by Laura Resau
Panic latches onto my throat. Why have my parents agreed so quickly? They know these mishus are thieves and liars. Don’t they understand that I might disappear like Zoyla and Gregoria?
I bite my lip. Maybe they want me to disappear. I whine and cry too much, and I always want to do everything myself and always my way. Just last week, Mamita threw up her arms in anger and snapped, Virginia, I’d be happy if one day you left and never came back. The words stayed in my head like rocks, too heavy to move out. That must be it. She wants me to leave forever.
Shaking, I press my face into Cheetah’s fur, breathing in her sweet-sour goat smell, wrapping my arms tightly around her.
Mamita hisses in Quichua, “Get your face out of that filthy animal’s fur. Or else we’ll eat it for lunch.”
I lift my head, but turn away from Mamita, keeping one hand on Cheetah, my fingers playing with her velvety ears.
Finally, my parents stand up and shake hands and agree that the next day I’ll go to Alfonso’s hacienda, and from there, I’ll leave with his son and daughter-in-law for the half-day truck ride to their town. Tomorrow I’ll be gone.
They walk down the dusty path, the woman tripping every few steps in her pointy high-heeled shoes. Without a word to me, Mamita goes inside to heat up soup for lunch, and Papito heads for the potato fields. The mishus grow smaller and smaller, and finally, on the next hill over, disappear into the big white house.
chapter 2
ALL AFTERNOON, the mishus’ truck bounces over rocks, around potholes, jerking us this way and that along mountain roads. Whenever another truck passes, I have to wind up the window fast so that the baby won’t breathe in the clouds of dust. On the way, the lady shouts at me over the wind. I understand some of the words in Spanish, and the rest I can more or less fill in. “Listen, longuita, you must call me Doctorita, because I’m a dentist, and a teacher, too.”
“Yes, señora,” I say, absorbed in watching her chin jiggle as she talks.
“Yes, Doctorita,” she corrects me. Her mouth opens wide and her chin jiggles extra hard.
“Yes, Doctorita,” I say.
“And you’re to call my husband Niño Carlitos.”
Niño is like Amo, or Patroncito—what indígenas call their mestizo bosses. “Señor Carlitos,” I whisper to myself defiantly.
“Say it,” she insists. “Niño Carlitos.”
“Niño Carlitos,” I mumble, wondering how soon I can get away from these people.
As we wind along the narrow mountain roads, I try to remember everything I can about what happened to my cousins Zoyla and Gregoria. I remember overhearing my aunt and uncle talking about it one day when liquor had made their faces red and damp and their tongues loose. “We asked those lying mishus what they did with our daughters,” my aunt said.
My uncle spat a glob of yellow phlegm by his feet. “And that misha copetona, Mariana, said our girls don’t care about their poor families and their filthy homes anymore.” Misha copetona means something like “mestiza lady with the ridiculous bun.” “She says they’re perfectly happy in their new lives.”
They each took another swig of liquor, and then my uncle kicked a stone and my aunt wiped her eyes and folded her hands in her lap.
As much as everyone grumbled about Alfonso and Mariana, no one ever stood up to them. “Why don’t you yell at them?” I asked Papito one day, thinking he had no trouble yelling at me and my brother and sisters and Mamita. His face stayed stony. “Because that’s where our money comes from.” Then he took a swig of puro and looked away.
I wonder what Zoyla’s and Gregoria’s lives are like now. A lump grows inside my throat and a creepy feeling spreads through my belly. I look out the window at the fields whizzing past and try to push the girls from my mind.
* * *
It’s dark by the time we arrive in these mishus’ town, which the Doctorita calls Kunu Yaku. I climb out of the truck, my dread mixed with curiosity. We go up a flight of rickety wooden stairs to the second floor; when I stumble, Niño Carlitos puts his hand at my back to make sure I don’t fall.
Inside, red velvet fills their apartment, spilling over two fat sofas and two big armchairs, the kind that look like they would be fun to jump on. It’s a red that makes me think of juicy berries one moment, and blood the next.
High up are two long windows, too far above my head to look through. Cross-stitched roses in plastic frames hang from the walls, and crocheted doilies are draped over every surface. A fern sits in the corner, and more plants dangle from the ceiling, a forest creeping into the house.
The apartment is one room, with a giant wooden wardrobe dividing the living room from the bedroom. I peek behind it, and my mouth drops open in pure delight. I’m face to face with a bed like a birthday cake topped with a fluffy icing-pink blanket with a white llama design, and two poufy pillows, all facing a glorious TV. I imagine myself sprawled on the pink blanket watching TV and eating watermelon.
The Doctorita breaks my reverie with a sharp “Longuita.” She taps her foot on a grubby piece of sheepskin next to the sofa. “You’ll sleep here, on the rug.” Then she points to a cardboard box with a folded-up blanket inside. The blanket is orange and turquoise, crocheted in a zigzag pattern. “Here you’ll put your clothes.”
That night, beneath my cheek, the gray sheepskin rug turns into Cheetah’s fur. I nuzzle my nose into her softness and when my tears come it doesn’t matter because Cheetah licks them off.
This is not the first time Mamita has given me away. But the first time was different. A couple of years ago, she gave me to an indígena woman named Marta. Only Marta wasn’t a poor field-worker like the rest of us. No, she was one of the rich indígenas, one who owned a two-story house and a TV and a truck. She was exactly the kind of business lady I’ve always dreamed of becoming, one who wears finely embroidered, shiny white blouses tucked into soft black anacos hemmed with silvery trim, and thick, gold-beaded necklaces. One who travels confidently to far-off lands, selling clothes and crafts to foreigners and tourists. When Mamita heard that Marta wanted a little girl as a compañera—a travel companion—she offered me.
On the day Mamita brought me to Marta’s house, Marta fed us juicy meat and asked, “You like television, Virginia?”
“I don’t know,” I said eagerly. “I’ve never seen one.”
Smiling, Marta led me upstairs, to a big box that held moving pictures of flashing lights and colors. A skinny rabbit, tall and gray, stood upright like a person, using his paws as hands to hold a carrot. He waved it around and talked and munched and let it dangle from his mouth like a cigarette. He had unbelievably huge feet and long ears, which were pink on the insides. And two front teeth that jutted out and made me laugh. He put his hands on his hips and stuck out his bottom, which sent me into a fit of giggles.
In dazed wonder, I stood in front of the box, holding my face close to the rabbit’s, running my fingers over the slippery glass, vaguely hearing Mamita’s far-off voice saying my name.
“Virginia,” Mamita shouted in my ear.
“Yes?” I said, keeping my gaze fixed on the TV.
“Look at me.”
I turned my head. Her frown was deeper than usual.
“I’m leaving now,” she said.
I nodded, eager to get back to watching the rabbit.
Mamita looked at me long and hard. I wanted her to hurry and leave. It occurred to me that she might be sad, but I didn’t think about it too much because the flashing colors were calling to me.
“Goodbye, Virginia,” she said. “Behave with these people. Obey them. They will treat you well. You’ll be fine.”
“Goodbye, Mamita.”
She left, and I watched TV until dark, and then, when my eyelids were starting to droop, Marta showed me my bed. It had a thick, soft mattress. Lying on it felt exactly how floating on a falling leaf would feel.
Early the next morning, I woke up and skipped downstairs to have breakfast. I was in the middle of sipping sugary co
ffee and chewing delicious bread, as fluffy as the pillow I’d slept on, when someone knocked on the door. Boom boom boom. Loud, frantic knocking. Boom boom boom.
Mamita rushed in, breathless and red-faced and sweating, her chest heaving. Her eyes were wild and panicked, and when she spotted me, she ran over and snatched my hand.
“I’m sorry,” Mamita said to Marta. Her voice cracked. “I can’t give her to you.”
“Why?” Marta asked.
Mamita’s face looked heavy, her shoulders weighed down. “I would rather my daughter live in my home, as poor as it is.” Her voice was unusually soft. “Let’s go, Virginia.”
Slowly, I gathered my little sack of clothes and said goodbye and thank you, wishing I’d finished the bread and the coffee, because it would be nothing but potato soup at home. I took one last look up the stairs where the TV was still sleeping, and then followed Mamita outside into the bright morning light. I squinted up at her. “Mamita, why didn’t you let me stay there?”
She looked straight ahead, her face set firmly in its usual frown. “You’re my daughter. How could you think I’d send you away?”
Without talking, we rode back home to Yana Urku.
Judging by the rug I’m sleeping on, I have a feeling these mishus won’t treat me as well as Marta did. Marta might have had more money than my family, but she was still one of us. An indígena. She would never have called me a longa.
If Mamita changed her mind about leaving me with someone as kind as Marta, then of course she’ll change her mind about these mishus. In the morning, my mother will come for me, pounding on the door, her face full of wild, confused love, and she’ll say, “I’ve come to get my daughter. How could I give away my daughter?”
I tell myself this, over and over, until dawn comes, and a patch of weak morning sunlight seeps through the high-up windows. The lady and the man start yawning, talking, shifting in bed. I jump up, smooth my hair into a ponytail and wrap it in a ribbon. I wind my anaco and faja around my waist, making sure my blouse is tucked in neatly. I want to be ready when Mamita comes.
The Doctorita starts clanking around in the kitchen, blending together bananas and sugar and milk in a mixer that shrieks like the wind. Somehow, the baby, Jaimito, is sleeping through the racket.
“Pay attention, Virgina,” she says, “because soon you’ll be doing the cooking.” She shows me how much water to add for her husband’s rice. “One, two,” she says. One jiggle, two jiggles.
She sits down at the table across from Niño Carlitos. They eat from white china plates rimmed with little red flowers. Carved vines weave up the handles of their silverware. She points out a gray metal plate and cup and a dented spoon. “Those are what you use. You are not to eat off our dishes.”
The Doctorita downs a glass of banana milk, then pours another. “Make sure we have everything we need and then you may sit down. And if you see our glasses are low with juice, hop up and ask if we want more.”
When I see her glass empty, I hop up, playing the part for now, until Mamita comes. “More, Doctorita?”
“Yes.”
“And eggs and rice, too?” I ask in broken Spanish.
“No,” she says.
For the first time Niño Carlitos pipes up. “La Negra’s watching her figure,” he says, and reaches over to pat the mounds of flesh spilling from her waistband.
La Negra. The Black Woman. But she isn’t black. Her skin is the same cinnamon-tea color as mine, a shade darker than most mestizos’ skin.
The Doctorita frowns. Then she drinks two more glasses of sugary banana milk and eats three sweet rolls, her chin jiggling as she chews. “See how she’s watching her figure?” Niño Carlitos says, winking at me.
She shoots him a sharp look and glances at my half-eaten food. “Hurry up. Carlos and I have to be at work soon and I have a lot to show you first.”
I stuff the rest of the bread in my mouth and gulp down the banana milk shake, which tastes sour and hits my stomach gurgling. Where is Mamita?
“Let’s go.” The Doctorita snatches my dishes, piling them on top of the others. “I’ll show you where to wash the dishes.” She waddles down the stairs and onto a cement patio enclosed on all sides by other apartments. In front of a concrete sink, she stops and sets down the dishes. “One. Two. Three,” she says, showing me how much soap powder to add and how many cupfuls of water to use for rinsing. “Three times, you hear, longa? And don’t talk to anyone while you’re out here.”
I wash the dishes quickly, because I don’t want to miss it when Mamita comes banging on the door. Back inside, the Doctorita shows me how to make the bed, how many times to fold back the sheet. “One. Two. Three. Now, pay attention, longa.”
And then come her rules, slow at first like drops of rain at the start of a storm, then more and more, pelting my skin until I want to dive under a bush for cover.
1) You may not sit on our bed.
2) You may not touch the television except to clean it.
3) Or the stereo.
4) You may not sit on the red chairs.
5) Or the sofa.
I stare at the Doctorita’s face jiggling with rule after rule, not paying too much attention because soon Mamita will come and I will be far away from this place. But for rule eleven, my ears prick up anyway.
11) You may not open this drawer.
She taps her fingers on a small drawer in the wardrobe.
“Yes, Doctorita,” I say, curious about what’s inside.
And then she leads me to Jaimito, who is sleeping peacefully in his crib as she spews out more rules that I mostly ignore.
17) You must not let my son touch anything dirty.
22) You must change his diapers the moment they’re wet.
On and on she rambles in a voice as shrill as the electric blender.
Meanwhile, Niño Carlitos stands over the kitchen trash can, moving a little machine over his face as tiny pieces of hair fall onto the banana peels. I watch in interest and horror. My father and uncles don’t have hair on their faces. Maybe these mestizos have to secretly cut off their hairs with little machines to keep from turning into hairy monsters.
I glance at the door, willing it to start shaking from the pounding of Mamita’s desperate fists. No pounding, only the buzz of Niño Carlitos’s little machine, and the click of the Doctorita’s heels on the tile as she rushes around, and the swish of the faucets she turns on and off, and her voice, laying out rule after rule like stones in a wall for my life here.
Mamita, where are you?
chapter 3
ONCE THEY LEAVE, the house is silent except for the tick-tick-tick of a clock and Jaimito’s soft, sleepy breathing. I sit on the sofa and listen to the clock cutting up moments so that time stretches out forever. I watch the door, waiting for Mamita’s knocking. When that doesn’t happen, I make a few tentative bounces on the sofa.
Then I bounce harder and higher until I get giggly and breathless, my heart beating like crazy for already disobeying one of the zillion rules. I wander around the apartment, brushing my hands over the mestizo things—shelves of books, framed photos of the baby and Niño Carlitos and the Doctorita when she looked thinner and her hair was long and glossy.
I stop in front of the TV screen, which reflects my face like a black mirror. With a shivery thrill, I press a button, and the TV comes to life. Then I turn a big knob to change the channels. Little dots of color and light move around, news and talk shows, but no cartoons. I turn the TV off, then bounce on the bed, so high my fingers touch the ceiling, and it feels, for a moment, like I am flying.
Agile as a goat, I leap onto the tile floor, beside the wardrobe, smack in front of the forbidden drawer. My fingers graze the smooth wood and cool brass handle, then clutch it and pull.
Locked. Too bad.
Well, that covers rules one, two, four, five, and a good effort at rule eleven. Rule three next. You may not touch the stereo. It takes me a few minutes to figure out how to turn it on, but soon liv
ely cumbia music fills the room, music that makes you want to dance around.
So that’s what I do until Jaimito wakes up smiling and chattering in baby talk. “Bababa. Gagaga.” He’s a cute little boy, maybe a year old, with a chubby pink face and a halo of wispy soft hair the color of corn silk. I take off his wet diaper and drop it in a white painted basket with the other dirty diapers. “Hello, handsome. Want your diaper changed?”
“Bababa,” he says, laughing. “Gagaga.”
“Oh, really?” I pull a clean one from the neat stack, but I can’t remember how the Doctorita folded the diaper and pinned it on him. I try a few different ways, but none seems right. Meanwhile, Jaimito is squirming around like a crazy puppy.
Quickly, I tie the cloth around his waist the way we do in Yana Urku, the way I’ve done with Hermelinda and Manuelito. I wrap it around him like a skirt that skims his ankles and then secure it at the waist with a piece of string. He seems happy crawling around in it, the fabric dragging behind him. As he crawls, his diaper cleans the floor, picking up bits of dust and hair and pulling it along like a little mop.
All morning, we build forts with the sofa cushions and play Tarzan and Cheetah. Jaimito crawls around the floor like a real savage and pees in little puddles that I wipe up with a towel from the kitchen. Hmmm. This diaper style probably works best when the babies are crawling outside and their pee just soaks into the dirt. After a while, we’re tired out, and he’s sitting in the middle of the floor sucking on banana skins with banana smeared all over his face, like a messy gorilla. I arrange the cushions back on the sofa even though the Doctorita hasn’t included No cushion forts as one of the rules.
I finish just as a key scrapes in the lock. The door swings open and the Doctorita stands motionless, staring openmouthed at Jaimito.
He crawls toward her in his long white diaper skirt. “Gagaga!”