Day after day I read the letters, hoping for better news, trying to believe that eventually it would come.
After school, I sat with Maribel at the kitchen table and helped her with her homework. In addition to everything else, she was expected to learn English, and one day the teacher sent home an English worksheet with nine boxes, each filled with a drawing of a face making a different expression. At the top of the sheet was a story in Spanish about a young Chinese boy, Yu Li.
“Do you know who this is?” I asked Maribel.
She shook her head.
“Can you read the story?”
“Okay.”
I waited while she stared at the paper. Was she reading? I wondered. Or just looking at the words? I said, “Why don’t you read it out loud?”
She did, although haltingly. I had to help her with any word longer than four letters. It was a story about how Yu Li came to the United States from China with his parents. He went to school one day and some of the kids taunted him and some of them were kind. But Yu Li didn’t know English, so he was bewildered.
When Maribel was finished, I said, “Now you need to write down words that describe how Yu Li was feeling in the story.” Maribel looked at me. There was an eyelash on her cheek. I picked it off and held it on the tip of my finger, then blew it away. “Do you remember what happened in the story? What was one emotion Yu Li felt?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you read the story to me.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Do you need to read it again?”
“I already read it.”
“I know. But you said you didn’t remember anything.”
“Okay.”
“Maribel, how did Yu Li feel in the story?”
She shrugged.
“Do you remember when he went to school?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened to him at school?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were the kids nice to him?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you think that made Yu Li feel?”
“Who is Yu Li?”
I took a deep breath. It’s okay, Alma, I told myself. It’s only the beginning of the year. She’s just getting started.
When Arturo came home later and kicked off his boots, he asked what we were working on.
“I don’t know,” Maribel said.
“Math?” he guessed.
“Yes,” she said.
“We’re working on English today,” I said.
“¡Inglés!” Arturo beamed. “Once you learn English, you can teach it to me, too. Here, does this sound like something? Howdy dere, pardner.” He made a clownish face, and I knew he was trying to get Maribel to laugh, trying to extract the tiniest hint of the girl she used to be. It was something we both did. We cast lines out again and again hoping to reel something in, anything to sustain us, but she never bit.
Arturo said, “Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Did that sound like English?”
“No.”
“What?” he said, acting shocked.
“It sounded good to me,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said.
I wanted him to come to me, to take my hands and kiss my fingers, to run his thumb over my lips, but those weren’t the sorts of things we did anymore.
He peeled off his socks and unbuttoned his shirt.
“Dinner will be ready soon,” I said. “I made tacos de bistec.”
He leaned his boots against the wall. “Okay.”
I waited for more—I was desperate for more—but he only pushed his boot back with his toe when it started to slip and walked down the hall to shower.
DURING THE DAY, I kept myself busy by cleaning and watching television. I had found a Spanish-language channel that, if I angled the antenna just right, I could see through the static. I cooked lunch for myself—pork and beans, or chicken basted in onions and orange juice, or on days when I was feeling lazy, soup from a can—and sat at the table alone eating it. I got up afterwards and cleaned again. Once, I used the prepaid cell phone we had bought in a market in Pátzcuaro and called my parents, even though the phone was supposed to be reserved for emergencies only. We had called them just after we arrived to tell them we got here safely, but we hadn’t spoken again since. My mother shrieked when she heard my voice and I laughed at hearing my father in the background dashing to my mother in alarm, asking what was wrong. They wanted to know how we were doing, what it was like here, how Maribel was adjusting. I imagined the two of them crowded around the receiver in their small kitchen, the kitchen I had grown up eating in with its half-moon window over the sink and the clay rooster my mother kept on the counter next to her bean pot and a jelly jar filled with flowers. How far away it seemed. My mother brought me up to date on the latest gossip from town—Reyna Ortega finally had her baby and they’d been invited to the bautismo, a new assistant chef had started at Mistongo, two hogs had gotten loose from the Cotima farm—but hearing it all only made me feel more disconnected from Pátzcuaro, oddly disappointed to hear that life was going on even without us there.
In the two weeks since we’d been in the apartment, many of the neighbors—mostly the women—had stopped by to introduce themselves. Quisqueya Solís arrived with a platter of coconut cookies in her arms—besitos de coco, she told me—and when I invited her in, she walked through the apartment slowly, letting her gaze sweep over our few pieces of furniture, and then refused to sit when I offered a chair, explaining as she patted her fiery red hair that she had errands to run. Nelia Zafón knocked on the door and clasped one of my hands between hers, apologizing for taking so long to stop by and assuring me that everyone was happy to have us here. Ynez Mercado stood in the doorway and told me if there was anything we needed not to hesitate to ask. I explained that we had acquired some things along the way, but when she heard that Arturo, Maribel, and I were sharing one mattress, she insisted on bringing over an old sleeping bag she and her husband had. “It’s from José’s navy days,” she said. “It kept him safe, and it will keep whoever sleeps in it safe, too.” I smiled and said, “Thank you. That sounds perfect for Maribel.”
When no one came, I went out, determined to explore and acclimate myself to the town. A few times I went to the Laundromat—despite Celia’s warning, it was still the nearest one—and sat with my hands in my lap while the load ran, watching the clothes spin in the portholed dryers lined up along the back wall. People walked in and out—a brown-skinned man chewing a toothpick, a motorcyclist wearing a leather vest, a woman with two children—their baskets hoisted up against their stomachs, their clothes spilling over the sides like seaweed. I yearned for them to talk to me, especially anyone who looked as though they might speak Spanish. I readied myself to say hola if anyone so much as glanced my way, but day after day people walked by without acknowledging me in the least.
I walked to Gigante some afternoons and pulled mangoes and chiles from wooden crates, holding them to my nose, inhaling the scents of home. In the back, I stared at the fish and the lobsters in their giant glass tank and when the man behind the meat counter asked in Spanish if there was something he could get me—everything was recién matada, fresh, he assured me—I told him no. “Too expensive,” I said, smiling sheepishly. “We have a sale,” he said. “It’s only for beautiful women,” and I laughed in spite of myself.
And sometimes I went to the small church we had found, St. Thomas More Oratory, with its water-stained drop ceiling and its folding chairs in place of pews, and sat alone in the empty sanctuary, reciting the same prayers over and over, imploring God to listen. I know I’m not very important, I told Him. I know You have other things to worry about. But please forgive me for all that I’ve done. Please give me the strength to fix it. Please let her get better. And please let Arturo forgive me, too. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
ONE AFTERNOON I made chicharrones and carried them over to Celia’s apartmen
t.
She clapped her hands together in delight when she saw me and motioned for me to come inside.
“These are for you,” I said, holding out a foil-covered plate.
She lifted a corner of the foil and sniffed. “Sabroso,” she said.
I loved how full her home felt, embroidered pillows on the couches, a curio stacked with milk glass bowls and recuerdos and folded tablecloths, red votives along the windowsills, spidery potted plants, woven rugs, unframed posters of Panamá beaches on the walls, a box of rinsed beer bottles on the floor, a small radio on top of the refrigerator, a plastic bag filled with garlic hanging from a doorknob, a collection of spices clustered on a platter on the counter. The great accumulation of things almost hid the cracks in the walls and the stains on the floor and the scratches that clouded the windows.
“Mi casa es tu casa,” Celia joked as I looked around. “Isn’t that what the Americans say?”
She poured cold, crackling Coca-Colas for both of us, and we sat on the couch, sipping them and taking small bites of the chicharrones. She looked just as she had the first time I met her: impeccably pulled together, with a face full of makeup, fuchsia lips, chestnut-brown chin-length hair curled at the ends and tucked neatly behind her ears, small gold earrings. So unlike most of my friends at home, who used nothing but soap on their faces and aloe on their hands and who kept their hair pulled into ponytails, like mine, or simply combed after it had been washed and left to air-dry.
Celia told me about the provisions we would need for winter—heavy coats and a stack of comforters and something called long underwear that made me laugh when she tried to describe it—and about a place called the Community House where they offered immigrant services if we needed them. She gossiped about people in the building, telling me that Nelia Zafón was in a relationship with a gringo half her age and that, when they first came here, Celia’s husband, Rafael, thought José Mercado was gay. Celia said, “He and Ynez have been married for more than thirty years!” She laughed. She told me that Micho Alvarez, who she claimed always wore his camera around his neck, had a sensitive side, despite the fact that he might look big and burly, and that Benny Quinto, who was close friends with Micho, had studied to be a priest years ago. She said that Quisqueya dyed her hair, which was hardly news—I had assumed as much when I met her. “It’s the most unnatural shade of red,” Celia said. “Rafael says it looks like she dumped a pot of tomato sauce on her head.” She chortled. “Quisqueya is a busybody, but it’s only because she’s so insecure. She doesn’t know how to connect with people. Don’t let her put you off.”
Celia began telling me about when she and Rafael and her boys had come here from Panamá, fifteen years ago, after the invasion.
“So your son, he was born there?” I asked.
“I have two boys,” she said. “Both of them were born there. Enrique, my oldest, is away at college on a soccer scholarship. And there’s Mayor, who you met. He’s nothing at all like his brother. Rafa thinks we might have taken the wrong baby home from the hospital.” She forced a smile. “Just a joke, of course.”
She stood and lifted a framed picture from the end table. “This is from last summer before Enrique went back to school,” she said, handing it to me. “Micho took it for us.”
In the photo were two boys: Mayor, whom I recognized from the store, small for his age with dark, buzzed hair and sparkling eyes, and Enrique, who stood next to his brother with his arms crossed, the faint shadow of a mustache above his lip.
“What about you?” Celia asked. “Do you have other children besides your daughter?”
“Only her,” I said, glancing at my hands around the glass. The perspiration from the ice had left a ring of water on the thigh of my pants.
“And she’s going …” Celia trailed off, as though she didn’t want to say it out loud.
“To Evers.”
Celia nodded. She looked like she didn’t know what to say next, and I felt a mixture of embarrassment and indignation.
“It’s temporary,” I said. “She only has to go there for a year or two.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“She’s going to get better.”
“I’ve heard it’s a good school.”
“I hope so. It’s why we came.”
Celia gazed at me for a long time before she said, “When we left Panamá, it was falling apart. Rafa and I thought it would be better for the boys to grow up here. Even though Panamá was where we had spent our whole lives. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what parents will do for their children?”
She put her hand on mine. A benediction. From then, we were friends.
I WAS TIRED of going to my usual places, so one rainy morning I went instead to the Community House, just to see what they offered.
I took the bus Celia told me to take and walked into a building filled with white tables and chairs. Beige computers sat on some of the tabletops and a row of beanbag chairs slouched along one wall like giant gumdrops. The receptionist asked me in Spanish, “Are you here for the English class?”
“English class?”
“I’m sorry. Our new session starts today, so I just assumed that’s why you were here.”
I was about to say no, but I stopped myself. Maybe it was luck that brought me here, or maybe it was providence. I envisioned myself in the school uniform I used to wear when I was a girl—the starched blue shirt and navy vest, the pleated skirt, the knee-high socks—and all of a sudden I liked the idea of being a student again. Maybe I would even learn enough to be able to help Maribel with her homework.
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
The woman directed me to a room behind her.
A few people were already inside, seated at desks, and they glanced at me as I walked in. I smiled at them and sat with my purse on my lap, fiddling with the clasp until the teacher entered. She strode to the front and grinned at us with big horse teeth.
“Welcome, everybody,” she said in English. “I’m your teacher, Mrs. Shields.”
Of course, at the time I didn’t understand what she was saying. I only learned it later. That first day, the words were merely sounds in the air, broken like shards of glass, beautiful from a certain angle and jagged from another. They didn’t mean anything to me. Still, I liked the sound of them.
No one in the class said anything in return.
The teacher, in Spanish this time, said, “Hola a todos.”
“Hola,” a few people replied.
She put her hands on her hips. “We need to wake you people up,” she said in Spanish. “¡Hola!” She cupped one hand to her ear.
More people responded this time.
“¡Hola!” she yelled once more.
“¡Hola!” I said.
Profesora Shields threw her hands together. “Terrific. For today,” she explained, “I’m going to speak in Spanish, but as the class goes on, I’ll speak it less and less. That will be okay, because you’ll understand English more and more. You see? This is how it works.” She used her hands to mimic a scale. “Less and less,” she said, lowering her right hand. “More and more,” she said, raising her left. “Now some people will tell you that English is a difficult language. But don’t let them scare you. I congratulate you for being here at all and for having the courage to try. Bravo! Give yourself a round of applause.”
We all looked at one another.
“Go on,” she said.
We clapped lightly. Is this what Maribel was doing in her school? I wondered. Is this what school was like in the United States? It was like theater.
Profesora Shields called out greetings and had us repeat the words. Hello. Good-bye. My name is. What is your name? How are you? I’m fine, and you? Then she split us into groups of two and told us to practice. I was paired with a woman named Dulce, who was missing some of her teeth, so when she spoke she bowed her head self-consciously and directed the sounds at the floor. I asked her in Spanish, “Where are you from?”
&nbs
p; “Chiapas,” she said.
“¿Eres mexicana?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Hello,” I said, in English, trying out the syllables on my tongue.
Profesora Shields had told us to pronounce the letter h, even at the beginning of words. “I know it won’t sound natural to you,” she said, “but you need to work to get it out. It’s important.”
I repeated the word. “Hello.”
In Spanish, Dulce said, “My son lives here with his wife. They brought me here.” She peeked at me. “Hello,” she tried.
“I came from Michoacán,” I said. “With my husband and our daughter.”
“My son’s wife just had a baby boy.”
“¡Ah, felicitaciones!”
“That’s why they brought me. To help take care of the baby.”
“What’s his name?”
“Jonathan. I wanted Carlos, but they said no, he’s an American baby.”
“Maybe Jonathan Carlos,” I said.
Dulce smiled. “Hello,” she said.
“Hello.”
“How jou are?” she asked.
“Fine, and jou?”
English was such a dense, tight language. So many hard letters, like miniature walls. Not open with vowels the way Spanish was. Our throats open, our mouths open, our hearts open. In English, the sounds were closed. They thudded to the floor. And yet, there was something magnificent about it. Profesora Shields explained that in English there was no usted, no tu. There was only one word—you. It applied to all people. Everyone equal. No one higher or lower than anyone else. No one more distant or more familiar. You. They. Me. I. Us. We. There were no words that changed from feminine to masculine and back again depending on the speaker. A person was from New York. Not a woman from New York, not a man from New York. Simply a person.
I was still thinking about it as I got on the bus after class, mouthing the words while I sat, trying to accustom myself to the feel of them on my tongue, the shape of them as they escaped into the air. Profesora Shields had given us all pocket-sized Spanish/English dictionaries to carry with us so that we could look things up with ease. “Practice, practice, practice!” she urged. I turned the tissue-thin pages, reading words at random. To trade, cambiar. Blanket, cobija. To grow, crecer. Outside, a light rain had begun to fall, and after a few minutes I closed the dictionary and watched the drops of water skid diagonally across the window as I listened for the driver to announce “Kirkwood,” which was my stop. But after a while—longer than it had taken on the way there—he still hadn’t said it. I sat up in the seat and looked around. Were we on a different route? I rubbed my hand over the foggy window and peered out. But of course I didn’t recognize anything. Relax, I told myself. The only reason you don’t recognize anything is because you don’t know anything here yet. I stayed put for a few more stops, fixing my gaze out the window while the bus rumbled along. I watched people get off, still more people get on. The driver shouted out other words, but never anything that sounded like “Kirkwood.”
The Book of Unknown Americans Page 5
