The Children of Sanchez (50 page)

I thought and thought of how I could escape from there. I loved my aunt for her sweetness and goodness but I hated to live in such squalor. My aunt was getting childish and lived like a happy girl, the friend of everyone, without distinguishing between good and bad. Her tiny figure, her white hair, her happy laugh, reminded me of a doll, deteriorated from misuse. She lived in a reduced world; her games were washing and ironing clothes, and drinking with my uncle and their friends. With all her virtues, she liked to talk a lot and her gossip and vulgar expressions made my head spin.

The people they knew were different from those I was used to. It was all very well that they treated me with respect, lots of respect, but the odor of alcohol, the dampness, the bedbugs, the cramped quarters, the people who lived in that
vecindad …
In the rainy season my aunt’s little room, which was reached by going down a few steps, was often flooded. The courtyard where the water taps were, became a sea of mud. To keep a job I had to be well groomed and I couldn’t be that here. How could I live in this place? I kept thinking until my head ached. I found no solution.

To put the finishing touch to my state, Jaime arrived at dawn, very drunk and shouting, “If you don’t come out, I’ll kick on the door.”

All the neighbors must have been aware of what was going on. I had no choice but to go out. “Jaime, you’re dead drunk again! Haven’t you any pity on me? Please let us sleep.” He just mumbled incoherently and staggered. He said he could fight six or seven men—to let him at my father or my brother. He had had many battles with various men that same night, in all of which he had come out victorious, and the glory was all for me. I stopped crying when he said this. But the next moment I hated him when he said, “You should see how much you look like Bélica. But
she
obeys me,
she
does what I want. For you I am nothing but a toy, a puppet. But not for her—she loves me! Bélica, Bélica.”

The worst of it was that I still expected pity and consolation from Jaime. I saw in him a tiny ray of hope, of light, to lead me away from what was blinding me and dulling my mind. But instead of loving
words he had only glassy eyes which seemed to see me from a great distance.

The more I asked for peace, even for one night, the more calamities fell upon me. I was getting it from both sides daily. From my father with his insults and at my aunt’s, from the ugly surroundings, the poverty, the lack of facilities, not being able to get away from Jaime, not having a job, feeling hungry all the time. All this had me in such a state of nerves that anything made me cry.

I sought advice from the priest. “There is nothing else you can do but become independent. If you have some relative, go and live with him. Leave your father; get away from him.” My aunt said the same: “Come over here, my daughter. You’ll have food here, even if it’s only beans and hard
tortillas
. The day we have, we eat, and the day we don’t, we don’t. We can manage. Stop torturing yourself now. Leave your father.”

One night I went with my aunt to watch a dance at the Casa Grande. How my father found out I was there, I don’t know, but he sent my brother for me. I refused to go. “What does he want me for? To throw me out?” Then my father came out and made Roberto pull me into the house. Face to face with my father, I stood up to him, ready for anything. He said, “What a spectacle you are making of yourself, you fool!” He said it was a fine life I was leading, going to dances and from one man to another. “Do you want to end up on the streets?”

When he said that, I exploded with rage. Before, I had always lowered my head at his words, but not since he had thrown me out of the house for that woman. I answered him, clenching my fists, “If I go out on the streets, it will be your fault. All I do is follow the example you have given me. First, that Claudia, and now this woman, the likes of whom you can find on any street corner.” He slapped me, but I didn’t feel the blows. “I won’t shut up. Hit me all you want. I won’t shut up.” Then Roberto slapped me.

I screamed at them, “Hit me, hit me all you want, but you’ll never wipe out the hate I have. I am your daughter, but you’ll get tired of
her
and afterwards no one will even remember who she was. I warn you that if anything happens to me, it will be your fault and your fault alone.” I was out of my mind with anger. I felt the blood in my brain and saw sparks. I thought my head would burst. My poor father was frightened and tried to embrace me, but I screamed, “Don’t touch me. I tell you, don’t touch me. Get away from me.”

“Drop your eyes,” he said. “Don’t you dare look at me like that!”

“I don’t have to, because my conscience is clean.”

Out in the courtyard again. I kept crying, thinking of one thing after another without being able to find a solution. I looked up at the brightest stars and begged Elena and my mother to make my father understand. I sat down on the pavement and my hand touched a razor blade. That was the solution—to open the veins in my arms and feet. Imagine the look on my father’s face when he leaves for work and finds me lying outside his door bleeding!

“He’ll be sorry.” I cried even harder to think of Jaime. He would see that I didn’t just try to scare people the way he did. I began to scrape the veins on my wrists but it hurt. “It will get infected,” I thought. Then I laughed at myself. “It will get infected!” But either my skin was very tough or the razor blade was no good, or, what is closer to the truth, I didn’t have the courage; I succeeded in making only a small cut, which was very painful. I threw away the blade and went to my aunt’s house.

When I thought of my sister and my brothers, I became bitter, for not one of them would or could help me. Of the three, Manuel had the hardest heart. He was never there when he was needed and even if he were, nothing concerned him. He reminded me of a person walking backwards in darkness, without setting foot upon solid ground. He walked and walked and got nowhere. He just moved his legs to give people the impression he was doing something. His gaze was fixed upon little stars shining in the firmament. He tried to catch them and when he managed to get one, he would sit down there in the infinite emptiness and play with it until the dazzling light lost its power. Then he would leave the dead star floating in the air, and go irresistibly after another.

He never looked to either side or downward, because if he did, he would see the dark abyss beneath him. He was in dread of falling; if he ever reached the ground, he would feel how rugged and hard is the road where people walk. So he looked upward to the heavens, not to implore, but to make loud excuses when he fell. “I didn’t see … I didn’t know.”

Maybe he was afraid of being judged or smashed down, or of finding that he had no salvation. Maybe that was why he had two or three personalities and many faces. He tried to show that he had an invincible worldly quality, but it was a lie. He was only superficial and cynical. He had a spark of generosity and appreciation in him, perhaps
because he had known his mother’s and Paula’s love, but why wasn’t he more human? He knew the damage he did, but under no circumstance would he say, “Yes, I did it.”

Why did he show such fury when he was in a fight and yet turn his back when he had to face problems that came up? He claimed he loved Paula very much. Then why didn’t he marry her? When a Latin really wants to capture some illusion, whether out of vanity or caprice, the first thing he will do is get married. He managed to be a winner in card playing, why then, when his father gave him the opportunity of setting up a shoe shop, didn’t he come out on top? If he studied up on gambling, why didn’t he take the same trouble to find out the value of a nail, for example? Why?

And why did he always have to be shirking responsibilities? He closed his eyes to everything. Any idea of unity or aid from him was impossible. When I was in trouble he said to me, “The day you need help, don’t count on me. If I happen to see you someday in a cabaret, just assume that I’m not your brother, that you don’t even know me.” In this egotism, he was unable to feel anything deeply, even being a father. His life was completely free and he defended his liberty before everything. With Manuel, liberty had become an abominable vice.

I tried to find refuge at my sister Marta’s. She, who had a home, said to me, “No, why do you come to my house? No, not here.” She said this to me, who so many times had fought with Crispín and his family because they mistreated her. When I saw her without shoes or money, I gave them to her, depriving myself. I was willing to take blows to defend her, I always listened to her troubles. And now that I needed her most, she said that to me. I choked back my tears and all I said was, “Look, Marta, pray to God that you always have your husband and your home and that you never have to go from house to house like me. Pray to God!”

Marta had always been my father’s and Roberto’s favorite, but never did she help or console anyone, with the exception of that morning Manuel hit us both. It was the first time I felt a spark of consideration from her. She had always been unsisterly, even to her brothers. She lacked a sense of spiritual obligation; she never gave anything unless she also received. To me, she was a false type of woman. But the thing I liked least about her and which I found unpardonable, was her lack of concern for the future of her children.

Roberto was the best of the three. He would say, “I’m sorry for you,
sister. I’m a man and can go any place, but what can you do?” He was generous, sympathetic and truly sincere, but he had no money and no real home either. And what a child! He was violent and still had temper tantrums. He imagined he was a Samson who could demolish whole battalions. Compared with Manuel, he was pure emotion, although the emotional circle in which he whirled about was infantile.

Even though Roberto was a man, he walked along the highway of life like a child of eight or nine, in knee pants, short-sleeved shirt and heavy boots. He was a frightened child whose intelligence had been sidetracked by the broken road. His way was full of accidents and he had fallen countless times, leaving him deeply scarred. He walked with his right hand stretched out, trying to reach something … the shadowy form of a woman which floated before him. He wept and cried out, calling to that thing to stop. Occasionally it disappeared and that was when Roberto threw himself to the ground in a tantrum.

He kicked the stones, beat them and threw them away because they seemed to be mocking him. He would get angry and say, “Who are these to make fun of me! I’ll show them who I am!” He didn’t realize that he would get hurt colliding against the rocks. When his tantrum passed, he regretted having smashed himself so stubbornly. Now he would think, “They were only looking at me.”

In contrast to Manuel, Roberto had a fixed goal … to find the security he needed. When he has finally found it, the sobbing will end and he will smile as he looks back over the whole course he covered. Then, with “it,” he will take a new road. Roberto was a good boy, so long as he had someone to pay attention to his problems, to listen to his complaints, join in his pleasures and give him advice about how to dress. In spite of everything, he had a docility, a sensitivity of feeling that was foreign to Manuel.

The hardest, bitterest, saddest time of Roberto’s life was when he was in jail. I know of many people who come out brutalized and hardened and filled with hatred. Not my brother. He always kept alive that tiny flame of hope and he never fell into vice. He still realized he had a family and preserved a feeling of love toward others. He was capable of taking off his own clothes to cover someone who had none, saying, “No, poor thing, cover him up.” But Manuel! That one would probably think, “It’s none of my business. That’s what he gets for being a dumb jerk.”

Roberto looked at things with passion and tried to find his ideal. To him, no one in the world should sin. He was shocked by the things he saw, not like Manuel, who in that respect was more worldly. To Roberto, many things were sanctified and holy. No one better lay a hand on his saints, because that turned him into a devil.

If that happened, or if Roberto was neglected, his irrational emotions were unleashed. Many times, when he “stood in the corner” and cried out his repentance, if no one came to comfort him, all that pain turned into rage, or fury, or envy. Then he would be carried away by desperation and would try to get consolation at any price. Roberto needed someone to guide him and give him moral strength, someone to say, “If you do this, ‘
el coco
’ will get you; if you do that, the witch will come.” Left to himself, something bad was certain to happen to him.

The thing that made me saddest about my brothers and sister was that they did not wish to get out of the situation in which they lived. They were satisfied to have poor clothes and to spend their time fighting. To me, the low roof which covered us was insecure, for tomorrow the pillar supporting it could fall. But they didn’t think of tomorrow. They all lived in the present.

And even if they tried to change, I don’t believe they could. None of them, perhaps myself included although I meant to try, seemed to have the right qualities of character. For example, if someone gave Manuel a common stone, he would hold it in his hand and look at it eagerly. In a few seconds, it would begin to shine and he would see that it was made of silver, then of gold, then of the most precious things imaginable, until the glitter died.

Roberto would hold the same stone and would murmur, “Mmmm. What is this good for?” But he wouldn’t know the answer.

Marta would hold it in her hand for just a moment, and without a thought, would throw it carelessly away.

I, Consuelo, would look at it, wonderingly. “What might this be? Is it, could it be, what I have been looking for?”

But my father would take the stone and set it on the ground. He would look for another and put it on top of the first one, than another and another, until no matter how long it took, he had finally turned it into a house.

Much as I dreaded to, I finally had to move to my aunt’s house. There was no way to avoid it. It turned out that I lived there on the
Street of the Bakers for about six months. The atmosphere in that
vecindad
was one of complete poverty. The people lived almost like animals. God had given them life, but they had none of the essentials of living except daily bread, and sometimes not that. Most of the women and children had to work to support themselves because so many of the fathers were drunk and irresponsible. The younger children played out in the dirt completely naked, and the older ones got odd jobs to earn a few
centavos
. A very few went to school for a year or two. Mothers frequently had to pawn the radio, the iron, the bed-clothing (if the family owned such articles), a dress, a pair of shoes, in order to pay the rent or buy enough beans to feed their large families.