Morena Calvo

• THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
• JUANA PASAMBÚ
• PEDRO PASAMBÚ
• ONE-EYED TOBÍAS
• LA VIEJA ASUNCIÓN
• SARGEANT
• THE OLD MAN (the father of THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS)

In the foreground a young woman is seated on a bench. Behind her or next to her other scenes take place at the same time. There must not be any direct contact between her and the characters of these other scenes. She doesn't see them and they don't see her.

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
I am dead. I was born here, in this town. In the little red clay house with the straw roof that is on the edge of the road, facing the school. The road is a slow river of red clay in the winter and a swirl of red dust in the summer. When the rains come, you lose your shoes in the mud, the bellies of the horses and the mules are smeared with mud, and from their saddles up to their faces and hats the riders are splashed with mud. When the months of sun arrive, the red dust sweeps over the town. You return with your shoes filled with red dust; your feet and legs, horses' hooves and manes, and saddles, hats, and sweaty faces, are all saturated with red dust. I was born from this mud and this dust, and now I have returned to them. Here, in this little cemetery that watches from up high over the town with hydrangea, iris, and thick pasture. It's a quiet and odoriferous place. The pungent smell of the red clay is mixed with the sweet aroma of the yaragua pasture and when it arrives, from time to time, there's the smell of the mountain, a powerful scent that falls down over the town below.

They brought me at dusk.

Juana Pasambú , my aunt, was coming.

JUANA PASAMBÚ
Why didn't you want to eat anything?

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
I didn't want to eat. Why eat? I wasn't hungry anymore. You eat to live. I no longer had a reason to live.

Pause.

Pedro Pasambú , my uncle, was coming.

PEDRO PASAMBÚ
You used to like bananas and roasted corn on the cob smeared with salt and butter.

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
I used to like bananas, and nevertheless, I didn't want to eat them. I clenched my teeth.

It was One-Eyed Tobías who was the magistrate years ago.

ONE-EYED TOBÍAS
I brought you water from the spring, the one you used to drink from when you were a little girl in a cup made from a large tree leaf and you didn't want to drink it.

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
I didn't want to drink. I pressed my lips together. Was that so evil? God forgive me, but I began to think that the spring ought to dry up. Why would water continue to well up out of the spring? I used to ask myself: why?

It was La Vieja Asunción, the midwife that brought me into the world.

LA VIEJA ASUNCIÓN
Oh woman, my little girl. I brought you into this world myself, little girl. Why didn't you get anything from my hands? Why did you spit out the broth that I gave you? Why couldn't my hands, which have cured so many, cure your wounded flesh? While the murderers were here...

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
They're scared. A long time ago fear came to this town and stayed here, draped over it like a vast storm cloud. The air smelled of fear, the voices dissolve in fear's bitter saliva and then the people swallow them. One day the storm cloud broke and a flash of lighting fell over us.

SARGEANT (looking at a list)
Do you answer to the name Peregrino Pasambu?

THE OLD MAN nods.

THE OLD MAN shakes his head.

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
My father had been the magistrate two times, but I understood so little about politics that I didn't even realize that the position had changed.

SARGEANT
You obtained this land with your political authority. Isn't that correct?

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
That wasn't true. My father was the founder of the town. And as the founder of the town he placed his house on the edge of the road and his property. He gave a name to the town. He called it: "Hope."

SARGEANT
You don't talk? You don't say anything?

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
My father didn't speak very often. Almost never.

SARGEANT
This land is poorly divided. It's going to be divided again. It's going to have legitimate owners, with deeds and everything.

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
When my father came here, it was all forest.

SARGEANT
And the positions are distributed poorly too. Your daughter is the school-mistress, right?

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
There wasn't any position. Vary rarely did they pay me my salary. But I used to like being a school-mistress. My mother was the first school-mistress that the town ever had. She taught me and when she died I became the school-mistress.

SARGEANT
God only knows what that school-mistress teaches.

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
I taught reading and writing and I taught catechism and a love for our nation and flag. When I refused to eat or drink, I thought of the children. There were few of them, that is for sure, but who was going to teach them? I also thought: why did they learn to read and write? There is no longer any reason to read and write. Why have they learned catechism? Why have they learned to love their country and flag? The country has no meaning, nor does the flag. It was a bad thought, perhaps, but it was indeed what I thought.

SARGEANT
Why aren't you saying anything? I'm not responsible. I don't have anything to do with it; it's not my fault.

See this list? Here are all the leaders and people in charge from the previous government. There is an order to immediately get rid of them in order to organize the elections.

The SERGEANT and THE OLD MAN disappear

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS
And that's how it was. They put him against the clay wall, behind the house. The Sergeant gave the orders and the soldiers fired. Then the Sergeant and the soldiers came into my room and, one by one, they raped me. Afterward I didn't eat nor drink again and I began dying little by little.

Very soon it will rain and the red dust will become mud again. The road will be a slow river of red mud and once again you will return with mud in your shoes and your feet covered in it; mud will fill the bellies of the horses and the mules; up to your face and hat it will go, with the road above splattered with mud.