by Roger Bruner
“No, you don’t make an N that way. You do it like this.” Then the child would demonstrate, and the adult would try again. “That’s better,” the child would tell the adult, “but you must practice many times so you get it right every time. Show me your work when you’ve filled up this page.”
Was that really what the Elders had in mind?
Elder Diaz fidgeted slightly and looked down at the floor. Had my question embarrassed him? “If that is the only way.”
The other two Elders remained silent. One shuffled his feet as if he just wanted this discussion over with, and the other stared at a tiny lizard crawling across the floor.
Had they envisioned a mixed classroom or not? “You would prefer something different?”
The Chief Elder nodded. “Only if our idea suits you. Would you teach us for a short time each evening after supper? We will not learn as rapidly as the children. Our minds are not fresh like theirs, although we will probably be equally motivated. Perhaps more so.”
Lizard-watcher grinned. “We don’t want them to prove more intelligent than us—or more teachable.”
The other two men smiled and nodded. If their enthusiasm had been droplets of water, I could have filled a pitcher—a very large one—to overflowing.
~*~
So I established Santa María’s first adult education class.
At my request, several of the village men moved a number of my books and bookcases to the warehouse. The Council talked about having a key made for me the next time Nikki came, but decided the existence of a third key might prove unwise.
They agreed, however, that the village school teacher/librarian should be able to get into her facilities whenever she needed to. So the Council entrusted me with the padlock key that had once belonged to Tomás.
I wore it on a leather lace around my neck at all times. Whenever I looked at it in the mirror, I laughed. Tomás had never even given me a key to the apartment.
~*~
I asked the Council members to stop by my shack for a few minutes the evening before the adult classes were to begin.
“One thing I failed to mention earlier. If I am to teach you separately from the children, I will need helpers. My girls will assist me. As you know, they are very capable readers. Alazne is an experienced reading teacher, too.” I waited for that information to sink in.
Elder Diaz looked at each member in turn. He saw what I saw: unanimous nods of approval. “We agree to your condition.”
I needed to clarify something. “That was just a request, sir. Not a condition.” My attitude toward the Elders had grown considerably more positive during the four years I’d been back in Santa María. “I would not have refused to teach you if you had denied my request, but teaching without my girls’ help would have been exceedingly slower. And more difficult.”
I didn’t speak again for several moments. The time was right now—as right as it would ever be. Although they might refuse the yet-unspoken second half of my request, I would at least give them something to think about. They wouldn’t ignore me. Too much was at stake.
I let a few more seconds lapse. “Anjelita will be uncomfortable with the village adults knowing you still consider her maldita.”
“We haven’t been the ones to say that,” the chief Elder said. The other Council members nodded. Too quickly and too vigorously.
I had hit a nerve. I knew defensiveness when I saw it.
“I feel certain that none of you has ever called Anjelita maldita.” How I wished I could believe that. “But neither have you given her your blessing the way you did Alazne when we first arrived here.”
Elder Diaz sighed heavily. “We…should learn from our mistakes and correct the ones we can correct.” Several of the other Elders lowered their eyes. Lizard-watcher looked away, apparently unaware of the little lizard that was crawling across his bare foot.
“Then you…?” I fought back the rage I had held in check since the first villager looked at Anjelita and said, “¡Maldita!”
“Rosa, we will tell the villagers Anjelita is not maldita. We will make them understand that she is as normal as her older sister. As normal as you are. As we are. As they themselves are.”
Señora Valdes had remained silent throughout the meeting. “But you understand, do you not…?” She hesitated. “The villagers won’t necessarily accept our word on this matter. Since the day of Anjelita’s birth, they have believed she was maldita. They have spent four years convincing their children of that, too.”
I forced myself to smile. “I understand that you are taking a long overdue first step in the right direction. Thank you for that. I will not hold you responsible for the results.” I hoped my smile had grown more sincere. “I look forward to seeing each of you in class tomorrow night.”
With those words, I walked to the doorway, indicating that I had nothing more to say. I held my head high for the girls’ sake—and for my own.
But would the stand I had taken on Anjelita’s behalf actually help? Only time would tell.
35
Time passes slowly in Santa María. But not as slowly as it used to. I was already twenty-eight, Alazne was twelve, and Anjelita was eight. The village had changed more in the previous four years than during the preceding century. Most of it resulted directly or indirectly from the concentrated focus on education for the young and the old alike.
Helping a number of the villagers learn to read and do math taught me unexpected lessons about my own need for flexibility. I had to develop new teaching methods whenever my old, familiar methods failed.
My adult students—like the younger ones—didn’t require equal amounts of time and attention. Some learned quickly. Others seemed to lack any intellectual prowess whatsoever. They might have known the minutest details about growing marijuana, but they were incurably dull-witted when it came to learning to read or calculate.
I secretly rejoiced when several of the slowest adults quit coming to class. Too proud to admit they were giving up, they made such ridiculous excuses for their absences that the other adults finally quit asking where they had been.
Several of the more Elderly villagers had eye problems. A number of my books were large print editions, and I asked Nikki to bring many more.
~*~
I had never intended to turn my personal book collection into a public library, but the residents of Santa María developed such a keen love of reading that I couldn’t continue to horde my precious treasures.
So Nikki continued to bring books from San Diego. The subject matter was unimportant. And the reading level. Children’s books often proved popular among the adults, and the children—at least the older ones—seemed to prefer adult-level books.
To my amazement and the Elders’ relief, the exodus of young people to the city slowed down and almost stopped. The teens said they’d decided to explore the world first through books and then decide whether to risk exploring it in person.
~*~
The horrors of my childhood were rapidly fading from memory. Former prejudices toward me had vanished—poof!—and life had become bearable for my children as well.
No longer was I the naïve teenager who had acted foolishly with Tomás del Mundo and become pregnant because of my innocence. And no longer was I his cultural prisoner.
I had become a woman of knowledge and practical wisdom, as much respected as if the circumstances of my birth had earned such esteem. I had found my niche—my role in village life—and I was filling it proudly and lovingly.
I often reread Mother Chalina’s letter and wept aloud each time. Not because of what she had gone through. And not because she had died so brutally and needlessly. But because she hadn’t lived to see and rejoice in my success. I always paid special attention to what she had said about “you can’t go home again.” And to the paragraph that said,
I can’t be sure about this, Rosa, but—if you ever need a place to go, perhaps even a place to escape to—Santa María might be willing to have yo
u back and welcome you on your own terms. You have become a woman—well-educated because of diligence, intelligence, and determination. You can help the villagers now, but you must determine their needs and respond in the ways only you can do.
I marveled at the almost-magical way she had predicted my future.
I still hadn’t told the villagers I had learned the truth about my family background. Stirring up the past might upset the balance that existed within the village now. Nothing good would result from admitting my secret knowledge. Neither did I want my girls to learn about it.
~*~
“Momma, Señora Valdes has asked to borrow your copy of Don Quixote, but it isn’t in the lending library where it belongs.”
Don Quixote was one of an increasing number of books in our library that had been written in Spanish. It was a classic and one the girls and I had become quite fond of.
~*~
Anjelita looked so grown up when she relayed Señora Valdes’s request that I couldn’t keep from smiling. At the age of eight, she looked remarkably like her sister.
I had taught her my old hair-washing secrets, and she used them so faithfully her hair outshone all of the other villagers’. Even my hair looked dull in comparison, for I stayed too busy with other things to wash it daily now. And I didn’t have a Tomás to try to impress.
The adults respected Anjelita—at least to her face—but some of the children still taunted her about being maldita. Although it bothered her, it wasn’t like before. She was normally able to laugh it off. “It’s just their ignorance speaking.”
A number of the children and adults were lavish in paying her compliments about her intelligence, her reading ability, and her beauty. As American poet Robert Frost said, “and that has made all the difference.”
~*~
“Momma?”
Ah, Anjelita had caught me daydreaming again. About her.
“Do you know where—?”
“—Don Quixote is?” Alazne took over. “We’ve rechecked every shelf in the library, and it’s not there. The checkout notebook shows it’s supposed to be in. Do you know where it is?”
~*~
I looked at Alazne the way proud mothers often do. She had entered puberty, and she was beautiful—so beautiful people never seemed to notice her crutches.
The village boys had begun admiring her quietly from a distance, and I had begun a new quest. A secret one. A book about protecting a pre-teen girl from her admirers. If I didn’t find one soon, I might have to practice throwing books at the boys instead.
Mother Chalina’s necklace always hung from Alazne’s neck, although the chain was still so long she had to double it to keep it on. No one asked where we had gotten it or why we treasured it. The villagers knew it had originally belonged to my grandmother, but none of them realized I knew that.
I had already taught Alazne the facts of life. Facts—not the falsifications the village girls had let me overhear and take seriously. She wouldn’t have any excuse to repeat the mistakes I’d made so innocently during my teen years.
~*~
“Do you know where…?” Alazne asked once more when she saw that my mind was still elsewhere. She took her role as assistant librarian seriously and had not permitted one book to disappear yet.
“Don Quixote?” I gave her my most sheepish look. “That is my fault. I have been rereading it. I didn’t think to check it out to myself.” The girls looked at one another and giggled. “I suppose I must follow the rules, too, huh, young ladies? Since the records show that the book is in, I must give it up for a while. Yes?”
“As you wish, Momma.” But then Alazne added in a whisper, “But we could tell Señora Valdes we couldn’t find it.”
“You wouldn’t tell an untruth even for your Momma, would you, children?” I looked at each of them in turn with disapproval.
“Not an untruth, Momma,” Anjelita insisted. “We won’t say we don’t know who has it, just that we don’t know its exact location.”
Alazne winked at me. “So don’t tell us. That way you can keep reading it.”
“Ah, but that would be bending the truth. A person lies by failing to tell the truth just as much as she does by telling an outright falsehood. We do not do that.”
They smiled in agreement and I smiled back. I had taught them well, and they had taken this important lesson to heart.
“Look on my blanket.” I pointed to the other side of the room. “Take the book to Señora Valdes, but please go together. It is dusk now, and the two of you can look out for one another.”
“Yes, Momma,” they responded in unison as they scampered to pick up the book.
“And don’t forget to mark the good Don as being checked out to Señora Valdes now.” But they had already grabbed the book and headed out before I finished my sentence.
Mothers never stop being mothers. I was thankful the girls were together. Although Santa María was one of the safest places in the world for both children and adults, I felt strangely ill-at-ease that evening about their being out.
My feeling was irrational, and I knew it. So I forced it to the back of my mind. Why, then, did it keep resurfacing?
36
An hour or so later, I got up off the floor to answer a knock on my doorframe. A pounding, actually. Señora Valdes.
She was normally immaculate and well groomed, even at that time of night. But something had horribly altered her spruce appearance and given her a grotesque look that the shadows cast by my single oil lantern made even worse.
She was huffing and puffing. As if she had been running. She could barely speak. “Your girls…safe, but something…horrible…”
I gasped as the acid shot into my throat. “What…?”
“They are…safe.”
“Where…?” I said, this time more urgently. “What has happened?”
“They are inside the warehouse. My daughter is caring for them there.”
Yes, they would be safe if they were with Señora Valdes’s adult daughter, but safe from what? Despite my earlier premonition, I had expected their visit with Señora Valdes to be uneventful.
“They—the girls—brought…”
By then, she was completely out of breath. I poured water from the nearby ceramic pitcher into a matching cup and handed it to her. She gulped it down in one long swallow before continuing. “They brought Don Quixote just as I had asked. But they brought something else—something I hadn’t expected.”
She held out her right hand. Mother Chalina’s letter.
I gasped loudly, snatched the papers possessively, and held them as close to my heart as I’d held my girls when they were newborns.
She narrowed her eyes. “It must have been lying beneath the book when they picked it up. I’m sure they didn’t see it, and I didn’t notice it until they’d already left to return home.”
“And you…?”
“I? I cannot lie. I was curious. I…began reading. My husband, Pedro, was in the room.”
What are you trying to say, woman? “And…?”
“And he insisted that I read the letter aloud. He wanted to hear it, too.”
I motioned for her to continue.
“Just as Chalina’s letter answered many of the questions you used to ask about your heritage, it answered some of the questions I’ve had for many years.”
I felt almost as confused and overwhelmed as I had at twenty when I first read Mother Chalina’s letter. “Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Pedro. I had wondered, I had worried, I had been fearful. But when he became inexplicably agitated at one part of the letter…”
Are you telling me that Pedro…? “Señora Valdes, I don’t understand. What does Señor Pedro have to do with Mother Chalina’s letter?”
“Rosa, Chalina’s letter told you she was your mother. It told me Pedro is your father.”
~*~
“Dr. Morales?” I tried to focus on the man who was bathing my forehead with cold water.
&n
bsp; “No, not Dr. Morales,” he said with such compassion I thought I was dreaming. “It is Elder Diaz. You are fine now, Rosa. The girls are, too. Their wounds—quite superficial. Nothing to worry about.”
I shook my head to clear the fogginess. Had I hit it when I passed out? Why else would it throb this way? And why was I having so much trouble gathering my thoughts together?
“Pedro…Pedro Valdes is my…my father?”
Señora Valdes couldn’t have missed my tone of disbelief. Fear and embarrassment colored her face in equal portions. She glanced around the room as if searching for a means of escape, but I was lying in the doorway. She couldn’t get out without stepping on me. She would have to explain.
She must have realized she didn’t have a choice. She nodded almost imperceptibly to my question.
“Mother Chalina’s letter told you that? How? She never saw her attacker. She couldn’t identify him. She said so herself.” I sensed that my irritation was rising, but I didn’t have any control over it. “You aren’t making sense.”
“It may not make sense to you, Rosa, but it makes far too much sense to me.”
“Tell me what you are talking about, woman!” Never had I spoken to one of the Elders that way, but never had I experienced a shock like this. I forgot all about respect and courtesy.
“You are how old, Rosa?”
Huh? Why ask that? “Twenty-eight,” I spit out impatiently.
“One night nearly twenty-nine years ago—”
“You can be that precise about something that happened so long ago?” I was incredulous.
“A troubled woman keeps track of such things. Pedro had wanted to make love to me. Because he was almost drunk, I refused to be intimate with him.” She started speaking faster. “The alcohol must have destroyed his inhibitions. He screamed at the world complaining of the way I had ‘mistreated’ him. Then he went outside.”
