Читать книгу Trini - Estella Portillo Trambley - Страница 9

Prologue

She was walking among tombstones when she saw him following her. The world was gold this October, leaves fluttering to the ground like substances of fancies, liquescent in a search among tombstones. She knew who he was, a gringo painter who had come to live among the Mexicans in Valverde. What on earth did he want? Only one way to find out. She turned and waited for him to catch up with her. Even now, he smelled of turpentine. He stood smiling down at her as he asked, “Waiting for me?”

His Spanish was soft and musical, almost like a native. She asked simply, “What do you want?”

“To paint you.”

Why her? she wondered. With all the young and pretty girls around. She did not answer, but as they crossed Alameda, he asked again, “Will you pose for me?”

“Why?”

“I’ve watched you planting, behind your house. You know that broken hill behind your place? That’s where I want to paint you.”

Her eyes were full of pagan lights. She realized she had been the subject of his curiosity for some time. She bit her lip in thought, then she looked to the level of his eyes and with a little laugh agreed, “Why not?”

* * *

The canvas was finished. The background was done in red and yellow browns with great subtleties of shades, with infinite degree of line. The figure of Trini on canvas was painted into the light, almost as if it had appeared out of the depth of rocks and earth. The whole body was a movement of strength, sustained, yet free. There was something mystical about her eyes, dark, looking to the level of the living, yet seeing beyond. The hair flew loose and long with the wind. The most amazing thing in the painting were the feet, bare, brown, seeming to grow out of the earth itself.

“Now, tell me, Trini, isn’t that you?” Chale was behind her, his voice full of excitement. Yes, thought Trini, it is me. What I am inside. How did he know? He’s only painted me, not known me. She had seen many women like herself, who had crossed a river illegally into the United States. So many brown women faceless in the world. Yet, here she was. Only she, a life etched in an unpoised moment, in a fragment of continuous change, all spelled out to its very beginning and all the beginnings to follow.

“Chale.”

“Yes?”

“It is me.”