Searching for Csilla: Part 4

Did you miss any previous episodes in this serial?

Searching for Csilla: Part 1, Searching for Csilla: Part 2, Searching for Csilla: Part 3

The old mission buildings had been restored about five years before. I stopped to run my fingers over the rough walls and admire the bits of gravel and ancient straw that had been left sticking out of the plaster.

My daughter passed the time while I admired the building, checking her incoming text messages.

“Really Ezter, you ought to look at the color of this stucco. Isn’t it gorgeous? Can you imagine the people who did all this labor? I wonder what they talked about when they were working and what they thought of it when it was done.”

“Umm. We had to listen to a whole lecture on it in my class. Do you know what the population of native people was estimated at before the friends-of-the-inquisition arrived and forced the locals to build this place? And do you know how many of them died from the diseases the Spaniards introduced?”

“No. How many before and after?”

“Unh, well I forget. I learned it for the midterm, though. And if you recall, our people didn’t hold up so well in that era either.” Ezter slipped her phone back in her purse and gestured down the street. I think the numbers go up if we go that way. I’m looking for 1229.”

I took one glance back at the red tiled roofs, sent out a brief wordless message to the people who’d built them, as well as those who’d been compelled to create buildings from the monuments of Rome to the great white buildings in Washington D.C. , and followed after my daughter.

Once she’d confirmed that the lovely, Romanesque style red brick building two blocks down, was indeed 1229, Ezther was ready to move on.

“Wait a minute.” I scurried up the steps to read from a brass plaque bolted to the wall. “The sign says it’s the original library and it was built in 1917.”

“Oh you and your old buildings!”

“It’s one of your old buildings, isn’t it? Didn’t you say this is where your field trip is? It’s probably to do with the library.”

“No. It’s something about a time capsule that was buried in the yard when they built this. One of the humanities profs is opening it tomorrow. And there’s some guest coming from somewhere in Europe I think. I’m not sure.”

“If it was built in 1917 that was just a year after my great-aunt and her husband moved here from Hungary. You remember what I told you about your Grandmother and her twin? They were so close. And her sister left before things got so terrible for Jewish people during and after the war. But then Csilla died here and Grandmother survived to come later.”

“Un huh,” Ezther was clearly unimpressed. At this point in her life, her interest in history didn’t extend back much beyond how many pounds she’d pressed the day before, and how long it had been since she’d eaten apple cobbler.

I moved around the brick porch and read the rest of the plaques, using the light of my phone to pick out the letters under the dimness of the overhanging roof. I learned that the library had been built using money from one of the Carnegie grants, and that the original site had been something to do with an area called ‘Las Pilitas’.

By the time I finished reading the plaques and descended the steps, Ezther had found a flat square of grass and was doing some kind of abdominal exercises. They looked painful. There was an old walkway of colored mosaic tiles that wandered around past the steps and disappeared on the other side of an ancient growth of prickly pear cactus, that was covered in beautiful apricot and yellow buds .

The path was clearly a lot older than the library. I followed it around to the back of the building. It looked a lot like an old television show from my sixties-era childhood, called ‘Old Mission Days’.

There was a circular courtyard of terracotta pavers complete with a bubbling fountain, well stocked with algae but charming non the less. An adobe bench had been shaped out of a crumbling wall topped with more of the mosaics. The broken shards shimmered in the afternoon sun. Just as I’d been attracted to the walls of the mission, their very age made me want to touch them. I sat down on the old seat and slid a hesitant finger over the plaster, enjoying the rough texture and the warmth that rose from the old material after a day of absorbing the sun’s energy. Something swished past the fountain and a large, marmalade tom cat advanced slowly across the pavers in my direction. I wiggled one foot encouragingly

The motion raised some loose gravel that shot back under a gap in the bench and I felt a whiff of warm air rise up from underneath. There was a kind of faint snuffling sound and something rustled along beneath my seat. I’d had one or two encounters with mice that I hadn’t particularly enjoyed. I rose up quickly as the marmalade gentleman shot across the patio, his chubby cheeks aquiver with interest, and disappeared under the ledge of the stucco bench.

To Be Continued