Daughter's Keeper Read Online Free PDF Page A

despite Olivia’s entreaties, to join her in her meal. Olivia returned in the evenings after her classes, ate with the family, and then watched Univision, a child perched on either knee. She was absolutely content—in love with the city, with the country, and with her own sense of belonging.
    One afternoon six weeks after she’d arrived in San Miguel, Olivia noticed banners hanging from the street lamps and across the busy boulevards. The signs announced the commencement of the annual Celebración de Resistencia: Indígena y Popular . She followed them to a soccer field in the center of town and found it teeming with students in jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with American brand names, and Indian men in straw cowboy hats, their wives and daughters wrapped in scarves and skirts made of gaily colored woven fabric. They were all gathered in front of a stage that had been assembled in front of one of the goal posts, and Olivia joined the throngs, pushing her way up to the front of the crowd. For the next three hours, she listened to speeches about the rights of indigenous peoples throughout Latin America. She applauded loudly when the others did, even when she wasn’t quite sure what it was the speakers had said.
    Finally, as the light began to fade, a young man took the podium. He was a handsome man, although not unusually so. His face had the sharp angles and broad planes common to the Indians, but his nose was large and hooked, not flat. He wore his black hair a little long, to his collar, and he stood taller than most of the other men on the stage. His jeans were new and pressed, and his shirt was embroidered with tiny birds. Olivia wondered who had done that for him—his mother? Sister? Wife? He didn’t lecture like those who had stood before him. Instead, he raised his voice in a shout and his hand in a fist.
    â€œ El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido, ” he bellowed, and the crowd soon joined him. The young man swept Olivia up in the embrace of his cry, and she raised her voice along with the rest. The evening ended with them all shouting to the night that the people, united, would never be defeated. Olivia trembled with the sense that she had finally found a goal worthy of her resolve and a man worthy of her desire. She stayed on the soccer field long after the crowd had dispersed and the cool night’s breeze had begun to blow. She sat, perched on the edge of the bleachers, and watched the speakers embrace one another and head off down the darkened streets. Finally, shivering, she rose to leave. She picked her way through the detritus of soda cans, paper wrappings, and banana leaves and peels that had been left by the crowd. Suddenly, she caught her foot in a rut in the field and stumbled. A hand steadied her, and she looked up into the thickly lashed eyes of the young man whose voice had inspired the crowd and had set her heart aflutter.
    â€œBe careful,” he said, softly, in Spanish.
    â€œThank you,” Olivia replied in the same language and righted herself. She took a tentative step and winced as though she felt a twinge in her ankle.
    â€œAre you hurt?” he asked.
    Olivia, surprised at the ease with which she had assumed the role of damsel in distress, quickly answered, “No, no. I’m fine.”
    â€œAre you North American?” Olivia heard the sound of laughing and only then noticed the other two young men standing behind the one whose hand still rested on hers. He leaned over and punched one of his friends in the arm. Then he whispered something in a rapid slang that Olivia couldn’t understand. The other two boys laughed again and walked away, whistling over their shoulders. The young man led Olivia back to the bleachers, and she limped alongside of him, careful to continue her pantomime of injury.
    â€œAre you a tourist?” he asked, once she’d sat down.
    â€œNo. I mean, I’m from the United States, but I’m a student.