This story, submitted for publication to the Pan American Union, was written in 1970 while living in Houston, Texas.
Ramona, in her pale blue uniform, stood in the open doorway. She knocked lightly, hesitating before she spoke. “Señora, permisso, por favor.”
“Como?” the dark-haired Colombian woman answered absently, not looking up from the handwork she was examining in her lap.
“Señora, I go. I go Monday for my home in the Chocó.”
The woman looked up from her work, giving her full attention to the Negro girl standing before her.
“Ramona! Why do you want to go? Is something wrong?” There was a note of disbelief in her voice.
Ramona avoided her mistress’ eyes. “No, Señora, there is nothing wrong.”
“Then why do you want to leave? Just when I get you trained to be a good servant you want to go home!”
“I have been happy here, Señora,” she answered softly, fearing the Señora would not believe her. How could a poor country girl from the Chocó area of coastal Colombia make her mistress understand why she had to go? She had worked eight months in this rich man’s house. With difficulty she had saved enough money to pay her bus fare back home, that is, if she rode with all the sacks and bags and bicycles and chickens and an occasional goat on top of the open-air vehicle. Better anyway, she thought, than on one of the crowded seats inside, if indeed, she was lucky enough to get a seat.
Each month Ramona was paid 120 pesos. She spent most of it for gifts to take home to her family. For her Mama she had bought a statue of the blessed Virgin that had cost twelve pesos. For her Papa she had found a shiny, almost new machete in a hand tooled leather case. It had taken her several months to pay for this, but the kind shopkeeper had kept it for her until she had paid the 100 pesos, a little each week. Papa would like this useful gift. His old one would be handed down to one of her brothers.
She had bought dress material for her nearly grown sisters still living at home, and toys for the younger children, beautiful colorful plastic toys that were cheap and light to carry. As she thought of the youngsters, she wondered if her Mama had had another baby. Ramona loved children.
For herself she had bought a new pair of shiny black patent leather shoes, and best of all, five meters of fine white cloth to make her very own wedding dress! For her novio, a shirt, a white one with ruffles and a bright red bow tie. He would wear them proudly. She smiled as she visualized the two of them standing before the alter of their little village church.
His wedding gift was a beautiful black leather belt with a silver buckle. She wondered what he would have for her. Had he built a new house for their very own. Perhaps he had made some of the furniture to go in it. He was very clever with his hands. Ramona wanted to buy a few more trinkets at the bazaar before she left Cali, but she would have to wait until the Señora paid her.
She had taken one of the Señora’s pink nylon slips and a red ball point pen and hidden them in her room. Luckily, they hadn’t been missed and three weeks had passed. Ramona had never owned a nylon slip before. Her own were made from flour sacks and although she had saved her money carefully in hopes of buying a new one, she couldn’t save enough to pay for it. That is, if she got the other things she wanted to take back to her family. She certainly hadn’t wanted to steal from the Señora, but since she was so rich, she would never even miss things. But Ramona felt guilty and she didn’t like to look directly at her. It seemed safer, somehow, to stare at the floor.
The Señora’ stern voice brought Ramona’s thoughts abruptly back. “But, Ramona, you have only been here for seven months. You told me you would stay with us for a long time!”
“It has been eight months, Señora. Eight months on Monday,” corrected Ramona. Did the Señora really think she could stay in this house any longer. She had tried so hard to please the family, and she had struggled to learn the white man’s city ways. She had cleaned the toilets, scrubbed the floors, cooked strange food over an electric stove that burned things up so easily if one didn’t watch. Worst of all, the hot stove made the milk boil over, milk that the Señora insisted that she boil every day, and she still didn’t know why. She had to iron clothes with an electric iron that also got too hot and sometimes burned her hands, or worse, holes in the clothes. She washed dishes until late every night, more dishes than she had ever seen before in her life, and silverware and glasses. She trembled if she dropped one on the hard tile sink, or on the concrete floor, fearing that the Señora might have heard her and be angry. Otherwise she would never tell her, or course!
She minded the children, gay mischievous children, who made this big, beautiful house dirty so fast. The Señora wanted the house to be kept clean always. She never wanted anything out of place. This was not an easy task for a girl from the Chocó whose own home was so different, where so-called dirt and clutter were not a problem and where children played happily and naturally unnoticed except to love and to be loved, and they were, she reflected, ever so much happier.
“Ramona, you simply cannot leave until I find a reliable girl to replace you. You know that you must give me more notice than this. Monday is only five days away. I couldn’t possibly find a girl to replace you in that time.” She spoke crossly.
The nights are the worst of all, thought Ramona. When she was too tired to sleep, she tried to remember her river home. Her father’s little house perched high on stilts over the riverbank, high above the flood waters of the Rio San Juan that often came rushing down after a hard rain.
Sometimes she was so tired that she could not remember the muted sounds of her river home; the noisy insects, the cheeky parakeets coming in to roost, the slap-slap of a paddle guiding a dugout canoe home, or the sharp bark of a monkey. Sleep would usually come before she could recall the moist pungent odors of the Chocó, but she would dream of her home often. No white person could ever understand what it is like to be from the Chocó, so very far away from this white man’s city. Ramona wanted to tell the Señora about her longing for home but was afraid she would not understand.
Ramona readily admitted that her mistress had been kind; strict, of course, but kind and good to her. Her friend, Lelia had not been so lucky. Her mistress was hard. There was no time for daydreaming in that house or for talking or laughing and relaxing when a job was done, for her Señora always found more work to be done. She didn’t want her to be still for a minute during the day. There was never time for a telephone call to a friend which Ramona had found so helpful when that terrible homesick feeling came over her.
She thought of another friend, Elena, who worked for gringos. They paid her a good salary, more than most of the other girls were paid, and more than Ramona was given. But these people were so funny thought Ramona. They were so different from the Colombian families that she and her friends worked for. One thing, they made Elena wash dishes in very hot water. That Señora laughed when Elena didn’t want to iron on the same day that she washed clothes. Everybody knows that you get the rheumatism bad for sure that way. But that gringo woman told Elena it was just her excuse to keep from ironing. Poor Elena! Of course, she did things her own way when the Señora was out playing bridge or going to parties, which she did most of the time anyway, according to Elena. Elena said that she always snoops about the kitchen, cooking and getting in Elena’s way and rearranging things. Why that woman, she tried to make Elena wash all the vegetables and fruit, and even the lettuce, in purple water! She put some kind of strange medicine in it. She said Americans have weak stomachs. Not surprising from the things they do in the kitchen! The worst thing of all, Elena said she couldn’t understand half of what she said. The funny way that woman talked. Ramona told herself cheerfully that she would rather work for her Señora than Elena’s!
The Señora spoke again. “…and you are due for a week’s vacation soon. We will allow you to go home a few days next week if you feel it is necessary. Then you will feel happier and can come back to work for us. It will be much better for all of us this way.”
Yes, the Señora was generous, Ramona thought. She knew she got more time off than most of her friends who worked as maids. But what was this compared to the endless hours of freedom she had on the Rio San Juan where one loses all track of time. What is an afternoon off in Cali for a girl from the Chocó where free afternoons means to be able to climb into a dugout canoe, to stand straight and tall in it and drift aimlessly downstream past a neighbor’s house with a paddle in hand, callout out, “Hola. Como esta? Hasta luego,” and then on downstream to the next house, another greeting , another goodbye, and on to her destination, but in no real hurry to get anywhere.
There was certainly no impatient mistress waiting for her. No dark servant’s room located in the lower level of a big concrete house. How she hated this dark lonely house, this friendless locked up white man’s house!
The Señora’s voice was sharp. “Ramona, you people are lazy. This is why you never have anything. I thought you were different, somehow. But I was wrong. You are like all the others! What will you have when you get back to the Chocó? Here you have all the food you can eat. We provide you with clothes and a nice clean room. You get a good wage, too. If you go back to your home, do you know what will happen to you? Within a year you will be married and then you will have one baby after another. Your youth will be gone before you are twenty. If you stay here, you can better yourself, perhaps even get an education. I read in the newspaper about a school that is being started in Cali to help girls like you learn how to read and write. The Señor and I were considering letting you go there three hours every week. It is a good plan, I think. Everyone should know how to do these things. Ramona, there is nothing for you in the Chocó. Nothing!”
The Señora impatiently jabbed her needle in and out of the needlepoint design which was clenched in her hand. She seemed to know how futile this argument was. There had been servants like this before.
Ramona shifted from one foot to the other. She seemed to sway and then she squeezed her eyes tightly shut as if to shut out this difficult scene. “Nothing,” she thought. The Señora didn’t know, but she would be married soon. She was nearly seventeen now. Her mama had been only fifteen when she married her papa. Ramona knew her novio had worked hard since she had gone away to Cali. He had planted choclo. Several harvests must be stored away in his shack by now. She could almost see the hard, dry, golden kernels stacked in the back room. She remembered the day she had gone to tell him goodbye. He was working with his brothers, their machetes slashing away at the jungle, felling it to use as cover of mulch for the corn that already had been thrown into the standing vegetation by the younger boys. The plants fell to the ground, covering the golden corn with their greenness. She had seen it many times in her lifetime. Before the dense tropical growth had a chance to come back, the corn sprouted and each plant raced to reach the sun. While the farmer harvests his crops the jungle is snatching at his heels and soon the area is again covered, leaving not a trace of the corn field which had flourished only weeks before.
“I will ask the Señor to give you ten pesos a month more than you are getting now. Remember, we have given you one raise in salary already. I don’t see how you can seriously think of leaving this beautiful house, especially when we have done so much for you. Why, I have spent months training you to be a good servant. I taught you to cook when all you knew how to make was Sancocho. You must know that the children are so very fond of you. Her voice was pleading now, "And the baby adores you.”
Ramona knew how hard it was to find clean dependable and honest girls in this city. There were so many bad girls there now. The servant girl, anxious to escape the impatient brown eyes of the Señora, stared at the living room wall and smiled faintly to herself. She felt herself inadequate to explain to the Señora what she was feeling inside and why she felt that she had to go now. She didn’t know how to express herself, nor did she want to explain her deepest feelings to this white woman who had been so good to her. But she did want her to understand.
Suddenly the words welled up in her and seemed to overflow into the room. Theirs had always been strictly an impersonal relationship. The Señora knew little of Ramona’s actual background, or for that matter, had seldom thought about it. She vaguely knew where the Chocó was, but to her, it was mainly a source of domestic labor. She had not meant to be unfeeling or disinterested, but it had simply never occurred to her that she should be concerned with the girl’s background. She had been good to her, fed her, paid her, clothed her, offered to educate her with little success. But as Ramona spoke, she realized this was more than a domestic servant standing before her; here was a person who had deep feelings about her home and family, about her future and her past. And, they were just as strong as any the Señora herself might have.
“…don’t you know that I just want to go home? Why don’t you understand that it isn’t the money? I want to go home to live my own life, to get married like you. I don’t want to raise your children, but I want to have my own babies. I want to bend over my own cooking pot again and live in my own little house with my husband. I will make cigars from the raw tobacco we trade for in Buena Ventura. We will smoke and talk together when the sun goes down. He will tell me all the things that have happened in the Chocó these many months that I have been away, and I will tell him about this mad glittering Cali on the other side of the tall mountains. I want to hear again the pulsating drums in the jungle darkness as we lie together on our straw mats. I want to hear and smell the heavy rains that come at night. I am tired of city ways and city folk. I want to wash my clothes in the river water again and pound them on a rock and lay them on the grass in the sun. While I lie beside them waiting for them to dry, I’ll watch the log rafts float by on their way to the lumber mills that are on the river below. The rough logs are roped together, freshly cut from the forests that border the river. I’ll wave to the women who live on the rafts in their lean-to grass and stick shanties, and I’ll see them cooking over their fires, while their children play close to them seemingly unaware of the deep waters surrounding them. I will watch while the men guide the rafts on their way until they finally drift on out of sight around the bend in the river…silently.” Ramona stopped talking abruptly, suddenly aware of what she had done. In all the eight months she had been employed in this house, she had never spoken more than one or two sentences at a time to her employer. Out of respect, she had only spoken when addressed. The Señora was as surprised by this verbal outburst as Ramona was. For a moment they stared one another in disbelief.
Then, as though nothing unusual had happened, the Señora smiles, “I understand how you must feel, Ramona. I wish you had told me these things earlier. But you must understand, too, that I have a problem. Where will I get another girl if you go, Ramona? There are many girls in Cali, but how do I know I will find one I can trust? You were sent to us by your cousin, but you are now the only one from your family who is in Cali. Isn’t that true?” Ramona’s face suddenly brightened. She had an idea at last, a way to get out of this uncomfortable situation quickly.
“Señora, I have a sister fifteen years old. She wants to come to Cali. I will tell her that you are a kind Señora. She will tend your baby lovingly. She likes children. She knows how to care for them. We have many brothers and sisters at home.”
The words were tumbling out again. She breathed quickly and continues. “Her name is Lupe. She will keep your house clean for you. She will learn city ways quickly. I know she will come. For a long time, she has wanted to come, but my Papa said always, “Wait until Ramona come back home.”
For the first time, Ramona smiled directly at the Señora. She knew Lupe would come and remembered her own longing to come to the city of Cali. The things she had heard about the city had thrilled her. The city with its crowded streets and narrow sidewalks, the smelly roaring buses, the busy hurrying people, big beautiful buildings and the noisy colorful markets tempted her as it would tempt Lupe.
She had heard tales from other Chocó girls who had left home to work in Cali. From them she heard about the men who worked in the factories. She had heard how they liked to spend their money on clean white shirts, tight pants, fancy hats, gold wrist watches, transistor radios and pretty girls. They liked to take these girls for walks on the banks of the Rio Cali on Sunday afternoons. Ramona had seen where her girlfriends lived when they had their babies, too. She knew they didn’t get much to eat. What had happened to their pretty dresses and their shiny high heels? She knew the answer too well. Their babies had to drink sweet panella water made with raw brown sugar because there was no money to buy food, but at least it stopped their crying. Of course, it wasn’t long before their little stomachs would grow very big and tight, but their bodies would shrivel because they were starving to death. The babies in the Chocó didn’t starve. Some of the city girls knew how to get rid of their babies before they were born, but some of them died with their babies, she remembered. In Cali, if you are poor, perhaps it is better to die. In the Chocó everyone is poor, but money isn’t needed there. No one goes hungry.
Ramona thought of the fancy shops in Cali. She liked them. She loved to dance to the brassy music, she found the crowds exciting, and she felt ethereal when she worshipped in the beautiful churches. Ramona felt almost rich when she thought of the money she was making, never having had any of her own before. She had known men in the city. Some brought her presents and some tried to make love to her. But she remembers her novio and well knew that in the Chocó her future was secure. She would never be hungry, even when there was no meat to eat, for she knew there would always be bananas, platinos, palm nuts, coconuts and fish. Her novio wore few clothes, but there was a dignity about him that these city boys could not match, even in their fancy clothes with their smart talk. Her people didn’t have to beg or steal. They wanted for nothing; their tastes were simple.
Ramona wanted to go home to live like her mama and papa, as their parents had lived before them. She knew she must go now, before it was too late. She knew if she stayed much longer, she might not want to leave. She might come to like Cali too much. Perhaps the temptations of the city would be too much for this simple country girl.
The Señora was resigned to Ramona’s leaving but had mixed feelings about it. She remembered the time she had spent training her and dreaded having to break in a new girl. These girls knew nothing about housework when they first arrived from the coast. She understood a little of Ramona’s feelings yet couldn’t help but resent the time and effort involved to train a new servant girl. It happened so many times before. They seldom stayed a full year. There would be a lapse of several days when she would have no one, and in Cali that was almost a catastrophe. She grimaced at the prospect and momentarily resented this simple servant girl who was thinking of nothing but her own pleasures.
Ramona, waiting for the Señora to dismiss her, was visualizing her homecoming and her wedding where there would be much feasting and celebrating. She knew that she would be happy and contended again soon. Why would anyone want more from life than this she asked herself? “Alright, Ramona. If you must go, you must go,” the Señora sighed.
“Gracias, Señora. I will pack my things today. I will go early tomorrow morning so my sister, Lupe, can come soon. She is a good girl and I know you will like her. She will be here next week.” Ramona smiled shyly at the Señora.
The Señora felt defeated. She jabbed the needle into the fabric, shook her head and mumbled to herself, “No ambition, no loyalty, no desire to better themselves. They are all alike. I will never understand them.”
She wondered absently if Ramona’s uniforms would fit Lupe and looked up to ask Ramona if they were the same size, but Ramona had left the room. Upstairs, Ramona slipped quietly into the Señora’s bedroom and placed the pink nylon slip in the scented bureau drawer. She looked longingly at it, touched it again, and closed the drawer. The ball point pen lay on the telephone pad by the bed.