The Hungry Woman

In the psychiatric ward, the prison guard puts away the dominoes. The bars over the window cast lines over Medea’s face as the nurse observes her. When the nurse mentions the moon, Medea pines for Luna. She strains to feel more of the moonlight on her face. Luna did not visit, the nurse tells the guard, and Medea has been “in a funk all day” as a result (57). Medea launches into a long soliloquy. In the memory, the nurse becomes Medea’s mother. She urges Medea to “give [Medea’s] brother whatever he wants” as he has fought in the war and is one of the few men to have come home alive (58). Medea wails, lamenting that Luna did not visit. As the nurse tries to comfort Medea, the guard announces that Luna was arrested at the border.

The nurse takes Medea from the stage as the guard crosses over to Luna, who has been detained. She is bound in an interrogation room with a spotlight glaring in her face. She mumbles confused, inconclusive responses to the border guard’s question of who she was going to meet. She broke into a museum, she says, to free the “little female figures” (59). These figures, she says, were trapped inside the museum’s glass display cases though they belonged to people like Luna. She visited them as a schoolgirl and smashed the glass just to hold them in her hand, hoping that they would teach her about their maker. The guard unties Luna and hands her a mirror. As she studies herself, Medea enters and quickly hides playfully. When Luna spots her, she stops. Medea asks what Luna saw in the mirror, and Luna talks about how “Mexican women always hide our private parts” (61). Medea, with less hair, is different, Luna says. Medea kisses Luna, then they embrace sexually until the guard enters. The guard wants Luna to confess that she is a lesbian as the two women quickly separate. Luna insists that her embrace with Medea was “a mindless reflex” and that any desire between them has long dissipated (62).

They are interrupted by the light and sound of police sirens. Cradling something in her arms, Medea asks Luna if she can smell the baby’s death. When Medea needed Luna, Luna admits that she was locked up in her “nun’s cell.” Luna was dressed in a skirt when she came to visit Medea, only to be arrested. When she visits, she says, Medea will not speak to her. The dead baby is light in her arms, Medea says. Luna feels that she is carrying her own heavy child; Medea says that she must give birth to it. Luna exits, and the Cihuatateo appear on stage. They chant that La Llorona has come as an ominous, chilling wail fills the air. The Cihuatateo dance and slash at themselves with thorns. They drape the white veil of La Llorona over Medea as the lights drop.

Luna is in the interrogation room, many hours later. As she approaches a state of delirium and exhaustion, Jasón appears behind her. The guard calls on Luna to confess. Luna launches into a soliloquy, describing the sound of screaming and an uncertain memory of a lover or an attacker. The guard accuses her of talking in circles. Luna remembers when Jasón found her and Medea in bed. He was shocked, with a sad expression on his face. He walked away to wait for an explanation. Luna got up, leaving Medea behind to talk to Jasón. Medea and Jasón fought as Luna slipped away. The next day, Medea appeared at Luna’s house with Chac-Mool in her arms. He was five at the time. Medea looked to Luna for guidance, as she “was the lesbian” (65). Jasón never searched for Medea, who was exiled from Aztlán.

Chac-Mool enters the kitchen and strips blue corn angrily. Medea asks why he is preparing food, to which he responds that this is Luna’s corn. He blames his mother for sending Luna away, so she cannot appreciate the corn she planted. Luna left, Medea tells her son, but Chac-Mool blames his mother for making Luna so unhappy that she felt the need to leave. Medea insists that she is trying to save Chac-Mool from Jasón, but he continues to blame his mother. He cannot understand why Medea would leave Luna to return to Aztlán, since she does not even love Jasón. Medea mentions that Luna has found someone else, but Chac-Mool is certain that Luna still loves Medea. He dumps the contents of the cooking pot on the floor, reminding his mother that she was once a hero. Medea says that she is almost 50. She is “tired of fighting” and just wants to go home (67). The stage turns black.

Medea is alone in the kitchen as Jasón enters. He pushes aside the corn husks and places a briefcase on the table. Medea claims that the papers that were sent to her were unacceptable, so she sent them back. Jasón reiterates his original offer, believing that he is in the stronger negotiating position. Medea has no interest in returning to Aztlán to be Jasón’s “ward”; she knows that women in Aztlán have no value other than in relation to their husbands. Jasón only really wants Chac-Mool, he is not concerned if Medea chooses not to return with their son. He is in love with someone else, he tells her. Medea accuses Jasón of raping her, though he denies this. Medea was a sex worker and was not paid, she argues, which makes Jasón’s actions tantamount to rape. She cites Jasón’s recent love letters and tells Jasón to get out, but he will not leave without his son.

Jasón is no longer afraid of Medea or her anger. She can “rot in this wasteland of counter-revolutionary degenerates” or return to Aztlán with him as a second wife (69)—he does not care. He only cares about taking Chac-Mool with him. He accuses her of hating men and insists that Chac-Mool needs a father. Medea dismisses Jasón’s idea of manhood as weakness; she does not want her son to grow up to be like his father, and she will raise him to be a type of man that has not yet been invented. She accuses Jasón of inventing his own convenient mythology to explain why Medea left him with Chac-Mool. His new wife will never truly know him, she says, so he may as well send her to Medea to learn about the real Jasón. He is a traitor to a culture far older than himself, she insists, whereas she has changed as she has grown older. She is no longer the naïve girl he married, who sought protection from a father figure. She is a proud Mexican woman in a world that offers her no place and no protection. Even in the arms of another woman, she is forced into exile. Jasón wants Chac-Mool, but the boy is still innocent, Medea says, and he will leave her one day as a daughter leaves her mother.

Jasón removes a document from his briefcase. The courts have already settled the case, he tells Medea, but she rejects the legitimacy of Jasón’s court system. They are simply “the patriarchs who stole [her] country” (71) and she does not feel bound by their ruling. She does not believe that the marriage certificate she signed at age 13 is legitimate, as she was forced by Jasón. As he prepares to leave, warning that he will return to collect his son, Jasón sees Chac-Mool enter. He addresses his son by his given name, Adolfo, which Chac-Mool rejects. With Chac-Mool standing before his father, Medea reveals that the only reason Jasón wants to claim his son is that in Aztlán, he can only claim his right to land through his son. This is true, Jasón concedes, but he also loves his son. The custody papers favor Jasón, he says, and the divorce is settled. He appeals directly to Chac-Mool, assuring his son that he will return. Chac-Mool will be able to “come home,” he says, to which Chac-Mool can only look at his mother with a tear in his eye.

Medea orders Jasón to leave. Then, she comforts her son, assuring him that Jasón is simply “using [Chac-Mool]” for his own interests. Chac-Mool wonders why they cannot just return to Aztlán with Mama Sal, but Medea says that she is not ready to leave. To return, she says, she would need to publicly disavow her sexuality. She cannot deny her true self. When Chac-Mool presses the issue, Medea becomes incensed, urging her son to cut out her heart because to return and to be integrated into Aztlán culture would mean being taught to “despise a mother’s love” (74). Chac-Mool assures her that this is not the case. He promises to visit his mother. This situation, he says, is not “normal.” Medea tells him to go with his father. As Medea decries Jasón’s sins, Chac-Mool exits.

In the interrogation room, the border guard questions Chac-Mool. The teenager gives his real name, Adolfo, and claims that he hates the “Nazi name.” His father named him, he says, after a long-dead gunrunning uncle from the revolution, but no one remembers this man over Adolf Hitler. The conversation becomes more abstract, with the guard pointing out that Chac-Mool is “the only real male in the cast” (76). In contrast, the guard presents herself as Chac-Mool’s “revolutionary conscience.” This is all an attempt to determine whether Chac-Mool is ready to return to Aztlán. Chac-Mool affirms that he wishes to leave Phoenix for Aztlán. Chac-Mool speaks about why his father needs his son to demonstrate his ancestry, though the guard hardly seems to know anything about Aztlán. Chac-Mool’s only desire is to avoid hurting anyone; he admits that men scare him, but he believes that he has nowhere else to go. The guard remains a woman, playing the role of Chac-Mool’s revolutionary conscience. As the guard manhandles Chac-Mool, he insists that he has a country where he is not as despised as the guard. He is not ready to be a man, he concedes, but he feels a need to return to Aztlán. The guard allows him to get up, and Chac-Mool exits, only for the guard to say farewell and lament that it is “too late.”