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The Continuation of My Adventure
Episode 7: When the Light Bent
Just before our lips brushed together, one of us pulled away. By one of us I mean me or Magdalena. Not Diego. I have no idea which of us it was. But this wasn’t in the script I thought I was in.
Diego straightened up, looking abashed.
“Pardon me,” he said. “Please.”
What was this? I had been bound and determined to kiss the man. Why hadn’t I? What was wrong?
My feelings were all wrong. I was overwhelmed by regret and sadness and loss – and astonishment that I could feel so drawn to another man. I have no idea who felt that way – me for suddenly feeling fear at a fantasy turning into reality or Magdalena. Or was I flirting with him? Was I leading him on? Was I simply thinking that in this day and age, a kiss was a familiarity that Spanish women did not like? Who had said that? Oh, yes, Sergeant Garcia in the first Mountain Man episode.
What mountain man?
I should have brought a copy of Bill Cotter’s book with me, for heaven’s sake. Look, Magdalena, I can’t be stopping to explain everything.
What? Oh, you want to know what happened. Sorry. I just couldn’t.
I am not sure it was you!
“I did not mean to presume –“ Diego was saying, softly.
“It is all right,” I said, sadly. “Please do not feel you must apologize.”
He pulled his hands away from the tree, slowly putting them to rest at his sides. His eyes looked sad, too. Now look, I had ruined a perfectly glorious day, not to mention made him feel awful, and how in the world was I going to explain this, anyway?
I pulled away and went to the side of the lake and sank down, for down was how I felt. Diego followed me, stooped down beside me. “No, truly, I apologize,” he said. “It is just that you are so very beautiful, and I forgot myself.”
“You must be,” I said softly, “the only one in the world who could know you and forget you.”
I don’t think he heard me.
“Would you walk with me?” he asked, reaching for my hand. “Just along the shore. Do not worry. I will be on my best behavior. Still, it would be wrong to enjoy such a beautiful day without the company of someone so beautiful.”
Well, that was true enough. I had to smile at him.
I let him help me up, and his hand slipped down over my hand, slipping his long fingers between mine, a gesture both affectionate and intimate. I did not pull it away, and so, hand in hand, we walked. I have no idea what the sergeant and Auntie Inez were doing, but I could hear her laughing. Poor thing, how happy she was. Perhaps she let the sergeant kiss her!
Diego and I walked quietly for a few moments, enjoying the breath of the wind on the surface of the water and the peace of it all…and the touch of his hand around mine, firm, easy, his fingers moving softly and slowly over my own. My own? I wished they had been really my own. For the first time, I wondered where my old body was. Those were the hands I wanted him to hold.
But this was, I thought, with an inner smile, not awful.
I began to forget the sadness and whatever fear there had been. I tried to remember what we had been talking about before I’d cast a cloud on everything.
“What scientific ideas? What you were saying before.”
(Why do I have this feeling you are all going to jump on top of me shouting, WHY ARE YOU ASKING HIM ABOUT SCIENCE FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE?) Or maybe not. Perhaps I am silly to think you will not understand. After all, we are friends. And I did want to find something out about Diego. One thing has always interested me. When he pretended to be so knowledgeable about books and music, he wasn’t really pretending. He really seemed to know. Was Diego that intelligent? Was he such a renaissance man? Or was the intellectual side only show? The Disney scripts downplayed Diego’s knowledge of the insides of books, mocking it as a sign of weakness, while they celebrated the action and strength of Zorro. The series further emphasized a strange anti-book policy by creating the few romantic entanglements on the show as something of conflicts between Diego and Zorro – the ladies always loving Zorro.
Except for Magdalena, I thought suddenly. Magdalena had truly liked Diego. I remember MaryAnn calling our attention to that, and it was true.
I turned to Diego with curiosity in my eyes. Who are you? I thought. I know you are Zorro, but who are you?
“I have been interested in the problem of white light,” Diego said.
When he said that, I thought I would fall over.
“What do you mean?” I asked, after my startled silence.
“It is not a problem, exactly,” he said, “but a fascinating phenomenon. I have a telescope with powerful lenses.”
Diego had a telescope? Push me over with a feather. Guy Williams had had one, too.
“I have been breaking white light up into a spectrum of colors and examining what happens. It is part of the problem of making lenses, which refract light, and that is a problem for the mariners. With the wrong lens, you could take a wrong turn and dock in China.”
You’ll get there soon enough, I thought, thinking of Sue’s story. In fact, you are there right now, come to think of it, and you are here talking to me. All at the same time. Who needs science when you have writers to take you through time and space and the walls of reality? But I self serve.
“This is not a new idea,” I said carefully. “Didn’t Isaac Newton discuss white light?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, happily, surprised that I knew, and he stopped walking and turned to me excitedly. “He proved that light refracts into a whole spectrum of many different colors and that whiteness is the usual color of light. Have you ever watched the light broken up by the colors?”
I have seen Pollyanna, I thought. But he was so excited, like a charming boy. I had to smile at him. And I have seen Diego’s face bright with a myriad of lights in his eyes and in his face. His hand pressed around mine.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”
“The light shoots through the glass and refracts, breaking into all sorts of colors. Light travels, you see – “
“And very fast,” I said
. “Yes, yes,” he said. “When you look at the stars in the sky, what colors do you think they hold? How far has that light traveled? It is the past! Isn’t that amazing?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Indeed. But,” I said, somewhat pensively, “I wonder where the future is.”
His fingers twined through mine, as if they could not keep still while talking about the white light that contains all the colors of the rainbow.
“I want to know how far it came and where it came from,” he said. “That light brings truth, the most pure truth.”
“I wonder, if you had a telescope strong enough,” I said, “if you could look back to the beginning of time, straight through to the heart of that light.”
He swung his arm and mine up and, taking my waist, pirouetted me around, and he laughed. “What a wonderful thought.”
“And you don’t think it blasphemous?”
“That God is a poet with a grand mystery beyond our striving, small intelligence?” he asked. “No. Do you?”
I shook my head.
“I hold space to be something purely relative, as time is,” I said. “The mystery is God’s.”
“You have read Leibniz, then,” he said. “How extraordinary.”
You’re telling me. For as he said it, I knew I had. “Why are you worried about mariners?” I asked.
“Ships bring everything to us,” he said. “They tie the world together. They tie Los Angeles to Spain, my family to each other, our hacienda to the merchants, sellers, buyer. A clock needs to keep time on a ship, isn’t that so?” he said. “How would it do that? Clocks do that. A ship is like a star, and the stars are planets and lights that travel through space, understood by some clock that governs us all. The constellations move above us in regular seasons, they move with a reason, and they always return.”
“And if you are on a star,” I said, “looking down on earth, time is different everywhere you look.”
He stopped and looked at me. “How extraordinary,” he said again. “I would not have thought about it that way. That is right, but isn’t God everywhere? He can look at us any way He likes.”
“God can,” I said. “But for us mere humans, it is a lonely thought. If you bring it down to earth, it says we each of us have only our perspective, our point of view of time and space, and we are each alone. Trapped in our own little hole of time and space.”
He took my hand in his and kissed it, the way he did that time with Elena. I love that gesture. It is lovely to have it happen to you. His lips are so light as they brush against the palm of your hand, and yet you feel it all the way down your spine.
“We have each other,” he said. “This is why we must not be alone.”
“I was thinking,” I said, “that is how we can never understand one another.”
“I was thinking,” he said, “how it drives us to understand, to learn, to know one another.”
I said, “We should go back.” But I was smiling. Newton, Leibniz, even Einstein. Had there ever been such flirtation?
He laughed. “You are not going to give me any chance, are you?” But he obligingly turned, guiding me through the rocky bank. We had come a long way, and would still be in each other’s company for several minutes. Diego did not seem to be in any hurry, and he now held my hand very tightly. He was a bold renegade. I knew he was Zorro without him saying anything about it.
“How are matters here in California?” I asked. “Are you glad you came back here? Are you bored with nothing to do but watch your cattle get fat?”
He did not laugh. “Actually,” he said, “ the quiet life is not so quiet. It is not all sunshine and peace here. Lately, it seems that a cloud hovers over us. Our commandante was arrested as a criminal, we had an imposter collect taxes, and the people have not had their money returned to them. The magistrado is unusually harsh. I feel that the people are at the end of their rope. Those who are sent to protect them are corrupt and no protection at all, and they have no recourse, because Spain is so far.” Then he said, with a shrug, “I am not sure what we can do.”
“Why should anyone worry?” I asked. “So many good people care about California. We are of the nobility, we have the blood of kings and royalty in our veins.”
Magdalena wanted to talk to Diego, obviously.
“There are other ideas,” Diego said. “Not of nobility, but of people being equal to each other, in the eyes of God. I think about those things.”
“I do, too,” I said. “Diego, it does not work.”
“How do you know?” he said, startled, but good humored.
“It has not worked so far,” I said. “Every republic has failed and been replaced by a tyranny. It will happen in the United States, too.”
I am sure that was Magdalena. It isn’t at all what I felt, but I remembered how young the United States was then. And how nobody thought it would last. And how it did.
“That is not to say such an idea would not work,” he said. “But a good monarch creates such an idea in the people.”
“Who is Zorro?” I asked, wondering what he meant by that, but deciding to cut to the chase.
And the sadness again. But Diego did not seem to mind what I said.
He laughed loudly. “Oh, Zorro. Yes, every lovely lady who comes here falls in love with him. He ruins the whole pueblo, so far as I’m concerned.”
He wanted to joke about Zorro. All right, then.
“What do you mean?”
“I had this lovely childhood sweetheart. She came to visit and she lectured me long and often about what a disappointment I was, not fighting hard for the oppressed, being more concerned with the cut of my clothes and my books. Dieeygo this, Deeygo that.” He laughed, but without much humor.
“Her opinion mattered to you,” I said.
“It told me that childhood was long past,” he said. “That I have changed. And that I cannot go back to what I was."
“Oh, Diego,” I said, turning to him impulsively. “Do not let her worry you. Good people are looking out for California, and you do not need to worry. Follow your heart where it takes you. That is all.”
“Mexico City is a foolish city,”
“Why?” I asked.
“They let you go,” he said.
“Diego,” I said, and then he had put his arms around my waist and he drew me to him, and our lips met and our bodies in the music of those sweet trees and the birds chirping loudly. I clung to him as if he were the last mast on a dangerous sea. I do not know how long we kissed; I felt the earth turn in one revolution. And that is all I can tell you.
“Don Diego!”
That would be Sergeant Garcia, late with his line.
We walked back, silently, dreamingly, to the carriage. Aunt Inez smiled at me, thrilled that I had obviously captivated this man.
“Dona Inez thinks we should be getting back,” said the sergeant.
“Poor Commandante Garcia is hungry. You know how it is with these men of action. A big man, a big appetite.”
I smiled at her.
“I appreciate good food,” said the sergeant.
“The sergeant has a boundless appreciation,” said Diego. He had let go of my hand and taken my arm. But I don’t think Aunt Inez would have minded.
I laughed. I felt happy again. But the seesawing emotions were taking their toll.
The sergeant smiled at me. “Now you seem very happy, Senorita Montez, but yesterday in the coach, I thought you hated our pueblo.”
“Did you come from the boat last night?” Diego asked. “Why, of course, you must have.”
Uh oh.
“You do not seem tired,” he said. “After such a long journey.”
“I am happy to be home,” I said, hedging, and wondering at my dread.
“I had an unfortunate encounter with one of your fellow passengers.”
Oh, no, I thought. Here it comes.
“What do you mean?” I said, faintly, looking at Diego. I could not tell a thing from his expression.
“The small dark man with the rather French looking mustache.”
“Señor Mendoza!” cried Auntie Inez.
“Yes, I’m afraid he was shot in the plaza with an arrow.”
I had forgotten Señor Mendoza. I had been so concerned with seducing Diego that I had forgotten to send Teresa with the note to save his life. Good God! I had known he was going to die. I had the poor man’s life on my conscience.
“I am sorry,” said Diego. “I should not have said anything.”
I looked up at him. Now he should have narrowed his eyes and looked at me.
“I hardly knew him,” I said, “but this is dreadful. The poor man. He was very kind to Aunt and me on the way to Los Angeles.”
“Please forgive me,” Diego said.
He was not narrowing his eyes with suspicion, but he was looking at me thoughtfully. He helped me up into the carriage and on the way back to the hacienda, he pointed out different trees and birds and made easy conversation, while I sat with lips trembling, eyes filled with tears, caught up in an inner drama.
I remembered with her.
I was standing in a plaza with many people, looking up at a gallows, where a man in black – whose face was hidden by bright light – hung listlessly, breath gone forever, and soldiers in the crowd were forcing cheers. I could feel my heart breaking, and the pain was crushing me.
What was happening? Was this a memory or a premonition?
Diego kissed my hands, both of them, and I saw concern in his kind eyes.
Oh, but I was terribly unhappy, and I was troubled the rest of the day, hardly eating anything, and retiring early. Father was thrilled with me, saying that I had conquered Diego completely, that he’d never seen the young caballero so happy and excited, but I hardly heard.
As I lay in my bed, wondering what good it was for me to be here at all, and what was the point, I thought of Senor Mendoza and what was bound to happen. I was going to be caught up with the Eagle’s plots, and I would be lost. I would lose Diego’s love and Zorro’s respect.
A voice broke through my sadness – a beautiful baritone, singing the song I had played only earlier that day. The song that needed words. He had created words, and he was singing them to me, hoping to ease my troubled heart, thinking he had brought sadness to me, he tried to bring me happiness.
"The moon of Morella shines brightly
But not half so bright as her eyes—
The bloom on the rose withers nightly
But her beauty never dies.
Her hair is the wing of the raven,
Her cheeks hold the blush of the dawn;
I pray every evening to heaven,
That morning won’t find her gone.
Mi corazon, she is my heart,
I treasure each touch of her glove.
She is fire; she is wine;
She is music—
Mi corazon, my love.”
I could have sung it with him. Mi corazon, mi corazon, my love.
I hurried out of bed. I flung open the window, and taking the flowers in my vase, I poured them down upon him. Mi corazon, mi corazon, my love. I did not see him. But I knew he was there. The light had gone from the world, except that which burned brightly inside ourselves, the light of past and future, of myriad colors, drawn together in the hot white brightness of love and desire, even as the rest of the world knows darkness and separation.
Our story had taken a turn, and I had no idea what would happen on the morrow.
