The kid, 21 years old, an adult here with his girlfriend and her two-year old son, says that lately he´s been thinking about going to the States. Not that I don´t believe him. I do. He says, "it may sound cowardly, but I want to get away from all my compromisos." Obligations. To-do´s. Must-do´s. They have to do with the girl.
He´s gotten himself in quite deep here. He´s got a lot of work. She´s so needy, so desperate, so save-able, with her kid, messed-up mom, wanna-be gangsta brother. And he is strong, young, happy. She is always a former-something. Addict. Atheist. Fill in the blank. He was ready to accept compromises, to be a man. But not to feel so limited. It´s what makes you feel old and tired. Having to always do things you don´t want to do, what we men must do here.
We were coming back from a wedding when he told me this—that he wants to go to the States to look for a crush in New Jersey, a friend of mine who came to visit. Cute girl, too. Italian. They email.
But a wedding! The ultimate compromise. The most serious of them all. For life! One person! They seemed so happy. So willing. It must be those compromises that make us happy, driven, purposeful.
And here I am, dying for compromises, those of family, romance, work, my hometown. Anything! How can I get them? I want things to be expected of me, to be held accountable, to be noticed. To be missed. Thrown here as a volunteer, I am not held to many compromises. I know what it´s like to have no compromises, and I have hated it. For three years I have hated it. It is a half-life.
So we make it back from the wedding. He stays at his house and I continue my walk alone. I cross the river, silent, my life, my sins, my compromises, the river bears all this without sound.
I walk and halfway there I sit among sugar cane fields, hidden, looking to the clouds and volcanoes and the setting sun because I am trying to figure out my compromises. I want to know where the next one will come from.
No, friend, I think now, it is no fun to have freedom, complete freedom. To be too free is to be too alone and it hurts. I am too used to it. I am terrirified. But I am still here. Should I go to New York? Should I study? I decide I will buy my mother´s old house.
My friend and I know that going north, going anywhere, these are pretexts for erasing bad compromises. Being poor is part of that. If you´re poor you´re born with like a thousand bad compromises, and you can´t get out of them easily, not without a lot of pain, a lot of loss, a lot of trying to forget. That is what my friend is realizing.
I hold the little neighbor girl on my lap, hug her thin body tight, rejoice and sob with her tiny life in my hands. So small! She is the most beautiful thing. I clean my classroom, plan my classes, take kids to museums. Where is the river? Where are these wordless compromises, instantly understood and tolerated? I love the little girl. I do not want to watch too many more sunsets alone. I hope my friend does not go to the States. We must be very strong in this life.
