The Children of Sanchez (44 page)

I paid no attention to the pain. I kept my mind on fulfilling my vow and not backtracking. The rougher the road, the better for me, because the more I suffered physical pain, the more satisfied I was. For me, that was the purpose of the pilgrimage, to suffer and make a sacrifice. I felt beaten down and in despair going there, but on the way back I felt only a great sense of relief.

A short time later, I was picked up by the police and put into jail for not signing in for my first offense during the seven months I was in jail. When you don’t sign in three consecutive times, the bonding company informs the Secret Service and the police start to look for you. I think that is unconstitutional, because the bonding companies should have their own private police, not the ones from the judiciary. Anyway, I got out right away. I hung around for a while and then took off for Veracruz.

T
HE NIGHT MARTA WAS MISSING, I WORRIED MORE ABOUT WHAT MY
father would say than about Marta. Roberto looked for her everywhere, while Paula and I waited at home. Finally, we heard my father’s key in the door. I made believe I was sewing; Paula and the baby were asleep. My father immediately asked, “Where is Marta?” His voice sounded dry and punishing. I didn’t dare answer. Roberto jumped up as he always did when my father came in, and said, “She hasn’t come home.” We waited for a deluge of strong words and curses, but my father knew how to surprise us. He said, “
Ay, ay
, let’s go look for her.” They both went out.

A little later I heard Manuel whistle and I opened the door for him. He never asked questions about the family and this time was no exception. I didn’t tell him anything and watched him spread his “bed” on the floor. He was lying down when my father walked in. “What happened? Did she come back?” Manuel jumped up without understanding.

My father turned on him. “Go look for your sister,
cabrón
, bastard! Here you He while she is out there! Let’s go.” Generally, Manuel was slow to carry out an order, but this time he became light as a feather.

The three returned very late. My father’s face was hard and bitter, Roberto hung his head, Manuel was sleepy-eyed. My father ordered us to go to sleep and turned out the light. I could see his short form, unmoving, standing in the kitchen, as though rooted to the cement floor. He was smoking, and the red tip of the cigarette burned in the dark. I did not comprehend the significance of my sister’s act. I knew only that my father was sad and worried. I fell asleep, waiting, waiting.

My father awakened the boys very early and made them go out to
look for Marta. He left me the telephone number of the café and went to work. At about three o’clock in the afternoon, Marta walked in. She looked so young with her braids and socks! But she seemed to expect a fight and I gave it to her. I took my role of older sister seriously. “Where were you last night?” She turned and gave me a look of scorn which made me furious. She began to insult me and I grabbed a belt which was hanging behind the door. I managed to hit her a few times, but she defended herself, screaming and scratching. The fight ended when Roberto came home.

I went to the water tank in the courtyard to wash the blood from my arms and it was there that I learned from Irela that Marta had spent the night with Crispín, the one who later became her husband. I understood then and began to cry inconsolably. Crispín’s parents came to talk with my father, but I didn’t hear them because I was sent out of the house.

When Marta went to live with Crispín I was very angry. I had dreamed of her studying and going to school, neatly dressed and with eyeglasses. I had imagined her at her fifteenth birthday party and her wedding, with my father leading her to the altar! In place of my dream I began to see a nightmare, my little sister living in free union, carrying her child, going to the plaza in a torn apron, uncombed hair, and flapping shoes. Thus was another of my illusions destroyed.

When I first visited the room Crispín set up for Marta, I was impressed because it had everything they needed, a bed, a table and chairs, a little kerosene stove and enough dishes and pots. But later they quarreled a lot and when Marta told me that Crispín had hit her, how angry I became. I saw him as a brutal, jealous husband, who didn’t fulfill his obligations. I mixed into their arguments, always defending my sister. But later, when I heard Crispín’s side of the story, I realized that it was Marta’s fault. She insisted on going out with my brother Roberto and with her gang of friends, exactly as she had before her marriage. When Crispín objected, she threatened to get Roberto after him. Roberto backed up Marta in everything and, as a result, Crispín didn’t want any of us to visit them. When I criticized Marta for not keeping her house clean, or for not obeying her husband, she would turn on me and accuse me of liking Crispín. After that, I kept out of their affairs, but I still believe that if Marta had behaved better, she and Crispín might have had a good life together.

At home, Paula was expecting her second child. My father had a
wire strung across the room to curtain off her bed and behind it Alanes was born. Over a year later, Domingo came into the world. My nieces and nephews were well received when they arrived, but the first one, Mariquita, was always the favorite. She brightened up the house and I fell in love with her.

I also learned to love Paula, who seemed like a saint. She lived for her children, although she punished them in a way that infuriated me. My Mariquita was only eleven months old when she tasted the back of her mother’s hand. For some reason, Paula held that little girl responsible for everything her brothers did. If they wet the bed, or fell, or knocked something over, it was Mariquita who had her hair pulled or her bottom spanked. I never dared interfere but usually left the house, slamming the door behind me.

Paula loved Manuel no matter how wretchedly he behaved to her. She covered up his faults and never complained to us or to my father. She spent all day sewing and mending, and caring for the children. She rarely saw a movie or went out or had an extra dress. Manuel was always out of the house, coming home after midnight or at dawn. Paula was ready to serve him at any hour, turning on the light, waking up everyone in order to give him his meal. Or sometimes at three or four o’clock in the morning he would turn on the light to read. This made me very angry because I had to get up early to go to work, but Paula never said a word about it.

I don’t remember ever seeing my brother treat his wife with affection. He spoke brusquely to her or not at all, burying himself in a magazine or newspaper story. I don’t believe he really loved her. He even preferred to sleep on the floor rather than crowd into bed with her and the children, but, in any case, their marital life was handicapped because they had no privacy. Once in a while they would tell us they were going to a movie but I think they went to a hotel instead.

As I grew older, I became more aware of the restrictions one had to put up with when a whole family lived in a single room. In my case, because I lived in fantasy and liked to daydream, I was especially annoyed by having my dreams interrupted. My brothers would bring me back to reality with, “Hey, what’s the matter with you! You look dopey.” Or I’d hear my father’s voice, “Wake up, you. Always in the clouds! Get moving, fast!”

Coming back to earth, I had to forget the pretty home I was imagining and I looked at our room with more critical eyes. The crude dark
wardrobe, so narrow it reminded me of a coffin, was crowded with the clothing of five, seven or nine people, depending upon how many were living there at the time. The chiffonier, too, had to serve the entire family. Dressing and undressing without being seen was a problem. At night, we had to wait until the light was out or undress under the blanket or go to sleep in our clothing. Antonia cared least about being seen in her slip, but Paula, Marta and I were very modest. Roberto, too, would get up in the morning wrapped in his blanket and go into the kitchen to dress. We women wouldn’t dress until the men and children went out so we could close the door. But there was always someone wanting to get in, impatiently banging and telling us to hurry. We could never dawdle.

It would have been a great luxury to be able to linger at the mirror to fix my hair or to put on make-up; I never could because of the sarcasm and ridicule of those in the room. My friends in the Casa Grande complained of their families in the same way. To this day, I look into the mirror hastily, as though I were doing something wrong. I also had to put up with remarks when I wanted to sing, or lie in a certain comfortable position or do anything that was not acceptable to my family.

Living in one room, one must go at the same rhythm as the others, willingly or unwillingly—there is no way except to follow the wishes of the strongest ones. After my father, Antonia had her way, then La Chata, then my brothers. The weaker ones could approve or disapprove, get angry or disgusted but could never express their opinions. For example, we all had to go to bed at the same time, when my father told us to. Even when we were grown up, he would say, “To bed! Tomorrow is a work day.” This might be as early as eight or nine o’clock, when we weren’t at all sleepy, but because my father had to get up early the next morning, the light had to be put out. Many times I wanted to draw or to read in the evening, but no sooner did I get started when, “To bed! Lights out!” and I was left with my drawing in my head or the story unfinished.

During the day it was Antonia who chose the radio programs we all had to listen to; in the evenings it was my father. We especially hated the Quiz Kids (
los niños Catedráticos
) because my father would say, “A child of eight and he knows so much … and you donkeys, you don’t want to study. Later you’ll be sorry.” When my father or Antonia were not at home, how we would fight over the radio!

If La Chata was in charge of the house, she lorded it over us in her own way. She made us wait in the courtyard until she finished cleaning and sometimes, due to the cold, I would have to go to the toilet. She would refuse to open the door and I would jump up and down yelling, for all the neighbors to hear, “
Ay
, La Chata, let me in. I have to go. I can’t stand it any longer.” Then she would get even by leaving the front door open so that the passers-by in the courtyard could see my feet under the door of the toilet. I would try to hide my feet and would beg her to please shut the front door. But she’d say, “Oh, who’s going to notice a kid.”

The toilet, with its half-door, gave us almost no privacy. It was so narrow that La Chata had to go in sidewise and leave the shutter ajar in order to sit down. Antonia would always crack some joke about the person using the toilet. If Manuel stayed in too long, as he usually did, she would say, “Cut it short or shall I bring you the scissors?” To me she’d say, “Are you still there? I thought you were already in San Lazaro.” San Lazaro is the exit of the city sewage system and she meant that I had fallen into the drainpipe. Other times I was the one who gave trouble. I would tease Roberto when he was in the toilet by opening the front door, saying the smell was too strong. He would shout angrily, “Close that door or you’ll see what happens.” But I would escape into the courtyard before he came out. Or when someone was in the toilet I would begin dancing in front of the door and yelling that I had to go in. I remember Manuel coming out holding his magazine or comics between his teeth, pulling up his pants, looking daggers at me. Antonia never came out until she was ready, no matter how much of a scandal was made, and often were the times when I had to chase everyone out of the room so that I could use the chamber pot.

Sometimes the jokes were rude. Antonia was constipated and suffered very much from gas. She tried to hold it but often she just laughed and said, “Why should I hold it in if it gives me stomach aches.” But if any of us went to the toilet for that reason she would joke about it, “How hoarse you are … you have a cough, pal.” And we might say, “And when you go on like a machine gun at night we can even see your blanket rising.” When we were little and someone made a noise my father would laugh and say, “
Ay
, who was that? It must have been a rat.” But later he would scold harshly and send the guilty one to the toilet. When he was not present, Manuel and Roberto
would carry on by calling each other names like “slob” or “pig” and making each other blush for shame. If no one commented, we usually passed over a slip and paid no attention to it.

But these annoyances were insignificant compared to that of being scolded in the presence of everyone else. I often thought that if my father had berated me in private, I would not have minded so much. But everyone heard the awful things he said to me, even though they pretended not to, and it hurt and shamed me more. My sisters and brothers felt the same way. When one of us was scolded, the others felt equally punished. My father’s words would build up little by little, until they covered us and made us fall in a crisis of tears.

I began to stay away from my home as much as I could. While my father did not live with us I went to all the dances I wanted to, even against Roberto’s wishes. Manuel did not care very much what I did, but Roberto still watched me like a hawk. If I danced two or three consecutive dances with the same boy, he would say, “Don’t dance with him any more. I can’t stand him!” He would look at the boy fit to kill; they could tell just by looking at him that he was keeping an eye on me. If I didn’t obey, he would yank me out of my partner’s arms and drag me home. I would go back to the dance if I could, just to show him that he couldn’t order me around. But he would tell my father and I would be scolded. Even when I cried and promised not to go any more, as soon as the music began I couldn’t hold back. I would leave my coffee on the table and run to the dance.

Roberto’s friend, Pedro Ríos, who lived in the Casa Grande, had become my
novio
even before my father left us. Pedro was very nice and let pass all the bad times I gave him. One of the things he disliked most was for me to go to dances. But I went anyway, to get even with him for getting drunk. He would watch me, then take me out on the floor to talk to me while we danced.