fiction, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

She came with the house

She was in our house when we moved in five years ago. She’s been here much much longer than that. I venture to guess that she has been on this planet longer than we have.

She is an old-school Catrina. Her wide-brimmed chapeau with the enormous winged and flowered bow on top looks like the one José Guadalupe Posada, drew on his original “La Calavera Garbancera” back in 1910. So does the hairstyle.

José Guadalupe Posada’s original “La Calavera Garbancera” from 1910.

We know that Guadalupe Posada, an illustrator and caricaturist from Aguascalientes, meant his first Catrina as a satirical dig at the excesses of upper-class Mexican women. My Catrina extends that extravagance with the fox pelt draped around her neck and the exaggerated bow on the front of her blouse.

She hasn’t had an easy life.

Her upper jaw was broken when we first met. The bridge of her nose to her teeth, all of a piece, sat in the tray that was her lower jaw. Other parts of her body had been broken and repaired. A stylishly dressed dame with bad taste in men?

At first, I left it as it was. I don’t know why. I have a knack for reassembling broken pieces of pottery. This one wasn’t exactly plastic surgery.

I would see this proud woman on the shelf in the casita with her missing jaw and feel guilty, like I was denying her her voice. Sometimes, I glanced up to sort of talk with her and … oh, yeah. Not today.

We left this house for a year and upon returning one of the first things I did was repair her jaw. She is now complete, whole, and beautiful. She has a prominent place on the mantle over the fireplace in the casita.

She still does not speak. Not in so many words. But she has stories to tell. I’m sure of that.

I just need to find a way to unlock the spirit inside.

That may already have begun.

The other night, I photographed her for the first time.

Now you tell me: In the pictures above, is her right arm vibrating? Only her arm. The rest of the body is as still as a, well, as a statue. Was she starting to gesture? Did my camera interrupt something?

What would she say, I wonder.