The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez

Author:Cristina Henriquez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

15

VALENTINA STOOD OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR OF IRINA PRIETO’S HOUSE AND PATTED her hairpins to make sure they were secure. She was wearing the same dress she had worn when they arrived in Gatún the day before—she hadn’t anticipated needing a change of clothes—and on top of that, without her usual cremes, her hair was a mess. Renata, apparently, did not even own a comb somehow. Yet despite her dishevelment, Valentina had forced herself to leave the house. The first thing she needed to do, she determined, was to talk to the neighbors, to find out who among them had received the same paper and who had signed it already.

She rapped her knuckles against Irina’s door.

“Valentina! Is it you?” Irina gasped when she opened it. Irina was ninety years old, and impossibly her hair was still a light shade of brown, though she did look frail in her housedress. A gray cat slunk around her ankles. “You remember Simón,” Irina said.

Valentina reached down to stroke the cat, but he whimpered and ducked away.

“Bah, ignore him,” Irina said. “He is more temperamental than me. But why are you here? Do you want to come in? For a coffee? Or a sweet? I have a few of those caramels that you used to like.”

Valentina smiled. She did like the caramel candies that Irina had always kept in a jar, but no, she was there for a different reason today.

“Irina, did you receive a notification about being required to move because of the plans for building a dam here?”

Irina’s face clouded. “Ah, yes.”

“Did you sign it?”

“Heavens no!”

Valentina smiled again. “Good. I just came to make sure.”

Irina scooped the cat up into her arms. “Tell her, Simón. I may be old, but I am not senile yet.”

At the next house, Salvador Bustos, too, invited Valentina inside, but Valentina got right to the point and was pleased when, like Irina, Salvador scoffed. “Why would I sign it? No. Absolutely not.”

At the house of Xiomara Vargas, Valentina also found Josefina Santí. Since being widowed, Xiomara and Josefina had become the best of friends, and when they insisted Valentina come in, not taking no for an answer, she saw that the two of them were embroidering a tablecloth. “I started at one end and Josefina at the other,” Xiomara said, “and the idea was to meet in the middle, but you can see how much farther I have gotten than her.”

Josefina laughed as she pulled the needle through. “Yes, and you can also see whose stitches are neater.”

Valentina quickly complimented the work of each before inquiring about the notification.

“You mean the eviction notice?” Xiomara said.

“I threw it in the garbage,” Josefina said without looking up.

“Claro, where it belongs.” Xiomara nodded. She looked at Valentina. “Why are you asking?”

“I just wanted to check. Renata received one, and she has not signed it, but I hear that other people”—she did not want to name names—“have.”

“Other people are imbeciles,” Josefina said.

Xiomara nodded again, but she looked at Valentina nervously. “Is it a lot of people? You can tell us.

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