The polygamists daughter, p.4
The Polygamist's Daughter, page 4
“No.”
“That’s because I don’t want those sheets on the bed. The ones that were on the bed were already clean. Take those darker ones back off, and give them to Rafael. He’s going to use them to cover the windows.”
“Why do we need to cover the—”
“Anna! Stop asking questions and do as I say. Do you hear me?” With that, Antonia left the room.
I turned back toward the bed and began stripping off the sheets, still not understanding why the windows needed to be covered.
Since my father rarely came to any house where my immediate family lived, having him visit was a special treat. Rafael took my siblings and me aside to remind us to always refer to our father as Tío (uncle), if anyone asked about him. Though I didn’t know it at the time, this was for my dad’s protection. He and his followers didn’t want to take the chance of him being recognized, since the police and FBI were always looking for him.
Excitement filled the house, as everyone anticipated a visit from our religious leader. We knew he was a very important man, with a growing flock of followers to consider. As a prophet called by God to lead his people, he constantly traveled to the various places his members and wives resided. None of my father’s wives or children were permitted to question the critical and secretive nature of his work or the spiritual call of God on his life. Still, every one of his visits energized each household as they prepared for his arrival. Antonia took care to make special foods, as Rafael took the sheets I gave him and hung them over the windows to hide my father’s presence from outsiders.
My father! I trembled with anticipation. Though I may have been around him at other times when I was younger or he might have slept in a house where I happened to live at the time, I couldn’t recall interacting with him at all, not even to greet him. What would he be like? Would he play with me? Would he even know who I was?
I did my best to stay awake, but I was fast asleep by the time he arrived. The next morning I woke up to the wonderful smell of fried steak and potatoes. I tiptoed to his bedroom, and peeking around the doorway, watched him eating breakfast at the writing desk in his room. He looked like a giant with his long arms and his long legs.
Antonia caught me peering at him and grabbed my arm. “Leave him alone and let him eat,” she hissed at me in Spanish. “And don’t expect to get any of this for breakfast.” I followed her to the kitchen and ate my refried beans wrapped in a tortilla.
Still, I soaked him up during his visit. I studied him—what he looked like, what he sounded like. It struck me that he was so tall that he had to duck his head to walk through a doorway.
One afternoon, I tiptoed into the room where he sat writing at a desk. I imagined he was busy drafting a sermon or a long letter to his congregants in the United States. I climbed up on the bed and sat watching him until late into the night. He never once acknowledged my presence. I knew I had to stay quiet so as not to be shooed out. He was handsome and had a deep, booming voice. His receding hairline left him with a significant forehead. His eyes were dark, and his brow was usually furrowed. He wore a size 13 shoe, proportionate to his 6′4″ height.
He spent most of his time either writing, reading his sermons out loud, or sitting still—deep in thought. I recall the studious way he hunched over the desk while he feverishly wrote in longhand, filling page after page of yellow legal pads. His words flowed continuously, and I could hear the pages turning at a regular pace as he filled each one. Those pages would be taken by one of his wives and typed out. The faster the typist you were, the more he liked having you around to transcribe his poor handwriting into readable pages.
Eventually, my tired body and heavy eyelids took over, and I fell asleep on the bed that on other occasions I wasn’t allowed to sleep on. I slept soundly in the comfort of the coveted bed. At some point during the darkness of night, I felt someone gently shaking my foot. It took several moments for me to fully awaken. And when I saw my father there, looking down at me, I could hardly believe my eyes.
“Do you know how to make coffee?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. I had never made coffee in my life. But my father had just spoken to me for the first time. I would do anything he asked.
“Would you mind making me some?” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled warmly at me. When he relaxed his cheeks once again, I could see lines of white on his tanned face. He looked so strong and regal and important. I was in awe of him. Being sent on this important mission felt like quite the honor. I knew I couldn’t let him down. I felt chosen and special to be able to serve him in this way.
“Sure.” I hurried to the kitchen to do his bidding. I stood in front of the stove and bit my lip. I’d watched others make coffee numerous times, so I imitated what they had done. I boiled a pot of water and added several teaspoons of Nescafé, the Mexican brand of instant coffee. Once the air filled with the aroma of coffee, I figured it must be done.
I stood on a wooden stool to retrieve from an upper shelf a jarrito, a little Mexican clay cup with a handle. I tried my best not to spill the steaming liquid as I carefully poured it from the scalding pan. I proudly carried it back to my father, who still sat at the desk consumed by his work. I placed the coffee next to his right hand and waited. After a few moments, he picked up the jarrito and took a sip. He didn’t rave about my coffee-making skills, but he didn’t complain, either, so I hoped I had done reasonably well.
I crawled back under the worn blanket on the bed in that room and watched him write until I fell asleep again. Several times during the night, he roused me to ask me to make him more coffee, which I gladly did. Though we spoke fewer than twenty words to one another, I’d never felt closer to my father, nor more needed as a daughter, as a person. Knowing I played a critical role in helping my father accomplish his important work gave me such a sense of belonging and fulfillment. Plus, I got to sleep in a real bed, not the chunk of foam on the floor.
The next morning, he woke me at daybreak and asked me to make more coffee. I went to the kitchen, where Rafael and Antonia were sitting at the table. Rafael glanced at me. “I hope you know how blessed you are, Anna. You are one of the celestial children. You are born of the prophet Ervil LeBaron. He is a great man who hears directly from God. I hope you appreciate that blessing and call on your life.”
I believed his words wholeheartedly. We had been taught all our lives how special we were to be Ervil’s children, to come from such a godlike man. I nodded slowly, then turned to make the coffee.
But all the while, I pondered what Rafael had said. Was I really blessed? I lived in a strange country without my mother, and with a father who acknowledged my existence only when he asked me to do his bidding.
Right now, a true blessing would be to have some of the steak and potatoes prepared for my father’s dinner, instead of the beans and mush that my siblings and I had day in and day out. It was the first time I had ever questioned whether the “blessing” of serving my father was truly enough. It felt like blasphemy, and I could hardly admit it even to myself.
Later that morning, Dad came into the kitchen where Celia, Hyrum, and I sat with Antonia’s kids. A few days earlier, Celia had been sent from Calería to live with us. We ate the atole (hot liquid cereal) Antonia made for breakfast. As we finished, he leaned over the table and looked directly at me. “Anna, how would you like to go with me on a mission trip?”
“I’d like to.” I felt important and noticed. I paused and bit my lower lip as I pondered whether to ask him a question. “But what’s a mission trip?”
His laughter rang out and filled the tiny kitchen. “It’s where we teach the gospel to the Lamanites, so they can go to the celestial level of heaven, instead of being stuck on the telestial level in the afterlife. It’s our duty to go and tell them.”
A cold, hard stare had taken over the laughter and crinkled eyes. “Go get ready. We need to leave in a few minutes.” And just like that, his laughter pealed once more.
Celia helped me brush some of the tangles out of my long, unruly blonde hair. Then she helped me braid my hair into two long plaits. “Want to see?” She carried the wooden stool from the kitchen into the bathroom so I would be tall enough to see my reflection in the dingy mirror. I turned left, then right. “Wow, I love it. Thanks!” I hugged my older sister before I changed into my best outfit—in truth, my only other outfit—a skirt with an elastic waistband and a matching blouse with a print of brightly colored flowers. I hurried back to the kitchen, so as not to keep my father waiting.
“Anna!” Celia hollered from the bedroom.
I returned quickly. “What?”
Celia held up my chanclas (flip-flops).
“Oops.” I quickly slipped them onto my feet.
My sweet sister hugged me and whispered, “Have a fun day preaching.”
“What’s preaching?”
“You’ll find out.”
I padded back to the kitchen, eager to spend the day with my father. When I got there, he was already gone. “Where is he?” I asked Antonia, who banged pots and pans around loudly, probably irritated that she’d had to dirty so many to make us breakfast.
“He went to the car. Hurry!” She swatted at the back of my thighs with a dish towel.
I jumped out of the way and hurried out the front door to find my father in the driver’s seat and Rena, the youngest of my dad’s thirteen wives, sitting on the passenger side of the front seat in his long, beige Lincoln Continental. I hadn’t realized we would have company with us. Still, I’d never had the opportunity to spend this much time with my dad. I needed to take advantage of it. I opened the back passenger door and crawled inside to sit behind Rena. Without a word, Dad started the engine and headed toward the highway. Soon after, the skies opened and started pouring rain.
Rena remained quiet during the drive, except when Dad asked her a question. I didn’t want to be a nuisance, so I didn’t speak either. Dad droned on and on, but most of his religious talk and words were way above my understanding. After all, he needed to prepare to preach or whatever God had called him to do that day. We finally pulled off the main highway into a village with one main street and smaller dirt roads crossing it. Dad parked on the main road. “We’ll have to walk from here. It’s too muddy to drive the car; we might get stuck.”
We walked down one of the dirt roads lined with small huts on either side. I tried to avoid stepping in puddles or mud, but the rain was really coming down, and I had a difficult time keeping up in my chanclas. Dad stopped in front of one hut that had only plywood for walls. He went into it, and Rena and I followed. We spent what seemed like hours in that house. I tried to sit still on the end of an old couch as I listened to Dad drone on and on in Spanish about “the civil law of God,” or whatever he was preaching about to this poor, captive audience. I slowly realized that going on a mission trip was not the glamorous event I’d imagined. But I did get to spend the day with my father and Rena—away from Antonia and her resentful glares. And I didn’t have to clean or sell anything that entire day. However boring, it offered a welcome respite.
Without warning, Dad finished talking. When he bowed his head, so did everyone else in the room. I bowed mine, too, though I couldn’t help but squint my eyes and take in the scene. Dad’s bushy eyebrows worked up and down as he practically preached another sermon during that long prayer. Finally he stood, shook hands with all of the adults in the room, and we left.
I felt so thankful to be out of that house and away from the boredom of listening to the adults. The rain had stopped, and the air smelled of damp earth. I breathed in deeply and closed my eyes for an instant. We headed back down the narrow road on the long walk back to the main street where Dad had parked the Lincoln.
I ran ahead to climb in.
“Anna, stop!” My dad’s voice boomed as loud as thunder behind me.
I did as he said. In fact, I stood so still I began to shake, though I don’t know if that was from fear, from holding my body rigid, or from the chill of being damp. He reached my side in seconds and grasped my shoulder, none too gently. “What have you done?”
What had I done? Whatever it was, I hadn’t intended to be a nuisance, which I clearly was being.
Rena reached my side, leaned down, and spoke softly. “Anna, you have mud all over you.”
I hadn’t realized that with every step I took, I had accidentally flipped mud onto the back of my skirt and blouse. By the time we reached the car, my entire backside was covered in mud.
“O-oh no!”
“You’re not getting in my car with all that mud on your clothes.” Dad spat out the words, then glanced around us for a solution to the problem. “Rena, fix this.” And with that, he trod off to a little café on the main road.
“I’m so sorry!” I began to sob.
“Don’t cry. We’ll wash it off. Don’t worry.” She handed me a handkerchief, and I dabbed the corner of each eye. Rena dragged me all over that little town until we found a house whose owners allowed us to use a chopped-off piece of rubber hose attached to an outdoor spigot in back. Rena hosed off the mud, but that still left me all wet. I had to turn my blouse and skirt around so I could sit on the driest part of my clothing to avoid ruining the seat of the car. That meant I stared at the wet, mud-stained back of my outfit all the way home. Doing so relieved me somewhat—it seemed like penance for being such a bother. I felt certain my father would never ask me to accompany him on another mission trip.
My father had many meetings during his stay in Catemaco. Couples or burly, rough-looking men came to the house regularly, and Antonia showed them to the bedroom where Dad continued to write at the desk. The rest of us went about life and work as usual, the only real difference being that we saw Dad when he occasionally emerged from the bedroom. But he never acted like Rafael did when he gathered his daughter on his lap, cuddled her, and called her “Rosita,” the endearing form of her name. I didn’t feel an affinity for my father like I had hoped I would. Yes, I wanted to please him, but that was more out of a need for self-preservation than anything else. Plus, he had far more important work to do—writing sermons and keeping his followers in line.
One day Antonia caught me listening at the bedroom door where my father was conducting a meeting. “Anna? Don’t you have work to do? I guess you must have already finished your chores if you have time to stand around waiting for your father and eavesdropping on his meetings. For shame! If you don’t have enough to keep you busy, I can come up with additional chores for you. Come with me.”
I mumbled an apology and followed her to the kitchen. She opened the small window, and a light breeze greeted us. I wondered why we didn’t keep the window open all day. She handed me a can of evaporated milk and asked me to open it.
“Yes, Antonia.” Since we didn’t have a can opener, I dragged the step stool in front of the refrigerator, where she kept the hammer we used, along with a knife, to open cans. I grabbed the hammer from the top of the fridge and pulled it toward me. When I did, the claw of the hammer hooked on a bit of a broken plate sitting on top of the fridge. As the dish fell, it slashed the side of my left calf. Blood gushed down my leg, then my ankle, and onto the stool.
I stepped off the stool immediately, grabbed a rag off of the counter, and tried to stop the bleeding. Though I knew she’d be furious with me, I finally called out, “Antonia, I’m hurt, and I need your help.”
Antonia washed the blood from the rag and held it to the cut once more. I hopped on one foot to a chair at the dining table, and Antonia pulled another chair close enough for me to prop up my hurt leg. She leaned over and examined the wound. “It’s pretty deep. Stay here.”
Moments later, Rafael returned with her to take a look at the cut and offer his opinion. Between them, they decided I needed only a “butterfly” bandage. Antonia cut an adhesive strip, shaping it into a butterfly shape, and placed it over the wound. Based on the depth and length of the gash, even I knew I needed stitches. I didn’t see how such a small bandage would be able to hold the two pieces of skin together, especially on this moving part of my body. But taking me to the doctor was not an option. That cost money and took time we didn’t have. I would just have to hope for the best.
Later that afternoon, Antonia approached me as I sat at the kitchen table copying from my book, my leg throbbing from the pain of the gash. “Anna, here are a few pesos.” She opened her hand to show me the coins. “I need you to run to the pharmacy.”
I lifted my face toward hers and beamed. Antonia understood. She acknowledged my pain and the fact that I needed medicine so the cut wouldn’t get infected. They still weren’t sending me to the doctor to get stitches, but this simple acknowledgment meant so much to me. She must actually care about my welfare.
“Anna, are you listening to me? I need you to go pick up some aspirin. Your father has a terrible headache. He’s been writing all day, and he can hardly see straight because of the pain. You need to hurry. Can you do that?”
“What?” I stared at her in disbelief. I slowly came to realize that neither she nor anyone else in that house cared about the gash on my leg. She had already forgotten about my gaping wound, further confirming that my needs were unimportant and not likely to be acknowledged.
“Anna!” Antonia pressed the pesos into my hand. “Run! Run fast, and bring back the medicine for your dad!” I heard the urgency in the sound of her voice.
I limped down the concrete steps from our second-floor apartment and down to the dirty street that kicked up dust into my open wound, past the houses where I’d pounded on doors day after day trying to sell painted rocks and slices of cake. My mind raced. I had a gash on my leg the size of a stick of gum, with nothing but a tiny strip holding the two pieces of flesh together.
Antonia’s words echoed in my brain, “Run fast, and bring back the medicine for your dad!” Did my dad know that Antonia would send me to the store to get something for his headache? Did he even know my leg had a gaping wound that was getting dirtier by the minute? If he knew, he must not care. I couldn’t be very important to him. And after listening to Rafael go on about my father’s greatness, I knew I existed only for the greater good of the kingdom of the prophet Ervil LeBaron. Still, that thought was more tolerable than believing I was only a nuisance and a bother.
