Lucía Zárate: The odyssey of the world’s smallest woman

by Cecilia Velástegui

  The newspapers illustrated her charm and in response, she sparkled again and again on stage. Lucía kept her eyes and ears open to everything and everyone around her— and she recognized her own stardom. Only General Mite seemed blind to her rays of sunlight. He seemed specifically distraught at the newspaper articles that described them as sweethearts. Lucía carried a folded copy of the February 28, 1979 Evening Star and recited its coverage:

  The General, while strolling around a bandbox with Miss Lucía recently, popped the question, and she accepted it at heart.

  Although General Mite had not asked for her hand in marriage nor had they strolled around a bandbox, the newspaper articles did plant a seed of independence in her mind. She decided to accomplish both in the near future; all she had to do was assert her star power. From this point forward, it would be she who would tell everyone, including Frank Uffner and Zoila, when and where she could step outside their stuffy quarters and see the world. But more significantly, she would capture General Mite’s heart.

  On stage, Lucía addressed the audience in English in her signature squeaky voice: “You come to see little Mexican jumping bean, no?” Then she twirled and lifted her skirt, kicking up the heels of her now worn-down black boots. These were the same boots that had been custom-made for her three years earlier in New Orleans but now they were cracked around the toe box, the heels sloping in odd directions from so much tapping and stomping. Frank Uffner no longer spent money on updating her elegant doll dresses, nor did he have the exquisite red feathers on her hats replaced— and he most certainly refused to spend a penny on new bespoke dancing shoes.

  Zoila watched him carefully, and she knew that Frank Uffner’s eyes were always on the prize. If he kept his overhead low, if he fudged the ticket sale receipts, if he forgot to pay the more gullible of his performers for this or that, then he could accumulate the money he needed to lead a swell life. Apart from General Mite’s father, the only other person who could squeeze money out of him was Lucía’s father. Every few months, Señor Zárate would appear unannounced in the audience in this city or that. He would walk right onto the stage and lift Lucía into his arms.

  “Papá,” he shouted at the audience, pointing to himself. He waited for their applause before setting Lucía back down on the stage. As soon as the performance concluded, Señor Zárate cornered Frank Uffner and picked his pockets. “More money,” he had learned to say in English.

  “No más dinero,” Frank Uffner replied.

  “I go Mexico with Lucía,” Señor Zárate pointed to Lucía, his tiny golden goose.

  Inevitably, Frank submitted to Señor Zárate’s demands because the amounts that satisfied him were well below what Lucía’s true share would have been, assuming anyone could figure out Frank Uffner’s creative accounting system. It was the price of doing business—shady business. After Señor Zárate’s short visits, Frank refocused on squirreling away his embezzled funds in such a secretive way that even his wife would never figure it out. He couldn’t wait for the day when he would disband his troupe; then, he could also abscond with his cache and leave his battle-ax wife behind.

  Frank Uffner took full credit for Lucía’s success. Early on he had spent his own money on Lucía’s wardrobe and on her photographs. He’d encouraged Eisenman to position her in more dramatic poses that emphasized her minute stature, knowing full well that the suckers filling the levées would gladly buy them. He reluctantly paid Zoila a pittance for Lucía’s care since he was afraid she might resort to violence if he withheld her measly pay. He had once tried to hug her bosom one early morning when his wife was not home and he thought he’d felt a dagger between her breasts. Ever since that morning, Frank kept an eye on Zoila not so much out of fear of her revenge, but primarily to make sure that Lucía would to be on stage on time, ready to captivate her audience.

  Whenever he noticed that Lucía’s enthusiasm on stage appeared to be waning, or that her energy level had declined, he thrust another newspaper article at Zoila.

  “Read this wee warning to our waning Lucía,” he commanded.

  “I will do it later, sir. I have to get her ready for yet another exhausting day.”

  “Watch your mouth, big girl. Read it nice and loud to me, and then I want to hear you tell her what it says in Spanish. Do I make myself clear?”

  Zoila heaved a sigh, but agreed to read The Sacramento Daily Union Record article of January 13, 1877:

  Two Pittsburg shoemakers recently tried the experiment of making boots from human skin. By arrangement with a medical college they secured skin from the stomach and back of a man killed suddenly by accident, tanned it nicely, and made two pairs of boots therefrom, the soles being made of ordinary leather. They proved to be warmer than boots made from the skin of a calf, and it is believed that they will be every bit as serviceable.

  Zoila gasped. “Sir, this is too much for her delicate ears!”

  “Finish reading it in English and then you best be telling her exactly what it says in Spanish.”

  Zoila swallow hard. She noted that Lucía stood still, a bewildered look on her face, but she continued reading:

  Now they want to use us for boots and shoes (the parents thus clothing the children in a new way), and pretty soon they will be making our finger-bones into necklaces and charms.

  Zoila could not continue. She read the words Lucía Zárate at the end of the article. She closed her eyes and handed the article back to Frank Uffner, who shoved it right back at her; the newspaper now crumpled.

  “Finish reading the article,” he shouted, and Zoila read softly, halting with every syllable:

  At this rate General Mite and Lucía Zárate will find their destiny as paper weights.

  “Paper weights!” he chuckled, “Ain’t that original?”

  Frank Uffner snickered when he heard Zoila translate the macabre words to Lucía. But Lucía did not seem particularly upset.

  “I know you didn’t translate it correctly. Tell her the exact words.”

  “You hired me to protect her, and these words will devastate Lucía.”

  “I want to see a Mexican jumping bean on stage today. Tell her!”

  “Sir,” Zoila pleaded, “she will break down if she hears these words and you will not make any money. I’m here to help you make lots of money, roll-in-the-dough, as you often say, sir.”

  “Don’t get sassy with me or I’ll give you a blinker.” He lifted his fist as if to punch Zoila in the eye. She shook her head and whispered something in Spanish to Lucía.

  All Frank Uffner wanted was to see Lucía kick her heels up and look happy on stage. Lucía’s dog-eared appearance didn’t bother him as the crowds who came to see her seemed delighted just at the sight of her. He had single-handedly created her stage persona, and because of his genius as an impresario, her fame had spread worldwide. Soon, he and he alone would enjoy his well-deserved payback.

  Everyone in Frank Uffner’s troupe observed Lucía’s swift evolution from an agreeable country girl to an intolerable diva. During their levées, the other members of the troupe tolerated her larger-than-life, onstage persona, but as soon as the performances concluded they avoided her. For a tiny girl, Lucía fluffed and spread the velvet folds and lace frills of her gowns in such a way that she extended her personal space in a wide circle all around her. As she arranged herself—usually dead center in a room—she smiled like a Cheshire cat at all the other little people, knowing full well that by her selfish actions, she was limiting the living space available for the rest of the troupe. In every city they visited, they always stayed in overcrowded quarters and soon they all grew impatient with her self-centeredness.

  If someone got too close to Lucía, she would fling her shawl at them as if shooing away a persistent pet. When troupe members encroached on her space, Lucía jabbed at them with one of her numerous Spanish fans, which she used as fencing sabers and foils. None of this inflicted much physical pain but her behavior wounded the self-respect of the other troupe memb
ers who already felt inferior to this miniature dictator in their midst. Whenever she behaved this way, the others gave Lucía a disgusted look, yet no one crossed her. She was a hard pill to swallow, but they all knew she was the main event, the star of their show, the reason the hordes pushed and shoved and paid to enter their levées.

  Embarrassed by her cat-in-heat antics onstage, they all sided with General Mite. When one of the German-speaking troupe members read about Lucía’s overt seduction of General Mite in the Der Deutsche Correspondent, the leading German-language newspaper in Baltimore, he took it upon himself to help General Mite take control of the situation, and by extension, also help the rest of the troupe.

  “Can’t you take a stand up to her on our behalf?” he coaxed General Mite. “You’re the only one who can control her.”

  “Nope.”

  “You know she’s sweet on you. Can’t you convince her to keep her sassy ways to the stage and not act them out in our tight quarters?

  “Don’t care,” General Mite replied, his face sullen.

  “Now you’re being as selfish as Lucía, aren’t you?”

  “Nope.”

  “All you have to do is flirt with her a bit and soon she’ll be putty in your hands. It can’t be all that bad, can it?

  “Yep.”

  “Damn it, Francis! Be a gentleman and think about the rest of us?”

  General Mite remained unperturbed, his thoughts on the rolling hillsides of his longed-for domestic paradise.

  “Can’t you see that she’s making a fool out of you?”

  General Mite shrugged and walked away, interested in nothing but the earnings that would one day buy him a life of gentility, one that would obliterate the drudgery and indignity of being exhibited as a freak simply because of his diminutive proportions. Instinctively he knew why the crowds goaded him to return Lucía’s affections. It wasn’t a sophomoric curiosity about watching the little people kiss on stage, nor was it the naiveté of witnessing a blossoming spring romance between Lucía and General Mite. Really, it was a carnal craving to feel their own bodies thumping with lustful titillations at the sight of the two pintsize sweethearts on stage.

  The naked reason the crowds came to the sideshows reeked of a fetid sensuality, an animalist stench that the so-called normal people in the audience exuded like cheap perfume, one whose fumes debased their bodies and made them regard other humans as vile animals. General Mite shuddered at the memory of hairy paws trying to stroke his genitals during physical exams. He’d seen the so-called Snake-boy fondled by his own promoter for a private group of voyeurs, and he imagined that Lucía had been abused in the same way. He wanted nothing to do with used goods. He was determined to remain on alert, and do the bare minimum on stage. General Mite would remain aloof to Lucía’s coquetry until the day he could take his own idealized sweetheart—a girl of his own choosing—as his wife.

  Zoila was the only one in Lucía’s entourage who wanted to do what was best for Lucía. She’d been observing Lucía’s rapidly declining behavior with concern, and now she was truly anguished. At first, Zoila had tolerated Lucía’s egotistical ways because she understood that before they arrived in the United States, Lucía had never been told that she was unique and special. Back in Mexico, people shunned her, avoiding her as a bad omen, a chaneque of evil and mythical proportions. She’d begun to believe this self-image and had suppressed her more outgoing nature. But after experiencing the jubilant reaction from audiences in Philadelphia, one that snowballed into a fanatical response from audiences everywhere, Lucía’s self-image had magnified into gargantuan proportions.

  “Aren’t I absolutely special, Zoila?” Lucía exclaimed after a levée in Washington D.C.

  “You’re acting very well on stage but—”

  “But nothing. Draw my bath and hurry up about it!”

  “Lucía, I’m trying to be patient with you, but your behavior—”

  “The only but is your huge butt,” Lucía chortled.

  “Listen to me, Lucía.” Zoila tried to sound as stern as possible. “I am here to be your caregiver and your tutor. You have a lot to learn in order to understand your American audiences. You cannot take them for granted.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucía snapped. “Don’t you remember back in New York at the Pastor Theater when Mr. Pastor told us that Adelina María Patti was a prima donna? I could tell he was proud of that, and she did whatever she wanted. She was the star of her show just as I am the star of my show.”

  “The Spanish Songbird had a remarkable voice but her behavior was disgraceful. Surely you don’t want to ashamed of your actions, do you?

  “Zzzz.” Lucía pretended to be asleep.

  Zoila attempted a different tactic. “You’re doing a wonderful job learning English. I even heard you ask General Mite to give you a kiss. Do you think this is a polite question from a proper young lady?”

  That question caught Lucía by surprise. She seemed to ponder her answer, but instead of replying she strutted away and shrugged her shoulders petulantly.

  “Do you think you’ve been considerate of your friends?” Zoila persisted.

  “Ha, what a joke! I have no friends.” Lucía climbed up on a chair, attempting to look Zoila in the eye. “All I have are hangers-on. You and the others hang on to me like… like your stinky vanilla vines that hang from the perfect orchid!”

  Zoila wanted to calm Lucía, not argue with her. She tried another strategy. “I like the visual of the vanilla vines. They are very fragrant and delicate. Do you remember the taste of vanilla extract in our hot chocolate from Veracruz?”

  “I guess I do.” Lucía clung to the back of the chair. “My papá told me at the levée that he wouldn’t let me go back to Mexico until I earn enough money he can use to buy lots of land and build a big house. He said that he doesn’t want to be a peon his whole life.”

  “He didn’t use the word peon, did he?”

  “Yes he did. He said Mr. Uffner showed him an article that said papá was an ordinary peon.”

  Zoila couldn’t contradict Lucía. Frank Uffner had indeed read the Daily Globe article aloud to the troupe. It said:

  Lucía Zarate, the smallest woman in the world was born in Mexico. Her parents are peons—that is to say, half-breeds. When born she was the size of a rat. It was supposed that she was dead, and she was put in a little box that happened to be in the room. Soon, however, she began to scream. She was taken out of her box, and except that she was wondrously small, she soon played and ran about like any other child.

  Zoila batted the air as if swatting a swarm of mosquitos. “Forget about these ridiculous articl—”

  Lucía stomped the floor. “Make up your mind, Zoila. You want me forget this article, yet you also want me to believe the other articles Mr. Uffner reads to us.”

  She had a point, but Zoila couldn’t admit it.

  “Well, right now I just want us to remember how warm and fragrant our Mexico can be, don’t you remember?”

  “What’s the point of remembering anything about Mexico?” Lucía demanded. “All I ever have to do is be clever and jubilant on the stage. I don’t have time to think about returning to Mexico.” She kicked ferociously at an imaginary rat on the floor. “Don’t you think I’m tired of carrying the burden of supporting my family, you, General Mite and all the rest of the troupe? “

  “Oh, that’s not fair, Lucía. The other performers work hard too.”

  “Bullcrap, nobody comes to see them. They’re just ordinary midgets. I am the smallest one who ever lived. I’m the star of the show!”

  “Lucía, I forbid you to use these crass expressions.”

  Lucía ignored Zoila’s scolding and stomped out of the room.

  It was best, Zoila decided, to allow Lucía to cool down. She didn’t follow her out, but stayed to select Lucía’s least threadbare outfit for the audience at the White House the following day. She plucked an intact pheasant feather from a taupe hat an
d rearranged it on a grey felt bonnet that looked best with Lucía’s dusty pink velvet dress. Zoila wanted to sew together sections of the shredded lace around the collar of the dress, but this meant borrowing thread from Mrs. Uffner’s sewing kit.

  She passed a huddle of troupe members and thought she saw Lucía’s worn boot heel sticking straight up towards the ceiling. She scrambled to push aside the little people clustered around Lucía, and found her small charge lying down on the floor mumbling, “Bamba, bamba, bamba, bamba.”

  Zoila carefully lifted Lucía from the floor and sat down on a frayed sofa, cradling Lucía and stroking Lucía’s forehead.

  “Did you fall down,” Zoila asked, “or did someone trip you?”

  When Lucía spoke, her words were slurred. “None of these midgets would dare toush me. I’m the shtar of the show.”

  Zoila directed her next question at the only person remaining in the room, General Mite. “Please, Mr. Francis, do tell me what has happened?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “But, please you were standing right there.”

  “She drank hooch.”

  “What does this hooch mean? Is it poison, rat poison?” Zoila was imagining the worst. She’d seen the vanilla curing house managers poison rats and the image of their exploding innards and putrefying stench were etched in her memory.

  “She’s three sheets to the wind,” General Mite added with a sneer.

  Zoila had never heard General Mite speak more than three words. This American expression she didn’t understand, but she was sure it meant that soon Lucía would die and Zoila would have to wrap her body in three sheets and leave her body out in the wind. Zoila started to cry. Oh, what cold-blooded beasts these Yankees were! They wouldn’t even bury Lucía. They might even want to embalm her body and put her on exhibit for decades to come. No one would mourn Lucía in this country of money hungry hucksters. Even in generations to come no one would place bright gold marigolds or make an ofrenda in her honor at the family altar on the Day of the Dead. Zoila panicked.