[Part 3] "Esperanza Rising" by Pam Muñoz Ryan

----------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VIII. LAS ALMENDRAS ALMONDS

----------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------

“Ay, my neck hurts,” said Mama as she massaged the back of her head with her hand.

“It is not my neck.

It’s my arms that are sore,” said Hortensia.

“It is the same for everyone,” said Josefina.

“When you first start in the sheds, the body refuses to bend, but in time, you will get used to the work.”

Everyone had come home that night tired and with various aches and pains.

They gathered in one cabin for dinner, so it was crowded and noisy.

Josefina warmed a pot of beans and Hortensia made fresh tortillas.

Juan and Alfonso talked about the fields while Miguel and Isabel played with the babies, making them squeal with laughter.

Mama cooked arroz, and Esperanza was surprised that Mama knew just how to brown it first in oil with onions and peppers.

Esperanza chopped tomates for a salad and hoped no one would mention the sweeping.

She was glad this day was over.

Her bruises had been to her pride.

Isabel took a fresh tortilla, sprinkled it with salt, rolled it up like a cigar and waved it at Miguel.

“How come you and Tío Alfonso won’t let me go behind the cabin with you?”

“Shhh,” he said.

“It’s a surprise.”

“Why are you so full of secrets?” asked Esperanza.

But neither Alfonso nor Miguel answered.

They simply smiled while they prepared their plates.

They ate dinner, but before they could slice a cantaloupe for dessert, Alfonso and Miguel disappeared, with instructions not to follow them.

“What are they doing?” demanded Isabel.

Hortensia shrugged as if she knew nothing.

Miguel came back just before sunset.

“Señora and Esperanza, we have something to show you.”

Esperanza looked at Mama.

It was obvious Mama was as confused as she was.

They all followed Miguel to where Alfonso was waiting.

Behind the cabin was an old oval washtub with one end cut off.

It had been set on its side, forming a little shrine around a plastic statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Someone had built a grotto of rocks around the base of the tub.

Around it, a large plot of earth had been fenced in by sticks and rope and planted with thorny stems, each with only a few branches.

Isabel gasped.

“It’s beautiful.

Is that our statue?”

Josefina nodded.

“But the roses come from far away.”

Esperanza searched Miguel’s face, her eyes hopeful.

“Papa’s?”

“Yes, these are your papa’s roses,” said Miguel, smiling at her.

Alfonso had dug circles of earth around each plant, casitas, little houses, that made moats for deep watering.

Just like he had done in Aguascalientes.

“But how?”

Esperanza remembered the rose garden as a blackened graveyard.

“After the fire, my father and I dug down to the roots.

Many were still healthy.

We carried the cuttings from Aguascalientes.

And that’s why we had to keep them wet.

We think they will grow.

In time, we will see how many bloom.”

Esperanza bent closer to look at the stems rooted in mulch.

They were leafless and stubby, but lovingly planted.

She remembered the night before the fire, when she had last seen the roses and had wanted to ask Hortensia to make rosehip tea.

But she’d never had the chance.

Now, if they bloomed she could drink the memories of the roses that had known Papa.

She looked at Miguel, blinking back tears.

“Which one is yours?”

Miguel pointed to one.

“Which one is mine?”

He smiled and pointed to the one that was closest to the cabin wall and already had a makeshift trellis propped against it.

“So you can climb,” he said.

Mama walked up and down, carefully touching each cutting.

She took Alfonso’s hands in her own and kissed him on each cheek.

Then she went to Miguel and did the same.

“Muchas gracias,” she said.

Mama looked at Esperanza.

“Didn’t I tell you that Papa’s heart would find us wherever we go?”

********

The next morning, Hortensia put a piece of fabric over the window and sent Alfonso next door with Miguel, Juan, and the babies.

Hortensia, Mama, and Josefina brought in the big washtubs and filled them half full with cold water.

Then they heated pots of water on the stove and warmed the baths.

Esperanza was excited at the idea of getting into a tub.

All they had done since they arrived was wash their faces and arms with cold water in the sink.

She hadn’t had a real bath since she left Aguascalientes.

But it was Saturday and tonight was the jamaica, so the entire camp was getting cleaned up.

Baths were being taken, shirts ironed, and hair washed and crimped.

Hortensia had given Esperanza her baths since she was a baby and they had an established routine.

Esperanza stood near the tub with her arms outstretched while Hortensia undressed her.

Then she got in the tub and tried not to wiggle while Hortensia washed her.

She’d tilt her head back, keeping her eyes closed, while Hortensia rinsed her hair.

Finally, she stood up and nodded, which was Hortensia’s signal to wrap the towel around her.

Esperanza went to one of the washtubs, put her hands out to her sides, and waited.

Josefina looked at Hortensia and raised her eyebrows.

Isabel said, “Esperanza, what are you doing?”

Mama walked over to Esperanza and said softly, “I’ve been thinking that you are old enough to bathe yourself, don’t you think?”

Esperanza quickly dropped her arms and remembered Marta’s taunting voice saying, “No one will be waiting on you here.”

“Yes, Mama,” she said, and for the second time in two days, she felt her face burning as everyone stared at her.

Hortensia came over, put her arm around Esperanza and said, “We are accustomed to doing things a certain way, aren’t we, Esperanza?

But I guess I am not too old to change.

We will help each other.

I will unbutton the buttons you cannot reach and you will help Isabel, yes?

Josefina, we need more hot water in these tubs.

Ándale, hurry.”

As Hortensia helped her with her blouse, Esperanza whispered, “Thank you.”

Isabel and Esperanza went first, bathing in the tubs, then bending their heads over to wash their hair.

Mama and Josefina poured cups of water over them to rinse off the soap.

The women took turns going back and forth to the stove for hot water.

Esperanza liked being with all of them in the tiny room, talking and laughing, and rinsing each other’s hair.

Josefina and Hortensia talked about all the gossip in the camp.

Mama sat in her slip and combed out Isabel’s tangles.

The women took their turns and when Hortensia needed hot water, Esperanza rushed to get it for her before anyone else could.

Clean and dressed, with still-wet hair, Esperanza and Isabel went outside to the wooden table under the trees.

Josefina had given them a burlap bag of almonds that she wanted shelled.

Isabel bent over and brushed her hair in the dry air.

“Are you coming to the jamaica tonight?” she asked.

Esperanza didn’t answer at first.

She had not left the cabin since she had made a fool of herself yesterday.

“I don’t know.

Maybe.”

“My mama said it is best to get it over with and face people.

And that if they tease you, you should just laugh,” said Isabel.

“I know,” said Esperanza, fluffing her own hair that was already almost dry.

She dumped the nuts onto the table and picked up an almond still in its flattened pod.

The soft and fuzzy outside hull looked like two hands pressed together, protecting something inside.

Esperanza popped it open and found the almond shell.

She snapped the edge of the shell and pried it apart, then pulled the meat from its defenses and ate it.

“I suppose Marta will be there tonight?”

“Probably,” said Isabel.

“And all of her friends, too.”

“How does she know English?”

“She was born here and her mother, too.

They are citizens,” said Isabel, helping shell the almonds.

“Her father came from Sonora during the revolution.

They have never even been to Mexico.

There’s lots of kids who live in our camp who have never been to Mexico.

My father doesn’t like it when Marta comes to our jamaicas, though, because she is always talking to people about striking.

There was almost a strike during almonds but not enough people agreed to stop working.

My mama says that if there had been a strike, we would have had to go into the orchard and shake the trees ourselves for these almonds.”

“Then we’re lucky.

What is your mother making with these nuts?”

“Flan de almendra,” said Isabel.

“She will sell slices at the jamaica tonight.”

Esperanza’s mouth watered.

Almond flan was one of her favorite sweets.

“Then I’ve made my decision.

I will come.”

********

The platform was lit up with big lights.

Men from the camp, in starched and pressed shirts and cowboy hats, sat in chairs tuning their guitars and violins.

Long rows of tables were covered in bright tablecloths where women sold tamales, desserts, and the specialty, Agua de Jamaica, Hibiscus Flower Water punch made with the red Mexican jamaica bloom.

There was bingo on wooden tables and a long line of chairs circling the dance area for those who wanted to watch.

That’s where Mama and Hortensia sat, talking to other women.

Esperanza stayed close to them, watching the growing crowd.

“Where do all the people come from?” she asked.

The other night, she had heard Juan say that about two hundred people lived in their camp, but there were many more than that now.

“These fiestas are popular.

People come from other camps,” said Josefina.

“And from Bakersfield, too.”

When the music started, everyone crowded around the platform, clapping and singing.

People started dancing in the area around the stage.

Children ran everywhere, chasing and hiding.

Men held young boys on their shoulders, and women swaddled their infants, all of them swaying to the sounds of the small band.

After a while, Esperanza left Mama and the others and wandered through the noisy crowd, thinking how strange it was that she could be in the middle of so many people and still feel so alone.

She saw a group of girls who seemed about her age but they were huddled together.

More than anything, she wished Marisol were here.

Isabel found her and pulled on her hand.

“Esperanza, come and see.”

Esperanza let herself be led through the crowd.

Someone from town had brought a litter of kittens.

A group of girls were crowded next to the cardboard box, cooing and cradling them.

It was clear that Isabel desperately wanted one.

Esperanza whispered to her, “I will go ask your mother.”

She wove back through the crowd to find Josefina, and when she agreed, Esperanza practically ran back to the spot to tell Isabel.

But when she got there, a bigger crowd had gathered and something else was going on.

Marta and some of her friends stood in the bed of a truck that was parked nearby, each of them holding up one of the tiny kittens.

“This is what we are!” she yelled.

“Small, meek animals.

And that is how they treat us because we don’t speak up.

If we don’t ask for what is rightfully ours, we will never get it!

Is this how we want to live?”

She held the kitten by the back of the neck, waving it high in the air.

It hung limp in front of the crowd.

“With no decent home and at the mercy of those bigger than us, richer than us?”

Isabel trembled, her eyes in a panic.

“Will she drop it?”

A man called out, “Maybe all that cat wants to do is feed its family.

Maybe it doesn’t care what all the other cats are doing.”

“Señor, does it not bother you that some of your compadres live better than others?” yelled one of Marta’s friends.

“We are going to strike in two weeks.

At the peak of the cotton.

For higher wages and better housing!”

“We don’t pick cotton on this farm!” yelled another man from their camp.

“What does it matter?” yelled Marta.

“If we all stop working, if all the Mexicans are juntos, together …” She made a fist and held it in the air, “… then maybe it will help us all!”

He yelled back, “That is a chance we cannot take.

We just want to work.

That’s why we came here.

Get out of our camp!”

A cheer rose up around him.

People started shoving and Esperanza grabbed Isabel’s hand and pulled her aside.

A young man jumped into the truck and started the engine.

Marta and the others tossed the kittens into the field.

Then they pulled some of their supporters into the back of the truck with them and raised their arms, chanting, “¡Huelga!

¡Huelga!

Strike!

Strike!”

********

“Why is she so angry?” asked Esperanza, as she walked back to the cabin a few hours later with Josefina, Isabel, and the babies, leaving the others to stay later.

Isabel carried the soft, mewing orange kitten in her arms.

“She and her mother move around to find work, sometimes all over the state,” said Josefina.

“They work wherever there is something to be harvested.

Those camps, the migrant camps, are the worst.”

“Like when we were in El Centro?” said Isabel.

“Worse,” said Josefina.

“Our camp is a company camp and people who work here don’t leave.

Some live here for many years.

That is why we came to this country.

To work.

To take care of our families.

To become citizens.

We are lucky because our camp is better than most.

There are many of us who don’t want to get involved in the strike because we can’t afford to lose our jobs, and we are accustomed to how things are in our little community.”

“They want to strike for better houses?” asked Esperanza.

“That and more money for those who pick cotton,” said Josefina.

“They only get seven cents a pound for picking cotton.

They want ten cents a pound.

It seems like such a small price to pay, but in the past, the growers said no.

And now, more people are coming to the valley to look for work, especially from places like Oklahoma, where there is little work, little rain, and little hope.

If the Mexicans strike, the big farms will simply hire others.

Then what would we do?”

Esperanza wondered what would happen if Mama did not have a job.

Would they have to go back to Mexico?

Josefina put the babies to bed.

Then she kissed Isabel and Esperanza on their foreheads and sent them next door.

Isabel and Esperanza lay in their beds listening to the music and the bursts of laughter in the background.

The kitten, after drinking a bowl of milk, curled up in Isabel’s arms.

Esperanza tried to imagine conditions that were more shabby than this room that was covered in newspaper to keep out the wind.

Could things possibly be worse?

Sleepily, Isabel said, “Did you have parties in Mexico?”

“Yes,” whispered Esperanza, keeping her promise to tell Isabel about her old life.

“Big parties.

Once, my mama hosted a party for one hundred people.

The table was set with lace tablecloths, crystal and china, and silver candelabras.

The servants cooked for a week …” Esperanza continued, reliving the extravagant moments, but was relieved when she knew that Isabel was asleep.

For some reason, after hearing about Marta and her family, she felt guilty talking about the richness of her life in Aguascalientes.

Esperanza was still awake when Mama came to bed later.

A stream of light from the other room allowed just enough brightness for her to watch Mama unbraid her hair and brush it out.

“Did you like the party?” Mama whispered.

“I miss my friends,” said Esperanza.

“I know it is hard.

Do you know what I miss?

I miss my dresses.”

“Mama!” Esperanza said, laughing that Mama would admit such a thing to her.

“Shhh,” said Mama.

“You will wake Isabel.”

“I miss my dresses, too, but we don’t seem to need them here.”

“That is true.

Esperanza, do you know that I am so proud of you?

For all that you are learning.”

Esperanza snuggled close to her.

Mama continued.

“Tomorrow we are going to a church in Bakersfield.

After church, we are going to una tienda, called Cholita’s.

Josefina said she sells every type of sweet roll.

And Mexican candies.”

They were quiet, listening to Isabel’s breathing.

“In church, what will you pray for, Esperanza?” asked Mama.

Esperanza smiled.

She and Mama had done this many times before they went to sleep.

“I will light a candle for Papa’s memory,” she said.

“I will pray that Miguel will find a job at the railroad.

I will ask Our Lady to help me take care of Lupe and Pepe while Isabel is at school.

And I will pray for some white coconut candy with a red stripe on the top.”

Mama laughed softly.

“But most of all, I will pray that Abuelita will get well.

And that she will be able to get her money from Tío Luis’s bank.

And that she will come soon.”

Mama stroked Esperanza’s hair.

“What will you pray for, Mama?”

“I will pray for all the things you said, Esperanza, and one more thing besides.”

“What’s that?”

Mama hugged her.

“I will pray for you, Esperanza.

That you can be strong.

No matter what happens.”

----------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER IX. LAS CIRUELAS PLUMS

----------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------

As they walked to the bus stop, Isabel recited a list of concerns to Esperanza, sounding exactly as Josefina and Mama had sounded earlier that morning.

“Put Pepe down for a nap first, and when he falls asleep, put Lupe down.

Otherwise they will play and never go to sleep.

And Lupe will not eat bananas …”

“I know,” said Esperanza, repositioning Pepe on her hip.

Isabel handed her Lupe and climbed the steps of the yellow bus.

She found a seat and waved from the window.

Esperanza wondered who was more worried, she or Isabel?

Esperanza struggled to carry both babies back to the cabin.

Thank goodness Isabel had already helped her feed and dress them.

She settled them on a blanket on the floor with some tin cups and wood blocks, then put the beans into a big pot on the stove.

Hortensia had prepared them earlier with a big onion and a few cloves of garlic and instructed Esperanza to stir them occasionally and let them cook on low heat, adding more water throughout the day.

She stirred the beans and watched Lupe and Pepe play.

I wish Abuelita could see me, she thought.

She would be proud.

Later, Esperanza looked for something to feed the babies for lunch.

A bowl of ripe plums sat on the table.

They should be soft enough to eat, she thought.

She took several, removed the pit and mashed them with a fork.

Both babies loved them, reaching for more after each spoonful.

Esperanza mashed another three plums and they gobbled every bite.

She let them have their fill until they started fussing and reaching for their bottles of milk.

“Enough of lunch,” said Esperanza, cleaning their faces and gratefully thinking that it would soon be nap time.

She slowly changed their wet diapers, remembering all of Josefina’s and Isabel’s instructions.

She put Pepe down first with his bottle, as directed, and when he fell asleep, she put Lupe next to him.

Esperanza lay down, too, wondering why she was so tired, and she dozed.

She woke up to Lupe’s whimpering and an atrocious smell.

Brown liquid leaked from her diaper.

Esperanza picked her up and carried her out of the room so she wouldn’t wake Pepe.

She changed her into a dry diaper and rolled the soiled one into a ball and put it by the door until she could take it to the toilets.

When she put Lupe back down, Pepe was sitting up in bed, in the same condition.

She repeated the diaper changing.

With both babies clean, she left them in the bed and dashed to the toilets to rinse the diapers.

Then she ran back to the cabin.

A different smell greeted her.

The beans!

She had forgotten to add more water.

When she checked the pot, they appeared to be scorched only on the bottom, so she poured in water and stirred them.

The babies cried and never went back to sleep.

Both dirtied their diapers again.

The wadded pile by the door grew.

They must be ill, worried Esperanza.

Did they have the flu or was it something they ate?

No one else had been sick recently.

What had they eaten today?

Only their milk and the plums.

“The plums,” she groaned.

They must have been too hard on their stomachs.

What did Hortensia give her when she was a child and was sick?

She tried to remember.

Rice water!

But how did she make it?

Esperanza put a pot on the stove and added a cup of rice.

She wasn’t sure how much water to add but she remembered that when rice didn’t come out soft Hortensia always said it needed more water.

She added plenty and boiled the rice.

Then she poured off the water and let it cool.

She sat on the floor with the babies and fed them teaspoons of rice water all afternoon, counting the minutes until Isabel walked through the door.

“What happened?” said Isabel when she arrived and saw the pile of diapers by the door.

“They were sick from the plums,” said Esperanza, nodding toward the plate still on the table where she had mashed them.

“Oh, Esperanza, they are too young for raw plums!

Everyone knows that plums must be cooked for babies,” said Isabel.

“Well, I am not everyone!” yelled Esperanza.

She dropped her head and put her hands over her face.

Pepe crawled into her lap, making happy gurgling noises.

She looked at Isabel, already sorry for screaming at her.

“I didn’t mean to yell.

It was a long day.

I gave them some rice water and they seem to be fine now.”

Sounding surprised, Isabel said, “That was exactly the right thing to do!”

Esperanza nodded and let out a long sigh of relief.

That night, no one mentioned the number of rinsed and wrung diapers in the washtub outside the door.

Or the beans that were obviously burnt or the pan of rice in the sink.

And no one questioned Esperanza when she said that she was exhausted and wanted to go to bed early.

********

The grapes had to be finished before the first fall rains and had to be picked rápido, quickly, so now there were no Saturdays or Sundays in the week, just workdays.

The temperature was still over ninety each day, so as soon as Isabel’s bus left for school, Esperanza took the babies back to the cabin.

She fixed their bottles of milk and let them play while she made the beds.

Then she followed Hortensia’s instructions for starting dinner before turning to the laundry.

She was amazed at the hot, dry air.

Often, by the time she had filled the clotheslines that were strung between the trees, she had only minutes to rest before the valley sun dried the clothes crisp and they were ready to fold.

Irene and Melina came over after lunch and Esperanza spread a blanket in the shade.

Esperanza liked Melina’s company.

In some ways, she was a young girl, sometimes playing with Isabel and Silvia, or telling Esperanza gossip as if they were school friends.

In other ways, she was grown up, with a nursing baby and a husband, and preferring to crochet with the older women in the evenings.

“Do you crochet?” Melina asked.

“I know a little, but only a few stitches,” said Esperanza, remembering Abuelita’s blanket of zigzag rows that she had been too preoccupied to unpack.

Melina laid her sleeping baby girl on the blanket and picked up her needlework.

Irene cut apart a fifty-pound flour sack that was printed with tiny flowers, to use as fabric for dresses.

Esperanza tickled Pepe and Lupe and they laughed.

“They adore you,” said Melina.

“They cried yesterday when I watched them for the few minutes it took you to sweep the platform.”

It was true.

Both babies smiled when Esperanza walked into the room, always reaching for her, especially Pepe.

Lupe was good-natured and less demanding, but Esperanza learned to watch her closely, as she often tried to wander away.

If she turned her back for a minute, Esperanza found herself frantically searching for Lupe.

Esperanza rubbed Lupe’s and Pepe’s backs, hoping they would go to sleep soon, but they were restless and wouldn’t settle even though they had their bottles.

The afternoon sky looked peculiar, tinged with yellow, and there was so much static in the air that the babies’ soft hair stuck out.

“Today is the day of the strike,” said Melina.

“I heard that they were going to walk out this morning.”

“Everyone was talking about it last night at the table,” said Esperanza.

“Alfonso said he is glad that everyone from our camp agreed to continue working.

He is proud that we won’t strike.”

Irene continued working on the flour sack and shaking her head.

“So many Mexicans have the revolution still in their blood.

I am sympathetic to those who are striking, and I am sympathetic to those of us who want to keep working.

We all want the same things.

To eat and feed our children.”

Esperanza nodded.

She had decided that if she and Mama were to get Abuelita here, they could not afford to strike.

Not now.

Not when they so desperately needed money and a roof over their heads.

She worried about what many were saying: If they didn’t work, the people from Oklahoma would happily take their jobs.

Then what would they do?

A sudden blast of hot wind took the flour sack from Irene’s hand and carried it to the fields.

The babies sat up, frightened.

Another hot blast hit them, but kept on, and when the edges of the blanket blew up, Lupe reached for Esperanza, whining.

Irene stood up and pointed to the east.

The sky was darkening with amber clouds and several brown tumbleweeds bounced toward them.

A roil of brown loomed over the mountains.

“¡Una tormenta de polvo!

Dust storm!” said Irene.

“Hurry!”

They picked up the babies and ran inside.

Irene closed the door and began shutting the windows.

“What’s happening?” asked Esperanza.

“A dust storm, like nothing you have seen before,” said Melina.

“They are awful.”

“What about Mama and Hortensia and the others?

Alfonso and Miguel … they are in the fields.”

“They will send trucks for them,” said Irene.

Esperanza looked out the window.

Thousands of acres of tilled soil were becoming food for la tormenta and the sky was turning into a brown swirling fog.

Already, she could not see the trees just a few yards away.

Then the sound began.

Softly at first, like a gentle rain, then harder as the wind blasted the tiny grains of sand against the windows and metal roofs.

The dirt showered against the cabin, pitting everything in its path.

“Get away from the window,” warned Irene.

“The dirt and wind can break the glass.”

The finer dust seeped inside and they tried to seal the door by stuffing rags under it.

Esperanza couldn’t stop thinking about the others.

Isabel was at school.

The teachers would take care of her.

But Mama, Hortensia, and Josefina were in the open shed.

She hoped the trucks would bring them soon.

And the fields.

She could only imagine.

Alfonso and Juan and Miguel, could they breathe?

Irene, Melina, and Esperanza sat on the mattress in the front room trying to calm the babies.

There was no relief from the heat in the closed room and soon the air was hazy.

Irene dampened some towels so they could wipe the babies’ and their own faces.

When they talked to one another, they tasted the earth.

“How long does it last?” asked Esperanza.

“Sometimes hours,” said Irene.

“The wind will stop first.

And then the dust.”

Esperanza heard a meowing from the door.

She ran to it and, pushing hard against the wind, opened it a crack.

Isabel’s kitten, Chiquita, darted in.

There was no trace of her orange fur.

The cat was powdered brown.

The babies finally fell asleep, drowsy from the heavy air.

Irene was right.

The wind stopped, but the dust still swirled as if propelled by its own power.

Irene and Melina left with Melina’s baby, covered beneath a blanket, and rushed to their cabin.

Esperanza waited, nervously pacing the room and worrying about the others.

The school bus came first.

Isabel burst into the cabin, crying, “¡Mi gata, Chiquita!”

Esperanza hugged her.

“She is fine but very dirty and hiding under the bed.

Are you all right?”

“Yes,” said Isabel.

“We got to sit in the cafeteria all afternoon and play games with erasers on our heads.

But I was worried about Chiquita.”

The door opened again and Mama walked into the cabin, her skin covered with an eerie brown chalkiness, and her hair dusted, like the cat’s fur.

“Oh, Mama!”

“I am fine, mija,” she said, coughing.

Hortensia and Josefina followed and Isabel put her hands on her cheeks in worried surprise.

“You … you look like raccoons,” she said.

All of their faces had circles of pink around their eyes where they had squinted against the dust.

“The trucks could not find their way to the shed so all we could do was sit and wait,” said Hortensia.

“We hid behind some crates and buried our heads but it did not help much.”

Josefina took the babies next door and Mama and Hortensia began washing their arms in the sink, making muddy water.

Mama continued to cough.

“What about Alfonso and Juan and Miguel?” asked Esperanza.

“If the trucks could not get to us, they could not get to the fields.

We will have to wait,” said Hortensia, exchanging a worried look with Mama.

A few hours later, Juan, Alfonso, and Miguel arrived, their clothes stiff and brown, all of them coughing and clearing their throats every few minutes.

Their faces were so encrusted with dry dirt that they reminded Esperanza of cracked pottery.

They took turns rinsing in the sink, the pile of brown clothes growing in the basket.

When Esperanza looked outside, she could almost see the trees, but the dust was still thick in the air.

Mama had a coughing spasm and Hortensia tried to settle her with a glass of water.

When the adults all finally sat down at the table, Esperanza asked, “What happened with the strike?”

“There was no strike,” said Alfonso.

“We heard that they were all ready.

And that there were hundreds of them.

They had their signs.

But the storm hit.

The cotton is next to the ground and the fields are now buried in dirt and cannot be picked.

Tomorrow, they will have no jobs because of an act of God.”

“What will we do tomorrow?” asked Esperanza.

“The grapes are higher off the ground,” said Alfonso.

“The trunks of the vines are covered but the fruit was not affected.

The grapes are ready and cannot wait.

So mañana, we will go back to work.”

The next morning, the sky was blue and calm and the dust had left the air.

It had settled on the world, covering everything like a suede blanket.

Everyone who lived at the camp shook out the powdery soil, went back to work, and came home again, as if nothing had happened.

In a week, they finished cutting the grapes.

Then while they finished packing the grapes, they were already talking about preparing for potatoes.

The camp routine repeated itself like the regimented rows in the fields.

Very little seemed to change, thought Esperanza, except the needs of the earth.

And Mama.

Mama had changed.

Because after the storm, she never stopped coughing.

********

“Mama, you’re so pale!” said Esperanza.

Mama carefully walked into the cabin as if she were trying to keep her balance and slumped into a chair in the kitchen.

Hortensia was bustling behind her.

“I am going to make her chicken soup with lots of garlic.

She had to sit down at work today because she felt faint.

But it is no wonder because she is not eating.

Look at her, she has lost weight.

She has not been herself since that storm and that was a month ago.

I think she should go to the doctor.”

“Mama, listen to her,” pleaded Esperanza.

Mama looked at her weakly, “I am fine.

Just tired.

I’m not used to the work.

And I’ve told you, doctors are very expensive.”

“Irene and Melina are coming over after dinner to crochet,” said Esperanza.

She thought that would cheer Mama.

“You sit with them,” said Mama.

“I’m going to lie down until the soup is ready because I have a headache.

Then after dinner, I’ll go straight to bed and get a good rest.

I’ll be fine.”

She coughed, got up, and slowly walked from the room.

Hortensia looked at Esperanza, shaking her head.

A few hours later, Esperanza stood over Mama.

“Your soup is ready, Mama.”

But she didn’t move.

“Mama, dinner,” said Esperanza, reaching for her arm and gently shaking her.

Mama’s arm was burning, her cheeks were flushed red, and she wasn’t waking.

Esperanza felt panic squeezing her and she screamed, “Hortensia!”

********

The doctor came.

He was American, light and blond, but he spoke perfect Spanish.

“He looks very young to be a doctor,” said Hortensia.

“He has come to the camp before and people trust him,” said Irene.

“And there are not many doctors who will come out here.”

Alfonso, Juan, and Miguel sat on the front steps, waiting.

Isabel sat on the mattress, her eyes worried.

Esperanza could not sit still.

She paced near the bedroom door, trying to hear what was going on inside.

When the doctor finally came out, he looked grim.

He walked over to the table where all the women sat.

Esperanza followed him.

The doctor signaled for the men and waited until everyone was inside.

“She has Valley Fever.”

“What does that mean?” asked Esperanza.

“It’s a disease of the lungs that is caused by dust spores.

Sometimes, when people move to this area and aren’t used to the air here, the dust spores get into their lungs and cause an infection.”

“But we were all in the dust storm,” said Alfonso.

“When you live in this valley, everyone inhales the dust spores at one time or another.

Most of the time, the body can overcome the infection.

Some people will have no symptoms at all.

Some will feel like they have the flu for a few days.

And others, for whatever reason, cannot fight the infection and get very sick.”

“How sick?” asked Hortensia.

Esperanza sat down.

“She may have a fever on and off for weeks but you must try to keep it down.

She will cough and have headaches and joint aches.

She might get a rash.”

“Can we catch it from her?

The babies?” asked Josefina.

“No,” said the doctor.

“It isn’t contagious.

And the babies and young children have probably had a mild form of it already, without you even knowing.

Once the body fights off the infection, it doesn’t get it again.

For those who live here most of their lives, they are naturally immunized.

It is hardest on adults who move here and are not accustomed to the agricultural dust.”

“How long until she is well?” asked Esperanza.

The doctor’s face looked tired.

He ran his hand through his short blond hair.

“There are some medicines she can take, but even then, if she survives, it might take six months for her to get her full strength back.”

Esperanza felt Alfonso behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

She felt the blood drain from her face.

She wanted to tell the doctor that she could not lose Mama, too.

That she had already lost Papa and that Abuelita was too far away.

Her voice strangled with fear.

All she could do was whisper the doctor’s uncertain words, “If she survives.”

----------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER X. LAS PAPAS POTATOES

----------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------

Esperanza almost never left Mama’s side.

She sponged her with cool water and fed her teaspoons of broth throughout the day.

Miguel offered to take over the sweeping job for her, but Esperanza wouldn’t let him.

Irene and Melina arrived each morning, to check on Mama and to take the babies.

Alfonso and Juan put up extra layers of newspaper and cardboard in the bedroom to keep out the November chill and Isabel drew pictures to hang on the walls because she did not think the newspaper looked pretty enough for Mama.

The doctor came back a few weeks later with more medicine.

“She is not getting worse,” he said, shaking his head.

“But she is not getting better, either.”

Mama drifted in and out of fitful sleep and sometimes she called out for Abuelita.

Esperanza could barely sit still and often paced around the small room.

One morning, Mama said weakly, “Esperanza …”

Esperanza ran to her and took her hand.

“Abuelita’s blanket …” she whispered.

Esperanza pulled her valise from under the bed.

She had not opened it since before the dust storm and saw that the fine brown powder had even found its way deep inside.

As it had found its way into Mama’s lungs.

She lifted out the crocheting that Abuelita had started the night Papa died.

It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Had it only been a few months?

She stretched out the zigzag rows.

They reached from one side of Mama’s bed to the other, but were only a few hands wide, looking more like a long scarf than the beginnings of a blanket.

Esperanza could see Abuelita’s hairs woven in, so that all her love and good wishes would go with them forever.

She held the crocheting to her face and could still smell the smoke from the fire.

And the faintest scent of peppermint.

Esperanza looked at Mama, breathing uneasily, her eyes closed.

It was clear she needed Abuelita.

They both needed her.

But what was Esperanza to do?

She picked up Mama’s limp hand and kissed it.

Then she handed the strip of zigzag rows to Mama, who clutched it to her chest.

What had Abuelita told her when she’d given her the bundle of crocheting?

And then she remembered.

She had said, “Finish this for me, Esperanza … and promise me you’ll take care of Mama.”

After Mama fell asleep, Esperanza picked up the needlework and began where Abuelita had left off.

Ten stitches up to the top of the mountain.

Add one stitch.

Nine stitches down to the bottom of the valley, skip one.

Her fingers were more nimble now and her stitches were more even.

The mountains and valleys in the blanket were easy.

But as soon as she reached a mountain, she was headed back down into a valley again.

Would she ever escape this valley she was living in?

This valley of Mama being sick?

What else had Abuelita said?

After she had lived many mountains and valleys they would be together again.

She bent over her work, intent, and when her hair fell into her lap, she picked it up and wove it into the blanket.

She cried when she thought of the wishes that would go into the blanket forever.

Because she was wishing that Mama would not die.

The blanket grew longer.

And Mama grew more pale.

Women in the camp brought her extra skeins of yarn and Esperanza didn’t care that they didn’t match.

Each night when she went to bed, she put the growing blanket back over Mama, covering her in hopeful color.

Lately, it seemed Esperanza could not interest Mama in anything.

“Please, Mama,” she begged, “you must eat more soup.

Please Mama, you must drink more juice.

Mama, let me comb your hair.

It will make you feel better.”

But Mama was listless and Esperanza often found her weeping in silence.

It was as if after all her hard work in getting them there, her strong and determined mother had given up.

********

The fields frosted over and Mama began to have trouble breathing.

The doctor came again, with worse news.

“She should be in the hospital.

She’s very weak but more than that, she is depressed and needs nursing around the clock if she is to get stronger.

It is a county hospital so you would not have to pay, except for doctor bills and medicines.”

Esperanza shook her head no.

“The hospital is where people go to die.”

She began to cry.

Isabel ran to her crying, too.

Hortensia walked over and folded them both into her arms.

“No, no, she is going to the hospital to get better.”

Hortensia wrapped Mama in blankets and Alfonso drove them to Kern General Hospital in Bakersfield.

The nurses would let Esperanza stay with Mama only a few minutes.

And when Esperanza kissed her good-bye, Mama didn’t say a word, but just shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Riding home in the truck that evening, Esperanza stared straight into the alley of light made from the truck’s headlamps, feeling as if she were in a trance.

“Hortensia, what did the doctor mean when he said that Mama was depressed?”

“In only a few months, she has lost her husband, her home, her money.

And she is separated from her mother.

It is a lot of strain on her body to cope with so many emotions in such a short time.

Sometimes sadness and worry can make a person sicker.

Your mother was very strong through your father’s death and her journey here.

For you.

But when she got sick, everything became too much for her.

Think of how helpless she must feel.”

Hortensia took out her handkerchief and blew her nose, too upset to continue.

Esperanza felt like she had failed Mama in some way and wanted to make it up to her.

Mama had been strong for her.

Now it was her turn to be strong for Mama.

She must show her that she didn’t need to worry anymore.

But how?

“Abuelita.

I must write to Abuelita.”

Hortensia shook her head.

“I’m sure your uncles are still watching everything that goes in and out of the convent and probably the post office, too.

But maybe we can find someone going to Aguascalientes who can carry a letter.”

“I have to do something,” said Esperanza, holding back tears.

Hortensia put her arm around Esperanza.

“Don’t worry,” she said.

“The doctors and nurses know what she needs and we will take care of one another.”

Esperanza didn’t say what she really thought, that what Mama really needed was Abuelita.

Because if sadness was making Mama sicker, then maybe some happiness would make her better.

She just had to figure out a way to get her here.

When she got back to camp, she went behind the cabin to pray in front of the washtub grotto.

Someone had knit a shawl and draped it over Our Lady’s shoulders and the sweetness of the gesture made Esperanza cry.

“Please,” she said through her tears.

“I promised Abuelita I would take care of Mama.

Show me how I can help her.”

********

The next day, Esperanza pulled a heavy shawl around her shoulders and waited for Miguel to come home from the fields.

She paced in the area where the trucks unloaded, and wrapped the wool tighter against the early winter cold.

She had been thinking all day about what to do.

Ever since Mama had first become sick over a month ago, they had no money coming in.

The doctor’s bills and medicines had used up most of what they’d saved.

Now there were more bills.

Alfonso and Hortensia offered to help but they had done so much already and they did not have much to spare.

Besides, she could not accept their charity forever.

Abuelita’s ankle was probably healed by now, but if she hadn’t been able to get her money out of Tío Luis’s bank, then she would have no money with which to travel.

If Esperanza could somehow get money to Abuelita, then maybe she could come sooner.

When Miguel jumped off one of the trucks, she called to him.

“What have I done to deserve this honor, mi reina?” he said, smiling and walking toward her.

“Please, Miguel, no teasing.

I need help.

I need to work so I can bring Abuelita to Mama.”

He was quiet and Esperanza could tell he was thinking.

“But what could you do?

And who would take care of the babies?”

“I could work in the fields or in the sheds and Melina and Irene have already offered to watch Pepe and Lupe.”

“It’s only men in the fields right now, and you’re not old enough to work in the sheds.”

“I am tall.

I’ll wear my hair up.

They won’t know.”

“The problem is that it’s the wrong time of year.

They aren’t packing anything right now.

Not until asparagus in the spring.

My mother and Josefina are going to cut potato eyes for the next three weeks.

Maybe you can go with them?”

“But it is just three weeks,” said Esperanza.

“I need more work than that!”

“Anza, if you’re good at cutting potato eyes, they will hire you to tie grapes.

If you are good at tying grapes, they will hire you for asparagus.

That’s how it works.

If you’re good at one thing, then they hire you for another.”

She nodded.

“Can you tell me one more thing, Miguel?”

“Claro.

Certainly.”

“What are potato eyes?”

********

Esperanza huddled with Josefina, Hortensia, and a small group of women waiting for the morning truck to take them to the sheds.

A thick tule ground fog that hugged the earth settled in the valley, surrounding them, as if they stood within a deep gray cloud.

There was no wind, only silence and penetrating cold.

Esperanza bundled in all the clothing that she could put on, old wool pants, a sweater, a ragged jacket, a wool cap, and thick gloves over thin gloves, all borrowed from friends in the camp.

Hortensia had shown her how to heat a brick in the oven and bundle it in newspaper, and she hugged it to her body to keep warm as they rode on the truck.

Since the driver could only see a few yards ahead, the truck rumbled slowly on the dirt roads.

They passed miles of naked grapevines, stripped of their harvest and bereft of their leaves.

Fading into the mist, the brown and twisted trunks looked frigid and lonely.

The truck stopped at the big packing shed.

It was really one long building with different open-air sections, as long as six train cars.

The railroad tracks ran along one side, and docks for trucks ran along the other.

Esperanza had heard Mama and the others talk about the sheds.

How they were busy with people; women standing at long tables, packing the fruit; trucks coming and going with their loads fresh from the fields; and workers stocking the train cars that would later be hooked to a locomotive to take the fruit all over the United States.

But cutting potato eyes was different.

Since nothing was being packed, there wasn’t the usual activity.

Only twenty or so women gathered in the cavernous shed, sitting in a circle on upturned crates, protected from the wind by only a few stacks of empty boxes.

The Mexican supervisor took their names.

With all the clothing they were wearing, he barely looked at their faces.

Josefina had told Esperanza that if she was a good worker, the bosses would not concern themselves with her age, so she knew she would have to work hard.

Esperanza copied everything that Hortensia and Josefina did.

When the women put the hot bricks between their feet to keep them warm while they worked, so did she.

When they took off their outer gloves and worked in thin cotton ones, she did the same.

Everyone had a metal bin sitting behind them.

The field-workers brought cold potatoes and filled up their bins.

Hortensia took a potato and then, with a sharp knife, she cut it into chunks around the dimples.

She tapped her knife on one of the dimples.

“That is an eye,” she whispered to Esperanza.

“Leave two eyes in every piece so there will be two chances for it to take root.”

Then she dropped the chunks into a burlap sack.

When the sack was full, the field-workers took it away.

“Where do they take them?” she asked Hortensia.

“To the fields.

They plant the eye pieces and then the potatoes grow.”

Esperanza picked up a knife.

Now she knew where potatoes came from.

The women began chatting.

Some knew each other from camp.

And one of them was Marta’s aunt.

“Is there any more talk of striking?” asked Josefina.

“Things are quiet now, but they are still organizing,” said Marta’s aunt.

“There is talk of striking in the spring when it is time to pick.

We are afraid there will be problems.

If they refuse to work, they will lose their cabins in the migrant camps.

And then where will they live?

Or worse, they will all be sent back to Mexico.”

“How can they send all of them back?” asked Hortensia.

“Repatriation,” said Marta’s aunt.

“La Migra — the immigration authorities — round up people who cause problems and check their papers.

If they are not in order, or if they do not happen to have their papers with them, the immigration officials send them back to Mexico.

We have heard that they have sent people whose families have lived here for generations, those who are citizens and have never even been to Mexico.”

Esperanza remembered the train at the border and the people being herded on to it.

She had been thankful for the papers that Abuelita’s sisters had arranged.

Marta’s aunt said, “There is also some talk about harming Mexicans who continue to work.”

The other women sitting around the circle pretended to concentrate on their potatoes, but Esperanza noticed worried glances and raised eyebrows.

Then Hortensia cleared her throat and said, “Are you saying that if we continue to work during the spring, your niece and her friends might harm us?”

“We are praying that does not happen.

My husband says we will not join them.

We have too many mouths to feed.

And he has told Marta she cannot stay with us.

We can’t risk being asked to leave the camp or losing our jobs because of our niece.”

Heads nodded in sympathy and the circle was silent, except for the sounds of the knives cutting the crisp potatoes.

“Is anyone going to Mexico for La Navidad?” asked another woman, wisely changing the subject.

Esperanza kept cutting the potato eyes but listened carefully, hoping someone would be going to Aguascalientes for Christmas.

But no one seemed to be traveling anywhere near there.

A worker refilled Esperanza’s metal bin with another load of cold potatoes.

The rumbling noise brought her thoughts back to what Marta’s aunt had said.

If it was true that the strikers would threaten people who kept working, they might try and stop her, too.

Esperanza thought of Mama in the hospital and Abuelita in Mexico and how much depended on her being able to work.

If she was lucky enough to have a job in the spring, no one was going to get in her way.

********

A few nights before Christmas, Esperanza helped Isabel make a yarn doll for Silvia while the others went to a camp meeting.

Ever since Esperanza had taught Isabel how to make the dolls, it seemed there was a new one born each day, and monas of every color now sat in a line on their pillows.

“Silvia will be so surprised,” said Isabel.

“She has never had a doll before.”

“We’ll make some clothes for it, too,” said Esperanza.

“What was Christmas like at El Rancho de las Rosas?”

Isabel never tired of Esperanza’s stories about her previous life.

Esperanza stared up at the ceiling, searching her memories.

“Mama decorated with Advent wreaths and candles.

Papa set up the nativity on a bed of moss in the front hall.

And Hortensia cooked for days.

There were empanadas filled with meat and sweet raisin tamales.

You would have loved how Abuelita decorated her gifts.

She used dried grapevines and flowers, instead of ribbons.

On Christmas Eve, the house was always filled with laughter and people calling out, ‘Feliz Navidad.’

Later, we went to the catedral and sat with hundreds of people and held candles during midnight mass.

Then we came home in the middle of the night, still smelling of incense from the church, and drank warm atole de chocolate, and opened our gifts.”

Isabel sucked in her breath and gushed, “What kind of gifts?”

“I … I can’t remember,” said Esperanza, braiding the yarn doll’s legs.

“All I remember is being happy.”

Then she looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.

One of the table legs was uneven and had to be propped by a piece of wood so it wouldn’t wiggle.

The walls were patched and peeling.

The floor was wood plank and splintery and no matter how much she swept, it never looked clean.

The dishes were chipped and the blankets frayed and no amount of beating could remove their musty smell.

Her other life seemed like a story she had read in a book a long time ago, un cuento de hadas, a fairy tale.

She could see the illustrations in her mind: the Sierra Madre, El Rancho de las Rosas, and a carefree young girl running through the vineyard.

But now, sitting in this cabin, the story seemed as if it were about some other girl, someone Esperanza didn’t know anymore.

“What do you want for Christmas this year?” asked Isabel.

“I want Mama to get well.

I want more work.

And …” She stared at her hands and took a deep breath.

After three weeks of potato eyes, they were dried and cracked from the starch that had soaked through her gloves.

“… I want soft hands.

What do you want, Isabel?”

Isabel looked at her with her big doe eyes and said, “That’s easy.

I want anything!”

Esperanza nodded and smiled.

Admiring the completed doll, she handed it to Isabel, whose eyes, as usual, were excited.

They went to bed, Isabel in her cot, and Esperanza in the bed that she and Mama had slept in.

She turned toward the wall, yearning for the holidays of her past, and repeated what was becoming a nightly ritual of silent tears.

She didn’t think anyone ever knew that she cried herself to sleep, until she felt Isabel patting her back.

“Esperanza, don’t cry again.

We will sleep with you, if you want.”

We?

She turned toward Isabel, who was holding the family of yarn dolls.

Esperanza couldn’t help but smile and lift the covers.

Isabel slid in beside her, arranging the dolls between them.

Esperanza stared into the dark.

Isabel had nothing, but she also had everything.

Esperanza wanted what she had.

She wanted so few worries that something as simple as a yarn doll would make her happy.

********

On Christmas Day Esperanza walked up the front steps of the hospital while Alfonso waited in the truck.

A couple passed her carrying gifts wrapped in shiny paper.

A woman hurried by, carrying a poinsettia plant and wearing a beautiful red wool coat with a rhinestone Christmas tree pinned to the lapel.

Esperanza’s eyes riveted on the coat and the jewelry.

She wished she could give Mama a warm red coat and a pin that sparkled.

She thought of the gift she had in her pocket.

It was nothing more than a small smooth stone that she had found in the fields while weeding potatoes.

The doctor had moved Mama to a ward for people with long-term illnesses.

There were only four other people on the floor and the patients were spread out, their occupied beds scattered among the rows of bare mattresses in the long room.

Mama slept and didn’t wake even to say hello.

Nevertheless, Esperanza sat next to her, crocheted a few rows on the blanket and told Mama about the sheds and Isabel and the strikers.

She told her that Lupe and Pepe could almost walk now.

And that Miguel thought that Papa’s roses showed signs of growth.

Mama didn’t wake to say good-bye either.

Esperanza tucked the blanket around her, hoping that the color from the blanket would slowly seep into Mama’s cheeks.

She put the stone on the night table and kissed Mama good-bye.

“Don’t worry.

I will take care of everything.

I will be la patrona for the family now.”