American Chica_ Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana [40]
Antonio was staring.
I sat back down.
“And so?” he said.
“And so she went home and they never bothered her again, and all the queen’s subjects stood outside the palace and sang ‘Beautiful Dreamer.’”
He scratched his head. “What home? Queen of what?”
“Queen of the gringas, Antonio. Her name was Boadicea.”
“And so she lived happily, et cetera, et cetera?” he said, waving the brush in circles.
“No, not really.” I screwed up my nose. I knew that if my mother sang “Beautiful Dreamer” at the end of a story it was probably because it ended badly. At least in this case, I had found out the ugly truth. “Not really. After a while, Boadicea lost the war and took some poison and died.”
Antonio burst into laughter, spraying the air before him. “Your mother told you that? And she doesn’t like you to hear about El Aya Uma?”
“Actually, she didn’t tell me that last part,” I confessed. “Vicki read it in a book. She told George and me how the historia really ended.”
“So the men win the war against the queen of the gringas, and the gringos keep the women in their place,” Antonio said.
“But their gringa mothers protect them,” I said, sticking a righteous finger into the air, feeling every inch a gringa myself.
“Well, mothers are always protecting their children, Marisita. That happens in Peru, too. Even brujas look out for their daughters.”
The brujas. The witches. Antonio was in dangerous territory now. I knew the leyenda he meant. It was the one about the hungry crone who sent her daughter out to scoop out a warm heart for lunch. The girl didn’t have to go far. She carved out the neighbor’s and brought it home to her mother, who devoured the beating thing in one swallow. When the priest came to demand why the girl was staggering around town, crazed, the witch only smiled, picked her teeth, and said she had no idea. The child had just been doing her chores. So it was that a bruja could defend a daughter.
Antonio hadn’t said a word about that leyenda. But he was teaching me its applications. We were communicating in code now.
“Antonio?”
“Yaaaah?” He was concentrating on a patch of black mildew.
“Listen. This is really important. Do you think it would be a good idea to give El Gringo—you know, the blind loco who comes in the afternoons—a Coca-Cola instead of bread? George and I always give him bread, and I’m a little worried about that. I don’t want him to go to sleep thirsty.”
El Gringo, El Aya Uma, the brujas. I was thinking of little else anymore but forces of evil. Antonio spun around and looked at me with concern.
Not too long after that, he taught me the biggest lesson of all. Mother had taken over the kitchen one afternoon, tutoring Claudia how to make English marmalade. Flavio had gone marketing. The amas were doing the laundry. My father’s pongo, Juan Diaz, had come to take George to the factory to watch sugarcane push through the trapiche. Vicki was doing some artwork. I darted through the house and headed out back for Antonio.
I found him behind the animal pens, by the servants’ quarters, where the stairs led up to his room. There was something odd about the way he stood there, face to the wall, motionless, straight-backed, his hands out of view. He had on a dark blue cotton shirt with holes worn through to his skin.
I tiptoed closer, intrigued by the tableau of man and brick, not wanting to shatter its spell. As I circled around, I looked down at the object of his focus. He was holding himself, and from him, a long stream splattered the wall.
“You’re peeing,” I squeaked.
He turned suddenly and burst out laughing. “Sí.”
I drew closer to get a good look.
“You’ve never seen one of these before?” he said, wagging the hose back and forth so that it spat at the air.
I shook my head no. But it wasn’t true. I had seen George’s once, very quickly, before his ama ran in and covered it up. Nothing stopped