excerpt
…watching the Discovery Channel. She cited the heat and the unclean
restrooms. The surly help and the bloody flies.
– You just knew, she said, the gals rapt, needles idle, that the minute
our white faces appeared in the market, the price of everything
quadrupled.
The facilitator encouraged newcomers like Winnie to express
themselves freely; any topic was okay. Some days it was so quiet a
tear could be heard splattering on the tile, the women absorbed in
their own reclamation projects, the only constants the pricking needles
and the screams from the tae kwon do class upstairs. Other
times it was all giggles and sobs and snouts being honked.
That’s the way it had been the day she brought along the polaroids.
Everybody had a good laugh. Winnie discovered she enjoyed
talking about the vacation more than the vacation itself.
– One day we overheard some of the men discussing a live sex
show. It sounded . . . like they were making plans.
Classmates slid their chairs closer. Someone closed the door.
– A bunch of ’em took off one night. They said they were going to
the dog races. Of course, we knew better. We didn’t want to catch
anything.
The gals nodded; a few grimaced. For some of the quilters it was
obviously familiar territory.
Winnie recreated the circumstances. How the men had gathered
in the lobby, shoes buffed, hair slicked, abs sucked in. The musk
was toxic.
– We’re not doin’ nothing, Phil said. Right, guys?
– We’re not stupid, Winnie had said.
– You’re imagining things, dear, Harold said. What’d I tell ya,
huh, fellas?
Afterwards Winnie took a stroll through the market. When she
met up with the boy her gloom dissolved. She gave him all the
money she had. Better him, she figured, than Harold.
Of course the tour guide had warned them about the curfew. About
the rebels in the hills and the student protests. Sitting in the travel
agency, those posters promising Fun in the Sun, urging all who
entered to Pack Your Cares Away, it all sounded so exciting. She’d
never been overseas.
Libros Libertad 