Queen of Mexico

         “The modest fan was lifted up no more, and virgins smiled at what they blushed
           before.”
                                                                                          Alexander Pope



“Mucho malo.” Said the driver. Very bad.
“Muchas gracias.” I replied, jumping the great height off the back of the overloaded one-ton truck. I had been almost asleep on the bags of corn meal, with a moving view of the sky and the clouds. Until we broke an axle near Zamora.
Fourth Rule of Hitchhiking: You have other options.

An old campesino stopped and we shared some biscuits. He rambled on about sorghum, corn and wheat. On the road outside Irapuato, I left him. He desperately wanted to drive me to a bus station. I remember the puzzled look as he pulled away. Five minutes later I was in the back of a camionetta blasting along at 80 miles an hour. I waved as we passed. He went from bewilderment to wonderment, an old Mexican tradition.
The bewilderment was originally supplied by the arrival of an Aztec myth. In February of 1519, Hernan Cortes landed on the Yucatan peninsula with 11 ships, 500 men, 13 horses, and a few small cannon. He came in defiance of orders. He burned his ships to the waterline. Batshit crazy. Cortes, like many conquistadores, was from Estremadura, a hot and inhospitable battleground, that played no small role in expelling the Moors from Spain. The excavated black statue of Our Lady of Guadelupe buried there, was a lightning rod for the reconquest, and a durable symbol of Spanish nationalism. Her iconography was carried by the priests arriving with Cortes, and a chapel, dedicated to the Virgin, flattened the existing temple of the goddess-mother Tonantzin at Tepeyac outside Mexico city. The dark skin of the Madonna was not enough, by itself, to convert many of the Nahuatl, until a local peasant had his own vision. On December 12, 1531, Juan Diego saw a young girl surrounded by light. He asked for a sign. The apparition told him to collect buttercups from the top of Tepeyac hill. It was winter but the flowers were there. Juan Diego placed them in his cloak. When he went to show them to the local bishop, the buttercups fell to the floor. The impression left on the fabric of his cloak was the imprinted image of the Virgin of Guadeloupe, the wonderment supply, the Queen of Mexico. She was ‘arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’ With her melanin, maguey-spined rays of light, and other indigenous symbolism, she clinched the conversion deal with the Indians. “The Mexican people” wrote Octavio Paz in 1974, “after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the National Lottery.” I was heading in both their general directions.
The cowboy driver let me off near Celaya, where Pancho Villa had suffered his worst military defeat. Off in the distance, I could see her heading in my direction, but I didn’t really believe it. A beautiful girl in a fancy convertible went by, and stopped, an eighth of a mile down the road. Even with the heat and sixty pounds of Serendipity, I covered the distance in record time. If I hadn’t been out of breath, I still would have had trouble speaking.
“San Juan del Rio?” She said. Pancho’s hometown.
I was actually heading to Mexico City.
“Si.” I managed to say.
She opened the passenger door.
Her name was Salle. She didn’t speak English. It didn’t matter. She was arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head, a crown of twelve stars.
We stopped in Irapuato for her to complete an errand. When she emerged from the building, she handed me a set of dentures. She was a dentist. I bought her a soda in a pleasant outdoor café. There were cobblestones and carriages and fountains. Afterwards, we drove to San Juan and she began an afternoon clinic, while I wandered around the market. I drank a licuado, and ate tacos and nieves. I went to the park and sat on a swing. I liked Mexico.
It was late when Salle finished her dental work and, because the hotels were too expensive, I slept in the back of the convertible. Next morning Sybille, Salle’s assistant, walked me to San Juan’s swimming pool. After an invigorating swim, I meandered back to car, and changed into my khakis and Indian shirt. I was able to shave in a hotel courtyard. The guard there directed me to an unmarked restaurant for huevos al gusto, frijoles, tortillas, and café con leche. Salle and I drove into the mountains towards San Miguel de Allende, feeding each other grapes. We walked silently, holding each other’s hands, and shy embracing in the lengthening shadows. I stole some flowers from a hotel courtyard and we sat in a little bar for Sangrita and mineral water. Sangrita, a citrus peppery orange, lime and pomegranate grenadine with dried chile, literally translates as ‘little blood.’ With the sips of tequila reposado, it was a calming oracle. Finally together hours later, after the flowers fell to the floor, I found out how, surrounded by the light, truly immaculate she was. And the next morning, with the last traces of the Queen of Mexico’s tears on my cheek, I found myself eating grapes on the road near Queretero. Vaya bien, mi amor. Vaya bien.