Gardens Don't Grow in Rivers

By Gabriela Santana and Karina Flores

Fourteen-year-old Paulina faces different situations that destroy her home environment and force her, just a teenager, to become the main source of income in her family amidst the agitation of post-revolutionary Mexico. What's more, she needs to deal with her capacity to discover and to question the world around her. Paulina's left-wing and feminist sympathies are shown in the story, which leads her to rub shoulders with important figures in the arts and politics of her time; in turn, those ideas affect her decisions when it comes to love. She always rejects the easy way out and the scheme of values that middle-class members continue to defend to this day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trópico de Escorpio
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9786079281977

Book preview

Gardens Don't Grow on Rivers

Originally published in Spanish under the title:

Un río no es un jardín

First published in paperback by Trópico de Escorpio, México 2014

©Trópico de Escorpio

Copyright ©2014 Gabriela Santana

English translation copyright © 2015 David Aréyzaga Santana

www.davidareyzaga.com

All right reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole

or in part, in any form, without written permission from the publishers.

Type setting and cover Karina Flores

For information about this please contact Trópico de Escorpio

www.tropicodeescorpio.com.mx

 Trópico de Escorpio

ISBN: 978-607-9281-97-7

Heurística Informática, Procesos y Comunicación Objetiva

Contents

Gardens Don't Grow on Rivers

Gardens Don't Grow on Rivers

Prologue

Francisco

The man of the house

Selflessness

The journey

Artemio Carrillo

Truths from the blood

The bank

Red slippers

Madonna lilies

Arturo

Acceptance

Chapala

An agreement

Confirmation

Expecting

Waiting

A name

Omar

Aquellos ojos verdes

The peacock garden

Epilogue

Authors' Bios

Prologue

Fourteen-year-old Paulina faces different situations that destroy her home environment and force her, just a teenager, to become the main source of income in her family amidst the agitation of post-revolutionary Mexico. What’s more, she needs to deal with her capacity to discover and to question the world around her. An assiduous reader, an attentive listener, ever curious, and thoughtful Paulina has the great ability to transform her ideals and deepest feelings into actions. She discovers and exerts such an amount of freedom—in a time where it seemed almost impossible—, that even young women today would find enviable, and she does it so naturally that it’s moving. Her drive shows great strength beneath the doubts, while her need to construct and understand herself as an adult woman, leads readers to sympathize with her errors.

While the story takes place during the 20s and 30s, its themes are timeless: identity, love, freedom, justice… They address the roots of our humanity while showing the essence of someone different from us, and bringing us in. We experience the suffering and frustration of a woman seeking happiness, a woman who can’t bear the persisting idea around her that such happiness is second to the needs and opinions of men. We see this, for instance, in Paulina’s mother, Rosa, who constantly and insidiously defends the privileges of Francisco, Paulina’s brother.

Paulina’s left-wing and feminist sympathies are shown in the story, which leads her to rub shoulders with important figures in the arts and politics of her time; in turn, those ideas affect her decisions when it comes to love. She always rejects the easy way out and the scheme of values that middle-class members continue to defend to this day. She has no interest in formal and boring suitors, who bear their last name as an offering in exchange for obedience and abnegation; much less in the idea of marriage as a means to economic safety. Life, just like a river, jolts her forward, and yet she chooses valiantly when to hold on to something, and, more importantly, when to let go.

Paulina never renounces her quest for ideal love. The problems, deceives, and breakups with her different partners; the doubts that haunt her role as a woman and a mother; and her whims and fears, only reaffirm and polish her concept of love, which reaches an incredibly poetic intensity at the end of the story.

Like all great literary characters, Paulina grows on the reader slowly but firmly in an almost imperceptible way. She is the kind of woman who doesn’t settle for going with the flow. She creates her path despite the suffering she might face. A moon woman, a matriarch, a mother of rivers, a pioneer of a line of independent women, and a sincere lover. Who wouldn’t want to meet such a woman?

César A. Hernández Coria

Francisco

Francisco let out a resounding burp. Paulina guffawed at her father, and Rosa was anything but pleased, yet her stern look didn’t dissuade her daughter from turning her back. The message was more than clear: in a hostile word, the only people Paulina and her father needed were each other.

Francisco stood up from the table. Rosa, as usual, your food was delicious. When did you learn that recipe? he asked.

Rosa didn’t answer, she stared at the plates and shrugged. Paulina saw her mother’s silence as an opportunity to ask her father if they could go to the river.

That girl turned out just like you, Rosa said. She should’ve been a boy, but even little Paco does not behave like her. Already fourteen, and far from a gracious young lady! A smart one, she thinks herself. She even wants to be a lawyer.

Francisco ignored her bitter comment. Take a hat, sweet girl. I’ll saddle up the smartest mule we have.

Oh, Francisco, will you let her go like that? In her slip? She’ll look like a soldadera! Rosa said.

Mom, I’m wearing underpants! Paulina said. She didn’t mind looking like a wild woman from the Revolution, and if that would keep her away from her mother’s rant, so be it. Her father was already outside waiting for her.

Paulina held the reins with uncertainty. The mule was smart enough to move slowly while they walked over the pebble road, not that it made her happy, as evidenced by her angry snorts. They reached the hillside of San Felipe.

Their pace became steadier over the red dirt road. The enticing aroma of long grass attracted the mule. She wanted to walk among the tress. A branch hit Paulina’s face. Francisco heard his daughter’s complains. He got down and whispered something in the mule’s ear. Whatever he said worked; the mule behaved herself the rest of the way.

Paulina saw a tributary ahead. She tried to avoid the water puddles upon which hundreds of butterflies had gathered. This seemed to disconcert the mule who only wanted to drink some water from the stream.

Francisco and Paulina got off the saddles in a quick movement.

Look, child, he said. I got you a poetry book. I want you to read Sor Juana. She was ahead of her time, just like you.

The young girl blushed after hearing that compliment. She took the book, and opened it at a random page. She began to read:

Stop, shadow of the elusive gift,

Of my beloved charm, a sight,

Fair illusion for which Igladly die,

Sweet fiction for which I sadly live.

The poem was seductive. She read the rest of it in silence.

He might not love her, but she doesn’t care! she said.

Why do you say that? Francisco asked.

Read this, father! She says he shouldn’t feel so pleased about evading her.

If you evade my arms and bosom, it matters not,

My fantasy has built a prison.

Well, sometimes— her father paused, then added. The ideal lover is a shadow, an illusion. This is the poem of a self-sufficient woman. Speaking of shadows, why don’t we sit under that walnut tree? Put your feet in the water, child. Mosquitoes won’t bother us.

Paulina found a ladybug as her feet got wet.

Father, look. It doesn’t want to climb up my hand. I guess I won’t be lucky.

That’s nonsense! Only foolish people aren’t lucky. Don’t ever forget it, he said, matter-of-factly.

There was something else Paulina wanted to talk about.

Yesterday, I heard yelling in the house, father.

He laughed. Would you like us to read together? he asked.

Yes, but please do tell.

Their feet were steady under the water. Little fish came nearby.

Darn it, I brought nothing for them, he said, pointing at the water.

Come on, father, tell me. Paulina splashed her feet, and the fish swam away.

Sometimes men can be real bastards, my girl. I happened to arrive very late because I lost track of time while playing poker with some feds. They knew my father had been a rector here in Oaxaca. They even mentioned they were friends with Porfirio Díaz to get some money out of me, but I get along with everyone. After all, I’ve been a judge in a good amount of pueblos. I support whomever I have to when I have to. Carranza for example, I did when I had to, and now I don’t because I’m not supposed to do so. I get people married. I register their kids. That’s my strategy. Anyway, we played several rounds. There was wine, and a few ladies were there too. You’re not old enough to understand that.

Wasn’t Don Miguel yelling? Paulina asked.

Francisco couldn’t help but laugh again.

Life’s a luxury, my child. Sometimes it movies quite slowly. Doña Rosa didn’t hesitate to tell my father what I had done, and, well, if I’m a bastard, your grandfather is twice as much. Don Miguel took his belt and gave me hell. Didn’t you notice how hard it was for me to sit on the mule?

But, father, you’re already an adult. How could you allow that?

Well, your grandfather promised Rosa he would always protect her, and that’s how he keeps his word. She was already alone when we got married, so he became more of a father to her than he had ever been to me. That’s why I don’t have to worry about you.

The group of fish returned to Paulina’s feet. She leaned on her father’s shoulder.

Mom only lived with my grandma, didn’t she? She told me something about it once. I think she managed to give you my mother’s hand in marriage before she died.

Yes, and we didn’t even know each other, he said.

Is it true you had a beautiful wedding in the temple of Santo Domingo?

"Maybe you should ask your mother about that. I don’t know about weddings, but the