1987, Oaxaca, Mexico

By Lorna Smedman

My friend Daniella had gone down to Mexico. In Oaxaca, she got very sick with some intestinal germ and, too stubborn to come home, was consulting local healers. The day came when they informed her that she was going to die, that there was nothing else they could do for her; in fact, someone had put a curse on her, a fatal curse.

Then, as in a fairy tale, a handsome man came into the room, swept her up in his arms, carried her back to his house, and nursed her back to health. They fell madly in love.

She had gone to Mexico to paint; he was a painter, with gallery connections throughout Mexico. He owned a wonderful house, and she had her own studio in the back of the garden. I had to come for a visit. Daniella missed me. She wanted to show me everything. She was taking Spanish lessons and painting like crazy. She missed me. Her letters were full of little sketches of their house, the market, the hills she saw from her studio window. I had to meet Humberto. She had never been so happy in her life. She missed me.

I booked a flight during my Easter break. Standing arm-in-arm inside the entrance gate of the small airport in Oaxaca, Daniella and Humberto looked like characters out of a 1940s movie, Daniella in high heels and a sleeveless dress with a cinched waist and wide skirt, heavy silver bracelets on her terribly thin wrists, her handsome boyfriend in a boxy suit of some soft material, the light color setting off his dark hair and skin.

The streets of Oaxaca were formal, orderly, European, though everywhere there were swatches of saturated paint, quirky advertisements, and the impossibly bright reds and pinks of tropical flowers.

Humberto’s house, like the others, was behind a high wall, with a very secure, ornate gate. Inside, there was the garden that Daniella had raved about, the wide shaded porch strung with hammocks, the separate building grown over with flowering vines that was her studio. The house was full of paintings and Mexican pottery and old masks and textiles on the walls. Most of the paintings were Humberto’s, very large, colorful depictions of masked heroic figures taken, Daniella explained, from Mayan mythology.

They seemed to be very much in love. Humberto seldom had his hands off Daniella, and as soon as we were in the house, he made her lay down on a couch in the living room. He took off her shoes, massaged her feet, crooning sweet things in Spanish.

“I’m not having a good day,” Daniella explained to me, patting her stomach and grimacing. “Oh, Daniella, I didn’t know you were…” I began, but Humberto interrupted me. “Dolores.” I was confused. “Daniella is not here,” he said, smiling. “From now on, you must call her Dolores.”

I looked at Daniella in confusion, but she just rolled her eyes. Humberto stroked her cheek. “Dolores, my Dolorita, my sad, sad little beauty.” He kissed her on the eyes and excused himself.

“What the hell was that about?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s just the name he chose for me. His name for me.”

“Are you sad?” I asked.

“No, Daniella was sad. That’s the irony. Dolores is never sad. But do me a favor and don’t call me Daniella in front of Humberto. He doesn’t like it.”

I started to protest, but she stopped me. “There are different codes here. You see machismo in a certain light, coming from the States, but it’s much more complicated. Or simpler. So please try to suspend all your prejudices. And you know, Humberto is right in a way — Daniella doesn’t exist anymore. You’ll see.”

I began to see the next morning when Daniella sent me out the gate with a hand-drawn map of the town and a couple pieces of advice: always walk on the shady side of the street, don’t buy any food from street vendors, order drinks without ice cubes. She wanted to do some work in her studio.

In the evenings, the three of us went out, Daniella and Humberto dressed to the nines. There were lots of preparations for Easter, people making elaborately woven palm leaf decorations and flower arrangements for the churches and constructing hollow papier-mâché animals — horses, bulls, and roosters — in the churchyards.

We went to the somber, silent procession, watching as churches from all over the area paraded their statues of Mary and other saints and re-enacted Jesus’ long march to the hill of death, one man after another dragging a heavy cross, barefoot, his brow bloodied by the crown of thorns. Humberto was charming, solicitous; taking my arm, he maneuvered me to the front of the crowds, flashing apologetic smiles and then directing me to “Quick, take your picture.”

On the evening of Easter Sunday, after the church service, everyone poured into the streets. Small bands struck up dance tunes in every square, and people paired off to dance. Humberto swept Dolores (where was Daniella?) up into a wild, swirling waltz. And then those papier-mâché animals rushed into the crowds, chasing people, tossing their threatening horns, pawing the ground. Each was wired with fire-crackers, and as these began to go off, the crowds grew more frantic, children screaming, people ducking as small rockets whizzed past.

My friends suddenly grabbed my hands and we began running along with the crowds toward the main square. Here there was a huge tower, three or four stories high, and when most of the beasts had finally exhausted their ammunition, the tower was set alight. Fireworks went off from the bottom of the tower to the top in synchronized animation, the colors growing more vibrant until they exploded at the top in the blinding bright message, in Spanish, “Jesus Has Risen!” It was an amazing event, Catholicism meshed with rites of spring that seemed much older and more primal.

After the Easter hoopla, I spent the next few evenings with Daniella at home. She was sending me out site-seeing on my own every morning, claiming to be too tired or ill or busy in her studio to accompany me. Besides, she had seen all the museums and galleries and historic sites before. Humberto went out every evening after dinner to different art openings or parties, but Daniella claimed to be bored with the gallery scene in Oaxaca.

“Hey, let’s go down to the Zocolo and have a drink,” I suggested one evening.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that. It’s such a tourist scene.”

“But I am a tourist,” I reminded her. “I’ve been here five days and you and I haven’t been out together once. What’s going on?”

“Humberto doesn’t like me to out by myself.”

I was stunned. “But you would be with me.” Your old friend, I wanted to add. The person who you’ve writing to, describing the wonders of Oaxaca. The one you’ve been begging to come for a visit.

“He’s very jealous. It’s OK, I understand it. It’s part of the code here.”

“It sounds like house arrest,” I protested.

“He loves me. I’ve never been so loved. And if I have to compromise a little….” Daniella just shrugged.

Daniella must have said something to Humberto about my wish to go to the Zocolo for a drink because he made a big deal about it on my last night. “You must have the complete tourist experience,” he said, his smile suddenly seeming strained and hard. “We must take the American to have dinner at the Zocolo, otherwise how will she say she had a true visit to Oaxaca?”

It was a bit touristy, the tables crowded with foreigners and Mexicans, waiters, strolling vendors, and beggars competing for their attention. We were checking out different places, looking for a table, when someone began calling, “Dolores! Humberto!” Five or six artists stood up, waving us over.

Amid the scrambling to squeeze extra chairs into the tight space, I was introduced with courteous, formal handshakes all around. Jeff, originally from San Francisco, gathered Daniella up in a big hug. “My god, where have you been?” he exclaimed, making the person next to him move so she could sit down. “You’re so thin! You’re not eating! Why haven’t you called me? I left a million messages for you.”

For the first time in the whole week, I watched my friend’s face light up in the old familiar way. But it was fleeting. Humberto yanked her chair back and pulled her to her feet. “Sit,” he hissed in my ear, pushing me down, his hand firm on my shoulder. He then steered Daniella to the other side of the table, shooing people out of two chairs. For the rest of the evening, Humberto had his arm around Daniella’s shoulder, holding her close to him, although she looked uncomfortably tilted. She hardly ate. She barely spoke. She looked bored and finally closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder.

When I told Jeff I had been visiting for the past week, he gave a low whistle. “So she got Humberto to agree to let you come for a visit, huh?” Without looking at me, his eyes on his plate, he explained in a low voice how he had spent a lot of time with Daniella when he first met her. And then, even though Jeff was gay, Humberto forbade her to go his studio by herself.

“And I do keep calling, but since he doesn’t let her answer the phone….”

I suddenly remembered an evening when the phone was ringing and Daniella seemed not to hear it. “Aren’t you going to answer it?” I finally asked. “Carmella will get it,” she said.

“But she left already.”

“It’s probably for Humberto anyway.”

When people asked, I said I had a great trip to Oaxaca. It is a wonderful, magical city. What I don’t usually say is how lonely my trip was, and how odd it was to be sent out of my friend’s house each morning to wander and fend for myself.

I came to spend time with my friend Daniella, but Daniella no longer existed.

Lorna Smedman lives in Manhattan and loves to travel. She is finishing a book of short stories and a memoir about buying a shack in the woods called Making House.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 | Email This Post

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