Ambrosia Prayed for Rain By Noé Blancas-Blancas
translated by Allana Noyes
Ambrosia prayed for the rain that soaked the buildings down to their foundations, and the howling wind made its presence felt until dawn when it finished by smashing the houses to pieces. Some spent the morning shivering along the squat walls surrounding their homes or worse, seeking shelter beneath the trees, and from there they watched the clearing sky.
People started to gather when the day was still tinged with darkness. By sun-up, we already had a sense of just how much had been lost.
I didn’t give a shit about lending a hand with the repairs or helping those most needy, who of course were the same ones who were always most needy. Ever since the last roof-tile crumbled down on my cot that morning, I’d only been able to think about Ambrosia—about how to take her away to Piedra Blanca without that touched-in-the-head son of hers, Lucio, tagging along.
I was able to salvage my hammock, one of my only possessions left, which I scraped out of the mud, and hung on the plum tree to sit and greet all the passerby and neighbors with a kindly “good day.” “Yeah, good day to you, asshole, here’s to hoping all the new widows keep your lazy-ass fed!” I waited for Ambrosia, expecting she’d ask me to help look for her hogs, but the sun was already heating up in the sky and I was feeling antsy, so I decided to have a stroll around the town square. That’s where I saw her dear Lucio, tied to one of the police station’s pillars.
“Who tied you up?”
“Ma did so I don’t follow her looking for the red hog. So I don’t go and have one of my bad spells and hurt myself in the river.”
I didn’t feel like looking for Ambrosia but felt desperate to find her. After running into Lucio, I muscled through the day as best I could and that night the chief of police, Maribel, called a town meeting. She read off a list of the damage, a list of those who’d begun to fix their houses, and a list of those who still hadn’t done any repairs (that’s the list I was on). Lastly, she read a list of those who were still alive. Ambrosia’s name was never called.
Seeing our grief-stricken faces, she quickly added, “It’d be too painful to read the list of those who are no longer with us. May God grant us resignation.”
I went back to my hammock and felt like I’d never felt before; all the world’s disgrace and loneliness and death rubbing up against my skin.
Ambrosia and I started seeing each other after I pulled Lucio out of the river. He loved to chase the pigs around and always went after the red hog in particular. That insatiable, round, red hog everyone chucked rocks at because she was always sticking her snout in the nixtamal. Then one night, he followed her into the river and started up with one of his shaking fits like he always did on nights when the moon was full. As soon as I saw him I jumped into the water with a rope, tied it around his waist, and yanked him out. Some others who saw what happened ran to tell Ambrosia, and by the time I reached the shore she was already there waiting. We went back to her place and spent all night tending to him because he’d swallowed a good amount of water and that’s when we started to kiss. “I’m so tired, I’m going to sleep a while,” so she said. When I woke up the next day there she was, looking at me with that round face of hers, her sabre-sharp jawbone, her sweet mouth, her unfortunately shaped nose.
Ambrosia was small as a piglet, but she didn’t change her mind easy and was even harder to nail down. She kissed slow and calm, so gentle, with a kind of devotion. She was cursed, unable to love another since the death of her husband. They brought him to the town healer, Berna, but her head must’ve been up in the clouds when she gave him the remedy because she botched it, and it was too late anyway, far too late, and Ambrosia’s husband was laid out in bed till the day he died, leaving her all alone with that swollen belly of hers. You might remember how some of the townsfolk set to fawning over her, “poor little thing,” and you surely haven’t forgot what the worst among the lowest and meanest of them said snickering, “I guess it’s our turn to have a go at her now,” but it wasn’t ever so, she never did throw herself to perdition like some hoped she might.
Yesterday, around this time of day or maybe a little later, she left me swinging in the hammock, saying, “I’ll be back soon. Storm’s coming, lock up the hogs, would you?” and off she went to the procession she’d organized so God, our lord and savior, would grace us with enough water for the cornfields, which were already long dead and dried out. She passed by the front of the house later, holding an enormous rosary in one hand and a tall candle in the other. She waved hello, laughing, and Lucio was there too, clinging to her skirt and chuckling away like an idiot as always. It was his fault she didn’t love me.
“You don’t want to care for my child.”
“Well, no,” I’d answered, “I’m in love with you, not him, you’re the one I like. I like you better than tortillas even.”
“So that’s why you keep me around, I’m your manna. I like you too, but leave Lucio to run off with you? You’re crazy. Besides, you’ve got others.”
After the procession I was locking up the pigs, including the hungry, red hog. Full moon, same as the night Lucio had his spell in the river. That’s when the idea came to me.
I’d leave the pigpen ajar so the hog could run down to the water. Get out, out fat, filthy pig, to the river, git! Then I unhooked the hammock I always brought over to Ambrosia’s to sleep and started towards my house. That’s it, Ambrosia. Now you’ll come with me. Your son will follow the pig to the river but this time there won’t be anyone to pull him out and then you’ll be all mine, Ambrosia, and mine alone.
But that’s not how things turned out at all. Something else entirely happened. I’d just got home when the downpour started. Relentless from the start, it soaked all the buildings down to their foundations, and the howling wind made its presence felt until the pre-dawn hours when it finished by smashing all the houses to pieces.
La lluvia que pidió Ambrosia remojó las casas desde sus cimientos, y el ventarrón que se dejó sentir hacia la madrugada acabó por destruirlas. Quienes no amanecieron tiritando en los pretiles vieron clarear debajo de los árboles.
La movilización empezó todavía oscurita la mañana, así que cuando salió el sol ya teníamos una idea certera de cuánto se había perdido.
Yo no tuve la menor intención de rehacer lo deshecho ni de ayudar a los más necesitados, que eran los de siempre. Estuve, desde que cayó la última teja sobre mi catre, pensando en Ambrosia, y en cómo hacer para llevármela de Piedra Blanca, pero sin su hijo Lucio, el loquito.
Rescaté la hamaca del lodazal que había quedado de mis cosas y la colgué de un ciruelo. Desde ahí estuve dando los buenos días a los compadres y a los vecinos —«¡Buenos para ti, cabrón, que te mantienen las viudas!»—, esperando que Ambrosia llegara a pedirme ayuda para ir a buscar a sus marranos, pero el sol calentó hasta darme comezón y fui a darme una vuelta al Zócalo; ahí vi a su hijo Lucio, amarrado a un pilar de la comisaría.
—¿Quién te amarró?
—Mi mama me amarró pa que no la fuera siguiendo a buscar la marrana colorada, que se fue pal arroyo, pa que no me fuera a dar mi mal en el remanso.
Como pude atravesé el día, sin querer buscarla pero desesperado por hallarla. En la noche, la comisaria Maribel llamó a reunión y leyó una lista de los más dañados, de los que ya habían empezado a reparar sus casas, de los que no habían hecho nada por arreglarlas —ahí estaba yo— y al final, de los que todavía vivían. Ambrosia no apareció en ninguna.
—Sería muy lastimoso leer la lista de los que ya no están —dijo al ver nuestro azoro—; pidamos a Dios resignación.
Entonces me regresé a mi hamaca y sentí, como nunca, restregándose en mi piel toda la desgracia, la ausencia, la muerte.
Yo la empecé a visitar después de aquella vez que le saqué a Lucio del arroyo. Como le encantaba corretear los cuches, se fue tras la marrana colorada, una marrana guzga que todos apedreaban porque le gustaba meter el chuzo en el nixtamal, y ahí merito, a medio arroyo, le dio la alferecía, como siempre que había luna llena. Lo alcancé a ver y me eché al agua con la reata; lo amarré de la cintura y lo saqué. Me vieron unos, le fueron a avisar a Ambrosia, y ya estaba ella en la orilla cuando le entregué al guache. Y ya de ahí nos fuimos a su casa y nos quedamos toda la noche cuidando su guachito, que había tragado harta agua. Y ya nos empezamos a besar. «Tengo harto sueño, voy a dormir un rato», dijo. Y se me amaneció ese día mirando su cara redonda, su quijada puntiaguda, su boca cariñosa, su nariz malhecha.
Ambrosia era pequeña, como una cuchita, difícil de convencer y de penetrar. Besaba quedo y con calma, con devoción, suave de veras. Ella tenía su maldición de que no quería querer a nadie desde que murió el marido. Según porque se turbó la Berna, que se lo llevaron a curar, y ella le dio remedio, pero se lo dio equivocado y tardó, tardó el marido en cama hasta que se murió y la dejó a Ambrosia panzona. «Pobrecita —se acordarán ustedes que decía el plebe del Curi—, ésa ya quedó para nosotros». Pero no, ella no se tiró a la perdición.
Ayer, como a estas horas o más tarde, me dejó arrumbado en la hamaca; «Yo orita vengo», me dijo, «encierra los cuches porque ora sí seguro llueve», y se fue a la procesión que ella había organizado para que Dios, nuestro Señor, nos diera tantita agua para la milpa que ya se estaba secando. Todavía pasó frente a la casa, caminando con un rosario grandísimo en una mano y una veladora en la otra; me saludó y se rio conmigo, y también Lucio, agarrado siempre de su falda, siempre riéndose, como estaba loquito; y por su culpa ella nomás no me quería.
—Tú no te va a gustar cuidar a mi guachito.
—Pues no —le contestaba—, nomás te quiero a ti; tú sí me gustas, hasta me gustas más que la tortilla.
—Pues por eso aquí me tienes. Soy como tu maná. Y tú también me gustas. Pero, ¿irme a vivir contigo, sin mi guachito? No, tú estás loco. Demás, tú tienes otra…
Encerré los cuches. La marrana guzga. Estaba la lunota. Igual que aquella noche que a Lucio le dio la alferecía. Y ahí se me ocurrió.
Dejé abierta la puerta del chiquero. Que se salga la marrana, que se vaya pal arroyo. Salte, puta cucha guzga. Salte, vete pal arroyo. Y de ahí sí, ya nomás descolgué mi hamaca, que siempre me llevaba para dormir con Ambrosia, y le di para mi casa. Ora sí, Ambrosia. Ora sí te vas conmigo: tu guache va a seguir la cucha pal arroyo, y ahora sí ni quién lo saque. Vas a quedar solita, pa mí, Ambrosia, vas a quedar solita. Pero no pasó así. Pasó otra cosa.
Alcancé a llegar. El aguacero fue brutal desde el principio. Remojó todas las casas desde sus cimientos. Y la ventolera que se dejó sentir hacia la madrugada acabó por destruirlas.
Noé Blancas-Blancas (1972) is an author, poet, professor, and researcher from the state of Guerrero, Mexico. He holds doctorate and master’s degrees from BUAP University and UNAM. In 2019, he was selected as a member of the prestigious National Researchers Network (SNI). He is the author of three books of short fiction, one book of poetry, and two books of critical literary theory. He has won the Cuca Massieu Award, the José Agustín Award, and was twice awarded the María Luisa Ocampo award. He is a three-time recipient of Guerrero state arts fellowships, and currently lives in Puebla, Mexico.
Allana C. Noyes is a literary translator from Reno, Nevada. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and was a Fulbright fellow in Mexico. In 2018, she was awarded the World Literature Today Translation Prize in Poetry, and in 2020 was selected for the emerging translator fellowship at the Banff Centre Residency program. Her translations have appeared in Asymptote, Lunch Ticket, Mexico City Lit, Exchanges, Litro and are forthcoming in ANMLY, InTranslation/BrooklynRail, Literal Magazine, and the Catapult/Soft Skull anthology of short horror fiction, Tiny Nightmares.
Great story! Super interesting and suspenseful,. Would definitely read again.