Not long after, I stood at the stove patting out tortillas, my wrists turning over and under, over and under. Pat, pat, pat. I flattened out the small balls of masa and placed them on the clay cooker over the fire. The room became warmer. My eyes stung from the flames.
My name wasn’t Rosalba. Mamá wasn’t my real mother. Everyone knew. They had to. In our hamlet of Chal, everyone knew everything about everyone, as soon as it happened. Wherever people gathered—at the river washing clothes, drawing water at the public well, at church, in the plaza—news traveled fast. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Tío Eldon said they didn’t want me to feel different, but I had always felt different, anyway.
Sometimes I thought Mamá was angry at me for reasons I didn’t understand, or for no reason. She blamed me if the fire went out, or if we didn’t have enough tortillas. Maybe the reason was that I hadn’t come out from her. I wasn’t the same.
I tossed my finished tortillas into a neat stack in the basket and covered them with a clean cloth. Mamá brought Isabel to the table and as they brushed by me, I felt myself pull back. I couldn’t help it. Who was she, if she wasn’t my mother?
The girls and Daniel joined us at the table and pulled out chairs. We lowered our heads and thanked God for His blessings.
The next morning, I returned from the tortilla mill and found Tío Eldon on the path again, leaning on his cane. We were halfway between the mill and home, with trees and no people around us.
“You’re a smart girl, Rosalba,” he said. “Do you know what the word ‘collaborate’ means?”
I shook my head.
“It means when people work together. It means you can earn money to help your Mamá.” His hand was in his pocket and then in front of me. A Chiclet sat in the middle of his palm.
“Someone in Chal is aiding the guerrillas,” he said. “Selling them loaves of bread. We’re paying four hundred quetzales to whoever tells us his name.”
Who had that much money? I glanced down to Eldon’s palm. Against it, the Chiclet looked bright white. “Nobody talks to guerrillas,” I said.
“Somebody does.” He shook his palm. The Chiclet jumped. “Take it.”
If I took the Chiclet, he might think I agreed to do what he said. To collaborate. If I didn’t take it, I might appear disrespectful. Pinching together two fingertips, I picked up the Chiclet, without touching any part of his hand. I slipped it into the pocket of my apron to save for later.
“Thank you,” I said.
I didn’t know why he asked these questions. Whichever was closest to Chal was in charge at that moment, the army or the guerrillas. We were caught between both.
SEVEN
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
APRIL 2004—SIXTEEN MONTHS AFTER THE SHUTDOWN
Only three people sat around the conference table for the weekly ideas meeting: Julie, with her pen and yellow legal tablet; Dr. Conrad, sheathed with her odor of cigarette smoke; and Eames. Doni brought in the tray of coffee and pastries that was delivered every Monday from the French patisserie around the corner and set it on one end of the table. The curtains on the large window were opened to the gray morning light, and in the sculpture garden, three men from the maintenance crew were breaking down tables and stacking chairs from the wedding the night before.
“Did you bring the magazine?” Dr. Conrad asked Doni as her assistant set a cup and saucer in front of the director, poured her coffee, and stirred in half-and-half and two sugars.
Doni nodded, laying out a linen napkin before holding up the latest issue of ArtNews. The cover featured a photo of the Bilbray Institute in La Jolla, an oceanfront gallery about the size of the Clay, located smack in the middle of San Diego’s exploding biotech corridor.
Dr. Conrad snatched the magazine from Doni and threw it down in front of Julie and Eames. “San Diego’s a cultural backwater. Explain to me how the Bilbray has expanded.”
Julie and Eames squirmed uneasily. Newcomers to California often underestimated the cultural landscape of San Diego, overlooking its vibrancy. They saw beach, they saw palm trees, and could only conclude backwater.
Julie reached for the magazine and flipped through the pages. It was a twelve-page spread in the middle of the book, with before-and-after construction photos, aerial shots, and details from the galleries: customized niches for sculptures and yards and yards of wall space for monumental paintings. An entire page was dedicated to a Q and A with the Bilbray director.
The Clay’s expansion had been featured in a similar spread several years earlier, and the magazine ran an in-depth profile of Dr. Conrad when she was named director. Julie didn’t point out any of that as she passed the magazine to Eames.
“I was hired to make rain,” Dr. Conrad said. “That’s who I am. The president’s going to read this”—she grabbed the magazine back from Eames and shook it again—“and he’s going to ask me what we’re doing to keep up.”
The low buzz from the recessed lighting was the only sound. Doni picked up the coffee pot to top off Dr. Conrad’s cup, but the director hadn’t yet taken a sip. Nobody had. Doni set down the pot and rearranged the cream and sugar on the tray. The room was getting brighter, the sun peeking out from a pile of cushioned clouds and sending a ray over the Calder and into the conference room.
“The endowment’s getting a good return,” Eames said. The endowment was the stockpile of cash that generated interest dollars to pay for daily operations. Dr. Conrad’s eyes bulged behind her red eyeglass frames. “That’s your trust fund mentality talking. Think again, Eames.”
Eames closed the magazine. “Are we brainstorming ways to raise money?” Julie asked.
“We’re always brainstorming ways to raise money,” Dr. Conrad said.
Julie muttered something and Dr. Conrad leaned toward her. “Excuse me? I couldn’t hear what you said.”
“I said, I thought we brainstormed ways to show good art.”
Dr. Conrad sat back with deliberation, sipped from her coffee cup, sputtered and set it down. “This is cold. Take it away and get me a fresh cup.”
Doni appeared at the director’s elbow and whisked away the offending cup and saucer. Julie doodled hatch marks on her legal tablet, creating an abstract design that grew into the shape of the Clay.
Doni returned with a steaming cup of coffee, set it before Dr. Conrad, and stirred in cream and sugar. Eames sat with his chin in his hand. “The Bilbray had oodles of land to expand into,” he said. “We’ve maxed out our footprint.”
Julie sketched the façade of the building, the low, elegant, glass box structure amid tall condo towers. Eames was right. They’d built out to every available inch. Unless they bulldozed the sculpture garden, the Clay had nowhere to go.
“If we want more space, we’ll have to move,” Julie said. “South of Market. It’s the hip new place.”
“The new ballpark is there,” Eames said.
“Aren’t we obligated to this site?” Dr. Conrad asked.
“The terms of the gift were about keeping the collection intact,” Julie said. “The terms don’t specify where.”
Dr. Conrad pulled the tray of pastries toward her and broke off a piece of croissant. She dipped it in her coffee and chewed silently. “And this is paid for how? To circle back to our original question.”
Eames pulled on his bottom lip. “If we moved, we could lease our space to another non-profit.”
Dr. Conrad groaned, breaking off another piece of croissant. Most non-profits were