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chapter 6
A few days later I went to meet Chayo at her aunt's shop. It was early afternoon and Chayo and I were going to see the Stone Gardens which were right on the western edge of town, just below the volcanoes. These gardens, she had told me, were in a small canyon which cut back into a low hill, and where, if I'd understood her right, was to be found the source of the Río Cupatitzio. "It flows out of the rock," she'd said.
Arriving at the shop I passed through the door, and there, perched on a table across the room from me, was a cat. A domestic cat. A kitty cat. A very handsome, dignified, short-haired feline who gazed upon me with bright, soul-piercing eyes that he seemed to share in common with the humans of this establishment. Most remarkably, his coat was white, pure white, a glowing whiteness that could almost have shown in the dark, like the white cougar I had apparently tripped over in the doorway just before that strange experience in the courtyard.
"¿Que pasó?" Chayo asked. She looked at me and then at the cat.
I said nothing for a moment, transfixed by an odd notion forming in my mind. To assure myself that it was indeed a cat, I spoke to him. "Hello, Kitty," I said, approaching him. He hopped down to the floor and slipped by me out the door to the street, as if to avoid interaction with me. Turning back to Chayo, I asked, "Is he your aunt's cat?"
"He lives next door and comes by to visit now and then. His name is Blanco."
"Blanco," I called out in a soft voice, but he did not reappear. "Truly a handsome cat," I said.. "Was he by any chance here the first day I came here?"
"No."
"He wasn't? Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why do you ask?"
"I wonder if I haven't seen him before," I said.
"You could have. As I said, he lives next door."
"I mean the day I arrived in Uruapan. The day I first came to this place."
Chayo shook her head and looked at me wonderingly. "Would you care to tell me about it?"
Many thoughts and questions were flashing into my mind, more than I could hope to express in my limited Spanish, especially as it would require a description of that very strange experience I had had in the courtyard. Even in English, all this would've been difficult. The very nature of what I wanted to know seemed to put me a bit beyond the pale. I did have a feeling that Chayo would understand, but still, I didn't feel I knew her well enough. Not yet anyway. After all, people who have visions are automatically suspect, especially people who turn kitty-cats into mountain lions.
For now, I felt I should leave this for another day. Chayo was looking at me more inquisitively than ever, almost looking through me with that gaze of hers, as if she saw something in me in a world beyond both of us. Maybe she already knew, since she was there that day. I wondered what her experience had been, what she had seen in that courtyard. Maybe she had seen it all, just as I had. But it was all far beyond any Spanish I could summon up, for the time being at least. I said to her, "Please give me a hug," and she did, putting her arms around me and murmuring something soothingly in my ear.
Moments later, I glanced up and there in the doorway sat the white kitty on his haunches, intently watching us as we made ready to leave for the Stone Gardens.
The Cupatitzio was the river we'd crossed each evening when I walked her home, and, as rivers went, it was relatively small. But it still carried a sizable volume of water. What puzzled me was that I'd never seen a spring that produced much more than a trickle, and I couldn't imagine one large enough to create an entire river. Maybe I hadn't heard her rightly.
The Gardens were only a fifteen minute walk. They had been a national park for several decades, the tiniest one in the republic, she told me, only a kilometer long and consisting of twenty hectares. The official name of this park was "Barranca del Cupatitzio."
We entered through a large gate, then followed a path among the trees till we found ourselves looking down into a small canyon. Exposed in the walls of this canyon were ancient flows of black lava, presumably basalt. At the bottom, the Río Cupatitzio rushed along, swirling around large boulders.
We followed it upstream along a path which had been carved into the rock, then we crossed the river on a stone bridge. There were decorative fountains, fed by water diverted into pipes so it could be spouted upwards. In another place water cascaded down a wall of black stone masonry. These footpaths, bridges and fountains were so well designed that they looked quite as natural as the rock itself, and were done on an impressive scale that must have taken decades of effort, blending the best of human craftsmanship with a unique work of nature. The builders had been careful not to overdo it. The river still followed its natural course, its channel left the way it had been since its inception through geological forces.
In a couple of places the river formed pools deep enough to swim in, and children were splashing gleefully around. "An idyllic scene in paradise," I remarked to Chayo. "The water looks invitingly warm."
"No," she said, "step down to the water's edge and put your hand in it."
I did, and it was surprisingly cold.
Continuing upstream we came to a series of springs in the canyon wall. Again I tested the water with my hand, and again, I found that it was almost frigid. How could water here in the tropics could be so cold?
The water flowed out from between a horizontal layer of basalt and an underlying bed of red clay. These springs were relatively small. The main source of the river was just up ahead. When we got to it, I saw a pool nestled among the trees. It was large enough to swim in. Out of it issued the Río Cupatitzio.
The far end of the pool was bounded by black rock--basalt. It appeared to be part of the same lava flow which was exposed in the canyon walls downstream. An underwater spring fed the pool. As Chayo had said, the river flowed out of the rock.
I shook my head in amazement. Despite my studies in geology I wasn't prepared for a spring of this size.
We retraced our steps and followed the river downstream to a place where a side path took us to a ledge in the canyon wall. Here we sat in comfortable silence, gazing down into the water rushing over the rocks.
"That is what I imagine Iceland looks like," I said.
"Iceland? It looks like this?" she said, gesturing at the foliage around us. There was even a palm tree nearby.
"The cold water flowing over the black lava," I said.
She looked down into the water. "You've been in Iceland?"
"Not yet. I hope to see it some day."
"So do I," she said.
"You do?" I looked at her.
"Yes," she nodded, "It's one of my aspirations."
I doubted that she could be referring to the same Iceland I was thinking of, and I asked her, "What do you know about Iceland?"
She recited a poem. About all I caught was the word "Islandia." Then she wrote it out on a page in my journal. I read it carefully, several times over. I could read Spanish much better than I could understand it spoken.
Islandia de la nieve silenciosa
y del agua ferviente.
Isla del día blanco que regresa,
joven y mortal como Baldr.
Iceland of the silent snow
and boiling water.
Island of the white day that returns
young and mortal as Baldr
"Where did you hear it?" I asked. I was surprised and impressed that she knew a poem about Iceland.
"It's by Borges."
"¿Jorge Luis Borges?"
"Yes." Chayo in turn was impressed that I knew who Borges was. Although he was a well-known author, Chayo was surprised that a person from the States would know much about Hispanic literature. "Have you read any of his stories?" she asked.
"Several," I said. "La espera, also El muerto and--" I was about to include Emma Zunz, but that was such a morbid story that I didn't want to mention it. The first two were grim enough.
"¿Emma Zunz?" she queried.
There were moments like this when Chayo seemed to read my thoughts. During these few short days I'd known her she'd done that several times. "Well yes," I conceded. "I was thinking of Emma Zunz."
"What did you think of it?" she said.
"Of Emma Zunz, you mean?"
"Yes."
"A bizarre account of how a daughter avenges the death of her father," I said and paused. "I avoided mentioning it because I thought the story was quite perverse."
"What did you find perverse?" Chayo studied me as I struggled to find words to express my thoughts. "Would you consider Emma Zunz a criminal?"
"No," I said. "I believe Emma was justified in killing the man. He'd betrayed her father's confidence in a business matter, causing his ruin and ultimately his death."
Chayo nodded, and I continued.
"The tragedy," I said, "was that Emma herself obviously didn't feel justified, and so she created a hideous subterfuge to justify her actions to the police, and even to herself. That's what I consider perverse."
Chayo quickly leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you," she said. "That's what I wanted to hear."
I was taken by surprise and couldn't think of anything to say at that moment.
"Yes," Chayo said. "Emma's stratagem was disgusting. But that's how she was able to deal with the situation. That's the kind of person she was."
"Tragic," I said.
"Yes, tragic. But there is another way for a woman to be. A less tragic way."
"How would you have written the story?" I said.
Chayo looked at me for a long moment before replying. She bit her lip and clenched my hand tightly. "The woman in my story would've been a different person. Very different from Emma Zunz. My protagonist wouldn't have felt the least qualm about killing the man who caused her father's death. She would've felt completely justified, and she would've gotten away with it."
I wondered why Chayo felt so passionate about the motivations of Emma Zunz, who was after all just a fictional character. Had someone caused the death of Chayo's father? She'd once told me that he'd passed away some years earlier, but had said nothing about the circumstances. Perhaps it was best not to ask, at least not now.
Gradually the intense look on Chayo's face softened as she gazed into the water. The tight grip of her hand on mine relaxed. "Perdóname," she said.
"For what?"
"For . . . , for getting so serious. How did we get on that subject? What were we talking about?"
"Iceland," I said. "And Borges."
"Yes, Borges," she said the name slowly, almost significantly.
I said, "I'm amazed to hear that Borges wrote poetry about Iceland."
She nodded. "He traveled far and wide, studying the literature and traditions of many lands. I believe that in Iceland he found a land of poetry."
"Yes, poetry. And stories too," I said. "My grandmother used to tell me stories that came from there. We call them sagas."
"I'd like to hear them."
"You would?"
"Of course I would," she said, taking my hand.
I glanced down into the cold water flowing over the black lava. For a few moments I continued to gaze at it, and then something came to me--Urð! For days now, ever since my arrival here in Uruapan, that name had been floating around in the shadowy recesses of my mind, but it hadn't quite come out into the light. Now I'd finally remembered it.
"There was a story about Urð," I said. "She was a mythical person who sat by a magnificent spring, like the one right here."
"¿Urð?" Chayo repeated the name thoughtfully, "That name sounds as though it were taken from the name Uruapan."
"It does," I said. "I was just thinking of that too."
"And what does this woman do as she sits there by the spring? Anything? Or does she just sit there?"
"Her name, Urð, is the Old Norse word meaning fate," I said. "According to the myth, she determines the fortunes of men, and where their journeys will lead them. She writes it all down on slips of wood in the ancient runic script."
"Have you read any of Carl Jung?"
"Some," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"Then you may know that myths contain underlying truths." With an ironic smile, she added, "Could it be that Urð brought you to Uruapan?"
I assumed she was joking. "No doubt about it," I chuckled. "I'm sure it was Urð."
"Perhaps," she said chidingly, "you still think it was an accident that you got on the bus for Uruapan."
That night I had a dream. Grandma was in the kitchen, working and cooking, and talking with someone in Norwegian. From time to time she and the other woman laughed. The two of them were having a good time together. Then I saw that the other woman was Chayo.
continued in Chapter 7
Arriving at the shop I passed through the door, and there, perched on a table across the room from me, was a cat. A domestic cat. A kitty cat. A very handsome, dignified, short-haired feline who gazed upon me with bright, soul-piercing eyes that he seemed to share in common with the humans of this establishment. Most remarkably, his coat was white, pure white, a glowing whiteness that could almost have shown in the dark, like the white cougar I had apparently tripped over in the doorway just before that strange experience in the courtyard.
"¿Que pasó?" Chayo asked. She looked at me and then at the cat.
I said nothing for a moment, transfixed by an odd notion forming in my mind. To assure myself that it was indeed a cat, I spoke to him. "Hello, Kitty," I said, approaching him. He hopped down to the floor and slipped by me out the door to the street, as if to avoid interaction with me. Turning back to Chayo, I asked, "Is he your aunt's cat?"
"He lives next door and comes by to visit now and then. His name is Blanco."
"Blanco," I called out in a soft voice, but he did not reappear. "Truly a handsome cat," I said.. "Was he by any chance here the first day I came here?"
"No."
"He wasn't? Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why do you ask?"
"I wonder if I haven't seen him before," I said.
"You could have. As I said, he lives next door."
"I mean the day I arrived in Uruapan. The day I first came to this place."
Chayo shook her head and looked at me wonderingly. "Would you care to tell me about it?"
Many thoughts and questions were flashing into my mind, more than I could hope to express in my limited Spanish, especially as it would require a description of that very strange experience I had had in the courtyard. Even in English, all this would've been difficult. The very nature of what I wanted to know seemed to put me a bit beyond the pale. I did have a feeling that Chayo would understand, but still, I didn't feel I knew her well enough. Not yet anyway. After all, people who have visions are automatically suspect, especially people who turn kitty-cats into mountain lions.
For now, I felt I should leave this for another day. Chayo was looking at me more inquisitively than ever, almost looking through me with that gaze of hers, as if she saw something in me in a world beyond both of us. Maybe she already knew, since she was there that day. I wondered what her experience had been, what she had seen in that courtyard. Maybe she had seen it all, just as I had. But it was all far beyond any Spanish I could summon up, for the time being at least. I said to her, "Please give me a hug," and she did, putting her arms around me and murmuring something soothingly in my ear.
Moments later, I glanced up and there in the doorway sat the white kitty on his haunches, intently watching us as we made ready to leave for the Stone Gardens.
The Cupatitzio was the river we'd crossed each evening when I walked her home, and, as rivers went, it was relatively small. But it still carried a sizable volume of water. What puzzled me was that I'd never seen a spring that produced much more than a trickle, and I couldn't imagine one large enough to create an entire river. Maybe I hadn't heard her rightly.
The Gardens were only a fifteen minute walk. They had been a national park for several decades, the tiniest one in the republic, she told me, only a kilometer long and consisting of twenty hectares. The official name of this park was "Barranca del Cupatitzio."
We entered through a large gate, then followed a path among the trees till we found ourselves looking down into a small canyon. Exposed in the walls of this canyon were ancient flows of black lava, presumably basalt. At the bottom, the Río Cupatitzio rushed along, swirling around large boulders.
We followed it upstream along a path which had been carved into the rock, then we crossed the river on a stone bridge. There were decorative fountains, fed by water diverted into pipes so it could be spouted upwards. In another place water cascaded down a wall of black stone masonry. These footpaths, bridges and fountains were so well designed that they looked quite as natural as the rock itself, and were done on an impressive scale that must have taken decades of effort, blending the best of human craftsmanship with a unique work of nature. The builders had been careful not to overdo it. The river still followed its natural course, its channel left the way it had been since its inception through geological forces.
In a couple of places the river formed pools deep enough to swim in, and children were splashing gleefully around. "An idyllic scene in paradise," I remarked to Chayo. "The water looks invitingly warm."
"No," she said, "step down to the water's edge and put your hand in it."
I did, and it was surprisingly cold.
Continuing upstream we came to a series of springs in the canyon wall. Again I tested the water with my hand, and again, I found that it was almost frigid. How could water here in the tropics could be so cold?
The water flowed out from between a horizontal layer of basalt and an underlying bed of red clay. These springs were relatively small. The main source of the river was just up ahead. When we got to it, I saw a pool nestled among the trees. It was large enough to swim in. Out of it issued the Río Cupatitzio.
The far end of the pool was bounded by black rock--basalt. It appeared to be part of the same lava flow which was exposed in the canyon walls downstream. An underwater spring fed the pool. As Chayo had said, the river flowed out of the rock.
I shook my head in amazement. Despite my studies in geology I wasn't prepared for a spring of this size.
We retraced our steps and followed the river downstream to a place where a side path took us to a ledge in the canyon wall. Here we sat in comfortable silence, gazing down into the water rushing over the rocks.
"That is what I imagine Iceland looks like," I said.
"Iceland? It looks like this?" she said, gesturing at the foliage around us. There was even a palm tree nearby.
"The cold water flowing over the black lava," I said.
She looked down into the water. "You've been in Iceland?"
"Not yet. I hope to see it some day."
"So do I," she said.
"You do?" I looked at her.
"Yes," she nodded, "It's one of my aspirations."
I doubted that she could be referring to the same Iceland I was thinking of, and I asked her, "What do you know about Iceland?"
She recited a poem. About all I caught was the word "Islandia." Then she wrote it out on a page in my journal. I read it carefully, several times over. I could read Spanish much better than I could understand it spoken.
Islandia de la nieve silenciosa
y del agua ferviente.
Isla del día blanco que regresa,
joven y mortal como Baldr.
Iceland of the silent snow
and boiling water.
Island of the white day that returns
young and mortal as Baldr
"Where did you hear it?" I asked. I was surprised and impressed that she knew a poem about Iceland.
"It's by Borges."
"¿Jorge Luis Borges?"
"Yes." Chayo in turn was impressed that I knew who Borges was. Although he was a well-known author, Chayo was surprised that a person from the States would know much about Hispanic literature. "Have you read any of his stories?" she asked.
"Several," I said. "La espera, also El muerto and--" I was about to include Emma Zunz, but that was such a morbid story that I didn't want to mention it. The first two were grim enough.
"¿Emma Zunz?" she queried.
There were moments like this when Chayo seemed to read my thoughts. During these few short days I'd known her she'd done that several times. "Well yes," I conceded. "I was thinking of Emma Zunz."
"What did you think of it?" she said.
"Of Emma Zunz, you mean?"
"Yes."
"A bizarre account of how a daughter avenges the death of her father," I said and paused. "I avoided mentioning it because I thought the story was quite perverse."
"What did you find perverse?" Chayo studied me as I struggled to find words to express my thoughts. "Would you consider Emma Zunz a criminal?"
"No," I said. "I believe Emma was justified in killing the man. He'd betrayed her father's confidence in a business matter, causing his ruin and ultimately his death."
Chayo nodded, and I continued.
"The tragedy," I said, "was that Emma herself obviously didn't feel justified, and so she created a hideous subterfuge to justify her actions to the police, and even to herself. That's what I consider perverse."
Chayo quickly leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you," she said. "That's what I wanted to hear."
I was taken by surprise and couldn't think of anything to say at that moment.
"Yes," Chayo said. "Emma's stratagem was disgusting. But that's how she was able to deal with the situation. That's the kind of person she was."
"Tragic," I said.
"Yes, tragic. But there is another way for a woman to be. A less tragic way."
"How would you have written the story?" I said.
Chayo looked at me for a long moment before replying. She bit her lip and clenched my hand tightly. "The woman in my story would've been a different person. Very different from Emma Zunz. My protagonist wouldn't have felt the least qualm about killing the man who caused her father's death. She would've felt completely justified, and she would've gotten away with it."
I wondered why Chayo felt so passionate about the motivations of Emma Zunz, who was after all just a fictional character. Had someone caused the death of Chayo's father? She'd once told me that he'd passed away some years earlier, but had said nothing about the circumstances. Perhaps it was best not to ask, at least not now.
Gradually the intense look on Chayo's face softened as she gazed into the water. The tight grip of her hand on mine relaxed. "Perdóname," she said.
"For what?"
"For . . . , for getting so serious. How did we get on that subject? What were we talking about?"
"Iceland," I said. "And Borges."
"Yes, Borges," she said the name slowly, almost significantly.
I said, "I'm amazed to hear that Borges wrote poetry about Iceland."
She nodded. "He traveled far and wide, studying the literature and traditions of many lands. I believe that in Iceland he found a land of poetry."
"Yes, poetry. And stories too," I said. "My grandmother used to tell me stories that came from there. We call them sagas."
"I'd like to hear them."
"You would?"
"Of course I would," she said, taking my hand.
I glanced down into the cold water flowing over the black lava. For a few moments I continued to gaze at it, and then something came to me--Urð! For days now, ever since my arrival here in Uruapan, that name had been floating around in the shadowy recesses of my mind, but it hadn't quite come out into the light. Now I'd finally remembered it.
"There was a story about Urð," I said. "She was a mythical person who sat by a magnificent spring, like the one right here."
"¿Urð?" Chayo repeated the name thoughtfully, "That name sounds as though it were taken from the name Uruapan."
"It does," I said. "I was just thinking of that too."
"And what does this woman do as she sits there by the spring? Anything? Or does she just sit there?"
"Her name, Urð, is the Old Norse word meaning fate," I said. "According to the myth, she determines the fortunes of men, and where their journeys will lead them. She writes it all down on slips of wood in the ancient runic script."
"Have you read any of Carl Jung?"
"Some," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"Then you may know that myths contain underlying truths." With an ironic smile, she added, "Could it be that Urð brought you to Uruapan?"
I assumed she was joking. "No doubt about it," I chuckled. "I'm sure it was Urð."
"Perhaps," she said chidingly, "you still think it was an accident that you got on the bus for Uruapan."
That night I had a dream. Grandma was in the kitchen, working and cooking, and talking with someone in Norwegian. From time to time she and the other woman laughed. The two of them were having a good time together. Then I saw that the other woman was Chayo.
continued in Chapter 7
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