Caramelo (60 page)

We’re decked out in our best. Mother bought a floor-length evening gown, and even the boys agreed to wear tuxes. I found a dress that doesn’t make me look too freaky. A vintage shantung silk number that reminds me of that fuchsia dress Mother used to have. It’s cocktail length, but I dressed it up with the Grandmother’s
caramelo rebozo
. It’s okay, it was the Grandmother’s idea.

People have come from all directions for the party. From all over Chicago and the northern suburbs, from Wilmette and Winnetka, from as far west as Aurora and as far east as Gary, Indiana, from the cornfields of Joliet, by plane and by car from Mexico, California, Kansas, Philadelphia, Arizona, and Texas. The scattered Reyes and Reynas, and the friends of los Reyes and Reynas, have gathered here tonight to honor Mother and Father, to say, —
¡Caray!
Who would’ve thought? I didn’t think it would last, did you? Or to raise a glass and thank God that Zoila Reyna and Inocencio Reyes are still alive, still on the planet giving trouble, still bothering everyone and still being bothered with the nuisance of living.

—
I
s that what he told you? Picked up off the streets of Memphis and made to enlist?
¡Puro cuento!
He
wanted
to enlist. I know. I was there. He said to my father, “Uncle, drive me to the enlistment center, I want to become a U.S. citizen. I want to become a U.S. citizen.”

That’s what he said. And it wasn’t Memphis either. It was Chicago …

—
W
hen I was little I used to dance with your father. I thought he was handsome, handsome, handsome. He looked just like Pedro Infante, only skinny …

—
O
ur dog eats them if you put butter on them. If you hold up a
tortilla
and it’s not buttered, forget it, he won’t even look at it …

—
¿
Q
ué tienes? ¿Sueño o
sleepy
?

—
A
nd whose fault is it that wing chair wasn’t delivered on time? I suppose now you’re going to blame me?

—Can’t you stop talking shop now? This is supposed to be a party. Forget about the wing chair.

—Forget? You’re the one who promised Mrs. Garza she could have it by today!

—
Y
ou believe her? Married, my eye! Look, I hate to talk badly about my sister, but your Aunty Light-Skin can’t tell the truth to save her life! And I ought to know, I’m her brother. She wasn’t married. She just likes to talk a good story.

—
T
hey say he even made a sofa that’s in the White House.

—
¡Apoco!

—That’s what they say. It seems like a lie, but it’s true. The White House. Imagine!

—
A
ll he wants is food that’s so much
lata
to make. Especially that damn
mancha manteles mole
that really does stain tablecloths and is so much trouble to wash out not even Tide will get it clean.

—
Y
ou know what they say. The truth is God’s child … That’s not how it goes. How does it go? Truth is the daughter of God; a lie the Devil’s daughter. And I had the truth on my side, yes, I did. You believe me, right?

—
I
was not making
ojitos
at her, I was just being polite.

—Liar! I saw you! You don’t think after being married to you for twenty-five years I don’t know who I’m married to?

—¡Ay caray!
Why are you so cruel with me? You love to make me suffer! Why do you mortify me?

—No, you got it wrong, buddy. It’s YOU who always mortifies ME!

—
H
onest to God. When he was young his father shot an elephant, an elephant that had gone crazy on a set they’d been filming. It was a circus elephant. This is what they say, I don’t know, I didn’t see it. And he says that when … Ah, no, that’s a lie. That’s not what he said.

—
A
body like María Victoria, remember her?

—
A
nd then we would go to Plaza Garibaldi to pick up
gringas
, order a Carta Blanca, or a Brandy Sagarniac. We’d dance
danzón
and boogie-woogie all night at el Salón México.

—
H
is mother was the type who wouldn’t sit on a chair without wiping it first.

—
I
f you really want authentic Yucatecan food while you’re in Mexico City, eat at El Habanero in the
colonia
Nápoles on Alabama 54, corner of Nebraska.

—
R
ight? You love me the best?

—
I
read that Buster Keaton filled his swimming pool with champagne. Can you believe it? So that the bubbles would tickle the soles of his guests’ feet. That’s what I read in a book in Mexico.

—
I
n my time it was Packards, Lincolns, Cadillacs.

—
Y
o
nunca quise a mi marido. Mi familia era de mejor categoría, pero como no tuve recursos …

—
I
haven’t cried so much since I got that five-dollar haircut at the beauty college.

—
A
whole bag! He ate the whole thing, and you know fluorescent food can’t be good for you.

—
H
ave your teeth gotten bigger, or did you lose weight?

—
S
he looks just like her father, don’t she? I said when I saw her, there’s Inocencio all over again.

—
¿
Y
tú—quién eres?

—Soy una niña
.

—
R
emember when Grandfather used to get angry with us for eating our rice and beans mixed together? Remember?

—No, I don’t remember.

—Aw, you don’t remember anything. How’s about when he used to line us up for military inspection. You gotta remember that. —I don’t think so.

—
D
on’t tell anyone, but you’re my favorite.

—
S
he’s the most beautiful of all us sisters, but she was born a little retarded. That’s why our father loved her best. Sometimes she goes into heat and our mother has to throw water on her.

—
P
illsbury or Duncan Hines?

—
No le hace. Lo que sea
. Whichever one is cheaper. They both taste good.

—
¡
A
y, no!
The ones with lace I can’t wear. They make my nipples itch.

—
I
know you don’t know her, but she’s your cousin from your Uncle Nuño. Don’t shame me, you’re going to go over and say hello.

—
S
e llama
Schuler, Mamá. Schu-ler.

—
¿Como azúcar?

—No
, Mamá. Schuler.
No
sugar.

—
Y
a
nadie hace comida como antes. Nada sabe igual. La comida sabe a nada. Ni tengo ganas de comer a veces, y a veces ni como
.

—
Y
ou can tell from her eyebrows she probably has a lot of hair all over her body.

—
T
his is the family photo from our trip to Acapulco when we were little. But I’m not here, I was off to the side making sand castles, and nobody bothered to call me when the photographer came by. Same as always, they forgot all about me.

—What are you talking about? You weren’t making sand castles, Lala. You want the truth? You were mad, and that’s why when we called you over, you wouldn’t come. That’s the
real
reason why you’re not in the picture. And I ought to know, I’m the oldest.

—
I
don’t argue more! You argue more!

—
Estás loca. Te gusta mortificarme, ¿verdad? Tú eres la que …

—Liar!!!

F
inally, late as always, the program starts with Father entering the dance floor in his beautiful black tux with tails, looking like a Fred Astaire, every bit the gentleman. The
mariachis
start up with the bullfighting song, who the hell knows why. Everyone applauds. Mother enters the ring as brave and full of energy as a little bull. She’s spirited from being housebound for weeks taking care of Father. She’s nodding and waving in her new empire-waist aqua chiffon gown, waving stiffly like the queen of England. Father is kissing Memo’s hand, holding Toto’s face to his cheek, kissing each of his sons on his forehead or the top of his head. It’s enough to make you cry.

Then the
mariachis
open with a slow song, “Solamente una vez.” And Mother and Father are forced to dance. Mother acts stiff at first; that’s the first sign to get a few highballs into her, quick, then she’ll let loose. Mother and Father dancing like they’ve danced with each other forever, like only two people who have put up with each other and love each other can.

Finally, the deejay we hired takes over after the
mariachis
leave. He’s really great, has all kinds of music, from Pérez Prado to Stevie Wonder. When he plays “Kung Fu Fighting,” suddenly all the moms are up and tugging their husbands, who won’t join them. It’s their little ones who dance with them instead. The babies love it. They’re whimpering and whining, asking to be picked up. Brats are kicking the air, giving each other a sharp chop on the neck, or sliding across the dance floor. Little girls, the princesses at least, are dancing with their daddies, and the ones who aren’t royalty are dancing with each other. Rafa’s
chiquillo
is howling, and he and his wife, Zdenka, keep passing him back and forth to each other until Father volunteers to take him for a walk outside, so that the kid will calm down, but we all know he’s sneaking out for a forbidden cigarette snitched from one of his buddies.

After “She Loves You,” “The Twist,” “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” “Crocodile Rock,” and “Oye Cómo Va,” the deejay settles into some music from Mother and Father’s time, finally selecting something sure to get all the generations rising from their seats at the same time—a
cumbia
. Sure enough, everyone gets on the dance floor—kids, newlyweds, old people, even the ones with walkers and wheelchairs, the big and the thin relatives,
the sexy aunties who look like inflated sea horses, voluptuous, enormous, exploding from the tops of their dresses, big mermaid hips and big mermaid
chichis
, dresses so tight it’s laughable and wonderful. Everyone, but everyone, moving in a lazy counterclockwise circle. The living and the dead. Señor and Señora Juchi who have flown up from Mexico City. Aunty Light-Skin with a toddler in each hand, her two grandsons. Uncle Fat-Face and Aunty Licha, Uncle Baby and Aunty Ninfa, all the cousins and their kids, my six brothers with their partners and little ones. Toto is dancing with his new baby girl, and Mother is cross and angry because he’s ignoring her. Father is making Toto’s wife laugh. She’s Korean American, and he’s showing off, singing a song for her in Korean, something he learned when he was in the war.

And I realize with all the noise called “talking” in my house, that talking that is nothing but talking, that is so much a part of my house and my past and myself you can’t hear it as several conversations, but as one roar like the roar inside a shell, I realize then that this is my life, with its dragon arabesques of voices and lives intertwined, rushing like a Ganges, irrevocable and wild, carrying away everything in reach, whole villages, pigs, shoes, coffeepots, and that little basket inside the coffeepot that Mother always loses each morning and has to turn the kitchen upside down looking for until someone thinks to look in the garbage. Names, dates, a person, a spoon, the wing tips my father buys at Maxwell Street and before that in Mexico City, the voice that gasped from that hole in the chest of the Little Grandfather, the great-grandfather who stank like a shipyard from dyeing
rebozos
black all day, the car trips to Mexico and Acapulco,
refresco
Lulú soda pop,
taquitos de canasta
hot and sweating from a basket, your name on a grain of rice,
crema de nácar
sold on the street with a vendor doling out free samples like dollops of sour cream, feathered Matachines dancing in front of the cathedral on the Virgin’s birthday, a servant girl crying on television because she’s lost and doesn’t know where in Mexico City she lives, the orange Naugahyde La-Z-Boy. All, all, all of this, and me shutting the noise out with my brain as if it’s a film and the sound has gone off, their mouths moving like snails against the glass of an aquarium.

It hits me at once, the terrible truth of it. I am the Awful Grandmother. For love of Father, I’d kill anyone who came near him to hurt him or make him sad. I’ve turned into her. And I see inside her heart, the Grandmother, who had been betrayed so many times she only loves her
son. He loves her. And I love him. I have to find room inside my heart for her as well, because she holds him inside her heart like when she held him inside her womb, the clapper inside a bell. One can’t be reached without touching the other. Him inside her, me inside him, like Chinese boxes, like Russian dolls, like an ocean full of waves, like the braided threads of a
rebozo. When I die then you’ll realize how much I love you
. And we are all, like it or not, one and the same.