The Memories of Ana Calderón (19 page)

Amy and Franklin were happy with Ana's work because she seemed tireless. She worked so hard that at times they were compelled to tell her to come in to rest, to eat a sandwich or to let up for the day. Ana seemed to thrive on work, however, and she seemed impatient to get out to feed the chickens, to gather the eggs, and to pack them in cases. When Amy taught Ana how to drive the Model-T, Ana was anxious to drive her on their routes to distribute the crates to neighborhood grocery stores.

The practice of Amy reading from the Bible kept up, as did the periods of reflection, but now they were put off until Ismael had been put to sleep. Words that Ana had never heard often cropped up during those readings. Sometimes Amy or Franklin were able to explain the words, but it happened frequently that their definitions didn't make sense to her. So she asked Amy to stop off at a book store she had noticed on the road leading into East Los Angeles.

Ana bought a dictionary which she placed by her side each night after that. Whenever a word or an expression came along that she didn't understand, she wrote it down on a pad which she kept by her elbow. Now, when they finished the periods of reflection, she stayed up for a while to look up the unknown words. After a few months, Ana, who had missed finishing school by two years, began to develop a vocabulary that would eventually take her far beyond that expected of a high school graduate.

During the last years of the war, change became obvious to Amy, Franklin, and Ana. There was a rash of new building
going on, slowly at first, and then at a quicker pace. They eventually noticed that structures began to show up near the boundaries of the ranch. While on their routes, Amy and Ana commented frequently about the increase they saw in car and pedestrian traffic on Whittier Boulevard. These changes were confirmed the day a couple of real estate agents approached Franklin, wondering if he would consider selling the spread. The government, they said, needed storage space. He declined the offer, but that evening the three discussed the matter even to the point of forgetting about the Bible reading.

“Cousin Mabel writes that her son, Kevin Thomas, has been assigned to a Navy yard out here. Says she and her husband are likely to up and move out here, just to be close to their son.”

Amy spoke of her family in Oklahoma, how they too were noticing changes, and that folks were pulling up stakes and moving out to California. “That's probably why there's such a fuss going on out here. Time was that you could almost hear a pin drop. Isn't that so, Franklin?”

Nodding his head in affirmation, Franklin glanced at Ana who seemed especially quiet that evening. “Anything the matter, Ana? You feeling queasy or something?”

“I'm feeling just fine.” Ana had unconsciously taken on the drawl with which Franklin and Amy spoke; now she used their words most of the time. “It's that I got to thinking about all this ruckus, and how maybe we could do something with it.”

Franklin, sensing that Ana was thinking of something important, was the first to break in. “I don't follow your meaning.”

“I mean, all we do now is deliver eggs to a few grocery stores, mostly between here and Los Angeles. It seems to me that maybe we can fan out, expand and sell different things other than just eggs.”

Amy and Franklin sat straight up in their chairs, their necks elongated and tense, as was their habit whenever they were surprised. They stared first at Ana, then they exchanged an alarmed look with each other.

Amy heard herself speak, “Different…other than just eggs! What do we have to sell if it's not eggs?”

“I don't know, Amy.” Ana paused as if to formulate words that were coming to her mind. “It seems to me that together
we could make things, based on chickens and eggs…”

Amy burst in on what Ana was saying, “You mean food?” She appeared both interested and frightened, as if Ana were proposing that they again uproot themselves, just as they had at the beginning of the Great Depression. “No! I really don't think that would be a good idea. We're doing just fine as we are. No use getting greedy and biting off more than we can chew…”

“Oh, now, Amy. Just a minute! Let's give Ana a chance to speak.” Franklin wanted to hear more of what the young woman was thinking. He had increasingly become impressed with her ways of figuring things out and the manner in which she was able to grasp how best to do something. He hadn't forgotten that it was Ana who had thought of relocating the coops so that there would be better drainage and less flies on the property. Turning to her, he said, “Go on, Ana. We're listening.”

She smiled. “I was thinking of the Navy yards in Long Beach we've been hearing about, and the new factories for planes and things…” She paused as if searching, “I think they're out in El Segundo, or maybe Torrance…”

“Good God, Gertie!” Amy nearly jumped out of her chair just thinking of the distances that Ana was proposing. “How in the world do you think that we could get out there and back in just one day?”

Ana would not be intimidated. “That's why I got the map, Amy. Remember? Look, it can be done. In fact, people are beginning to do it more and more, going from one side of town to the other, that is. From here we can take Whittier Boulevard, then left on Atlantic, and then…”

“And what would we sell other than eggs at factories and naval yards? Why, they'd pelt us with our own product before buying raw eggs!” Amy turned to Franklin for support, but she glared at him when she saw his expression of interest and growing enthusiasm.

“I don't mean plain old eggs, but food, just as you said a minute ago. What I mean is that we can prepare things with eggs and transport them out to sell during the workers' breaks and lunch time. I remember when I was working at the factory, I would have given anything for something special to buy during my time off.”

“Maybe the girl's got something!” Franklin was almost
sold on the idea of catering to those far-off places.

“All right! I'm listening. Just what kind of things would we make?”

Ana spoke slowly, weighing her words, “We could begin by making
jericayas…”

“Lord, God! What is that! I couldn't even begin to pronounce the word.” Amy was becoming more contentious.

“
A jericaya
is a small custard that's made with eggs and a little milk. They're not hard to make. We could whip up a batch and drive them out to Long Beach just to test if the workers would pay attention to us. If they don't like us, then we come back home and forget this whole thing. But if they do…well then I can think of other items to make. Things like scrambled egg
burritos
, or even
rompope…”

“Rom…rom!… What was that?”

“It's like the eggnog you make for Christmas, Amy. In fact, I think it is the same thing. It tastes real good and it gives a lot of energy. You feel like working after a few sips.”

Ana, enthused by her idea, looked from Amy to Franklin, and then back again. She was sitting on the edge of her chair, her face flushed with excitement. She liked what she was feeling; planning made her heart beat fast and she felt happy.

“Well, now, I do declare!…”

Plunging ahead without hearing Amy's protestations, Ana looked at Franklin, “There's just one small problem…these things have to be kept cold, otherwise we take the risk of their melting, or going bad.”

“I guess…yes! I think I can gear up something for you, Ana. Maybe some kind of ice chest. That would work, wouldn't it?”

Ana smiled again, especially when she saw that Amy was giving up on the obstacles. She had leapt to her feet and was scratching her chin as she always did when she was about to begin a new job.

The three of them plunged into the new enterprise. After the day's ranch work was completed, they worked together first to make the
jericayas
, the small custards that Amy cast in her muffin molds. They were forced to skip the Bible readings because of the time of night at which they finished. When Ana mapped out the route that they would take to reach Long Beach, they decided to concentrate on one job site in the beginning and wait to see how business went.

The ice chest devised by Franklin worked, fitting snugly into the car's trunk. Equipped for business, Ana and Amy, with Ismael on her lap, drove to the coast and onto the docks where they parked the car outside the main entrance of one of the plants and waited for the lunch whistle to sound. Shortly after the blast was heard, workers began to emerge from the huge doorway. There were hundreds of them, men in denim overalls and women in slacks and plaid blouses, their hair caught up in nets and scarves. A handful of them caught sight of the sign Ana had handwritten: “Come and get it! Mexican dessert!”

A couple of the workers sauntered over to the women and the boy. Ana smiled and greeted them, saying cheerfully, “Five cents a custard, and you're in for a treat.” She made her first sale, and less than an hour later their supply of
jericayas
was gone. Amy and Ana returned home, and together with Franklin, who now would have to remain behind to take care of the ranch, they sat at the table and calculated that, including the ingredients, their labor, the gasoline used for transportation, and even figuring in the ice, they had made more money than they did delivering eggs to stores.

Soon afterward, Franklin went to one of the neighboring ranches to buy a used Chevrolet pick-up truck that he had been offered some time before. He rigged up the vehicle with fixed containers and ice chests so that Amy and Ana could safely transport their goods. Franklin also included a small cubicle where Ismael could take naps during the afternoon while they waited to finish their selling.

The Basts and Ana Calderón worked hard on their ranch and their business as the war years crept by. They remodeled the ranch house to include a large bathroom with a shower and indoor toilet. The bedroom used by Ana and Ismael was expanded so that two beds fit in with space left over for a bookcase and a desk. Franklin negotiated with the Telephone Company, and, after months of waiting, the house finally got a telephone. It was a party line which the Bast house shared with three other homes, but everyone was grateful knowing that it was a luxury during those years.

The only contact that I had with 'Apá and my sisters during the war years was César. It was through him that I learned of how my father had forbidden anyone to utter my name. It was César who told me of Tavo's and Alejandra's wedding, of how everyone had celebrated, and of how my sister went around the house acting like she was a queen.

I usually picked up César when Amy and I were in the neighborhood delivering eggs. He'd wait for us in the alley behind Doña Hiroko's store where we met him. There, he would jump into the back of the truck and take Ismael in his arms, holding him there as Amy and I delivered the flats of eggs.

César was only around twelve years old at that time, but he seemed much older. He was a tall boy, so much so that most people thought that he was at least four or five years older than he really was. He liked this, and he tried to act like a grown-up. I noticed also that he was using pachuco words he had picked up in the barrio. When I questioned him about the way he was speaking, he laughed, telling me that the girls ran after him because of it.

Even though he looked like a teenager, my brother was still a little boy during the first years of the war. If I ever forgot César's age, something always happened to remind me of it. I realized how young he was, especially at the end of our runs when it was time for him to get off the pick-up and head home. Each time he'd cry as he hugged me goodbye. I used to think it was kind of funny that such a big boy cried so easily, but it helped me remember that he wasn't as grown up as he looked.

Later on, when Amy and I started traveling to Long Beach to sell our food, César came along, too. He loved the ships anchored at dockside, and he jabbered with the riveters and welders. He was always full of questions. “Ana, why don't you become one of these workers instead of making desserts and frying chickens to sell?” This was one of his favorite ones, and I tried to tell him the truth. “Because I feel freer at what I'm doing, César. I haven't forgotten what it's like to work in a factory.”

After saying this to him, I wondered if I was really free. Now, I doubt it. I don't think I was free because there wasn't a day that went by without my thinking of Tavo. After César told me of him and Alejandra, I found that I couldn't sleep. I
felt jealous and angry, and I visualized them in bed, kissing and holding one another.

This went on until a year after, in the spring of ‘43, César told me that Tavo and Alejandra had had a big fight. He said that it had begun as an argument, and no one had paid attention because they always bickered. Tavo then left, slamming the door and swearing never to return.

César said that he did come back later that night when they were all in bed, and that he was drunk. Tavo pounded on the front door, shouting for Alejandra to come out to talk to him. When she did, they screamed at one another, waking up most of the neighbors. She tried to scratch his face, and he slapped her so hard that she fell off the porch. 'Apá tried to help Alejandra, but Tavo, crazed with rage and whiskey, hit him, too. When he realized what he had done, he ran away and didn't return.