Papi comes back from the Washburns’ with news of a plan the consul has thought up. They are calling it Operation Maid. Friends in Washington who will be stationed in Colombia have been looking for someone who can teach their children some Spanish. Why not send Lucinda?
Mami won’t have it. “My daughter’s not going to be anybody’s maid—”
Papi’s reply cuts off all argument. “Would you prefer she be Mr. Smith’s little querida?”
Mami doesn’t say another word. It’s decided. Mr. Washburn will request a special visa from the foreign ministry to send Lucinda to the States to help out his friend.
But Tío Toni isn’t so sure the plan will succeed. The ministry will never disappoint Mr. Smith in order to please a mere consul. “I say we take Smith down now!” my uncle insists. He paces the patio, lighting cigarettes he forgets to finish, flicking the butts into the ginger bushes nearby.
“The king must die,” Papi agrees.
My mouth drops. They’re talking about murdering El Jefe! I feel scared just thinking about what I’ve overheard. What if the SIM have a way to read people’s minds?
“Let’s not rush into this,” Mami cautions. “El Jefe is many things, but he’s not stupid. He won’t refuse the consul. Remember, he really wants to win back the Americans so the embargo stops.”
“We’ll see,” Papi says, as if he’s struggling to believe what Mami is telling him.
For the rest of the day, I can’t concentrate on anything. I just can’t believe my own father would do something he’s always taught me is wrong! Maybe saying the king must die was like the metaphors Mrs. Brown was always talking about? A figure of speech, not something that’s actually true.
I corner Mundín in the hallway and ask him to please tell me what is going on. “Are Papi and Tío Toni really going to kill El Jefe—”
Mundín claps a hand over my mouth and looks around worriedly. “Don’t ever say that to anyone!” His voice is so desperate, I burst into tears. He must feel bad about scaring me because he adds, “Everything’ll be all right.” I try hard to keep my mind on those words and on what Chucha dreamed—Lucinda, Mundín, Mami, and I, sprouting wings. Maybe she didn’t see Papi because he went ahead, preparing our way in a country he is already familiar with?
In Lucinda’s bedroom, everything is in disarray. Piles of matching blouses and skirts lie all over her bed. Even in the middle of an emergency, my older sister worries about what to wear. Finally, with Mrs. Washburn’s help, Mami packs a small, sensible bag of what is necessary.
I stand by, as stunned as I was that November day when my cousins left. Even though it’s only been less than four months, it seems so long ago. It’s as if I’ve gone from being eleven back then to being really old now, at least as old as my grandparents, who are in their sixties. The thought of losing Lucinda to the United States of America, hard as she sometimes is on me, is too sad to think about. Not even the thought of falling in love with Sam is a consolation anymore. Overnight, all boys (except for Papi and Tío Toni and Mundín) have become totally gross. Here’s an old lech flirting with my sister. Here are Oscar and Sam drinking liquor and throwing up. If only I could be Joan of Arc, cut off my hair and dress like a boy, just to be on the safe side. Or even better, if only I could go backward to eleven, instead of forward to thirteen!
Since it might be our last night together, Lucinda invites me to sleep in her room. I help her roll up her hair, and even when I don’t get the rollers tight enough, she doesn’t say anything. She also puts some of her pimple cream on my face, though I don’t really need it—but then, neither does she.
Finally, Lucinda turns off the light and seems to go right to sleep. I try, I really do. But lying in the dark, I start seeing visions of El Jefe lying in a puddle of disgusting blood, and Papi and Tío Toni standing beside the body, and I feel sick to my stomach. Then I hear a sob. At first, I think it’s mine, but it turns out to be Lucinda crying.
I reach out a hand and touch her shoulder. It feels strange to be comforting my older sister. And here she promised Tío Toni to take care of me!
“I just want you to know,” Lucinda sobs, “that I . . . I . . . I’m sorry for anything mean I’ve ever done.”
That does it. A loud sob bursts from me, too. Lucinda rolls over, and we hug each other until we have no more tears left. “We’re going to look awful tomorrow,” she says, laughing and crying both. What do I care? No one will see me. It’s Lucinda who’ll be meeting people in the United States she has to impress.
We talk in the dark, Lucinda telling me all about boys she likes and how many times she has been kissed. The first kiss she ever got, she was wearing her blue organdy dress, which is why she never would let me have it, even after she’d outgrown it. It’s nice knowing she was being sentimental, not mean. I feel so sad to be losing my sister just when we’re getting closer. Finally, we both fall asleep.
When I stir the next morning, my nightgown and legs feel damp. Oh, no! I think. I wet the bed! And here Lucinda has been treating me like someone her own age. Lifting the sheet, I gasp. There are bloody stains on my nightgown and on the bed!
My first thought is that I’ve been stabbed. But how can that be when nothing hurts anywhere? Maybe some horrible thing has happened to Lucinda? Maybe the SIM snuck into our house in the middle of the night and stabbed her in punishment for not taking Mr. Smith’s phone call?
“Lucinda,” I shake her awake. “There’s blood. . . .”
“Go back to sleep,” she says wearily. But then, my words must register because suddenly she is wide awake and sitting up. “Where?”
I lift the sheet and she looks down with a questioning expression. Then a knowing smile spreads on her lips. “Congratulations,” she says, leaning over and kissing me. “My baby sister’s a señorita. ”
I don’t feel like a señorita. I feel more like a baby in wet diapers. And I don’t want to be a señorita now that I know what El Jefe does to señoritas.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Lucinda is saying. She has gotten out of bed and is searching through a drawer. She finds a spare belt and shows me how to rig it up with a sanitary pad.
“Just please don’t tell Mami,” I plead. Mami will tell Papi, and right this moment, the last thing I want is a man knowing I’ve gotten my period.
“What’ll we do with the sheets?” Lucinda asks, nodding toward her bed.
I know one person who will keep my secret. As soon as I’ve dressed, I make my way warily down the hall, a white bundle under my arm, trying hard to ignore the sanitary pad I’m wearing. How do girls ever get used to walking with this contraption between their legs?
As I pass Papi’s study, I hear voices: Papi and Mami discussing something with Mr. Washburn. The consul must have come over first thing this morning with some news. The kitchen and pantry are deserted. Lorena hasn’t returned from her night off. Out back, in the walkway between the house proper and the servants’ quarters, Chucha is putting out her bedding to sun on the line. She glances at the bundle under my arm and guesses exactly what has happened.
“It’s about time,” she notes. Then, unfolding the sheets and glancing at the bloody marks, she adds, “This will do.”
“Do what?” I ask. I know Chucha made Mami save all our bellybutton cords from when we were newborns to bury in the backyard. Does Chucha also do something with a girl’s first menstrual blood?
“Mi secreto, tu silencio,” she replies as usual.
I promise not to divulge her secrets, but for the first time, I ask her to return the favor. “Please don’t tell Mami, Chucha, please.”
She studies me for a moment, then nods as if she understands my desire for privacy. “Everything will be all right,” she promises, echoing Mundín’s words from the night before. “Mr. Washburn is already here with good news. Your sister is leaving today. La amiga Susie is going as well.”
I feel relief to hear that my sister will be safe, even though it means Lucinda has to go away. It’s like
one of those operations where they save your life but take out some big part of you.
“You will be flying, too, one day soon,” Chucha reminds me. “But right now, we have to get someone else out of the house.” She glances over her shoulder at the door to Lorena’s room. “Come with me.”
She leads the way into her room, hung with purple cloths at the windows, a sweet, herbal smell in the air. We stop in front of a picture of a saint with a flickering votive candle in front of it. The saint isn’t Santa Lucia because she doesn’t have a little tray in her hands with her eyeballs rolling around. And it isn’t Santa Barbara because she doesn’t have a crown on her head and a tower behind her back. This saint has long hair and wears a red tunic and sandals and wields a huge sword above a disgusting-looking dragon with a tiny human face. “San Miguel,” Chucha intones, “protect this house from all enemies. Expel the bad. Bring all to safety who dwell within. Amen.”
I pray along with her, and then—as Chucha likes to say—the work of God that must always be done by man begins. Between the two of us, we push and drag and tug that coffin out the narrow door, upend it, turn it around, and put it in the room next door. We set it up in front of the neatly made bed, lid open, with Lucinda’s bloody sheets spilling out the sides. It looks like a dead person just crawled out, leaving his bloody winding sheet behind.
I admit I feel mean participating in this scheme—but I also understand that our lives are in danger. A tip from Lorena could wipe us out. It’s so unfair to have to live in a country where you have to do stuff you feel bad about in order to save your life. It’s like Papi and Tío Toni planning to assassinate Mr. Smith when they know that murder is wrong. But what if your leader is evil and rapes young girls and kills loads of innocent people and makes your country a place where not even butterflies are safe? I feel sick to my stomach all over again just thinking about all this.
After we are done, Chucha closes herself up in her bedroom and begins to pray to San Miguel again. On my way back through the house, I bump into Mr. Washburn coming down the hall from Papi’s study. I turn my face away, trying to avoid his eyes. He’s the first man I’ve encountered since getting my period. I’m sure he can see right through my pants to the belt and pad I am wearing.
“I have some good news, Anita,” Mr. Washburn is saying. “Your sister’s visa came through.”
I glance up at those kind blue eyes that are exactly like Sam’s eyes, and my disgust begins to fade away. Mr. Washburn is risking his life to help my family as well as my suffering country. Here is another man (along with Papi and Mundín and Tío Toni) to add to the list of good guys I might be able to trust again.
Back in Lucinda’s bedroom, Mami is explaining that Lucinda has only gotten a visitor’s visa, so she doesn’t have to be a maid, after all. The new plan is that she will accompany Susie on a visit to her grandparents in Washington. Once she is safely out of the country, Mr. Washburn will figure out how to keep her there.
“By the way,” Mami asks, glancing down at the bed, “what happened to your bed?”
“Chucha stripped it this morning,” Lucinda says, looking over at me. “She said she knew I’d be leaving today.”
“Esa Chucha es un cuento.” Mami smiles, shaking her head. Chucha is something else.
Just then, we hear a cry from the back of the house. Lucinda and Mami look at each other worriedly. What can it be?
We don’t have to wait long to find out. Minutes later, Chucha is at the door with the news that Lorena is packing her things and also leaving the house.
seven
Lying Policemen
Papi whistles his special time-to-go whistle from the hallway. He’s driving me and Mundín and Sam to school. I’m lingering in Lucinda’s bedroom, watching her pack and repack her small suitcase as if there’s going to be a test on it when she lands in the United States.
Mami comes to get me. “Papi’s waiting.”
“I want to stay until Lucinda leaves.” In fact, I don’t want to go to school at all! My eyes are all red from crying and my tummy’s upset.
But Mami insists. “Anita, we’ve got to make everything look as normal as possible. Even I’m not going to the airport with the Washburns,” she reminds me. “Now come. You’ll be late.”
I turn to face Lucinda, and we collapse in each other’s arms, sobbing. She finally pulls away, trying to be the brave one. “Don’t forget,” she says.
I nod, though I honestly can’t remember what it is I’m not supposed to forget.
Nothing feels right today. Just past our house, the police have stopped a car, and the passengers are getting out with their hands in the air. Papi’s jaw tenses up. I slip the crucifix around my neck into my mouth—something I’ve started doing when I need extra good luck.
Papi slows often for the speed bumps that have been appearing all over the city. Everyone calls them “lying policemen,” which makes me think of dead policemen buried underneath the street. I suppose with all the crazy stuff happening, my imagination is going wild.
My biggest fear is that something I’ve done or said will cause us to be killed. What if Lorena tells the SIM about how I kept a diary hidden under my pillow that I erased every night? I mean, that has to sound suspicious. Please please please, I pray to the little crucifix in my mouth.
We stop at the high school to drop off Mundín. He must know how bad I’m feeling because he turns around in the front seat and ruffles my hair like he used to when I was a little kid. “Maybe later we can go for a drive?” he offers. Mundín is allowed to take Tío Toni’s hot rod up and down the driveways in the compound.
His being so nice makes me want to cry. I don’t dare open my mouth, afraid a sob’ll burst out.
“I’ll go with you if she doesn’t want to,” Sam pipes up. All the way to school, he’s been talking about what a great time he’s going to have now that his bossy older sister is leaving. It makes me feel even sadder that his feelings are so different from mine. But then, the more I think about it, that’s the way it’s always been.
“I have some rather sad news to report,” Mrs. Brown says first thing in class. I am so numb already, I don’t think I can feel any more sadness. But when she says that the American School is going to close its doors temporarily, it’s like the last straw Chucha says broke the donkey’s back. Even though I complain about school, I really don’t want the last normal thing in my life to stop. I lay my head down on my desk.
“Are you feeling ill, Anita?” Mrs. Brown is by my side. “You’re going to have to answer me, dear, so I know what to do.” Her voice is sweet and coaxing. She crouches down beside my seat.
I don’t seem to have the energy even to lift my head and say, “I’m fine.”
“I think we’d better have the nurse look at you,” she says, taking my hand.
I don’t resist. I stand and walk with her. As we cross the front of the room, Charlie Price makes a circle motion in the air to Sammy, who grins as if he agrees.
I feel like screaming, I AM NOT CRAZY! But instead, I swallow that scream, and suddenly it’s very quiet inside me.
The nurse calls Mami, who appears at school in Tío Toni’s hot rod, since Papi has the other car. She looks glamorous, with a kerchief over her head and dark glasses like a movie star. When she takes them off, I see that her eyes are red, too. She must have been crying after Lucinda left for the airport.
“What’s wrong, amorcito?” she asks.
I want to tell Mami the truth, how I’ve gotten my period, how I’m already lonely for Lucinda, how I feel just awful that my father has to kill someone for us to be free, how I’m scared about what’s going to happen to us, but all the words seem to have emptied out of my head. Finally, I remember one. “Nada,” I say.
“Nothing? Are you sure?” Mami peers at my face. “She looks pale,” she tells the nurse. “I better take her home to bed.”
The minute we get in the car, Mami turns to me. She looks terrified. “You didn’t say anything about Lucin
da, did you?”
I shake my head. Can’t she see that I’m not saying anything to anybody?
I spend the rest of the day in bed. Chucha brews me a tea of hierbabuena leaves that makes the flutter in my chest and the cramps in my tummy go away. Later, Mundín stops in. The high school is closing, too, he reports. Maybe tomorrow, if I feel better, we can drive around the compound. He keeps biting his nails as he talks. I know how he feels. Except instead of biting my nails or breaking out in hives like Lucinda, I seem to be forgetting words.
I’ll start to say something, and just like that, I’ll go blank over a word. It doesn’t even have to be an important or hard word, like amnesty or communism, but something easy, like salt or butter or sky or star. That makes the forgetfulness even scarier.
Maybe Charlie is right and I am going crazy?
Please, please, please, I pray. The crucifix around my neck is in my mouth so often the features on the little Christ face are starting to wear off.
As soon as Papi gets home, he comes and sits on the edge of my bed. Unlike Mami, he doesn’t ask me a dozen questions. He smiles tenderly and strokes my hair. His eyes are the saddest in the world.
“One day . . . in a time not too far in the future . . . ,” Papi begins, as if he’s telling me a bedtime story, “you’re going to look back on all this and think, I really was a strong and brave girl.”
I shake my head. I’m not so strong or brave, I want to say.
“Oh yes, you are. I know you are,” he insists, reading my thoughts. He tips my face up by the chin so I’m looking straight at him. I feel as if he’s hypnotizing me. “I want my children to be free, no matter what. Promise me you’ll spread your wings and fly.”
What on earth are you talking about, Papi? I want to ask him. It’s spooky to hear Papi sounding like Chucha! But I can’t seem to get the words out of my head and down the chute that connects them to my mouth.
Mami pokes her head in the door. “How’s she feeling?” she asks Papi, as if I’m not in the room at all. She comes over to the bed and touches my forehead with the back of her hand. “I think it might be the mumps that’s going around.”