Leslie Silko - Ceremony

“Can you take this note to her? I told her I would come this afternoon and drive her to Grants, but now with the rain I will be too busy.”

Tayo nodded. He could hear his heart beating and he was breathing fast; something was shaking in his belly.

She had watched him all summer, whenever he had gone to Cubero with Josiah. She sat in the wicker rocking chair in the shade on the upstairs porch above the bar, and she stared down at him. She watched him while Josiah was inside buying a six-pack; Tayo tried to avoid her eyes, but she was a patient woman. She watched him steadily, rocking slowly in the chair, waiting for him to sneak a quick glance at her. She smiled down at him until Josiah reached the top of the stairs. Then she smiled at Josiah and said, “You have a fine nephew, Joseó,” as she got up from the rocker and followed Josiah inside.

His hands felt slippery on the steering wheel, and he felt as if every curve in the road were slowing him down and he might never reach the place. The sun was hidden by the clouds, and he was not aware any more of the color of the land. As he got closer, he was afraid she wouldn’t be there. He shifted down to second gear and crossed the cattle guard by the old graveyard. He was close enough then to feel afraid, so he repeated over and over inside his head that he was only delivering a message, and she might not be there anyway. Raindrops splattered across the windshield like flying bugs hitting head-on. He wanted to turn around. He took his foot off the gas pedal and looked for a place to turn around, but the road was narrow, and on either side the ditches were muddy and flowing with the run-off. Up ahead he could see the big cottonwood tree.

The rain rattled on the rusted tin roof, and rainwater leaked out of the rain gutter and splashed off the porch railing. He walked up the spiral staircase slowly, smelling wet adobe plaster and listening to the rain rattle the waxy green cottonwood leaves growing near the porch. A scratchy Victrola was playing guitars and trumpets; a man sang sad Spanish words. “Y volveré” were the only words Tayo could understand. He stood at the screen door and knocked, looking down at Josiah’s note. He held it carefully because his hands were sweaty and he didn’t want to smear the writing. He wiped his hands on the thighs of his Levis while he waited. Nobody came to the door, but the music was playing loudly. He knocked on the screen door again, this time pounding it so hard that it bounced against the door frame. He waited, breathing hard, and felt the sweat run down his ribs like rainwater. He decided to push the note under the screen door; she would find it. He was kneeling to slide the note under the door when she came. He could smell her before he could even see her; the perfume smelled like the ivory locust blossoms that hung down from the trees in the spring. Her smell drifted out the screen on the air currents from the storm. The doorway at the back of the room had a long white curtain across it, and it swelled open as she came through. He looked at her through the sagging screen that had a fluffy ball of cotton stuck in the middle to scare the flies away. He saw her feet, the open-toe blue satin slippers and her painted toenails. The kimono was blue satin and it wrapped around her closely, outlining her hips and belly. He stood up quickly and felt his face get hot. He held out the note. She smiled, but she did not look at it. She looked at him.

“Come in,” she said. She pointed to a blue armchair with dark wooden feet carved like eagle claws. The room smelled like the white clay the people used for whitewash. It was cool. The curtain at the back of the room drifted in a cool stream of air from the window or door behind it. The music came from behind the curtain too; the songs were soft and slow, without voices. Outside the thunder sounded like giant boulders cracking loose from the high cliffs and crashing into narrow canyons. Sometimes the room shook, and the panes of glass in the window behind him rattled. He watched her read the note and wondered what she kept behind the curtains. He could feel something back there, something of her life which he could not explain. The room pulsed with feeling, the feeling flowing with the music and the breeze from the curtains, feeling colored by the blue flowers painted in a border around the walls. He could feel it everywhere, even in the blue sheets that were stretched tightly across the bed. Somewhere, from another room, he heard a clock ticking slowly and distinctly, as if the years, the centuries, were lost in that sound. The rain pounded louder on the tin roof, and she looked up from the note then, at the screen door and the cottonwood tree outside, its leaves beaten flat by the downpour. The kimono was open slightly at the neck and he could see the light brown color of her skin. Her long brown hair was curled and piled on her head in long ringlets, the style of some past time. She did not look old or young to him then; she was like the rain and the wind; age had no relation to her. She got up from the edge of the bed and hooked the screen door. She closed the door and pushed the bolt forward. The music had stopped, and there was only the sound of the storm.

He dreamed it again and again, sinking and rolling with the light blue sheets twisted around his thighs and ankles, and the excitement of wet smells of rain, and their sweat. He wanted to lie like that forever.

She whispered in Spanish and touched him gently, rubbing his back and neck first, then brushing his ear and neck with her lips. She pressed against his chest and belly, and he clenched himself tight until he felt the warmth and softness of her legs and belly. Her sounds were gentle and the storm outside was loud. He could hear the rain rattling the roof and the sound of the old cottonwood tree straining in the wind. He moved his mouth over her face and slowly opened his eyes; she was smiling. He felt her shiver, and when he held her closer, he realized he was shaking too. Something was coiling tight. She breathed harder and he breathed with the same rhythm. She slid beneath him then, like a cat squeezing under a gate. She moved under him, her rhythm merging into the sound of the wind shaking the rafters and the sound of the rain in the tree. And he was lost somewhere, deep beneath the surface of his own body and consciousness, swimming away from all his life before that hour.

She sat with the sheets pulled around her and watched him get dressed. “I have been watching you for a long time,” she said. “I saw the color of your eyes.”

Tayo did not look at her.

“Mexican eyes,” he said, “the other kids used to tease me.”

The rain was only a faint sound on the roof, and the sound of the thunder was distant, and moving east. Tayo unbolted the door and opened it; he watched the rainwater pour out the rain gutter over the side of the long porch. “I always wished I had dark eyes like other people. When they look at me they remember things that happened. My mother.” His throat felt tight. He had not talked about this before with anyone.

She shook her head slowly. “They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or whites — most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing.” She laughed softly. “They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don’t have to think about what has happened inside themselves.”

She was looking at him intently, and he felt uncomfortable. He walked over to the doorway, aware of the damp earth smell outside. He had one hand on the screen door, ready to leave.

“You don’t have to understand what is happening. But remember this day. You will recognize it later. You are part of it now.” She was looking up, at the pine vigas that held the roof. She turned her head and smiled at him. “Ah, Tayo,” she said softly, and he felt that she cared a great deal about him.