“You always say that, ma” I retort, annoyed. “How do you know what they do with their salary? Maybe they spend it on themselves.”
“Oh, sure, maybe they just work for the love of art too; and the long lines of starving beggars we see every day in the streets must be a mirage, a product of our imaginations too - maybe they’re all rich and just like to hang out there to bother you.”
I blush, ashamed of my selfishness, but I’m so sick of the life we lead ourselves that I have no room in my heart to feel sorry for anybody else. I wonder how we’re ever going to get ahead when she feels sorry for everybody, from the very young to the very old, sharing what little she has with less fortunate souls.
“We are in this world to help each other - otherwise nothing makes any sense,” she says when I tell her there are too many people living in poverty and we can’t help everybody.
“Every little grain of sand builds a pyramid,” she says. “If everybody did their share, we wouldn’t have so much tragedy in the world. Don’t ever let hardship harden your heart like this, Vicky, because if you do, you will only live half a life like your aunt.”
Oscar has her heart and he’s always sharing his Bazooka bubble gum, which is one of his biggest treasures in life with the Indian children in the neighborhood. I want to be like that but I can’t share. I hate to part with things, especially my chocolates, and I eat them by myself refusing to share them even with my brother. Mother knows this side of me and says I inherit this trait from my paternal grandmother who was the most selfish person on earth and loved to hoard things like a squirrel, but I disagree with her. I think I’m selfish because we don’t have much. I think that if I had everything in abundance like my cousins, I would be generous too. But I’m ashamed of begrudging Manuela Quispe a plate of soup because it makes me feel mean. She is so timid, so compliant and sad that she reminds me of a beat up dog.
I try to get her to talk to me to find out how she lives and how big her family is, but she closes herself and I get nothing from her. I know she is always cold because she hugs her “manta” like a second skin, and mother says that’s because she is so anemic the unhealthy pallor of her skin looks almost transparent.
~~~
Liberated from his daily tasks of knitting, Oscar has more freedom to play and it’s nice to see him running around playing soccer after school. He takes Angel with him everywhere he goes, and I watch them from the windows with melancholy, especially in the evenings when sunset comes, gently giving way to the night. What will the future hold for all of us? I’m getting older, my legs and chest are changing, I’m developing breast buds that are extremely painful to the touch, and mother says I am in full adolescence now and will be getting my period soon.
“That will be your passage from child to woman,” she says. “And things will never be the same for you.”
She doesn’t want me to linger by the window too long; she says there are many ignorant men passing by that could notice a pretty young girl in the flower of life, and have evil designs on her. She says I’m becoming a beautiful rose, and she will protect me with her life if necessary. I smile at her but I don’t feel like a beautiful rose, I feel lonely, sad and more caged in than ever. There are boys at school who already have crushes on me, but I don’t pay any attention to them. I feel that I’m standing on the brink of something big and I want to save my emotions for that.
~~~
Back in my aunt’s good graces, I confide that things have gone from bad to worse for us, and she is not surprised, saying that she knew all along mother would never be able to make it on her own. She is horrified when I tell her we are living four blocks from the Black Market because she knows that is the most congested area of La Paz, with its sprawling maze of oddities that inhabit the place like vultures.
“What’s next, El Alto?” She asks with sarcasm.
I say nothing and she says mother is going poorer and poorer, but she still has one more stop to go because there is nothing lower than El Alto, so not to be surprised if we all end up there soon.
“What about that man that got her thrown out of here in the first place, does he at least help her financially?” She asks doing her nails a bright red.
“Gustavo? No, she threw him out and we haven’t seen him in months.”
“It figures, he’s out of the picture leaving her with another child and without a cent - same as Oscar’s father – same as your father. Sometimes I wonder what my sister has in her head because it certainly isn’t brains. Why doesn’t she take him to court and force him to give her child support at least?”
“His sisters help with clothes and things every chance they have, but nobody can force him to give child support. She couldn’t even force my father who was legally married to her, and she’s been battling him for years.”
She puts down her nail polish and looks at me pensively. I notice she has the same physical traits of my mother, with short, stubby fingers and big thumbs double the normal size, but hers are smaller than mother’s, yet bigger than the average person.
“Speaking of your father, a friend of your uncle’s knows him well, in fact they are very good friends, and he says he’s doing rather well lately, chief of operations of the entire railway system in La Paz or something like that. I’m going to get his address and you and I are going to pay him a little overdue visit. Come over for lunch next Tuesday, I’ll have the information then.”
“But I thought he was in the provinces,” I say lamely, unable to disguise the alarm in my voice.
She looks up at me with surprise. “He’s here, leave it up to me. Just do as I say and we won’t have a problem. You’re not afraid, are you?”
I tell her I’ll do whatever she wants me do without hesitation, but secretly wonder if the courts and mother haven’t been able to force him to help me, how is she going to manage at this late date? Still, she has prodigious gifts for bending people to her iron will, and you can’t put anything past her. Feeling somewhat guilty and conspiratorial, I keep the news to myself, certain that the encounter won’t lead anywhere and seeing no reason to upset mother unnecessarily.
~~~
Days later we take a cab to the “Pura Pura town” and make a couple of turns to the railway depot where my father has his office. The ride up there seems to take hours due to heavy traffic, but my aunt is glad we have chosen the afternoon rather than the morning because lunch with the family is the only thing my uncle insists upon.
“This isn’t much improvement over the Black Market, is it?” says my aunt looking at the dusty, desolate area. “Let’s see what the great man has to say for himself.”
Holding onto my arm and walking with difficulty with her enormous heels because of the unpaved, muddy streets, she walks to the office and asks for Mr. Morales. She is directed to an area at the end of a hall where a sign in big letters reads, “Ernesto Morales, Chief of Operations.”
So it’s true, I notice bitterly, he has a big job now. I follow her inside nervously, the sound of her shoes making a funny click clack sound against the wooden floor. He is bent over some plans and has changed physically from the stranger I remember hugging the last time I saw him, but there is no denying our resemblance.
“Mr. Morales,” says my aunt in the friendly, girlish voice she often uses when she wants to charm. “I don’t know if you remember me but I imagine you still remember your own daughter?”
He reddens and quickly offers us a seat. “Of course I remember you,” he says shaking her hand firmly. “You don’t have the kind of face one forgets too easily.”
She acknowledges the compliment with a smile. “You haven’t changed much either, Mr. Morales. The years have been kind to you.”
“Obviously not as kind as they have been to you. You look exactly the same way you looked when you were the belle of the town in Oruro, and everyone was dying to go out with you, including myself.”
She throws her head back with amusement. “If only that were true but time doesn’t st
and still for any of us, and we all show the weight of the years sooner or later.”
He looks at his watch and invites us to go to the restaurant for tea and sweets. My aunt hesitates for a moment because we had just finished a big lunch, but she gives in and he calls for a taxi to drive us to one of the better restaurants in the area, which is about ten blocks away. He orders tea and pastries telling us that this obscure place nobody knows about is actually excellent for its cuisine and its pastries.
The owner comes to greet him warmly and gives him his favorite table in a corner of the room by the window. It’s cloudy and grey now, but he says this is the best table when it’s sunny and warm, and he has all his meals here. They talk for a while and my aunt gets to the business at hand, and tells him about my living conditions with mother and how disappointed she is he has never taken any interest in me. He defends himself saying that it’s impossible to deal with mother, and that was the reason he preferred to stay away, but my aunt isn’t buying it and shames him into action.
“No matter what my sister did, you should have met your responsibilities towards your child a long time ago, Mr. Morales. I mean, there is no excuse for your neglect. We are talking about your own flesh and blood here. How can you live with yourself knowing that she suffers daily? She didn’t ask to be born and shouldn’t be made to pay for her parent’s mistakes. You walked away from the marriage and never looked back, how is that possible when there is a child involved? One can do that when there are no children, but how do you walk away from a child? How do you leave that behind without also leaving a part of yourself?”
“It’s complicated,” he says looking down. “One never really walks away but if the other person is unwilling…”
“I’m not buying that,” says she looking at him intensely. “I think you forgot you had a daughter. You made a whole new life for yourself and wiped out the past. I know you must hate me for telling you this right now, but I have no choice. I want you to do something for this child before she’s so damaged it won’t make any difference. Are you finally willing to help her now or have I come too late?”
“It’s never too late,” he says, reddening. “And of course I’m willing to help her. I’m not the monster you think I am.”
“Then tell her, not me,” says my aunt fiercely. “Why, you haven’t even looked at her, she’s at a crucial time in her life right now and she needs you more than ever.”
He meets my eyes for the first time uncomfortably. “What can I do, tell me and I’ll do it.”
“She needs a big change in her life,” says my aunt. “She can not go on this way, she is fourteen years old now; she’s becoming a young lady and you have to do something to change her fate or she is going to end up like her mother.”
“My family is in Uyuni at the moment preparing the house. My term here is up, and I’m being transferred there for a couple of years. I’ll see what I can do, give me a little time to think about this.”
“Take all the time you need and rest assured that if you don’t want to do anything, we won’t hound you; that’s not our style, we’ll simply disappear from your life again, and you’ll have to live with your conscience and the consequences.”
We leave with positive assurances from him that things are going to change for me, and he is going to take an active part in my future from now on. My aunt is talking a lot but I am quiet on the way back, seeing his face has upset me more than I thought it would be possible and my heart has given a strange little twist in my chest. I can’t understand why he should have any effect on me because he is a virtual stranger, and I’m puzzled by my own emotions.
Mother has tried so hard to bring us closer through the years, even arranging a private visit and hiding on one side of the street so we could be alone, but nothing has made any difference. He has gone back to his life and I have gone back to mine and nothing has changed. Why should this time be different? I have already reconciled myself to the fact that he will always be a stranger in my life, and feel mixed feelings about the whole situation.
“Did you see how mortified he was?” says my aunt interrupting my thoughts. “I knew I could get to him. I think he’ll do right by you now. He’s not a bad looking man, handsome in a quiet, dignified sort of way. He’s probably the best thing your mother ever caught, but of course she let him get away. He has a certain charm and intelligence too, don’t you think?”
“I guess. Is he going to call us?”
“Yes, he took my number and promised to be in touch. Things are going to change for you now, mark my words.”
I go back home without much hope and try to go back to my routine as though nothing had happened. Our new neighbors treat us with diffidence and suspicion right from the beginning, and we see them whispering about us in their own dialect, the most brazen and ignorant openly laughing in our faces and mocking us with grotesque signs and gestures which mother is quick to imitate in retaliation.
“Don’t do that, ma,” I tell her mortified when I see her lifting her dress in the back as though she were about to moon them or fart in their faces.
“That’s what they did to me this morning, and I’m not going to take it lying down,” she says angrily. “If they want war, they will get war, I’m tired of being nice to them because it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
~~~
By virtue of our light skin and features we become conspicuous wherever we go, and some people dislike us on sight. Mother has learned that any attempt at friendship will be rebuffed so she keeps to herself, but their insolence bothers her. Not having a discriminating heart, she hates being discriminated against, and complains bitterly that nothing she does makes any difference, not even employing an Indian girl, for they continue to judge her solely on the color of her skin.
“They are the racists now,” she says angrily. “And they are doing to us what they say we did to them for decades. Unfortunately, living here in their midst, we are condemned to sink deeper and deeper in their cesspool of ignorance. We have to endure their insults and insolence because we are poor, but I’m sure they treat your aunt with deference and respect.
“I don’t know, ma. They don’t like her very much either.”
“Como te veo te trato,” [“you get treated according to your station in life”] she says bitterly. “As long as we are poor, they will always be disrespectful to us, Vicky, I just wish I could get used to it.”
I wish I could get used to living under two cultures myself, the Indian culture and the white culture, but there is a huge division in our country and we feel it every minute of our lives. There is mutual hatred and resentment in our relationship with the indigenous society that goes back for decades. They hate us because they say we step on them and treat them like dirt, and we dislike them because they are stubborn, ignorant and smell bad. As a poor family we take the brunt of their resentment, it doesn’t matter that we are living as humbly as they are, we represent the enemy and they despise us. It takes them a long time to accept us, to realize we are different and just as unfortunate as they are. It doesn’t matter that their own people turn against them when they get “refined” which accounts for a third portion of the population, the pure white are still considered to be their greatest enemies.
I hate the way they are treated in the streets when people push them away as though they were mad dogs because they smell so bad, but the way they treat mother just because she happens to live among them, is just as cruel and unfair. They make fun of me too calling me “Kanka” [“red face, an insult in Quechua”] but I ignore them, and they never get under my skin the way the get under my mother’s. They seem to like my brothers, however, and never make fun of them. Oscar and Angel play football with their kids all the time and never have any problems, because they save all their animosity for mother and me.
~~~
A week later, Oscar slips and falls while carrying a bucket of water up those makeshift stairs, nearly breaking his arm. Mom reacts with rage, hitting him hard for falling,
and yelling obscenities at him. Watching my brother full of mud, crying and shaking makes up my mind. I will abide with whatever my aunt decides for me because I can no longer endure life with mother. As if sensing my disapproval she turns to me in a fury.
“Why don’t you help me clean him up instead of gawking at him? Don’t you see how filthy he is?”
I get up slowly and she hits me on the head hard. “Hurry up, move, get off your lazy ass and help your brother.”
I stare at her angrily and refuse to budge. She strikes me again with more force knocking me to the floor. I rise slowly, head spinning, nose bleeding. Wiping my nose on my sleeve I say in a slow, strangled voice I don’t recognize as my own. “Don’t you ever hit me, don’t you ever hit me again because so help me, I will hit you back.”
She lurches towards me to strike me again but my icy, determined look stops her cold. Something has risen in me, something frightening, powerful and forbidden; a pent up rage, like the fury of a dormant volcano about to erupt. My whole body is shaking and I feel faint and dizzy but I hold my ground staring at her with hatred. She lowers her arms and looks at me with horror in her eyes.
“What is this world coming to when a child threatens a parent? Did you see what she just did?”
But Oscar looks at me with admiration and respect, and refuses to comfort her, letting her cry alone while I quietly follow him outside so I could get him cleaned up. I am aware that something momentous has transpired, a boundary has been crossed and she will never lay a hand on me again.
Beyond the Snows of the Andes Page 23