The Children of Sanchez (79 page)

“Just look at that snake,” I said to Raquelle. “Here I am expecting to see him with one woman and I find him with another. And look who it is! It’s Amelia.”

Crispín went into the Social Security building and Amelia sat down on the steps to wait for him. Just to be mean, I up and very calmly
sit next to her, just like that. I don’t know what saint she commended herself to, but at that moment a man she was acquainted with rode by on a bicycle and she went over to talk to him, acting like she didn’t know what was happening.

I figured Crispín would come soon, so I hid in the corner beauty parlor, which was run by Nicha, a friend of mine. When Nicha saw me she said, “What do you say? What are you up to?”

“You’d be surprised,” I say. “My old man … my ex-old man, is running around with that bitch there and I just want to see them together.”

“Really? Are you that thick-skinned toward the louse?”

“Why not? We haven’t been together since I-don’t-know-when and I want to catch him with one of his women. But I have no way of making demands on him or of accusing him.”

I saw Crispín coming. Amelia had crossed the street and had passed the beauty parlor, where I was watching from behind the curtains. He was following her. Just as he came by the shop, I sent out Concepción to greet him.

“
Papá
, give me a
quinto
!”

Crispín turned around, very surprised. I came out carrying Trini. He was saying to Concepción, “Saturday, I’ll come and take you on Saturday.” He was real nervous and kept looking toward Amelia, who had turned around to watch. Then I said, “Come, daughter. Can’t you see you’re not wanted here. Come on, why are you making a pest of yourself? You are interfering with your
papá
.”

And instead of him asking, “What makes you say that?” because after all we were beginning a reconciliation, what he came out with was, “You and I have nothing to say to each other.”

It made me furious to see him turn toward that woman with a frantic expression on his face. He must have been saying to himself, “Now I’ve given away the show!”

I said, “You are right. We don’t have anything to say to each other, so don’t get the idea that I am going to fight. That’s where you are making a big mistake. Come on, daughter, let’s go.”

I was still calm. Then all at once he came out with it.

“If you want me to support you, why do you go whoring around?”

“Look, I don’t go whoring around. I didn’t get my children on the street. You know very well who gave them to me.”

We were in front of the machine shop and there were plenty of people listening. I kept on talking.

“It’s too bad about the skirt you got hold of. Maybe you were right to change me, but not for such a woman. You like the kind who already has some sucker hooked so that you have no obligation. You are a man who likes to take advantage. A real man doesn’t do what you did.”

“You shouldn’t talk, because you’ve got your pimp.”

“I don’t have one, but I’m going to find myself one just to break your jaw.” I called him bastard and a bunch of foul names. I was plenty vulgar to him. “And don’t bother me again. That’s all I ask. Just don’t bother me again.”

That was one of the biggest fights we ever had. I had once warned him that I would stick with him until I saw with my own eyes that he was going with someone else. Other people would tell me he was going with girls, and I would try to forget what they said. But what I saw with my own eyes, I could never forget. “So watch out that I don’t see you,” I had told him. “For if I do, don’t count on me from that time on.”

I should have been able to develop a shell and be like other women who do not pay attention to what their husbands do outside the house, especially since mine was trying to get me back. But when I saw him making a fool of me by taking up with that old woman, I couldn’t contain myself. I preferred to renounce everything again. I could never accept the idea of him being able to have another woman and me at the same time. No! It would be better for him to abandon me, or me to leave him, once and for all. So I up and got on the bus, and I haven’t spoken to him since.

In February, on the thirteenth, I had my big fight with Consuelo. Delila had gotten tired of taking care of Manuel’s children, so I had charge of all four of them, in addition to my three. Roberto was working in the factory and had been giving me money toward expenses, but after a while he stopped. He just didn’t want to any more and there was no way of forcing him. The only one who helped me was my
papá
. He gave me ten
pesos
daily besides bringing me coffee, sugar and oil. When the children were brought to the Casa Grande, Manuel agreed to give me ten
pesos
a day for their food. His new wife, María, came over once in a while to help me with his kids.

I had warned Manuel that the day he didn’t leave me expense
money, I wouldn’t have anything to give his children. I said it without raising my voice but it didn’t do any good. Twice, he didn’t give me money and I had to send the children to Gilberto’s café to look for him. I gave them their breakfast early and then said to Mariquita, the oldest one, “Go on, go to your father and tell him that you haven’t had breakfast yet because he didn’t bring me money.”

I had to step lively to feed all those kids and send them off to school. I brought Roberto his dinner at the factory at twelve o’clock sharp and the children had to eat at twelve-thirty to get back to school. And I always sent them to school bathed, or at least washed.

So this day it got to be time to go to school. I said to Mariquita, “Now, I’m late. I am going to let you bathe them. But don’t bathe them with cold water, daughter.” Well, she bathed them all with cold water … Alanes, Domingo, Conchita and Concepción. I managed to bathe Violeta and Trini and was hurrying the older ones off to school when Consuelo came in.

Well, right off Consuelo saw Concepción come over with a pencil and a notebook of Domingo’s. So Consuelo began to scold her, saying, “I told you not to be taking things that belong to your cousins.”

Consuelo and my oldest daughter had had a few quarrels because Concepción did not want to lend her toys to Alanes and Domingo, who destroyed everything. She was very careful with her things and, naturally, she didn’t want the boys to smash them. That made Consuelo mad. She had always favored Manuel’s children, especially Mariquita, and rare was the day she gave anything to mine.

So I up and say, “It seems like you don’t understand your aunt, Concepción. Apparently you like to be scolded.”

“Yes, from now on I’m going to be as mean about your cousin’s things as you are about yours,” went on Consuelo. That made me mad and I threw the pencil to her.

“Here’s your stinking pencil. Is that what you are fighting about?”

We had been half sore at each other for some time anyway, because Consuelo was butting into my obligations too much. I was the one who had those kids day in and day out, and she came only in the evenings to make their supper and to boss everyone around.

Just think! Manuel usually gave me the food money the night before, so that I had it for the next day. When I gave the kids supper, I served them coffee with milk and bread and what was left over from dinner. That was what everyone I knew ate for supper. But not
Consuelo! No, Consuelo, the presumptuous one, would go and buy eggs for them, just as if I had plenty of money. Ever since she went to school and worked in offices, she became so high-class she looked down on the way we did things.
La Presumida
kept insisting that we didn’t eat right … she even bought herself a knife and fork … and when she went out to buy food, she would come back with things like cornflakes and canned soup and tomato juice. She would spend all the house money on things we didn’t need. Why should I buy a can of peas when with the same money I can get each of my children a slice of meat? I knew how to stretch the money so we could all eat well, but she didn’t understand.

There were times when she left me with not over two
pesos
. Imagine having to face the day with two
pesos!
She did this to me four times, but I didn’t say a word, I would just receive my money from my
papá
, without complaining to him about her, and would use the money to feed all of us. I didn’t fight with my sister, but we weren’t getting along well.

After I threw the pencil, Conchita complained to my sister that I had bathed her in cold water. That made Consuelo angry. She turned to me and said, “If you had any shame you wouldn’t even show your face.”

“Shame? What have I got to be ashamed about?”

“Sure. Even though my
papá
is supporting you, even though Manuel buys you your clothes and puts food in your mouth, you aren’t able to take care of his children properly. It is obvious they are not your childen. Manuel is supporting you and you do this to his kids!”

“Supporting me? He is not that good-hearted. If he barely gives enough for his children, he won’t be giving to others.” Would you believe it? She said that to me, and it wasn’t only Conchita who was bathed that way, but all of them. My sister kept it up, too.

“Your children are being supported, and you still have the nerve to be touchy.”

“Yes,” I said, “but you are not the one who is supporting me. When did I ever ask you for anything?”

“Oh,” she says, “then give me back all the clothes I gave you.”

“What clothes?” I had a few clothes then, but they were made out of dress lengths my
papá
brought me, or were ones I bought myself on payments. Consuelo had given me a little jumper and robe that didn’t fit her. Her boss’s wife had given her a bunch of clothes, but
that was all she had passed on to me, because they were of no use to her. She kept telling me that she was the one who had been clothing me and it was a lie. If she ever gave me anything, it was old stuff that didn’t fit her any more.

So I up and open the wardrobe. “Go ahead, take out your dresses. If you think I have clothes of yours here, take them out.” It made me mad because she said that all I did was whore around, opening my legs so that they could give me kids. “If it comes to whores, who knows who is a bigger one! All my children are from the same father. So far you haven’t been a procuress for me, have you?”

It made me mad to hear her talk that way, especially because she went to live with Jaime after breaking up with Mario. Yes, she was stupid enough to go back to Jaime after losing her piece, as we say here, and of course it didn’t work because all he did was take revenge on her for the times she had humiliated him. I don’t know how it was that she didn’t become pregnant … she says she didn’t let him use her once, but I don’t see how that is possible since they slept in the same bed. She got sick with anger and finally left Jaime. But later she began to paint herself up again and have nice clothes and manicures and who knows how she got them. She worked but spent all her money on rent and food and things for her new apartment. Naturally, what she earned wouldn’t cover those expenses.

I reminded her of all that. “Just because you have no children, doesn’t prove a thing! Who knows how you get rid of them.”

I pulled out the jumper and ripped it. It had been too big for me and I had paid to remodel it, so I had the right to tear it.

“Here is your dress!”

“Miserable one!” That was her favorite word. “Miserable fool! Don’t tear my dress. Don’t tear it!” When she saw it torn apart, she started for the wardrobe, to rip my clothes. “Now, you’ll see,” she yelled.

So I stepped in and tangled with her. We really fought, scratching and tearing each other’s clothes. I didn’t realize it until later. For the moment, I was so mad I couldn’t see anything. María, who was pregnant then, came in and separated us. The children saw the whole thing and didn’t make it to school that day. I didn’t even notice when Consuelo left.

My
papá
arrived at about three-thirty. I took one look at him and said to myself, “Mmmm … this is it. The bomb went off already.”

“What happened?” he says. “Consuelo came around crying and saying you called her a lot of dirty things and tore her clothes.”

Imagine, my sister went to bother my father at the café and fill him with a lot of lies. So there I was, letting him scold me, keeping my mouth shut. That’s the way my father is, he just bawls you out without knowing the way it happened.

“You have children and you still don’t know how to act. You all refuse to understand. Not one of the four of you behaves like a brother or sister.”

“But,
papá
, it wasn’t my fault. I can’t help it if she got mad because I bathed the kids in cold water.” That’s all I said, though it made me very angry to be blamed for everything.

Consuelo had started it by saying I just let them all give me babies. That was always a sore point with my sister and was at the bottom of it. I don’t know whether it was jealousy or what … she had always been envious and angry, like my great-aunt Catarina … but the fact of the matter is that she didn’t like the idea that my father was helping me. I think that was the reason why she couldn’t take it and blew up.

The rest of my family was the same and I felt resentful. Manuel, too, judged the way I lived. One day we were talking about María and he had said, “That she-goat only likes to go walking in the street. I told her that when she gets tired of staying in the house, she should go out for a little while. I’m not the type to keep my woman in a cave like a rabbit, only to make babies. I don’t want her to be like you, just buried by four walls and never dressing up and going out.”

“If I don’t go out, it is because I have plenty to do in the house. What business do I have in the street? I don’t see that it will advance me any.”

I don’t know whether he meant to call me a rabbit or what, but indirectly he did and it made me mad. Who was he to talk? At least I took care of the children I made! He never loved his children enough to be close to them. The trick of having children is not just to bring them into the world, but to feed them and send them to school and give them the attention they need. What use is it to bring them up like animals?