I could tell we were almost back at Abuelita’s when I saw the marquee across the street, though we never went to see movies there because of the prostitutes standing around. When my cousin Miriam—Nelson’s sister and Titi Carmen’s daughter—asked me what “prostitute” meant, I wasn’t sure either, but I knew it was bad and that they wore very short skirts and very high heels and lots of makeup. We would figure out more of what the occupation entailed by the time the look came into fashion in the late 1960s, distressing our mothers deeply. When Titi Gloria did take us to the movies, it was at a different theater, farther down Southern Boulevard, and usually to see Cantinflas, the brilliant Mexican comic actor whose humor was as deft verbally as Charlie Chaplin’s was physically.
Our shopping trip would conclude with a final stop to pick up bread and milk at the bodega a few doors down from Abuelita’s. The bodega, a tiny grocery store, is the heart of every Hispanic neighborhood and a lifeline in areas with no supermarkets in walking distance. In those days, the bread they sold was so fresh that its warm smell filled the store. Abuelita would give me la tetita, the crunchy end, even though she liked it too, I knew. The bodega was always crowded with the same guys having their daily party. They sat in the corner, reading El Diario and arguing about the news. Sometimes one of them would read the Daily News and explain to the others in Spanish what it said. I could tell when he was improvising or embellishing the story; I knew what news sounded like in English. Usually, they only read the Daily News for the horse-racing results, although they didn’t actually follow the horses. The last three digits of the total bets taken at the track became the winning number for the illegal lottery they played.
Before Abuelita moved, when she still lived on Kelly Street, there was a bodega right downstairs from her apartment. Sometimes she would send me downstairs by myself with a dollar bill wrapped up in a napkin that had numbers written on it. I had to tell the man whether she wanted to play them straight or in combination, or fifty cents each way. My grandmother counted extraordinary luck among her many gifts. Sometimes she saw the winning numbers in her dreams. I’ve never dreamed of numbers, but I’ve inherited more than my share of luck at games of chance, winning many a stuffed animal, and I’m even better at games like poker, where skill mediates luck. Sometimes Abuelita would see bad luck coming too, and that brought fear to my family. Too often in the past she had been right.
The stairs up to the third-floor apartment were narrow and dark, and Abuelita didn’t have an elevator to rely on as we did. But in the projects, the elevator was more than a convenience: Junior and I were absolutely forbidden to take the stairs, where my mother had once been mugged and where addicts regularly shot up, littering the scene with needles and other paraphernalia. I can still hear Mami’s warning that we should never, but never, touch those needles or take that junk: if we did, we would surely die.
Mami and my aunts would often be at Abuelita’s when we got back, crowded into the kitchen for coffee and gossip. Abuelita would join them while I joined Nelson and my other cousins at the bedroom window to make faces at the passengers zipping by on the elevated train that ran just at the height of Abuelita’s apartment. Gallego, my step-grandfather, would be busy with his own preparations for the party, choosing the dance music. His hands trembled slightly with Parkinson’s disease, still in its early stages then, as he lined up the record albums.
Once a month, my mother and aunts would help Abuelita make sofrito, the Puerto Rican vegetable and spice base that enhances the flavors in any dish. Abuelita’s kitchen would turn into a factory, with all of the women cleaning and peeling, slicing and chopping. They would fill up jars and jars of the stuff, enough for a month’s worth of dinners in each of their homes, and enough for the Saturday parties too. On the table, waiting for their turn in the blender, were big piles of chopped peppers, onions, tomatoes: my target.
“Sonia, get your hands out of there!”
“Give me that! ¡Te vas a enfermar! You’ll get sick; you can’t eat it raw!” Oh yes I can. I inherited adventurous taste buds from Papi and Abuelita, and I’ll still happily eat many things more timid palates won’t venture.
WHEN WE WENT to Abuelita’s for the parties that happened most Saturdays, Mami made the hopeless effort to have me get dressed up. My dress would get wrinkled or stained almost immediately, and ribbons never stayed put in my hair, which Abuelita blamed on the electrodes the doctors had applied to my head. It’s true that my curls disappeared about that time, but my hair had always been too thin for ribbons. Miriam by contrast always looked like a princess doll in a glass case, no matter the occasion. It would take me most of my life to feel remotely put together, and it’s still an effort.
As soon as the door opened, I would catapult into Abuelita’s arms. Wherever in the apartment she was, I would find her first.
“Sonia, careful!” Mami would say to me. “We just got here and already you’re a mess.” And then, to Abuelita, “Too much energy, too much talking, too much running around. I’m sorry, Mercedes, I don’t know what to do with her.”
“Para, Celina. Let the child be. There’s nothing wrong with her except too much energy.” Abuelita was on my side, always, and Mami was always apologizing to Abuelita. Sometimes even I wanted to say “¡Para, Mami!”
Next I would run to find Nelson, who would invariably be lying on the bed reading a comic book while waiting for me. Nelson was a genius, and my best friend on top of being my cousin. I never got bored talking to him. He could figure out how anything worked, and together we pondered mysteries of the natural world, like gravity. He was up for any game I could devise, including jousting knights, which involved charging at each other across the living room, each carrying on his or her back a younger brother armed with a broom or a mop. Miriam tried to stop us, but it didn’t prevent Eddie, her little brother, from falling off Nelson and breaking a leg. When the screams of pain brought my aunt running, the blame was assigned, as usual, before any facts were established: “Sonia! What did you do now?” Another walloping for that one.
Tío Benny, who was Nelson, Miriam, and Eddie’s dad, was determined that Nelson would grow up to be a doctor. In my eyes, Tío Benny was the ideal father. He spent time with his kids and took them on outings, which occasionally included me too. He spoke English, which meant he could go to parent-teacher conferences. Best of all, he didn’t drink. I would have traded fathers with Nelson in a heartbeat. But sadly, for all his brilliance, Nelson wouldn’t live up to Tío Benny’s dreams, and I would do well despite a less than perfect father.
Abuelita’s apartment was small enough that wherever we settled down to play, the warm smells of her feast would find us, beckoning like cartoon ribbons in the air. Garlic and onions calling, still the happiest smells I know.
“Mercedes, you should open your own restaurant.”
“Don’t be shy, there’s plenty.”
The dominoes never stopped for dinner. The game was serious. Someone would have to lose the whole match and give up the seat before even thinking about food. “¿Tu estás ciego? It’s right in front of your eyes!” They’d yell a lot and pretend to be angry.
“Benny, wake up and look at what you have!” Mami counters. She was good at this and could keep track of every bone played.
“Hey, no cheating! How many times are you going to cough? Somebody get this man a drink, he’s choking!”
“Don’t look at me, I’m honest. Mercedes is the one who cheats.”
“I know you have that ficha, so play it!”
“Nice one, Celina.”
Gallego’s out of the game, calling foul as he goes. He picks up his güiro and strums a ratchety rhythm on the gourd, playing along with the record, as if he wishes someone would show up with a guitar. Instead, sooner or later someone would lift the needle off the record, cutting off Los Panchos mid-song. The voices in the living room would settle to a hush, and all eyes would turn to Abuelita, resting on the couch, having cleaned up and taken a turn at dominoes. W
hen the music stopped, that was the cue for those in the kitchen to crowd in the doorway of the living room. Nelson and I would scramble to a spot under the table where we could see. It was time for poetry.
Abuelita stands up, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. When she opens them and begins to recite, her voice is different. Deeper, and vibrant in a way that makes you hold your breath to listen.
Por fin, corazón, por fin,
alienta con la esperanza …
I couldn’t understand the words exactly, but that didn’t matter. The feeling of the poem came through clearly in the music of Abuelita’s voice and in the look of faraway longing in the faces of her listeners.
Her long black hair is tied back simply and her dress is plain, but to my eyes she looks more glamorous than anyone trying to be fancy. Now her arms stretch wide and her skirt swirls as she turns, reaching for the whole horizon. You can almost see green mountains, the sea and the sky unfolding, the whole world being born as she lifts her hand. As it turns, her fingers spread open like a flower blooming in the sun.
… y va la tierra brotando
como Venus de la espuma.
I look around. She has the whole room mesmerized. Titi Carmen wipes a tear.
Para poder conocerla
es preciso compararla,
de lejos en sueños verla;
y para saber quererla
es necesario dejarla.
¡Oh! no envidie tu belleza,
de otra inmensa población
el poder y la riqueza,
que allí vive la cabeza,
y aquí vive el corazón.
Y si vivir es sentir,
y si vivir es pensar …
The poems that Abuelita and her listeners loved were often in the key of nostalgia and drenched in rosy, sunset hues that obscured the poverty, disease, and natural disasters that they had left behind. Not that their yearnings were unfounded. As the poet says, “To know it, you need to see it in dreams from afar. To learn how to love it, you need to leave it.” Even those of the generations following who were born here, who have settled decisively into a mainland existence and rarely have reason to visit the island—even we have corners of our hearts where such a nostalgia lingers. All it takes to spark it is a poem, or a song like “En Mi Viejo San Juan.”
The parties always wound down late. The stragglers had to be fed; Charlie and Tony, Titi Gloria’s sons, might stop by after their Saturday night dates. Most others would say their good-byes and go home, like Tío Vitín and Titi Judy, who typically left carrying their kids, my cousins Lillian and Elaine, fast asleep, drooped over a shoulder.
But for those who remained, what often happened next was the climax of the evening. The velada was something that no one ever talked about; adults would change the subject casually if a kid asked a question. The kitchen table would be cleared and moved into the living room. A couple of neighbors from downstairs would appear, joining the party quietly. My mother and Titi Gloria would retire to the kitchen. Mami thought the whole business was silly and didn’t want any part of it. Titi Gloria was actually scared of the spirits.
The remaining kids—Nelson, Miriam, Eddie, Junior, and I—would be corralled in the bedroom and ordered to sleep. We knew that nothing would happen until the adults believed we were snoozing, and they were dead serious about this. Somehow they failed to reckon with the power of my curiosity, or how easily I could impose my will on the other kids. We all lay on the bed in watchful silence, perfectly still, waiting.
There was just enough light coming from the street and through the curtains on the glazed doors separating the bedroom from the living room to make the atmosphere cozy or spooky, depending on your mood. I could hear the fading rumble of the El train going by. I could hear by their breathing when Junior and Eddie both conked out.
As we lay there, my mind would rehearse what Charlie had told us: how Abuelita and Gallego call the spirits to ask them questions; how they were not evil but they were powerful, and you had to develop your own powers if you wanted their help; how Abuelita’s spirit guide was called Madamita Sandorí and spoke with a Jamaican accent. His eyes got wide just talking about it. Charlie and Tony were Alfred’s age, an in-between generation much older than the rest of the cousins. Charlie was adult enough that they let him sit at the table for the velada. Gallego, who was as skilled an espiritista as Abuelita, wanted to teach Charlie, but Charlie did not want that responsibility. It was one thing to have the gift, quite another to dedicate yourself and study it.
As strange as they were, Charlie’s reports of the supernatural made sense. They weren’t like Alfred’s unbelievable stories, about the ghosts of dead jíbaros riding horses around San Germán, intended only to scare us. I knew that Abuelita used her magic on the side of good. She used it for healing and for protecting the people she loved. Of course I understood that a person with a talent for engaging the spirit world could equally put it to work for darker ends—brujería, or witchcraft. In Abuelita’s own building one of the neighbors was known to put curses on people. I was forbidden to go near her door on penalty of getting smacked, which was something Abuelita had never done, so I knew she meant it.
Finally, the little bell would ring very softly. That was the cue. Nelson, Miriam, and I would climb off the bed and sneak up to the glazed doors. We’d stick our noses to the panes, peering through the tiny gaps at the edge of the curtain stretched and pinned over the glass. All I could see was the backs of chairs, the backs of heads, shoulders hunched by candlelight in a tight circle around the table. The bell would tinkle again, but except for that one clear note it was impossible to make out any sounds through the door.
I would carefully open the door a tiny crack, and we would huddle to listen. It was good to be close together, just in case. Gallego would always be the first to talk, and not in his usual voice. It didn’t sound like Spanish, but it wasn’t English either. It sounded like someone chewing words and swallowing them. Choking on them. Then the voice coming out of Gallego would moan louder until the table moved, seeming to rise off the floor, signaling the spirits’ arrival. Miriam, trembling, would scoot back into bed fast. I wouldn’t give up so easily. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t decipher the garbled words. After Nelson and I got tired of trying, we’d join Miriam in bed. Nelson would pull the blanket over his head and whisper in mock exasperation, “How do they expect us to sleep with a house full of spirits?” We’d all lie still for a minute. Then Nelson would pretend to snore very softly, and Miriam and I would start giggling.
EXCEPT FOR my very earliest memories, when we still lived on Kelly Street in the same tenement as Abuelita, my father hardly ever came along to the parties. It was easier that way. On the rare occasions when he did come—on Mother’s Day or Thanksgiving—I was nervous, watching and waiting for the inevitable signs of trouble. Even in the midst of the wildest mayhem that Nelson and I could concoct, even sinking my teeth into Abuelita’s irresistible crispy chicken, even when everyone else was lost in music and laughter, I would be watching my father from the corner of my eye. It would start almost imperceptibly. His fingers would slowly curl up into claws. Then his face gradually scrunched up, just slightly at first, until finally it was frozen into a contorted grimace.
I usually noticed the early signs before my mother did, and for an agonizing interval I watched them both, waiting for her to notice. As soon as she did, there would be sharp words. It was time to go home, while he could still walk. I didn’t have a name for what was happening, didn’t understand what alcoholic neuropathy was. I only knew that I saw my father receding from us, disappearing behind that twisted mask. It was like being trapped in a horror film, complete with his lumbering Frankenstein walk as he made his exit and the looming certainty that there would be screaming when we got home.
Best were the times when I didn’t have to go home. Most Saturday nights I stayed over at Abuelita’s. When there was a party, Mami would take Junior home; Tío Benny and Titi Carmen somehow
managed to get Nelson, Miriam, and Eddie down the street and into their own beds.
When I woke up in the morning, I would have Abuelita all to myself. She would stand at the stove in the housecoat she always wore for an apron, her pockets full of cigarettes and tissues, making the thick, fluffy pancakes she knew I loved. Those mornings were heaven. When Mami came to take me home later, I would kiss Abuelita good-bye. “Bendición, Abuelita.” She would hug me and say without fail every time we parted, “Que Dios te bendiga, te favorezca y te libre de todo mal y peligro.” May God bless you, favor you, and deliver you from all evil and danger. Just her saying it made it so.
Three
WITH THE EXCEPTION of my cousin Nelson, who was in a category of his own, Gilmar was my best friend in elementary school. To tell the truth, he was my only real friend who wasn’t a cousin. He lived in the Bronxdale projects too, in the building across from ours, and we played together outside almost every day.
We were lying down in the concrete pipes next to the far playground, our favorite hiding place, when he told me the news. His parents—Gilbert and Margaret, who’d each given him a bit of their names—had decided to move to California. They had palm trees in California, he told me, and the weather was always sunny. I had seen palm trees when I visited Puerto Rico, but beyond that I had no mental picture of California. Still, I could imagine what having to leave must have felt like to Gilmar: not seeing our corner of the world and all the people in it anymore, maybe ever.
My Beloved World Page 3
