Hard Red Spring (39 page)

“A lot of people committed those sins. The Communists convinced them to do bad things to get land. They killed your son—”

Emelda gave her a peculiar look. “Communists didn't kill my son.”

“But that's what Mincho said, that he was killed—”

Amused, her wrinkled face looked like a map. Thousands of lines, radiating in all directions from her smile. “Of course.”

“Where did you learn English?” Lenore asked.

“From my grandmother. She worked for an American family.”

“Okay, if you work as a translator for me, I will get you more rations.” This had been the deal she'd worked out, before watching the woman throw food into the path.

“No.” Her cragged face cemented in refusal. How old was she? She looked old, but all the Indians looked either like children or old. And this woman looked like she'd been left out in the weather for a century.

“Why not? I know you can't have enough food, Emelda.”

“Because, no.”

How could she refuse? Lenore had not even thought it possible. “The village needs you, Emelda. Everyone needs you—”

“No, no, no!” Her sudden rage stirred the air in the room. Lenore felt it, watched one of the pasted newspaper clippings flutter and break free from the wall. Lenore squinted to see the same headline as before, at her feet. “
La resurrección de Evie Crowder.”
Same headline, same picture, different article. Part Two had been pasted near Part One.

“I mean no. I mean I have worked for Americans before, it never goes well.”

Lenore's only hope, worked up for days, vanished in seconds. But she
could not give up so easily. Flustered and confused, desperate, she heard herself say, “If you don't work for me, I'll turn you in to the General.”

The Indian's eyes drained into flat, icy disks. “Why?”

“Because he told us to tell him about anyone who stands out.” She regretted this tactic immediately, even as she saw she would get what she needed out of it.

“You cannot do that! You cannot!” Emelda shot up, terrified, her hands in her black hair, pulling loose her long braid.

“Why not? If you're innocent, then you shouldn't be afraid of the General. Unless you have something to hide. Unless you're a guerrilla.”

“I was not a guerrilla!” Emelda stamped her foot and raised a finger in Lenore's face. “I was not a Communist! I worked for
The Voice of Liberation
!”

“What does that mean? Does that mean you'll work for me?”

Emelda spun away, squatted back down on her heels.

“I'll pay you with food.”

“I don't want food,” she said, shaking her head. “I want pen and paper.”

“How could you not want more food? I know you don't have enough.”

“Pen and paper.”

“Okay,” Lenore agreed, dumbfounded.

Emelda, with this victory, set her expression like someone setting a course.

“I have a letter to write and you must mail it for me.”

“Emelda, that's against the rules.” She was so close to getting what she needed, and she knew she could not turn this woman in to the General now. They both knew.

“Pen and paper,” she repeated. “I will translate for you if you get me pen and paper and mail my letter for me.”

—

The light, when Lenore left Emelda's shed, was low. Objects lingered on the verge of shadow. And because of this, distracted by her unresolved standoff with this woman that she both needed and feared, Lenore came upon the Civil Patrol again, after it was too late to turn around. Lenore saw them, though they did not see her. They had stopped an old Indian woman carrying a bucket of water on her head.

Mincho shouted and the men all raised their wooden machetes. Another soldier walked to the first Indian man in line and ordered him to do something. The man did not move. The soldier repeated his command, and after a
moment in which no one moved, he took his AK-47 and smashed it against the man's head. The sound was terrible. Lenore opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

The soldier went to the next Indian in line and barked the same order, which Mincho translated, to no effect. Everyone, again, stood still.

That noise again, the next man's head smashed with the gun. He went down into the dirt and now two lay there silent on the ground.

The soldier moved to the next Civil Patrolman in line, Dan. Lenore curled her toes in her shoes, considered running to him and breaking up the entire scene. What could that boy soldier do to us? He would never hit Dan, she reassured herself. He marched with the Civil Patrol symbolically, that was all.

Yet Mincho barked the same order, in the same tone, at Dan. Without hesitation, Dan stepped up to the old woman, knelt down, and ran his hands up her skirt.

The soldier yelled, Mincho translated, “Higher!”

Dan's arms disappeared in the fabric up to his shoulders, his hands moving over her backside, his head against her lap. The old woman, battling the curve of her spine, kept her head high.

Dan extracted himself and stood up. “No weapons,” he said, keeping his arms raised slightly in front of him, as if they were wet or dirty.

—

When Dan came home that evening, he sat at the table and rested his head in his hands. A spot of blood showed on his sleeve.

“You've got to preach in an hour,” Lenore reminded him. “Aren't you going to practice? Your notes are right here.”

“I'm not going to do that sermon today, I decided. I'll do another.”

“Why? What was it supposed to be about?” She rearranged their belongings roughly, for no reason, kicking a box and clattering silverware.

“Obedience.”

“And what's it going to be about now?”
Crack, thud!

“I don't know. I'll do one of the prewritten ones in the booklet, I guess. Tell me about your day,” he said as he chewed his daily roll. He slouched in his chair, his head low and to the side, like an old helium balloon.

“Very productive,” she reported with a savage grin. “The children are learning to count to ten. Mincho came in to translate for a while. The fact that it was all done at gunpoint seems to make them learn faster.”

Dan nodded, swallowing. The trigger in his throat moving.

She slammed a pot. “I can't work with him, Dan. I'd rather work in silence.”

“He's all we have, Lenore. I know the gun isn't ideal, but the military acts in forceful ways, we act in patience and love. We're all trying for the same thing here.”

“So you're not going to say anything? He scares me.”

“I will try. I will,” he said carefully, measuring the words for minimal impact.

Lenore shook her head, unbelieving. She pondered the dignity of the men who would rather take an AK-47 in the face than do that to an old woman, and how Dan did it without hesitation. But Lenore said none of this. She also would not tell him about the time she'd spent with the woman Emelda. She'd have to tell him eventually, but just not now. She still had not decided what to make of her. Maybe Emelda could be a great help, or maybe she was a guerrilla. She had promised her pen and paper, a simple enough request that struck Lenore only in retrospect. Maybe she wanted to communicate with the guerrillas on the outside. But no, maybe she just wanted to write to her family. All Lenore knew at the moment was that she did not want the Civil Patrol deciding.

After dinner, Dan chose that night's sermon from his booklet.

“More fire and damnation?” Lenore asked as she washed their dishes in a bucket. She used a drop of shampoo in the water and bent over, scrubbing with violence.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Dan stopped writing to study her. “This is the Good News. We're here to share the Good News with these people, so that's what I'm going to preach.”

“From the Old Testament again?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I just don't think everything you preach is such good news to them,” Lenore said to the bucket, where the water sloshed and sudsed in her hands.

Dan got up. He walked across the room and she stood to meet him. Her hands, out of the water, went cold. Heavy suds slipped down, dropping off her fingers onto the floor. He searched her face, appalled. “Lenore? What are you saying, Lenore? You know more than I do. You know. If you believe, you have a responsibility to share. The truth . . .” he tried, shaking his head, then began again. “The truth is always good news.”

~~~~~

Over the next month, improvements began to show in the camp. The wheat grew into a bright green, hopeful stubble all around, lifting everyone's mood. The national anthem woke Lenore every morning with the promise of an actual melody. The children had gained weight, making Lenore think that maybe the corn mix was sufficient for the villagers. And as the children gained weight, Lenore found herself losing weight. Her pants from home fell loose, her bras sagged. She skipped a period, but thought nothing of it. Going through the donation pile, she picked out new clothes for herself. Jeans. They looked great on her. Dan had lost weight, too, but refused the donation pile, opting instead to stab new holes into his belt.

The children, during their lessons, had begun to use Spanish phrases with one another, shyly. They could count to twenty with Lenore and seemed to be forgetting their fear, which only really returned when a helicopter ripped over the village, on its way to battle. They played with Huela and practiced Spanish commands with her. The puppy, too, improved with the village. Calmer, more attuned to her surroundings, she was becoming loyal to both Mincho and Lenore.

More precise in their movements, yet still unclear in purpose, the Civil Patrol began to take over jobs performed before by soldiers, who now mostly smoked at the gate and smiled, happy the village was running itself. Even the problem of Emelda receded, as Lenore decided to ignore her for a time. No pen and paper, no promises. The longer she put off these decisions, the more perspective she gained. As the village fell into routine, she considered that maybe she did not need the woman after all.

A month of baptisms and reassurance. The children played on the paths now, the women spent less time in their sheds and more time outside. Lenore's sewing supplies arrived. Everything seemed to be working out and Pastor May's statement that problems always seemed smaller in retrospect proved correct. After several weeks, Lenore finally decided not to write a letter home to Dan about the Civil Patrol incident.

~~~~~

The sewing class was not mandatory, Mincho explained that first morning around the flagpole, but the women could take a two-hour break from the fields if they wanted. The Civil Patrol hauled tables from the education building. Lenore really expected no one to show up. But at one o'clock, seventeen women stood outside the church, waiting, looking reluctant, though Lenore knew they had chosen to come. Possibly the first choice they'd made since surrendering.

Emelda was not among them, but her granddaughter, Cruzita, had volunteered, along with the woman who'd arrived with five children clinging to her skirt. Ama.

“Now, I know many of you are skilled at sewing your traditional clothes,” Lenore said to her students, facing her with their communal, miserable expression. “But I'm here to show you that you can make much more sensible, comfortable clothes, with a lot less work and money. I've decided to start with skirts, since it looks like most of your skirts are about ready to split up the back.”

Mincho barked a remarkably short translation from his position in the doorway. He had brought his gun, which he cradled in his crossed arms, while Huela nosed around the church. Abandoning his regular duties with the Civil Patrol displeased him.

Together, following Lenore's example, the women measured themselves and cut their cloth accordingly. Once the long-bladed scissors came out, Mincho flipped off his safety and circled the class. When he kicked an empty chair out of his way, half the women dropped to the ground.
Ha ha
, he chuckled.

Despite his tendency for self-entertainment, Mincho refused to translate any of Lenore's jokes. Her encouragement turned to threats in his mouth, so after a while she stopped talking altogether.

“Why?” he whined frantically in Lenore's ear, near the end of the class. “Beastie, why did you tell the General I wasn't doing my job? Why did you say the women are afraid of me? I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends,” she agreed hesitantly. “I didn't say you weren't doing your job. I merely said the women are afraid of the soldiers because of their own experiences. I never said it was your fault. I'm sorry if I got you in trouble.”

“The women are not afraid of me,” he hissed, spit flying. “They pretend to be afraid, to get me in trouble. Don't let them trick you. They're guerrillas, they trick people.”

Lenore studied the women, cutting and stitching so peacefully. The girl Cruzita helped one of her neighbors thread a needle.

“Do you really think that, Mincho? Do you think everyone here was a guerrilla?” She walked away, done with the conversation.

“They trick you,” he insisted at her back. “If they trick you and turn you against me, they are guerrillas. It's what guerrillas do.”

It only took that first day for Lenore to realize that this sewing class, which could help the women greatly, now brought her back to her original
problem. She could not rely on Mincho and she could not rely on the silent routine of the village to make her project a success. She needed a translator, and the blue-eyed Indian she had tried her best to forget began again to occupy her thoughts.

~~~~~

Lenore asked Dan if she could conduct Cruzita's baptism interview. Over five hundred Maya lived in the village now and they were behind on the General's order to have everyone baptized by the end of the month. Dan agreed because he trusted Lenore to do a good job, and because he couldn't do it all by himself.