When Tito Loved Clara (24 page)

O
NE NIGHT, NOT
long after she started school, Clara was woken from her fitful, dream-rich sleep. Someone was shaking her. Reflexively, she held up her hand to fend off the blow, but the blow did not come. Even before she was fully awake, she was moving out of the bed to get away from the stick, but instead, she was embraced by a pair of strong arms.

“
¡Ja, ja!
” It was her father, trying to calm her. “Some nightmare you must be having,
mija.
” There was rum on his breath and urgency in his voice. Clara could see him now, his features coming into sight in the light from the hallway. “Come, Clara, get dressed.”

In that moment she thought the impossible had happened. He was going to take her back to Santo Domingo.

“Are we going to the airport, Papi?”

“Airport?” he snorted. “We're going to the hospital.”

“Hospital?” she asked.

“Yes, hospital. The baby is coming.”

“Oh,” she said.

It was still dark outside and she felt slowed by the mud in her brain. The daily muscle aches and bruises mewed along her body as she got out of bed. Her father left the room, turning on the light. In that starburst, she found some clothes, dressed, and went down-stairs. Dolores was sitting on the living room couch in her flannel housecoat and
chancletas,
holding her belly, and moaning in a way that Clara had heard animals moan on her grandparents' farm. Dolores seemed to take no notice of Clara as she entered the room, a reprieve she welcomed even in her drowsy state. She blinked and blinked again. Dolores was still there, moaning. Her father came in with a small suitcase—the same suitcase from her abduction—and sat on the couch, putting his arm around Dolores, rubbing his face with his other hand. The suitcase kept alive the idea of the airport in Clara's muddled thoughts, even though her father had said they were going to the hospital. They remained like that for several minutes, the only sound the grunts and moans from Dolores.
What is going on?
wondered Clara. Was the baby going to be born in the living room? She had been born in the house of her
abuelitos,
as had her mother. It didn't seem such a preposterous idea. But what about the hospital? Her father said they were going to the hospital. Then Dolores stopped moaning and, in the sudden silence, there was the sound of a car pulling up to the curb outside the house.

“The cab is here,” said her father, helping his wife stand. “Clara, bring the bag.” She lifted the suitcase, which felt empty, and she wondered if her father had forgotten to pack everything—or if he had picked up the wrong case. But she said nothing about it, fearing a reprimand. They went out the front door and descended the stoop, Dolores pausing after each step to breathe loudly. “Ay!” she said. “Ay!” Clara went behind them like a footman.

The cab took them up Seaman Avenue. Dolores had resumed her moaning with a new urgency. Clara wished the cab driver would hurry because she did not want the baby to be born in the back of
the car—she did not want to see the infant come out of that cave between her stepmother's legs. The cab finally stopped in front of a large building on the corner of Indian Road and the park.

“Is this the hospital?” asked Clara.

“No,” said her father. “This is Don Felix's building. You are going to spend the night there. In the morning, he will take you to school. Now go. See, he is waiting for you.”

On the side of the building there was an open door with a man standing, silhouetted by the indoor light behind him. Clara remembered him from the night of her arrival in New York. That had been only weeks before, but it seemed longer than the entirety of her six years in the Dominican Republic. He waved at her as she stepped out of the car and began walking down the hill toward him. It was a cool but comfortable night and the park seemed especially placid in the soft darkness. When the cab had pulled away, there was almost total silence, interrupted only by her leather-soled shoes on the sidewalk. Don Felix beckoned to her: “
Ven, mi amor. ¡Ven!
”

The doorway opened right from the street into the Morenos' living room, a comfortable, untidy place that reminded her—in its trappings if not its structure—of the place where her cousins lived in Santo Domingo.

“Come with me,” said Don Felix, closing and locking the door. He was wearing a bathrobe over green-and-black checkered pajamas. “You will sleep with Tito.”

He took her by the hand and led her to a short hallway at the end of which was a half-open door. Through the door there was a small, darkened room with a bed. Don Felix pulled back the blankets and pushed his sleeping son closer to the wall so that there would be room for Clara to get in.

“What's this?” he asked, pointing at a bruise on her forearm “You have an accident?”

“
Sí
,” said Clara, worried that he would press her for details.

“
Pobre muchacha,
” he said. “Come. We still have a few hours before we have to wake up.”

She slipped off her shoes and got into the bed in her clothes. She had packed nothing, brought nothing, and she wondered, for a moment, if maybe the suitcase her father had brought down had been for her. Don Felix drew the blanket up to her chin. “Tito talks in his sleep,” he said. “You can talk back to him. Say whatever you like. It's OK. He won't remember anything you say in the morning. I like to talk about the
salseros
who tried to steal his mother away from me before I married her. She was a real dancer and popular in all the clubs. You'd never know it now.” He gave a little laugh and stroked her head once with his hand, a reassuring gesture. “Things change. We wanted a daughter, too, but the man upstairs had a different idea. I sometimes talk to Tito about that. Those are things it's OK to talk about in the dark. You understand?”

“
Sí,
” said Clara, though she didn't.

Don Felix stood up and exited the room, leaving the door slightly ajar so that some light would filter in. “Good night,” he said.

Clara lay in bed, the elements of the room slowly coming into view: a baseball glove on the floor, a poster of spaceships, a small metal robot. She was wide awake. Tito breathed steadily beside her, now and then his breath interrupted by a gurgle of the sinus. From far away, she heard something click, then click again. A door with a faulty latch, a radiator cooling off. Then, through the bedroom wall, the rumble of the boiler coming to life. She waited for Tito to say something. She wanted to have an answer ready for whatever he might ask her. She decided she would tell him about killing the salamanders, how she now wished she had not done it. But he said nothing and she was still waiting for him to speak when she fell asleep.

• • •

“P
API!
”

Clara opened her eyes.

“Papi!”

It was the boy, Tito, standing beside the bed and yelling. She recognized him now, from school, one of her tormentors. “Papi!” Don Felix came in the room, tying the belt of his bathrobe about his waist

“What is it? Why are you yelling?”

“Papi! There's a girl in my bed.”

“What a bright boy I am raising,” said Don Felix. “This is Clara, Don Roberto's daughter.”

“Why is she in my bed with her clothes on?”

“You want her to be in your bed with no clothes on?”

“Why, Papi?”

“Because Doña Dolores went to the hospital last night to have the baby.
Ven,
Clara. Let's let the genius get dressed in private.”

She slipped her shoes on and followed him through the living room into the kitchen, where Tito's mother was making breakfast. Clara did not dare believe that the delicious smell filling the apartment was what she hoped it was; and if it was, she did not dare to think that she would be given some of it to eat. But, as she came closer to the table, there it was,
mangú,
a heaping bowl of it.

“
Buenos días,
Clarita,” said Doña Sylvia, though they had never met.

Clara did not answer. She was still staring at the
mangú
. It looked just like what her
abuelita
made. Smelled like it, too.

Doña Sylvia chuckled. “
¿Tienes hambre?
” she asked.

Clara looked at the older woman to see if she was being mocked. That is what Dolores would have done. But Doña Sylvia was looking at her with a bemused concern.

“
Sí,
” said Clara. “Sit, then. Please.”

As Clara seated herself, Don Felix came to the table, slipping a rubber band off a copy of
Hoy.

“Where's Tito?” asked Doña Sylvia.

“Probably figuring how to put his pants on,” said Don Felix, turning to the back page of the paper and winking at Clara.

Clara looked back at the
mangú.
What was taking so long? When would she be able to eat it?

At that moment, Tito came out of his room.

“
Buenos días, mi amor,
” said his mother.

Tito sat without a word. His chair was directly across the table from Clara's, and she smiled at him. He looked away.

Doña Sylvia brought a bowl of scrambled eggs and peppers to the table. Then she served them, picking up each plate and placing a spoonful of eggs and a spoonful of
mangú
side by side, like two yellow hills. Clara's face convulsed when she took the first bite. She was trying not to cry. Don Felix saw this and said, “Don't you like it?”

“
¡Sí!
” said Clara. “
¡Es delicioso!
” And she put another spoonful of
mangú
in her mouth to prove the point. During the meal, the Morenos continuously interrupted Clara's enjoyment of the food with questions—questions that required her to stop chewing and speak. They asked her if she wanted a sister or a brother. She said sister, though she did not explain that she wanted a sister to help with the chores.

They asked her how she liked school. She shrugged.

“Tito,” said Doña Sylvia, “Are you introducing Clara to your friends?”

“How can I?” he said. “I never met her before today.”

“Maybe you were never introduced, but you knew she was Don Roberto's daughter, didn't you?”

“Yes, but she's a
girl.
”

“That doesn't matter.”

“Everyone calls her
jibara.
”

“Tito!” said his mother.

“I'm sorry, Clara,” said Don Felix, cuffing Tito on the head. “Pay no attention to this fool.”

Clara blushed. She didn't care. All she wanted was more
mangú
.

T
HE BABY WAS
a boy. He and Dolores came home from the hospital the following day and, for a time, Dolores had better things to do than chase Clara with her stick—though she still had plenty to yell and complain about. The baby's arrival also made the house a little less of a prison. Dolores's friends and relatives came to pay their respects. They also came to have a look at Clara. Some of them were courteous and kind to her. Others made comments, noticing how dark she was and wondering if her mother was Haitian. Clara had heard it all at school and the words barely made any impression on her. She had already begun to develop the forbearance of someone with an open mind raised among people with closed minds.

On Sunday afternoons after the baby was born, Don Felix and Doña Sylvia made a point of seeking them out and helping with the newborn. They would spread a blanket in the park near the Emerson Playground and Doña Sylvia would bring a basket of her delicious food and she would hold the baby, talking to it and singing to it while everyone else ate. The four grownups would drink beer when the meal was done and the baby was asleep. Tito and Clara would go to the playground.

Tito's hostility to Clara provoked in her the urge to smother him. She was always chasing after him. She couldn't do it in the school, not without being laughed at, but in the park she would not let him get away from her. It was how she bullied him back. She insisted on doing whatever he was doing. There he was on the monkey bars. She joined him. “Get away,” he said. There he was going down the slide. She followed. “Leave me alone,” he said. There he was on the
swings and there was an empty swing next to him. She ran toward the empty swing, but before she got there, something hit her in the chin, knocking her down, filling her mouth with blood. And then there was Tito's voice.

“I said get away from me!”

S
HE WENT AWAY
from him then, back to New Jersey, to a hospital bed surrounded by white curtains and the nurse—the one who liked lasagna—standing there, saying, “Your husband's here.”

They'd made him put on a paper jumpsuit over his clothes and a kind of shower cap on his head. He looked like a too-big kid dressed up for trick-or-treating.

“Hi, sweetie. How are you?”

She tried to say, “OK,” but she could tell from Thomas's expression that something incomprehensible had come out of her mouth. He came forward and sat on the bed, reached out to stroke her cheek.

“You want some water?” he asked.

She nodded.

“That's better,” she said, after the drink had washed her mouth clean, had made it possible for her to speak again.

“Have they said anything to you?”

“No,” she said. “I just woke up.”

“Hi Mama,” said a different nurse, sticking her head through the part in the curtains. “You hungry? You want some crackers?”

Clara nodded. She didn't mind all the attention. Not one bit.

She heard somewhere down the row of beds separated by their curtain walls the doctor saying, “You're going to have a little bleeding for a couple of days. That's normal. If you're still bleeding after five days, you need to call us. Do you understand?”

She heard the patient say, “Yes.” Clara wondered what news the doctor would have for them. She felt the fogginess in her brain dissolving, like an antacid tablet in a glass of water.