A Brief History Chapter 2 Part I
Nov. 5th, 2009 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
layangabi3, 444 words, both for yesterday and today. And good golly, I still have to catch up! Maybe tonight, after looking over my selection criteria and cover letter for Job Hunting.
When I wake up, I have missing limbs and additional appendages. I tap them out, like little legs. Isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat, lima.
Satisfaction blooms. Salutations little, sister. You are child no longer.
I turn my head to see my sisters scuttling over the surface, antennae flexed out as if to converse. Carefully, oh so carefully, I reach out my fingers. I could crush them with a wrong move, the way I am now. The silks they wove around me are loose.
Look, look, my sisters insist. Get up, lazy bones. Their tone is more playful than scolding. I am one of them now, an adult, but I am new, so new, my body is odd and they are willing to indulge me. I, who am ambassador and is the wealth and protection of the colonia. I get up from the rattan weave and stare at the surface where my sisters are. My education supplies the terms: table, dresser, Viennese imports. There is a brush, a mirror, all the trappings of humanity that before today, had only been theoretical, and not physical fact before my eyes.
Outside, feet scuttle back and forth.
“Cousin Soledad! Are you awake? Are you well?”
“We’ve brought you breakfast!”
Cousin Soledad, my predecessor, was meant to be ill and confined to her room. I already knew the ritual words. “Come in.”
The doors slid open.
In came a little minima bearing a tray. She was certainly smaller than me. Sweet smells, familiar smells, fed to me in the nursery. Sweet pandesal and coconut milk, langka and manga fruit. Another girl followed her: she was a little taller and my height. I could not tell if she was minima or maxima. The minima put the tray on the table beside my bed, the larger one went to the door and shut it.
“And how are you Cousin Soledad,” the larger one said. She spoke loudly enough that anyone walking across the hall, or downstairs in the house could hear. “Are you feeling better? Do you feel as though you can get up today?” I murmured my assent. “Anastasia and I will help you wash up,” she said, and kept up a cheerful babble as she went to the wardrobe, shook out the former Soledad’s clothes, and laid them on the chair. Feet scuttled away to get a washing basin I suppose.
The minima came close. I thought she might be near adulthood, but her cheeks were still round, the way human children were still, even as they grew up, and were too big to be larvae.
“Hello,” says the minima, squeezing my hand. I stared at her.
“Salutations,” I said, and withdrew my poor limb. It was one thing to touch me. She did not need to carry on so, as if we were sisters in the nest. Sisters who had survived a catastrophe, and were glad of each other’s survival. The little one grabbed it again. She glared at me with her large eyes.
“Aren’t you Soledad?” she demanded. “She said you were both the same, and I shouldn’t mind her leaving. But you’re not, are you?”
“I am Soledad,” I said stiffly. And the little girl’s face scrunched up. I could not tell if it was deep unhappiness or anger.
“Anastasia, leave her alone,” said the older girl. She looked at me with apology. All ceremony and pomp was gone. “I know you’re new. You have to forgive us. You look so much like her.”
“You’ve been used to this process for five years,” I said. It should not have been a surprise to them, surely.
“Oh I know,” the older girl said. “But it doesn’t get any less strange. You look so much alike, you all act so much alike, but every year, you are someone else. You are so new.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I am Sebrina,” she said. “Sebrina Martinez Y Zamora. This is my little sister.” The minor one pouted at me. “Anastasia.”
“Salutations, Anastasia,” I said. I refused to be ridiculous, even if the little one insisted on remaining so.
Something scuttled inside her hair. A spider peered out at me from under her hair and clicked her fangs. I started back.
“Oh my Lady,” I said, before I could stop myself. My sisters on the table began to scuttle in panic. The smell of a spider was one thing: it was everywhere in the house. Having one in our presence, and close enough to touch, was another.
“Anastasia, take Apollinaria away,” Sebrina snapped.
“Oh! Don’t be afraid!” Anastasia said. She took the spider from her shoulder. The spider raised its fangs. I scuttled back against the beg. “She just wants to be your friend,” she said, teeth flashing. “See? She doesn’t mind if you touch her.”
Sebrina marched to the little one, snatched the spider out of her hands, and threw it at the door. It landed with a thump and shrieked. Her little mistress echoed her scream.
“Polly!”
“Out,” Sebrina snapped. “Both of you. Before I tear the both of you to shreds.” Anastasia scooped up her friend, her demonic little familiar, and slid out the door, calling for her mother.
I turned and held my shaking hands out to my sisters. They ran to me and licked my fingers.
It’s alright, they seemed to be saying. It’s alright, little one. I could hear their voices in my ears. We no longer spoke purely by touch. They crawled onto my fingers, over my arms.
Sebrina did not come near. It was her intent to be respectful. Respectful! “I am sorry,” she said. “This is not the sort of welcome we planned for you. Your queen-mother won’t be happy.”
“I will always do as she asks,” I said. “I won’t give her cause to be unhappy.” I wonder how I looked to this human girl, my sisters crawling over my arm when I had a human shape. I did not care. I wanted nothing more than to have them here. But Sebrina did not scold, did not show a trace of disapproval.
“We know you will,” she said. “I am really sorry about Anastasia. She was too fond of the other one and can’t understand why you don’t like her. She’s spoiled beyond reason. Mother and Immaculata were too fond of her and she knows it.”
She said this all, as if it made perfect sense. Human beings are mad.
Sebrina did not touch my shoulder or did any of the calming things human beings were supposed to do. “I’ll go outside,” she said. “You stay here with your sisters. Just knock on the door if you need me — we still need to get you dressed. And yes — to get used to spiders. They are everywhere in the house, though I think your queen mother might have fixed that. The phobia won’t last long — you’re still getting used to your new body.”
And respectfully, she turned to leave me there, huddled against the wall with my sisters, all trying to soothe me to calm.
#
Esperanza Zamora was displeased. Her little daughter sat on the far end of the table with her wretched creature on her shoulder. I and Sebrina sat by her side. I was respectable now, according to the dictates of human fashion. A pina blouse, seashell necklace and a checkered skirt that swished to the ground. The swathes of silk my sisters clothed me in, Sebrina informed me, was more nightdress than dress. I was not sure I saw the difference, despite my education.
“Well no,” said Sebrina, when I made the remark. “You’re only two weeks old.”
I walked out once the phobia had ebbed, and I could stand the idea of spiders crawling all over the house. And yes, it turned out, Sebrina had a spider too. Large and black, demure enough to keep to her mistress’ black hair. It remained respectfully on her other shoulder, though my phobia had ebbed.
“If you can’t be bothered to observe protocol and keep the spider out of Soledad’s room,” Esperanza Zamora said to her daughter, “I am going to kill it. There is no sense in keeping a spider after it has passed its use. Keeping it as a pet was meant to be a gift to you.”
The little one looked miserable at being scolded, and I could empathise: it was terrible being confronted with a queen’s wrath. Our queen mother had never laid her displeasure on me, but we could feel ripples of her displeasure when we stumbled over a lesson, when we did not demonstrate mental agility and callisthetics to our tutors’ satisfaction, when we, too often, betrayed a prejudice she did not approve of.
“I don’t see why,” Anastasia murmured. “She’d have to get used to the spiders, sooner or later.”
Her elder sister raised her hand and clouted her on the ear. “To your room,” she said. “Not another word out of you, not a single word against the ambassador. Go.” Poor Anastasia. Her little mouth puckered, and she turned and ran up the steps, into the room that she shared with her sisters. Her dreaded spider clung to her back.
I was appalled. What did these people teach their children, that they would defy their elders?
“I am sorry,” said Esperanza. She must have seen the look on my face. “She’s spoiled, that girl, we spoiled her too much.”
“She was fond of the other one,” said Sebrina. “She doesn’t like it that you’ve taken her place. And her face too. She knows it isn’t her.”
“I am Soledad,” I said stiffly.
“Yes we know,” said Sebrina. “But you’re not predecessor, and that is a problem for Anastasia at least.” I felt like throwing up my hands, running out of the house, to the mango tree where my queen mother and sister resided. I was here to process transactions, not care for the whims of a spoiled human child.
“Don’t worry,” Esperanza said. “What Anastasia thinks doesn’t count for much in this household: she’s only a larvae. A little girl. She has to learn proper conduct.” She held out her hands.
“Welcome, Soledad,” she said softly. “You are much needed here.”
#
I met the rest of the familia, except the eldest girl. Joaquin, who was home for the holidays, studying at the Universidad de Sto. Tomas, Aguilar who was only a little older than Anastasia. The boys at least, were far more polite. Perhaps they had been warned by their sister and their mother.
“Welcome Soledad,” said Joaquin. “Sorry about the messed up welcome. That girl is growing wild. She doesn’t remember the bad years, before your mother met ours.” He peered at her.
“You wouldn’t know it from the way ma and Sebrina carry on,” Aguilar said.
Indeed, it was clear that Sebrina had somehow fallen under the matriarch’s displeasure.
Esperanza and Sebrina argued behind closed doors. Human beings! Perhaps their arguments were invisible to the servants they did not fully trust, but the rest of the family certainly knew what was going on, and I, I could hear the reveberations of their arguments travelling to the sala from the office where Sebrina and Esperanza held their meetings.
“How did she keep the spider without your notice?” said Esperanza. “Were you daydreaming again? Dawdelling? Your sister is not like this. How can you expect to be the mistress of this house if your head is not where it is expected to be? Do you expect your brother’s wife to take over those duties for you?”
“I was not daydreaming,” Sebrina said through gritted teeth. “I don’t daydream Mother.”
“No you ‘pray,’ ” said Esperanza. “We give our dues once every week Sebrina. Every meal, every waking, every night before we sleep. We pay them in gold to keep your brothers safe. There is no need for you to give more.”
“We are giving our dues to the wrong people,” said Sebrina said. Anger roiled through the house. I looked down at my hands, my new hands, and kept attention on my fingers. Isa, dalawa, tatlo.
“What are you doing?” said Aguilar. “You look like you’re playing the harpsichord. Ma had it in her head to teach Anastasia, but she won’t use it, the bad girl. And she’s driven all of her teachers away”
“Can you hear anything?” said Joaquin.
“What are they saying?” said Aguilar. And then, once he had thought better of it: “is Esperanza alright?”
“Hush,” I said. I looked at them. “Surely your queen mother and Esperanza will tell you once their meeting is over.”
“They won’t,” said Aguilar. “That’s why we need to ask.”
I looked at them appalled. The boys grinned sheepishly and shrugged their shoulders. They stopped smiling when Sebrina came into the room, color high in her cheeks, anger in the lines of her body.
“Are you alright?” Joaquin said seriously. “Sebrina what did Mama say?”
“A lot of things,” said Sebrina. “But mostly, how I am such a bad daughter, compared to Contemplacion.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not so bad, really. Nothing I haven’t heard before. And we did give you a bad welcome. I am sorry, Soledad. I can’t say that enough.”
“It was not such a bad welcome,” I murmured. “You were very kind.” I held out my hands.
“Sebrina come sit with us,” I said. “Your brothers were telling me all about their studies in Sto. Thomas.”
“Nothing much to talk about,” said Joaquin. “We hear the same thing from the priests. How lazy and slow the Filipinos are, compared to the peninsulares, and how they can’t understand why they’re educating us.” He grinned at Sabrina. “So you see little sister? We are getting the same education.”
“It doesn’t sound like much of an education,” I said. Sebrina sat down and laughed a little.
“I would like to go to the convent,” she explained to me. “Learn everything there is to know about the world. Latin and Spanish and Greek. The old languages. The doctrine of the Church. The nature of our Madonna. But it’s the boys who are our ‘ambassadors,’ not the girls.”
I did not understand how bad this was, though I empathised on wanting for an education. It was my nature to wish to learn, and apparently, it was Soledad’s too.
“Going to school in the first place was bad for you,” said Esperanza, and she hovered at the door. A servant bore a tray: hot tsokolate and pandesal. Anastasia followed them, the spider nowhere in sight. Oh blessed Lady be thanked.
The boys greeted their mother and hurridley turned the topics to the school: how they were enjoying it, the Greek and Latin they were learning, the proud history of Mother Spain, and the Church. I composed my face, as elegantly and calm as I could manage.
Esperanza handed Sebrina a cup of hot tsokolate and a bun of pandesal. She stroked her daughter’s hand, the calacuchi bloom in her hair. There. I thought. Surely the strife between Sebrina and her mother would not last long. Surely she would not feel so much discontent.
#
The first few days were spent being absorbed quietly into the family.
I sat with Soledad and helped her as she coaxed precious venom from her spider, encouraging her darling to sink its fangs into a bottle, covered with paper. Eventually, once most of the vestiges of the phobia had passed, I sat with the family in the spider room, drawing out the silken threads and spinning them into thicker threads, and cloth. That was how the Zamoras made their fortune: spider thread and venom for apothecracies and doctors, the universidads which dealt in medicine. And spider thread: gossamer for the virgin and the idols in church, the great table at mass, for weddings and baptisms of the children of peninsular families, to adorn the mistresses of priests. It was the most beautiful thing on earth, precious and rare as any gem, and the Zamoras were one of the few families who wove it in their own homes. So grudgingly, concessions had been made that would not be made for any other familia: women could be heads of households, could learn everything a man needed to know. Their daughters were inviolate: but alas, the Spanish priests could not always be held to keep agreements and their attentions towards the daughters had to be kept at bay by our enchantments. I spun spells into spider thread: complex spells to keep attention off the girls, but drew attention to Sunday dresses. Dresses are made and woven from spider silk, to advertise the Zamoras’ trade.
“It’s our gold,” Sebrina confided. “They make vests to bullets off, and protect them from glancing blows of the bayonet. But no one can make that much cloth for an army, much less sail for fleets. And the Espanol discovered they need us: not anyone can get the spiders to cooperate and give us their venom and their threads.” She stroked her black spider. She hadn’t really named it anything, just gagamba, or “muning,” when she was feeling silly and affectionate. The black one clicked happily and raised its belly to let her tickle its underside.
“What happened to the men who tried?” I asked. “Years and years ago?” I do not think this knowledge was included in our education.
She smiled. “Oh,” she said. “I think they died.” She played with her darling’s fangs.
I met the Underground Dwende’s ambassador to the family: Anuncia. Her human aspect was pale, as if she were mestiza, and against it, her black hair gleamed dark as lacquered wood. She greeted me with as much politeness and civility as she could manage: the memories of enmity between my clan and hers ran deep, deeper than education and alliance could manage to erase. Besides which, I do not how she got along with the last ambassador.
Some of the servants knew who I was: they still held to the old beliefs, as much they could manage under the Hispania’s rule and treated me with the greatest respect. But people came and went: merchants who bought the Zamora’s spider cloth, bottles of their venom, and clerks who came to arrange numbers. It would not do, Esperanza said, to arouse suspicion when their loyalties were still unclear. They may very well denounce the familia to the Inquisition office here in the Isla de Felipe, for the Islands had been named in honour of a Spanish King.
I knew the value of secrecy. In the early hours of the morning, just as an execution was to be performed, Esperanza woke me up, and took me to the park to watch. “This is what could happen to my familia,” she told me sternly, “if we do not take the proper care. If we are not careful.” They garrotted the man and to watch him flailing in the chair gasping for breath was terrible. “My children know the danger. Now you do.”
“You’re mistaken,” I managed, “if you think my education was so bad, I did not know the danger to you or my own familia.”
“You were a child with a child’s knowledge” said Esperanza. “Now you’re not.”
I faithfully made reports to my mother, as Anuncia did to hers: the number of coin the Zamoras transacted, made and lost, the tribute due to our colonia. I left the tribute myself at the trunk of our tree: slivers of mango, sardine and crickets bred by the familia for their spiders. In my room, I set visiting sisters droplets of milk, tsokolate, juice. I did not speak much to her, though once, it occurred to me that she knew how my caste sister fared in her colonia.
“As well as a daughter of the heights can cope with the underground,” she said practically. I shivered, I thought of crumbling walls, foreigners scutling against you on every side. That seemed to soften her.
“Your sister fares well as can be expected. She is integrating, just as you are.” While my colonia and I made enchantments to keep and guard the familia from harm, Anuncia’s family ensured their wealth. Coin flowed into the Zamora household and into their banks. All our wealth, and fortune. It was a profitable exchange, though we could not have made it without the intercession of the Zamoras.
Every evening, the familia sat down to their meals: the heart and liver of a pig, and its entrails, freshly killed, the meat kept raw. I asked if it was difficult for Soledad, to be denied her natural prey.
“Better pig,” she told me sternly, “than people.”
When I wake up, I have missing limbs and additional appendages. I tap them out, like little legs. Isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat, lima.
Satisfaction blooms. Salutations little, sister. You are child no longer.
I turn my head to see my sisters scuttling over the surface, antennae flexed out as if to converse. Carefully, oh so carefully, I reach out my fingers. I could crush them with a wrong move, the way I am now. The silks they wove around me are loose.
Look, look, my sisters insist. Get up, lazy bones. Their tone is more playful than scolding. I am one of them now, an adult, but I am new, so new, my body is odd and they are willing to indulge me. I, who am ambassador and is the wealth and protection of the colonia. I get up from the rattan weave and stare at the surface where my sisters are. My education supplies the terms: table, dresser, Viennese imports. There is a brush, a mirror, all the trappings of humanity that before today, had only been theoretical, and not physical fact before my eyes.
Outside, feet scuttle back and forth.
“Cousin Soledad! Are you awake? Are you well?”
“We’ve brought you breakfast!”
Cousin Soledad, my predecessor, was meant to be ill and confined to her room. I already knew the ritual words. “Come in.”
The doors slid open.
In came a little minima bearing a tray. She was certainly smaller than me. Sweet smells, familiar smells, fed to me in the nursery. Sweet pandesal and coconut milk, langka and manga fruit. Another girl followed her: she was a little taller and my height. I could not tell if she was minima or maxima. The minima put the tray on the table beside my bed, the larger one went to the door and shut it.
“And how are you Cousin Soledad,” the larger one said. She spoke loudly enough that anyone walking across the hall, or downstairs in the house could hear. “Are you feeling better? Do you feel as though you can get up today?” I murmured my assent. “Anastasia and I will help you wash up,” she said, and kept up a cheerful babble as she went to the wardrobe, shook out the former Soledad’s clothes, and laid them on the chair. Feet scuttled away to get a washing basin I suppose.
The minima came close. I thought she might be near adulthood, but her cheeks were still round, the way human children were still, even as they grew up, and were too big to be larvae.
“Hello,” says the minima, squeezing my hand. I stared at her.
“Salutations,” I said, and withdrew my poor limb. It was one thing to touch me. She did not need to carry on so, as if we were sisters in the nest. Sisters who had survived a catastrophe, and were glad of each other’s survival. The little one grabbed it again. She glared at me with her large eyes.
“Aren’t you Soledad?” she demanded. “She said you were both the same, and I shouldn’t mind her leaving. But you’re not, are you?”
“I am Soledad,” I said stiffly. And the little girl’s face scrunched up. I could not tell if it was deep unhappiness or anger.
“Anastasia, leave her alone,” said the older girl. She looked at me with apology. All ceremony and pomp was gone. “I know you’re new. You have to forgive us. You look so much like her.”
“You’ve been used to this process for five years,” I said. It should not have been a surprise to them, surely.
“Oh I know,” the older girl said. “But it doesn’t get any less strange. You look so much alike, you all act so much alike, but every year, you are someone else. You are so new.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I am Sebrina,” she said. “Sebrina Martinez Y Zamora. This is my little sister.” The minor one pouted at me. “Anastasia.”
“Salutations, Anastasia,” I said. I refused to be ridiculous, even if the little one insisted on remaining so.
Something scuttled inside her hair. A spider peered out at me from under her hair and clicked her fangs. I started back.
“Oh my Lady,” I said, before I could stop myself. My sisters on the table began to scuttle in panic. The smell of a spider was one thing: it was everywhere in the house. Having one in our presence, and close enough to touch, was another.
“Anastasia, take Apollinaria away,” Sebrina snapped.
“Oh! Don’t be afraid!” Anastasia said. She took the spider from her shoulder. The spider raised its fangs. I scuttled back against the beg. “She just wants to be your friend,” she said, teeth flashing. “See? She doesn’t mind if you touch her.”
Sebrina marched to the little one, snatched the spider out of her hands, and threw it at the door. It landed with a thump and shrieked. Her little mistress echoed her scream.
“Polly!”
“Out,” Sebrina snapped. “Both of you. Before I tear the both of you to shreds.” Anastasia scooped up her friend, her demonic little familiar, and slid out the door, calling for her mother.
I turned and held my shaking hands out to my sisters. They ran to me and licked my fingers.
It’s alright, they seemed to be saying. It’s alright, little one. I could hear their voices in my ears. We no longer spoke purely by touch. They crawled onto my fingers, over my arms.
Sebrina did not come near. It was her intent to be respectful. Respectful! “I am sorry,” she said. “This is not the sort of welcome we planned for you. Your queen-mother won’t be happy.”
“I will always do as she asks,” I said. “I won’t give her cause to be unhappy.” I wonder how I looked to this human girl, my sisters crawling over my arm when I had a human shape. I did not care. I wanted nothing more than to have them here. But Sebrina did not scold, did not show a trace of disapproval.
“We know you will,” she said. “I am really sorry about Anastasia. She was too fond of the other one and can’t understand why you don’t like her. She’s spoiled beyond reason. Mother and Immaculata were too fond of her and she knows it.”
She said this all, as if it made perfect sense. Human beings are mad.
Sebrina did not touch my shoulder or did any of the calming things human beings were supposed to do. “I’ll go outside,” she said. “You stay here with your sisters. Just knock on the door if you need me — we still need to get you dressed. And yes — to get used to spiders. They are everywhere in the house, though I think your queen mother might have fixed that. The phobia won’t last long — you’re still getting used to your new body.”
And respectfully, she turned to leave me there, huddled against the wall with my sisters, all trying to soothe me to calm.
#
Esperanza Zamora was displeased. Her little daughter sat on the far end of the table with her wretched creature on her shoulder. I and Sebrina sat by her side. I was respectable now, according to the dictates of human fashion. A pina blouse, seashell necklace and a checkered skirt that swished to the ground. The swathes of silk my sisters clothed me in, Sebrina informed me, was more nightdress than dress. I was not sure I saw the difference, despite my education.
“Well no,” said Sebrina, when I made the remark. “You’re only two weeks old.”
I walked out once the phobia had ebbed, and I could stand the idea of spiders crawling all over the house. And yes, it turned out, Sebrina had a spider too. Large and black, demure enough to keep to her mistress’ black hair. It remained respectfully on her other shoulder, though my phobia had ebbed.
“If you can’t be bothered to observe protocol and keep the spider out of Soledad’s room,” Esperanza Zamora said to her daughter, “I am going to kill it. There is no sense in keeping a spider after it has passed its use. Keeping it as a pet was meant to be a gift to you.”
The little one looked miserable at being scolded, and I could empathise: it was terrible being confronted with a queen’s wrath. Our queen mother had never laid her displeasure on me, but we could feel ripples of her displeasure when we stumbled over a lesson, when we did not demonstrate mental agility and callisthetics to our tutors’ satisfaction, when we, too often, betrayed a prejudice she did not approve of.
“I don’t see why,” Anastasia murmured. “She’d have to get used to the spiders, sooner or later.”
Her elder sister raised her hand and clouted her on the ear. “To your room,” she said. “Not another word out of you, not a single word against the ambassador. Go.” Poor Anastasia. Her little mouth puckered, and she turned and ran up the steps, into the room that she shared with her sisters. Her dreaded spider clung to her back.
I was appalled. What did these people teach their children, that they would defy their elders?
“I am sorry,” said Esperanza. She must have seen the look on my face. “She’s spoiled, that girl, we spoiled her too much.”
“She was fond of the other one,” said Sebrina. “She doesn’t like it that you’ve taken her place. And her face too. She knows it isn’t her.”
“I am Soledad,” I said stiffly.
“Yes we know,” said Sebrina. “But you’re not predecessor, and that is a problem for Anastasia at least.” I felt like throwing up my hands, running out of the house, to the mango tree where my queen mother and sister resided. I was here to process transactions, not care for the whims of a spoiled human child.
“Don’t worry,” Esperanza said. “What Anastasia thinks doesn’t count for much in this household: she’s only a larvae. A little girl. She has to learn proper conduct.” She held out her hands.
“Welcome, Soledad,” she said softly. “You are much needed here.”
#
I met the rest of the familia, except the eldest girl. Joaquin, who was home for the holidays, studying at the Universidad de Sto. Tomas, Aguilar who was only a little older than Anastasia. The boys at least, were far more polite. Perhaps they had been warned by their sister and their mother.
“Welcome Soledad,” said Joaquin. “Sorry about the messed up welcome. That girl is growing wild. She doesn’t remember the bad years, before your mother met ours.” He peered at her.
“You wouldn’t know it from the way ma and Sebrina carry on,” Aguilar said.
Indeed, it was clear that Sebrina had somehow fallen under the matriarch’s displeasure.
Esperanza and Sebrina argued behind closed doors. Human beings! Perhaps their arguments were invisible to the servants they did not fully trust, but the rest of the family certainly knew what was going on, and I, I could hear the reveberations of their arguments travelling to the sala from the office where Sebrina and Esperanza held their meetings.
“How did she keep the spider without your notice?” said Esperanza. “Were you daydreaming again? Dawdelling? Your sister is not like this. How can you expect to be the mistress of this house if your head is not where it is expected to be? Do you expect your brother’s wife to take over those duties for you?”
“I was not daydreaming,” Sebrina said through gritted teeth. “I don’t daydream Mother.”
“No you ‘pray,’ ” said Esperanza. “We give our dues once every week Sebrina. Every meal, every waking, every night before we sleep. We pay them in gold to keep your brothers safe. There is no need for you to give more.”
“We are giving our dues to the wrong people,” said Sebrina said. Anger roiled through the house. I looked down at my hands, my new hands, and kept attention on my fingers. Isa, dalawa, tatlo.
“What are you doing?” said Aguilar. “You look like you’re playing the harpsichord. Ma had it in her head to teach Anastasia, but she won’t use it, the bad girl. And she’s driven all of her teachers away”
“Can you hear anything?” said Joaquin.
“What are they saying?” said Aguilar. And then, once he had thought better of it: “is Esperanza alright?”
“Hush,” I said. I looked at them. “Surely your queen mother and Esperanza will tell you once their meeting is over.”
“They won’t,” said Aguilar. “That’s why we need to ask.”
I looked at them appalled. The boys grinned sheepishly and shrugged their shoulders. They stopped smiling when Sebrina came into the room, color high in her cheeks, anger in the lines of her body.
“Are you alright?” Joaquin said seriously. “Sebrina what did Mama say?”
“A lot of things,” said Sebrina. “But mostly, how I am such a bad daughter, compared to Contemplacion.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not so bad, really. Nothing I haven’t heard before. And we did give you a bad welcome. I am sorry, Soledad. I can’t say that enough.”
“It was not such a bad welcome,” I murmured. “You were very kind.” I held out my hands.
“Sebrina come sit with us,” I said. “Your brothers were telling me all about their studies in Sto. Thomas.”
“Nothing much to talk about,” said Joaquin. “We hear the same thing from the priests. How lazy and slow the Filipinos are, compared to the peninsulares, and how they can’t understand why they’re educating us.” He grinned at Sabrina. “So you see little sister? We are getting the same education.”
“It doesn’t sound like much of an education,” I said. Sebrina sat down and laughed a little.
“I would like to go to the convent,” she explained to me. “Learn everything there is to know about the world. Latin and Spanish and Greek. The old languages. The doctrine of the Church. The nature of our Madonna. But it’s the boys who are our ‘ambassadors,’ not the girls.”
I did not understand how bad this was, though I empathised on wanting for an education. It was my nature to wish to learn, and apparently, it was Soledad’s too.
“Going to school in the first place was bad for you,” said Esperanza, and she hovered at the door. A servant bore a tray: hot tsokolate and pandesal. Anastasia followed them, the spider nowhere in sight. Oh blessed Lady be thanked.
The boys greeted their mother and hurridley turned the topics to the school: how they were enjoying it, the Greek and Latin they were learning, the proud history of Mother Spain, and the Church. I composed my face, as elegantly and calm as I could manage.
Esperanza handed Sebrina a cup of hot tsokolate and a bun of pandesal. She stroked her daughter’s hand, the calacuchi bloom in her hair. There. I thought. Surely the strife between Sebrina and her mother would not last long. Surely she would not feel so much discontent.
#
The first few days were spent being absorbed quietly into the family.
I sat with Soledad and helped her as she coaxed precious venom from her spider, encouraging her darling to sink its fangs into a bottle, covered with paper. Eventually, once most of the vestiges of the phobia had passed, I sat with the family in the spider room, drawing out the silken threads and spinning them into thicker threads, and cloth. That was how the Zamoras made their fortune: spider thread and venom for apothecracies and doctors, the universidads which dealt in medicine. And spider thread: gossamer for the virgin and the idols in church, the great table at mass, for weddings and baptisms of the children of peninsular families, to adorn the mistresses of priests. It was the most beautiful thing on earth, precious and rare as any gem, and the Zamoras were one of the few families who wove it in their own homes. So grudgingly, concessions had been made that would not be made for any other familia: women could be heads of households, could learn everything a man needed to know. Their daughters were inviolate: but alas, the Spanish priests could not always be held to keep agreements and their attentions towards the daughters had to be kept at bay by our enchantments. I spun spells into spider thread: complex spells to keep attention off the girls, but drew attention to Sunday dresses. Dresses are made and woven from spider silk, to advertise the Zamoras’ trade.
“It’s our gold,” Sebrina confided. “They make vests to bullets off, and protect them from glancing blows of the bayonet. But no one can make that much cloth for an army, much less sail for fleets. And the Espanol discovered they need us: not anyone can get the spiders to cooperate and give us their venom and their threads.” She stroked her black spider. She hadn’t really named it anything, just gagamba, or “muning,” when she was feeling silly and affectionate. The black one clicked happily and raised its belly to let her tickle its underside.
“What happened to the men who tried?” I asked. “Years and years ago?” I do not think this knowledge was included in our education.
She smiled. “Oh,” she said. “I think they died.” She played with her darling’s fangs.
I met the Underground Dwende’s ambassador to the family: Anuncia. Her human aspect was pale, as if she were mestiza, and against it, her black hair gleamed dark as lacquered wood. She greeted me with as much politeness and civility as she could manage: the memories of enmity between my clan and hers ran deep, deeper than education and alliance could manage to erase. Besides which, I do not how she got along with the last ambassador.
Some of the servants knew who I was: they still held to the old beliefs, as much they could manage under the Hispania’s rule and treated me with the greatest respect. But people came and went: merchants who bought the Zamora’s spider cloth, bottles of their venom, and clerks who came to arrange numbers. It would not do, Esperanza said, to arouse suspicion when their loyalties were still unclear. They may very well denounce the familia to the Inquisition office here in the Isla de Felipe, for the Islands had been named in honour of a Spanish King.
I knew the value of secrecy. In the early hours of the morning, just as an execution was to be performed, Esperanza woke me up, and took me to the park to watch. “This is what could happen to my familia,” she told me sternly, “if we do not take the proper care. If we are not careful.” They garrotted the man and to watch him flailing in the chair gasping for breath was terrible. “My children know the danger. Now you do.”
“You’re mistaken,” I managed, “if you think my education was so bad, I did not know the danger to you or my own familia.”
“You were a child with a child’s knowledge” said Esperanza. “Now you’re not.”
I faithfully made reports to my mother, as Anuncia did to hers: the number of coin the Zamoras transacted, made and lost, the tribute due to our colonia. I left the tribute myself at the trunk of our tree: slivers of mango, sardine and crickets bred by the familia for their spiders. In my room, I set visiting sisters droplets of milk, tsokolate, juice. I did not speak much to her, though once, it occurred to me that she knew how my caste sister fared in her colonia.
“As well as a daughter of the heights can cope with the underground,” she said practically. I shivered, I thought of crumbling walls, foreigners scutling against you on every side. That seemed to soften her.
“Your sister fares well as can be expected. She is integrating, just as you are.” While my colonia and I made enchantments to keep and guard the familia from harm, Anuncia’s family ensured their wealth. Coin flowed into the Zamora household and into their banks. All our wealth, and fortune. It was a profitable exchange, though we could not have made it without the intercession of the Zamoras.
Every evening, the familia sat down to their meals: the heart and liver of a pig, and its entrails, freshly killed, the meat kept raw. I asked if it was difficult for Soledad, to be denied her natural prey.
“Better pig,” she told me sternly, “than people.”
no subject
Date: 2009-11-05 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-08 09:39 am (UTC)I love the spiders too---though the Zamorras' are probably more like cats than their real life counterparts.