The Memories of Ana Calderón (11 page)

By springtime, she and Octavio were inseparable. On Saturdays, when the work shift ended at two in the afternoon, they usually walked slowly from the bus stop to their house. It was on one of those afternoons that Octavio suddenly stopped and said, “Ana, I have a great idea!”

She looked at him, smiling. Recently, it was impossible to look at him without showing how happy she was to be with him. “Oh, yeah? What big idea do you have now?”

“Let's walk all the way up to the hill. It's not a long walk, and we can watch the sunset. Maybe we can even see the ocean from there.”

“The ocean!
Ay
, Octavio! I think you've been working too hard.” Ana was nearly laughing when she spoke, but her eyes had already accepted his idea.

“Really! Just look at that sky. It's beautiful, and we haven't been up there in a long time. Besides…” Octavio's voice trailed off.

“Besides, what?”

“I mean…it's April.”

“I know it's April. What's so special about that?”

“It's my lucky month!”

Octavio took her hand as they walked up the incline to where the small frame houses became more widely separated until they disappeared altogether and the road turned to dirt. They walked in silence, listening only to the soft breeze that hummed as it sifted through the swaying new grass. Above
them was a canopy of blue sky.

When they reached the crest of the hill, they found a spot they liked, and without speaking they sat on the grass, which was still warm from the day's heat. Ana and Octavio sat facing the declining sun; its long rays cast golden patches on their hair and cheeks. They breathed in the cool air of the early evening. He held one of her hands as he placed his arm around her shoulders. He drew her close to him because neither of them had ever felt what they were feeling at that moment.

When his lips touched mine, I loved Tavo and I knew that at that moment he loved me, too. As we laid on the sweet grass, its fragrance mixed with our breath. We were both intoxicated by desire, and neither one of us wanted to stop it. When we kissed, I felt the earth spin uncontrollably, so much that I thought that Tavo and I would be thrown off its surface to drift away into empty space. I didn't care because I would have given my life to spend eternity with him caught up there where no one could ever reach us.

At first his hands were soft and warm on my body, but soon they began to tremble as he fumbled with my clothes. I felt myself shuddering when he inserted his fingers between my thighs, and even though I knew what would happen if I let him go further, I could not stop. A voice in my brain reminded me of the sinful woman begging for forgiveness at the Virgin's Shrine, but the sound was remote and it gradually grew so still that soon I stopped hearing it.

I was unconscious of everything except that Tavo was between my legs, plunging in and out of me, and that what I was feeling was the reason for which I had been born. Everything around me was in motion; I felt the dirt and grass beneath me quake and shift. Then, in a few seconds, the world exploded, giving me a pleasure that I had not imagined possible.

Tavo whispered over and again that he loved me, and I said the same thing to him. When it ended, we remained on the hill locked in each others' arms until darkness covered us.
The crickets began a song that has stayed with me ever since.

As spring turned into summer, Ana and Octavio climbed the hill every evening to make love and to talk about their future. For the time being, they decided to keep their relationship a secret until they had saved enough money for a place of their own. Keeping what they were doing from the others was easy because they had been in each other's company almost constantly for the last two years. However, Ana could not help noticing Alejandra's growing moodiness and her continued refusal to speak to her. But she told herself that as soon as her sister knew that she and Octavio were to be married, she would like the idea and they would be friends.

When she realized how often Alejandra whispered in the kitchen with her father, Ana began to sense that the two of them had noticed something. This feeling grew to apprehension when Ana began to suspect that she was pregnant. June had come and gone, and she had not menstruated. She forced herself to calm down by remembering that her body had probably developed a new pattern now that she was being intimate with Octavio. When July passed and nothing happened, she couldn't conceal her fear. One day on the hill as they watched the sun's last rays, she decided to tell Octavio. He was holding her hand in one of his, and caressing her breast with the other.

“Octavio, when are we going to tell 'Apá that we're going to be married?”

The question startled him. He gawked at Ana as if they had never spoken or planned to tell Rodolfo. He dropped his hands, looking stunned and confused. “What do you mean when are we going to tell him? He'll kill me if he knows what you and I have been doing!”

Ana felt her breath catch in her throat. “What do
you
mean?” She tossed the question back at him. “We've been planning to get married all these weeks, haven't we? How do you expect us to do that without telling 'Apá? Besides, he doesn't have to know about this…” Ana waved her arm,
taking in the slope.

Octavio, caught off guard, didn't know what to say, so he placed his elbows on his crossed knees as he cupped his chin in his hands. He clenched his jaw and stared out across the city to where he imagined the blue of the sky connected with the ocean.

Ana looked up and saw a tiny star, the first one for the night. It was twinkling brightly in the gathering darkness. “Tavo…I'm…I think I'm pregnant…”

She stopped speaking, suddenly intimidated by his eyes that snapped in her direction as she stumbled over her words. Octavio glared at her, obviously struggling with emotion because his mahogany-colored skin took on a pinkish hue and his eyes filled with tears. Ana sensed intense fear and anger in him when he leaped to his feet.

“Jesus!…No! Why didn't you do something?…Pregnant! Tell me this isn't so!”

“I can't tell you that it's not true because it probably is!” Ana's voice had also risen; it was filled with apprehension and confusion. “Besides, Tavo, so what if I am pregnant? We're going to get married, aren't we?”

He had turned his back, and Ana, still sitting on the grass, could see only the back of his legs. Octavio was digging one of his heels into the earth. She repeated her words as she looked up at the back of his head, “Aren't we?”

He whirled around, looking down at her. “Not yet, Ana! Not yet!” He was almost shouting. “I thought that we would wait a couple of years…”

He was interrupted by Ana, who had by now also gotten to her feet. “A couple of years! Tavo, what do you think we've been doing here all these weeks? I can't wait a couple of years, you hear me? I can't even wait a couple of months before 'Apá and everybody else knows what's inside of me!”

Ana sat down again. She drew her knees up to her chin while she covered her face with both hands. She was silent, her body was hunched over, overwhelmed by an invisible weight. The wind made a soft sound as it curled through the long grass. Far away, the echo of a barking dog drifted towards them.

After a few minutes, Octavio crouched next to her in an attempt to make her feel better. “Look, Ana, no use worrying so much over this thing. I guess I'll tell your father…”

“When, Tavo?” Ana turned her face up, bursting in on his words.

Her eyes frightened him; he had never seen such intensity. He didn't like what he saw, and he disliked Ana even more for looking at him that way. He resented the growing feeling of being trapped and of having to do what she wanted, when she wanted.

“Soon, that's when.” Without another word, he got up and began walking down the hill, not waiting for Ana, who remained sitting for a few minutes. Even when she called out to him to wait for her, he pretended not to hear her and, almost running, he scrambled down the road, arriving alone at the house.

Ana and Octavio hardly spoke to one another during the following days. They communicated rarely on their way to work and said nothing to one another while at the factory. In the meantime, Ana's fears mounted with each day. She had no doubt now that she was pregnant, and she was intensely aware of Alejandra's scrutiny. She sensed that her father, too, was studying her, keeping his eyes on her while she was not looking. This happened especially when she was in the kitchen, during her turns to cook or wash the dishes.

Except for the constant chatter of the younger children, conversation was strained between the older ones, and Octavio, whose face was tightly drawn and nervous, hardly spoke to anyone. The days dragged by for Ana until she couldn't tolerate the strain of not knowing what to do next. During one of their lunch breaks at the factory, she asked Octavio to sit alone with her.

“If you're afraid to tell 'Apá, I'll tell him.”

“No! Are you, crazy or something, Ana?” Nearly jumping up from the bench, Octavio hissed the words through clenched teeth. His brow furrowed with near terror. “I said I would tell him, and I will! Jesus…Ana…why are you trying to push me around? Give me time, please! I promised that I'll tell him, and I will!”

“I don't have time, Tavo, don't you understand? Here, look for yourself.” Ana lifted the apron she was wearing. A noticeable bulge raised her dress at the waist. “This is growing every day…every minute!”

“
¡Ay, Dios!
” Octavio groaned as he wrung his hands.

When he didn't say anymore, Ana spoke, “What's the
matter with you? I don't understand why you're afraid to tell 'Apá. He knows that all of us are eventually going to get married and have babies. That's all he's been telling me ever since I can remember. He'll say it's okay for us to marry. Honest to God, Tavo, I don't understand why you're scared.”

“Because I'm like your brother, that's why. Your father will kill me! He'll say that's why he didn't want me to come with the family when you left Puerto Real. Besides, what will Alejandra say?”

Octavio's claim to be as close as a brother faded when he mentioned Alejandra's name. Stunned at what he had just let out, she felt as if her breath had been knocked out of her. “Alejandra! Alejan…What does she have to do with this? Tell me, Tavo! What does my sister have to do with this?” Ana had raised her voice so that several of the other workers began to stare in their direction.

Intimidated, Octavio made shushing sounds as he tried to calm Ana by nervously patting her shoulders. At the same time, he smiled sheepishly at the people looking at them. He lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, “Forget I said that, Ana. I didn't mean it.”

She looked at the floor, thinking about what Octavio had just said. Suddenly she stood; her voice was calm and steady. “It's an excuse. This brother thing is just your way out, isn't it Tavo? You have something going on with my sister, don't you? That's why you don't want anybody to know about me and you.”

Ana took a few steps away from Octavio, but then she turned, coming close to him again. “Well, whatever it is, Tavo, I'm going to tell you one thing. This is yours,” she pointed at her belly, “and you're not going to get out of it.”

She worked the rest of the day as if in a dream. She was numb and her body seemed to be made of stone. She felt nothing; the only sensation she was aware of was coldness. Her insides were freezing, as were her hands, but her forehead, despite her shivering, was beaded with perspiration. During the hours she passed in inspecting shoes, Ana resolved that she wouldn't do or say anything. She decided that there was nothing she could do to change things or to avoid whatever it was that was going to happen to her.

Two months passed and still Octavio said nothing. He and Ana no longer met while alone, and when they were on
the bus or the streetcar, they separated, he in one seat and she in another. She noticed, however, that he seemed relieved as time passed, as if he believed that she had invented the entire thing. She saw, too, that he was regaining his usual playfulness, except now it was directed at others and not at her. And she knew that he spent most of his time chatting and giggling with Alejandra, who strutted around the house showing Ana that she was relaxed and happy.