7
My days slip into a routine and February sneaks away like a thief. Every morning before dawn, I haul my aching body out of bed into the chilly air and pull on my filth-encrusted mining outfit. I barely remember what it feels like to be clean. Half asleep, I follow Papi on the long walk to the edge of El Rosario. I wait outside, staring into the jaws of the mine, until I get assigned to a crew. Then, work. Hand drilling. Blasting. Breaking rock. Hauling ore. Each task feels harder than the last. I spend my first six hours down in the belly of the Cerro Rico sweating in the hellish heat and straining every muscle I’ve never used past its endurance.
When we break for lunch, I sit off to the side with Victor, drinking in the only half hour of sunlight I’ll get to experience for the whole day and eating whatever Mami was able to spare from home. Work like a miner, eat like a miner, Mami jokes when I tell her not to give me too much. I worry that she and Abuelita are skipping meals to feed me more. But with the extra bolivianos I’m bringing home—the ones that Papi doesn’t get to first—we have been able to buy more food, so maybe it’s all okay.
After lunch, it’s back into the mine for another six hours. By this point the heat and my exhaustion have made me clumsy. I rarely have the energy to talk to anyone during the afternoon. By the end, I shuffle around mechanically, doing the best I can to complete the tasks set for me. These are my most dangerous hours, because my mind is muddy and my reflexes are slow. When the full carts whisk by me, I press myself into the wall and turn my face to the side, but don’t leap to safety. I don’t pay as much attention to my flame. Sometimes when they blast, I don’t even count to make sure all the charges detonate. These are the hours when the devil visits me. Working beyond the edge of exhaustion, I hear the echo of his laughter in the vibration of the pneumatic drills, and flickers of his eyes and teeth haunt the edges of my vision. I shake my head to clear it like a llama tries to clear its face of flies, but it never works. In those long hours, the devil tracks my every move.
At the end of a day of work I come aboveground with the feeling of someone who’s been buried alive clawing their way to the surface. It’s dark by then, and I stumble home with Papi down the narrow mountain path, praying that I won’t trip over the edge and die. When I get home, I strip off my stinking suit, mechanically eat whatever Abuelita has prepared, let Mami massage some of the aches from my shoulders, and fall into bed.
I fall asleep every night hungry for more food.
I wake every morning hungry for more sleep.
I get neither.
And still I get up, and do it again.
It’s now the second week of March and I’ve worked at El Rosario for just over a month when Papi decides that Daniel is well enough to go back to work. Daniel’s bronchitis had deepened to pneumonia, which had taken nearly three weeks to heal. I had figured once Daniel’s fever was gone, his cough had settled, and he was eating regular food, Papi would have had him straight back into the mines. But for whatever reason, Papi left Daniel home another week beyond that. None of us brought it up, and so Daniel’s days home multiplied quietly.
I was torn about it, really. It was good to see Daniel get a bit of color in his cheeks, but I was still working in a living hell every day and it was hard to come home and see him sitting on the slag heap with Mami and Abuelita, breaking rocks and chatting when I had to spend the day in the land of the devil, hauling ore and dodging insults and kicks when César’s handpicked guardians were too far away. I didn’t want Daniel to have to go into the mines . . . but I didn’t want to keep going there myself either. After only two and a half weeks working in the mines I had started to walk like an old person, hunched over, bones aching. And after my one week in zone six, where the air smelled slightly garlicky, I developed headaches and a cough I still haven’t been able to get rid of. Nothing like Daniel’s coughs, of course, I keep reminding myself, but they hurt all the same.
So when Papi tells me to take off my mining gear this morning, I don’t complain. I do as he says, feeling relieved and upset all at the same time. Daniel takes it from me and pulls it on, and it’s hard to figure out the emotions on his face. I give him a quick hug on his way out the door.
“Say hi to Victor for me,” I tell him.
“Okay,” he says, and then he’s gone.
I glance around our one-room house for a moment, not sure what to do with myself. Mami and Abuelita are still staring out the door at Papi and Daniel, shrinking in the distance.
“I guess . . .” I start, then clear my throat and start again. “I guess I should go to school?”
“No,” says Mami firmly, turning from the door. “You’ve earned a rest. Take the day and sleep. We’ll get back to normal tomorrow.”
I’m just as pleased, really. Not only am I beyond exhausted, but I was actually kind of nervous about going back to school. The way the older miners have talked about me behind my back for the past month hasn’t been fun, and it kind of shook me that someone as young as Guillermo would hate me for doing what I did. I worry that maybe the kids at school will judge me the same way. I don’t want to see those same glares on the faces of people who used to be my friends.
I roll into the covers and fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.
When I wake, I go outside and scrub until my hands are raw. I’m not going back to school until I have clean hands.
The icy water stings and the lye soap is rough, but even so, my hands are still faintly gross and my fingernails have definitely seen the inside of a mine. Giving up, I dump out the wash water. Then, because Mami has declared it’s a vacation for me and I have no work to do, I start playing with the puddle of mud it makes, scooping it up and making little figurines. It’s something Daniel and I used to do when we were younger and we were both home playing while Mami broke rocks and Papi worked in the mines. It makes me feel all squishy inside thinking about how different those days were, and I feel bad all over again that Daniel is working in the mines right now.
It’s not your fault he’s there, I remind myself sternly. In fact, you’re the only reason he wasn’t there this whole past month. The only reason he got a break was because of you.
It’s all true, of course, but it doesn’t make me feel much better. I make a special little mud figure for him. I’ll give it to him tonight after work.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Daniel’s voice is tired but curious as he turns my figurine over in his hands. “A butterfly?”
We’re sitting side by side in the moonlight again, our family asleep around us. Dinner was weird. I thought they’d all be in a good mood with having the girl out of the mines and the boy back in them, especially since Daniel didn’t come home sick this time, but instead Papi snapped at everyone about everything. Mami and Abuelita looked unhappy too. I decided to wait until they were all asleep to give Daniel his present.
“It’s an angel,” I say, slightly embarrassed he can’t tell what it is.
He raises an eyebrow.
“Why did you make me an angel?”
“Remember when we used to make toys out of mud when we were little? Well . . . now I know what the mines are like. I feel kind of bad that you have to go at all.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, clearly not seeing how these things connect to a mud doll. I feel a little stupid, but I charge ahead.
“You said that you hate going into the mines because the air is so bad. When I was down there, it always killed me that there was no sky.” We’ve been speaking in Quechua, but for the pun to work, I switch into Spanish. “I thought maybe it would be nice if you could take a piece of el cielo down with you.” In Spanish, the word for sky and the word for heaven are the same.
Usually, Daniel loves puns. But tonight, instead of laughing, he smiles sadly.
I hold out my hand.
“It’s dumb. I’ll take it back.”
He closes his fingers around it and tucks it away.
“Nah. I like it.”
We sit side by side for a few more minutes, not saying anything. I try to think of something about being in the mines that was good to ask him about.
“Did you meet up with Victor? Or have you made other friends?”
Daniel shrugs. “Victor works with his papi. And most of the other boys who work there are older than me. I don’t really have any friends.”
“Are the men nice to you?” I ask, remembering Guillermo and Francisco.
Another shrug. “César’s okay. A couple of the others too.”
“Seems like you didn’t get sick today.” I’m scrambling for positives. “Do you feel okay?”
“Do you hear any coughing?” Daniel snaps. “I’m fine.”
And with that, I’ve run out of good things to ask about.
“Um . . . so, what zone did you work in today?”
Daniel closes his eyes. “You can stop,” he says. “I know you’re trying to make me feel better or something, but it’s not working.”
I stare down at my hands.
“It’s just . . . today was really bad,” Daniel finally admits.
“Hard work?”
“Yeah, and not even just that. Half the miners are mad that you were there at all. And the other half—Papi included—think you were a better worker than I am. It’s like, they’re mad at me if I’m sick and they’re mad at me if I’m not.”
I blink at him.
“Papi thinks I was a good worker?” He never said that to me.
Daniel snorts. “Yup. Apparently, I’m a weakling that can’t keep up with a girl.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” he mumbles. But I can’t tell if he means it.
“Give it some time,” I say finally.
“I don’t know if I have time, Ana,” he says bitterly. “I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“You planning to run away to a green valley or a sparkling city?” I say, trying to make a joke of it. Trying to get that defeated, frightened look off my brother’s face.
But Daniel doesn’t laugh.
I’ve almost made it to school the next morning when it all hits me—my conversation last night with Daniel, feeling bad that he’s not going to be able to come to school anymore, how angry and mean Papi was this morning, my own mixed feelings about coming to school. I can see the big blue metal gates, but my feet freeze on the path, not able to move forward. I duck off the path and hide behind a large boulder, trying to find the courage to go in.
“Are you okay?” chirps a voice at my elbow.
I startle.
A pretty little girl is staring at me, her face scrunched up in concern. She has round, bright eyes, cheeks chapped red by the mountain wind, and crooked braids down to her shoulders tied off with pink plastic clips. She’s vaguely familiar: she’s one of the little kids from this side of the mountain that go to my school. I think she’s with the seven-year-olds. Or maybe the eight-year-olds. Try as I might, I can’t come up with her name.
“Are you hurt?” she asks.
Nowhere anyone can see. I shake my head, trying to even out my breathing before I try talking.
“Because if you are hurt,” she goes on seriously, “I can try to help. I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up.”
That pulls a small smile from me. We all had big dreams when we were little. Daniel had wanted to be an army man when he was her age. My friend Susana wanted to be a movie star. I’ve never really been sure what I wanted to be, so I said I’d do Susana’s hair and makeup. But a doctor? This little girl’s imagination has carried her away for sure. I’ve heard of some men and women from the mountain getting jobs down in the city—mechanics, construction workers, hairdressers, beauticians, preschool teachers. But no one I know of from the mountain has ever become a doctor. Might as well plan to grow up to be a unicorn.
She considers. “Should I go get a teacher?”
“No . . .” I manage. “Thanks. I’m okay.”
Over the rocks, the first scratchy boom echoes: Don Marcelino’s speakers beginning the national anthem. The little girl holds out a hand.
“Come on,” she says. “We’ll be late.”
And folding my hand into her much smaller one, I let myself be led into school by the tiny dreamer.
“Where have you been?” asks Susana as I slip into my place in line.
I’m not sure whether she means being late or having missed the last month of school, but the answer is the same either way.
“I’ll tell you later,” I say. Don Marcelino is just starting his daily talk. Today it’s about Community. You can hear the capital C every time he says the word. I glance to my left. The little girl waves at me with an encouraging smile. I lift my hand a tiny fraction in response. The unicorn beams.
“What’s that girl’s name?” I ask Susana.
Susana follows my gaze, her face creasing with thought.
“César’s daughter? Hmm. Belén, I think?”
“She’s César’s daughter? César the shift supervisor at El Rosario?” I look at the little girl with more interest.
“Pretty sure,” says Susana. “What about her?”
I could tell her I can see reflections of César’s kindness in Belén, but that would raise questions about my time in the mine. I could tell her the girl comforted me on the path when I couldn’t handle my feelings over Daniel. But I don’t want to answer those questions either.
“She wants to be a doctor,” I say softly.
Susana snorts. “Little kids and their crazy ideas. She’ll end up a miner’s wife, like all of us.”
I don’t say anything to that because, really, what is there to say? Little Belén won’t think she can grow up to be a doctor for very much longer. She probably only has a year or so left before she permanently pauses her dreams and accepts that what she sees around her is all she’ll ever get a chance to be. Girls like her don’t get good choices, I remind myself.
Suddenly, Don Marcelino is interrupted by the blaring of a horn outside the gate. We all turn in our rows and watch as Doña Inés waddles over and cracks the gate open. For a moment we watch her listen to whoever’s on the other side, mildly curious. But when she turns around and I see her wide eyes and ashen face, I know this is no ordinary visit.
“Don Marcelino,” she calls. “Get your truck and come quickly! There’s been a cave-in at El Rosario!”