Lucía Zárate: The odyssey of the world’s smallest woman Read online

  One old-timer had even taken the Mexican agent to the archeological ruins in Cempoala, a few miles inland from Veracruz, and shown him the stone carvings of little people at the base of an ancient Totonac pyramid.

  “These chaneques have always lived near the river over there,” said the old-timer, pointing his crooked index finger towards some rudimentary huts. “That’s where the Zárate clan still lives.”

  When the agent asked for directions, the old man shook his head and walked away.

  “Stay away from these chaneques, no matter how sweet they seem,” he warned. “Even if they look like storybook fairies.”

  By the time the Mexican agent found the correct Señor Zárate from among a passel of related Zárate men in the village, he was convinced that even if Lucía were a chaneque, he would take his chances and ship her off to the Yankees to the north before she had a chance to cause any spritely mischief. Let the Yankees suffer the chaneque’s wrath far from home. Surely there were many great rivers in the United States, and this girl chaneque could inhabit any one of them. She could frighten the souls out of countless Yankees, for all he cared. She’d be far away, and the agent would be sitting pretty in his big hacienda counting his money, proud to be the first man to monetize Lucía Zárate.

  Rosita, the notary’s servant, returned, her tray crowded with cups of chocolate that kept the children busy. Unfortunately, the grown-ups weren’t distracted, and continued their tirade.

  Lucía’s mother was relentless. “I must repeat: Lucía will not leave Veracruz until I approve of the appropriate Mexican governess for her.”

  Her husband released his son’s arm so he could grab his wife.

  “Please, excuse my wife’s manners,” he said to the Yankee. “I am the head of this family and I say that we shall let Lucía travel with both gentlemen agents.”

  Ignoring her husband’s painful grip, Señora Zárate persisted. “The Mexican governess must be able to speak English fluently and she must be a good cook and she must be strong because sometimes I have to carry Lucía in a big market basket, and—”

  “And you will shut your mouth, woman,” Señor Zárate hissed.

  Señora Zárate had given birth to many children, and she’d buried others, too. She was used to physical and mental pain. Her husband’s grip on her shoulder was no match for the pain of giving birth, so she didn’t hesitate in screeching out her other demands.

  “Lucía’s governess should also speak French because, as the Yankee says, she will be going to Paris. And did I say the governess must read and write so that she can teach my Lucía? And that she must be very strong and patient? Do you hear what I am saying?”

  Both the agents and the notary wanted the travel, contract, and payment documents signed before Lucía’s mother worked herself into a fit of hysteria. The notary attempted to get the parties to sign the contract that outlined all his fees. If he could get them to ink their signatures, then they could all leave his bureau and continue their shouting elsewhere, but Señora Zárate and all the children were sobbing uncontrollably, and nobody was signing anything.

  “We won’t let Lucía go!” they shouted. “We won’t let her go!”

  Amid all the uproar, Lucía sat silently and daydreamed. Long ago, she’d learn to tune others out, particularly when they talked about her in rude detail, as though she were a performing monkey. She conjured up bright images in her mind, fluttering about like colorful butterflies, and ignored all the crying and shouting.

  The notary shuffled towards Señora Zárate, putting on a show of being humble rather than impatient for them all to leave. His droopy black mustache stank of dried chili sauce. He pulled his pocket watch from his vest, and shrugged at the sight of so much wasted time.

  “My dear Señora Zárate,” he stammered, “please do try to be reasonable. Where can we find such a governess here in Veracruz? We don’t have the time to search for someone with such qualities. Our friend the agent must leave soon.”

  “Those are the conditions,” Señora Zárate replied, setting her mouth in a firm line. The notary leaned very close to her ear to speak, so only she could hear.

  “You know that you Mexican women are not educated,” he whispered, “and you know that you’re nothing but a peasant. So don’t put on any airs in my office. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  Señora Zárate said nothing.

  Rosita gathered all the cups of chocolate and thought about her grandmother’s guest, Zoila. She had all the qualities of the governess they required. Zoila was strong as an ox, and could speak lots of other languages. And perhaps, if Rosita were to recommend Zoila, would there be a little mordida, a bite-size commission, for her efforts? But would the notary even listen to her mousy suggestion? Her hands shook so much that the tray of dirty cups rattled.

  The frustrated notary gestured at Rosita to leave.

  “Unless you know of a governess,” he snapped, “get yourself and this dammed tray out of my office!”

  Rosita crept up to him, head down.

  “I may know of such a woman,” she mumbled, afraid to look him in the eye.

  The notary had heard enough. He yanked both her plaits and spoke sharply. “Then you’d best leave this minute and bring her to me immediately!’

  Rosita had worked for this miser and bully for a very long time. She’d heard all his lawyerly legalese thousands of times, and knew better than to trust any document he drafted.

  “Yes, I can do that,” she said, her voice calm and soft.

  And then, for the first time in her life, Rosita dared to look up, straight into his bloodshot eyes.

  “But I’ll take my commission in silver coins,” she said. “Right now—Señor.”

  “Zoila, come and listen to my grand-daughter’s curious gossip,” Zoila’s godmother commanded. She was attempting to re-braid Rosita’s hair, though there wasn’t much that could be done with it. It drooped like an old raccoon’s tail onto Rosita’s bony shoulders.

  “Yes, madrina,” called Zoila from her chair out in the courtyard, but she made no attempt to get up. She found most of Rosita’s gossip dull or incomprehensible.

  “This one here finally stood up to her boss and he rewarded her with some coins,” her godmother cackled. “Zoila, did you hear me? Come in and bring me a red hibiscus from the garden for my granddaughter’s hair.”

  Reluctantly, Zoila plucked a flower and carried it into the parlor. Her godmother had been kind enough to allow her to hide at her house, so the least she could do was to bring a red flower to liven up Rosita’s stringy, ashen hair. Zoila peeked inside and noticed that Rosita couldn’t sit still while the old lady combed her hair. She paced back and forth across the parlor, scratching at her scalp, and loosening her long, grey braids.

  “I demanded my commission,” she was telling her grandmother, shrill with excitement. “And look at what he gave me!”

  As soon as Rosita saw Zoila walking into the parlor, she hid the coins the notary had given her in the pocket of her dirty apron, and reverted to her usual morose manner.

  “What did you do to deserve a bonus?” Zoila asked, though she wasn’t particularly interested.

  “You should really be asking me what I did for you today and not how much money I earned,” Rosita snapped.

  Zoila couldn’t be bothered playing cat and mouse with this mousy maid. “Just tell me what you did for me,” she said, sighing. She would prefer to leave these two simple-minded women alone to their usual witless bantering. But since she’d never seen her godmother’s eyes beam with such pride before, Zoila decided to go along with their conversation.

  “You’re going to have to give me a little mordida, just a few coins for now, before I tell you about the opportunity of your life,” sniped Rosita. She extended her hand, palm up. “I’m not the meek mouse everyone thinks I am.”

  Zoila turned to her godmother. “Either you tell me what this is all about, or I’m going back to the courtyard to read. What does she purport to have
done for me today?”

  “I don’t know what ‘purport’ means,” said Rosita in a sulky voice, “but I may have heard about a job that will take you out of this house and to a city in the United States. A city you’ve never heard of, a city called Fi-la-de-li-a. So there.”

  All Zoila heard was the words “job” and “United States.” She could feel Felipe’s blood pulsating calmly as ever, but her father’s gold pocket watch seemed to be thundering in tempo with her own pounding heart. She crossed her arms over her breasts in order to muffle the sounds of both men. Ever since the day she left Paplanta, she’d never removed her valuables from the strongbox of her bodice, even though their weight had become a burden. Each was a potent talisman, and she felt safer with them close by.

  But Zoila refused to let her superstitions cloud the lucid thinking this moment demanded. This was not the time to weigh what Felipe would have done in this situation, or what brash action her father would have taken. Her heart told her to remain rational, but she couldn’t help listening to her father’s pumped-up pulse. She knew what he’d say: squeeze Rosita for every piece of information, not only so she, Zoila, could get as high a salary as possible, but to know the precise requirements of the job, so she could mold herself into the person they wanted to hire. Make yourself invaluable, her father would say. And Zoila was her father’s daughter, for better or worse, so she knew how to manipulate any situation.

  At that instant, she had to play her cards just right to extract the information she needed from the gloating granddaughter. She’d have to be sly and clever to get Rosita on her side. But before Zoila had a chance to ask for the details of the job, her godmother showed her own trump card.

  “Zoila, I think you’d better listen carefully to what my granddaughter has to say about this job,” she advised. “You need to leave Veracruz immediately. People have been around asking questions about you and the murder of Don Naveda up in Paplanta.”

  Her madrina stuck the red hibiscus at an awkward angle on Rosita’s head.

  “I don’t mean to say you’re not welcome in my house,” she continued, “but I’m worried about what could happen to me if you stay here any longer.”

  This was feigned compassion, and Zoila knew it.

  “Please,” said Zoila, in her most humble voice, “tell me about the job.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” huffed Rosita. “It sounds like a simple job for a know-it-all, old maid like you. All you have to do is take care of a girl who’s no bigger than a doll. She’s going to be exhibited at a big fair in Filadelia, and maybe even in Paris. You’ll have to leave on a ship right away.”

  “I think you mean Philadelphia. That’s where the Centennial Exhibition will open in May—”

  Rosita plucked the red hibiscus from her braid and hurled it at Zoila. “Quit showing off how much you know! No one cares about your big head or how many languages you speak. Everyone knows that your father was a swindler and you’re probably the same. If you want this job, you’ll have to do exactly as I say.”

  Impressed with her granddaughter’s new bravado, Zoila’s godmother nodded. “Listen to her. She knows about legal matters because she’s been working for the notary for years,” she told Zoila. “And you really must leave my house right away. I’m sorry, but it’s not safe for any of us.”

  Zoila leaned her hefty body against the wooden armoire in the parlor, feeling defeated. She had miscalculated her godmother’s politeness for affection towards her. She had misjudged the vast space her ample body had taken up in the insignificant house. Her bright brain had even magnified the dullness of the two women’s minds. The four narrow eyes staring at her with disdain told her she was no longer a welcome guest. To them, Zoila was the stinky three-day-old fish smelling out the house. They wanted her gone.

  The hard wood of the armoire door handle pressed against her back, reminding Zoila of the harshness of her current life. She would never become the respected interpreter for all the foreign traders arriving daily in Veracruz; all her knowledge about vanilla cultivation and its trade would remain buried in her mind. Nor would she be traveling to the United States to offer her linguistic skills in New York. The best she could hope for now was to be hired as a governess for some small child and to try her luck in a faraway land.

  Zoila rubbed the vial of Felipe’s blood for good luck and forced herself to smile.

  “You both have been very kind to me,” she said, her voice strained. “And of course, I’ll do whatever I can to get this governess position. Please tell me about the little girl.”

  “Huh? I just told you.” Rosita shrugged. “She’s tiny, like a doll, and she likes to dance.”

  Zoila realized she’d have to pull teeth to find out the minute details she needed to know—details that would make her indispensable to the little girl’s parents and the Yankee agent.

  Her father’s favorite French saying was “cherchez l’argent.” Always look for the money.

  From him, Zoila had learned to indentify the person controlling the money, to find out what he wanted. Right now she needed to find this person and discover his real motivation of taking this little girl abroad.

  “When you say that my charge is a little girl, how old is she? And why does the Yankee want to take her to the United States?”

  Rosita shot up from her stiff chair.

  “Haven’t you heard a word I said? The little girl is tiny, an itsy-bitsy thing. She’s only this high.” She pointed to the height of the chair seat. “But she’s not a baby. She’s twelve-years-old and a real pistol.”

  “Twelve? That’s unbelievable! Why, that’s the height of a one-year-old?” A disbelieving Zoila looked at her godmother.

  “Of course, but listen to what my granddaughter says,” her madrina said, smiling proudly. “Rosita tells me the little girl is very clever and funny, and a real handful. You two have never had any children, so you don’t realize what a chore kids are.” She wiped her brow in a theatrical way. “You’ll have to guard her like Archangel Michael, and never let her out your sight.”

  Rosita nodded. “The Yankee will skin you alive if you let anything happen to his little golden goose. His precious Lucía Zárate.”

  Zoila stood next to the chair, staring down at the supposed height of her new charge. It just seemed impossible for a twelve-year-old to be this diminutive. And if the little girl turned out to be as frisky as rumored, Zoila could already feel the pain in her back from chasing such a brat. Zoila bent down to lift the chair as if it were a child and her eyes started to fill with tears. Her life had been reduced from a top linguist savvy about the international vanilla trade to that of a runaway murder suspect hoping to flee on a ship for the United States as a glorified nurse for a tiny tyrant.

  Zoila’s self-pity was short lived. She looked up, into the cloudy mirror on the parlor wall, and smiled at the sight of her expanding girth. It was her own armadillo-shield of protection. Little had she known before today that this intimidating armor would serve for more than just own self-defense. Bite after bite of stale tortillas, and mile after mile of walking, lugging all her belongings atop her head, on her back—and tucked in her chest— across Veracruz: this had all added yet another spikey and leathery band to her hard shell of resilience. The former slim and studious girl, who once stood silently in the shadows while her father negotiated in the humid vanilla warehouses of Papantla, had disappeared forever into this stout and hardened self. Perhaps the misery she had endured since her father’s death had prepared her perfectly to be the guardian of Lucía Zárate, the unique girl no taller that the chair seat, the girl whose exuberant dance had sent a sizzle throughout Veracruz.

  Still staring into the mirror, Zoila asked Rosita where she needed to go to meet her new boss.

  “Not so quick!” said Rosita, jumping up with such force her chair clattered to the ground. “I will be your intermedi… uh, the person who speaks on your behalf. I will ask for your fee and then I will introduce you to the notary.�
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  “But didn’t I hear you say that the notary asked you to bring the governess to him right away?” Zoila asked. “Shouldn’t we tidy up and go now?”

  “How do you know that’s what the notary said? I didn’t tell you that.”

  “I was in the courtyard when you were talking about it. You were telling your grandmother about your very clever way with the notary. You really showed him how alert you really are, didn’t you?” Zoila smiled in her most earnest way.

  “That I did,” Rosita agreed, clueless to the fact that she was just a pawn on Zoila’s chessboard. “But if I take you to him right away, you’ll both talk in your highfalutin ways and then I won’t know what to say and he’ll pull my braids, and then you’ll take my share of the commiss…, uh, my mordida.” She sighed at her own limited facility with words. “You’ll be going to Filadelia and I’ll just be the maid again.”

  “For God’s sake, just tell Zoila about the job requirements,” heaved her madrina. “She’ll be her charming self with the notary and the agents and the parents when she meets them. She’ll get hired for the job. And I’ll make sure, Rosita, that you get your mordida and that I’ll get my mordida as well, for all these days I’ve hosted her here in my house. Won’t I, Zoila?”

  Zoila smiled back as if she were looking at Felipe’s warm, sincere face instead of the four cold dead-fish eyes staring at her.

  “It will be an honor to pay you both back.” She showed them her straight teeth, her most sincere white smile. “And did you say that the tiny girl will need a governess who is able to carry her in a large market basket?”

  “That’s what her mother said. She also wants the governess to teach her English, French, Italian, and to cook her special meals,” said Rosita, picking up her chair so she could sit down again. “But you won’t have to teach her how to dance. She does that like a ballerina already.”