The Queen of Water (14 page)

chapter 22

W
ITH A GIANT LUMP IN MY THROAT
, I trudge around the
colegio
grounds beside the cow, through sunny clumps of weeds and wildflowers. We’ll be getting rid of the cow since Ibarra is a big city. A bee flies from one blossom to another, burying half its body in the petals, emerging coated with pollen, intent on its task. Will there be wildflower pollination in Ibarra? All I’ve seen of the city are concrete buildings, cement sidewalks. Not a single bee. Will I be able to see the stars and remember how small my problems really are? And will I meet anyone there who cares about me as much as Antonio does?

I turn the corner, and there he is, Antonio, standing by the avocado trees with his friends. When he spots me, he jogs over. The sun lights him up from behind like a saint, illuminating his hair and the tips of the grass and leaves.
“¡Mi amor!”
he says.

Before I can say anything, my lip quivers out of control and the tears leak out. “Antonio, I have to leave.” I wipe my face with my sleeve. “The Doctorita and Niño Carlitos got jobs in Ibarra and we have to leave in a week and—and—”

Antonio looks at me, his eyes wet. “Do you want to go?”

“No! But I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.” His voice grows determined. “Why not tell them you’re staying here, with me?”

“Because the Doctorita would put me in the cemetery.” I wish we were alone so that I could touch him. I can tell his friends are watching us, curious. Instead, I run my hands over the cow’s coarse fur, over the black spot between her ears where she likes being scratched.

“But I love you, Virginia. What about me?”

“I don’t know.” I stare at the cow’s black spot. “Maybe you can come to the city and find me.”

He looks at the mountains, then closes his eyes for a long moment. “Escape with me, Virginia. I’m serious. Stay with me here. With me and my family. We can get married. There’s a parcel of land my father will give me when I’m married. We can farm it together.”

His eyes are so full of passion, that suddenly anything seems possible. “Really, Antonio? You mean it?”

“Yes,
mi amor.
”

“Then let’s do it.”

He takes a step closer. “I want to hold you so badly right now. Can I hug you?”

“No, people might see.” I glance around anxiously. “So how should I escape?”

He thinks for a moment. “I could ask my older sister to come for you. Maybe at night when the Doctorita and Don Carlos are asleep?”

“I think the daytime’s better.” I consider their schedule. “How about Friday, in four days? Their last day of school. The day before we leave. At eleven o’clock. They’re always at the
colegio
until one. And Andrecito and Jaimito will be at school.”

“All right. Eleven on Friday. I’ll tell my sister to wait for you across the street from your house.” He looks at me like he wants to kiss me again. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”

I nod, excited.

Antonio lets his hand graze mine, as if by accident. “I love you, Virginia.”

I take hold of his hand for a second, then let go. “I love you, Antonio.”

Over the next few days, we pack boxes and bags and load them into the school bus that the
colegio
has loaned to the Doctorita and Niño Carlitos to use for the move. We can barely cram in all their things—the red velvet furniture and lamps and clothes and kitchen utensils and crocheted doilies.

Before the photo albums are packed away, I take my favorite picture of Jaimito, sitting in his wooden airplane, a giant smile on his face. And for Andrecito, who still calls me Mamá, even at age four, I take a photo from his first birthday party, cake smeared everywhere. I play with the boys as much as I can now, trying to memorize the smell of their freshly shampooed hair.

I pack my notebooks that have been hidden underneath the refrigerator for two years, along with all my clothes into a big plastic garbage bag. Before the books are stacked into boxes, I press
Understanding Our Universe
to my chest, as though it’s a best friend I’m leaving. I consider stuffing it into my bag, but that would really infuriate the Doctorita, and anyway, I have it nearly memorized.

By Thursday night, only mattresses and a few clothes and toiletries remain in the echoey house. I lie on my mattress, with the orange and turquoise blanket pulled under my chin, unable to sleep. I try to relax and imagine my life free of Niño Carlitos’s groping and the Doctorita’s beatings and insults.

A movie plays out in my head: myself in the future, married to Antonio, living with him and his family. We sleep in a narrow bed in the corner of the room that we share with his brothers and sisters. We wake up before dawn to start working in the fields. All day I work, my back bent, just like my mother’s, and even when I try to stand tall, my shoulders hunch over with invisible weight. Antonio plows with the oxen and a
soga,
just like my father. Soon we start having children, one after the other, every two years, and they work with us in the fields. In the evenings we’re too tired to do anything but fall into bed. There is not a single book to read, but it doesn’t matter—we wouldn’t be able to waste the lamp’s kerosene on something as useless as a book.

Now my eyes are wide open and I’m sweating in a panic. I’ve traveled this far—how can I go back to living the humble life of a farming family? I try to calm down and focus on Antonio’s eyes and the music he played to me while I stood on the balcony and the notes he sent me and him saying,
I love you, Virginia,
and tucking the adorable strand of hair behind his ear. But it’s as if there’s a grown-up woman deep inside me—an older, wiser Virginia from the future—and she’s steering me toward some other destiny, calling out,
You’re making a mistake, Virginia! Don’t do it!

*  *  *

After a night of struggling in my head, the purple light of dawn comes, and I’ve made a decision. I will escape with Antonio, and once I’m free, I’ll call my sister and visit my parents and look at all my options. I don’t have to marry Antonio right away. Or live a farming life with him. Like he said, I’ll always have a choice. And if he truly loves me, he’ll understand. He’ll help me reach my dreams. The most important first step is to not stand and stare at the chance to be free, but to do something.

In the morning, as the Doctorita shuffles around in her bathrobe and Niño Carlitos shaves with his buzzing razor, I wonder if I’ll miss them. We’ve had some good times together, walking in the fields, picking fruit, strolling in the park. If only I could erase the Doctorita’s beatings and insults and keep the tender moments. And erase Niño Carlitos’s groping and just remember him calling me his daughter and making toys for me and the boys.

I hug Jaimito and Andrecito extra long before they leave for school. “I love you,” I whisper, and finally force myself to pull away. As they tromp off with the Doctorita and Niño Carlitos, unaware that this is the last time they’ll see me, I stand at the door, waving. “Goodbye! Have a nice day!”

“Bye, Virginia!”

Teary-eyed, I watch them leave, the Doctorita waddling quickly, Niño Carlitos taking long, slow strides, the boys half running to keep up, backpacks bouncing.

Now I have more than three hours to wait. I walk through the empty house, pausing in each room, remembering all that has happened to me here. I feel like an empty house myself, about to start a new life filled with new things. Finally, at ten-thirty, I settle cross-legged on the floor inside the entrance and wait for eleven o’clock to come.

Within a few minutes, the metal gate clanks. Is it Antonio’s sister, coming early? But she’s supposed to meet me across the street. My insides tighten. It can’t be the Doctorita; she’s never come home before one o’clock before.

A key scrapes in the lock. What if it’s Niño Carlitos, sneaking home early to try to press against me?

I pick up my bag, frantically searching for a place to hide it, but the room is completely bare.

And then the door opens.

The Doctorita steps inside.

She jumps, seeing me right here in front of her. “Virginia, you scared me! What are you—?” She spots my bag. “What’s this? What’s going on?”

“I—I—” But I can’t think of a lie fast enough. “I’m leaving. I don’t want to live with you anymore.”

After a moment of shock, she asks, “Where are you going?”

“I’m—I’m just going.” There’s no way I can tell her about Antonio. “I’m going to my parents.’ ”

“And how will you get there?” She drops her schoolbag on the floor and stands still, a lumpy mountain blocking the door.

“I don’t know. I’ll get help.”

“Who will help you?” She raises an eyebrow.

“A—a woman.”

“Tell me who.”

“Just a woman.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “You ungrateful
longa
! I’ve cared for you. I’ve given you food and drink, and shelter, and clothes, and this is how you pay me? With this ingratitude?”

I take a step back, but she grabs my arm and pulls me toward her and punches me in the nose. My head snaps back. Pain shoots out over my face.

“Ungrateful
longa,
” she spits.

Tears are streaming from her eyes now. “How could you want to leave us? How?” She pushes me toward the stairs. My nose is bleeding, my hands covered in blood. I tilt my head back and walk upstairs as she follows.

She leans against the bare living room wall and puts her face in her hands, as though I’ve hurt her. As though
she’s
the hurt one. “Go clean yourself up,” she whispers.

I wash off the blood and then tiptoe down the hall, to the balcony overlooking the street. I peek outside. It’s a sunny morning like any other, neighbors walking with bags of groceries, talking to each other, whistling and sweeping in front of their houses. And then I spot her, a teenage girl in a simple white shirt and blue skirt, pacing back and forth on the street, watching our house, waiting patiently.

Now I can really sympathize with how the slave Isaura felt after she was caught by the evil Leoncio. In my empty room, I lean against the bare wall next to the plastic garbage bag filled with my possessions. Tucking my legs up, I balance my notebook on my knees and write, in slow, careful letters.

Dear Antonio,

The Doctorita caught me, I can’t live with you, I have to go to Ibarra. Thank you for liking me and caring about me, you don’t know how much it means to me.

I love you,
Virginia

The Doctorita spends most of the afternoon by the door as neighbors come to say farewell. She keeps one eye on me the whole time to make sure I don’t run. Meanwhile, Niño Carlitos has stayed late at school to do paperwork. It turns out they weren’t teaching today, only finishing up grade reports and documents, which is why the Doctorita came home early.

Leo stops by under the pretense of saying farewell to the Doctorita. As he speaks with her, I creep closer and closer. He stares at my swollen nose, at the circles starting to darken under my bloodshot eyes.

The Doctorita frowns at me. “Virginia, why don’t you go back upstairs and sweep the living room.”

“I want to say goodbye to Leo,” I tell her firmly, and before she can send me upstairs, I shake hands with him. “Goodbye, Leo,” I say, pressing the note into his palm.

In the early-morning sunshine, teachers and students help load the last few things into the school bus as Niño Carlitos and the Doctorita watch me like hawks. Yesterday afternoon, when Niño Carlitos saw my wounds, he started yelling at the Doctorita, until she told him she suspected there was a boy involved in my plan. Then he turned pink and furious and shouted at me, demanding that I tell him who this boy was. I kept my lips pressed tight together and swallowed my tears.

All morning, as people have been loading the bus, I’ve been scrubbing the apartment clean, finding excuses to walk past the window to glimpse Antonio outside. For hours, he’s been sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of the building across the street, the place where he played me the music that magical evening. He’s just sitting and staring with the saddest look in the universe.

Once the bus is loaded, the Doctorita and Niño Carlitos make one last sweep of the house to be sure they haven’t forgotten anything, and then we climb into the bus. The teachers and students wave and their farewells float through the open windows. Among them are Marlenny and Marina and Doña Mercedes and Leo and Roberto-MacGyver and his new wife, all shouting,
“¡Adiós, Doctorita! ¡Adiós, Don Carlos! ¡Adiós, Jaimito! ¡Adiós, Andrecito! ¡Adiós, Virginia!”

I crawl through the maze of boxes and bags and furniture to a space in the back of the bus where I can be alone. The engine turns on, rumbles. I watch Antonio from the back window, then push it open and raise my palm, mouthing the words
Adiós, Antonio.
And he mouths
Adiós, Virginia,
and waves a mournful wave. The bus chugs down our street, and I watch him grow smaller, and then the bus turns the corner and he is gone.

chapter 23

Without you,

my soul dies, though my body lives.

Without you,

I no longer dream of a beautiful future.

This world is a valley of tears.

This world is a valley of tears.

This world is a valley of tears.

I
FILL MY NOTEBOOK
WITH POETRY,
always hiding it under the refrigerator, where no one but me looks. Back in Kunu Yaku, Antonio told me I walked like royalty, like a princess in disguise. But in Ibarra, I am dazed and dull and stooped over while the world happens around me. I trudge through the days, as though walking through wet cement. And sometimes in the middle of my chores, I feel so heavy I sink to the ground and stare at nothing.

In Ibarra, the sky seems shrunken. You can still see the mountains, but only over the rooftops. And you have to search for glimpses of green. Our neighborhood is gray and white and black cement; you have to peek through metal gates into hidden courtyards to find trees and flowers.

In our new house, my room is on the roof. From the second floor, I have to climb an extra flight of stairs to the flat cement roof. It’s mostly a big terrace with some sinks for washing clothes and crisscrossed clotheslines. My room and the guest room are small, with single windows and metal doors that open onto the terrace. Across a low cement wall is the upper level of our neighbor’s apartment, whose glass doors also open onto the terrace.

Sometimes the daughter, Blanca, who looks a few years younger than me, plays there with her little brother. They wave, but haven’t invited me over, maybe because I’m about fifteen by now, nearly a woman, and usually busy washing clothes and hanging them to dry. At night, I peer through the glass doors and see Blanca and her parents and brother watching TV or talking together in the soft yellow light. Or I gaze at the stars, even though it’s disappointing because I can only see half as many stars as in Kunu Yaku.

The Doctorita is happy in civilization. And on top of that, she’s pregnant again, which pleases her because it gives her an excuse to get fat and grow another chin. She says, “After this next one, I’m going to do aerobics and get my girlish figure back.” Niño Carlitos rubs her back and doesn’t call her lazy when she spends evenings with her feet up on the sofa eating an entire bag of sugary orange wafers.

Whenever she falls asleep on the sofa or takes naps on weekend afternoons, Niño Carlitos slips into the kitchen to talk to me. I barely answer his questions about how my day was or how I like Ibarra. But he’s not interested in my answers anyway. His hands are always touching me, stroking my hair, my neck, my cheek, my shoulder; when they creep lower and his body moves closer, I duck away, find an excuse to leave. It’s tiring to be on guard all the time, to keep my muscles tense and wary.

As I watch the Doctorita’s belly swell, I think about the diapers I’ll have to wash now that Andrecito is out of his. My life, endlessly washing diapers. Recently, Niño Carlitos suggested buying a washing machine, but the Doctorita said, “Humph. What do we need that for? We’ve got Virginia.” That’s what I am, an appliance, a multipurpose appliance that cooks and cleans and washes and babysits.

I imagine what the commercial for me would be like. The Doctorita’s on TV, her teeth bleached white, a giant fake smile stuck to her face.
Hi,
she says in a voice as slick as motor oil.
I want to tell you about my favorite new appliance, the ultimate time-saving device, My Virginia!
The camera zooms in on me holding a broom—a zombified me with wide saucer eyes—then swings back to the Doctorita.
It cooks,
she says,
and it cleans,
and
it takes care of your children!
Niño Carlitos walks into the room, exclaiming,
Is there anything it doesn’t do?
He rests his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. The Doctorita assures him,
My Virginia does
everything.
And the best part? It’s free! No strings attached! And easy maintenance! Just pound My Virginia once a month and you’re set! Don’t wait! Get one today!

After dinner one evening, as I’m collecting the dirty plates, the Doctorita rubs her giant belly. “Virginia, sit down for a moment before you do the dishes.”

I sit down. It must have scared her when I tried to run away. She must have realized she couldn’t take me completely for granted. Here in Ibarra she doesn’t hit me as much, although that could be because of her pregnancy, or because now they’re making more money, living more comfortably.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demands. “Why don’t you talk anymore? Or smile?”

I shrug.

“Why don’t you play with the boys anymore?”

I shrug.

She pastes a kind expression on her face. “Now that we’re all settled in the city, I can get you that elementary school diploma you’ve been wanting.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“All right,” I say dully. Soon might never happen.

She must sense my doubt, because she tries a different tactic. “You know that Carlos and I are earning more in our jobs here. In a few years we’ll build another, small house on this property. A house for you. Your own house.”

My own house? I perk up. If she really gave me a house one day, I’d paint it purple with white trim. I’d invite Antonio and my friends from Kunu Yaku to come over for parties, and we’d blast
cumbias
and dance into the night. But then the Doctorita intrudes on my fantasy, barging into my dream house and flipping off the stereo. The room goes silent.
Longa,
she shouts with all three chins jiggling,
you have a pile of diapers to wash. Your friends had better leave and you’d better get started. Now!

Later that night, the moon is a sliver in the sky, shining like a luminescent potato peel. On the roof, I lean against the cement wall and think about my options.

Stay with the Doctorita and Niño Carlitos and get my diploma and my house—if she ever keeps those promises. And in return, be their maid forever.

Run away to my family and live with them in their dirty house with fleas and put up with my father’s beatings. And turn back into an
indígena.

Run away to my sister and see if she can find me a maid job with another family that might let me go to school. Or might not.

Run away to Kunu Yaku and marry Antonio and live life as a poor farmer’s wife and have lots of kids. And no books.

Something else. And until I figure out what that is, write poetry.

Number five seems like the best option at the moment. I open my notebook and, by the glow of our neighbors’ yellow living room, write:

This world is a valley of tears.

This world is a valley of tears.

This world is a valley of tears.

*  *  *

When the Doctorita is seven months pregnant—her belly nearly the size of a basketball—her doctor finds a problem with the baby and tells her that whenever she isn’t working she should be resting in bed. This means I’m often alone in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning up. Which means that Niño Carlitos has even more opportunities to come up behind me at the sink and press against me and move his hands over me like magnets as I squirm away. At night I cry, feeling ashamed, as though his hands have left prints on my skin, like marks in drying clay.

When I was little, back in Yana Urku, the wind and sun would burn my cheeks and calves and feet, crack my flesh, make spidery red lines of blood that would fill with dirt and sting and ache. Despite this, I couldn’t resist scratching the flea bites clustered at my ankles, making the skin more and more raw, oozing blood and pus. Seeing this, Mamita had me pee in a cup and then she poured my warm urine over the cracked flesh, gently rubbing it in. My eyes watered at the hot sting, but within a few days, my skin was healed, whole again. I ran my fingers over my smooth legs, brushed my hands on my soft cheeks, feeling as brand-new as a freshly laid egg.

This is what I long for now, something to make Niño Carlitos’s touch disappear, something to make me good and complete and pure again. More and more now, I think about telling the Doctorita. Then, one day, something happens that makes me realize that she would blame me without a doubt.

I’m in the storeroom ironing Niño Carlitos’s button-down work shirts, when the Doctorita storms through the door, waving my notebook and shouting, “Why are you writing love poems? Who is this you’re writing about? What’s his name? I thought I forbid you to have a boyfriend!”

Oh, no. She must have looked under the refrigerator for some reason. “I don’t. I never did,” I lie. “It’s all from my imagination.”

“And did he teach you to read, too? So he could send you love letters?”

I watch my notebook as she swings it around. I hate seeing her fat hands on this thing that is sacred to me.

“Ha!” she snorts. “You know,
longa,
if you ever left here and went after this guy, you know what would happen?”

I say nothing and keep ironing.

“You
longas
are like dogs, dogs that we spend a lot of time training. It wasn’t easy for me—you were wild when I got you. I fed you and gave you shelter, and you’ve had a good life. But you know what happens when a dog gets in heat?”

I stare at the shirt on the ironing board, half wrinkled, half smooth.

“Answer me!”

I shrug.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s tamed or not. Within a month the dog is knocked up. It lives on the street scrounging for scraps. And then one day it shows up, back at its owner’s door.”

I bite the inside of my cheek in humiliation. The iron hisses and spews an angry cloud of steam.

“Don’t even think about running,” she yells. “Because in three months you’d be knocking at my door, pregnant and begging for your job back. Because that’s how you
longas
are.”

I set down the iron, shaking now.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

What I want to say is this:
You and your husband are the animals. You and your husband are the dogs, dangerous dogs, frothing-at-the-mouth, rabid dogs. But me, I’m the poetess. I’m the scientist. I’m the singer. I’m the secret agent. I’m the dancer. I’m the human.

Instead, I say flatly, “Can I have my notebook back?”

She throws the notebook on the floor on her way out. I pick it up and hug it to my chest. Then I ball up Niño Carlitos’s half-ironed shirt and hurl it against the wall. In my room, I open my notebook and read,
This world is a valley of tears.