Rosa’S Gift and Other Stories

Contents

Introduction

Rosa’s Gift

Christmas in the Great Depression

Golden Gloves

Wheel of Fire

Writing Class

The Children of Che Guevara

The Heavy Bears

The Lords of Corfu

True Love

Reviews

James Joyce said that a story is an ‘epiphany’ when pointlessness gathers itself into something revelatory. This is a collection of epiphanies.

—Kathleen Daniel, writer and editor

Many of the stories in this fine collection are gems. They take the reader on surprising paths, from the poverty of Guatemala to the splendor of first love. Cantwell is a gifted writer.

—Jane Dossick, author of Gemma and Inheritance

Praise for The Halls of Montezuma, book three of the Tollan Trilogy:

A thrilling, history-filled adventure.

—Kirkus Reviews

Once again, to the memory of my father and mother

and to my sister, Anne-Marie

Introduction

Journeys, encounters, revelations—each of the main characters in these stories has some kind of transformative experience. To an outsider, these encounters might not seem to be anything unusual. They happen, in some sense, to all of us every day. They are quiet, the commonplace joys and humiliations, sorrows and confusions of everyday life.

But in a subtle way, an experience changes the character in each of these stories. Sometimes he realizes he is a creature driven by vanity—what James Joyce’s boy in Araby realized at the end of his failed quest. At times, he realizes that suffering cannot be wiped away, even with all the goodwill in the world. Sometimes people disappoint him. Sometimes he realizes that someone has exploited him. And sometimes he acknowledges that he has failed himself.

The character in a story might be a boy yearning for a bicycle that his parents can ill afford. Or he might be a boy grappling with confusion about sin. At other times, he is a young writer trying to win a girl. In one story, he is an older man trying in every way he can to save a young Guatemalan girl whose life we know little about—but we shudder at what we surmise about it.

The encounters take place anywhere. They happen in Depression-era Detroit, in a confessional in a dark church in a New England city, in the streets of Havana, in a writing class at Columbia University, in a bar in New York City. The main character is different in each story, but we come to recognize him and his innate decency.

The stories are filled with wry humor: the splendid shoulders of Angela, the bloated reptile man in the bar, the girl who says that the only poem she has read is Trees by Joyce Kilmer, the Burma-Shave-type rhymes a boy pastes on his father’s mirror: Don’t be an icicle! Buy me a bicycle!

James Joyce said that a story is an epiphany when pointlessness gathers itself into something revelatory. This is a collection of epiphanies.

Kathleen Daniel, writer and editor

Rosa’s Gift

When I began my study of Spanish in Guatemala, I felt that I was back in elementary school. I was sixty years old and, having been commanded by my teacher never to speak English in class, found myself mumbling incoherently like a first grader in need of special education. A special education was precisely what Senorita Maria Robles Guzman had in mind for me. I was bombarded with grammar drills, reading exercises, and lots of homework, which I soon discovered was called tarea in Spanish.

Maria and I met for four hours every weekday morning, holding sessions either in her home or in my hotel in the heart of Antigua. We’d been studying close to two months, when she brought a book to my hotel, the cover of which was vaguely familiar to me. The title, in Spanish, was El Principito. The cover drawing was of a little boy dressed in a green shirt and pants, standing on an asteroid the size of a house. Stars and planets whirled all around.

"El Principito—The Little Prince! I exclaimed, forgetting the injunction never to speak English in class. Of course! It’s been a long time since—"

Maria nodded, her expression of unassailable composure never abandoning her large moon face.

"Mira, Senor Collins!" She pointed to our surroundings. We were sitting on the roof terrace of my hotel, which presented us with a view dominated by two volcanoes.

Those are the volcanoes you see in the drawing, Maria said in Spanish. I don’t know that I had ever noticed the two tiny craters, one smoking, that lay on either side of the boy prince in the drawing. "San Exuperay, the French author and aviator, was flying to Peru, when his plane crashed in Guatemala City. He was convalescing here in Antigua when he got the idea for The Little Prince. If you remember, the prince tends a rose that grows on his small planet. Antigua was once called the City of Roses."

I remembered only pieces of the story. The prince visits other asteroids inhabited by solitary persons until he descends to Earth. There, he meets the fox that leads him to see his responsibility and awakens his desire to care for the lonely rose that struggles to survive on his asteroid. Now, as I looked at the drawing and up again at the distant peaks, I shivered with excitement.

I had recently retired from my job as a graphic designer in New York City and had come to Guatemala in search of the new frontier that ever beckons the American spirit. After visiting the Mayan ruins of Tikal, I had settled in Antigua, where I wandered down cobblestone lanes at dusk, tracing the patterns of my evening walks in Greenwich Village. I’d come to Antigua on the advice of a friend who praised its beauty as well as the friendliness of its citizens. It didn’t take me long to agree with him on both counts. However, I soon decided the vendors in El Parque Central were more intrusive than the drug dealers in Washington Square.

Mister, you want to buy a sweater for your wife, your daughter? I have good price for you.

You want a guide? A bag of cashews?

Brightly colored blankets were spread out before me. I had no wife or daughter to buy presents for. I was divorced and hadn’t seen my ex-wife since she’d left me for the golden promise of California twenty years earlier.

It was not that I was completely lacking in sympathy for the vendors, most of whom were Mayan indigenes. As a designer, I appreciated the craftsmanship evident in their woven goods. No, it was their overwhelming numbers, coming at me from all sides, that finally drove me away from the park.

I found refuge a few blocks away. La Fuente was a somewhat secluded outdoor café with tables arranged around a grassy courtyard. A fountain splashed in the middle. I discovered that I could order a cup of tea and spend the afternoon doing my tarea without being disturbed. On weekends, indigenes were welcome to spread their weavings (or tejidos) on the grass and wait for customers but were not allowed to approach people who sat at the tables. I was pleased with this arrangement—until one Saturday afternoon. I was sipping tea and contemplating reflexive verbs, when I became aware of a young Indian girl sitting on the walkway alongside my table. She was clearly on forbidden ground, but as she paid me no mind and only stared dreamily out at the splashing fountain, I made no objection to her presence.

Her tejidos lay in a pile beside her. She wore her colorful huipil, decorated with bird designs, as a smock. Her dark gray-speckled skirt covered the rest of her slim body. She caught my glance, gathered up her woven goods, and was about to leave, when I waved to show that I did not find her presence intrusive. Seeing this, the girl broke into a smile that, although revealing a missing tooth, was immensely appealing.

Since she was clearly not a pest, and my curiosity was now aroused, I decided to test my fledgling Spanish. I’d studied some Spanish in college many years ago but had taken up advanced Spanish with Maria to become more conversant. "De donde es usted? I asked, meaning, Where are you from?"

The girl gave me a puzzled look. I realized my American accent was confusing to her. I tried again, and this time I got through. Santa Catarina Palopó, she said. "Cerca Lago Atitlán."

What are you doing here? I asked.

"I live in Antigua with mi tia, my aunt. I was born in Santa Catarina."

By now, the girl was no longer one of the faceless vendors I’d come to regard as pests. She was a fellow member of that society of beings loosely defined as human.

"Como se llama? I asked. What is your name?"

I am called Rosa—Rosa Martinez Lopez.

Pleased to meet you, Rosa. You may call me Pedro—Pedro Juan Collins. I live in New York City. Her eyes widened. Please join me. I pointed to the empty chair opposite mine.

She looked around and gestured toward two plump waitresses who stood at the cash register. I am not allowed, Rosa said.

Nonsense, I said. I am paying for the use of this table. I invite you as my guest.

After some shrugs and shy giggles, Rosa got up and sat in the latticed metal chair across from mine. She looked quite small in it, and I guessed her age to be about twelve years. I later learned she was fourteen.

When I summoned the waitress, she came over hesitantly, a frown on her large, pudgy face.

Rosa told me in a half whisper that she wanted a Coke and a raisin cookie. As we waited, Rosa and I smiled at each other. It occurred to me that she might be an orphan. I hesitated to ask, but she told me her story when her Coke and cookie arrived.

"My mother died when I was six years old. She was killed in the war. The army came to our village looking for comunistas. They killed our priest and did bad things to many of the women. My mother was fighting them when they shot her in the belly."

I’m sorry, I said, genuinely moved. Maria told me that as a child, she had seen young men hanging by their necks from the trees that lined the traffic island of the Alameda Santa Lucia.

And your father? Is he still alive?

"Si. He married another woman after my mother died. She did not want me or my hermanito, my baby brother, to live with them. My father doesn’t give us money, because she gave him two children, and he must spend his money on them. Mi hermanito lives with my grandmother in Santa Catarina."

Just then, an older girl, balancing a stack of tejidos on her head, came over to Rosa. They spoke together in a language with a lot of guttural sounds, which I later learned was called Kaqchikel, a Mayan dialect. The girl pointed to the big cookie that lay untouched on Rosa’s plate. Rosa gave it to her. Without saying another word, the girl walked away munching her commandeered sweet.

I was astonished. She took the whole cookie! I protested. I thought you were offering her a bite.

Rosa shrugged. "No problema. She is my friend."

"Yes, but—I bought it for you." I offered to order another, but Rosa declined. Then she thanked me for my hospitality, balanced her bundle on her head, and trotted over the lawn of scattered weavings to join a group of women who sat around the fountain.

I woke up the next morning with nothing to do. It was Sunday. I had no class, I’d done my tarea the day before, and I was not disposed to do any further sightseeing. As often happened when faced with dead time, I sat in my room, brooding over the failures of my life: my collapsed, sterile marriage; my dreams of becoming an artist that had led to my career as a commercial hack designing soap labels. As my Irish forbearers would have put it, I had come to the end of the world and had nowhere to go.

It was early afternoon when I roused myself with a great effort and decided to go out to lunch. As I walked under the arch on Avenida Cinco, I heard a cry of Pedro! I turned to see Rosa running toward me, her sandals slapping against cobblestones. A dozen or so glassy beads swung from one arm while she waved to me with the other. I couldn’t remember when I’d been so glad to see anybody. I told her I was going to La Fuente and invited her to come along. She readily trotted along at my side. We were a Mutt and Jeff couple. I was tall and rangy at six foot one. My sandy hair had only darkened over the years, and my height compensated for my cocktail-hour paunch. Rosa barely came up to my rib cage.

In the café, she stared at the menu a long time. It dawned on me that she couldn’t read in either Spanish or English. I read the menu to her and suggested pollo pepian, a local favorite, and an ice-cream sundae. To my surprise, she ordered a fruit salad with yogurt and granola.

That is what young gringos like to eat, I teased her. Do you want to be a gringo?

I want to be like you. She smiled. I was truly touched.

When Rosa’s salad came, I saw that she was having trouble using the spoon. I wondered if she’d ever used one. I showed her how to hold it. As it was, she ate less than half her salad and apologized for not eating more. I said we would ask for a takeout bag.

She smiled. I can give the rest to my friends.

I thought of the girl and the raisin cookie with some dismay. While the waitress prepared a package, I looked at the beads that lay beside Rosa’s plate. I thought that if I bought a few to give to friends back home,