meet Gala and Rina and Don Alon.- “Lets go now.' Andreas said 'Just . - the Community Center. I'm so curious about it." They had reached the Calle Roca Fuerte. She saw the beginning of the cement stairs that rose up Santa Marta, the companion hill to her old neighborhood. Her set of stairs was just around the corner. “No,” she said, feeling herself begin to tremble. “Not yet. I want to wash up and rest first.” The driver turned right toward the center of town. She twisted in the seat to look back. Pastel cane houses lined the stairs. Crowds of people were walking up and down. This was the hill Rina Gomez lived on. She strained to see if she could pick her out. Was she leaving the Center now to go home to lunch? It was Rina Gomez whom Caitlin had thought of most as she was preparing to return to Guayaquil. Rina lived high up in the poorest section, in a cane shack with her mother and brother. They had no running water, no electricity. But never once was she pathetic. She spoke instead of poverty and what it did to people. She helped Caitlin find the leaders in the community and helped her get even the most reluctant to come to meetings. “If we can’t do it for ourselves, who will?” she would say. She worked with Caitlin and the men to get the beer company to give land to them for the Community Center. Then they had all worked together to build it and keep it going and finally to make it self-sufficient. But it was Rina alone who stood by Caitlin on the day their whole effort was almost destroyed. The day an American philanthropic group, supported by the Peace Corps director, insisted on coming into the neighborhood with free gifts for the “poor people." The Americans came in a flat bed truck loaded with four-foot blonde dolls with blue eyes that blinked, cartons of soccer balls and baseball mitts, bolts of the richest brocade. People from the hill trampled each other to get to the things. They tore at each other’s skin and hair and clothes. When they saw there wasn’t enough to go around, they turned on Caitlin, screaming, “puta de Madre, ladrona americana, gringa thief, give us our things.” When she tried to explain to them that this wasn’t her idea, they picked up rocks and hurled them at Rina put her arms around Caitlin and rushed Caitlin out of the plaza, away from the mob and into the Center. She stayed with Caitlin for hours in the darkness and ibe bolted until the rocks finally stopped “No tiene la culpa. Caitlina," she intoned for hours t la culpa." It's not your fault. “This Is extraordinary,” Andreas said. He was pointing out the window to the arcades that overhung the sidewalks, running the length of every street and avenue, serving as shelter from the overpowering sun and torrential rains. “And those wooden buildings.” She made herself look with his eyes. She saw the high windows and their closed louvered shutters, and the scuffed and peeling paint of the walls. Maroon and green and blue for the windows and doors, pale pink and turquoise and yellow for the walls. She saw the royal palms that lined the center strip of the Avenue. They were painted white as high as a man could reach. Yes, maybe it was romantic in its way. She’d forgotten about that aspect of Guayaquil. hen the taxi pulled up in front of the Pension Helbig, the vendors on the street were already packing away their wares for the lunch hour. The iron gates were down on the Rosario, the one supermarket in the city. Andreas was out of the car before she was. He stood under one of the overhangs that they’d been admiring. She paid the driver and got out. The silence was already descending. She remembered now how everything was deadened by the heat from noon to three in Guayaquil: the vendors, beggars, children and even the rumble and screech of the buses. In the shade of the portico, Andreas looked pale and too thin. His blonde hair was plastered back from his high forehead. His beard was showing brown against his fair skin. The equatorial light didn’t favor his northern looks. She hoped the people on the hill would find him handsome enough. She climbed the curb steps. “Well,” she said, “this is it. You’ve come home with me.” He put his arm around her waist. “Let’s get lunch and a shower.” C^aitlin lay on the bed, freshly washed under the coarse muslin sheet. Andreas slept beside her. The tall windows were closed against the noon light and heat. Only narrow strips of white sunshine came through the louvers. Otherwise the room was dimly lit, the aqua of the walls subdued in the half light. She put her hands behind her head and stared up at the high ceiling and the twirling fan. She breathed in the smell of roast pork coming from the street and imagined herself climbing the concrete stairs that rose steeply up Santa Ana Hill. She wore her A-line skirt and her Cos Cob blouse and her sneakers. That had been her uniform. Her brown hair, streaked blonde by the sun, had been held in a loose bun on the back of her head with a gold barrette. She walked past Senora Alvarez who sat all day in her filigreed window. Past the windows of Don Alonzo and Senorita Marta, into the passageway of her apartment building, a structure made of cane and wood, where Gala’s door was always open, and she, Caitlin, would stop in to say hello before climbing the stairs to her own place. She used to spend hours in Gala Ibarra’s apartment, talking, eating. It was one tiny room. Seven of them slept and ate and visited in there. When the baby Jorjito was born, the first boy after five girls, a hammock was slung across the living area. He was the only one in the family with his own bed. Out in back was the patio where the cooking and washing was done by all the women in the encircling houses. When Caitlin had time, or when she thought it would be useful to her work at the Community Center, she would join them out there and do her wash. With the sun filtering down and the cool water rushing from the pump spigot and the suds building up as they pum- meled the clothing against the rock sink, they all laughed and chattered and cajoled and made fun of each other in the privacy of their woman's world. In those moments she was one of them. But at other times, they saw her as far different from themselves. When the baby Jorjito got sick, Gala turned to Caitlin as an expert. “You’re the teacher,” she said. “Teach me what to do for my baby." He was cranky with a little fever at first. Then he began to vomit. Finally he got diarrhea that wouldn't stop. It was the middle of the night. Caitlin, who had taught her hygiene class from textbooks, was suddenly without knowledge. If she’d been in the states she would have taken the baby to the emergency room. But here even to see a doctor in the day could mean an eight hour wait in the hot sun to get into the clinic. “Feed him boiled water,” she said, “with sugar in it. Give him aspirina to keep down his fever. Bathe him in tepid water.” When she came down the next morning the door to Gala's house was closed. She didn’t dare knock. She went directly out and down the stairs to the Community Caitlin could smell the odor of poverty on her. Even though her dress was ironed and starched, and her hair perfectly coifed and she wore lipstick and eye makeup, she still had the smell on her. Center. An hour or two later, Gladys, the oldest girl, came to get Caitlin. Caitlin knew what had happened the minute she saw the child’s shocked face. The outside door of the building was already garlanded in white satin, with pastel plastic flowers attached to it. The door to Gala and Jorge’s place was still closed. But across the hall the doors were thrown open to the living room of Don Alonzo and Senorita Marta. Everyone sat in a circle on wooden chairs. Gala sat with her head down. She wore a white dress. Her brown arms looked almost black against the sleeves. Her feet were crossed at the ankles. She wore white shoes. People murmured Caitlin’s name when she entered. Caitlin walked across the rough wooden floor, terrified. She hadn’t saved the child. The room was full of light. The turquoise walls were brighter than usual. Gala looked up. Her face was dark and puffy. Her eyes, black, black, black from the tears in them. “ A iiiiie iie ," she screamed. “Aiiie, Caitlina, Dios, he took my son.” T h e street was busy with people when they got downstairs. She had forgotten the feeling of being taller than everyone. She looked over the tops of heads as they walked along. Everywhere she turned, eyes met hers and then looked away. Men made wet kissing sounds, even though she was w ith And reas . “Sssssssf.ssssssf,” they hissed to get her attention. “Dame un regalito, un caritas," the beggars whined. Their cries mingled with the vendors demands. “Cigarillos, Senor, Cheeklays, Senorita gringita, tan bonita," they called from their stations lining the walls under the porticos. A boy with no legs scooted through the crowd on a square of wood with wheels. He had bricks in his hands to push off the ground. “That’s pretty amazing,” Andreas said. “What's even more amazing is when other boys kick the bricks out of that kid’s hands as a joke.” They stepped out of the shade of the overhang into the sunny street. For a moment everything looked like an overexposed photograph. She stopped. They were at the corner of Nueve de Octubre y Roca Fuerte, the avenue that wound around to her old neighborhood. “What is it?” he asked. She felt the sun hot as fire on the top of her head. The horns of cars blared and people pushed by them. “That’s the way to my barrio.” “So let’s go. I’m with you. We can just walk on by if you decide to once we’re there. No one will see us.” Perhaps so, she thought. Perhaps she’d changed so much they wouldn’t know her and she could walk invisibly among them. “Caitlina,” a voice said behind her. She turned to see a small group of school children in uniform, staring up at her. She recognized faces, although she couldn’t put names to them. They were the children from the neighborhood, only five years older. “Yo sabia/ Yo sabia!” I knew, a girl shouted, jumping up and down. “Tenia razon.” I was right. “Es la Nina Caitlina,” another said. Soon there was a crowd of children around her, all calling her name, as in the old days. “Caitlina, Caitlina, Caitlina.” All trying to grab a hold of her. She looked around for Andreas. He was standing to one side smiling at her as though she were the most loved person on earth. What he didn’t understand, she thought, was that this was all theatre. Because one had said it, the others had to. There were children in the group who couldn’t possibly have been more than babies when she’d been there. They were saying, “Nina Caitlina, do you remember me? I remember you.” They started to pull her down the street. “You’re going to the Cerro, aren’t you?” a tall thin serious-faced boy asked. It was Cantelisio’s son, Ramondo, who'd lived across from her. “Ramondo.” She reached out and shook his hand. He looked proud. The others shoved closer. “Yyo Caitlina." And I, they shouted. “Come with us. Come with us,” they chanted. “I guess we have to,” Andreas said, starting to walk in the direction they were taking Caitlin. Other people on the street had stopped to see what was going on. A crowd had formed. Caitlin could hear them saying to each other, “It’s Caitlina, the Peace Corps volunteer. You remember.” “I don’t believe this,” Andreas was saying to her as they were pulled along. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a star?” ‘Tm not. I wasn’t,” she said. But it was coming back to her. How she wasn’t able to go anyplace without people calling out Tim B ra u n Clinton St. Quarterly 13
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