The creek was busy in the morning. I joined the other women and we scrubbed the clothes clean, or at least as clean as possible in filthy water that smelled of chemicals and latrines. I didn’t mind washing the clothes, scrubbing them rhythmically while the sun shone on my back and the soft shush of grasses hummed beside me. There was beauty here, if I could ignore the smell of the water.
The same woman as before worked closest to me, the woman with the two little ones. I listened to the chatter of her oldest child, a toddler who busily ran about the bank of the creek, and suddenly I missed Eva with a pain as big as the sun. Eva had been like my little sister, just a baby when she came, and full of talk and energy like this child. She had brought so much life to our little camp. Rosa had recently left, and Jeremia and I were eleven and ten. Sometimes I would hide from him, just because I could, and sometimes he would throw acorns at me because there was no one else. Eva’s entrance had offered us a distraction—we were responsible for her, and Jeremia, as the oldest, was especially in charge of her care.
And then Ranita. She had been my responsibility. And I’d abandoned her. I’d abandoned them all.
I ground a shirt between my hands, scrubbing and twisting, burning the energy that would otherwise become tears. This was my life now—my new life—and these people needed me too. Somehow I had to reconcile myself to where I lived and how my days would pass.
I’d done enough laundry the day before that I had little left to do. The woman beside me slowly progressed through her stack of diapers, the toddler constantly distracting her. He waddled too deep into the creek and she pulled him back. He wandered too far into the grasses and she retrieved him. He put his hand on a thistle and she comforted him.
I stepped into the grasses by the side of the creek and tugged out a clump. Using single strands of dried grass to tie the clump together in bunches—a round bunch for the head, individual bunches for arms and legs—I fashioned a roughly hewn doll. I had made these grass dolls for Eva—they never lasted long, but they were diverting for a while.
I stepped over clumps of weeds toward the woman with the baby strapped to her chest. She glanced up at me, and I immediately stopped. She looked fearful, her eyes big and her mouth pulled straight. I held out the doll to her, gestured to the toddler and said in a whisper, “May I give this to him?”
She looked at the doll in my hands and the expression on her face changed. She raised her eyebrows and let the corners of her mouth lift into a small smile. She nodded.
I gave the doll to the toddler and he laughed. He hugged it, held it out to look at again and then marched the doll on its feet across the ground. He sang a song as he squeezed the doll to him, hugging until the grasses squeaked.
“Thank you,” she said around wisps of hair that fluttered like dandelion fluff against her face.
I gathered the washbasin with its dripping contents and balanced it against my hip. When I glanced at the woman, she was still watching me, her head turned to the side. She wasn’t much older than me, perhaps two or three years, and she had a softness to her that I liked. Her round cheeks had a bright rosiness, and her arms were plump and healthy. She was the type of person who would feel good to hug—not all angles and sinew like Nathanael and Jeremia. The babies, with their pudgy cheeks, were obviously hers. I could like her, if only she could like me.
As I read through the instructions for baking the bread, I felt doubt. There was so much waiting: for the fermented yogurt to begin its work, for me to knead the dough just right, for the dough to rise again. I came to a specific recipe that looked the most basic—and beside this first recipe I found notes scribbled in the margin. When I saw them, my heart fluttered, and my fingertips pulled the veil from my head and laid it on the counter.
Honest hands are the key to perfect bread.
I had never seen my mother’s handwriting before. I could barely make out the scribble, but seeing her words on the paper felt like a small gift, like a glimpse into her secret thoughts. I continued to read.
Make the yogurt culture a day ahead.
I felt sweat on my back. The yogurt culture was necessary for making the bread rise, and I had failed to prepare the ingredients in time. The bread would not be made that day, which meant Belen would once again be dissatisfied with my work. Quickly, my hands shaking and throat tight, I made the yogurt culture according to the recipe and set it to warm on the back of the stove. Then I scrubbed the indoor bathroom from floor to ceiling.
I cleaned around the base of the toilet—an indoor latrine was a luxury I had heard of but never seen—and then scrubbed again. With the first washing, the water added to the scent of urine, releasing it into the air and making me gag. The floor had to be scrubbed twice. It was made of a shiny material I had never seen before, and after the first cleaning a sticky residue still remained. After I cleaned the sink below the mirror, I lifted my eyes and saw myself. My hair, black and glossy, had a sheen to it that looked like raven feathers. My deep brown eyes were lined with black lashes and stared out at me, solemn, large. I lifted my chin and observed my nose, mouth, lips.
I had seen myself before. The creek on a still day reflected honestly, and I had studied my features on its surface. But the depth of water offered a darkness and obscurity that softened the effect. Here in the bathroom, with the lights glowing against my skin, nothing was softened. Where lips should stretch in a gentle curve across my face, I had instead an X, a crossed opening that exposed lip, gum and twisted front teeth. I looked at the roof of my mouth and saw the opening, the two halves of my mouth split down the center. When I lifted the veil from around my neck and covered my nose and mouth so that only my eyes and hair were reflected back at me, I saw a normal face. As I lowered the veil, I wondered why some people reacted to me the way they did. If everyone had been born with nose and lips like mine, I would be normal and those with smooth faces would look odd—too simple and erased. These irreverent thoughts felt shameful and dangerous, and I jumped when I heard the door to the house open. Silently, I slid the veil over my head and took two deep breaths, preparing to face my family, breadless yet again.
“She escape?” said a voice.
“No. Djala would have shot her.”
“Djala can’t see three feet in front of her.”
“She’s not to be trusted, you know, not with two young boys in the house.” This last voice was abrupt and quick, like squirrel chatter in the trees.
“Lydia. Whisper,” Belen said. The curtness in his voice was obvious, and I didn’t dare hide from him. I opened the door to the bathroom and walked down the short hallway until I stood in the front room, behind the couch.
Three men stood in the doorway. One was very old, older than Nathanael, with curved shoulders and an enormous nose that did not fit his face, having continued to grow while his face did not. The other man beside Belen was very tall and younger than the others. He twitched his hands as he stood in the doorway, unable to still his restless body.
“Take off the veil,” Belen said.
I slid the veil off my head and looked again at the men without the blurring of the fabric. In return, they examined me, the older man looking at me with one eye as though his vision were blocked by his nose, and the younger one looking once, then quickly looking away. The pause while they examined me lasted as long as it takes a turtle to cross the log over our pond.
The older man spoke. “You’ve been on the council for many years, Belen, and you would not lose your position, but having a reject in the house does not improve your reputation among the villagers.”
“I’d keep her hidden if I were you.” The younger man spoke so quickly, biting off the words, that I had to think about what he’d said after he’d finished.
“She’s cleaned the house”—Belen swept his arm through the air, indicating all I’d picked up and polished—“and if she’s able to make the bread for the store, she provides us with income. Both of these are useful to me right now. If she works elsewhere, who will cook for us, wash the clothing, keep the house in order? This is why I need her.”
“If she works in the city, she’ll make more money. You’d be able to afford a housecleaner.”
The older man took a step forward, peering under his hooded eyes, hovering in front of me like a vulture. His bony hand reached out as though he would grab my arm, but instead he pointed at my face and then made the sign of a cross in the air.
“She can’t stay, Belen—it doesn’t look good. As a leader in this town, you must set the example, and contaminating your home and your reputation with this girl will hurt your standing. You were right to get rid of her. Speak with Celso when he returns. Send her away. Have her earn money in other ways, where she isn’t visible as a presence in your house.”
Belen said nothing but looked at me as though he’d never observed my features before. I felt heat rising to my cheeks. I stood in front of them, a human being with feelings, intelligence and ideas, yet they treated me as though I weren’t even there. Belen was no better than the strangers, speaking to them instead of to me. Would he have acted differently had my mother been around?
The two men left the house. Belen watched me after they’d left, then went into the kitchen, where he sniffed the yogurt culture on the back of the stove. He didn’t ask about the bread, he didn’t become angry that I’d been unable to make it, he didn’t speak to me and ask for my feelings on their discussion. He simply walked out the front door and stood in front of the neighbor’s house, talking with the woman holding the rifle.
I didn’t know where Celso had gone or when he would return, but I knew that when he came back, my life could change yet again.
That night I worked on my mother’s slip. I made a slit right up through the middle, front and back, slicing the brown stain in half. I sewed the loose pieces together into pant legs using a needle and thread I’d found in the house. I slipped the pants on and then pulled my brown pants over them. From now on, my mother’s slip would fit against my body, an extra layer against the oncoming cold of winter.
As I lay in my lean-to, trying to find a soft piece of ground, feeling my mother’s clothing against my skin, I heard rustling outside. I sat up, held my breath, listened with the pores of my body.
“She’s in there,” a voice said.
“Just open the door and throw it in. She won’t hurt you.”
“I heard she’s a witch. What if she turns me into a crow?”
I crawled on my hands and knees to the door and peered through cracks between the slats of wood. Four little boys, armed with slingshots and a dead skunk impaled on the end of a stick, stood outside my door, silhouetted by the light of the moon. I didn’t see David.
A surprise attack was needed. The tension made my shoulders hunch, my neck tighten and my mouth stretch up into a smile. Jeremia, the prince of pranks, had once pretended to be a crocodile, slashing and snapping through the overhanging bushes by the side of the creek. Eva and I had stood in the water, her arms wrapped around my leg as tightly as if she were a spider monkey baby, and we shook in fear until Jeremia lifted his head and howled. Eva and I got him back. We caught ten grass snakes and tucked them into his bed blankets.
Never sneak up on someone with a deformed face in the black of night when the moon is out. Should I show them my face? Yes, decidedly so.
I flipped up the catch on the door. The boy with the skunk on the stick reached for the handle. As his fingers touched the wood and he leaned forward to pull it open, I pushed it hard. He jumped back, tripped and sprawled on the ground. The dead skunk flew behind him and hit another child in the chest. The three standing boys started to scream, bumping into each other like frightened chickens and screaming again.
I laughed. The boy on the ground scrambled to get away from me and join his terrified friends, but they did not wait. Already they were turning the corner of the house and disappearing from sight. I chased after them, snarling lightly, and as I came around the corner, a light blinded me.
I stood still, leaning from one foot to the other, and stared at the dark blankness behind the light. I felt the corners of my mouth straighten as I sucked in the smile.
David lowered the lantern. The hand holding the lantern shook, the light bobbing like a firefly. We turned away from each other at the same time. The light drifted to the front of the house while I blinked away the spots still suspended in the air and returned to the lean-to. How delicate was our web of friendship? Had I just lost him because he saw me smile? I tried not to think of the fragile friendship I may have sacrificed.
In the morning I checked the yogurt culture on the stove. It needed to stay warm, to grow the bacteria that would cause the bread to rise. I lifted the lid from the pan and then turned my head away, the reek from the yogurt stinging my nose. I had burned the milk onto the bottom of the pan, and a thick layer of blackened scum rose to the top of the culture when I stirred it. Biting my lower lip to keep it from trembling, I poured the ingredients into the sink, scrubbed the pan and dried it. I would try to make the culture again when I returned from the creek.
I washed the few dirty clothes we had collected. The woman and her children were already there, a stack of dirty diapers beside them. When the toddler saw me, he waddled over on chubby legs and held out his doll, which had disintegrated and lost its suppleness. I stepped into the weeds at the side of the creek and pulled up a new handful. I shaped the head, wrapped a stem around the neck, maneuvered the arms, coordinated the legs and handed the new doll to the toddler. He clutched the new doll to his chest with pudgy hands but didn’t let go of the old one. He didn’t stare at my veil, wondering what was underneath—he accepted me as I was and touched my fingers, unafraid.
The mother nodded at me, smiled and tilted her head. I stepped to my tub of washing and tried to ignore them, tried to pretend that I was there alone. She didn’t have to be nice to me. She didn’t have to talk to me because I had made a weed doll for her child. When she spoke, I startled, my hands losing their grip on the pants I was washing.
“I knew your mother,” she said.
I retrieved Mateo’s pants and scrubbed them between my knuckles, rubbed and ground them against themselves, but I felt as though my hands were separate from the rest of me. My ears burned from strain, my neck ached from control, my desire to turn and stare at this woman was painful.
“I liked her very much,” she said. Her voice reminded me of Rosa’s, deep and rich with a bit of hoarseness. I tried to open my ears even more.
“She was quiet, like you,” she said, “but she listened always and laughed easily. She laughed at Benny all the time.” The woman meant the toddler, who was trying to construct a stick hut for his dolls.
Other women around us chatted, laughed, rolled their eyes, but they didn’t listen to the conversation between a girl beneath a veil and a young mother with two distracting little ones. More, I thought, give me more.
I realized that I had been rubbing the same spot on Mateo’s pants again and again. If I wasn’t careful, I’d rub a hole right through the material.
“She talked about you sometimes,” the woman said. Her voice was softer now, gentler. I could tell that she wasn’t looking at me—she was examining whatever she was scrubbing between her hands. “She said giving you up, her firstborn, was the worst experience of her life. She said it hurt more than childbirth ever could.”
I stopped scrubbing the pants and gave in to my need to look at her, to absorb as much as possible about my mother. She felt my eyes on her and looked up. We stared at each other across the few clumps of grass and straggly weeds, our hands wrapped in dripping articles of clothing, the stench of the water lifting hazily around us. I wondered what I looked like through her eyes. A witch? A ghost? A vast emptiness?
“It’s because of the council that they had to give you up. You know that, right? Your father couldn’t be elected to the council with a deformed girl child—who would vote for him? When he saw you, he thought you’d ruined his life. And then, of course, your mother died, and your father blamed…”
Her cheeks reddened and she looked down.
“I’ve said too much,” she whispered.
“No,” I whispered back. I jumped slightly and put out my hand to steady myself. “Thank you for telling me.”
“He’s been on the council for sixteen years and will be there for life. He doesn’t fear losing the people’s vote now as much as he did before.” Her arms wrapped around the baby strapped to her chest, and she held her face up to the sun. I would never be able to do that, openly lift my face to the sun. Not in this village—not in a public setting.
He thought I would ruin his life. So instead he ruined mine.