LA MORENITA, Chapter 30

Ignacio Villanueva couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know how to read. He thought that, although he probably had begun to develop this skill somewhere between his second and third years, his earliest memory of reading consisted of single word messages in English and Spanish; Stop, Alta, Trash, Basura. Soon afterwards came short phrases: No Smoking, No Se Fumar, Don’t Walk, No Andar. Not much time passed between this activity and his reading of bilingual handbills about ladder safety and handling pesticides posted next to the patron’s tool shed. If Ignacio had been born of middle class parents in California instead of Mexican farm workers, he might have been given an intelligence test and, upon registering a score commensurate with his I.Q., he might have been hailed as a genius or a prodigy, although
his brothers and sisters didn’t see much value in his precocious ability to speak and read two languages. To them, he was a lazy daydreamer. Yet, one day, when Ignacio was five, their father announced to the family that Ignacio would go to the local mission school while the rest of the family worked in the fields.
The priests at the mission school thought that Ignacio’s being allowed to matriculate there was a gift from God. They had been praying about a religious leader who could rise from the ranks of the people who toiled in the various orchards and farms nearby. They were amazed by his facility in reading and writing—not only English and Spanish, but Latin as well. Surely, they reasoned, he was destined to become a Catholic scholar and lead his people. To keep him from getting bored, they accelerated his lessons. By the time he was eight, he was doing eighth grade work.
When Ignacio was eleven, his father developed a middle ear infection that made him so dizzy he couldn’t stand up. A curandera was called in to conduct a healing ceremony that included the inhaling of special herbs and praying to the santos, but her blessings and special herbs had no immediate effect.
Three days later, Ignacio’s mother was desperate. “Dios mio!” she said, making the Sign of the Cross. “We need the money. What can we do?”
“Take the boy out of school tomorrow,” Ignacio’s father ordered. “He can work in the fields until I get better.”
That night, Ignacio’s mother gathered her six children and made them kneel next to their mattresses on the dirt floor of their hut while she prayed for a milagro. Then she turned off the lantern, which was their signal to lie down and sleep. But Ignacio wasn’t tired. He grabbed a
book of English poetry, took the lantern, struck a match, and relit it.
“Put that light out,” his father ordered.
“But I need to read my assignment for school tomorrow,” Ignacio said.
“No you don’t,” his father said. “Tomorrow you work in the fields.”
“But what about school?” Ignacio asked.
“School will still be there. After I get well, you can go back.”
Ignacio shut off the lantern and put his book away, but he didn’t lie down. He spent most of the night brooding.
Before three the next morning, everyone except Ignacio’s father got up, bustled about and got ready for work. Ignacio was up, too, scrambling to get ready and trying to figure out where to
hide a paperback copy of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations that a priest had given him. For lack of any better place, he shoved it into his back pocket.
When everyone was ready, Ignacio’s mother prayed the rosary while they all knelt quietly on the dirt floor. Leaning heavily on the wall next to his mattress, Ignacio’s father struggled to inch his way up to his feet. Less than halfway up, he fell back on his mattress. “Mira,” he said.
“Show Ignacio how to do the work. And tomorrow, if I can stand up without falling, I will go myself, and he can go back to school.”
“But how will you be able to do that?” Ignacio’s mother asked.
“The work of the curandera may not be fast,” he said, “but it will be sure. I will get better.” Everyone present made the Sign of the Cross.
Quietly, they ate tortillas, beans, and rice. Miguel and Lupita—the two older children—drank coffee while David, Benjamin, Carlos and Ignacio drank tepid orange juice. Miguel, the second oldest, passed out stale candy bars. When he got to Ignacio, Ignacio refused his.
“Go ahead, hermanito,” Miguel said. “You’ll need it for energy.”
“I’ll be all right,” Ignacio said.
Miquel shrugged and put the candy bar back into his pack.
“What’s that in your back pocket?” Ignacio’s mother asked.
Ignacio said nothing.
“Leave that book here,” she said. “You might lose it. Besides, you won’t have time to read no books.”
“I won’t lose it,” Ignacio insisted. “I brought it along so I can read it while I eat lunch. That way, I won’t be so far behind when I get back to school.”
Ignacio’s parents exchanged glances. His father shrugged.
“All right,” his mother said. “But I don’t want to hear any complaining when you lose it.”
When they got to the farm, the other workers were gathering in swarms, waiting for the trucks to take them to the fields. Jose, the straw boss—a tall, slender man whose face was cracked and shiny like old leather—came up to Ignacio’s mother. “How is your husband today?” he asked.
“He still can’t stand up,” she said. “But when he can, he’ll be out here first thing.”
“I know he will,” the straw boss said. “But you need to step up your production. Last week after he got sick, you all picked a lot less asparagus. We’ve got whole families waiting for a job that can pick more than your family. The only reason I’m not giving them a chance is
because your husband is such a good worker.”
“I know,” Ignacio’s mother said, making the Sign of the Cross. “We will make it all up to you when he comes back. I brought my other son today. The one who usually goes to school.”
“Let’s hope your schoolboy is the miracle you need.”
Ignacio and his family climbed onto the bed of a stake truck along with several other workers. Fifteen minutes later, the truck was negotiating a road that bisected a large field of asparagus. “Damned asparagus!” Miguel complained. “I hate this stuff more than anything!”
Lupita, the oldest, disagreed. “It’s all the same to me,” she said. “Asparagus now, apples later. Between my back aching from all that stooping and the pain in my arms and shoulders from all that reaching, I don’t know which is worse.”
Ignacio’s mother chuckled. “You think it hurts now, m’ija? Just wait till you get older.”
Ignacio heard none of this conversation. Using a small flashlight he had stolen from the mission school, he was reading about a boy named Pip, who had just run into an escaped convict in a church graveyard.
The truck came to a stop. The workers jumped off like deploying soldiers and got into single file in front of the tool shed. Ignacio would have been the last one off the truck if Miquel and Lupita hadn’t grabbed him under his arms and hoisted him out with them. Two older men in straw hats stood in front of the shed, passing out large cloth bags and tools to cut the asparagus stalks from their roots. Lupita explained to Ignacio that the cut asparagus was to be kept in the bag. The line moved rapidly as each worker grabbed a bag, flung the bag’s strap over one shoulder, grabbed a long-handled cutting tool that lay on a bench nearby, and took off for the
fields. Ignacio was hoping they would run out of bags and tools by the time they got to him. No such luck. The bag thrown at him was so big it almost knocked him over. He caught it, snarled himself in it, and almost fell. His brother and sister unsnarled him, threw the strap over his head, pulled the rest of the bag down over his shoulder and jerked his arm through the space between the top of the bag and the strap. At the same time, Lupita shoved an asparagus cutting tool into Ignacio’s hand. Immediately, Ignacio turned and jumped into the scrum of workers getting ready to pick, the bag trailing behind him like a shadow.
Miquel and Lupita caught their bags and grabbed their cutting tools. When they looked around, Ignacio was nowhere in sight. “Where did he go?” Lupita asked.
“There’s no time to look,” Miquel said. “He probably went down to the out-house. We’ll run into him later.”
On the other side of the scrum, Ignacio ran down the embankment toward the out-house, where he crouched and waited for the other workers to go out into the fields and the two old men to shut up the shed and leave. He tried to read by the out-house, but the stench distracted him. When he saw everyone was gone, he came up to the shed and sat down with his back against it. He took out his flashlight and book and began reading.
Shortly after sunrise, Ignacio’s mother spotted Miguel and Lupita cutting asparagus in rows next to each other. She yelled across. “How is Ignacio doing?”
“We don’t know!” Lupita yelled. “We haven’t seen him since they passed out the bags.”
Ignacio’s mother finished her row and went looking for Ignacio. She searched the area around the shed first. As she rounded the first corner, she spotted him.
Ignacio did not hear her coming. He was too engrossed in reading about Pip’s first encounter with a bitter, veiled crone named Miss Havisham and her beautiful, emotionless daughter, Estella. His concentration was broken when he heard his mother say, “What are you doing?” Before he could answer, she snatched the book from his grasp and pitched it into the irrigation canal. Ignacio turned and watched helplessly as it slowly capsized in the smoothly flowing water. “Follow me,” she said, grabbing his arm roughly. She took him to the row in which Miguel was cutting asparagus. She handed Ignacio and his asparagus cutting tool to Miguel. “Teach him!” she barked.
Miguel guided Ignacio through the process of cutting asparagus. “Come on,” he said. “This isn’t hard. I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
“I’m smart with books, not tools,” Ignacio replied. He stooped, cut, and bagged for an hour. “Am I doing all right now?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine,” Miguel said. “Now go find a row of your own.”
Ignacio walked away, searching not for a fresh row of asparagus, but for a place to hide. He crossed the field and went down the embankment to the irrigation ditch. In the tall grass next to the water, he lay down and tried to imagine what his lessons in school would have been for that day. Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.
Several hours passed before anyone found him. One of the older men, who had come down to urinate next to the ditch, almost sprayed him. “You all right, muchacho?” he asked when he woke Ignacio. “You ain’t sick or nothing, are you?” Ignacio shook his head. The man grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to his feet. “Well, if you ain’t gonna cut no asparagus, turn
in your bag and go home.”
The old man grabbed Ignacio by the arm and marched him over to where Jose, the straw boss, was standing and explained the situation. Jose took off his straw hat and studied Ignacio while he wiping his forehead with his red bandana. He put his hat back on and called for Ignacio’s mother. “Is this one yours?” he asked.
Embarrassed, she looked down at the ground and nodded.
The straw boss grabbed the strap of Ignacio’s bag and yanked it from his shoulder. The bag contained only twenty pounds of asparagus. “We can’t have this, señora. There are too many families out there looking for work. Families that need the money worse than you even. Not only is this muchacho not doing his own work, but he is slowing down the rest of you.”
Ignacio’s mother grabbed Ignacio by the back of his collar and pulled him out into the field. “Cut!” she demanded. “You stay in this row, and cut! Put your asparagus in my bag.”
Ignacio made a desultory attempt to slice through a stalk. His mother took both of her strong, brown hands, grabbed the front of his collar and shook him. “What is that you just did?” she demanded. “Is your back broken? Bend! Bend and cut the asparagus!” Ignacio bent and cut. “No!” she said. “Not like that. Lower to the ground! Don’t be such a baby!” Ignacio cut lower. “That’s the way!” she shouted. “Like that!”
They worked all day and another two hours past sunset. When the trucks came, Ignacio was grateful. For the last three hours, he had felt a burning sensation shooting through his lower back and legs like flames.
When they got back to the hut, Ignacio’s father had the lantern lit. The lantern, which he placed on the floor, threw ghostly shadows on the walls of the hut as Ignacio’s mother told his father what Ignacio had done.
Ignacio’s father crawled up against the wall. Using the wall, he placed his back against it and hoisted himself up. When he got into a full sitting position, he motioned for Ignacio to sit beside him. “Do you know why I send you to school, m’ijo?” he asked.
Ignacio didn’t say anything while he watched the light from the lantern dance across his father’s face. Then he answered. “I’m smart?”
“You brothers and sisters are smart, too, m’ijo. In different ways from you.”
Ignacio nodded.
“Listen, m’ijo. When I was a young man and I had just met your mother, I went to see a powerful mujer who could see into the future. Do you know what she told me?”
Ignacio shook his head.
“She said I should marry this wonderful woman, your mother. She said if I married her, my life would be better. Was she wrong?”
Ignacio didn’t know what to say. He kept looking at his father.
“She told me this woman would bless me in many different ways, and we would have lots of children together. And all the children would be healthy and smart. Was she wrong?”
Ignacio chose not to speak.
“She said one of them would be smarter than all the others when it came to books and reading. Was she wrong?”
Ignacio looked down at the floor. Afer a pause, he said, “No, father.”
“This fortuneteller told me to send this child to the mission school. So he could get an education and help many people during his lifetime. Was she wrong, m’ijo? Was she wrong about you?”
Ignacio kept staring at the floor. “No, father,” he repeated.
Ignacio’s father took Ignacio’s chin in his hand and turned the boy’s face to him. “Right now, Ignacio, we have a little problem. I cannot work again until I can stand up without falling over. When I can do that, I’ll go back to the fields, and you can go back to school. Entiendes?”
Ignacio nodded.
“So, if you want to go back to school, you will have to work in the fields as hard as you can until I get back. Do you see?”
“I see, father,” Ignacio said.
“Do you promise to do that?”
“I promise.”
Just then, Lupita handed Ignacio a metal pie pan with beans and tortillas on it. “Here,” she said. “Eat. Although you don’t deserve it.”
The next morning, Ignacio was out of bed before any of his brothers and sisters. He grabbed a thin volume of poetry from under his mattress and stuffed it into his back pocket. Just for breaks and lunchtime, he told himself.
When the family got to the farm, he was the first person to get on the truck. He was among the first to get off and grab a bag and cutting tool. He ran out to the field, beating even Miguel and Lupita to the asparagus. Before the sun came up, he had cut and captured a considerable amount of asparagus in his big floppy bag. He was a boy possessed, savagely
attacking the asparagus with a warrior’s resolve while the rising sun appeared as a sliver of molten gold above the horizon. After the sun’s golden globe rose higher in the sky, Ignacio stopped cutting and wiped his sweating face with his bandana. He looked down at his asparagus bag. It contained enough stalks to make him uncomfortable lugging it around. He dragged it over to where Miguel was cutting.
Miguel looked down at Ignacio’s bag and grinned. “Good work, hermanito!”
“Can I dump these into your bag?” Ignacio asked.
“What do you want to do that for?” Miguel said.
“This is getting too heavy, and I have to run down to the toilets. When I come back, I can start all over again.”
Miguel hoisted Ignacio’s bag and emptied it into his own. Ignacio took the empty bag and ran to the out-house on the other side of the embankment. When he was through, he ran down to the irrigation ditch. He realized he shouldn’t have stopped working. It made him conscious of how tired he was. He sat down and took the poetry book out of his pocket. He read aloud, “I caught this morning morning’s minion.” Suddenly, he felt someone grab his shoulder.
He looked up. It was Jose.
“What are you doing, muchacho?” Jose said.
Ignacio wanted to say he just got here. That he already cut so much asparagus that he couldn’t carry his bag around. But he looked at his empty bag and knew that, if he said this, Jose would not believe him. Sheepishly, he stood up and stuffed the poetry book into his back pocket.
“Follow me,” Jose said.
He followed Jose until they both stopped in front of Ignacio’s mother. She was busy cutting, but she could feel their presence. Without interrupting her cutting, she glanced up. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I found this one reading a book down by the irrigation ditch,” Jose said. “His bag didn’t have a single stalk of asparagus in it.”
Ignacio’s mother stopped cutting and fixed him with an angry look. “You promised your father you were going to do better,” she said.
Ignacio looked at his feet.
“I can’t have him out there doing nothing,” Jose said. “In fact, when he does nothing, then you and your other children have to get involved, and that cuts down on the amount of asparagus all of you can pick. I don’t ever want to see this muchacho in these fields again. I can’t afford it, and neither can you.”
“What about the rest of the day?” Ignacio’s mother asked. “Can’t he stay and cut for the rest of the day?”
Jose shook his head. “You know he’s not going to do that. You might as well let him sit down by the irrigation ditch and watch the water run by. I don’t want him up here setting a bad example for the other children.”
Ignacio relinquished his bag and cutting tool and walked slowly to the irrigation ditch. When he got there, he sat down and stared off into space. After a while, he took out his poetry book and read:
“No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?”