First Part1
We will recite the beginning. We will only
recite the history, the story.
We are only returning;
we have finished our work;
our days are over. Think of us,
do not erase us from your memory,
do not forget us.
Popul Vuh (The Book of Council)
I
–…And then, angry, they took away what was ours, what we treasured—the word, the arc of memory. And ever since those days, they burn and are consumed with the wood in the fire.
The smoke rises in the wind and disperses. All that’s left are the ashes without a face. So that you can come, you and the one who’s younger than you and all they need is a breath, only a breath…
–Don’t tell me this story, Nana.
–Am I talking to you? Does one talk to anise seeds?
I’m not an anise seed. I’m a girl and I’m seven years old. The five fingers on my right hand and two on my left. And when I stand up, I can see my father’s knees. Higher than that, no. I think that like a big tree he keeps growing and in the highest branch crouches a miniature tiger. My mother is different. Up above her hair—so black, so thick, and so curly—the birds fly, and they really like it and they stay. I only imagine it. I haven’t seen it. I see what’s at my height. Some bushes with their leaves eaten up by insects; the desks stained with ink. My brother. And with my brother I look down at him from above. Because he was born after me, and when he was born, I already knew many things that I now explain to him in detail. For example:
Columbus discovered America.
Mario keeps looking at me as if I didn’t deserve any credit and he shrugs his shoulders as if he didn’t care. Rage suffocates me. Once again, all the weight of injustice falls on me.
–Don’t move so much, niña. I can’t finish combing your hair.
Doesn’t my nana know that I hate it when she combs my hair? No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t know anything. She’s Indian. She goes barefoot and doesn’t wear any underwear under the blue cloth of her tzec.2 She’s not ashamed. She says the earth doesn’t have any eyes.
–Now you’re ready and it’s time for breakfast.
But eating is awful. In front of me the plate, staring at me without blinking. Then the enormous expanse of the table. And after that… I don’t know. I’m scared that on the other side there’s a mirror.
–Drink your milk.
Every afternoon, at five o’clock, a Swiss cow goes by, making its tin bell jingle. (I’ve explained to Mario that Swiss means fat.) The owner leads it by a cord and at the corner he stops and milks her. The maids come out of their houses and buy a glass of milk. And the badly-brought-up children make faces and spill it on the tablecloth.
–God is going to punish you for wasting it, says Nana.
–I want to drink coffee. Like you, like everyone.
–You’ll become Indian.
Her threat frightens me. Tomorrow the milk will not spill.
II
On the street my nana leads me, holding my hand. The sidewalk is made of large flat stones, smooth and slippery, and everything else is smaller stones. Pebbles arranged like the petals of a flower.
In the cracks, weeds grow, and the Indians pull them out with the tips of their machetes. There are carts pulled by sleepy oxen, young horses that with their hooves make sparks and old horses tied up to posts with a rope, they stay there the whole day, their heads lowered, sadly moving their ears. We just passed one very close. I hold my breath and hug the wall. I’m scared that at any moment the horse will bare his many teeth—yellow, huge—and will bite my arm. And I’m ashamed because my arms are very thin and the horse is going to laugh at me.
The balconies look out at the street, watch it rise and then descend and make a turn at the corner. They watch the old men walk by with their mahogany canes, the ranchers who let their spurs drag when they walk, and the Indians who run beneath the weight of their loads. And all day long the sound of the steady trot from the donkeys’ hooves, as they carry wooden barrels full of water. It must be so beautiful to be like that, like the balconies, not busy or distracted, only watching. When I grow up…
Now we’ve started to go down the hill by the market. From inside, the sound of the butchers’ heavy knives and the flies buzz lazy and satiated. We meet the Indians who weave pichulej,3 sitting on the ground. They talk amongst themselves, in their strange language, breathless like a hunted deer. And unexpectedly, they release high pitched wails with no tears which still scare me, although I’ve heard them many times.
We go avoiding the puddles. It rained last night, the first rainfall, the one that makes the ants with wings that they call tzisim4 sprout from the earth. We pass in front of the stores that smell of recently dyed cloth. Behind the counter the clerk measures the cloth with a yardstick. You can hear the grains of rice sliding along the metal of the scale. Somebody grinds a handful of cacao. And in the open passageway, a girl carrying a basket on her head, shouts, fearful that the dogs will come out, fearful that the owners will come out:
–Who will buy tamales?
My nana makes me walk quickly. Now there’s nobody in the street except a man with brand-new, squeaky yellow shoes. A gate opens wide and in front of the lit forge we can see the blacksmith, black because of his work. He strikes the iron, his chest is bare and sweaty. Pushing aside the blinds, an unmarried woman looks at us furtively. Her mouth is shut tight as if inside a secret is locked away. She’s sad because she knows that her hair is turning white.
–Say hello to her, niña. She’s a friend of your mother’s.
But now we’re far away. The last steps I take almost running. I’m not going to get to school late.
III
The classroom walls are whitewashed. Because of the humidity, mysterious figures form that I can decipher when I’m punished, and I’m sent to sit in the corner. Otherwise, I sit in front of Señorita Silvina at a square, low desk. I listen to her talk. Her voice is like the little machines that sharpen pencils: annoying but useful. She talks in a monotone, in front of the class, scrolling out her catalogue of knowledge. She allows each one of us to choose the thing that suits us best. From the beginning, I choose the word meteorite. And from then on it sits on my forehead, heavy, sad because it’s fallen from the sky. Nobody has been able to discover what grade each one of us is in. We’re all mixed up together even though we are all so different. There are the plump girls who sit in the last row to secretly eat their peanuts. There are girls who go up to the blackboard and multiply one number by another. There are girls who only raise their hand to ask permission to go to the “común.”5
All of this goes on for years, and then without any particular warning, a miracle occurs. One of the girls is singled out and she’s told:
–Bring in a large piece of poster board because you’re going to draw a map of the world.
The girl goes back to her desk, full of importance, serious and responsible. Then she struggles with some continents larger than others and oceans without a single wave. Then later her parents come for her and take her away forever.
(There are also girls who never reach this marvellous stage and they wander shadowy like souls in limbo.)
At noon the maids appear, their cotton petticoats rustling, smelling of brilliantine, carrying the gourds of posol.6 We all drink, sitting in a row on the bench in the corridor, while the maids dig between the bricks, using their big toe.
We spend our recreation hour on the patio. We sing rounds:
Naranja dulce
limón partido…7
Or we fight over the angel of the golden ball or the devil with the seven whips or “we go to the orchard of the bull and lemon balm.”8
The teacher watches us, with a benevolent expression, from where she’s seated under the bamboo. The wind stirs the slim leaves, so they murmur incessantly and rain green and yellow. And the teacher sits there, in her black dress, so small and so alone, like a saint in its niche.
Today a señora came looking for her. The teacher shook the leaves from her skirt, and they talked together for a long time in the corridor. But as the conversation continued, the teacher seemed more and more worried. Then the señora took her leave.
The bell rang and recess ended. When we were all together in the classroom, the teacher said:
–Dear girls: you are too innocent to realize that these are dangerous times we are living in. We must be careful, so we don’t give our enemies any opportunity to hurt us. This school is our only patrimony and its good reputation is the pride of the town. Lately some people have been planning to take it away from us and we have to defend it with the only weapons available to us: order, rectitude and, above all, secrecy. So that what happens here doesn’t go beyond these four walls. We don’t go out, talking about our business on the street. If we do that, that is what we will become.
We like having her say so many words in a row, quickly and without stumbling, as if reading something out of a book. Strangely, Señorita Silvina is asking us to swear an oath. And we all stand up to grant it to her.
IV
It’s a fiesta every time the Indians of Chactajal9 come to the house. They bring sacks of corn and beans, dried pork tied up in bundles and blocks of raw sugar. Now the granaries will be open, and the rats will once again run, fat and sleek.
My father receives the Indians lying in his hammock in the passageway. They approach him, one at a time, and they offer him their foreheads so that he can touch them with the three main fingers of his right hand. Then they go back to their corner. My father talks to them about the ranch. He knows their language and their ways. They answer in monosyllables, respectfully, and laugh briefly when it’s necessary.
I go to the kitchen where Nana’s heating up coffee.
–They’ve brought bad news, like black butterflies.
I’m going through the storage room. I like the color of the lard and to touch the roundness of the fruit and to peel the skins from the onions.
–Witches, niña. They’ll eat everything. The crops, the peace in families, the health of the people.
I’ve found a basket of eggs. The speckled ones are guajolote.10
–Look what they’re doing to me.
And lifting up her tzec, nana shows me a tender, pinkish wound, that disfigures her knee.
I look at it, my eyes wide with surprise.
–Niña, don’t say anything. I came from Chactajal so they wouldn’t follow me. But their evil reaches far.
–Why did they hurt you?
–Because I’ve been a servant in your house. Because I love your parents and you and Mario.
–Is it bad to love us?
–It’s bad to love those who command, those who are the owners. So says the law.
The pot is quiet on the embers. Inside, the coffee has started to boil.
–Tell them to come. Their coffee’s ready.
I go out, sad because of what I’ve just learned. With a gesture, my father dismisses the Indians and he lies in the hammock, reading. Now I look at him for the first time. He is the one who commands, who is the owner. I can’t stand his face and I run to take refuge in the kitchen. The Indians are seated next to the fire and they delicately hold the steaming cups. Nana serves them with a measured courtesy as if they were kings. On their feet, they wear leather sandals, caked with dried mud, and their coarse cotton pants are dirty and patched and the pouches they wear at their sides are empty.
When she’s finished serving them, Nana sits down as well. She solemnly stretches out her hands towards the fire and holds them there for a few moments. They talk and it’s as if a circle had closed around them. I break through, distraught.
–Nana, I’m cold.
And she, as she has always done, ever since I was born, pulls me into her lap. It’s warm and loving, But there’s a wound. A wound that we’ve inflamed.
VI
They say that in the mountains there’s an animal they call the dzulúm.11 Every night he comes out to roam his dominions. He comes to where the lion is with her cubs, and she surrenders the entrails of the freshly killed calf. The dzulúm takes it but he doesn’t eat because he’s not driven by hunger but by the will to command. The tigers, when they smell his presence, flee, making the fallen leaves rustle. The herds awaken decimated and the monkeys, who have no shame, holler in fear from the treetops.
–And what’s the dzulúm like?
–Nobody who has ever seen it has lived. But I’ve heard it said that he’s very beautiful, and even gente de razón12 pay tribute to him.
We’re in the kitchen. The embers throb under a layer of ash. The candle’s flame tells us which direction the wind is blowing. The maids jump, startled, when, in the distance, there’s the sound of thunder. Nana continues.
–Once, a long time ago, we were all in Chactajal. Your grandparents took in an orphan who they treated as their own. Her name was Angelica. She was like a stalk of sugarcane. And so gentle and obedient with her elders. And so loving and considerate with us, those who served her. She had no lack of suitors. But it was as if she no longer considered them or as if she were waiting for someone else. And the days passed. Until one morning, we woke to the news that the dzulúm was stalking around on the far edges of the hacienda. The clues were the devastation that he left everywhere. And a terror that dried up the udders of all the animals who were suckling their young. Angelica sensed it. And when she learned of his presence, she started to tremble like the thoroughbred mares when they see a shadow pass in front of them. And since that day, she never found relief. Her handiwork fell from her hands. She lost her sense of joy and she went around as if she were looking for it in the corners. She would wake, burning with thirst, in the middle of the night to drink the still water. Your grandfather thought she was sick, and he brought in the best healer in the region. The healer came and he asked to speak to her alone. Who knows what she said? But the man came out, frightened, and that night he went back home, slipping off. Angelica wasted away like the wicks of the candles. In the afternoon, she’d go out to walk in the countryside and she’d come back when it was already night, the hem of her dress torn by thorns. And when we asked her where she’d been, she’d only say that she hadn’t found the path and she’d look at us as if pleading for help. And we would all gather around her, not knowing what to say. Until one time she never came back.
Nana takes the tongs and stirs the coal. Outside the rain is knocking against the roof’s tiles.
–The Indians went out looking for her with torches of ocote.13 They went shouting, opening a pathway with their machetes. They followed a trail, and then, suddenly, the trail disappeared. They searched for days and days. They took out the hounds. And they never found a scrap of Angelica’s clothing, not a piece of her body.
–Did the dzulúm carry her off?
–She looked at him and she followed him as if she had been bewitched. And one step led to another until she came to the place where all roads come to an end. He went ahead, beautiful and powerful, with his name that means the desire to die.
VII
This afternoon, we’re going on an excursion. Since early in the morning, the maids have been washing their feet, rubbing them with a stone. Then, from the chest they took out their mirrors with celluloid frames and their wooden combs. They anointed their hair with fragrant oils, braided it with red ribbons and got ready to leave.
My parents rented a car that’s waiting for us outside the door. We all arrange ourselves inside, everyone except for Nana who doesn’t want to come with us because she’s scared. She says that automobiles are the devil’s invention. And she hides herself in the inside patio so as not to see it.
Who knows if Nana’s right? The car is a monster that snorts and exhales smoke. And as soon as it has swallowed us inside, it starts up on the cobblestones. A special sense of smell guides it up against the posts and the cliffs to knock them down. But they graciously keep out of its way and we arrive, without too many bruises, at the Nicalococ Plain.14
It’s the time of year when all the families bring their sons so they can fly their kites. There are many in the sky. There’s Mario’s. It’s made of blue, green and red Chinese paper. It has a very, very long tail. There it is, high above, sounding like it’s just about to tear in two, more gallant and more adventurous than any other. With a lot of string so that it can fly high and swerve and none other can reach it.
The adults place bets. The boys run, pulled by their kites that look for the best air current. Mario trips and falls, his rough knees bleed. But he doesn’t let go of the string and he gets up, not minding what has happened, and he keeps running. We girls look at each other, in our spot, away from the boys.
What an immense place! A plain with no herds where the only animal that plays is the wind. And how, at times, it rears up and knocks over the birds that have come to pose timidly on its rump. And how it neighs. With so much freedom! With so much life!
Now I understand that the voice that I’ve been hearing since I was born is this one. And this is my constant company. I had already seen it, in winter, come armed with long, sharp knives and pierce our flesh distressed with cold. I have felt it in the summer, lazy, yellow with pollen, come close with the taste of wild honey on its lips. And as night falls, howling with fury. And that it is tame in the middle of the day, when the Cabildo clock strikes twelve. And it knocks on doors and upsets vases of flowers and mixes up papers on the desk and wreaks havoc with girls’ dresses. But never, until today, have I come to the house of its power and will. And I stay still, with my eyes lowered because (Nana has told me) it’s in this way that respect looks at that which is great.
–But how stupid you are. You get distracted at the very moment when your brother’s kite wins.
He’s very proud of his success and he goes to hug my parents, breathless, his cheeks red.
It starts to get dark. It’s time to go back to Comitán. As soon as we get back to the house, I look for Nana to tell her my news.
–Do you know what? Today I met the wind. In the wind’s house.
She doesn’t interrupt her work. She continues removing the kernels from the corn, thoughtful and not smiling. But I know she’s happy.
–That’s good, niña. Because the wind is one of the nine guardians of your people.
Translated by Nancy Jean Ross
From Balún Canán, edited by Dora Sales, Madrid: Cátedra: Letras Hispánicas, 2004.
The information included in the footnotes comes from this edition.
Original title: Balún Canán, by Rosario Castellanos, 6th ed., pp. 5-19
© 1957, Fondo de Cultura Económica
Carretera Picacho Ajusco 227, 14110, Mexico City
1 Balún Canán – nine stars, nine guardians. The indigenous name of the city, Comitán. The area was settled by Mayans, part of an empire that included Guatemala, El Salvador, the western part of Honduras, and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Yucatán.
2 tzec – from tzekel, skirt of the indigenous women who speak Tzotzil or Tzeltal, made of black fabric that they would have woven, sometimes dyed with indigo.
3 pichulej – possibly a kind of wide grass used to weave hats.
4 tzisim – a kind of ant that, on the first rainfall, flies out to lay its eggs. It is edible and considered a delicacy.
5 común – bathroom.
6 posol – a pre-Columbian drink made from fermented corn dough (nixtamal) and cacao.
7 Naranja dulce, limón partido – sweet orange, lime in slices.
8 “vamos a la huerta de toro, toronjil”
9 Chactajal – the name of a small settlement in Ocosingo, a district of Chiapas. In the novel, this is where the family, the Argüellos, own a ranch. In actuality, the Castellanos’ family ranch was called El Rosario.
10 guajolote – from the Nahuatl huexolotl – turkey, a domestic bird native to the Americas.
11 dzulúm – dzunun or dzunal, meaning “hummingbird,” exists in many Mayan languages.
12 “gente de razón” – rational people – term used in colonial Latin America to denote people who were culturally Hispanicized, i.e. not indigenous people who lived in indigenous communities.
13 ocote – a resinous and aromatic pine that grows in the wild from Mexico to Nicaragua.
14 Nicolococ Plain – an area near Comitán.
