by Loretta Miles Tollefson
Christine is the only American girl in her New Mexico village. She badly wants to participate in the village’s traditional nine-day-long Christmas celebration, but her mother thinks she’ll be infected with “foreign” ideas. The village’s old women also think la gringa should stay home. Will Christine find a way to get what she wants? And what will she learn if she does?
Gabriela looked bravely into the young priest’s face. “Christina wants to sing in las posadas,” she said. She squeezed her blond americano friend’s hand. The two girls looked at each other triumphantly. There, she’d said it. She’d really and truly asked.
“For shame!” hissed the old woman at the priest’s elbow. She adjusted the black shawl that covered her head and glared at the two girls. “La americana es no catolica!” She stamped the ground with her cane and moved forward, trying to catch Padre Paul’s eye, but he remained stubbornly focused on the children.
“Have you consulted your parents?” he asked Christine.
The child’s eyes dropped and she shook her head.
“But she wants it!” Gabriela tossed her long black braids over her shoulders and bounced a little on her heels. “It’s important to her!”
The priest gave her a stern look. “What is the fifth commandment?”
The girls looked at each other and repeated in unison, “Honra á tu padre y á tu madre.” Honor your father and your mother.”
He nodded to Christine. “If your parents agree, you may participate in las posadas.” He lifted a stern finger. “But only if they agree.”
The girls nodded solemnly and turned away, heads together, plotting how best to obtain permission. Christine’s father would be easy. It was her mother who would resist.
“Humph!” The old woman moved forward again, boldly blocking the padre’s path. She tilted her black-covered head, looked him in the face, and tapped her cane on the ground authoritatively. “The American girl is not Catholic,” she repeated. “She is not one of us.”
The priest gave her a long look. “What you say is true, Señora Martín,” he said. “But she is a child and wishes to be part of our community. Would you deny her that wish?”
“She is a gringa!” María Antonia Martín snapped. “She knows nothing of la comunidad. And less than nothing of las posadas and its meanings.”
The priest’s mouth twitched. As a Frenchman, he knew only a little more about New Mexico’s Christmas traditions than did the ten year old Protestant girl. “Participating in the rituals could bring her to a knowledge of the true church,” he said mildly.
“Humph.” The old woman turned away. “It is no matter. I am sure her mother will not allow her to participate.” Her lips twisted and she nodded toward the little village chapel behind the priest. “El sanctuario is undoubtedly safe from such a travesty.” The señora stumped off across the cold and dusty plaza. The priest watched her go. The black reboso that covered her head and shoulders merged with her long black dress and made her look from the back like a cloth-covered tree stump with two black feet.
A smile glimmered on Padre Paul’s lips, then he shook his head wearily and turned back to the church.
* * *
“And why in creation would you want to participate in such a travesty?” Christine’s mother turned from the cook stove, her long-handled wooden spoon in the air. “A clutch of villagers parading down the middle of a muddy street, making what they call music and screeching at the top of their voices.” She shook her head. “It won’t be like the services at Christ Church last Christmas,” she warned.
“I know it will be different from Philadelphia, Mama.” Christine tried to keep the impatience from her voice as she placed the dinner china on the rough wooden table. “But the songs they sing are very old and Gabriela says they are quite beautiful. They reenact the story of Mary and Joseph finding a place to stay in Bethlehem. It’s not for just one night like at Christ Church. It lasts for nine whole nights, and each night ends with food and drink and Christmas carols.”
“Not our Christmas carols, I’ll be bound!” her mother said. “And how will you know what the songs say? They’ll all be in that heathenish Spanish!” She shook her head and turned back to the pot of stew. “Nine days of Christmas. What will they think of next?” She shook her head. “I’ll not have you cavorting around with those Mexican children any more than you absolutely must.” Her eyes narrowed and she turned to look at Christine. “You were up quite early this morning, young lady. When I called you for prayers, you were already outside. Where did you go?”
Christine kept her eyes down as she straightened the knife and fork at her father’s place setting. “I was with Gabriela. She was talking to the priest.”
“What? The priest?” Her mother took a step away from the stove, then recovered herself, placed the dripping spoon on the counter and turned, her hands on her hips. “You stay away from that man, you hear? Catholic priests—” She paused. “Well. They are not good people, that’s all there is to it. They have a propensity—” She stopped again. “Not only is he Catholic, but—.” She shook her head and raised her chin. “I will not permit it!” she declared. “You stay away from that man and that church, or I’ll have your father whip you from here to next week! Do you hear me?”
Christine’s hands dropped to her sides. She stared down at the scarred surface of the wooden table. “Yes, Mama.”
“Good. That’s settled then.” Her mother turned back to the stove and began stirring the stew more vigorously than was strictly necessary. “Not only do I have to contend with primitive conditions and a lack of decent food supplies, but now my own daughter is being sucked down into the Catholic morass.” She lifted the spoon, knocked it sharply against the edge of the pot to remove the excess stew, and moved to the sink. “Nine days of Christmas, indeed. We’ve been six months in this dirty hell hole already and who knows how much longer? What that man was thinking is beyond my comprehension.” The spoon dropped into the sink and she whirled around and glared at her daughter, who still stood staring at the table. “And from now on, we will have prayers every morning and you will attend them,” she said, hands on her hips. “If you do not, you will be restricted to the house for the remainder of that day. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Mama,” Christine said again, trying not to let the tears show in her voice. “I hear you.”
“Now go out and bring in more wood,” her mother snapped. “But not piñon. I don’t want the oven to get too hot, or the biscuits will burn again. I’d like them to be edible this time, for a change.”
Nothing was said at dinner about Christine’s desire to participate in the village’s Christmas procession, but her father could see that his women had been quarreling. He didn’t ask what the argument was about. He’d learned long ago that he had great authority over his mercantile operation, but little or none in his household. Especially when his wife sat tight-lipped at the other end of the table and his daughter kept her golden curls between his eyes and her own.
He read to them after dinner, a little something from Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice while his women did their handiwork by the light of the fire. But even Mrs. Bennett couldn’t bring a smile to his wife’s lips.
After a bit, he set the book aside. “Something interesting happened at the store today,” he said.
She looked up, eyes smoldering. “I don’t understand how you can think that anything which happens in that shop is the least bit interesting,” she snapped. “Unless you’ve finally come to your senses and discovered that there’s no real money to be made trading in wool and we can leave this God forsaken place once and for all, and return to Philadelphia and civilization!”
He raised his eyebrows, opened his mouth, shut it again, then lifted himself out of his seat. “Well, I’m going to bed,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”
As he left the room, he heard a small sniff from Christine’s chair. He glanced back. The child’s face was still bent over her work, but her hand had slipped up to wipe away a tear. He sighed and shook his head. Well, if she wanted badly enough for him to know what the quarrel was about, she’d find a way to tell him.
Sure enough, when he left the mercantile for lunch the next day, Christine was waiting at the bottom of the broad wooden steps in the brilliant December sunshine. She wore her bonnet, which he knew she despised, so he guessed that she was trying once again to accommodate her mother. He smiled to himself. The child must want whatever it was she wanted very badly. First the bonnet, and then coming to meet him this way. It wasn’t often that she joined him for his noonday walk home.
He slipped his hand over hers. “Hello, sweet girl of mine,” he said. “How has your day been so far?”
Christine tilted her head to one side. “All right, I suppose,” she said. “How has yours been?”
“Well, something happened yesterday that I thought you’d find interesting,” he said.
She lifted her chin. He could just see a slice of her face beyond the bonnet’s broad rim. “Is it what you were going to tell us last night?” she asked.
He nodded, pleased at the spark of interest in her voice. “Both clerks and all three laborers came to me yesterday,” he said. “They asked to leave early each evening for the nine days before Christmas. In fact, they suggested that I close the store up early on those nights. They want to participate in what they call las posadas. Do you know what that is?”
Her head jerked back and her delighted eyes blazed into his, then she turned back to face the dusty, hard-packed dirt street. “I’ve heard of it,” she said indifferently. “Gabriela told me a little.”
He gave her a long, considering look. So that’s what she and her mother had been arguing about. “What did she tell you?”
“Just that it’s the old Mexican way to celebrate Christmas,” she said, still watching the street. “Only it’s not right at Christmas, it’s before, and they act everything out. And there’s music and singing, and they go from house to house and people give them good things to eat and the whole village—” She stopped, suddenly aware of the way her voice had risen with excitement and interest.
“That’s more than the men told me,” her father said. “Although it did sound as if the entire village participates in the event. The clerks don’t seem to think we’ll have any customers during those evenings.”
“The entire village except for me,” Christine said to the dusty street.
“What was that?”
Christine looked up at him bleakly. “I wanted to belong—” She caught herself. “To participate. Even if it was just a little of the singing for some of the nights. And Padre Paul said I could—”
“Padre Paul?”
“The priest. The one who comes every two weeks to say mass.”
“Oh yes. The Frenchman.”
“He said I should ask my parents for permission and if you said it was all right, then he would allow—” She bit back her tears. “But Mama said not to even think of it. And she was angry and said he was wicked. And I know he’s not. He’s a very nice man. And he wouldn’t be there anyway, not every night. It’s the village that makes the procession. The celebration goes on for almost a week and a half and the padre has other villages to tend to. Everyone in the village participates in las posadas and sings the different parts for the play, and Gabriela says it’s the most important event of the year and Mama is so—”
“Adamant,” her father said sadly.
Christine sniffed and nodded her head.
“She is afraid for you,” he said gently. “She wishes you to preserve your Protestant Episcopal faith and grow up to be a proper young lady.”
“She’s wrong about Padre Paul,” Christine said stubbornly. “He’s a nice man.”
“I’m sure he is,” her father said. “But I don’t think that’s the best point of argument to use with your mother.”
Christine giggled in spite of herself. She looked up hopefully. “Will you speak with her?”
“I’ll try,” he said soberly. “But I can’t promise you anything. And I’ll have to wait for the appropriate opportunity.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’ll wait,” she said. “And I’ll be patient and good and try not to aggravate her.”
He smiled down at her and they went on to the house, the child hopeful and the man a little sad at the thought that the two of them felt it necessary to plot in this way, that the girl knew so well the strategies she needed to implement to chip away at her mother’s resistance.
* * *
Tía Luz looked up from her handiwork as Gabriela entered the adobe casita. “You should be wearing your chal,” Luz scolded. “The cold is coming on. You don’t want to be sick for las posadas.”
The child crossed the room to sit on the adobe banco beside her aunt. She lifted a strand of the deep red wool yarn Luz was threading into her needle. “What a beautiful color,” Gabriela said. “What are you making?”
Luz lifted a small coverlet of white wool from her lap. Three red flowers bloomed along one edge. “It’s a new blanket for el niño cristo,” she said. “The grandmothers have decided the old one should be replaced and they asked me to create this for him.”
“It is a great honor,” Gabriela said listlessly.
“Oh child,” Luz said. “Are you still fretting about your friend?”
The girl shrugged and got up to poke another stick of wood into the curved adobe fireplace in the corner.
“It is a commandment,” her aunt said. “She must obey it.”
““Honra á tu padre y á tu madre,” Gabriela recited. “I know.”
“Besides, she is not from here.” Luz slid her needle into the soft white coverlet. “She knows nothing of our customs.”
“She could learn.” The girl came back to sit on the banco. She leaned against the adobe wall and watched the red flowers form under her aunt’s fingertips. “I could explain it.”
“She would not experience it in the way that you do.” Luz began to fill in the flower’s petals with long careful stitches. “You have las posadas in your blood. It is part of who you are. She would be merely a spectator.”
Gabriela was silent, not wanting to contradict her aunt, but not believing her either. How was it possible to participate in the Christmas procession and not be moved by its simple richness?
* * *
It had rained in the night and Christina was glad for what her mother called her “good thick American boots.” When she met Gabriela at the village well, she felt a stab of pity for her friend’s feet in their muddy Indian moccasins. But Gabriela met her with smiles. She bounced a little on her heels. “What did your father say about las posadas?”
Christine shrugged, her hands in the air. “He said he’d talk to mi mamá. All I have to do is be patient.”
Gabriela groaned. “How I hate it when adults say that!” The two girls giggled companionably as Gabriela lowered her bucket into the well and Christine once again admired the curve of the brown adobe village walls against the blue sky.
* * *
“This dirty little village in the middle of nowhere!” Christine’s mother sobbed. “I hate it!”
Christine, trying not to listen from her bed in the next room, heard a rustle. Then her father said something in a soothing voice.
“No! It will not be all right!” her mother said. “And Christine! What damage is this doing to her, this being thrown in with these dirty Catholic peasants? There isn’t even a school house! We need to get out of here, Stephen! For Christine’s sake, if not for mine! She needs proper schooling and to know how to behave around civilized people! The mercantile is just not bringing in enough to make coming here worthwhile!”
Christine covered her ears then, knowing what was coming, not wanting to hear her mother’s lamentations yet again. Silent tears seeped from her closed eyelids as despair settled over her. There would be no las posadas for her. Her mother hated this place and all it represented too much to allow her to participate in its rituals. All her mother wanted was to return to Philadelphia and “civilization.” The child turned, flopping onto her belly, and dug her chin into her pillow to stifle her sobs.
She woke the next morning feeling drained of all hope and dressed listlessly. There was no point in hurrying with her chores to meet Gabriela at the well, to see her friend’s disappointment when she heard the news. She might as well stay home, imprisoned between the barren board walls of this americano house, the only wooden house in the village. A house tight with bitterness and the smell of burnt cooking because her mother was unable to adjust to the heat produced so prodigiously by the local piñon firewood.
Christine wandered morosely out of her room and stopped at the end of the hall. Her mother was at the cook stove, pouring pancake batter. Christine’s father stood beside her, speaking firmly, his voice low.
“All right!” Christine’s mother snapped. “I said she could, didn’t I?” She scraped her spatula across the cast iron griddle and lifted a blackened pancake from the stove. “Now see what you’ve made me do! It’s scorched black! I tell you, I hate cooking here!”
He backed away, giving her room, and moved toward the front door. “I need to get to the store.” He smiled sadly at Christine as he turned. “Good morning, sweet girl.”
“Just one minute!” Christine’s mother slapped the burnt pancake into the sink on the other side of the kitchen and turned to glare at Christine, then her husband. “I want you to hear this. I don’t want any confusion about what I’m about to say.”
He stood, watching her warily. She nodded curtly at Christine, her lips tight. “Your father has decided you may participate in this nativity play,” she said. “I am not happy about it, but I won’t stand in your way.”
Christine brightened and opened her mouth. Her mother lifted the spatula. “However, there are conditions. You will not attend that papist mass at that so-called church, do you hear? And I expect you to participate in prayers with me every morning and before bedtime each night.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Furthermore, you will memorize a psalm of my choosing each day. A psalm a day until Christmas, do you hear me?”
Christine hated memorizing. Let them be short psalms, she thought fervently. But she only said, “Yes, Mama,” again.
“And if I see you slacking in your chores in any way, your father will withdraw his permission.”
Across the room, Christine’s father opened his mouth, but his wife’s head jerked in his direction, her eyes flashing, and he closed it again.
She turned back to the girl. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mama,” Christine said meekly. She kept her eyes on the floor, afraid they would show her delight too clearly and cause the permission to be rescinded. She looked up only after she heard the front door close behind her father. Her mother was crouched in front of the cook stove’s open fire compartment, poking angrily at the fire logs in an effort to separate them and thus lower the stove top heat. Christine slipped back to her room to make sure her bed was made properly.
* * *
Gabriela and Christine stood at the edge of the group of villagers and clutched their shawls against the December night’s chill. Long black rebosas created a disapproving wall in front of them, shouldering the girls to the outer edge of the procession. This was the seventh night of las posadas and the cold shoulders didn’t seem to have softened at all.
Christine lifted her chin defiantly. She had worked hard to be here. She wasn’t going to let her happiness be dimmed by people who disapproved of her simply because she was a gringa. Besides, Gabriela’s arm was linked in hers, and Gabriela’s voice was in her ear, explaining what was about to happen and translating the songs.
After six nights of the event, Christine didn’t really need this information, although she appreciated her friend’s affection and care. She stifled a yawn. Each evening had followed the same pattern: As daylight faded from the turquoise-blue sky, the villagers assembled in front of the tiny adobe church. The man and woman chosen to play Mary and Joseph this year sang the traditional songs for their roles as the small crowd moved slowly through the dark streets under flickering torches. Everyone chimed in on the choruses. The only real difference each evening was the house where the villagers finally stopped, the man who opened the door and sang the part of the innkeeper, and the quality of the refreshments provided afterwards.
Christine didn’t want to admit it, but she was becoming a little bored. The man who sang the part of Joseph had a really beautiful voice and Christine enjoyed listening to him, but it was cold out here on the edge of the crowd and she had heard it all before.
“En nombre del cie-e-e-e-lo os pido posa-a-a-ada,” he sang. Gabriela whispered the translation and Christine nodded impatiently. She already knew what he was singing: In the name of heaven, I ask for shelter.
“Pues no puede andar-ar-ar-ar-ar ya mi esposa ama-a-a-a-ada,” he sang. Can go no farther, my beloved wife. Christine huddled a little closer to her friend and thought of the hot chocolate Gabriela had said would be served tonight. The host house was one of the wealthier ones in the village and the women there always served New Mexican-style hot chocolate. According to Gabriela, the drink would be different from anything Christine had ever tasted.
Christine licked her lips, thinking of it. They added cinnamon to the chocolate. That sounded odd, but she’d tasted odder things in her time here: burritos, enchiladas, chicharrones. And red chile sauce with everything. Sauce so hot that the inside of her nose burned at the thought of it.
The wind picked up, scattering tiny flakes of snow before it and bringing Christina back to the present. She stood on tiptoe to see the house’s blue-painted door. Its owner was singing the final verse of the innkeeper’s role. “Entren, peregri-i-i-i-nos,” he bellowed in a not very melodious voice. “No los conocí-í-í-í-í-í-í-í-ía.” Enter pilgrims, I didn’t recognize you.
Good, they’d be warm soon. Christina moved forward impatiently, but Gabriela giggled and tugged her back. The villager playing Joseph sang the response, then the crowd surged into the house singing, not all together, and not all in tune, the final refrain.
Christine joyfully lifted her voice. “Esta noche es de alegría, de gusto y de regocijo,” she sang happily. Tonight is for joy, for pleasure and rejoicing. “Porque hospedaremos aquí a la Madre de Dios Hijo.” For tonight we will give lodging to the Mother of God the Son.
The child’s clear little soprano soared above the others and Señora María Antonia Martín, who happened to be just in front of her, turned and scowled. “Silencia, niña!” the old woman snapped. “Tú es indecorosa!”
Gabriela giggled, but Christine flushed and fell silent. Unexpected tears sprang into her eyes and she hastily brushed them away.
Gabriela pulled on Christine’s arm and the girls edged away from the old woman, toward the front of the room. “Pay her no attention,” Gabriela whispered. “La señora is never happy with anything and no girl is ever silent enough for her.”
Christine flashed her friend a thankful smile but didn’t answer. Then they were at the edge of the crowd, where they could see the long wooden table laden with food. The hosts and their assistants moved between the guests and the table, bringing them hot beverages in small silver cups. Gabriela nudged Christine. “Look! It’s chocolate! I told you!”
Gabriela’s Aunt Luz was helping distribute the drinks. She came toward the girls and held out a cup. Gabriela reached for it, but her aunt looked at her reprovingly and said something in Spanish that Christine didn’t understand.
Gabriela stepped back and Luz offered Christine the cup. “Hace calor,” she cautioned. It is hot.
Christine curled her fingers around the warm silver. “It feels good,” she said. “Gracias.”
Luz smiled and turned away. Christine took a small sip. Her eyes widened and Gabriela giggled. Christine blinked hard. It was hot all right, but not from the stove. “Is it chile?” she asked.
Gabriela nodded mischievously. “It is polite to drink the entire cup,” she said. “It is rude to not drink all of it.”
Christine took a deep breath and lifted the cup to her lips. She would drink it all in one gulp and get it over with. She tilted her head and swallowed, but her throat rebelled at the chile’s scorching heat and closed against it. She choked helplessly. The laughing room fell silent and everyone turned to look at her. Chocolate spurted from her mouth and down her chin and Christine turned away, looking wildly for somewhere to hide her embarrassment.
“Oh dear,” Gabriela giggled helplessly.
Then her Aunt Luz was at Christine’s elbow, a cloth in her hand. She steered Christine onto a cushioned bench in the corner as she snapped “Leche!” at her niece.
“Lo siento mucho,” Luz said, bending over the girl. I’m so sorry. “Los chiles hacer mucha calor.” The chiles are very hot. She glared at Gabriela as she appeared with a large mug of milk and hissed something that Christine didn’t understand.
Christine drank the milk carefully, grateful for the way it coated and soothed the hot chile burn on her tongue and throat. “Gracias,” she whispered. The voices in the room rose again as the guests refocused on the food and the candy-filled piñata strung from the ceiling.
Luz patted Christine’s arm. “Los chiles hacer mucha calor,” she said again.
“She says the chiles are very hot,” Gabriela offered.
Christine nodded. She knew what the woman had said. More importantly, she heard the sympathy in her voice. She wished she knew enough Spanish to thank her properly for rescuing her. “Gracias,” she said again, looking her full in the face.
Luz smiled kindly. She turned to Gabriela with a frown and said something in rapid Spanish. Then she turned back to Christine, patted her shoulder kindly, and went back to the party.
“I’m sorry,” Gabriela said contritely. “I should have warned you.”
Christine nodded miserably. Then Gabriela giggled. She pointed at Christine’s chest. “The chocolate dripped.”
Christine looked down in dismay. A large brown blob decorated her dress. She closed her eyes against the threatening tears. She couldn’t just return to the party and pretend nothing had happened. Not with this reminder splashed down her front. She felt Gabriela’s hand on her shawl, gently rearranging it so the chocolate wouldn’t show, but she shook her head. “I want to leave,” she said.
Gabriela glanced toward the table. “But we haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not hungry,” Christine said.
Gabriela considered her for a long moment. “I’ll bring you some,” she offered.
Christine nodded and Gabriela disappeared across the room.
Christine hunched on the bench. She clutched the shawl around her shoulders and over her chest. Señora Martín stumped up with her cane, stopped directly in front of Christine, and stared into her face. She said something incomprehensible in Spanish, gave Christine a sharp little nod, thumped her cane twice on the floor, and moved on.
Christine looked bleakly at the crowded room, the bountiful table, the colorful piñata. A little boy’s stick whacked a hole in the piñata and candy rained down on the squealing children. It was all very picturesque. And the music was beautiful and very rich, although very different from home. Home. Wherever that was. Christine closed her eyes, suddenly overcome with a strange sadness.
Gabriela returned with a plate full of goodies and more milk, sent by their hostess to calm the americano girl’s tongue after the hot chiles. Christine accepted the milk gratefully and widened her eyes at the taste of the anise-flavored cookies Gabriela called “biscochitos,” but a part of her remained strangely removed from the evening’s pleasures.
An hour later, as the two girls said their goodbyes and slipped out the door, someone began singing a song from another Christmas play, one about the shepherds. The song was inexpressibly sad, something about Jesus being born to die for our sins. Christine shivered a little at the pain of it, so odd for a Christmas celebration and yet so hauntingly beautiful.
As Gabriela slipped through the big wooden door of her casa, Christine turned and touched the house’s outer wall. The adobe was slightly rough under her fingers and even now, at the end of a December day, it contained a bit of sun warmth. She patted the wall softly and mulled over the week’s events as she moved down the street toward the clapboard house at the village’s edge. Her mother was right. She didn’t belong here. And yet— If her father should give up the mercantile and return to Philadelphia, she suspected she wouldn’t feel that she belonged there, either.
She lifted her face to the now-clearing sky. This was a part of her now. The warm adobe walls, the broad blueness of the sky, the long horizons. Gabriela’s laughter.
Christine drew in a deep breath of spicy smoke. Someone was burning piñon in their fire tonight. Even the wood smoke was beautiful. It seemed to surround her, then move on, leaving its fragrance behind. Somehow, the smoke reminded her of Tía Luz’s kind eyes. The girl smiled. Yes, it truly was all part of her. And she was part of it, no matter what Señora Martin or her mother might have to say.
THE END
© Loretta Miles Tollefson 2017
All rights reserved
Fiction and Fact From Old New Mexico 