The Children of Sanchez (39 page)

I often got into trouble because of my sisters. As usual, I took charge of them when I lived at home. Twice, I caught Marta in the street with this guy Crispín and I had to punish her. She was still very young and he didn’t look good to me. He was older and more mature and I
knew the type. Consuelo also caused me a lot of headaches because of the way she danced and flirted.

One evening, Marta didn’t come home and I looked everywhere for her, asking around discreetly if anyone had seen her. I felt desperate, thinking an accident had happened to her, when it suddenly occurred to me that she might have gone off with someone. I felt it was my fault for not having watched her better and I ran up and down all night looking. That night was pure martyrdom for me!

In the morning, I met her with Crispín. How furious I was to see that cursed character with his mocking face. I still cannot explain why I let him go without doing a thing to him. But I hit my sister because I understood that she was no longer a virgin. I told her that now she was a woman of the world, that she must get married and be respectful and faithful to her husband. She said they would marry, but they never did.

That miserable wretch! He was always jealous and gave my sister a rough time. He was even jealous of me! Why, once, when they had their apartment, I went to visit Marta and his sister came in. Marta and I were sitting on the bed and my sports shirt happened to be hanging loose outside of my trousers. I don’t know what that woman told Crispín but she insinuated something that would have been pure infamy. I have done terrible things in my life, but she was degrading me to the level of a beast.

When I saw her again I said, “Look,
señora
, be grateful that we are in my sister’s home and that you are a woman, because if you continue your insinuations I will have to bust you right where it hurts.”

Then Crispín piped up, “Don’t you speak to my sister that way!”

“You go frig your mother! And as for you, if you take it out on Marta, if you touch a hair on her head, you are a dead man, your days are numbered.” That’s what I said and I meant it from the heart.

I really couldn’t stand the guy because he deceived my sister. It hurt me very much to see what had happened to her. If it were in my hands, and I’m going to sound like an irrational beast, I could kill him as easily as I am saying it, because he is not a man. I think the midwife made a mistake when she said he was a man.

When Antonia came to live at the Casa Grande I had more headaches. I was working as a varnisher at the time. I went in at seven o’clock and at ten they gave us a half-hour to go home to eat something. I liked that fine because it gave me a chance to check up on Antonia.
One day I came in and discreetly asked Enoé where Antonia was. Enoé said that my sister had gotten dressed up and had gone out. That made me very angry and at the same time I had a presentiment of something.

A few days before, I had persuaded Antonia to have her picture taken at a studio. I thought she might have gone to take out the photos, so I decided to walk over there. I grabbed a knife and stuck it into my belt, because the studio was located in a street where the flower of the underworld lived.

Sure enough, there was Antonia walking arm in arm with Otón, a boy I had seen her with before. The moment I saw her with her
novio
, my eyes clouded over and I felt completely blinded. My blood went down to my feet and my body got chilled. I felt very bad, but continued walking automatically until I caught up with them. Antonia pushed Otón away from her side and he looked plenty worried when he saw me. I had warned him the last time to keep away from my sister.

I had said, “Look, I know you’re crooked. You are just like me and worse and I don’t want you to go with her. She deserves someone better than you. I’m telling you nicely now, but the second time it won’t be so nice, see?” I was sincere when I said that because I knew she could never be mine and I wanted someone better for her. I was right about Otón because now he is a first-class drug addict.

Antonia, who was also short-tempered, was furious with me. “What business is it of yours?” But she was smart enough to start for home when I told her to get going. Then I asked Otón if he was armed, because I was, and that he should get ready to defend himself. But he didn’t want to fight.

“Wait, no, Roberto. Calm down and listen … your sister and I are
novios
. I spoke to her and she corresponded.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Otón,” I said, “you grab at anyone … you’ve been around, and that’s why I want you to leave her alone. Get on guard.” And I opened my jacket to show him my knife.

“Look, I too am carrying something to fight with, but one shouldn’t fight for a woman. It is not worth the trouble.”

When I heard that, I punched him in the face. It made me mad to hear him say my sister was not worth the trouble. She was worth more than trouble! I wanted to fight with this guy, but he wouldn’t, so I went home.

I scolded her and told her Otón was one of the worst … that he
smoked marijuana and took morphine, that he robbed and was a vagabond and an adventurer. It wasn’t true then, but, well, I was trying to discourage her. Then I said more than I wanted to say. “You are right, Tonia, it is none of my business. I see clearly that what I feel in my heart for you is impossible.”

She must have realized my sentiments because she said, “Well, now you understand things better.”

“Yes, now I see that nothing is possible for me here.” I asked her to sign her photos for me and to forget what I had said. I put four pictures of her in my wallet.

That night I had such a feeling of desperation that I wanted to die. I thought Tonia would tell my father and I wanted to do away with myself. I put some strong medicine in a glass of water and planned to drink it. I wasn’t afraid to die, but God illuminated my thoughts and I repented. I spilled out the medicine and broke the glass. The next day I walked around in a daze. Even the sun didn’t warm me.

After I lost Antonia’s love, because that was the way I understood it, I decided to ask Rufelia to be my
novia
. She knew how I felt about Tonia, because the day my sister moved back to Rosario Street, I cried bitterly. Rufelia came in and heard me wailing because Antonia was gone. She understood and told me not to cry, because after all, it was not a good thing. So I declared myself to Rufelia, and told her I said those things about Tonia only to attract Rufelia’s attention. She didn’t know what to think or say and asked me to give her time to answer.

She kept putting me off, but finally promised to tell me on Sunday. I was waiting impatiently at the gate of the Casa Grande, when Otón, Antonia’s ex
-novio
, came along and said: “Come, Attila, come and play cards.” Well, I was feeling very manly and I wanted to show him that I knew as much as he, so we sat down right there and started a game. Rufelia saw me and I think that was what influenced her to reject me.

She said I was a poor man, and what could I offer her anyway? Her
novios
gave her things and fulfilled their obligations, but it didn’t look as though I could give her anything. It wasn’t love she wanted, but money, I thought. It so happened that I had about a thousand
pesos
in my pocket because the day before, out at the race track, I had snatched a purse from a high-society lady with a fancy hairdo. I was tempted to show the money to Rufelia, but I thought that if she was so materialistic she was not for me.

Rufelia’s family had been just like the rest of us when they had
first moved into the Casa Grande. They were as poor as we and we were all good friends. More than once, Rufelia’s mother came to borrow one or two or even ten
pesos
from us, and we did the same. But later, Rufelia’s father managed to learn something about mechanics and quit his job as a driver’s helper to take one servicing refrigerators. From then on, that family went up. Rufelia’s brothers attended high school and her parents began to fix their home. First, it was a gas stove, then a dining set, a radio, a “
tele
,” a balcony for the boys to sleep on … until they became the Rockefellers of the courtyard.

As they went up economically, they stopped speaking to their neighbors. I don’t say that just because I once did them favors they were obliged to speak to me, but I could not see why they had to insult and offend me, or ignore me completely. I couldn’t explain why some people change so radically. It seemed like I was no longer good enough for them. No wonder Rufelia turned me down.

At about the time I was courting Rufelia, strange things were happening in the Casa Grande and I was blamed. Someone threw salt in the doorway of Rufelia’s house, and then in Angélica Rivera’s and a few others, and everyone said I was doing it to punish Rufelia for refusing me and to create discord in the
vecindad
. Of course, it was only talk, because I never did anything like that.

One morning Rufelia and her mother and the butcher woman surprised
Señora
Chole of No. 93 picking up salt and garlic from her doorway and rubbing it on the door of my house. They heard her saying, “You black son-of-a-whore,” and, “You mother-fucking bastard, I hope your ass end rots,” and other stuff like that.
Caray
! I still don’t know why she did it. That family in No. 93 never spoke to anyone, and from the beginning I noticed that
Señora
Chole had something against me.

I never believed in witchcraft, even though I have been places where it is practiced to this day. And I never used love potions or any of that nonsense some suckers buy. Here in the capital, the boys say things about witches and potions, but they are only joking. In my gang, we don’t believe it.

But I do know of some cases of people getting sick because someone had done them harm. My
papá
, for example, or a man I knew in Córdoba, whose wife made an idiot out of him by sticking pins in his photograph and burying it on their piece of land. He was a rough character, a man who had hair on his chest. He and I shot at each
other one time, over something that came up between us. But later, he wouldn’t eat or drink, and would just sit in his doorway. He never left his wife’s side, until he went completely mad.

I knew another man who was dominated by his wife. She yelled at him and even hit him and it was well known that she had put him under a spell. How could you explain it any other way? When I was in Chiapas, they told me to be careful because, there, women do harm to a man by giving him “coconut milk” to drink. They wash the vagina when menstruating and use the water to make the man’s coffee. Once he drinks it, they say he is completely under the woman’s power.

When I heard that, I wouldn’t take food or liquid in the house I was staying at, absolutely none, because there was a girl from Tehuantepec who was in love with me. They say that when a
Tehuana
wants a man, she does something to make him go to her, even if he is in China. As a matter of fact, they succeeded in putting the bug in my ear, and I went around with a piece of gold in my mouth to protect me.

When I wasn’t working, I would usually go home to eat at about two o’clock. This time Enoé was in the house, washing clothes. I never like a servant to dish out my food, so I helped myself to rice, beans and stew. I sat down to eat and my attention was caught by the movement of Enoé’s buttocks as she washed. I got up very quietly and bent down behind her to look up her dress. She noticed this. “
Ay!
you damned black one. Get out of here!
Vaya!
” and she threw water on me.

“What, wouldn’t you like a dark little fellow like me? A bit ugly, yes, but with more luck than money!”

“
Ay
, go to hell, you!”

Later, I was lying on the bed, watching her iron. We started to talk and I don’t know how we got to it, but she asked me for twenty
pesos
. I didn’t have a
centavo
but I offered her ten, and she said, “Very well, we’ll do it, but don’t tell anyone, do you hear?”

“No, Enoé, don’t worry.” I was very excited because she had accepted me. She closed both doors and got ready, when she repented and made fun of me. She said, “How could you believe …? Well, you are just like your father. He too comes around touching me!”

When she said my father was after her, my desire for her turned to hate. Why hadn’t she told me right away instead of leading me on? I wanted to die of shame … I was disgusted with myself, but really, I hadn’t known … that imbecile of a woman never dared mention it
to me again. As for my father, he was in a privileged position and I was not the one to judge him.

Once, when I was still out of work, I went to Chapultepec Park. All I had in my pocket was twenty
centavos
. It wasn’t the first time I had no money on me, but it was my bad luck that a chance to swipe some money came up and I didn’t want to let the chance go.

It happened there was a half-drunken fellow on the terrace of Chapultepec Castle. He was pretty wobbly and the bottom of his jacket was raised up so that his billfold was sticking out of his pants pocket, in full view. It would have been easy for me to leave him alone and just walk away. It shouldn’t have made any difference to me that he would have been robbed by another person anyway, right? But the temptation was too great, I couldn’t control myself, and without thinking twice, I lifted the billfold and went off. It contained five hundred
pesos
and for a fellow like myself, without a
centavo
, it was a lot.

I don’t know what made me do it. It was not to get pleasure out of it, but ever since I was a kid I always had a yen for what belonged to someone else. I didn’t steal to buy luxuries or to accumulate a pile; I wasted it all on a big drunk. I did it for excitement, and to have facts to back up my tales to the fellows.

I’ve never given my father hot money. For me my father was sacred and I just couldn’t give him bad money. I have given him only what I earned honestly, although not as much as I should.

I admit openly that the first time I landed in the Penitentiary it was my own fault. I had had troubles before, but never anything like this. I was working in a place where they made fancy light fixtures. What happened was, we were celebrating the foreman’s Saint’s Day, and I went to the boss’s shop with two other boys who worked there—Pedro Ríos, alias the Tiger, and Hermilio. We had a few beers and
pulques
, and were already a little wobbly when we left.