19
The look on Mami’s face when I walk in the door and hand her the bottle of cough medicine is a beautiful thing, no matter the cost it took to put it there. She rushes at once to give some to César.
Since it’s a Saturday, Belén and Abuelita are out at the slag heap, so for a moment I’m alone in the main room. I sink onto the bucket seat and take a moment to savor how good it feels to be warm and off my feet. Through the closed bedroom door I can hear the rustle of Mami tending to César, and I sit there with my eyes closed, letting my body relax, listening to their quiet murmur.
Ten minutes later, Mami comes out.
“Would you like some soup?” she asks.
“Yes, please,” I say. Other than the loaf of bread I shared with Victor last night, I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday’s popcorn. The last time I had a hot meal was the night before that.
Mami gets down a bowl and serves me from a pot that she had wrapped in a blanket on the counter to keep it warm. Gratefully, I take it from her and sip it, breathing in the savory steam and breathing out my frustrations. Too quickly it’s gone, but I know not to ask for more. Even in César’s house, money doesn’t stretch to second helpings.
“Thank you,” I say, putting the bowl down.
“Thank you,” Mami says. “Maybe with the medicine he’ll be able to get some sleep. Did you have any trouble getting it? How was your night at the posada?”
Briefly, I consider telling her that I didn’t spend the night at the posada and that there wasn’t enough money to cover the cost of the medicine. But I don’t know how I’d answer her questions about Victor, and I’m ashamed I took Yenni’s money. I’m too tired right now to get into the conversations those facts will lead to.
“My night wasn’t so bad,” I say, dodging the question. “The biggest problem was that I had to wait the extra day for the pharmacy to be open. I was worried about César the whole time.”
Mami nods slowly, her face drawn with concern.
After a pause, I ask, “Mami . . . is he very sick?”
“I just don’t know,” she says quietly. “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve spent a lot of time listening to coughs with your brother. I don’t like the sound of this one. He needs to rest, but I don’t know if he can take the time off work . . .” Her voice trails off.
The mention of work gets me thinking.
“Do you want me to sit with him so you can work, or do you want me to take your place as a palliri today?” I don’t really want to spend my day in a sickroom, but I give her the choice because she’s been locked up with him for a whole day already.
“Actually,” Mami says, shaking off her mood, “I need you to go find Don Carmelo, the head of the mining cooperative, and tell him that César’s sick and won’t be able to work for a few days. They’ll need to assign someone else to cover his shift.”
My legs ache when I stand, but all I say is, “Okay,” and I head out the door.
I haven’t been near El Rosario since I snuck in and got trapped, and I’m in no hurry to go there now. Since it’s a Saturday, I decide to check Don Carmelo’s house first to see if he’s home before I go looking for him at the mine.
When I knock on the door, he answers.
“What do you want?” he barks.
Don Carmelo is a thin, wiry man not much taller than me. I’ve never liked him. Once, when Daniel and I were about nine, we came around a corner of the Cerro quickly and surprised a condor that was eating something dead in the rocks. Before it took to the skies, flapping its enormous wings, each one bigger than we were, it looked at us. And even though I knew I had nothing to fear from the bird, it creeped me out. For weeks afterward I saw those eyes whenever I slept. Don Carmelo has those same eyes. I wonder to myself, briefly, if they’ll be in my dreams tonight.
“Don Carmelo,” I say politely, staring at his shoulder so I can avoid his condor eyes, “I came to tell you that my stepfather, César Jansasoy Herrera, is sick. My mother asked me to tell you so that you could make sure his shift is covered. Six to six, at El Rosario,” I add, trying to be helpful.
“I know what shift he works,” Don Carmelo snaps.
I close my mouth.
“How long will he be gone?”
“A few days, maybe. Not long.” I pray I’m right. César’s cough does not sound like it will be gone in a few days, but I don’t want to get him in trouble.
Don Carmelo humphs. “And I suppose this means that he would like an extension on his loan as well?” he growls.
“His loan . . . ?” I’m lost.
“Yes,” he grumbles. “The idiot took a giant advance on his wages to pay off the medical debts for that new cripple stepkid of his.” His gaze sharpens on me. “I guess that would be your brother, then. Well, I hope he’s worth it.”
My mouth has gone completely dry. I had no idea César had gone into debt to help Daniel. That would explain why there was so little money in the jar and why we don’t have soup for breakfast anymore.
“Yes,” I manage. “He would also like an extension on the loan.”
“Very well,” he says brusquely. Clearly he thinks we’re done.
My head swims. We don’t have more money at the house—I know because I took it to pay for the medicine. We still need to eat while César gets better. Plus, I need forty-eight bolivianos and fifteen centavos to give to Yenni. And now, apparently, we’re also in debt to this carrion-eater. If we default on a loan to the cooperative, César could lose his house. Our house.
Don Carmelo is turning away, closing the door, when I speak up.
“Don Carmelo!”
He pauses, his predator eyes considering me from the shadows of his house.
“What?”
“Is there”—I have to swallow a few times to work up the nerve—“is there any work I could do for the cooperative?” My mind flashes back to that day, all those mornings ago, when I stood with Papi in front of César and asked a similar question. “I know I can’t work in the mine,” I rush to add, not wanting to think about what it would be like to head into that hellhole when everyone blames me for the collapse and César’s not there to protect me, “but is there anything I can do around it? For it?”
Don Carmelo stares at me for a beat. He sucks on his teeth like he’s tasted something sour. “Yes,” he says, “I suppose there is something you could do for the cooperative.”
I wait while he considers.
Don Carmelo gives me an oily smile. “There is an opening for a guarda.”
I blink at him.
Of course they have an opening for a guarda and of course they still need one. I snuck into the mine just fine three weeks ago. Who knows who else has managed to sneak in? I shudder thinking of the mystery men. Yes, the mine needs a guard. But to actually be the one doing the work . . . ? Cold washes over me as I remember Mariángela. Being a guarda is a scary job, and you don’t get paid much to do it. But . . . if I can add to what Mami and Abuelita already make picking rock . . . maybe it will be enough to buy César the time he needs to get better. It will certainly give me enough that I can pay Yenni back. I can figure out a way to manage the danger. It’s not great, but it’s the best option I have right now.
I sigh. No good choices.
“I’ll take it,” I say, pulling the words out of myself like the dentist pulls rotten molars.
As I try not to think too hard about what I’m signing myself up for, we agree on the details. I’m expected at the mouth of the mine tonight at sunset. I’ll make thirty-five bolivianos for every night of fear and loneliness I put in. It’s not much. But, I remind myself, it’s something. And it’s guaranteed. Even the men who work in the mining cooperative aren’t guaranteed their pay. They only get paid a portion of what they can bring out. If they don’t manage to bring out much, like on the day of the disaster when Papi was killed, or if what they bring out is mostly poor-quality rock, low in the ores that the manufacturing plants want, then they don’t get paid much. If they’re sick, or hurt, or don’t work for whatever reason, they don’t get paid at all.
It’s something. And something is more than nothing.
“Well then,” says Don Carmelo, “I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
“I’ll be there,” I hear myself saying. “Thank you, Don Carmelo.”
After leaving the condor’s house, I walk until I get to the slag heap where Mami and Abuelita are working with half a dozen other women. Belén’s not with them. She must have run off to play with friends. I think wistfully to the days when I was young enough that I could run away from work. I am not that young anymore. I tuck my shaking hands behind my back so the women won’t see my fear.
“Ana!” Abuelita calls. “It’s good to see you. Mónica told us the whole story of how you waited overnight to make sure you got the medicine. Good job.”
I smile at her, wondering what that story will be embroidered into by the end of the day.
“Come,” Mami says, indicating a boulder near her for me to sit and work with them. “Belén’s at home in case César needs anything. You can sit here and work with us.”
I feel a twinge of sadness that I was wrong about Belén still being allowed to play. It makes me feel even less like listening to Doña Elena complain about her aching hip and Doña Marisol talk about her daughter’s upcoming wedding. But I fold onto my knees at the edge of the group and start breaking rocks anyway because I’m not quite sure how to say what I need to.
It turns out the women are in the middle of a fairly intense conversation. It seems rude to interrupt them with my news, so I sit quietly and wait for an opening.
“. . . I still say the government should nationalize the mines again,” Doña Marisol is saying. “This switch to little cooperatives leaves us all vulnerable.”
Some of the women nod. Despite myself, I find I’m paying attention. Our whole lives change every time the price of mineral goes up or down. Would we be better off if things were different?
But Mami is shaking her head. “Prices for metals are set by international markets. There’s no way for the government to control that.”
“The government would find a way,” Doña Elena huffs, “and I’d rather have one of us running things than some international power. Give them a hand and they’ll take your whole arm. Remember the Water Wars of 2000?”
Even I know what she’s talking about. It was four years before I was born, but they teach it in school and lots of people still talk about it. Years before Evo Morales got elected president, the Bolivian government needed a loan from the World Bank to improve the waterworks for our third-largest city. But one of the terms of the loan was that they had to privatize it: sell the public water service to a foreign company. Bechtel, the largest construction company in the United States of America, ended up owning all the water in Cochabamba—a city of 800,000 people—even the water that fell from the sky. When they doubled the price of water overnight and padlocked the public taps, a huge protest broke out. Protesters were met with tear gas and bullets. Six people were killed and 175 were wounded. It was partially the anger over this Water War that helped Morales become president.
“Corporations, pah!” adds Abuelita. “How is what they do any different from the way the Spaniards enslaved the Inca and took the silver out of this very hill to make themselves rich?”
“Not the Spaniards again,” mutters Doña Elena under her breath.
Abuelita bristles. “Yes, the Spaniards! Our rulers were always Europeans, all the way back to the colonial times. Even Simón Bolívar, the great liberator, was just another European. We indigenous—Quechua, Aymara, Chiquitano, the Guaraní down in the Amazon—we’ve always been the majority. It’s about time we keep our wealth here instead of sending it off to make others rich. Tell me,” she goes on, fixing Doña Elena with a glare, “how can a corporation in San Francisco own the rain that falls in Bolivia? Rain belongs to God.”
I love the fact that, even though Abuelita and Doña Elena are basically agreeing with each other, they’re still fighting.
“Yes, well, everyone’s a good socialist until they get a taste of power,” says Mami. It’s interesting to see Mami participate in political conversations. She never offered opinions when Papi was still with us, but out here, surrounded by no one but other women, she speaks freely. I wonder whether she would voice these opinions around César and how he would react if she did. “Then they hoard money for themselves as much as anyone. Look at the Morales government now—as corrupt as any government ever was.”
“How so?” asks Doña Marisol. “He took power away from the U.S. corporations and the World Bank. He gave us a new constitution, a new, indigenous flag. He brought women into the government and protects the environment.”
“Such an environmentalist,” says Mami, practically rolling her eyes, “putting roads through our national parks and indigenous spaces to dig for natural gas.”
“He reduced poverty,” counters Doña Marisol. “You can’t deny that. He raised the minimum wage.”
“He’s also breaking ground, right now, to raise a two-hundred-and-thirty-million-boliviano presidential palace.” Mami gestures emphatically. “Oh, and of course he’s trying to abolish term limits to keep power for himself forever.”
“All I’m saying,” says Abuelita, “is that we are a country where valuable things have always been taken away from us, from silver for the Spaniards to lithium for mobile phones; from water to natural gas. It’s time we stopped making deals with the devil to be modern.”
“Some good things come from outside,” says Mami, refusing to back down. “You can’t just ignore the rest of the world or throw out the good with the bad. Okay, Morales kicked out some of the corporations, but he also kicked out foreign aid.”
“Why do we need it?” scoffs Doña Elena.
“Because sometimes outside help is the only help to be had. Do you remember Rosaura? She was able to get a divorce from her husband when he beat her because of that Danish legal aid clinic. And, Marisol, your own daughter was able to get into a training program so she could become a preschool teacher because of that other charity. You can’t say that her life isn’t better because of it. Now those organizations are gone. Where will my Ana go to get help finding a better future?”
As one, all their gazes swing to me. I swallow. I wasn’t planning on being an exhibit in their argument.
But Mami has given me the opening I need.
“I don’t need a charity,” I say, not quite able to meet Mami’s eyes. “I’ve taken a job. At the El Rosario mine. As a guarda.”
Deafening silence meets my announcement. Even the ping and crack of rocks in the background vanishes. The other women have stopped work completely to listen in.
Mami’s eyebrows shoot up. “You what?”
I stare at the worthless hunk of rock in my hand, wishing we weren’t having this conversation.
“El Rosario needs a guarda. We need the money.” I do some quick math to make the number seem more impressive. “I’ll make eight hundred and fifty bolivianos a month.”
“So,” Mami says. Tears roughen her voice, and whatever hope I had that my news wouldn’t make her angry vanishes like clouds in the dry season. “You thought it wasn’t enough that I lose a son and a husband to the mountain. You decided I should lose my daughter too.”
“I’m trying to help.” It comes out as a whisper.
“Do you think that getting yourself killed is going to help me?” she snaps. “What’s your logic? That I’ll have one less mouth to feed when you’re found dead in a ditch?”
Tears are running down her face, and I know that her sharp words are coming from worry, not meanness, so I don’t let her see how much they frighten me.
“There was a job open. This”—I wave my hand at the piles of slag around us—“isn’t going to be enough. We need to eat. César needs time to get better. This is a way to do that. I’ll be careful.”
“There are other ways,” Mami says in a clipped tone.
“What other ways?” I ask, my voice rising in frustration. This isn’t something I’ve decided on a whim. I’ve thought and thought about this. There are no better choices available to us.
Mami doesn’t get a chance to answer because that’s when Doña Elena decides to join our conversation.
“A better way would be to get her a man,” she states with complete certainty.
Mami and I stare at her, struck dumb.
Abuelita has no such problem. “Don’t be stupid, Elena,” Abuelita growls at the other woman. She glares daggers at the eavesdroppers until they go back to cracking rocks. The noise of their work underlines Abuelita’s words to Doña Elena. “She’s far too young.”
“Nonsense!” barks Doña Elena. “I was fourteen when I got married. How old were you, Elvira? Fifteen? Sixteen? Besides, the girl wouldn’t even really have to marry. Even if she just got engaged, his family would take care of you all until César is healthy again.”
“No.”
Mami’s eyebrows rise at the tone in my voice. “Ana,” she whispers. “Manners.” Abuelita can sass Doña Elena all she wants because they’re the same age, but Mami and I need to be polite to her.
I shake my head, no longer trusting my own voice.
Doña Elena turns on me. “Stubborn girl,” she scolds. “Look at how hard your mother and grandmother are working now to take care of you. If you were a good daughter, you’d be thinking of ways you could take care of them. A husband would be responsible for making sure you all have enough to eat.” Her eyes travel over me much like the miners’ did. “You’re pretty enough . . .”
“I’m not going to get married! Ever!”
“Don’t shout at your elders,” Mami says, a hint of heat creeping into her voice. She turns to Doña Elena. “She’s young still. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying,” I grind out. I’ve lived in a one-room house most of my life. I do not want to get married.
“Ana, stop being so melodramatic.” Mami sighs. “No one is saying you have to get married at twelve, but of course you’ll get married eventually. It’s not good to be alone. Remember those days after your father died? Barring the door every night? You, having to leave school to help us sort rocks?”
Having to leave school is a wound I still can’t stand to have poked. “Yes, I remember those days,” I snap. “There was a whole week when no one hit you.”
I realize, in the stunned quiet that follows, that I have embarrassed my mother in front of her friends. I feel slimy inside. I clear my throat and force my voice to be less ugly. I can’t meet her eyes again.
“I’ve made up my mind,” I say loud enough for Mami, Doña Elena, and all the other women and their worthless rocks to hear me. “Tonight, I’m going to work as a guarda for the mine.” I stare at the anemic blue sky and let out a shaky breath, trying to let go of my anger with it. “I’m going to go home and sleep now. It’ll be fine.”
And with that, I turn and walk away.
I really hate the word fine.
Even though I’m tired, I can’t fall asleep. First of all, I’m not used to sleeping in the middle of the day. It feels wasteful. Also, even though I manage to still my body, I can’t get my mind to stop whirling around and around. Tonight will not find me safely behind a latched door with my family, nestled under blankets. Tonight will find me walking around the mine, guarding it from who knows what. I know I’ll need my wits about me. I will myself to sleep, but I don’t manage it. Plus, guilt over how nasty I was to Mami eats at me.
For over an hour I stare at the ceiling, listening to César cough, wasting my precious rest time. But then I must have dozed off, because suddenly I hear Mami calling from outside.
“Ana? Ana! Get up! It’s time for you to go.”
I force myself to get out of my blankets. The evening air cuts like a knife through my clothes. I can tell tonight is going to be the type of end-of-summer night that feels more like the start of winter.
“I’m awake,” I call, surprised to hear her. It’s still light out. She should still be working with the palliris.
I walk outside and find her laying things on a flat rock. I see a bag of coca leaves, two blankets, Papi’s old helmet with its attached acetylene lamp, and seven sticks of dynamite. Three of them are full length, like the ones that the miners use for blasting, but the other four look like they’ve been sawed in half.
I hug her, burying my face in her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mami,” I mumble into the scratchy fabric. “I’m so sorry for what I said earlier about you and Papi.”
Mami turns me in her arms and hugs me.
“It was never that much of a secret, I suppose,” she says.
“Still. You don’t deserve to have me throwing it around like that. Please forgive me?”
“There’ s nothing to forgive,” she whispers. “We all say ugly things when we’re upset. I’m sorry that I yelled at you for trying to help.”
“I found out about the debt,” I say, looking up at her.
Mami’s face is lined with exhaustion when she looks down at me.
“I wondered,” she says. “You’re so smart. And too curious by half.”
“You can tell me things,” I say. “I’m old enough to help.”
Mami sighs. “I wish you didn’t have to. I’m worried about you, mi hija.”
I’m worried about me too, so I don’t answer that. Instead, I look over the things she’s assembled.
“What’s all this?” I ask.
“Watch,” she commands, letting me go. She takes one of the three big sticks of dynamite and pulls out the fuse. She then cuts both the stick of explosives and the fuse in half with a knife and reassembles them into two mini-sticks. “You don’t want to detonate so much dynamite that you can’t outrun the blast,” she says. “But if a group of men comes after you like they did poor Mariángela, you light these, and throw them at them, and run. Promise me.”
I imagine myself hurling dynamite at shadows and bringing the whole mountain down on top of myself. Then I imagine being caught alone and unarmed by a group of men. I remember Mariángela’s smiling face.
“I promise,” I hear myself say.
“Well,” she says, her voice gruff, “there you go, then, that’s all you need. Keep your eyes open and be safe. You can’t fall asleep when you’re a guarda. You’ll have to stay up all night, eyes sharp! And don’t dawdle coming home. I won’t breathe easy until I see your face tomorrow morning.”
She puts everything onto the manta and ties it into a pack that she slings around my shoulders. Tying the two ends into a knot over my collarbone, she rests her hands gently on my shoulders for a second. In the quiet between us I hear her regret, her sadness.
“Thank you, Mami,” I manage, my voice thick with tears. I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Giving my shoulder a quick squeeze, she walks away from me without another word, back to the slag heap and the never-ending task of sorting good rock from worthless. I square my shoulders and face the other way, toward El Rosario and my new job.