Caramelo (18 page)

Which is why, in my opinion, the greatest culinary invention is the microwave oven, where one can heat
tortillas
a dozen at a time and sit down to eat like
la gente decente
instead of eating standing like horses.

Qué
microwave oven
,
ni qué nada
.
You talk like a little fool
.
Tortillas
never taste like
tortillas
unless they’re scorched from the
comal. Tortillas
and a bowl of beans in their broth with a few spoonfuls of rice stirred in, the corn
tortilla
rolled tighter than a cigarette. Delicious!
Ay
,
but Narciso made such a fuss, —Rice and beans mixed together! How vulgar! Then he went on for an hour about how you were supposed to bring out each course on a separate plate, and this is how he ate, as if he didn’t think twice about who was washing the dishes. All his life Narciso would brag, —I don’t even know what color the kitchen walls are, which is to say he never went in there
.

Which is to say he was a real man.

Because here is where one can most tell what class a person is. By the way one eats. And by one’s shoes. Narciso ate like the well-to-do, as if he was sure where his next meal was coming from, not gulping it all down in a hurry and not eating too much, and not picking things up with his hands, but holding his knife and fork exquisitely and cutting the food into small portions without dropping his utensils, and he didn’t talk with his mouth full, or make smacky noises, or use a toothpick at the table, and, of course, he was accustomed to each course being served on a separate plate. He did not hold his knife and fork in a fist, or scoop up his food with
tortillas
in place of silverware as they did at Aunty Fina’s. His manners at the table were very elegant. And his shoes? These were elegant too. Polished military boots, or lovely leather British wing tips. Well, he liked good things
.

Look, I can truthfully say ours was a marriage of love. That is, Narciso and I married not as was accustomed in that epoch by arrangement, but because we fell in love. That is, I was taking care of the
kitchen of the house of my Aunty Fina, who was also your grandfather’s aunty, well, we were distant cousins. And then I was invited to work for your great-grandmother. And I think your grandfather felt sorry and sad for me, because back then I was pretty. And just like in the fairy tales, he fell in love with me, even though I was dusty from the house chores. All the same, he could see I was his love of loves. So, quick as could be, he arranged to have me stolen, and, well, we married, and there
.

And because my Narciso was very clever, they gave him a little paper that certified he had been loyal to the Constitutional Government during the Ten Tragic Days of 1914 and assigned him a nice comfortable position with the National Roads Commission because of his war wound. A wound he suffered from a terrible
susto
.
Which is why your grandfather could never bathe in the ocean when we went to Acapulco. Ah, but that story is another story, inside another story, inside a story
.

Soon we shall see.

^*
“A Waltz Without a Name” because I lost that paper but I remember it went …
^†
  
(Composer—el Señor Eleuterio Luis Gonzaga Francisco Javier Reyes Arriaga, born in the year 1871 and baptized that year as per records found in the rectory of Saint Stephen of Seville. This document proves without a doubt the family Reyes is directly descended from Spanish blood.)

I
.

Tenía tal distinción

Que era de aquel salón.

Tal distinción que verla

y amarla todo fue en mi

y amor ardiente le declaré.

II
.

Ella sonrió, mi ruego oyó.

También me dijo: Te quiero yo.

Pues si me quieres, le respondí,

un beso dame y seré feliz.

Si con un beso feliz te haré

después del baile te lo daré.

III
.

(This is the page that was lost but it went more or less …)

En el salón un ruido atonador se escuchó,

un tiro fugaz que en el pecho de su amada dio,

y ya no pudo cumplir su palabra y hacerlo feliz.

Tan tán

^†
This song was actually written by the author’s great-grandfather, Enrique Cisneros Vásquez
.

26.

Some Order, Some Progress,
But Not Enough of Either

      W
hat was going through your head, Grandmother? You don’t remember or you don’t want to remember the details, and for a story to be believable you have to have details. You forgot to mention that the year of your arrival to the Reyes household was the centennial of Mexican independence, “the era of order and progress.” Then as now, the president spent huge amounts of the national treasury to impress the world with how truly “civilized” —European—Mexico had become. You could’ve said, —I remember every building, avenue, plaza, and boulevard was flooded with tiny lights like pearls that made me happy. You must’ve noticed them along the Plaza of the Constitution, the Cathedral, the National Palace. The capital hadn’t looked so splendid since the time of the emperor Maximiliano. While you slept in the kitchen pantry and ate rice soaked in bean broth, there were magnificent new public buildings under construction, the Venetian/Florentine-style post office, the opera house of Carrara marble, as ornate as wedding cakes. Guests from each “civilized” nation were invited, all expenses paid, and feted with nightly banquets where the imported champagne and the thick steaks never ended. Golden statues were commissioned and erected at prominent intersections so that future generations would always remember 1910. Each evening fireworks like a field of poppies hissed and whirled and popped above your rooftop twilights, while in the distance, plazas throbbed with sentimental waltzes and pompous military airs.

Grandmother, you always want to tell stories and then when you should tell them, you don’t tell. What about the 16th of September, the
day of the Centennial celebrations? Parades, bullfights, rodeos, receptions, balls, all to celebrate Don Porfirio’s birthday as well as Mexico’s Independence Day. Indians and beggars were routed from the downtown streets where you lived so as not to spoil the view. Thousands of pairs of machine-made trousers were handed out to the poor with instructions to wear these instead of those peasant cotton-whites. The parents of the shoeless were scolded into buying their children footwear or else face terrible fines, while the little girls of the well-to-do were recruited to toss rose petals in the Centennial parade before a phalanx of Indians dressed as “Indians.”

In their finest splendor and riding the most sumptuous carriages, the invited ambassadors paid their respects escorted by a squadron of hussars in gala dress. Next, the Mexican calvary cantered by on tasseled horses as proud and handsome as the riders. You forgot the doomed Moctezuma carried in a gilt litter by sixteen sweating
infelices
, or the draped chariot filled with
chaparrita
Mexican Greek nymphs. In their hands, scrolls with wonderful words
—Patria, Progreso, Industria, Ciencia
—their meanings lost to most of the city’s citizenry because they could not read.

Then as now, people voted for peace, and then as now, nobody believed their votes made a bit of difference. The government, run by los Científicos, sincerely believed science would and could lead them to the solution to the Theory of Everything. But the Theory of Everything would have to wait. By the time 1911 rolled in, the little revolution began. For the next decade, brother fought against brother, governments were toppled and replaced, soldiers were patriots one day, rebels the next.

Who could believe the petty violence in the countryside would mean anything to a girl in a kitchen? Hadn’t the dictator-president, Don Porfirio, established order and progress, elected himself eight times for the good of the nation, and civilized the Mexicans so that they were the envy of other nations, so that boys like Narciso dreamed patriotic dreams of defending Mexico against U.S. invaders and dying an honorable death cloaked in the Mexican flag, like the “child heroes” of Chapultepec, young military cadets who threw themselves off the ramparts of this Mexico City castle rather than surrender to the advancing American troops in 1847. He could not know that by 1914 the Marines would again invade Mexico, and once again in 1916. By then Narciso Reyes would be involved in his own U.S. invasion by immigrating to Chicago. But now
I’m
getting ahead of the story.

Like the Pedro Infante movie
Los tres García
, let us spin the camera like a dizzy child in a
piñata
game and look at the story you would not, or could not tell. It happened during the Ten Tragic Days when President Madero found himself a prisoner in his own presidential palace. Some of the troops were loyal to the president, some were on the side of the rebels, and the million citizens of Mexico City found themselves caught in the crossfire. For ten days the streets were a battleground. Who would’ve thought the capital would be paralyzed? But life is always more astounding than anyone’s imagination …

27.

How Narciso Loses Three of His
Ribs During the Ten Tragic Days

            —
Y
ou? You wouldn’t know where to find food if your life depended on it. And your life does depend upon it!

—If you’re not satisfied with my services,
señora
, you can dismiss me.

—I most certainly will not. You owe me for that set of china you broke. And if you think you can walk out with a debt owed to your employer you had better light your candles to Saint Jude.

—In the name of God, leave her alone already, Regina. She’s just a child.

—A week. Over a week we’ve been locked up in here. Like rats. Worse than rats. I’m sick of hiding under mattresses. How long can this go on? Who would dream this could happen in the capital? Never in my life
… Ay
, my head feels like it’s struck with a
machete
every time that cannon goes off. How can anyone sleep in this hell? And how am I supposed to feed us with only a clove of garlic and two tomatoes in the pantry, tell me. But look how happy you two fools are. How pretty. One busy playing with the fringe of her shawl, and the other playing the piano.

Eleuterio said nothing. How could he defend himself? His wife didn’t understand about art, how by creating something you can keep yourself from dying. Regina only understood
pesos
, not the mathematics of the heart.

—Enough, enough, enough, Eleuterio sighed. —I’ve had it with you shaming me. I’ll go out and find us something to eat.

—Oh, no, you won’t. If you don’t know where to find food when there isn’t a war, how are you going to learn now? How? Soledad, bring me a sheet. And not one of my good ones. From the rag pile.

Then Regina made them shove aside the piano they had braced against the door, and she went out into the deserted streets of Mexico City armed only with a white flag made from an embroidered pillowcase and the broom. From the shattered windows in the dining room, her husband and servant watched her marching down the center of Leandro Valle Street just as proud and as regal as if she were one of the flag bearers in last year’s Centennial parade.

On the other side of town, Narciso was loyally making his way home to the apartment on Leandro Valle. —Mamá, he hiccuped under his breath. He had run most of the way, and now his side hurt. —Mamá. Calling her made him feel safer. —Mamá, Mamá. There is nothing Mexican men revere more than their mamas; they are the most devoted of sons, perhaps because their mamas are the most devoted of mamas … when it comes to their boys.

All his life Narciso had wanted to be a hero. And now here was his opportunity, and the smell of death made him feel like vomiting. The cadets had been assigned the worst jobs. Instead of the fighting they dreamed of, defending their country against a common enemy, now they were witnessing Mexicans fighting against Mexicans.

The dictator Porfirio Díaz had been ousted and forced to flee, and like many fleeing Mexican presidents before and since, he left for Europe with a good deal of the treasury in his suitcases. Then Madero was elected president. But a military coup led by one of his own generals upset his victory. The Mexican armed forces were divided. Some backed General Huerta in his attempt to take over the government, while some remained loyal to the new president. For ten days the capital and its citizens were caught in this scramble for power.

The boy cadets were given the details no one had time to deal with. Like burning the dead. Narciso was to go through the pockets for identification while two classmates doused the bodies with gasoline. It was heartbreaking to see the children lying in the streets as if they’d fallen asleep there, the old women and young mothers, the shopkeepers who
should not have been caught in this business. What was happening to the country?