Hard Red Spring (9 page)

The two women and Evie examined the boy standing in their front room, looking for the Indian in him. His eyes were not Indian, but his nose gave him away.

“They say his parents couldn't afford to keep him, but you know how it goes with Mestizos. More likely, the
father
was Indian. Tomás,” Mrs. Fasbinder said, pointing to the floor at her feet. “He doesn't speak English,” she explained needlessly.

The boy sat at Mrs. Fasbinder's feet while everyone else remained standing. Mother stepped back, as if from a puddle. “I don't understand. He's yours now?”

“Oh yes, we picked him up last week. He was in the Catholic church when it collapsed. All the other orphans were killed.”

“Was he outside?”

“No, he was inside.”

“Was he hiding under anything? A statue?”

Evie stared at the boy. An orphan boy, when she had thought orphans could only be girls. She wondered if she would be allowed to play with him, remembering Mother's comment about orphans being unable to play. She had a ball. Maybe she would try that. She so, so wanted someone to play with. Ixna had resisted her attempts at blindman's bluff, though she played it with Father.

“No one knows how he survived. They found him standing. Just standing there, all dusty. Besides”—and here Mrs. Fasbinder shifted easily into territory Mother tried to avoid but that always, inevitably, came up with Mrs. Fasbinder—“no Catholic statue could save anyone. It was a sign, that church crumbling to the ground. The era of repression in the name of God is over in Guatemala.”

Evie had been taught that introducing religion or politics to conversation was rude. Though once Mrs. Fasbinder did, Mother couldn't seem to help herself. “And what will take its place?” she asked with determined lightness.

“Freedom and prosperity through the blood of Jesus and through hard work.”

“Is that so?”

“Before, the Indians worked while the priests lived off the wealth. But now, with this new economy, everyone works and everyone is paid.”

“Everyone certainly works, but I'm not convinced everyone gets paid.” Mother pursed her lips and spat out the name like a sneeze. “Ixna worked on the Piedmont and she's told quite a different story. Starvation wages in play money.”

“The paper slips are necessary, Mattie. The peso's so depressed we can't get the exact bills to pay them on a daily basis! You've no idea, absolutely none.” Still standing, Mrs. Fasbinder worked herself up so that she was almost breathless. “And we pay more than just wages. On every worker we have to pay their tax so the government doesn't draft them away for the road crew or the railroad project. We pay for their food, their children's food, the shelter, we have to pay men wages to round them up all over the highlands to honor their debts, we have to bribe Ubico to favor our debts over the other planters'. Because these Indians take advances from every coffee planter
they can! They're just trying to avoid the railroad draft, but not even that works anymore. We advance them six months of wages, then a month later they disappear! We know they go right next door, to the Haussmans'. Their men come in the night to give them new advances, new identity papers, and smuggle them over the fence! So I'd say the majority of them, who are pretty enterprising, get paid very, very well for their work. Then they drink it all away.”

“At the plantation cantinas!”

“If we didn't have a cantina, the Indians wouldn't work for us.”

“So they drink it all away, and the honest ones are left to starve.”

“Exactly!” Mrs. Fasbinder agreed. “That's exactly what I'm saying. It's the lack of morals that's put them in this bind. If we paid more, all of our money would jump the fence and half the population would drink itself to death. Too much drink is worse for them than too little food. And if we left, all the Indians would be dying of yellow fever on that insane railroad project. Right now they are only field workers, but everyone has to start somewhere. With hard work and God-fearing morals,” the woman declared, lifting her chin to demonstrate her point, “the Indians will rise.”

“That's quite optimistic of you,” Mother said, motioning to the piano bench for her guest to sit. “To think that the Indians will eventually be prosperous under a new religion. Not a new government or economic plan.”

Mrs. Fasbinder smiled. “We are optimists, but we also have to be realists.” She reached across and tested two high keys on the piano, like a chime. “Oh, I miss my piano. However did you get this one all the way here?”

“Is it optimism or realism that makes you think you can eradicate class, eradicate this insane system of advances and bribes, by bringing more money into this country?”

Mrs. Fasbinder touched a middle chord. Mother frowned, averting her gaze, while Mrs. Fasbinder pulled the bench closer to the piano and began to tap out a small tune, a simple one played with only two fingers.

“The truth,” Mrs. Fasbinder said as she played, “is that no matter what we want, Guatemala is now a part of our world. And as more money and people and industry come, we can teach the Indians to take advantage and prosper or to resist and be killed in the process. They are very adaptable, these Indians. They've had to adopt many false ‘truths' in order to survive the past few centuries. But we're hoping to change that by bringing them the ultimate truth.”

“The ultimate truth?”

“I've written my church in Chicago about the collapse of the cathedral, the unique opportunity to break the Catholics' stranglehold on the Indians. They're going to establish a church and a school right away. They're sending missionaries and teachers next month.”

They all knew about Mrs. Fasbinder's school. She'd been talking about it vaguely for a year, though there was never any mention of a church. “Missionaries,” Mother repeated. “Are you Anglican? Lutheran?”

Mrs. Fasbinder made a face. “Oh no, Mattie, nothing like that. A fairly new church, without all the nasty history and politics. I even spoke with the President about it, at my party. He was very excited about the possibility of reinventing religion down here. We aren't here for empire-building, we're here out of love and compassion and nothing more. It's just what this country needs.”

“But,” Mother repeated, “what are you?”

“My dear”—Mrs. Fasbinder straightened, offended that it hadn't been obvious all along—“we're American Baptists.”

Mother cast a desperate glance around the parlor and into the kitchen, hoping for the tea. “Evie, I don't know where Ixna is. Will you please make the tea?”

“Take Tomás with you, show him how to make the tea,” Mrs. Fasbinder called. “He needs to learn these things. Get up, Tomás.” She clapped and the boy collected himself from the floor.

“Yes,” Mother agreed, “the Indian certainly will rise.” She caught Evie's eye, but Evie didn't understand the joke.

“Well, we need a houseboy, and he's much cheaper than hiring a boy out and paying his parents. He was free, in fact. The nuns had nowhere to house him. You know, they had him in a sack dress? They also trained him to cross himself before every meal,” she said in a scandalized whisper. “We broke him of that in a day. But at least they taught him straight Catholicism, instead of that pagan-hybrid stuff all the other Indians practice. I can undo what I can understand.”

Evie motioned to Tomás, and he followed her into the kitchen, where she added some sticks to the stove. She studied him, trying to recognize him from the line of little orphan girls praying in the cathedral. Maybe they had all been boys, in dresses.

“I'm Evie,” she said, patting herself on the chest.

The boy stared at her with shrewd eyes. Not like Indian eyes at all. A Mestizo, Mrs. Fasbinder had said.

“We're getting three hundred new workers from the draft,” Mrs. Fasbinder said from the other room. “Almost all our workers took advantage of the confusion and fled. Just disappeared into the smoke. Everything's ruined. The ash was worse than the lava. The cherries have to be harvested quickly and washed. Each one washed.”

“Lots of crops will be suffering from the drafts, too. But,” Mother chimed happily, “Robert went to speak to Ubico. He says we can get an exception.”

“Ubico said that?”

No, Evie thought, ladling water into the pot. She wanted to tell Mother what had really happened, but she had no idea how to explain.

“Yes,” Mother answered.

“We paid Ubico five thousand dollars to draft us workers. He better not be handing out exceptions left and right.”

“We did not bribe Ubico,” Mother announced proudly. “We reasoned with him. He understands workers need to eat. They can't eat coffee, they can't eat money.”

Evie listened, realizing that the money on the bottom of Magellan's cage was a bribe. That was the word for it. Of course, now she could not explain to Mother what had happened. She took two big cinnamon cookies from the counter and gave one to Tomás. She nibbled her cookie, thinking of the bribe, waiting for the water to boil.

Tomás didn't say anything and he did not eat the cookie right away. He gripped it with both hands. Then he glanced at the piano room, crossed himself, and shoved the entire thing in his mouth at once. He hunched over, putting his entire body into the endeavor, like a snake swallowing an egg. Evie could not believe her eyes. Triumph! But maybe not, since Tomás was a Mestizo.

He chewed for a long time, staring at Evie's good shoes.

They walked back in once the tea was brewed, balancing the cups with a nervous rattle. Evie had arranged the spoons, the saucers, and the sugar just right on the tray. But Mother did not notice her efforts. Mrs. Fasbinder was telling a story.

“The Indian,” she managed, her face red, shucked of composure, “waited on the road . . .” Her eyes cut to Evie and she swallowed the sentence quickly. Evie put the tray down and sat on a chair, crossing her ankles, with her back straight. The tea burned her mouth, but she smiled through it, feigning polite interest in Mrs. Fasbinder's story.

“He
took
her,” Mrs. Fasbinder explained.

Mother took her cup up, understanding now. “Oh my! A French girl?”

“He
took
her,” she said again. “And now there's a baby.”

Mother's eyes widened in horror. Tomás sat down again, just curled up to digest his cookie. “Took her where?” Evie asked, eyeing the sugar.

They turned to Evie with stunned faces, then Mother said, “An Indian tried to take a white girl somewhere. She said no, but he took her anyway.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. Just a French girl somewhere.”

“Where did he take her?”

“To a restaurant, Evie, of course,” Mother snapped with impatience.

How do you force someone to eat dinner? Evie wondered. Would he even allow her to choose from the menu? “I thought Indians weren't allowed in restaurants.”

“Stop asking silly questions, Evie. Go play outside, please, with Tomás.”

Kicked out, despite her best efforts. She would hear about it later, about proper conversation, about the difference between rude and polite questions. Mother would accuse her of being her father's daughter. Too curious.

Tomás, however, was incapable of playing. He got up again at Mrs. Fasbinder's command, and followed Evie out onto the porch, where he just caught the rubber ball she bounced to him. He would not bounce it back, but kept it in his fist.

“Those CAICO men!” Mrs. Fasbinder exclaimed from the house. “Such charming brutes. Robert would have fit in perfectly at the party! I'm sorry you couldn't make it. It was nice to have some Americans around for once. We're lucky. A few days later, and the whole gala would have been ruined by the ash. But they were all gone by then, thank God, to the Caribbean coast.”

“I'm surprised they came all the way here, it's not an easy trip.”

“Well, coffee will be their main freight, if they commit to finishing the line. No matter what dreams they have about bananas, coffee is the reality for now. Coffee will pay for the whole rail system in a few years. If they finish it. Personally, I doubt they will. They should pull out now before they lose any more money. They're only a year into their contact. I wonder if they realize the government's been throwing dead Indians at that project for ten years. The terrain's impossible. But one of them told me they've come up with a solution.”

“What's that?”

“Jamaicans.”

Mrs. Fasbinder asked to play the piano for a while. So she played, and
Mother took the opportunity to go to the henhouse to collect eggs. On the porch floor, Evie laid out a piece of paper and her pencils. She decided to draw a map, to explain to Tomás where she came from.

“This is America,” Evie said, making a shape, trying to remember the map Father had drawn for her. “This is New York. This is where I'm from.” She thumped her chest and pointed at the map. “This is Guatemala.” She drew a small circle right at the bottom of the page.

Across the yard, Mother emerged from the henhouse without her basket, running. Her hand over her mouth. She dashed up the porch steps, her eyes so wide, but she did not see Evie and Tomás there. She tripped over Evie's legs, stumbled right into the doorway, and did not stop. And she did not hear Evie when she asked what was wrong. Or maybe she just couldn't hear over Mrs. Fasbinder's playing.

Tomás stared a moment at the map Evie had just drawn, cocked his head, then took the pencil from her. With it, he redrew Guatemala into a crazy shape. Then he opened his mouth for the second time.

“Guatemala is not a circle,” he said very softly in English. Then he dragged his finger over the sea, to North America. “And New York is on the coast.”

—

Mrs. Fasbinder and Tomás left at four o'clock. Mother stood on the porch, rigid as a pole, to watch their cart round the bend. Once it did, the day turned very strange. Mother applied some lipstick expertly, without a mirror, then walked into the kitchen and told Ixna that she was giving her a weeklong vacation.