The Queen of Water (24 page)

With a smile still on my face, I walk to the foyer and look around, but no one’s there. I go to the doors and glance outside.

The smile disappears.

It’s them.

chapter 38

N
IÑO
C
ARLITOS
AND THE
D
OCTORITA
stand before me like pieces of an old dream I can’t quite forget. For months I’ve dreamed of the satisfaction I’d get from them seeing me crowned queen. I’ve imagined their reaction to the newspaper articles, the TV clip. I’ve imagined how the Doctorita would have to eat her terrible words. I’ve imagined them coming and begging my forgiveness. But I’ve never imagined it happening so soon.

I thought it might happen in the distant future, once I’m a grown woman with an important job and my own house and a husband and children. I try to make my legs move to turn, to run back inside and hide somewhere.

The Doctorita spots me through the doorway. It’s too late to run. I force my feet to walk out the door. I stand across from them on the sidewalk. They stare silently. Niño Carlitos’s gaze is especially intense, full of feeling. Guilt? Happiness? Sadness? Hope? I can’t tell. There’s a toddler girl, holding on to his hand. The boys are shyly hanging back, behind the Doctorita. Her face is chubbier than I remember, her belly bigger, her hips wider. Her hair is dyed an orangey color, with gray-brown roots showing. She’s wearing a dress I’ve never seen.

As I look at them, my legs feel about to collapse. So many feelings bombard me at once. There’s the warmth of familiarity—memories of the Doctorita in her faded blue bathrobe in the mornings and Niño Carlitos building toys for us and telling me my food was
rrriquísimo.
The Doctorita making jokes and laughing at something and singing along with romantic songs on the radio and knitting her Baby Jesus dresses. Nights watching TV together, gasping when MacGyver was hanging on the edge of a cliff and sighing with relief when he rescued himself. Little Andrecito strapped to my back as I washed dishes, calling me Mamá and playing with my hair. Stealing fruit with Jaimito in the orchards, playing chase together.

At the same time, my neck grows tense and I feel myself shrink, hunching my shoulders protectively, ready to let my arms fly up and protect my face from the Doctorita’s fists. Ready to cringe and duck away from Niño Carlitos’s groping hands.

And I feel myself sweating, my heart beating in anger, as I remember their last words to me.
In three months you’ll be crawling back to us on your knees, pregnant, begging for us to take you in. Just like all
longas.

I remind myself I am the Virginia with spunk, the Virginia who never rolls belly-up, the Virginia who stands tall like a radish flower. I am Virginia the Queen of Water. I straighten up and swing my ponytail over my shoulder, keeping my distance.

The Doctorita raises her arms and cries, “Oh! My daughter!” and comes toward me. I go rigid as she wraps her arms around me. Her perfume brings back a new rush of memories that make me queasy. She holds her arms at my shoulders. “My, you’ve grown up!” Her chins jiggle.

I step back, leaving her with her hands dangling.

“Hello, señora,” I say in what I hope is a cool, detached voice.

Meanwhile, Niño Carlitos is hanging back with the kids and forcing a smile. “Hello, Don Carlos,” I say.

I walk over to the boys. “Hello, Andrecito. Hello, Jaimito.” They smile shyly but don’t throw their arms around me in bear hugs like they used to. Two years is a long time for kids. They probably barely remember me.

Glancing up at the Doctorita, I take a long breath. I keep my head high, as though it’s hanging from a golden string. “How did you know I was here?”

The Doctorita looks at Niño Carlitos. “You’ve been all over the newspapers.”

I recall that yes, in one interview, I said I lived at the Hotel Otavalo. With Walter, my father. I wish Don Walter were here now, but he’s out at a meeting. I wish he were next to me with his hand on my shoulder.

“Why did you come?” I ask flatly. I am not going to engage in polite small talk with them. I am not going to pretend anymore.

“Is that any way to treat us? Your family? I’ve always been like a mother to you. And Carlos has been like your father.”

Niño Carlitos looks at the sidewalk.

I want to keep cool and collected, but the blood is rising to my face. “Why did you come?” I ask again, my voice not as steady now.

“Virginia,” the Doctorita says, “we came to bring you home.” She takes a step toward me. Suddenly I’m terrified she’ll grab me and throw me into the truck and take me away.

You’re stronger than her now,
I remind myself.
All you have to do is scream and in seconds, Don Lucho and Quines and Carmen and everyone else will be out here to defend you.
I do not step backward. I stand my ground and say in her face, “This is my home now.”

She lowers her voice. “Look at you, working at a hotel like some low-class person. I thought you wanted to be a professional.”

Arguing with her is like
la lucha libre—
freestyle wrestling, with almost no rules—and she has just given me a jab to the gut. I recover relatively quickly. “This job is what pays for my education. And in a few years, after I finish college, I’ll have a career.”

She shakes her head, pursing her lips as though she’s trying to hold in her scorn.
“Ve tonta.”
Look, fool.

“Don’t call me
tonta.
”

She rolls her eyes. “Look, Virginia, we’ve come to make a generous offer. Even though you treated us terribly. Even though you abandoned us after all we did for you. Even though you left a distraught woman who had just given birth after a dangerous pregnancy. Even though you left her with a premature baby with no help. Even though you’ve shown us nothing but ingratitude.”

I feel nauseated, hot, prickly, on the verge of fainting or throwing up.

“Yet because you are like a daughter to us,” she says, “we have decided to pay for your high school and your college. You will come back to live with us. Where you belong.”

I stare. Does she really want me back? Is it possible she really considers me family? Does she really think of me as a daughter? Is there any kernel of truth to what she says?

“Look, Virginia. Don’t throw this away. We’re offering you your own house and an education. Only a fool would hesitate.”

Niño Carlitos looks at the Doctorita, then back at me. “You don’t have to answer now,
m’hija,
” he says softly. “Just think about it. We—we miss you. The boys miss you. We need your help with the baby. We haven’t found anyone to replace you. No one could ever replace you.”

He seems to be speaking honestly. Do they really need me? Have they truly realized I’m special, irreplaceable? Would they treat me differently now? Would they really pay for college and give me a house?

I say nothing, and finally the Doctorita snaps, “Think about it.” She turns to the boys. “Say goodbye to Virginia.”

“Goodbye, Virginia,” they mumble.

“Give her a hug,” she commands.

They hug me, shyly at first, and then warmly. “I love you, boys,” I whisper, my eyes tearing up.

“Tell Virginia how much you want her to come home,” the Doctorita urges.

“We want you to come home,” they say simultaneously.

“We’ll be back soon,” the Doctorita says.

“Goodbye,” I say, and turn to leave. They start climbing into their truck.

And then it hits me. Maybe she loves me a little and misses me a little. But most of all, she wants control over me. She wants to win. She wants me under her thumb. She wants to be able to say that she is responsible for how I’ve turned out. She wants me to be indebted to her for my education, for my career, for my house. She wants to hold that over me, so I’ll never be able to tell people the truth of what she did to me.

I remember my first newspaper interview, when I said that one day I would write a book about my childhood. I said that mainly to avoid more questions about my background, but what if, maybe, I do write a book someday? What if the Doctorita fears I’ll expose her?

If I accept her offer, I could never write the book. Suddenly, this feels bigger than me and my small life. If I say yes, it won’t just be her winning, it will be another
mestiza
oppressing an
indígena.

They are in the truck with the engine warming up when I walk to the passenger window. “You never treated me like a daughter,” I tell her. “You never put photos of me on the coffee table. You didn’t let me go to school. You beat me. You stole my childhood from me. And you, Don Carlos—”

His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. He must be terrified I’ll tell his secrets. “You showed me more kindness than your wife, but you did not treat me the way a father should treat a daughter. You never treated me like a daughter, either of you.”

The Doctorita’s eyes fill with tears, and I can’t tell if they’re genuine or conjured up. “But it’s not my fault! I was only trying to break you in. That’s how Carlos’s mother told me to treat
longas,
break them so they serve you well. You were like a little animal when you came. You don’t know how hard it was to train you—”

“I’m not an animal and I never was. I have always been just as human as your own children.”

Tears roll down her face. “But—it was the only way—”

“I will never go back with you. Never. I will pay my own way through school and live like a normal teenage girl and have friends and a boyfriend and go to dances and parties and all the things I couldn’t do with you. And then I will have a career and a husband and family. And I will know I succeeded not
because
of you, but
in spite
of you. And maybe someday I will forgive you. I hope someday I can.”

I turn away. From the doorway, I watch the truck roll down the street, the two boys peering sadly from the back. My hands are shaking, my whole body trembling. Soon the truck disappears from sight.

Inside, sitting in front of my geometry homework again, I feel a new kind of freedom.

chapter 39

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, the day of the parade, I walk through town in my
indígena
clothes, which feel comfortable now. I no longer have to tie the
faja
so tightly it strangles my rib cage for fear of my
anacos
falling down. The streets are already packed,
indígenas
and
mestizos
and tourists all crowded together, trying to find good spots for watching the parade. I weave my way through the throngs to the meeting place, where Susana and the organizers and the other queens are waiting.

As Doña Amelia gives us last-minute instructions, Susana fusses over me, dabbing silver eye shadow on my lids, gliding her lipstick over my lips, giving my hair a final spritz of hair spray. The marching band sets out just ahead of us, complete with trumpets and trombones and drums and cymbals. Off they go in a torrent of earsplitting music.

“You’re next, Virginia,” Doña Amelia says, helping me climb onto my throne, a gold-painted chair sitting on a wide plank held by four men. They lift me up so that I’m above everyone’s shoulders. I can’t help giggling.

During a rehearsal for this, Doña Amelia told us that it used to be an old custom in June to carry an image of an indigenous Goddess-Virgin from house to house, collecting some corn or coins as an offering of thanks for the harvest. This parade is to be the first one in more than a decade, and instead of a statue of the Virgin Mary, I will represent her, along with Elsa and Luz, who are at the middle and end of the procession.

Susana reaches her hand up toward me. “I’m proud of you, Virginia!”

“Thank you for everything, Susana!” I call out as they start carrying me away, into the crowd. People wave at me and I wave back, smiling big. I can see over everyone’s heads, a clear view of the mountains on all sides. As we come closer to the main town square, the crowds grow even more packed, a solid mass of people. They cheer as I pass,
indígenas
and
mestizos
and foreigners alike, clapping and waving and whistling. They shower me with confetti that sticks to my skin and hair, and makes me laugh as I brush it from my face.

“Look! It’s the Queen of Water!” someone shouts.

And I feel like the Queen of Water. I feel like water that transforms from a flowing river to a tranquil lake to a powerful waterfall to a freshwater spring to a meandering creek to a salty sea to raindrops gentle on your face to hard, stinging hail to frost on a mountaintop, and back to a river again. There have been so many different Virginias in my lifetime, yet really, they are all the same one.

Beyond the crowd, in the shadows of a doorway, I notice a young
indígena
girl, a maid, pausing in her sweeping, broom in hand, watching the procession, swaying slightly in rhythm to the music. She’s pretending to sweep, longing for a closer view, or maybe she’s daring to wish to be in a parade herself one day.

Come out!
I want to tell her.
Come out into the world!

Swiftly, I am carried past her, and my gaze moves over the crowd, resting here and there on familiar faces—classmates and teachers and shopkeepers and coworkers.

And then, a shout, booming, louder than the others. “My daughter, look at my daughter! María Virginia! The Virgin Mary! My daughter!”

It’s Papito. He is one of the men wearing a worn hat, woven and frayed. One of the short men, the rough men, the men with the torn, stained shirts, the pants trimmed with dried mud, the manure-coated work boots, the leathery, lined faces, the thick, calloused hands, the fingernails caked with weeks’ worth of dirt. He’s waving at me.

Embarrassed, I continue my small beauty-queen waves to the crowd, keeping my smile even. People have turned to stare at this small indigenous man jumping around. I could let them think he’s just a crazy man. Or I could wave and shout,
¡Hola, Papito! Yes, it’s me! Your daughter.

Which, after a long, stretched-out moment, is what I do, my tears blurring the sea of faces. “Papito, yes, it’s me!”

He lights up at my voice. There’s joy on his face, joy that makes it glow. And there’s more. There’s love. A love that enters my chest and expands until I feel I could burst. A rough, awkward, muddled love, but love all the same.

“My daughter!” he calls out again, beaming as I wave to him.

And then, slightly behind him, I notice my mother, bent beneath the weight of a bundle strapped to her back, a bag of corn slung across her front, her arms heavy with fat sacks of beans. A bewildered smile spreads over her face, an expression of disbelief and pride. To her I call more softly in Quichua. “Hello, Mamita. It’s me. Your daughter. Virginia.”

As I pass, I look back over my shoulder at my parents. Maybe Matilde and Santiago are nearby too, and maybe the Doctorita and Niño Carlitos are somewhere in the crowd, and maybe the teacher who used to call me
longa,
and maybe Alfonso and Mariana. My girlhood trails behind me like fading notes of music. Melodies emerge, patterns that I couldn’t quite make sense of at the time. Now I see that sometimes the person you thought was your enemy was really your teacher, or even, in an odd way, your savior. I see that wishes come true, in roundabout ways. I see that if you try to fit someone in a box, she might slip through the seams like water and become her own river.

I move onward, through the colors and cheers and music, floating into my future, and it is a clear, open space that stretches wider than the sky and higher than the Andes.