My Brigadista Year

by Katherine Paterson

  Before we began the nightly lesson, Veronica asked for the loan of my blanket, which she hung over the tiny back window before she lit the lantern. Then she draped another blanket over the light curtain that hung from the doorway between the two rooms.

  “Bandidos?” Dunia asked.

  “No word of them,” said Luis. “But it’s better to be careful, yes?”

  It was a hot night and stultifying in that airless room. Everyone was sweating, but again, no one complained.

  A week came and went. We continued to work in the back room, but with each passing day, the fears eased. Rafael was a happy addition to the class. He learned so quickly, and no one wanted to be left behind by a six-year-old. Luis and Nancy took the first exam and both got a perfect score. I planned to go to the Sunday meeting and share this good news, but a farmer from that area stopped by with the message that there was to be no meeting that week.

  The following Sunday, however, we met as usual. The runaways had been spotted far away from our area, so the militia felt that the immediate danger had passed. I was able to go to our meeting and tell about Dunia’s triumph, as well as get some hints about how to help the others move forward through their first exams. I was proud of my little class. I told them how Rafael was inspiring everyone with his excitement and the way he caught on quickly to everything.

  To add to my delight, there was a letter from my father. He said they had been glad to get four letters from me on one day. Everyone was well, they missed me, and was I all right? Because, if not, there was no shame if I wanted to come home.

  On the back of Papi’s letter, my little brother, Roberto, had written his own, which I was able to make out despite the smudges and strange spelling.

  Dear Lora,

  I am fine. How are you? I am proud to tell everyone that my sister is a Conrado Benítez Brigadista. I am also happy to say we are going to have a long vacation from school so our teachers can join the campaign. Silvio wants to join, but Mama cried, so he gave it up. I want to join, too, but Papi says they do not want seven-year-olds who cannot write a single sentence without misspelling three words. Come home soon. I miss you.

  Love,

  Your brother, Roberto Díaz Llera

  Several others had gotten letters, too. We all read our letters out loud, so that those who received no mail could pretend that they had had news from home as well. When I read Roberto’s news that his school was to be closed, Esteban interrupted me.

  “Yes, I was to share that news with you. The government has temporarily closed schools and the teachers will join us. Midyear reports discovered that the campaign is behind schedule, so we need more trained teachers in the field if we are to meet our goal.”

  There was no need for me to worry about my brothers missing a bit of school. Papi would take care of that. He was so determined that his children have more learning than he had. Over the years, he had bought books whenever he had a few extra pesos. He wouldn’t allow those boys to get behind in their studies. He’d have them reading everything in our little home library and quizzing them on it. He’d make them long for ordinary school days. And if there were many more teachers as slow as I was, the campaign needed teachers more than my little brothers did.

  Maria had received a letter, but she didn’t share it. If I had paid closer attention to my friend, I would have realized that something was wrong, but I was too involved in my own thoughts of family and the pleasure of being with the squad again.

  It felt like a good meeting to me. Most of us thought that our students were doing well, but the goal-driven Esteban reminded us that it was already August. Four more months and the year would be over. If we did not reach our goal, “We shall prevail” would turn into “We gave it a try.”

  I was sure he was talking to me. He knew quite well that only two of my now seven students had passed their second exams. Veronica, Daniel, and Rafael were nearly there, but none of the Acostas had even passed their first. I was determined that Daniel pass his second exam immediately. If I hinted that Rafael was nearly ready to take his exam, Daniel was bound to try harder.

  Astride Bonita’s back, with Maria sitting behind me on the broad saddle, I thought I heard a sniff. “Are you all right, Maria?”

  Her answer was blurred by her sobs. “My parents . . .” she began.

  “Did you get bad news from home?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  All I could think of was someone dying. How awful it would be if Abuela or one of my parents would die when I was so far away. “Did someone die?”

  “Worse.”

  It was hard for me to imagine anything worse. “What is it?” I tried to turn backward in the saddle enough to see her face, but she had covered it with her hands.

  “They forbid me.” She began to cry in earnest. “I should never have sent that picture to them.”

  I waited for more.

  “They are angry with me. They say Enrico must be Haitian, he is so black.”

  “Oh.” It was all I could think to say.

  “I can’t give him up! I love him with all my heart!” She was blubbering now.

  I wanted to ask how she could give him up when there was no evidence that he had ever been hers. That might have been true, but it seemed terribly unkind.

  “I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say.

  On Monday night, I sounded like Esteban, reminding my students that our motto was “We shall prevail.” “And that means,” I said, “everyone! Everyone has to finish the primer before I leave in December or I will be counted a failure as your teacher.”

  “No, no,” Dunia protested. “No one tries as hard as you. You are a wonderful teacher. It is not your fault if you do not have clever students.”

  “You are a very clever student, Dunia. I know you can finish the primer. And Joaquin, you have to finish, so you can write your complaint to Fidel.”

  Daniel passed his second exam on Tuesday night and Rafael and Veronica the following night. By Saturday, the elderly Acostas had passed their first exams, not with perfect scores, but decent ones. Greatly relieved, I gave my report to Esteban and Lilian. “Good work, but you need to work harder,” Esteban said. “It’s practically September.”

  On the way home that afternoon, Maria said, “I told Enrico that my parents didn’t approve of our relationship. I didn’t want to, but I thought he should know. I always think it is best to be honest, don’t you?”

  “Really? You told him? And what did he say?” I was trying hard to imagine how surprised poor Enrico might have been to find out a love affair was over before he knew it had begun.

  “He said”— she interjected a sob between the words —“he said he thought it would be wise for us to just be friends.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Just friends!” she said, and burst into fresh tears.

  I had what I thought at the moment was a brilliant idea. “You should write a poem about it,” I said.

  “A poem?”

  “Yes, a poem. When your heart is broken, poetry can be very healing.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “You should try,” I said, and promptly forgot about it, as life soon began to speed up for all of us.

  The first thing that happened was not the most important, but it did mark a milestone in my life. It began the first week of September with an ache in my stomach and a slight backache. When I visited the outdoor toilet, I realized what was happening. Girls at school often talked about it. But I didn’t know what to do. I was totally unprepared. There were no pharmacies in the mountains. I was embarrassed, but the only thing I could do was ask Veronica for help. She was so kind, just like the older sister I’d described for my parents. She got me the makeshift rags that women in the country must use in such times. “Now you are a woman, Lora,” she said, “not just a teacher.”

  I couldn’t remember that she’d ever called me by my name before.

  Far more important than that milestone in my life was wh
at happened soon afterward. It didn’t matter how often Luis or Veronica protested, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the accident was my fault. I had written a letter home telling my family about my students’ progress, and I was anxious to get it sent. I fussed aloud at breakfast that the letters I gave to Esteban and Lilian for mailing took forever to arrive in Havana.

  “Veronica,” Luis said as he was getting up from the table, “I noticed we have more guava fruit than we can eat. We haven’t used all our rations. I think I’ll go to market and sell some of the guava. Then I could buy more rice. If you like, Lora, I could mail your letter for you while I’m there.”

  He borrowed the Acostas’ old mare to take a large burlap sack of guava fruit and my letter. He got safely to town, bought the rice, and secured the bag to Bonita’s saddle. It was on the way home that the accident occurred.

  Bonita, as I’ve said before, was the slowest, kindest horse in the Western Hemisphere. But sweet old Bonita had thrown Luis into the brush.

  “It was not her fault,” Luis said to us afterward. “She was startled. You would jump, too, if a large boa suddenly appeared at your feet.” When Luis had tried to stand, he told us, his right leg had buckled under his body and the pain in his back and leg had forced him to lie down again at once.

  “But I couldn’t just lie there and wait for a snake to bite or mosquitoes to eat me,” he said. “So I called Bonita and somehow got myself onto the saddle. She was very sorry. I could tell how sorry she was. She stood very still and gazed sadly at me while I struggled up on her back, and she was very careful and gentle all the rest of the way home.”

  Veronica and I helped him to their mattress. He winced when we got him down on his back. Veronica and I knelt on either side of the patient. She carefully took off his shirt and pushed up his pants’ leg. His leg was bloody. The children were standing around the mattress. Rafael was trying bravely not to cry — to be like his papi, but when the girls saw the blood, they both burst into tears.

  “Shh,” Luis said. “Don’t cry. Papi will be fine.”

  I knew there was nothing I could do about his back except pray it wasn’t broken, but when Veronica washed the blood off his leg, it was so strangely twisted that I felt sure it was broken. Luis was trying so hard to smile, to make a brave front for the sake of the children, but it was apparent that he was in agony. I made him swallow a couple of aspirin — the best I could do for the pain. “We need to get you to a doctor,” I said.

  “I can’t go to a doctor,” he said. “I’ll be all right. Just let me rest a bit.”

  “I’ll fetch Esteban,” Rafael said.

  Everyone looked at him. “It’s nearly dark,” Veronica said. “And it’s a long way.”

  “I know the way,” the boy said. “I’ll ride Bonita.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  Luis reached out his hand and grasped my arm. “If someone must go, it would be better if it’s the boy. The bandidos aren’t looking for him.”

  Not long after Rafael set out, the Acostas came for the lessons. “Is everything all right?” Daniel asked as soon as Veronica unbolted the door. “I didn’t see the horse.”

  “Mother of God!” In the dim light of the kitchen, Dunia had made out the form of Luis lying on one of the mattresses. “What is this?”

  “There was a little accident,” Luis said, trying to get into a sitting position. “Don’t worry. The horse wasn’t hurt. Rafael insisted on taking her to fetch Esteban.” He clinched his teeth and lowered himself slowly back down. “Though what can he do more than cluck his teeth? A little rest, and I’ll be fine. Now, go to the back room and do your lessons. I can listen from here.”

  When Esteban arrived, he tried to persuade Luis that he should see a doctor, but it would mean a journey of more than a day, and Luis was adamant. So Esteban improvised a splint for Luis’s leg and told him sternly not to try to stand on it until Esteban could somehow fetch a doctor to come examine him and encase his leg in a proper cast.

  “But who will plow tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I will,” said Rafael.

  I took the child’s hand. “We will,” I said. “We’ll make a good team. You’ll see.”

  And the next day, we did. The boy’s arms could not reach across to both handles of the plow, so he led the oxen while I guided the plow. I tried not to think of Luis, lying in pain on the kitchen floor. I kept trying to tell myself that it was an accident. That it was not my fault that Luis had decided to go to the market. That no one could have predicted that a snake would spook the horse and he would be thrown. But somehow the sweat pouring down my face was not only for the physical exertion of pushing the plow.

  When we looked at our efforts at the end of the morning, it was plain to see that our furrows were far from straight, but it was the best we could do.

  Veronica had made rice and beans for us. Even though she had my ration card as well as the family’s, I always tried to eat sparingly of food we had not grown ourselves — like that rice that nearly cost Luis his life. But I didn’t have to hold back that day. I had no appetite.

  “Don’t peck at your food like a chicken,” Veronica said. “You need to eat more. You are working hard.”

  “See?” Rafael said. “I’m not eating like a chicken. I’m eating like Gordo.” Gordo was the fattest of the four pigs.

  His mother laughed. “You’re always eating like Gordo.”

  Veronica and I carefully propped Luis up to a sitting position so he could eat his food. My whole body flinched watching the pain in his face, but he emptied his plate, gave a crooked smile, and slid back to the mattress. “Like a baby,” he said. “So helpless.”

  Is it too hard? Yes, I thought, but it’s not the work. It is too hard to see this suffering and know I had a part in it. But I can’t run from it. I am needed now for more than teaching the ABCs.

  When it was time for lessons that night, Luis asked Rafael to fetch his pencil and workbook. “At least I can study while I’m lying here useless,” he said to me.

  “Not useless,” I said, suddenly realizing that with concentrated work, he could finish the primer quickly. “And as soon as you have written your letter to Fidel,” I said, “you can help me by teaching the others.”

  “Me? A teacher?”

  “Oh, yes, Luis. You will be a fine teacher.”

  When the following week Esteban came, escorting the doctor, I was able to give him Luis’s final exam, including his letter to Fidel Castro. The signature, Luis Santana, was large and bold.

  The doctor said Luis’s back was badly bruised but not fractured. He put a proper cast on Luis’s leg and provided him with crutches so he could hobble around a bit, though he warned Luis against trying to walk any distance, and working in the fields was forbidden.

  Esteban echoed the doctor’s instructions. “I know that will be hard for you, Luis,” he said. “You have worked hard all your life.”

  “Oh,” said Luis. “I haven’t stopped working.”

  “But . . .” both Esteban and the doctor began to sputter in protest.

  “Yes,” said Luis. “I’m working hard. I have a new job. I have become a teacher. It keeps me very busy.”

  It was still the rainy season, with showers every day, but we did not stop work or lessons because of rain. In Havana, we might have stayed indoors until the shower passed. In the mountains we just kept on working, rain or shine. Of course we tried to bring the laundry in so it wouldn’t get soaked again, but with all that was going on, we didn’t always succeed.

  In the country, no one worries about the rainy season. But hurricanes are another matter. And it turned out that 1961 was a bumper year for hurricanes. They began in July and didn’t end until November. Every time we got word that Hurricane Anna or Betsy or Carla or one of their sisters was on the way, I began to be anxious — not only for what a storm like that would do to the crops but also for what would happen to the house itself. Tropical hurricanes had blown away stronger houses th
an ours. Luckily, even though several hurricanes hit Cuba on the west or the east, causing flooding and death, we in the central mountains were largely undamaged by the rains and winds. Our threats did not come from nature.

  We had never given up being careful — Luis wouldn’t let us — but when weeks had gone by without a hint of trouble, I decided that I should certainly now be able to go to the river for water or washing. After all, just the day before, Maria and I had gone to our Sunday meeting. We were all back to wearing our uniforms. Our singing and dancing was joyful. No one had to pull me to my feet to join in. What’s more, Esteban had praised Luis’s final exam and read aloud his letter to Castro before the whole squad. My friends all clapped, and someone shouted, “Hooray, Lora!” I tried not to blush. It was Luis’s triumph, not mine.

  On the way home, I was feeling particularly happy. When we got to Maria’s house, she asked me to wait. She wanted to show me her poem.

  I was so eager to get home that I didn’t even dismount. She ran into the house and came back with a page obviously torn from her diary. “Here,” she said. “Poetry has not healed me, but then,” she sighed, “nothing will. But anyhow . . .” She handed the paper up to me.

  “I’ll read it on the way home,” I said. I didn’t want to have to read it with her standing right there waiting for me to comment on it. And it was a good thing I decided to wait. Well, let me just say that Maria was a much better literacy teacher than a poet. I could hardly keep from laughing out loud as I bounced along on Bonita’s back — the lines of verse just about as bumpy as the ride.

  I could see the pain in his dark eyes.

  He sighed and I knew the meaning:

  “My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces,”

  And the grief in my eyes replied,

  “Yes, yes, my heart, too, is broken,

  Broken into a million tiny pieces.”