by Hebe Uhart
Luisa half believed her aunt. Perhaps there was some history around that block and the street, a dispute. Otherwise, who would make such heated demands about something that wasn’t theirs?
But that part about owning the sidewalk, it just didn’t make sense…Besides, María’s foul language tainted the street. It cast a gloom over the cottage across the street, which was small and well-kept, and some nice old folks lived there. The entire street, which was now paved, wide, and smooth, became imbued with a sort of uneasiness. By now María had ventured as far as Esteban’s yard and she was right up against the fence, yelling where the regulars sat. She started making demands of her mother, she wanted her mother to live with her—not with the fucking gold diggers, as she called them. Grandmother spent most of her days in bed now. All she could do was pray; she prayed for her family in Italy and for her family right here. She found it hard to remember the names and faces of everyone in Italy, and she didn’t want to leave anyone out.
Aunt María walked over and yelled in her face, interrupting the prayer. If Grandmother concentrated she was able to recite a whole string of names: Joaquín, Carolina, her own mother who was in heaven, but when she lost her train of thought she screamed:
“Shut up!”
This only made María yell even louder, saying more and more bad words to offend God and all the peaceful inhabitants of Heaven. Her words did not please the inhabitants of Heaven. Joaquín disappeared from Grandmother’s mind; her own mother faded from view. After concentrating so much to remember them all, after so many years; she screamed at María from her bed:
“Madwoman! Fucking lunatic!”
Now María was yelling and crying too; and when Grandmother felt like María’s sobbing had become strange—they weren’t tears of relief, they were bitter tears from an unhappy person, the kind of tears that no one can take pity on, the kind of tears that don’t convince anyone, they’re just annoying—that’s when Grandmother started crying too, holding her head in her hands to make sure no one could see so they didn’t come over to console her.
Uncle Esteban wanted to grab María by the arm and push her back into her house, but she got loose. Esteban held up one of his arms menacingly, as if he were going to hit her, and she retreated back to her house, but she kept turning around to holler out excuses in an attempt to leave with dignity, as if she were professing her reasons not to be thrown out. The regulars watched the whole show. Don Servini offered to give her a good beating to stop her from mouthing off once and for all, and Don Juan Ventura said he would tie a rope to her neck, throw her in the sea, and let her sink to the bottom.
After a while, Grandmother sent Uncle Esteban over to spy on María and find out how she was doing. This was practically a diplomatic mission, because Esteban never entered María’s house. He spied through the fence, near the southern screamer. He had to stay hidden, to keep María from getting angry. This wasn’t a problem because there were lots of trees and the thick hedge.
If he heard yelling and pounding on the table, or the sound of large buckets of water being tossed all over the house—especially if there were large buckets of water—this was a sign that everything was alright. Uncle Ernesto and Uncle Esteban never entered her property but José did—to check on the rose bushes and the persimmon tree.
Uncle José, however, didn’t know the real condition of his house because he never went beyond the kitchen. His sister didn’t permit it; in fact, she only let him into the kitchen when she was in a good mood.
José came a few days after this episode; he was already nervous when he arrived. When he was nervous his head filled with blood, he stuttered, and he continually stuck his hands in his pockets and then pulled them back out. When he arrived, she was in a good mood and he walked into the kitchen. He wanted to pour himself a glass of water from the sink. There was no water. Some sort of intuition led him to flip the light switch. There was no electricity either. He turned redder and redder.
María became restless:
“What are you doing? What are you getting into over there?”
Uncle José walked into the bathroom and she followed him. She started to get worked up. She didn’t allow men into her bathroom, not even her brothers. José already knew this—he didn’t dare use her bathroom, he was just checking whether there was water and electricity in the bathroom: no, there wasn’t—which intensified his fury and made him unstoppable. Then, to prove her competence and goodwill, María said:
“Every once in a while, I flip the switch to see if the light comes on, and it does.”
She said it tentatively, as if electricity were a mystery of nature. Her tone made him even more irate and he went to the bedrooms. Everything was damp because María threw buckets of water on the walls. A pungent stench arose from the house, but it wasn’t the usual smell of cigarette smoke or filth; it was a very clean smell, like damp lime, as if winter were sprouting from the walls. Livid, Uncle José then walked over to Uncle Esteban’s house and María said:
“Where are you going? Busybody! Gold digger! Backstabber! That’s what you are, a backstabber.”
And, like always, José was back in two minutes, his clothes changed, carrying a pair of pruning shears—where he got them, no one knows. Then, acting as if nothing had ever happened, he doggedly started trimming the hedge. The branches had grown as big as tree trunks and there was José, lost and small, trimming that forest. María went berserk and the whole time he was trimming, she yelled:
“Backstabber! Thief! Hooligan! Traitor! Gold digger!”
And after he’d trimmed the entire hedge without looking up at her even once, he took the pruning shears back over to Grandmother’s house and changed his clothes.
He asked her weakly, in an angry yet conciliatory voice, how any of this was possible, counting off his troubles on his fingers: the electricity, the water, the hedge, the chicken mites, the plague-infested rose bushes, the southern screamer. José started to pace back and forth in circles as he said:
“The list goes on and on, there’s no end to it.”
Tentatively, Uncle José then said that in his modest opinion—it was just a suggestion, all things considered—perhaps Aunt María should be hospitalized, even if it was just for a short time, and then we could take it from there. He said all this without looking at anyone, but it was Grandmother he was addressing. Esteban didn’t say anything; Uncle Ernesto never said no, he was always accommodating. Cautiously, Grandmother asked whether perhaps some sort of new product with curative properties hadn’t come onto the market. If penicillin had saved her life, there must be some sort of medicine to try on María, something like linden tea but much stronger. Grandmother wasn’t convinced that such a product existed, but she wanted to try something else before hospitalizing María; because Grandmother had prayed for God to take her so many times, so that she could accompany María when she died and not have to leave her in the hands of strangers.
But it seems that God didn’t want to take María; the will of God was for her to live. So first they were first going to try some sort of treatment and if that didn’t work they would hospitalize her, even though Grandmother wasn’t so sure that it was God’s will.
Gina
LATELY I’d been feeling mildly fatigued, I couldn’t figure out what was causing it. Work more than anything, I supposed. I kept thinking it over, but I couldn’t find a way to lighten my load. Housework took up a lot of my time. It wasn’t because I wanted to have a charming, tidy house. Just that it was a big house with a big old yard—it was one of those houses with high ceilings that collect lots of cobwebs, and the floorboards were disintegrating around the edges. Sometimes a gardener came around, but it wasn’t enough. He trimmed the hedge but left all the cuttings on the ground until they rotted and shriveled up. Then I could easily gather them together and throw them in the garbage can. How will I ever find myself a break with all this work? I thought. The house is too big for me, I can’t
do it alone. Then one day when I was glancing through the newspaper I got an idea: I’ll hire a girl to come work here, that’s what I’ll do. She’ll help me with so many things—maybe she’ll even know how to cook. I’ll teach her to make walnut cake (which is the only thing I know how to bake). I’ll give her all my old dresses—except the navy blue one. I know it’s old, but I’ll keep that one for myself. It had to be someone without children because if she had children they would break the silence, and by now I’d gotten used to things being quiet. Keeping that last bit in mind, I went right out and published an ad in the local paper. It read: “GIRL WANTED FOR FULL-TIME LIVE-IN MAID. NO CHILDREN PLEASE.”
When I got back from placing the ad I sat down on a bench outside to eat the rest of a walnut pancake left over from the morning. There were lots of leftover pancakes and I thought: She’ll be able to keep me company, too. I’ve been so lonely lately. I hadn’t exactly wanted my life to end up like this, it just worked out this way and I hadn’t done anything to change it. Besides, let’s not forget that my routine had been the same for something like twenty years: get some work done, go out for a stroll—never too late—and then back home to make sure everything was shipshape.
Nevertheless, it’s not that I was entirely alone because I had a friend—a man of a certain age, like myself—whom I seldom saw, maybe three times a year. Together we would sit out on one of the benches in the garden, read the newspaper in each other’s company, make the odd remark about what was happening in politics. I was quite fond of this friend and perhaps I would have preferred to discuss something other than politics, but that never happened. I took things as they came. Anyway, I couldn’t help but feel pleased thinking of what great company the girl was going to be. In fact, I was so glad to have placed the ad that before I went to sleep that night as I dusted the floorboards and removed a huge chunk of flaking wall, I surprised myself by singing a tune that was very dear to me; I thought I’d forgotten it because it had been so long since I’d sung. But I caught myself right away; I stopped singing and set down the duster. I went to bed early that night.
The following days were a blur. I’d been given a long project at work; it was a census with spreadsheets that took over my entire desk. I had to give it my full attention to get it done accurately, and any little noise distracted me and put me in a foul mood. I couldn’t deal with the birds chirping, let alone the sounds from the street, even though they were pretty subdued. Like I said, I was working on the spreadsheets when the doorbell rang. The doorbell hardly ever rings at my house. I got up quickly, leaving everything just the way it was and went to see who was there: I knew it would be someone about the newspaper ad. It was a fat lady with a high bun on the top of her head. She was no girl—far from it. The loose bun shook whenever she moved her head, and she kept her hands by her sides. She wasn’t anything like what I’d expected. Plus, I was in a bad mood because of the spreadsheets and I don’t think the look on my face was too kind, because she walked in apprehensively. She sized up the house as if she were a prospective buyer; I could tell she was taken aback by the size of the patio and by how hard it would be to clean that filthy tile floor—the mosaics were almost black—and then she shook her head as if to decline. I think she added, although very faintly:
“At my age…”
She toured the whole house anyway, even the chicken coop, but she did so with indifference. I didn’t say anything to convince her otherwise and we walked through the entire house in silence. After a while she said:
“It’s quite big.”
I replied:
“Yes, it is big.”
She asked if there were any children and I said no. She stopped to think and said either way she’d get back to me, but I never saw her again. I went back to my spreadsheets begrudgingly, but that woman’s visit had given me some food for thought: How is it, I wondered, that when my ad says “girl” this lady comes along, who couldn’t be farther from a girl? I contemplated the tenderness people start to feel toward themselves when they get older while still thinking of themselves as young. But, I thought, it’s also possible that she just didn’t notice that part: “girl” is just a figure of speech, like any other expression.” I mean, who actually stops to think about the image conjured up by an ad: she read “girl wanted” as if it had said “woman wanted.” She just hadn’t paid attention to the part about being a girl. The same thing happens with errand boys, I thought. People say “girl wanted” the same way they say “errand boy wanted.” Besides, it made me happy to think how that lady—who was two or three years older than I was as I’d just turned forty-two—still thought of herself as a “girl.” It gave me a vague sense of hope. While I was distractedly mulling over these thoughts I made a huge ink stain on the spreadsheet, which blotted out a very important data set. I couldn’t remove it with an eraser or with a metal scraper. I was worried the whole page would tear, so I went to buy an ink eraser. It took me a while to get the ink eraser and when I left the stationery shop I noticed someone ringing the doorbell at my house, someone with her back to me who didn’t see me walk up behind her. It was a girl who had no doubt come because of the ad, although once I got closer I wasn’t sure because there was something fearless about her: she seemed demure yet cheeky at the same time. She wasn’t expecting me to approach from behind and I felt somehow intimidated, as if it weren’t actually my home and I had just ended up there out of some sort of mix up. I asked her:
“Did you come for the ad?”
“Yes,” she said and lowered her head.
She had blonde hair that on first glance didn’t strike me as anything special, but when I looked again I realized it was beautiful. Her hair was downy and soft, like a young child’s. There was nothing unusual about her face, except that she was blushing a little. I don’t know why I didn’t realize how pretty she was at the time. Perhaps because there was something even more striking about the way she spoke and how she dressed and in her posture: as if she’d spent time in an orphanage or a nun’s school for poor girls. It showed in the way she held her jacket in one hand and also in her choice of words. In fact, when she spoke I noticed she pronounced her words slowly, shyly, a little distrustingly, and with a slight lisp, the way the children spoke at an orphanage not far from my house. We talked about the pay and walked through the house; it didn’t seem to make much of an impression on her: not too big or small, not too old or new. She tucked her jacket under her arm and kept her purse concealed. Since she didn’t ask anything else I assumed that she had accepted the job and I showed her to her room, a little room upstairs that was nice and neat. I had to point it out to her several times because she kept her head down. I offered her soap and water to wash up in case she was tired, and I took the opportunity to ask whether she’d traveled far and where she’d come from, but she didn’t answer me about the water; she just went to her room. I decided to erase the big stain on the spreadsheet but as soon as I went back to work I could sense something. When I turned around, there was the maid, on the second step of the staircase, just staring at me. She smiled and blushed a little and scurried off to her room. Then I heard her turn off the light.
The next day we went over how to clean everything, where I kept the feather duster, the dustpan, the mop, and where to toss the garbage. Every time I showed her something she nodded her head like someone who really wants to learn and whatever they learn becomes a revelation. But when she went to fetch the cleaning supplies she got it all wrong, and I realized she didn’t know where the duster or the broom were. At first she didn’t say anything, but then, little by little, instead of smiling when she went to look for the duster she’d ask me:
“Could you remind me where the duster is?”
And I told her as many times as she needed. Meanwhile, I started working on another spreadsheet that was shorter than the first one. Distracted, watching her walk back and forth, I used blue ink instead of red and I blurted out:
“I
did it again!”
My voice sounded disgruntled and nervous. She must have overheard because she said the strangest thing in a voice that was also remarkably peculiar, accentuating the orphanage accent:
“Life takes its twists and turns.”
I was surprised she’d used that expression and I expected her to follow it up with a whole series of explanations about how her life had taken twists and turns, filled with unpleasant details about the death of a sick father or her younger siblings, or what have you. But she didn’t elaborate any further; she just kept dusting. In other words, the details must not have been so unpleasant because then when I deliberately said (anticipating the possibility that she would talk about her life, and wanting to console her): “Yes, we’re all in the same boat. Life takes us all by surprise,” all I got was a weak smile. She said no more. I noticed her face wasn’t as flushed as it had been the day she’d arrived, but her hair was wet and plastered to her face.
Then she turned around and asked:
“Shall I clean the dining room?”
“Very well,” I answered.
But she’d already rushed off to clean the dining room, without waiting for my reply.
* * *
—
One day she must have had breakfast before I awoke because when I got up she’d already piled all the cleaning supplies in the middle of the room. When she saw me she called me over and said, in that mysterious orphanage tone of voice:
“There’s dust under the beds. There’s dust under the furniture, too.”
The truth is I already knew about the dust, but it didn’t really bother me. Nonetheless here she was, reminding me about all the dust under the beds. I couldn’t play dumb; it had to seem like I cared, so I said:
“Yes, it needs to be cleaned up. I just got back from a trip.”
That’s how I excused myself. Then, to show my concern, I went to look at the dust so she would get rid of it. That afternoon while I was checking that everything was more or less in order I noticed that she had cleaned everything except the dust under the beds and the furniture. It was still there. She’d mentioned it at least three times, yet she hadn’t cleaned it up. I went to look at the other room where she was still dusting, but she hadn’t cleaned under the bed there either. I didn’t want to be the one to remind her that she’d been the one to notice the dust under the furniture and then hadn’t bothered to clean it up. So, just to prove my point, I cleaned it up myself—it had been so long since I’d done that type of chore. Afterwards, my lower back hurt. That night at dinner I asked her what her name was. She told me:
