by Laura Resau
I squeezed some lime onto my tortilla, sprinkled it with salt, and chewed slowly to make it last longer. Then I walked behind the trees and relieved myself. By the base of a tree I squatted, looking around at the needle-sharp leaves, the thorny shrubs. The plants were different here. We were no longer high in mountains that touched the clouds. Tall cacti covered the land, and the air felt dry. What a thirsty, lonely feeling it gave me. I could run now, I thought, run and live on food from the land and sleep in caves.
I didn’t run. I tell you, if I had known what was going to happen over the next year, maybe I would have. But that is not how life works. Life is a tree, branching out here and there, and there is no sense in asking, What if I had followed this branch, not that one? Later in my life I would run away, not once, but twice, from different places, different dangers, but now was not the time for that.
I ducked inside the shelter, spread out my petate, and lay down. I covered myself with the wool blanket. Don Manuel laid his petate down beside mine, so close I could feel his breath moving my hair. I stood up suddenly and snatched up my blanket and petate.
“I’m sleeping in the wagon,” I said, looking down at him.
He stretched his arms behind his head. “Suit yourself.” He let out a smug laugh. “But as I said, you’re too young for me anyway.”
In the wagon, I curled up by the baskets of food. My muscles stayed as tense as violin strings until I heard his loud snoring. Only then did I let myself sink into sleep.
We hardly spoke for the whole trip. The next evening, in the low mountains, we turned a curve and Oaxaca City came into view. It was a forest of houses, more houses than I’d ever seen in one place. On the outskirts were huts of wood and clay and bamboo, like the ones in my village. But in the center, the stone buildings towered high like churches. I had never seen houses of two floors before. And some of these had three! And glass windows and carved wooden doors, and fountains in the courtyards. When we passed the market there were so many people I couldn’t find my breath. Like ants in an anthill they scurried around. I imagine everyone had some task to do, but I could find no order.
I felt small suddenly, like an ant myself. I could be crushed, killed, and things would go on. Who would notice? In my village, life had felt solid, like a mountain. But here it was a fog that could disappear by late morning.
Don Manuel seemed excited to be back in town. Finally, he started talking to me. He spoke Mixteco with an accent, so I had to listen closely to understand. He had left the village as a boy to live in the city, where people speak Spanish. His tongue had forgotten the rhythms of my language, just as his mind had forgotten our customs.
“This is the market,” he pointed out. “Here you will come to buy our food every day.”
How would I find my way through this place? It terrified me! How strange that my spirit had traveled to distant lands and fought evil spirits, yet in this city I felt like a frightened baby bird plucked from its nest.
Some people looked like me—two long braids and a red huipil and black skirt that just covered my knees. Other women wore huipiles in patterns and colors I had never seen. Huipiles with white ruffles embroidered with pink roses. Huipiles with flouncy yellow and purple skirts and short tops covered with finely stitched flowers. And some women wore long dresses of thin, flimsy fabric, tight at the top. How could they bend over to gather firewood without tearing those seams? Or roll up those narrow sleeves to wash clothes? Or catch stray goats on cliffs with those tiny pointed shoes?
And the men wore black! In my village they wore white, except for gray wool ponchos when it was cold. Some of these city men were dressed all in black, right up to their hats. But their faces were bone-colored.
“The rich-folk section of town,” don Manuel said.
We turned down a street with fewer people now. The building on the corner had no glass in its windows, only iron bars.
“The jail.”
A pair of hands stretched through the bars. They clutched half a tamal that a passerby placed in them. The hands pulled the tamal through the bars and then reached out, empty now, grasping for more.
“My neighbor was in there. After his wife died, no one brought him food.” Don Manuel shrugged. “He’s dead now.”
What kind of place was this? Neighbors letting neighbors starve? How could they do this, when we all eat from the same tortilla? Already I did not like it. I would bring the prisoners food, I decided—old tortillas and fruit and any leftover meals.
Our wagon pulled up to my new home. Don Manuel clanked open a tall black gate. He led the horses and me into a courtyard. Oh, it was a pretty place, filled with trees and flowering bushes. From one of the trees, a call rang out. A shrill, piercing voice. “¡Buenas tardes buenas tardes!”
I looked closer. Feathers rippled, feathers the brilliant green of newly formed leaves. It was a loro—a talking parrot—and his greetings were the first Spanish words I learned. He would become my teacher, and my best friend.
Don Manuel’s wife came out of a doorway, stuffing a pastry into her mouth. She looked like a big ball of tortilla dough squeezed into a dress, bursting out at the openings. She said something to don Manuel in Spanish. I didn’t understand the words, but the meaning was clear from the greedy look in her eyes. She poked through the bags in the back of the wagon. Her husband handed her three guavas from the sack. She crammed the rest of the pastry in her mouth, then started on the guavas.
“My wife, Carmen,” he said. “She and my daughter speak only Spanish. You will learn quickly how to follow their commands. That is all the Spanish you will need.”
A daughter! Someone to be sisters with! Like María, to laugh with as we cooked together. Maybe I wouldn’t be so lonely after all.
Doña Carmen pushed me inside the kitchen. She motioned to the corner of the room, gesturing that I would sleep there. In that corner I would spread my petate out at night and roll it up in the mornings. She showed me the bucket and rags, the basin where I would do the washing. She showed me every corner of the house I was to clean.
Meanwhile, I watched her munching on the guavas. My mouth watered, and oh, how I wished she would offer me some. I had eaten my last tortilla that morning. In my village, you see, people always offered food the moment someone walked in the door. First offered them food, then offered them a wooden chair to rest their legs.
Doña Carmen led me into a room where a girl a little older than me sat in a chair. She sat slouched, staring at herself in a mirror. First she pouted her lips out like a grumpy baby, then puckered them in like a bitter old woman. Then she raised and lowered her eyebrows, then turned her head this way and that.
Doña Carmen spoke to her in a guarded voice. A voice you might use to talk to a wild, snarling dog. “Silvia.”
They rattled away in Spanish until the girl pulled something out of a drawer. She walked over to me and dropped it in my lap without meeting my eyes. It was a white skirt, trimmed with pink ribbon, torn at the hem. Silvia yelled at her mother. Oh, how that girl could yell! She spit out a string of words I didn’t understand. With a frown, doña Carmen handed me a needle and thread, and gestured to me to mend the skirt.
Later I would realize that this fighting was nothing unusual in the García López household. And Silvia, it turned out, would be far from a friend. She would treat me like a cockroach. A slightly useful cockroach who could cook and mend clothes, but still an insect.
My days were the same: wake up in darkness, fetch water from the pump, heat the water, make tortillas and beans, serve breakfast to the family, eat their leftovers, wash the dishes, heat more water, wash the clothes, hang them to dry, sweep the courtyard, mop the floors, dust the furniture, shine the wood, polish the glass, go to the market for food, make lunch, clean up, mend their clothes, and on and on until they finished their hot chocolate at night and went to sleep. I would sip the leftover hot chocolate, wash the dishes, and then, past midnight, unroll my petate and sleep. For a few precious hours I slept, unti
l the church bells woke me up before dawn again. My body felt worn out, like an old grandmother’s. And I was only eleven!
During that time I learned to love dawn, the moments before the chores of the day had begun to weigh heavy. At dawn the world was all fresh pathways, waiting to be followed. There was only a whisper between the living and the dead. Sometimes at dawn I felt that I could reach out my hand and touch my parents. That just outside the firelight, there they were, sitting in the shadows, watching me.
At dawn the loro fluttered with excitement. He greeted me with whistles, with “¡Buenos dias buenos dias!” Good morning good morning! How good it felt to have some creature happy to see me! When I’d first seen him, he’d looked sickly and sad. Droopy eyes, droopy head, droopy wings. He had been a gift from don Manuel to Silvia. Yet she barely looked at him, barely fed him. She never spoke to him with kind words, only shouts and curses.
Oh! But I loved that bird! I whispered to him as I washed dishes in the courtyard. I sang him songs in Mixteco. I told him stories about the rabbit and the moon, about the coyote and the snake, about the devil in the cave. And would you believe it? He started speaking Mixteco! In the mornings he greeted me with “Naja iyo nuu?” How are you? And I’d answer, “Iyo va’a nii.” I’m fine.
Sometimes I practiced Spanish with him. “¡Ánimo!” I taught him to say. Have courage! One morning, I had a dream about the mountains where I used to gather herbs. A dream that made me ache for my village, that left the taste of cool springwater on my tongue. My body felt heavy as I stood up, rolled up my petate, and walked into the courtyard to start working. My eyes filled with tears, so I couldn’t see the pot or the firewood. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep and never wake up. I let myself collapse to the ground. I pulled my knees up to my chin and buried my face in my huipil and tried to enter my dream again, with the mountains and springwater. At that moment, a shrill whistle broke the silence.
“¡Ánimo!” Loro cried. “¡Ánimo, Helena!”
I wiped my eyes, stood up, and started working. You see how important it is to have one true friend in the world? Later I learned that ánimo also means soul. Spirit. And really, Loro had seen my spirit empty of hope, slipping away into the shadows. He called to it, called to me, and yes, my spirit stayed. For that, I always thank him.
Within a few weeks, the market changed from a place that frightened me with its noise and commotion to a place I enjoyed. A place of colors and songs and smells and so many people! Old and young, pale and dark, so many people with their own worries and hopes. There at the market, our paths all crossed. I began to greet the vendors and the other maids who came to the market, toting their baskets like me. I learned the names of the children dressed in rags who picked through the garbage for food. Always, I set aside a bit of my wages to buy them pastries.
Every day, on the way to the market, I passed by the stone jail. Every day I stood outside the barred windows and unwrapped a small bundle of food. Leftover tortillas, scraps of meat, cheese, soft fruit. I never stayed long, for fear that Silvia or don Manuel or doña Carmen might walk by and forbid me to give away their food. Because of the dark shadows inside the prison, I never knew the prisoners’ faces, only their hands, their voices. Voices pleading and thanking. Hands grasping and clutching whatever I offered. Then stretching out again, empty, asking for more.
But one pair of hands stood out from the rest. One pair of hands moved with grace and dignity. The hands were held out tenderly, cupped together, as though they were waiting for a dove to land in them. They were a woman’s hands, with thick brown fingers. They were hands of a woman who had worked hard in her life, a woman like Aunt, a woman like my mother. The hands held wisdom, like the hands of Ta’nu, who loved tending to his herbs and patting soil gently over seeds. I had the feeling that those hands belonged to someone I would like to know. I remembered what Ta’nu had told me about learning from teachers who crossed my path. Yes, those hands could teach me something.
Ta’nu was also right about learning Spanish. At first I thought I’d no sooner understand Spanish than the language of birds. I couldn’t imagine my tongue making that strange trilling sound. I couldn’t grasp the rhythm, a cricket song rising and falling. But little by little I found myself understanding a word here, a word there. And little by little I heard myself stringing the words together. And yes! People began to understand me. Instead of pointing to fruits and vegetables at the market, we used words.
And as I understood more and more Spanish, I understood the García López family better and better. I understood why don Manuel often returned home at dawn smelling of perfume and liquor. The maids at the market always joked about how he juggled mistresses the way a street performer juggles oranges. Whenever he stayed out all night, doña Carmen would order me around more than ever the next day. In a voice like a knife in my ear she’d call from her bed, “Bring me a dozen cherry pastries!” And when I returned from the market, “No, these are cherry. I asked for lemon, you fool. Go back and bring me lemon. And this is coming out of your wages, girl.” I said nothing and did as she said, trying to bury my anger like hot coals under ash.
One morning, I was in Silvia’s room, making her bed. Doña Carmen stood in front of the mirror, behind her daughter. She was arranging Silvia’s hair into a fancy bun that looked like a woven basket.
“I wish my face were whiter,” Silvia grumbled. “It’s Papá’s fault. His skin is so dark. Why did you marry a man from the country?”
“A handsome man from the country.”
“Ayyy! You’re pulling my hair.”
“I was hardly older than you when we married,” doña Carmen said. “Your father talked so smoothly. Like rich custard.”
“He still does,” Silvia said. “Yesterday I saw him talking that way.” She narrowed her eyes. “With the beef lady at the market.”
Her mother stiffened.
“You’re weak, Mamá. You let him make a fool of you.”
Doña Carmen gave Silvia’s hair a tug.
“Ayyy! Go away, Mamá! I’ll have the maid do my hair!”
Doña Carmen heaved her body up. She dragged herself toward the door. I pretended to be busy smoothing out the bedspread. On her way past me, she commanded, “Bring me a cake. Chocolate cake.”
For the rest of the afternoon she devoured the cake, piece by piece. Like a wild dog she attacked the food. She ate and ate, barking orders and spewing bits of chocolate and saliva everywhere. She devoured it, trying to fill the emptiness inside her. By nightfall her belly was full, but her heart was still empty.
Clara
Even the birds flying close overhead didn’t notice me hidden in the shadows between two boulders. I could be just another wrinkle in the stone, or a patch of moss. Without watches and mirrors, I could be someone else, someone from another time. I could be Abuelita, before she went to the city—just a girl in the timeless mountains, resting on a rock for a moment.
With my eyes closed, the sound of the waterfall became clearer. And other sounds stood out. It was like listening to a song on the radio and picking out the guitar, then the piano, and the violin, and all the other instruments, one by one. In this song there were insects’ wings drumming in waves, and about seven different bird tunes, calling back and forth.
Little by little I noticed something else blending into the song. A person’s voice. It was faint, but it grew louder as the person grew closer, until he must have been right above me, on top of the rocks. He sang in Spanish, to a tune I liked but had never heard before. The singing stopped and I heard “Chchchchchivo,” and then the scuttle of goat hooves.
The footsteps grew closer until there was a goat next to me on the rock. It was caramel-colored with a skinny neck and a long nose and ears that stuck straight out. I’d never been this close to a goat before, so close I could see the sleep in the corners of its eyes. It watched me for a while, as if to say, What are you doing here? Then it seemed to shrug and started chewing at a shrub by my foot. I breat
hed in that same sour sweetness that clung to Pedro. The singing started again—a sad song about nighttime flowers. I stood up slowly, very careful not to startle the goat, and tilted my head back.
“Pedro!” I called. “Your goat’s down here!”
The singing stopped. His head peeked over the cliff and then disappeared. I heard him skid down the trail along the side of the boulders. He was a burst of color, like a tropical bird. He wore an orange T-shirt and the same red pants and carried a guitar with a green and yellow woven strap slung across his shoulder.
Would he act embarrassed? If someone caught me singing when I thought I was alone, I’d turn bright red and stumble over my words and run away the first chance I got. But no, he looked happy to see me. His teeth glowed white next to his rosy cheeks. He swung his guitar around and sat down on the rock. He motioned for me to sit, like a waiter at a fancy restaurant pointing out a seat. Without a single word, he pulled out a few notes.
And here’s another amazing thing: He looked at me as he sang. Really looked. At first my eyes flickered away, the way they sometimes do during a movie that makes my skin tingle because it feels like too much. But he kept on singing and I let myself look back at him. An ocean was filling me, and I felt like something flimsy, a Tupperware container maybe, something that couldn’t possibly hold an ocean. The salt water rose up inside me, higher and higher, until it nearly over-flowed. Once, early in the morning on Mom’s birthday, Dad and I filled the bedroom with daisies, and when she woke up she smiled and cried and tried to talk but couldn’t find words. She must have felt the ocean too.
The words to the song, in Spanish, formed a vivid picture in my mind: galaxies, the Milky Way, planets, jewels, brilliant colors, love, beauty, a soul, a kiss. Everything swirling around. I couldn’t tell you what the song was about or how the words all fit together. I just felt each word’s power, the way the words flew from his mouth, like pieces of a mosaic that my mind caught in midair and rearranged into its own creation. My fingers itched to draw it all in my sketchbook. After three songs, Pedro stood up. He moved his eyes away to the wandering goats. I realized I had been holding completely still, barely breathing. I wondered if he knew how he’d made these waves swell up inside me like the moon tugging at the tide.