Nilda

by Nicholasa Mohr

  Back in her dormitory, packing away her things in her suitcase, Nilda was filled with happiness at her liberation and secretly guarded her miracle. “It worked!” she whispered. See, she said to herself, just like Mamá always says, faith is very powerful! Looking about her and making sure nobody saw her, she made the sign of the cross and whispered, “I’ll never doubt You again. I’ll be a believer, dear Jesus and Virgin Mary.” And so she made her solemn vow right there in the large dormitory, with the very best of intentions.

  Early September 1941

  “You’ll be late for Mass, Nilda. Hurry! Are you going alone?”

  “I’m not gonna be late, Ma. I’m picking up Petra and maybe little Benji is coming.”

  Summer had gone by and school had started. Nilda still felt she ought to keep her promise to the Virgin, to believe. Since the “miracle” in camp she had attended Sunday Mass regularly. But it was getting harder and harder each Sunday morning, especially since her brothers never went to church and could sleep late. When she complained of unfairness, her mother would say, “They are boys, Nilda; what does it matter? But you, you are a girl. For you it is essential. Oh yes.” This explanation did not make sense to Nilda, especially since her mother never went to Sunday Mass. She preferred instead to go to church during the week. “I have special prayers and novenas to say, Nilda. They are best dealt with during the week.”

  Now, Nilda could hear her stepfather grumbling in the bedroom. “Bunch of shit, filling her head with that phony stuff. Fairy tales in order to oppress the masses. Teaching them that to be good is not to fight back, is to take crap.…” He went on, “They’re afraid of the revolution—”

  “That’s enough!” interrupted her mother. “What you say has nothing to do with God. One has to have faith. Faith is very powerful, especially faith in God. He will provide.”

  Nilda knew another one of those arguments between her mother and her stepfather was under way.

  “I shit on the priest’s bird, is what I do. ¡Carajo! Bunch of impotent faggots oppressing the people,” he shouted. “God feeds us? Clothes us? Mierda, I don’t see him around talking to the bill collectors.”

  “God help us!” retaliated her mother, making the sign of the cross. “And may God forgive you, Emilio.” She said this addressing the closest of the many portable altars set up around the apartment.

  “I’d rather he sent me next month’s rent first.”

  Nilda listened to the voices arguing and wondered at all the possibilities of truth set before her. Making a choice was a heavy responsibility, and for Nilda the choice would change as unpredictably as the weather.

  At Mass in St. Cecilia’s Church, she sat in the pew with the other children and watched intensely as the kids and adults received Holy Communion. Every Sunday Nilda tried to develop a closeness to the church.

  On cold days after school last winter, Nilda remembered how she would go off to play in church all by herself. She did not want Petra or little Benji to go with her. Once she had almost got caught lighting rows of candles.

  “Who’s there?” someone asked loudly.

  Recognizing Father Shea’s voice, she ducked, quickly sneaking out. Most of the time nobody bothered her. Nilda found the church a warm place to play in and the fragrance of melted wax and incense had a comforting effect on her. She would spend a good deal of time looking at the statues, all the carving and the tall stained-glass windows. She marveled at the idea that a mortal person could do all this. Surely somebody made out of flesh and blood must have done all this, she thought. Was it one person who did it all?

  The snake beneath the Virgin’s feet and the scenes on the Stations of the Cross captured her and she would extend her arm, touching the forms and curves with the tips of her fingers, feeling the shapes develop into recognizable objects. Sometimes, in an effort to feel “religious,” she would look into the faces of the holy statues, and their expressionless eyes would stare back at her with a porcelain look, grotesque and unreal, making her think of the dummy figures in the wax museum at Coney Island of people who had committed horrible crimes.

  She also recalled how when she got home from camp, she told little Benji about her miracle. He had listened wide-eyed, and respectfully nodded when she embellished the story. Nilda loved little Benji; he was a whole year younger than she and she could hover over him and protect him at times like a mother hen. He was solidly built, but short for his age. He had dark olive skin and straight black hair that fell in bangs just above dark brown eyes. There were eight children in little Benji’s family: five sisters and three brothers. He was stacked somewhere in the middle. Benji’s parents were of the Pentecostal faith, fundamentalists, strict in their religious beliefs. Little Benji and his brothers and sisters were not allowed to do a lot of things that other children in the neighborhood did. They could not play ball or participate in street games, or go to parties. Benji had to attend all the religious meetings that were held in the storefront church, “La Roca de San Sebastián, Inc.,” on Lexington Avenue. Whenever she could, Nilda took little Benji to church for Sunday Mass. But his parents frowned at the idea, and it wasn’t easy to convince them.

  Nilda had shared her secret miracle with Benji and no one else. She was glad she didn’t tell Petra or her brother Paul or anyone else; they might make fun of her.

  Today she saw the people returning from the altar, walking up the center aisle, each with the little white wafer in his mouth. They seemed to have an aura of mystery and immeasurable importance. They have been changed, she thought, by the magic ritual. That will make me feel close to God, she almost said aloud. Turning to Petra she whispered, “I think I’m going to receive Holy Communion today.”

  “What?” Petra almost shrieked. “You’re not supposed to. You never been to Confession yet.”

  “I can try it just once before I go to Confession,” argued Nilda.

  “Uh uh, that’s a big sin. You’re gonna have to confess it later on and do a lotta penance. You better not do it.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Marge. Petra leaned over and whispered in Marge’s ear. “That’s a real bad sin,” said Marge. “You wouldn’t dare do that!”

  “Yeah,” said Petra, “you never dare do that!”

  Nilda leaned forward, sitting at the edge of the pew and, in a moment sprang up, following the line of people walking up to the altar.

  Looking straight ahead, she carefully strained to watch exactly what everyone did. When her turn came, she stepped up to the altar, kneeled down and put the palms of her hands together, moving her lips as if in deep prayer, imitating the person who had just vacated that spot. Immediately the priest stood before her, tall and portly, in clean silk robes that shone brilliantly, reflecting the light overhead. He smelled so clean she was convinced he could not stink or go to the toilet like other people and he was indeed related to the statues in the church. She stuck out her tongue and waited. He began to pray in Latin, moving his hands back and forth before her, making the sign of the cross and quickly moving on to the next person, repeating the ritual once more. Tasteless at first, the wafer then felt sticky, like a postage stamp.

  She got up feeling unsteady and overwhelmed by extreme fear. Walking back to her pew, she automatically began to scrape the sticky wafer from the roof of her mouth with her tongue. She sat down with a sense of relief to be back in her seat, thankful no one had struck her dead. As she began to relax a little, she heard the voice of an older girl from the pew behind say, “You’re supposed to let it dissolve in your mouth; you’re not allowed to chew the sacred body of Jesus.”

  The magic transformation that Nilda had anticipated developed instead into a panic. She felt nothing beyond the fear of retaliation for her unholy act. Now they won’t listen anymore, she thought. I’ve given up my right to anymore miracles.

  Late September 1941

  For three weeks Nilda’s stepfather had been in the hospital. Her mother was packing a shopping bag of food and clothes for him.


  “How long is Papá gonna stay there?” Nilda asked her.

  “I don’t know. Your papá is very sick.”

  “What’s wrong again?”

  “He had a bad heart attack and he has to rest a long time.”

  “Ma, is Papá very old?”

  “Old enough.”

  “He looks real old, Mamá. The kids at school asked me once if he is my grandfather.”

  “Well, he’s not and don’t tell him that when he comes home, ¿entiende?”

  Nilda watched her mother. Her jet black hair was parted in the middle; she had not yet knotted it into a chignon and so it hung loosely down her back right to her waistline. Her mother’s skin was very white. She worked very quickly, moving her hands, folding and putting things in the shopping bag. Her dark large eyes looked worried and she kept wetting her lips nervously.

  “Am I gonna look like you when I grow up?”

  “You’re going to look like yourself, Nilda.”

  “Frankie looks like you.”

  “You look like me, too.”

  “Not as much as him.”

  “Ay, chica. Don’t start that nonsense, Nilda; I’m too busy now.”

  Nilda sat sulking. She knew she looked like her real father. This morning when she looked in the mirror and saw herself, studying her eyes, skin and hair very carefully, she had to accept the obvious. Her straight brown hair and Oriental features were just like Leo’s. Even the dark tone of her skin was just like his.

  Frankie walked in. “Ma, when’s lunch?”

  “Frankie, you just had breakfast.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Well, you can have one piece of bread and that’s it. The food will be ready when I come back from the hospital. I have to see Papá, okay?”

  He looks just like Mamá, Nilda thought.

  “I’m waiting for Jimmy to pick me up. He promised to come today with me and Victor to see Papá.” Her mother went on, “Victor is still in the library and I don’t want to be late. Papá looks forward to my visits and the food from home. He says the meals in the hospital are terrible.”

  Jimmy, Nilda’s oldest brother, had left home about six months ago. Her mother and stepfather had pleaded with him to stay, but he quit high school and left. Nilda’s mother lit candles for him every day.

  Aunt Delia walked in holding her copies of the Daily News and La Prensa, the Spanish newspaper. Everybody else shared one copy of the newspaper, but the old woman always had her own copy of both newspapers. “Number 205 came out and I played 286,” she sighed. “Monday I’m going to bet it again but in combination this time.” Betting the numbers and reading the papers absorbed 90 percent of her life. “Look at that!” she said emphatically in Spanish. “They did it again!” The only time the old woman ever spoke English was when she read the Daily News out loud. Opening up her copy of the Daily News, she said, “Somebody’s been cutting up bodies and putting them in the garbage cans. They’re finding the parts of a body all over the city. The head in one place and … listen to this …”

  “Not again,” said Frankie. “I heard that story eight times already this morning.”

  The old lady was almost deaf and went right on reading aloud in English. “In Queens they found two legs wrapped up …”

  Nilda looked at the old, small, thin woman and wondered how her tiny face could hold so many wrinkles. She’s really old looking, way older looking than Papá, she thought.

  “And in Brooklyn, sanitation men discovered part of a torso wrapped up in a cardboard box.”

  “Please, Delia, that’s enough,” her mother said loudly in Spanish.

  “What?”

  “Have something to eat, Delia,” her mother went on, changing the subject.

  “I’m not hungry,” said the old woman.

  “If you would wear your teeth you could chew better and you would eat more.”

  “None of them fit.”

  Nilda’s mother shook her head and sighed. Aunt Delia had five pairs of false teeth. Two had been gotten through the public health service, and three had been given to her by well-meaning neighbors after relatives had died. She would not consider the possibility of wearing a hearing aid, insisting she wasn’t hard of hearing. “Some woman was found raped and beaten after being robbed.”

  “I wonder what’s keeping Victor and Jimmy,” her mother said aloud to herself.

  Nilda got up and walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. Sitting down next to Paul, who was reading the comics, she said, “Don’t you wish Aunt Delia would shut up sometimes? Always talking about some creepy thing.”

  “Even when it’s not in the paper she makes them up,” said Paul.

  All her brothers were older than Nilda, and Paul was third from the oldest; Frankie was the youngest. Paul was the dark one. His skin was the color of cinnamon and his eyes were large and dark like her mother’s. Secretly she loved Paul the best and sometimes felt guilty about it. “Paul, how old you think Aunt Delia is?”

  “I don’t know. She must be real old, I guess.”

  “The kids asked me if she was over one hundred years old.”

  “Go on,” said Paul, “if she were one hundred years old she couldn’t even move.”

  “That’s what I told them. I said she only looks like that ‘cause she got no teeth and she don’t eat, so she gets shriveled.”

  The front door opened and Jimmy and Victor came in together. Victor was carrying his books.

  “Where’s Mamá?” Jimmy asked.

  “In the kitchen. She’s waiting for you; she don’t want to be late,” she replied.

  “Hey, baby! What you doing, ugly?” Jimmy went toward Nilda, who jumped up, giving him a big hug. “I got a new car downstairs; you wanna ride?”

  “Wow, Jimmy, a car! Take me for a ride, please, please!”

  “Okay. When I get back from the hospital with Mamá.”

  “Do it now, just for a minute.”

  “Come on now, you can wait,” he said.

  “You’ll forget, Jimmy, you will.”

  “No, I won’t, I promise.”

  “All right,” she said, smiling. Jimmy went into the kitchen. “Paul, did you hear? Jimmy’s got a car,” she went on. “I’m gonna go down to see it.”

  “Hey yeah, I’ll go with you. Let’s find out what color it is first, Nilda.”

  Nilda and Paul could hear the argument as they started to go into the kitchen.

  “Where you get the car? What’s going on, Jimmy? Job? What kind of job pays such money to a kid like you, eh? What are you doing? God, I got enough grief with Papá sick,” her mother was saying. “Keep away from the drugs, Jimmy.”

  “Aw, Mamá, stop it. It’s this guy I’m working for. He’s got a lot of money and I’m his assistant, you know, drive him around like, and stuff like that. That’s all.”

  Nilda saw her mother wiping her eyes and shaking her head.

  “What color is your car, Jimmy?” Paul asked. “We’re gonna go down to look at it.”

  “It’s a dark green Cadillac convertible. Here’s the key. Open the door and sit down inside till we get downstairs.” He flipped the keys over to Paul, adding, “Here’s a quarter for you and Nilda. You can mind it and make sure nobody sits on it, okay?”

  “Half of that is mine, Paul,” Nilda yelled after him as they both sped downstairs.

  Downstairs, they looked around and saw a brand-new green car. “This must be it, Nilda.”

  “Let’s get in. Hurry up, open it.”

  “Just a minute, I gotta get the key in the lock.” Paul put the key in the lock, opened the door and jumped in the driver’s seat. Nilda hopped in beside him. They opened the windows.

  “Wow! Man, look at all this shiny silver.”

  “That’s called chrome,” said Paul.

  “Well, it’s really beautiful. Let’s turn on the radio.”

  “Okay.” Paul turned a knob and waited. Nothing happened. He then turned a few more buttons and waited. Nothing hap
pened.

  “What’s the matter, Paul?”

  “I don’t know. I guess Jimmy knows how to do it a special way.”

  “I guess so,” said Nilda. She was excited sitting there in the great big new car. She had been for a car ride twice, but that was in old cars. She remembered that once Jacinto the grocer had taken some of the neighborhood kids to Coney Island in his old car. Another time a friend of her stepfather had taken her family to a faraway place called Long Island. It was so crowded and hot during the ride that she had been glad to get out.

  “I think you have to start the car, maybe,” said Paul, “before you can turn on the radio, and we better not do that.”

  “Let’s just sit here,” said Nilda. “This is real cool. Boy, I’ll bet you Jimmy is rich, huh, Paul? He got all them new clothes all the time and everything. I wonder where he lives.”

  “I don’t know, but it must be real nice.”

  “Hey, man!” A group of kids came over. “What’s happening, baby?”

  “This is my brother Jimmy’s car, man.”

  “No shit!” said one of the boys sitting on the fender.

  “Hey, man, get off!” said Paul. “Coño, don’t sit on the car. Can’t you see it’s new?”

  Another boy said, “You bullshitting us, Paul. This ain’t your brother’s car.”

  “He’s not bullshitting. This is our brother Jimmy’s car and he’s right upstairs in my house. He’s coming down any minute. He told us to mind it and gave us a quarter.”

  By this time there was a larger group of kids standing around the car looking at the brand-new shiny vehicle.

  “Wow, this is a really nice car,” said a young girl Nilda recognized. “Can I sit inside with you?”