Diego's Pride

by Deborah Ellis

  ‘Diego, you are doing a fine job here, and we are glad you are with us,’ Vargas said, putting his hand on Diego’s shoulder. ‘This is the future of Bolivia,’ he said to the group, ‘and we are in very good hands.’

  Diego’s chest puffed with pride. He felt like he could fly, or do anything else that came his way.

  ‘Diego, I have another task for you. Will you take it on, along with the work you are already doing?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Vargas. Anything.’

  ‘Please, just call me Vargas. I want you to watch out for my son. I have to leave in the morning to travel to the other blockades in the area, and I’ll feel better about leaving him here if I know he has a friend.’

  Diego groaned a little to himself. The son of a respected man was likely to be a jerk, someone Diego would prefer to throw off the bridge rather than spend time with.

  ‘He’s been ill,’ Vargas said. ‘He is not strong, and he’ll be safer here than travelling with me. His mother is dead,’ Vargas added. ‘There is just the two of us.’

  ‘He will be safe with me,’ Diego said. He couldn’t refuse. He just hoped the son wasn’t too much of a pain, and anyway, he was used to little kids.

  ‘Thank you, Diego. I knew you were the one to ask. His name is Emilio, and you will find him somewhere on the bridge.’ Vargas shook Diego’s hand with real gratitude, then went back to his discussions with the adults.

  Somewhere on the bridge. Diego thought that probably meant under one of the sleeping tarps, where the little kids were forced into sleeping by their parents. There was a lot happening on the blockade, and a lot of people to play with. The little ones were reluctant to go to sleep in case they missed something.

  ‘Is there an Emilio in here?’ Diego asked in a whisper, bending low to ask one of the mothers sitting there. She was nursing her baby, and she shook her head.

  Diego got the same result when he asked at other sleeping areas. He walked up and down the bridge, looking for a little kid who should have been in bed.

  ‘You look lost,’ said a boy about his age. He was leaning over a chess board lit up by a candle stuck in an old tin can with the side cut out of it. ‘It takes a special skill to get lost in the middle of a bridge.’

  ‘Do you know a little kid named Emilio?’ Diego said. ‘I’m supposed to look after him. A job directly from Vargas.’ He was unable to keep the bragging from his voice.

  ‘You play chess?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You give me a decent game, and I’ll tell you where to find Emilio.’

  ‘You don’t think I can beat you?’

  ‘I’ll be satisfied if your playing doesn’t put me to sleep,’ said the boy, but he said it with a smile.

  There had been some good chess players in the men’s prison, and Diego had learned a few tricks from them when he visited his father. He and the other boy were evenly matched, playing quickly, their moves speeding up as the game went on. The boy across from him grinned as the speed picked up, and they took off into a sort of chess dance. A ring of blockaders soon surrounded the little bit of light from the candle, watching the boys play.

  It ended in a draw.

  ‘Emilio, you play like your father,’ someone said, patting him on the shoulder. The group broke up, leaving the boys alone.

  ‘Your father is Vargas,’ Diego said, looking across the chess board at the boy. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Would it have improved your game?’ Emilio asked with a grin.

  ‘You’re a good player,’ Diego admitted. ‘Did your father teach you?’

  ‘My mother,’ Emilio said. ‘She taught us both.’

  ‘I’m sorry she’s dead,’ Diego said, then realised it was a very stupid thing to say after just being introduced. ‘Mine’s in prison,’ he added quickly. ‘So’s my father. He taught me to play.’

  ‘Then we’re kind of in the same boat,’ Emilio said. ‘I know why you were looking for me. My father worries because I’ve been sick a lot, but I’m tougher than I look. So if you’ve got other friends you want to be with instead…’

  ‘I had a friend,’ Diego said. ‘His name was Mando. He’s dead.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to die any time soon, no matter what my father thinks. Another game?’

  They set the chess board up again and played two more games, slower and easier, before they went to sleep. Then they joined a row of others sleeping on blankets spread out on the hard pavement. Diego watched Emilio take an inhaler out of his pocket and put it beside him on the mat.

  ‘There was a kid in my mother’s prison who used one of those,’ Diego said. ‘She had asthma.’

  ‘It just helps me breathe,’ Emilio said. ‘I don’t really need it.’

  ‘Keeps your dad from worrying,’ Diego said. Emilio nodded, then closed his eyes.

  It reminded Diego of sleeping beside Mando in the jungle, in the clearing by the coca pit. He ached for his friend. It took him a long time to get to sleep.

  NINE

  Diego, Bonita and Emilio were on livestock detail.

  People came and went from the blockade during the day, going along forest trails to their homes to check that all was well, then returning with things they could spare. Before long, the protesters were well organised.

  ‘Please check with the runners committee before you go back to your homes,’ Vargas had announced at a morning meeting before he left to visit another blockade. ‘Let us each contribute what we can so that we can all have what we need.’

  Dario and Leon were good at scrounging – especially old tires, which they piled up at both ends of the bridge, although Diego couldn’t imagine why. They even found an old wrecked rowboat and organised a gang of men to drag it up the bank and across the north end of the bridge, bolstering the barrier there. Propped up a bit, it also provided extra shelter. The sign painters were quick to paint slogans on it: Solidarity! and Power to the People!

  Dario and Leon could do the big things, but they weren’t so good at getting the smaller day-to-day things people needed to make life possible on the bridge. Bonita happily took over. She took seriously her job as Keeper of the List, a job she was perfectly suited for because it put her in charge. People came to tell her what they needed, and they came to her when an item was found so she could check it off the list and see that it got to where it was meant to go.

  ‘I’m too busy here,’ she said when her mother suggested she go and look after the animals on the nearby farms. Diego knew she simply didn’t want anyone else having control over her list, not even for a little while, not even her mother. But Mrs Ricardo insisted.

  ‘You need to stretch your legs,’ Mrs Ricardo said. ‘You need to take a break from the blockade while you can. Go.’

  Bonita was tough, but her mother was tougher.

  Of the three of them, Bonita was the only one from the area. It put her in a better mood that she held all the information. It cheered her up even more when she learned that Emilio hadn’t lived on a farm since he was a small child.

  ‘We live in Cochabamba,’ he said. ‘We moved there after my mother died. My father works in the union office. We share a room in a boarding house.’

  Diego wanted to find out more, but he knew instinctively that he and Emilio talking about something that Bonita didn’t know about would just put her back into a bad mood, and he didn’t want anything to spoil the day.

  A labyrinth of footpaths crisscrossed the whole area, and Bonita knew them all. Diego and Emilio had to move fast to keep up with her.

  Emilio started breathing hard and had to stop.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ Diego shouted to Bonita.

  ‘You think I can’t keep up?’ Emilio asked. ‘I’m faster than you are.’ He took a breath of his inhaler, then pushed by Diego to catch up with Bonita.

  They had a list of farms to visit and a list of chores to do at each one. They had to hunt around for chicken feed, and there were many pails of water to fetch. The far
ms were pretty much all the same – some a little less poor than others, but not by much. They all had small mud and stone houses in better or worse states of repair, a few chickens, a vegetable garden and a field of ripped-out coca bushes.

  ‘The kids at this farm haven’t had shoes in a year,’ Bonita said when they arrived at the third ruined farm. ‘They come to school barefoot and they’re always getting sick. They never have pencils or anything. They just sit in class stinking because they don’t have soap or a change of clothes. Their coca money would have made such a difference.’

  They pulled up a few weeds from the potato patch, but there wasn’t much they could do to make that farm look better.

  The Ricardo farm was the last on their list. It was the first time Diego had seen it since the day the helicopter came. It looked bare and forlorn without the coca bushes.

  Bonita started to cry. Then she swatted Diego across his chest to try to cover up.

  ‘Come meet the llama,’ Diego told Emilio, to give Bonita some privacy and so she wouldn’t hit him again. ‘He hates everybody.’

  ‘Sounds like some people I know,’ said Emilio, following Diego to the paddock. They cleaned the llama and donkey pens, put in fresh straw, feed and water. They spent a lot of time petting and talking to the donkey.

  ‘When my parents get out of prison, we’ll become farmers again,’ Diego said, letting the donkey chew on his shirt.

  ‘I like cement,’ Emilio said. ‘I’m a city kid now. I like lights and traffic and noise and things happening. What prison are your parents in?’

  ‘San Sebastian. Two prisons on one square.’

  ‘Is that near the amusement park?’ Emilio asked. ‘I was there once on a school outing. The rides are fun. You ever go on the Rounder?’

  ‘No,’ Diego said. They barely had money to eat. There was certainly no money for rides.

  ‘You’ll love it. It will make you throw up. My father works in construction when the union doesn’t have money to pay him, which is usual.’

  ‘I hope you two are enjoying your holiday,’ Bonita called out. ‘I’m glad there are at least two people in this world who don’t have any work to do.’

  ‘I guess she’s feeling better,’ Diego said. They gave the donkey a final pat, steered clear of the llama and fetched water for the vegetable garden.

  They all went for a quick swim before heading back to the blockade. Bonita brought a bit of soap from the house and they were able to get clean.

  ‘Don’t use too much,’ she ordered, when she saw Emilio running the bar through the mop of curls on his head. ‘I want to take it to the blockade.’

  Emilio gave his head a couple of more rubs with the soap, then placed the bar on a leaf at the edge of the river where it could dry.

  The cold water gave Diego new energy. He was eager to get back to the bridge. They had their arms full of vegetables and blankets, and Bonita carried a sack that squeaked and moved.

  ‘Your pen works well,’ she said.

  ‘Our pen,’ Diego said. ‘We did it together.’

  Bonita didn’t argue.

  The pathway she led them on opened up on top of the hill overlooking the bridge. They sat for a moment and looked down at the blockade.

  There were cookfires in the dirt at the side of the road, built there so the flames wouldn’t ruin the pavement. ‘It’s our pavement,’ someone had explained to Diego. ‘Why would we ruin what’s ours?’ Someone was playing a singing game with the little ones. Their voices traveled up the hill. All over the bridge he could see people meeting, working and resting up for what was to come.

  ‘My father says the whole country is shut down,’ Emilio told them. ‘There are blockades all over. Nothing is moving.’

  Diego put his finger on the ground in front of a caterpillar, and it crawled on to his hand.

  ‘There must be a lot of angry cocaleros in Bolivia,’ he said.

  ‘Not just cocaleros,’ Emilio said. ‘Teachers, miners, people like Dario and Leon who work on other people’s farms. Lots of people. My father says some prisoners are even going on hunger strikes to support the protests.’

  Diego didn’t like thinking of his mother and father going hungry, not even for a good reason. Mama would never let his little sister Corina go hungry, though. She’d find some way to feed her.

  ‘My father can travel across the barricades because he’s with the union,’ Emilio said. ‘But I’m afraid the army or the police will stop him and arrest him on the way, and I’d never know.’ He let the caterpillar crawl from Diego’s hand on to his.

  At least I know where my parents are, Diego thought. It would be awful to not know.

  Bonita’s turn with the caterpillar came next. She let it crawl over the bare skin on her lower arm.

  ‘How long will this go on?’ she asked Emilio.

  ‘The water protests in Cochabamba went on for weeks,’ Emilio said.

  ‘We were locked in at the prison,’ Diego remembered. ‘I had to stay inside. I hated it.’ Food was short, electricity was off, guards had to work extra shifts because their replacements couldn’t get in to work, and that made them more foul than usual.

  ‘It started just like this,’ Emilio went on. ‘We put up barricades, got ourselves organised, and everybody worked together. It felt like a party at the beginning. Then the police came, we made them back down, and everything felt like a victory.’

  Diego plucked a strand of long grass from the ground and started to pull it apart. It was the sort of grass Mrs Ricardo turned into baskets.

  ‘And then what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Then it got nasty.’

  It was time to get back. The children stood up, dusted the dirt and grass from their clothes and picked up their bundles.

  ‘My father is so brave,’ Emilio said as they started walking. ‘He’s so strong. I wish I wasn’t so weak.’

  ‘You’ll do,’ said Bonita, pushing past him and leading the way back down the hill.

  ‘That’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever said to anybody,’ Diego told Emilio. Then they had to run to keep up. Bonita liked to move fast.

  TEN

  ‘Scared?’

  Bonita had something on Diego, more than she usually had, and she was enjoying it.

  ‘Bet you can’t do it,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I can,’ Diego said. ‘I’ve done it a hundred times.’

  ‘Sure you have. Go ahead. Show me. Maybe I can learn something from you.’ Bonita handed him the knife and the squealing guinea pig she’d taken from her sack.

  Diego looked to Emilio and Martino for help, but they just grinned and settled down to watch on a rock by the side of the road.

  The guinea pig was not used to being held. It squirmed and wriggled and peed all over Diego’s hand. Diego stuck the knife handle between his teeth so he could get a better grasp of the little creature. He finally got what he thought was a solid grip on it with both hands.

  Then Martino said, ‘How are you going to do it? You need another hand for the knife.’

  Diego tried clutching the animal against his chest, but it tucked its little face into his shirt.

  By now Bonita, Emilio and Martino were falling over themselves laughing.

  ‘Come on, Diego,’ Bonita said. ‘There are hungry people here waiting to be fed.’

  Diego finally admitted defeat. He handed the knife and the animal back to Bonita. He couldn’t watch while she made one quick cut across the guinea pig’s throat. In an instant it was over. She held the carcass over a pail so the blood would drain away. Another cut, straight down the belly, and the guts tumbled out into the bucket. Within moments she had the guinea pig skinned and skewered and ready to roast on the fire.

  ‘Seven more to go,’ she said. The other guinea pigs in the pen were still too young to eat.

  Diego and Emilio left her to it and went looking for another chore to do. Any task would be better than that one, Diego thought.

  There was a feast tha
t evening. Candles and oil lanterns lit up the bridge. The little ones were allowed to stay up as late as they could manage, falling asleep among the dancers and in the laps of their mothers or fathers.

  ‘It’s good to celebrate now while we can,’ Mrs Ricardo said. ‘Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Come, Diego. Dance with me.’

  Diego had never danced before, but it was dark enough that he figured no one would see him. Besides, how could he refuse Mrs Ricardo? He skipped and hopped and enjoyed feeling like a fool, breathing in the clean Bolivian air, surrounded by his new family and friends. The sound of zamponas, of charangos and drums was joined by clapping and foot stomping.

  Diego laughed and laughed. He felt free and happy. It was a fine, fine night. He feasted on roasted rabbit and guinea pig – which tasted a lot like the rabbit – and empanadas and bananas. When he got tired of eating and dancing, he joined Emilio, who was playing one of the drums. Emilio made room on the log and they pounded away into the night.

  Bonita was standing watch at the south end. Diego took her a plate of food and sat down beside her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, which surprised him, but he let it pass.

  ‘I ate one of your guinea pigs,’ he said, ‘or part of one. It was good.’

  ‘That’s not the only way to prepare them,’ she said. ‘Mama has this way she cooks them for special days like Christmas or Easter. She boils them first, takes the skin off, puts them in salt for a few hours, then fries them with a chilli peanut sauce she makes. That’s the best way, but roasting is easiest for a big crowd.’

  It was the most she’d ever said to him without sneering.

  ‘Well, everybody seemed to like them,’ Diego said. ‘Ever think of raising them for money?’

  ‘We trade some for rice,’ Bonita said. ‘We don’t grow rice.’ He already knew that.

  ‘People sell them in the market in Cochabamba,’ Diego said. ‘Big sacks full. Maybe you could raise enough to sell, maybe make enough money for school.’

  Bonita stopped eating and stared at him. He was afraid for a moment that the old Bonita had returned, but she just said, ‘There’s no more room under our stove.’