Published by Picador, 1997, 444 pages.

“You say, but for the golden hope of coffee
few men would get ahead.
I say, when the people harvest,
all they reap is bitter grounds.”

Coffee plantations are the centre of the lives of two families: one, that of peasants who work picking coffee, and the other, the plantation owners. The book is the story of the women in these families.

Mercedes’s husband Ignacio works on a coffee plantation in western El Salvador. They have two children, 13-year-old Jacinta, and a baby boy Tino. They are Pipil,[1] like most of the other plantation workers.

In January 1932, when the story begins, things are coming to a head. The peasants are talking about a rebellion against the government and the plantation owners. Although Ignacio refuses to have anything to do with the uprising, he gets caught up in the events and is killed.

The response of the government to the rebellion is brutal. The army is sent in, and in the resulting bloodbath,[2] known as La Matanza (the massacre), the army wipes out as many Pipil as they can, including women and children. Mercedes flees her home with her two children and takes shelter with another family. While she and Jacinta go down to the river to wash, two soldiers murder the rest of the family. But one of the soldiers cannot bring himself to kill the baby and takes Tino home with him. Mercedes looks for him and finally assumes (but is not entirely convinced) that he is dead.

Mercedes finds work at the La Abundancia, a finca (country estate) near Santa Ana. The finca belongs to Ernesto, a plantation owner, and his wife Elena. Elena starts to rely on Mercedes, feeling that the maid is someone she can confide in. This starts a relationship between the women of the two families that continues through the next two generations: between Jacinta and Elena’s daughter, Magda; and Jacinta’s daughter, María Mercedes, and Magda’s daughter, Flor.

When Magda marries, Jacinta goes with her as her maid. The two women are close, and Magda shares her dream of opening a gift shop, something her husband Alvaro does not approve of: he believes that a woman’s place is at home with her children. But Magda eventually gets her way. When Jacinta falls in love with a married man and becomes pregnant, she is worried that Magda will throw her out. But Magda is pregnant too, and their two daughters grow up together.

The lives of the women play out against the backdrop of the events taking place in El Salvador. There is political unrest, and Jacinta’s first love, a union supporter, is killed by the government. María Mercedes leaves for her village to spend time with her aunt where she joins the communist movement. In the meantime, Tino has been brought up by the soldier. He joins the army and becomes someone of importance. This means that he and his niece María Mercedes—neither of whom have any idea of their relationship—are on opposing sides.

There are several subplots whose effects ripple out into the lives of the women. There is Basilio, the boy who joined Mercedes and Jacinta as they flee their home. He also works at the finca, and is in love with Jacinta. Elena’s best friend, Cecilia, betrays her, and Elena breaks all contact with her. This, too, has consequences.

This is an absorbing book. Sandra Benítez fleshes out the characters, and they feel completely believable. But it is also brutal, like the turbulent history of El Salvador.

“The story continued, as all stories do until life itself is done.
“In a country named The Savior, 1980 brought full-scale civil war.
“By 1992, when peace was signed, seventy-five thousand had died; three hundred thousand had fled, and five million remained, these filled with hope on bitter grounds.”

I would recommend this book: it is one that will stay with you, as it did with me.

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[1] An indigenous Mesoamerican people, part of the Nahua ethnic group.

[2] Estimates of the number of peasants killed vary between 10,000 and 40,000.