The señora she’s staying with says she’s very sorry, she really does want to help but she can’t afford to do it for nothing. She can’t lower the rent either—symbolic as it is—or allow her to pay it only intermittently, which the girl thought would be all she could manage without the financial aid. Her circumstances won’t allow it. She says she might’ve been able to accept those terms earlier on, back when life wasn’t as expensive and they had more to live off than her husband’s pension. They had gotten along more easily in those days, even with all their children at home and two live-in maids and hosting their kids’ friends and schoolmates, who to all intents and purposes lived there as well, studying there every night, eating all three meals at their table and even throwing their clothes in with their laundry. Back then, money was plentiful, and there was enough to go around.
She says she wishes she could have taken her in then, she’s sure she would’ve gotten along beautifully with her daughters. Now that she thinks of it, she can’t send her to live with them either. They have their own problems to contend with. Some of them are barely ever home, while others have kids and can’t take on the responsibility of feeding her and keeping her safe. Their budgets are limited, too, she presumes. Her own is very tight, which is why she also can’t accept being paid in kind: the utility companies won’t take chickens or fruit in exchange for their services. It’s true they’ve owned that house for a long time now, but they’re always having to put money into its upkeep. There’s never quite enough for everything they need or want. She, for example, had to give up two trained maids and hire a couple of young girls instead who were interested in learning to keep house and then left for others once they’d become proficient and could charge more. Now all they can afford is the help of a señora who comes twice a week during office hours. To be fair, it’s not all that bad because they don’t make much of a mess there and, besides, she doesn’t have the energy to be training little girls. The girl says she’ll work as their cleaning woman in exchange for room and board. The señora says no, that wouldn’t be right at all, she has a bright future ahead of her, she’s got to study and finish her degree. But the truth is, she doesn’t think that sort of arrangement would work. Because of her schedule at the university, the girl wouldn’t be there when she needed her most and, on getting home, would surely have neither the energy nor disposition to do what was asked of her, and in just the way the señora liked. The girl isn’t very detail-oriented. What’s more, she wants her out of the house. In fact, she’s been waiting for her to slip up so she can use it as an excuse to make her leave because, for some time now, she hasn’t liked the way her husband’s been looking at her. It annoys her that he’s stopped being offended by the presence of a strange girl in their house, that he’s stopped ignoring her and started cozying up to her bit by bit, and little by little taken to using diminutives with her until finally he was calling her hijita, even though he’d never done so with his own daughters. She didn’t want to say anything so as not to bring it to the girl’s attention, if she didn’t already know, and so as not to give her any of the weapons she might need to take advantage of the situation. Instead, she went straight to her husband and told him to not to be getting any ideas, that the girl wasn’t their daughter. She reminded him of the names of the daughters they’d had together and of the fact they bore no resemblance to her. But first, she wanted to be sure it wasn’t just empty nest syndrome. If it was, she could get him a pet to shower his affections on, even though she’d be the one to feed it, clean up after it, and clear the house of its smells. If it wasn’t that, measures would have to be taken, and quickly, because whenever he became friendly with the cleaning girls, he ended up sleeping with them. It’d happened several times. He began by seeming understanding. Then generous. He’d even offered to buy one of them a house in the village she was from. The girl, an innocent little thing, had gleefully told her about his promise. That same day, she asked her to pack her bags and leave. She settled the amount owed and took her to the terminal. She swore to herself she’d never again walk in on her husband with one of those chiquitas, be it in his bed or hers. It was very possible this one had no interest in her husband’s propositions and hadn’t even realized his intentions. But it was also possible she was aware of them and just waiting for a moment of distraction on her part to hop into bed with him and sort out all her financial problems. So she decided it was a good time to be rid of her, even though her offer to work as their cleaning woman was a bargain and she felt awfully sorry for her whenever she saw her walk in through the door, disconsolate, and heard her crying hour after hour for several days.
At first, she thought something had happened to her on the street. A few days ago, the girl herself had said a car had pulled up beside her to ask for directions to an address she knew wasn’t in the area even though she hadn’t been in the capital very long. Besides, she’d sensed something strange in the way the men had looked at her and asked and insisted she come closer and help them find their destination. She couldn’t say whether they wanted to steal from her or rape her but she didn’t stop, not for one second. She kept on walking just as she’d been told to if something happened, and located the escape routes her mom had shown her when she’d come to help her settle in and teach her the way to university. She’d arrived a bit later than usual, furious and slightly pale. She told the señora that she hated the way they’d talked to her, and their mocking looks. As far as she was concerned, she’d done nothing to encourage what had happened: she’d worn the clothes the señora had approved and not a drop of makeup, just like she’d been told to if she wanted to live in that house. She’d asked for permission to carry the pocketknife her mom had given her to defend herself if she ever needed to. The woman had said no. Despite the danger that might exist out there on the streets, she couldn’t have her carrying a weapon, even though she knew she could use it. She was scared of what law enforcement would do to her if her tenant ended up castrating or killing her aggressors. What would she say? How would she respond when they asked her why she hadn’t taken the weapon from the girl when, on her arrival, she’d looked through her luggage? And what if she were to use it on her husband? What if she decided to defend herself when he tried to seduce her or corner her as he had some of their past employees? How would she explain it to her kids? It would’ve been partly her fault for not confiscating it and also for putting her up in the service room. But what else could she have done? She couldn’t give her one of the family rooms: she might get the wrong idea and think she had more rights than the ones granted by their rental agreement. It might also make it easier for her husband to find an opportunity to be with the girl without her knowing. If anything were to happen between them, it should be in the maids’ quarters and her husband should treat her like a maid. The easiest and most reasonable course of action would be to kick her out. It would also be easier to explain why the husband was hurt: the girl had thought he was a thief. Tired as she was every day after so much studying and so little sleep, she could’ve mistaken him for a stranger when he came in to grab his shirt, which should’ve been in the closet, except the girl hadn’t ironed it in time because she’d been busy with her coursework. It would’ve been her fault entirely. They wouldn’t prosecute her because they were considerate, they knew fear and exhaustion could pave the way for grave mistakes. Though they’d forgive her and wish her no ill, they couldn’t put her up anymore. They couldn’t allow something like that to happen again. Her husband could have died. And what would become of her if he did? He was her husband, after all, despite his many failings. No one would take him from her. The little cleaning girls could get their hopes up because he washed his own dishes when they were around to make it seem like he was a considerate sort of man and because he smiled at them and said they were the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, but they’d never get more out of him than the talcum powder and gifts he bought for them at the supermarket when she went there with him. The next day, she’d toss them out, gifts under their arms, meaning she had to do all the housework herself, and he never helped clear the table, even when she told him she needed him to because she was old and couldn’t manage with everything anymore, her body ached so much and she needed his consideration. He’d say that he was old too, that he was tired and hurt all over because he’d worked his whole life so they’d never want for anything. He wouldn’t lift a finger or give her a cent to hire help until some girl he thought he might stand a chance with in some not so distant future came knocking. Which is why he hadn’t liked it when the girl who arrived at his doorstep turned out to be a student. He’d told his wife he didn’t want any strangers in the house. She’d said the girl came highly recommended and, what’s more, that they needed the money she paid for room and board to cover the cleaning lady coming twice a week: she couldn’t manage all the chores on her own.
Her husband didn’t take kindly to it. He’d told the children that their mother thought she could go making decisions without consulting him, that he didn’t know what sort of person the girl she’d brought home was, and that they’d have to give her a talking-to so she didn’t destroy their house. The mother answered that yes, it was true, they’d have to be patient with the girl because there were devices in the house that she’d probably never used before, but it wasn’t all that different from how it had been with the many cleaning girls they’d employed before, who hadn’t even known how to use the restroom because, where they were from, they made do with septic tanks in their homes, schools, and even in hospitals. She knew none of them liked it, but she had to employ those girls—it was the only way they could afford a cleaning lady. Their father’s pension wasn’t enough. She couldn’t earn the bits and bobs she used to because she couldn’t go around the city selling things anymore. The only other option was for them to pitch in. Would they? That’s where the discussion ended. They went back to their things and she busied herself with hers. The girl hadn’t been a distraction until she started sensing she was about to fail a subject and risked losing her financial aid, which is when her husband had started cozying up to her. What would follow was that she, who’d turned down his help and never given him any ins, would end up accepting his offer, unable to find any other solution, and then, out of gratitude or a sense of duty, let herself be touched by him from time to time, or sleep with him. She didn’t want to say this to her so as not to offend her if she was the kind of girl who’d never agree to that sort of thing. Instead she said that, on top of the money issue, she’d realized that she couldn’t look after her any longer. What the girl had told her about the men in the car had made her see that the world was too dangerous for her to account to her mother for her safety. She was too old. She’d already raised her own children and gone through the anguish of waiting for them to come home every day. She didn’t want to go through it again. She asked her to understand.
Her friends spoke with their own families, but couldn’t get them to take her in: they barely had enough to sustain themselves in the coming months. Instead, they suggested she find a job, rent a room, and take on a lighter course load, even if it ended up taking her two or three times longer to graduate. One of them knew of a cafe hiring students. The owner had studied at the same university as them. She’d started that business after failing a subject for the third time. She wasn’t a millionaire, but she was quite comfortable. She had a car and a house and two girls at private school. She’d understand her perfectly. She’d give her a workable schedule, and some consideration.
She even offered her a place to rest her head. The room wasn’t like her current one, but it’d do as a place to spend her days and muster up the courage to tell her mother she’d failed the course. When her mother told her to come home, she’d show her she had everything under control. She’d stay in the city, study, and finish her degree even if it took her twice or three times as long. She had a plan and an answer to any question she might ask. She’d even rehearsed a calm tone of voice, which broke the moment she started talking to her over the phone.