Authors: Patricia Engel
Vida (15 page)
Mami and Carmen finally made up, asked each other’s forgiveness, and spent the whole last night of our stay sitting on the floor of the living room, going through photo albums of their childhood. There were no whispers from the other side of the wall that last night. Papi was snoring and Mami crept in without disturbing him, slipped under the heavy blanket, and went to bed without a sound. I lay in the darkness, the song of Bogotá humming several stories below the window.
The next day at the airport, we said our good-byes. Emilio kept asking my father when we were coming back and Papi wouldn’t give him a straight answer. I could tell that if it were up to Papi, the answer would be
never
. Mami was crying. Hugging her sister as if it were the last time. Cris and I huddled with our cousins, said “See you later” because we already knew they were coming to stay with us in New Jersey that summer.
Emilio took me by the hand and walked me a bit away from our family crowd for some private words. “This is your
country,” he told me. “For better or worse you carry its salt in your blood.”
I told Mami what my uncle said as the plane lifted off and we watched the city shrink into the Andes. She looked tired, her face resting on her palm, her lips pale because she’d forgotten to put on lipstick that morning. She shook her head, said Emilio always went overboard trying to be poetic and I should only listen to half of what he says. She didn’t lift her eyes from the window, even after the mountains melted under the thick clouds and the plane drifted into a sea of milky sky. And I felt foolish because, for a moment, I believed him.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A lifetime of love and gratitude to my father, Richard Engel, the greatest artist I know, and my mother, Patricia García Engel, for her infinite faith. My profound thanks to my brother, Richard, Swati, Jocelyn and Farah, André Vippolis, Lucie and Bruno, Elicabeth and Louis, Nena, Hans, Con-stanza and Augustín, Norita, Katarina, Eleany Uribe, our departed Abuela Lucía and Abuelo Herbert, Walter, Alba, Herbie, Frank, my extended family across the United States and Colombia, Junot Díaz, Gabriele Corto Moltedo, Ronny Kobo, Ariana Zsuffa, Stella Ohana, Jackie Raqcer-Farji, John Lin, Lisa Coar, Alexandra and P. Scott Cunningham, Julia and James and Jude Lin, Pierre Duval, Sara Martinez-Diefen-bach, Ana Maria Lozano, Szabi Dobos, Carlos Delatorre, Dana Leven, Uzodinma Iweala, Matías Ventoso, Michele
Esteves, Frijol Sanchez, Liz Curtis, Amanda Espy, Sandra Vega Louit, Alexandre João Dias, Chris Abani, Sharline Chiang, Lizz Huerta, Christine Lee Zilka, Xhenet Aliu, Jen-nine Capó Crucet, Bob Wister, Lynne Barrett, Les Standiford, Margaret Porter Troupe and Quincy Troupe, Maryse Condé, David Mura, Diem Jones, Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, Key West Literary Seminar, the Hedgebrook Foundation, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Florida International University, and the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. I am deeply grateful for the dedication of my agent Ayesha Pande, the passion and vision of my editor Lauren Wein, and the support of Morgan Entrekin and the Grove/Atlantic team.
Thank you for believing.
A GROVE PRESS READING GROUP GUIDE
BY ERIN EDMISON
V
IDA
P
ATRICIA
E
NGEL
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
We hope that these discussion questions will enhance
your reading group’s exploration of Patricia Engel’s
Vida
. They are meant to stimulate discussion, offer new
viewpoints, and enrich your enjoyment of the book.
More reading group guides and additional information,
including summaries, author tours, and author sites
for other fine Grove Press titles, may be found on
our Web site,
www.groveatlantic.com
.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Sabina is the recurring character throughout
Vida
, even when the point of view of the narration changes; we see her at different ages, in different cities, with and without her family, in different relationships. What do we come to learn about Sabina throughout the book? What kind of a girl or a woman is she? What is her relationship with her parents like? With her brother? With her Colombian identity? How does Sabina see herself, and the various roles available to her, in relation to the women in her own family? Consider her mother, her aunt Paloma, and other members of her extended family in the United States and in Colombia.
2. What do you make of the author’s epigraph: “In each life, particularly at its dawn, there exists an instant which determines everything.” Do you agree with this statement? Was there an instant in Sabina’s life that determined everything?
3. At the end of “Lucho,” Sabina realizes her true feelings for Lucho only after he dies: “I didn’t even know I loved Lucho till that second. But I did … He came looking for me when I was invisible” (p. 22). How did Lucho
“come looking” for Sabina? How was she invisible? Many characters in this book die. What do you think the author is saying about life considering the various ways her characters experience death?
4. In “Refuge,” Sabina mentions a coworker, Wanda: “Wanda likes me because we have the same last name though we are no relation—she’s Puerto Rican and I’m Colombian stock—and she says us Latinos have to stick together though she doesn’t speak Spanish” (p. 32). Ethnic identity is complicated; how does Wanda define ethnic identity? How does Sabina? Does Sabina agree that she and Wanda should “stick together”?
5. On page 35, a character says, “The guy is dead. And death is a huge aphrodisiac.” Why could death be an aphrodisiac? Are there other examples in the book of love as a result of a certain kind of fantasy?
6. In “Refuge,” Sabina’s boyfriend Nico gets into a fight. “‘The punches I took for you,’ Nico would say, like it was a debt to be paid” (p. 39). Where else in this book are women considered to “owe” a debt to men?
7. In “Refuge,” newspapers are hidden from children so that they won’t see the disturbing images of 9/11. In “Lucho,” Sabina’s mother hid newspapers with information about the uncle on trial. What do you think of this separation of family/domestic life and the “news” of the world? Is it important or damaging?
8. Also in “Refuge,” Sabina says, “It will be months, and most of the wreckage will have already been cleared, before we admit it’s not enough. It will be uneventful, the way most life-changing moments are.” After the aftermath of 9/11, Sabina and her boyfriend decide to break up. Do you agree with Sabina’s statement that most life-changing moments are not the biggest events, but smaller ones? Has your personal life ever been significantly altered by an event that occurred on the world stage?
9. In “Green,” the narration shifts and the story is written in the second person, although it’s clear that the story is still being told from Sabina’s point of view. What do you make of this shift in narration? How does it change—if at all—how you read?
10. On page 53, the narrator says, “Your parents are immigrants who don’t really understand the concept of depression.” What do you think about this statement? Is depression a particularly “American” phenomenon?
11. “I gave you a little smile so you would feel absolved” (p. 106). Guilt and blame come up frequently in the book—between couples who may or may not be faithful; in the aftermath of accidents; in friendships. What do you think of Sabina’s sense of accountability—is she too frequently feeling guilty? Not enough? What about the other characters and their sense of accountability?
12. “He was a boyfriend for the shadows” (p. 122). Sabina has many secret-boyfriends or almost-boyfriends. Why do you think this is? What is it about these sorts of relationships she finds appealing?
13. Sabina tends to surround herself with other young drifters who spend their time looking for love and then fleeing from it. Discuss some examples of this tension between being sought out, being found, and the urge for isolation, retreat, escape.
14. Many different languages appear in the book—Spanish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Hungarian. Even the Spanish is
not always the same to each character: “She found my Spanish amusing. Said I talked like it was the seventies. That’s the Spanish my parents left with” (p. 120). What do you think of this cacophony of languages and second languages and translations? Do you think they ultimately lead to misunderstandings or does there seem to be an essential understanding among the characters, despite language barriers?
15. In “Vida,” Sabina learns that a friend of hers had been forced to work in a brothel. Her reaction to learning this information about her friend is complicated. At first she feels she must keep it secret, because she fears that if Vida’s boyfriend found out the truth, he would leave her. Then she learns that Vida’s boyfriend had actually worked at the brothel with her. Sabina seems uncertain what to do; she claims at first she had no impulse to get involved: “Nothing in me said I should help Vida. … I just wanted to drink her up like everyone else” (p. 135). It’s a question of exploiting Vida’s story; when we learn of gruesome events, is our interest driven by a desire to help, or mere curiosity? Later on, Sabina accuses Vida’s boyfriend of not helping her enough: “Being a witness can make a person just as guilty” (p. 141). Who is Sabina really accusing here?
16. Vida says, “There is no love. Only people living life together. Tomorrow will be better” (p. 145). What do you think of Vida’s outlook on life and love? Is it optimistic or pessimistic (Or realistic?). Does Sabina share this outlook?
17.
Vida
moves back and forth from New Jersey to Manhattan to Miami, and then, finally, to Colombia, in “Madre Patria.” What is Sabina’s connection to Colombia? How does it differ from that of her parents’?
Suggestions for further reading:
Drown
by Junot Díaz;
Last Evenings on Earth
by Roberto Bolaño;
War by Candlelight
by Daniel Alarcón;
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
by Saša Stanišic;
The Question of Bruno
by Aleksandar Hemon;
Esther Stories
by Peter Orner;
The House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros;
Book of Clouds
by Chloe Aridjis;
War Dances
by Sherman Alexie;
Miles from Nowhere
by Nami Mun;
Sightseeing
by Rattawut Lapcharoensap;
The Boat
by Nam Le;
Paraiso Travel
by Jorge Franco
Table of Contents
