The Memories of Ana Calderón

by Graciela Limón

  When Ana awoke, her pillow was wet with tears and saliva. She sat up in bed and saw that outside the night was still dark, and that it was raining heavily. She leaned against the iron bedstead as she pulled up the blankets to cover her chest and shoulders, then cupped her hand on her stomach for a long while, feeling the child move. She closed her eyes, sifting through her dream part by part, trying to decipher its meaning. And she remained that way for a long time until sleep overcame her.

  The following morning as she joined the Basts for breakfast, Ana said to them, “If my baby is a girl, her name will be Hagar.”

  Franklin was about to take a sip from his coffee, but he stopped, holding the cup in mid-air. Amy slowly placed her fork on the edge of the plate as she tilted her head to one side. “What if it’s a boy, Ana?”

  “If it’s a boy, his name will be Ismael.”

  Ismael was born on a rainy night in early February of 1940. His birth was difficult because he began to make his way out of me a day and a half before he was born.

  I was not like ’Amá, who bit her knuckles rather than cry out when she was giving birth to her children. I screamed and wailed with all the force in my body. Each time I let out a howl I was aware that the chickens were startled, and that they cackled in fear. Even the roosters crowed, although it was dusk and not dawn.

  I was unconscious most of the time. I was not with Amy on the egg ranch; I was somewhere else. I went back to the palapa, and to the emerald ocean where I danced and dreamed; to where Tavo, Alejandra, and I played games of Aztec warriors and princesses. I saw myself sprinting toward the palm trees, ignoring Tía Calista’s call to come help deliver the new baby. When I finally went into the dim hut, instead of my mother’s spread-out knees, I saw mine. It was not her blood but mine that smeared the rough sheets clinging to the black sand, and it was my body that was being torn open, not hers.

  In my delirium, Tía Calista’s face appeared; it was still cracked by the ocean sun, and it was darker than when we had left Puerto Real. She made clucking sounds with her tongue as she reminded me that I had turned out to be like other women after all, just as she had said I would. In her eyes I could see a faint glimmer that said that all women are the same, and that we all end up with our legs spread apart enduring the pain of new life.

  Suddenly Tía Calista’s face was pushed aside by Miss Nugent, who sorrowfully wagged her head as she silently walked away. In her place I saw the women I had worked with, the ones in the tomato fields of the Yaqui Valley and in the shoe factory. Those faces were as I remembered them; their skin was blotched and their lips were drawn and sad. They gaped at me as their shoulders drooped to sagging, tired breasts that rested on their distended stomachs.

  Behind them I could see Alejandra, the sister I knew had turned into my enemy. Her white skin was radiant, and her hair seemed fairer than I remembered. Her body was full of life, and she held herself so straight that her small breasts stuck out menacingly. She walked up to me, pointing at my convulsing belly, and she said, “Ugh, it’s a boy! I’ll bet you it’s going to die. It’s poisoned in there, you know.”

  I let out a scream so horrifying that Amy rushed over to me and placed a fresh cloth dampened with rubbing alcohol on my forehead. She stroked my arms and hands, telling me to relax, that it would soon be over. She didn’t know that my cry had not been of pain, but of terror.

  Alejandra disappeared and in her place was Tavo. My body suddenly became serene as I saw him gazing at the spot between my open legs. I saw that he had grown even more handsome since the last time I saw him; he was taller. His hair shone as it did that first time we loved one another on the golden hill above our house. Although his eyes remained fixed on the opening where the child would soon emerge, I knew the expression in them. I was sure that it was the same as when he laid upon me, smiling at me, kissing me, pressing himself over and again into me.

  But I was wrong. When he finally looked up at me, his eyes were hard, filled with ice. Those pupils accused me of terrible things. “Everything has been a mistake, a misunderstanding.” Octavio’s eyes bored into me, saying that the child showing its slick, wet head between my legs was not his, and his glare told me what he felt. “I didn’t have anything to do with it! You sneaked a seed between your legs and kept it there until it spawned. The baby is yours alone!”

  “Get out! Get out!” I shouted over and over. Amy didn’t know what I meant and she said that she had to stay with me, that she couldn’t leave me alone. I calmed down and looked out the window where I made out Doña Hiroko and Doña Trinidad trying to coax my father into the room. I could only see his back, but I knew that it was him. A downpour made the three of them disappear.

  Ismael finally came. He was alive, and he was beautiful. When Amy placed him in my arms, I saw immediately that he had gotten the white skin that ran through our family. Like Alejandra, my son inherited the color of the unknown French grandfather who had decided to marry a brown Mexican girl generations before us.

  I felt strange when I first held Ismael in my arms. I looked at his face and an unexpected feeling, something like an iron hand gripping my heart, assaulted me. A sensation I had never experienced flooded through me, surprising me, leaving me confused.

  I closed my eyes, waiting for my thoughts to clear. When I looked at my son again, I felt serene because I realized that there was a reason for the pain I had experienced for him. I looked out the window and I remembered what Amy had read in the Bible about Ismael, of how he would be opposed to everyone, and everyone to him. I made a vow that this would not happen to Ismael because I would assure him that he would be loved by all who would ever enter his life.

  Two years after the birth of Ismael, on a sunny day in April, Alejandra and Octavio stood at the entrance of the church posing for photographs. They had just emerged; their marriage mass had ended and the organ was still bellowing out the triumphal wedding march. Outside, the smiling bride and groom were met with loud cheers and clapping accompanied by the joyful tolling of bells. As rice showered them, they giggled trying to dodge and shield their faces from the tiny grains.

  Despite the war, everyone was in the mood to celebrate because there was more than a wedding for which to be grateful. Henry Miranda and Reyes Soto, son of the elder Reyes, had volunteered for the Navy the previous year, and both had been assigned to a ship that was attacked while in Pearl Harbor. When the news broke out, the barrio went into shock, thinking that two of their boys had been killed. Reyes Junior and Henry Miranda survived, however, and when word of their safety spread from street to street, from house to house, there were shouts of joy, and Father Gutiérrez made sure that there were thanksgiving rosaries for several nights.

  Still relishing their relief and joy, the Reyes and Miranda families and everyone around them took the occasion of the wedding to prolong their feelings of happiness. Only a few of the older people grumbled when they saw that some of the young ones, girls as well as boys, were pretentiously made up in pachuco dress.

  The young men, hair heavily greased and square cut in the back to better show off the cleavage of a duck tail, sported fancy tailored zoot-suits. The girls wore short tight skirts, and their hair was piled high on their heads, rolled up with supports they called rats.

  “Look, Comadre Amparo. Over there. Isn’t that a shame?”

  “Is that little Tony? ¡Qué vergüenza! Where did he get the money to have that suit made up that way?”

  “Look, Comadre. Look at Esperancita and the way she’s dressed. If I were her mother, I’d tear that rag off of her. Then they’re surprised when men get fresh with them. Just look at her! You can almost see her nalgas, the skirt is so short!”

  Alejandra and Octavio, oblivious to the heavy undercurrents that swept through the crowd, were resplendent. Alejandra wore a white satin gown that flowed gracefully to her feet; the soft folds of the dress accentuated the curves of her body. Her head was crowned with a wide white band interlaced with fresh orange blossoms and tiny artific
ial pearls. Attached to the band was a gauzy veil that floated gracefully in the noon breeze. This headdress made Alejandra’s eyes seem larger, more brilliant, matching her smile which told everyone of her intense happiness.

  Octavio was strikingly handsome, dressed as he was in a black tuxedo and white tie. The reddish brown tones of his skin contrasted sharply with the whiteness of his shirt. He had grown taller over the past two years, and the dark suit lengthened his height even more. He was keenly aware of the adulating looks that came his way, especially from the women, and his strong, evenly spaced teeth gleamed with each broad smile that he returned to his admirers.

  Not once did Ana or her child cross his mind, even though Octavio was informed of their whereabouts. What mattered to him at that moment was that everyone around them was celebrating his and Alejandra’s marriage. As Octavio looked around him, he saw only friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family. He basked in the applause that he heard each time the click of a camera sounded, especially when the photographer instructed the couple to kiss for the most important picture of all. As he gazed into Alejandra’s eyes just after their lips separated, he heard a loud ahhh! coming from the crowd, and he was sure the sound reached up to the bell tower, soaring straight to the brilliantly blue sky.

  Octavio saw Rodolfo at the fringe of the crowd. His face was glum, but there was satisfaction stamped on its expression. It had been his desire that Alejandra marry Octavio, and that wish was now fulfilled. When he had approached Octavio with the idea of matrimony two years before, he pulled Alejandra out of school and saw to it that she was given Ana’s job at the shoe factory.

  Rodolfo returned Octavio’s glances; his eyes told him that everything was as it should be and that together with Alejandra he would build for the future with sons. Octavio looked at Alejandra and saw that she looked not only radiantly happy, but victorious as well. When she returned her husband’s smile, her eyes told him that she thought she was the winner and that her sister Ana had lost. Octavio understood, and smiled in return.

  As the wedding party rode back home in Reyes Soto’s car, Octavio thought of the past two years. He and Alejandra had saved every penny so that they could be married in a ceremony such as this one. Together they had worked extra hours, sometimes even on Sundays, so that on this day she could wear the dress of her choice and he the suit of an elegant young man. The money they had put away, however, covered only the cost of their outfits and a reception to be held in Reyes Soto’s garage. But it didn’t matter to either of them that they would have to continue living with Rodolfo and the rest of the children because they couldn’t afford a place of their own after these expenses. Neither did it seem important to Alejandra and Octavio that they would have to return to work the following Monday so that they could settle their unpaid debts.

  Octavio sat back in the seat thinking that the bills didn’t matter. What was important was that he had Alejandra and that he had followed her father’s advice. “It’s good for a young man to lay with a woman before marrying, because then he brings that experience to his wife and performs better as a man.”

  On the other hand, Rodolfo harped when telling Octavio that under no circumstance should he marry a woman who was not a virgin. “If you marry such a woman, it is the same as eating another man’s leftovers. Would you be content with garbage on your table, Octavio?”

  These words were so engraved on Octavio that he once put Alejandra to the test. He invited her up to the hill to watch the sunset, and there he asked her to be intimate with him, but she shrank back shocked, insulted even. He ignored her reaction and reached under her skirt aiming to insert his fingers under her panties. Alejandra had been caught unaware. But she jerked away from him. She ran home alone, and didn’t speak to him for several days until he apologized and swore never to do that again before getting married.

  Octavio kept his promise. He, nevertheless, asked her again to come to the hill several times, but she declined each time. He liked this in Alejandra because he felt challenged and more desirous of her. He also remembered Ana, and the ease with which she used to take off her clothes and the abandon with which she gave herself to him. Whenever he was assaulted by feelings of remorse for what he had done to her, he told himself that she was not the type of woman meant to be a wife to anybody, that she was too easy; cheap even.

  When the car drove onto the dirt driveway of the Soto house, it had been preceded by all the guests who were waiting for the bride and groom. Octavio and Alejandra got out of the car and glided through the crowd to the open garage as they were showered with shouts of “¡Viva el novio! ¡Viva la novia!” The place was decorated with satin streamers and large white cardboard bells, and to one side was a table already laden with gaily wrapped gifts.

  As the newlyweds walked along smiling, shaking hands, and exchanging embraces, the guests pelted them with rice and confetti. A trio of guitar players crooned boleros, and soon there was dancing and drinking of wine amid shouts of “¡Qué linda boda!” A big cheer went up when the three-tiered cake was cut.

  After a while, Octavio took Alejandra by the hand and together they crossed the street to the Calderón house and went into the bedroom that had now been set aside for their use. Without speaking, Octavio took off his clothes; Alejandra did the same thing. When she laid down on the bed, she was so still that he looked at her face to make sure she was awake. When he got onto the bed, he stayed on his back beside her for a few moments, then he rolled over on top of her and with one of his legs he spread hers apart. When he pressed himself into her, he felt her body shiver and he heard her moan. When it was over, he toppled back onto his back. His body still throbbing and agitated, Octavio felt an enormous relief because now he was certain that Alejandra had been a virgin.

  I lived and worked with the Bast family after the birth of Ismael, and we became a family. Franklin loved my son, showering him with affectionate words and sounds. He often took Ismael in his arms, carrying him around the kitchen and outside when the weather was fine. Amy, initially surprised at her husband, often told me that she never dreamed that Franklin was capable of expressing so much warmth. She also loved Ismael, and she showed her affection for him by knitting him booties and sweaters. I know now that I grew to love Amy and Franklin as I had never loved anyone in my own family.

  During the first months after his birth, Ismael was left indoors and cared for in rotating shifts by the three adults; one stayed with the boy while the other two went out to work. When he began to walk on his own, the pattern changed because now Ismael was allowed to accompany one of the three people as they went about working.

  This pattern worked well until the day of their first argument. Franklin wanted to take Ismael along to keep him company while he counted sacks of feed, but Amy said that it was her turn to take the boy. Ana, under the impression that it was her day, protested. The conversation escalated to a near fight until Franklin, waving his arms in the air, came up with the solution.

  “Let’s be calm about this matter. I think that we can sit at the kitchen table and work out a schedule.”

  “Schedule! What are you talking about, Franklin? We don’t need any such thing!” Amy showed her irritation at not being able to take Ismael with her on that day.

  Ana broke in on Amy, “I agree with Franklin. Here’s a calendar so we can write in the day each of us takes Ismael. All we have to do is follow the schedule.”

  “Oh, all right! All right! Have it your way, but we all know who the boy really wants to be with, don’t we?”

  They agreed to follow the schedule. So it was that Ismael went along with each of them, learning the different chores of an egg ranch before he was able to speak.

  Amy and Franklin were happy with Ana’s work because she seemed tireless. She worked so hard that at times they were compelled to tell her to come in to rest, to eat a sandwich or to let up for the day. Ana seemed to thrive on work, however, and she seemed impatient to get out to feed the chickens, to gather the eggs, and to p
ack them in cases. When Amy taught Ana how to drive the Model-T, Ana was anxious to drive her on their routes to distribute the crates to neighborhood grocery stores.

  The practice of Amy reading from the Bible kept up, as did the periods of reflection, but now they were put off until Ismael had been put to sleep. Words that Ana had never heard often cropped up during those readings. Sometimes Amy or Franklin were able to explain the words, but it happened frequently that their definitions didn’t make sense to her. So she asked Amy to stop off at a book store she had noticed on the road leading into East Los Angeles.

  Ana bought a dictionary which she placed by her side each night after that. Whenever a word or an expression came along that she didn’t understand, she wrote it down on a pad which she kept by her elbow. Now, when they finished the periods of reflection, she stayed up for a while to look up the unknown words. After a few months, Ana, who had missed finishing school by two years, began to develop a vocabulary that would eventually take her far beyond that expected of a high school graduate.

  During the last years of the war, change became obvious to Amy, Franklin, and Ana. There was a rash of new building going on, slowly at first, and then at a quicker pace. They eventually noticed that structures began to show up near the boundaries of the ranch. While on their routes, Amy and Ana commented frequently about the increase they saw in car and pedestrian traffic on Whittier Boulevard. These changes were confirmed the day a couple of real estate agents approached Franklin, wondering if he would consider selling the spread. The government, they said, needed storage space. He declined the offer, but that evening the three discussed the matter even to the point of forgetting about the Bible reading.