Gold for the Good

She was a tiny first-grader, all skinny arms and legs, rebellious threads of hair sticking out from beneath her hairband, and she was going to deliver a speech. She was fidgety, trying to stay afloat in a plump armchair they had told her to sit in, as she clung to her typed sheet of paper like a castaway to a board after a shipwreck. The Pillars of Society Club’s lobby was stuffy, full of grownups emanating perfume and cigarette smoke. They were holding glasses of Coca Cola and guarana soda, chatting and smiling persistently. A photographer was taking pictures. There wasn’t any other kid in sight. The girl had been there for more than an hour, and she was getting bored.

There were plenty of decorative items to look at, so she checked them over and over, trying to detect some amusing oddity she might have missed. Flags representing homeland, state and the city. Banners and coats of arms. A vase of flowers towering over trays of snacks and sweets on a table. A shiny, brand-new scale on another table. A big green and yellow metal box next to the scale, guarded by two stiff military policemen. And shiny jewels worn by the grownups.

Each grownup was also wearing a cheap tin ring, like a wedding band, with the colors of the national flag. The girl, too, had received a tin ring, in exchange for donating her gold ring. She had to be held up by her teacher, Miss Norma, so that she could reach the metal box on the table and deposit her jewel, an apparently memorable feat that the photographer registered for the local newspaper. The girl’s new tin ring was engraved with green, yellow, white and blue letters and numbers, forming the phrase “I Gave Gold for the Good of Our Country–1964.” Too bad the girl couldn’t wear that one. It was way too big for her—she might lose it. Miss Norma was temporarily keeping it safe inside her own purse, for the girl’s sake.

It hadn’t been necessary to weigh her gold ring before dropping it in the box. The ring was not that heavy. She wouldn’t miss it at all. She didn’t even care for it anymore. She had got it as a gift from her uncle Joel when she was little. It was a signet ring with an oval plate engraved with her initials in cursive, L and S, for Leona Silva. But then it got old and tight. She found her oversized tin ring with the inscription in the colors of the national flag much more fun.

Like her, most participants donated light jewelry such as rings, wedding bands and thin necklaces. But some donated jewelry heavy enough to move the scale’s pointers. The girl’s mother, along with another lady from her women’s group, had volunteered to do the weighing. Whenever the scale pointers moved significantly, her mother and her friend would let out sweet little squeals of joy. Alone and sinking into the softness of the large armchair, and peeking through the densely packed crowd of grownups, she would admire her mother with pride. A hairdresser by trade, her mother, Susi, was parading a fashionable beehive hairstyle and light pink lipstick. She had beehive-styled her friend too, and had also made her up, using the same lipstick. By the scale they were working at, a placard identified them as Women with God for Family and Freedom. Leona had seen all the women from the group twice, when Susi had dragged her to their meetings at the church. The second time, the girl had inadvertently broken a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary that she, out of boredom, had taken out of the Virgin’s nook to play with. Later, as she and Susi were heading back home, Susi had let her know how embarrassed and angry her daughter had made her feel, so much that Susi had decided that she’d never take her to the women’s meetings at the church again. The girl had said nothing. As far as she was concerned, there couldn’t have been a better outcome.

One by one, the speakers participating in the Gold for the Good of Our Country campaign, hosted on the local level by the Pillars of Society Club of Guava City, were led to the conference room by an intern wearing an identification badge. The local radio station crew had set up a mobile transmission unit in the conference room and had placed a sign reading studio outside the door. All speakers, including Leona, had badges hanging from their necks, indicating the business or institution they were representing. If others got close enough to Leona, she could read their badges. The Fire Department. Saint Lazarus Public Hospital. The Armed Forces. The Military Police. Everyday Bread Bakery. High Profits Banking & Investments. Tireless Tires Rubber Corporation.

As soon as she read Tireless Tires Rubber Corporation, Leona jumped down from the armchair. That was the tire factory where her uncle Joel was working! Braving the barrier of grownups, she nudged her way toward the scale and the metal box of treasures her mother was busying herself with. She crawled up on her lap.

Susi was taken by surprise. “What are you doing here, Leona?”

“Mom, someone from Uncle Joel’s factory is going to do a speech!”

“So?”

“Uncle Joel should be the factory’s speaker! That way he’d be here already!”

Susi’s attention turned to a well-dressed gentleman approaching the table. He handed her a shiny golden watch. His badge read Beaver Dam Real Estate. The watch moved the scale pointers enough for Susi and her friend to let out two impressive chirps. Susi’s friend regally placed the watch in the metal box.

Leona told her mother that she wanted to help her and her friend. She wanted to weigh gold pieces too, and to yelp, like they did, whenever the scale pointers moved a little more than usual. But Susi wanted none of the child’s help, let alone her high-pitched shrieks. Susi was too busy. She was juggling two demanding tasks simultaneously, not the least of them the flirting with handsome donors who had shown up neither wearing a wedding band, nor had donated one, and who might be discouraged from flirting back, upon the immediate realization that she had a daughter. Worse yet, some pervert might pretend to reciprocate Susi’s attention and try to get close to her, while secretly plotting to do God-knows-what to her innocent little girl. Susi told Leona to go back to her armchair.

“I don’t want to stay there on my own,” the girl said. “It’s boring.”

“But you’re not alone! Your teacher and I and these two policemen here are watching you all the time. Go back and hold on a little. People can hardly wait to hear your speech.”

“Then why can’t I do it already?”

“Because you’re the main attraction, silly!” Susi fibbed. “The radio guys want to create some suspense before your act.”

Leona frowned. “Is that why Uncle Joel hasn’t come yet?”

“Your uncle is probably listening to the speeches on the radio with his friend, Douglas. I’m sure he’ll be here in no time.”

Leona yawned.

“Are you thirsty, honey? Do you want me to take you to the bathroom?”

Leona shook her head no.

“Great. Do you remember what I told you about guarana soda and Coca Cola?”

Leona nodded.

“Okey dokey.” Susi got some old Disney comics out of her bag and handed them to Leona. The girl had already read them a million times and knew many passages by heart. She took them half-heartedly. “Now go back to your armchair and enjoy yourself,” Susi ordered. “And stay put! We must always know where you are.”

Leona reluctantly did what her mother told her to do.

Her speech had been written by her teacher, Miss Norma. It had some words and phrases that were a bit tricky for her to pronounce, and many whose meanings she couldn’t quite grasp. Foreign debt. Bolstering the national currency. Balancing the finances of the state. Strengthening democracy against the red peril.

“Don’t worry, Leona,” her mother had said, after her daughter had first shown her the speech. “You don’t need to know what those words mean. You just need to say them the right way.”

But Leona was a curious girl. A couple of days later, as Miss Norma was coaching her on delivering the speech in an empty room at school, Leona had insisted that she explain what those words meant.

“Your speech basically means that the gold that we’ll be donating will help our country pay its debts to the banks of the rich countries and get rid of the evil communists,” Miss Norma had said.

“What’s communists?” Leona had asked. She had heard that word before. Sometimes her mother got a little angry with Leona’s uncle Joel and called him a communist.

“Communists are people who don’t believe in God and use politics to steal everything that other people have in order to give it to lazy people,” Miss Norma had replied.

The girl had said nothing. She was confused. Concepts such as evil, lazy, and steal did not fit with the image she had of her uncle Joel. In her book, he was the nicest and most fun person in the whole world.

The following day, the girl had managed to stay awake until late at night. When she heard her uncle Joel coming back home from his job at the tire factory, she went to the kitchen and sat at the table, waiting for him to have his supper. She told him what her teacher had said about communists being evil and lazy and thieves.

“Nothing could be further from the truth, sweetie,” Joel said. He was munching on a piece of bread and savoring some bean soup, all the while trying to figure out how to talk about such matters with a six-year-old, precocious as she was. “Communists are people who believe that there shouldn’t be rich people causing other people to be poor. Everybody would be equal because everybody would have all they needed to live a good, healthy, smart and fun life. And it has nothing to do with laziness. Grownups who could work would work, but they would just have to work part time and until they were fifty. And in the future, they would need to work even less, because there would be robots working for them. Does that make sense?”

Leona nodded. “Uncle Joel, guess what I want to be when I grow up.”

Joel swallowed a spoonful of soup. “You’ve told me you want to be a scientist, a teacher, a soccer player, a dancer, and a hairdresser.”

The girl proclaimed, “I want to be a communist hairdresser robot!”

“Stop the nonsense right now, you morons!” Susi thundered, bursting into the kitchen. Leona and Joel were startled; she stood up, he dropped the spoon in the soup. Susi was wearing her flannel nightgown and a sculpture of curlers in her head. She cried, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Joel: no more politics talk in my house! And you, young lady, forget everything your uncle said, do you understand?”

“But why?” Leona whined.

“Because our new president, Marshal Whitecastle, is a very, very stern, a very ruthless, a very scary military man who doesn’t like people who say things like that. He doesn’t like communists and he sends them to jail or worse. Now go to bed!”

Leona walked halfway toward their bedroom, stopped and asked, “Can I sleep in your bed, mom?”

“No. You’re no longer a baby. Also, sometimes you wet the bed, so...”

“I don’t do it anymore,” Leona murmured. She sneaked a glance at her uncle to see if he looked embarrassed for her. He seemed to be totally focused on his meal.

“I’m not taking any chances,” Susi said. “Unless you agree to wear a diaper.”

“No! I don’t need a diaper. I’m not a baby anymore.”

“OK then. Bed!”

 The girl begrudgingly went to bed. She had a cute wood frame bed with a heart-shaped headboard decorated with angel stickers. It was warm and snuggly, but she couldn’t sleep very well that night. She kept waking up because her mother and her uncle were yelling at each other in the kitchen.

“First of all, this is not your house,” Joel said to his sister. “This is a rental, we’re just tenants. I pay for sixty percent of the rent and other bills. I’m the one who puts food on the table. I sleep on the living-room couch. So, I have a say in how things are done here.”

“Thank you for your support, and sorry for the lack of adequate accommodations in my teeny tiny home,” Susi replied with a dose of sarcasm. “But life has been easier for you than for me. Were my husband, God bless his soul, still alive, I wouldn’t need a roommate. But no, not only was the poor boozer flattened by a bus, but he also left behind our young daughter for me alone to feed, and a bunch of bills for me alone to pay.”

“I’m happy to help you, you’re welcome! I’ve been your right arm since my brother-in-law passed away. I’m a father figure to my niece. And she learns a lot from me; that’s why she’s so smart.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Leona doesn’t need a phony father. She already has a parent: me. And she already has a teacher: Miss Norma.”

“Quite reactionary mentors, both of you.”

“You’re a bad influence on my daughter!”

“Look who’s talking! You shouldn’t allow your daughter’s teacher to use her as a prop in that right-wing Gold for the Good of Our Country scam.”

“Mind your own business!”

“The girl said that you told her to donate her gold ring. The little ring that I gave her as a birthday gift!  What kind of mother does that?”

“Everybody in the whole country is making donations. A small personal sacrifice, considering the results.”

“Poor people, the working class, are not making donations. They know better. And they need the little gold they have, if they have any at all. Sure, there are a few that are making donations because they’re disoriented or feel coerced to donate. But the great majority of donors are ill-informed, reactionary, sycophantic middle and upper-middle class elements… although I grant many of them are well-intentioned.”

“Who cares? At the end of the day, the whole country will benefit.”

Joel sneered. “The people will never benefit. It’s the new fascist regime that’s benefitting. The campaign is legitimizing it! And it’s legitimizing the military coup.”

“By coup you mean the removal of the left-wing president.”

“I mean the military coup that overthrew the president.”

“Because he was a leftie.”

“He was not, really; he was a rich bourgeois nationalist. He just wanted to do some reforms, like land reform and nationalizations, and he was OK with diplomacy with Cuba and the Soviet Union. But rich capitalists here and in the United States wouldn’t have any of it.”

“They don’t bother me.”

“Think again. Anyway, all that gold will end up in the coffers of far-right politicians and their ilk. And probably in the pockets of some American imperialists too.”

Susi yawned noisily. “I hope you don’t keep saying those crazy things in public, Joel. I heard that some factory workers are actually CIA spies who snitch on their communist co-workers to the police.”

“Workers don’t even have to be communists to be snitched on and persecuted.”

“What if you get fired? You could be kidnapped, tortured and disappeared! Call me reactionary and disoriented if you want, but I care about your safety.”

“There are things that are more important than a job and one’s personal safety.”

“You’re out of your mind!” Susi yelled, heading to her bedroom.

Joel finished supper and got ready to retire. He spread a sheet and a blanket on the couch in the living room, which his sister had refurbished into a hair salon.

Half-asleep, half-listening to the grownups’ squabble all along, Leona had taken a mental note of the words reactionary, imperialists, and middle class. She was determined to ask her uncle their meanings, the following day. Early in the morning, however, when she got up, those words, carefully herded at night, had escaped her, vanishing like a dream.

In the lobby of the Pillars of Society Club, Leona was now skipping around the armchair, clockwise and counterclockwise, over and over. At the same time, she was eating some peanut brittle that her teacher had chosen for her from a tray of sweets, courtesy of Sublime Decay Candies and Confections. Since the beginning of the event, Miss Norma, while roaming all over the place to mingle with the participants and establish useful connections, had kept a watchful eye on Leona. It was clear to her that the girl was becoming increasingly impatient, her little face wrinkling from stress. Miss Norma was worried. Leona’s fatigue might cause her to underperform while on the air, which would be devastating. The radio intern seemed oblivious of the girl’s growing uneasiness. He was just concerned with the adult speakers and the businesses and institutions they were representing. Three Little Piggies Construction. The City Council. Fine Barrel Liquor Store. The Princess and the Pea Luxury Resort and Hotel. Bloody Forks Meatpacking Company. The mayor’s wife.

Miss Norma approached Leona and told her to sit down and to keep practicing her speech in her mind. The girl sat on her little pile of Disney comics. The peanut brittle was making her thirsty. She glimpsed at her mother through the cracks in the wall formed by the grownups. Susi was focused on chatting with a tall gentleman who was donating a rosary made of gold beads. Leona asked Miss Norma for a bottle of guarana soda. The teacher promptly gave her one and headed for the studio.

Soda bottle in one hand and typed sheet in the other, Leona dutifully read her speech to herself once again. The perfume in the smoky air didn’t sit well with the sweetness of the peanut-brittle-and-soda mix, and she started to feel sick. Her teacher came back, bringing along a smiley older man with a little moustache and yellow teeth.

“Miss Norma, can I do my speech right away?” the girl anxiously asked.

“We’ll see, my dear,” Miss Norma said, and turned to the older man. “Mr. Cardoso, this is my student, Leona Silva.”

He bent forward to be able to place his yellow-toothed, mustached smile close to Leona’s cheerless face. He read her badge.

“Leona Silva, Little Rain Forest Elementary. You’re a sweet little patriot, aren’t you? Are your little schoolmates glued to the radio just to listen to you?”

“Yes,” the girl murmured. “And my uncle Joel promised to come here to see me.”

 “You should be proud,” the older man said. “This is a great day for our country.”

His breath smelled like her dad’s, which her mother used to say stank of alcohol. She covered her nose with her hand. Her teacher quickly grabbed her hand and kept it in hers. Mr. Cardoso straightened up his spine.

Miss Norma told him, “Leona is the valedictorian, Mr. Cardoso. The principal and I chose her to represent our school because we believe she’s the perfect symbol of the promising and brilliant future of our great country.” She turned to Leona. “Tell Mr. Cardoso here that you’re very proud to deliver a speech on his radio station.”

Leona said to Mr. Cardoso what her teacher had told her to say, and then asked him to let her do her speech right away.

“You’ll do it very soon, sweetheart,” Mr. Cardoso said. “Right after the ambassador’s phone call.”

Miss Norma looked disappointed. “Phone call? Wasn’t the American ambassador supposed to be here in person?”

“He couldn’t leave the nation’s capital just to come to Guava City! Too many things on his plate these days.”

“I understand,” Miss Norma said, concealing her resentment. “Anyway, we should all be very grateful that he’s taking care of us South Americans. Were it not for him and that other diplomat, the military attaché, what’s his name, our former president would still be in power…”

Mr. Cardoso interrupted her. “The ambassador is vehemently denying his own involvement, you know.”

“Obviously! As much as he denied that the American government regards South America as the United States’ backyard.”

“He’s a diplomat. That’s what diplomats do.”

“Actually, for my part, I don’t mind being regarded as the United States’ backyard. It makes me feel we’re family.”

“That’s the spirit, Miss Norma.”

The teacher felt a tug on her skirt and looked down. It was Leona asking for her attention, shifting in her seat and looking miserable. Miss Norma turned to the older man. “Mr. Cardoso, this little girl has been here for more than two hours. She’s tired and sleepy. Please allow her to do her speech right away. She needs to be back home.”

Mr. Cardoso looked at his watch and then bent forward again, his face almost touching Leona’s. He said in a playful falsetto, “Sure, I’ll tell my intern to come and get this smart, pretty speaker in a moment. Please hold on a sec.”

As he moved away toward the studio, he left a waft of alcohol in his wake.

“You stay put,” Miss Norma told Leona. “I’m going to tell your mom that you’re next.”

On a Sunday, a few days before the event, Susi had had to spend the afternoon with her group, Women with God for Family and Freedom, volunteering for their church’s charity program on behalf of economically disadvantaged priests, and preparing for the Gold for the Good of Our Country campaign. Joel had agreed to babysit Leona, and had invited his new friend, Douglas, to join them. Joel had mentioned Douglas a couple of times to Susi and Leona. He had just started working at the same factory as Joel. Leona was very curious about him. When the three of them met, she could see right away that he and her uncle were very good friends because they hugged each other for a long time. They also hugged each other many times throughout the afternoon and early evening, although only when there was no one around but Leona. Because Joel liked Douglas so much, Leona also took a serious liking to Douglas. She too started to hug him. Before long, she was hugging him frequently. She could also sense when Joel was about to hug him, and she would throw herself into Douglas’ arms before Joel had a chance to do it. In the beginning of her hugging spree, the men were amused. Douglas, particularly, chuckled and hugged her back. It was exhilarating, as far as she was concerned. Eventually, however, the men had to ask her to stop. They said that they loved hugging her, but they wanted to hug each other only, and nobody else, because they couldn’t afford much time together. She nodded.

The three of them went to the matinee to watch a dubbed animated cartoon, The Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney’s most recent production. The theater was packed but they were lucky to find three seats next to each other. Before the movie began, Joel took a seat next to Douglas, between him and Leona. Then Leona asked Joel to buy some popcorn. As soon as he left his seat, she took it over and stuck to it for the duration of the animation; she cozied up, Douglas on her left side, Joel on her right.

After the movie, Joel bought some bottles of guarana soda, Leona’s favorite drink, saying that she’d be allowed as much as she wanted that day, just to do something different. He also bought some beer. The three of them went to Joel’s place, which was also Leona’s, technically. Joel was embarrassed about living in a room that was available to him just on Sundays, holidays, and weeknights. But Douglas was ecstatic to see that Joel’s place was actually a hair salon.

“It’s perfect, I love it!” he said to Joel and gave him a big hug.

Joel opened some bottles of soda and beer, then turned the radio on. The DJ was playing contemporary hits, starting with the joyful, catchy “Mas, que Nada!” Leona, Joel and Douglas knew the lyrics by heart. They danced and sang along, “Obah obah obah… I just want to dance the samba.”

As he was dancing, Douglas frolicked all about the salon, rummaging through everything, opening and closing drawers, sorting out make-up items, feeling the seats under the standing hair dryers, trying half wigs, and peeking under the couch. He applied nail polish to Leona’s nails, each in a different color. For Leona, it was pure bliss. She had never been allowed to play in the hair salon before, not even after saying that she wanted to be a communist hairdresser robot when she grew up.

The radio DJ said that he was going to play two hits by a new band from England, formed by four long-haired, screamy guys who wore little boots on stage: The Beatles. Douglas shrieked, shaking his head frantically. Leona imitated him. The trio danced to “Please Please Me” and “Twist and Shout.”

A sequence of ads was aired. In one of them, a vigorous male voice, booming over a strident military march, proclaimed the local launching of the nationwide Gold for the Good of Our Country campaign at the Pillars of Society Club, and gave its date and time. Douglas scoffed, turning the radio off. Leona turned it back on. “Listen! I’m in this campaign! I’m going to give a speech!” she shouted.

The event, the ad went on, was going to be broadcast by that very radio station, not only to Guava City and all neighboring areas, but also beyond. According to the ad, the commendable, patriotic campaign had been initiated by the press, as well as by the business and military sectors of society, and was being carried out by the distinguished Women with God for Family and Freedom. “That’s mom!” Leona cheered.

The ad’s bombastic voice urged the listeners to participate in the event, during which they should donate something made of gold, like a jewel—size wasn’t important, all that mattered was the intention of the heart—to help the new regime pay for the astronomical national debt incurred by the anti-business and corrupt left-wing former government, thereby rebuilding the nation, protecting its Christian traditions and democratic values, and staving off the red threat. Present at the event would be the American ambassador, embodying the unwavering commitment of the mighty United States government to promote progress, justice and freedom in South America, as well as in all other friendly regions around the globe, whatever it took.

Joel and Douglas gestured like they were retching. Leona thought they might be sick from the movie-theater popcorn and told them to take Alka-Seltzer. Douglas said it was not necessary because they were fine. As the DJ played more hits, Douglas told her to get back to dancing. She danced a little and then whirled in circles, just to get dizzy.

Douglas whispered playfully in Joel’s ear, “I beg you, don’t let the adorable little pest invite me to listen to her speech.”

Joel laughed and whispered back, “I know! She’s counting on me to see her doing it in person. I just couldn’t say no…”

   The girl ended her twirling bout, staggered toward the couch, grabbed her soda and sat next to the men.

“Uncle Joel, you can take Douglas to the Pillars of Society Club to see me speaking on the radio,” she proposed.

“Douglas won’t be available, sweetheart, he’ll be too busy with a bunch of other things far away from here,” Joel said. Disappointed, she said that she needed to pee, handing him her soda bottle and heading for the bathroom.

As soon as she closed the bathroom door, Douglas pointed at a locked built-in drawer under the couch. “I knew they’d be in here the minute I got into this place! What if I were a cop?”

“No worries. They’ll be gone pretty soon. Especially if you help me distribute them incognito in the factory,” Joel said, unlocking the drawer and revealing, under some t-shirts and handkerchiefs, a stack of pamphlets. He took out two, locked the drawer and sat next to Douglas. They reviewed their pamphlets in silence.

Back from the bathroom, Leona sat on Joel’s lap. The pamphlet’s words in larger font caught her eye. She read them aloud and slowly, testing how they felt.

“Down with oppression. Down with the dictatorship.”

The men merrily clapped their hands and kissed her cheeks. Douglas celebrated, “A political protester is born!”

Leona read the same words again. “What does this mean?”

Douglas spoke in a low voice to Joel, “I got this.” Joel reminded him, “She’s just six, for crying out loud!”

Douglas stated, “Those are called slogans. They mean that we’re fed up with powerful people who are bullies and force things on us that are bad for us.”

“Like when mom forces me to drink cod liver oil that makes me want to puke,” Leona said.

“Sort of. Yes.”

“And like when mom forces me to go to Mass and I feel bored and sad.”

“Or like when bosses and politicians force us to work too hard and to live in poverty, and then forbid us to complain about it,” Joel added.

“And like when Miss Norma slaps a student on the arm because he has bad grades, and then he cries because he’s embarrassed and the slapping really hurts,” Leona said, recalling a disturbing episode in class.

Douglas went on, “When we want to show that we’re angry, we make big signs with those slogans written on them, and then we gather by the thousands in the streets to march and chant the slogans. Like this. Watch.”

 He and Joel started to march across the hair salon, holding up their pamphlets as if they were protest signs, and chanting repeatedly, “Down with oppression! Down with the dictatorship!”

Leona didn’t have a pamphlet, so she grabbed, from a shelf, a picture of a heavily made-up model wearing an extremely high beehive, and held it up, joining the two men.

“Down with oppression! Down with the dictatorship!” they chanted away, striding back and forth.

After playing protest for several minutes, Leona said she needed to rest. Joel tuned the radio to the news and sat down next to Douglas, who was flipping through hair magazines. Their laps formed an inviting mattress on which Leona unceremoniously lay down to take a quick nap. The radio blared the top international news. “American congressmen and the military intensify calls for an open and greater involvement on the part of the United States government in the Vietnam War, now in its ninth year. The FBI emphatically denies widespread rumors that the assassination of President John Kennedy last year was the work of the CIA.”

The evening was setting in. Susi would soon be home, so the trio perked up and made sure the hair salon was as clean as when they had found it, with every item back in place. Douglas meticulously removed the multicolored nail polish from Leona’s nails. There was a lot of hugging. Douglas said good-bye and headed for the bus stop, leaving a pale, anemic rest of Sunday behind.

At the campaign event, an exhausted Leona was doing her best to stay put, as her teacher and her mother had told her to do. She was finally about to perform on the radio!

And suddenly she panicked.

She scanned the crowd of grownups. It looked bigger than before and unfriendly. It sounded noisier and threatening. She felt lonely and frightened. Why wasn’t her uncle there? She needed his support. Despite so many rehearsals and rigorous coaching from Miss Norma, she was feeling hopelessly unprepared. It seemed that she’d forgotten how to pronounce every single word of her speech. And even if she remembered how to pronounce them, they could still get stuck in her throat and suffocate her. Her eyes were wide open and burning like two bowls of hot pepper. She raised the typed speech in front of them to read it to herself one last time, and to conceal from the crowd her unexpected and overwhelming sheepishness. There was no doubt in her mind that she would fail and that everybody would mock her. Her schoolmates in Guava City, as well as everybody else there and beyond, glued to their radios, expecting to marvel at her presentation, would get nothing in return but a huge disappointment. She wanted to give up and leave. She felt a couple of tears sliding down her cheeks. Her face muscles were pushing downwards, out of control.

She felt like peeing. She couldn’t see much past the crowd of grownups, but she knew that across the lobby, next to the scale and the metal box guarded by the two rigid military policemen, her teacher was talking with her mother. She gestured frantically in their direction. No results. The soda was exploding her bladder. It felt like her face was contracting to squeeze tears and soda out of her eyes. She jumped down from the armchair and tried to run, zigzagging between the grownups’ legs. She didn’t know where the bathroom was, so she went toward her mother’s table.

Susi and Miss Norma saw the girl swerving past the adults in their direction. She was sobbing. Her face was drenched in tears, mucus and spittle. Her pants were wet with urine.

“I don’t want to do the speech anymore. I want to go home,” she cried.

The two stiff military policemen loosened up a little. Some other adults felt sorry for the girl and got closer to her, asking what happened and whether they could help. Susi waved them away. “We’ve got this, thank you very much.”

Susi left her friend in charge of weighing the gold pieces. Together with Miss Norma, she quickly led the girl toward the bathroom, while cleaning her face with a handkerchief.

The intern left the studio to fetch that little girl, Leona Silva, whom Mr. Cardoso had just scheduled to deliver the next speech. Leona was supposed to be sitting in the armchair since the beginning of the event, but the intern found the armchair with nothing but a couple of wet spots, a little pile of Disney comics and a typed sheet. He stared into the crowd searching for the girl’s teacher and her mother. They were nowhere to be seen.

A flustered Mr. Cardoso approached him. “We need you back in the studio right now. The ambassador is on the phone.”

The intern followed his boss back.

Susi had brought clean panties and pants for her daughter in her bag, as she always did whenever they went out together. She cleaned Leona with a wet paper towel and helped her put the clean clothes on. Then she combed the girl’s hair. “How come a hairdresser’s daughter has such a messy scalp?” Susi thought aloud.

Leona’s crying spree started to wane; only the occasional sob could be heard.

“You drank soda, didn’t you? Or Coca Cola?” Susi asked.

Leona nodded.

“I told you not to! That’s why you couldn’t hold your pee!” Susi said.

“Miss Norma gave it to me,” Leona informed.

“The girl was thirsty!” Miss Norma argued. “I didn’t know she couldn’t drink soda! What was I supposed to do?”

“Miss Norma also gave me some peanut brittle and now I’m sick,” Leona informed.

Miss Norma was unsure what to say.

Leona sniffed leftover mucus back up her nose.

“Mom, was Uncle Joel disappeared?”

Susi and Miss Norma exchanged puzzled glances.

“What? Where is this even coming from, honey?” Susi asked.

Miss Norma was quick to add, “Of course he was not disappeared! Nobody was disappeared!"

The girl had a semblance of a smile on her face. Her mood was changing. Miss Norma took advantage of it. “Now why don’t we go back to your armchair and wait for the radio guy to call you?”

“I don’t want to,” Leona said.

Miss Norma sat on a bench and put Leona on her lap. “Oh, come on, sweetie. There are many things that people don’t want to do, but they do anyway. That’s because those things are good! Your speech delivery, for example. It’ll make you sound even smarter than you are. It’ll make our school famous, and my work admired, perhaps even abroad.”

Susi was impressed. “Abroad, Miss Norma. Where?”

“In the United States. I’m involved in this educational project financed by an organization linked to the American government.”

“Oh. Education about what?”

“It’s much-needed education against communism and left-wing government officials, Susi. You see, if the organization likes the work I’m doing at my school, for instance, Leona’s speech and whatnot, it might open up opportunities for me.”

“So, you could get work in the United States?”

“Well, I’d love too. For that to happen, one needs to build connections.”

“I see. But if Leona fails…”

“It wouldn’t help, of course. It’s bad enough that I couldn’t meet the American ambassador here, because the man couldn’t come,” a resentful Miss Norma said.

Leona whined, “I don’t want you to leave for the United States, Miss Norma. I’ll miss you.”

Miss Norma meowed, “Aww.”

Susi sat next to Miss Norma and transferred her child from the teacher’s lap to her own. “Listen, sweetie. Miss Norma needs you to read that speech today. Just do it. It’s such a short speech. It’ll be over in a second, you won’t even notice it. So, what do you say?”

Leona felt good on her mother’s lap. But she refused to do the speech.

The intern knocked at the bathroom door. “Leona Silva? Are you there?”

“No, I’m not!” the girl shouted.

“Yes, she is, thank you for asking, just a second, please,” Susi was quick to assert through the bathroom door. She changed her tone and harshly whispered to Leona, “Listen, you ungrateful little brat. Don’t make me and your teacher waste more of our time. You go out there and deliver that speech, or I’ll evict your uncle and tell him to keep away from you for as long as you’re under my care. How does that sound, huh?”

Leona felt hurt and gloomy but said nothing. She let her mother drag her by the hand out of the bathroom, followed by her teacher. Miss Norma retrieved the typed speech from the armchair that had been Leona’s post, now occupied by the representative of Going Bananas Fruit Company. Led by the intern, Miss Norma, Susi and Leona entered the studio.

Susi was placed on a chair with the girl on her lap. At her side stood Miss Norma, and in front of her squatted the intern holding a microphone. He told them to keep completely quiet until Leona was addressed by the master of ceremonies, Mr. Cardoso, who was on a podium a little farther from them.

Mr. Cardoso proceeded with a formal introduction of the youngest speaker who had ever set foot in his radio station, prodigy six-year-old and first grader, Leona Silva. As he spoke, the girl felt her mother holding her tighter and tighter, probably out of fear that she might escape. She also felt something heavy pressing her shoulder down, as if trying to prevent her from standing up: her teacher’s hand. She felt lightheaded and confused, unable to make sense of Mr. Cardoso’s words. When he stopped talking, the intern held the microphone up to the girl’s lips. Susi held the typed speech before her daughter’s eyes. Miss Norma tightened her grip on her student’s shoulder. The girl tried to contain an urge to cry. She was a speaker, she had to speak!

She opened her mouth and let her words explode in a burst of sobs. “Down with oppression! Down with the dictatorship!” She was able to chant the slogan twice, before the intern cut off her mic.