The Children of Sanchez (25 page)

And that was my life as a little girl—ignored when I would do well in school or when I would ask questions at home, or answered sharply by my family. This made me feel stupid or it made me think that they didn’t love me. But I never knew why.

A whole year passed before I went to school again. I spent this year working, first sewing and then in a shoe factory downtown. A friend of Marta’s had told me that a dressmaker,
Señora
Federica, was looking for an assistant. “I don’t know how much she will pay, see, but she is very nice.” That was enough for me to go and take the job. The
señora
said she would put some money aside for me each week but she never paid me.

Actually, the pay did not matter to me. What interested me most was not being hit or scolded and not having to watch my father’s actions. I thought, “What do I want to be in the house for? If my father doesn’t like the way I serve him, let Antonia wait on him.” Tonia and I took turns serving my father his supper. Unfortunately—I don’t know whether it was my fault or not—my father never liked what I gave him. If it was cold, he would say it was dog food. If it was hot, he said I never paid any attention to anything. If there were lumps of milk in the coffee, or if there weren’t, it was swill. He would say, “You’re good for nothing, useless! The day you go to some other house they’ll slam the door in your face. You can’t do anything.”

I think Tonia also felt mortified. She would say to me, “Wait, Consuelo, I’ll give him supper.” But my father wouldn’t accept this. It had to be her one day and me the other. He would say, “Dope! Learn from your sister. She’s clean. She knows how to do things. But you? What do you know?” That is why I preferred to be working without pay.

Señora
Federica first taught me to turn the cloth tapes. Afterwards, I learned the jobs of making hems, pressing, and sewing on burtons. She was also going to teach me to sew on the machine and she did give me opportunities to use it when she went to deliver a dress, thinking perhaps I would begin to sew. But I never dared. When she wasn’t there, I wouldn’t touch the machine for anything. I was afraid of it. I thought that if I stepped on the treadle, I might sew my fingers to the material and not be able to stop the machine.

She had a young nephew who hid, from the first day, whenever he saw me come in. He was very shy, which seemed unusual to me because the young men of the Casa Grande were very brazen. When they saw girls, they would call them their “flowers.” I felt very homely, and when this boy ran from me, I thought I really was.

I would go home from the
señora’s
at eight or nine at night. When there were blackouts, her brother, Gabriel, or her sister and their nieces would take me home and once in a while I asked them in. The first time I did this, I walked through the door praying that my father would not be rude, and I think it helped. My father just lifted his eyes from the newspaper and invited them in. I served coffee and we had supper. It was the first time I had ever brought visitors to the house.

During this year (when I was fourteen years old), I visited my aunt
more often, but I didn’t seek her out as much as I did
Señora
Yolanda, who was the one who knew my troubles as well as I knew hers. She taught me to crochet and to knit with needles, to make
panecillo
and
polvorones
and to make use of old
tortillas
. I was the person she trusted most at that time. But this friendship broke up later, leaving only a feeling of resentment on my part, because Yolanda became good friends with Tonia and changed toward me, little by little. Tonia would give her sugar, coffee, and dead flies or bananas for the birds.
Papá
had never allowed us four to help ourselves to the fruit he brought daily. If we did, there were big blowups in our house. But Tonia could take whatever she wanted.

The change in my father toward us was not unnoticed by Yolanda, who warned me on various occasions, “Don’t be foolish. Keep an eye on your father or Antonia will take him away from you completely.” I would try to follow her advice, but how could I make my father take any notice of us? When I tried to converse with him, even about the same things Antonia did, he would only say, “I’m not interested in other people’s affairs, just my own, and that’s all.”

As for caressing him or doing things for him, neither Marta nor I could. But Tonia got into the habit of washing his feet when he came home from work and cutting his calluses. If she hurt him, he would just laugh. When he came from the bathhouse where he would go every third day, she would insist on combing his hair and putting on the brilliantine. Once in a while she would find a gray hair and pull it out and my father would joke about it. “A gray hair? And I so young?” and they would laugh together. But everything he asked
us
for had to be brought to him on the run and then he would take it almost angrily.

Then my father gave instructions that neither my clothes or Marta’s should be sent out for washing any more. It seemed to me that he was beginning to treat us like strangers. La Chata taught me to wash. Later I also had to wash his heavy work clothes. It was all the harder for me because my
papá
had never before permitted me to do any housework. He had said, “Don’t scrub floor, it’s harmful to the lungs,” “Don’t sew, it’s bad for your lungs,” or, “Don’t hit her on the back.” My
papá
was always afraid that I would get Elena’s disease.

The first time I washed his clothes I cried into the tub, partly because my back burned and the bones in my hands hurt, and partly because I was afraid that the clothes would not come out clean. When
I finally got to wring out the clothes, I felt as though my strength was gone. I ended up soaked from head to foot.

And the floor! The first time I washed the floor my father had to take me to the doctor. My legs, from my knees to my ankles, were swollen, and the hand with which I held the brush was bleeding. Not very much, but it bled. This was the end for me. Now I really felt outside the family. I began to make faces behind my father’s back when he scolded me. Only once did I tell him what was happening to me, but he paid no attention, so after that, never again.

One night, while I was still working for
Señora
Federica, my father said to me, “Antonia’s sister, Elida, is coming to take you to a woman who is going to teach you to work. She is coming for you at seven in the morning. Be ready.” Tonia’s half-sisters, Elida and Isabel, had begun to come to the house to visit and I knew them well. I liked Elida and was glad to go with her the next morning.

We took the bus downtown and got off at the Alameda. It was the first time I had ever been in the center of the city. As we walked past the park, I hardly listened to what Elida was saying. I saw trees, the monuments, the passing automobiles, the men wearing suits (instead of work clothes) hurrying along. It was the other end of the world for me. I felt so skinny, so badly dressed in spite of being clean, that I imagined everybody was watching me. I stumbled. I felt upset.

When we arrived, Elida said, “Look, go up to the top floor. Ask for Sofía, the
maestra
. Tell her I sent you.” Upstairs, the
señora
greeted me pleasantly. I began by painting the edges of the shoes. She showed me how to hold the shoe so I wouldn’t dirty my dress. She knew a lot about shoes and leather and had taught Elida and Isabel. That’s why they called her
maestra
. Before that,
maestra
had meant to me only a school-teacher.

At one o’clock everybody put down the tools and went out. The
señora
said we were going to eat up on the roof where there was a woman who cooked for the “boys.” “Boys?” I said. “But they are men. They don’t look like boys.” We began to go up the stairs. It was the first time I had ever gone up so many steps. I felt as though I were in a high swing. I was afraid to go up fast and kept looking down. I thought that if I stepped while I was looking up I would fall down the stairs. When I got out on the roof, I felt saved and sighed with relief.

There was a rule that the men must not bother the women. The men
ate on one side and we on the other. When the
señora
and I appeared at the door, all the boys looked at me, which made me lower my eyes and put on a very serious face. Naturally, somebody started kidding, “Sofía, don’t be rude. Introduce us to your little sister.” The
señora
smiled and said, “Why not, boys? Step up and I’ll introduce you to the child.”

But they didn’t consider me a child. They all called me
señorita
. I felt like calling them idiots. They offended me with the word. When they said it, I thought there was some hidden meaning behind their words. Afterwards I got used to it. Everybody respected me there, except a boy named José. He continually came over to speak to Sofía. While I stood there with my eyes cast down, he would pucker up his mouth and throw me a kiss. I would keep myself from laughing and would not look at him. I didn’t believe that such a handsome young man would pay any attention to me.

Once, when I came to work early, José grabbed my arm and began to make declarations of love. I listened without believing him. I just let him talk, and when he finished I told him that I was too young for him. It made me laugh to hear him say he wanted to marry me. I couldn’t even imagine what the word meant. José was the first one to ask me if anybody had ever kissed me. “Kiss?” How could I have done anything like that? It was a dirty thing, I told him.

But once I was in the darkness of my house, when everybody was asleep, I would dream with my eyes open. I could see myself in a beautiful evening gown, in a luxurious room, dancing to soft music with José. Or him in a dark suit, smoking nervously, waiting for me in the street. I would think, “Good. Let all those girls in the courtyards see what it is to have a boy friend.”

José kept on trying with me. One time I went down to get water for Sofía, and José, who was hiding on the stairs, took me by the arm. “Consuelo, I want to talk to you.” We spoke in low voices. “I have nothing to discuss with you, José,” I said, trembling to see his strained expression. I was afraid of him. For several days I had been hiding so as not to see him. When he was convinced I meant it, he didn’t bother me again. He would just shake his head when he saw me.

Fermín came to live in the tenement six or seven months before I celebrated my fifteenth birthday. He was a relative of my stepmother, Elena. This young man was a shoe finisher, and was very handsome, even though his hair and face were usually covered with the dust of
the shoe shop, and he wore old overalls without a shirt. He would follow me when he saw me on the street and say, “Consuelo, Consuelo, don’t be so proud. Just turn around and look at me. Don’t be mean. Look at me, or else I’ll throw myself under a bus—while it’s parked.” I wouldn’t say a word but I would smile and, with him behind me, walk faster, frightened to death that we might meet Roberto. If my brother were to see me, he would knock me down.

When I paid no attention to him, Fermín tried to win Antonia’s confidence. One night my father sent Tonia and me for the bread. I don’t know whether they were in cahoots or not, but I saw Fermín standing in the entrance to the tenement, very clean and his hair combed. Antonia said to me, “You stay here while I go for the bread,” and walked on. I felt as though a bucket of ice water had been poured over me. I was afraid because of all the insults I had given him, like, “Take a bath first,” “
Pachuco
,” “You’re
loco
.” I also thought of the gossip if I were to be seen in the street with a man at this hour.

But he said, “Consuelo, I love you, honest to God, I want to marry you. But don’t call me
Pachuco
just because I work.” He seemed so ridiculous talking to me like that, looking at me so sadly. I felt like laughing. He went on, “When I see you pass by, I feel like yelling, you are so pretty. Tell me when I can see you and you’ll make me the happiest man on earth. Tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do the impossible for you. Tell me!” I noticed that he had very nice features. To be talking in this way seemed stupid but on seeing how tender his eyes were, I stopped smiling. Tonia was coming back with the bread, so I hurriedly told him. “Yes, yes, wait for me in a little while in the corner of my courtyard.”

On the way back Antonia asked me what he had said. Disinterested outside but very excited inside, I said, “Nothing, he just wants me to be his girl.” Tonia said, “Do what he says. He’s very handsome. You see how he keeps after you.” But I didn’t get out that night. At supper time my father was right opposite me. When I heard a whistle that seemed to say my name, I almost spilled my coffee. Tonia made signals to me with her eyes. I finished my coffee quickly and asked my father for permission to show
Señora
Yolanda my sewing. It didn’t work.

A few days later I met Fermín as I was coming home from work. I explained that my father was very strict and didn’t let me go out alone at night. He accepted my explanation on the condition that I come out
that night; if I didn’t, he was going to knock on my door. Holy Virgin! Knock on the door! The house would fall in on me! “Yes, this time I’ll come out. Honest, Fermín. Wait for me.”

At eight sharp I heard the first whistle, and it made me jump. “What’s wrong with you, clown?” my father immediately yelled at me. “Nothing,
papá
, I think I was falling asleep.” That was very good, because then he didn’t let us go to sleep immediately. I took advantage of the opportunity to ask him to let me go out for a little walk. He agreed.

I went to Irela’s house—a friend of Marta’s. I remember the advice she gave me: “Go on, don’t be a fool. Now that they’ve let you go out, give them something to hit you for.”

“All right, but tell me if anyone comes, eh, Irela?”

I shot across the courtyard like a skyrocket and was still trembling when I got there. Fermín greeted me, “Good evening, my love, I’ve been waiting for you and at last you’re here.” Then he kissed me. I held my breath and felt as though I was smothering. I pressed my lips together and with my eyes wide open looked at his eyes, which were closed. It lasted only a moment. When Fermín felt that I wasn’t kissing him back, he moved away and said he knew I didn’t love him but that later on I would. Meanwhile he thanked me for having given him that kiss. “I gave him a kiss!” I sighed with relief. Now I knew what a kiss was.