The Children of Sanchez (19 page)

All that time, I gave my father every
centavo
I earned. I was happy and proud to do it. My father used to tell my brother, “Manuel, you should learn from Roberto. He’s younger than you and he’s setting you a good example. He turns over everything he earns. How about you?”

Naturally, when I heard him say that I felt wonderful. I was satisfied with what my father gave me, bus fare and one
peso
a day for expenses. I didn’t drink or smoke then and I liked to work. All my life I liked to work, and when I do I don’t talk or fool around. I shut myself off and pay no attention to anything else.

After six months, I got tired of cutting glass and my uncle Alfredo took me into the bakery to teach me baking. I went because I loved to eat the bread hot from the oven, but baking itself didn’t appeal to me. My cousin Tomás, my great-aunt Catarina’s son, was a mason and he offered to teach me his trade. I liked that because I had to work on tall buildings. I always liked being way up high … that’s why I climbed trees and poles and played on roofs … but I lost that job because I stole a steel nameplate right off the side of the building. It was so pretty and shiny that I chipped it off the wall. Unfortunately, someone saw me. So I went back to work in a glass shop. There things worked out badly because on Saturday, our payday, the boss never had enough
to pay us. He spent his money all week on drink and on Saturdays he would hide.

By the time I was thirteen, I had been a stevedore, a locker boy, a glass worker, a baker and a mason. The next thing I tried was varnishing furniture. When I took that job everyone warned me that the
maestro
was very tricky, especially on payday. And it was true. I really had to chase that man down the street on Saturdays, or look behind the furniture or in all the wardrobes, to get him to pay me the lousy eighteen
pesos
I earned for the week. I ran after him like he was a thief. I followed him to his house and saw him go in and then the
señora
would have the face to tell me he wasn’t home. And when I caught him, he would never give me my full pay. I got tired of that game after a few weeks and quit. I didn’t look for work any more and just bummed around.

Once I was in the courtyard talking with the boys about my adventures. I got myself worked up, talking about Veracruz and how there was so much fruit along the highway. I was so worked up I felt like going back again and, without stopping to think about it, I went home, grabbed a pair of pants and a T-shirt and a paper bag, and took off. I don’t think there was as much as twenty
centavos
in my pocket, and that’s how I took to the road a second time.

I got to know Veracruz real well. Because of the experience I had the first time, I more or less knew the ropes and it was easier for me to get food. I don’t remember anything particularly impressive about that second trip except that I saw a hurricane. I liked the way the wind pushed me but at the same time it frightened me, especially when I saw palm trees loaded with coconuts kiss the pavement. I saw the sea enraged … it wiped away a large part of the wall at the entrance of the bay, carrying it off like a piece of paper.

I didn’t get to know my father’s relatives that trip. They lived in Córdoba, but I didn’t know that until I returned home, until we read David’s advertisement in
El Pepín
.

My father had always bought copies of the comic magazines for Elena and for us kids. What quarrels and races we ran waiting for him to arrive with the “comics.” Consuelo and Marta were always given preference and read them first. I don’t know who saw the ad, but someone showed it to my
papá
. My father had never spoken of his
family … this time he sat down and wrote a letter. It was a rare thing, something new for us, to see him write a letter.

I remember David’s arrival very well, for I took my father to the bus terminal. One morning, very early, at about five o’clock, my father said, “Roberto.”

“At your service,
papá
,” I answered.

“Let us see if you, who has bummed around so much, knows where the buses from Córdoba arrive.” So I took him, and we knew my cousin by the flower he wore in his lapel. He was big, a giant, and when he shook hands, what a grip he had! We took a taxi home and spent the whole day talking to him. He told us about the village he lived in, and about his mother, Olivia, who had married my father’s brother, who was deceased. She was now living with her second husband, who was a peasant.

David lived with us and my
papá
got him a job as night watchman in La Gloria restaurant. David always behaved well and we all liked him. Years later, after her death, he told me about an incident with Elena. He told me in confidence, I don’t believe Manuel or my sisters know about it. David happened to be lying on the bed one day, and Elena sat down on his legs, on his lap. He jumped up like a spring and said, “No, Elena. I may be poor and very Indian, but to do such a thing, no. You are my uncle’s wife and we must respect each other, so please behave in a different way.” Elena was very angry with him after that. Ah! how furious it made me. If he had told me when she was alive, who knows how it would have gone for Elena.
Caray
! without doubt women are the biggest tramps!

David went back to Córdoba on some pretext, but later he returned with his mother. They took me to Córdoba with them. I liked it very much there. I stayed with them for a month, and I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t have the comforts my father supplied, but I was healthy and happy. I prefer country life. It is calmer and quieter, one can breathe tranquilly. You feel the honesty even in your elbows! They are a different type of people, more respectful and upright, a different manner of being. Here in the city I have always to be alert, ready for anything from anybody.

I wanted to be a farmer, and I learned the work while I was there. Olivia’s husband taught me everything, how to plow, to cultivate, to hoe, to plant, to weed, to harvest, everything. He held little classes for me there in the fields and I learned to plant sugar cane, corn, beans
and rice. It was useful to me later, because when I traveled about, I worked in the fields. There are parts of the Republic where there is no other way of life. I would go to work anywhere that had the same vegetation as Córdoba or Veracruz, because I loved it so. The third and fourth times I ran away from home, I went straight to Córdoba.

After the fifth time I left home, I didn’t go because I wanted to but because my father threw me out. He had good reason to. I didn’t help him at all; I didn’t even behave myself well enough to deserve being in the house, and so he would throw me out on the street all the time. As Elena helped pour fuel on the flame, he would hit me and bawl me out. For me, a bawling out has always hurt more than a beating; I prefer a bad beating to a little scolding. Blows hurt more physically, but when he called me a bum, a good-for-nothing, and a pig, it hurt me morally. He would say I wasn’t a decent person, and the only thing I was good for was to cause him headaches or shame. Really, I preferred him to beat me.

Anything Roberto did wrong, Manuel and his sisters would feel too, because my father would yell at all of us. He was letting me have it all the time. When he was in a bad mood not even the flies dared fly. None of us could go near him. It wasn’t until after Elena died that I rested up from the scoldings and beatings she had caused my father to give me.

I was right at the foot of the bed when Elena died and I can still see the look in her eyes. I don’t know whether she was cursing me or forgiving me. I never knew. Her eyes were already glassy and she kept looking at me. Inside me, I was asking her to forgive me for all I had done to her, for all my offenses. I asked that God forgive her and take her away quickly, or make her well. I have always prayed that when somebody is very ill. She kept staring at me, and I will never forget the look. Then, she just moved her arms, and that was the end.

She died, and my father felt like dying too, at that moment. Everyone was shocked and there was a lot of activity then. I think they told me to take her blankets and pillows to No. 64, to make room to lay her out. I nearly fainted when I got to the water tank and some boys there held me up so I didn’t fall.

I don’t know what it was, but something scared me that time. My
papá
kept looking at me … I felt he was accusing me with his eyes,
as if he were telling me that I was to blame. He always said that we were to blame for Elena’s illness, particularly me, because I was the one who got her into rages more than anyone.

When Elena was still alive but very ill, I learned about my half-sister Antonia. One day my father came home early, which surprised us because he had never done that before. He called Manuel and me to him and pulled out a photograph.

“This is your sister.”

“Good Lord, how can she be our sister?” I said to myself. I thought she looked pretty, with her two braids. “How can she be my sister if she is already grown up?”

Then he said, “We’ve got to find this girl.”

“All right,
papá
.”

“Wherever you see her, bring her here.” That was the order my father gave us. Then he got the help of private detectives and they found Antonia, I don’t know where.

She had run away from her mother’s house; this Antonia and I certainly seemed to be chips off the same block. One night my father said, “Roberto, go to bed. Wait here, I’m going to bring your sister.” I was on pins and needles to see her. Consuelo and Marta were asleep, my brother was out, so I was the only one guarding the house and my sisters.

They arrived at about midnight, and from the time she entered the courtyard, the girl cried. She kept crying and crying and I didn’t get to see her face. All night long I was tempted to go over and see how she looked and to hear her speak, to see whether she had a pleasant voice or not. And all night long, Antonia cried, there in my sisters’ bed.

The next day my father went off to work and immediately Manuel and I spoke to her and asked her all kinds of questions. It turned out that she and her mother Lupita lived on Rosario Street which was only one block from the school we went to. I remembered having seen Antonia in the street, and having liked her, without knowing she was my sister.

My father had another daughter with Lupita, Marielena, who was also my half-sister. I never got to know her well or to love her, but she had a strong, noble character and was very religious. You had to be careful what you said to her, and I always treated her with special respect. Lupita had two other daughters, Elida and Isabel, who were
Antonia’s half-sisters. I respected them too, but they always seemed dry and unpleasant to me.

From the first moment Antonia came to live with us, I began to like her … to be completely frank, she became the great love of my life. Before that I had had
novias
, but of the three I only seriously liked Rufelia, a girl who lived in our courtyard. But Rufelia was light-skinned and superior to me, and I hadn’t declared myself to her. I just loved her from a distance. My first
novia
, a short pretty girl, turned out bad and played me for a sucker. I liked her but was too ashamed to ask for a kiss. Once I kissed her and ran home because I was so embarrassed. We were sweethearts for a few months, but it turned out that she was knocked up by some tramp, and that was the end of our courtship.

My other
novia
was a servant of a neighbor. She took a great liking to me and she’d use my sisters to arrange a date with me. She asked me to be her boy friend, but that wasn’t a real courtship, just kid stuff. The great love affair of my life, to my torment, and despair, was my half-sister Antonia.

We were about the same age, thirteen or fourteen. I didn’t tell Tonia how I felt about her. I just watched her and kept quiet. She made the beds, swept, made coffee, served breakfast, and, of course, my brother and I were feeling good at having a new sister. Consuelo and Marta did too. So it was Antonia here and Tonia there, and from the beginning when she sat down at the table I felt I had to sit beside her and eat. When Consuelo or Marta sat in my place next to her, I’d get into a squabble with them.

The more time went by, the more I liked her. I don’t mean as a brother, for I had other feelings toward her, but during all the years she lived with us, I never spoke or hinted to her about my feelings. Without her wanting to, she caused that feeling to grow stronger day by day.

I used to go to work in a glass-fixture place. I’d start work at nine in the morning and quit at six, but it took the bus an hour to get me home, so I would return at about seven in the evening. Everyone would be eating supper except Antonia. She always waited for me. She knew I was fond of refried mashed beans, so when I got home she would say, “Do you want some juicy fried beans, Roberto?” And the two of us would sit down and eat out of the same plate.

Antonia slept in the bed with Consuelo and Marta, and my father
slept in the other bed. Manuel and I usually slept on the floor outside in the little kitchen, but sometimes we also slept in the bedroom. In the morning, I always got up when my
papá
did, and I would heat his orange-leaf tea and give him a little bread with it, before he went off to work. Then I would go into the bedroom to light the
veladora
, the votive candle for the Virgin. Antonia would wake up and say, “Oh, what a pest you are.”

“Ah, come on, get up you loafers … it’s late,” I’d say.

“No, no, we don’t feel like getting up yet.”

Consuelo wouldn’t even answer. As usual, Manuel was dead to the world. Antonia and I were the only ones who talked. Lots of times she would say to me, “Don’t go. Lie down here for a little while and let me sleep.” And she would make room for me in the bed. She would move over and I would lie on the edge of the bed, she covered with her blanket and I with mine. She would move over to me, and would fall asleep nestled against my ribs or back.

It disturbs me to talk about these things … but, anyway, I never entertained an evil thought about her … never! It pleased me that she told me to lie down. I could have lain down any other place but she made room for me. I felt as though I were in heaven … to have someone you shouldn’t love, so close. That’s the way it was and that’s why sometimes I thought of taking my life.