The Memories of Ana Calderón (3 page)

On the last night, my mother let out a wail that I have never been able to forget. It was so loud and so desperate that its vibration caused the owls to flutter up from their roosts in the palm trees. I remember their dark silhouettes as they rose, angrily flapping their wings against the sky that was lit only by the brilliance of the stars. After that, my father was left alone to bring us up. César was two years old.

Ana's mother died in 1932. It had been a bad year for the fishing communities living near Puerto Real. The fighting
and killing in central Mexico had overflowed Sierra Orizaba, spilling onto the shores of the Gulf and spreading from northern Tamaulipas down to southern Campeche. People trapped in poverty talked of moving away to find a new way to live. No one seemed to know exactly what was happening. The weekly newspaper in Puerto Real described the executions of priests and collaborators who had been found to be in defiance of the constitution. Later on, drifters coming in from different parts of the country countered those reports with stories of their own. A stranger one day walked into the cluster of huts shouting
“Long Live the Cristeros!”
but few people really understood what his words meant.

Rodolfo Calderón was not involved in those events. His mind was taken with the grief of losing Rosalva and with the worry of caring for his eight children. Like everyone else, he saw that things were bad, that the situation around them was deteriorating day by day. Adding to his personal sadness, after his wife's death, bad luck afflicted Rodolfo even more when his boat struck a reef and was damaged beyond repair. The
panga
had been small, but it had provided him with a way to feed his family. Now, even that was gone. His two brothers offered to help him, but he saw that their lives were even more miserable than his. His sister-in-law Calista was helpful with the children, and he was grateful, but that wasn't enough.

He began to visit the busier streets of the port town in search of work. Instead, he found countless men without means of supporting their families as well as women who no longer could find a way to help their husbands. When he spoke to any of them, each seemed to have troubles greater than his own. At first, Rodolfo thought that it was their fault for not wanting to break away from the old ways. When he approached the cannery for a job, however, he discovered that wanting to work was not enough. He was rejected because he was unskilled with machinery and inexperienced in packing. He then turned to the cantina and restaurant, offering to be a waiter or even a cook, but he found out that there were several men ahead of him, waiting for just such a job to come up.

After several months, he gathered his children in the hut. Calista was there also. They sat in a circle on the sandy earth as if they were going to share a meal. No one spoke; they seemed to understand that something important was about to
happen. The only sound was the crackling of a few twigs burning in the brasier.

As he peered into the face of each of his daughters, Rodolfo felt a tightness in his stomach. His eyes lingered so long on Ana's face that she began to bounce her crossed legs up and down nervously. It was a gesture she repeated often, and it annoyed him as did most of her traits. He turned away from her, trying not to think of the feelings that assaulted him whenever he looked at her, or even thought of her. Ana was his first child, and he knew that he should have loved her above the others, but he couldn't. He found it impossible to explain why he resented her, especially after his sons had died one after the other. He felt that the disappointment and bitterness that flooded him after each death had infected his heart, making him hate Ana as if it had been her doing.

Rodolfo stared at Rosalva, thinking of how brown her hair and skin were, and that she looked just like her mother when he first saw her. His eyes rolled over to Alejandra, and her determined look unsettled him; something in her eyes usually made him uncomfortable, yet she was his favorite. He turned to Zulma, and he told himself that she seemed filled with the energy of the ocean. He felt a little afraid. Rodolfo's eyes then met those of Jasmín and his heart leaped at the beauty he saw there. But he remembered how often she was ill. He stared at the two youngest, the twins Pilar and Cruz, as he began to speak in his usual quiet manner. “We're going north. I hear there's work in the fields of Sonora and plenty of jobs for everyone on the plantations.”

Each of the children, from Ana to César, looked first at their father and then at each other not knowing what to respond. None of them had ever thought of life beyond the familiar shoreline between their hut and the town. Only Ana had dreamed of leaving Puerto Real, and even she was quiet. Tía Calista, astounded, was the first to speak.

“
Compadre
, no! It's a mistake, believe me. What are you going to do all the way across the world? You're from here, from this very sand on which we're sitting. The cord that connected you to your mother's womb is buried out there, right alongside this
palapa
. It's there, just like the cords of these children. I should know; I buried them with these hands. And what about the boys? Even though they didn't live, they're still your sons, and they're out there, too.
Compadre
, you
can't leave them…or Rosalva.”

Calista stopped speaking, but her breathing was hard; everyone could hear it. When Rodolfo didn't respond, she said more. “Besides, you're a man of the ocean. You'll die if you go where there's only dirt everywhere you look. I mean…what do you know of beans, or whatever it is that they plant up there?”

As if controlled by a single force, the eight small faces snapped from looking at Calista over to their father's face. Fastening their eyes on him, they waited for his response. Rodolfo's head, however, was hanging low over his chest, and it took him a while before he lifted it to speak. “I know nothing of seeds or of how to plant them in the earth,
Comadre
. But I must try. For their sake.”

Rodolfo's face was covered with sweat and it glistened in the dimness of the hut. His children were looking intently at him. They saw his broad, bronzed face taut with worry. They sensed that he was thinking of their mother and the dead boys. The thatched roof cast a shadow accentuating his brow; it appeared to be cracked by a deep crevice that cut downward from his hairline elongating his nose. Rodolfo's dark mustache seemed to droop more than ever over his thick lips, and his slanted, black eyes had narrowed like slits in a brown mask.

“Listen to me,
Compadre
.” Calista felt compelled to speak again. “Hear my words as the older sister of your wife, God keep her in His company. Things will change, I'm sure. At least you know how to go about living here. And what about your brothers? Are you just going to leave them never to see them again? And, don't forget,
Compadre
, that even though I can't help provide the tortillas, you have me to help at least with the children. Except for Ana, they're all yet so little…
¡Por Dios!
…and all of them useless girls except for this one.”

Calista put her arms around César, who was sitting next to her. The girls were familiar with being called useless, but they had never before seen their aunt's face so intense. Somehow it looked darker than ever. In the darkness of the hut, the deep wrinkles of her cheeks seemed like fissures in the brown coral they knew well, and her aquiline nose dipped sharply toward her chin.

Rodolfo again looked around at his brood, but he remained silent. The only movement in his face was when he
nibbled at his upper lip, nervously tweaking his mustache.

“I have thought about it long enough. I've sold what was left of my gear, and with that money we'll have enough to take us to Veracruz. From there we'll make our way northward until we reach the Río Yaqui, where the planting is plentiful.”

Calista had nothing more to say. She nodded vaguely, rose to her feet and left the hut. Rodolfo's children were silent, still not knowing what to say or do. Alejandra was the only one to speak. “What about Tavo?”

“What about him, Aleja?”

“Well, 'Apá, we can't just leave him. He's part of our family.”

“I only have enough money for us. He'll have to stay behind.”

Alejandra's head jerked to one side as if she had been slapped. Her face was filled with shock and disbelief because she could not even begin to imagine life without Octavio. “Then I'll stay, too.” She was close to tears as she blurted out the words to her father.

“Alejandra, hush. It's impossible for you to stay. We're a family and we're staying together, and there's no more to be said.”

After a few moments in which they all sat without saying anything, Rodolfo stood up and left the hut. As soon as she was sure that he was beyond hearing her, Ana sprang to her feet and let out a howl of joy. The other girls and César, not knowing how to react, also stood up and began to giggle. Only Alejandra remained squatting on the sand. She looked up at her older sister and said, “We can't leave Tavo behind.”

Ana stopped in the middle of a whoop. “He'll come with us, silly. Nothing will hold him back.”

Then, not knowing exactly why, the other girls and César began to yell and screech in wild joy. Inexplicably, they were elated at the prospect of leaving the place in which they had been born.

My dream was beginning to come true. I didn't know where we were going, but I felt that each step away from the palapa would lead me to the fulfillment of what I knew was
my destiny. And I would show everyone that I could do some good, after all.

Unlike me, Alejandra was sad. She didn't share my joy, especially when she saw that our father would not allow Tavo to come with us. On that last night, both of them begged my father to let him come with us. She cried and said she would not come unless he came along. Even Tavo wept as he asked over and again for the permission. But my father was firm; the answer was no.

When we were finished with the packing, we laid down to sleep. Alejandra and I shared the same mat, so I was able to feel her turning over from one side to the other. I couldn't sleep either, not because of Tavo, but because I was so excited. After a few hours, I felt Alejandra leave the mat. I opened my eyes and saw that she had crawled over to where Tavo was lying, and I saw that she put her arms around him. He put his arms around her, too, and I knew that they would stay that way for the rest of the night.

Before the sun came out, we heard my father moving on his mat. When he blew his nose, we knew that it was time to rise and say goodbye to our aunts and uncles and cousins. I knew, also, that it was time to begin the road that would lead me to the world that I had imagined.

The sun was rising as Rodolfo Calderón and his eight children walked toward the bus station in Puerto Real. He was at the head and the children trekked in single file behind him. He wore overalls, thick sandals, and a
morral
bag in which he carried a pouch with each child's baptismal certificate. He also had a photo of the family when César was baptized. With the exception of the two smallest, each girl had a bundle strapped to her back; in it were a few pieces of clothing and an extra pair of shoes. In a pouch sewn out of an old blanket, Ana carried César on her back, along with her belongings.