by Mira T. Lee
She’s offered coffee, mango, a slice of honey cake. The women mix masa, shred cheese, pound plantains. They demonstrate how to wrap tamales, laying out the leaves, flattening them with a fist. Like this. No, like this! Not like that. Like that is too slow. They laugh. They gossip. She basks in their warmth. She remembers when she and Jie used to be like this. Close.
She sits on a low stool by the open door. Fredy is by the pigs, crawling on all fours. Essy vaults onto his back, wriggles up to his shoulders. He bucks like a mule, braying dramatically, tosses her into the dirt. Again! Again!
“Cuidado!” calls out Tía Camila.
“Fredy is such a sweet boy,” she says.
“All my sons.” Mami strikes her chest with her fist. “Big hearts. Good boys.”
“He’s strong,” she says.
Tía Camila shakes her head. “Not so strong, this one. Born this way. He needs to be careful.”
Mami sighs.
“Doctors say it won’t last, his heart,” says Tía Camila.
Lucia remembers the herbs, wrapped in the pretty red box, and the clay pot she picked out, mustard yellow with bamboo leaves painted on the side. She could ask, but Mami’s eyes have sprung tears. Quickly, they are wiped away, and Mami brushes herself off like she’s clearing crumbs off a table. “You see what it is like to be a mother,” she says. Lucia nods.
“When will you and Manny have another?” says Tía Camila. “One is so lonely. Surely Esperanza would like a baby brother or sister.”
“My granddaughter is a beautiful child,” says Mami. “It would be a shame not to have another.”
“A woman cannot waste too much time,” says Tía Camila. “Sylvia knows.”
“Oh, Camila,” says Mami.
This. Of course, this. Among women, always this.
Twelve more touches.
She manages a gracious smile. “What will you do after you prepare lunch, Mami?” she asks.
“I will prepare dinner,” says Mami, laughing. And she takes her time—soaks the beans, cleans dirt off the carrots plucked from the garden, peels the potatoes carefully with a paring knife. These are her days: cooking, cleaning, harvesting fruits and vegetables from the earth. She has nowhere else to be, nothing else to achieve, only chore after chore after chore.
This is how she falls into routine. It doesn’t take long to figure out how to parcel out twenty-four hours. Every morning there’s breakfast to prepare: tea, eggs, potatoes, rice. Manny heads off to cut terraces in the hillside, weed and water and repair the endless roster of items in disrepair: the truck, the tractor, the gate, the trough, the pipes, the roof, the fences around the property. And there is still the outhouse to build. Papi has helped set up an irrigation system for the land behind their casita, involving a complicated system of hoses and sprinklers that must be moved by hand every six hours. If it works, they’ll plant crops—cacao, papaya, passion fruit, plantains, a grazing area for animals.
After breakfast she washes dishes. Then she sprays water on the dirt floor, quickly sweeps crumbs with a broom onto a newspaper. Sometimes she and Essy visit the market in town to buy rice or vinegar or household detergents, the few items they don’t produce themselves. Sometimes she weeds, tends to the small garden where she’s planted cucumbers, radishes, peppers, herbs. Soon it’s time to prepare lunch. Manny returns. They eat together. These days, he’s always hungry.
After lunch she washes dishes. Then she washes clothes. At first she tries to do it outside in a plastic basin. Later she learns to head down to a wide section of the river where the local women gather with children in tow. The river bubbles, rich and earthy like chocolate, with a faintly metallic smell. In the beginning Essy shies away, clings to her legs, must be forcibly pried off and set down on the muddy bank. The women pretend not to notice. They scrub their clothes against a flat rock, rinse in the stream, lay the garments on the grass to dry. She has washed her clothes in kitchen sinks and bathtubs and large metal pots, in coin-operated machines in hot, musty basements where she’s had to pluck out lint and gum and strangers’ hair and stand by counting down minutes. Here, only the power of the river and sun. She stands knee-deep, scrubs a pair of blue jeans, imagines tiny specks of dirt released from the fabric’s pores, the river carrying away the filth. A bird flies overhead. Oh, how lucky to enjoy this lovely view!
Eventually Essy tires of her own tantrums. She joins the other children, splashing and digging, throwing sand, skipping rocks, chasing after tiny fish. An afternoon in the sun and the child is tired, whines and begs for a piggyback ride or simply falls asleep. Either way, she must be carried home. With Essy in tow, even the simplest chore can stretch into a daylong affair.
Evenings, she takes out her laptop computer, opens her files, but the glare of white light always feels too harsh, unharmonious with her surroundings, so she shuts it off, sits cross-legged in the high-backed wooden rocking chair, turns her attention to her notebook filled with outlines, lists, interview ideas. “What are you doing?” asks Manny. “Work,” she says. She jots a few notes until her chin starts to drop, then crawls into bed (Essy asleep, Manny awake), watches the small television sitting on top of the desk, though the reception is poor, with only two grainy channels, but they like to listen to the Colombian telenovelas. There is no local news.
At night she dreams of the river, all bubbles and suds. Her back is sore. Her skin is brown. Rough and cracked, her knuckles bleed, fingers turn chalky white. She can hear Ma’s voice, hoarse and appalled: My daughter, with the hands of a servant, aiya!
One night they’re watching television and the picture cuts out, all that’s left is static. They sit at the kitchen table, play cards, rummy or cuarenta or crazy eights.
“What do you think about moving into town?” she says.
“What?” says Manny.
“Town,” she says, setting down three queens.
“What town?”
“Martez.” Hardly a town, barely a village. Twenty minutes away via Papi’s truck.
“Why?”
“We could open some kind of business. You know, a store, or a restaurant, or an Internet café.”
“In Martez?” he says, laughing.
“Maybe a laundry business.”
He raises one eyebrow. “Why would we do that?”
“Well, it’d be a great business. Remember, didn’t we talk about starting some kind of business once we moved here? And do you have any idea how much time I spend washing clothes?”
He shakes his head, but not a simple “I don’t know,” more tinged with invisible eye-rolling, though his glance does not waver from his cards.
“Imagine how much time we’d save all the women around here if we provided a laundry service once a week—you could do pickup and delivery, I’d do wash, dry, and fold.”
“But then what would the women do?” he asks.
He is looking straight at her, but there’s no wink, no grin, no hint of humor on his face. She swerves her gaze to the floor.
Something in Manny has shifted, she can tell. He’s confident in a way she has never seen before—the way his shoulders sit back, how he walks with a slight swagger, and for a while, this renews her sexual appetite and they make love in places where Essy is not: on the kitchen table or in a chair or on the hammock outside the casita, mosquitoes sucking at her legs. He smokes with his cousins, plays futbol with his old schoolmates, and she can see the chicas appreciate his good looks. The campo suits him. Essy senses a change in him, too; whenever she hears the heavy plod of his boots, she runs to him like a puppy, paws and begs until he picks her up, swings her around (higher, Papi! higher!), sets her on his shoulders. They march into the house. He asks, “What’s for dinner?” And if he doesn’t like what she has prepared, the way it looks or smells, he marches across the fields to his Mami’s kitchen.
Now she wonders: Who is this man? It’s th
e first time she’s thought of him simply as a full-grown man, not a guy, a novio, one of the Vargas boys.
“What would the women do?” She repeats his words.
“Yeah. What would the women do, if you were doing their laundry?” He sets down three aces.
Her face feels hot. Her chest tight. Something squirms in her temples. She can find no words with which to retaliate.
She knows he is watching. She knows he knows that she hates it when he watches, that it makes her feel small and deficient, like a parolee or a zoo animal or an erratic child. And so each night—after she washes her face and brushes her teeth and spits into the basin in the kitchen, all the while sensing him slink out of bed, sneak to the doorway to watch, proctor, spy, as she pours another cup of boiled water from the plastic jug kept on a low shelf next to the rice, retrieves from a high shelf the small orange bottle masquerading as a spice—she carefully, deliberately, turns her back to him, facing instead the gas company calendar or the gold-framed picture of Jesus Christ, though he does not know it’s deliberate because he doesn’t know she knows he is watching, but she has always known, and this is the way she saves some fragment of herself, her center, her dignity, as she throws back the small white pills. So one day when he says, Let’s take a trip to Cuenca, and she says, Why? and he mumbles something about buying new boots and tools and maybe some fabric for Mami and maybe some shoes for Essy and then finally says, By the way, I think you may need more pills, she is not surprised. But it feels like a violation, even though she knows he watches. An unspoken breach of trust.
But there is only one farmacia in Martez. It’s dirty and understocked and unreliable. So one Saturday Papi unloads them from his banged-up pickup truck and they wait and wait on the main calle, chitchatting with Vera and Isabel and Luz and their bucketfuls of potatoes. Vera’s brother, a paraplegic, has married a Taiwanese nurse and now lives in Taipei; Isabel’s youngest son is mute; Luz, Vera’s daughter, dreams of raising roosters for cockfights in Guayaquil. The stories! She digs out her notebook. A handful of children come by waving bags of candy. Only the transients still mistake her for a tourist.
Finally, they board a chicken bus, one of the old yellow school buses from the States that has been granted an illustrious afterlife, spray-painted with neon colors and flamboyant designs. The bus stops and starts. One woman sits with a crate full of guinea pigs in her lap. Another boards with three chickens. Essy’s eyes grow wide. “Chickens can ride the bus?” She laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen in her three-year-old life.
After the quiet of the campo, the city shocks the senses. Salsa and merengue blare from the shops, taxis blast their horns, buses barrel around corners spouting blue diesel fumes. But she savors it—the people, the bustle, energy in motion. She imbibes the sounds, the smells, the colonial grandeur, the archways and ironwork and domed cathedrals, cobblestone pavements and red tile roofs. Pretty, but not pristine. And everywhere, everything in bloom.
They decide to shop at the biggest mall in Cuenca, all white lights and flashy signs and floors gleaming like mirrors. Her daughter’s mouth forms a perfect O. It’s been a long time since they’ve seen so many things.
“This one, Mama.” Essy holds up a pink sequined flip-flop with plastic daisies.
“How about this one,” says Manny. He pulls out a boy’s sandal, blue with double Velcro straps, appropriate for tromps through water and mud.
“That’s ugly,” says Essy.
“She’s kind of right.”
“That one, it scratches her feet, it breaks in five minutes.”
“Please, Papi! Gracias, Papi! Please, Papi! Hooray, Papi!” Essy jumps up and down, pumps her fists as though she has already won. It’s an effective technique; he can’t resist. He scoops her in his arms, dangles her upside down by her ankles as she squeals in mock protest. In the end, they buy both pairs, a fuzzy pink purse and sunglasses, too.
Another store sells only traditional fedora hats. Another sells only yarn, another only embroidered towels, another only kitchen items. She spends twenty minutes choosing a bright yellow enamel pot with a thick bottom, ample enough to accommodate soups and stews. Ten minutes in search of the perfect nonstick frying pan. “Just big enough to hold two fried eggs without touching,” she explains, and the vendedora finds for her one the exact right size. Muchas gracias! They exchange high fives.
For lunch they stop at an almuerzo, order chicken cutlets, French fries, cabbage salad, plantains. Outside, the drizzle has stopped, the clouds drift apart, the mountains surrounding the city snap into focus. Essy’s stroller serves as a convenient shopping cart, piled high with boxes and bags. She wears her new pink flip-flops proudly, kicks her feet from atop her Papi’s shoulders.
That afternoon, Manny takes Essy to a park, a playground, a candy store. Lucia heads to El Centro, but first winds her way through a pretty neighborhood lined with blossoming trees. Maybe it’s one of those new gringo enclaves—each house with ornate wrought iron bars on the windows, fronted by a security wall of concrete or brick, with shards of broken glass embedded up top. In El Centro she finds a respectable-looking pharmacy on one of the main calles. The farmacéutica’s doughy body feels at odds with her alien-like face. Lucia passes her the empty vial. It is only when she glances up to see if the woman is raising her eyebrows, casting judgment, that she realizes—the woman has no eyebrows. No wonder she looks so strange!
Next, she finds a trendy Internet café, complete with two pet iguanas roaming the premises. How long has it been? Three months off the grid, unplugged. Time, enjoyed as a lazy blur. Now her in-box full of junk, except for a few messages from her old boss in Westchester, one note from Nipa, three from Jie, each spaced about a month apart. She clicks. The connection, painfully slow.
Hi Lucia, Hope you arrived safely and that everything is beauuuuutiful. Heard about the blizzard in New York. Bet you are glad you’re not there. Shoot me an email and let me know the best way to reach you. Ok? Love, Jie
Hi Lucia, haven’t heard from you. Do you have email access? What’s the name of your town? What’s your address? Should I send you some chocolates, or anything else? Hope all’s well. Love, Jie
Lucia, everything ok? Please let me know. Take care of yourself. Jie
Jie. No news, lots of worry.
Hi Porcupine,
I’m here, and I’m fine. We’re living in the campo, no internet, so I only check email when I come into Cuenca (~1.5 hours by bus). We went shopping today. I got a perfect pot and a perfect frying pan. What’s up in Switzerland? I didn’t hear about New York—we’re in our own world down here. Manny’s family threw a gigantic party for us, roasted a whole pig on a spit. Everything here is beautiful.
Lucia
Hi Funky Girl! We were down at Ryder’s playground, thought of you. How is your Big Adventure going? Natey is . . . potty-trained! Can you believe it?! And Jasmine just turned one! I will be back to work in a week, at a new teaching job in White Plains. Much more convenient than the city. By the way, some bad news. Winston and I are splitting up. It was his decision and it feels sudden, but in a way we have been disconnected for a long time. It’s been civil enough and I’ll be fine, but of course poor Natey doesn’t understand. I keep telling him, Daddy will still be Daddy, just in a different house. Our therapist says it’s for the best, this happening while the kids are young. Take care down there, and come back to visit, ok? Miss you! Nipa.
Oh, Nipa. Poor Nipa! She misses her, too. How long ago was it, that day they first met at the mamas’ group? She’d cried all the time. She sounds so healthy now, in spite of everything.
Hi Nipa, it’s so great to hear from you! It’s beautiful here, spring all the time, lush and leafy, the air like flowers. We live in the boonies, on a farm with Manny’s parents, and I’m growing so many vegetables. Backyard organic! Wish I could zap you my tomatoes, I bet you could sell them at the farmer’s market for three bucks
apiece, but here I get only ten cents a pound. Everyone is well. Essy loves it here. I’m so sorry to hear about your breakup. Hope you’re ok. Channeling blessed thoughts. As they say, everything happens for a reason. Lucia
She hopes her words are true.
Finished, she steps in line to pay the cashier. The girl, dressed in a denim jacket over a denim miniskirt, twirls a finger in her frizzy brown hair. Something about her feels slightly familiar. Susi. Susi! But no, it is not Susi. A quick stab of guilt, and then tears stream down her cheek and that silly children’s song is stuck in her head:
Where, oh where, oh where is Susi?
Where, oh where, oh where is Susi?
Where, oh where, oh where is Susi?
Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.
Come along, kids, let’s go find her
Come along, kids, let’s go find her
Come along, kids, let’s go find her
Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.
On the bus ride home, she asks Manny, “What do you think happened to Susi?”
He shakes his head, does not meet her eyes.
“Where was her family? Do you think maybe she didn’t really get deported? Maybe the government figured out it was all a big mix-up. Maybe she was just away for a little while.” Brightening at this thought, she pictures Susi in that kitchen with its yellow linoleum floor. Susi, hanging colorful streamers. Susi, baking a cake, decorating it with pink frosting flowers. Susi, cleaning the dirty dishes left in the sink by the Vargas boys. Susi, hermanita, whose presence she recalls as her sole comfort during those dark, muddled days. Susi, whose kindness remained free of judgment.
Essy. She has Essy. Here, sprawled across their laps, asleep, contentment on her face.