When she realized she couldn’t count on Mauricio, she didn’t cower or turn to anyone for help. She decided she’d somehow pay it on her own, make jewellery to start and then find an agent to sell her memoir for hundreds of thousands of dollars once it was finished. She’d do it to give herself more purpose in life than an orangutan, so she could prove to the twins that she didn’t need their father’s honey or crocodile-skin money.
So I can show Yola that she can make a living off of words, that you don’t have to live enslaved to anyone or anything – not a prick husband, not a boss, not a grinding nine-to-five that bleeds all the creativity from your soul with the misery of half-hour lunch breaks and daily commutes and clocking in and answering to superiors and filling in fucking request forms for annual vacation.
The last lines she wrote were these:
Why can’t I do it alone? What’s the worst that could happen?
I looked out over the valley below, gently brightening under a hazy dawn sun. The worst really had happened, and if Aunt Celia could’ve foreseen it all, maybe she wouldn’t have called Ugly’s Caracas contact and signed a year of our lives away without even knowing it.
But would it have been better not to have lived the past year?
If I erased the past twelve months from my life, that would mean erasing Javier and the Jotas, erasing our wild drunken Christmas with all the illegals, erasing Baby Che, erasing The Pink Pie and all the crazy shit I’d seen there – erasing Román. As difficult and scary as things had been at times, I wouldn’t trade the past year for anything. Wasn’t that what life was all about anyway? The shit hitting the fan with projectile force, splattering you head to toe in faecal matter, but rolling with it, living in the moment and drawing whatever sweetness you could from that shit-covered sugarcane?
I stretched my legs out, joints stiff from sitting cross-legged while I read, and put the manuscript on the cushion beside me. The Spanish passport was next to it. Tantalizingly red. I flipped to the page with ‘Rocío’s’ photo and stared at it, feeling the weight of the passport, the weight of owning a document that unlocked borders instead of closing them off. It was like holding a wand and all I had to do was wave it in the face of some narrow-eyed suspicious immigration officer and with a sprinkle of that European Union fairy dust, he’d be smiling at me, welcoming me across the border, no questions about the duration and purpose of my stay, no demands to see my return ticket, my tourist visa, proof of funds to support myself during my trip, my police record, my academic transcripts, my family tree, a fucking blood sample. Román could’ve said, with this ring I thee wed, but instead he’d told me with this passport, I thee liberate.
Even so, would I actually have the balls to go to Spain with Román? I’d never lived in a different country from my family. Or in a country where I knew literally no one. What if Román and I broke up and I was stuck living alone on a translator’s fluctuating income, with an unfinished novel manuscript and no familial security blanket? I could stay in Trinidad, work on the novel and wait with my family to head to Costa Rica or wherever, safe at last with the protection of asylum. It would be easy. Spain held the promise of adventure, but I knew, having been well acquainted with the vicissitudes of adventure ever since crossing the Gulf of Paria in that pirogue with my family, that that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Choosing Spain would be cutting the familial umbilical cord, delving into a world of unknowns, of possible fuck-ups and mishaps and everything going wrong, of disaster and disappointment.
Yet somewhere deep in my viscera I felt that Spain held the promise of more than just tumultuous adventure. It was my sugarcane – full of the sweetness of passion, possibility, travel, new people, new experiences, a life I could shape with my own two hands, with a partner who did make my soul soar – and what if it was these moments, full of fear and excitement and doubt and not-knowing, that you had to bite down hard and sink your teeth into to get at that sugar?
The breeze picked up suddenly, rushed through the bristles of the pines surrounding the house, skimming urgently across my skin. I wished I could hear Aunt Celia hissing in the wind, telling me what to do. But Aunt Celia wasn’t here. There weren’t even any unread words of hers left to lap up.
And in that moment the realization struck me. I no longer had to mourn the void of Aunt Celia. I didn’t need to ask what she thought about Spain because she’d already told me the answer I should give Román, and it all lay in one question.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Author’s Note
As in most works of fiction, the story of One Year of Ugly is built upon countless true stories. In this case, the stories of Venezuelans fleeing their homeland to settle in a place that is far from an idyllic refuge: Trinidad.
Although in June 2019 Trinidad and Tobago offered a period of amnesty to the tens of thousands of Venezuelan refugees on the islands, allowing them to register and work legally for up to one year, things were very different prior to that watershed moment. In 2016, the year in which the novel is set, there was no existing asylum policy to support refugees despite the fact that Trinidad and Tobago has received more Venezuelans than any other country in terms of population percentage. Arrest, deportation and detention were constant fears for refugees, with the government maintaining a hard-line stance towards Venezuelans in hiding. Raids were conducted frequently on known Venezuelan “hotspots” and workplaces, refugees were given no access to protection or public services, and the criteria for anyone hoping to regularize their status were near impossible to meet.
It was in this tense, turbulent atmosphere that the stories of the Venezuelans in Trinidad came to my attention. First, through my work as a legal translator. The rapid spike in Venezuelan legal documents coming across my desk was the first sign of the Venezuelan influx. Then, the changing nature of the translation requests — beyond the standard certificates of birth, marriage, death and divorce, I began to see a new type of document with alarming regularity: powers of attorney granting custody of young children to family and friends in Trinidad. This is what stirred me to imagine how the everyday middle-class person copes with the steady crumbling of his or her homeland. What would I do to get my own child out of a country that is falling apart? How would that change the way people perceive my family and me? What new risks would be inherent in our daily lives that we would otherwise never be exposed to?
The second way in which the “Venezuelan situation” fixed itself firmly to the fore of my imagination was through plain sight. The streets, bars, offices, salons, groceries, malls and cinemas were steadily swelling with a whole new demographic. It was impossible not to notice. Equally impossible to ignore: the local response to the new ethnicity in our midst, to the Spanish ringing out alongside our own Trini dialect. That more than anything is what drove me to write this book. I couldn’t believe the prejudice, hostility and flagrant xenophobia expressed by so many of my fellow Trinidadians towards the wave of Latin migrants. The comments I’ve heard are as vicious and myopic as what you’d hear at any far-right rally against exactly the immigrant demographic Trinidadians usually fall within. The irony was absurd!
Thus One Year of Ugly took shape, and though the subject matter is heavy in that exile, exploitation and the collapse of Venezuela constitute major themes, I wrote the book as a comedic novel because there is nothing that makes even the heaviest subjects more accessible than humour. My rationale is that a comic approach to telling a difficult story will not only help humanize my characters, but that it will help the book reach those readers who might, for whatever reason, be put off by the more traditional immigrant narrative.
Then, of course, there is the other immeasurable value of comedy: it engenders hope. Laughter really is the proverbial panacea, and with the overarching message of One Year of Ugly being one of glass-half-full optimism, humour allows my characters to remain full of wry hope no matter how grim their circumstances. Humour is what helps my protagonist weather the many shit-storms that assail he
r family, and it is ultimately what teaches her the core lesson of her time in Trinidad: life will hit you for six but you’ve got to roll with the punches and suck the sweetness out of it however you can. The first step is finding a way to laugh at yourself and at whatever challenge you’re struggling through.
And so I hope readers will also have that takeaway from the novel — that you’ll come away from it with a renewed thirst for life, knowing that no matter what form of ugly crosses your path, there’s always a way to laugh through it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
You might never have met the Palacios family without Susan Armstrong, my wonderful agent. I am immeasurably grateful for the time and effort she put into this book. Not only did her shrewd editorial notes transform the manuscript but they helped me grow so much as a writer. The support from everyone at C&W, particularly Emma Finn who was instrumental in the editing process, has made this journey such a joy.
Heartfelt thanks to Zoe Sandler at ICM, who championed One Year of Ugly stateside and buoyed me with her enthusiasm for the Palacios’ story.
Thank you to my fantastic editors, Ann Bissell at The Borough Press and Dawn Davis at 37 Ink, together with their talented teams, for helping me to put the final polish on the manuscript. I cannot adequately express my gratitude for their belief that this story should be shared with the world and for making a lifelong dream a reality.
My husband, Stephen Mackenzie, was essential to the creation of this novel in so many ways: fuelling my creativity with endless nature excursions; providing ample inspiration for Yola and Román’s hot-and-heavy romance; listening for hours as I blabbed about every scene and character and plot challenge. He’s always been a believer in my words and the most supportive partner imaginable. Thank you. I love you.
I’m fortunate in that my life has been full of supportive friends and family. Kimberly Joseph, my best friend of two decades who found time to read, re-read and compile notes on three drafts of this manuscript during her daily commute. The brilliant Summer Hughes and incredibly talented author Breanne McIvor, who also read the earliest drafts of One Year of Ugly. These three women, the book’s very first audience, are who gave me the courage to put the manuscript out there.
I can’t fathom weathering the rocky road to publication without the support of my tight-knit little writing group comprised of Breanne, myself, and the poetic powerhouse Andre Bagoo. Their friendship has been critical to my development as a writer and to helping me produce this book.
Thank you to my in-laws, Lou Ann and Ken Mackenzie, who helped Stephen and I so much with our newborn son while I was completing my final edits. Without those extra hands, Ugly’s publication date might have been somewhere circa 2050.
In terms of building the real meat of the Palacios’ story, I must thank those Venezuelans living in Trinidad who spoke with me in such detail about their experiences. Without your willingness to discuss your challenges and those of your families and friends back home, this novel would be void of any depth or purpose. Thanks to your candour, I hope I was able to portray at least some small part of the hardships you have endured and continue to endure, and that anyone reading this book – particularly Trinidadians – will come to consider the plight of the Venezuelan people with greater compassion.
Lastly, the two people who started it all: my parents, Christian and Debbie de Verteuil, who nurtured my love of storytelling, literature and creativity in every possible way. My gratitude, love and respect for these two sensational human beings are boundless.
A final note on my mother, Debbie, whom I lost over a decade ago. She is the real inspiration for the overarching message of One Year of Ugly. I watched her spend her very short life yearning to pursue her artistic impulses but locked into the grind of nine-to-five employment – yet somehow, in spite of it all, she managed to slap on a smile and fill her children’s lives with laughter and lightheartedness. Seeing that, I refused to let life pass me by in a blur of commutes, complaints and soul-numbing work. It motivated me to write so that I could make people laugh, make people hope, make people think about what it would be like to step out of their comfort zones and pursue a dream that is just a little bit crazy.
So, to my mother: you are the person I am most grateful to above all, for inspiring the message of this book and for all of the happiness of my creative little life.
About the Author
CAROLINE MACKENZIE is a freelance translator living in her native Trinidad with her husband and son. She studied in the UK for four years on a National Open Scholarship, earning a BA in French and Spanish Studies from Sussex University and an MSc in Scientific, Medical and Technical Translation from Imperial College London. Upon returning to Trinidad, she began writing more extensively, with her short fiction appearing in literary publications around the world. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and in 2018 she was named the Short Fiction winner of the Small Axe Literary Competition. One Year of Ugly is her first novel.
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