The Children of Sanchez (20 page)

As a result of all this attention and affection she showed me, in a sisterly way, my love grew day by day. I more than loved her, I worshiped her, and for many years I suffered. My suffering began from the time she came to our house. I realized it wasn’t logical, it wasn’t reasonable for me to have this feeling toward her, but I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t tell her I loved her and not exactly in a brotherly way, for she had the same blood I did. So far as I know, my father never noticed my suffering, nor did my brother or sisters.

Well, it came to the point where I tried to keep her from having
novios
, and of course I had more than one reason for doing so. I didn’t want her to look at absolutely anybody, I just wanted her to look at me. And I suffered on that account, because she liked the boys.

So, because of Antonia, I began to stay away from home. It was one of the main reasons I started to go on the bum, looking for trouble. When I felt I couldn’t stand it any longer, I’d pick up with just the money and clothes I had on me, many times with only five lousy
centavos
in my pocket, and just go off.

There isn’t a state in Mexico I haven’t set foot in. And I’ve been across the border twice … a wetback at fourteen! I feel as though I’ve traveled the world. I would go with the idea of not returning or at least of staying away long enough to forget. The thing was to get away so as not to tell her anything. I didn’t want to be close to temptation.

When Antonia had her sickness, I could tell from the very beginning that there was something wrong with her. But I never did know who was the rat who made her pregnant. I have never found out and that has always bothered me. Yolanda, our neighbor, tried to get me into a fight with my best friend, Ruperto, by telling me he was the one. He denied that he had ever been her boy friend when I threw it up to him, but since they stuck the thorn into my heart, the doubt in my mind has remained ever since.

I knew that it was Luz, the policeman Fulgencio’s wife, who made Antonia abort. As a matter of fact, I was even in the house when it happened because they took out a bunch of bloody rags in a paper bag. After that, Antonia was sick and sort of nervous and had some very nasty attacks. She’d scratch on the sheets and pull out her hair and bite herself. We’d hold her down, because she really bit herself hard, like she meant it. She would kick out and it was tough on anyone who tried to grab her because she’d scratch his skin off. She went so far as to strike my father. She also gave me a couple of kicks in the chest which knocked me over, but that was when she was having a crazy fit and didn’t recognize absolutely anybody.

Then they sent her to a sanatorium for treatment and I didn’t get to see her. I suffered a lot in those days, and later too, because I saw that other boys had their girl friends and they embraced and kissed them, and talked with them, but me … sometimes I asked myself why I had to go and fall in love with my sister.

Then I joined the army, first because I wanted to be a soldier, but most of all, because it was getting impossible for me at home.

I
HAD NOTHING BUT BITTERNESS ALL THROUGH MY CHILDHOOD AND A
feeling of being alone. We lost our mother when all of us were little: Manuel was barely eight years old, Roberto was six, I was four, and my sister Marta was two. I hardly remember anything about that time. When my mother died, I saw her stretched out, partly covered by a sheet. She looked very serious. Someone lifted us up to kiss her and then they covered her face. That was all.

I felt alone partly because of losing my mother and partly because of the way my brothers and sister treated me. I was never as close to them as they were to each other. They would share candy and toys while I had to beg them for things. Manuel defended Roberto from the other kids in school and even though he would clout him on the head, Manuel would help my brother with his homework.

If I just raised my voice to Marta, I would be beaten by my brothers, especially Roberto. My body hurt from these vicious beatings but it was nothing in comparison with the pain, strong and sharp, that I felt when I saw how they hated me. While my stepmother, Elena, was still alive she defended me, even though they made her cry too. Either she or I would complain to my father, who handed out rough treatment to my brothers. But the next day my brothers would punish me.

I felt hounded by my brothers. I wasn’t afraid of them really, but rather felt a deep emotion that I relieved by crying secretly in the corner between the bed and the wardrobe, I would cry until I was tired or until La Chata, the woman who worked for us, returned from the market. She would comfort me and call me “daughter,” which I didn’t like but didn’t dare complain about.

On a few occasions I felt happy because my brothers would tell me a story or describe a Nativity scene or give me a little present. It was generally Roberto, because Manuel never gave us anything. Once in a while he would buy us
tepache
, a drink made of pineapple, vinegar, sugar and water, to have with our dinner. Manuel was in charge of correcting us at the table when we ate and he made us miserable by trying to act like the older brother.

He would come in at mealtime and start ordering us around with his sergeant’s voice. “Skinny, go call Chubby!” But Marta almost always refused to come … we had to pull her in by the hair or by the arm. Then she would flop down on the box which served as her chair, making a show of her bad humor. I would say, “Go wash your hands, you pig.”

“What business is it of yours? Damned skinny brat! Always butting in where she shouldn’t.”

“Shut your snout and go wash,” Manuel would order.

“Oh, I’m terribly afraid of you! Shut me up if you can, you cursed
Chino
.”

Manuel would start to take off his belt to hit her and Marta would then get up, quickly dip her hands in the white enamel washbasin, wipe her hands on her dress, and fall back into her chair, making faces at him.

Manuel would then send me to buy the
tepache
. I would object. “Not me! It is always me! You’re not a king here. You don’t even let a person eat.” But I would go.

Roberto usually came running in while we were eating. If the janitor or someone was chasing him, he would enter through the roof, yelling insults at whoever was after him. Then he could say, “Have you finished eating? Is there anything for me?” And La Chata or Santitos, or whoever was serving us, would give him some food too. He would grab the jar of
tepache
and take a long gulp, without bothering to get a glass. This would get Manuel angry.

“You bastard! Why are you such a pig? Can’t you drink like other people? You are always being a slob.”

Roberto would smile. “Each of us swallows in our own way, no?” The he would begin eating his toasted
tortillas
. At the first sound of noisy chewing, Manuel would throw a spoon or
tortilla
at him and a fight would start. That was the way the meals went … Manuel scolding and hitting and the rest of us fighting back. The meals usually
ended with Roberto going to eat in the kitchen, Marta running out crying, without finishing, me sitting quietly for fear of being hit, and only our big brother enjoying the food.

Things like this happened when we were alone, because on Wednesdays, my father’s day off, nobody dared speak at dinner. The first one he heard open his mouth he would send to eat in the kitchen. This was more apt to happen to the two boys; Marta and I were only scolded, with: “Shut your mouth,” “Learn to eat right,” “What’s going on? Is an animal eating, or what?” He would turn to us with a cold look which made me, at least, feel afraid.

Wednesday was the day when I got even with my brothers for everything they did to me during the week. The thing that annoyed my brothers more than anything else was for my father to send them on errands. I would tell my father I felt like having chocolate, a fried egg, or a
torta
to take to school. Immediately, my father would send Manuel or Roberto to the store to buy the tablet to make chocolate. If it was an egg I wanted, they would have to fry it for me. At night it was the same; I would begin to pester for things. It made me happy inside to see my brothers’ angry faces and I would take advantage of the situation to get them into trouble. “Look,
papá
, he says he’s not going to. He’s hunching up his shoulders at you. He’s giving me dirty looks.” These were the lies I told to get my brothers punished.

The next day the blows from my brothers would begin. I would fight back but in the end it was I whose body was black and blue, or whose nose or mouth was bloody. My brother Roberto must have thought he was fighting with another boy, for once we were on the floor, he would kick me or I would be forced to go under the bed. Nearly always I had to call for help from a neighbor,
Señora
Yolanda, or I used to run crying to
Señor
Fulgencio, a policeman who lived with his wife in No. 68, and ask him to punish my brother.

I have always been the sickly one of the family and my nickname, which I detested, was “Skinny.” My father used to worry a lot about my health, for I kept catching colds or getting intestinal infections. Once I lost a whole year of school because I was sick. My father took me to a homeopathic doctor who gave me tiny pills to take every half-hour. His favorite remedy was enemas of boiled senna leaves and my father plied me with them. I spent a lot of time alone in bed. My father never allowed visitors in the house, and my brothers and sister would play outside all day.

My
papá
had taught us to always keep our mouths shut. We were not supposed to answer back a single word to anybody if we were scolded about our behavior. Always, always, whatever grownups did was right. “Respect grownups”—those were the words I would hear when I wanted to talk back to La Chata or to complain about school.

Toward my father I did feel respect, as well as fear and much love. When I was a little girl, they would say to me, “Here comes your
papá
,” and this would be enough to set me trembling and make my heart beat hard. In the Casa Grande he almost never let us go out into the courtyard, and those were his orders to La Chata. So when my sister and I would go out I was afraid we wouldn’t get back to the house before my father arrived. Our playmates knew my father’s rules and when they would see him appear at the entrance to the tenement they would warn us, shouting: “Here comes your father.” The distance between me and the house seemed like endless kilometers.

If my father caught us in the courtyard he would push against the back of our necks and say to us: “Where did I leave you?
Zas!
Into the house! There is no reason to go out, you have everything in the house!” This scolding also carried over to the person who was taking care of us. When he scolded her with: “Why are the children outdoors,
señora
? What are you here for?” La Chata would only say, “
Ay, señor
, but they go out, they don’t obey me.” Then my father would square accounts with us.

But I do not remember that he hit us girls like he did my brothers when someone complained about them. He would beat them hard and this frightened me very much. He hit them with the electric-light cable or with the kind of leather strap that had a flexible end. The next day I could see how their flesh stood up and turned black and blue. Thank God, I never was given a real beating like my brothers were.

When my father came home from his work at the restaurant, he would wash his feet, change his socks and sit down to read his newspaper. I used to look at what he was reading, but I didn’t dare ask about it, because he never liked us to interrupt him. The only one who could interrupt my father was Marta. He would hold her on his knees or seat her on the table so that she could play with the unlit cigarette he always held between his lips. Then he would give her five
centavos
and send her out to play.

When he came home in a good mood, my father would sit in the
kitchen in a little chair and delouse us, comb us, or fasten our shoes. When he took care of us like that, I felt an enormous pleasure, since I always noticed that his ordinary manner was to have a hard expression on his face, with his cigarette in his mouth, his hand on his forehead, and his feet tapping at a fast rhythm under the table. This kept me from seeking his caresses, his affection, particularly when I would try to talk to him and before finishing the word
“papá,”
I was shut up. “Go on, go on and play somewhere. Stop bothering me. What a nuisance,
hombre!
You don’t let a person read in peace.”

There were very few times that I came near my father. I almost always preferred to do my sewing, or my homework, or to be playing with my dishes on the floor near the kitchen door. I would tell my sister: “Ask my father for money to buy candy,” “Tell him to give you milk.” Sometimes my sister succeeded in making herself heard and sometimes she was also shut up. So then I would ask Elena or La Chata to ask him for a bit of sugar or food to play with.

One of the things I remember clearly was that we moved many times when I was young. This annoyed me very much because my father would give us no warning. He would come home from work, order the boys to roll up the mattresses with whatever happened to be on the beds, dump clothing and kitchen things in boxes, and start carrying pieces of furniture to the new house. If something was cooking on the stove, whoever was taking care of us at the time would have to carry the pots, hot charcoals and all. I used to think, “What a nuisance, back and forth, moving from one place to another,” but I never protested aloud.

The first move, after my mother’s death, was to the
vecindad
on Cuba Street, where we met Elena. She later became our stepmother. Elena lived with her husband, a few doors away. She had no children, and she let Marta and me come and play with some little yellow ducks she was raising. One day my father invited Elena to eat with us. This was odd because my father never liked to have strangers in the house. We children didn’t ask any questions but just ate quietly, watching. My
papá
was very nice to her. After that she stayed in our house and lived with us.