The afternoon began to grow late, and many people of Los Tres Reyes still emerged
from their siestas. Elena was eager for the streets to fill up with more
market-goers – she only sold half of the banana leaves she gathered and tied last
night. The aroma of tamales filled most streets of town as everyone made preparations for la Noche Buena. The thought
of the celebrations that she would see at last sent a tingle up her spine. Of
course, that is if she could sell enough to buy some bread and still have enough remaining to buy a gift to bring for Jesus,
she reminded herself. She had her eyes set on the colorful, cradle-size throw
blanket hanging in one of the stands. She had enough to buy it, but she was
hungry and knew that her little sister would be, too.
Her mind reviewed the previous day and counted again how
many leaves disappeared from the several tamale stands up and down the street.
Discouraged, she remembered that in addition to selling everything in her own
basket little remained elsewhere by the time the vendors closed. Small
likelihood that many people didn’t already have everything they needed for
their Christmas Eve celebration.
She looked longingly down the road at the children playing on
the grass. Her mind searched to remember what it felt like to play with other
children. The thought instigated a sinking feeling beneath her ribcage as her
heart morphed into a small anvil. Though her memory of passing time without
care fleeted from her vivid mind, its significance paled in relation to her
perpetual and relentless need to look after Gabby. How desperately she desired
to take her little sister out to play for just one afternoon.
Her attention was brought to the present when she heard a
light crashing sound with a downward tug on her hand basket. Her mind was so
deep in thought that the abrupt shake didn’t startle her. Elena’s eyes followed
the disturbance to discover half a loaf of bread lying on top of the banana
leaves. Gazing quickly around her, she noticed the street transformed busy
whilst lost in her own thoughts. Her lungs breathed excitedly, and, to her
relief, lightly, alleviated from the density of the weight she previously carried.
Dashing down the street, Elena weaved through the crowds of
the market toward the stand that displayed the small blanket. She abruptly
stopped when she noticed a man dressed in rags, sitting up against the wall,
unnoticed by the many passersby. He was very dirty and as she approached him
she detected an unpleasant smell. She considered her new surprise gift in her
basket and pulled from her pocket the meager earnings she had collected from
selling her banana leaves that day. She looked over at the blanket –
beautifully woven with lots of reds, her favorite color, oranges and yellows.
Her tummy rumbled, and her eyes immediately went back to the man in rags.
Breathing out a sigh, she swallowed hard and dropped the coins into the bowl
sitting in front of him.
“God bless you,” he thanked humbly.
“Merry Christmas,” Elena replied with a smile.
She continued down the street until she reached the center
of town. Nearly every road was dirt minus the streets surrounding the town
square, where cobblestone adorned the edges of the plaza. Her bare feet grew
accustomed to the daily abuse she put them through, but that didn’t protect her
from the pain of stubbing her little, delicate toes. As she passed the church, her attention was
swallowed up in the business that filled the square as villagers finished the
decorations and preparations for the evening’s celebration. Just then the
little toe on her right foot caught the wrong edge of a stone. Elena nearly
sent the basket flying with the leaves and the bread.
With watery eyes, a painful grin and a furrowed brow, she
quickly sat down to rub her toe. She really missed wearing sandals. Her father
had made her a simple pair for Christmas the year before. He had never intended
that his precious daughter would be forced to do so much walking in them. But,
Elena supposed, he never intended to get sick, either.
Those sandals broke only three weeks before, just after
Father Rodriguez’s last visit, so they had endured much longer than they should
have, considering their humble making. The thought of Father Rodriguez caught
her attention. She looked up at the small church and took note of the closed
door. “I guess Father Rodriguez won’t be here tonight,” Elena thought. She
always loved when Father Rodriguez came to town, which occurred about every
three or four weeks. Los Tres Reyes still lacked a full time clergy, and the
townsfolk relied on a rotation of priests that traveled from the not-too-distant
and fairly larger town, Taxco de Alarcon.
On three different occasions over the past year Elena
seriously considered making the trek to Taxco with her little sister. Not only
blessed with a full time ministry, Taxco had a large orphanage that served the
surrounding areas. Her most recent consideration came not a month before,
during Father Rodriguez’s last visit.
“Elena, my dear, why don’t you and Gabriela return with me
to the city this time?” Father asked.
Although his company always put her at ease, the subject of leaving
her hometown to travel to such a big and unfamiliar city, together with the
prospect of taking her little sister, intimidated her. Elena just stared back with
a glazed look on her eyes. Her memory didn’t serve for the rest of the
conversation. She recalled, however, and vividly so, the longing and even angst
for not worrying about when the next meal would be, or what it would be, or if
it would rain that night (this time of year being particularly wet). However,
being the first Christmas since her parents passed away, she longed to fulfill
the wish they shared together for several years, which was to attend the
Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve at the town plaza.
Mother and Father always talked about it whenever Christmas
drew near. The idea sounded so marvelous and magical to Gabriela and Elena –
wonderful lanterns, decorations, food; music and dancing;
But the gardens always needed much tending to, and mother
never seemed to have time to make the beautiful blanket she wanted to present
as their gift. They were rather poor, living in a small clay house on the
outskirts of town. Maria made plain wooden dolls dressed with simple clothing
that she would sell at the market, and that kept her very busy in her spare
time. Elena and Gabriela didn’t mind, though, as they always had a doll to play
with. They loved those dolls. Maria was always very liberal in giving them new
dolls, despite their being an important means of bringing in extra money. She
would make them especially well when she knew she was going to give them to her
daughters. Last Christmas Maria made a plain but beautiful red dress for
Elena’s little doll. She loved red. Mother told her it was to remind her of how
much she loved her.
Elena continued her dash home. She turned down the street
that ran along the side of the church, happy to be on dirt again. About half a
block down, she turned immediately into an alley way and down to a cellar
entrance of one of the buildings provided a covert sufficient to sleep under.
Gabriela was sitting on a dusty pillow, cradling a little wooden doll in her
tiny, four year-old arms. The dress looked quite dirty, but Elena could still
see some of the red. She remembered again the abundance of dolls around the
house, and how she and Gabriela would sit on the floor playing with them,
cradling them, swapping their dresses and hats. Mother would sit in a rocking
chair nearby, making a new doll or a new dress. Now, this was the only one in
their possession. Elena both yearned for her mother and felt close to her every
time she beheld that beautiful, simple doll.
“Nita!” Gabriela shouted, revealing her anticipation.
Normally Elena kept her sister by her side, but she was certain it would rain
when the day started, so she beckoned Gabriela to wait while she went out to
sell. It never rained, to her surprise. She never worried much about leaving
when occasion required. They had never seen another person in that alley way,
not to mention Los Tres Reyes was rather peaceful.
“Someone gave us bread, Gabby!” Elena broke the half loaf
into two equal pieces, knowing that her four-year-old sister wouldn’t eat as
much as Elena could. “Let us give thanks.”
The little girls each knelt on the large, flattened pillow,
their hands pressed together under their bowed faces.
“Jesus, we’re very thankful for this bread. Thank you for
whoever gave it to us. We hope we can go to the festival tonight,” Elena began
in earnest. “We miss mommy and daddy and hope they have a wonderful Noche Buena with you in heaven. Please
tell mommy I still have the doll with the red dress, and every day I miss her
and love her. And Gabby does, too. Amen.”
She looked up and saw that her smaller counterpart still had
her eyes squinted tightly shut, and she was muttering words of her own, almost
imperceptibly, her lips moving more slowly than her normal rate of speech.
“Oh, and please don’t let it rain tonight,” Elena suddenly
added as a special request. The past week brought more rain than she cared to
deal with, but she was grateful for the piece of wood she found which allowed
her to block the water from running down the steps to where they slept. Plus,
it brought the temperature down considerably. She looked down at the blanket
they shared. Father Rodriguez brought to them just before the rainy season
began. As much as Elena often desired an additional one, she realized there
were many things she would welcome, and was quite content to have the one.
Besides, she thought, Jesus gave us the pillow. They came home one day to find
the pillow resting at the bottom of the stairs one afternoon, with the doll
lying on top, tucked beneath the blanket. So cuddling up with Gabby on the
pillow with the blanket was enough to make the nights bearable. Soon the hot
weather would set in and it wouldn’t be an issue.
“Are we going to the festival?” Gabby inquired with
high-rising intonation.
Elena’s eyes looked blankly in the direction of her sister.
She didn’t purchase the blanket. “Well, I hope we can go,” Elena swallowed. “We don’t have
anything to give Jesus. Mommy always said we had to bring a nice gift for him
in order to go.”
Gabby squeezed tightly the sides of her mouth as she
solemnly contemplated the tough predicament explained to her by her older
sister. Looking down with a heavy heart, she saw the doll sitting below her.
Her eyes lit up, and she started without hesitation “We can give him our doll!”
Betrayal and liberation shot through Elena’s heart
simultaneously. I can’t part with that, she mourned! Yet deep in her heart she
agreed that it would be the perfect gift to give to Jesus. Its worth measured
above any king’s gold or frankincense.
She met Gabby’s eyes and nodded whole-heartedly, as a tear
fell from her left eye. “Jesus will love our doll!”
The two girls sang gaily as Elena braided two beautiful pig
tails in Gabby’s hair to match her own. They giddily recited all the fantasies
of the festival that they would soon enjoy in reality – music and dancing,
delicious tamales, playing with other children, the beautiful lanterns and
decorations and singing and especially the wonderfully built nativity scene at
the heart of it all, with an infant Jesus lying in a manger. Elena recited to
her little sister the special story of the first Noche Buena, and how three wise kings from far away saw the star
and new the King of Kings was born.
“And they brought him gold and Frank and cents and myrrh!”
Gabby interjected with excitement.
“Yep,” confirmed Elena.
“Nita,” inquired Gabby “how many cents do you think they
brought?”
“FRANKincense,”
clarified Elena, “not Frank and cents.”
“Oh. . . . What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But it must have been really
nice.”
Gabby gave a single nod in response.
Once they were finished, it was dusk, so they made their way
out of the alley and down the street towards the town plaza. They could hear
the music and more and more voices as people were gathering in the square. Once
it was in view, they sort of stopped as they stared and admired the beautiful
scene before them. People from each direction were converging on the plaza with
beautiful gifts, baskets or pots of food. The lanterns were glowing brightly,
and the Nativity scene looked as magical as Elena had imagined it.
Their eyes wide with bewilderment and anticipation, they scurried
toward the crowded plaza. Though the temperature seldom provided reasons for
concern year-round, tonight felt particularly cool against the unwashed yet
gentle skin of Elena and Gabriela. As they neared the plaza, the light of the
fires along with the sounds of happy voices and music warmed their hearts before
the heat reached their skin. Of course, they welcomed that as well when they
were close enough to feel the warmth. The excitement to see Jesus in the manger
and participate in the festivities consumed them.
This silently cherished yet candidly revealed expectation was
shattered instantly. A villager with an unkind face interrupted their path and refused the
eager children, using an insinuation convenient to their humble condition.
Elena’s eyes began to enlarge with shame as the dismissing villager looked
disgustedly at the doll Elena was holding out in front of her. Gabriela cowered
immediately behind her sister’s legs. Elena suddenly discerned an overwhelming
feverish sensation in her face, burning her dirty but precious cheeks. She felt
certain she would fall over in any direction. The verbal unwelcoming heightened
Elena’s perception, and exaggeration, of the eyes which monitored her every
move. Their moment of giddy happiness had warped into burning shame.
Elena’s pupils grew ever larger, and she painfully shot a glance
to her right and met a man’s face, who was considering this innocent scene
unfolding not five meters away. Almost instantly did Elena’s gaze catch his eye
that he turned his head, half-bowed, with semi-pursed lips and eyebrows raised
in the middle, back in the direction of his table. Her mind, being overwhelmed
with fear and shame, didn’t perceive the look on his face.
The two orphans retreated, averting their eyes with stooped
heads from what felt like hundreds of suspecting gazes. Any onlooker from the
other side of the small plaza, however, would not have noticed an interruption
to the festivities.
Elena and Gabriela emerged dejectedly from the throng with
the merry commotion behind them muffled by the hopelessness before them.
Gabriela wet her fleshy cheeks as she blubbered appropriately for a
broken-hearted four year-old. She ceased walking and stood on the edge of the
cobblestone street. Elena’s radiant brown eyes deepened and began to moisten as
her small chin quivered. She looked empathetically upon her sister, and then
longingly back across the street towards the warmth and light radiating around
Jesus’s manger. A single, long tear fell from her right eye, pure and unsullied
by the unwashed cheek over which it ran. She bent down to console her younger
sister.
Attempting to steady her voice, she vainly reassured the
little girl, fighting back the sniveling in her own voice. “It’s okay, Gabby.”
Another tear threatened, so she quickly picked up Gabriela to conceal her own
sadness.
They headed back towards the covering that felt safe and
comfortable to them, though far from home. The alley lay as if asleep in the
silence and darkness that enveloped it. The nearest torch hung facing the street
at the corner of the building, providing little light for a brief distance.
Beyond that, Elena depended on the light of the stars and the moon. Tonight,
the moon lay low in the sky and well out of view. However, the stars seemed to
provide a little extra help as Elena peered carefully down the several steps so
as not to trip.
Elena sat Gabriela on the dusty pillow. She handed her the
homely wooden doll, setting it gently in Gabby’s lap. The tears continued to
fall down her cheeks, though now between longer intervals. As Elena watched
her, a sense of determination filled her heart. She stepped up to the alley and
looked up at the sky.
“The stars remember Jesus tonight,” assumed Elena with a
sense of hope in her eyes. She noticed their particular brightness; one of them
seemed out of place as it hovered almost directly above her. The water still
threatening in her eyes caused them to sparkle in the starlight.
“Look, Gabby! It’s Jesus’s star!”
Gabby emerged from the underway, trying to hurry her pudgy
legs up the steps. Her tears had washed all the dust from her cheeks, and now
they were bright red. She stopped crying as she beheld with bewilderment the
spectacle.
“It’s moving!” she chirped.
Elena’s teeth beamed uncontrollably as she ran out to the
street to follow it. Gabriela trailed behind. They made their way back toward
the square, following the direction of the star. It halted just before they
passed the side of the church. The side door was cracked open and a light shone
from within. The two girls inquisitively yet innocently crept inside. “Perhaps
Father Rodriquez is here,” hoped Elena.
As they passed through the small back room to the chapel
they beheld a man kneeling towards the front with his head bowed. His clothes
were tattered and dirty, his face needed washing and shaving, and his hair was
wildly unkempt. Gabriela slid into a shadow as Elena approached him. It was the
same man from the market. Elena crossed behind him knelt down to the left of
him. Just in front of them was her basket with tied banana leaves. One of them
had been tied differently – it looked like a star.
“Why aren’t you celebrating outside?” he asked solemnly. His
head hadn’t moved, neither had he lifted his eyes.
“We have nothing to bring Jesus. We’re poor and dirty, and
the people think we’re beggars,” sniffled Elena.
“Hm,” grumbled the older man. He lifted his face a little and
turned it to Elena. His eyes were deep and his countenance warm despite any
unpleasant smell he exhibited. “And what do you think Jesus wants?”
She sniffed again. “Everyone else brings beautiful blankets,
adornments, food – the finest things you’d ever see in the market place,”
reasoned Elena. Gabriela unnoticeably emerged from the shadows and stood just
inside the room next to the doorway. She was still holding the doll in her
hand, hanging loosely at her side, with her left index finger curiously hanging
from the corner of her lips.
“And what will he do with those?” grumbled the man.
Elena stared blankly with no response.
“Tell me, did Jesus ever give you a gift?” His tone was
serious and heavy, his right eyebrow slightly cocked.
“Jesus loves us,” muttered Gabriela, softly but discernible.
The man noticed her for the first time and gauged the child
with penetrating eyes. He motioned for her to near him. She hesitatingly
crossed in front to her sister’s far side and stood next to her, finding
security by embedding her little body into Elena as much as possible.
The man looked at Elena. “Is that true?”
She nodded, the light of the opposite lamp reflecting in her
beautiful eyes. She then looked down as another tear fell from her face, and
she looked at the doll in her sister’s hand, and thought of how much her mother loved her.
He cracked a slight smile. “Do you know why God put a star
in the sky when Jesus was born?”
Elena’s eyes widened as she nodded with a hesitant smile,
“To lead the wise men to him.”
“So everyone would know that Jesus was born,” chimed Gabby.
“I think you’re right, both of you,” the man retorted. “He
wanted everyone to remember how much he loved them, and he certainly wanted everyone
to be able to find Jesus.” He paused. “You know what that’s all about, don’t
you?” he assured, gesturing slightly at the doll. He resumed his bowed position
and continued in like manner for a few moments. The two girls stared at him in
contemplation.
Elena reached down to grab the doll, and she placed it in
the basket. She bowed her head and pressed her palms together just under her
nose. Gabby copied her.
“Jesus,” Elena began sincerely, “help us to always remember
that you love us. And please help us to give you a gift of love this Christmas.
Amen.” Her eyes were dry. She opened them; Gabriela continued to gently move
her lips to form indiscernible silent words. Elena looked around the room,
startled to find that they were alone.
“Gabby look!” she half shouted. With one hand on her sister
and the other pointing straight ahead, Elena beheld with bulging eyes at the
spectacle before her. A beautiful plant was sitting in her basket, with crimson
leaves arrayed outward from the center. It looked like a red star sitting atop
the green leaves! The banana leaf had been turned into the most vivid red
flower they had ever seen.
“A Jesus flower!” blurted Gabby.
They picked up the flower in the clay pot and marveled.
Elena’s eyes swelled with tears of joy as she also discovered the doll’s dress
looked bright as new and just as red.
With knowing smiles on their faces, the two orphans returned
to the plaza, this time to an almost march-like pace. First the people on the
outskirts began to wonder and whisper at the small parade with a mysterious yet
glorious flower held out in front. Soon the whole area around them began to
buzz with curiosity and amazement as the two little girls made their way to the
beautiful manger scene. Everyone cleared way for them. They set the flower on a
stand near the manger, looked down at the manikin baby Jesus, and said thank
you.
It was the most beautiful sight anyone ever beheld. The red
was so intense it emanated warmth. There even seemed to be a glow from the bright
red pedals. No eyes that beheld it could hold back thoughts of love and
gentleness. Elena and Gabriela no longer felt uncomfortable in their humble
attire and dirty appearance. They were ushered to a table overflowing with
tamales, fruits and Christmas punches. No one is certain how, but suddenly
everyone began offering the two newly adopted children many of the beautiful
gifts that were lying before the manger. Those that had more began giving to
those who didn't.
Elena and Gabby soon began dancing with the other children
to the gay music being played on the other side of the square. The cobblestone didn't bother them because they were wearing new sandals. The more they danced,
the more everyone joined in. The scene had been transformed from a superficially
joyful event into a truly loving one. Not a soul could remember a happier
Christmas celebration.
The girls had given the flower to Jesus, and subsequently to
the whole village. It became a symbol of love – a reminder of the one who loved
them, and why they must love in return. The flower of la Noche Buena spread all across town, increasing the breadth of
their love and care for one another the more it did.
The villagers often wondered how a flower could make them feel so.
Elena and Gabriela knew, and that satisfied them.
