by Hebe Uhart
“Christ, son of God, born in a manger next to the cow and the oxen.”
Which unsettled the rest of them because that didn’t have anything to do with the gospel of the day, which was the one about the rich young man who had asked what he could do to be saved. When Botznia said this the rest of them looked at her derisively—except for María Pérez, who didn’t distain anyone. And poor Botznia felt she had been censured and her eyes shifted behind her glasses. Father Roberto noticed she was flustered and said:
“Let’s see, Botznia, why don’t you say a prayer for us in Croatian so we can hear what it sounds like.”
Then all the ladies, who had just given her the cold shoulder, said:
“Yes, yes! Pray in Croatian!” Botznia let them beg a while longer, saying she couldn’t remember. Finally, once they’d gotten tired of waiting and had started the day’s agenda, Botznia said out of the blue:
“Muškarci amerike. Ni vas volim ni vas mrzim; ecke, prokleti ecke.”
“What a lovely language!” said Father Roberto as if to encourage her. “What does it mean?”
Botznia said:
“I can’t quite remember. It’s about the guardian angel.”
Honestly, none of them liked the Croatian language, yet they all said:
“How beautiful!”
* * *
—
Botznia had started to miss the meetings; it had been almost a month since she’d shown up. It couldn’t be due to the cold weather—because the colder it got the earlier she came.
“Where does she live?” Father Roberto asked.
“She lives in Villa Pajarito,” said Manuelita. “It’s quite far from here. And Father, if you go there at night they’ll give you a beating that will leave you flat on your back.”
“Don’t go, Father,” said Mrs. Forti, who only went from her house to church and back again.
But Father Roberto got on his moped and went all the way to Villa Pajarito. It was a miserable hamlet—if you could even call it a hamlet; it was part hamlet, part wasteland. He asked a man:
“Do you know where Mrs. Botznia lives, by any chance?”
“Botznia…Botznia. I don’t know the name.”
“I do,” said a boy walking by. “It must be the old Polish lady.”
Explaining how to get there was no easy task, so the man asked the boy to walk with the priest.
“Do you know her?” asked Father Roberto.
“Yes,” said the boy with a reluctant little smile.
“Has she lived here a long time?”
“Yes, a long time.”
But it was obvious the boy was keeping something from him.
When they arrived the boy asked him in awe:
“Are you really going to go in?”
“Yes,” said Father. “Would you like to come?”
“No,” replied the boy, stifling laughter. “I’m not going in there.” As if the mere idea were absurd.
“Doesn’t anyone come to visit her?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think so. She throws rocks and yells ecke, prokleti ecke.”
Father Roberto was starting to become intrigued by all this. He went inside and there was Botznia, sitting on the bed. She didn’t have any money to buy food, or to take the bus. She had raised some chickens, but didn’t have the strength to kill them. The house was a meager hut made of wood.
“Warm there, no?” she said, her eyes lighting up.
“Where?” asked Father Roberto in surprise.
“There, the meeting. Nice and warm.”
That’s when Father realized that she went to the meetings because she was freezing cold in her house, and that’s why she arrived early on the coldest days. He gave her some money and told her:
“Come to the next meeting on Friday, Botznia. We’ll be expecting you.”
“See you.”
Gratified, her eyes darted about and she went to the grocer’s shop with her fresh money.
* * *
—
Every month or so Father Cheroff came to say mass at church. He was a member of the Eastern-rite Catholic priests, who had asked the Pope to be accepted into the Church. The Pope had agreed, but since the Eastern-rite doesn’t prohibit priests from getting married, many of them had gone ahead and tied the knot. The Pope had to admit them with their wives and children. Father Cheroff was married too, so he didn’t live in a church, but with his wife and two grown sons, who worked in a factory. He was old, hard of hearing, thick in the head, and vertically challenged; his robe was threadbare and he was Croatian. He had lived through the war, although he didn’t seem to have any opinions about it. If someone asked him what Croatia was like, he said:
“Children no wear school uniform there.”
He remained silent for a while and then added:
“Some things different, everything else the same.”
And he said no more. The young priests and young men of the parish made jokes about him because he was married. And to make matters worse, he didn’t like wearing civilian clothes so he always wore his brown robe, covered in stains. He said mass and then went into the sacristy to get paid. Sometimes he had to wait a long time, twenty minutes even. It wasn’t a manifestation of ill will—just that there were so many people they didn’t see him. He got bored just standing there. He wanted to collect his five hundred pesos as soon as possible so he could go home and work in his garden.
His masses were confusing; some parts were different from the regular rite, like the consecration, for example. He turned around and announced to the congregation:
“Now, communion.”
And then:
“Now, Our Father.”
One afternoon when he’d come to church to ask for some money, Father Roberto told him:
“Cheroff, we have one of your compatriots in our parish.”
“No compatriot,” said Cheroff, who was in the habit of denying things without actually stopping to listen to what someone had said.
“Yes, yes. Her name is Botznia.”
“Ah, Botznia, yes. She not compatriot. She from the North.”
“Isn’t it all the same country?”
“Yes, but I tell you she not compatriot. She from Breshna. I visit. Cruel war happened there.”
“Let’s see if you can translate something for me that Botznia says.”
“Translate?” asked Cheroff. “I don’t know translate.”
Paying no mind, Father Roberto continued:
“She says something that starts with: ecke, prokleti ecke.”
Father Cheroff’s eyes widened in wonder and he said:
“Oh!”
“What is it?” asked Father Roberto.
“Oh!” said Cheroff again.
Then recovering from his astonishment, he burst into a peculiar peal of laughter, as if he were laughing at Father Roberto. He said:
“That no prayer.”
“What does it mean then?”
“Ecke, damned; ecke terrible curse word there in my land.”
Father Cheroff shifted from a panicky fear for having uttered those words to an odd shiny-eyed expression, as if somehow his compatriot Botznia had found a way to reveal her true self; then the mysterious fear came back and he said:
“Oh!”
He wanted to remedy the shock he had caused because he thought perhaps Father Roberto would throw Botznia out of the Church as a result, so he said in a compassionate tone, in the voice that beggars use when they feel sorry for themselves, almost a singsong:
“Poor compatriot Botznia, how she suffered during the war.”
Father Roberto looked at him; he felt bad for Cheroff in his soiled, threadbare robe. Cheroff pained him. This time he gave him two thousand pesos.
* * *
—<
br />
The big day had arrived. The whole congregation—Father Roberto included—had been looking forward to it, and they’d worked so hard. It was the inauguration of the community recreation center, a large building they’d erected themselves to provide fun and entertainment for all ages. For the younger folks there was soccer, ping-pong, and a dance floor; for the older folks there were parlor games, a projector, and a sitting room. They’d been working on all this and more with great enthusiasm for two years—mostly the young folks. There were more and more young people: they went camping, held meetings, helped with the construction, etcetera. They were aglow with happiness and health—they were so happy they never sought out any other horizons beyond the parish and the recreation center. Mrs. Forti, the president of Catholic Action, had almost entirely given up on her aristocratic attitude, although she still always wore her bishop’s dress. Manuelita had become as tactful as could be (for someone like her). It was all on account of people jamming the brakes on her; so often she’d been shot down that now, when she started to talk, she couldn’t help but wonder whether she might be saying something inappropriate and she held her tongue. María Pérez continued to be modest; she went unnoticed. Botznia was ever-present and she ate little pastries and cakes at the parish gatherings. Botznia was a problem for Father Roberto; he couldn’t get rid of her but letting her stay was difficult. She was ancient, somewhat dim by now; if a meeting was underway, going smoothly, she would interrupt by saying the most asinine things, or blurt out some word in Croatian that nobody understood. Father Cheroff no longer said Mass; he’d been retired—not that he’d wanted to retire, but they made him anyway because Mass was said in Spanish now, and his Spanish was deplorable, so no one even went to his services anymore. Father Roberto had said to him:
“You’re old now, you’ve worked so much and it’s time to get some rest. We’ll help you out.”
Cheroff no longer said Mass, but now and then he would get bored of working in his vegetable garden and walk over to see the progress being made at the recreational center. When he saw the size of the soccer fields he opened his eyes as big as saucers and said:
“Oh!”
His amazement never ceased.
Meanwhile, the bishop was coming to bless the building and see how everything was going. The entire congregation had been invited to the celebration. To inaugurate the building, the young people were going to play a soccer game; and in the older folks’ lounge they were going to project movies about the lives of missionaries among the Eskimos and about the African Boy Scouts of Papua New Guinea. Anyone who didn’t want to watch movies could stay in the sitting room to play cards and dominos.
“Listen up, everyone,” said Father Roberto. “Act natural. As soon as the reception is over—which will be short, no long speeches—I want everyone to start in on whatever activity they like most. That way His Excellency will truly see the recreational center in action.”
No sooner said than done. The bishop arrived, thin and spiritual as always, although he was somewhat more stooped than usual—but the curvature made him look even more elegant, if that were even possible. Everyone was waiting around the table; they were friendly and talkative, it was like a Christmas party among relatives. Botznia was sitting in a corner, and since they thought she looked gloomy all in black with her hooknose, they dressed her up in a beautiful, fuzzy white poncho over the top of her sad dress.
“It’s freezing, Botznia—you’ll catch a cold.”
Botznia fought with all her might and good will to pull the poncho over her head and keep her arms inside. In the end she won the fight but felt trapped by that poncho and every time she lifted her arm to grab a small pastry the whole outfit went along too.
Father Cheroff hadn’t been notified that the bishop was coming, but he found out anyway and went to the event, as if it were any old day, saying to everyone he ran into:
“I want to speak with the bishop. Personal conversation.”
He wanted to tell the bishop that they hadn’t invited him, that he was poor, and to ask if there were any other jobs he could do now for the Church. But Father Roberto wanted to keep Cheroff from talking to the bishop at any cost; perhaps because the bishop was a very busy person and had so much to see before he could possibly be bothered by whatever Cheroff had to say. Meanwhile, Cheroff anxiously paced back and forth, back and forth, all over the rectory. The bishop noticed him out of the corner of his eye, but even though they were only three paces apart it was impossible for Cheroff to speak with him. As a matter of fact, just then Father Roberto was urging the bishop to bless the table and make the obligatory toasts. The bishop blessed the table, speaking in Spanish, using an inflected tone, as if his audience required great clarity to be able to hear properly. One lady thought, Quite short, for a bishop. But, on the other hand, he gave the impression that—precisely because he was a bishop—his speeches should be short and sweet, without mincing words.
They did some eating and drinking. Botznia thrashed around in her poncho to an alarming extent in an attempt to reach the pastries, but then they stuck her in an out-of-the-way corner behind Mrs. Forti, who blocked Botznia with her enormous body.
Then Father Roberto invited the bishop and some of the other men out to watch the soccer game. And they left. Meanwhile, others preferred to play chess or dominos; the ladies chatted away and drank a drop of liquor. But they didn’t talk to Botznia. Every once and a while someone would walk over to stuff her with cakes, sandwiches, and pastries. Cheroff walked all around endlessly by himself, half stunned, half distraught. Miraculously, there came a moment when Botznia wasn’t eating anything; she was sitting still in a perfect state of bliss. Cheroff looked at her as if he had just noticed she was there, saying:
“Eh, Botznia!”
“Eh,” replied Botznia indifferently.
They had both lived here for something close to thirty years and they were both from Croatia. Father Cheroff sat down next to her, grabbing a glass of wine and serving himself a sandwich; he too started to eat and drink.
“Good wine, huh?”
“Dniet,” said Botznia.
And he asked her to hand him a slice of cake. They weren’t nostalgic for their homeland, nor did they have anything to say to one another; but a spirited young lady saw them all dressed in black with their hooknoses, Cheroff rubbing his hands together as if to warm them up, and she said:
“Why don’t you go into the kitchen? You’ll be warmer there, and you can talk about things from back home. You can cheer up poor Botznia, she’s been a little down in the dumps lately.”
Meekly, they went to the kitchen; they were glad because it was warm. Botznia drank two small glasses of liquor and started to say:
“Muškarci Amerike! Dniet scoleva ventre.”
“No say that, Botznia,” pleaded Cheroff in a sleepy voice. He was tired and he nodded off. Not long after, Botznia fell asleep too, resting her head on the table.
They didn’t see what happened when the bishop came back, how he took the time to speak to each and every one of the young folks, or how they played the guitar and sang, or how they danced the zamba, or the film about the missionaries in China.
As the festivities continued and only the most intimate members of the parish stayed on with the priest and the bishop (the most virtuous, the most hardworking, and the most intelligent), someone remembered that Botznia and Cheroff had gone to the kitchen and went to find them. Much to this man’s surprise he found them sleeping. He was a member of the parish, a gentleman who was going bald and had a splendid little gray car. He woke them up, gently at first but then more forcefully; he shook them a bit. They cried out and fussed before waking up entirely, because they were frightened.
He took them home in his car. It was difficult getting Botznia inside the car because she didn’t understand that she had to duck her head. Graciously, he took them back to their miserable, faraway ho
uses. He was such a good Christian that he didn’t even care when his car got covered in mud. In Botznia’s neighborhood, which was practically a wasteland, there was a beautiful reddish sunset coating all the houses. In that light, the small houses made of wood and cardboard looked like charming little ships.
Luisa’s Friend
AT Luisa’s house the chickens were kept in a dark corner and nobody looked at them. The only good thing about her house were the mandarin trees. Luisa ate mandarins when they were still green, sitting in the garden among the plants. There was a hose, too, but she wasn’t allowed to wash down the sidewalks, or to spray people like it was Carnival either.
But at her grandma’s house she could chase after the chickens. They had a big, beautiful henhouse. And there was a duck, too, with all her ducklings in a row. Luisa could toss mandarin peels in the henhouse and spy on the neighboring houses to see if there were any children.
And now the people who lived next door had gone away and there were new neighbors. Luisa watched them a long time to see who they were, but it was only a fat lady who scattered corn.
At her grandma’s house she could throw the ball on the roof, and it rolled right back down. Once, Luisa was playing with the ball and it went up on the roof, but this time it didn’t come back. The roof was low and Luisa heard a voice behind her:
“Maybe you could get it down with a long stick.”
And Luisa said, without turning around:
“I don’t have any long sticks and neither does my grandma.”
“Maybe I could lend you a broom.”
Then Luisa spun around and saw a young man who was lying down on something that looked like a gurney, but his head was propped up. It was as if he were lying down from his feet to his waist, and sitting from his waist to his head. He was much older, bigger than her cousin Ernesto, who was sixteen, and she was sure that nobody told him what to do. Luisa said to him:
