Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [37]
“What do you read?” She was hard to understand because she spoke Galician and assumed everyone understood it.
“The newspapers tell about the world,” Severo said.
“You’re lucky you can read. I never learned my letters.”
“I can read aloud, if you like.”
After she put the dishes away, Severo read to Noela as she sewed. If he looked up from the papers, however, her bright eyes were on him, not her work, as if she believed that he’d created the contents of the newspapers for her amusement. Once a month, she dictated letters to her husband and parents, which Severo wrote and posted. None of her relatives could read either, but the correspondence was brought to the parish priest, or to a learned villager who charged two pennies to read them, five pennies to write a response.
“Do you write to your parents?”
Severo lied, but that night he wrote to his mother, letting her know that he was safe and had a job, with no mention of his reasons for leaving, the journey to Madrid, the years on the streets, the time in prison.
He worked six days a week at Marítima Argoso Marín’s offices. When making a delivery, he was sometimes given a penny or two as a tip, which he saved because he still had the idea that someday he’d sail to the New World to become a rich man. He was known to the thugs and urchins on the streets, who sneered and taunted him for pretending he was better than they were.
Paquito, an older boy who’d become the leader of a gang after Severo was imprisoned, wanted to prove that he was in charge after Severo was seen around town again. He followed Severo as he made his deliveries, jeering and teasing him, goaded by the other boys.
“No me jodas,” Severo said. He was carrying a dossier from Marítima Argoso Marín to a waiting customer at a bank.
“Don’t fuck with me,” Paquito repeated in a falsetto, swishing an invisible skirt to indicate Severo was a sissy.
Severo quickened his pace, but the boys followed and surrounded him, pushing and shoving. He was three doors from the bank and intended to make his delivery, but he didn’t want the boys to think he was running away from them. He faced Paquito.
“I don’t want to fight, but if you provoke me, you’ll be sorry.”
“Ay, la señorita don’t want to be provoke, ay, ay, my smelling salts,” Paquito said, pretending to go into a swoon.
Severo took the chance and ran into the bank, caught his breath, delivered his documents, received his tip. He took a moment to talk to himself. I know how to defend myself, he thought, but if I don’t put an end to this jodienda, I’ll have to fight every boy in Madrid. He meant to avoid prison again, and he needed a different kind of respect so that the boys would leave him alone. He was strong, but the streets and prison had taught him that mental toughness was more effective than fists. When he emerged, Paquito and his boys were waiting, as Severo expected.
“Chicken!” they called. “¡Cobarde!”
Severo stepped right up to Paquito. The other boys surrounded him, but he knew they were waiting for Paquito’s first move. “What did you say?” Severo asked, nonchalant. It was the way he said it, his cool tone and relaxed stance, Severo noticed, that changed something in Paquito. He’s scared, Severo thought. “I heard you say something,” he said, turning his head toward where they’d surrounded him before. “Over there. What did you say?”
Paquito puffed his chest and his face turned red, his bravado returning. “You’re a fucking coward,” he said, and to prove it he lunged at Severo as the other boys circled them. Paquito wrestled Severo to the ground, kicking and punching, spitting, calling him a pendejo and a sissy and a mariquita. Severo warded off the blows as best he could while Paquito flailed wildly. A crowd gathered, and Severo knew that the police would