Enrique

When I was very young my father took me to the heavens, where the angels live. We rose in the middle of the night, and he led my brother and me up the steep path to a high summit. In the cool stillness, before the rising of the sun, we stood — the steam rising from our sweaty arms to join the puffs from our nostrils, and then together disappearing into the frigid air which caressed our faces. In the silence we watched the stars fade as the black sky turned to gray. We watched the ghosts of jagged rock join hands and take form in the void as the veil of darkness dropped before our eyes. And suddenly the sun, not yet revealing himself to our eyes, blessed the highest tip of the tallest silhouettes with vibrant hues of burning orange, the first color of the day given to the elder mountains. And the brothers, sisters, sons and daughters of these ancient ones bowed in praise, awaiting their own rebirth.

My father said, “Look, mi hijos. From here, we can see the whole world.”

What I saw was a thousand mountain peaks of magenta, with pink clouds forming from their bellies and drifting to join their brothers. I saw the milpas, the dark green fields of corn and vegetables sewn into the sides of the mountains like a patchwork quilt. I saw warm valleys with coffee fields of emerald, and higher up, little specs of cattle grazing.

That was in the Department of Quiché, in central Guatemala, in the early 1930’s. My father was a proud man, an immigrant, born in Mexico. In our community he was known as a ladino, a Spanish speaking man of social and political means. He came to Guatemala at an early age and lived in Malacatán, in the Department of Huehuetenango. There, he was successful in the local militia, helping land owners guard against indigenous uprisings. He also contracted labor for the owners of the fincas, the coffee plantations. Then he moved here, to Nebaj, a municipality in Quiché. And because of his accomplishments and experience, he was appointed to the honorable position of Municipal Secretary. He functioned as a labor contractor, helping the indígenas to find work on local plantations.

“Papá, is this where the angels live?” I asked.

My older brother, Mario mocked me. “Angels are for little girls to play with. I will make you one from straw.”

My father, still lost in a dream answered, “Yes, Enrique. This is where the angels live.”

Because I was young I believed him. In these mountains I met many angels. They wore beautiful huipiles, women’s clothing with patterns woven from threads of many bright colors of greens, reds and yellows. Often children were tied to their backs in wraps as beautiful as their own clothing, with colorful little ones following them like chicks straggling after a hen. These angels radiated the warmth and light of our mother, the earth. They nourished us with the corn that gives its life to everything.

But times changed quickly, even then. Childhood lost its magic and my father lost interest in me, devoting all his energies to acquiring more land and to raising cattle on his hacienda. The angels became nothing more than tired women, rising in the darkness to prepare the morning tortilla, or to carry heavy loads to market at the bottom of the mountain or to conjure amazing woven patterns from their calloused hands. Their eyes told of their desire for those moments in which to share their sorrows with their cousins and maybe to find some healing in a little laughter.

My mother was the exception. In those years, she never lost her radiant warmth of our mother the earth. And I was her special child.

“Enrique,” my mother would say. “Your oldest brother, Vincente has been carried to Xibalba, to the Underworld to join our ancestors. And your brother, Mario has been taken from my arms by your father to be his chosen son. You are my last. And no one will take you from me.”

And she was right. I realize now, that even in her tears, she was a strong woman. She held her ground, even when my father beat her.

In the end, my mother raised me in her native Maya culture and tradition, as much as she was allowed — or rather, whenever my father wasn’t around, which was most the day. She gave me her language, though I spoke Spanish at home — and always in the presence of my father. And I did my chores on the hacienda, though it was never enough to please my father. It was Mario whom my father kept close to him, teaching him the ways of a cattle rancher. Mario had little association with the indígenas in our community, except for the vaqueros who worked the cattle, or the other obreros who worked on my father’s estate. Mario spoke only Spanish. But I was bilingual, raised also in the tongue of my mother, cousins, aunts and uncles in Nebaj — Maya Ixil.

I am proud of this, now — though, for most my life I would not acknowledge my indígenas roots. And to this day, I am careful to whom I tell this. Many in our country regard Indians as unintelligent beasts. My father made sure that both Mario and I attended the local school in Nebaj. At that time very few indígenas were able to attend school because of their poverty and responsibilities at home. The teachers and students were ladinos as were we — the sons and daughters of finca owners, store owners or labor negotiators. For me the school was a portal to a world which was infinitely wider than I had ever imagined. I quickly learned to read and increased in proficiency as I devoured every book I was able to get my hands on. I never ran out of questions for the teachers. And they would often have long conversations with me, sometimes until the sun was already behind the mountain peaks.

But for Mario the school was a garden for elitism, where he quickly gained finesse in using the appropriate vocabulary to talk about those dumb “indios.” I found this difficult and spent more and more of my days with my Ixil cousins in the milpas. Only indígenas had the motivation, ability and tenacity to reap the meager harvest that comes from fields pinned to the sides of rock. But my life there only made it worse at school. I became the butt of jokes and harassment.

One day Mario and his friends were walking from the school house, on the path that leads by the pen where my father kept his prize bull which he used to grow his cattle herd. Mario was bragging to them about the responsibility that my father had placed in him. It was Mario’s charge to care for the bull. Besides feeding the bull, he regularly checked the strong fence of the bull’s pen and made sure that the gate was securely fastened. He was showing his friends the latch, and let them all walk inside the pen. The bull, which was on the other side, started walking across the pen toward the gate.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It is just looking for something to eat.” But he carefully shuffled the others out of the pen.

I was coming from the other direction, returning from the milpa. Tomás was not the biggest member of the group, but he was much taller than I. He stopped me.

“Indios are not allowed to walk on this path.”

I ignored him, and kept walking. But he wrapped his long arms around me.

“He looks like a gallina, a hen.”

I looked at Mario who was still at the gate. He only returned a helpless stare.

“A blind hen,” shouted another.

“Do you want to play a game, indio?” said Tomás. “La Gallinita Ciega. The Blind Hen.”

“Do you play little girls’ games?” I said, in a voice that I thought could not be heard.

“Oh!” He obviously heard me. “This is not a girls’ game. We play it differently.”

“Yeah,” said Miguel. “We blindfold you. And you get this stick. If we can knock you to the ground, you have to go back the way you came from. If you can whack any of us with this stick, you get to pass by.”

“Let me go.” I broke free and started to continue walking.

Tomás grabbed me again. Miguel took off his shirt and tied it around my eyes. “If you try to run or escape — or you take off that blindfold — you will find out what blind really means.”

“Make him dizzy.” They spun me around several times. They pulled me in circles and spun me some more. I had not realized that, somewhere in the gyrations, they walked me through the gate and into the pen. The bull was still on the other side.

“You dropped your weapon! You will never make it in the army.” One of them handed the stick back to me. I fell. Shouts of laughter. “You walk like a borracho. Have you been drinking?” I stumbled back to my feet. I felt the ground slam against my head again.

“We aren’t even touching him, and he can’t even stand!”

I stood again.

“Come on! Whack me!”

“Over here, gallina!”

I stood still. Then I felt a hand pushing hard into my side.

“Hit me! I am right here!”

I almost lost my balance, but I remained standing, holding the stick. I felt slaps in the legs and the back of the head.

“Come on! Try it. You can take us all out!” A punch to the back of my head sent me reeling forward in pain.

I listened. I could hear them running around me.

“Maybe the gallinita needs some corn!”

I felt something hard against my teeth. Quickly I swung, with all my might.

More laughter. “He swings like a girl!”

A loud whisper, “Tomás, look!”

More footsteps. I wound up and swung as hard as I could. A solid thud, then a snap, as the stick broke. Suddenly, I felt the weight of a boulder slam into me from my back side, knocking me from my feet. I heard the low grunt of the bull, just as Miguel screamed, “Mario!”

I ripped the shirt from my head, seeing nothing but a giant dark shadow, and Mario running to the gate which dangled open. The bull slammed the gate with his head. It bounced against the post and opened further. In less than an instant, the bull trotted past Mario and toward the others, who were running down the path.

Mario yelled. “Get don Francisco!” The bull stopped, making loud snorts from his nostrils.

“Who?”

“Don Francisco! The vaquero! In the casa, down the path!” The boys went, running.

I was still sitting in the dirt.

Mario looked back at me with horror on his face. “My father’s prize bull! What did you do?”

As fate would have it, my father was running from the other side of the pen, screaming. “My bull! Mario!”

“It wasn’t me! It was Enrique!”

“Maldito indio!” My father rushed toward me, taking the belt from his pants.

I will always remember the look he gave me. His eyes burned red, with an intensity more than I have seen in any bull. I felt like my skin was being torn from me. With all the strength I could gather, I held myself from crying out, though each blow made me grunt like the bull.

Mario finally came to his senses. “Father, no! Please stop! You’ll kill him!”

“Mario, get Francisco!” The lashes subsided. With one last look of disgust, he spat on me, and walked toward the open field where the bull was trotting, still snorting.

I never spoke to my brother Mario again. From that moment on I lived with my mother’s brother, don Emiliano, in his house on my father’s hacienda. I continued to help the obreros with their chores, and my Ixil family with theirs. I don’t begrudge Mario the fact that he did not step in to help me. Or the fact that he blamed me for letting the bull out. This beating, added to the ones that I received at school, went to making my character stronger. I learned to embrace my anger. To channel it.

As I aged, my father grew more annoyed at hearing the other ladino land owners or merchants tell stories of my working on the milpas just like a “regular” indio. He began to punish me when he heard me speaking Ixil or when I walked barefoot. He punished my mother, also. She could do nothing to help me. For my sake, she stopped paying attention to me and retreated to her daily drudgeries. When I was ten, I watched my mother age before my eyes. For her wellbeing, I stopped coming to see her.

When I was twelve, I spoke to my mother for the last time.

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2015 David Lindstrom. All rights reserved.