Read Irma Voth for Free Online Page B

your life, then leave now.
    Irma, he said. Are you afraid?
    Of dying? I said. I laughed out loud.
    What is he saying? asked Marijke.
    He wants us all to have fun, relax and be brave, I said.
    I ran my fingernail over the leathery cover of the notebook and tried to carve my name into it. Then I thought to use the pen. I wrote my name on the inside cover and then crossed it out. I was afraid that my father would find it. I traced my left hand on a blank page and then filled it in with lifelines that somewhat resembled my own.
    Diego has put Marijke into a dress like mine and tied her hair back with a kerchief and scrubbed off all her makeup. I explained to her that the first scene we’d be shooting was the family in their farmyard checking out a new tractor. We’d have to drive about an hour to the farmhouse where the scene would be shot. She stood in the yard like a smoking tree while the rest of us carried the equipment to the trucks.
    Then Alfredo showed up with his wife and kids from Campo 3 a mile away, and they were not happy. I waved to them because I’ve known them all my life and Peter, the little boy who doesn’t know any better, waved back. His older sister, Aggie’s friend from school, pulled his hand down. They stayed in the truck and stared away at something. Alfredo ignored me and went over to Diego and told him that he had to quit.
    What do you mean, quit? said Diego. What are you talking about? We haven’t even started!
    Alfredo told Diego that he was getting too much pressure from his wife and his parents. They didn’t want him to act in a movie and it was taking him away from his work digging wells and his wife was jealous of his movie relationship with another woman.
    Como lo arreglamos? said Diego. He wanted to know how they could work things out. Alfredo shrugged.
    Diego smiled at me and then took Alfredo’s arm and led him away behind the barn to talk about it and everybody standing around heard them yelling at each other in Spanish. Oveja went running around to the back of the barn to see what was going on and I heard Alfredo say he’d rip Oveja’s jaw out and crush it under his truck tires if he came any closer. Then Diego yelled at Wilson to come and get Oveja and tie him to the pump.
    What’s the problem? Marijke asked me.
    Nothing, I said. Diego is preparing Alfredo for his role.
    At first Diego pleaded with Alfredo and then he was shouting, saying he had thought they had an understanding, and then he changed his strategy and appealed to Alfredo’s ego (There is nobody, NOBODY, but you who can give this part the depth and humanity that it demands) and then he shifted his position again and offered him some more money and shortly after that they stopped yelling at each other and emerged from behind the barn and Alfredo went over to his wife and kids and talked to them and they drove off without waving and without Alfredo.
    I don’t want him to yell at me, said Marijke, if that’s what it takes to prepare me. I can’t handle that.
    He won’t, I said, your role is different.
    We all piled into the trucks and drove off to shoot the first scene. Elias was driving the truck that Marijke and I were in. In Rubio, the closest village to our campo, he smashed it into a fence trying to back up and Diego, following behind, radioed him to let me drive because I knew the roads around there. We had to wait for a while so that Diego could negotiate something with the owner of the fence. Alfredo came over to where Marijke and I were standing and asked me if my father and my husband knew I was working for Diego.
    When Diego came back he suggested that Alfredo change trucks and sit next to Marijke so they could get to know each other because they did speak the same language, but Marijke said that in fact their dialects were entirely different, she was a Russian Mennonite living in Germany and he was a Canadian Mennonite living in Mexico, and Alfredo was drunk and reeked of booze and was completely