Caramelo (56 page)

I get back to room 606 at the Hotel Majestic just as the sun is slanting,
sending deep shadows along the downtown buildings, making the buildings along the other side of the hotel, the Presidential Palace and
calle de la
Moneda, glow like the paintings you see of Venice. But I’m too tired to appreciate the light.

I throw myself on the bed and fall asleep immediately. I sleep like I’ve been swept away by rain and river. And just before waking, I dream this dream. The night sky of Tepeyac when the dark is fresh. And in that violet ink, I see the stars tumble and nudge and somersault until they assemble themselves into the shape of a woman, into the shape of the Virgin. La Virgen de Guadalupe made up of stars! My heart floods with joy. When I wake up, the pillow is damp, and the sea is trickling out from my eyes.

Always remember, Lala, the family comes first
—la familia.
Your friends aren’t going to be there when you’re in trouble. Your friends don’t think of you first. Only your family is going to love you when you’re in trouble
, mija.
Who are you going to call?…
La familia,
Lala. Remember
.

The twinkling lights strung outside the balcony are lit. In that carnival of darkness and light, I fumble for the phone and hear my voice ask for a long distance line, please,
por cobrar
.

—Do you accept?

—Yes, yes! I hear Father’s voice say desperately. —Lala! Lalita?
Mija
, where are you,
mi vida?

My mouth opens as wide as a fatal wound, and I hear myself howl, —Papá, I want to come home!

81.

My Disgrace

      I
n the lobby of the Hotel Majestic, I wait with my bags ready for Señor Juchi, Father’s
compadre
, the one I used to call Coochi when I was little. Every now and then, I peer out on Madero Street, expecting a car to stop at any moment for me. But when Señor Juchi finally appears, it’s from the direction of el Zócalo, and on foot, with a woman he introduces as his
señora
.

Father sent them. Until Father can get here himself, I’m to stay with Señor Juchi and his wife at their apartment in Barranca del Muerto. It’s a short metro ride from el Zócalo with only one change of trains. I’ve never met
la señora
till now. I like her. I like her way of calling me
mija
and walking alongside me arm in arm, the way women do here when they walk together, with a lot of affection and protection radiating from them like the sun.

Señor Juchi and his wife pretend not to stare at me on the subway ride to their place, but I can feel their eyes on me. Their faces filled with worry and something else, which I can only call heartsickness. A look of absolute pity mixed with shame. I ought to know. I feel it too, but not for myself. They act like I’ve been in the clutches of Jack the Ripper and not someone I love. And how can I tell them any different? People only believe what they want to believe sometimes, no matter what story you’re ready to tell them.

Señor Juchi is all talk, just the way I remember him, with those green eyes of his staring holes into your soul. He acts like he’s a cop or something. That this, and that, and this. —When we call the authorities
 … ese muchacho
can’t get away … and do you know where he might be hiding?

Christ Almighty! Maybe he thinks it’s for my own good that he should tell me how evil Ernesto is. How he’s going to split him open with a Collins machete and beat him till he’s
chicle
, or whatever else they do with men who run off and don’t fulfill their obligations. It’s such a corny old plot, isn’t it? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

That’s a lie. Just as soon I get to their apartment and am installed in their guest room, I do know. I throw myself on the narrow twin bed and begin. Father’s friends must think I’m crying because of
mi desgracia
, but it’s not that at all. How can I explain, and even if I did, they don’t want to hear it.

And it’s like Aunty’s dream about the handkerchiefs. I have a lot of tears to spend, lots and lots. I cry for hours, even in front of Señor Juchi and his wife, who are like strangers to me. I can’t help it. I can’t stop. Even when
la señora
knocks on the door and brings me a cup of chamomile tea, that Mexican antidote to everything. I slurp it up between sobs, lie down still hiccuping on the little twin bed in the room that was once her son’s and, now that he’s married, is
la señora’s
sewing room, a room all done up in white now, like if it was waiting for me. And I’m thinking how when I was little Señor Juchi promised me a room of my own, a girl’s room just like this one. Isn’t it funny? That’s what I’m thinking when they finally shut the door, and I’m lying there in the darkness on the narrow bed with the slippery chiffon bedspread, white as a wedding gown.

I know they’re talking about me on the other side of the wall. I know they’re
tsking-tsking
, and thinking all kinds of things, wondering how I could do such a thing to a nice guy like my father, and how it’s things just like this that happen to girls over there on the other side, and how glad they are they have no daughters where you have to worry about someone filling up their head with so much nonsense that they don’t believe the ones who really love them but are willing to throw themselves in front of the first one who so much as tosses them a pretty word.

Oh, I can’t explain. I can’t in a million years tell them. I can’t tell anyone. A huge sadness rises up in the chest, heaves like an Acapulco wave, and takes me with it. I put my hand on my belly bubbling and gurgling with my period. How can I tell Señor Juchi and his sweet wife that I don’t want to talk about
ese muchacho
, that it doesn’t do a bit of good to try to close the door and talk to me
a solas
, woman to woman, that I don’t need to see a doctor, thank you, that I’m bleeding down there, and it would
only embarrass me to have them examine me, no, thank you, I’m all right, honest I am, please.

Instead, I ask to be taken to La Villa, to the
basílica
. I ask, but
la señora’s
sworn to my father not to let me out of her sight, and she’s so kind, I can’t argue. Father and Memo are on their way here, they tell me. They’ve been driving all night and should arrive pretty soon, if I know Memo. I’m relieved it’s Memo and not Rafa who’s coming for me. Memo I can handle. It’s Father I worry about.

I feel so alone-alone.

In first grade I remember feeling like this; so miserable, all I ever drew was pictures of my family. Every day the same thing. I began at the left and ended at the right, like writing my name—family portraits on sheets of thick cream-colored paper the teacher called “manila,” which I heard as “vanilla,” maybe because they were the same color as ice cream.

First I drew me. Then I drew Memo, a step taller. Next to Memo, I drew a larger Lolo. Then Toto. Tikis. Ito. Rafa. Mother. And at the tallest end I drew Father with a cigarette beneath a thin mustache like Pedro Infante.

I could never draw myself without drawing the others. Lala, Memo, Lolo, Toto, Tikis, Ito, Rafa, Mama, Papá. Father’s name in Spanish with the accent on the end. Papá. The End.
Tan tán
. Like the notes at the end of a Mexican song that tell you to applaud.

I’d never been alone in my life before first grade. I’d never been in a room where I couldn’t see one of the brothers or my mother or father. Not even for a borrowed night. My family followed me like a kite tail, and I followed them. I’d never been without them until the day I begin school.

I remember I cry all day. And the next day, and the next. On the walk to school I drop my cigar box of crayons on purpose, or walk so slowly we get there after the doors are already locked.

Ito complains. —If I come late one more time teacher says you have to come to school, Ma.

Father solves everything. —
I’ll
walk her to school. She’s your
only
sister, he says, scolding the boys, especially Ito. —Don’t you know it’s a pleasure to walk your sister to school? But this just makes them groan.

—Don’t tell anyone but you’re my favorite, Father says, winking, though it’s no secret.

On the walk to school, I show Father the Chinese laundry on the corner where my friend Sam works. —Father, did you ever go to China?

I make Father look at a house that has gold stars painted on the inside of a blue porch roof. —Who put that there?

I point out the mean dog and the meaner crossing guard lady. It’s wonderful talking and not talking with Father next to me. I almost forget to feel sad until we get to the school door, then I make him promise not to leave me yet. —I don’t like it here. Please don’t leave me here, please don’t leave me.

Father takes me home.

Mother’s furious. —Take her back!

—But she doesn’t
want
to go.

—I don’t care! She
has
to go! Take her back!

This time we ride in the car. Father has to go to work, and he’s already late. I must be crying, because Father is saying, —Don’t cry anymore, don’t cry anymore—over and over, gently and very quietly like he’s the one crying.

When we get to my classroom, I remember Father standing in the doorway a long time, even after the door is closed. Inside the narrow door window, his long, thin face with the eyes like little houses.

I fall asleep with all my clothes on, on top of the chiffon bedspread, without bothering to get under the covers, and wake up with my head hurting, my mouth dry. Fumble to the bathroom, flick on the lights, and it’s her! The Grandmother’s face in mine. Hers. Mine. Father’s. It scares the hell out of me, but it’s only me. Amazing the way I look different now, like if my grandmother is starting to peer out at me from my skin.

—What you looking at? I say in my toughest voice. But she hasn’t appeared to me since I crossed the border. I suppose she’ll arrive with Father. And she’ll let me have it.
Foolish girl! Your father loves you, and you chose to leave! I would never abandon someone who loves me. Why, in my day, my own father abandoned me, and I never forgot or forgave him. And here you are, ungrateful little fool
.

I go over what I’m going to say:

It’s that I thought, we thought we’d get everybody’s permission for us to marry. We thought this way we wouldn’t be refused
.

I can’t tell Father it was all my idea, that I made Ernesto “steal” me, can I? That’s not the kind of story you can tell your father. I don’t want to hurt him even more, so I won’t say anything I’ve decided. I won’t cry like a girl either.

But when Father and Memo arrive, my heart hurts. Memo marches
into the room first, shaking his head like I’m an idiot. I’m sure Father has made him swear not to say anything to upset me, because all he does is give me that look and shake his head, like I’m too stupid to even talk to. Then, before Father steps in, he adds, —Man, Lala.

—Mija
, Father says when he sees me, and breaks into tears. He’s shivering and heaving like if I’d died and came back from the dead. To see Father so overwhelmed is too much for me, and everything I told myself I wouldn’t do when Father got here flies out the window.

Once Mother and Father had a big fight over something, and Mother was so pissed she threw Father out. He didn’t come back home that night to sleep. Nor the next night, nor the next. He was gone four long days. Finally our cousin Byron told us Father was sleeping in the shop on a striped sectional. When Mother finally let Father come home, Father was changed. He ate his dinner on the TV tray on his orange Naugahyde La-Z-Boy with the TV tuned to the Spanish-speaking news, same as always, his feet soaking in a pink plastic washtub. But he looked different. Tired. Smaller. His face gray, with a lint-covered beard and his hair a mess. He looked
acabado
, finished. When he was through eating, he made a little room for me on the arm of his chair, hugged me hard, and whispered in my ear, —Who do you love more, your mother or your father? That was the one time I said, —
Tú
, Papá. You.

And now looking at Father so broken, so
acabado
, I want to tell him the same healthy lie.

Father holds me in his arms and sobs on my shoulder. —I can’t, Father hiccups. —I can’t. Even take care of you. It’s all. My fault. I’m. To blame. For this. Disgrace.

I had thought Father had come to comfort me. But it’s me who has to hold him up, who has to say,
I’m sorry. I love you, Father. Please don’t cry, I didn’t mean to hurt you
. But I can’t say stuff like that. I don’t say a word. My mouth opens and closes and the only thing that comes out is a thin, slippery howl, like raw silk unspooling from my belly. The body speaking the language it spoke before language. More honest and true.

82.

The King of Plastic Covers

Sit beside the breakfast table

Think about your troubles

Pour yourself a cup of tea

And think about the bubbles
You can take your teardrops

And drop them in a teacup

Take them down to the riverside

And throw them over the side

To be swept up by a current

And taken to the ocean

To be eaten by some fishes

Who were eaten by some fishes

And swallowed by a whale

Who grew so old

He decomposed
He died and left his body

To the bottom of the ocean

Now everybody knows

That when a body decomposes

The basic elements

Are given back to the ocean
And the sea does what it oughta