Esperanza Rising (12 page)

After a while, Esperanza left Mama and the others and wandered through the noisy crowd, thinking how strange it was that she could be in the middle of so many people and still feel so alone. She saw a group of girls who seemed about her age but they were huddled together. More than anything, she wished Marisol were here.

Isabel found her and pulled on her hand. “Esperanza, come and see.”

Esperanza let herself be led through the crowd. Someone from town had brought a litter of kittens. A group of girls were crowded next to the cardboard box, cooing and cradling them. It was clear that Isabel desperately wanted one.

Esperanza whispered to her, “I will go ask your mother.” She wove back through the crowd to find Josefina, and when she agreed, Esperanza practically ran back to the spot to tell Isabel. But when she got there, a bigger crowd had gathered and something else was going on.

Marta and some of her friends stood in the bed of a truck that was parked nearby, each of them holding up one of the tiny kittens.

“This is what we are!” she yelled. “Small, meek animals. And that is how they treat us because we don't speak up. If we don't ask for what is rightfully ours, we will never get it! Is this how we want to live?” She held the kitten by the back of the neck, waving it high in the air. It hung limp in front of the crowd. “With no decent home and at the mercy of those bigger than us, richer than us?”

Isabel trembled, her eyes in a panic. “Will she drop it?”

A man called out, “Maybe all that cat wants to do is feed its family. Maybe it doesn't care what all the other cats are doing.”

“Señor, does it not bother you that some of your
compadres
live better than others?” yelled one of Marta's friends. “We are going to strike in two weeks. At the peak of the cotton. For higher wages and better housing!”

“We don't pick cotton on this farm!” yelled another man from their camp.

“What does it matter?” yelled Marta. “If we all stop working, if all the Mexicans are
juntos,
together …” She made a fist and held it in the air, “… then maybe it will help us all!”

He yelled back, “That is a chance we cannot take. We just want to work. That's why we came here. Get out of our camp!”

A cheer rose up around him. People started shoving and Esperanza grabbed Isabel's hand and pulled her aside.

A young man jumped into the truck and started the engine. Marta and the others tossed the kittens into the field. Then they pulled some of their supporters into the back of the truck with them and raised their arms, chanting,
“¡Huelga! ¡Huelga!
Strike! Strike!”

“Why is she so angry?” asked Esperanza, as she walked back to the cabin a few hours later with Josefina, Isabel, and the babies, leaving the others to stay later. Isabel carried the soft, mewing orange kitten in her arms.

“She and her mother move around to find work, sometimes all over the state,” said Josefina. “They work wherever there is something to be harvested. Those camps, the migrant camps, are the worst.”

“Like when we were in El Centro?” said Isabel.

“Worse,” said Josefina. “Our camp is a company camp and people who work here don't leave. Some live here for many years. That is why we came to this country. To work. To take care of our families. To become citizens. We are lucky because our camp is better than most. There are many of us who don't want to get involved in the strike because we can't afford to lose our jobs, and we are accustomed to how things are in our little community.”

“They want to strike for better houses?” asked Esperanza.

“That and more money for those who pick cotton,” said Josefina. “They only get seven cents a pound for picking cotton. They want ten cents a pound. It seems like such a small price to pay, but in the past, the growers said no. And now, more people are coming to the valley to look for work, especially from places like Oklahoma, where there is little work, little rain, and little hope. If the Mexicans strike, the big farms will simply hire others. Then what would we do?”

Esperanza wondered what would happen if Mama did not have a job. Would they have to go back to Mexico?

Josefina put the babies to bed. Then she kissed Isabel and Esperanza on their foreheads and sent them next door.

Isabel and Esperanza lay in their beds listening to the music and the bursts of laughter in the background. The kitten, after drinking a bowl of milk, curled up in Isabel's arms. Esperanza tried to imagine conditions that were more shabby than this room that was covered in newspaper to keep out the wind. Could things possibly be worse?

Sleepily, Isabel said, “Did you have parties in Mexico?”

“Yes,” whispered Esperanza, keeping her promise to tell Isabel about her old life. “Big parties. Once, my mama hosted a party for one hundred people. The table was set with lace tablecloths, crystal and china, and silver candelabras. The servants cooked for a week …” Esperanza continued, reliving the extravagant moments, but was relieved when she knew that Isabel was asleep. For some reason, after hearing about Marta and her family, she felt guilty talking about the richness of her life in Aguascalientes.

Esperanza was still awake when Mama came to bed later. A stream of light from the other room allowed just enough brightness for her to watch Mama unbraid her hair and brush it out.

“Did you like the party?” Mama whispered.

“I miss my friends,” said Esperanza.

“I know it is hard. Do you know what I miss? I miss my dresses.”

“Mama!” Esperanza said, laughing that Mama would admit such a thing to her.

“Shhh,” said Mama. “You will wake Isabel.”

“I miss my dresses, too, but we don't seem to need them here.”

“That is true. Esperanza, do you know that I am so proud of you? For all that you are learning.”

Esperanza snuggled close to her.

Mama continued. “Tomorrow we are going to a church in Bakersfield. After church, we are going to
una tienda,
called Cholita's. Josefina said she sells every type of sweet roll. And Mexican candies.”

They were quiet, listening to Isabel's breathing.

“In church, what will you pray for, Esperanza?” asked Mama.

Esperanza smiled. She and Mama had done this many times before they went to sleep.

“I will light a candle for Papa's memory,” she said. “I will pray that Miguel will find a job at the railroad. I will ask Our Lady to help me take care of Lupe and Pepe while Isabel is at school. And I will pray for some white coconut candy with a red stripe on the top.”

Mama laughed softly.

“But most of all, I will pray that Abuelita will get well. And that she will be able to get her money from Tío Luis's bank. And that she will come soon.”

Mama stroked Esperanza's hair.

“What will you pray for, Mama?”

“I will pray for all the things you said, Esperanza, and one more thing besides.”

“What's that?”

Mama hugged her. “I will pray for you, Esperanza. That you can be strong. No matter what happens.”

A
s they walked to the bus stop, Isabel recited a list of concerns to Esperanza, sounding exactly as Josefina and Mama had sounded earlier that morning.

“Put Pepe down for a nap first, and when he falls asleep, put Lupe down. Otherwise they will play and never go to sleep. And Lupe will not eat bananas …”

“I know,” said Esperanza, repositioning Pepe on her hip.

Isabel handed her Lupe and climbed the steps of the yellow bus. She found a seat and waved from the window. Esperanza wondered who was more worried, she or Isabel?

Esperanza struggled to carry both babies back to the cabin. Thank goodness Isabel had already helped her feed and dress them. She settled them on a blanket on the floor with some tin cups and wood blocks, then put the beans into a big pot on the stove. Hortensia had prepared them earlier with a big onion and a few cloves of garlic and instructed Esperanza to stir them occasionally and let them cook on low heat, adding more water throughout the day. She stirred the beans and watched Lupe and Pepe play. I wish Abuelita could see me, she thought. She would be proud.

Later, Esperanza looked for something to feed the babies for lunch. A bowl of ripe plums sat on the table. They should be soft enough to eat, she thought. She took several, removed the pit and mashed them with a fork. Both babies loved them, reaching for more after each spoonful. Esperanza mashed another three plums and they gobbled every bite. She let them have their fill until they started fussing and reaching for their bottles of milk.

“Enough of lunch,” said Esperanza, cleaning their faces and gratefully thinking that it would soon be nap time. She slowly changed their wet diapers, remembering all of Josefina's and Isabel's instructions. She put Pepe down first with his bottle, as directed, and when he fell asleep, she put Lupe next to him. Esperanza lay down, too, wondering why she was so tired, and she dozed.

She woke up to Lupe's whimpering and an atrocious smell. Brown liquid leaked from her diaper. Esperanza picked her up and carried her out of the room so she wouldn't wake Pepe. She changed her into a dry diaper and rolled the soiled one into a ball and put it by the door until she could take it to the toilets. When she put Lupe back down, Pepe was sitting up in bed, in the same condition. She repeated the diaper changing. With both babies clean, she left them in the bed and dashed to the toilets to rinse the diapers. Then she ran back to the cabin.

A different smell greeted her. The beans! She had forgotten to add more water. When she checked the pot, they appeared to be scorched only on the bottom, so she poured in water and stirred them.

The babies cried and never went back to sleep. Both dirtied their diapers again. The wadded pile by the door grew. They must be ill, worried Esperanza. Did they have the flu or was it something they ate? No one else had been sick recently. What had they eaten today? Only their milk and the plums. “The plums,” she groaned. They must have been too hard on their stomachs.

What did Hortensia give her when she was a child and was sick? She tried to remember. Rice water! But how did she make it? Esperanza put a pot on the stove and added a cup of rice. She wasn't sure how much water to add but she remembered that when rice didn't come out soft Hortensia always said it needed more water. She added plenty and boiled the rice. Then she poured off the water and let it cool. She sat on the floor with the babies and fed them teaspoons of rice water all afternoon, counting the minutes until Isabel walked through the door.

“What happened?” said Isabel when she arrived and saw the pile of diapers by the door.

“They were sick from the plums,” said Esperanza, nodding toward the plate still on the table where she had mashed them.

“Oh, Esperanza, they are too young for raw plums! Everyone knows that plums must be cooked for babies,” said Isabel.

“Well, I am not everyone!” yelled Esperanza. She dropped her head and put her hands over her face. Pepe crawled into her lap, making happy gurgling noises.

She looked at Isabel, already sorry for screaming at her. “I didn't mean to yell. It was a long day. I gave them some rice water and they seem to be fine now.”

Sounding surprised, Isabel said, “That was exactly the right thing to do!”

Esperanza nodded and let out a long sigh of relief.

That night, no one mentioned the number of rinsed and wrung diapers in the washtub outside the door. Or the beans that were obviously burnt or the pan of rice in the sink. And no one questioned Esperanza when she said that she was exhausted and wanted to go to bed early.