Tree Girl (4 page)

That first day, each of us dealt with Jorge’s sudden absence in a different way. Lester blamed what happened on everything except the chickens. He swore at the soldiers and kept threatening to join the guerrillas. Mamí and Papí tried to hide their fear by telling us not to worry. They insisted that I continue attending school. Julia cried, and Antonio grew quiet, standing around with his hands in his pockets as if waiting for somebody to come along and solve the situation.

The children, Lidia and Alicia, played their games, making whistles from eucalyptus seeds and searching under encino trees for the seeds that looked like cups and saucers. With these they played their games, pretending to be rich Latinos or wealthy tourists, like those we sometimes saw at market.

I couldn’t avoid my fears with simple games. I blamed myself for what happened. My quinceañera celebration had attracted the soldiers. Nothing would have happened if Jorge hadn’t tried to defend me. “I’m
not going to school today,” I told Papí

“Go to school, Gabriela,” Papí told me. “Ignorance won’t bring Jorge home. He’ll be okay.”

Reluctantly, I agreed. I didn’t really want to miss school. Two months before my quinceañera, Manuel had asked me to be his helper. Because I was his oldest student, each day he let me help teach the younger children their lessons. He called them my students, and with each passing week the children began considering me their teacher. They made me feel needed.

I purposely walked fast to school so I could arrive early. I wanted to talk to Manuel. Maybe he would have some idea of how we could find Jorge. I didn’t know if I could trust my regular path any longer, so I walked on trails hidden by the trees, away from the open fields. Though I walked fast, it took me more than an hour to arrive at the school, which rested down in the valley near the river. Manuel met me. “What brings you to the schoolhouse so early after the night of your quinceañera?” he asked. “I thought you might miss school today.”

“The soldiers came to my party after you left,” I
said, explaining how Jorge had been taken away. “He’ll be okay, won’t he?” I asked.

Manuel bit at his lip in thought. “Asking a soldier for kindness is like asking a cat to bark. Maybe you’ll find him, but maybe …” He never finished his sentence.

“Will you help me to look for him?” I asked.

“Of course,” Manuel said. “We’ll go after school to the military posts and look for him. But first we have students to teach.”

That day twenty students came for classes. I tried to concentrate, but my mind thought only of Jorge. Finally the school day ended and Manuel went with me to a small military post three kilometers downriver from the schoolhouse.

Politely we questioned the soldiers at the military post. “We know nothing,” they insisted. “Perhaps it was the guerrillas. No soldier would have done something like that.”

I knew they were lying—guerrillas didn’t wear uniforms and carry brand-new rifles—but I held my tongue. As we hiked to another outpost, Manuel
explained to me that the soldiers’ new rifles were provided by the United States of America, and that the comandantes were trained in the United States.

“Does the United States know what the soldiers are doing?” I asked.

Manuel kicked at a rock on the shore of the river where we walked. “The United States government isn’t blind, Gabriela.”

We did not find Jorge that day, or the next, or the next. Still, we kept searching until dark each day. All week Manuel helped me to look. The hours of walking gave me a chance to talk with him more than I ever could have at school around the other students. I had always known Manuel to be relaxed and full of laughter, joking and teasing. Now he spoke seriously. “Would you like to help me teach the older children also?” he asked.

I was honored, but Manuel’s question caught me by surprise. “Of course,” I said. “But why me?”

“The older children respect you just as the younger ones do, and you know the lesson material as well as I.”

Maybe what Manuel said was true, but his request troubled me. “Are you in danger?” I asked.

He bit at his lip. “I’m a teacher, and you and many of my other students have learned Spanish. That puts all of us in danger.”

I didn’t understand Manuel’s concern. Our Mayan people spoke many languages. Manuel had taught us Spanish because the cantóns in different regions couldn’t understand one another. Each cantón needed someone who spoke Spanish to communicate for trade and barter. This gave everyone a common language, a lingua franca.

“Gabriela,” Manuel said. “War has come to our country, and Spanish is the language the cantóns will use to communicate when they need to fight their enemies. The soldiers know this, and already they’re killing Indios who can speak Spanish. You and I are among those they wish to kill. Knowing Spanish places us in great danger.”

“Would they really kill us?” I asked.

Manuel snapped his fingers. “That fast,” he said. “You must be watchful and careful to not speak
Spanish after you leave school each day. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. I had never seen Manuel so serious. His thoughts were troubled, and he spoke urgently, as if what he had to say couldn’t wait.

Manuel turned to me and held my shoulders. “Gabriela, your Mayan past is not a solitary wind that blows alone in the sky. The skies share many winds. Your future is shared with many cultures. Your beliefs and customs are inseparable mixtures of your Mayan past and the Spanish present that surrounds you. To succeed you needed to know Spanish and understand other cultures.”

I nodded. It was as if Manuel were apologizing for having taught me Spanish. “Yes, I understand,” I said. “My Spanish isn’t your fault. It was part of my learning.”

Manuel sighed. “Learning that now puts you in great danger.”

We wandered the shore of the river for some distance without speaking. Maybe Manuel still felt guilty for having taught me Spanish. “Manuel, I needed to
know Spanish,” I insisted. “You’ve taught me many things to prepare me for the future.”

“Knowing Spanish, and knowing this or that, doesn’t prepare you for the future. Your future is found in discovering the right questions and having the courage to ask them. Good questions are always more important than good answers, but it takes courage to ask. You may understand
how
you live, Gabriela, but do you understand
why
you live?”

I wasn’t sure I understood what Manuel was trying to tell me. Sometimes he frustrated me. He seldom told me anything directly. He danced around with his words, making me find my own answers. “I’m afraid of all that’s happening,” I said, as we walked beside the water. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

Manuel shrugged. “Some questions have no answers.” He paused. “But I do know this. We, the Indio, we used to have very beautiful names, like Lu, Shuan, Posh, Chep, Tey, and Catoch. Now we have very different names, because the Catholic Church came many years ago and made us change our names. They didn’t like the names of our ancestors. They told
us our names were pagan, ungodly.”

“Was that right or wrong?” I asked, knowing even as I asked the question that Manuel would never tell me.

“Right is whatever wind you choose beneath your wings,” he said. “No longer do all our customs and names come from our Mayan ancestors. Now they come from many winds. It’s up to you to decide which wind should carry you. You need to decide for yourself if it was wrong for the church to change our names.”

“I think the names in our language, Quiché, are beautiful names,” I said. “If our names weren’t good enough for someone else, then maybe we weren’t good enough either. I don’t think you can respect someone but still want to change their religion, their customs, and even their names. Did the church teach the soldiers not to respect us?”

When Manuel didn’t reply, I broke into tears. “Manuel, I’m so worried about Jorge. He’s been gone a week now. I don’t know what to think of the soldiers and the guerrillas. They each say they’re protecting us, and yet I’m scared of them both. They’re coming more
often to our cantón. I don’t think we would be so scared of them if they truly came to help us.”

Manuel kneeled and wrapped his big arms around me and held me for a long time as I sobbed. “You need to be getting home to your family, Gabriela,” he said. “We’ll look for Jorge again tomorrow.” Before he stopped hugging me, he whispered, “It’s okay to be fearful and restless. Fear and restlessness bring change.”

Manuel’s words didn’t comfort me that day. When I returned home it was late afternoon. I wanted to go to the forest and climb a tree. It wasn’t fair to everyone else, but I needed time to think. Quietly I dropped off my books at our home.

Mamí called to me as I left the yard, “Gabi, would you please take Alicia with you?”

“Mamí, I want to be alone,” I answered strongly.

“I know you need your time alone, but so do I,” Mamí answered. “Your father is still out looking for Jorge this evening. You can’t always run and hide in the trees.”

Mamí’s words angered me. “I’ve been looking for Jorge also,” I said. “You’re the one who decided to send
me to school.” I took Alicia roughly by the hand and pulled her toward the distant trees. Mamí didn’t understand that the forest was my sanctuary. I went there to see more than the dew shimmering on the leaves and the sun climbing into an empty sky. I looked for more in the forest than insects and lizards crawling along branches, more than woodpeckers landing to hammer at tree bark. I found trust among the trees. If I sat as still as the air, owls and eagles would fly past, close enough to be touched. I never reached for them, because I knew how that would betray the forest’s trust in me, and now, more than ever, I needed a place where I could trust and be trusted.

“Don’t pull so hard on me,” little Alicia said, trying to free her hand.

I gripped her hand tighter, but then let it loose. “I’m sorry, Ali,” I said. “This isn’t your fault. All of us are scared.”

“You should be nice to me,” Alicia said in a loud voice.

Reluctantly I smiled. If I needed to be responsible for one of my brothers or sisters, I was glad it was
Alicia. I often felt that Alicia heard voices the way I did. I watched her once in the front yard, her eyes closed and her arms spread wide like wings. She spun in circles with a quiet smile creasing her thin lips, her little body captivated and carried by a song no one else heard.

I took Alicia’s hand gently and we walked farther into the forest to search for a small tree with friendly branches that were low and close together.

“Did I tell you about the dog when he chased the rooster and the cat this afternoon?” Alicia asked. “The cat got so mad, she turned and started chasing the dog, and then the rooster started chasing the dog, too.”

“And so what did you do?” I asked.

“I started chasing all of them, and then they got in a fight. They made so much noise, Mamí came out.”

“And what did Mamí do?” I asked.

“She got mad and asked you to watch me.”

As I smiled and lifted Alicia onto the low branch of a small tree, she wiggled with excitement. “Did I tell you about when—” she began.

I held a finger to her lips. “Shhhhh.”

Alicia squirmed with anticipation as I crawled onto the branch beside her. “Why can’t I make noise?” she whispered.

“Noise makes the animals afraid of us.”

Alicia nodded and giggled and started tossing leaves from the tree. I tried to ignore her, but endless energy bubbled from my little sister. Finally, after nearly an hour of trying to be quiet, Alicia looked at me and blurted aloud, “I think we should go home now. Mamí needs help, and we’re just sitting here.”

Reluctantly, I crawled from the tree and lifted Alicia down. When we arrived home, Mamí met me at the door. “Gabi, tomorrow I want you to miss school. We’re going to the caves so that your father can pray and give thanks,” she said.

“Give thanks for what?” I said, ignoring the hurt in Mamí’s eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
he next morning, our family left for the caves with gunfire echoing in the distance. Mamí felt sick but insisted on going. She had looked tired and weak for several days. Now she coughed as we walked single file on the trail. Papí led the way, and I walked directly behind him, watching as he picked his footing deliberately on the winding path to the caves.

Papí wasn’t big, but his body, like a gnarled old branch, carried great physical and spiritual strength. A lifetime of work under the hot sun had toughened and aged his skin like old leather. Living had given him wrinkles of character. Wisdom had given him patience.

Papí was a simple, honest man. He had no great vision for his life other than to be a good father and provider, and to live as his parents and their parents had. He felt strongly about our heritage and our culture, but the past was not a rope that bound him like a prisoner. He dared to ask why the Indios were treated differently than the Latinos, and always he listened patiently, sometimes smiling and laughing when I explained new ideas that I’d learned in school.

Not all parents had this courage. My friend Katrina was beaten by her father for asking new questions. She was made to quit school when she asked, “Why can’t I have the same rights and respect as a man?”