The Lightning Queen

by Laura Resau

  Sudden bursts of tears were common in Grandfather’s healing hut, so I shouldn’t have been so stunned. There was something about this safe, candlelit place that had created a well-worn path for long-hidden tears. Most of all, it was Grandfather’s gentle words, his compassionate touch, his way of gazing into people. He coaxed out their vulnerable side.

  I’d had no idea Maestra María even had a vulnerable side.

  Sniffing, she opened her purse and dabbed at her ruined makeup with a handkerchief. “Please, señor, can you remove it?”

  He kept his hand on her shoulder and spoke kindly. “My daughter, they say no one but a Gypsy can remove a Gypsy curse.”

  As I translated, I made a half-hearted effort to capture his kindness in my voice, even though my hand still ached from her beating.

  At the news, she murmured, “Oh, no, I was afraid of that.” A new round of tears leaked out.

  “But have you considered another option, daughter?” he said with smiling eyes.

  “What?”

  “Severing the curse by preventing children’s tears.”

  She blinked. “How on earth would I do that?”

  “Simply offer them kindness.”

  “You don’t understand, señor. I have a class of little wild animals that I have to train and they can’t even speak a civilized …” Her voice trailed off. She was probably remembering that I was one of those wild animals and that my grandfather couldn’t speak a so-called civilized language.

  “Perhaps,” Grandfather said tenderly, “I can teach you some kind words in our tongue so that you may comfort the children.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t speak that language. Not at school. The whole point is to teach them Spanish, the language of our country.”

  Grandfather tilted his head. “Their young minds are clever enough to learn both, so why not give them that gift?”

  Rubbing her face, she said in a low voice, “My instructions are to beat their language out of them if I have to. I could be fired for allowing it in my class.”

  “Be brave,” Grandfather said quietly. “Do what feels right in your heart, my daughter.”

  Again, she wiped her eyes, leaving dark smears of makeup, as if a mask were melting off. “You think if I use these words I’ll break the curse?”

  “Yes, my daughter. Of course, you’ll need to keep using them so that the curse will not reattach. It will take practice to develop this new habit.”

  She let out a quivery breath. “All right.”

  Over the next hour, my grandfather and I taught her how to say words in Mixteco—please, thank you, love, good, hug. Ñamani, tatsavini, kuu ini, yeu, sikita’an.

  Her pronunciation was horrible. I winced, hearing how she butchered our language. Yet as she struggled, Grandfather put his hand on her shoulder and told her in Mixteco, “Yeu. Good job, daughter. Clever student.”

  She laughed. But when she repeated his words, they came out harsh and choppy and without feeling.

  “Imagine each word is a petal, daughter,” Grandfather said. “A feather, something soft and light and tender.”

  She repeated the words, now in the same soothing tone as Grandfather’s, and although her face was a mess of tear-smeared makeup, it looked pretty in a whole new way.

  The words floated around like petals and feathers, until she smiled and said, “I think I can remember now. Thank you.” She stood up, opening her purse. “How much do I owe you, señor?”

  He shook his head. “You are my grandson’s teacher. This is a gift to you.”

  I murmured the translation.

  A few more tears slipped out. Still, she didn’t leave.

  He touched her shoulder again. “Is there something else, Daughter?”

  She glanced at me and back at him. “I—I wasn’t always like this. So bitter.” Her words came from a deep place.

  Sometimes words come from near the surface, and they sound flat and wispy. Then there are words that come from the caves of a person’s soul—at least that’s how Grandfather explained it. And these words were coming from a hidden place inside the maestra. They smelled musty and damp and true.

  She sank back down into the chair. “My husband and I dreamed of having lots of children. But the years passed, and none came. We had a nice house, a nice car, nice clothes. But it wasn’t enough. I needed a child. Then my husband died. I was grieving, but I had to work to keep my lifestyle. So I took this job, but it’s torture spending all day with these children who aren’t mine.”

  I translated under my breath as she spoke, trying to keep the shock from my voice. So there was a heart inside her after all—a shattered heart, its pieces encased in steel, but a heart all the same. I reminded myself she was the same evil woman who had beaten my hand just yesterday.

  Maybe evil was simply pain in disguise.

  “Pobrecita,” Grandfather said. “Poor thing, you’ve been through so much. But I will help you. I’ll give you soul cleansings and herbs that will sweeten and soften your heart, melt the wall around it.”

  The maestra nodded, sniffling and wiping her eyes.

  We followed him into the smoke-filled kitchen, where my aunts were busy cooking beans over the hearth fire, grinding chile for salsa, patting maza into circles for tortillas. As Grandfather gathered the herbs, I introduced the maestra. She stood awkwardly, too tall for the squat kitchen. But she looked better now, refreshed after all her crying.

  Politely, she greeted my aunts and asked, “Are one of you Teo’s mother?”

  My aunts looked at one another, shook their heads. “She’s in there,” Aunt Perla said, pointing with a spoon across the courtyard.

  Maestra María smiled at me. “Perhaps I should say hello, tell her what a fine translator of a son she has.” She was trying to be kind. But how could she know that meeting my mother would just lead to discomfort at best, misery at worst?

  I took a breath. “Please, go ahead, Maestra,” I said. “I’ll help Grandfather finish with the herbs.”

  She gave me a strange look, and I glanced away. I couldn’t bear to see people try to talk with my mother. I could forget about her craziness, let her dissolve into shadows, but when new eyes saw her, I had to remember.

  The maestra bid my aunts good night, then walked across to the doorway of my mother’s room. I turned away, unable to watch.

  I focused on getting the dried herbs together, and by the time Grandfather and I had tied them with twine—all eight varieties—we went into the courtyard. Several minutes had passed, and I couldn’t imagine what she’d been doing. My mother wasn’t a conversationalist.

  Sure enough, when Maestra María emerged from the room, she looked shaken. Sadly, she said to me in Mixteco, “Tatsavini.” Thank you. The words floated to me like petals, strangely comforting.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a small notebook, brand-new, and a long, freshly sharpened pencil. “Since your grandfather won’t accept payment, I hope you will accept a gift.”

  Holding the present gingerly, I thanked her. “Tatsavini.”

  Grandfather handed her the bundle of herbs. I translated his instructions to drink the tea twice a day, and to return to see him every evening for a week for spiritual cleanings to sweep away her bitterness.

  She took his hand, held it in hers. “Tatsavini,” she said, like the brush of a feather.

  After Grandfather and I bid her farewell, and he disappeared into his room to rest, Uncle appeared from the shadows, reeking of shoe polish. The maestra was just teetering down the path when he took her elbow. “I’ll walk you back to your car,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” she said, continuing past the moonlit agave.

  But Uncle followed her, insisting, “It’s dangerous to walk by yourself. There are Gypsies lurking about.”

  As they walked into the darkness, I pressed my nose to the open notebook, breathed in the new-paper-and-glue scent. Even after she vanished, ghosts of rose petals lingered all around me.

  La
ter that night, laughter filled the plaza, rising into the night air above the Hill of Dust. Beside me, my cousins were rolling around in the dirt, clutching their bellies, shaking with laughter. The adults were laughing so hard they were crying. And I was laughing with more abandon than I had since Lucita and I would tickle each other as kids.

  The audience was bigger than ever. Some of the other students had come with their families, a long walk from their villages. Little Benito and his brother Marcos were here with their own entourage of cousins and brothers and sisters.

  The film was about a man named Cantinflas, whose mustache was short and missing the middle part, so it was just two ridiculous patches of hair on either side of his lips. He was a pobre, poor like us, but he found hilarious ways to put the powerful and rich in their place.

  All was happy until an hour into the movie, when a man’s shadow suddenly appeared in front of the screen.

  He was just a silhouette. Who was it? He raised his hands and shouted something, something I couldn’t hear well over the voices and music blaring from the speakers. He spoke in Spanish, and cursed often—that much I could tell.

  From the audience came shouts of Boo and Go away!

  But the man stayed, pacing and ranting before the screen. With a start, I recognized his telltale pointy-shoe limp and smug voice. Uncle Paco.

  Nausea spread over me. I took hold of Flash and stroked him, in case I’d have to use him as a weapon again. I glanced back at the Duke, saw him grimly stick his half-eaten onion in his pocket, stop the projector, turn off the speakers.

  The image paused on a close-up of Cantinflas’s face cocked in a funny, sidelong expression beneath his pointy hat. But no one laughed now. The only sounds were the hum of the generator, the chirp of crickets.

  Finally, Uncle Paco left the screen area, and I breathed out in relief. But now he was dragging someone—a woman—up there with him. She shielded her eyes from the projector beam.

  My mother! She looked small and lost, helpless as he gripped her elbow.

  A prickly heat filled me. Part of me wanted to run up and protect her, lead her back home to her safe little room. Another part wanted to shrink down and hide in embarrassment.

  Instead, I hugged my animals and stayed seated.

  “There is a thief here,” Uncle shouted. “Someone stole this woman’s prized earrings.”

  My mother’s earrings? Stolen? I could picture them vividly—large, dangling half moons made of delicate, spiraling gold threads. A gift from her own mother on her wedding day. Who would take them from her box?

  Grandfather appeared, panting, and touched Uncle’s shoulder. In a low voice, in Mixteco, he spoke to his son.

  Uncle shrugged him off, nearly knocking him over.

  That did it. I leapt up and bolted forward. I held Grandfather steady and then carefully sat him down on my chair. Next, I retrieved my mother, slipping her arm from Uncle’s hand, and led her to sit beside Grandfather.

  Oblivious, Uncle was still ranting. “The Gypsy thieves stole it! They robbed a poor, vulnerable woman, my own sister!”

  “What’s going on?” I whispered to Grandfather.

  He was still breathing hard from the walk over. “After you and the others left for the movie, son, your mother came to me, crying. She was checking her box like she always does and noticed the earrings were missing.” Grandfather shook his head sadly. “Paco heard her and immediately accused the Rom.”

  Now Uncle was flailing his arms toward the Duke and Esma and Roza, all standing back near the projector. “That girl there! The lame girl! She was sneaking around our home.”

  He pointed directly to Esma.

  Her eyes widened in shock, but she kept her head high. Once she translated for her grandparents, the Duke’s chest puffed out angrily. His mustache leapt in indignation, the tips cocked back like fists ready to punch. He waved a large, threatening onion in the air, as if he might hurl it at Uncle. Roza bristled, shouting what I could only imagine were Gypsy curses as she pointed a finger at Uncle Paco.

  My heartbeat filled my ears, along with the hot rush of blood. What could I do? The Duke had said if there was another scene, he would leave with his people and never come back. How could I stop this?

  Esma stepped into the projector beam, suddenly illuminated, like a ghost. She was entirely lit up—her hair, her headscarf, her skirt, the coins and beads on her necklace. She declared, “I did not steal from this family. They are my friends.” She raised her chin even higher in defiance. “And I am not the Lame Girl. I am Esma, Queen of Lightning.”

  Uncle took a menacing step toward her. She held her ground.

  Now her uncles and the Duke came to her side. He had an onion in each hand now, grasping each so tightly his knuckles were white. His mustache twitched as if it could barely hold itself back.

  A fight? If there was a fight, my friendship with Esma would be severed forever. My insides were sinking down, down. But I forced myself to stand tall, holding Flash ready.

  And then, Benito walked to Esma’s side. His brother followed. Each took her hand in a gesture of solidarity. In Mixteco, Benito belted out, so everyone could hear, “She’s good. She helped us. And anyway, bad people don’t sing!”

  Then the other students emerged from the audience to stand at her side. Inspired, people from my village came to her side, until nearly everyone on the Hill of Dust was facing Uncle Paco. Heart swelling, I joined them with my animals.

  My relatives stood up, their loyalty split, but finally walked to Esma’s side. Everyone except for two uncles, who firmly took hold of Uncle Paco and led him away.

  He struggled, red-faced. “I’m bringing the police tomorrow!” Uncle yelled. “They’ll be happy for an excuse to put this trash behind bars.”

  After he was gone, people found their seats and quieted down, and the Duke smoothed his mustache and started the movie again. Yet I couldn’t pay attention, couldn’t rouse any laughter at the funny parts. I put my hand on my mother’s. She sat, transfixed, not laughing at the jokes either, simply watching Cantinflas’s antics in a slack-jawed daze.

  Grandfather, looking exhausted, rested his hand on her other hand.

  “You think she misplaced the earrings?” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Teo. I don’t know what to think.”

  I stroked Spark’s ears and glanced back at Esma, who was standing with the Duke by the projector. “You think the Rom will leave? Before our gathering tomorrow night?”

  “Who knows.” He stood up shakily, casting a small shadow on the screen. “Let’s get your mother home.”

  “We have to do something, Grandfather!”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “All right, Teo. After your mother’s settled back home, we’ll pay the Rom a visit.”

  Later that night, Grandfather and I walked down the deserted, dark street toward the Rom camp. There was a distinct lack of music and dancing and singing, a stark contrast from our visit to their camp last year. And last year, Grandfather hadn’t paused to catch his breath every few steps.

  At the edge of the ring of wagons, I called out, “¡Buenas noches!” And then, peering inside the circle, I noticed the bustle of activity. By the light of the bonfire, the Rom were rolling up carpets and filling sacks with pots and utensils. Packing up?

  When they caught sight of us, chatter rippled through them. Soon the Duke appeared, and then Roza and Esma. Her hair was disheveled, her face tearstained, her shoulders slumped, as if all the lightning had drained out of her.

  Something was wrong, very wrong.

  “Come in, friends,” the Duke said in heavily accented Spanish, his mustache hanging down, forlorn. He gestured at tree stumps by the fire. “Please, sit down.”

  The table and chairs must have been stashed inside a wagon already. I sat, and a plume of smoke blew right into my face, stinging my eyes.

  “I’m sorry we have no tea ready to offer, but as you can—” Esma’s voice cracked as she tran
slated. “As you can see, we’re leaving at dawn.”

  “We have to avoid the police,” Roza said apologetically, turning her pipe over in her thick hands. “They don’t treat us fairly. That’s why we stick to villages like yours, out here in the mountains. But now, with that man falsely accusing my granddaughter …”

  Esma sniffled and wiped her eyes, reluctantly translating.

  “Don’t leave!” I said. “Please! I’ll find the thief, prove Esma’s innocence. Just give me another day, please!”

  Grandfather added, “I will make sure my son doesn’t contact the police.”

  The Duke looked at Roza with doubt. Esma looked at her with a last wisp of hope.

  The Mistress of Destiny’s nose twitched as she considered and then conferred with the Duke, shaking her head.

  “My grandfather says no,” Esma said softly, after her grandfather spoke. “It’s not worth the risk. He’s—we’re sorry.”

  Our eyes met, and another tear slipped from hers. Her tears scared me. This was not a girl who let go of hope easily. Seeing her like this, I understood she’d begged and pleaded with her grandparents, done everything she could to convince them. I understood that if they left tomorrow morning, they would never come back.

  Grandfather reached out his hand for Roza’s. He locked eyes with her. In a low voice, he said, “You and I know my true fortune, Mistress. Here is my last request to you: Come to the event tomorrow.”

  I translated, knowing there was much below his words, things that passed between him and the Mistress of Destiny, things that unnerved me.

  After a long while of gnawing on her pipe, she said something to the Duke. He protested, but she repeated it more firmly.

  Finally, he nodded his head and barked out an order to his people. They stopped packing, puzzled. And then, shrugging and grumbling, they began to unpack.

  Esma threw her arms around the Duke, and then around Roza. “We’ll stay!” she said, doing three wild twirls. “We’ll stay!”

  And my heart rose with the smoke and sparks, up to the stars.

  As Grandfather and I walked slowly back home, we were silent. Part of me was dancing inside at the good news; part of me felt off-balance with so many unsaid things just below the surface. Grandfather’s true fortune. What exactly had made the Mistress of Destiny change her mind?