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Chapter 3
My first waking awareness was a feeling of impending doom--I'd heard the low, clear voice of the Chichimeca with the obsidian-edged war club. That voice was silent now, and the Shining Cougar's heavy paw was no longer on my knee. I no longer felt the cat's breath on my face. Instinctively, I tried to pull the blanket tightly about myself, but I was lying on part of it, and as I struggled with it, I could feel an accumulation of grit on my hands. Cautiously, I opened my eyes and glanced around.
A thin ray of brilliant sunlight sliced in through a crack in the door and illuminated the floating dust. There was no window. The ceiling was low, and clouds of dark cobwebs filled the corners and extended down the concrete walls of the tiny room.
I was reassured to see there was no cougar and no Chichimecas. They must have been the fleeting remnants of a dream. The images were fading from my mind, but leaving a dislocated fear. Where was I, anyway? Not in a courtyard. Not now, anyway. I remembered the courtyard, the wraiths that had surrounded me, and that huge, white panther sitting amongst them. Had I dreamt about something that had actually happened?
I stared at the dusty spider webs as I tried to think back and sort things out. I saw my pack on the chair beside me, and then I remembered coming here and renting this place. A little boy had helped me find my way here. A small brown-skinned boy.
More images came to mind. Narrow streets of adobe buildings. A busy plaza. A world of brown-skinned people. Volcanoes. Endless pine forest. An obnoxious chicken.
Yes, of course! I was in México, my ninth day on the road. That was all real. It wasn't just a weird dream I was awakening from. At the very least, this room was real.
The walls were painted a greenish blue, and smeared with dirt. Wads of used chewing gum were stuck to the bedpost. On the floor lay the rag of a shirt and a couple of empty beer cans, left by some previous occupant. Who knew when this place ever got cleaned?
I sat up and dug into my pack to take out my journal. In the semi-darkness I struggled to make out the final entry. It was in my handwriting, jagged and jerky, recorded on a lurching bus:
"10:03 a.m. Town ahead. Not on map."
I remembered writing that. I also remembered events that followed my arrival. My tour of the plaza. The strangely familiar one-eyed man I'd chased after, eventually ending up at the shop where I'd met the woman with a rebozo. I almost had the sense that the one-eyed man had led me there. I kept wondering why I felt him to be so familiar, while at the same time convinced he was someone I'd never seen before.
The woman with the rebozo. She had been so unbelievably beautiful. No, not unbelievably, I'd simply never met a woman so attractive to me, leaving me almost speechless. And then things got certifiably weird and stopped being the kind of stuff that could have happened. Not here. Not anywhere.
I remembered falling on the sidewalk, the sunlight inexplicably turned off, sudden darkness, surrounded by the Chichimecas with their war clubs and painted faces, while at the same time sitting at the pila having my face washed by the woman with the rebozo. A woman whose name was Chayo. Chayo?
Had I got that right? In Spanish, feminine names didn't normally end in 'o'. Well, yes, some did, but it was rare. I'd never before heard of a name like Chayo.
My dreams were often vivid, and the most unbelievable images had often stayed with me for hours or even days. Once, a couple of years before, I'd gotten up in the middle of the night to go out in the back yard to look at an ancient Norse runestone. Of course there'd been no runestone, and I'd known very well that there couldn't possibly be any such thing out there. Nevertheless, for the next several days the absurd notion had persisted, even though I'd repeatedly gone out there in person and confirmed that the runestone didn't exist.
That was the bizarre thing about my dreams: impossible images could sometimes seem absolutely real. The reverse also happened – real stuff could seem like fantasy, and, sometimes, somebody or something that I'd concluded to be fantasy would occasionally turn out to be real. It was hard at times to keep daytime reality and my dream stuff separate.
I sighed and tried to think of something else. Something solid and reassuring.
The name of this town. What was it again? I looked at my map, holding it under the ray of sunlight that cut in through the door. Uruapan. Why did that word tug at my mind?
I glanced at my watch. 11:35. How long had I slept? According to my journal, I'd arrived here on Wednesday. Now it had to be Thursday. That meant that I'd slept for more than 24 hours. Was that possible?
I opened the door and stepped out into the bright tropical sunshine; I was on a balcony overlooking a courtyard. My room was on the second story and this balcony ran the full length of the building, functioning as a sort of open-air hallway. At both ends of it were stairways. Across the courtyard was another row of rooms, also part of this hotel, but they were only one story high. This kind of construction was fairly typical of the hotels I'd been staying in for the last nine days, though not all had a second story.
In the courtyard below, a woman was washing clothes in a pila. It was in such a pila that Chayo had rinsed out the cloth with which she'd wiped my face. And that's when the white cougar had padded up to me and put his heavy paw on my knee, in that incredible untimely darkness. And the Chichimeca with the war club had spoken to me in a strange language which I had somehow understood.
Really? Had all that really happened?
And if so, what had he said to me? I couldn't remember.
I shook my head and gazed at the pila. Every house had one, and they all looked like they came from the same factory. It was a simple, rectangular concrete basin for holding water, and at one end was a flat space for washing clothes and dishes.
Near the pila stood a tree with shiny green leaves and large yellow flowers. White clouds floated across the blue sky above, and the rattle of noisy vehicles came from the nearby street.
The rather low angle of the sun suggested late afternoon--or early morning. Whatever my watch said, this couldn't be eleven thirty five. I took another look at it. The second hand wasn't moving. No? How could that be? This was a reliable watch. I'd had it for years now, and this was the first time it had ever stopped.
Holding it to my ear, my hand brushed across my face and touched something. The bandage! I pressed it and felt a tinge of pain. Then I remembered the woman applying it. So that part of my memory was valid.
She existed! The woman with the scar on her face and those eyes that peered straight through me. I sighed deeply.
By degrees, my sense of disorientation was clearing up.
From sheer force of habit I glanced again at my watch. The second hand was moving now. It had started again. I went downstairs to the registration desk to get the correct time. I recognized the clerk as the one who had checked me in. It was 5:20 p.m., he told me. I was too embarrassed to ask him what day it was. Fortunately, there was a newspaper lying there, and I glanced at the date. It was still Wednesday, the day of my arrival. I asked if it was today's paper and he affirmed it was. So I'd slept only for a few hours, not an entire day.
I was about to return to my room when the clerk remembered there was a message for me. For me? Yes, a little boy had been here an hour ago and left it for me. I struggled to think of who that might be and then it came to me. Panchito, who'd brought me here.
The message was signed "Chayo." I gasped. To think that she not only existed, but had even sent me a note!
I took it upstairs and read it several times. It was in Spanish, but brief and simply written. She expressed concern about me, hoping I was okay. Since I was new in town, perhaps I might like to accompany her to an event in the plaza this evening. She'd get off work at eight o'clock. A las ocho. There was also an address, presumably of her shop.
I felt reassured and also elated. I was going to see her again, this attractive woman with the piercing eyes, this woman who had ushered me into such an amazing other-worldly experience, right there in her aunt's courtyard.
A las ocho--that would be in another two and a half hours. Then it occurred to me that I should write down the events and experiences of that morning: the volcanoes, the chicken on the bus, my first sight of this town in its edge-of-the-world setting, the one-eyed man, my meeting with Chayo, and finally the Chichimecas. It was best to do it while it was still fresh in my mind. I just wished that my utter fatigue hadn't precluded my recording it before I'd fallen asleep, especially the scene with the Chichimecas--that would've eliminated any doubt that my memory of the vision was not just a product of my exhausted sleep.
I took up my journal and began writing. I omitted nothing, no matter how bizarre. I spent some time at this, and I felt much better about the experience as I wrote. The act of putting these images on the pages drained off some of the trauma and cleared my mind to recall more of the details. But when I got to the part where the Chichimeca with the obsidian-edged war club spoke to me, I couldn't recall anything he'd said. It disturbed me profoundly.
At the time, I thought I'd understood every word. He'd spoken slowly and clearly, but now I wasn't even sure what language he'd spoken. Presumably it was the language of an ancient, indigenous people, a language perhaps no longer understood by any living person, certainly not by me. And yet I'd understood every word of it.
Except for one thing. I had the vague remembrance of something they had wanted me to do for them. Some kind of task. What could it have been?
Maybe it would come back to me later. I continued with my account, bringing it up to where I'd arrived at this hotel, and included the dream I'd woken up from. When I finished it was nearly seven o'clock. Time to get ready.
The thought that I'd shortly be seeing Chayo began to give me a feeling of apprehension. It was more than just a concern about my usual social awkwardness with women. There was a sense of something mythological about her, something beyond flesh and blood. I stepped out onto the balcony, stretched my arms and back and took a deep breath as I looked out across the roof tops at the gently rolling hills beyond. The volcanoes. There weren't any volcanoes! How could that be? I'd seen so many that morning; the town was nestled among them.
Something was very weird about this place. This whole town. I gripped the balcony handrail tightly, very tightly, desperately trying to hang on to reality. As I did so, a brief stab of pain shot through one hand--that obnoxious chicken who'd jabbed me with his beak. That damned chicken!
I looked at my wound, and, as I did so, another thought came to me. That damned chicken had character!
Maybe there was a good reason for me to be here, in this strange town I hadn't planned on coming to. Perhaps, in some weird sort of way, I had even been slated to meet that chicken. If I'd really wanted everything to be easy and free of risk, then I shouldn't have come to México in the first place.
Hurrying to get ready, I went to take a shower and found there was no hot water. So I showered with cold water, but didn't stay long. When I emerged, it was dark. Night had fallen. Twilight is short in the tropics.
Without too much difficulty, I found my way back to the shop. At the entrance I hesitated, took a deep breath, then stepped through the tall door.
"Buenas noches," I said as Chayo looked up at me.
A warm look appeared on her face, almost a smile. She was putting some things away and I stood there watching her as she finished up. Her dress was long, falling nearly to her ankles, but displayed a well-shaped figure as she moved about. Everything about her was attractive to me, even her feet, clad so simply in the sandals she wore.
"¿Puedo ayudarte?" I said after a bit, offering to help. I said it out of courtesy although I didn't really see anything for me to do, but she put me to work moving some heavy items across the room.
All this time I was hardly able to take my eyes off her. The scar on the side of her face was faintly visible; it made her more vulnerable, which added to her attractiveness.
She soon finished what needed to be done, after which we walked over to the plaza. It was the same one I'd visited that morning, though it appeared different in the night. On all sides of it ran the busy streets full of noisy cars, trucks and buses--perhaps the traffic had been just as congested that morning, but I hadn't paid it much notice. The blaze of headlights added to the glow of shops and restaurants of the surrounding arcade. The plaza itself was dark, the trees and hedges forming a shadowy patch of jungle in the midst of the bright lights and activity.
The plaza was also longer than I remembered it. Music came from the far end, where a mariachi band was playing on a stage. They wore charro, the embroidered sombreros, jackets and trousers which was the traditional costume for festive occasions. I'd seen charro in movies and photos, but it surprised me to find people in México wearing these clothes.
"My father dressed like that for fiestas," Chayo remarked.
I asked if he lived here in town. She shook her head, and explained that he'd died some years ago. The family had owned a ranch, she told me during an interlude between sets. A brief look of pain passed across her face when she mentioned her father.
The band began their next set. For a moment I thought they were playing dance music, and that worried me because I didn't know a single step, but to my relief nobody seemed to be dancing. People mostly stood still or milled around, enjoying the music. Sometimes it was just instrumental music, and sometimes there were also vocals.
I closed my eyes and listened; even with them shut I could feel Chayo standing there beside me. I wondered if I dared hold her hand. A new song was starting.
Una pasión me domina
y es la que me hizo venir
A passion dominates me
and that's what brought me here
For once I was able to understand the lyrics. I touched Chayo's hand. She responded by taking my hand in hers and giving it a squeeze. It was my sore hand and a slight pain shot through it, but it didn't matter.
The music continued, sometimes with lyrics. The mariachis, the lights, the shadows, the ambiance, and even the mystical-sounding name of this town created a sense of enchantment. Eventually the mariachis took a break. Chayo and I stood there holding hands, looking at one another. For some moments neither of us said anything. We were standing in the shadows, but her face was lit up and animated, almost shining in the darkness. I wished for a way to make this moment last.
Chayo gave my hand another squeeze, and seeing me wince, asked if my hand hurt.
"No," I said.
"¿No?" She squeezed again, grinning wryly as she did so. This time I admitted that yes, it did hurt. She looked at the wound closely and said, "This didn't happen when you fell, did it?"
I told her how I'd been stabbed by an obnoxious chicken.
"A chicken?" she said. "A chicken inflicted such a wound?" Then she held my hand up to her lips and kissed it. Instantly, the pain was gone.
I wondered how she'd done that, but it seemed almost natural. From the very first moment I'd seen her that morning, I'd sensed that she might be a person with unusual gifts and powers.
It also helped that she'd stopped squeezing my sore hand. I was still thinking about that when she said, "What brought you to Uruapan?"
I didn't want to admit that I'd gotten on the wrong bus, or, even more importantly, that I hadn't intended even to come to Uruapan in the first place, so I tried to think of a face-saving explanation that wouldn't be a total lie. Finally I replied that it was my interest in volcanoes.
"¿Los volcánes?" she repeated.
I told her I'd studied geology and that volcanoes were a subject of interest to me. It then occurred to me that by having expressed a professional interest in the natural phenomena of this region, I'd also established a credible pretext for staying here for a while. After all, as much as I now wanted to stay, I certainly didn't want to say that my interest in her had anything to do with my decision. That would've been too forward.
I went on to mention Paricutín, the cornfield volcano, and told her I'd read about it several times since I was a child. "Is it difficult to get there?" I asked.
"I'd be happy to show you the way," she said. "If you'd like."
I assured her that I'd like that very much. I added that there was also another matter I could use her help in.
"Yes?"
I thought about the fact that I needed a place to stay, something a bit cleaner than the hotel I was in. A place where they served meals was what I had in mind, and I tried to think of the word for boarding house. Then it came to me--pensión. I told her I was looking for a "pensión."
"For your car?" she said.
"My car? I don't have one. I came here by bus."
"Then why do you need a pensión?"
"To live in."
For a moment she looked puzzled, then told me that a pensión is where one keeps an automobile.
"Oh."
She suggested that I perhaps meant casa de huespedes.
"Yes." I remembered the words now that she said them. "But doesn't "pensión" also mean the same thing?
Chayo looked at me for a moment. "You're right. Pensión is a Spanish word for hotel. But here in Michoacán we use some words differently."
"I see."
She told me of a place she had in mind. The proprietor had been a friend of her father. She would take me there tomorrow afternoon, during the lunch time. If I liked it, then fine, and if I didn't, then she'd help me look somewhere else. There were several hotels that offered monthly rates.
The music started up again.
continued in Chapter 4
A thin ray of brilliant sunlight sliced in through a crack in the door and illuminated the floating dust. There was no window. The ceiling was low, and clouds of dark cobwebs filled the corners and extended down the concrete walls of the tiny room.
I was reassured to see there was no cougar and no Chichimecas. They must have been the fleeting remnants of a dream. The images were fading from my mind, but leaving a dislocated fear. Where was I, anyway? Not in a courtyard. Not now, anyway. I remembered the courtyard, the wraiths that had surrounded me, and that huge, white panther sitting amongst them. Had I dreamt about something that had actually happened?
I stared at the dusty spider webs as I tried to think back and sort things out. I saw my pack on the chair beside me, and then I remembered coming here and renting this place. A little boy had helped me find my way here. A small brown-skinned boy.
More images came to mind. Narrow streets of adobe buildings. A busy plaza. A world of brown-skinned people. Volcanoes. Endless pine forest. An obnoxious chicken.
Yes, of course! I was in México, my ninth day on the road. That was all real. It wasn't just a weird dream I was awakening from. At the very least, this room was real.
The walls were painted a greenish blue, and smeared with dirt. Wads of used chewing gum were stuck to the bedpost. On the floor lay the rag of a shirt and a couple of empty beer cans, left by some previous occupant. Who knew when this place ever got cleaned?
I sat up and dug into my pack to take out my journal. In the semi-darkness I struggled to make out the final entry. It was in my handwriting, jagged and jerky, recorded on a lurching bus:
"10:03 a.m. Town ahead. Not on map."
I remembered writing that. I also remembered events that followed my arrival. My tour of the plaza. The strangely familiar one-eyed man I'd chased after, eventually ending up at the shop where I'd met the woman with a rebozo. I almost had the sense that the one-eyed man had led me there. I kept wondering why I felt him to be so familiar, while at the same time convinced he was someone I'd never seen before.
The woman with the rebozo. She had been so unbelievably beautiful. No, not unbelievably, I'd simply never met a woman so attractive to me, leaving me almost speechless. And then things got certifiably weird and stopped being the kind of stuff that could have happened. Not here. Not anywhere.
I remembered falling on the sidewalk, the sunlight inexplicably turned off, sudden darkness, surrounded by the Chichimecas with their war clubs and painted faces, while at the same time sitting at the pila having my face washed by the woman with the rebozo. A woman whose name was Chayo. Chayo?
Had I got that right? In Spanish, feminine names didn't normally end in 'o'. Well, yes, some did, but it was rare. I'd never before heard of a name like Chayo.
My dreams were often vivid, and the most unbelievable images had often stayed with me for hours or even days. Once, a couple of years before, I'd gotten up in the middle of the night to go out in the back yard to look at an ancient Norse runestone. Of course there'd been no runestone, and I'd known very well that there couldn't possibly be any such thing out there. Nevertheless, for the next several days the absurd notion had persisted, even though I'd repeatedly gone out there in person and confirmed that the runestone didn't exist.
That was the bizarre thing about my dreams: impossible images could sometimes seem absolutely real. The reverse also happened – real stuff could seem like fantasy, and, sometimes, somebody or something that I'd concluded to be fantasy would occasionally turn out to be real. It was hard at times to keep daytime reality and my dream stuff separate.
I sighed and tried to think of something else. Something solid and reassuring.
The name of this town. What was it again? I looked at my map, holding it under the ray of sunlight that cut in through the door. Uruapan. Why did that word tug at my mind?
I glanced at my watch. 11:35. How long had I slept? According to my journal, I'd arrived here on Wednesday. Now it had to be Thursday. That meant that I'd slept for more than 24 hours. Was that possible?
I opened the door and stepped out into the bright tropical sunshine; I was on a balcony overlooking a courtyard. My room was on the second story and this balcony ran the full length of the building, functioning as a sort of open-air hallway. At both ends of it were stairways. Across the courtyard was another row of rooms, also part of this hotel, but they were only one story high. This kind of construction was fairly typical of the hotels I'd been staying in for the last nine days, though not all had a second story.
In the courtyard below, a woman was washing clothes in a pila. It was in such a pila that Chayo had rinsed out the cloth with which she'd wiped my face. And that's when the white cougar had padded up to me and put his heavy paw on my knee, in that incredible untimely darkness. And the Chichimeca with the war club had spoken to me in a strange language which I had somehow understood.
Really? Had all that really happened?
And if so, what had he said to me? I couldn't remember.
I shook my head and gazed at the pila. Every house had one, and they all looked like they came from the same factory. It was a simple, rectangular concrete basin for holding water, and at one end was a flat space for washing clothes and dishes.
Near the pila stood a tree with shiny green leaves and large yellow flowers. White clouds floated across the blue sky above, and the rattle of noisy vehicles came from the nearby street.
The rather low angle of the sun suggested late afternoon--or early morning. Whatever my watch said, this couldn't be eleven thirty five. I took another look at it. The second hand wasn't moving. No? How could that be? This was a reliable watch. I'd had it for years now, and this was the first time it had ever stopped.
Holding it to my ear, my hand brushed across my face and touched something. The bandage! I pressed it and felt a tinge of pain. Then I remembered the woman applying it. So that part of my memory was valid.
She existed! The woman with the scar on her face and those eyes that peered straight through me. I sighed deeply.
By degrees, my sense of disorientation was clearing up.
From sheer force of habit I glanced again at my watch. The second hand was moving now. It had started again. I went downstairs to the registration desk to get the correct time. I recognized the clerk as the one who had checked me in. It was 5:20 p.m., he told me. I was too embarrassed to ask him what day it was. Fortunately, there was a newspaper lying there, and I glanced at the date. It was still Wednesday, the day of my arrival. I asked if it was today's paper and he affirmed it was. So I'd slept only for a few hours, not an entire day.
I was about to return to my room when the clerk remembered there was a message for me. For me? Yes, a little boy had been here an hour ago and left it for me. I struggled to think of who that might be and then it came to me. Panchito, who'd brought me here.
The message was signed "Chayo." I gasped. To think that she not only existed, but had even sent me a note!
I took it upstairs and read it several times. It was in Spanish, but brief and simply written. She expressed concern about me, hoping I was okay. Since I was new in town, perhaps I might like to accompany her to an event in the plaza this evening. She'd get off work at eight o'clock. A las ocho. There was also an address, presumably of her shop.
I felt reassured and also elated. I was going to see her again, this attractive woman with the piercing eyes, this woman who had ushered me into such an amazing other-worldly experience, right there in her aunt's courtyard.
A las ocho--that would be in another two and a half hours. Then it occurred to me that I should write down the events and experiences of that morning: the volcanoes, the chicken on the bus, my first sight of this town in its edge-of-the-world setting, the one-eyed man, my meeting with Chayo, and finally the Chichimecas. It was best to do it while it was still fresh in my mind. I just wished that my utter fatigue hadn't precluded my recording it before I'd fallen asleep, especially the scene with the Chichimecas--that would've eliminated any doubt that my memory of the vision was not just a product of my exhausted sleep.
I took up my journal and began writing. I omitted nothing, no matter how bizarre. I spent some time at this, and I felt much better about the experience as I wrote. The act of putting these images on the pages drained off some of the trauma and cleared my mind to recall more of the details. But when I got to the part where the Chichimeca with the obsidian-edged war club spoke to me, I couldn't recall anything he'd said. It disturbed me profoundly.
At the time, I thought I'd understood every word. He'd spoken slowly and clearly, but now I wasn't even sure what language he'd spoken. Presumably it was the language of an ancient, indigenous people, a language perhaps no longer understood by any living person, certainly not by me. And yet I'd understood every word of it.
Except for one thing. I had the vague remembrance of something they had wanted me to do for them. Some kind of task. What could it have been?
Maybe it would come back to me later. I continued with my account, bringing it up to where I'd arrived at this hotel, and included the dream I'd woken up from. When I finished it was nearly seven o'clock. Time to get ready.
The thought that I'd shortly be seeing Chayo began to give me a feeling of apprehension. It was more than just a concern about my usual social awkwardness with women. There was a sense of something mythological about her, something beyond flesh and blood. I stepped out onto the balcony, stretched my arms and back and took a deep breath as I looked out across the roof tops at the gently rolling hills beyond. The volcanoes. There weren't any volcanoes! How could that be? I'd seen so many that morning; the town was nestled among them.
Something was very weird about this place. This whole town. I gripped the balcony handrail tightly, very tightly, desperately trying to hang on to reality. As I did so, a brief stab of pain shot through one hand--that obnoxious chicken who'd jabbed me with his beak. That damned chicken!
I looked at my wound, and, as I did so, another thought came to me. That damned chicken had character!
Maybe there was a good reason for me to be here, in this strange town I hadn't planned on coming to. Perhaps, in some weird sort of way, I had even been slated to meet that chicken. If I'd really wanted everything to be easy and free of risk, then I shouldn't have come to México in the first place.
Hurrying to get ready, I went to take a shower and found there was no hot water. So I showered with cold water, but didn't stay long. When I emerged, it was dark. Night had fallen. Twilight is short in the tropics.
Without too much difficulty, I found my way back to the shop. At the entrance I hesitated, took a deep breath, then stepped through the tall door.
"Buenas noches," I said as Chayo looked up at me.
A warm look appeared on her face, almost a smile. She was putting some things away and I stood there watching her as she finished up. Her dress was long, falling nearly to her ankles, but displayed a well-shaped figure as she moved about. Everything about her was attractive to me, even her feet, clad so simply in the sandals she wore.
"¿Puedo ayudarte?" I said after a bit, offering to help. I said it out of courtesy although I didn't really see anything for me to do, but she put me to work moving some heavy items across the room.
All this time I was hardly able to take my eyes off her. The scar on the side of her face was faintly visible; it made her more vulnerable, which added to her attractiveness.
She soon finished what needed to be done, after which we walked over to the plaza. It was the same one I'd visited that morning, though it appeared different in the night. On all sides of it ran the busy streets full of noisy cars, trucks and buses--perhaps the traffic had been just as congested that morning, but I hadn't paid it much notice. The blaze of headlights added to the glow of shops and restaurants of the surrounding arcade. The plaza itself was dark, the trees and hedges forming a shadowy patch of jungle in the midst of the bright lights and activity.
The plaza was also longer than I remembered it. Music came from the far end, where a mariachi band was playing on a stage. They wore charro, the embroidered sombreros, jackets and trousers which was the traditional costume for festive occasions. I'd seen charro in movies and photos, but it surprised me to find people in México wearing these clothes.
"My father dressed like that for fiestas," Chayo remarked.
I asked if he lived here in town. She shook her head, and explained that he'd died some years ago. The family had owned a ranch, she told me during an interlude between sets. A brief look of pain passed across her face when she mentioned her father.
The band began their next set. For a moment I thought they were playing dance music, and that worried me because I didn't know a single step, but to my relief nobody seemed to be dancing. People mostly stood still or milled around, enjoying the music. Sometimes it was just instrumental music, and sometimes there were also vocals.
I closed my eyes and listened; even with them shut I could feel Chayo standing there beside me. I wondered if I dared hold her hand. A new song was starting.
Una pasión me domina
y es la que me hizo venir
A passion dominates me
and that's what brought me here
For once I was able to understand the lyrics. I touched Chayo's hand. She responded by taking my hand in hers and giving it a squeeze. It was my sore hand and a slight pain shot through it, but it didn't matter.
The music continued, sometimes with lyrics. The mariachis, the lights, the shadows, the ambiance, and even the mystical-sounding name of this town created a sense of enchantment. Eventually the mariachis took a break. Chayo and I stood there holding hands, looking at one another. For some moments neither of us said anything. We were standing in the shadows, but her face was lit up and animated, almost shining in the darkness. I wished for a way to make this moment last.
Chayo gave my hand another squeeze, and seeing me wince, asked if my hand hurt.
"No," I said.
"¿No?" She squeezed again, grinning wryly as she did so. This time I admitted that yes, it did hurt. She looked at the wound closely and said, "This didn't happen when you fell, did it?"
I told her how I'd been stabbed by an obnoxious chicken.
"A chicken?" she said. "A chicken inflicted such a wound?" Then she held my hand up to her lips and kissed it. Instantly, the pain was gone.
I wondered how she'd done that, but it seemed almost natural. From the very first moment I'd seen her that morning, I'd sensed that she might be a person with unusual gifts and powers.
It also helped that she'd stopped squeezing my sore hand. I was still thinking about that when she said, "What brought you to Uruapan?"
I didn't want to admit that I'd gotten on the wrong bus, or, even more importantly, that I hadn't intended even to come to Uruapan in the first place, so I tried to think of a face-saving explanation that wouldn't be a total lie. Finally I replied that it was my interest in volcanoes.
"¿Los volcánes?" she repeated.
I told her I'd studied geology and that volcanoes were a subject of interest to me. It then occurred to me that by having expressed a professional interest in the natural phenomena of this region, I'd also established a credible pretext for staying here for a while. After all, as much as I now wanted to stay, I certainly didn't want to say that my interest in her had anything to do with my decision. That would've been too forward.
I went on to mention Paricutín, the cornfield volcano, and told her I'd read about it several times since I was a child. "Is it difficult to get there?" I asked.
"I'd be happy to show you the way," she said. "If you'd like."
I assured her that I'd like that very much. I added that there was also another matter I could use her help in.
"Yes?"
I thought about the fact that I needed a place to stay, something a bit cleaner than the hotel I was in. A place where they served meals was what I had in mind, and I tried to think of the word for boarding house. Then it came to me--pensión. I told her I was looking for a "pensión."
"For your car?" she said.
"My car? I don't have one. I came here by bus."
"Then why do you need a pensión?"
"To live in."
For a moment she looked puzzled, then told me that a pensión is where one keeps an automobile.
"Oh."
She suggested that I perhaps meant casa de huespedes.
"Yes." I remembered the words now that she said them. "But doesn't "pensión" also mean the same thing?
Chayo looked at me for a moment. "You're right. Pensión is a Spanish word for hotel. But here in Michoacán we use some words differently."
"I see."
She told me of a place she had in mind. The proprietor had been a friend of her father. She would take me there tomorrow afternoon, during the lunch time. If I liked it, then fine, and if I didn't, then she'd help me look somewhere else. There were several hotels that offered monthly rates.
The music started up again.
continued in Chapter 4
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