“As you see, señor Gobernador, it’s easy to bring an end to this unrest. All we need to do is speed up the process that has already begun so that each ejido can receive its title of possession.”

The governor stood up to bring the interview to a close and smiled elusively.

“Everything in its time.”

The petitioners didn’t want to insist. And their optimism about a favorable resolution of their problems was strengthened when the order for the immediate release of all those involved in the events at Tzajal-hemel reached Ciudad Real.

XXII

CHAPTER XXII

WHEN THE WOMEN of Tzajal-hemel returned to their village they were welcomed with jubilation. They had been unjustly touched by Ladino hands and that fact magnified them. Once again avid, furtive and expectant gazes were directed at Catalina, the gazes of those who wanted to plumb the depths of mystery. Anonymous donors came as far as the door of the ilol’s recently reconstructed hut to leave handfuls of newly picked produce, fresh eggs, chickens with their legs tied together.

Marcela made use of these gifts, happy to stave off neediness even if only by halves and provisionally. But these tributes to her power, these recognitions of her prestige were like a thorn in Catalina’s side. Ah, how painfully they were awakening her from the apathy into which she had fallen during the past weeks!

After the seizure of her gods, during the days of her captivity, Catalina’s will and character were annihilated. She watched herself, as if from some very remote vantage point, coming and going along the pathways; she heard the orders of the guards who escorted the prisoners, the accusations of the witnesses, the judge’s sentence, as if none of it had anything to do with her. She watched the hours pass, indifferent as to whether they brought her freedom or condemnation. And when the doors of the prison opened (she never knew who to thank for that, nor did she care) and Catalina was returned to her family and her home, she showed no surprise, gratitude, or joy. She retreated into herself so that the familiar stabbing would no longer pain her: the exhaustion of a responsibility, the weight of a destiny, the urgency of the hopes of others which rose up to demand their realization and their fulfilment from her, the ilol.

The signs were multiplying. One morning when she opened the door of her hut, she discovered, leaning against the wall, waiting, some pilgrims who had come from beyond the mountains to find her. They bowed respectfully before Catalina and then stayed there without saying a word, without addressing an entreaty or a petition to her. But there was in their silence a tenacious question, an irreducible when? when?