She stared up through the trees at the plantation, which was now out of sight. She spoke quietly. “The two young nursing mothers are his—” She spat in anger and shook her head. “And he makes no provision for them. He feeds them scraps from the table when they do what he wants, but they just gave birth two and three weeks ago so they can’t”—she held up her fingers like quotation marks—“do what he wants.”
Isabella tugged on my shirtsleeve and waved her index finger. Wiper again. “That means they don’t do any kissing. ’Cause kissing makes babies. Then when the babies are big enough, they pop out the zipper.” She poked me in the side. “I have a zipper ’cause I’m a girl. And momma has a zipper ’cause she’s a girl, but you don’t have a zipper ’cause you’re a boy.”
I nodded and looked at Leena. “Zipper?”
Leena shrugged. “You have a better explanation?”
“No. No, I do not.”
We continued walking. My pack was empty, for which I was grateful. As we walked, I heard a thud, followed by a second and a third. Finally, I saw the cause of the noise—something orange and yellow falling from the tree above us.
Leena picked one up. Cutting a slice, she handed it to Isabella, who shoved it in its entirety into her mouth. She smiled widely, pushing the juice out the sides of her mouth, which did not go unnoticed. Leena smiled, and the look spoke of healing of a deep wound. She offered one to me and I accepted. “I’ve never eaten a mango that I can recall.”
“Never?”
“Certainly not like this.”
She shoved a section in her mouth and spoke around it. “It’s the taste of Nicaragua.”
My teeth sank deeply and the juice exploded. I’d never tasted anything like it. Leena enjoyed my reaction. “Good, huh?”
I nodded but didn’t speak, trying to keep the juice in my mouth. Isabella retrieved four more, and while Leena peeled another, I asked her, “Tell me about the man in the hammock.”
She paused. “Roberto. He used to feed me mango when I was Isabella’s age.” She looked up. Eyes red. “He’s dying.”
“Can anything be done for him?”
She shook her head. “He has a disease in his kidneys. It is caused from pesticides, which are sprayed on the sugarcane. They aren’t legal in any civilized country, but here in Nicaragua they are used in plenty. Before they cut the cane, they burn it. Making it easier to harvest. Burning it does something to the pesticide, turning it into some other chemical or something that is even more harmful. The men working the cane breathe it, and it is filtered by their kidneys. There are scientists here from America studying it, but even they have no idea what’s going on. All they know is that what is sprayed on the cane is killing the men that work it. Roberto started working in the cane when he was five.”
“How long have you known him?”
“My whole life.”
“Does he have family?”
She shook her head. “They were either killed by Carlos or left for Honduras.”
Either the heat or the insanity of this place was starting to get to me. “So, he’s going to die alone in that dark, hot room, soaked in his own urine, and all he has to show for his life is half a bottle of water and one piece of candy?”
She stared at me. A long pause. Her head tilted as she considered me. A tear accompanied her whisper. “Yes.”
We walked down the mountain in the dark. Isabella got tired halfway down and reached for my hand. We walked a few hundred yards like that, and when she stumbled, I picked her up and set her on my shoulders, which seemed to wake her momentarily. When we reached the road beneath, Isabella raised her hands high in the air and stared up at the stars. “Look, Mom, I can touch them.”
I’d never seen so many stars.
We got to their home sometime after nine. Isabella ran inside, where I heard a man talking. Leena walked to the hand pump attached to the well and began filling a bucket. When full, she dropped a smaller bucket into it and slid the whole thing next to a black plastic curtain. “I’m going to heat up some dinner. You shower first.” She pointed to the building where I’d spent my recovery. “Should be some more clothes in there. Wear whatever fits.”
Leena broke some sticks in half and shoved them into the embers of the fire in the corner where she intended to heat dinner. The she disappeared into the kitchen, where again I heard a man’s voice. I stepped behind the curtain, stripped, found the soap, and took a bucket shower. Cold at first, it felt divine. Dumping water over my head, I took a look at myself. My arms and legs were filthy to where the line of my clothing had been. My ankles and feet were white. Relatively clean. Then the tips of my toes were dark and caked in mud and dust.
Outside, Leena poured water over a naked and sudsy Isabella who was squatting on the concrete sink.
In my room, I found a pair of cutoff jeans and gray T-shirt that fit. When I returned to the kitchen, Leena stuck her soapy head out of the plastic sheeting. “Dinner’s on the table.”
“Thank you.”
I walked into the kitchen and found Isabella laughing at the table with an older man, maybe sixtyish. He stood, shook my hand, and tapped his chest. “Pow-low.” He had, quite possibly, the strongest hands of any human being I’d ever met. Not to mention his forearms. He was a walking, talking Popeye.
Paulina shouted over the edge of the curtain. “Charlie, meet Pow-low. It’s spelled like Paulo but”—she laughed easily—“we say it a bit different around here.” She said matter-of-factly, “He helped me lift you into the back of the truck.”
I tapped myself. “Charlie.”
He smiled, exposing gums missing more teeth than he owned. He pointed at his truck, sitting in the backyard. “You vomit and manure my truck.”
“I’m sorry?” He pointed matter-of-factly to the bed of his truck, then to his mouth. “Vomit. You.” He shook his head and held his nose. More hand motions. “Truck.” He pointed to my shorts. “You…dirty…smell very much bad.”
I heard Paulina laughing from behind the curtain.
Paulo evidently didn’t speak very much English, but I understood what he was saying. I shrugged. “Yeah, about that. I’m sorry.”
He smiled kindly, as if it happened every day.
“No problema.” He acted as if he were emptying a bucket. “I water.”
Dinner consisted of rice, beans, a fried plantain, and some water. I was hungry enough to eat the table, the neighbor’s dog, and the chair I sat in, but when offered seconds, I declined. Leena watched me with quiet amusement. Paulo hovered, elbows on the table, and spoke quietly with Leena and Isabella. Leena translated his Spanish to my English as he spoke, not wanting me to feel excluded. He told her about his day working in the sugarcane fields, and she scolded him and told him he shouldn’t have worked there today. He waved a finger and said something that she didn’t translate.
Finally, she turned to me. “Thanks to you, we were able to see about four times as many folks. Thank you.” A genuine smile. “You make a good mule. The truck leaves tomorrow a little after noon. Paulo is going to work in the morning, and when he returns on the noon work bus, he’ll take you to León.”
Her tone of voice told me that something occurred before noon, which prohibited him from driving me. “Anything I could do to be useful?”
She spoke to Paulo, who weighed the question and then nodded. Leena returned to me. “You could work with Paulo. It would double his daily rate.” A shrug. “It’d help pay for gas.”
“Seems the least I can do.”
Paulo seemed to appreciate the gesture and poked me in the arm. “I wake. We work with me. It’s good. Very good. Work not hard.”
The night was quiet, and people had returned to their homes around us. The smell of smoke was constant. Somewhere a pig grunted and two dogs fought. In the distance, I could hear singing.
Paulina cleared the plates. “He’ll wake you in time to leave.” Isabella stood from the table, sleep heavy in her eyes, and hugged Paulo and then her mother. Finally, without giving it a second’s thought, she hugged me and then climbed into the bed. It was the only bed in the small space, so she must share it with her mother. She was asleep by the time Leena pulled the covers up over her shoulders. Leena returned and began washing the plates in the concrete sink when I stood next to her. “I’ll wash.”