La Noche Buena

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; and how everyone would bring a wonderful gift to lay before the infant Jesus situated at the center of the plaza.

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.