This was not the woman Loca had known down by the acequia, by the way. This lady looked like a nun. In fact, she was a nun. But she didn’t smell like nothing so Loca was not sure if she was a present nun or a past nun or maybe hasta una future subjunctive nun. Loca tried to find out by asking trick questions about la Esperanza, who also visited her occasionally, and questions about la Caridad and la Fe, who never did, but the Lady in Blue did not seem interested in talking about nobody besides La Loca and just making her feel better when she couldn’t get out of bed no more.

Even if it was during the day when she came by, the nun-carried a lantern; and on one afternoon, she pushed aside her manta, and opened up her habit to show La Loca the horsehair vest beneath that cut into her delicate white body, and that’s when Loca decided that alive or not, the Lady in Blue must be related to Francisco el Penitente. But when she asked the nun if she knew el Francisco, the nun confused her more by saying only that yes, she had known a few.

On another visit they played the game of “la Loteria,” a kind of Mexican bingo that doña Felicia brought with her one day, making Loca laugh with all the little Spanish limericks that went along with calling out each card, like for El Gallo, for instance, the caller would say “¡Como el que le canto a San Pedro!”, and things like that. Each played with three cards to better her odds and Loca beat the nun two out of three.

One early evening, just as the sky blazed orange, then red, then became purple like fire, the nun sang very softly for La Loca and put her to sleep. Although Loca liked the song, which was about a woman who had been left by her French soldier lover, she had never heard a fado before. The nun said that kind of song came from a faraway land called Portugal.

Loca went to sleep in the Lady’s arms thinking that for a person who had lived her whole life within a mile radius of her home and had only traveled as far as Albuquerque twice, she certainly knew quite a bit about this world, not to mention beyond, too, and that made her smile as she closed her eyes.

16

Sofia Founds and Becomes la First President a of the Later-to-Become World-Renowned Organization M.O.M.A.S.; and a Rumor Regarding the Inevitability of Double Standards Is (We Hope) Dispensed With

Sofi buried La Loca, or what was left of the body (it would be no exaggeration to say in this case the “remains”), in the camposanto of the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe where her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-great-grandparents, and their children, or at least, most of them, all lay to rest. Fe’s urn was there and Esperanza and Caridad were there too, although in spirit and without headstones.