“You are not rich, and you are not poor, Niña!” repeated Juana, in her bird-like voice, that covered the real bird’s endless, vindictive jeering.
For the words meant nothing to her. To her, who had nothing, could never have anything, Kate was one of that weird class, the rich. And, Kate felt, in Mexico it was a crime to be rich, or to be classed with the rich. Not even a crime, really, so much as a freak. The rich class was a freak class, like dogs with two heads or calves with five legs. To be looked upon, not with envy, but with the slow, undying antagonism and curiosity which “normals” have towards “freaks.” The slow, powerful, corrosive Indian mockery, issuing from the lava-rock Indian nature, against anything which strives to be above the grey, lava-rock level.
“Is it true, Niña, that your country is through there?” Juana asked, jabbing her finger downward, towards the bowels of the earth.
“Not quite!” said Kate. “My country is more there—” and she slanted her finger at the earth’s surface.
“Ah—that way!” said Juana. And she looked at Kate with a subtle leer, as if to say: what could you expect from people who came out of the earth sideways, like sprouts of camote!
“And is it true, that over there, there are people with only one eye—here!” Juana punched herself in the middle of her forehead.
“No. That isn’t true. That is just a story.”
“Ah!” said Juana. “Isn’t it true! Do you know? Have you been to the country where they are, these people?”
“Yes,” said Kate. “I have been to all the countries, and there are no such people.”
“Verdad! Verdad!” breathed Juana, awestruck. “You have been to all the countries, and there are no such people!—But in your country, they are all gringos? Nothing but gringos?”