Tales from the Town of Widows

by James Canon

  “I don’t read or write,” the woman stated resolutely, as though she were proud of it.

  “Sweet Lord! I can’t imagine not being able to read.” Then, addressing Virgelina, who was trimming the wick of a fresh candle with her teeth, she asked, “Do you read?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Little girl,” Cleotilde said, raising her index finger in the air. “You ought to know that education is a tool for success.”

  “Women around here don’t need no education,” Lucrecia said bitterly. “Besides, the school’s been closed for over two years.”

  “Two years? How dreadful!”

  Virgelina handed Cleotilde the candle and an empty Coca-Cola bottle to serve as a holder. “The magistrate promised us the school will reopen soon,” the girl said softly. “As soon as a teacher gets hired.”

  “A teacher?” Cleotilde said, getting up from her seat. “Isn’t that a coincidence? I’m a licensed teacher.”

  “Well, if you’re interested, then you should stop by the magistrate’s office tomorrow,” Lucrecia suggested. “She’s been interviewing candidates all week.”

  “You don’t happen to know what the salary is, do you? Not that it matters much, for I’m a single woman without any financial obligations. Of course I’d have to rent a room and buy food, but how much can one spend on food in a small village like this. Really? That much for a pork chop? Well, I don’t like meat, anyway. It’s bad for you. It causes arthritis. Do you really? I have the remedy for that: crush a live scorpion and put it in a bottle with rubbing alcohol for a month. Then rub the alcohol on your joints every night before going to bed. It’s a real godsend. An Indian told me about it. An Indian woman, of course, because men don’t understand a woman’s pain. They don’t understand a woman’s anything. No, I’m not married. Every man I ever met was a pig. Maybe the men of this village are different…. What do you mean, no men? Only the priest? Really? Communist guerrillas, eh? Well, that’s wonderful! Terrible, but wonderful. I’d heard about towns of widows, but I’d never been to one. Uh-huh, the war, always the war. Men keep waging wars, and we keep suffering the consequences. At least you didn’t have to flee and leave everything behind like I’ve seen people do…. So tell me about your magistrate. Is she friendly? Is that right? Well, nobody’s perfect. Yes, I might apply for the job. Just for the sake of it, because I’m not sure that I want to stay in this village. All right, since you insist so much, I’ll have some coffee. Just half a cup. Thank you.”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Cleotilde was up at five as usual; she rose at the same time every day no matter where she slept or how late she went to sleep. She got dressed in the semidarkness of the living room, where Virgelina had slung a hammock for her the night before. She put on a black pants suit and black running shoes and, carrying an ancient leather case with her credentials, went out into the dawn mist. Cleotilde imagined there would be other candidates, and she wanted to be the first one interviewed that morning. She was confident that she would get the job. In her long career as a teacher, there wasn’t one position she’d applied for that she hadn’t gotten. But before accepting the job, she needed to convince herself that Mariquita was a peaceful place where she could spend the rest of her days, a place where she’d feel safe and, as she was fond of saying, close to heaven.

  For a moment her case felt heavier than usual. Then she thought, Who am I trying to fool? The contents of the case hadn’t changed in years; she had. She was old now, old and frail. It didn’t matter how straight her back looked when she walked, or how authoritative her voice sounded when she scolded misbehaving children—she was just a frail old lady terrified of many things. Terrified most of all of the night: of its murkiness in which dire things happened; of its prolonged silence that was nothing but the absence of the sounds she wanted to hear; of the crying ghosts she saw and heard in every corner; and of the horrible dream that kept coming back, torturing her night after night: a dream of men and blood and red velvet curtains.

  THE SUN BEGAN to shine on everything: the terra-cotta tiles that roofed most of the houses, the puddles of rainwater in the unpaved streets, the long black hair of a small group of young women carrying large baskets of dirty laundry on their heads, singing and laughing as they strode by. They looked curiously at Cleotilde. The only travelers who stopped in Mariquita these days were fortune-tellers, doctors without degrees, fugitives, displaced families and those who had lost their way. On occasion a caravan of merchants arrived, their mules loaded with goods the villagers couldn’t afford or no longer had use for—perfume, Coca-Cola, razors—but also others that were indispensable—coal, candles, kerosene, bleach for the magistrate and supplies of hosts and wine for the priest.

  “Good morning, señora,” one of the women called.

  “Señorita,” Cleotilde corrected her, but she spoke too softly, and the woman didn’t hear her. Nonetheless, Cleotilde decided that the women of Mariquita were diligent and friendly. She turned left at the next corner and in the distance made out a boy and a girl holding a howling dog. She decided to greet them, her prospective students. Being from a small village, they would be shy and insecure; therefore, she decided, she’d be gentle with them. When she was close enough, she lowered her spectacles and noticed that they were barefoot and wore ragged clothes. She also noticed, to her horror, that the girl was holding the dog’s mouth shut while the boy forced a stick into its bottom.

  “What are you doing?” Cleotilde cried out. She slapped the boy on his back. The boy released the dog and kicked Cleotilde in the leg. “You crazy old woman!” he yelled. Then he ran away with the girl, laughing heartily. The dog ran away also, the stick still hanging from its bottom. Cleotilde was furious. She sat on the sidewalk to check her leg. Just a little red spot. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn blue. She didn’t bruise easily; not for an old lady anyway.

  She picked up her leather case and limped two blocks down, shooing away the many stray cats and dogs that surrounded her, begging for food. At the next corner she turned right and was met by a group of half-naked children gathered beside a mango tree, chatting. Cleotilde thought they looked more civilized than the others. She would talk to them. “Good morning, boys and girls!” she chirped. “How are you all doing today?”

  The children began laughing and whispering to each other.

  “Isn’t this a beautiful morning?” Cleotilde looked up at the sky, smiling with pleasure. The morning was indeed beautiful. “What’s your name, son?” she said, pointing at a gangling boy who was scratching his armpit.

  The boy quickly looked at his friends, as though for approval, and then, grinning, said, “My name is Vietnam Calderón, but they call me El Diablo.” Making a monstrous face at Cleotilde, he said, “Boooooo!” All his friends laughed.

  “Now, that’s not polite, son,” Cleotilde said calmly. In different circumstances she would have grabbed the boy by his ear, smacked him in the face, made him kneel down and apologize to her. Then she would have made him write, one hundred times, “I must respect my elders.” But she had just arrived in Mariquita and didn’t know the boys or their mothers. She stared at him long enough to remember his freckled face if she ever saw him again.

  “I am Señorita Cleotilde Guarnizo,” she said sternly, “and I might be your next teacher!”

  “We don’t want no teacher!” a little girl yelled from the back.

  “Go away,” a boy echoed. Soon they were all shouting in unison, “Go away! Go away!”

  Ah! If only I had a ruler, Cleotilde thought.

  “Go away! Go away!”

  She threw them a disapproving look, then turned around and began walking in the direction of the plaza. She hadn’t gone more than a few steps when a pebble hit the back of her neck. Her right hand clenched, and she turned to the children sharply, a flush of anger brightening her cheeks. The children stood defiantly, each holding a slingshot with the elastic strip drawn all the way back, ready to fling pebbles at the old woman.

  “You
little wretches!” she yelled, shielding herself with her case. This safety measure was perfectly timed because, without delay, a rain of pebbles flew at her, hitting her mostly on her legs but also on the tips of her fingers that showed on both sides of the case. “You scoundrels!” she screamed. “You rabble!” The children ran away, laughing and congratulating one another on their aim.

  Cleotilde trembled with rage. If she stayed in this village—which she seriously doubted she would after this incident—the first thing she’d do as their teacher would be to punish them for such an affront to her dignity. She was imagining this punishment when five middle-aged women dressed in black appeared from around a corner, their heads slightly tilted and their hands joined before their chests. As they walked, the women sang, with great passion, a local version of the Hallelujah song. They must be the mothers of some of those little rascals, Cleotilde thought, giving them a withering look. She kept walking along the unpaved street until the wicked chanting of the children and the singing of their indifferent mothers were but an echo in the distance.

  CLEOTILDE WAS THE first and only candidate to show up for an interview that day. She sat very still in the waiting room of the magistrate’s office, the leather case resting on her lap. Her hands were shaking. She folded them on the case and decided to disregard the episode with the children and concentrate on the interview. But she couldn’t concentrate because Cecilia Guaraya, the magistrate’s secretary, was repeatedly hitting and cursing a rusty typewriter whose ribbon kept slipping out of place. “Damn you, you son of a rat! You load of pig’s shit!” Cecilia shouted.

  After a long wait, a broad-hipped woman came out of the magistrate’s office, a bucket in one hand and a broom made from branches in the other. Her head was wrapped in a colorful kerchief and she wore an apron on top of her black dress. Cleotilde seemed surprised. If the magistrate can afford a cleaning woman, she must be able to afford an excellent schoolteacher like myself, she thought, nodding her head. The woman, meanwhile, laid the cleaning tools next to Cecilia’s desk and wiped her hands on her apron. Cleotilde noticed that the woman’s apron was tattered and her shoes worn out, and this made her reconsider her earlier assumption. Maybe I’m wrong, and this poor thing earns a starvation salary, she said to herself. Then she had a bad idea. She waited for the woman to look her way and gestured to her to come closer.

  The woman looked confused. She looked at Cecilia as for guidance, but the secretary was completely absorbed in her task. And so she drew near Cleotilde.

  “How much does she pay you to clean her office?” Cleotilde whispered, pointing toward the magistrate’s office.

  “I beg your pardon?” the woman said, looking insulted.

  “How much does the magistrate pay you?” Cleotilde repeated furtively.

  “I am the magistrate,” the woman said.

  Cleotilde covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers and gave a nervous laugh. “I apologize,” she managed to say. Then, rising from the chair, added, “I’m Cleotilde Guarnizo, your humble servant.”

  “Rosalba viuda de Patiño,” the other said harshly. “Magistrate of Mariquita.”

  Neither of them made an attempt to shake the other’s hand.

  THE MAGISTRATE WAS furious. Her secretary had warned her about the stranger sitting in the waiting area. “She seems weird,” Cecilia had said. But now, standing in front of her, Rosalba decided that the old woman was weird. “Please come this way,” she said, wondering when the outsider had arrived, where she came from, where she was staying, and, most importantly, why she, the magistrate, hadn’t been informed about it. What if the government had sent the old woman? What if someone out there, a commissioner of some sort, had finally received the official report of the census that the magistrate had taken long ago, and which she made Cecilia type and send out with anyone and everyone who passed through Mariquita?

  “Thank you,” Cleotilde replied, entering Rosalba’s office. The teacher had already decided, in her mind, that the confusion had been the magistrate’s fault. She had met with magistrates and mayors before, even with governors. But she’d never been received by a dignitary dressed as a servant. She thought it inappropriate. And what was the purpose of all those cleaning rags piled up on the windowsill? And that smell, ugh! How much bleach had the woman put on the floor?

  “Please have a seat,” Rosalba said, pointing at a sad-looking chair, the stuffing showing through splits and holes. “My secretary told me that you’re here to apply for the schoolteacher’s position.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Good. Let’s start then. Do you have related experience, Señora Guarnizo?”

  “Señorita, Magistrate,” the old woman corrected her. “And yes, I happen to have nearly fifty years of teaching experience, twenty-seven of which can be verified by looking over my portfolio under the section titled Cartas de Recomendación.”

  “Very good, Señorita Guarnizo. Very good,” Rosalba said, a little intimidated by the teacher’s husky voice, and by the complexity of the large case that Cleotilde had carefully begun to fan out on top of her mahogany desk. The documents were meticulously organized into several labeled sections, which included the names of the schools in which she had taught, subjects, periods of time, awards and distinctions and letters of recommendation. There was even a whole section with photographs and résumés of distinguished people she had tutored during the past twenty-seven years—now doctors, lawyers, architects and beauty queens.

  “I’m impressed, Señora Guarnizo, but—”

  “Señorita, Magistrate!” the teacher interrupted. “After spending sixty-seven years in chastity, one likes to be acknowledged with the proper title.”

  “Please forgive me, Señorita Guarnizo. I can’t help feeling a little—intrinsic addressing a woman older than myself as ‘señorita.’ I feel almost—concupiscent.” Overwhelmed by the old lady’s self-confidence, Rosalba made a great effort to find words that sounded as pompous as the teacher’s. “As I was saying, I am very impressed with your credentials of the past twenty-seven years, but where and what were you teaching before that?”

  “I am afraid, Magistrate, that for personal reasons I won’t be able to answer that question.” Cleotilde’s reply provoked a long, uncomfortable silence, which she had to break herself because Rosalba was pretending to read, in detail, every document in the teacher’s portfolio. “Do you have any other questions, Magistrate? Questions concerning my more recent experience? I’ll be more than happy to answer those for you.”

  “Let’s see,” Rosalba said, closing the portfolio. She thought carefully about what to ask. It had to sound smart. “Do you have a—plan of action for the students of Mariquita, Señorita Guarnizo?”

  “I’ll be very pleased to develop one as soon as I’m offered the job, in which case I’ll converse with the prospective students to evaluate their current degree of knowledge.”

  “Very good, but do you have any idea of what subjects you’d like to teach? It’s been so long since I attended school. I don’t even know what they teach these days.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of teaching language arts, science, mathematics, social studies, geography, and ethics.”

  “What about Colombian history? Can you teach Colombian history? It was my favorite subject in school.”

  “I can teach that, too, Magistrate,” Cleotilde said, “but I won’t.” She pushed her spectacles up her nose with her index finger. “And before you inquire about the reason why, I shall inform you that it’s also due to very personal reasons.”

  Rosalba wondered if Cleotilde had been in jail for twenty years. To get twenty years, she must have killed someone. Or maybe she’d been shut away in a mental hospital. She surely looks off her head. Or perhaps the señorita had been really a señor before. That mustache sort of gives her away.

  “That’s all right,” the magistrate said, looking around to avoid the teacher’s piercing eyes. “Our students already have firsthand knowledge of civil wars an
d massacres. That’s half our country’s history right there.”

  “And how many students are we talking about, Magistrate?”

  Rosalba promptly opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet. “According to our latest census we’re a total of ninety-nine people, out of which—children grow so fast, there’s always one or two I have to move into a different category. Let’s see: thirty-seven widows plus forty-five maidens, minus…” She lowered her voice but continued adding and subtracting. “Fifteen children!” she announced after a little while. “But I’m sure a few of the young women will also be interested in learning a thing or two. So I’d say about twenty students total.”

  “A very good number,” Cleotilde observed.

  A speck of dust on the floor caught the magistrate’s attention. She couldn’t understand how it had escaped her relentless broom and mop. She was tempted to pick it up, but in the mighty presence of Cleotilde, the magistrate felt self-conscious, vulnerable.

  “Well, you seem to meet all the requirements that I have—conspired for this position,” Rosalba said, still looking around. She was now avoiding not only Cleotilde but also the speck of dust, both of which were staring defiantly at her. “I shall come to a final decision in the next couple of days, then I’ll make an official announcement.”

  “I’m looking forward to hearing your decision, Magistrate,” Cleotilde replied. “And I trust that you will take into consideration the many benefits of filling the position with an individual who not only possesses extensive knowledge, but who is also qualified to teach discipline and proper conduct. You are aware, I’m sure, that these attributes have somehow vanished from the children of this town and—”

  “Oh, believe me, Señorita Guarnizo. The police sergeant and I are perfectly aware of that situation. That is, in fact, the main reason why we want to reopen the school. Be assured that I’ll consider that before selecting our new teacher. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a full agenda today.”