An Indian among Los Indígenas

by Ursula Pike

  The couple across from us talked to each other in Quechua. The greasy smell of fried chicken from the woman behind us made me slightly nauseous. The knot in my stomach grew larger and tighter. I knew his wife had seen me, seen us sitting together. Even if she did not know about our relationship, she knew me. I was still the woman who danced all night with her husband at a party. I wanted the bus to take off, to get moving.

  HONK! I jumped. This was the driver’s signal to everyone that he was getting ready to leave. He revved the engine and pulled the door shut, and the bus lurched forward. We turned the corner onto the main road to Cochabamba. I exhaled. In the dark spot between our seats, Fernando placed his hand in mine. It was warm and damp, like mine. I thought of him as an accomplished ladies’ man who must have had hundreds of affairs. But in moments like this, I realized that he was like me, just a twenty-something trying to hide this romance.

  Through the enormous windshield, Kantuta slid by. Both sides of the street were lined with the simple, flat exteriors common to most of the homes and businesses. A door or maybe a window outlined in white paint was all that adorned the structures. No matter how beautiful the inside of a home was, the outsides looked very similar and plain. Groups of teenage boys slunk down the sidewalk toward the main plaza. At a bar, wide-open doors revealed men sitting at simple wood tables with their arms raised requesting more beer. Outside the bar, a young woman fried small hot dogs in her portable food cart while her one-year-old baby girl played on the sidewalk. We passed the bank building with its ornate black metal window gates, closed and dark now. The butcher was pulling down the heavy metal door at the carniceria and going home for the night. An older woman sitting on the curb outside an open door waved at the bus as it passed. Once we passed the bridge on the far end of town and the last street lamp, the driver pressed on the accelerator, and the bus sped on into the night.

  I grew up riding buses in the US, taking Greyhound and Trailways everywhere I wanted to go. Portland to San Francisco to visit my grandparents. Washington, DC, to San Francisco after attending a political rally. Portland to New Orleans to LA and back to Portland, visiting friends along the way. During my teens and early twenties, any extra money went toward a bus ticket somewhere. The sound of the air brakes, the rumble under the seats of the motor, even the chemical stench drifting out of the bathroom always made me sit up straight and buzz with anticipation. The bus meant freedom and a kind of achievable adventure. Freedom from the small, damp towns of the Pacific Northwest where my mother’s search for a good job took us. They were beautiful towns with forests and mountains, but I was curious about what else was out there in the world.

  The bus also meant anonymity. I did not have to explain who I was, who my family was, where I was from. All that mattered was where I was headed. Even on this bus, there were some faces I recognized and probably more who knew me as one of the three gringos living in town. Like passengers on buses everywhere, people kept to themselves even when they knew each other. Now here I was in this little seat, pushed up against Fernando, knowing that we couldn’t move for several hours. I smiled at him in the light. He smiled back, and I noticed the gold-rimmed tooth that I used to think looked cheap. Now I loved it. I was still angry at him, but the excitement of the departure and what awaited us in town made me willing to skip the breakup part until the end of the trip.

  The bus pulled into Cochabamba before dawn. The station was a few blocks from the big outdoor market where vendors sold everything from underwear to spices. Across the street was a low metal gate with spikes at the top. Except for two old taxis and an old car being loaded with someone’s bag, the streets were empty. About half of the passengers stayed on. It was too early for the minivans that served as public transportation to take them into the city. Fernando and I stood several feet away from each other on the street outside. Fetid water pooled in a pothole near the corner, and a skinny dog dug in a pile of trash.

  Because I took this bus every couple of weeks, I had been at this exact spot many times. The first time I arrived, the darkness and unfamiliarity frightened me, and I didn’t get off the bus until the sun came up. Riding the bus with Fernando made this arrival seem easy. Eighteen months of living in Bolivia had taught me to adopt my tough-woman-traveler posture in situations like this. I knew to assess the street ahead of me to avoid rabid dogs, drunks looking to get laid, and taxi drivers charging me twice the normal price. Having someone to help me get from here to the apartment in town that I shared with other volunteers was a relief. I motioned toward a waiting taxi and jumped into the back. Fernando slipped in beside me. The driver looked back at us in the rearview mirror as he sped off toward the city. I held my breath until we were out of sight of the bus.

  “Can you let me in?” I said into the speaker of the apartment building. I knew the other volunteers were awake because, even three stories down, I could hear them. Fernando stood behind me on the street. A dog barked in the distance. Buzz. I pushed open the black gate and walked inside. Our feet echoed against the tile floor as Fernando followed me up three flights of barely lit stairs toward the roof. I slowly pushed open the heavy metal door. My two worlds were about to come face-to-face. Fernando was about to meet my volunteer friends. I wondered whether he thought it strange that I shared a two-bedroom apartment with three men. The apartment was our crash pad, a filthy place that several volunteers and the occasional US or European expat shared. The apartment provided the perfect place to sleep, hook up, party, and recuperate from hangovers. Everyone chipped in on the rent and brought plates and cups, although I was the only one to buy toilet paper on a regular basis.

  We emerged onto the rooftop patio. The patio was littered with beer bottles and nearly empty green bags of coca. As Chris, Jake, and Tom chewed on the dry leaves, their jaws clenched and unclenched. Each guy gave me a fermented hug. All three of them were taller than I by a head. Darkened rooftops with pointy television antennae and giant cement water tanks spread out for miles. Half-finished apartment buildings and the backside of a centuries-old church stood above the smaller buildings. I couldn’t see the stars as I could in Kantuta.

  “This is Fernando.” One of the guys raised his eyebrow, curious about this Bolivian arriving in the middle of the night with me. I had told them about Fernando, but they didn’t remember. It was unusual to bring Bolivians into one of our crash pads. These overpriced apartments were the places where we re-created US life as best we could. Here we didn’t have to project the best version of ourselves. Still, if the guys could have found a way to surreptitiously high five me at that moment, they would have. Getting together with hot Bolivians was sport for volunteers. The resulting hookups could be called conquests. I hadn’t thought of Fernando that way, but standing here with my friends, I wanted them to think my relationship with Fernando was an uncomplicated notch on my belt.

  Each of the guys shook Fernando’s hand and offered him a warm beer. He graciously refused them. I was glad because I was exhausted and only wanted to sleep. I pulled Fernando into one of the open bedrooms, and we slipped under a heavy blanket on an unmade bed. Fernando asked me several questions about the volunteers, wondering where the guys lived. Was he impressed by this patio full of drunk white men? I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I answered him and then fell asleep.

  The sun shining through the window woke me the next morning. There was nothing in this room but a mattress on the floor and backpacks piled in corners. Nothing on the walls, not even curtains over the windows. Fernando was sleeping. It was the first time I had ever seen him sleep. He always left my apartment in Kantuta in the middle of the night. But here he was, taking up half the bed like a real boyfriend. There, I’d done it again—I’d thought of him as my boyfriend. Was that what he was? He looked sweet and harmless as he breathed in and out.

  I wanted to ask him about his wife, ask whether it was true that she was pregnant. But as I thought about what words to use, how to say it in Spanish, I wondered if it was my business. Maybe I didn’t ha
ve the right to dig into every corner of his life. I didn’t think he had the right to every nook of my personal life. This mistress situation was strange. I didn’t know how to act.

  “I heard something about you,” I said almost as soon as I noticed he was awake. I rolled over and looked him in the eye. My stomach tightened. I hated confrontation, but I knew I had to say something.

  “Sí?” he said, taking my hand and placing it against his chest.

  “Your wife,” I said slowly. It was not a term I ever expected to say to him. He was awake now. “Is she pregnant?” Maybe if I had more of a grasp of Spanish, I could soften what I was saying, make it easier, less confrontational. Big words had always been like armor to me. In a world where I never felt that I had much power or privilege, I used carefully crafted sentences with SAT-worthy words to protect myself. Here in Bolivia that was not an option. I could order a drink at a bar, but emotional conversations were another thing. He cleared his throat.

  “Yes,” he brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. He was silent for a while as he watched my face.

  “And?” I said.

  “I thought you already knew; that night at the party everyone was talking about it.” It made me uncomfortable to hear anything about their relationship, forcing me to see him as more than simply a hot guy fulfilling my personal need for intimacy and affection. He was a husband and a father.

  “Don’t you feel any guilt about this?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to shame him. I genuinely wondered. And if he didn’t feel guilty, then maybe I didn’t have to feel guilty either. He pulled away and started to get up. His look hardened, and for the first time, he seemed angry.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I sat up. “I don’t have the right to ask you that. I don’t know if we should do this anymore.” Even as I said the words, I felt conflicted. Did I really want to end this? Daniel was about to leave for the States, and I still had several months left in Kantuta. I did not want to spend that time alone. I had my friendship with Teresa, but I knew what my nights would be like. “We’re here now; let’s enjoy this weekend and talk about it back in Kantuta,” he said. I exhaled. I was chickening out. I should have ended it. But I wasn’t going to do that. I did not have the courage to end it. I dressed quickly and headed out the door, not wanting to talk to anyone about anything. I wanted to distract myself with the mundane task of finding food.

  After mango smoothies in the market, we rode a bus to a small community on the outskirts of town. He held my hand as we walked down narrow cobblestone streets and around the main plaza. To me, the plaza, the streets all looked like those in any of the many small towns I had visited while in Bolivia. But something about walking around freely without worrying that anyone we knew might see us made them exciting and interesting. Fernando crossed the street to ask a man for a restaurant suggestion. I watched him talk to the man in the mix of Spanish and Quechua that I almost understood. He stroked his chin as he looked in the direction that the man was motioning. I forgot sometimes, but seeing him on the street like this reminded me how gorgeous he was. Knowing that he was with me and all mine even for a few hours was thrilling.

  Was his brownness part of his appeal? Not only his skin color but his Indianness. He was both familiar and exotic to me. After the interaction with the other volunteers on the patio, I wondered whether that played any part in my attraction to him. In the past, non-Native boyfriends sometimes told me how “cool” it was that I was an American Indian. Highlighting my identity never made me feel cool. I usually thought, Wait, is that what you like about me? What about my sparkling personality? My understanding of Marx’s theory of exploitation? I never told Fernando that I loved his brownness, because it sounded like something a clueless white person would say, but I thought it. Fernando was undeniably Indigenous. People called him Indio. Indian. In Bolivia, that was an insult. Couldn’t an olive-skinned girl get hot and bothered about the brownness of her lover without its being exoticism? Loving his brownness was part of my growing appreciation of my own.

  I followed Fernando to a bar, where he ordered a pitcher of guarapo, the sweet grape liqueur famous in that area. He seemed to enjoy taking command of the situation and paid for everything before I could find my wallet. On the table was a cup with five dice for cacho. Fernando played like a Bolivian, meaning that he was smooth and quick and won every round. A Yahtzee fan from my youth, I usually held my own when playing with other volunteers, but I was no match for this man who had been playing the game his whole life.

  “What do we call each other? You and I,” I asked. Not that I would have a chance to describe our relationship to anyone, but I was curious because I had started to think of him as my boyfriend. “Amantes? Amores?” I suggested.

  “No.” He pulled back, looking at me as if to say that those words were dirty and insufficient.

  “Somos novios.” He kissed me. I wanted to ask Teresa or Ximenita what the difference between terms was, but knew that wasn’t possible without a lot of questions. The words novios and amantes had always been synonyms on the glossary page of Spanish textbooks. I suspected that novios meant something more. I would continue to think of him as my boyfriend.

  The waiter kept his eyes on me for an extra moment. I wanted to think that the two of us looked like a regular Bolivian couple out for a Saturday afternoon trip. But that extra second of attention from the waiter made me think we couldn’t even fool this complete stranger.

  Fernando was returning to Kantuta by himself that night. As crazy and rushed as that seemed to me, people from Kantuta took quick day trips like this all the time.

  “The next time, we should stay the night,” he said. We kissed good-bye outside the hideous cement-and-steel building on a choked and polluted street that was the Cochabamba bus station. I took a taxi back to the apartment. Without my Bolivian escort, I was once again a woman alone in a big city. A tourist had recently been raped on the hill a few blocks behind the station, and it was big news because Cochabamba had a reputation for safety. Even amid the discarded garbage and people beat down by an economy that offered them few opportunities, I loved Cochabamba. The cab passed by a hidden plaza full of kids practicing for a parade and the one nameless store I loved that sold lotions and perfumes like a misplaced Bath & Body Works. I was exhausted by the drama of the trip, by speaking only in Spanish all day and night, by getting little sleep, and by wondering whether Fernando was a good guy.

  17

  Cantando — Singing

  Daniel’s despedida was being held near where he had helped get the wells installed. There were only a few farmers’ houses and, as I discovered when I arrived, a newly built school and basketball court. Daniel had collected donations from his parents’ church back in California to pay for the supplies, but the farmers and their families had built all of it. The school was simple, containing only desks and chairs, but it was a school where none had previously been. The basketball court was a flat cement square with a hoop. But spaces like this in rural communities represented more than places to play basketball. The school and court would become a gathering spot.

  Someone handed a battery-operated microphone to the mayor, and he went on and on about Daniel. It was sweet. They presented him with a vest made from a goat in the community. It was stiff and barely fit his broad shoulders, but I saw him wipe his eyes as they helped him put it on. His Spanish had improved a little since that first ch’alla I attended with him a year and a half earlier—but not much. Still, he was funny and sincere. Then the mayor shook his hand and rubbed confetti in his hair. The connection Daniel had with the people in the community seemed genuine. Did the real value of the Peace Corps lie in changing people through connection? Who was changing more—those of us from the US or the Bolivians? Maybe we were simply glorified exchange students, humanizing each other one bucket of chicha at a time.

  I shook my head. I was trying too hard to find meaning in this moment. I wanted to believe that what I was seeing was a good thing. That it wasn’t simply the
Western world telling the Bolivians what they needed. It wasn’t that, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

  By the next night, everyone was gone. Daniel packed up the few belongings he hadn’t already sent, and we got two seats side by side on the Flota Kantuta. I knew this would cause gossiping about us, but I didn’t care. Fernando had stopped asking about my friendship with Daniel, but I knew he was not comfortable with my spending so much time alone with another man. Outside the window, it was dark except for the outline of the mountains illuminated by the moonlight. Graduate school, surfing, and beautiful California women—Daniel had a long list of things he was looking forward to. The future seemed bright for him. I envied it. My departure would not be so neat.

  “What does Fernando’s house look like?” I asked. It was dark outside the window, and we couldn’t see the farms or roads that we knew were there. Daniel and Fernando had become friends in the last few months, which surprised and pleased me. I didn’t even know exactly where Fernando’s house was. That was on purpose. I stayed away from that side of town. Daniel made sure to mention Fernando’s wife and his children in the description.

  “You have got to drop that dude,” Daniel finally said. “He’s cool and everything, but he’s using you.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but he gives me something I need,” I said. I shifted in my seat. It was so dark I couldn’t see his face.

  “It isn’t because he’s married; well, maybe it is a little bit, but really,” he scratched his chin. “You deserve someone who treats you better.” I had tried to hide all the ways I had curtailed my life because of the affair. But Daniel saw them. The nights when I hurried back to my room, saying I was tired but really wanting to be home in case Fernando stopped by.