The Children of Sanchez (52 page)

Just for bed! He spoke to me now as if to a woman who had already taken that path. His words made me leave the house thinking of doing the worst. The worst to me was to give myself to a man for money. But I couldn’t—the shame held me back, and I took refuge in the church and cried. Unfortunately, I began to lose this shame little by little.

If my aunt had known about it, she wouldn’t have forgiven him. She, however, grumbled among the neighbors that I didn’t help her at all, that I didn’t give her even one
centavo
, that her bed was wearing out. While I was washing clothes the neighbor kids told me that my aunt was complaining a lot about me. But what could I do? I almost always looked for work through the ads in the newspaper, but when I arrived the vacancy was filled. Or the men, seeing how depressed I looked, made dishonest proposals. “If you want, there is no need for you to work. You are just a young girl. Well, I can’t offer you much, but if you want—” On two occasions I left slamming the door. Go back to my job with
Señor
García? Impossible! Jaime worked there.

When Jaime came, how angry and ashamed I would feel to be seen eating in the big chair or on a bench. He was proud of his family and their nice house and the way all of them sat around the table to eat and talk. He said his family was not on the same level as mine. I was angry with my aunt and uncle because they didn’t see that he looked down at them.

He thought he was stronger than I in that house, and one night he tried to prove it. He arrived drunk at about eight-thirty. I was on the bed sewing, the little radio he had given my uncle and aunt was playing, and my aunt was sitting in the doorway between the small room and the kitchen. When I looked up I saw Jaime staggering, holding on to the door frame, shirt open, tie on one side, his pants down around
his hips and fastened with a
Pachuco
belt.
Qué bárbaro
! To think I had hopes for him!

Suddenly he pulled the sleeve of my dress and scratched my arm. I got up faster than I thought, pushing him, and he fell into a chair. I was very angry. I swore at him, “Kept
Pachuco
, what do you think, you miserable thing! If you think I am one of your women from the cabaret, you go and fuck yourself.” My aunt got scared and said, “Calm down, woman. Calm down, Jaime. Better go.”

Then I turned on my aunt and uncle. “You are the ones to blame. How many times did I tell you not to let that drunk in here. Let him beat it or I’ll call the police.” Jaime looked at me with that scornful, glassy look and made some reference to his radio. I disconnected it with one yank and gave it a push. “Go and fuck yourself. Don’t think that you are going to be able to buy me with this. Now beat it with your idiocies.” My uncle managed to catch the radio a few centimeters from the floor. Jaime began to cry, but his tears did not affect me any longer. I was standing with my fists clenched. My uncle got him out and started him on his way.

After he was gone, I began to tremble. I didn’t know how to smoke, but I grabbed a cigarette anyway. My aunt had never seen me like that and was silent. My uncle came back smiling, “
Qué bárbaro!
Poor little runt, this time he saw the devil, all right.” My aunt said to me, “
Ay
, what is this? I never heard you say a dirty word before. This is the first time. If you broke his radio, how would you pay for it?”

“What do I care about his radio, Aunt. Let him take it. I don’t want him to have any excuse to come here. And please don’t let him in any more; don’t let him in any more!”

One evening when I came back from job hunting, Jaime was waiting for me as I got off the bus.

“Consuelo, please,
mi vida
, I won’t keep you long. I know that I don’t mean anything to you. I am nothing, but I love you. Please, just a couple of minutes.” Hearing his words, I felt as though a covering of cardboard had dropped away from around my heart, allowing my old love to pass through me, I agreed to walk with him for a few blocks.

He was talking about repentance, about his mother, about his love for me, when I noticed that we were getting far away. We had come to an empty lot. There was no light in that neighborhood, and the lights of the passing cars barely reached us. I told him I wanted to
go back. I got a terrible scare when I saw his face change suddenly. He grabbed me by the arm. I was afraid, but as always, appeared calm and secure. “Let’s go, Jaime. I want to go home. You don’t have to take me. I’ll go alone.”

But he didn’t let me go. His words came out, little by little. They sounded different, very hollow, very thick. “Do you think I am going to leave you here, eh? How innocent you are. I brought you here for you to decide. Either you be mine or—”

Jaime pulled out a stiletto. It was very close to my stomach. All it needed was one little push and it would have gone into me. I felt my sight get hazy. I didn’t answer for a few seconds. I just squeezed my purse and inwardly begged my mother to help, and the Virgin of Guadalupe, too. The worst of it was that he was in complete possession of his senses, so I couldn’t fight with him. I could already feel the chill of the point in my stomach.

Without moving, but trembling inside, and wishing I could bolt and run, I said, “Come on! If you are going to kill me, why don’t you do it? You know you will be doing me a favor. I ask you to do it, as I would ask for alms. You know nobody needs me, and so it doesn’t matter to me if I die here or someplace else. You would do something that the rest would thank you for. You would be getting rid of the proud one, the cynic, the disrespectful one, the vain woman you say I am. I have no feelings, so do it.” There was a silence … I felt as if I were going to fall.

Finally Jaime lowered the weapon and began to cry. I drew a deep breath. I heard his sobs, like those of a child. He threw down the weapon and embraced me. “Forgive me,
mi vida
. It’s that you drive me crazy, you are so indifferent. But I love you, I love you.” His words kept getting louder and louder until he shouted. “I don’t care if they see me cry. I love you, I love you.” I took advantage of the moment. “Let’s go,
mi vida
, forget all this. After all, I love you, too. Why should we make each other suffer like this? Let’s go,
negrito
. I promise that I won’t be so harsh with you any more. I love you,
mi vida
.”

We went back to my aunt’s house. I was more dead than alive. I felt as though my legs were made of rubber, and I began to sweat and tremble. My stomach ached dreadfully. “What’s wrong with you?” the people who were there asked. I couldn’t say anything in front of them. My aunt gave me some camomile tea and that was the end of it. I did not see Jaime again until two weeks later when he showed
up drunk, raving about Rebeca, Bélica, Estela, Yolanda, Adelaida, and I don’t know how many others.

About this time I got to know Mario better. He was now the one who took charge of me, saying, “I haven’t much to offer you, only these two hands that will work for you. I have no profession, but I promise that I will do everything possible so we won’t lack anything. Even if we eat only a pot of beans at least you’ll get away from all of this.” Mario, who worked near my aunt’s, had already proposed to me on two or three occasions. But I still had the hope of getting out of the city and making another life for myself without tears, without humiliations, and with a will to live, even to study.

I made one more try to enter a convent or some religious order. “I wasn’t born to be outside. I want peace. I want tranquillity.” That is what my thoughts were. “But money, money, a thousand
pesos
, a thousand—” They had told me the amount of money necessary to enter a convent was a thousand
pesos
. I never confirmed this but I did ask a nun what I had to do to get in.

“If you have your parent’s consent—”

“I have no
mamá
.”

“Well, if your father agrees, you can get in.”

“What else do I need?”

“To be a legitimate child.”

This cut off cold my desire to enter. My father had never married my mother, either by church or by civil law.

I found a job, but it proved to be temporary. I saw Mario the day I was fired and he promised he would talk to his father and get me a job. I didn’t want to give my aunt the bad news that day and, besides, I wasn’t really welcome with my uncle, so I decided to go and live with Santitos. My aunt regretted it very much and was also a little angry.

After I moved to Santitos’ house, I found work at the CTM union, the Confederation of Mexican Workers. Irma, an ex-classmate of mine, helped me get the job. I began to feel good and I never would have gone back to my aunt’s house if it hadn’t been for the fact that I worked until eight-thirty or nine at night. After work, I went to a dance hall with Irma for an hour or so and didn’t get home until about 10:00
P.M.
The section where Santitos lived had no electricity or water, or pavement, and scared me at those hours. It was near the canal where there were holdups. When I finally got home it was because
I had said all the prayers I ever knew, with my heart in my mouth and my eyes bulging, trying to see in the dark.

A girl at the union accepted another job and her boss had me work for him at more pay. But my bad luck hounded me. Irma got jealous and began to intrigue behind my back. I couldn’t take more trouble, so I left that job and moved back to my aunt’s.

I was coming around to deciding to stay at Mario’s house. What irony! I, who had promised to be as humble as a saint, to follow the example of St. Francis of Assisi, who had so ardently desired to have the purity of a nun and the dedication of a priest, would go with this man to have peace. Little by little I had changed. What was happening hurt me deep inside but I never showed my feelings. I tried to act cynical. What difference did it make? I closed my eyes to everything and decided I could do it. After all, if my father didn’t care, it certainly didn’t matter to others.

One afternoon, Mario and I came back from the movies and went to his house. He said, “Stay, don’t go.” If he only knew the whirlwind that went through my mind at that moment in spite of all the deciding I had been doing. If I stayed, it meant I was his. But what was the point of going home? For them to throw me out? For my father to ask me what I came for? I couldn’t stand it at my aunt’s any longer. I had no job. I had hoped others would open their doors to me, but they hadn’t.

“Be it as God wills!” I closed my eyes to everything at that moment. Nothing interested me any more but getting out of that world that was smothering me. I wanted to stop the stabbing pains in my eyes and the daily humiliations, to put an end to my hunger, to get rid of Jaime.

“All right,” I said and felt my head whirl. Mario was very pleased, of course, and told his mother. She accepted but I could see that she didn’t like me. That night, she had me sleep with her, and Mario slept with his father,
Señor
Reyes. The next day, even the sun seemed different and the streets prettier. How calm everything was in that house. Mario’s mother insisted on renting a room on the next block for him. I went there only to do the household chores after he had left for work. His mother wanted to keep us apart, she said, until after we married. Mario was impatient, but I was happy with the arrangement.

Then one morning when I came in with the bread, I heard Mario and his mother quarreling. She was shouting and accusing him of
wanting her to support him and his girl friend. “Don’t tell lies,
mamá
. I give you money for her,” he answered. I acted as though I hadn’t heard but when he went to work and his mother left for the market, I threw all my clothes into a paper bag and went to my aunt’s house. I wasn’t afraid to look for a job again and support myself. But it killed me to go back to my aunt’s house.

I was sitting in my aunt’s chair having a cup of black coffee when Mario arrived. He was terribly pale and when he saw me, he began to cry. He blamed his mother for everything and embraced me and said I must never stop loving him. (I had to he to him about that.) He refused to go home and moved into the shoemaker’s shop next door to my aunt, selling his clothes and other things to get money for the rent and food. He had only one suit left.

I had been telling him that I didn’t like the neighborhood, that it was doing me harm and that I wanted to leave it. I managed to convince him that we had to move out of Mexico City. That was when he confessed to me that
Señor
Reyes was not his real father. His father was in the
Sindicato
of the Department of Communications and could get Mario a transfer to some other city. By then I didn’t believe anything. But his father did come through with a transfer to a job in Monterrey.

All the neighbors promptly knew I was going to leave. The afternoon we said good-bye they were at my aunt’s house. My aunt had told me, “Give them something, daughter, so they’ll remember you.” I thought this strange, but I complied. They were only humble gifts, a glass to one, an old skirt to another, but they received them with pleasure. When I had given four or five gifts my aunt said, “With these things you won’t forget her, will you?” They thanked me and left, asking me to write them often. My aunt was crying.

Poor Mario! He took me to Monterrey, hoping to find true love. He was looking for a love so abstract, that it could not be touched or understood or explained in words. He thought he would find this love in me. But love is something both people must feel, a beautiful light that falls from above upon man and woman. The light fell upon Mario, but not upon me. I still loved Jaime and there was no room in my heart to love Mario. I was using him as a life rope to help me get out of the deep well into which I had fallen. I planned that once he took me to Monterrey, I would remake my life alone.

I
N CRISPÍN’S HOUSE, MY MOTHER-IN-LAW GAVE THE ORDERS, THE CHILDREN
paid no attention to my father-in-law. Crispín was very mean to him, and acted like his equal. Once he scolded his father for coming home drunk, as though the father were the son and the son the father!