a strange thudding of soft feet within the belly of the boat. Men in the water were pushing the ship’s black stern, to push her off. But she was heavy. Slowly, casually they pulled the stones from under her flat bottom, and flung them aside. Slowly she edged, swayed, moved a little, and was afloat.
The men climbed in. The two peons on the ship’s rims were poling her out, pressing their poles and walking heavily till they reached the stern, then lifting their poles and running to the high prow. She slid slowly out, on to the lake.
Then quickly they hoisted the wide white sail. The sail thrust up her horn and curved in a whorl to the wind. The ship was going across the waters, with her massive, sky-spangled cargo of life invisible.
All so still and soft and remote.
“And will Ramón want you to sit beside him in the church as the bride of Quetzalcoatl—with some strange name?” Kate asked of Teresa.
“I don’t know,” said Teresa. “Later, he says, when the time comes for them to have a goddess.”
“And will you mind?”
“For myself, I am afraid of it. But I understand that Ramón wants it. He says it is accepting the greater responsibility of one’s existence. And I think that is true. If there is God in me, and God as woman, then I must accept this part of myself also, and put on the green dress, and be for the time the God-woman, since it is true of me also. I think it is true. Ramón says