All Roads Lead to Austen (5 page)

Sheepish but still curious about the relationship question, I waded back in with arguments I'd heard from former students, since the Charlotte/Mr. Collins match always finds defenders in California. “Can't there be more than one kind of marriage? Why do we have to assume that everybody's looking for the same kind of thing in their married life?”

Still not buying it. “Without love, it's not a marriage,” Flor pronounced bluntly.

The other four defenders of love concurred. Then two began to waffle.

“Her husband is a preacher, after all, and that's a good thing,” said Nora.

“I hope for her sake Charlotte will grow to love him,” Ani added, a look of compassion on her kind face. There it was, again, just like I'd seen over and over again in the States—Austen's characters bursting the seams of her novels as if they were real people. I couldn't help but smile, thinking about my students (and a slew of Austen sequel writers, eager to chronicle Charlotte's fate).

“Love doesn't work that way,” Flor insisted firmly, moving forward in her seat for emphasis. “In a couple, if from the outset one doesn't love the other, they're never going to.”

That love is necessary, all agreed. But the question of whether love can grow provoked yet another flurry of debate.

“We've all had our different experiences here,” Mercedes declared. “Me, I'm a widow. And you've been divorced, you've been divorced, you've been divorced,” she pointed in turn at Nora, Élida, and Flor. “And Ani, single. We all know now that when it comes down to it, you've got to ask yourself, how will I feel by this person's side?”

“Can you really
live
with them?” seconded Élida.

“The biggest problem here is that we all worry too much what other people think about our decisions,” Mercedes said. “We say we shouldn't, but we do.”

As for Austen, she was fading further into the background, but I had no intention of steering us back. I didn't want to turn this into a lecture; I wanted to see where Austen would lead us.

“But it can be hard to make good decisions about men, because we grew up with so little information,” Mercedes continued. “I didn't spend
any
time with men until after I finished school. That's how we were raised here, right?” Nods all around. “My very first school was a convent!”

Flor giggled and the rest joined in, sharing memories of conservative Catholic schools and encounters with nuns.

“My school was
so
strict,” Nora said. “But actually, I wanted to be a nun!”

As Flor laughed even harder, Mercedes added, “I did too! I really did! But my grandmother talked me out of it. She told me to make sure that I understood the commitment.”

“Yes, since it's like a marriage,” I offered.

Suddenly five sets of eyes were fixed on me. “It's not
like
a marriage,” Ani said gently but firmly. “It
is
a marriage.”

As much as we had in common, I was reminded with a jolt, we came from different worlds. I'd been raised Catholic but not in a Catholic country. I wondered how many combinations of five women you'd have to pull together in the United States to produce a group in which not one but three had seriously considered becoming nuns. Quite a lot, I suspect.

We transitioned from how little interaction they'd had with men while growing up to how one adjusts to living with the troublesome creatures (male readers, please reverse the genders here). Our conversation then began fracturing off into chat between pairs. Somebody began a juicy story about somebody's sister getting pregnant by some real so-and-so, and would you believe that—

Suddenly Mercedes put on the brakes.

“That thing, that recorder—is that still on?”

Knowing I could never keep up with the whole conversation, I'd been taping us. We all laughed in mutual acknowledgment that we'd come quite a way from Austen.

“Time for dinner,” I said, shutting off the recorder.

***

As somebody completed the story about somebody's sister and the so-and-so—off the record—we made our way to the restaurant,
La
Fonda
de
la
Calle
Real
. It was noisy and festive, crowded with happy weekend diners. We had trouble finding a table for six but at last located a spot in the open central patio area.

“Ah, those musicians, I know them!” cried Mercedes, indicating two guitar players and a singer circulating among the tables in a side room. “They played a serenade for me on my birthday!”

We ordered drinks, enjoying the music and gossiping. After we hit one of those moments of companionable silence, again Mercedes took the initiative. “Did you have any more questions for us? What else should we talk about?”

Glad to return to a thread I'd wanted to pursue, I asked if they had any thoughts on the differences between the novel and the film.

“I liked the film,” Nora said, “but the message, the idea that appearances can be deceiving, is clearer in the book. It also made me think more about how all of these problems the characters faced are exactly the things we all face in our lives and our relationships. The novel is set in England, but it's just the same as if it were here. It could all be happening here.”

This is
exactly
what I had been wondering, and I was glad to get this response without any prompting. Before I could pursue it, however, Mercedes added, “I liked the emphasis on families and romance. I don't want anything to do with stories with blood and crime; we've got too much of that here.”

I exchanged a look with Nora and recalled her story about the gruesome earring (and ear) snatching, as well as another she'd told me a day or two before our Austen group. Six armed gunman had stormed her daughter's school on the day parents paid tuition, in cash (public schools are so terrible that many people work two jobs to pay for private education). They'd ordered the kids to the ground, roughed up the terrified secretary, and bolted with the money. Armed robberies are a common enough occurrence that store delivery trucks carry guards armed with machine guns; even the brightly painted rural “chicken buses” full of low-wage commuters get ransacked periodically.

If indeed many of Austen's contemporaries enjoyed her books as a respite from all the talk about Napoleon and the war, ugly realities beyond their immediate control—likewise, in Guatemala.

“In this novel, love conquered pride and prejudice both.” Ani's contented look as she spoke suggested that she'd had this point in mind for some time. “Despite all the things that could have prevented a happy ending, love triumphs.”

“The book's also a demonstration of good behavior,” Mercedes said. “Young people today have such bad manners.”

The others nodded agreement, relishing the perennial middle-aged complaint, apparently not unique to the United States, about “young people today.” She added somewhat archly, “I've seen plenty of people who are supposedly well educated but are
very
rude and others, people with no formal education, who are very courteous.”

I had the feeling Mercedes was hedging a bit on who some of those “
very
rude” people might be, so I baited her: “I'm sure none of the U.S. students at
La
Escuela
have bad manners.”

All eyes were on me. Humor is hard to pull off in another language and sarcasm in particular, because it relies so much on tone. Tone is not something you can learn from a book.

Since Nora knew me best, after a beat she nudged me, laughing, and the others joined in. I may not teach in the same school, but I was a teacher, after all.

“Yes, it's true, there are
norteamericanos
at the school who aren't very polite,” Mercedes said. “Let's face it—our students are living at a different economic level from us, a better level.”

“And some are arrogant, very arrogant,” Élida murmured as Mercedes talked, unable to resist seconding the point.

Nora overlapped her as well. “Rich people sometimes actually have the worst behavior, like Darcy and Bingley's sister at that first dance. Other people were just trying to be nice to them!”

While I let the conversation unfold naturally, there was one specific thing I wanted to ask. “Are there any elements of this story that are specific to England, things that wouldn't happen here?”

Élida shook her head. “There are some differences with our lives today but that's more because of the times, not culture, I think. People back then were much more formal and ceremonious.”

“We're courteous but not so formal,” agreed Mercedes. “Even husbands and wives referred to each other then as
Señor, Señora
.” I was glad I'd asked, because before our food could arrive to shut down conversation, the roving musicians did.

“‘You're like a thorn in my heart,'” Nora leaned over to translate the lyrics of the ballad. “I think this song is Mexican. A lot of the best songs are.”

“Well, anyway,” Mercedes again took the initiative as the talented musicians moved off to serenade other diners, “I wanted to say that I like how Austen shows you that some pride is good, like pride in your accomplishments or your family. But you can't let pride make you think you're better than others.”

“That's our problem here,” Nora offered. “That's exactly where discrimination comes from. Whether it's because of money or because of race, it's no good.”

Élida, Flor, and Ani nodded agreement, and we fell into a satisfied silence. The flow of our discussion had led us there, it seemed, as a kind of conclusion about the novel's themes and Austen's contemporary relevance. I thought back to Larry and to my California students and the many connections they'd drawn between their lives and Austen's romantic entanglements and family dramas. While no one in Antigua had offered to smack any of the characters, they'd certainly enjoyed seeing Mr. Collins knocked down to size by Lizzy and Charlotte.

And it was clear that for these women, Austen's world—however far from Guatemala—was still familiar territory.

After the meal, as we savored our coffee and desserts, I noticed Flor surreptitiously check her watch. Better get to the presents. The whole evening I'd been toting along a large paper bag with string handles, which each of the ladies would eye at random moments. One by one, I removed smaller festive bags from inside and placed them on the table.

“Flor, this is for you!” I started with her, and soon each member of the group was carefully removing tissue paper and probing into a package.

If you're really an Austen fan, a true Janeite in the nerdiest sense, you know that there's quite a lot of Jane stash out there. Before the Internet, to get it you had to visit hot spots like Bath, where she lived for a stretch, or Chawton Cottage, her last residence, or Winchester, where she died. Now from the comfort of home you can order Austen coffee cups, tea cozies, aprons, kitchen towels, key rings, pens, necklaces, notepads, mouse pads, pillows, bobbleheads, and for the adventurous fan, the Jane Austen action figure (complete with quill pen and paper). I'm proud to say, however, that every goodie I'd brought to Guatemala came directly from hallowed ground, either from the Winchester Cathedral gift store or the shop at Chawton Cottage.

“Wow, thank you, how adorable!” cried Flor, holding up her Austen key chain, a small portrait of Jane carved onto a delicate oval of wood. Soon an Austen tea towel was revealed and passed around to be admired, then some Austen stationery, a set of Austen coasters, a fancy Austen pen.

They all seemed taken aback—not that I'd given them presents, as Guatemalans are great gift givers, but that these Austen items
existed
. I tried to explain about Janeites, those devotees who write sequels, set up websites, hold dances and tea parties. The ladies could understand the novels themselves being popular, but since the notion that anything people like is ripe for marketing hasn't taken hold in Guatemala, they remained puzzled but pleased about the fan toys. Needless to say, I never ran across any “I'd rather be reading Milla” bumper stickers or Miguel Asturias coffee mugs.

But now came the beginning of the end, because Flor did have to go. I was so happy she had been in the group, keeping things light with her musical laughter.

“
Que
te
vayas
bien
,” she smiled, departing with a kiss and a hug. This friendly send-off translates literally as “go well,” but the idea is more a general wish that things work out smoothly for you, that your trip (whether one block to your home or 3,000 miles to Chile) is all you hope it will be.

“You're going to learn so much when you travel in South America,” Mercedes said, giving me a hug. “When you come back, my home is your home. You just tell us when you're ready to return!” She hailed a
tuk-tuk
, one of Antigua's noisy little golf cart taxis, with space for two passengers (or three, if you
really
like each other). On the rutted cobblestone streets a trip in a
tuk-tuk
is like riding on a donkey running at top speed, but they're cheap and popular. “
Hasta
pronto!
” she called out, disappearing into the night.

Since Élida had back problems and couldn't ride a speeding donkey, Nora and Ani were going to walk her home then catch a
tuk-tuk
themselves, heading south while I went north. Nora and I had lunch plans for the next day, but I knew it would be quite some time before I'd see Élida and Ani again. “I'm so glad you liked the novel,” I told them, “and I'm
so
happy I could talk with you about it!” If only I had more eloquence in Spanish to show them how much I appreciated their insights, their ideas, their personal stories, their laughter, sharing a chummy girls' night out.