The Feria

by Bade, Julia

Xavier turned to go, and she died.

  “Get your things!” Her father was losing his patience.

  Soledad froze.

  “I have no things.” She had come to her grandmother’s home straight from the feria with plans to return to her home the next day, so she hadn’t brought one thing.

  “I’m not waiting any longer. You’ll go without.”

  She didn’t even step inside to say goodbye to her grandmother or Suki. Her grandmother would understand. She was sure her father had already made his presence known.

  Arms crossed across her chest, refusing to meet her father’s glare, she entered his car. As they drove away, she turned one last time to the gap in the trees leading to the path.

  Xavier was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 10

  The drive home was intense. No words were spoken. No questions were asked, although Soledad knew there were many on both sides.

  The blue shutters on San Diego Avenue did not welcome her. Instead they appeared as bars of a prison. This time, as she stepped up the three steps, no prayers escaped her lips. There was only bitterness nesting in her. Without even greeting her mother, she ran up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door. Adolescent, but she didn’t care.

  No one came. She wasn’t sure if she wanted anyone to see what the fuss was about, or if she was happy being left alone. Her eyes, tired from crying, closed before she realized it. But as soon as she closed them, Xavier was all she saw. His face, his eyes, his hands, his smile. The tears refreshed themselves.

  In the bedroom next door, Eduardo told his wife about the boy.

  “I was angry. She defied me, ignored my orders. I didn’t mean to be so cruel.” He rubbed the stress lines on his forehead.

  Flor sat at her vanity, her back to her husband. In the few weeks since he had explained his plans for Soledad, a rift had formed between them. It was unintentional, but as a mother, one of her young was being threatened. She had been sick for the last few weeks, and her doctor blamed it on stress. She was torn between her loyalty and duty to her husband, and her fierce, protective love for her child. The vicious battle waged each day, from the moment her eyes opened in the morning, until the time her mind would finally allow her to sleep. And then, her sleep became tormented until she again opened her eyes, only to start the unrelenting cycle again.

  That night at the feria, when Emmanuel had met Soledad and disrespected her with great disregard to what he was doing, Flor had wanted to kill him. She’d also wanted to kill her husband. She and Eduardo had always lived to protect their children. Why didn’t he now?

  “Are they in love?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She finally turned around to face him. “You know what I mean. Are they in love? My daughter and the boy?” She could no longer even use the word our.

  “Flor, how can I know?”

  “Eduardo, don’t act stupid. You know what love looks like. You know what it feels like.”

  His silence answered her.

  “Eduardo, this is killing me. This is killing you. You will never forgive yourself for what you are about to do. There has to be another way. I will get a job. You can go back to school or find another job. Please, there has to be a way.”

  Flor watched emotions play across her husband’s face, and for a moment hoped he would listen to reason.

  “Enough!”

  Flor jumped off her seat and rushed to close the door. The children didn’t need to be damaged any further by overhearing their parents argue.

  “Emmanuel is coming for dinner. The plan remains intact.”

  “How will you ever live with yourself?” Flor sneered.

  She left the room without another word. She needed to go to her daughter and try to prepare her for what was to come, without disobeying her husband. She suddenly felt the rift erupt.

  Soledad descended the staircase with guns blazing. She knew what was coming. Her mother had gone in and casually mentioned that the “weird man from the feria would be joining them for a business dinner with her father.” The same man who’d disrespected her.

  Forced to come down for this dinner, Soledad had dressed herself in the heaviest clothes she owned, covering every possible part of her. She would have worn winter clothes if it wouldn’t have been uncomfortably obvious. This man would not violate her tonight, not in her own home, what used to be a sanctuary. She was further mortified to find that when she turned the corner into the dining room, everyone was seated and there remained one seat. Her seat. Next to Emmanuel.

  She wasn’t a stupid girl. She was at the top of her class, a feat not usually reserved for females. She’d been accepted into Stanford, another achievement not typically attained by women. There was not a stupid bone in her body, except that which had led her to believe that her family loved her, that her father loved her.

  In an instant, she knew the what, but she didn’t understand the why. It all began to put itself together. Her father’s eagerness to introduce them at the feria, his urgency for her to return home, so urgent that he went into Mexico to gather her himself. She was an animal being led to the slaughter. This was a business dinner all right, and she was the business.

  Her father, now sitting red-faced at the edge of his dining chair, staring at her expectantly, was apparently willing to sell her off, to trade her soul for whatever his selfish ambition was. Everyone now stared uncomfortably as she stood in the doorway assessing this situation. It was as if time stood still while the white walls of the dining room began to look concave and suffocating, delusional even.

  Soledad felt short of breath, her chest filled with a tightness she could not calm her way out of. She forced herself to look at her mother and felt like she was looking at a stranger. There her mother was, quietly and obediently accepting what was unfolding in the very home where she gave birth to Soledad.

  Her mother slumped so low that the chair hovered enormously. She could not even return Soledad’s desperate stare. And why should she? She, too, was part of this plot. What was meant to be passed off as a casual business dinner, was actually a get-to-know-your-purchase dinner. Her dear mother so solemnly talked about this business dinner, never bothering to even so much as provide her with a hint.

  Soledad would have no such hypocrisy. She officially set off the night in a voice that shook her home. “I won’t do it!” She turned to escape up the stairs. She could hear a chair sliding over the wood floor. She didn’t know who was coming after her, but she knew she would not hesitate to survive this madness. Whoever the victim was, she would unleash hell on earth. She would gladly let this nightmare kill her before she allowed this to happen.

  Even in her bedroom, behind a closed door, she felt unprotected. Her books, her dolls, her bed, nothing had an affinity to her anymore. She felt like her time here was finished. She would cut all ties with her family and run away with Xavier. She would tell Don Pedro to tell Xavier to wait by the border tomorrow night, and they would leave together. She could care less about Stanford, or even about her family for that matter. There was only one person she was willing to run for, to remain sane for, amid this crisis. She would get a job with the feria, and they would be together for good. Nothing was indispensable. Nothing. She could spend the rest of her life a beggar as long as Xavier was by her side.

  As her mind reeled with all the plans for salvation, the stranger who used to be her father was in her room. Where as a child this would delight her because he usually came in with surprises or to tuck her in for the night, his presence now exhumed bitterness. How things were changing, and quickly.

  “You can’t knock?” Her voice sneered like a demon.

  Her father’s face, still beet red, matched the tie he wore. He pulled out a satin handkerchief to wipe his face with trembling hands. Did this really mean this much to him? That
his physical appearance, his emotion, his reaction could suffer so much at her threat to disparage his plan?

  “This is my house, and I can enter any room I please.” The shortness in his breath was evident.

  “As well as you can barter off your flesh and blood like a piece of property to be married and raped.”

  Like a demon in flight, Eduardo bolted to her bed where she sat and slapped her mouth.

  “It didn’t have to be this way, Soledad!” His scream was sure to have been heard downstairs.

  Although stunned, the pain of the actual slap was nothing in comparison to the sting of his intentions. Her father had never put a hand on her in her entire life. He’d never had a reason to.

  “Don’t speak my name.” She avoided addressing him as her father. “You’re dead to me.”

  He did not so much as flinch with her spiteful words. It was clear he was deadened inside by whatever was strong enough to consume the goodwill and kindness that used to define him.

  “Soledad, you will be married in a week.” Her father exhaled and slumped into her desk chair. Perhaps this was taking its toll on him, but he concealed this well, for in seconds he was recomposed, staring right at her.

  One week. She gasped, swallowing air, and the torrent of sobs could no longer be restrained. She’d suspected what he wanted, but a week? Did she matter so little to him?

  “I tried to get you back here sooner to avoid this shock. This, all of this,”—he swirled his finger in the air as if conjuring their surroundings and then pointed downstairs. “It could have been prevented.”

  “Why,Papá? Why?” She betrayed her promise to never call him that again. “Please, just give me one good reason for stealing my life away from me.” Her voice trembled. “Please, Papá!”

  “Soledad, it’s beyond anything that I could ever explain.”

  “Try, for God sakes!” She was screaming now, pity replaced by rage.

  “Cholita, you are the key to your family’s salvation. You have more power to help us now than even I have.” He rose from the desk and cautiously, as if testing her reaction, moved toward her bed, his eyes never leaving her, urgently trying to make contact. “You are my daughter, and I would give my life for you.”

  Soledad could tell he meant that. The angered demon taunted her as hints of her compassionate and kind father presented themselves. “I would have never done this if it weren’t out of utter necessity. This is not a game or an experiment. This is survival.”

  Kind and compassionate, yet so resolved in his so-called plight for salvation. So she was the martyr. Everyone else could live their lives as usual, but she would not be given that consideration. “So I must die?”

  “Cholita, this will not kill you. Starving, homelessness, that will kill you. Not being able to see a doctor or buy medication when you’re sick. Those things will kill you.” A new voice presented itself. One of fear. As if he thought he’d broken through to her, he sat beside her, risking to put a hand on her knee. “I spent careful time picking Emmanuel for this purpose. He is not a bad man. He’ll be good to you. He’ll treat you like a queen, if you could just let him in.” His voice pleaded with her.

  He took her silence for permission to continue.

  “This is uncomfortable for him as well, but he is willing to become a part of our family in order to help us out of the dire situation we have been put in because of circumstances beyond our control.”

  In continued silence, her mind closed off, and her father retreated. She slid down and, sitting on her bedroom floor, she accepted a few things. First, she realized she may never go to Stanford. Second, and only because she could not bear to include it anywhere else but on a silent mental list, she began to prepare herself for the fact that she may never marry Xavier. They may never have children and grow old together. Her life was no longer her own. She was but a slave.

  Chapter 11

  The knock at the porch came just before dawn. At first, Soledad thought it was part of her dream. With both fists, she violently banged the wood floor in her bedroom, screaming at the top of her lungs. The repetitious knocking did not stop until finally she was awakened, her hands still clenched in dream-induced fists. By the time she sat up in her bed, wrapped herself in her bed robe, and made her way downstairs, she could already hear the murmur of hushed voices and her mother crying. Her steps quickened down the stairs. Her parents, along with a distant cousin of her mother’s, were in the living room.

  “Mamá? Qué paso?” Soledad’s voice quivered. Something was terribly wrong. Her mother hadn’t even cried when her father sold her to Emmanuel.

  Her mother stared at her, as if trying to gain enough composure to speak. “Suki died last night. We need to get to your abuelita’s house.”

  Soledad gasped and dropped to her knees at her mother’s feet, not even second-guessing her reaction with news such as this. There was nothing she knew more than to seek solace from her mother, even now amid the tension and confusion of the revelations of the night before.

  “No, no, no!” Soft cries escaped her throat as she moistened her mother’s knees with her tears. She’d never said goodbye. The day she left, she got into her father’s car, and she never said goodbye. Tears continued to burn the back of her eyes.

  “I will never forgive you.” While her eyes remained closed, no one needed to guess who she spoke to. It was clear that her sharp words were targeted at her father. She could barely get her words out. “I never said goodbye.”

  The dam broke, and she sobbed violently into her mother’s legs. Visions of Suki screamed through her mind. Soledad’s fifth birthday, cooking in Abuelita’s kitchen with Suki, when Suki’s husband died, when Soledad’s grandfather died. Suki had always been there.

  “Gracias, Jose.” Soledad’s father saw the messenger out. She listened to him walk over to where she lay at her mother’s feet, then stop.

  Soledad could sense her father reaching out to her, and she immediately tensed, hopefully stopping him from touching her.

  When Soledad was sure her father was out of her presence, she, too, got up and retreated, leaving her mother still sitting on the sofa.

  Each member of the family was instructed to pack for a week’s stay at Abuelita’s house. They were to stay with her for a few days and help her through the loss of her dear lifelong friend.

  Soledad could not help but feel guilty that she was so excited to be returning to Mexico. She felt guilty that she was thankful to Suki for giving her this one last chance. This was her great escape.

  She carefully combed her room for things she could not bear to leave behind. She packed some Hardy Boys books, her Bible that her mother had given her at her Quinceañera, and, despite how she felt about her father, she packed the gold locket he’d given her at the same occasion. If anything, she and Xavier could sell it if need be. There were a few other things as well, but she had to limit the items so as not to call attention to herself.

  As her family crossed the border into Mexico, Soledad could not help but feel desperation as she anxiously stared after any pedestrian who resembled Xavier.

  Her father cleared his throat. Her discomfort and continued movement was obvious.

  As they pulled up to her grandmother’s house, it looked so depressed. The house had always had a magic about it with the two old ladies, and now one of the complementary pieces was gone.

  The house was full of neighbors who had come to pay their respects. Soledad truly believed Xavier might be here, and her heart held onto that hope. But it quickly dissolved as she examined each face. It was like a maze getting to Abuelita, but once with her, it felt as though she were the one comforting everyone else.

  She held Soledad in her arms as she sobbed. Those arms had always had some bravery and comfort for Soledad in her hardest of days. This was one of Abuelita’s hardest of da
ys, yet her strength never wavered.

  Although it was a time to mourn for Suki, Soledad wished in those very moments with her grandmother holding her that she could spill everything out to her. Her father’s treachery, the story of her first love, how she was going to give up Stanford and run away with Xavier. There was so much she carried, and Abuelita would gladly help her carry it. She honestly, for a split second, began a sentence. But she quickly worked to hold herself together. There was nothing her grandmother could do.

  The next morning at the burial, Soledad sobbed with great force. Not only was she mourning the loss of her second grandmother, but she sobbed selfishly as she learned that Xavier had gone with the feria, and she would be back in El Paso, possibly married, by the time he returned.

  As the priest gave the benediction: “En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo, y del Espiritu Santo,” she remembered the three steps of her porch that had always led her into her refuge every day of her life. But this thought did nothing for her. There was nothing left in her. She belonged in the ground with Suki ... for she was dead.

  Chapter 12

  Soledad returned to El Paso defeated. The border that her precious Xavier would never be able to cross felt like a jail warden. As they drove to their home, she looked out her window at a community park. So many free souls filled the green grass, playing, eating, sitting, sunning. How could they? Didn’t they know her life was about to end? She envied their carelessness.

  Suki’s death had only delayed the inevitable. If her father gave a command, she would have to follow it. That’s the way it always was. If he gave the command to go and drown herself in the Rio Grande, then that’s the way it would be. She longed for that command.

  Messages she’d sent to Xavier came back unanswered. How could he have left her with no word of his departure or clue of his arrival?