currency when it came to getting him free drinks and a little food. And, during the glory of her childhood, when she became aware of just how thickly and deliberately sunlight moved across a field, and just the scent of flowers sent her to heaven, there was no escaping the fact that, in a valle with lots of other Marías, and pretty ones at that, she and her younger sister, Teresita, for whom she would have cut off her right hand, surely stood out.
She was so pretty that whenever she was spotted from the fields tending to her chores in their yard—feeding their livestock from pails of slop mainly—even the most exhausted of those guajiro farmers, faces gnarled, bodies thin as bone, their skin leathery from the sun, would halt their oxen and call out to her, “Oye, princesa!”— “Hello, princess!”—or “Hola,mi vida!” —“Hey there, my life!” all in the effort to get her attention, as if for the first time, even if she had been tagging along with their plows and oxen for as long as she could remember. Well, things had just changed, that’s all. First had come the blood, then the bloating, the terrible lecture about becoming filthy and having to wear a rag so she wouldn’t drip blood everywhere. Then her body had filled out. It had seemed to take only a few months. Her angelic girl’s figure, turning so voluptuous that Concha, fearful a drunkard might try to take advantage of her one night, made María wear a homemade corset tight around her chest, but, with María hating the thing, that lasted only a while, proving too painful and impractical for her to endure.
In those days, a toothless old guajiro, Macedonio, who slurped through his every saliva-driven utterance, once told her, “Looking at you, I can remember when I could chew.” And when she, Teresa, and her papito went to the nearest town, San Jacinto, some ten miles away, to bring their livestock to market, María suddenly found herself being followed by one or another of the brasher young men, fellows who whistled after her, promised to buy her an ice cream cone if she would only tell them her name, and who, while her papito negotiated with a butcher, asked her out to see a movie in that town’s little theater, El Chaplin. If she refused them all, or hardly seemed to care about hurting anyone’s feelings, it was because María tried to forget about her own bodily changes: which is to say that she didn’t want to let her childhood go.
They had no schools—not a single one of those guajiros being educated—and their papito just didn’t think it worthwhile to make the two-hour journey back and forth each day to town just so that his daughters might learn to read and write. The best things for them to acquire would be more practical skills—like cooking, skinning animals, and sewing—just what a husband would want. Besides, they had enough work to keep them busy. With one day much like the next, once they finished looking after their livestock—so many pigs, chickens, and randy goats (who stank to high heaven)—María and Teresita, smelling of animals and dung, and with feather remnants in their hair, would make their way down throughthe woods behind their house, along a twisting path, enormous trees swallowing the light, to a gully and waterfall where rainbows often appeared in the mists. They were so happy then, for everything around them was so beautiful: the lianas and birds of paradise grew densely in that jungla, the fecundity of its earth sending up an endless variety of blossoms, all manner of starflowers and wild orchids sprouting alongside bottle palms, whose thorny fronds cascaded to the ground in clusters, hooded violets dangling like bells off vines around them. (The variety was endless: crimson begonias, red-bulbed flor de euphorbias, flor de majagua, purple jacarandas, hibiscus, radiantes, and tiny violets, as well as other peculiarly named blossoms—scratch bellies, burst horses, and chicken-dung blooms, not a one deserving
She was so pretty that whenever she was spotted from the fields tending to her chores in their yard—feeding their livestock from pails of slop mainly—even the most exhausted of those guajiro farmers, faces gnarled, bodies thin as bone, their skin leathery from the sun, would halt their oxen and call out to her, “Oye, princesa!”— “Hello, princess!”—or “Hola,mi vida!” —“Hey there, my life!” all in the effort to get her attention, as if for the first time, even if she had been tagging along with their plows and oxen for as long as she could remember. Well, things had just changed, that’s all. First had come the blood, then the bloating, the terrible lecture about becoming filthy and having to wear a rag so she wouldn’t drip blood everywhere. Then her body had filled out. It had seemed to take only a few months. Her angelic girl’s figure, turning so voluptuous that Concha, fearful a drunkard might try to take advantage of her one night, made María wear a homemade corset tight around her chest, but, with María hating the thing, that lasted only a while, proving too painful and impractical for her to endure.
In those days, a toothless old guajiro, Macedonio, who slurped through his every saliva-driven utterance, once told her, “Looking at you, I can remember when I could chew.” And when she, Teresa, and her papito went to the nearest town, San Jacinto, some ten miles away, to bring their livestock to market, María suddenly found herself being followed by one or another of the brasher young men, fellows who whistled after her, promised to buy her an ice cream cone if she would only tell them her name, and who, while her papito negotiated with a butcher, asked her out to see a movie in that town’s little theater, El Chaplin. If she refused them all, or hardly seemed to care about hurting anyone’s feelings, it was because María tried to forget about her own bodily changes: which is to say that she didn’t want to let her childhood go.
They had no schools—not a single one of those guajiros being educated—and their papito just didn’t think it worthwhile to make the two-hour journey back and forth each day to town just so that his daughters might learn to read and write. The best things for them to acquire would be more practical skills—like cooking, skinning animals, and sewing—just what a husband would want. Besides, they had enough work to keep them busy. With one day much like the next, once they finished looking after their livestock—so many pigs, chickens, and randy goats (who stank to high heaven)—María and Teresita, smelling of animals and dung, and with feather remnants in their hair, would make their way down throughthe woods behind their house, along a twisting path, enormous trees swallowing the light, to a gully and waterfall where rainbows often appeared in the mists. They were so happy then, for everything around them was so beautiful: the lianas and birds of paradise grew densely in that jungla, the fecundity of its earth sending up an endless variety of blossoms, all manner of starflowers and wild orchids sprouting alongside bottle palms, whose thorny fronds cascaded to the ground in clusters, hooded violets dangling like bells off vines around them. (The variety was endless: crimson begonias, red-bulbed flor de euphorbias, flor de majagua, purple jacarandas, hibiscus, radiantes, and tiny violets, as well as other peculiarly named blossoms—scratch bellies, burst horses, and chicken-dung blooms, not a one deserving
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