—Go on, say hello. Don’t make me ashamed, Father whispers. —Be polite and greet all the guests.
The living room crowded with people drinking highballs before dinner. I don’t like going into the living room, but Father insists. The men under a tent of cigarette smoke, their amber drinks clinking in their hands, their breath a sweet stinky when they talk into your face. How can I tell Father they frighten me? They always talk too loud, as if everything they say is funny, especially if they’re talking about you.
Father’s compadre Señor Coochi is playing his guitar. The sound of Señor Coochi’s voice trembling like tears, like water falling clear and cold. Señor Coochi’s fingernails long like a girl’s, and his eyes a green-green that jumps out and surprises you when he closes and then opens them as he sings. It’s funny to have someone singing to you like in the movies. When he starts singing to me, I can’t help myself and start laughing. Then the guitar music suddenly stops.
—And you?
When Señor Coochi talks, the whole room becomes quiet as if everything he says is pearls and diamonds.
—And you, what are you?
—I’m a little girl.
The room laughs as if it’s one person laughing.
—Ah, a little girl, is it? Well, what luck. It just so happens I’m looking for a little girl. I need one, in fact. Would you like to come home with me and be my little girl?
—Nooooo!
Again a huge laugh I don’t understand.
—But I’ve got to have a little girl of my own. What if I told you I have a garden with a swing and a very nice little dog. And you wouldn’t have to do a thing but play all day. What do you say to that? Now will you come and be my niña?
—No, never!
—But what if I gave you a room full of dolls …
—No!
—And wonderful toys …
—Nope!
—And a windup monkey that does somersaults …
—Oh, no!
—And! How do you like this?… A blue bicycle. And your own little guitar. And a box of chocolates.
—I already told you. No and no and no.
—But how about if I give you your very own room. I’ll buy you a bed fit for a princess. With a canopy with lace curtains white-white like the veils for Holy Communion. Now, will you come with me?
—Well … O-kay!
The room roars into a laughter that terrifies me.
—Women! That’s how they all are. You just need to find their price, Coochi says, strumming his guitar.
—Just like the saying goes, Aunty Light-Skin adds, winking, —children and drunks always tell the truth. Isn’t that so, Juchi?
But Señor Coochi just throws his head back and laughs. Then he begins singing “La Petenera” without bothering to look at me again, as if I’m not even here.
At the Grandmother’s, I sleep on the rollaway cot in Mother and Father’s room when I’m not sleeping in their bed. And back home in Chicago, my bed is the orange Naugahyde La-Z-Boy in the living room. I’ve never had a room of my own. Every night the blankets and pillows are brought out from the closet and my bed made. Father’s glow-in-the-dark travel alarm clock watches over me from its crocodile box. Before I close my eyes, Father winds it and places it nearby so I won’t be afraid.
Father makes the same joke he always makes at bedtime. —¿Qué tienes? ¿Sueño o sleepy?
—Es que tengo sleepy. I have sleepy, Father.
—And who loves you, my heaven?
—That’s right, my life. Your father loves you. Never forget it. And who do you love more—me or your mama?
—Inocencio! Mother shouts angrily from out of nowhere.
—I’m only playing, Father says. —Right, Lalita? I was only playing. Ahora, time to mimi. Que duermas con los angelitos panzones, sleep with the fat little angels, my heart, he adds before putting out the light.
If I wake in the middle of the night or if sleep won’t come, I can hold the clock up to my ear and listen to its heart tick-ticking, sniff the leather and imagine this is what crocodiles smell like. The green numbers floating in the dark. I would like a room all for myself someday, white and lacy like the princess bedrooms in the Sears Roebuck catalog. Señor Coochi knows what girls like.
Memo, Elvis, Aristotle, and Byron are following the trays of antojitos. Just as soon as Oralia sets them down, they start eating, quickly-quickly, and don’t leave until the plates are empty. I’m helping them finish the chile peanuts when the Grandmother comes over and shoos us away with her rebozo. —¡Changos! But if she doesn’t want us to eat, why is there food set out everywhere?
The smell of fresh plaster and paint mixed with the smell of the Grandmother’s mancha manteles mole. The grown-ups seated at the big blond table, and the table covered with a lace tablecloth, and the lace tablecloth covered with clear plastic, even tonight on Father’s birthday.
—I don’t care, the Grandmother says. —Why do you think they call this dish mancha manteles? It really does stain tablecloths, and you can’t ever wash it out, ever!
Then she adds in a loud whisper, —It’s worse than women’s blood.
They put us in the breakfast room at the “baby table,” even though we’re not babies—Tikis, Toto, Lolo, Memo, me, Elvis, Aristotle, Byron, Amor, and Paz. Rafa and Ito get to sit at the big table with the grown-ups, because the Grandmother says they’re hombrecitos. Antonieta Araceli isn’t a grown-up either, but she’s too stuck up to sit with us. Still, we can hear everything they say in the big dining room next door as if we were there ourselves instead of at the baby table.
—Delicious mole, Mamá! Uncle Baby says.
—Delicious? says Fat-Face. —Mamá, it’s rich!
—Are you crazy? Father says, wiping the mole from his mustache with his napkin. —Don’t even listen to them! It’s exquisite, Mamá. The best. You’ve outdone yourself as always. This mole is excellent. I always say, there’s no food like the one made by Mamá.
—Ay, it’s no trouble at all, even though I made it from scratch! I’m not like these new modern women. Oh, no! I don’t believe in cooking shortcuts! the Grandmother says, not looking at her daughters-in-law. —To make food taste really well, you’ve got to labor a little, use the molcajete and grind till your arm hurts, that’s the secret.
—But, Mamá, why didn’t you use the new blender I brought you last summer? Did it break already?
—The blender! Forget it! Not even if God willed it! It never tastes the same. The ingredients have to be ground by hand, or it never comes out tasting authentic. These modern kitchen gadgets, really! What do you men know? Why, your own father’s never even entered in my kitchen. Isn’t that so, Narciso?
—I don’t even know what colors the walls are, the Grandfather says, chuckling.
—And now everyone, when you’re all done, please come downstairs to the courtyard for the cake and punch!
There is a loud scraping of chairs and a lot of hurrays from the baby table at this news. Then from the big dining room a horrible scream. We run over to the doorway of the big dining room and peer in.
—My dress! Antonieta Araceli is howling. —Somebody spilled mole on my chair! My dress is ruined!
It’s true. There’s an ugly chocolate stain on her bottom that makes us all laugh.
—Don’t worry, mi gordita, I’m sure the dry cleaners can fix it.
—But it’s mole! It’ll never wash out. And this dress was my favorite-favorite!
—Sweetheart, don’t cry. Go downstairs and get into another dress, okay? You have lots of pretty dresses. Rafa and Ito will help you downstairs, right, boys? One walk in front and one behind.
—Are you sure it’s mole? Rafa asks. —Maybe it’s diarrhea.
—Are you trying to be funny?
—Well, how did it happen? Pretty strange, huh? Rafa continues.
—Ito, tell me the truth. Did you see mole on that chair when you sat down?
—No, I didn’t.
—Me neither, says Rafa. —Sure is a mystery.
—Sure is, Ito says.
—Whose plate is this? The Grandmother says, inspecting the baby table.
—Mine, I say.
—Celaya, you didn’t even touch your mole.
—I can’t eat it, Grandmother. Pica. It makes little needles on my tongue.
—What do you mean? You like chocolate, don’t you? It’s practically all chocolate, with just a teeny bit of chile, a recipe as old as the Aztecs. Don’t pretend you’re not Mexican!
—Leave her, Mamá, she’s just a little girl.
—Inocencio, have you forgotten in this country we don’t throw food away! Why, I remember during the war we were happy if we even found a bit of dog meat. Young lady, don’t you dare leave the table till you’ve finished your mole, do you hear me? No birthday cake for you until you’ve finished that entire plate.
—But it’s cold.
—And whose fault is that? You’re under my roof now!
—And what am I, painted? the Grandfather asks, pointing at himself with his cigar. —Don’t I have a say around here anymore?
—You? You’re almost dead, you don’t count.
—I’m already dead, don’t ask me, the Little Grandfather says, shrugging and shuffling off to his room in a trail of sweet tobacco.
The girl Oralia is busy shuttling dishes back and forth, from upstairs to down, from the dining room to the kitchen. She doesn’t pay any attention to me sitting there in front of an ugly plate of cold mole. She couldn’t care less. I shake one foot and watch my shoe wobble off my white-socked foot. I shake the other foot and watch the other tumble off. I hum a little song I make up. I pull the sheer overlay of my favorite dress over my eyes and look at the world through the sprigs of lilacs, but it’s no use. Downstairs they start to sing “The Little Mornings.” Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el rey David, a las muchachas bonitas … I bunch my hands into fists, bunch my fists into my eyes, and start to cry.
—What’s this? What’s this?
It’s the Little Grandfather in the doorway. He’s taken off his party shirt and jacket, but still looks all dressed up because he’s wearing his Sunday trousers with the suspenders. In his sleeveless undershirt his arms are fleshy and white as pizza dough. A thick cigar glows in one hand, and in the other he holds a crumpled newspaper.
—What a silly you are, Private Lala! No need to cry because of a plate of mole. Come now, niña.
—But the Grandmother said …
—Never mind what she said. Do you think she’s the boss around here? Watch what I’m going to do. Oralia!
—Sí, señor.
—Give this to the neighbor’s dog. And if my wife asks, say the child ate it.
—Sí, señor.
—You see how easy that was?
—But it’s a lie.
—Not a lie! A healthy lie. Which sometimes we have to tell so that there won’t be trouble. There, there, stop crying. Would you like to watch television with me in my room? You would! Well, then first you have to stop crying. I can’t have you crying all over my room, that’s for sure! Put on your shoes. That’s a good girl.
The Little Grandfather grunts as he walks like a Pekingese.
—Don’t tell the others, because they’ll get jealous, but you’re my favorite, the Grandfather says, winking.
—Really?
—Truly. Eres mi cielo. You are my sky, the Little Grandfather says, showing off his English. —Did you know I used to live in Chicago once? A long time ago, before you were even born, when I was a young man I lived with my Uncle Old in Chicago. I bet you don’t know the capital of Illinois. What’s the capital of Illinois? What’s the capital of California? What’s the capital of Alaska? Don’t they teach you anything in school?
—I don’t go to school yet.
—That’s no excuse. Why, when I was your age I knew the names of all the states in the republic and their capitals, as well as the capitals of all … What are you looking at?
—Abuelito, how did your hair get like fur?
The Little Grandfather laughs like the letter “k,” exactly the way Father laughs.
—It used to be like yours. For many years. Then, when I retired, it started growing white. I dyed it at first—I was very vain once. Then one day I just let it go, just like that, and it went from shoe-polish black to white-white-white in a matter of days. Like the snowy peaks of the twin volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, he says, laughing. —Do you know the story of the twin volcanoes?… You don’t?!!!
—Nobody tells me anything. They say I talk too much and can’t keep a secret. That’s why they say they can’t tell me things.
—Is that right? Well, let me tell you. Izta and Popo, Izta and Popo, the Grandfather says, adjusting his cigar and looking up at the ceiling. —A Mexican love story. He clears his throat. He puts his cigar down and then picks it back up. He scratches his head.
—Once, under the sky and on the earth there was a prince and a princess. The prince’s name was Popocatépetl. You can imagine how difficult it was for his mother to shout, “Popocatéptl, Popocatépetl.” So she called him Popo for short.
There is a pause. The Grandfather stares at a spot on the rug. —Now, the princess’s name was Iztaccíhuatl and she was in love with this Prince Popo. But because the families of Izta and Popo hated each other, they had to keep their love a secret. But then something happened, I forget what, except I know he killed her. And then as he watched her die, he was so overcome with her beauty he knelt down and wept. And then they both turned into volcanoes. And there they are, the Grandfather says, raising the venetian blinds and pointing to the volcanoes in the distance. —See? One lying down, and one hunched over watching her. There. That’s how you know it’s true.
—But if he loved her so much, Abuelito, why did he kill her?
—Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know. I suppose that’s how Mexicans love, I suppose.
—Abuelito, what’s in there?
—Where?
—In there. Inside that.
—¿El ropero? Oh, lots of things. Lots. Would you like to see?
The Grandfather walks over to the walnut-wood armoire, runs his hand along the top, and brings down a small key with a faded pink tassel at the end. This he turns twice and the tumblers give their familiar click, then the doors open with a sigh that smells of things old, like a shirt ironed till it’s brown.
In one drawer the Little Grandfather shows me his cadet uniform, and in another a red bundle.
—This handkerchief used to belong to my mother. During the revolution she made a promise to la Virgencita to keep me safe. They had to saw three ribs out of me. And here are the three ribs, he says, undoing the cloth and placing them in my hand.
They’re as light as old wood and yellow like dog teeth.
—Grandfather, is it true you lost them in a terrible battle?
—Oh, yes! Terrible, terrible.
—But don’t you miss your three ribs?
—Well. Not very. He picks up an old sepia photo of himself. Seated on a cane bench, a young man with the surprised eyes of someone who knows nothing of the world. The person he is leaning on has been cut out of the picture. —You can get used to anything, I’ve learned, he adds, looking at the photograph and sighing. —Well, almost.
—And what’s this? I say, tugging an embroidered pillowcase.
—This? the Grandfather says, pulling out of the pillowcase a cloth of caramel, licorice, and vanilla stripes. —This was your grandmother’s rebozo when she was a girl. That’s the only recuerdo she has from those times, from when she was little. It’s a caramelo rebozo. That’s what they call them.
—Why?
—Well, I don’t know. I suppose because it looks like candy, don’t you think?
I nod. And in that instant I can’t think of anything I want more than this cloth the golden color of burnt-milk candy.
—Can I have it, Grandfather?
—No, mi cielo. I’m afraid it’s not mine to give, but you can touch it. It’s very soft, like corn silk.
But when I touch the caramelo rebozo a shriek rises from the courtyard, and I jump back as if the rebozo is made of fire.
—¡¡¡Celayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
It’s the Awful Grandmother yelling as if she’s cut off a finger. I leave the Grandfather and the caramelo rebozo, and run slamming doors behind me, jumping down stairs two at a time. When I get to the courtyard, I remember to answer the way the Grandmother instructed.
—¿Mande usted? At your orders?
—Ah, there she is. Celaya, sweetness, come here. Don’t be frightened, my child. Remember how she used to sing when she was just a baby? ¡Qué maravilla! She was the same as Shirley Temple. I-den-ti-cal, I swear to you. Still in diapers but there she was singing her heart out, remember? We should have put her on the Chocolate Express Show, but no, no one listens to me. Think of the money she could’ve brought home by now. Come, Celaya, dearest. Get up on this chair and let’s see if you can still sing like you used to. Let’s see. Ándale, sing for your granny. Watch.
—I … don’t know.
—What do you mean you don’t know?
—I don’t know if I can remember. That was when I was little.
—Nonsense! The body always remembers. Get up here!
The relatives begin chanting, —Que cante la niña Lalita, que cante la niña Lalita.
—Stand up straight, the Grandmother orders. —Throw your shoulders back, Celaya. Swallow. A big gulp of air. That’s it. Now, sing.
—Pretty baby, pretty baby, tan tarrán-tara taran-ta, tara-ranta-ranta-rán …
My voice tiny in the beginning, but then I puff up like a canary and sing as loud as I can.
—PRETTY BABY OF MINE, OF MINE. PRETTY BABY OF … MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!
A small silence.
—No, the Grandmother announces matter-of-factly. —She can’t sing. Juchi, play that song I like, the one from my times, “Júrame.” Come on, don’t be bad, play it for me. Todos dicen que es mentira que te quiero …
For the rest of the evening I hide upstairs and watch the party from the covered balcony where no one can watch me watching, my face pressed against the rails, the rails cool against my hot skin. Once I got my head stuck between the space between an “s” and a flower. They had to use the brown bar of laundry soap to set me free, and afterward my head hurt … from the iron bars and from the scolding. And my heart hurt from the brothers laughing, but I don’t like to think about that.
The music and the spirals of cigarette smoke rising up like genies. The other kids already asleep wherever they fell. Draped on a chair. Or on a volcano of coats. Or under a table. Everywhere except in their beds. But no one notices.
The bodies below moving and twirling like bits of colored glass in a kaleidoscope. Tables and chairs pushed to the edges to make room for dancing. “Vereda tropical” playing from the hi-fi. Aunties in silk dresses so tight they seem to explode like orchids, aunties laughing with their big flower mouths, and the air sweet-sweet with their ladies’ perfume, and sweeter still the men’s cologne, the kind men wear here in Mexico, sweeter than flowers, like the sugary words whispered in the women’s ears—mi vida, mi cielo, muñeca, mi niña bonita.
The men in their shark suits, gray with a little lightning bolt of blue, or olive with a gleam of gold when they move. A stiff white handkerchief in the pocket. The man’s hand leading a woman when they dance, just a little tug, just a little like when you yank a kite to remind it—Don’t go too far. And the woman’s hand nesting inside the man’s big heart-shaped hand, and his other hand on her big heart-shaped hips. A beautiful woman with black-black eyes and dark skin, who is our mother in her good fuchsia satin dress bought at the Three Sisters on Madison and Pulaski, and her matching fuchsia cut-glass earrings. Swish of stockings against the cream-colored nylon slip with its twin shells of lace on top and an accordion pleat at the hem, and one strap, always one, lazy and loose asking to be put back. My father with a curl of lavender cigarette smoke, his mouth hot next to my mother’s ear when he whispers, his mustache tickling, the roughness of his cheek, and my mother throwing her head back and laughing.
I’m so sleepy, except I don’t want to go to bed, I might miss something. I lean my head against the balcony rails and shut my eyes, and jump when the guests start roaring. It’s only Uncle Fat-Face dancing with a broom as if it was a lady. Uncle likes to make everyone laugh. When I’ve had enough of the broom dance, I get up to look for the Grandfather. The dining room door is heavy, I have to pull it open with both hands.
But when I step inside I don’t move.
I scramble downstairs to tell everyone, only I don’t have the words for what I want to say. Not in English. Not in Spanish.
—The wall has fallen, I keep saying in English.
—What?
—Upstairs. In the big dining room. The wall fell. Come and see.
—What does this kid want? Go see your mother.
—It’s that the wall has fallen.
—Later, sweetie, not now, I’m busy.
—The wall in the dining room, it came down like snow.
—How this child loves to be a pest!
—What is it, my queen? Tell me, my heaven.
—La pared arriba, es que se cayó. Ven, Papá, ven.
—You go, Zoila. You’re the mother.
—¡Ay! Always, always I’m the mother when you can’t be bothered. All right, all right already. Quit pulling at me, Lala, you’re going to rip my dress.
I tug Mother upstairs, but it’s like tugging a punching clown. She tips and wobbles and laughs. Finally, we make it all the way up the stairs.
—Now, this better be good!… Holy Toledo!!!
The dining room is powdered with a layer of white plaster like sugar. White plaster over everything, rug, tables, chairs, lamps. Big chunks of plaster here and there, too, like pieces of birthday cake.
Mother shouts downstairs. —Everybody, quick! The ceiling’s fallen!
¡Se cayó el cielo raso! Father says.
And then it is I learn the words for what I want to say. “Ceiling” and “cielo.” Cielo—the word Father uses when he calls me “my heaven.” The same word the Little Grandfather reaches for when he wants to say the same thing. Only he says it in English. —My sky.
—You know I don’t like to say, and I tell you this in confidence, but it’s that Memo who is responsible. I found him hiding on the roof just this morning.
—You don’t say! That monkey! Leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.
—Poor thing. He’s so much slower than our Elvis. After all, they’re only a month apart in age. Have you ever considered that maybe he’s retarded?
—Like hell! It’s the cheap contract work, for crying out loud!
—Aunty, this is the truth! Antonieta Araceli hid some of our toys under the Grandfather’s bed. I saw.
—¡Mentirosa! It wasn’t me! You just like to invent stories, mocosa. You believe me, don’t you, Mami?
—Ya mero. Almost! Did you see that? He almost put out her eye!
—Who did this to you, my heaven?
—It was … cousin Toto.
—You know my gorda has never lied to me. Never. If she says she didn’t do it, she didn’t do it. I know my own daughter!
—¡Chango! If I catch you touching my kids again I’ll take off my belt …
—Take your hands off my boy, or I’ll beat the crap out of you myself.
—Estás loca, I wasn’t going to …
—You can’t address my wife like that, tarugo!
—Who are YOU to call me an idiot? You’re the one who organized this picnic.
—¡Ay, caray! Don’t start, brother. Don’t even begin. Don’t YOU blame me for your bright ideas.
—You know I usually keep out of the affairs of my daughters-in-law, but are you aware Zoila is calling your child a liar?
—Válgame Dios. It never fails—a hair in the soup!
—My life, I told you this was going to happen. First you loan your brother money, and now look. This is how he pays you back.
—That’s it. I’ve had it. Licha, start packing. Tomorrow we leave for Toluca. It’s settled.
All of a sudden the Grandmother’s children are planning to leave. Uncle Baby and family to Veracruz. Uncle Fat-Face and Aunty Licha to her relatives in Toluca. But tonight there is a great slamming of doors and crying as the children are led whimpering off to bed and the guests accompanied to the courtyard gates.
—Thank you. Happinesses. Good night, good night, some of the guests say, while others say only “good, good,” too tired to say the “night” part.
The girl Oralia unlocks the gates and yawns. The gates on their squeaky hinges yawn too. Señor Coochi leaves without even looking at me. Then the gates shut with a terrible clang like in prison movies.
Maybe he forgot. Maybe he has to get my princess room ready. Maybe he meant tomorrow. The next night after our hot milk with a little drizzle of coffee, I go down to the courtyard, wedge the tips of my black patent leather shoes onto the bottom lip of the gate, pull myself up to the open square where the mailman drops the letters, and into this frame squeeze my face. The hiss of car wheels on wet streets after it rains, and the car lights coming toward our house that make me think maybe it’s him, but each time it’s not.
—Lalaaaa!!! Are you coming up, or do I have to come down and get you?
—Coming!
But he doesn’t come for me.
Not the next night. Nor the next. Nor the next next next.