Chapter 4

San Salvador, El Salvador - January 23, 1974

Pedro Fernández sat silently at the dining table with his hands folded in his lap and his eyes lazily closed. His slow, deliberate breaths pushed the hot air of the room against its plastered walls. He stood no more than five foot five, yet his standing in the community gave him an outsized presence whenever he entered a room. His face was always clean-shaven and caught the light when he spoke. A long, wide upper lip drew attention to his small nose and large, deeply set eyes. His charcoal hair was kept perfectly combed, and his large but narrow lips were often pursed, as though he were perpetually on the verge of speaking.

The din from the main sitting area of the house slowly faded as he inhaled and leaned his heavy head forward. He spoke internally to his soothed muscles and stretched ligaments. He listened intently. Whispers blanketed his eardrums within seconds.

He opened his eyes wide and grinned casually. He tilted his head back towards his shoulders and braced to rise from his chair. His 10-year-old daughter, Rosa, entered the room and watched her father as he cleared his plate and pushed in his chair.

Rosa wore her hair in long, flowing curls that caught the sun whenever she turned her head. Her shallow, narrow forehead formed a thin band between her hairline and her bushy black eyebrows. Her inquisitive nature revealed itself in the way she frequently tilted her head to one side, her plump upper lip resting just slightly apart from her wavy lower lip, as if she were about to ask a question.

"Is it time, papi?" asked Rosa.

"Not quite yet. But stay here because I'll be just a few more minutes, and you can help me clear the table until then."

"Okay."

Pedro could see through the red, gold, and green hues of the stained-glass partition in the dining room that six of his other children had made their way to the courtyard. Once he and Rosa had cleared the table of all the dishes and cutlery, he told his daughter to follow him to the rear of the house.

Past the kitchen and through the wide corridors, spanned a vestibule made of brick and mud that narrowed into a semi-mooned oven. The oven was filled with ashes. Beside the oven were two thick pillars of wood made from a maquilishuat tree.

The beams were fastened in cement and acted as enclosures for Pedro's massive collection of mineral rocks. The enclosure sealed the rocks the way an ant farm is framed, to form a mason's tapestry. Above the rocks were wooden pipes made from hollowed branches. They funnelled rainwater over the rocks and guided the trickled water meticulously over every wedged rock.

At the bottom of the unique wall was a wooden reservoir that was curved on both ends, so as to pool the water that had mazed through each of the rocks, and collected into the cup-like center of the reservoir.

Pedro reached for a ladle that hung from the side of the oven.

"Can I do it?" asked Rosa.

"Sure, you can."

So, Rosa lifted onto her tipped toes and gently stretched to unhook the copper spoon from its resting spot. She lowered the ladle down into the pooled water. Her breath stopped as she heard the echo of the splooshing sound that the spoon made as it breached the water's surface.

She raised the copper spoon to her lips and drank hastily. As she swallowed she closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose.

"Very good," proclaimed Pedro. "Just like I taught you."

Pedro gestured for his daughter to do the same for him, then bent low as she brought the spoon to his lips with both hands. He grinned with deep satisfaction.

That night as his family prepared for bed, Pedro stood on the balcony that jutted out from his and his wife's bedroom. In just his boxer briefs, he leaned on to the railing with his forearms and looked out towards the city. The black sky typically made it impossible for him to see beyond their property, but tonight the horizon was littered with shards of lightning. Sometimes jagged and angular; other times straight and wide. The strobing was glorious and evoked images of his deep past.

In the reflection of the lightning strike, Pedro saw visions of the mango and avocado trees that created a perimeter around the small farm that he tended with his father, Ernesto, when he was about Rosa's age.

He visualized Ernesto's profile, complete with his wide-brimmed straw hat, and broom-like mustache. In his vision, he tried reaching for his father's shirt sleeve when the rumbling crack of multiple thunderclaps awakened his focus and brought him back to the present. Pedro shook his head soberly and turned his gaze towards his bedroom.

His wife, Juanita, was spotlighted by the yellow glow of the lamp on her nightstand. He watched as she scurried across the floor in her bata and hair wrap. She rubbed the remnants of her face cream into the palms of her hands as Pedro climbed through the frame of the doorway and crossed back into the bedroom.

Juanita’s wavy hair was carefully coiffed and fanned outward into a small beehive as it rose from her long, broad face. The heavy lids over her large eyes gave her the appearance of a woman either deep in thought or perpetually on the edge of sleep. She stood just five foot three and moved with a short, shuffling gait. Her voice carried a casual rasp that was unmistakably commanding.

"How did he nurse?" Pedro asked.

"Much better. I managed to entice him to almost drain both of my breasts by gently flicking his upper lip when he would get lazy."

"Oh, my gordito," smirked Pedro.

In the far corner of the room, bathed in moonlight, rested a white latticed crib. Inside the crib cooed 11-month-old, Carmelo, the youngest of Pedro and Juanita's eight children. Carmelo was born amidst turmoil. Turmoil in the home, between Pedro and Juanita, and turmoil in the country as the effects of the oil embargo implemented by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries had begun to make its way to the capital city.

Pedro had hoped that the birth of his third son would signal peace in their home, but the love between him and Juanita had ebbed away as briskly as the wake of a lapping wave. His hopes for the political climate had long ago eroded as the seeds of civil conflict had already taken root. But his convictions for the government were not forged nearly as tight as his romantic notions for his domestic life.

Pedro suffered the divergent pull of a desire to fulfill his personal journey, whilst being a sedentary presence in the lives of his children. He stared at the smooth cement ceiling as he lay on his back. He leaned over to kiss his wife goodnight but she was already asleep on her side.

He climbed out of bed and turned off her lamp, then returned to his side and turned off his own light. He ruminated in the dark for quite sometime before finally drifting asleep.