Remnant Population Read Free

insects, dissolved in one or the other of the two big floods or rotted afterwards by fungus. She still had a chipic of Humberto and herself at their wedding, and one of the first two children, and a ribbon she had won in primary school for spelling, now faded a pale pearly gray. That and the fruit dish her mother-in-law had given her, an ugly thing which had survived her intentional carelessness when more beautiful things perished. She could easily be ready in less than thirty days. Except — she leaned her head against the handle of the hoe hanging on the toolshed wall. Somewhere inside, at the moment the young man had said she was leaving, things changed. She felt for that change, as she would have fumbled in the shadowy house for her crochet hook in its bag of yarn. She wasn’t going. Ofelia blinked, suddenly wider awake than she remembered being for a long time. A memory welled up, clear as morning dew that reflected tiny curved pictures of the world around it. Before she married Humberto, before she got involved with that fool Caitano, back when she had just finished primary, she had flourished that spelling ribbon in her father’s face and insisted she was not — absolutely was
not
— going to quit school and go to work in the local branch of Sims Bancorp cleaning the floors at night.
    Her mind recoiled from the memory of what had followed that defiance; the facts were enough without the emotion. In the misery of being only a janitor — she, who had won a scholarship to secondary, a scholarship Lucia had taken instead — she had fooled herself into a relationship with Caitano. But — she retreated from all that to the cool dawn shadow of the toolshed. But she was here, and she was not going. She felt light, suddenly, as if she were falling, as if the ground had disappeared from under her feet and she would fall until she found the middle of the planet. Was this joy, or fear? She could not tell. She knew only that with every heartbeat her blood carried the same message to bone and muscle: she was not going.
    “Mama!” Barto, at the kitchen door. Ofelia grabbed the first tool her hand fell on, and she backed out of the toolshed. Pruning shears. Why pruning shears? Nothing needed pruning. She turned around, and found the words to say.
    “I can’t find the little nippers, the ones for the tomatoes.”
    “Mama, forget the tomatoes. We won’t be here to harvest them. Listen — we’re having another meeting.
    The Company says it doesn’t care about the vote.”
    Of course the Company didn’t care. That’s what it meant to be on contract. She understood that, if she understood nothing else, what it meant to be signed, sealed, delivered to the masters. They would not listen to the colonists any more than Humberto had listened to her. She did not say this to Barto. It would only provoke another argument, and she disliked arguments, especially in her special time, the early morning.
    “Barto, I am too old for these meetings,” she said.
    “I know that.” He sounded impatient, as always. “Rosara and I are going; we want you to begin the inventory.”
    “Yes, Barto.” Easier that way. He and Rosara would go, and she could come back out and smell the garden in the morning, its best time. “And we need breakfast,” he said. Ofelia sighed, and hung the pruning shears back on their hook. Already the sun was burning away the morning mist, and she could feel heat on her head. Already she could hear voices from other houses, other gardens. Rosara could cook breakfast; she usually did. She didn’t like the way Ofelia cooked.
    Inside, Ofelia mixed flour and oil and water to make the dough, patted it out, and flipped the thin rounds on the griddle. While they browned, she chopped onions and herbs, leftover sausage, cold boiled potatoes. When the flatcakes were done, she rolled them deftly around the cold filling, adding a dash of vinegar and oil. Barto liked these; Rosara wanted a hot filling. Ofelia didn’t