Floreana by Wittmer Margret

Author:Wittmer, Margret
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moyer Bell and its subsidiaries
Published: 2014-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The visit of the V.I.P. to Floreana certainly enhanced our prestige with the Zavalas, but we soon became involved against our will in a family crisis of theirs. It started only a few days after the Houston’s departure, when Maruja burst into our house in a state of great agitation. She was followed by her husband, who maintained the silence of injured dignity most of the time.

Did I know the latest news, she demanded hysterically between sobs. I said I did not, and she then poured out in Spanish a torrent of explanation, lamentation, and abuse, from which I at last gathered that her daughter Marta had gone off into the bush with Sergio, the young fisherman.

In itself there was nothing sensational about this, for according to Maruja herself it was a regular custom on the islands and in the mountains of Ecuador; even in the best families a girl often eloped into the bush with her “intended,” taking any food either of them could lay hands on. When this ran out, they would hang empty tins on a bush or tree to indicate that additional supplies were urgently needed. If the girl’s family still objected to the union, they would ignore the appeal, in which case she generally went home resigned to the loss of her young man. But if they were sympathetic, as more often happened, they would either hang on the same tree or bush the supplies needed, or else just fix a note to it asking the young couple to “return, all is forgiven” so that the wedding could be celebrated. That shortened the proceedings considerably, and also the period of premarital honeymoon.

After hearing this, Heinz was preparing to congratulate her on her future son-in-law, and I asked her why she was so upset if it was often done.

“It may be done in Ecuador and the other islands,” she cried indignantly, “but not on Floreana—not in my house anyhow. For one thing, who is this Sergio? He’s got no possessions at all, no shoes, no socks. I don’t believe he has any clothes at all but the ones he’s standing up in. What sort of a husband is that for my Marta?”

“But good heavens,” I said, “is it all so important? They’re both young and can make their own lives—build up something, just as we’ve done. And after all, Marta herself isn’t a great heiress, is she now?”

As I at once realized, this was not the most tactful thing I could have said to the Zavalas, and it was all I could do to mollify them a little by offering some of the excellent whiskey President Roosevelt had sent our way.

Even the thought of the President seemed to rub salt in their wounds.

“No!” raged Maruja. “This wretched pauper shall never have my Marta. Anything that happens here always gets into the American papers, and what will the Americans say, what will His Excellency President Roosevelt say, when he hears that all the tins of food

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