The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind (4 page)

“They never come back the same,” she said quietly.

“Blanca —” Tía Neli began.

“You know it’s true, Neli. I am not a modern woman like you, but I’m not a stupid one, either. The young go places we can hardly imagine, but they come back with new words in their mouths and new ways in their hearts. They learn to look at their own parents with shame. Suddenly Tres Montes is too slow for them, too small, too dusty and poor. They hate to come home, and then, one day, they forget their own families altogether. We lose them forever.”

A long silence fell on the Ocampos. Even Tía Neli sighed, lost in thoughts of whether Pedro would wrap her legs in warm blankets one day when she got old.

It was Rafael who rescued them. He forced a smile over his sad eyes and clapped his hands twice.

“
¡Vamos!
We’ve had enough wakes,” he chided. “It’s time to be happy again. I say, Abuela is right. If Sonia has the chance to work in the capital, she should go and not look back.” He turned to his sister and winked. “Just make sure you come back with lots of money, Sonia. I could use a new truck.”

“Finally! Someone has good sense!” Tía Neli patted her lips with a napkin and took Felix’s hand. “I will arrange to see Arenas in a few days. He’s hiring the last round of workers for the season next week. She’ll make you proud. You’ll see.”

“I am already proud,” Felix muttered. Then he looked at his wife and did the unthinkable. “
Bueno,
Blanca. You nursed her yourself. What do we do with the girl?”

Sonia squirmed in her chair as her mother turned back to look at her.

Then Blanca lowered her eyes and spoke loudly enough for Felix to hear. Her words rang out like a proclamation, though tears were already pooled in her eyes.

“Tell Abuela to be still in her grave. There is no stopping a girl born stronger than the wind. Let Sonia go.”

S
ONIA GLANCED DOWN
at her feet as she trudged down the steep incline toward the plaza below. She had been traveling down the hillside for only a short time, but her boots were already consumed in the yellow dust that would hover in Tres Montes for the duration of the dry season. The thin powder floated in the air and made everything look faded. Even the girls walking just ahead of her looked like floating spirits.

In the weak morning sunlight, and still so far away, the plaza looked deserted. The main street was long and narrow, lined with flat-topped stucco buildings and windows dressed in rusty iron bars. Their large hand-painted letters marked each establishment.
FARMACIA, POLICÍA, REGISTRO CIVIL.
From there, small winding roads spread out haphazardly and ended at the church ruins. Sonia looked away, hoping that today might be her chance to leave it all behind.

She felt in her pocket for her birth registration, her money, and her handkerchief; everything was in order. For now, it was only her boots that were the problem. She would have to make them shine like glass before they met Señor Arenas. Tía Neli, who had assigned herself chaperone, would insist. After all, she had made it clear how important it was to make a good impression.

“To serve a fine family in a big city, you must be impeccable in your appearance and manners,” her aunt had told her. “One has to be a person who cares about the smallest details.” Even silly ones, Sonia assumed, like dusty boots.

As the girls finally reached the valley, they rushed to get the taxi drivers’ attention, negotiating for a proper price. Tía Neli surveyed the confusion calmly.

“You!” She snapped her fingers at the back of a young man with a bike taxi at the edge of the highway. He tossed away his drink, beamed a smile, and pedaled toward them.

To Sonia’s surprise, it was Pancho Muñoz, from school. She lowered her shawl to greet him, her heart already racing.

“What luck that it’s you,” she said politely over the squeaks of his rusty wheels. He had only recently begun his job, but already Pancho looked like the other taxi boys. He seemed taller in the pressed blue shirt of a taxi apprentice, much older than he did in his worn cotton shirts and bare feet during the week at school, when he was nothing more than Pancho the Orphan about whom the other girls snickered. He was too formal when he spoke, they said, too given to daydreams. But Sonia liked him for all of those qualities. Now, in the sunshine, he looked especially handsome.

Pancho tipped his cap, blushing. “We’ve missed you at school, Sonia. I hope you’re feeling better.”

Sonia went mute in his gaze. For one thing, he had sweet brown eyes. But there was also no explanation she could give for avoiding everyone. The wind gusted sharply again, and Tía Neli nudged her forward. “We’ll be late,” she announced.

Pancho offered Sonia his hand and cast an appreciative glance at her legs as she climbed onto the bench.

Tía Neli frowned at him and settled in beside her niece.

“To the plaza,
por favor.
” She leaned in to Sonia, who was already at work on her boots. “I’ll do the talking from here.”

The office was small and hot. Girls waiting for interviews filled every seat in the hallway. Sonia wiped the perspiration from her lip and peered over her aunt’s shoulder as they read the job listings provided.

Today Señor Arenas was hiring for several employers. A glass factory in the west was looking for steady-handed workers and a citrus farm to the south wanted workers who didn’t whine about red ants or scorching heat. A few nannies were needed to tend to the imperial children of dignitaries. But Tía Neli pointed at the last entry. It was only two words: Casa Masón. “That’s the one,” she whispered. “Wait here.”

She walked over to the young secretary toiling behind an old desk. “How many are needed at Casa Masón?” she asked.

The secretary stopped typing and looked up crossly over the top of her glasses. She opened a coffee-stained folder and glanced at the last page.

“Four in total for the widow,” she said primly. “But don’t get your hopes up,
señora.
We take only experienced girls for such a position.” She tossed Sonia a dubious glance. “Our client is very clear on that point.”

Tía Neli walked back to her seat and patted Sonía’s hand.

“Change that face,
niña,
” she said firmly. “You’ll be fine. It’s all in how you handle these silly men.”

“How do I know she’ll be any good?” Señor Arenas asked as he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his protruding belly. He scrutinized Sonia as a rancher might eye one of his herd. “She looks a bit scrawny. I’ve got fifty other girls to chose from who are meatier and experienced.” Sonia knew it was true. As always there were more girls than he could possibly hire — a tidy situation for a businessman with the only legal employment agency for a hundred miles.

Tía Neli smiled and waved her hand in the air as if shooing a pesky fly.

“You have fifty very ordinary girls,
señor.
What I’m offering you is an
extraordinary
one.”

Sonia nudged Tía Neli with her heel, hoping to silence her discretely. She longed to be ordinary, nothing more. Sonia tried her best to smile and ignore the perspiration running down her back.

Señor Arenas twirled a toothpick and shrugged. “She’s pretty enough,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”

“Of course she is. And she has a natural elegance,
señor,
She was born with it. If that’s not extraordinary, I don’t know what is!”

Señor Arenas clamped his gold-rimmed teeth down on a toothpick. “But can she work?”

Tía Neli gave him a pout and shook her head. “Really, Señor Arenas, it’s as though you’d never heard of the Ocampos. We are a most hardworking and revered family, as you know.
This
is the girl everyone has heard of: Sonia, the girl who silenced the winds of Tres Montes.” She laid Sonia’s shawl across his desk to show him the
milagros
as proof. “Ask your mother. She comes to Sonia for petitions from time to time.”

“Tía —” Sonia began in protest.

But Señor Arenas had already pushed the garment away in disgust. “Please! Enough with old superstitions! This is the capital we’re talking about. Nobody there cares about that. In fact, my girls are on strict orders not to talk such nonsense at their jobs! It makes us sound like lunatics. I don’t need girls who think they’re angels. What
I
need,
señora,
are girls who know their place, girls who can work like brutes without anyone knowing they’re in the room.”

Tía Neli’s face reddened. “Well, in any case, it doesn’t matter,” she said, taking her niece’s hands. “Show Señor Arenas your hands, Sonia. You’ll notice,
señor,
that her hands are slender but strong — perfect for doing the meticulous work you need in a fine household. They seem to me the same hands of a future pastry chef. If you ask me, she’d make a marvelous kitchen apprentice.”

Sonia glanced down and almost gasped. Her aunt had given her three large bills, wrapped in a rubber band. It was enough to buy food for a month. Tía Neli nodded sweetly in Señor Arenas’s direction.

Sonia drew her hands from her lap and extended them, palms down for inspection, though she couldn’t think of where to look in her embarrassment. She turned her gaze to the waiting area, where the remaining girls waited hopefully for their chance at work contracts.

Immediately, she felt Señor Arenas’s hands caress her wrists. When he withdrew, the bills were tucked between his own stubby fingers. He slipped them inside his shirt pocket casually.

“Pastry chef.” He chuckled.

He opened a file folder and slid on his dirty glasses. After a few moments, he made a whistling sound to summon the secretary.

“Send the rest home.”

The secretary cast an insulted look at Sonia as she turned to go inform the others. Sonia tried to look innocent, but she knew she had cheated. What kind of girl bribed her way ahead of friends and neighbors?

It’s your only chance,
she told herself.
It’s your only escape.

Señor Arenas offered her a form for her signature. “You do know how to write, don’t you?”

Sonia nodded and studied the paperwork. Her name had been added to a list of three others under a column marked
CASA MASÓN
.

Señor Arenas reached into his drawer and pulled out a pretty spice bottle. He placed it before her on his desk. The foil label read
ESPECIAS MASÓN
.

“So you know where you’re going,” he said, tapping the lid. “Casa Masón spices are known the world over. It’s the old widow Katarina Masón who runs the business now, of course. She’s rich beyond all your dreams since her husband died. Take care to please her,
niña.
Opportunities like this don’t come often, understand? A hundred other girls would die to have your spot.” He pointed at the shawl in her lap. “And make sure you leave
that
thing behind.”

“Gladly,
señor
!” Sonia answered, and signed her name.

“Congratulations,” a jobless girl called to Sonia as they left the building.

“Good luck comes to those who are worthy,” cried another.

Sonia looked back and nodded silently, her mouth glued with shame.

Tía Neli patted her back as they climbed into a taxi to take them all the way home in celebration. She held the jar under her nose to sniff the faded scent of all corners of the world.

“We did it! My very own niece working with one of the richest families in the whole country! Imagine it! Inside Casa Masón! I know you won’t forget what I’ve done for you, Sonia.” Her eyes were already dreamy with ideas.

S
ONIA EXPECTED TO
find Abuela’s spirit waiting at the edge of her bed to scold her for brazen lies and bribery. When her grandmother was cross, she pulled off people’s covers or rattled at their windows to keep them awake. Once she’d flattened all of Rafael’s tires for forgetting to bring her daisies on the anniversary of her death.

But the house had stayed calm all night.

“Looks like you’re safe,
hermanita,
” Rafael told her across the kitchen table at breakfast. “Abuela always had good sense. Even she knows you made the right decision.”