by Laura Resau
“You’re so lucky, Virginia!” they say when they visit me at the hotel, ogling the indoor garden and skylight and elegant furniture. “It’s so cool to hang out here with all these gringuitos.” Don Walter lets us study and practice dances there, and the gringuitos watch and clap for us. With my friends over, I notice how fluidly I move around my home, weaving through tables, greeting our foreign guests by name and even dropping some hellos in English or French or German. Sometimes, when students come over to work on group assignments, they assume that Don Walter is my father, that this is my family’s hotel. “Your father is so nice!” they say, and I just smile and nod.
I almost begin to believe that he is my father. On my occasional visits home, when I catch sight of Papito—usually from a distance, when he’s off in a field—he looks like a stranger. Every time I see him, it’s startling to remember that he’s my real father. When he takes off his boots, I stare at his feet, with their long toes—bigger and older echoes of my own—and I wonder how I could be related to this man. To him or Mamita. I help her cook soup, chopping the potatoes and onions, just wanting to get the visit over with so I can go back to the hotel and school, places where I’m comfortable.
But if I’m honest with myself, maybe I’m not really comfortable there, either. At nights, in my little room in the basement, I lie awake with my stomach aching and wonder what would happen if my friends found out who I really am. Which makes me ask myself, Who are you, really?
chapter 33
ONE SUNNY DAY AFTER SCHOOL, Sonia and I are outside the colegio gates, eating popcorn and waiting for Esperanza and Carmen. Cars and buses pass in clouds of exhaust, and clusters of students walk by carrying steaming food bought from vendors along the street. I’m in the middle of a story about our cute math teacher when Sonia reaches out and touches my hair, which hangs loose to my waist.
All the other girls’ hair is shoulder length, or chin length, or down to midback; no one’s hair is anywhere near as long as mine. This is the last remnant of indigenousness I’ve hung on to. And somehow, even though I’ve cut bangs and permed my hair over the years, I haven’t been able to chop it off.
Sonia runs her fingers through my hair. “Your hair is so pretty, Virginia! It’s so long!”
“Thanks,” I say, stiffening a little. Something in her voice puts me on guard.
“Virginia”—she tilts her head and studies my face—“are you indígena?” She says it as though it can’t possibly be true, but maybe, just maybe, it is.
Nervous sweat trickles from my armpits. “Why do you ask?” I manage to say through my closed-up throat.
“Mestizas don’t have such long hair. Only indígenas.”
Why didn’t I just cut off my hair before school started? Is this the one tiny thing that will give me away and ruin the rest of my life?
Finally, in a soft voice, I say, “Yes. I’m indígena.”
Sonia stares at me, stunned. It takes her a while to find words. The silence is torturous. “Then why do you dress like a mestiza?”
I shrug. “I just—I don’t know. I just like to dress this way.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, Esperanza and Carmen run up and steal our popcorn, giggling. Sonia tries to grab it back and soon they’re all squealing and I force myself to laugh with them, but really I feel like crying. And before I have to listen to Sonia tell the others my secret, I mumble something about having promised one of the gringuitas I’d help her with her Spanish. I walk away, sure that will be the last time we’ll ever laugh together.
It’s dark and the clock says three-thirty a.m. and it feels like someone is stabbing a sword through my stomach. I toss and turn, desperately trying to sleep, but I can’t stop imagining Sonia telling everyone I’m a dirty Indian. Tomorrow in school no one will want to come near me for fear of catching indígena germs. My friends will no longer invite me to their houses and let me sit on their sofas and eat off their plates. They will order me to bring them lemonade. The teachers will tell me I have no right to study there, that longas aren’t allowed in their school.
Of course, if I think about it rationally, they’d probably assume I was one of the middle-class indígenas, not a poor longa. Still, my mind can’t help spiraling into fear. It’s as if the thousands of times the Doctorita called me a dirty longa are being stirred up into a whirlwind of old, painful insults. It all comes back to me: how she made me use separate dishes, and wouldn’t let me sit on the bed and watch TV with the rest of the family, how she said with disgust that I’d contaminated the blankets, and told me I was no better than a stray dog in heat. No matter how much I tell myself that my friends would never call me dirty names, I feel buried under the Doctorita’s insults.
The next morning, in the bathroom, I hold a pair of scissors to my hair, right at chin level. My plan is to cut it and say I was just joking about being indígena. See, I’ll say, I’m mestiza or else I wouldn’t have cut my hair. Not a great plan, but my only hope to keep my life from being ruined. I squeeze the scissors and cut off one thin strand. It’s long, longer than my arm. My science book says that hair grows at a rate of one centimeter per month. I have five years of hair in my hand. Where was I when those strands of hair were first sprouting from my head? What was I doing at that precise moment?
Five years ago I would have been about eleven years old, living in Kunu Yaku, with Niño Carlitos and the Doctorita. Maybe I was being beaten or insulted. Maybe I was stealing food with Jaimito. Maybe I was washing Andrecito’s diapers. Maybe I was running as fast as I could around the fountain and through the town square with a bag of eggs to deliver to the Doctorita. Somehow, it feels sad to cut off all those years. They’re a part of me; they made me what I am now.
I think of my dreams when I was a little girl, dreams of becoming a rich indígena with long hair wrapped in a fancy ribbon. I think of the tourists at the hotel, who tell me I’m beautiful. What if my hair is the thing that makes me beautiful? What if this piece of me that is still indígena is actually a good thing?
I put down the scissors and start working the comb through my damp hair, untangling the knots, a process that takes a long time.
At school, I walk through the gates, conscious of my hair swinging behind me and, despite reason, bracing myself for a crowd to begin taunting, Longa, dirty Indian. But by the pink rosebushes where we always meet, Carmen spots me and calls out, “Virginia! ¡Hola!” and Esperanza and Sonia wave hi too, all bright and smiling. Esperanza drapes her arm around my shoulder, saying, “¡Hola, chica! Cool bracelet!” and Sonia says, “Hey! Can you help me with this science homework?” No one says a word about me being indígena. Has Sonia told them? Do they just not care? Or did Sonia somehow miraculously forget about it?
Later, in homeroom, Sonia passes me a tightly folded note, and I think, This is it. She’s going to say we can’t be friends anymore. My hands shaking, I open the note.
Hola, chica! I need your advice. Jorge’s been flirting with me like crazy, but I only like him as a friend! Help!!! Can we hang together after school???
Hugs!!!
Sonia
I glance over at her. She smiles, and I search for a trace of sarcasm or scorn or disgust, but as hard as I look, I find none. Beyond all comprehension, she doesn’t seem to care if I am a mestiza or an indígena. She sees only Virginia.
Eventually, Sonia mentions my secret to Carmen and Esperanza. They’re full of questions. I become their personal indígena expert, their window into a foreign world. They ask how to say things in Quichua, and are disappointed when I explain I know only a few words. They’re disappointed, too, that I don’t have any indígena clothes to let them dress up in, not even a gold-painted bead necklace. After a few days, the novelty wears off, and they seem to forget about it. I go back to being the same old Virginia.
My friends love me for being me. To them, I am Virginia the scientist and singer and dancer and star student and advice giver. To them, the indígena piece is just another part of me, somet
hing that even seems to add a little allure.
But not everyone in Ecuador sees it that way. Everywhere are reminders of this.
The next week, at the Parque Bolívar, I’m sitting on a bench in the shade, watching some children play by the fountain. I’m ten minutes early to meet Sonia for a study session, and as I wait, I can’t help but overhear the boisterous laughter of two men. A man with a big red nose is telling the jokes and two younger men are laughing at them.
“When a mestizo is drowning,” he says, “you throw a life preserver at him. When a longo is drowning, you throw stones at him.”
I swallow hard and try to let the kids’ shouts stomp out the men’s voices.
The other men laugh and slap their knees. “Good one.”
The big-nosed man smiles, gathering fuel for the next joke. “If a mestizo goes to a brothel, he’s looking for pleasure. If a longo goes, he’s looking for his sister.”
More laughter.
My face burns.
He keeps going. “If a mestizo is running, he’s an athlete. If a longo is running, he’s a thief.”
I am shaking now, shaking and sweating, and the tears are sizzling off my eyes. I stand up and walk away, as tall as I can, even though my legs are quivering. Behind me, as much as I don’t want to hear, their voices travel over the water’s pounding.
“If a mestizo is coughing, he has a cold. If a longo is coughing, he has tuberculosis.”
They laugh in loud, violent barks. On the other side of the fountain, I sit on a bench and bite my lip and dig my fingernails into my palms. I try not to care, but even though the men are out of sight, their words are everywhere, in the chatter of everyone, in the tumbling water.
For her birthday, Esperanza invites me and Sonia and Carmen to her family’s country club. She loves going to the club, even though she makes fun of the snobs who go there by sneering and strutting around with her nose twitching high in the air. At her house, I’ve seen framed pictures of other birthdays she’s had at the club. There’s a big, beautiful pool with turquoise water surrounded by trees with huge orange and red flowers like upside-down bells. White lounge chairs encircle the pool, and people wear sunglasses and sip Coca-Cola in their bathing suits.
I beg Walter for extra hours of work so I can afford a bathing suit. A week before the party, I find one—red with white flowers—on sale. I try it on in my room in the hotel basement and stand on the bed so I can see myself in the small mirror. My thighs don’t look fat. They look muscular, from dance practice. I actually look good. I put my hand on the curve of my waist and feel the smooth, stretchy fabric and imagine us girls sipping our Coca-Colas in lounge chairs and then dipping our toes in the water and floating around luxuriously.
I buy Carmen a gold hair clip with little fake diamonds. It sits on top of my folded bathing suit, wrapped in shiny pink paper topped with a silver bow. Just looking at it gives me tingles.
After school on Friday, the day before the party, Esperanza rolls her eyes and says, “Just to warn you, chicas, my obnoxious little sister will be there. And my mother says we have to let her hang out with us. So watch what you say in front of her.”
Esperanza can’t stand her little sister. She’s like a short, bratty spy. Everything we talk about in front of her goes straight back to their parents. Last month, after Esperanza’s mother found out about her crush on the neighbor’s son, she wouldn’t leave them alone together for two seconds.
Carmen groans. “Can’t your maid keep your sister entertained?”
“Maids aren’t allowed in the club.”
“Why not?”
“Some dumb rule. The idiots in charge think the indígenas don’t have good hygiene or something. Like they’ll make the pool dirty.”
I want to die.
I want to melt and disappear into the sidewalk.
I want to dissolve into a zillion particles and float far, far away.
“Idiots,” Carmen says.
Sonia looks at me. I see in her eyes that she’s just remembered who I really am. One of the indígenas who might have bad hygiene. Who might make the pool dirty. She reaches out and strokes my long, long hair, then links her elbow in mine.
“Idiots,” she says.
All night my stomach aches. I look at the present and the bathing suit on the chair in the corner. Now they give me a sick, panicked feeling. What if the people at the club can tell I’m indígena? What if they let all the other girls in but send me home? Or what if I’m swimming and they realize I’m indígena and they clear out the pool and empty out all the water because I made it dirty? What if Esperanza’s family gets kicked out of the club because of me? Or what if people just laugh at me and crack jokes about throwing stones?
The next morning, bleary-eyed and doubled over in pain, I call Esperanza. I don’t know if she’s made the connection between me being indígena and her maid being indígena and the club’s rules. All I know is that there’s no way I can go to this party.
“Esperanza, I have a terrible stomachache today. I can’t come.”
“But Virginia, it won’t be any fun without you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Can’t you take some medicine?”
“No, chica. Medicine won’t fix this.”
A long sigh. Some sniffs. Is she crying? “We’ll miss you,” she says finally. “Call me later and tell me how you’re doing, okay?”
“Okay. Happy birthday.” And I hang up fast because now the tears are coming. I walk downstairs, slowly, a little bent over from the pain, and go into my dark room. I change into the bathing suit and lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling.
chapter 34
I’M IN THE KITCHEN, washing dishes and joking around with my coworkers, when Don Lucho pokes his head through the doorway. “You have some visitors, Virginia,” he says with a twinkle of the eye and a flash of his gold tooth.
I dry my hands and smooth my hair back and wipe the sweat off my forehead and hope I don’t smell too much like dish soap and grease. Unexpected visitors make me nervous. Even though my friends still like me, I can’t help worrying that someone from my past will appear and spill out all the ugly details of my life.
A short, round mestizo man and a pretty indígena woman are waiting for me on the blue velvet chairs in the lobby. When they see me, they hop up. “Finally!” the man says. “You’re a hard girl to track down.”
I stare for a moment, wary, then say, “Please sit down.” I show them to a table in the café. “Would you like a drink?”
They shake their heads politely, and the woman says, “I’m just so glad we found you!”
Are they undercover police of some kind, patrolling Otavalo to expose poor indígena girls disguised as gente de clase? Once we’re seated, I ask, squeezing my hands in my lap, “How can I help you?”
The man introduces himself as José and the woman as Susana, then leans forward eagerly. “I know you from your community, Yana Urku.”
My heart jumps. “Oh, really?” I am careful not to admit to anything.
“I saw you star in that marvelous play, and you brought me to tears, Virginia! I haven’t been able to forget it. So when our organization started looking for a beautiful and talented girl to represent us, I thought of you! It’s for the competition of Sara Ñusta. To choose the indígena queens of corn, water, and sky.”
I flush at being called beautiful and talented, but when he says indígena, I freeze, then glance around to make sure none of my coworkers are close enough to hear. “Thank you, señor.”
Susana continues, talking quickly and breathlessly. “First, we went to Yana Urku and asked around about you, and your parents couldn’t remember where you live, but finally someone at the school told us you were here in the Hotel Otavalo.”
I am speechless. I can’t help but feel flattered that they would take this time to look for me, when the town is full of indigenous girls who would love to compete for queen. I study Susana. The beads around her neck are small and expensi
ve, glass coated with real gold paint, and her blouse shimmers with flowers of finely stitched gold and pink thread. She is one of the wealthy indígenas, I can tell. One of the indígenas I wished to be when I was a girl. One of the indígenas respected by mestizos. And she speaks Spanish perfectly, an educated Spanish, enunciating all her words delicately. They are waiting for me to say something, so I say, “Oh, and what is your organization?”
Susana smiles proudly. “We collect funds to help children in indígena communities study in preschool. If you represent us, you’ll compete against girls from organizations all over the Ecuadorian Andes for one of the three queen crowns. This is based on an old tradition, dating from Incan times. They stopped doing the competition about twelve years ago, and now we’re reviving it!”
“Sounds wonderful,” I say politely. I have to admit, I do like the idea of being a queen. “What are the requirements?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Susana says. “You just need to be indígena and speak Quichua.”
I hesitate. First, I’m not exactly indígena anymore, and second, my Quichua is at the level of a three-year-old’s.
“We really hope you can do this!” José says. “It took us so long to find you, and the rehearsals start soon.”
“Well,” I begin, slowly. “It seems fun. But—”
Their faces fall.
I lower my voice so that Don Lucho and the others won’t hear. “But I don’t dress as an indígena anymore.” Suddenly, I realize how tired I am of hiding and keeping secrets. “See, the truth is I lived with mestizos for years as a servant. And they thought indígenas were stupid and dirty and only good for serving them, and … well, I didn’t want to be indígena anymore. I threw out my old clothes and dressed in regular skirts and shirts. And I don’t have enough money to buy new indígena clothes, especially fancy ones like yours. And—and—really, I don’t know if I’m even indígena anymore.” I stop there because my voice is quavering and if I say another word, I might cry.