Recorded Books Inc. - The Shrine at Altamira

A year passed, and then most of another year, before Marias transformation was complete. She was transformed in personality and character andfinallyin soul, a change so absolute that nobody seeing her would recognize the old Maria. In her living room she had a little shrine to the Virgin and she prayed there each time she left the house and came back, before each meal, whenever she was tempted to complain. Around the statue of the Virgin she had placed photos of her mother, her dead husband, her dead son. There were talismans too: a wedding ring, a note from her son folded tight and slipped inside a locket, a pair of joke glasses.

Physically, the change was even more dramatic. She had become an old womanimpossible to guess how olda Hispanic peasant lady who cleaned houses and spoke very little English and visited the church each morning and each night. She dressed like her mother, though not so well, and she worked alongside her mother, and she lived with her mother too. They fought continually.

Long before her transformation was complete, Maria had planned her pilgrimage to the shrine at Altamira. She had a map, and she had plotted out the roads they would follow, the distance they would cover, the time it would take to walk from their purple house in San Jose to the shrine at Altamira.

Walk? Was she crazy? Her mother would have nothing to do with it. Maria begged, insisted, taunted her. Finally she threatened to go by herself, and then her mother gave in.

They had been walking for almost a week when they reached Point Reyes, and it took a full day, and then another, before they could locate the shrine. Maria stood alone among the tall cypresses and prayed to the Virgin Mary, Mother of Hope. Forgive me for what I ask, she prayed. Forgive me for what I do, and then she tacked her little sheet of paper to a tree and read it through yet again to make sure she had said it right.

Holy Mary, how is it you permit such things? My son burned, and then my husband burned, and then my son burned again and forever. I know it is Gods will. I know I must accept it. But I ask you now, and I will ask you at the day of judgment, I will raise my voice before the throne of God and shout and will demand an answer: Why?

Two lines beneath, in her small neat hand, she had written Why? It was signed Maria.

The note hung there for a day and a night, and then the hard winds that blow through Altamira tore it free, it was rained on, it was nibbled by deer. Someone found it eventuallyan old priest or maybe an old drunk, what difference does it make?and saved the last remaining scrap, and tacked it once more to the tree. All that remained was the single word Why? and the name Maria.

From what, the pilgrims wondered, had she been saved?

Maria saw Russell for the first time at the Halloween Hop, and she fell in love with him. She was in her junior year and he was a senior, a transfer student, so he didnt know anybody. He was sitting alone, an Anglo, big, and very quiet, and his name was Russell Whitaker. Russell Whitaker, she said to herself. She repeated the name, Russell Whitaker, the sound of money. For fun, and because it was Halloween, she had brought a pair of joke glasses with her, the ones with fuzzy eyebrows and a false nose, and after a while she put on the glasses and went over and stood in front of him.

Russell Whitaker, she said, do you want to dance with me?

He looked up at her, smiled, and then blushed, and said, I dont dance.

She took off the glasses and stood there.

I dont know how, he said.

I could teach you, she said. Or I could just sit with you.

He looked away, and then he shrugged, so she sat down.

His left hand was twisted a little, and the fingers were smooth and pinkish, as if they werent real. When he saw her staring, he covered his left hand with his right one.

My hand, he said.

He had pale blue eyes. Looking into them, she could see he must be very gentle. She leaned close to him. He was wearing Old Spice.

She said nothing, but she was excited and happy.

Until that moment Maria had wanted only one thing: to get awayfrom her mother and from the purple house and from the rotten neighborhood. To get away from being Mexican-American. To get away from being nobody. But that night at the Halloween Hop, she decided she wanted something else. She wanted Russell Whitakerwho knows why?and she would get him. She would get away too, but first she would get Russell Whitaker. Everything else could wait.

More than a year passed and they had been lovers for almost that whole time. She was eighteen now, a senior in high school, and Russell was a freshman at San Jose State. He was doing badly, he might flunk out, he was not as smart as she was. But if he flunked out, how would they get away? How would she get away? She thought about this all the time, though she wasnt thinking about it now, because they had just made love and she was lying on her back, waiting for her heart to start beating again. She felt him move in the bed, felt his twisted hand lightly at her breast.

Ive got a job, he said. Im going to quit school.

He said, We can get married.

Maria? he said. What do you think?

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. Im breathing again, she said.

So what do you think? We can get married now.

It was him she wanted, and she didnt have him yet, not completely. He didnt love her the way she loved him. So when he said again, We can get married now, she stretched beneath himthinking Mrs. Russell Whitaker, Maria A. Whitakerand she said, Anything. Whatever you want. Only love me, and she twisted her body from beneath his, kissing his shoulder, his neck, his chest.

Love me, she said, and she fixed him with that look: she made her eyes a little wider as she thought, You are the only thing in the world Ill ever love, and she kept on thinking it until her eyes grew soft and wet, and for that minute he was hers, complete.

Oh, she said, loving his sudden pain, love me.

Russell had been sent up to paint the dormer, but as soon as the foreman was out of sight, he scrambled to the top and stood on the peak of the roof, one hand on the chimney for balance. He wanted to get a look at where he was. All around, below him, were rich private homes, with pools and flower gardens and trees everywhere. At a distance, past the freeway and the foothills and the long ridge of mountains, somewhere out there, lay the steely blue of the Pacific Ocean. He stood on the roof, looking. It was another clear winter day in California. Turning a little, he could see the miles and miles of flat-roofed houses, all alike, stretching north and south along El Camino. And he could see the thick cluster of buildings that was San Jose State. He had quit a week ago. He had not waited to flunk out. He turned back to look at the Santa Cruz Mountains, imagining the ocean that lay beyond.

So he was going to marry her. He would move out of the broken-down house he lived in with his father, that drunk, that lunatic, and he would get a little place somewhere that would be their own. Hed be married and have a job and theyd have a life together. Theyd be in life instead of just watching it. Theyd be a couple.

There was something wrong, though, he knew that. He loved Maria, but she loved him more than he loved her. She said so herself. He did love her. He tried to. He just didnt feel it the way he should. But she was almost beautiful, and she was sexy, and when she looked at him the way she did sometimes, he knew she was the right one for him. When she looked at him, he had a feeling that he was somebody. Was that the same as being in love? And who else would have him anyway?

He took off his capa white painters cap, stiff, not yet shaped to his headand wiped his forehead with it and then put it back on. He looked over at San Jose State.