Hard Red Spring by Kelly Kerney Page B

puddle. “I don’t understand. He’s yours now?”
    â€œOh yes, we picked him up last week. He was in the Catholic church when it collapsed. All the other orphans were killed.”
    â€œWas he outside?”
    â€œNo, he was inside.”
    â€œWas he hiding under anything? A statue?”
    Evie stared at the boy. An orphan boy, when she had thought orphans could only be girls. She wondered if she would be allowed to play with him, remembering Mother’s comment about orphans being unable to play. She had a ball. Maybe she would try that. She so, so wanted someone to play with. Ixna had resisted her attempts at blindman’s bluff, though she played it with Father.
    â€œNo one knows how he survived. They found him standing. Just standing there, all dusty. Besides”—and here Mrs. Fasbinder shifted easily into territory Mother tried to avoid but that always, inevitably, came up with Mrs. Fasbinder—“no Catholic statue could save anyone. It was a sign, that church crumbling to the ground. The era of repression in the name of God is over in Guatemala.”
    Evie had been taught that introducing religion or politics to conversation was rude. Though once Mrs. Fasbinder did, Mother couldn’t seem to help herself. “And what will take its place?” she asked with determined lightness.
    â€œFreedom and prosperity through the blood of Jesus and through hard work.”
    â€œIs that so?”
    â€œBefore, the Indians worked while the priests lived off the wealth. But now, with this new economy, everyone works and everyone is paid.”
    â€œEveryone certainly works, but I’m not convinced everyone gets paid.” Mother pursed her lips and spat out the name like a sneeze. “Ixna worked on the Piedmont and she’s told quite a different story. Starvation wages in play money.”
    â€œThe paper slips are necessary, Mattie. The peso’s so depressed we can’t get the exact bills to pay them on a daily basis! You’ve no idea, absolutely none.” Still standing, Mrs. Fasbinder worked herself up so that she was almost breathless. “And we pay more than just wages. On every worker we have to pay their tax so the government doesn’t draft them away for the road crew or the railroad project. We pay for their food, their children’s food, the shelter, we have to pay men wages to round them up all over the highlands to honor their debts, we have to bribe Ubico to favor our debts over the other planters’. Because these Indians take advances from every coffee planterthey can! They’re just trying to avoid the railroad draft, but not even that works anymore. We advance them six months of wages, then a month later they disappear! We know they go right next door, to the Haussmans’. Their men come in the night to give them new advances, new identity papers, and smuggle them over the fence! So I’d say the majority of them, who are pretty enterprising, get paid very, very well for their work. Then they drink it all away.”
    â€œAt the plantation cantinas!”
    â€œIf we didn’t have a cantina, the Indians wouldn’t work for us.”
    â€œSo they drink it all away, and the honest ones are left to starve.”
    â€œExactly!” Mrs. Fasbinder agreed. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s the lack of morals that’s put them in this bind. If we paid more, all of our money would jump the fence and half the population would drink itself to death. Too much drink is worse for them than too little food. And if we left, all the Indians would be dying of yellow fever on that insane railroad project. Right now they are only field workers, but everyone has to start somewhere. With hard work and God-fearing morals,” the woman declared, lifting her chin to demonstrate her point, “the Indians will rise.”
    â€œThat’s quite optimistic of you,” Mother said, motioning to