Vanishing Acts Read online

  "What's it like?"

  "A lot of work. You have to pay the groom's family back for the robes, with plaques that you weave and food you prepare." Ruthann grins. "Four days before my wedding, I went to live with my mother-in-law. I fasted, but I had to cook for her and her family--a test, you know, to see if you're worthy of her son, even though I'd been married to him by law for three years already. There's a tradition that the groom's paternal aunts come over and throw mud at the groom's maternal aunts, while each side complains about the bride and the groom, but it's all a big joke, like those crazy bachelor parties pahanas have. And then, on the day of, I put on one of the white robes Eldin's uncles had made me. It was beautiful--there were tassels hanging down, each one smaller than the next, like the canes I would use as I got older, getting closer and closer to the earth until my forehead touched it."

  "What's the second robe for?"

  "You wear it the day you die. You stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon, spread out the robe, step onto it, and rise into the sky as a cloud." Ruthann looks down at her left hand, on which she still wears a gold band. "You pahanas have all these rehearsals for your wedding day ... to us, the wedding day is the rehearsal for the rest of our lives."

  "When did Eldin die?" I ask.

  "In the middle of a drought, in 1989." Ruthann shakes her head. "I think the spirits picked him on purpose, someone larger than life, because they knew he'd be able to bring us rain. On the night he came back, I stood outside this very house," she says. "I tilted back my head and I opened my mouth and I tried to swallow as much of him as I could."

  I stare at the smoke, curling out of the chimney of the house. "Do you know who lives here now?" I ask.

  "Not us," she says, and she turns and starts walking slowly up the path.

  Greta and I sit at the edge of Second Mesa as the sun goes down. Dear Mami, I write on the back of a grocery bag.

  Do you know that when you are in elementary school, every teacher celebrates Mother's Day? And because they all felt bad for me, I didn't have to make the bath salts or the woven paper basket or the card.

  Do you know that the first time I went to buy a bra, I waited in the lingerie department until I saw a woman walk in with a little girl, and I asked her to help me?

  Do you know that when I was ten, I tried to be Catholic, so I could light a candle to you that you'd see from Heaven?

  Do you know that I used to wish I'd die, so I could meet you?

  I glance up, staring out at the pancake landscape in the distance. For someone who can't remember very much, there seems to be a lot I can't forget.

  I know you're sorry, I write. I just don't know if that's good enough.

  When I put down the pencil, it rolls over the edge of the cliff. Even in this utter quiet, I can hear my mother apologizing for her actions; I can hear my father justifying his. You would think it would be simpler, having them both in close proximity, but instead it makes it easier for them to tear me apart. They are both pleading for my vote; so loud that I can hardly make up my own mind.

  Again.

  I love my father, and I know that he was right to take me. But I am a mother, and I can't imagine having my child stolen away. The problem is that this isn't a case of either/or.

  My mother and father are both right.

  And at the same time, they were both wrong.

  When Ruthann walks up behind me, I nearly jump out of my skin. "You scared me," I say.

  She looks tired, and lowers herself slowly to the ground. "I used to come here a lot," she says. "When I needed to think."

  I draw up my knees. "What are you thinking about now?"

  "What it feels like to come home," Ruthann says, turning to the San Francisco peaks in the distance. "I'm glad you bullied me into bringing you."

  I grin. "Thanks. I think."

  She shields her eyes against the red glare of the sunset. "What are you thinking about?" she asks.

  I stand up and tear the paper into pieces. "The same thing," I say, and together we watch the wind take them away.

  Before dawn the next morning, the plaza is already crowded with people. Some sit on metal folding chairs, others crouch on the roofs of the houses. Ruthann follows Wilma to a spot at the edge of the square, under the overhang of a building. There is no sun yet, but this dance will go on all day; and by then, it will be scorching.

  Sophie is quiet. Perched on my hip, she rubs her eyes. She looks at the golden eagle still tethered to one roof, which beats its wings every few minutes, and sometimes cries.

  When the sun is a fist on the horizon, the katsinas arrive in a single file, up from the kivas where they have been preparing. They carry armloads of gifts, which they pile in the plaza. Because it didn't rain last night, they have not been allowed to drink this morning, and they will not, no matter how hot it gets.

  There are almost fifty of them--Hoote katsinas, I am told--all dressed alike. They wear white skirts with red sashes, and loincloths with different patterns. Their arms are decorated with cuffs, their chests are bare. On their left ankles are bells; on the right, rattles. They hold rattles in their right hands, and juniper--womapi--in the left. A necklace with a shell hangs down between each set of shoulder blades; a foxtail swishes between every pair of legs. Their bodies are covered with red ochre paint and a dusting of cornmeal, but the most imposing part of their costumes are the masks--a crown of feathers spiking up from the back of an enormous black wooden head, dog's snout, bared teeth, bug-eyes.

  Sophie buries her face in my neck, as they begin to chant. The song is deep, guttural, building to a crescendo. The katsinas turn to the beat of the music in pairs as an old man weaves between them, sprinkling cornmeal and urging them to dance harder.

  Ruthann pats Sophie on the back. "Ssh, Siwa," she says. "They're not here to hurt you. They keep you safe."

  When they stop dancing an hour or so later, they jangle toward the heaps of gifts they've carried up from the kivas. They toss baked loaves of bread to the people sitting on the roofs. They pass out watermelons and grapes, popcorn balls, peaches. They hand out bowls of fruit, squash, corn, Little Debbie cakes. Wilma, a recent widow, is given one of the biggest baskets.

  Finally, they pass out presents to the children. For the boys, there are bows and arrows wrapped with cattails and cornstalks. For the girls, katsina dolls tied with boughs of juniper. One dancer, perspiration pouring down his arms and sides, sweeps across the plaza to the spot where we are sitting. He holds two katsina dolls, their painted faces glazed by the sun. He hands one to Wilma's daughter, and then kneels in front of Sophie. She shrinks away, cowed by the vivid flecks of his mask and the clean sharp smell of his sweat. He shakes his carved head, and after a moment her fingers close around the doll.

  The agility with which this particular katsina moves, and the long lines of his body, are familiar. I marvel at his footwork and wonder if, underneath the mask, this might not be Derek, the hoop dancer we met in Phoenix, Ruthann's nephew.

  "Isn't that--"

  "No, it's not," Ruthann says. "Not today."

  The katsinas, ready for a short break, split into two lines that fold back upon each other and march out of the plaza, down the mesa in a long, undulating line toward the kiva. The clouds seem to follow them.

  Ruthann reaches for Sophie, who is holding her new doll tight. She rests her cheek to the crown of my daughter's head and watches the katsinas go. "Good-bye," she says.

  The next morning when I wake up, Ruthann is gone and Sophie is still fast asleep beside Greta. I tiptoe outside in time to see a man climb to the roof where the golden eagle is tied, watching the ceremonies. The bird beats its wings, but a tether around its foot keeps it from flying away. The man talks softly to the bird as he moves closer, finally wrapping the eagle in a blanket.

  When a woman comes out of the house beside me, I turn to her, alarmed. "Is he trying to steal the bird?" I ask. "Should we do something?"

  She shakes her head. "That eagle, Talatawi, he's been