A bright green tour bus cruised up to the vaulted arch that opens into the promenade in Santa
Maria del Tule, home of the famous El Arbol del Tule. Passengers filed out into the bright
sunshine, teachers, bankers, medical types, a pastor, a nightclub singer, and restauranteurs all
followed their intrepid guide Rafa along the wide walkway, past manicured topiaries, historic
statues, and shops selling leche quemada and cactus fruit ice cream, leather sandals, souvenirs,
and fresh fruit in long slices stuffed into Styrofoam cups. They roamed along in their Izod shorts,
wide brimmed hats, and Hoka tennis shoes, snapped photos with their iPhones, and ruminated
over their recent excursion to the Hierve el Agua and its magnificent travertine rock formations
spilling down the hillsides like frozen waterfalls. They wound around the El Templo de Santa
Maria de la Asuncion Church and the handsome town hall, turned right onto a less impressive
street, and strolled toward an alley. Then, as the town’s luster faded and the dust stirred, they
entered Restaurante Reynita, where an open-air fiesta of smells, sights, and sounds welcomed
them. Just inside, two traditionally clad townswomen shaped and baked tortillas by an open
oven. Red, yellow, green, orange, purple, and blue papel picados danced like paper stars
overhead, competition for the stunning bougainvillea. A bubbly cantante wove through the tables
entertaining, schmoozing, smiling wide at enchanted ladies as he crooned “Pienso en Ti” by
Thalia. The group moved to their long, festive table in the center of the space, potato and cheese
empanadas, salad, and guacamole already on the table in bright stoneware serving platters.
Corona, Negro, and Victoria beers were served, as were pitchers of strawberry horchata,
watermelon, cantaloupe, and passion fruit juices. Tlayudas were delivered by serious servers.
Then came the tortillas and mole. The tour group laughed as they sprinkled chapulines on their tlayudas and dared one another to partake of the roasted crickets. They photographed their food,
themselves, each other, and their celebratory surroundings. They swapped stories of their
excursion to Monte Alban and the Santo Domingo Church. Talked of sunscreen, 401K accounts,
and artisan finds.
As the group caroused and concelebrated their foodie wealth with tres leches or coconut
paletas, a small dark woman in a dirty white dress appeared in the open entryway, a baby with
quarter-sized brown eyes strapped to her back, a toddler at her side clutching her skirt. None of
them wore shoes, and the boy’s ragged baseball cap was so big it obscured much of his face. She
began to weave her way among the tables, a spray of red roses cradled like a baby in her right
arm, her left hand raised with a single rose. “Rosas para las damas,” she called out in a voice just
above a whisper. She looked tentative, shy, maybe scared. The little boy moved in tandem with
her as she navigated through the seated patrons, their glasses or forks or finger food lifted to their
mouths. Most ignored her, some screwed up their faces in annoyance. One young gentleman at
another table accepted a rose and handed the woman a rolled-up peso note. Another man
followed suit, then a third.
The tour group, when she made her way down their row of heavy wooden chairs at the
massive table, began to squirm, unsure how to react to this wretched sight, this tattered women.
Rafa, the group’s dashing young tour director, looked up from his sangria and noted the tiny
woman’s presence near him. He shuttered at the sight of her, a creature who could well have
been his abuela, who had labored as a young woman on her father’s scrub farm planting, tending,
and harvesting cacti for the local mescal makers. The thought of her, this weary woman
momentarily transposed into this peasant mother, caught him off guard. His broad smile faded,
his eager eyes dimmed, and he shivered under his guayabera, its intricate blue Zapotec pattern in neat geometric design falling down the front. Of course desperados and beggars, the homeless
and destitute were well known to him. He lived among them. He was Mexican and this was as
much his heritage as tacos and Benito Juarez, as tequila and pinatas. But something about this
mother, this determined soul in bare feet, her children nearly appendages, her grit, her
entrepreneurship at the most basic level, cut through Rafa.
Suddenly the manager swept past Rafa, grabbed the woman’s shoulder, and demanded,
“Sigue adelante, senora.” He pointed to the airy entryway framed in deep purple flowers. “Pero
no perteneces aqui.” He shooed her as if she was one of the several stray dogs that roamed the
streets of all Mexican towns. She clasped her son’s hand and tugged him along as she struggled
to stay upright, her feet unable to keep pace with the manager’s demand. Rafa realized his
travelers had cancelled their revelry, stopped drinking, laughing, munching on cinnamon churros.
“Don’t worry,” he called out. “She will find others to by her roses. There are many romantic
men in this town, trust me.” He winked and laughed. “Let us finish, per favor, and begin to make
our way back to the bus.” He held up his wrist and pointed to his Apple watch. As the lawyer and
the salesman, the art gallery owner, the ophthalmologist and the others pushed in their chairs and
moseyed toward the street, Rafa’s colleague Aja paid the bill. Rafa surveyed the remains of the
repast before him and noted that four Tlayudas remained untouched.
“Look at all this waste,” he commented to Aja as she returned her company credit card into
her small purse. “This is no esta bien,” he whispered.
“We can’t very well take them in a doggy bag,” she replied in perfect English although it was
her third language. Rafa stood, his hands on his hips, pursing his lips Aja secretly longed to kiss. “Listen, can you go ahead, give the group some time to visit the church, do some shopping?”
I will be along in a few minutes.”
“Raaaaaaafael,” she waged her finger, “What are you up to?”
“It’s fine, really. Go ahead, per favor.”
As Aja turned to gather the group, Rafa motioned to a server, Emil, with whom he had
coordinated this dinner. “Encierra esto,” he requested.
Plastic bag dangling at his side, Rafa exited the restaurant and turned away from where the
bus was parked. He stuck his head in the first doorway he spotted, then the next, then moved
down an alley, lifted a tarp that hung down on a shanty not half a block from Restaurante
Reynita, with its lovely painted clay flowerpots and rustic Mexican décor. But the woman was
nowhere, not in the park, not outside the oxxo, or the tienda de autos. He realized his time was
flitting away. The tour must press on to the next stop. He turned toward the arch at the other end
of the boulevard, the boxed food congealing in the afternoon heat. He walked briskly to catch up
to Aja, sweeping his head back and forth desperate to find the flower woman. He passed families
on an outing, children skipping around the dry central fountain, couples canoodling on a bench, a
shop keeper sweeping. Ahead, he could see Aja staring at her phone, tour members milling about
as she glanced from side to side looking for him. As he crossed under the arch, the greeting
“Bien Venito” painted in large bright yellow letters across its expanse, he caught, in his
peripheral vision, a pile of rags leaning against the first building off the main street. Except it
wasn’t a pile of rags, it was a person who raised his head, his mangled straw hat lifting like a lid.
He began to turn to sit up and reposition his sleep. Rafa called out to Aja, “I’ll be there in a
minute!” He darted over to the man who looked up at Rafa with his leather face when addressed. “Sir,” he spoke in Spanish, “we could not eat all our food. Please take this and enjoy.” The man
accepted a box and smiled a nearly toothless smile, his wrinkles rolling up his haggard face.
“I was no always so poor, you know,” the man stated. “I am no loco.” Rafa felt compelled to
listen to the man’s declaration even though he longed to break away and search for her.
“I worked my father’s farm near Zaachila. It come when he died. But they took it away to
build a new road and a man swindled me because I no read so good. I lost everything, including
my wife.”
“I’m so sorry,” Rafa placed his hand on the man’s shoulder.
“You are Zapotec, no?” The man queried.
“Yes. My abuela.” He felt a connection with the man he could not explain. “I’m looking for a
woman who sells roses. She has two young children with her.”
“Oh, yes,” the man nodded. “Try behind the church. She stay there sometimes. We call her
Rose Mother.”
Rafa thanked the man and jogged to the nearby bus. Breathy and impatient he pulled Aja
aside. “Something’s come up. Can you give them an extra half hour to shop? We’ll just cut the
mescal demonstration short. They’ll never know.” Aja felt compelled to redirect Rafa, to remind
him of company policy, the strict itinerary. But she had never been able to resist his charm, his
boyishness, his spirit.
“Thirty minutes, no more. Please don’t do anything stupid,” she implored him.
Rafa dashed across the front of the church and around “The Tree of Life”, a giant Montezuma
cypress tree, more stout than a giant sequoia, borne from a single trunk, perhaps as old as 6,000 years. Legend says it was planted by Pechocha, a priest of the Aztec god of the wind. He slipped
behind the high stucco wall that surrounded the churchyard and found himself standing in a
hovel, a tent encampment, cardboard and tarps, scraps of aluminum and multicolored cotton
sheets stretched along rope. Folks moved about slowly, carrying supplies or bundles of clothes.
Some tended ragged children who scampered about. Some stood in clusters discussing, debating,
commiserating. Rafa scanned the area, focused on finding her rather than surveying the others
around him. Finally he spotted her, the Rose Lady, sitting on a blanket on the ground before a
sagging lean-to. Before the young mother lay the baby, his arms and legs flailing about with high
energy. He giggled and cooed as she played a game, perhaps a version of pat-a-cake, to his
delight. She smiled broadly at her child as if he was the center of known existence, the very
reason the sun shone and the stars sparkled.
“Perdoneme, senora,” he approached her with some trepidation, as one approaches a skittish
colt. She looked up, her glorious smile dissolving into sudden concern, perhaps fear, certainly
discomfort with the situation. “I saw you at the restaurant selling flowers. We had this food left
over and I brought it to you and your sons,” he spoke in Spanish.
She stared for a moment as if contemplating her response. She looked longingly at the cartons
of food as Rafa removed them from the plastic bag like a salesman displaying his wares.
“How kind,” she reached out for the boxes. A rush of awkwardness overcame Rafa. What to
say, what to do now. Should he simply turn and leave. Should he offer a blessing, wishes for
good luck? How could he avoid trampling on her dignity, her self-respect?
She continued to play with her child, moving his legs back and forth as he tittered with glee.
Rafa was struck by this vignette of maternal bliss, this young woman, otherwise awash in despair and deprivation, hunger and want, wholly engulfed in the joy of motherhood. He marveled at the
obvious bond between these two, a Madonna and child, their covenant as ancient as the nearby
Tula Tree. Then she paused as looked up at Rafa.
“My marido,” she spoke softly, “took everything and struck out for America to make a better
life for our family. I have not heard from him since. Six months.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“His hermano went with him but soon returned. My husband has simply vanished.”
Rafa crouched on his haunches and looked lovingly into the woman’s sorrowful eyes. He
could feel his heart thumping against his chest with pity, with empathy for this beautiful family
lost. “How much for a rose?” He asked.
“Whatever you like.”
He removed his wallet and retrieved nearly all of his pesos, several hundred, perhaps a
thousand, handed them to her, and smiled.
“I’ll take all of them.”
She accepted his money and gathered her bundle of roses. “Mucho gracias, senor,” she
whispered. “This will feed us for many days.”
Rafa, the roses cradled in his arms like a child, hustled back to the big green bus. He felt
uneasy, inadequate, spoiled, and helpless all in one turn. This was, he feared, too small a gesture,
a drop in the bucket, little more than a band aid for this woman and her children. The few bucks
he tossed into the church collection basket, his annual contribution to Feed the Poor, his shift
ringing the bell for the Salvation Army at Christmastime, all felt insignificant, nothing more than gestures to ease his guilty conscience, a way to assuage his privileged guilt. But he broke into a
wide smile as he boarded the bus and made his way down the aisle presenting each woman with
a rose.
“Oh, so lovely!”
“How nice!”
“Gracias, Rafa!”
“Look at the big spender!” one of the business executives joked.
“I hope it was worth it,” another chuckled.
“Oh, every peso,” Rafa chimed back. He finally collapsed into his seat at the front of the
coach, sighed, and said to himself, “God bless you, Rose Lady of Tula.”
