I couldn’t stop staring at their faces, so flat and alien. They stared back at me. What did I look like to them? I wondered. Was my pale face frightening or just strange? Was my orange hair ugly to them? Did they find the lack of color in our clothing a sign of dullness? I wanted to know.
Behind a table spread with potatoes was a girl with skin darker than Miguel’s and black plaits hanging to her waist. Her eyes too were darker than Miguel’s, so black I couldn’t find the border of her pupils. She wore a fringed shawl of turquoise cloth around her shoulders. My mother ran her hands over the potatoes as if they were valuable gems. While we had always thought of potatoes as white, here they were yellow and blue and orange. I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl.
“Soy Orly,” I said, offering her my hand. She stared at me, arms by her sides. “¿Cómo te llamas?”
She looked uneasily at the older woman beside her. Her mother? “No mucho español,” she finally said.
“Yo tampoco.” Me neither. I smiled. “Estoy aprendiendo. ¿Qué idioma hablas?” I was mystified as to why this clearly Bolivian person did not speak Spanish. I still hadn’t learned the history of this country, that Spanish was not its native tongue but that of its brutal conquerors. I looked around for Miguel, but he and my mother had walked on ahead.
The girl was silent.
Pressing both hands to my chest I tried again. “Soy Orly.” She smiled shyly, and pressing her hands to her own chest, she answered, “Soy Nayra.”
“Mucho gusto.” I reached out to touch her hand, but she jerked back, fear in her eyes.
“Orly!” My mother called, realizing I hadn’t followed her and Miguel to the poultry.
“Lo siento,” I said, tilting my head to convey my apology. “Tengo que ir. Mi madre. Me voy! Hasta luego!” Across the market I flew until my mother caught my hand in hers, anchoring me to her side.
“Miguel, what language do the potato ladies speak?”
He laughed. I must have said it wrong. “Aymara.”
“Do you know it?”
“Of course. From my father.”
“Can you teach me?” I augmented my halting Spanish with gestures.
“Why?”
I shrugged. I wanted to explain more, but I just didn’t have all the words yet.
We examined the chickens. A city girl, I was unaccustomed to watching animals be slaughtered. For me, meat had always come in bloody packages from the butcher. But at the Camacho Market, the food was still alive. Chickens and ducks fluffed their wings in cages, and fish swam in tanks. When Miguel bought a chicken for his family, a cholita sliced off its head right in front of us.
I closed my eyes to block out the squawking bird and absorbed the sounds of the market. The rustle of skirts, the voices of vendors, the clop of hooves, the wind. The Spanish! I could not get enough of its melody. Those lilting words; I wanted them all for my own.
Before abandoning the market, Miguel stopped at one last stall that sold half-moons of pastry baked until they turned gold. “Salteñas,” he said, offering one to my mother and dropping the other into my palm. It burned my skin and I waved it in the air until it was cool enough to bite. The crust was sweeter than I expected, and it was so juicy inside that broth ran down my chin. “It’s like stew in a strudel,” I said to my mother, who was eyeing her pastry with deep skepticism. “I think it’s beef inside? And potatoes. Spicy!”
Miguel smiled. “Ají,” he said. “It’s a kind of chili.”
My mother took a cautious nibble. And then another. I watched her lick the juice from her fingers and I smiled.
* * *
• • •
AFTER WE HAD LEFT the market and were walking the mile or so downhill (at last) to our rooms, a herd of furry, long-necked animals rounded the corner in front of us, heading our way. There were dozens of them, with matted and dusty coats. I’d seem them before from the windows of our train, but not up close. I grabbed my mother’s hand, unsure whether they were dangerous. We stared at the creatures. They didn’t look hostile. In fact, on closer inspection they looked almost cuddly. Miguel laughed to see the expressions on our faces. “They are not dangerous,” he assured us. “They’re llamas.”
My mother looked pale. “In—in the city?” For my mother, the city had been an escape from village life. A place far more refined and cultured. Herds of filthy animals did not wander down the Ringstrasse.
“They are going to market,” Miguel said. “They are delicious.”
While I felt sorry for the llamas, I was also curious. I wondered what llama meat tasted like. I wondered if we were allowed to eat it, or if it was forbidden, like pork. (Although we didn’t keep kosher, we never ate pork.)
I reached out a hand to touch one of the animals as it went by, and it turned its head, drew back its lips, and spat at me. Shocked, I looked down at my blouse, where a glob of greenish llama spit hung from a button. Unprepared for this visceral reminder of home, I started to cry. I hadn’t shed a tear since we left Genoa—not for Austria, not for Willi, not for Anneliese—but that llama spitting at me shoved me over a precipice I had not known I was approaching.
“Oh, Orly. You shouldn’t have tried to touch one!” My mother looked vaguely repulsed.
Miguel gently pulled me to the side of the street. “We have a saying: If you kiss the llama it won’t spit at you.”
Kissing a llama didn’t sound that much more attractive to me than being spit on by one.
I had expected Miguel to laugh at me, or to chastise me. But instead he used a sleeve of his shirt to carefully wipe the spit off my blouse. “The alpacas are much nicer. They don’t spit as much,” he said. “And they make nicer yarn. The vicuñas, too, but their wool is very expensive.”
“Is it warm?” My mother was always cold here, so her interest in alpaca yarn was not mere politeness. After taking a trembling breath, I translated for Miguel, who confirmed that yes, it was warm, and that he knew someone who could knit us sweaters.
Talking with Miguel steadied me the way talking with Willi once had. I was embarrassed for crying in front of him. For crying about something as stupid as llama spit when Willi was still missing. When we began walking again, I muttered a quick prayer under my breath—to whom I am not sure—promising that I would bathe in llama spit if it would bring Willi to us.
* * *
• • •
SO MUCH OF BEING in this new place was observation. I didn’t know how anything in this world worked; I had to watch how Bolivians moved and talked and played so I could relearn everything. My mother and father and I were like children again, not understanding how to buy food, what it should cost, how to greet a stranger, or where to find soap. Here, my Austrian impulses were wrong. Every day I found myself in a culturally coded world without the key. While this could be overwhelming and confusing, it was also terribly exciting. Having to focus so much energy on navigating our new home distracted us from the fathomless fear and grief at our heels.