Tales from the Town of Widows (8 page)

After a long wait, a broad-hipped woman came out of the magistrate’s office, a bucket in one hand and a broom made from branches in the other. Her head was wrapped in a colorful kerchief and she wore an apron on top of her black dress. Cleotilde seemed surprised. If the magistrate can afford a cleaning woman, she must be able to afford an excellent schoolteacher like myself, she thought, nodding her head. The woman, meanwhile, laid the cleaning tools next to Cecilia’s desk and wiped her hands on her apron. Cleotilde noticed that the woman’s apron was tattered and her shoes worn out, and this made her reconsider her earlier assumption. Maybe I’m wrong, and this poor thing earns a starvation salary, she said to herself. Then she had a bad idea. She waited for the woman to look her way and gestured to her to come closer.

The woman looked confused. She looked at Cecilia as for guidance, but the secretary was completely absorbed in her task. And so she drew near Cleotilde.

“How much does she pay you to clean her office?” Cleotilde whispered, pointing toward the magistrate’s office.

“I beg your pardon?” the woman said, looking insulted.

“How much does the magistrate pay you?” Cleotilde repeated furtively.

“I am the magistrate,” the woman said.

Cleotilde covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers and gave a nervous laugh. “I apologize,” she managed to say. Then, rising from the chair, added, “I’m Cleotilde Guarnizo, your humble servant.”

“Rosalba viuda de Patiño,” the other said harshly. “Magistrate of Mariquita.”

Neither of them made an attempt to shake the other’s hand.

T
HE MAGISTRATE WAS
furious. Her secretary had warned her about the stranger sitting in the waiting area. “She seems weird,” Cecilia had said. But now, standing in front of her, Rosalba decided that the old woman
was
weird. “Please come this way,” she said, wondering when the outsider had arrived, where she came from, where she was staying, and, most importantly, why she, the magistrate, hadn’t been informed about it. What if the government had sent the old woman? What if someone out there, a commissioner of some sort, had finally received the official report of the census that the magistrate had taken long ago, and which she made Cecilia type and send out with anyone and everyone who passed through Mariquita?

“Thank you,” Cleotilde replied, entering Rosalba’s office. The teacher had already decided, in her mind, that the confusion had been the magistrate’s fault. She had met with magistrates and mayors before, even with governors. But she’d never been received by a dignitary dressed as a servant. She thought it inappropriate. And what was the purpose of all those cleaning rags piled up on the windowsill? And that smell, ugh! How much bleach had the woman put on the floor?

“Please have a seat,” Rosalba said, pointing at a sad-looking chair, the stuffing showing through splits and holes. “My secretary told me that you’re here to apply for the schoolteacher’s position.”

“That’s correct.”

“Good. Let’s start then. Do you have related experience, Señora Guarnizo?”

“Señorita, Magistrate,” the old woman corrected her. “And yes, I happen to have nearly fifty years of teaching experience, twenty-seven of which can be verified by looking over my portfolio under the section titled Cartas de Recomendación.”

“Very good, Señorita Guarnizo. Very good,” Rosalba said, a little intimidated by the teacher’s husky voice, and by the complexity of the large case that Cleotilde had carefully begun to fan out on top of her mahogany desk. The documents were meticulously organized into several labeled sections, which included the names of the schools in which she had taught, subjects, periods of time, awards and distinctions and letters of recommendation. There was even a whole section with photographs and résumés of distinguished people she had tutored during the past twenty-seven years—now doctors, lawyers, architects and beauty queens.

“I’m impressed, Señora Guarnizo, but—”

“Señorita, Magistrate!” the teacher interrupted. “After spending sixty-seven years in chastity, one likes to be acknowledged with the proper title.”

“Please forgive me, Señorita Guarnizo. I can’t help feeling a little—intrinsic addressing a woman older than myself as ‘señorita.’ I feel almost—concupiscent.” Overwhelmed by the old lady’s self-confidence, Rosalba made a great effort to find words that sounded as pompous as the teacher’s. “As I was saying, I am very impressed with your credentials of the past twenty-seven years, but where and what were you teaching before that?”

“I am afraid, Magistrate, that for personal reasons I won’t be able to answer that question.” Cleotilde’s reply provoked a long, uncomfortable silence, which she had to break herself because Rosalba was pretending to read, in detail, every document in the teacher’s portfolio. “Do you have any other questions, Magistrate? Questions concerning my more recent experience? I’ll be more than happy to answer those for you.”

“Let’s see,” Rosalba said, closing the portfolio. She thought carefully about what to ask. It had to sound smart. “Do you have a—plan of action for the students of Mariquita, Señorita Guarnizo?”

“I’ll be very pleased to develop one as soon as I’m offered the job, in which case I’ll converse with the prospective students to evaluate their current degree of knowledge.”

“Very good, but do you have any idea of what subjects you’d like to teach? It’s been so long since I attended school. I don’t even know what they teach these days.”

“I’m perfectly capable of teaching language arts, science, mathematics, social studies, geography, and ethics.”

“What about Colombian history? Can you teach Colombian history? It was my favorite subject in school.”

“I can teach that, too, Magistrate,” Cleotilde said, “but I won’t.” She pushed her spectacles up her nose with her index finger. “And before you inquire about the reason why, I shall inform you that it’s also due to very personal reasons.”

Rosalba wondered if Cleotilde had been in jail for twenty years.
To get twenty years, she must have killed someone
. Or maybe she’d been shut away in a mental hospital.
She surely looks off her head
. Or perhaps the señorita had been really a señor before.
That mustache sort of gives her away
.

“That’s all right,” the magistrate said, looking around to avoid the teacher’s piercing eyes. “Our students already have firsthand knowledge of civil wars and massacres. That’s half our country’s history right there.”

“And how many students are we talking about, Magistrate?”

Rosalba promptly opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet. “According to our latest census we’re a total of ninety-nine people, out of which—children grow so fast, there’s always one or two I have to move into a different category. Let’s see: thirty-seven widows plus forty-five maidens, minus…” She lowered her voice but continued adding and subtracting. “Fifteen children!” she announced after a little while. “But
I’m sure a few of the young women will also be interested in learning a thing or two. So I’d say about twenty students total.”

“A very good number,” Cleotilde observed.

A speck of dust on the floor caught the magistrate’s attention. She couldn’t understand how it had escaped her relentless broom and mop. She was tempted to pick it up, but in the mighty presence of Cleotilde, the magistrate felt self-conscious, vulnerable.

“Well, you seem to meet all the requirements that I have—conspired for this position,” Rosalba said, still looking around. She was now avoiding not only Cleotilde but also the speck of dust, both of which were staring defiantly at her. “I shall come to a final decision in the next couple of days, then I’ll make an official announcement.”

“I’m looking forward to hearing your decision, Magistrate,” Cleotilde replied. “And I trust that you will take into consideration the many benefits of filling the position with an individual who not only possesses extensive knowledge, but who is also qualified to teach discipline and proper conduct. You are aware, I’m sure, that these attributes have somehow vanished from the children of this town and—”

“Oh, believe me, Señorita Guarnizo. The police sergeant and I are perfectly aware of that situation. That is, in fact, the main reason why we want to reopen the school. Be assured that I’ll consider that before selecting our new teacher. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a full agenda today.”

Both women smiled insincerely.

Then a strange thing happened. As Cleotilde rose from the sad chair, her face lined up with the framed picture of the president of the republic hanging from the wall behind her, and the magistrate was appalled to notice that they had identical devious smiles. Cleotilde also seemed to have grown a few inches during the interview. In fact, the teacher looked taller than any woman or man Rosalba had ever seen. “Have a good day, Señorita Guarnizo,” she managed to say, while pretending to take notes in an upside-down notebook.

A
S SOON AS
Cleotilde stepped out of her office, the magistrate picked up the speck of dust from the floor and disposed of it. “What is the matter with me?” she said. “I ought to be ashamed to let an old spinster intimidate me in my own office.” The last time she had felt that way was when she was sixteen and her evil stepmother was making her life miserable.

But Rosalba was no longer a naive young girl. “I’m no longer a naive young girl.” She was a wise, sophisticated and experienced woman. “I’m a wise, sophisticated and experienced woman.” She refused to feel threatened by a weird old spinster who had come into her office putting on airs, fancying herself as someone more intelligent, more educated and more capable than the magistrate herself. “How dare she come into my office in black when she’s nobody’s widow, and wearing running shoes when she can hardly walk?”

Rosalba ordered Cecilia to find out everything there was to know about the mysterious foreigner.

A
FTER THE INTERVIEW
Cleotilde went to the market. She sat at a rustic table under a tent where the Morales widow and her daughter Julia—formerly known as her son Julio César—served meals and snacks. Cleotilde ignored the widow and the girl’s inquisitive looks and ordered breakfast. While waiting for her food, she remembered the incidents with the children and wondered whether or not she should take the job—she had no doubt the magistrate would offer it to her—and stay. Living in an isolated village without men was especially appealing to her, but she was greatly troubled by the children’s behavior, and also by their mothers, who acted as if it was nothing to worry about.

Julia Morales placed a cup of steamy black coffee in front of Cleotilde, then went to the grill and laid a half-cooked arepa over a weak fire. The old woman followed her with her eyes, thinking that she was a strange-looking young girl. Maybe it was the extravagant makeup she had on that made her look queer. She took a sip of coffee and looked around the marketplace, trying to find something positive to
make her change her mind about Mariquita. Half a dozen faded tents were scattered over an expanse of clear ground. Under them the townspeople sold—or bartered—candles, coal, kerosene and prepared foods and beverages. Among the tents, lying on empty sacks spread on the ground, were potatoes, onions, corn ears and oranges. Not much variety, Cleotilde thought, but she had seen much worse. In the middle of the market an open cooking fire burned fitfully; next to it a mad-looking old woman leaned above a metal pot filled with water, stirring and sweating; a little farther down a burro gobbled a bunch of dry plantain leaves, while dogs and cats roamed around looking for something to eat. Suddenly a group of lookalike children appeared from around a corner, running. Cleotilde immediately recognized one of them, Vietnam Calderón, “El Diablo.”

“We’ve got one! We’ve got one!” the boys announced enthusiastically. They gathered around the mad-looking woman and handed her a birdlike creature they had just killed with their slingshots. Smiling a toothless smile, the woman dipped the bird into the hot water, took it out and started plucking it, while the children shouted out different stories of the way they had killed the bird.

“They’re good kids,” the Morales widow said, noticing the contemptuous look Cleotilde gave the children. “They go out of their way to bring something for the Jaramillo widow to put in her pot. That poor woman is half crazy and has nobody to look after her.” She nodded repeatedly, saying, “Very good kids indeed.”

“They’re savages, is what they are,” Cleotilde declared harshly. She hoped the widow was the mother of one of them. If she was, Cleotilde would give her a piece of her mind.

The Morales widow got closer to Cleotilde and spoke in a whisper, “You see the two boys over there, just to the right of the burro? The taller one’s Trotsky, and the other one’s Vietnam. The poor things were forced to witness the killing of their fathers at the hands of guerrillas.”

The widow’s disclosure shocked Cleotilde. She frowned and bit her nails. “I’ll take my arepa now,” she demanded. Julia turned around
and gestured to her mother that the arepa wasn’t fully cooked. “It isn’t done yet,” the widow said.

“That’s all right,” Cleotilde said. “Give it to me the way it is!” Julia sneered at her and turned the corn griddle over and waited for it to cook longer. But Cleotilde didn’t see this because her eyes were again fixed on the children. “Their mothers don’t seem to care much about them,” she went on.

“That might be true, lady,” the Morales widow replied, “but God knows those poor women work day and night just to put a piece of bread on their tables.” She heaved a sigh. “Being a widow is not an easy thing. I’m sure you know that.”

“No, I don’t,” Cleotilde snapped. “And before I lose my temper, let me ask you one more time, may I please have my arepa now?”

The widow walked over to the grill and scolded her daughter for not listening, then put the arepa on a plate and placed it in front of the old woman. “I’m Victoria viuda de Morales,” she said, holding out her hand to Cleotilde.

“I’ll have some more coffee,” Cleotilde replied rudely, slamming the empty cup on the widow’s outstretched hand.