Translation:A chía stand during Holy Week

by Guillermo Prieto

A chia stand during Holy Week

The season that we ironically call Winter has passed, which is actually nothing more than the quick sleep of eternal Spring, to appear with the prestige of new charms. The Carnival has passed laughing with its mask in hand, with the signs of its short and debauched life; and the austere Lent exercises its diminished empire on the few timid and religious souls of this eminently sinful century.

The street hawkers, who with their cry are the thermometer that marks the seasons, have stopped touting roasted chestnuts in the shadows of the night, in the public places; the extensive bonfire is no longer lit on the corners in front of the peanuts and fresh coconut.

It is Friday. On some corners a flowerbed of natural flowers is improvised, the aromatic pea, the musk rose, the poppy, the larkspur surround the plump flower seller who makes bouquets to offer to the public for modest sums.

It is now a child who buys and accompanies the bouquet to a lowly candle for the Virgin of his school, where the customs of yesteryear are still preserved; or the common woman who has her altar, and adorns it with flowers in her humble pigsty; or the ostentatious cook, who decorates the basket of her vigil collection. Meanwhile, a multitude of charcoal burners populate the streets, one hears couscous, purslane, ahuautle, frogs being cried out in treble voices; and through the gate of San Cosme enter a multitude of peaceful donkeys loaded with cabbage, competing with the vendor in his cry, with the one who proclaims catfish and white fish.

These street hawkers cross the streets in all directions; the influx of muleteers to the capital city is notable; either the drivers of goods from the interior, or the Native Indians from the surrounding areas, or the mayors of a town who with the most peaceful of embassies come in search of wax and tin trappings belonging to the Middle Ages, to become executioners of Jesus Christ.

In this time of agitation, when the mercantile spirit, gastronomy or devotion, set the spirits in motion, when the heat begins to be felt, and there is still no hope that the benign rain will temper it; one day, as if by telegraphic communication, chía stands appear on the corners of the public plaza.

Two enormous crates are the framework of this portable counter, they are covered with alfalfa or clover; They are decorated on the outside with poppies, peas, bellflowers and rose hips, with various shades, with exquisite touch and beauty; this kind of counter is crowned by another border of roses and other very showy and fresh flowers: the front of the stand is perpetually watered, and as if encouraging the thirsty to calm their cravings. Above the stand there is a kind of display case in which the rank and fortune of the owner's relations are kept, and colossal glasses of polished crystal are displayed with colored waters, which blue, scarlet, orange and green, shine in the sun, and give a peculiar aspect to the business: there are also red and shiny gourds, daughters of the south of Mexico, with their smooth and durable maque, and their very curious silver work.

The rest of the negotiation is hidden from profane eyes: it is the main pot with sugar water, another with lemon water, pineapple, tamarind, and above all, the horchata de pepita and the chía, "fattening" in a favorite place.

The soul of this singular group is the chía woman vendor, the chiera, fresh, dark, with black eyes, with a determined walk, a petticoat with points, a shoe with a dumbbell, and in everything exuding activity and intelligence; she orders her maid to prepare the pepita on the attached metate, sends her husband for the articles she needs; she forms a kind of pavilion with her shawl for the newborn bud behind the stand; she establishes relations with the winemaker and the porters: those from the neighborhood point her out, the boys help her on the first day of her installation, and once everything is arranged, she coughs, looks around, and shouts with an accent that is her own: "chía, horchata, lemon water, tamarind."

A thirsty man approaches; he prepares a gourd, washes his hands, pours out some sugar water, and mixes it with chia or with the foaming horchata, to offer it to his merchant: thus he spends his monotonous life quarreling with debtors, affable with passers-by, lively and playful with his neighbors.

But as soon as certain signs announce Holy Week, when the hoarse chanter in the hands of the boy, and the impertinent rattle proclaim the solemn mysteries of the Passion, then the chiera is something else; she pawns her credit, makes a room of reeds and andirons in an instant, her employees multiply, she makes commitments, and deploys a prodigious activity, like the cook of pudding a la chipolata in the midst of his clients, like a general on a day of battle distributes his people, commissions them and watches over their perpetual action.

On Holy Thursday night, the chía stand is the front of a large reed room, that dwarf counter is decorated with high arches of clover and flowers, from which hang small jugs and other porous clay objects that give freshness to the cold water, and the toy is a new attraction for the buyer. A tinsmith provided lanterns; some other acquaintance, of bands and canvases, and sometimes Telemachus and Ulysses, Cato and Espartero, do not disdain to enter the stands in their golden paintings; besides, inside there are benches; and the servants who grind, sweeten, quarrel, and are in perpetual bustle, are very numerous.

On that day, the chiera multiplies like the polyp; she works, quarrels, and has mortification and spite painted on her face.

Her composure on those days is extreme; a muslin petticoat with ribbon-like shapes and a curled frill like the snow; her bracelets and necklace of corals, her rosary and her reliquary with agnus wax, and finally, all the medals and amulets she can, from St. George against the animals, to the Lord of the Sacred Mount, the usual pointe shoes and the tight shoe, highlighting the swarthy complexion; thus she shows off her gallantry, shouts her chia, horchata, etc., a family of an honest artisan, dressed in clean clothes, with his hat of chapetas, his horseshoe shoe, his vestment with a skirt and mantilla, settles in his shop. The chiera makes them sit down, makes conversation with them and serves them what they ask for.

On those days the stands degenerate, and have so many changes and alterations that it is impossible to describe them properly: up to now I have only painted the chiera on the corner; but during Holy Week the whole front of the Palace is covered with stands, and although they are all the same in essence, their form varies infinitely.

There are rich curtains of damask and muslin; there are lamps and paintings; there too, little jugs and gourds; but European glasses and vases; there is cinnamon thrown on the water doing capricious work; there are cashiers and numerous servants, and crying children and squabbling millers, and the fat stall-keeper who suffocates and suffocates among the demanding crowd, and the lazy husband of the working woman who drinks and spends the labor fruit of the poor chiera.

But this is accidental; the chiera by profession is stationary, disappears with the first frost, migrates with the swallows, and nothing is known of her existence while Winter lasts.

In recent times, like Mohammed in religion, like Galileo in science, like Napoleon in politics, a chiera has made a revolution in her field, taking the scepter of the stallholders, and do not think that she is a vulgar and talentless woman; no sir, she is the chiera of the Portal of the Flowers. Before, the corner where she is now, was deserted; suddenly she takes possession of an arch, surrounds herself with colossal and squat pots, collects seeds and chia; she extends her turn, occupies several arms, sets in motion many metates, and with nothing more than the cleanliness and opportunity of the place, she rises to the empire of horchata; not a shout, not a disorder; nothing: goodness in the effects, promptness in the dispatch, and laus Deo.

The fop no longer disdains to approach the stall asking for chia; now he grasps the hand, dressed in the delicate goat, the glass of tamarind; Now the brave general shows off his mustache with a glass of horchata without blushing; now the austere priest under the fluted hat sips a goblet of horchata, and surrounded by the most splendid of the court, the most sugary youth, the pearl of the chieras, the jewel of the vendors of hot water, increases his fortune, to the joy of all who know her.

Because before her the mask of etiquette falls; because that position is the oasis of the desert, the fountain of Moses, the relief of all who come to the Palace; it is a legitimist position, regulator of the social march, and worthy of the protection of the government.

The officer who was given an order to march, the employee and the suitor who carried a six-hour anteroom, the grieving widow and the greedy runner, all sweeten their mood with the water from the portal; They calm their fatigue, change conversation, and the one who came from opposition leaves affable, and the one who came satisfied spreads his spirit and is firm in his purposes.

It is like a newspaper that satisfies all opinions, like those men who have a mission of peace, more useful to calm the spirits than any diplomatic employee, more conciliatory than any congress; next to those pots there is no party, no claims, no differences, contrast of public offices, one retires satisfied; no money is ever paid with better will, perhaps because there is no contribution of any kind that refreshes others more than the tax collectors; in short, the chiera of the portal, plump, dark and affable, will one day occupy the rank to which her position calls her. Now her business is in fashion, the landaus surround her, the gentlemen salute her, and I who prophesy her opulence direct my prayers to heaven for her wealth, because it will be a glory for the country to contemplate once an immaculate fortune, acquired in such a public position.

Fidel

1844