The Living Infinite, page 3
“You’re right. But nothing is promised in this life, is it?” Leonela answered, sighing like a person at a funeral. Amalia felt that Leonela was like a spider trying to get into a house, to find for herself a warm, dusty corner for her web. Amalia observed Leonela’s thin arms, covered in dark hairs, and remembered the time Rubén smashed a spider, the million babies that erupted from inside it, and how they had both screamed like children. She stifled a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Leonela asked.
“Just a memory of my husband, that’s all.”
“Tell me about him,” Leonela asked. Amalia almost replied. Honest answers came to her naturally, and so it felt rather foreign to her to say, “He’s a good man,” and leave it at that.
On the night the child was born, Amalia listened to the queen’s agonies through a vent in the ceiling. The vent had been cut in order to install a gas line a few years earlier, and the pipe that jutted out of the hole hissed and sputtered and smelled funny. But other sounds were carried along the pipe, and Amalia, passing by on the way from the kitchen to the nursery, heard the distinct shout of a woman. She returned to the vent an hour later, after Celia had confirmed that yes, the queen was delivering her child. From there, Amalia listened to it all—the doctors’ urging, Isabel’s grunts and whimpers, muttering she couldn’t make out. Amalia, go, she told herself, knowing that her eavesdropping was wrong, that she would have nightmares all night, and that her dead babies would come to her in dreams and intrusive thoughts for days afterwards. But Amalia could not move. Her feet had sprouted roots. When she first heard the new infanta’s cries, she cried out too, and her own body betrayed her, gushing milk for a child she had not yet seen.
“You are the new ama?” Amalia heard a man say, and she looked up, startled. He had a thick beard, and his hair was parted severely to the side. He was a little older than she, but not by too much.
“Señor,” Amalia said, and curtsied. “I was just—”
“Spying,” he said.
“No, no, of course not!” She crossed her arms tight against her chest to cover up the two blooming wet spots on her shirt.
The man put his hands inside his coat pocket, for he was wearing a long jacket indoors. He drew out a pocket watch and glanced at it before putting it back. Above them, the child began to cry again.
The man blew out a puff of breath at the sound, and when he looked at Amalia again, his eyes were bright. “You were only worried about the baby and su alteza, Ama. We have all been worried.”
The way he said it slowed the currents of unease within her. “Deliveries are tricky things, señor,” she said.
“I know it,” he answered, and pronounced the words so clearly and slowly, that it seemed he had revealed something about himself, some inner working of his heart.
“Amalia,” she said, curtseying again.
“What? Oh. Miguel Tenorio de Castilla, a su servicio,” he said. He nodded, then spun around, headed to the banquet hall where the other nobles were gathered to await the news of Isabel’s delivery.
Amalia watched him go in mild astonishment. This man was of the noble class; that was certain. It was in the fine cut of his suit and the trimmed curls on his head, in his fine, white fingers, and in his gleaming pocket watch. Spain was relentlessly hierarchical—men commanded women, women commanded children, the aging commanded the young. And yet, this Miguel Tenorio had treated her not as a servant but as a fellow witness to a royal birth, both of them anxious and relieved at the sound of the infant’s cries. She was not yet well versed in the ways of the court, and the encounter, as short as it was, made her feel welcome for the first time since she had arrived.
At dawn, Eulalia was brought to Amalia, swaddled in a soft, cotton blanket dyed sunflower yellow, the color of the Virgin. Celia settled the girl in the nodriza’s arms. “Another girl,” she sighed, and Amalia laughed in relief. There would be no little king to replace the boy she loved. And this one was so far down the line, she would never be a queen of Spain. “Mi princesa,” Amalia said to her, and put her to the breast.
At that moment, the white peacock squalled, his call so humanlike. Amalia knew it was him, for he was the loudest bird in the Birdcage. “Hush,” she whispered to him, but he called out again. She thought of Gisela, and her petition against affections extending toward the royal children. “What’s the harm in it?” she whispered, and touched the blond wisps on Eulalia’s head.
Just like that, she was in love with the girl. She had forgotten that she shared the room with Leonela, who stared at Amalia from the bed, ignoring Luz María, who was clawing at her breast, her mouth opening and closing. Tomás, for his part, slept on, snoring away. Amalia longed to put Tomás and Eulalia side by side, compare them, introduce them to one another. Celia would frown at that. The new baby took deep breaths, coughed a bit, then latched on again. Her eyes opened for a moment, revealing their blueness, then finding Amalia’s. It was her turn to lose her breath.
“Your highness,” Amalia mumbled at her, besotted. “Aren’t you a hungry one?”
Querida Gisela,
I met the Infanta Eulalia last week, just an hour after she was born, and I thought of you, and your concern for my mother’s heart. The child is divine, she is. But she cannot take the place of my son.
In spite of the generally fickle nature of newborns, we have a routine, the infanta and I. Each morning, the nurse brings the baby to me. Tomás, who has begun to pull himself up already, eyes me curiously. Sometimes, his bottom lip quivers and his eyes start to redden, and if I do not say, “Shh, shh, mi hijito,” he will start crying. But it is as if he knows I have a duty, and that he, little as he is, has one, too. So he plops his fat little thumb in his mouth and waits.
I wasn’t invited to the baptism, which did not surprise me. The other nodriza, Leonela, was offended, as if she were a duquesa who’d been slighted. She is, God forgive, an overwrought and ridiculous woman. Nevertheless, we were both made to go to confession in preparation for the baptismal mass we were not allowed to attend. Leonela quipped that su alteza’s confesor, Padre Campion, was probably exhausted after listening to the Queen’s sins, and that he would go easy on us.
You should know that the palace is all gossip, much like Las Trinas can sometimes be.
Leonela likes to point out the many ways su alteza’s children do not resemble one another, and how none of them resemble the Queen’s consort, Francisco de Asis.
I suppose we’ve all heard those rumors, the newspapers have never shied away from it. When I asked Leonela what she thought of Francisco de Asis, she said, “Several strapping men have come to his rescue, don’t doubt it for a second.” Can you imagine, Gisela? The things that come out of Leonela’s mouth leave me cold sometimes.
Ay, mi amiga. I am such a long way from Burgos, and I feel the distance physically on some days, as if I have been holding taut a long ribbon between my home and the palace, and suddenly lose my grip on it.
Tu querida amiga,
Amalia
5
The confessional was in the chapel where the baptism would be held. Amalia peeked at the altar, and saw that the preparations had been made—the altar was covered in a cloth embroidered in gold thread. To either side of the altar, a massive bouquet of red and yellow flowers sat in gold vases.
She kneeled at a pew and waited. It was courteous not to raise one’s head at the sound of the confessional door swinging open. Besides, she did not want anyone to look at her when it was her turn to leave and do her penance. Yet something tugged at Amalia when the door creaked, and she looked up to see Miguel Tenorio, stepping out. He looked much changed—his face was ashen, and he held his hands tightly together, massaging his knuckles as he walked away. Amalia buried her face in her hands, and hoped he hadn’t caught her looking.
A rustling sound startled Amalia. A nun had settled herself in the pew. Her eyes were on Amalia, narrowed, her lips moving a little without making a sound. Before Amalia could utter a good morning, the nun said, “I am Sor Patrocinio. Perhaps you have heard of me.”
Amalia could not say that she had, and she wouldn’t lie, not now, so close to confession. She shook her head, then her eyes fell on Sor Patrocinio’s hands, which lay very still on her lap, wrapped in white muslin, so that she could only wiggle her fingers a little.
“Oh, have you had an accident?” was all Amalia could think to say.
Sor Patrocinio only turned her palms up, slowly, as if revealing a gift to a child. There, Amalia could see red stains blooming, seeping into the cloth. “Pray, child. You are in the presence of a miracle,” the nun said, and Amalia closed her eyes and did as she said, all of her body itching to get away, as if she were in the company of a terrifying insect one encounters in the middle of the night.
But when she opened her eyes again, Sor Patrocinio was still there, and the nun began to speak with a whispered urgency. “I feel as if there are many miles between you and the one you love. The palace is bereft of love, you can feel that, I’m sure. But I am pure love. This is pure love,” she said, gesturing to her hands. “Su alteza seeks me out because of this. As you nourish the child, so do I nourish la Reina.” She spoke the way one recites prayers—hurriedly and seeminging without thinking. Amalia thought this might go on forever, for Sor Patrocinio spoke without pauses, her breath hot and garlicky on Amalia’s face.
Then, relief. Amalia felt a light touch on her shoulder a few moments later, and looked up to see Padre Campion before her. He nodded towards the confessional, and she stood, leaving Sor Patrocinio behind.
Inside the booth, Amalia knelt. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she began. Amalia was quiet for a bit, unsure of what to say. That she worried about what Rubén was doing? Or that she would somehow be less of a mother to Tomás now that Eulalia took up so much of her time? These didn’t seem like sins, but rather, afflictions of the soul, drawing her away from the present with worries about the future.
“Sometimes I daydream during mass on Sunday,” Amalia said at last. This was true, at least. A small sparkling thing caught her eye on the floor, twinkling as if by its own light in the dim space. Amalia thought of Leonela and her claims regarding Isabel. If they were true, she thought, then this Padre Campion had heard far worse. He held his eyes closed, as if listening to the voice of God. He parted his lips to speak, and Amalia expected a soft reprimand, perhaps a recitation of Hail Mary or two.
“You are to recite two rosaries on your knees, and remember that you serve in the household of Spain’s regent. Your attention should be sharp and unwavering at all moments.” Then he closed his eyes again.
“Amen,” Amalia said, her voice limp. She made the sign of the cross, then swept her hand across the floor to pick up the glimmering object. It was small and hard, and she tucked it into her pocket. Leaving the confessional, Amalia decided then and there that she would forego communion if it meant sitting in that dark, wooden box with a man who thought two rosaries on her knees was just penance for daydreaming.
Amalia tried very hard not to look at Sor Patrocinio as she rose for her turn at confession, but she could see her dark shape from the corner of her eye, and in the center of it was a bright red spot. It was the same effect one feels after staring at the sun.
Later, she heard one of the guards say that the infanta was given ninety-three names. And just as many godparents, if not more.
That night, while Eulalia slept in Amalia’s arms, Leonela said, “The queen herself did not attend the baptism. Odd, don’t you think? It’s been four days since the delivery. Surely, she can get out of bed by now.”
“If she wasn’t there, who was?” Amalia whispered over the baby’s head.
“Half of Spain, I heard. At least, anyone worth anything. Meanwhile, Her Majesty sits around fanning herself. Entertaining her lovers, maybe.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Amalia told her. “No one takes a lover days after birth. You’re being vulgar on purpose,” she reprimanded.
Leonela dismissed Amalia with a wave of her thin hand and said, “You’re pretending to be naive, Amalia. Burgos may be in the country, but it isn’t a backwater. You know as well as I do what people are capable of.”
“That’s what I mean. They are just people! Picture her, the queen, pale and sleepy in her bed, still bleeding, poked, prodded, examined by a host of doctors. Her oldest, María Isabel, is as haughty as any schoolgirl, but she’s thick around the waist, like her mother, and her complexion is bad. I saw her this morning. Pilár likes to pick her nose while she plays, I’ve seen her do it, and Paz is sweet, but she only ever says ‘Nana’ and ‘Ama’ like a broken toy. Eulalia cries like any infant, mewling like a kitten when she is hungry, and she scratches her cheeks with her too-long nails, so that I put a pair of Paz’s socks over her hands while she sleeps. As for the heir, I haven’t seen Alfonso, but I’ve heard he’s overly thin and always getting in trouble for playing pranks. People, just people, Leonela.”
“How stupid of me to think otherwise,” Leonela said, turning her back on Amalia. Then, in a low voice, she said, “People are capable of terrible things. Even the ones we love. They forget about you, they betray you. I haven’t received so much as a single letter from my husband yet. God knows what he’s up to. What about you?” The question was not meant to be answered, because Leonela, who eyed all the mail when it came, knew what Amalia’s response would be. She flopped down on her bed and feigned an instant sleep.
In the middle of the night, Amalia woke with a start. She listened for the keening sound of a baby’s cry, but heard nothing. Even the birds were quiet. Then she recalled the stone she had picked up in the confessional. She got up quietly, peeling back the covers slowly, and tiptoed over to her uniform. She felt for the pocket, and the stone within, which she drew out carefully. Then she left the room and took the stone with her to the Birdcage. Amalia opened the gate, again softly, quietly, and stepped into the lush aviary. There was a full moon, and it blazed through the glass ceiling overhead, catching in the many bevels in the windows, splintering the light. She opened her hand and saw a rectangular stone the color of the sky at dusk. It was the size of large blueberry and looked good enough to eat. It had obviously come loose from some setting—a ring most likely. Amalia turned the stone over in her hand, catching the moonlight. It was a sapphire, or maybe an aquamarine. A blue diamond? Did such a thing exist? She didn’t know, but she began to shake with the thing in her hand. If she were to return it in the morning, they would ask why she hadn’t done so right away.
The white peacock nudged her with his head, opening his mouth.
“No, no, no,” Amalia whispered, but he squawked anyway, a loud, angry noise. She backed away from him, but he followed, fanning his tail and calling out. The brown, female peacock looked down from her nest overhead, as if saying, “Now you know what it feels like to be chased by that one.”
Suddenly, Amalia heard footsteps. “What are you doing in there?” Celia said from behind the gate. She was wearing her nightcap and was blinking like an owl.
Amalia gripped the stone. “These birds,” she said. “They are so noisy. I was trying to shush this white one.”
“I didn’t hear the birds.”
“They’re driving me crazy. The peacocks cry like babies. I shudder to think of the sound if the hen lays eggs. Then it will sound like two nurseries full of infants.”
Celia opened the gate, then reached out her hand, palm up, twitching her fingers. Amalia felt as if her heart had stopped. She stood still as a lamppost.
“Your hand, Amalia. Come, child. You need your rest.”
Amalia slipped her free hand into Celia’s and, when the old woman wasn’t looking, pocketed the jewel.
“Let’s go down to the kitchens. There’s some ham left over from the celebrations this afternoon. We will have a little feast, and then off to bed. How does that sound? Oh, oh,” Celia said, halting in her tracks. She drew Amalia in a tight embrace. “No tears, no tears.” She pounded her back, like men do to one another.
Amalia couldn’t help herself. The stone, the worries about the babies, her husband, the confession, the rumors about the queen, the damned peacocks, Leonela’s icy glares. It was all too much.
“I’m sorry, Celia. I miss my home.”
Celia looked at Amalia gently, and tugged at a stray hair that had gotten caught in the nodriza’s mouth. “You’re from Burgos, no? So was I. The Queen and her children, they were all nursed by women from Burgos. It could be said that Burgos is in their blood, quite literally. I’m proud of that.”
As promised, Celia led Amalia down to the kitchens and together they ate. They chewed silently, each woman staring off into some inscrutable past or future. The stone sat in Amalia’s pocket like a great weight, and the thought of it there troubled her stomach. She told herself that she would say the rosaries Padre Campion had assigned, and add another for the gemstone, though she didn’t expect the prayers to do anything to relieve her nerves, or her homesickness. Earlier that day, Leonela had said that the Royal Palace was thick with sin, thicker than any other place in Spain, and Amalia began to think she was right. Beyond the call of the birds, and the wailing of babies, there was a susurration in the air of secret stories. It felt as if Amalia could reach up and cup them to her ear, the way she had reached down and taken something priceless in her hand.
6
It was after lunch one day, when Eulalia was four months old, that Amalia returned to the nursery to find the birds loose. There were doves nestled in the bookcases, songbirds crashing into the frescoes on the ceiling, as if the false blue sky had driven them mad or suicidal. Feathers littered the floor, and the peacock pair was nestled inside one of the cribs. Both Leonela and Celia were dashing about kicking at the birds while carrying children—Paz and Eulalia on Celia’s hips, Tomás and Luz María on Leonela’s. Pilár jumped up and down in a corner, sucking on the hem of her dress, and crying in jags.
