Maria Concepcion BY KATHERINE ANNE PORTER DRAWINGS BY ROSS SANTEE ^(^£=—«• ARIA CONCEPCION walked care- swelling life was not a distortion, but , fully, keeping to the middle of the right, inevitable proportions of a the white, dusty road, where the woman. She was entirely contented, maguey thorns and the treacherous calmly filled with a sense of tYe good­ curved spines of organa cactus had ness of life. not gathered so profusely. She would Her small house was half-way up a have enjoyed resting for a moment in shallow hill, under a clump of peru- the dark shade by the roadside, but trees, a wall of organa cactus inclosing she had no time to waste drawing cac­ it on the side nearest the road. Now tus needles from her feet. Juan and she came down into the valley, divided his jefe would be waiting for their food by the narrow spring, and crossed a in the damp trenches of the buried bridge of loose stones near the hut city. where Maria Rosa the bee-keeper lived She carried about a dozen living with her old godmother, Lupe, the fowls slung over her right shoulder, medicine-woman. Maria Concepcion their feet fastened together. Half of had no faith in the charred owl bones, them fell upon the flat of her back, the the singed rabbit fur, the messes and balance dangled uneasily over her ointments sold by Lupe to the ailing breast. They wriggled their benumbed of the village. She was a good Chris­ and swollen legs against her neck, tian, and bought her remedies, bottled, they twisted their stupefied, half- with printed directions that she could blind eyes upward, seeming to peer in­ not read, at the drug-store near the to her face inquiringly. She did not city market, where she went almost see them or think of them. Her left daily with her fowls. But she often arm was a trifle tired with the weight purchased a jar of honey from young of the food basket, and she was hungry Maria Rosa, a pretty, shy child only after her long morning's work. fifteen years old. Under her clean bright-blue cotton Maria Concepcion and her husband, rebozo her straight back outlined Juan Villegas, were each a little past Itself strongly. Instinctive serenity their eighteenth year. She had a softened her black eyes, shaped like good reputation with the neighbors as almonds set far apart, and tilted a bit an energetic, religious woman. It was endwise. She walked with the free, commonly known that if she wished to natural, yet guarded, ease of the prim­ buy a new rebozo for herself or a shirt itive woman carrying an unborn child. for Juan, she could bring out a sack of The shape of her body was easy, the hard silver pesos for the purpose. 224 PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED MARIA CONCEPCION 225 She had paid for the license, nearly mound there hung a dusty golden a year ago, the potent bit of stamped shimmer of bees. paper which permits people to be mar­ A light, gay scream of laughter ried in the church. She had given rose from behind the hut; a man's money to the priest before she and short laugh joined in. "Ah, Maria Juan walked together up to the altar Rosa has a novio!" Maria Concepci6n the Monday after Holy Week. It stopped short, smiling, shifted her had been the adventure of the vil­ burden slightly, bending forward to lagers to go, three Sundays one after see more clearly through the hedge another, to hear the banns called by spaces, shading her eyes. the priest for Juan de Dios Villegas Maria Rosa ran, dodging between and Maria Concepci6n Guiterrez. beehives, parting two stunted jasmine- After the wedding she had called her­ bushes as she came, lifting her knees self Maria Concepcion Guiterrez de in swift leaps, looking over her shoul­ Villegas, as though she owned a whole der and laughing in a quivering, ex­ hacienda. cited way. A heavy jar, swung by the She paused on the bridge and dab­ handle to her wrist, knocked against bled her feet in the water, her eyes her thighs as she ran. Her toes resting themselves from the sun-rays pushed up sudden spurts of dust, her in a fixed, dreaming gaze to the far- half-unbraided hair showered around off mountains, deeply blue under their her shoulders in long crinkled wisps. hanging drift of clouds. It came to Juan Villegas ran after her, also her that she would like a fresh crust of laughing strangely, his teeth set, both honey. The delicious aroma of bees, rows gleaming behind the small, soft their slow, thrilling hum poured upon black beard growing sparsely on his her, awakening a pleasant desire for a lips, his chin, leaving his brown cheeks crisp flake of sweetness in her mouth. girl-smooth. When he seized her, he "If I do not eat it now, I shall clenched so hard that her chemise gave mark my child," she thought, peering way and slipped off her shoulder. through the crevices in the thick hedge Frightened, she stopped laughing, of cactus that sheered up nakedly, pushed him away, and stood silent, like prodigious bared knife-blades cast trying to pull up the ripped sleeve with protectingly around the small clear­ one hand. Her pointed chin and ing. The place was so silent that she dark-red mouth moved in an uncer­ doubted if Maria Rosa and Lupe were tain way, as if she wished to laugh at home. again; her long black lashes flickered The leaning jacal of dried rush- with the tiny quick-moving lights in withes and corn-sheaves, bound to tall her half-hidden eyes. saplings thrust into the earth, roofed Maria Concepci6n realized that she with yellowed maguey-leaves flattened had not stirred or breathed for some and overlapping like shingles, sat seconds. Her forehead was cold, and drowsy and fragrant in the warmth of yet boiling water seemed to be pouring noonday. The hives, similarly con­ slowly along her spine. An unac­ structed, were scattered toward the countable pain was in her knees, as back of the clearing, like small mounds though pieces of ice had got into them. of clean vegetable refuse. Over each She was afraid Juan and Maria Rosa PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 226 THE CENTURY MAGAZINE would feel her eyes fixed upon them, restored unchanged. But it was all and find her there, unable to move. gone. And now here was a worse But they did not pass beyond the in- thing. This was something that could closure, or even glance toward the gap not happen. But it was true. Maria in the wall opening upon the road. Rosa, that sinful girl, shameless! Juan lifted one of Maria Rosa's She heard herself saying a harsh, half-bound braids and slapped her true word about Maria Rosa, saying it neck with it, playfully. She smiled aloud as if she expected some one to with soft, expectant shyness. To­ answer, "Yes, you are right." At this gether they moved back through the moment the gray, untidy head of hives of honey-comb. Juan flourished Givens appeared over the edges of the his wide hat back and forth, walking newest trench he had caused to be dug very proudly. Maria Rosa balanced in his field of excavations. The long, her jar on one hip, and swung her long, deep crevasses, in which a man might full petticoats with every step. stand without being seen, lay criss­ Maria Concepci6n came out of the crossed like orderly gashes of a giant heavy darkness which seemed to en­ scalpel. Nearly all the men of the wrap her head and bind her at the small community were employed by throat, and found herself walking on­ Givens in this work of uncovering the ward, keeping the road by instinct, lost city of their ancestors. They feeling her way delicately, her ears worked all the year through and pros­ strumming as if all Maria Rosa's bees pered, digging all day for those small had hived in them. Her careful sense clay heads and bits of pottery for of duty kept her moving toward the which there was no use on earth, they buried city where Juan's chief, the being all broken and covered with American archaeologist, was taking his earth. They themselves could make midday rest, waiting for his dinner. better ones, perfectly stout and new. Juan and Maria Rosa! She burned But the unearthly delight of the jefe all over now, as if a layer of those tiny in finding these things was an endless fig-cactus bristles, as insidious and puzzle. He would fairly roar for joy petty-cruel as spun glass, had crawled at times, waving a shattered pot or a under her skin. She wished to sit human rib-bone above his head, shout­ ing for his photographer to come and down quietly and wait for her death make a picture of this! without finishing what she had set out to do, remembering no more those two Now he emerged, and his young strange people, Juan and Maria Rosa, enthusiast's eyes welcomed Maria laughing and kissing in the sweet- Concepcion from his old-man face, smelling sunshine. Once, years be­ covered with hard wrinkles, burned to fore, when she was a young girl, she the color of red earth under the count­ had returned from market to find her less suns of his explorer's life.