We rode through the soft California hills, and I leaned against him, feeling that I was falling into the moon and into him at the same time. In not too long order, we arrived at a little shack.
He helped me slide down, and then he hitched Tornado.
Bernardo was there, unobtrusively having set the table inside and made coffee and sliced up some bread.
“What is this place?” I asked.
He shrugged. “An old shepherd’s hut. It is one of the places I can come in case I need to. And I need to speak with you without anyone hearing. Please, take a seat, Seńorita.”
I took a seat at the table.
Zorro did not sit, but continued to pace, while Bernardo lit a fire. “Seńorita, I need for you to understand. I am loyal to the king and the justice that serves him. When I have seen those feathers, I see California and the king’s justice bleeding. There are traps everywhere for California and for myself. When I saw those feathers in your fan, I thought you might be a trap for me, too.”
“I know,” I said. I could feel his feelings as he said this. I did know.
“I cannot fall in love,” said Zorro. “I cannot marry. I cannot think of anything but California and my father’s and his father’s work for the land we call ours. As Diego, I can think about those things a little e more. But if Zorro loses his focus, he may die. Diego was angry with you, but, oh Magdalena, Zorro was devastated.”
“I am sorry,” I said.
He stood there, simply Zorro, speaking to me. “Magdalena. I love you. I broke all the rules for you. I was even going to tell you about Zorro. I think that when you lose someone, though, that if that person hurts you, you find yourself suffering more.”
I certainly knew that. All last night, I’d been in the trenches of the heart.
“I wanted to tell you,” I said. “I was involved with the Eagle – but I didn’t want you to know like that.”
“I realized how you behaved,” he said. “You were afraid. It did not occur to me until later. “I realized Monastario was threatening you and that he was behind your attack. You fled him, then?”
I told him as much as I knew. Zorro listened intently, the eyes behind the mask ablaze. I felt love returning to me, and with it the energy and hope and everything I thought I had lost. I was coming back to life.
I told him about seeing Manny dead and how it had felt for a long time. I had wanted to numb myself and go far away, so that no one could hut me. “I hated him for getting caught and dying. I hated everyone for not fighting for him.”
“How do you feel now?”
Magdalena had weighed me down. I t had been so much – and then Monastario – and yet, nothing had hurt worse than Zorro.
“I am afraid the same things will happen to you,” I said. “Monastario will sop at nothing. I know this. I have had a hard enough time to ward him off. He said, ‘We will marry.’ I never said yes. What an ego he has. That is - I don’t remember saying yes.”
“I would think you would remember,” said Zorro, dryly.
“I hate him,” I said.
I explained what I knew of his plans. I listed the people and their designs to him and to Bernardo.
“It is quite a lot of work for Zorro” he said. He was pacing, thinking hard. He laughed.
“Do you have a plan?” I asked.
“These people never see a joke coming,” said Zorro. “Tell me something. How did you know about the gold? It cannot be coincidence, and the story about he gold in the foothills. You spoke as if you believed it, fantastic as it sounded.”
Well, now what. I could tell him all about Magdalena’s fears and feelings, but I couldn’t tell him about my own. For obvious reasons, and because I was afraid that I would lose him once I told him the truth.
“I don’t think you would believe me,” I said.
He glanced at Bernardo, who slipped out the door. Then, sitting down beside me, he took off his hat and tossed it into a corner, undid his scarf, shook his magnificent mane, and then pulled his mask over his head to reveal the face of Diego.
I was mesmerized. To me, the combination of Zorro with Diego, the black silk suit without the mask, is what knocks me flat on the floor, as Sue Kite would say. Here he was, magnificent and vividly alive, right there, sitting caddy corner at the table.
“The mask hides,” he said, with a sweet smile that made me think I was going to join Gail’s puddle. Even so, I felt my nerves and humor coming to life again.
“I want to see everything about you,” he said. “You are not only the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but you seem so wise and full of life. I cannot explain it. You are a beautiful woman and you are so full of generosity. It is as if you are two people.”
I laughed, but then feel into a quiet between us. He took my hand, kissed it, caressed it, kissed it again. I wanted him to eat me but not before I had devoured him. I thought of the endlessly circling serpent, once a sign of God in the early church.
“I do not want to lose you,” I said.
“Tell me,” He said.
What else could I do in that old shepherd’s hut bathed in the moonlight, while I sat next to the man who was my first love and now my only love. But how to explain.
“When you look at the stars and see the light in the past, don’t you imagine a light that is from the future? I caught alight that brought me here. That light came from someplace we call cyberspace. It is in the air and in between the vibrations, unseen, but it carries our imagination. We can write on it with special machines and that light somehow caught me up and gave me to this place and time and to your world, which is a part of imagination and stories that we tell, using many forms of light and air waves. I am from the year 2003 and I live in New York City. I am more than twice as old as Magdalena, and I am not as pretty.”
Well, that was a lot to ask anyone to believe, even Zorro. Still, he listened and still he held my hand.
“Your story is alive to us,” I said. “People know who you are and love you.
He grinned at that. I decided to leave it at that. Perhaps someday, I would tell him that every night, at least two hundred women imagined that they were going to bed with him, or looked at his picture. But not now. Beside, strange as it seems now that he was right there, it was not so much Zorro as how Zorro makes us feel that is so magical. For me, it was more personal. The things I had thought I would love I had thought I hated – my despair – all of that had grown to great, overwhelming, sheer happiness.
“2003,” he said. “On a beam of light.”
“White light,” I said, smiling. “When I came, I was in Magdalena’s body. I am her, but I am me, too. This has never happened before, as much as I know.”
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Mary,” I said. “Maria.
He nodded. “Maria Magdalena. The Spanish love that name.”
Indeed. A friend of mine had just named her new baby Maria Magdalena. Maggie for short.
“Are you Spanish?” he asked.
“Close,” I said. “Irish and Hungarian,” I said. “Austrian.”
“How could that happen?” he asked.
“America,” I said. “My ancestors came to America.”
“Tell me about your time,” he said.
I told him a few things. I told him about huge bookstores with books people could buy on almost any subject, about how I watched his stories and other stories on strips of celluloid rolled up that, on a machine, unrolled to make pictures. I told him about electric light bulbs and unending day, and those impressed him. He h ad heard of trains. I told him about trains that would run across the continent. Then I told him about airplanes. I didn’t tell him about the growth of the United States or war or the Holocaust or September 11 or any of those awful things. Evil is no surprise. Just little things. Daily newspapers. CDs. Music everywhere. Beethoven available the world over.
I told him how I spent my days. I told him about New York. He had docked there twice. I told him about the park. I told him that the park had a bench with his name on it. He laughed. He wasn’t unhappy to be remembered.
“How does my story end?” He asked.
I said, “The movies all had happy endings. The series of stories – the books and the shows – never end, but are always happy. Things gets serious and dangerous, but here is always humor and music.”
“Are you married?” He asked, abruptly.
“No,” I said.
He kissed my hand. What was he thinking?
“Woman is a mystery. Maria Magdalena,” he said. “Who knows how she comes to us, who knows with what mysteries. It is only my task to love and serve her.”
Dear God, I could wish you all ha a moment like this.
Then he said, “This is how you know about old?”
“What happens here is not exactly the exact past that I know,” I said. “Monastario is a commandante in the story I know. But history changes over time, depending on the lenses we use to look at it. I knew about the gold from the stories but also from history.”
It seemed unfair to reveal too much, but I did.
“IN the foothills to the north especially,” I said. “And over the Sierra Nevada, to the north, there is a large deposit of silver. All this will be found in twenty, thirty years time.”
He looked sad for some time, then he said, “Does the Eagle know?”
“No. Just about the gold you found Monastario doesn’t know anything that I, Mary, know.”
He nodded, kissed my hand, and stood up.
“Maria Magdalena,” he said, sweeping me up into his arms, “Can you leave that magical world filled with books and music and stories and women doing men’s work? Won’t you be lonely? Won’t you miss it?”
“I could only stay for you,” I said. He laughed before he kissed me, again and again, as if he wanted to ease all the hurts and take me inside.
“Forgive me, please, dearest love,” he said.
I had already forgiven him of course.
“Are you up for a little adventure?” he asked.
“I have bee n up and down – all over-“ I said.
“Miserable, no? Ah, yes. It is love.”
He reminded me of a Cole Porter song, which I sang for him – with a Latin beat.
“I am dejected, I am depressed,
Yet resurrected, and sailing the crest.
Why this elation mixed with deflation?
What explanation? I am in love!
Such conflicting questions ride around in my brain
Should I order cyanide or order champagne?
What is this sudden jolt? I feel like a frightened
Colt
Just hit by a thunderbolt!
I am in love!
I knew the odds were against me before
I had no flare for flaming desire
But since the gods gave me you to adore
I may lose but I refuse to fight the fire.
So come and enlighten my days and never depart
You only can brighten the blaze that burns in my heart
For I am WIIIIIIDLY in love with you
And so in need of a stampede of love.”
Well, he loved this. He wanted to sing it with me and then he danced to it while I sang. Can you just imagine?
“Now I know you are from another time,” he said. “Well, Maria Magdalena, I shall need your help.” He was turning serious, back to Zorro. “I would rather you be safe, but I need you to go to Monastario. Will you help me get rid of him?”
What a question! Why had I ever been in despair?
“Yes,” I said.
He crossed the room and banged on the door to poor Bernardo, who came in, while Diego put on the mask, scar, hat, and cape. He was Zorro, and he was mine again.
“This lady,” He said to Bernardo, “Is an angel. You were right, Bernardo. She is magic come to bring light to our lives, but mostly, to mine.”
Maybe the words were corny, but he made them sound warm and generous. Riding with him on Tornado, his arms around me, the smell of his sweat mixed with tobacco and the earth, I could feel that however long this time in the bent white light lasted, this moment would last forever. You see, time is a miracle.
