch and bite me. For you, Holy Mother; for you, Fallen Virgin; for you, Wife. I’ll do it though the last woman covered in drool spits on my grave. Help me find what I have lost. Don’t let it be my punishment never to discover it. Only God knew the path that life had in store for me. Only you knew that I would fall prostrate at your feet. You know what is hidden in my heart, Mother. Grant me what I ask for and protect me in my tasks. One and three, the Marys that inhabit you, though you seem alone, seated on your throne among the stars.

Holy Mother.

Amen, Jesus.

One

The old lady awakes. Tower of patience, pray for us; mirror of humility, pray for us; cup of wisdom, pray for us, for me, a fly, or worse, a fly atop a bucket of shit, or the shit itself, me. The voices in her head are unalloyed. All night long the same thing, the old woman. By her side, the Child sleeps restlessly. He needs to sleep. Don’t wake him, María Candelaria. Doña Montse, Doña Montse, Doña Montse, light the candles. Yesyesyes, no need to say my real name. Such an angel, the Child, as angelic as the angels when they rest from the vengeance of the Lord. Outside, the dew dries up in the underbrush. The beginning of another day. People from all parts will come to the sanctuary, the Shrine of the Holy Virgin of Montserrat in Hormigueros. The Black Virgin with the white child on her lap. The old lady knows it, feels it; today hundreds of them will come to make promises and raise their prayers to the Mother of All, the Intercessor of the afflicted. And may I be struck dead, the old lady says, may the sinister paw of the Beast fondle the fervor in my crotch. She looks for the washbowl, fills it with water using a rusty can, and washes her face. She washes her arms, her droopy breasts, the skin of her belly, black as the darkness after a lightning flash. She washes her crotch, already gray. You even look alike, Don Armando used to say. You have the same face and the same skin. From inside, that human-like statue of a Black Virgin that he had left in the house watched them. My sisters don’t want it. Frightened, she replied: Oh no, Don Armando, it’s like she sees us. But—Don’t be silly, María Candela, he said. Hastily, he would climb on top of her, and look, each day they let her get away down the hill to the sanctuary less and less. He kissed her with hunger, in a hurry. Those two keep me as a prisoner in their house; they don’t even let me breathe. Don Armando, the old man who had brought her to this hill. He gave her a small house, you will be my nurse, he visited her. But those sisters of yours, those Harpies…If he could see me now that I have lost all my looks, now that I am old. If he could see me now, with my head in between my legs like someone who has eaten poisoned fish, lighting candles. I fight them, today another one appears and I will fight them, I straighten up, my skin lustrous because I use oil of coconut and Palmer’s Cream that I buy in town. Today I will fight them.

Mother, what are we going to eat today?

The old woman washes her feet; she dries them carefully so that the dampness doesn’t stain her clothes. Grandma Rafaela, Grandma Rafaela, you’re going to come to no good, but she never told me that it would be like this, with a different name, taking care of a Virgin darker than soot in this shitty town. The air seeps in through the planks of the room. Everything reverberates in the old woman, her steps, her guts, her wasted skin. I, who came to take care of Armando. He was recovering from a heart attack. With the medicine that he found in between my legs; how else was he going to recover? The Child tosses in the bed. He speaks, murmurs something. Hormigueros, for the ants that crawled on my back, Hormigueros, for the ants that crawled in between my legs, the Child is talented. The old woman watches him guardedly. She makes sure he is still asleep. Groping her way, she goes out of the one room of that house made of weathered wood. She walks toward the patio to light the fire. Could the Child be suffering the same nightmare? But she will chase it away. This kid is my son because he has the very same skin color as his Grandmother Rafaela. She will chase away his nightmares with hot orange-flavored cane juice that she will have ready for him when he awakes. I would have named him Rafael, but he is called Roberto. I call him the Child and he calls me Godmother and not Doña Montse, Doña Montse, as if that were my name, and me, yesyesyes, I am coming, what can I do for you, madam, what can I do for you, sir, to that melancholic attorney who bought the finca from the Harpies. I hope he returns soon. Our monthly supplies are all gone.

A little more tinder and the fire will be ready. The old woman grabs a piece of grease-stained cardboard. She fans the fire. It ignites. The house of nailed planks squeaks in the breeze like a rusty machine. The old woman walks toward the grotto of the Virgin. Holy Virgin of Montserrat, Mother of Mercy, Honor of the Caribbean, Protector, your People laaa-aaud you, whore of a Virgin who left me without a name. Near the grotto grow curative plants—basil, thyme, witch’s oregano, aloe for the cough. She rips a few leaves from the orange tree. Lord, Lord, safeguard us, Lord, Lord, protect us, Lord of the green eyes, whose all-powerful presence is lost in the plains. She walks again toward the fire and throws the leaves in a pot of boiling water. She frowns. Soon her head will begin to ache. The Harpies, Eulalia and Pura…the Harpies…We’ll take care of the little boy, we’ll raise him, Mr. Attorney, don’t worry, while it is I who gets up at dawn, lights the stove, and strains his orange cane juice, the one flavored with guanabano for indigestion, hierbabruja when his ears almost rotted. Every day the same thing, first the helpless brother and now the Child, if only he wasn’t such a beauty…The voices don’t stop; the pain in her temples makes them want to burst. The old woman walks toward the makeshift clothesline in one of the corners of the little house. She unclasps a dry rag and soaks it in the green water of the cane juice. She goes back toward the sanctuary, toward the plants that grow alongside the grotto, picks two mulberry leaves, wets the underside with saliva, and glues them to her forehead. She ties them on with the lukewarm rag soaked in orange water, making two tight knots against her head. The warmth of the rag, the odor of the leaves, ease the throbbing a bit. They talk to the attorney, their rosaries in hand, and they keep everything that he leaves for the Child. Virgin of the Sanctuary, strike them dead and disembowel them! The voices die down; they are her own.

Godmother, I dreamed a scorpion stung me.

The Child appears in the doorway. The old woman approaches him, lifts him in the air, and presses him to her fallen tits. It’s all right, my Soul, don’t worry. I am here. Come and drink your juice. Old María de la Candelaria looks at the Child, at the Child’s gaze, his big green eyes, from which the same question as always will eventually seep out. Leave the question alone, María.

In the dream, what happened to the scorpion?

I stepped on him, Godmother, over and over, until it was a little flat lump on the floor.

Very well done, my love. Death to whatever stings the Child.

I’m hungry, Godmother.

"I’ll see if we have cornstarch, so I can make you a cremita. Do you want funche, Child?"

Give me some…

The Child looks off into the distance and the old woman knows what he is going to ask. When is Papa coming? She won’t know what to say. Why doesn’t he live with us? Why does he come in such a big, big car and leave in the same car? Why are my eyes green like his, but my hair curly like yours? Red flame within, you’ll burn me to the ground, Mother. What have we here, a piece of coal? The old woman goes inside the house. She shakes a can; there is a little bit of cornstarch left for the Child.

I’m walking up to the big house today to ask the Harpies for your allowance.

He always leaves.

"We’re out of rice and bacalao. The hen is about to lay; we can’t throw her in the pot yet."

Godmother, are you my mama?

Virgin Protector who appeared to the rancher, Mother who saved him from the wild bull, that was over a century ago. Whom are you going to appear to next? She has gone mute mute mute inside the old woman.

The mother is the one who rears, Child.

But who is my mother?

Do you love me, Child? Because I adore you.

The old woman embraces the boy, rocks him, fingers the tight curls on his little cinnamon-colored head. Black Virgin with a white boy on her lap. The Child fixes his eyes on her. If she could, she would kiss his eyelashes, the hair on his eyebrows, the pores of his eyelids.

Do you love me, Child?

Yes, Godmother…

Then I am your mother. Come, let’s go to the grotto and pray. And you’ll see how your father will arrive soon.

The old woman walks to the grotto with the Child. She takes his soft little hand, cottony, smooth, light skinned but not white, a stain in the palm from the sin of the Lord. The Child’s little hand disappears within the old woman’s wrinkled fingers. She opens the door.

Go and search for the Three Stars, Child.

Are these the ones, Godmother?

No, the long ones. Come on, light one.

The Child strikes the head of a match against the box. It lights. In the back of the grotto, on a stone altar covered with wildflowers, is the Virgin, seated on her golden throne. The color of her garments snowy, spotless. Over them, a great blue mantle that covers her to the edges of her face. Only the dark hands are visible, the face almost featureless, dark as well. The lonely eyes sparkle in the smoothness of the black porcelain. Behind her, over her garlanded head, her crown of twelve stars sparkles. On her lap, as she holds onto him with one hand, the Divine Boy rests. Of light complexion, almost white, his hair is the color of honey, his eyes light green. That is you and me, Godmother. The Boy opens his arms to receive the pilgrims, the abandoned. The Child walks toward the figure and hugs the Divine Boy.

The old woman lights the candles, changes the water in the flower pots, opens the only window in the grotto. A breeze smelling of pasture and cattle passes through. You saved the rancher from the charging bull, you saved the whole world, and what about me? They both kneel.

Godmother, do you think my mama is as pretty as the Virgin?

Yes, Child, now let’s pray.

Fountain of Grace, bless me; Staff of Patience, guide me; Cane of Jacob, lead me; Rose of the Winds, provide for me. Soothe the voices in my head. Soothe my ire. And protect the Child who is the only thing that I have. Black Virgin with white child on her lap, give me back the ability to say something else, stop giving orders, whatever you want, right away, stop worrying, yesyesyes…There is something else that I have to say: give me what is mine, what is the Child’s. I cannot die without saying it. Here I light one of the two-cent candles, I light it for you, Virgin, Montserrat, Montserrat, jewel under the commotion of my legs. Let the Father come, let him present himself to the forgotten Son. Let him bring us manna and leave us riches, raising me to my rightful position. María Candelaria Fresnet on my throne of stars, let him free me from the Child and from the Child’s questions. And I pledge to you, Mother, that I will not sell you out anymore, I’ll retire you from the business and the grotto, I will give myself to you, yesyesyes, completely. No more candles and pilgrims, no more sanctuaries to exhibit you to the desperate. I promise, Holy Mother, and if not, you will see, you will see what will happen. We have to eat, the Child has to eat, and I will not have him go hungry. So see what you can do, Mary, Mother, jailer. Amen, Jesus.

"Let’s go, Child, and I’ll make you a fuchecito. And let’s see what I can come up with for lunch."

THE FIRST VISIT

And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect.

—Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

One

THE FIRST TIME that Luis Arsenio Fornarís went to Elizabeth’s Dancing Place he already looked like a man. He had the thick shadow of a beard pressing in on his face, the blackest hair, from his father’s side, falling in short waves over his brow, and the small green eyes of a cornered cat. He was wide shouldered, not too tall, with very light skin full of freckles. It was the same skin that the Fornaríses had brought from Corsica and the same freckles that marked the forearms of the men of their species. On his face there was not one blemish. A thick beard protected his face from the relentless Caribbean sun.

It was 1936, and everyone went to Elizabeth’s Dancing Place. Prohibition was over. It was still illegal to sell moonshine or serve alcohol to minors, but generally the place paid no attention to age, color, or place of origin. A hostess opened the door for clients as if they had come to the promised land. The only requirement was that they came to consume.

The hostess’s welcome made him nervous upon entering. But Luis Arsenio Fornarís knew he was carrying a winning hand. He was sure one of the girls from Elizabeth’s would approach him before they did any of his friends, who were still virgins. They had been telling him so in the car.

Why don’t we leave Luis Arsenio behind? With that old man’s beard he is going to take the most beautiful girls from us.

They say that Isabel just arrived from France with a fresh cargo.

Can you imagine, the first time with a Frenchwoman?

The European ones are expensive. Only the politicians can afford them.

And the soldiers.

No, what they want is local meat, preferably dark. As if rolling around with the black women in their country wasn’t enough.

They can’t, it’s against the law.

What law?

Segregation, you asshole.

The conversation continued through their guffaws. They had to become men and, at the same time, soothe the nerves firing off beneath their skins. It was the best way to ward off fear. That night, if everything went according to plan, Luis Arsenio, Esteban, Pedrito, and Alejandro Villanúa would become men once and for all, according to the custom of the men of their stock. In other words, every one of their studied poses would no longer be considered empty. From that night on, the smoking of Tiparillos in the school courtyard, the sip of stolen rum from the family’s liquor cabinet, the unexpected erections in the middle of mathematics class, would take on weight and meaning. They would be responding to concrete stimuli, as concrete as the memory of real flesh, open and spread on the sheets of one of the beds at Elizabeth’s Dancing Place.

Luis Arsenio listened while his friends talked about politics inside the car owned by the Ferránses, and which Esteban had managed to get. It had cost each of them half of their monthly allowance to buy the silence of the family chauffeur. But it was worth it. They were about to escape to a whorehouse. The chauffeur passed in front of the Fox Delicias Theater (where they had agreed to meet), then headed down Calle Comercio toward the Portuguese River. They left behind the plaza, mostly full of soldiers with their civilian passes asking workers, Excuse me, friend, do you know where I can buy me a good time around here? All of the workers knew the answer, without a doubt: At Elizabeth’s Dancing Place.

The conversation changed subjects. Alejandro Villanúa played the devil’s advocate, defending the Americans with the audacity of a new convert. Enough of small-town morals. Everyone had the right to be in the plaza. It wasn’t true that the soldiers were contaminating it, strolling through it with ladies of the night. Moreover, strolling through the plaza is an indisputable individual right, no matter how uncomfortable it might make the daughter of some family. The modern pragmatism that had transformed America into a model of prosperity and democracy was based on the protection of these rights.

"‘And we the people, indivisible,’ Alejo, but that doesn’t excuse that the other day a soldier grabbed Margarita Vilá by the arm and wanted to take her by force. That’s not right, my brother."

They treat us all like peons.

If Don Franco knew what Margarita did behind his back, soldier or no soldier…

He’ll never know. The only one who deals with Margarita is the maid.

"That’s where she learned her bad habits; those negras are firebrands…"

You sound like you want to sleep with one.

Not me, Don Franco. They say that Isabel brought him one from Martinique. He has gone mad for her and loosened his wallet. And Doña Luisa…

You don’t think she knows? Why rock the boat?

They were in the middle of a country road, entering the neighborhood of Cuatro Calles. Little by little they lost sight of the shacks where the laundresses and laborers born in the backrooms of some stately mansion huddled. The branches of the royal poincianas braided into false roofs that sometimes tore open to the sky to reveal a cloud lit by the rays of the moon. For a moment he pictured the house of his friend Esteban, which was identical to his. Everything in its place, observing custom, the taste and the rigor of good breeding, the porcelain on the mahogany bookcases, the white lace tablecloths. The chandeliers were suspended from the ceiling by a thick cord that held up a weight greater than iron in suspended spirals of crystal bubbles. The windows of the china cabinet reflected a faint tremor, almost imperceptible, blurring the lustrous images seen by the observer who had suddenly discovered them. The lustrous checkerboard of the native tile marble floors formed an imitation Mozarabic arabesque beneath feet that refused to remain there. The tension and a yearning to flee: Why was it always like that?

Luis Arsenio remembered the exact day that he noticed. He was no older than nine. His father arrived at the house a little earlier than usual and found him awake, playing in the living room between the legs of the grand piano that his grandparents had insisted on buying for his lessons. Rather than playing it, Arsenio liked to twist himself into it, exploring the springs that came out of its belly. A dilapidated Noah’s ark, a gigantic machine with bandaged keys, a shipwreck…That’s what he was up to, imagining what the intestines of the piano might be, when his father arrived. It was rare that he heard him arrive. Luis Arsenio remained silent, still, as if waiting for an accident, for something on the point of falling to finally shatter on the floor. He felt guilty but did not know why, as if it were a transgression to be there in that mysterious moment when his father arrived home. Fernando Fornarís took off his hat, hung it on the usual hook, took a deep breath. He rubbed his eyes briefly, then opened them, blinking, regarding the space that was his home as if he were sleepwalking. His eyes were not his; the things in that house not his. And there, in the middle of his delirium, the attorney Fornarís discovered his son under the piano. Their looks crossed; the son, Luis Arsenio, and the father, Fernando Fornarís, fenced in by the space of the living room. His father gave him a slight smile and called him over with a gesture of the hand. Luis Arsenio walked slowly, and when he reached his father, he felt an enormous wish to hug his legs. But his father was a step ahead of him and lifted him in the air. He kissed him on the chin, a soft and meditated kiss, as when Arsenio was younger and his father returned from the long trips to the capital. Hugging each other, they both contemplated the room, wrapped in a complicity that made them nestle into each other, as if waiting for some vehicle to come save them from the hushed anguish of that house.

Esteban smoked a Tiparillo. Luis Arsenio asked him for one. He looked through his pockets for something to light the cigar that his friend handed him.

Make sure you don’t see any cassocks!

They laughed in unison. That phrase was the one they used when they went out to smoke in the courtyards of the school. And it was perfect now that they were in the middle of their escapade. Luis Arsenio was able to block the breeze coming in from the window and light his cigar. He watched as the wind took the smoke-filled breath from his lungs out the window, who knew where. Fumes in flight.

Let’s go over our strategy, since we’re getting close. We each pay individually so we don’t get confused with the bill later on. We ask for drinks and a separate table.

What do you mean, drinks? We’re underage. I don’t want trouble with the law.

But, Pedrito, then why are we going to a whorehouse?

You go to Elizabeth’s to do one of two things, to drink or to, you know…

What we have to do is get with it. We grab whoever we like right away.

What if we all like the same one?

Not likely, since Villanúa likes only Martinique women.

Stop fucking around, guys, all this gaggling is going to give us away.

I hope I run into my father at Elizabeth’s. Can you imagine how proud he would be?

Or relieved that he didn’t have to take you himself.

Yeah, but if mine finds me there…

Arsenio, you have nothing to worry about. Your father is the only man in Ponce who never goes to Elizabeth’s. Everybody in town knows that.

The chauffeur took a local road that was as dark as a wolf’s mouth. Near the end, they could hear music thumping in the distance and see faint lights emerging from the shrubbery. The road was tarred and paved, which was unusual in the country; but even so, pothole after pothole made the springs in the car reel. It tossed like a yawl advancing against the current. This Isabel is right around here, said the driver, who hadn’t uttered a