Rodolfo pounced down onto the ground from the high flatbed in a single leap, his three smallest children still clinging to him. When he finally clustered all of them around him, he paused for a long time before saying or doing anything. Then the questions began.
“’Apá, where are we?”
“When are we going to eat? I’m hungry.”
“Where’s the toilet, ’Apá?”
Rodolfo’s chest was heaving with anxiety. He rolled his eyes in every direction, as if looking for a door through which he and his children could escape. He tried to ask others what to do next, but everyone was just as terrified as he was. They either yanked away or just shrugged shoulders; no one could pay attention to the misery of others. This went on for some time before a man dressed in khaki pants, a plaid shirt, and high leather boots spoke out. He had a bull horn placed to his mouth to assure that he could be heard.
“¡Bienvenidos al Rancho la Concepción! If you want work, this is where you’ll find it. We pay five centavos for each bucket of tomatoes you pick, except if they’re bruised or damaged. Over there to the right you’ll find toilets and water. To the left of that is a store where you can buy the goods you need. You can find the buckets right there, too. And back there is the space where you can set up your tents to live in. Work begins at four in the morning and ends when the sun sets. In the meantime, I want you to know that I’m the main foreman, and standing here to my right and left are my associates, Señor Donato Sánchez and Señor Evaristo Mendoza. They will deal with paying you as well as with any act of disorderliness. If anyone doesn’t like it here, you can walk back to Hermosillo. It’s in that direction.”
The man pointed in a westerly direction, and without waiting to answer questions or give any further information, he turned abruptly and walked away from the stunned crowd. He then drove off in a dusty Packard that had been waiting for him.
There was silence for a few moments before everyone realized that hardly any of them had blankets, much less tents in which to take shelter. A minute passed. Then the stillness was broken by a spontaneous outburst as all realized that the space pointed out by the foreman was limited, and that a family could be left without a place to sleep.
The impact of this possibility made everyone panic. At first, they shuffled from side to side, uncertain of what to do next. Then one man broke away from the crowd, and as if a signal had been given, the rest stampeded like disoriented cattle in every direction. Men, cursing and spitting out insults, pushed and wrestled with one another over a few feet of dirt. Women, too, were using their fists, teeth, fingernails and feet to throttle, shove, grab until they could lay claim to at least a bit of space. All of this happened amid the din of screaming adults and squalling children. Dust churned by trampling feet rose high above, enveloping men and women and children. All the while the foremen looked on, evidently accustomed to what they were witnessing.
Ana and Octavio were the first to reach a small patch of ground where they threw themselves down, spread eagle, instinctively understanding that this would signal possession. Seconds later, Rodolfo reached the same place and together with the rest of the girls fanned out in a circle, claiming the area. They dug their bundles into the soft dirt, as if they had been fence posts lashed together by invisible barbed wire. The Calderóns had taken hold of that spot of dusty earth and laid claim to it against any intruder who might dare to trespass.
When Rodolfo and his children were finally able to flop down to catch their breath, all of them, except César, were gasping for air as their lungs returned to normal breathing. Their bodies were encrusted with dust and sweat that had turned into blobs of mud. Their lips were chapped and dry, and each one of them was starving.
“’Apá, let’s go to the store. I heard the man say that we could buy things there. We’re all so hungry.”
Alejandra had finally caught her breath and her voice was filled with pain. No one else spoke, but most of them nodded their heads in support of what she was saying. Rodolfo, too, agreed as his hand reached deep into his side pocket.
“Ana, you and Aleja stay here with the little ones. Tavo, you come with me.”
As Rodolfo and Octavio groped their way around knots of people, some of which had already started fires out of twigs and leaves, they saw expressions they had never seen before. The boy began to feel fear for the first time since they had left Puerto Real. Doubt began to creep into Rodolfo’s heart as he looked around at faces overwhelmed by sadness and fear. Many were weeping, even men. The stench of sweat and urine was beginning to foul the air, and the crying of babies told of desperate hunger which a mother or a father was powerless to relieve.
Rodolfo and Octavio had to wait because a line had already formed at the door of the dingy shack that was the company store. From where they stood, they could hear murmuring, then loud words and finally shouting, as a man complained because of the unheard prices that was put on tortillas and a few pieces of cheese. They didn’t hear a response. What they saw, however, told them what was happening. The man was grabbed by the two foremen, arms twisted behind him, and thrown face down onto the ground just outside the store and in full view of the waiting customers. One of the foremen made an obscene gesture at the prostrate man, and looking at the rest of the men, he said, “You’ll get the same if you misbehave.”
Someone, however, had the courage to speak out. “But what if we don’t have enough money? Are we supposed to let our children starve?”
“Of course not. The patrón is not inhuman.” The words were charged with sarcasm. “All you have to do is get a little credit, that’s all. You’ll find that Don Chicho—that fine gentleman that runs this store—will set you up without any problem. All you have to do is ask in a courteous way and not like an animal, like this one.” The foreman pointed at the man who was still laying face down. Rodolfo looked away, but Octavio could see that the muscles of his jaw were clenched.
When they finally entered the store, they encountered an obese, bald man who appeared to be around fifty years old. He wore a tiny mustache and his eyes, Octavio thought, were like those of a pig.
“Caballeros, what will it be? I have canned goods as well as dry goods. Rice, beans, onions, whatever you desire. I have tortillas—not too fresh—but still very delicious. And, of course, I have plenty of tequila. For medicinal purposes, of course.”
As he howled at his witticism, his belly wobbled up and down and from side to side. Rodolfo glared at him in silence. “Give me a kilo of tortillas, some of those chorizos and a jug of water.”
After placing the items requested by Rodolfo on the counter, the fat man scribbled a figure on a scrap of paper and handed it to him.
“¡Ten pesos! You’re crazy. That’s more than a month’s wages back home…”
“Take it, or get out of here. You saw what happens to troublemakers. On the other hand, the store will give you credit if you want. Just put your mark on this paper.”
Rodolfo, fighting the urge to strike out at the man, controlled himself, remembering his children. He would be able to pay later, anyway. What was important now was to keep everyone strong enough to work. Then the money to pay the bill would follow. Rodolfo put his initials on the bottom of the bill without saying a word.
When they returned, Ana and Alejandra had built a small fire around which the children were huddling. As their father produced the package of food, each one stuck out a hand that could hardly wait for a taco of sausage followed by a gulp of water. When they finished all the food, they were still hungry, but because they were also exhausted, they clustered against one another and immediately fell into a deep sleep. The only sounds in the camp were the hootings of the owls and the crackling of the fire. Ana, holding César tightly, began to wonder for the first time if this was really the place where all her hopes would come true.
We worked in the fields of Sonora picking tomatoes for almost three months, but we got nothing in return. My father kept getting deeper into debt with the company store
. Even though we were seven workers, we were never able to gather enough tomatoes to pay for what we ate each day. Don Chicho, the fat man, never denied anyone what they wanted, but people understood that at the end of the harvesting season, he would present a bill that more than likely no one would be able to pay. It meant that those people would have to move over to the other side of the rancho where the corn was ready to be picked, and work there in payment of the bill.
Saturday evening was payday. The men, my father included, lined up at the two tables from which the foremen paid the wages earned that week. Each of the supervisors had a tablet in front of him with a count of the buckets brought in by each man. The work that the women and children did was credited to the man of the family. My father, who had six workers to his name, sometimes came out a little ahead of the other campesinos. But not always, because if there was at least one tomato that showed a bruise or a cut, that bucket wasn’t counted. Since Jasmín, Zulma and Rosalva were still little, they sometimes dropped their buckets and damaged the tomatoes.
There was another reason why at the end of the season most of the families owed the patrón money. It was because on Saturday night Don Chicho put out bottles of tequila and invited the men to treat themselves. “It’s your just dues, isn’t that so, caballeros? You’ve worked like mules all week long, haven’t you?” He reminded them of this as he laughed heartily, his belly shaking and his thin mustache glistening with the oil that dripped from his cheeks.
The men became drunk every Saturday night. Most of them, and many times my father, spent everything they had earned during the week on tequila. I disliked my father most of all when he was drunk. He frightened me. He glared at me for hours as I crouched with the rest of the kids by the small fire. He often grumbled under his breath at me and most of the times I felt that he wanted to hit me because I wasn’t a boy.
I made up my mind that I would show him that I could work as much as Tavo, and even more. Besides, I wanted to make up for what my little sisters couldn’t do in the fields, so I worked without stopping sometimes. My hands and fingers became blistered and my back always hurt from stooping over the tomato plants. But no matter how many buckets I filled during the day, my father still seemed to resent me, especially when Saturday night came around.
Tavo worked hard, too, but many times he and Alejandra would fool around, wasting their time. They made faces at me when I reminded them that it was work, not play, and that we needed the money to pay for our tortillas that night. But they didn’t care. They were as playful as they had been back home. I wondered at those times why I was different. I still went into myself to become an elegant and well-known lady, but I did this now only at night when I was falling off to sleep.
Along with my father’s resentment of me, what I hated about those days was what we had to do to César and the twins. We had to leave them at the edge of the field with one of the many grandmothers who were too old to work. It was another expense because she charged ten cents for the care of each of the kids. Spending the money was not what bothered me because I knew that I alone picked enough tomatoes to pay that bill. What hurt me the most was to hear César cry out after me when I left him with the old lady. It didn’t seem to matter to him that his two sisters were there with him. All he knew was that I wouldn’t be around to hold him. Even when I was in the middle of the field, I could still hear him crying out my name. And this hurt so much that sometimes tears squeezed out of my eyes.
The worst thing that happened to us was that Jasmín became very sick. First she stopped eating; we couldn’t even force her to swallow a piece of tortilla. Then we saw that it was difficult for her to move, so we had to leave her with the old lady who took care of the other children. By this time, I could see that my father was growing desperate. He didn’t know how he would pay the money he owed the patrón, and he could see that Jasmín needed a doctor. It was at that time that I saw him whispering several times with some of the other workers.
We all knew what was happening, and the few days that followed turned into nightmares for each one of us. No one laughed or played anymore, especially me, because on top of everything, something suddenly happened that changed my life. I had known about it for a long time and I knew that it came to all women, but I suppose that I had thought that I would be different.
It occurred one day when I was stooped over a plant and I glanced down at my ankle. Blood! It was dripping from between my thighs. By the time I looked, small blobs of it had already mingled with dust at the top strap of my huarache.
I still can’t understand why this hit me as it did, except that up to that moment I had supposed—I had hoped—that this would never happen to me. That trickle of red liquid forced me to accept that I was like other girls after all. I straightened up and looked around at the women; I knew that some weren’t much older than me. I watched them toiling under the relentless sun. Like dumb animals, they mechanically yanked the red fruit from the vines. I looked at the soiled, dusty bandanas that covered their hair already streaked with gray. I saw their bony faces marked by grayish blotches, their eyes sunken and sad, their skin aged beyond its years.
The darkened palapa and my mother’s body, legs spread apart, took shape before my eyes, shimmering in the transparent desert air. I heard my voice: “I’m never going to have children, Tía.” Then Calista’s words rang out in my memory, even stronger than when she had first uttered them, “When we’re young, we women all say the same thing. But in the end, no one asks us what we want or don’t want.”
I knew that in just a few years, maybe even less, I would be the same as the women surrounding me. I saw that what I had desired—my hope of being a dancer, of being famous—was nothing but a fantasy; the silly, empty dream of a child. I felt something inside of me shatter, and I could hear the pieces clashing against one another as they cluttered up my insides.
I couldn’t help what happened next because I wanted more than anything to be little, to become invisible. Lowering myself, I burrowed as far as I could under a plant. I rolled up, bringing my knees close to my chin and I clasped my body with my arms. I stayed there for the rest of the day.
Rodolfo squatted on his haunches; his voice was tense as he whispered to the children. “We’re leaving tonight after all the campfires die out, so don’t fall asleep! It’ll be like this. First Ana will pretend to take the twins to the toilet. What she’ll do is go far behind it, over there to where the oak tree is. She’ll hide there and wait. After a while you, Tavo, will wait until I give you the signal to do the same thing with César…”
“No, ’Apá! He’ll cry if he doesn’t go with me. He’ll wake everybody up!” Ana pleaded with her father.
Rodolfo sucked at his teeth. “Bueno, sí, you’re right. Then you’ll have to pretend that you’re taking all three kids to the toilet. That means that Aleja will have to do the same with Zulma and Rosalva when I tell her to go.” Turning to her, he said, “You’re not scared to do that, are you, Hija?”
Wide-eyed, Alejandra nodded negatively. Rodolfo continued with his plan as he turned to Octavio. “That leaves you and me. After we’re sure that everyone is behind the tree, I’ll carry Jasmín. You stay close by my side.” He looked at all of them as he rasped out his whispered words. “We can’t rush because we might stumble over somebody or something. If that happens just say you’re sorry and that you’ve got to hurry to the toilet before you do it in your pants.”
The children giggled, but were cut short by their father’s scowl. Rodolfo continued whispering, telling them what they would do after they made it to the oak tree. His brood huddled around him, listening intently. He didn’t have to say more; they knew what it was all about. Each one of them understood that they had been unable to make enough money to pay their bills, that Jasmín was very sick and that they had to get out of the camp. They also knew that they were surrounded by people in the same situation. That fear had gripped the campesinos and their families in a deadly vise, and that instead of trying to
help one another, there was likelihood of being denounced if seen trying to escape.
The night was dark as the Calderón family waited for the moment of their flight. The moon was a tiny slit in the sky and the stars sparkled like diamonds, clustering so closely in some places that they created white patches against the velvety blackness. Ana was wide awake. She felt her heart pounding with anticipation and with hope of getting out of that place which had brought them only misery. Now and then she prodded the children with her foot or with her hands when she saw that, overcome by fatigue, they were drifting off to sleep. The only one she rocked and swayed trying to put into a deep sleep was César. Ana feared that he would let out one of his powerful squeals once they began to make their way out of the camp.
Ana closed her eyes, not because she was sleepy but because they seemed to be on fire. She was keenly aware of the different sounds around her. She could hear humming and a lilting ballad at the far edge of the camp. She heard forks scraping against tin plates, children whimpering, muffled conversations here and there interrupted by laughter; she wondered what anyone had to laugh about. Soon, however, those sounds began to recede until there was only an occasional banging of the outhouse door. When Ana opened her eyes, she saw that the camp fires had burned down to embers glowing in the middle of circles of bodies covered with sarapes and cast-off flour sacks.
When she looked to where her father crouched she was able to make out the whites of his eyes and Ana saw that they were glowing almost as brightly as the dying embers of their campfire. She knew that he was ready; and she, too, was ready. Wordlessly the signal was given to one another. It was time to go.
Taking only what she was wearing, Ana rolled César tightly into a gunny sack. Then she slung him over her back and tied the material around her chest and waist. Accustomed to her body, the boy didn’t wake up. She took Cruz and Pilar by the hand and slowly, as if walking on something fragile, made her way around and sometimes over bodies. As they moved farther away from their family, the three silhouettes seemed to float toward the outhouse until they disappeared into the night.
The Memories of Ana Calderón Page 4
