When I Was Puerto Rican (3 page)

“Let’s go see if the hen laid more eggs!” Delsa whispered.

We sneaked around the house to the path behind the latrine. On the way we picked up a few pebbles, just in case Mami asked what we were doing. A brown hen sat on the nest, her wings fluffed around the eggs. As we came near, she clucked softly.

“We’d better not come too close, or she’ll beak us,” I whispered.

The hen watched us, cackling nervously, and when we walked around the bush, her beady eyes followed us.

“If we keep walking around her,” Delsa said, “we’ll make her dizzy.”

We circled the bush. The hen turned her head all the way around, as if her neck were not attached to her body. Delsa looked at me with a wicked grin, and without a word, we looped around the bush again then switched and went in the opposite direction. Possessive of her eggs, the hen kept her eyes fixed on us, no matter how fast we moved. We broke into a run. Her scared twitterings rose in pitch and had a human quality, like Mami’s words when she swore we were driving her crazy. The hen’s reproachful eyes followed us as we ran around the bush, her body aflutter, her head whirling on her body until it seemed that she would screw herself into the ground.

“Negi! Delsa! What are you doing back here?” Mami stood in the clearing, hands on hips.

“We were looking at the hen,” I said in a small voice. Delsa giggled. I giggled. Mami didn’t. The hen buried her head into her feathers the way a turtle crawls into a shell. I wanted to slide under her wings and get away from Mami.

“Get back to the front yard and let that poor animal be.”

“We just wanted to see the eggs.”

“You’ve frightened her. Now she won’t give us any more eggs.”

We had to go by Mami to get to the front yard. Her eyebrows were scrunched together, the eyes under them as round and black and reproving as the hen’s, her lips stretched across her face so tight that all I could see was a dark line under her nose. “What are you waiting for? Didn’t you hear me?” Her voice quivered with fury, her whole body enlarging with each breath.

Delsa hid behind me. I shuffled forward, and Mami stepped back to let me by. Delsa whimpered. Mami stared at me, immobile, hands on hips. I was very small. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and walked past her. As I did, she knuckled me hard on the head. I ran home, rubbing the bump that was forming under my hair. Behind me, Delsa screeched and ran past, covering her ear.

Papi raked the dirt in the house. He looked up when we came to the door, holding our heads and crying.

“Don’t come bawling to me,” he said. “You both know better than to cross your mother.” He turned his back and pushed more dirt against the zinc walls.

Delsa sat on a stump and sobbed. I stared at his back, willing him to scold Mami, even though we’d done something wrong. He heaped piles of dirt into the corners of the house and hummed a song under his breath. Mami stood at the mouth of the path, her fingers laced under her belly. She looked small against the thick green behind her. She too seemed to be waiting for Papi to do or say something, and when he didn’t, she walked to the kitchen shed, rubbing her stomach, a pained expression on her face.

A bubble of rage built inside my chest and forced out a scream meant for Mami’s harshness and Papi’s indifference but directed at Delsa who was smaller. I pushed her off the stump, sending her small body sprawling on the dirt. For a moment she looked dazed, as she tried to figure out what she had done, but when she realized she’d done nothing, she fell on me, her tiny fists as sharp as stones. We tussled in the dusty yard, pulled each other’s hair, kicked and scratched and bit until our parents had to separate us and drive us away from one another, Mami with a switch, Papi with his leather belt. I ran to the bittersweet shade of the oregano bushes and wept until my chest hurt, each sob tearing off a layer of the comfort built from my parents’ love, until I was totally alone, defended only by the green, the scent of cooking spices, and the dry, brushed dirt under my feet.

A few mornings later I awoke to Mami’s moans. I rolled out of my hammock and crossed to the other side of the curtain. Papi was gone, and Mami lay on her side, a wet rag on her forehead. She was sweaty, her hair stuck to her cheeks and down her neck. She pulled on the rails of the bedstead, as if she were stretching, but her knees were folded up to her belly.

“What’s the matter, Mami?” I was scared. She was never sick, but now she was suffering. “What’s wrong?”

She opened her eyes and smiled. Her face softened then darkened again, as if seeing me had made her forget her pain, but not for long. “I’m going to have a baby,” she moaned.

“Now?”

“Soon as I can,” she said with a pained chuckle.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not too much.” She winced and rubbed her belly. Tiny bubbles of sweat popped on her upper lip.

“Can you make us breakfast?” She gave me a harsh look between moans, and I felt bad for asking. Just then, Papi walked in, followed by our neighbors, Doña Lola and Doña Zena.

“You’re up already!” He said it as if it was unusual for me to be up with the roosters. The women grinned. Doña Lola set a bundle at the foot of the bed, and she and Mami mumbled to each other. Delsa and Norma scuffed in, rubbing their eyes.

“Dawn breakers, eh!” Doña Zena chortled and held out her arms to us. “Come with me, and I’ll make you breakfast.”

Delsa took one look at her, then at Mami, and her black eyes opened round and wide like those on a doll baby. “What’s wrong with Mami?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Papi said as he nudged us out in front of him. “Mami’s going to have a baby, so Doña Zena will look after you today.” As he pushed us out of the house, sniffling and whining, Doña Lola took down the curtain that divided the room in two and rolled our hammocks out of the way.

Delsa wrapped herself around Papi’s leg and screeched. Norma ran back into the house and threw herself at Mami. Doña Lola pulled her down off the bed and carried her out dangling from one arm. “Someone is coming to steal your lap, Colorá,” she said, as she passed Norma to Doña Zena, who held on to her with an iron grip.

“Negi,” Mami whimpered from the bed, “take care of your sisters.”

Papi untangled Delsa from his leg and pushed her toward me. He went to the back of the house to light the
fogón.
I grabbed Delsa by one arm while Doña Zena took the other, and we struggled with her and Norma up the road.

“Shut your mouths. You’re waking up the neighbors.”

They didn’t pay any attention to me but continued wailing and kicking against the dirt. Halfway to Doña Zena’s house, I gave up trying to control them. I let go of Delsa, and Doña Zena jerked her and Norma along until they half walked, half hopped up the hill.

I didn’t understand why we had to leave our house when Mami looked so sick. No one had ever said anything about where babies came from, and I had never connected Mami’s swollen belly with my sisters. Until then, that was just the way she looked: black hair, pale skin, big belly, long legs.

Doña Zena dragged Delsa and Norma into her yard, while I straggled behind, fretting about what had just happened, jealous that, even though my lap had been stolen years ago by Delsa and then Norma, another baby was coming to separate me further from my mother, whose rages were not half so frightening as the worry that she would now be so busy with an infant as to totally forget me.

I crested the hill where Doña Zena’s house perched, commanding a view of the
barrio.
Mist hung just above the trees, burning off in patches where bright sun dulled the intensity of red hibiscus blossoms, yellow morning glories, the purple centers of passion fruit flowers. Mornings like this inspired much of
jíbaro
poetry, and in my fear over Mami I called up the few verses I’d memorized and repeated them like a prayer as I sat on Doña Zena’s steps, my eyes riveted on the slow ribbon of smoke ascending from our
fogón,
my feet buried in lemongrass, dew chilling my toes.

FIGHTING NAKED

Enamorado hasta de un palo de escoba.

He falls in love even with broomsticks.

M
y parents probably argued before Hector was born. Mami was not one to hold her tongue when she was treated unfairly. And while Papi was easygoing and cheerful most of the time, his voice had been known to rise every so often, sending my sisters and me scurrying for cover behind the annatto bushes or under the bed. But the year that Hector was born their fights grew more frequent and sputtered into our lives like water on a hot skillet.

“Where’s my yellow shirt?” Papi asked one Sunday morning as he rummaged through the clothes rack he’d put up near the bed.

“I haven’t ironed it yet.” Mami rocked on her chair, nursing Hector. “Where are you going?”

“Into town for some things.” Papi kept his back to her as he tucked a blue shirt into his pants.

“What things?”

“Plans for the new job.” He shook cologne into his hands and slapped it around his face and behind his ears.

“When will you be back?”

Papi sighed loud and deep. “Monin, don’t start with me.”

“Start what? I asked you a simple question.” She levelled her eyes and set her lips into a straight line.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll stop in to see Mamá, so I’ll probably have dinner there.”

“Fine.” She got up from her chair and walked out of the house, Hector attached to her breast.

Papi brushed his leather shoes and stuffed them inside a plaid zippered duffel bag. He put on canvas loafers that had once been white but had yellowed with the dirt of the road. He unhooked his straw hat from the nail by the door and left without kissing us good-bye.

I went looking for Mami behind the house. She sat on a stump under the breadfruit tree, her back to me. Her shoulders bobbed up and down, and she whimpered quietly, every so often wiping her face with the edge of Hector’s baby blanket. I walked to her, tears stinging the rims of my eyes. She turned around with an angry face.

“Leave me alone! Get away from me.”

I froze. She seemed so far away, yet I sensed the heat from her body, smelled the rosemary oil she rubbed on her hair. I didn’t want to leave her but was afraid to come closer, so I leaned against a mango tree and stared at my toes against the
moriviví
weed. Every so often she looked over her shoulder, and I turned my eyes to the front yard, where Delsa and Norma chased one another, a cloud of dust painting their legs up to their droopy panties.

“Here,” Mami stood over me, holding a drowsy Hector, “put him to bed while I heat you kids some lunch.”

Her face was swollen, her lashes clumped into spikes. I slung Hector over my shoulder, his baby body yielding onto mine. Mami raked her fingers through my hair with a sad smile then walked away, the hem of her dress swinging in rhythm to her rounded hips.

Papi didn’t come home for days. Then one night he appeared, kissed us hello, put on his work clothes, and began hammering on the walls. When he’d finished, he washed his hands and face at the barrel near the back door, sat at the table, and waited for Mami to serve him supper. She banged a plateful of rice and beans in front of him, a fork, a glass of water. He didn’t look at her; she didn’t look at him. While he ate, Mami told us to get ready for bed, and Delsa, Norma, and I scrambled into our hammocks. She nursed Hector and put him to sleep. Papi’s newspaper rustled, but I didn’t dare poke my head out.