Okay, so it’s not the Ritz. It’s the Postal Workers’ Union Hall. So what? We’ve done the best with what we’ve got. Crepe paper streamers twisted and gathered at the center of the ceiling, where a huge disco ball does a slow, sexy turn and shatters light into a million pretty splinters over the wooden dance floor.
Somebody found a wire florist arch in a back room, and we tied balloons on it, and this is what you have to pass under as you enter the hall. The place is still as dark as a cave; a varnished, masculine room with wood paneling, like a hunter’s lodge or a tavern that reeks of sour beer and cigarettes, but we worked all last night to make it look nice. Plastic champagne cups filled with pillow-shaped mints in pastel colors. Scalloped napkins embossed in gold lettering with “30 Zoila & Inocencio.” I wonder if anyone cares that it isn’t quite thirty years. But who’s counting?
We’re decked out in our best. Mother bought a floor-length evening gown, and even the boys agreed to wear tuxes. I found a dress that doesn’t make me look too freaky. A vintage shantung silk number that reminds me of that fuchsia dress Mother used to have. It’s cocktail length, but I dressed it up with the Grandmother’s caramelo rebozo. It’s okay, it was the Grandmother’s idea.
People have come from all directions for the party. From all over Chicago and the northern suburbs, from Wilmette and Winnetka, from as far west as Aurora and as far east as Gary, Indiana, from the cornfields of Joliet, by plane and by car from Mexico, California, Kansas, Philadelphia, Arizona, and Texas. The scattered Reyes and Reynas, and the friends of los Reyes and Reynas, have gathered here tonight to honor Mother and Father, to say, —¡Caray! Who would’ve thought? I didn’t think it would last, did you? Or to raise a glass and thank God that Zoila Reyna and Inocencio Reyes are still alive, still on the planet giving trouble, still bothering everyone and still being bothered with the nuisance of living.
—Is that what he told you? Picked up off the streets of Memphis and made to enlist? ¡Puro cuento! He wanted to enlist. I know. I was there. He said to my father, “Uncle, drive me to the enlistment center, I want to become a U.S. citizen. I want to become a U.S. citizen.”
That’s what he said. And it wasn’t Memphis either. It was Chicago …
—When I was little I used to dance with your father. I thought he was handsome, handsome, handsome. He looked just like Pedro Infante, only skinny …
—Our dog eats them if you put butter on them. If you hold up a tortilla and it’s not buttered, forget it, he won’t even look at it …
—¿Qué tienes? ¿Sueño o sleepy?
—And whose fault is it that wing chair wasn’t delivered on time? I suppose now you’re going to blame me?
—Can’t you stop talking shop now? This is supposed to be a party. Forget about the wing chair.
—Forget? You’re the one who promised Mrs. Garza she could have it by today!
—You believe her? Married, my eye! Look, I hate to talk badly about my sister, but your Aunty Light-Skin can’t tell the truth to save her life! And I ought to know, I’m her brother. She wasn’t married. She just likes to talk a good story.
—They say he even made a sofa that’s in the White House.
—¡Apoco!
—That’s what they say. It seems like a lie, but it’s true. The White House. Imagine!
—All he wants is food that’s so much lata to make. Especially that damn mancha manteles mole that really does stain tablecloths and is so much trouble to wash out not even Tide will get it clean.
—You know what they say. The truth is God’s child … That’s not how it goes. How does it go? Truth is the daughter of God; a lie the Devil’s daughter. And I had the truth on my side, yes, I did. You believe me, right?
—I was not making ojitos at her, I was just being polite.
—Liar! I saw you! You don’t think after being married to you for twenty-five years I don’t know who I’m married to?
—¡Ay caray! Why are you so cruel with me? You love to make me suffer! Why do you mortify me?
—No, you got it wrong, buddy. It’s YOU who always mortifies ME!
—Honest to God. When he was young his father shot an elephant, an elephant that had gone crazy on a set they’d been filming. It was a circus elephant. This is what they say, I don’t know, I didn’t see it. And he says that when … Ah, no, that’s a lie. That’s not what he said.
—A body like María Victoria, remember her?
—And then we would go to Plaza Garibaldi to pick up gringas, order a Carta Blanca, or a Brandy Sagarniac. We’d dance danzón and boogie-woogie all night at el Salón México.
—His mother was the type who wouldn’t sit on a chair without wiping it first.
—If you really want authentic Yucatecan food while you’re in Mexico City, eat at El Habanero in the colonia Nápoles on Alabama 54, corner of Nebraska.
—Right? You love me the best?
—I read that Buster Keaton filled his swimming pool with champagne. Can you believe it? So that the bubbles would tickle the soles of his guests’ feet. That’s what I read in a book in Mexico.
—In my time it was Packards, Lincolns, Cadillacs.
—Yo nunca quise a mi marido. Mi familia era de mejor categoría, pero como no tuve recursos …
—I haven’t cried so much since I got that five-dollar haircut at the beauty college.
—A whole bag! He ate the whole thing, and you know fluorescent food can’t be good for you.
—Have your teeth gotten bigger, or did you lose weight?
—She looks just like her father, don’t she? I said when I saw her, there’s Inocencio all over again.
—¿Ytú—quién eres?
—Soy una niña.
—Remember when Grandfather used to get angry with us for eating our rice and beans mixed together? Remember?
—No, I don’t remember.
—Aw, you don’t remember anything. How’s about when he used to line us up for military inspection. You gotta remember that. —I don’t think so.
—Don’t tell anyone, but you’re my favorite.
—She’s the most beautiful of all us sisters, but she was born a little retarded. That’s why our father loved her best. Sometimes she goes into heat and our mother has to throw water on her.
—Pillsbury or Duncan Hines?
—No le hace. Lo que sea. Whichever one is cheaper. They both taste good.
—¡Ay, no! The ones with lace I can’t wear. They make my nipples itch.
—I know you don’t know her, but she’s your cousin from your Uncle Nuño. Don’t shame me, you’re going to go over and say hello.
—Se llama Schuler, Mamá. Schu-ler.
—¿Como azúcar?
—No, Mamá. Schuler. No sugar.
—Ya nadie hace comida como antes. Nada sabe igual. La comida sabe a nada. Ni tengo ganas de comer a veces, y a veces ni como.
—You can tell from her eyebrows she probably has a lot of hair all over her body.
—This is the family photo from our trip to Acapulco when we were little. But I’m not here, I was off to the side making sand castles, and nobody bothered to call me when the photographer came by. Same as always, they forgot all about me.
—What are you talking about? You weren’t making sand castles, Lala. You want the truth? You were mad, and that’s why when we called you over, you wouldn’t come. That’s the real reason why you’re not in the picture. And I ought to know, I’m the oldest.
—I don’t argue more! You argue more!
—Estás loca. Te gusta mortificarme, ¿verdad? Tú eres la que …
—Liar!!!
Finally, late as always, the program starts with Father entering the dance floor in his beautiful black tux with tails, looking like a Fred Astaire, every bit the gentleman. The mariachis start up with the bullfighting song, who the hell knows why. Everyone applauds. Mother enters the ring as brave and full of energy as a little bull. She’s spirited from being housebound for weeks taking care of Father. She’s nodding and waving in her new empire-waist aqua chiffon gown, waving stiffly like the queen of England. Father is kissing Memo’s hand, holding Toto’s face to his cheek, kissing each of his sons on his forehead or the top of his head. It’s enough to make you cry.
Then the mariachis open with a slow song, “Solamente una vez.” And Mother and Father are forced to dance. Mother acts stiff at first; that’s the first sign to get a few highballs into her, quick, then she’ll let loose. Mother and Father dancing like they’ve danced with each other forever, like only two people who have put up with each other and love each other can.
Finally, the deejay we hired takes over after the mariachis leave. He’s really great, has all kinds of music, from Pérez Prado to Stevie Wonder. When he plays “Kung Fu Fighting,” suddenly all the moms are up and tugging their husbands, who won’t join them. It’s their little ones who dance with them instead. The babies love it. They’re whimpering and whining, asking to be picked up. Brats are kicking the air, giving each other a sharp chop on the neck, or sliding across the dance floor. Little girls, the princesses at least, are dancing with their daddies, and the ones who aren’t royalty are dancing with each other. Rafa’s chiquillo is howling, and he and his wife, Zdenka, keep passing him back and forth to each other until Father volunteers to take him for a walk outside, so that the kid will calm down, but we all know he’s sneaking out for a forbidden cigarette snitched from one of his buddies.
After “She Loves You,” “The Twist,” “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” “Crocodile Rock,” and “Oye Cómo Va,” the deejay settles into some music from Mother and Father’s time, finally selecting something sure to get all the generations rising from their seats at the same time—a cumbia. Sure enough, everyone gets on the dance floor—kids, newlyweds, old people, even the ones with walkers and wheelchairs, the big and the thin relatives, the sexy aunties who look like inflated sea horses, voluptuous, enormous, exploding from the tops of their dresses, big mermaid hips and big mermaid chichis, dresses so tight it’s laughable and wonderful. Everyone, but everyone, moving in a lazy counterclockwise circle. The living and the dead. Señor and Señora Juchi who have flown up from Mexico City. Aunty Light-Skin with a toddler in each hand, her two grandsons. Uncle Fat-Face and Aunty Licha, Uncle Baby and Aunty Ninfa, all the cousins and their kids, my six brothers with their partners and little ones. Toto is dancing with his new baby girl, and Mother is cross and angry because he’s ignoring her. Father is making Toto’s wife laugh. She’s Korean American, and he’s showing off, singing a song for her in Korean, something he learned when he was in the war.
And I realize with all the noise called “talking” in my house, that talking that is nothing but talking, that is so much a part of my house and my past and myself you can’t hear it as several conversations, but as one roar like the roar inside a shell, I realize then that this is my life, with its dragon arabesques of voices and lives intertwined, rushing like a Ganges, irrevocable and wild, carrying away everything in reach, whole villages, pigs, shoes, coffeepots, and that little basket inside the coffeepot that Mother always loses each morning and has to turn the kitchen upside down looking for until someone thinks to look in the garbage. Names, dates, a person, a spoon, the wing tips my father buys at Maxwell Street and before that in Mexico City, the voice that gasped from that hole in the chest of the Little Grandfather, the great-grandfather who stank like a shipyard from dyeing rebozos black all day, the car trips to Mexico and Acapulco, refresco Lulú soda pop, taquitos de canasta hot and sweating from a basket, your name on a grain of rice, crema de nácar sold on the street with a vendor doling out free samples like dollops of sour cream, feathered Matachines dancing in front of the cathedral on the Virgin’s birthday, a servant girl crying on television because she’s lost and doesn’t know where in Mexico City she lives, the orange Naugahyde La-Z-Boy. All, all, all of this, and me shutting the noise out with my brain as if it’s a film and the sound has gone off, their mouths moving like snails against the glass of an aquarium.
It hits me at once, the terrible truth of it. I am the Awful Grandmother. For love of Father, I’d kill anyone who came near him to hurt him or make him sad. I’ve turned into her. And I see inside her heart, the Grandmother, who had been betrayed so many times she only loves her son. He loves her. And I love him. I have to find room inside my heart for her as well, because she holds him inside her heart like when she held him inside her womb, the clapper inside a bell. One can’t be reached without touching the other. Him inside her, me inside him, like Chinese boxes, like Russian dolls, like an ocean full of waves, like the braided threads of a rebozo. When I die then you’ll realize how much I love you. And we are all, like it or not, one and the same.
There in the crowd, do I imagine or do I really see my sister Candelaria dancing a cumbia, like a Mexican Venus arriving on sea foam. And I see the Awful Grandmother marching alongside and winking at me as she passes, and behind her, paying her no mind, the Little Grandfather shuffling with his short quick Pekingese steps. Next, Catita and her daughter without a name cumbia past, and Señor Vidaurri lumbering behind them with his big burnt face like “el Sol” in the Mexican Lotería game.
And I see people I’ve never met before. Great-grandmother Regina lifting her skirts and prancing like a queen, and next to her swaying clumsily like a dancing bear, the Spaniard, Great-grandfather Eleuterio. A huge Aunty Fina swaying gracefully with a little guy in a beautiful charro outfit; no doubt her Pío. And that must be the tiny witch woman María Sabina dancing descalza in her raggedy huipil. And Señor Wences, muy galán in his top hat and tails, his fist-puppet, Johnny, singing along in a loud, high voice. The handsome Enrique Aragón with his arrogant film star good looks, enchanted, entranced, walking happily behind Josephine Baker shimmying in a banana skirt. The sweetheart from the hotlands, the one my grandfather loved, in her iguana hat, cumbia-ing arm in arm with the woman who ran off with her heart, the smoky-voiced singer Pánfila dressed in campesino whites. And Fidel Castro strolling like a young boy holding hands with his lost love, the stunning Gladys. And look, it’s the barefoot Tongolele doing a Tahitian version of a cumbia in a leopard-skin bikini! Isn’t she lovely? Everyone, big and little, old and young, dead and living, imagined and real high-stepping past in the big cumbia circle of life.
—Lala!
It’s Father collapsing into the chair next to me, just sitting there looking at me, shaking his head.
—All these years I’ve saved this for you, Lala. But I’m getting old. I’ll be going soon.
—Where you going? You just got here.
Father places a wooden box in my hand. It’s his lucky dominoes box, a wooden casket with a lid that slides off the top. It’s as light as if it holds a dead bird.
—Open it, go on, it’s for you.
Inside, wrapped in blue tissue paper, my braids, the ones from Querétaro. They’ve been woven into a ponytail instead of the two braids the stylist had snipped.
—I sent them to be made into one hairpiece, Father says proudly.
The hair is a strange light brown color my hair isn’t now. It’s been styled so that it curls into a spiral a bit, or maybe that was once my natural wave, who knows?
—So does this mean I’m an adult now?
—Siempre serás mi niña. Father says this with so much sentimiento, he’s forced to take out his handkerchief and blow his nose. —Ay, Lala. Life’s never like you plan. I wanted so much for all of you. I wish I could’ve given you children more.
—No, Father, you’ve given us a lot.
—I worked hard my whole life, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. And now look at me. The king of plastic covers.
—No, Father, you’ve always given us so much. It was just enough, but not too much. You’ve taught us wonderful things. Necessity. We’ve had to make do. How could we have learned that valuable lesson? To be generous. To be dependable and be there for each other, because we’re familia. To take pride in our work. And to work hard. That’s what you’ve taught us. You’ve been good and kind. You’ve been a wonderful father, a king. And we’re your kingdom—your kids.
—Mija, you think you know everything, but I have something to confess to you. I tell you this, because I want you to take care of yourself, Lala. Cuídate. We are Reyes, nosotros no somos perros.
My heart squeezes. I already know what he’s going to tell me. He’s going to tell me about my half sister! I can’t look him in the eye. I start to fiddle with the fringe of the caramelo rebozo looped around my shoulders.
—It’s about … your grandmother.
—My grandmother!
—When she was very young, just your age in fact, she conceived a child. Me. And she did this from love, before she was married, I mean to say. When my father found out she was expecting, he wanted to run away, but it was your great-grandfather who reminded him we are Reyes, we are not dogs. Think of it. My father was just a chamaco, just a boy, but thank God your great-grandfather had the wisdom of years to remind his son of his obligation. And I tell you this so you’ll listen to me. I’m older, I’ve made lots of mistakes, Lala. Don’t throw your life away, don’t waste even a day. Don’t do reckless things that will leave you angry and bitter and sad later when you’re old. You don’t want to have regrets, do you? The Devil knows more …
—From being old than from being the Devil. I know, I know, I’ve heard it a million times. But … is there anything else you need to tell me, Father?
—What more is there to say?
I want to ask Father questions about the girl Candelaria, my sister. About his other daughter, the one he made before we were all born, when we were dirt. I want to know about Amparo, about her child. All my life you’ve said I was “the only girl,” Father. You’ve scolded my brothers and told them they had to look after me because I was their “only sister.” But that’s not true, Father. Why would you tell a lie? And was it a healthy lie? And if it wasn’t, what was it?
Why weren’t you a gentleman? I thought we weren’t dogs. I thought we were kings and meant to act like kings, Father. And why didn’t the Little Grandfather remind you of your responsibility if he was so feo, fuerte, y formal? Why don’t you tell me, Father? I’ll understand. Honest to God. But I don’t say a word.
I think crazy things. How maybe I can hire a detective. How maybe I can place an ad in the paper. In the colonia Industrial in 1940-something a girl named Candelaria was born to a washerwoman named Amparo. If you know the whereabouts … How maybe a thousand washerwomen’s daughters would appear, a long long line of daughters claiming to be my sister, telling stories more melodramatic than any telenovela. The hiccuping tears, the faces of brown women like the faces of the lost servants who appear on television. If anyone knows where this young girl lives, please come and claim her. Candelaria hiccuping up tears and crying and crying. And someone leading her to a blind doorway and leaving her there. And when she opens her eyes and realizes it’s no game, then what? The girl Candelaria with the dark Andalusian eyebrows of our sevillano grandfather, the skin darker and sweeter than anyone’s. The girl Candelaria my sister, the oldest, and me the youngest.
You’re not supposed to ask about such things. There are stories no one is willing to tell you.
And there are stories you’re not willing to tell. Maybe Father has his own questions. Maybe he wants to hear, or doesn’t want to hear, about me and Ernesto, but he doesn’t ask. We’re so Mexican. So much left unsaid.
I’m afraid, but there is nothing I can do but stare it in the eye. I bring the tips of the caramelo rebozo up to my lips, and, without even knowing it, I’m chewing on its fringe, its taste of cooked pumpkin familiar and comforting and good, reminding me I’m connected to so many people, so many.
Maybe it’s okay I can’t say, “I’m sorry, Father,” and Father doesn’t tell me, “I forgive you.” Maybe it doesn’t matter Father never told Mother, “Perdóname,” and Mother never said, “You’re pardoned.” Maybe it’s all right the Grandmother never apologized to Mother, “I hurt you, please forgive me,” and Mother never said, “Hey, forget it, I’m over it.” It doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s my job to separate the strands and knot the words together for everyone who can’t say them, and make it all right in the end. This is what I’m thinking.
I wish I could tell Father: “Te comprendo,” or, “I love you,” which is the same thing. But it’s strange to even think of saying this. We never say “I love you” to each other. Like when my brothers hug me, because we hardly ever hug one another, though Father hugs us each a lot. And how as foreign as it is being hugged by my brothers, how familiar it is. Their smell like their pillows. That scent of hair and their maleness, like Father, like his jar of Alberto VO 5 hair pomade, which I have never liked, but this time when I hug Father, that smell just about makes me want to cry.
—Imagine the unimaginable, Father says, looking out into the dance floor at the bodies shaking and marching and prancing and strutting in a circus circle. —Imagine the unimaginable. Think of the most unbelievable thing that could happen and, believe me, Destiny will outdo you and come up with something even more unbelievable. Life’s like that. My Got! What a telenovela our lives are!
It’s true. La Divina Providencia is the most imaginative writer. Plot-lines convolute and spiral, lives intertwine, coincidences collide, seemingly random happenings are laced with knots, figure eights, and double loops, designs more intricate than the fringe of a silk rebozo. No, I couldn’t make this up. Nobody could make up our lives.
The cumbia ends, and suddenly a waltz starts up, scattering the dancers off the dance floor like a bomb.
—Who asked for a waltz?
—I did, Father says. —Ven, you’re going to dance with your papa now.
—But I don’t know how.
—Don’t worry, mija. Así como sea.
Father stands up and leads me out to dance like the caballero he is. Everybody applauds and gives us the entire dance floor, which really has me sweating, but after a while I forget about everyone, and when I finally get the hang of waltzing, a whole bunch of Father’s buddies get up and join us, some of them tugging their wives, and some of them tugging younger members of the family, until the dance floor is filled up again, first with some pretty good dancers, the old-timers, and later with some pretty bad dancers, the younger ones, but nobody cares, everybody having a hell of a time.
—Who’s my niña bonita?
Father dances like if he’s a young man, like if he’s the same guy twirling about in the dance halls during the war, I imagine. The one my mother met who was so full of it. His face gone slack and tired, but his hair and mustache still furiously black.
—And what would you say you’ve learned from your life? What has la vida taught you, Father?
—¿La vida? … To labor honorably.
—That’s it?
—That’s enough for one life …
Say what they say, no matter what my father’s life, he’s lived it as best as he could, has labored honorably. Okay, maybe he made some mistakes. Maybe he’s told a few healthy lies during his day. So? Here we are, aren’t we? Here we are.
—But Lala, Father whispers in my ear, —these things I’ve told you tonight, my heaven, I tell them only to you, Father says, adjusting the caramelo rebozo on my shoulders properly. —Only you have heard these stories, daughter, understand? Sólo tú. Be dignified, Lala. Digna. Don’t be talking such things like the barbarians, mi vida. To mention them makes our family look like sinvergüenzas, understand? You don’t want people to think we’re shameless, do you? Promise your papa you won’t talk these things, Lalita. Ever. Promise.
I look into Father’s face, that face that is the same face as the Grandmother’s, the same face as mine.
—I promise, Father.