Maria

I am only, just now, fifteen.   I cannot have a baby; a baby without a husband.  A world of poverty and shame, living in my mother’s house where there is not even room for me in the bed. 

My mother sends me to cook for a rich man. I cook and wash his clothes and sleep beside the cookhouse next to piles of wood and charcoal, on piles of rags.  She says he is an important man and it is an honor to work for him.   It is an honor to leave school and send money home to my mother.  

The man begins to watch me, with his dark eyes, and to ask me to cut his hair and shave his face.   He reaches for me as I work.  I try to wiggle free and move away from him but he laughs and pulls me to him.   I am afraid.  He is old and they say, has many wives.

I run home and tell my mother I won’t go back but he gives her money and she needs it to care for the family.  She slaps me and tells me to be grateful for a place to sleep and food to eat.  I notice she has bought new things with the money I have earned.   

When my monthly bleeding stops, I try to ask what it means and everyone laughs.  “Stupid girl.”   I go to the Bokor who says I am having a baby, but if I do not want it he will sell me a pill and the baby will leave.

When I can, I find the man’s money and take it and run away.  He has gone to  Miami so I have a little time.  I go to the Bokar and buy the pill that he puts in wine and gives to me to drink. 

“If you bleed too much, go to the hospital and they will help you,” he warns.

Quickly, I begin to walk to another town far away. As I walk, the pains begin. The bleeding begins.

When I get to the river, I stop and swim  into a clear, hidden pool and wait.  It is afternoon, when the baby comes- small and perfect and not breathing. She floats away, getting caught on fallen branches; breaking free and swimming further from me.  I watch until I can no longer see her. 

I stand, then, and warm myself in the last sun until I am dry and can put my clothes back on.   I put leaves in my underwear to catch the blood. I let myself sleep beside the river and my baby.

 When the sun rises, I walk from behind the trees and make my way to the road where the river is shallow and people are crossing.  It’s market day.   The crossing is crowded with donkeys loaded with plantains and men leading goats and carrying chickens. 

 I, too, wade across the stream in the shallow place, with the other people, who are traveling to town.  I take some of the man’s money, from my pocket, and pay for the first moto ride of my life.  The air, the wind, the wheels carry me.  I smell the driver’s sweat mixed with aftershave. I hold on to his waist, lean into his back and cry.; blood trickling down my leg.    

I will start a small market stall in a city far away and on Sunday, when I wash my clothes, in the river, I will see my baby, swimming towards me, always swimming towards me.    I hold on. The road is bumpy; the dust mixing with my sweat and the smell of the river.