Mario Alberto Zambrano - Loteria

“Dame,” he said, then hit me like if I didn’t hear him. I lifted my arms. After he pulled it off, I felt naked underneath. I saw him smelling it. “What are you going to do with it?” I asked. But he didn’t say anything.

I stood there in the middle of the room staring at the carpet with my fingers hooked in front of me.

“Oye,” he said, and I looked up. “What?” I said.

“ No dices ‘what,’ ” he said.

“¿Mande?” I said.

“¿Mande, what ?”

“¿Mande, Papi?”

I was wearing nothing but panties and I was already ten. But all I could think of was how much I wanted him to understand what I was feeling. I lifted my head and stood there as strong as I could because I wanted him to know that even though he missed the way she smelled, the way she was, the way she looked, he was taking her from me. I stared at him in the eyes and the light in the room was all gold and I didn’t have a shirt on and my hair was all pelos parados . I tried my hardest to show him how I felt with my eyes. And maybe. Maybe You passed through me. Maybe You spoke in a way my voice couldn’t, because then, it was like he saw something in the way I was looking at him, and he threw it back to me, in a gentle kind of way and it landed over my face.

It was ripe outside and we were lying out on the grass. Estrella was wearing the white bikini Papi bought her at Target, and I was wearing Hanes with small yellow fish. Papi was wearing boxers, the ones with blue stripes, rolled down two times.

“You’re going to burn if you do that,” I said, but Estrella looked at her skin like if she were made of something expensive. She’d brought a container of Crisco outside and was smoothing it over her legs. Her nails had been painted red the night before and she was wearing black sunglasses. “The bees are going to get us. We’re going to have to go inside.”

“ Mija , let her be,” Papi said, as he sprayed us with the garden hose in his hand. The water was cold but it felt good in the heat, and I stuck out my tongue.

Estrella picked up her towel, lay down farther away from us, and started mumbling, “Ugh, Ugh… UGH!” Like if it were some language me and Papi were supposed to understand. “Be that way then,” I said. “I hope you burn.”

She looked at the sun with her sunglasses on and propped herself up on her elbows. Papi lay down, wiggling his toes as if ants were on him, and I lay down next to him. After five minutes I turned on my stomach and could hear a bee flying close to my shoulder. I saw Estrella lift the string of her bikini to see if she’d gotten any color.

“Take it off,” Papi said. And I thought the same. If she didn’t want any tan lines, she should just take it off.

“I’m not taking it off!” she said.

“ ¿Y por qué no? You want a tan so bad. Just take it off,” he said. He’d been drinking since breakfast. “No one’s going to look at you.”

I turned around and saw him taking off his boxers. He took them off, like normal, and tossed them behind him, laughing. I’d never seen him naked before. “That’s why we have fences,” he said, then plopped down on his stomach with his pompis in the air.

“Yeah,” I said. “No one’s going to see you. No one cares, don’t be stupid.” She was so disgusted she got up and went inside.

Papi turned and looked at me and made a face like, Oh well. He shut his eyes from the glare of the sun and said, “Ándale, ¡otra!” Like when I’d dance for him by the garage. Or when he’d play music on the boom box. Or when he’d want another beer.

“¡Otra!”

I closed my eyes and fell asleep, and because there wasn’t Crisco in the air, there wasn’t a single bee that came near us.

“¡Cállate, chingada madre!”

Tencha would get mad sometimes and change colors, sometimes yellow, sometimes green. But when she was in a good mood she’d put on her one-piece and swim with me in the pool. She’d say, “Somos sirenas.” All cute. Then wiggle her hips and call me sirenita .

I’d stay underwater in her pool for as long as I could and she’d think I was drowning. I could stay there for so long that if she saw me she’d think I was dying. I’d come out and see her at the edge of the pool getting close to me, all red, all over, moving like a gorilla. Like when they look confused. Yelling, “¿Qué haces? ¡Estás loca!”

“No,” I’d tell her. But she couldn’t hear me because her voice was louder than mine. I’d keep saying it as she dragged me toward the table under the portico. She’d dig her thumbs into my cheeks and pull down like if she wanted to see what was behind my eyes. “¡Me asustaste!” she’d say. Then I felt bad because her breath would shorten. Like if she couldn’t breathe. She’d rub her heart and say things like, “And what do I tell your Papi if something happened? What do I tell the police? How can you be so stupid?” She’d say so many things I wouldn’t have time to say anything back. And when she calmed herself down she’d give me a spoonful of sugar, pull me to her chest, and hold me so hard I could hardly breathe.

I walked into her house one day and saw Estrella telling Tencha that Papi was hitting her. Tencha was holding her arm like if she was about to tear it off, telling her she shouldn’t say maldiciones . Papi was a good, good man and he’d never do anything to hurt her. How in the hell could those words come out of her mouth? Tencha let go of Estrella’s arm when she saw me and called out my name like if she had forgotten who I was, but then remembered.

Estrella wasn’t supposed to say anything. “What did you say?” I said. And she got all attitude like she does. Because she’s older. Tencha looked at her and started screaming, saying she was a malcriada , to say maldiciones , to disrespect her father like that. Estrella looked at me and shook her head No, No, No. Because she knew I was lying and she was telling the truth. But I pointed to her like if she were some dirty rag a dog would lick. “He doesn’t hit you unless you deserve it!” I said.

Tencha grabbed a flowerpot and slammed it down on the floor. She screamed, “¡Cállense ya, chingada madre!”

We looked at her and the dirt on the floor. And because she’d said madre , not on purpose, I thought of Mom. Estrella thought of her too because her eyes welled up like if the words themselves had hit her across the face, and that’s when I knew why she was saying things about Papi. Tencha told her to go home and to lock herself in her room and pray until she knew what she’d said was wrong. Papi wouldn’t hit us unless he had to. There was a right way and a wrong way. Papi did things the right way. And when it was time to protect us, he would. “You think he’s not allowed to hit you?” she said. “Huh? You don’t know what it’s like to be beaten! You better be grateful you don’t have your Buelo Fermín looking after you.” Then she called Estrella ¡Una chiflada! Una desgraciada!

Estrella ran out of the house and Tencha mumbled something under her breath. “Que Dios la bendiga.” Then she looked at me in surprise like if she’d forgotten I was standing there. I ran to the pool and held my breath and jumped inside.