Chapter 10: The Flower Ball

It was at the Flower Ball that Dulcia met Helen.


 Dulcia had been looking forward to the ball for months. It was one of the few events in her city that she enjoyed. The Festival of Minerva, which had become the most popular event in the Qezaltenango, left her wanting for Truth and Beauty and Authenticity, rather than this newly-concocted co-option of all things Greek. She thought it was absolutely ridiculous that anyone would think that this country, thousands of miles from Athens, was at all similar to the Greece that existed at the time of Plato. Not to mention that this Spanish outpost, itself thousands of miles from its mother country Spain, was itself struggling to maintain its Spanish roots, an enclave, if one were to be truly honest and speaking with eyes wide open, situated in the midst of such primitive people as these Mayans. They were everywhere, and hidden from sight at the same time. Admittedly, some of the Quiche families had gained enough money to buy homes inside the city, assimilating Spanish customers and dress. Dulcia couldn't help but think that the Quicke women dressed in Spanish mantillas were no less ridiculous than her own country women dressing up in Greek togas and wearing headdresses of laurel leaves for the Festival of Minerva.

She dared not express her opinions about his pseudo-festival to her husband Cassimiro who was good friends with the President whose idea it was to build these obscene Temples to Minerva all over Guatemala. Cassimiro explained (patiently, but condescendingly, as if Dulcia were a little girl) that these Temples celebrated the president's commitment to progress, his personal commitment to classical education. Dulcia struggled to believe in all that. She could not and would not express what was growing to be disdain for all things the president represented, not just because she knew her husband would judge her harshly; no, more than that, she remained silent because the president, not ignorant of the ire he was capable of creating with his decrees, had created a spy network all over the country like a plague.

The Flower Ball was another story. Every February as far back as she could remember when the Dragon's Mouth orchid burst into bloom, and the bromeliads exploded like fireworks from the trees, she remembered the Flower Ball. Her mother would be her most beautiful on the night of the ball. Her father never seemed more handsome that night, as he accompanied her mother, holding out his arm for her as she stepped into the carriage.   When Dulcia was 16, she went to her first Flower Ball, like all girls of her status at that age. It was a night that changed her life in ways she had not imagined. It was there that she met Cassimiro for the first time. It was there that her parents and Cassimiro agreed to his proposal of marriage.

Cassimiro had not known he would meet his bride that night. In fact, his attention had been focused for months to the French consulate's daughter Madelein Pellet. In fact, he thought that at this particular Flower Ball of 1900, he would approach Madeleine's father and ask to call on her, but nothing more than that--just the call. Cassimiro was an ambitious man. He had to be very careful about the woman he would choose for his wife. If he were to have any future in government service, marrying well was critical to that future. But when he saw Dulcia enter La Casa de la Cultura, all those focused plans disappeared. As a man drugged by the heavy fragrances of a room filled with breath-taking flora, he could see only Dulcia whose dress was the color of Poinsettias. In her hair were yellow Peacock blossoms, the ephemeral flowers that lasted only one short day. Her skin was translucent, her eyes dark as onyx. She appeared as if from the Garden of Eden.

They married eleven months later. Dulcia missed the next two balls, pregnant with her sons Enrique and then Jorge. Tonight was her first ball in two years. She was nineteen, but she felt like that child watching her mother dress for the ball, hoping she would be, one day, just as elegant and beautiful.

As she entered the hall, she could see that the Flower Ball of 1903 was as beautiful as she remembered. The room was filled with the glorious orchids of Guatemala's highlands. She moved further into La Case de la Cultura, into the room where the marimba was playing and the women and men were dancing. Her heart sank. Behind the marimba stood tall Greek colums, draped with laurels. The Minervan fever had infested her flower ball. She said nothing, knowing better, knowing the consequences of speaking against anything Mr. President ordered. The one time she had spoken up, Cassimiro raised his hand as if to strike her. He didn't, of course. That was not who he was, not his way at all. But it was at that moment that the young bride realized that the president's influence extended into the privacy of a matrimonial couple's bedroom, that his reach extended even into a a couple's conjugal intimacies.

Dulcia left the main room with his obscene Greek pillars and found the room where the refreshments were served.  She sat at a small table, draped with white linen cloth and covered with bright yellow and orange rose petals. A large crowd was gathered around a tall silver vessel that held a new beverage, called coffee. She smiled remembering how her family had plucked up from its roots the wild coffee plants that invaded their hillside garden on Lake Attitlan. Now it seemed that coffee was becoming fashionable. She even heard Cassimiro talk to some of his work colleagues at a dinner party about a coffee economy as the future of Guatemala and a propitious sign of progress for the country. But they were always saying such things like that: Science is Progress, Progress is Happiness, The Rational Mind is the Supreme Mind. These things Dulcia heard, even understood, although she didn't agree with these sentiments. They were things that Cassimiro espoused, with a type of ignorance that comes from the belief that you have indisputable power by virtue of being born male.

Dulcia took one of the cups of coffee offered to her and sat down at a table alone. She took a small sip and immediately wished she had asked for the milky chocolate drink she preferred. She noticed a woman, obviously not Guatemalan, sitting at the table next to hers, in a chair inches from her own. The woman seemed to be older than Dulcia, although it was hard to tell. She was tall and thin, almost bony. Her hair was the shade of Guatemalan soil in the winter, after months of no rain. It was curly, gathered in one large unruly mass, on the crown of her head. She wore a dark green dress, not at all festive, in fact, rather dour, more suitable for  church on Good Friday.

The women leaned towards Dulcia with a knowing and kind smile on her face, and in remarkably good Spanish with only the slightest accent, she said,

"How do you like the coffee?"

Dulcia debated about how honest she should be, wondered if this woman wasn't one of the president's spies. She decided to lie:

"It's good."

The women broke into an even larger smile that made Dulcia forget about the drab dress and the mop of hair.

"I'm glad you like it. Have you tried it with sugar and milk? It looks like you are drinking it black." And the woman reached over to picked up Dulcia's coffee cup, saying, "May I?"

Dulcia nodded. For some reason, she couldn't seem to speak.

The women in green poured mild and then added a teaspoon of sugar into the coffee, and then stirred the mixture. She returned the cup to Dulcia.

"Try it now."

Dulcia took a small, tentative sip, and then a large, more assertive sip. It was delicious.

"It is very delicious!" She had found her voice again, and smiled.

"I'm Helen. Helen Sanborn from America."

"Dulcia Rubio de Aragon. I'm very pleased to meet you."

Dulcia bowed her head slightly as she shook hands with Helen, a gesture she had picked up from Cassimiro.

Chapter 9: FEMA Friday

Lots of Amy’s friends talked about their mothers.  Mother-daughter issues. Mother-daughter hate-love relationships. The unbelievable things a mother could say to a daughter.   Amy’s three friends since grammar school—Kay, Ann and Denise—loved to tell their latest mother story whenever they got together.  It’s always about mother, Kay would say, and Denise would giggle behind her napkin and Ann would smile through her eyes while chewing on another boiled shrimp dipped in remoulade sauce.  The last time they had gathered at their favorite restaurant at the West-End edge of Bucktown, the one where the brown-and-white Mt Carmel pennant held the most prominent position over the bar’s 20 foot-long mirror above the top shelf of liquor, they ended up laughing so hard at Kay’s newest mother story that even the wise guys at the bar shook their heads and stuck their fingers in their ears.

Amy joined in the laughing but not in the storytelling.  Her girlfriends all knew that Amy's mother had died when she was still a baby.  They also knew she enjoyed and welcomed their stories.   They all knew that Kay was right—it is always about mother, even when you’ve never known yours.

Amy was never prone to self-pity.   She was born without self-pity or even jealousy. She truly never envied anyone.   She listened to her girlfriend’s stories grateful to be part of strong friendships that had sustained and fed her in her short life.

It had been over a year since Katrina, and almost two years since that last meal at the Bucktown restaurant with the Mt. Carmel pennant.   Amy sat alone at the Point with an oyster po-boy from the New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Company. The red-roofed white lighthouse on the Point had collapse from its foundation and sat deflated like a clown with its hat pinned to the side of its head.  She was completely alone there. Not a single car travelled along the sea wall just across the inlet.    More than half the city’s residents had not yet returned.  Amy’s grandparents had died post-Katrina, one of many so-called Katrina Deaths that were becoming a commonplace but not formal cause of death.  Kay and Ann had not yet returned, and Denise was busy at Catholic Charities managing the volumes of volunteers that had descended on New Orleans like pennies from heaven.

It was another stunning sunset.  Amy believed that in New Orleans God lived inside the sky.

And that’s how she was.   In the midst of the sadness and loss, she sees the sunset and thanks all the powers that be for the joy of this oyster po-boy and the blood orange and jeweled turquoise sky.

She remembered that it was FEMA Friday and that she and Ralph had made plans to go to these newly-created, post-deluge excuses to party.  It would be something different. Something they had never done pre-Katrina, but seemed to be something to do post-Katrina.  Big Freedia, a New Orleans street party staple since the 90’s, was back in town. It was time to let loose and do some sissy bounce.  Amy seemed to be doing a lot of things she had never done before.  She was inside out and she didn’t fight it.  She simply let the seams show on her clothing and in her heart. No sense in getting even more bent out of shape.

Ralph had never been to a sissy bounce either.  He had spent most of his time behind a book reading or in front of a classroom teaching or at his desk writing.  The latter is what he wanted to do all the time in his small one room apartment near Tulane where he taught mostly privileged kids for whom literature was a necessary evil to be suffered on the way to the MBA or law degree.   Thirty years ago, Ralph was fond to say, Tulane once had the best theater school in the country. John Kennedy Toole studied there and then wrote his masterpiece while teaching at Dominican College (another defunct college).   Even the university bars were the home to a score of bards around whom a poetic renaissance flowered, where words, worshipped, were washed down with whiskey.  

Ralph’s uncle had been the unofficial poet laureate of the Maple Street Bar on Oak Street.   Now, he’d mutter, we’re surrounded by a generation of investment bankers and computer geeks for whom the word is merely another commodity or at best a nuance best reduced to the smallest number of letters to make texting easier.

Those bars had not opened either since Katrina.  So it was off to the Casino on Canal Street to see Big Freedia  and a bunch of women who would take over the dance floor in a declaration of feminine power and independence. 

Of course the casino found a way to open quickly. That’s just the way it is.

On the street car ride to Canal Street, Amy and Ralph sat in  a comfortable silence.  They had had lots of practice with silence sitting in the coffee shop late into the night and sometimes into the early morning.  The city could feel so lonely.  New Orleans had never been a city where one could feel lonely before. People are too talkative, too inquisitive to leave you alone for a minute. But that had changed, too. Most of those folks had not come back.  That silence was not comfortable.  The city had a silence that had never existed before.   As if one’s mother had left, leaving behind chaos, disorder.  Who would clean up after us?  What would make sure we were safe?  Who would see to locking the doors up at night, that a door was even there to protect us? 

Amy sat in the wooden street car seat hanging on to every oak tree that survived the waters, marking each street lamp’s light pushing through the fog that had begun to fall.   And in that instant she knew her mother was there, in this city.  The only constant in her life had been New Orleans.  Its beauty had nurtured her.  Its music and food and people filled her with joy and hope.  Its corruption and seediness tested her faith and dared her to care.  She had come to count on the consistency  of the March azaleas, the February rains and the summer scents of jasmine.  She’d almost lost this mother of hers.  There was no doubt her mother was suffering.  

Amy whispered, “I am here, it’s fine.”

“I know,” said Ralph.