Free Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop by Kirstan Hawkins Page A

bargain, Arturo’s father had unexpectedly returned to the house to retrieve an important document. Arturo had been frogmarched to his room with his trousers still round his ankles and Claudia returned to her mother’s charge with no explanation but that Arturo was unwell and would not be joining them again that day.
    Arturo was forbidden to spend any more time alone with Claudia. At first their communication was carried out through hidden notes and furtive glances across the table during their parents’ weekly teaparties. Then, at Claudia’s instigation, they began illicit meetings in the park. Arturo would sit holding her hand, whispering words of adoration into her ear, while she would fill his head with radical ideas.
    â€˜Promise you’ll marry me and have my children,’ he begged her as he unbuttoned her blouse and gently felt inside.
    â€˜I can never marry you if you live the parasitic life of your parents,’ she replied sternly. ‘Show me that you’re a man who follows his belief and I’ll go anywhere in the world with you.’
    Then, suddenly, at the age of sixteen, Claudia moved to the United States, and Arturo’s secret world was torn apart. Claudia’s mother had been offered the chance to take up further studies, followed by a prestigious posting in an American university. After finishing high school, Claudia had stayed on in the States, signing up to study politics and philosophy at one of the leading universities. Claudia and Arturo continued to communicate by letter. Arturo wrote long poetic declarations of his love and she replied with long philosophical tracts on the injustices of the world.
    Her letters were at first cheerful, peppered with American slang: Hola, Arturo, como estas? All’s going great here, college is awesome. But as they continued they became more strident in tone. You know, she told him in one letter, the longer I am here in the land of the gringos, the more appalled I am by them and the way they’ve treated our country and those around us. It is clear to me that the gringos are our oppressors. They always have been and always will be. It’s people like your father who continue their oppression with his supposed science, which he practises only for the benefit of the rich. I hope you will be strong enough to break away from your bourgeois life and follow a path towards truth and freedom, as I will.
    Arturo, who had been deliberating his future for some time, finally plucked up the courage to explain to his father his completeabhorrence at the idea of becoming a doctor. He was terrified by the sight of blood and although he never wanted to hurt his parents, he would rather be a historian or a writer. His father had become so apoplectic with rage that he had to be hospitalised for several weeks with a suspected stroke. Arturo wrote to Claudia in a confusion of guilt over his father’s poor health and pride in being able to tell her that he had finally found the courage to defy his parents’ wishes and follow the life of a poet. Several weeks later he received his anxiously awaited reply.
    My dear Arturo, Claudia wrote. I have to tell you that I am very disappointed in you. I don’t understand what good you think yet another bourgeois writer will do for our country. Don’t you think there are enough already? Anyway, what do you have to write about? You have seen and done nothing. I have been reading a paper for our politics course on the function of the doctor in the fight for liberation. Although I don’t understand medicine, I do understand the needs of our country. You may think I’m changing my mind, but it’s just that my thoughts are getting sharper. If you were really brave you would become a doctor, challenge the Establishment that your father is a part of, and start to try to understand our people and the conditions they live in. I have to go now for my consciousness-raising group, and then to