Hungry Woman in Paris

by Josefina López

  One morning I cooked my mother a diabetic-friendly breakfast and she praised me for being such a good daughter and a good cook.

  “Why don’t you open up a Mexican restaurant?” she suggested. “Maybe I could do tortillas for you by hand. I don’t need my eyesight to make tortillas,” she said proudly. I dismissed her idea and told her I wouldn’t be opening a restaurant anytime soon, but if I ever did I would take her up on her offer. My mother told me to come close to her and to stick out my hand. She put a gold bracelet in my hand and closed it for me to indicate it was a gift for me.

  “I wanted to give you this at your wedding, but here, it’s yours. I’m proud of you,” she said. I was so touched I wanted to cry, but the antidepressant wouldn’t let me. I remembered Altair offering me her gold bracelet after I helped her escape, and I just had to sit down. My mother rolled herself to my side and then I surprised myself. Despite the antidepressant, tears were still capable of escaping out of me. It felt good to cry, even if it was only three tears.

  “Don’t you like it?” my mother asked, confused.

  “Yes. I love it. Thank you, Mama,” I said.

  A month before the wedding I saw flyers on the street announcing an immigrant march to protest the building of the wall between the United States and Mexico, and also against a bill to criminalize anyone aiding undocumented immigrants. I kept one with me and told my mother about the march. She was so outraged by the wall.

  “Que pendejos. Don’t they know they need us?” she muttered.

  I had been so preoccupied with the wedding I hadn’t contacted any of my old friends to ask them about the march. I was waiting to decide what to do about my writing career. I knew I was a writer and that’s why I was put on earth. Writing chooses you; you don’t choose it. Whether I wanted to make my living off my writing was another thing. I was so numb, happy, whatever you want to call it… “nuppy”… let’s call it that… that I couldn’t imagine putting myself through the stress of being mistreated or meeting impossible deadlines and, frankly, who needs an adrenaline rush when you’re taking anti-depressants? For someone like me who was used to being miserable, I was having a hard time recognizing myself. I didn’t crave sugar anymore or food or sex… Yeah, that was the big drawback. I couldn’t come anymore. Armando worked tirelessly to satisfy me but I just lay in bed like a happy idiot, unattached to a result. I stopped making sarcastic remarks about mediocre people getting ahead or all the things I would observe not being right in the world. I could finally understand how a president who’d never gone to war himself could send thousands of soldiers to their deaths, or an immigrant turned governor could praise the works of vigilantes abusing other immigrants as they crossed the desert without documents. Everything was great now; but that was the problem. Life had no edge and I had no opinions of my own.

  Armando had agreed that I would get to decide the kind of menu I wanted for the reception, but I didn’t even care about that anymore. Whatever he wanted was fine by me. He would forsake all others, including his mother, for me. He was even going to let my mother move in with us once we got a big house with a guesthouse in the back.

  The day of the appointment with the caterer I could not find my antidepressant pills. Had I run out of them or had someone hidden them? As I searched for them, my mother told me to come over to her bed.

  “Don’t do it,” she whispered.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Don’t marry him if you don’t want to. I know everyone says you’re happy now, but I don’t see your light anymore,” my mother confided, trying to outline where she used to see the light around me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I know you want to marry him so you can take care of me. I can tell you feel guilty about not calling me and then… making me blind—”

  “I didn’t make you blind!” I interrupted her.

  “I know, I’m joking… I can see this is a sacrifice for you. Don’t go sacrificing yourself for me. Look where it gets you.”

  “No, that’s not true,” I said and dismissed her. I continued looking for the pills.

  “Ten!” she said in Spanish and threw them at me. I grabbed them and went to the bathroom to take one. I saw my unhappy face in the mirror, knowing that in a second I would return to being a happy idiot. I stared at the pill and thought about all the hard work some wonderful person had put into capturing happiness in a pill, and here I was debating the value of this pill in my life. I thought about all those poets and great artists who were depressed who could have been spared their misery or could have avoided suicide if this pill had been around hundreds of years of ago… Yeah, but then we would not have been able to see their beautiful paintings, or heard of their beautiful poetry.

  Yes, I can finally smile and not carry the weight of the world on my back, but what about the moments when I feel people’s pain so deeply that it becomes my own, and those moments when I feel people’s joy so beautifully that it too becomes my own? What about those highs and lows that make me feel alive? But when I take this pill I don’t overeat and I’ve lost twenty pounds, a little voice shouted back at me. Hmm, that was true; if I stopped taking it I would gain back the twenty pounds and maybe even gain another twenty and go back to being a human yo-yo… I seriously considered that objection before thinking how pathetic it would be if my greatest contribution to humanity was losing twenty pounds. I put the pill down and saved it for later, after I had answered my own questions.

  My mother’s nurse arrived and I got ready to go out with Armando. My mother handed me Luna’s letter.

  “How come you haven’t read it? It’s been in my drawer all this time and you knew it was there. Why don’t you read it now?” she challenged me.

  I went to the bathroom and locked myself in. I opened the envelope and saw that there were tearstains on the paper and some of the words were almost illegible. I began to read it.

  “Canela, I’m sorry I am not as courageous as you. Adios.”

  That’s all it said. Damn, why can’t suicide notes be longer! After my burst of anger I cried, picturing Luna drinking from the Coke cans, knowing that little by little she was killing herself softly, sweetly.

  Armando honked when he arrived at my mother’s house and waited outside for me. I quickly told my mother good-bye as I ran past her nurse. I got in his Mercedes and we took off; on the radio a disc jockey on a Spanish radio station encouraged everyone to march and take a stand against HR 4437, the proposed immigration bill. Armando was about to turn off the radio when I told him to stop the car. He pulled to the side of the road and looked at me with concern.

  “I can’t do this,” I said. “I know I love you, but I’m not ready to commit to you or anyone,” I continued courageously, knowing that I couldn’t sell out. For another woman this would be happiness, but for me it was selling out on my dreams. Sure, I would have financial security and a nice husband and all the wonderful things in life called the American dream, but this was not my dream.

  Armando looked at me and sadly asked, “Don’t you get lonely?”

  “Yeah, I do… but even chocolate, as good as it is… gets boring. There are too many flavors to settle for one,” I confessed, wondering if he thought I was a heartless bitch for putting it that way.

  “All right. Give me back the ring,” he said casually. I gave it back. “So you think I’m boring?” he said sadly and put the ring away in his pocket without looking at me.

  “No, you’re not boring, but I know that you can’t live life through me. You have to go live it for yourself. I have a lot of living to do still.”

  “And you can’t do that with me?” he asked. I thought about it for a long time and knew that the answer was private. I can’t be monogamous; I don’t want to be some man’s property or responsibility, or have to ask for permission to take on a cause or a mission in life.

  “No,” I answered. I kissed his hand and got out of his car.

  “Canela, this is the last time I’ll do t
his. I will not pursue you again,” he warned me.

  “Thank you,” I said and closed the door to his Mercedes.

  When I walked into the house my mother could tell by my step that I was sad.

  “What happened? What did he tell you?”

  “I can’t go through with it.” I started crying.

  “So why are you going to cry? You got what you wanted. You should celebrate—you are a free woman again, que no?” my mother said a bit sarcastically.

  “You’re right.” I grabbed her jacket and our purses.

  “We’re going for a little walk.” I pushed my mother’s wheelchair out of the house and into history.

  “Where are we?” my mother asked in the midst of a sea of humanity made up of over four hundred thousand conscious objectors clad in Mexican and American flags, millions of cinnamon souls marching throughout the United States for a piece of the American pie.

  “We are among friends,” I answered her and continued to push her wheelchair very slowly, shoulder to shoulder with immigrants of every color. I heard people shouting all sorts of things, like: “America, you need us. We clean up after you and feed you and take care of your children, and soon we’ll take care of your parents too.” I swear I even heard someone yell in Spanish, “Respect and dessert!” Maybe that should be our version of “Bread and Roses.”

  “Why are people shouting, ‘Today we march, tomorrow we vote’?” asked my mother.

  “Because we’ve had enough,” I proclaimed.

  Epilogue

  Months after I arrived in Los Angeles I got a letter from Altair. She’d gotten my address from Marina and apologized for not contacting me sooner. She informed me that she had called her bodyguard to turn herself in, but because she had escaped from him he’d been fired. He had decided to stay in Paris to look for her and they’d found each other. They are both living in Paris sans papiers, trying to start a new life together.

  Frenchwomen don’t get fat and Japanese women don’t grow old or get fat… but Latina women do. We get fat and we wrinkle, but our wrinkles come from laughing and crying. We know how to feel and eat; we know how to love and to come; we know how to live ourselves to death.

  Everything is about food and hunger, whether it is hunger for the body or hunger for the soul. As long as I am alive I will always be hungry for revolution, for justice and truth, but I am no longer hungry for my soul the way I used to be. I have plenty of beautiful memories and life-inspiring moments to nourish my soul for many lifetimes… I hope this was delicious.

  Glossary of French and Spanish Words and Terms

  Allez, allez (F): Come on, come on

  à l’orange (F, cooking): prepared with an orange sauce

  Ama (S, slang): Mom

  Amuse-bouche (F): a tiny appetizer before the appetizer; literally, amusement to the mouth

  Apéritif (F): a drink before dinner to whet the appetite

  ¡Apurate! (S): Hurry up!

  Arrondisements (F): neighborhoods of Paris

  Au revoir (F): Good-bye

  Au revoir les euros (F): Good-bye to the Europeans

  ¡Ay, que vergüenza! (S): How embarrassing!

  Bain-marie (F, cooking): a metal bowl that is placed over boiling water such as when heating eggs in hollandaise sauce

  Banlieue (F): outskirts, also a connotation for ’hood, projects

  Batons (F, cooking): sticks

  BCBG, bon chic, bon genre (F): well dresssed, stylish

  Bienvenu (F): Welcome

  Blanc de barbue poêlé (F): pan-fried brill fillet

  Blanquette de veau à l’ancienne (F): traditional veal stew

  Bonjour (F): Hello, good day

  Botânica (S): Latino shop offering cures for the spirit; sells herbs, candles, saints, and the like

  Brunoise (F, cooking): finely diced carrot, celery, leek, or zucchini

  Bueno pues (S): Well, then

  Buñuelos (S): Mexican pastry consisting of a fried flour tortilla with sugar and cinnamon

  Caliente (S): hot, horny

  Callate (S): Be quiet, shut up

  Calle (S): street

  Canela (S): cinnamon

  Carte de séjour (F): a residency card

  Casa chica (S): small house, the small house for the mistress

  Ça va? (F, slang): How’s it going? Are you all right?

  Ce n’est pas mon problème (F): It’s not my problem

  C’est facile (F): It’s easy

  C’est fini (F): It’s finished

  C’est fou! (F): It’s crazy!

  C’est ma vie (F): It’s my life

  C’est parfait (F): It’s perfect

  C’est tout (F): That’s all.

  Chambre de bonne (F): a nanny’s or servant’s room, usually a small room on the upper floor of an apartment building

  Chérie, chéri (F): dear, darling

  Chicana (S): A female of Mexican descent; also, a woman with a Chicana consciousness

  Chismosa (S): gossipper

  Cochina (S): pig, dirty girl

  Confit (F, cooking): a sieved purée or sauce, often made with tomatoes or fruits combined with a sweetener and a small amount of lemon juice

  Corranle (S): run

  Curandera (S): a female healer

  Crépine (F, cooking): intestine lining from a pig used to wrap around meat or food to seal it in the oven

  ¿De dónde es usted? (S): Where are you from?

  Deux Magots (F): a famous French restaurant where Hemingway and notable French people like Sartre hung out

  Doña (S): Madam

  Donde el va, yo ya vine (S): Where he is headed, I’ve already arrived

  ¿Eres tú? (S): Is that you?

  Escargot (F): snail

  Es una locura (S): It’s insanity

  Et voilà (F): And here it is

  Foie gras (F): goose liver

  Grenouille (F): frog

  Haricots verts (F): green beans

  Hola (S): Hello

  Je m’appelle Marina, et vous? (F): My name is Marina, and you?

  La Calaca Flaca (S): The skinny skeleton

  La Llorona (S): The crying woman; a character from a ghost legend, she roams the rivers of Mexico looking for her children, whom she drowned

  Madame Bodé (F): Mrs. Nosy

  Macaron (F): a French pastry, round with a sweet and creamy center made in just about any color and flavor

  Magnifique (F): magnificent

  Mais de quoi tu parles? (F): But what are you talking about?

  Mais pourquoi? (F): But why?

  Mais, vous êtes mexicaine, n’est-ce pas? (F): But you are Mexican, aren’t you?

  Merci (F): Thank you

  Metiche (S): nosy

  Mexique (F): Mexico

  Migra (S, slang): Immigration authorities

  Mira (S): look

  Mirepoix (F, cooking): vegetables cut into half-inch lengths and roughly diced (traditionally carrot, onion, celery, and leek), used to flavor sauces, soups, and stews

  N’est-ce pas? (F): Don’t you think? or Isn’t it so?

  ¡No mas corta, corta! (S): Just cut, cut!

  No te creo (S): I don’t believe you

  Omelette à la crème de la Mère Poulard (F): omelette made with Mother Poulard’s cream

  Paleta (S): icicle

  Paysane (F, cooking): mixture of vegetables cut into small squares, triangles, diamonds or rounds

  Pendeja (S, slang): idiot

  Phyllo (Greek, cooking): a special dough developed for Greek cuisine and also used in French pastries

  Pinche, pinchi (S, slang): damned, stupid

  Planchette (F): cutting board

  Por favor (S): Please

  Pues (S): well

  Puta (S): whore

  Que milagro (S): What a miracle

  ¿Qué no? (S): Isn’t it so?

  Qui? (F): Who?

  Qui sont les assistants? (F): Who are the assistants?

  Rapido (S): Hurry, fast

 
Sans-gêne (F): rude, overly forward

  Sans papiers (F): without papers, undocumented

  Saumon farcie en feuille de chou vert (F, cooking): stuffed salmon wrapped in green cabbage

  S’il vous plaît (F): Please; if you would like

  Sí, Mama, soy yo (S): Yes, mother, it is me

  También (S): also, as well

  Terrine (F, cooking): paté

  T’es folle (F) You are crazy

  Tía Bonifacia (S): Aunt Bonifacia (Goodface)

  Travail (F): work

  Truite farcie aux morilles (F, cooking): Trout with morel mushrooms

  Tú de veras estás loca (S): You are truly crazy

  Une minute, s’il vous plaît! (F): Just a minute, please.

  Vámonos (S): Let’s go

  Viva México (S): Long live Mexico

  Voilà l’apéritif (F): Here is the aperitif (the drink before the meal)

  Voulez-vouz danser avec moi? (F): Would you like to dance with me?

  Ya ves (S): you see

  Reading Group Guide

  Compare and contrast Canela’s immigrant experiences in the United States and France. Have you ever lived in another country? If so, how did your experience compare with Canela’s?

  Chart Canela’s romantic and sexual relationship with Henry. How does her relationship with him compare to her relationships with other men, like Armando or Yves?

  Why is Canela so hungry and depressed? Do you think there is just one reason or many reasons? Do you think she knows why she is depressed, or could there be something outside of what she shares with the reader that is causing her pain?