Tree Girl Page 2

  All week we readied ourselves for the celebration. Uncle Raphael provided a pig to be roasted, and Papí arranged to have a priest come to the cantón. The twins, Antonio and Julia, were eleven years old and handled the arrival of my quinceañera differently.

  Julia came to me and announced, “I’ll keep the floor and the yard swept, I’ll tie the dogs up, and I’ll watch Alicia and Lidia. That will help you to prepare.”

  True to his nature, my brother Antonio helped with anything if asked. He was honest and hardworking like his twin sister, but he was a timid person and feared taking risks. He would laugh and clap when another boy did something mischievous like holding on to a cow’s tail, but he never allowed himself to grab hold.

  Though he was shy, I knew Antonio was proud of me. “You are the first sister of mine to have a quinceañera,” he kept saying.

  My brother Lester was thirteen and the laziest of our family. He also was the most impulsive and short-tempered. He announced again and again, “I’ll make sure nobody forgets anything.”

  I knew Lester’s voice held not one grain of sincerity. Lester always disappeared at the first hint of work. Two days before the celebration, Jorge needed help butchering the pig that Uncle Raphael gave us. He found Lester throwing corn husks at the dogs. “Would you help me to dip the pig in boiling water and scrape the skin?” he asked.

  Suddenly Lester held his stomach with his hands.“I wish I could help you, but something I ate is making me sick. I better go lie down.”

  Papí heard Lester’s excuse and laughed. “You aren’t my child,” he joked. “You were sired by a sloth.”

  We all laughed, which only made Lester angry.

  “I’ll help you,” I offered.

  “I need someone big and strong to help me boil the pig,” Jorge said, knowing that I resented such words.

  I could do anything Jorge could, and more. I could weave, pick herbs, and climb trees higher than he could. Jorge’s teasing came mostly from his disappointment and frustration that Mamí and Papí had chosen their oldest daughter and not him, their oldest child, as the one who would attend school. Papí needed Jorge’s help in the fields during planting and harvest, and Jorge was sixteen and as strong as a small ox.

  I waited until Jorge could find no one else to help him, then grudgingly he allowed me to go with him to where the big barrel of water heated over the fire.

  “I’ll kill the pig,” he announced, as if that made him more important.

  I didn’t mind. I helped to hold the struggling pig, but I looked away when Jorge cut its throat with his machete. Once the pig lay dead, we dipped it into the boiling water to make the hair shave easily. As I helped to gut and dress the animal, an awkward silence hung between Jorge and me. I broke it by saying, “Maybe next year you, too, can attend school.”

  “Mamí and Papí don’t send me to school,” Jorge answered, “because they know I’m already smart.”

  I knew how much Jorge wished to attend school, so I resisted making any clever reply. Jorge had a good heart, and he had come to my rescue many times. So I ignored his words and offered only a quiet smile. This, however, probably bothered him worse than any sharp words I might have spoken.

  All afternoon I helped with the pig until it was scraped and ready to cook. By some miracle, Lester’s stomachache disappeared when he saw we were done.

  The day before my quinceañera, I found myself getting short with my youngest sisters, Lidia and Alicia. They kept wandering away, and then everybody had to stop working to look for them.

  “Julia, you promised to watch them,” Mamí scolded.

  Julia nodded obediently. “Yes, Mamí, from now on they’ll stay close.”

  When Julia returned with the girls, I heard her say to them, “This morning I saw a big dog walking beside the fields. He had a little girl’s dress hanging from his teeth, and he looked hungry.”

  Lidia and Alicia ran to my side and remained close for protection the rest of the afternoon.

  The night before the celebration, Antonio and Julia made decorations with flowers and corn husks. I washed and tried on the colorful huipil I had woven specially for the day. Julia began following me around and braided my hair whenever I stopped moving for even a few seconds. Little Alicia insisted on helping. I knew that the next morning it would be Mamí who braided my hair before the ceremony.

  I spent much of that last evening helping Mamí cook up fresh tortillas. I also helped her kill six chickens and make chicken soup.

  As we cooked, Alicia stayed near, offering suggestions. “I think you should do it this way,” she insisted, pushing her fat little hands into whatever we did.

  “Thank you for the help, my bebe,” Mamí kept saying.

  Lidia sat politely by the table and asked questions. “What would happen if you didn’t put water in the tortillas? What would happen if the soup boiled too long?”

  Mamí patiently answered each question.

  “Can you teach a boy to cook?” I asked.

  Mamí smiled kindly and said, “Love doesn’t wear only a corte. It’s easy to mix a recipe and to light a fire, but cooking with love is what makes food good.”

  Love was what Mamí gave me, not only when she patiently struggled to teach me to cook but also when we cleaned a chicken or worked grinding corn for tortillas. She taught me love when she taught me to weave the brightly colored huipil I would soon wear as a young woman. Love is the lesson she taught me as each day began and before each day ended.

  She also taught me kindness. “Kindness is more important than love,” she reminded me. “Kindness is the sharing of love.” Even with the feeding of the pigs, Mamí taught me to be kind.

  That last evening before my birthday, the slaughtered and dressed pig was placed over hot coals to be roasted by young men, who stayed up all night and shared both the turning of the pig and the drinking of great quantities of boj. The boj helped to pass the long hours of darkness. I called it “song juice,” because it made the young men sing boisterous songs of lost love and of brave adventures. Jorge, being sixteen now, insisted this year on helping with the roasting of the pig.

  Mamí reluctantly agreed. “I’ll beat the hair off your head with a stick if I catch you drinking any boj,” she warned him.

  “I won’t drink any,” Jorge promised, but I saw him sneaking quick gulps when he thought no one watched. I think Mamí saw him, too, but she knew that helping the young men roast the pig and drinking a little boj was as much a part of growing up and coming of age as my quinceañera.

  I don’t think I slept at all the night before the celebration. “What if the priest doesn’t come?” I fretted to Mamí when I first arose. “What if the pig isn’t finished cooking? What if my teacher from the school, Manuel Quispe, can’t find our home? He’s never been here before.”

  “Everything will be okay,” Mamí comforted me.

  As Mamí promised, by noon my teacher, Manuel Quispe, arrived. The priest arrived on horseback a short time later. The young men announced that the pig was close to being cooked, and soon everyone from the cantón and the surrounding countryside arrived. I was so glad to see Manuel come to my ceremony. I gave him a big hug, although that probably wasn’t proper for a young woman on her quinceañera.

  All of the students at the school loved Manuel Quispe. He was Mayan Indian, an Indio like the rest of us. He wasn’t like the many Latino teachers who thought they were better than the Indios. He was a big man, big like a gentle horse, and his kindness made me more comfortable with him than I was with my own grandfather. Manuel made me curious about new things, and always he made me feel that I was learning, not only from him, but from my own curiosity.

  I was as grateful that Manuel had made the two-hour hike up from the valley as I was for clear skies on the day of my quinceañera. The celebration would be held in an open field beside our cantón instead of in the church two kilometers away. As the ceremony started, the priest spoke in Spanish—like most priests, he was Latino and didn
’t know our Mayan language of Quiché. We sat on planks laid across stumps of wood to form benches. The young men who had cooked the pig rested half asleep under the trees, paying the price for their lack of sleep and excess boj.

  Papí did not let Jorge off so easily, insisting that he sit in the front row with the rest of us. Each time Jorge’s head nodded, Papí elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

  The children of the cantón squirmed and fidgeted during the ceremony, knowing only that later there would be food and candy and the breaking of a piñata. One boy chased his sister under the nearby trees as his mother scolded him in a loud whisper.

  The priest finished his long sermon by solemnly asking me to kneel. As he touched my head, he said, “Gabriela, you’re now a woman. No longer can you think as a child or follow the path of a child. Life now bids you to share a woman’s responsibility, not only to this cantón but also to your brothers and sisters and parents, and someday to your own husband and family.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the older boys, who watched and smiled at me. On the day of my quinceañera, I felt beautiful not only on the inside but also on the outside. Maybe one of the boys who watched me kneel in front of the priest harbored a secret wish to someday be my husband. I glanced also at Manuel Quispe, and he, too, smiled at me. I felt my face blush.

  When the priest finished, elders from our cantón rose and prayed in Quiché, chanting, burning their candles, and swinging their pails of incense and the pine resin we called trementina. Our religion was partly Catholic and partly the beliefs of our Mayan ancestors. God to us was bigger than the God that Catholics believed existed. We felt the presence of God in all things.

  After the ceremony, the feasting began. For most of the afternoon everyone shared the abundant food that good fortune and hard work had brought to us. Late in the day, before the dancing began, Papí presented the priest with a small gift of money and gave him some roasted pig to carry home with him. Papí gave me a set of earrings with stones as big and red as rooster eyes.

  Manuel Quispe left before the dancing so that he could arrive home before dark. “You’ve made me so proud today,” he said, embracing me with his big arms. “A teacher isn’t supposed to have favorite students, but, if I had to have a favorite,” Manuel winked at me. “… Enjoy your evening, Gabriela.” He pointed up. “Dance one dance with me up there in the clouds.”

  “I will,” I said, watching him walk from our cantón.

  Papí then began playing his marimbas, and every woman, man, and child in the cantón joined arms, singing and laughing and twirling in circles, continuing to dance even as dusk faded to night. Each of the boys took turns dancing with me, even those who had in the past called me names. On that night, I was not Goat Face. That night I was a beautiful princess.

  More boj was brought out for the adults to drink, and everybody kept eating and dancing, including the old people who were helped to their feet and moved in circles for short dances. I walked out beside the clearing and closed my eyes. Alone in the dark, I danced one dance with Manuel up among the clouds that floated like ghosts over our celebration. And when I finished that dance, I imagined Manuel kissing me gently on the forehead.

  “Here, Gabi!” shouted some of the boys, bringing me a small glass. “You’re fifteen now and old enough to try boj.”

  Hesitantly I sipped from the glass, tasting the foul liquid for the first time. My mouth burned and my ears warmed. Blushing, I handed the glass back to the boys. “The rest is for you,” I said, thanking them with a smile.

  I also took time to thank each of the elders for sharing my special day with me.

  “Of all the young people in the cantón, you’re our favorite,” Señora Alvarez kept repeating. “You’ll do great things with your life.”

  “Oh, I think you say that to everyone,” I kidded her.

  “Oh, no,” she insisted. “You have dreams.”

  That night, I was so proud to be Gabriela Flores. The future was as bright as a glowing sunrise. No one could ask for better parents or family than I had, and who could ask for a teacher more kind and wise than Manuel Quispe? On this day I had become a woman, so I danced late into the night, even allowing myself a few more sips of boj.

  At that moment I looked toward my future like a child watching the smooth surface of a great river. I did not realize that there were powerful currents ready to pull at anyone who tried to cross to the other side. That night, celebrating in the cantón, I sat only beside the shore of life and skipped rocks and threw flowers into the ripples, making childish wishes. For many long hours I danced and enjoyed myself.

  But then Papí suddenly stopped playing the marimbas, and the dancing ceased as if by command. The sudden silence made all of us turn to look. Eight soldiers in uniform appeared like ghosts out of the darkness, their rifles pointed toward us.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was late when the soldiers arrived, and very few women and children remained at the celebration. Already Mamí had taken Alicia, Lidia, and Julia back home to bed. The soldiers came toward us, most of them as young as Jorge, grouped together and holding their rifles pointed from their waists as if they might need them. Their uniforms made them more threatening. They waved their rifles at us and the comandante shouted, “Which one of you is Adolfo Silvan?”

  We all looked at one another. That wasn’t a name we recognized, and Papí stepped forward. “We don’t know anybody named Adolfo Silvan. Who is this man you are looking for?”

  “He’s a traitor who helps the enemy,” the comandante growled. “Which one of you is Adolfo?”

  Jorge stepped angrily toward the comandante. “There’s nobody in this cantón named Adolfo. We’re celebrating my sister’s quinceañera, and you have no business here.”

  I rushed to Jorge’s side and tried to quiet him. “It’s okay,” I whispered, afraid the boj made Jorge bolder than he should be.

  Papí also stepped in, and he placed a hand on Jorge’s shoulder. “My son means no disrespect,” he said to the comandante. “This is a special day for my daughter. My son tells the truth—there’s nobody named Adolfo in this cantón. If you would like, there’s still some tortillas and pig left. Let us offer you something to eat.”

  The comandante turned to me and pointed. “Are you the little whore this party is being held for?”

  Jorge lunged to hit the comandante, and instantly all the soldiers surrounded Jorge and clubbed him to the ground with their rifles. His mouth bled as he looked up at the soldiers and the rifles aimed in his face. He raised his hands. “Everything’s okay. I meant you no harm,” he stammered.

  “Everything’s not okay,” growled the comandante. “You attacked me.” He turned to the soldiers. “Bring him with us.”

  “Please, that’s not necessary,” Papí pleaded, approaching the angry comandante. “My son meant no harm.”

  The comandante pulled a pistol from his belt. “One more word and we’ll take you, too.”

  We all stood there stunned as Jorge was led away into the darkness. “What will they do to him?” I whispered to Papí as the uniformed soldiers disappeared. The happiness and merriment of the moment before had been replaced by a sudden quiet fear.

  Papí shook his head, his face strained with worry. “I don’t know what they’ll do.”

  “Who is Adolfo Silvan?” I asked.

  Again Papí shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s one of those trying to start the co-op.”

  Papí had told me about the co-op men, ordinary farmers like himself who were banding together with a common voice to get a good price for their crops. As it was, the Indios from the cantóns had to carry their crops for three or four hours to market. That far from home, they were often forced to sell their crops for any price that the rich Latino buyers wished to pay. If they didn’t sell their crops cheaply, they were threatened.

  I went to Papí’s side and asked, “They won’t hurt Jorge, will they?”

  Papí bit at his lower lip. He gave me
a hug. “Finish celebrating your quinceañera. I need to go and talk to your mother. I’ll come back.”

  “I’ve celebrated enough,” I said. “I’ll go home with you.”

  Those who remained with us nodded their heads in agreement. We had all lost our taste for celebrating.

  As we walked toward our home that night, my brother Lester moved up beside Papí in the dark. “Papí, I want to join the guerrillas. They’re fighting for the rights of the Indios. The soldiers shouldn’t be able to take somebody away like this.”

  I knew my parents already distrusted the Latinos, the government, and the soldiers, but I didn’t know for sure how Papí felt about the guerrillas. We all paused when Papí stopped in front of our home and turned to Lester. “Change is difficult,” Papí said. “After so many years of being treated like dogs, many of the Indios still believe they are less deserving of respect and hope than the Latinos with their Spanish blood.” Papí spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “Respect and hope are worth fighting for.”

  “Good,” Lester said. “I’m thirteen now and soon I’ll be able to fight.”

  Papí shook his head. “No number of years makes a man ready to fight. Many guerrilla commanders aren’t even from Guatemala. What do they care about you or me, or our small Mayan cantón? The guerrillas and the soldiers just use us to get food and information. I don’t think they truly fight for us.”

  “But maybe the guerrillas can bring change,” Lester kept arguing.

  “They’re dividing us. Both sides threaten us, and we don’t know who to trust. Soon neighbors will fight against each other. Before this war is over, you’ll see brothers fight against brothers, and sons against fathers.” Papí shook his head in the darkness.

  That night I heard Papí and Mamí speaking in hushed and troubled voices. Purposely I woke early and went to a tree at the edge of the cantón to watch the breaking of dawn. The first splash of red sunrise touched the sky as I climbed up.

  I loved morning because nothing ever changed its coming. It seemed that no amount of soldiers and guerrillas could stop our cantón from waking each morning like some playful and lazy creature, yawning and smiling, content from slumber and welcoming the day with barking dogs, crowing roosters, mothers singing to their babies, and neighbors waving to neighbors.