The Queen of Water (18 page)

chapter 30

I
T’S THE MORNING
OF MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL,
and I’m sitting on the stool by the fire pit, trying to keep the hem of my best dress off the dirt floor. I sip at my soup, almost too excited to eat.

Papito gives me a doubtful look. “I don’t see why you have to go to school.”

“It’s my dream, Papi,” I say firmly. During my first week of living with my family, I heard about an opportunity for older, uneducated kids to attend school. I signed up immediately. When I told Mamita about it, she frowned and muttered something in Quichua. Papito grunted that school was a waste of time and money.

Now he pokes at the ashes with a stick, shaking his head. “You could be working in the fields instead.”

I counter with the answer I’ve prepared. “In the long run I’ll make more money with an education.” I’m not arguing with him, just stating the facts. We both know that whether he approves or not, I’m going forward with my plans.

He and Mamita have been treating me like a houseguest over the past week, an important outsider to politely accommodate. This distance feels wrong, awkward, yet in some ways it seems easier than acting as though we have a bond. It makes my chest ache, wondering if we might be too different to ever make any real connection.

It seems hopeless, since even our thoughts have nothing in common. My mind is filled with ideas and plans and information I’ve read. I’m always inventing stories to write in my notebook or imagining I’m traveling to the Seven Wonders of the World. I don’t want to forget what I’ve learned, so I make mental diagrams of the respiratory system, the process of condensation, meiosis and mitosis. I look at the mountains and imagine the geological movements of plates beneath Earth’s crust over millenia. I love letting my mind leap from microscopic things to immense things and back again. It reminds me that the universe is full of possibility.

And what goes on in my parents’ minds? I’m guessing they must be practical things, rooted in the small world of a farming community: when to harvest the potatoes and radishes and onions; whether to butcher the chicken for lunch or keep it longer for its eggs; how to stop mice from getting into the sacks of corn in the rafters; how many days until the pregnant sheep births her lambs.

Our differences aren’t the only obstacles to forming a bond. Sometimes, when my parents look at me, I catch glimpses of shame or regret, what must be lingering guilt about giving me away. I wish I could hug them and tell them it’s all right, that I’m letting go and moving on. Instead, I look away. As much as I want to reach out, my hurt feels too raw. It’s not a simple thing to forgive such a huge betrayal.

Papito breaks the silence. “You’re too old for school.”

“I’ll be good at it,” I say evenly. “I’ll like it.”

But on my way to school, weaving around mud patches and potholes, I feel less certain. What if the other students shun me because I’m so much older than them? As part of the continuing education program, the elementary school principal said he’d let me enter sixth grade, even though I’m about fifteen, and let the teacher decide whether that’s the right level. Which brings me to another fear: what if that terrible teacher with the sharp fingernails is still there?

Inside the classroom, I discover I’m the tallest student by at least a head or two. The desks are too small for me; my knees push up into the wood. The first class is Spanish, all about subjects and predicates. I haven’t studied those before, but as soon as the teacher explains, it makes sense and I raise my hand high to answer every question. This teacher, Maestra Eva, is a young, pretty woman with a bright red blouse and gold hoop earrings and short, clipped fingernails, which she doesn’t inflict on any students. When I’m wrong, she says, “Good try, Virginia,” but most of the time I’m right, and she says, “Excellent, Virginia.”

Then there’s science, and of all things, they’re studying plants. I answer every question correctly and Maestra Eva looks impressed at how the words
chlorophyll
and
respiration
and
nitrogen-fixing cycle
roll off my tongue. Next is math, fractions, which is a little more difficult. I have to think hard and concentrate so much my head hurts. At recess, I sit beneath a tree with my notebook and review subjects and predicates and fractions while the other children play.

Three days later, Principal Marcelo sends for me to come to his office. I like him. He smiles often and really looks in your eyes and listens when you talk, smoothing his mustache and waiting a thoughtful beat before answering. “I’ve spoken with your teacher, Virginia. She says you’re very advanced in most areas, that you’re more at a
colegio
level.”

I can’t help smiling and telling him how I was a secret-agent student. I’ve told my parents about it and they weren’t impressed, but I have a feeling this man will appreciate it. “See, I used to study in secret. My bosses were
colegio
teachers, and I read their textbooks and did the students’ homework and took their tests.” Since Principal Marcelo looks interested, I ramble on a bit about the science experiments I did without the Doctorita knowing.

Once I finish, he’s quiet, and then he says, “You, Virginia, are an extraordinary girl. You will go far.”

My heart swells. “Thank you.”

“We think you should stay for three months, until the end of the school year. I’ll pull some strings and get you your diploma so you can enter
colegio
in the fall.”

I fly out of his office like a bird taking off from a tree. I wish I could run home to a mother and father who would hug me and congratulate me. Instead, I bring the cows and sheep to the pasture and write more of Soledad’s story.

The lovely Soledad proved herself to be the most brilliant student in the whole school. The teachers loved her and gave her medals and scholarships for being the best at everything. One day, when Soledad came home to show her mother her latest prize, her mother embraced her warmly, as usual. “
M’hija,
I’m so proud of you.” But then her mother grew dizzy and collapsed and, through sobs, revealed to her something terrible beyond words. “
M’hija,
I am dying of cancer.”

Soledad was sad, but brave. She asked for help from passersby and swept the streets and washed clothes in exchange for money, but one tragic evening, in a pool of moonlight, her mother died in her arms.

As I finish Soledad’s story, I know that despite her tragedies, she will go far in life, even though she will have to live with this piece of sadness inside her forever. She will have to make her way alone in the world, but she is smart enough to do it.

The next week at school, Maestra Eva announces that some important visitors—foreigners—will be coming, and they’re considering making a big donation to fund the construction of a science lab at the school. They will come on Mother’s Day, and the sixth graders will put on a play in honor of our mothers and the foreigners. The performance will have to be really good, she says, in order to win the hearts of these rich foreigners.

When I find out we’re supposed to invite our families, especially our mothers, an anxious knot forms inside me. Mamita would feel utterly out of place in a school auditorium. I wonder if she’s even heard of Mother’s Day, or if she’d agree to come to a school event. Even if I do invite her, I doubt she’d come.

After waffling over it late into the night, I fall asleep, still undecided. The next morning, over breakfast, it’s on an impulse that I ask her, maybe from a sense of obligation, or maybe from a small hope that she’ll enjoy seeing this piece of my world. I extend the invitation in Spanish, slowly, using gestures, feeling flushed with embarrassment. Through the steam of my soup, I watch her wrinkle her eyebrows in response, looking uncertain. She doesn’t say whether or not she will come.

I’m determined to make the Mother’s Day performance spectactular, not for my mother but for my teacher and principal, so they’ll be proud of me. And I want to impress the foreigners, so they’ll give my school the donation. All day, ideas for the show are brewing in my head. After school, I run to Maestra Eva’s desk and tell her about my Soledad story. “It would make a perfect play for Mother’s Day,” I say, nearly bouncing with eagerness.

“Wonderful, Virginia!” she says, and puts me in charge of the whole production—writing, directing, casting, everything.

At home, in the kitchen with my family, as the children chatter in Quichua and my parents slurp tea, I consider telling them about this honor. But the words stick in my throat. They probably don’t know what a play is, much less the different roles in producing one. I’m guessing that the words
director
and
playwright
don’t even exist in Quichua. And even if I explained it slowly and simply, Papito would most likely brush off plays as a huge waste of time and grunt that I should be doing real work in the fields. So, as always, I stay quiet, sipping my tea and keeping my thoughts to myself.

For a week, while I’m pasturing the animals after school, I write the story out in script form in my notebook. Then, by hand, I copy a script for each student. There are twenty-two roles total, one for each student in the class. At the end of the week, my hand is aching as I assign students their roles. I am the lead, Soledad, because no other girl is able to cry on command, and that is essential to the part. During rehearsals, we laugh and have fun and, little by little, become friends.

On the day of the performance, all the students’ parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings have come, enough to fill the auditorium to overflowing. The important foreigners and school officials sit in the front rows in their suits and fancy dresses. Out in the audience, the
mestizos
and
indígenas
are all mixed together. From the wings, I spot my mother, with Manuelito and Hermelinda and my little cousins crowded around her. She looks just as confused and uncertain now as she did when I invited her.

Swallowing hard, I smooth the skirt of my favorite dress, the flowered one, and rub together my lipsticked lips. Maestra Eva has put some of her makeup on my face and pronounced me prettier than any movie star.

Onstage, in the spotlight, everything feels right. The audience is rapt. At the part where Soledad’s mother dies and I have to cry, I draw on the valley of tears inside me. I think of the saddest moments of my life. I think of Antonio watching me leave on the bus. I think of Papito whipping my legs, the Doctorita beating me with hangers, Mamita saying she’d be happy if I left. I think of watching the students from the balcony back in Kunu Yaku, wishing I could be one of them.

The tears pour out. I sob and moan and clutch my hair, pulling it in utter agony, pounding my fists on the wooden stage, consumed with grief, looking up toward the heavens, asking,
Why, why, why
 … and finally I collapse on top of my dead mother.

The End.

As I stand up, I look at the audience and see that they’re crying too, the women wiping their tears with their shawls, even the men catching their tears on shirt cuffs. Some are sniffling and tearing up silently, and some are sobbing openly. It feels as though they are crying for me, for all that I’ve suffered. The whole community is crying for my sorrows.

The rest of the cast streams onto the stage and we hold each others’ hands. I bow first and they all follow. The audience is standing up, clapping and smiling and whistling. After a long time, the applause finally fades, and I hear people asking each other,
Who is that girl? Who are that girl’s parents? Where did that girl come from? She’s like a soap-opera star!

Principal Marcelo comes onstage and says, “Thank you, sixth graders, for the brilliant performance. Well done! Now it’s time for the students to present cards they’ve made to their mothers.”

This is the moment I’ve been dreading. I look at all the other mothers and wish that any of them were mine instead of Mamita. My insides sink into a puddle of shame. My mother looks so small and poor and bewildered. She is entirely out of place here. I wish I could slip away and mysteriously disappear into the night.

After about eight kids, Principal Marcelo turns to me. “María Virginia Farinango,” he says, with an encouraging smile. I feel myself flush at all the eyes following me as I weave through the crowd to my mother. And when I stop in front of her, I feel their confusion and hear their whispers.
But she is
mestiza
and her mother is
indígena.
How is that possible? How is it possible that her mother is so
humilde,
so poor and humble?

My mother stares, baffled, as I present her with a red construction-paper heart, with writing on it that she has no idea how to read. In front of all these people, I am supposed to hug her, just like the other students hugged their mothers. I put my arms around her shoulders—for the first time I can remember—and she stiffens in my arms.

A week later, when Principal Marcelo gives me the good news, he hugs me, a natural joyful hug, the kind of hug he probably gives to his children every day. “Thank you so much for what you’ve done for our school. It’s a great thing, Virginia. The school owes you a lot.” It turns out that the foreigners were so impressed with the performance, they decided to pay the entire cost of the school’s new science lab, even more than Principal Marcelo had hoped for. During the last two months of school, everyone buzzes about the mysterious actress who brought the whole village—even rich foreigners—to tears.

chapter 31

E
VER SINCE THE MOTHER’S DAY PLAY
, Mamita hasn’t complained about my attending school. Sometimes, when she’s talking to neighbors in Quichua, I overhear her say my name with an expression of pride. The one person in Yana Urku who is not at all impressed with my newly discovered ability to write, direct, act, and get good grades is Papito.

One night, as I’m doing homework by the light of the kerosene lamp, he says, “You know, you live here and eat our food.” He pauses. “And that’s fine because you’re our daughter. But the rest of us work for this food. We plant corn and beans and we clear the fields of weeds and we harvest the crops. You spend all day at school, and what do you have to show for it?”

“But I will have a lot to show for it, Papi. Just wait. I’ll get my diploma and then go to
colegio
and then to university.”

“With what money,
m’hija
?”

He’s got a point. Even though I’m only in elementary school, I can barely scrape together money to pay for notebooks and pens and pencils. And since this school is in a poor community, we don’t have to pay for uniforms. But if I go to the
colegio
of my dreams—República de Ecuador, the one that the Doctorita’s nephew Raúl went to—I’ll have to pay for two sets of school uniforms and a gym uniform and outfits for special events, which cost hundreds of sucres.

To make money, I spend weekends planting for Alfonso and Mariana, who pay me a few sucres, a tiny fraction of what I need. I’m clumsy in the fields, holding the shovel awkwardly, my movements jerky and full of effort. All the other workers have spent their lives working in fields, and their hands move quickly, automatically. But I’m even slower at planting than the little children. When I drop the seeds in, I count them out, unable to feel, on instinct, how many are in my hands. And I’m out of place in my
mestiza
pants and T-shirt, when all the other women wear
anacos
and blouses.

What’s more, when Mariana and Alfonso pass me, I notice a certain smugness in their gaze, as if they’re thinking,
See, here you are working in the fields like the
longa
you are. You’d have been better off with Carlos and the Doctorita.
I imagine them telling the Doctorita how I work in the fields, and the Doctorita assuming it’s a matter of time before I come begging for my job back. But they’re some of the only landowners who pay in money, and there don’t seem to be other part-time job opportunities here, so I swallow my pride and work for them.

As I work, I remember when I was a little girl pretending to be a rich
indígena
. Now I understand that these people I admired weren’t exactly rich, simply better-off than the people of my village, one of the poorest in Ecuador. These middle-class
indígenas
came from Otavalo or less impoverished communities, and owned shops or market stands or export businesses. Even now, years later, whenever I go to the market with my mother, my eyes linger on their beautiful clothes and jewelry. They have enough money to educate their children and live comfortably, owning land, a car, a two-story house, a TV.

The
mestizos
treat them with more respect than the poor ones, which is not to say they’re friendly. I’ve noticed that when a middle-class
indígena
buys something from a
mestizo’s
shop, he’s treated with only superficial politeness. If there are both an
indígena
and a
mestizo
waiting for assistance, nearly always the
mestizo
will be attended to first. There’s so much broiling beneath the surface. The
mestizos
can barely disguise their prejudice; the
indígenas
can barely suppress their resentment. So the two groups exist in separate realms—the
mestizos
in theirs and the middle-class
indígenas
in theirs—and rarely do they mix.

It’s obvious that the poor
indígenas
—the
longos,
as the Doctorita would call them—get the worst of it. They’re scorned by
mestizos
and middle-class
indígenas
alike. The shopkeepers openly disdain them, not even bothering to use the polite
usted
form. This is how people treat my parents. When my mother and I are together at the market in Otavalo—me dressed in my regular clothes, and her in poor indigenous clothes—people assume I’m a
mestiza
girl with her maid.

Where do I fit in? I study these groups carefully, looking for clues, watching how they interact. Soon I realize that my in-between position could offer me freedom to move among them as I wish. I start wondering how the middle-class
indígenas
got that way. They—or their parents or grandparents—must have started out poor at some point. They must have been clever and determined and somehow found a way to make money from nothing.

Again, I think back to when I was a little girl, practicing at being a rich
indígena
in the pasture. The worn scraps of fabric felt deliciously soft in my hands as I folded them in neat squares, transformed by my imagination into fine clothes for sale. I plucked leaves to use as money, which I stashed in my shirt, just like the
indígena
ladies at the market. Kneeling in the grass with my fabric-scrap clothes spread before me, I imitated the rhythmic tones I’d heard at the market.

“Look, señora, buy this, it’s cheap. Buy this, buy this, señora
.
How much will you give me?”

“Two sucres,” my cousin Zoyla said, holding forth two leaves, grudgingly playing along.

“Five,” I countered, my voice even and confident.

“Three,” she said.

I shook my head, holding my ground. “Five. Look at the fine cloth. Here, feel it. Not a sucre less than five.”

She reluctantly picked a few more leaves from the tree and counted five into my outstretched palms. I tucked them into my shirt, then gathered my fabric scraps in a sack, slung it over my shoulder, and scampered up the tree. I shouted to Josefa the cow and the scattered sheep, my voice echoing off the canyon walls. “I am a rich lady with my own business and I am traveling far away from here!” The tree transformed into my truck, full of merchandise—piles of blouses and skirts and shoes, and I bounced on the limb, beeping and roaring my engine to far-off places like Quito and Colombia. I closed my eyes and felt the wind in my hair and the thrill of traveling into a dazzling, bright future, certain that one day I would be old enough to do this for real.

And now that I’m old enough and resourceful enough, what’s stopping me?

One sunny, windy morning, on a day off from school, I’m on the way to Alfonso’s field with Mamita. We pass through our own field first, where, just beyond the outhouse, big green pumpkins are growing like weeds. Mamita uses these
sambos
to make dessert on special occasions, but this year has been a particularly good year for
sambos,
and there are more than we could possibly use.

“Mamita,” I say, swinging my machete as I walk, “what are you going to do with all those
sambos
?” I speak slowly in Spanish, gesturing and using simple words, the only way we can communicate.

“Who knows,” she says in Quichua, which I’m understanding more of, little by little. “Probably feed them to the pigs.”

“Can I have them?”

She gives me a strange look and shrugs. “Take them.” Most of the time, she doesn’t know what to make of me, so she lets me have my way. She still has no idea what kinds of places I go to in my head, and I don’t try to explain. It’s like I’m an extraterrestrial who landed in Yana Urku from another planet. The advantage to this, I realize, is it lets me see things from a fresh, entrepreneurial perspective.

My plan is to make
sambo
jelly, which I’ve made before, with the Doctorita. I spend all evening cutting up the pumpkins, and boiling them for hours with sugar to make a sweet paste, and then I use my last sucres to buy loaves of bread from the bakery. I spread the paste onto thick slices of bread and cut the sandwiches in half on a diagonal and put a stack of them in a plastic bag. Monday at recess, I sell them to the students and teachers for two sucres apiece. Within fifteen minutes, I’m sold out, and I go home that afternoon with a heavy pocketful of change. That evening, dancing and singing to myself in the kitchen, I make twice as many
sambo
jelly sandwiches.

The next day at recess, as I’m taking coins from the kids who are lined up, two old
mestizo
men walk past, ever so slowly. I catch one of them say, “This
guaguita
here, now, she shows us all how to work hard if you want to get ahead. This
guaguita
will go far in life.”

These words nourish me, these words I wish my parents would tell me. I decide the old man is right. And Principal Marcelo is right. I will choose to listen to their encouragement rather than my parents’ doubt. I
will
go far.

With my profits I buy lollipops and bananas from Otavalo and spend weekends at soccer and basketball games in nearby communities selling my sandwiches and candy and bananas. They’re a hit. Every weekend I come home with more money than I could make after a month of working in the fields for Mariana and Alfonso.

My little cousins and siblings love my new business, since it means free sweets for them. Sometimes, when I give Manuelito a spoonful of
sambo
jelly, he smacks his lips with delight just like Jaimito did when I’d sneak him a spoonful of honey. These treats bring me a little closer to the children, but they still keep their distance. I miss the warmth of my relationship with Andrecito and Jaimito, but I try not to wallow in memories. Instead, I focus on now, on expanding my business, selling snacks at dances and festivals.

My best customers are teenage boys. They buy a sandwich and say, “Delicious!” and then, “What’s your name?” and then, “You’re really pretty,” and then, “Would you like to go for a walk?” or “Would you like to go out sometime?” I just smile and let my eyes dance and say, “If you like my sandwiches so much, why don’t you buy some more for your family and friends?” They eagerly hand over more money and I smile and thank them and come home rich.

Sometimes a boy reminds me of Antonio, the way he used to gaze at me, like I was a miracle, like I was giving him a gift just by talking with him. After a moment of wistfulness, I try to let go of these memories, let go of my friends from Kunu Yaku, my beautiful cow, all the other sweet parts of my old life. And I move on, letting myself become swept along in the momentum of my new life.

I end up earning enough to pay for school supplies and contribute money to my family for food. Papito doesn’t exactly congratulate me on my success, but at least he no longer complains that I’m leeching off them. Best of all, I can even buy a few luxuries for myself. The biggest luxury is books, and my first book is the most magical one of all. This book is the key that will open the lock to the door to a new life.

The shop is small and dark and musty and filled with books from floor to ceiling. All these books together in one place—the jumble of colors and letters and pictures—make my heart thud. At first I just stand and soak up their papery presence.

“Feel free to browse,” the shopkeeper says, pushing up her glasses, then looking back at her own book.

“Thank you!” I just ducked into this store impulsively, while running errands for Mamita in downtown Otavalo, and now I feel as though I’ve stumbled onto a gold mine.

I run my hands over the spines, reading the titles wistfully. I miss the Doctorita’s shelves of books. It only took me a couple of weeks to read my sixth-grade textbooks cover to cover, and now I’m hungry for more.

One title catches my eye.
Secrets to a Happy Life.
On the cover is a garden bursting with flowers, and a silver key and keyhole. I wipe my hands on my skirt to make sure they’re clean and then flip through the book, careful not to hurt any pages. It’s all about how to reach your dreams. And the key idea is
Querer es poder. To want is to be able to. To want is power.
If you want something enough, you’ll find a way to get it. You have to be creative, think outside the box. You have to repeat your dream to yourself, with complete faith that you will get it. You have to envision your dreams as if they’re already real.

It’s as if the book is breathing and pulsing in my hand, buzzing with its own vibrant energy. It’s the feeling I got when I learned to read, like discovering a doorway to another world. It’s as if deep inside I’ve known these things already, these secrets to a happy life, but here they are, written out so that I won’t ever forget or doubt.

I buy the book and carry it with me everywhere. Within weeks it’s worn and soft. I start repeating to myself,
Querer es poder,
as I walk, in rhythm with my footsteps. The words become an undercurrent in my life, like music that sticks in your head, a constant background to every thought.

*  *  *

After elementary school graduation, when I tell my classmates I plan to attend the prestigious República de Ecuador in Otavalo, some of them laugh. “Only
la gente que puede
can go to that
colegio.
Not you.”
La gente que puede.
The people who can, people of means, wealthy people, high-class people. Instead of responding, I whisper to myself,
Querer es poder.

Years ago, when I told the Doctorita I would one day graduate from the República de Ecuador, the same
colegio
as her beloved nephew, she said with scorn, “That school is for the
gente de clase.
”
Gente de clase.
The people of a certain class. Meaning
mestizos
with money, not poor indigenous kids.

Querer es poder,
I repeat silently.

Over the summer, I take the entrance exam to the República de Ecuador and pass it with a score high enough that the head of admissions wants to interview me.