The Children of Sanchez (46 page)

At first, I felt no affection for Lupita. When she was nice to me, I thought she was being hypocritical. To me, she was my father’s “other
señora
,” the one who had made my mother suffer. But when I saw how good she was to her own daughters and to my brothers and sisters, I began to doubt that she was capable of being mean. Besides, when I
saw that her room was smaller and poorer than ours, I was convinced that my father had preferred my mother and us.

My father never paid as much attention to Lupita as he did to his other wives, perhaps because Lupita was stout and older than he. Lupita had a low opinion of men; they were all irresponsible and romantic. When I asked for her advice about marrying Pedro Ríos, saying he was a serious type of person, her answer was, “God protect you from the serious ones, and you protect yourself from the clowns!” There was no man good enough for a woman to marry, in her opinion. But her bitterness and distrust never hurt anyone, for she was good and kind to all. She made every sacrifice for her children and never abandoned them. Her daughters were her world and to me she was the ideal mother.

Elida and Isabel never started up with me like my half-sisters. Once I confided to them that I felt left out, and Elida consoled me, saying, “No, Consuelo, don’t pay attention to them. After all, you are here with your
papá
and this is your house.” I appreciated her words but went on feeling bad about my half-sisters and the difference in my father’s treatment of us.

One day, the money arrangements were changed. I stopped giving my father money the day he threw my wages at me. That day I had given him fifty
pesos
and kept nothing for myself, as usual. In the evening, I had asked him for money for stockings and he wouldn’t give it to me. The next day I asked him again, but with more assurance: “
Papá
, give me money for stockings. I have only these and they are all torn. Just nine
pesos
.”

I guess my father was in a bad mood because he threw the fifty
pesos
in my face. “Here! Here is your money! I don’t want anything from any of you any more. I still have enough strength to work.”

As usual, I said nothing and went outside to lean on the railing and cry. Lupita came over and told me to pay no attention to my father. I didn’t answer her because my tears kept me from talking. But I thought, “I promise myself that from now on I will never give him anything again. I’ll find things to do with my money.” And so it was. It consoled me to keep my money to buy the things I needed. I had my job and could get loans whenever I wanted. I never gave my father money again, nor did he ask me for any. Only one time did I venture to ask him how the little pig was that he bought with the first fifty
pesos
I gave him. He answered that he was going to sell it because it was very fat. That was all.

My world existed outside the house. I got up, drank a little coffee after cleaning up or going to the baths, put my things together, and left for work. Once I was there, I was happy. I hardly ever had any work in the afternoons. I had no fits of temper during the day—quite the contrary. I had presents and words of flattery. It is hard to believe, but words like “
niña
with the green eyes” or “Miss Consuelo” lifted my spirits. I was given orders politely and if I made some mistake (I almost always did) the only rebuke was “
niña
with the green eyes.”

I hardly went to the Casa Grande any more, only once a week to see Paula and the children. Manuel had borrowed money from my father to set up a little shoe factory and for a while had worked with a will. He attended his business and seemed to enjoy it. I remember seeing him, with a cigarette in his mouth, holding some shoe soles, going back and forth between No. 64 and his shop. I could always tell when things were going well for him because he walked quickly with a firm sure step as though he was more in touch with the earth. He sat at the table and ate and spoke with more assurance. This meant that he had money in his pocket. Whenever he had a sizable roll, he was sure to take it out and wave it in our faces.

One day, the father of Manuel’s
compadre
, who was also a shoemaker, stopped me in the courtyard and said, “You are Manuel’s younger sister, aren’t you? Well, tell your father that if Manuel doesn’t mend his ways, his business will go broke. Your brother plays cards a lot, my son too, with their little circle of friends, and they will both go down if they keep on. They locked themselves in the shop and have been playing a game for the past three days and three nights.”

I listened to the man but I didn’t tell my father. My brother must have lost a lot of money, because the workers would come to our house to collect their wages. Manuel would hide behind the door, saying, “Tell them I’m not here.” Once I yelled, “Manuel, someone is looking for you,” and he came out, whether he wanted to or not, muttering, “Damn gossip! May your snout burn for sticking it into what is not your business.”

The following week my brother’s shop was empty … he had sold everything, and my father was shouting at Manuel, who just stood there with his hands in his pockets and his head to one side. When he tried to say something, my father would shut him up. Not only did Manuel lose the business, but he lost my father’s confidence.

Later, Tonia went against me when she saw that her mother was treating me well and I left the house on Rosario Street because of a
violent quarrel. Roberto had come to see my father, I don’t know for what. Antonia worked in a cabaret and had come home drunk that morning. When she saw my brother, she ran him out of the house. I felt my blood boil; in spite of everything, Roberto was my brother and it hurt to see him humiliated like that.

I was willing to face Antonia and stop her nonsense. Since her illness, everyone was afraid of her and she was the boss of the situation. She had told me once, “I use the fact that I was sick, to fight with everybody. I just yell at them and they fold up. It pays me.” It was true, but that night I thought I would unmask her. I would prove that she could be controlled. Now that she was cured, why did everyone have to go on taking it from her?

Tonia saw me looking at her in fury and insulted me. She took three swings at me without connecting. Lupita and my father were scared stiff when I tried to hit back. Lupita yelled, “Child of God, go downstairs. Get out, quick. Shell tear you to pieces.” Someone pushed me out of the door and made me go home. I went, cursing my luck. I, who always ran from fights, was always in the middle of one.

I got to the Casa Grande and told Roberto what had happened. I knew what they did to me hurt him also. I went outside and sat on the steps in the little garden. It was after ten o’clock and everything was dark. What Yolanda had told me was true: “Hmm, Consuelo, when you’re an orphan, everybody takes advantage of you. I was an orphan too. They all try to use you like a floor mop, and if you let them it’s just too bad for you.”

Everything this
señora
had warned me about had come true. Our father’s love had been completely stolen from us. That was why he behaved so differently in Lupita’s house. There he joked, chatted with the neighbors, ate late and let the lights stay on until eleven or twelve at night. At noon, when he had his meal, he ordered sodas for everybody, and when he left, he let my half-sisters run after him so he could give them money for the movies. He called Lupita by a nickname and seemed delighted with all of this.

Whenever I was unhappy, I would look up into the sky at night and search for something, something that I thirsted for with all my love. There was one star I looked at particularly because one time my aunt had told me that my mother was watching over me from heaven and that every night she took the form of a star. Even though I was a big girl then, I partly believed it and passed it on to Marta, Now I began to
talk to that star in a whisper, begging it to give me strength, and, if it were really she, to stop what was going on. Why didn’t she make my father see what he was doing to us?

After a time my father came back to the Casa Grande, why I don’t know. He just came back one afternoon, with his box on his shoulder, put it under the bed, and went out again without saying anything. Later, Tonia also came back to live with us. She rarely got attacks any more but was very nervous.

In March, 1949, my father said to Tonia and me, “What do you intend to study? Are you going to be loafers all your lives, or what? I’ll make whatever sacrifices I can to pay for your courses. So, see in which school and what it is you want to study.” These words were unexpected, but I was very pleased and quit my shoe job.

I thought about what a serious thing a career was. I did want very much to study. Vera, a neighbor, was talking to Antonia and me one afternoon and told us the Instituto María del Lago, where she was taking a commercial course, was very good and not expensive. A “commercial course!” I thought she must be studying a very important career. Antonia, with her arms crossed, listened, smiling. “Well, I’ll tell my
papá
. Let’s see if he wants to,” she said. Tonia told my
papá
and he agreed.

Antonia took the course that my father liked, dressmaking and dress design. I thought, “What a bore to be at a machine all day long, and then there are people who are such nuisances—‘this pleat isn’t right, and that button!’ ” I told my father, “I like literature and books better.” He agreed, and I entered classes in shorthand, typing, Spanish, filing, commercial documents, bookkeeping, correspondence, and arithmetic.

There in the Instituto I began to guess that I wasn’t such an insignificant person after all. There I could express my dreams to my classmates without being afraid that they would turn their backs or make fun of me. I worked hard the first year and took to heart the precepts we typed in class exercises, “Perseverance wins,” or, “Choose the right path and you will triumph.”

In the second year, I began to change. I made friends with a group of eight girls and played hooky with them. I no longer studied and wanted only to have fun. We were so incorrigible, the teacher took points off our grades. The teacher warned me and I felt grateful for her interest, but, unfortunately, I was influenced by those girls. I should
say, though, that this was the only time in my life that I was really happy and so I have no regrets.

While I was going to school, I forgot my troubles. All I thought about was having work later, having clothes, continuing my studies, and fixing up my house nicely, as I had always dreamed about. “I would like our next-door neighbor to move,” I thought, “and my father to take that room. I would help him have the wall between knocked down and that room would be used as a living room, with a fireplace, a nice day-bed suite, the floor waxed and the walls fixed up. Then we would have a place to entertain our friends. The same with the kitchen—the two in one, with a nice gas stove, knives and forks, curtains, and some big flower pots with green plants all the way to the front door. The bedroom would have its window on the street. And if thieves wanted to come in? Well, we would have bars put over the window. There would be a record player and nice lamps. I would help my
papá
pay for the labor and everything.”

My ideal was to see my family united and happy. I dreamed of helping my brothers and sisters and of bringing them consolation so that they would not feel the way I did. Whenever my father made Roberto cry, everything within me rebelled and shouted: “No! It isn’t fair.” But I always remained silent. My heart ached seeing my brother in a corner of the kitchen with his head lowered, the tears rolling down his cheeks. Then I would say, “Don’t mind
papá
, he’s angry.” Or I would motion to my brothers to go out into the courtyard so as not to hear my father any more.

My father’s words were destructive to everyone, but Roberto was the one who felt them most deeply. Manuel preferred to become cynical. He remained silent while my father scolded him, but after a few minutes he would raise his head and go out into the courtyard, whistling. Finally, he began to turn his back on my father and leave immediately. Roberto remained rooted to the spot and cried.

I believe that this is what gave rise to my desire to help my brothers and my sister. I wanted to be (what a dreamer I was!) the one who guided and counseled them. For Manuel, I dreamed up the career of lawyer or teacher. For Roberto, I wanted the career of an architect or engineer. By that time my father would not work so much. I dreamed of winning the lottery so that I could buy him a farm and chickens and have nice upholstered furniture. At night he would sit in his easy chair in front of the fireplace, with his robe and slippers on,
surrounded by all of his children (four) and he would think or say to us, “These are my children, my creation. I educated them!” I lived in hopes that all these things would come about some day.

What a bitter disappointment for me when the years passed and I only saw my family grow apart. I always came up against the inflexibility of my father, who was like a hard rock. I wanted to hear him say with pride, “These are my children!” But I heard only, “Ungrateful wretches, that’s what you are. You’ll never be able to raise your heads.” Nevertheless, I kept on hoping that some day I would introduce harmony into my family. This was my ideal, my golden dream, my illusion. Afterwards, when I began to rebel against my father, I dreamed of studying to show him that I was good for something. I did not even know for what, but I had to prove that I could do something.

When I graduated from the Instituto, the same thing happened that had happened in the sixth grade. It is true that my father had bought me everything I had needed for school and had given me money for tuition. But he didn’t show up at my graduation ceremony, nor at the Mass held in the Cathedral. What a deep emotion I felt to be in the Basilica singing Schubert’s “Ave Maria” with the other graduates. I can’t explain why I felt so strongly when the organ began to play, with our voices coming in, softly at first, then rising to carry our prayer to the feet of the Virgin, where it deposited our faith and our love.