They apologized to her afterward, just as his family apologized for his behavior. They said they’d make sure he took responsibility. His mother would make him see reason when he called. She couldn’t promise he’d leave the other woman or the other country and get back together with her, but he would take responsibility for the girl.
Every month, he sent her the amount the mother said she needed so the girl wouldn’t want for a thing. It wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing, and it helped her feel safe and build hopes for a future in another country where she wouldn’t have to go to a school where they always scolded her, no matter what she did, just like her sisters did at home. In that other country, where she thought her dad would take her when she grew up, nobody would smack her or tell her what to do. And she wouldn’t bash into doors and furniture. Which must be different there, just like the shoes and clothes her dad sent her at the request of her grandmother, who reminded him of all the dates that might in some way be special to his daughter. She didn’t care what he said about the economy or about not wanting to have a relationship with the mother: nobody’d accuse any son of hers of being a good-for-nothing. She hadn’t given birth to or raised people without values. She didn’t know where he’d picked it up—her husband had never behaved like this. She wasn’t arguing or negotiating: he had a daughter and would have to take responsibility for her, regardless of what country he lived in. And he had to see the girl when he visited. She’d ask the mother to bring her to her house, to avoid any misunderstandings. She didn’t want people talking about their goings-on anymore. She also wanted him to hug the girl. She needed a lot of affection. He was to tell her that he loved her and that one day, when she was all grown up, he would take her with him to see his new country.
The girl’s mom didn’t appreciate it. She asked her to stop, even after the girl’s grandmother told her that all this make-believe was just a way of compensating for his absence. Not even jokingly would she contemplate losing another daughter to another country. Nor did she want the girl blaming her for getting in the way of her leaving, and hating her for it when he didn’t keep his promise. She thought they should tell her the truth, just as she had the others. The girl shouldn’t have to live by other rules just because she had a different father. And she didn’t want to play favorites. She’d like to solve the issue of the glasses, for example, in order: starting with the eldest daughter she’d raised, the others following in order of birth.
Her daughters convinced her to start with the littlest. And the littlest convinced her to let the second daughter go to university. With little-girl words she said she could cover the cost with the money her dad sent her. So the mother went after someone to lend her cash for the admissions exam at the university’s regional campus on the last possible day, and for the bus that would take her to the bank. The daughter went immediately and registered, only at the main campus instead of the regional one: two of her friends from state school would take the test with her there. They’d convinced the cousin of one girl to give them a ride to the capital, and a relative of the other to put them up for the night so they could arrive early at the university. They could go over everything the night before and, if they managed it, study some more at daybreak. They said it was better that way because, if they sat the exam at the regional campus, they’d only be able to take the courses offered there. But if they were admitted to the university’s main location, they could study whatever they liked or, if they didn’t get into their first-choice courses, wait a year and then take them.
Her mother thought she’d sealed her fate, that by doing this she’d automatically fail. She didn’t know much about schooling, but she knew for certain that the capital was more competitive. That there were limited spots and, regardless of protests and sit-ins, a huge number of applicants wouldn’t make the cut. Though she felt the money she’d invested in the admissions exam had gone to waste, she kept this to herself so as not to discourage the girl: she’d have enough to contend with when she didn’t see her name on the list of people accepted. When that day came, she’d do her best to comfort her. She’d tell her there’d be other opportunities, that she’d find a way to help her get ahead, a way to teach her to be happy with her lot and to conjure up a dream that wasn’t set on the continent she’d imagined she might be of use to—or just to settle for what she had.
She too was surprised to see the girl’s name on the official list, with a note that she’d been accepted into her first choice. Neither of them knew that her decision had worked in her favor: there was a quota at the main campus reserved for students from less fortunate regions. If she’d sat the regional exam, her score wouldn’t have been high enough to gain admittance. She wouldn’t even have been sent to her second choice. Like other schoolmates who took the exam, she would have been turned down but invited to try again the following year, when competition was greater and the possibilities fewer.
Her mother was as joyful as she was, and as nervous—but for other reasons. She didn’t know how to cope with the costs piling up when she hadn’t even paid off the loan for the admissions exam yet. Later, once the euphoria of their celebration had passed, she told her daughter that this was something they had to resolve, because the numbers hadn’t changed. This was when the daughter told her there’d be no problem: at the house where she’d stayed on the night of the exam, they had let her use the phone to make a local call. She’d dialed the number of the woman who helped her mother with the flight to Paris and told her she was about to sit the exam. Seeing as she’d offered to help in times of need, this was her chance.
The woman had laughed over the phone. She’d told her to focus on answering everything correctly and, once she had her results, to call her. If she were admitted, she’d help her find someplace safe to stay and some way to cover her expenses. She was no longer working where she had been when they first met, but she still thought she could find some way to assist. If she was offered a place at the university, she’d honor her promise. Now all she had to do was call and tell her she’d gotten in so she could set things in motion. Did her mom have money for the call? No. But she could ask the littlest one’s grandparents to loan it her. She’d pay them back as soon as she had the cash. She’d never asked them for any favors, not even for their granddaughter, and would never ask for another. These were exceptional circumstances. It wasn’t every day a daughter was given the opportunity she’d been striving for.
The grandmother told her to go ahead and dial: she wouldn’t charge her a thing. It was her gift to her. She, too, was happy about her success, even though they weren’t related. It was good for her granddaughter to have a role model at home. Not that her mother wasn’t one. She may not have been the kind of woman she’d dreamed her son would start a family with, but she respected her. She knew, from others, that she was honest and hardworking. Though she didn’t like that she was an ex-combatant, she couldn’t change her past. Had she not gotten involved with her son, she’d have hired her at the bakery. But she preferred to keep work and family separate. Had her son refused to take responsibility for the girl, she’d have felt obliged to give her a job to cover his costs—like a friend of hers in the meat business had, in similar circumstances—while the girl was growing up. She’d been planning to send the girl to study in the capital when she was older, and had been saving for that, though she hadn’t told her mother—she didn’t want her counting on the money and spending it all on something else. Whenever she heard the girl say she wasn’t going to study and that she hated school and all her teachers, she felt let down. She hoped she’d change her mind when she grew up, but she wasn’t optimistic—her son had said as much back in his day, and nothing could make him change course. Now that the girl’s sister has decided to go to university, she feels hopeful again. The mother, on the other hand, is distressed: just a few months ago, none of the girls wanted to continue studying. Now it turns out they all want to go to university. The littlest one, who used to cry and refuse to go to schoo
l, now gets out of bed on her own, washes up without a fuss, and drinks her atole, because the second daughter says it’s important to eat and drink right if you want to do well at university. The third daughter wants to enroll in the same degree as the second, even though it had never really interested her before and she can’t stand the sight of blood or hearing people gripe. Even the eldest is reevaluating her situation. She knows the scholarship she was offered when she graduated from high school is no longer available, but thinks she might be able to figure something out, seeing as her sister, who’s younger, managed it. She knows of an opportunity at a church, though it’s not in the same area. She doesn’t much care anymore whether her husband likes it or not.
15
The eldest sister won’t complete her first term at university. Her husband will convince her to use the stipend she received for her studies to make preparations for the daughter they’ll learn she’s expecting just a month and a half into the program she selected from the limited options at the private institution, whose schedule allowed her to study without neglecting her home, which was one of the conditions her husband had set. At first, she will refuse. She’ll say that if they crunch the numbers and send the girl to one of the church’s child support programs, they can make things work, they can have it both ways. But he doesn’t want to see his daughter’s face on those cards that inspire pity abroad. What’s more, it doesn’t seem fair for her to be featured there when she has a dad who can take care of her. To her, it doesn’t seem fair that he should ask her to drop out of college again. She tells her mother, in case she can help figure out a solution. She doesn’t expect any money. She knows her mother can barely manage as it is, since she’s already helping the sister who left and feeding the girls who stayed behind. What she’s after is a name, someone who might take an interest in her situation. Instead what she gets is an offer to look after her baby while she’s at school. She can wash her, put her to sleep, feed her, sing her lullabies, make sure she grows up right. She knows how to do all this, and without money. She knows of plants and flowers that can help a person get by. She knows of people who might donate shirts, blankets, or a few toys. None of it would be new, as the baby’s father would like it to be, but it’d help her out of this pinch. Babies don’t mind those sorts of things. All they sense are smells and the feeling of safety, which her daughter would never go without. Once the five years have passed and she’s graduated, her girl can have new dresses and toys that have never before been touched. And she can carry on looking after her, while her mom works. It’d be no trouble at all.
The daughter thinks it’s just perfect. Her husband disagrees. His mother-in-law’s assistance might help settle the issue of time, but not the expense. It’s still too much for him. She knows he isn’t lying: on payday, he hands her his entire wages to manage. All he asks for is money for transport. He’s a man without vices or hidden expenses. He wears what she buys him, eats what she serves him. When he says he has nothing more to give, he isn’t lying. His job doesn’t come with the possibility of a promotion or a raise. He’d calculated the costs of their wedding based on the idea that they wouldn’t have kids until they’d fixed up the house they received as a wedding gift and set aside some money to welcome its new occupant. He didn’t mind that his daughter was arriving ahead of schedule. He’d have liked it to be under better circumstances, but he wasn’t any less happy for it. She would’ve liked to feel the same, except she couldn’t help dwelling on the fact that it was all happening just as she was trying to go to college. Her mother said she’d simply have to try extra hard. Plenty had done it before her. Though she didn’t know any personally, she’d heard speak of them: women who went to school even though they had five children and needed to pay their own way because their husbands refused to in the hope they’d give up; unmarried girls who managed to finish school, though more slowly than the rest; even women who got divorced mid-degree and had to fight over custody and child support. Hers weren’t the worst of circumstances. And this was a promising time for it. During the war, she’d have had to contend with educational institution shutdowns, transport strikes, the skirmishes that sometimes took place on the day of an exam, and power cuts once her girl had fallen asleep and she finally had a chance to study. She couldn’t complain. Even though the degree she was pursuing wasn’t the one she’d most wanted to do, it was still an opportunity.
She’d feel it slipping through her fingers when the hospital staff prescribed her rest if she wanted to carry her pregnancy to term. She wasn’t like her mother, who ran and fought while she gestated in her belly. Or like the woman who sold tortillas in the neighborhood where her sister lives in the capital and worked till the day she gave birth. No. She was the sort who had to lie on her back morning, noon, and night for three months of her first pregnancy, six months of her second and all nine of her third. She was the sort who had to walk slowly and with assistance, and who had to ask another woman to do her household chores.
Her mother could be that woman. But although she’d like to help, she has to stay home looking after her other daughters and seeing to the cornmill so she has money to send when her second daughter needs a new notebook, another pencil, or to pay for a lab. The daughter has suggested to her husband that she move in with her mother during the prescribed period so she can look after her. Her little sisters can help, too. They’d do so gladly. Even though the eldest daughter lives in the same community as they do and they see her every day on their way to school, they miss her. She’d been like a little mother to them. Always making sure they had food and were clean. Helping them when their hair got in a mess and lending them a hand when their teeth were loose. They think she could’ve been a wonderful dentist if she’d only gone to school when she’d been offered the scholarship. She was good-humored, awfully patient, and had strong hands which never shook.
Years later, she’d be given a job at a coffee farm, for these same reasons. The boss would like how she worked so much that he’d offer her a position leading the other women, with responsibility for training them. If she’d been a man, he’d no doubt have taken her to the zafra. He knew she wouldn’t have cooked up any excuses or sniffled like the others he employed. She would’ve scorched the fields without protest. Covered her arms and face without fuss and chopped down the sugarcane till the very last day, and till the end of the harvest, never once absent because she was too tired or sick or because she’d been harmed by the sugar. In this respect, she was like her mother and like the grandfather she’d never met. A pity she was a woman and had to consult her husband before accepting the offer he’d made her, and which she ended up turning down, with thanks, because her husband thought it would be too time-consuming and didn’t want her away from the house for so long. It didn’t matter that she’d be paid. She had to mind the child and do her chores, and she had to rest. When she didn’t, she got in a foul mood. Or, worse still, she grew sad. But she didn’t mention that part. She got as far as minding the child. The rest didn’t concern him. Though he might listen out of kindness, it’d make no difference. She’d feel uncomfortable if he knew about her mood swings. There wasn’t anything he could do.
Her mom would be pleased she hadn’t accepted. Though she might’ve earned some of the money she needed to go back to university, it wouldn’t have been enough, nor would she have had strength left for anything else. She knew, from experience, that it was hard work. She’d never wanted her daughters to do it. To keep them home when she’d had to work on the plantations herself, she’d told them there were snakes. Hearing that, the little ones had immediately desisted. The eldest, on the other hand, had remained undeterred. She said there were snakes all over the place. She herself killed the ones that snuck into their garden. Which was precisely why she should stay home, her mother insisted: she was good at killing them and could protect her sisters, who froze when they saw one or when anyone said there was one in the area, even if it wasn’t true. She reminded her of her brother, who stayed behind to look
after her mother and sisters. Knowing she could only bind her to the house by the heart, she entrusted her with the girls. Meanwhile, she’d be in charge of going out every day to do the work their father would’ve done had he been alive and not decided to go off with another woman to live in another house with other kids far away from there. She’d go to the coffee plantation daily and clear the fields like the men, and sow, and then cut and scatter the beans to dry in the sun, and carry sacks like the other men. She wouldn’t glean like the women or prepare food for the workers. The farmer would admire her for it. He’d tell her she could count on him for work whenever she needed it. She could also bring her daughters with her if she liked. There was a spot there where they could spend the day. Now and then, they could help fetch things or water seedbeds, but for the most part they could just sit about and play. He’d make sure they were fed as if they were working like the rest. Though she thanked him, she never took them with her. She preferred to pay her neighbor to watch them while she was away, and let her eldest think she was the one keeping things under control. She thought it too risky to take them with her every day: someone might break into their house and take their stuff if they knew it stood empty for hours at a time. And one of the many workers, seasonal or permanent, might snatch one of her girls when no one was looking, take her to the fields and rape her as many times as he liked. It’d happened before, to other girls. And they never said a thing because the men threatened to kill them or their mothers if they did. The overseers claimed they couldn’t help: this was a farm, not a nursery. They didn’t have the manpower to see to their children’s safety. Nor could they be held responsible for that of their employees. If someone came to settle scores with them, they couldn’t intervene. Personal matters were just that: personal. They could only look after the coffee, ensure no one came stealing or tried to ruin their harvest. In such cases, they might resort to force, under the protection of private property laws. They’d be detained for a few days while the formalities were handled, but released once the nature of their acts was confirmed. Harvesters and cooks and other employees could attest to the fact that it had been self-defense. Even the farmer would vouch for them. They could be confident of that. On the other hand, if one of them raised a weapon for another person’s sake, that protection fell away. What’s more, that person would have to contend with the wounded or deceased man’s relatives, who’d seek justice at any cost and not rest until it’d been delivered. There was no reason to get mixed up in that kind of mess on account of something he hadn’t done and couldn’t even speak of. If he heard an altercation unrelated to work, he just kept on walking and let each of them mend fences as best they could.
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