would make myself attractive to the girl. Though I was only a despised Mexicatl, and at the moment a laughably poor specimen even of that breed, I exerted all the charm of which I was capable. I thanked her for her goodness to me, and complimented her on having a kindliness that equaled her loveliness, and spoke many other cajoling and persuasive words. But among my more flowery speeches, I managed to mention the considerable estate I had already amassed at a yet young age, and dwelt on my plans for enlarging it further, and made it clear that any girl who did wed me would never be in want. Though I refrained from ever blurting out a direct proposal, I did make allusive remarks like:
'I am surprised that such a beautiful girl as yourself is not married.'
She would smile and say something like: 'No man yet has captivated me enough to make me surrender my independence.'
Another time I would say, 'But certainly you are courted by many suitors.'
'Oh, yes. Unfortunately, the young men of Uaxyacac have few prospects to offer. I think they yearn more to own a share of the inn than to own all of me.'
On another occasion I would say, 'You must meet many eligible men among the constant traffic of guests at your hostel.'
'Well, they tell me they are eligible. But you know that most pochtea are older men, too old for me, and outlanders besides. Anyway, however ardently they may pay court, I always suspect that they already have a wife at home, probably other wives at the end of every trade route they travel.'
I was emboldened to say, 'I am not old. I have no wife anywhere. If ever I take one, she will be the only one, and for all my life long.'
She gave me a long look, and after some silence said, 'Perhaps you should have married Gie Bele. My mother.'
I repeat: my mind was not yet what it should have been. Until that moment, I had either somehow confused the girl with her mother, or had totally forgotten the mother. I had certainly forgotten having coupled with her mother, and—ayya, the shame!—in the girl's own presence. Given the circumstances, she must have thought me the most salacious of lechers, to be suddenly courting her, the daughter of that woman.
I could only mumble, in horrendous embarrassment, 'Gie Bele... but I remember... old enough to be my own mother....'
At which the girl gave me another long look, and I said no more, and I pretended to fall asleep.
I reiterate, my lord scribes, that my mind had been woefully affected by my injury, and that it was excruciatingly slow to regather its wits. That is the only possible excuse for the blundering remarks I uttered. The worst blunder, the one with the saddest and longest-lasting consequences, I made when one morning I said to the girl:
'I have been wondering how you do it, and why.'
'How I do what?' she asked, smiling that blithe smile.
'On some days your hair has a remarkable white streak through its whole length. On others—like today—it has not.'
Involuntarily, in the feminine gesture of surprise, she passed a hand across her face, where for the first time I saw dismay. For the first time those uptilted winglike corners of her mouth drooped downward. She stood still, looking down at me. I am sure my face showed only bewilderment. What emotion she was feeling, I could not tell, but when she finally did speak there was a slight tremor in her voice.
'I am Beu Ribe,' she said, and paused as if waiting for me to make some comment. 'In your language, that is Waiting Moon.' She paused again, and I said truthfully:
'It is a lovely name. It suits you to perfection.'
Evidently she had hoped to hear something else. She said, 'Thank you,' but she sounded half angry, half hurt. 'It is my younger sister, Zyanya, who bears the white strand in her hair.'
I was struck speechless. Again, it was not until that moment that another memory came back to me: there had been not one but two daughters. During my time away, the younger and smaller had grown to be almost the identical twin of the elder. Or they would have been nearly identical but for the younger girl's distinctive lock of hair, the mark—I remembered that, too—of her having been stung by a scorpion when she was an infant.
I had stupidly not realized that there were two equally beautiful girls attending me alternately. I had fallen passionately in love with what, in my mind's confusion, I took to be one irresistible maiden. And I had been able to do that only because I had boorishly forgotten that I was once at least a little in love with her mother—their mother. Had I stayed longer in Tecuantopec on my first visit, that intimacy could well have culminated in my becoming the girls' stepfather. Most appalling of all, during the days of my slow convalescence, I had indiscriminately, simultaneously, with impartial ardor, been yearning for and paying court to both of what might have been my stepdaughters.
I wished I were dead. I wished I had died in the barrens of the isthmus. I wished I had never awakened from the stupor in which I had lain for so long. But I could only avoid the girl's eyes and say nothing more. Beu Ribe did the same. She tended my needs as deftly and tenderly as always, but with her face averted from mine, and when there was nothing further to do for me, she departed without ceremony. On her subsequent visits that day, bringing food or medicine, she remained silent and aloof.
The next day was the streak-haired younger sister's turn, and I greeted her with 'Good morning, Zyanya,' and I made no reference to my indiscretion of the day before, for I wistfully hoped to give the impression that I had only been playing a game, that I had all along known the difference between the two girls. But of course she and Beu Ribe must have thoroughly discussed the situation and, for all my hopefully bright banter, I fooled her no more than you would expect. She threw me sidelong glances while I babbled, though her expression seemed more amused than angry or hurt. Maybe it was only the look which both the girls ordinarily wore: that of treasuring a secret smile.
But I regret to report that I was not yet done with making blunders, or of being desolated by new revelations. At one point I asked, 'Does your mother tend the inn all the time you girls are taking care of me? I should have thought Gie Bele could spare a moment to look in on—'
'Our mother is dead,' she interrupted, her face going momentarily bleak.
'What?' I exclaimed. 'When? How?'
'More than a year ago. In this very hut, for she could not well pass her confinement at the hostel among the guests.'
'Confinement?'
'While she waited for the baby's arrival.'
I said weakly, 'She had a baby?'
Zyanya regarded me with some concern. 'The physician said you are not to trouble your mind. I will tell you everything when you are stronger.'
'May the gods damn me to Mictlan!' I erupted, with more vigor than I would have thought I could summon. 'It must be my baby, must it not?'
'Well...' she said, and drew a deep breath. 'You were the only man with whom she had lain since our father died. I am sure she knew how to take the proper precautions. Because, when I was born, she suffered extremely, and the doctor warned her that I must be the last child. Hence my name. But so many years had passed... she must have believed she was past the age of conceiving. Anyway'—Zyanya twisted her fingers together—'yes, she was pregnant by a Mexicatl outlander, and you know the Cloud People's feeling about such relations. She would not ask to be attended by a physician or midwife of the Ben Zaa.'
'She died of neglect?' I demanded. 'Because your stiff-necked people refused to assist—?'
'They might have refused, I do not know, but she did not ask. A young Mexicatl traveler had been staying at the inn for a month or more. He was solicitous of her condition, and he won her confidence, and finally she told him all the circumstances, and he sympathized as wholeheartedly as any woman could have done. He said he had studied at a calmecac school, and that there had been a class in the rudimentary arts of doctoring. So when her time came, he was here to help.'
'What help, if she died?' I said, silently cursing the meddler.
Zyanya shrugged in resignation. 'She had been warned of the danger. It was a long labor and a difficult birth. There was a great deal of blood and, while the man tried to stanch the bleeding, the baby strangled in its navel string.'