The Queen of Water

by Laura Resau

  Mamita looks up from the simmering tea and stares at me, her wooden spoon frozen in midair.

  Before she has a chance to not recognize me, Papito says, “It’s Virginia.”

  “Ñuka guagua,” she murmurs, like a birdcall. “Ñuka guagua.” In a flash, the meaning comes to me—my daughter, my girl; it’s what she would say with pride when I gave neighbors a spiritual cleaning with herbs. My daughter, she can do it. “Ñuka guagua,” she says, in tears.

  Five children kneel on the floor near the cooking pot, looking at me with big, scared eyes. When I smile at them, they cover their faces with their hands and run to the corner, where they huddle as far from me as possible. They’re filthy, barefoot, their skin caked in dirt, their hair a wild mess.

  “Buenas tardes,” I say.

  They say nothing, just peek at me between fingers.

  My father says in Spanish, “These are your cousins and brother and sister, Virginia.”

  The two oldest must be Hermelinda and Manuelito. They would be the right ages. I swallow hard, searching their eyes for some glimmer of recognition. Nothing.

  Mamita clears off a space on a bed and motions for me to sit down. I hesitate, sure there are fleas or bedbugs crawling around in the wool and woven reeds. But there is nowhere else to sit, no sofa, no chair. If I were an indígena guest, they would spread an estera of woven grass on the ground and offer me a seat there. But I’m not one of them. I perch on the edge of the bed.

  Mamita motions to her stomach and mimes eating.

  I shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”

  She goes outside, gesturing for me to follow her. At the side of the house, she grabs one of the chickens rooting around in the torn paper wrappers and cracked plastic bottles and dirty diapers strewn in the weeds. Unceremoniously, she snaps the chicken’s neck. When I was little, we ate meat only on special occasions. I tell myself I should feel happy she considers my arrival worthy of a chicken sacrifice.

  Back inside, she makes chicken and potato soup and speaks to me in Quichua. I try to decipher the words, but they run together like a gurgling stream, and when she asks me a question, I shake my head and shrug. Api—soup—is the only word I remember. Slowly, the children approach me, asking me questions in Quichua, which I can’t answer. They dare each other to touch me. One after another scurries forward and pokes at my loose hair and then scampers off to the others, giggling.

  Mamita serves me first, giving me the biggest piece of chicken and the biggest potato from the soup, what I yearned for so much as a little girl. We sit around the fire and eat, the children kneeling on the floor, my father on one stool, and me on the other. As a little girl, I longed to be given the honor of the stool, but now I just feel too tall and awkward, with these children staring and whispering about me from below. I can only pick out the word mishu in their whispers. Mestiza. My siblings and cousins think I am a mestiza. And why wouldn’t they? I’m dressed as a mestiza and I don’t speak their language and they have to notice how uncomfortable I feel in this dirty house.

  Mamita has given up on making conversation with me, and she slurps her soup in silence. Papito asks me a few questions in his broken Spanish, which I answer with a few words. I wish I had a spoon and knife and fork. They sip their soup directly from the bowl and eat the chicken with their hands. I want a napkin for my greasy fingers, or a table to put the bowl on so I won’t have to balance it clumsily on my knees. The hem of my best dress is already coated in dust and grime.

  Earlier, my mother gave me a glass of water, but I didn’t touch it, worried she hadn’t boiled the water first. Under a microscope, a drop of it would probably look worse than the swamp water I secretly examined in the Doctorita’s lab. The water in my glass has to be swimming with microbes, judging by the children’s skinny limbs and swollen bellies, signs of amoebic infections.

  After the soup, I offer to help wash the dishes, but Mamita says no, motioning that she and the children will do it. She says something to my father in Quichua and he translates: “Why don’t you walk around the pastures, where you used to go with the cows?”

  I nod, a little hurt that they want me out of the house already, but mostly relieved to have a break from them. I grab my notebook and a pen and head down the road. On the way to the pasture, my good shoes become completely coated with mud. Everyone I pass stares at me from a distance and then, as we grow closer, looks down at their feet and mumbles buenas tardes, señorita in heavily accented Spanish. After they pass, I feel them sneak glimpses back at me and whisper to each other.

  I veer off the road, onto a path through the eucalyptus grove, down into the green canyon, to the little stream where I used to look for watercress when I was hungry. I sit on a rock at the water’s edge, listen to its murmuring and the insects’ humming, feeling utterly alone. What would I do in this place?

  I open my notebook and begin writing a story about a girl named Soledad. Her name means Aloneness.

  The heart-wrenching story of Soledad starts one year before she was born, when her mother—a poor, beautiful woman—was seduced in the moonlight by a rich, handsome man. Later, when she told him she was pregnant with their child, he abandoned her, tossing her away like a picked-clean chicken bone. The baby was born with a coating of moonlight stuck to her skin, and she was named Soledad. As her mother slaved away as a servant, little Soledad wandered the pastures, trailing moon glimmer, side by side with her only friend, the cow. Without so much as a sister to keep her company, Soledad felt as though she were the only girl in the universe, leaving behind tears like comets, much as her beloved cow left behind trails of manure as part of the carbon cycle. …

  I’m deep into Soledad’s story, which is going to be juicier than any soap opera, when Manuelito appears at the edge of the eucalyptus grove, shouts something in Quichua, and then runs away. That’s when I realize it’s already dusk and the crickets are chirping and the air is growing chilly. With heavy feet, I walk uphill to my family’s shack.

  My parents sleep on one bed and I sleep on the other, along with my brother and sister. In and out of sleep I drift, wakened every so often by Manuelito’s and Hermelinda’s snoring, by the biting fleas, by the scuttling of little creatures beneath the bed, which I hope are guinea pigs but suspect are rats. I ask myself: Where do you want to live? Do you want to live free and poor and covered in flea welts? Or enslaved, with your own clean room and a shower with hot water? Who are you, Virginia? Who are you, really? And as I fade in and out of dreams, that wind music carries me through memories and valleys and over mountains and then it changes into my own voice, my spunky, five-year-old voice belting out, Stand tall, little radish flower. Stand tall.

  When I was a little girl, I would go to the bakery, and the owners—two sisters—would tell me to sing for them. I sang the Rabanito song, about a purple radish flower standing tall and proud in the wind. They laughed and clapped and said, How vivísima this girl is! and gave me a free warm roll as a reward.

  Maybe that’s what I need to do now, muster up everything that was ever vivísima about me and somehow find a way to stand tall.

  chapter 29

  ON SATURDAY MORNING, I leave with my whole family for Quito by bus, along with cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. We’re loaded down with sacks of food for Matilde’s wedding feast—corn and potatoes and squirming guinea pigs, their squeaking barely muffled by the bag. Santiago’s family lives just outside of Quito, and their house is full of activity, people preparing for the wedding.

  In the yard, small groups of indígena women are stirring steaming pots of beans and chicken broth over fires, and peeling an enormous mountain of potatoes. I help peel, waving the stinging smoke from my eyes as the women talk and joke in Quichua, ignoring me. Mamita is busy butchering guinea pigs in a swarm of flies under a tree. After slitting the creatures’ throats, she lowers the barely dead carcasses into boiling water, then tears off their fur. With deft hands, she slices open their bellies, pulls out their goopy organs,
and washes their flesh in a bucket so they’re ready for roasting. Meanwhile, Matilde is overseeing the arrangement of balloons and flowers. I’ve hardly seen her all day. I retreat into the imaginary world of Soledad, inventing more twists and turns to her story, eager to write it all down before I forget.

  The next day, the wedding day, I wear my other favorite dress, a light blue one with pleats that fall just below my knees and narrow sleeves that stop at my elbows. I polish my good shoes as best I can; although they’re scuffed from my walk to the pasture, most of the dried mud comes off. Outside the church, I’m adrift in a sea of anacos and gold beads and blue ponchos; only a few other people are dressed like mestizos. I follow Mamita and Papito around as they speak with guests. When people glance at me curiously and question Mamita in Quichua, she motions to me and explains, I suppose, that I’m her long-lost daughter. Then they smile sympathetically and nod while I fiddle nervously with the sash of my dress.

  Inside the church, pink and white flowers and balloons abound. My sister looks like a big cloud in her white gown with poufy sleeves and long train. Santiago wears white pants, a white shirt, blue poncho, and a stiff new sombrero. I can see only their backs as the pastor speaks to them, in Spanish, for which I am grateful.

  “Today,” he booms, “you will leave your families and form a new family of your own.” He turns to my parents and siblings and me. “Best of wishes to you. Your daughter and sister—a part of you—will go far from you. She will be yours but no longer yours.”

  And I start bawling, because she never really was mine, was she? None of them were, and none of them are now.

  * * *

  After the ceremony, we take buses to the reception hall and wait outside as the banquet food is laid out. I lean against a tree, wishing I could climb it and hide in the branches. Even the Doctorita’s house would be better than here. Her family needs me; her boys love me. There I’m useful. There I can speak the language. I look at the crowd gathered around Matilde and Santiago, talking excitedly in Quichua. Santiago catches my eye, excuses himself, and walks over to me.

  “How do you feel, Virginia? Now that you’re finally home with your family?” He looks at me with his mouth half-open in concern, as though he really wants to know.

  “To tell the truth, Santiago, I feel out of place.” There, I’ve said it, what’s already obvious. “I want to go home. To the Doctorita’s home. And I’m dreading the next few days, when everyone gets drunk and fights. That’s what I remember about fiestas when I was a little girl. My father getting drunk and angry and hitting us.”

  Santiago plucks a leaf from the tree, turns it over in his fingers. “Did you know that your father’s father was a slave to the mestizos? His boss could whip him with a leather soga for something as simple as not addressing him with enough respect. Your father watched his own father be punished this way. He was probably whipped this way himself.”

  “I didn’t know,” I say, conscious of the scars from the time my father hung me from the rafters and beat me with a soga. Every day I see the scars when I sit on the edge of my bed after my shower and rub cream on my legs. The lines crisscross my calves, shiny, a different texture from the rest of my skin. Now I can feel them, an old, throbbing ache.

  I wonder, could a man feel so powerless in the world that he looks in smaller places for power … power over his children and wife? Could a man do to his children what the mestizos did to him? And could this go on and on in a chain, like baking soda and carbon dioxide reacting in my volcano, bubbling over with bloodred dye?

  Matilde’s voice rings across the grass. “Santiago! Come on!”

  He squeezes my hand and jogs over to her. I spot my father, waiting in a line to enter the hall, and I slip my hand in his.

  “I’m glad you’re home, m’hijita,” Papito says. He seems more tender than I remembered. Still gruff, still a man of few words, but now I see flickers of something like love. He’s a jagged rock worn smooth by years of water currents, and if the light is right, hidden bits of goodness glint like mica. I lean against his wool poncho. “Papito, can I come inside your poncho?” As a little girl, I secretly wanted to do this.

  He nods, and I lift the poncho and duck underneath and lean my head against his chest, and it feels cozy and dark and warm. I like blocking out the rest of the world, muffling all the chatter I can’t understand. I like the smell of wool and wood smoke. He holds me against him. I think of Niño Carlitos and how when he touches me it feels terrible, even though he calls me daughter too. But my father’s touch, his hug, feels right. As though I could forgive everything and dwell in this singular moment, in the warmth he’s offering me now, the warmth of a father who loves his daughter.

  “Are you all right, m’hijita?”

  “Yes.” I feel his heart beat against my ear. “Papi, if I leave the Doctorita’s house, will you always protect me? Will you make sure that no one hurts me? Will you always love me?”

  He pats my back. “You’re my daughter. Of course I’ll protect you.”

  And these words make me feel warm, even though I know that really, I’m the one who will have to protect myself. But here under this poncho, for this moment, I let myself sink into this feeling.

  It is inside this safe space that I decide I will try.

  I will try to leave the Doctorita and Niño Carlitos forever. I will try to build a new life for myself in Yana Urku with my family. And even though part of me still aches and rages over the way my parents carelessly gave away my childhood, I will try, somehow, to love them again. Most of all, I will try to figure out who I am and who I might someday become.

  At Niño Carlitos and the Doctorita’s house, with my family standing behind me, I take a breath and ring the bell. It’s Thursday. Niño Carlitos was expecting me to return on Monday. But Monday slipped away and I stayed with my family in Quito, eating my fill of guinea pig stew with Santiago’s family and the other guests. Mamita and Papito drank plenty of puro, but thankfully stopped before the fighting started. And then Tuesday passed, and on Wednesday we took a bus back to Yana Urku.

  And now it is Thursday, and here I am, three days late. Niño Carlitos will be furious. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I’m not coming back here to stay; that’s my decision, and I have to stick to it. Unless, a little voice in me says. Unless he apologizes and begs me to stay, then maybe.

  I quiet that voice, wondering if I should have come here at all today. My parents and Matilde and Santiago wanted to come without me and pick up my things and tell Niño Carlitos I would never return. But I insisted on coming, too. I want to see the boys one last time and say goodbye properly and make sure I get all my clothes and other belongings. That’s my excuse, at least, but secretly I’ve felt reassured knowing that at the last minute I can still change my mind.

  Niño Carlitos answers the door. He doesn’t greet us, just demands, “Why weren’t you here three days ago?”

  “Good afternoon,” I say. I wait for him to invite us in, but he stands blocking the door.

  “So, where were you?” Niño Carlitos asks, barely glancing at my family.

  “The party lasted all week.”

  “Well, I hope you’re happy. There was no one here to cook or look after the boys. And meanwhile, la Negra had the baby. Now say goodbye to these people and get inside.”

  And suddenly, my last flecks of doubt disappear. Suddenly, I believe in my decision with absolute certainty, a certainty that thrums through every cell in my body. “I’m leaving with my parents.”

  He hesitates. “Come inside. We’ll talk.” But he does not invite us to sit down, so we stand awkwardly in the living room.

  The Doctorita is lying on the sofa. Her belly is still swollen from childbirth and her hair disheveled and her face weary without makeup. “Well? What took you so long?” She doesn’t even acknowledge my family, just gives me a sour look.

  “I’m leaving with my parents. Forever.”

  If she had the strength to throw something at me, I’
m sure she would. “Ungrateful longa! After all these years we’ve taken care of you, given you food, raised you. I offered you that school diploma. You’re a fool to give that up.”

  I speak softly. “For many years you’ve offered to get me the diploma. I don’t think you’ll ever give it to me.”

  “It’s just that I was too busy, but now it’s all set. If you stay I can get it for you right away. Next week.”

  I stare at her. “I don’t think so.”

  “What are you going to do there anyway, in that pigsty? Live with the animals? It’s filthy there.”

  I say nothing.

  “Fine, get your things. And take your blanket and sheets with you. Now that a longa’s used them all these years, they’re contaminated. I’d just throw them out. Go now, quickly, so I don’t have to look at you anymore.”

  I walk out of the room. Stand tall, little radish flower. I keep my head high. I stop by the kitchen and get a garbage bag from under the sink, then head upstairs and stuff my clothes and the blanket and sheets in the bag, not bothering to fold anything.

  Back downstairs, the Doctorita is writing something on a piece of paper. “Before you leave, sign this.”

  “Why?”

  “Just sign it, before you make me angrier.”

  I read the paper.

  I, María Virginia Farinango, am leaving this house of my own will, feeling very grateful, because my bosses have treated me very well, and I was very happy living with them all these years. They gave me food and clothes and an education and I’m very grateful and have nothing bad to say about them.

  I look up. “But this isn’t true.”

  She folds her arms. “Sign the paper.”

  “But—”

  “You’re not leaving until you sign.”

  “I don’t think—”