~Chapter 20~

Fray Felipe was getting sentimental. His voice shook as he read the marriage ceremony to the two couples. The women wore white lace dresses in the Spanish style with the veils shading their faces, Elena's drapery concealing the now visible swelling of her belly. She carried crimson roses and RoZita carried golden ones. Elena wore a gold chain with a cross of rubies, while RoZita wore a small rope of pearls that had been meant for Christina. It had been promised by her grandmother to the first bride in the family.

Christina's three pretty sisters, Judith, Dora, and Mollie, served as bridesmaids for both brides, although Judith was married. They were dressed the way Elena had been the night of the Montero party, and they seemed delighted with their costumes, giggling and fluttering about like butterflies, popping their fingers like Spanish dancers, fussing with their hair, trying to get everything just right. They carried little clusters of romania flowers. It was two months since RoZita had met Christina's family, and they really seemed to think of her as Christina now. And since they looked exactly like her sisters but for their clothing and hairstyles, she had gradually come to think of them as hers, and felt as if she'd always known them. They seemed to know so much about her. Dora would say, "Come on and play the piano now!" How could she have known RoZ could play? Or Judith would have her do the "bouncy game" with her baby boy that RoZ used to play with her little nephew, and Mollie would offer to do her hair, just as RoZita's youngest sister used to do. They all tactfully avoided mentioning Carnal Love.

It had been explained to them that another body had been mistaken for Christina's when they pulled it from the river--it was just a girl who looked like her. And since it was so long ago and they were only little girls when it happened, they believed it, especially as Ahmed was wearing the scent as he told them. Christina had run away, and had been working as a servant in a wealthy family, suffering from amnesia. For twelve years she'd had no recollection who she was or what happened, she'd called herself RoZita and finally recovered her memory when she fell downstairs and hit her head one day. She'd left the house and wandered out through the countryside, intent on getting back to her family, when she'd encountered Ahmed and Elena.

It felt odd to RoZ to have two different names, but she answered to both. A strange thing had begun to happen: her memory of the twentieth century was fading. She stopped fretting over not being allowed to wear shorts and halter tops and makeup, having no air conditioning, no cars, radio, TV, stereo, hot and cold running water, etc. Sometimes she could almost forget these things had ever existed. She had a difficult time recalling the words and tunes to songs she'd liked, and had to think hard to remember the names of the Beatles...

One thing Alejandro did a few weeks before the wedding was to get circumcised, because he wanted to be as much like his twin as possible, he said. Ahmed had to go with him to hold his hand because Alejandro was terrified, but he wouldn't let anyone talk him out of it! The women (who weren't allowed to go along, since Alejandro didn't want Elena to see him hurt) laughed a little about it, and RoZ said, "Do you suppose he'll get scars on his face to match Ahmed's too?" And Elena said, "Do not ever mention it to him, please--knowing him, he will go out and do it!" When the women went to the hospital to pick up the men, RoZita was horrified at the conditions she saw there. The funny thing was, they listened to her when she talked about sterilization and so forth. In her old life, seemed like no one ever listened to a word she said, but now that she had hero status, people paid attention to her and obeyed her word. She was elated: now she had a Cause. She could instigate any change. She was like a queen, she had Power. She just had to resolve never to let this power go to her head, let it corrupt her in any way. If anything would ever break the spell, it would be that....

Spanish musicians played on medieval-looking instruments as the bridal procession moved up the aisle. Flowers adorned every pew of the church, garlands of them laid over statues, candles everywhere that candles could be placed, incense nearly overpowering everything with its spicy fragrance. It was more ostentatious than RoZita would have liked, but she guessed it was a Spanish/Catholic thing, the pageantry and all, and so she'd decided to go along with it...and now she was glad she did. She found it delicious. The peasants gloried in it. They had turned out in huge crowds, dressed up in their most colorful costumes, singing, dancing, playing instruments, jugglers and acrobats and clowns and dancers performing in the street, to the delight of both children and adults. Not all of them could be crowded into the church, so they congregated outside, and while the ceremony was going on they were perfectly quiet, only a few sniffles and coughs interrupting the solemnity. "

...To love and to cherish, till death do you part?"

"I do!"

The priest read a lot of stuff in Latin, which RoZita didn't get, but it sounded so lovely, it brought tears to her eyes. The men looked breathtaking in their gold-embroidered black jackets, white ruffled shirts, and velvet cummerbunds: Alejandro's was ruby red with a flame-like luster; Ahmed's a dusky sapphire blue with a purplish tinge. Their hair was the same length now, slicked down with only one or two little curls escaping. RoZ hardly looked at the gorgeous stained-glass windows.

She did suddenly remember a song she had played at the wedding of a friend, and she sang it now to Ahmed:

Whither thou goest, I will go
Whither thou lodgest, I will lodge
Thy people shall be my people, my love
Whither thou goest, I will go.

She could hear her sisters sniffling behind her...

Ahmed read a poem he had composed for the occasion:

Thy hand in mine, thy fingers are tendrils
Which bind me forever to thy side
I am thy pillar, thy statue, thy monument,
And thy blossoms shall enthrall me
Until I am invisible, with no other purpose
Than to shape thy beauty unto its goal
To be molded in thine embrace unto the flaming shape
Which heaven designed from the beginning,
The mold Allah declared: "This shall be used but once..."

Alejandro recited one of his own:

Beneath the silent candles of the stars
Beneath the ancient furnace of the sun
Thou art my waterfall
And I thy stream
Fill me forever with thy crystal glory
And flow with me to the eternal sea
Where we shall embrace forever
And cradle our little ones as tiny ships
Laden with untold treasures....

Elena could say only, "You are my prince," then choke up entirely, glad of her veil.

Then Ernesto, also richly dressed, approached, carrying the rings on a velvet pillow. The priest gave the rings to each couple, and just before he spoke, Ernesto suddenly reached under RoZita's veil and pulled out a live dove. Everyone gasped, some looking at each other in puzzlement: magic tricks at a time like this? Then Ernesto held the white bird high and let it go, and it circled upward toward the ceiling, then swooped downward toward the door. And RoZita lost all her remaining memory of the twentieth century, and also her memory of what Carnal Love had done to her. She would never dream of him again.

The priest instructed the two couples to kneel, and he brought the gold chalice from the pew and gave it first to Alejandro, who sipped from it, and handed it to Elena. She drank and handed it to RoZita, and all sipped the wine, even Ahmed, who was relinquishing his own religion for hers. "It is the same God, after all," he'd said as he underwent the baptism ceremony by the waterfall. "And he destined me for this path and instructed me to follow my vision, which led me to you. It is only fitting that I embrace it all."

As Alejandro slid the golden ring on Elena's finger she noticed that his hands were slightly trembling. She smiled because her strong hero was so thrilled like herself. And as they looked deep in each other's eyes, she noticed another movement for the first time. It was inside her belly....Her face lit even brighter as Alejandro whispered: "I love you!" And they kissed, not passionately of course in front of the whole congregation, but the tips of their tongues met with incredible tenderness. Elena took his hand, and while he laid his other arm around her waist to cover where his other hand would lie, she pressed his hand to her belly.

They both forgot the others around them because there was it again ...the movement against his hand. He smiled ecstatically and Elena whispered in his ear: "Our little son is happy too!" And they kissed again...

As both grooms pushed away the veils and kissed the brides, the congregation broke into cheers, then began singing "Hosanna in excelsis, benedictus..." Then they lifted the couples on to their shoulders and actually carried them out of the church, where everyone began to dance, laughing, singing, some of them shrieking.

RoZita/Christina's parents embraced her for the thousandth time, and they embraced Ahmed also. Dora whispered to RoZita, "Does he by any chance have a triplet?" then giggled.

"No telling how many of him are out there," RoZita laughed and hugged her. "But beware. Some of them could be dangerous."

There was feasting and more dancing and games. There was a puppet show for the children, in which Zorro felled a few adversaries and rescued a few maidens, and there was even a scene where he and his twin dispatched the dreaded pirate Scourge, with a splendidly arrayed Fezeek in the background. "Now for your just desserts-flaming rum punch!" shouted the Alejandro/Zorro puppet gleefully. RoZ held her breath until the pirate went down and then up came another puppet with streamers of orange crepe paper glued to him, shaking them all about, and she sighed with relief. She knew better than to question the good taste of this part. It was what The People wanted, and clearly they were relishing it even though the child who was working the Scourge puppet had a rather squeaky voice and didn't sound very menacing. Although he certainly shrieked convincingly as he went up in "flames".

RoZita sneaked a look at Alejandro, who had a tight-lipped little smile, and Elena was not smiling at all. They both looked glad when it was over. And as RoZita looked at Alejandro she suddenly had a funny feeling, and a cloud passed over her joy. Somehow her mind latched onto him, and she didn't want to let him out of her sight. When he went off to get Elena something to eat she felt an incredible sense of loss. She didn't know how to account for it. She remembered what Ahmed told her after they brought Alejandro home from the hospital following his operation.

"He did it for me," he said in pained wonder as he came downstairs from Alejandro's bedroom and Elena went up to him. "At first he would not take the drug when I offered it, he said to dull the pain would take away the significance of the ritual. But afterwards, when I offered it again, he took it, and soon the medication loosened his tongue. He said, 'Now you will no longer feel like a foreigner. Because I am like you, and the people will treat us equally.' RoZita, he did it for me, and it was not even necessary! I do not know what to think, I am overwhelmed. I do not feel at all worthy of that kind of love."

"Of course you are worthy," she reassured him, but she was almost as overwhelmed as he.

She thought of what he said now as Ahmed went off also to get her a plate from the long, long table of food. Elena came to stand beside her. They both looked at their grooms without speaking for a long moment.

Then, finally, RoZita said, "It's a strange thing, but, you know..."

"Yes?" Elena looked as though she knew what RoZ was going to say before she said it.

"I think...you may hate me for what I'm going to say, but..."

"I seriously doubt that," Elena smiled. "But for you, Alejandro would not be alive now." Her voice quivered a little. "What is it, hermanita?"

RoZita swallowed before answering, looking out at the two men. "I think...that I am a little in love...with both of them. Is that totally weird, or what?"

Elena didn't look at all shocked or even surprised. In fact, she nodded, laying her newly ringed hands on the slight swell of the new little life inside of her as she looked toward the bridegrooms standing together, talking and joking with their sides to the women. Her eyes were both dreamy and wistful as she looked first at the red cummerbund, then the blue, the two perfect profiles. And she put an arm around her new sister and embraced her tightly.

"I know exactly what you mean," she sighed.

~The End~