a school run by gringos where I might be able to get a job as maidslave. That was the beginning of my flight to Norte America.
“My parting from Jesús’ people was one the rest of the world will never see, nor will they understand its meaning. I am not sure I understand its meaning myself. I only know that they gave me the last remaining symbols of who they were in the world—feathers from the red African parrot for my ears, this parrot that had been brought to their village so many hundreds of years ago by the men with rough hair, from a continent they called Zuma, or Sun, and they gave me, for Carlotta, the three pigeon-egg-size stones.”
“I T WAS AT L A Escuela de Jungla that I first saw that the norte-americanos are muy dementes. There were many acres of grass and trees at this place, and you have never in life seen such flowers and such fruits! A little paradise, it seemed, and I was sure I and mi cariñito would be happier there. There was a hacienda with red tiles on the roof and long white rooms with many ferns touching the ceiling, and sofas and chairs never imagined, so deep, so soft. Such contours and colors. The floor, even on the verandah, was also made of tiles, huge square blocks, the color of muddy sunsets, that I was to know very well because mine was the job of cleaning them every day. It was in this hacienda, in the spacious rooms upstairs, that the gringos stayed when they brought their children to the school. When they left, they thought their children would remain in one of these rooms—large, airy, full of greenery and dark old polished furniture, a caged parrot in the window. But no. Far behind the hacienda, in a clearing in a bamboo thicket was el barrio de los alumnos. They lived in huts like the poorest campesinos, and they were drugged and shut in most of the time.
“Some of them were mad and came from families so ashamed of madness they would not even put them away in a crazy house anywhere in Norte America. Some of them were disabled or retarded or deformed or blind. These, only the poorest of the Indian servants ever saw. But then there were those who had been politicos extremistas in Norte America. For they were all grown, these ‘students’; did I tell you that? And some nearly middle-aged. There were the sick-in-the-heart radicales—a word I heard often from the gringa who helped me escape—who believed nothing their parents did was right, and sometimes, this gringa said, she herself would not come to her parents’ dinner table dressed or with her hair combed, or even wearing shoes! She was very rich, you know. Such behavior grieved her parents to the heart. Nor could they find it in their hearts to ignore it.
“When I met this gringa, she was very dirty, barefoot, and wearing rags. She was sweeping out the room of one called ‘The Disabled,’ a hairy lump of a gringo from the Korean-American war, who smelled terrible. She was very glad to hear a word of Spanish, because she had contact mainly with los indios, and the Disabled had been fed so many drugs his tongue was lost. She was cleaning the Disabled’s room because the india embarazada was sitting underneath a nearby tree having labor pains. She was muy immensa, also poor, ragged, barefoot, though not dirty, and her children’s father was away in a war she did not understand.
“I asked the gringa her name, and she looked at me long before she gave it. The centers of her eyes were big in her dirty face and she seemed to turn many pages in a book mentally before she found the symbol for who she was. ‘Mary Ann,’ she said. ‘Me llamo Zedé,’ I said. She laughed. She was very high.
“I laughed with her. It was so very long since I laughed.
“I was there, let me see, two years. And it was there that Carlotta proved a great help to me. She was a wonder to everyone we met because she never cried. I don’t mean she never shed tears; no, she never cried so that anyone could hear her. She cried the way one smiles.
“My parting from Jesús’ people was one the rest of the world will never see, nor will they understand its meaning. I am not sure I understand its meaning myself. I only know that they gave me the last remaining symbols of who they were in the world—feathers from the red African parrot for my ears, this parrot that had been brought to their village so many hundreds of years ago by the men with rough hair, from a continent they called Zuma, or Sun, and they gave me, for Carlotta, the three pigeon-egg-size stones.”
“I T WAS AT L A Escuela de Jungla that I first saw that the norte-americanos are muy dementes. There were many acres of grass and trees at this place, and you have never in life seen such flowers and such fruits! A little paradise, it seemed, and I was sure I and mi cariñito would be happier there. There was a hacienda with red tiles on the roof and long white rooms with many ferns touching the ceiling, and sofas and chairs never imagined, so deep, so soft. Such contours and colors. The floor, even on the verandah, was also made of tiles, huge square blocks, the color of muddy sunsets, that I was to know very well because mine was the job of cleaning them every day. It was in this hacienda, in the spacious rooms upstairs, that the gringos stayed when they brought their children to the school. When they left, they thought their children would remain in one of these rooms—large, airy, full of greenery and dark old polished furniture, a caged parrot in the window. But no. Far behind the hacienda, in a clearing in a bamboo thicket was el barrio de los alumnos. They lived in huts like the poorest campesinos, and they were drugged and shut in most of the time.
“Some of them were mad and came from families so ashamed of madness they would not even put them away in a crazy house anywhere in Norte America. Some of them were disabled or retarded or deformed or blind. These, only the poorest of the Indian servants ever saw. But then there were those who had been politicos extremistas in Norte America. For they were all grown, these ‘students’; did I tell you that? And some nearly middle-aged. There were the sick-in-the-heart radicales—a word I heard often from the gringa who helped me escape—who believed nothing their parents did was right, and sometimes, this gringa said, she herself would not come to her parents’ dinner table dressed or with her hair combed, or even wearing shoes! She was very rich, you know. Such behavior grieved her parents to the heart. Nor could they find it in their hearts to ignore it.
“When I met this gringa, she was very dirty, barefoot, and wearing rags. She was sweeping out the room of one called ‘The Disabled,’ a hairy lump of a gringo from the Korean-American war, who smelled terrible. She was very glad to hear a word of Spanish, because she had contact mainly with los indios, and the Disabled had been fed so many drugs his tongue was lost. She was cleaning the Disabled’s room because the india embarazada was sitting underneath a nearby tree having labor pains. She was muy immensa, also poor, ragged, barefoot, though not dirty, and her children’s father was away in a war she did not understand.
“I asked the gringa her name, and she looked at me long before she gave it. The centers of her eyes were big in her dirty face and she seemed to turn many pages in a book mentally before she found the symbol for who she was. ‘Mary Ann,’ she said. ‘Me llamo Zedé,’ I said. She laughed. She was very high.
“I laughed with her. It was so very long since I laughed.
“I was there, let me see, two years. And it was there that Carlotta proved a great help to me. She was a wonder to everyone we met because she never cried. I don’t mean she never shed tears; no, she never cried so that anyone could hear her. She cried the way one smiles.
Similar Books
