Sara Felicidad’s illumination began after a long passage through abandonment. Ever since she reached Iquique, relegated to a room in an obscure boarding house on the outskirts of town, the gaze of the family and of others decomposed her instead of helping her to integrate herself. No one was able to be a positive mirror to reflect her values. No. All they showed her was disgust, indifference, or irritation. Who would want to be amiable with a strangely curved girl who smelled bad, was greasy, hidden behind thick black glasses, her hair gathered into a filthy beret, and who, although not mute, never spoke except for some catlike whispers? No one bothered to teach her to read, but she didn’t need reading. Ignorant, she was capable of conversing with the earth, the sky, the sea, and with all kinds of fire. She understood the language of the birds and of many other animals. Even rocks spoke to her. No element refused to sing with her, whether they were spiny plants or the clouds of red sand that rolled down the mountainsides like gigantic caterpillars. Human beings behaved in another way toward her. In the boarding house, The Schoolboy, a building of boards and cement with small windows that faced a bald mountain, Sara Felicidad ate lunch and dinner in the family dining room, where no one bothered to say hello to her.
One hot day in July, a cart overflowing with people in costume, men and women of all ages, stopped outside the boarding house. The dust, the burning sun, and the blinding glare forced them to stop. After swallowing a few bottles of water, gathering strength from a mysterious faith, they played drums, trombones, triangles, and horns and started dancing on the patio, where there was only cat and dog excrement instead of plants. One group, separated from the others, played flutes that, as it seemed to Sara Felicidad, imitated the cries of birds announcing rain. She tried to understand the costume of the dancers. What were they dressed as? Birds? Each wore a coffee-colored costume composed of a light helmet, a shiny shirt, trousers with lace hems, a belt covered with little mirrors, and a leather skirt, open in front, that reached to the heels. Also, a small white cape covered their shoulders. Multicolored flowers were embroidered on the chest and leg area of their costumes. One of them, in the ecstasy of his ritual dance, shouted, “Long live the Chinamen of the Virgin of the Carmen!”
My mother, thanks to the devout intonation, instantly understood that the word “Chinaman” meant “servant” for these people. The cap could be a crest, the skirt a tale, the white cape a pair of wings, the belt with mirrors reflecting the faces of the others, a desire for union, love of one’s neighbor. And the coffee color corresponded to the earth. The Earth transformed into a celestial florid bird carrying its offering, a collective consciousness, to the Universal Mother through the Cosmos. Birds that dance, announcing the rain in this inhospitable desert, fertilizing the sleeping dust with their dance steps, pouring out hope. Musical instruments making the mountains echo to proclaim the birth of a planet with a heart. To serve, to give oneself, to dissolve in the common uniform, to be a furrow open to all seeds, obeying the orders of the Lady Owner. Birds so believing that out of celebrating the rain in drought, they were creating it.
It began to drizzle, though the sun was shining brightly. Fine, almost imperceptible drops fell, forming a dome above the costumed people, an ephemeral temple. Sara Felicidad, who carried dance in her blood — Alejandro Prullansky’s movements had engraved themselves on her memory, decomposing into thousands of perfect sculptures — did not disdain the footwork of these poor folk. The beauty of art was not within them, but there was a sincerity like that of the water in a fountain. Each jump, each crossing of legs, each spin was at the same time a giving of thanks and a gesture of adoration.
Sara Felicidad felt transported and, joining the group, she too began to dance. Intoxicated by the drumbeats, she forgot to bend over, and her erect body reached its six-foot-three height. She shook her head, her beret fell off, and her splendid blonde hair, which she’d kept hidden, spread like a luminous spider. The drizzle focused on her, washing away the grime accumulated over so many years. Her white skin became whiter still among those dark-skinned people, and a general stupefaction stopped the rehearsal.
That giant girl could symbolize the purity that frightens away demons! Excited, they invited her to go away with them to adore the Virgin in the La Tirana sanctuary, forty miles away in the desert. They gave her a white gown, some cardboard wings covered with silver spangles, and a magic wand. No one asked what her name was. They adopted her with the simplicity of the people, where the group counts more than the individual.
They joyfully packed themselves onto the wagon and, still singing, went up toward the Tamarugal Pampa. They traveled that day and the entire night. At dawn, they caught up to other pilgrims walking in endless lines. Each group wore a different uniform but all in bright colors. There were Indians, gypsies, shepherds, blue princes, bears, tigers, and caliphs. All intoned hymns to the Holy Virgin:
We march along in search of her
We wait and wait and wait
We’ve traveled every land
Along crooked roads and straight
Those multitudes in festive mood — who, in their search for miraculous contact, allowed faith to enter the world thanks to their humble hearts — compensated my mother for the gray years she’d been forced to live hunched over. She tossed away the final bit of that dark era, the black glasses, and no longer felt ashamed of her blue eyes.
The wagon, followed by a tail of dust, reached La Tirana. Spangles, feathers, mirrors, ribbons, embroidery, lace, fringes, golden buttons, handbags covered with coins, necklaces, pennants, capes, masks, turbans, handkerchiefs, helmets, musical instruments, dances, prayers. Sara Felicidad, right in the middle of the febrile multitude shaking outside the church made of stuccoed wood, gave herself over to carnival. The military marches, the African rhythms, the play of flutes, put wings on her heels and a desire to speak aloud for the first time since her father died.
She wanted to say, “I love you all!” but instead of spoken words out came a song, so clear and powerful that it did not seem human. The multitude stopped its shaking, and the bands gradually stopped playing. The angel spread her arms and opened her hands to bless them all. They fell to their knees. The wind brought a flock of brown clouds that dissolved in a thunderstorm. The rain announced by the birds had arrived. The alliance of sky and earth was confirmed. Again the bass drums resounded, then the flutes, trumpets. The pilgrims, with more energy than ever, began dancing again. A priest, whose soutane was decorated with a red, white, and blue wool border came after her: “Child, stop singing and come into the sanctuary with me! Don’t change the festival on me! It isn’t you but the Holy Virgin of the Carmen who should be adored!”
And to hide her, he locked my mother up in a confessional. At night the religious brotherhoods lit bonfires, trying to protect themselves from the intense cold that replaced the intense heat. After celebrating, with astonished laughter and shouting, the explosion of some firecrackers, they began to enter the church. Without pushing or fighting for space, quite calmly, the bodies pressed together, yielding to the slow current that made them advance toward the altar.
Some inched forward on their knees, leaving bloody tracks erased by the innumerable feet of the human worm that came behind. Finally, there it was, before them, the sculpture carved in a single rock, the miraculous Virgin with her child God in her left arm and a woodcutter on his knees, adoring her amid tons of burning candles. The supplicating posture of that man of stone was identical to that of the throng, all asking for something, for themselves, for others, channeling their problems toward the only solution.