And when the day came it was not like other days; it revealed itself to be overshadowed with omens. The sun and the moon were doing battle in the sky. The tribe of the Tzotzils witnessed this battle in terror, striving with screams, a deafening beating of drums, a frantic clanging of bells, to ensure the triumph of the strongest.

When Catalina heard the news of the eclipse she ran to Marcela’s side. She had made a mask out of tree bark to protect Marcela from the eyes of the great pukuj who was now roaming free.

The mask fell over the ravaged face of the woman in labor. Her body had suddenly entered a zone where the force of youth was quickening its every cell, stripping her naked for pain, making her infinitely sensitive for the moment when she would be torn apart. And the rebellion within her, which had seemed drained of all life, surged up anew, pitching about in fury like a colt refusing to cross a river that is too turbulent.

Outside people were running, ululating, while the panic-stricken animals howled, gobbled and whinnied, breaking their bonds, leaping fences, abandoning their familiar surroundings. Because they had scented the disaster.

The pulsetakers did not want to come, so Pedro lit the candles at the foot of the cross, knelt down and covered his ears with his hands in order to hear neither the panic nor the agony, only the other voice.

“Look at her, Pedro González Winiktón. Injustice is breeding in front of you and you have tolerated it. What is the name for what you have done? Pedro Gonzalez Winiktón, you are a judge. Judge yourself.”

Catalina dragged Marcela to the most solid pillar of the house and tied her to it so she could wrestle with herself there, so she could struggle. Lorenzo watched this kneeling female figure, its face extravagantly covered by a mask, without knowing what to do. Custom ordained that the man should tighten a band around his wife’s waist so that the child would follow the natural path “and not go upward.” But what could an innocent understand about such things? Catalina took him away from there. She alone would receive the newborn, cut the umbilical cord (over an ear of corn, to propitiate the fecundity of the planted fields), swaddle him.

Marcela was released from the pillar, gasping. Pedro ran to hold her up. Awkwardly, fearful of causing pain, Winiktón bathed her neck which was lustrous with sweat. On the hot embers, the chili water that would restore the new mother’s forces was bubbling.

Outside, the clamor of the eclipse had ceased. Now Marcela’s mask could be removed without danger. The face appeared: serene, sweet, asleep.