Today is Mama’s birthday.
I know, not just because I have it memorized but also because I drew a circle with a red pen on the calendar with the famous paintings. To be honest, she was the one who drew the circle because I’ve never been able to reach so high, above the fridge, except with the chair.
“Don’t climb on the chair because you’ll fall. Don’t scribble all over because then we can’t read the dates. Leave it be, I’ll do it.”
On the kitchen door frame you can still see the notches where Mama marked how much I’d grown: two years, three years, six years…She always makes me stand against the same wall and act serious, while she puckers her lips in a stern, professional way.
“Keep your head straight. If you don’t keep straight, there’s no point.”
But even if I try to keep straight or stand on my tiptoes, I still can’t reach above the refrigerator.
The important dates—her birthday, mine, Blue’s—are all marked on the calendar with circles. It doesn’t matter if things have changed, we should celebrate anyway.
I look for a birthday candle in the third drawer in the kitchen. I find ribbons from unwrapped presents, uncorked corks, unrolled rolls of string, and some Chinese chopsticks neither I nor Mama ever figured out how to use.
When we went to the Chinese restaurant, the Chinese waiters all looked alike and they all watched us and laughed at us behind our backs, covering their mouths with their hands. We kept dropping our bites of food back onto the plate or into the little bowl with the bitter black sauce that splashed everywhere, and they laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. Mama shrugged her shoulders as if to say, Who cares?
“Don’t worry about it. Try this spling loll, it’s good.”
And then the lice cloquettes, flied seaweed, steamed laviolis…That night Mama and I only used L’s instead of the R’s, blinging chopsticks back to our apaltment with us. We brought them home to practice in the face of the Chinese who laughed at us, even though I had a stomachache, maybe because of having too many shlimps.
I find the little sky-blue candles from last year, sink one into a wafer bar, and light it using the lighter with the word Love on it. Blue follows the whole operation intensely, mostly because the wafer wrapper sounds like dinner.
I put the wafer with the lit candle on a little saucer; it’s not much of a cake, but it’ll do.
We make our way in a procession, Blue and I, down the hallway.
Blue in his gray outfit and me in my most elegant pajamas stained with pasta sauce walk single file down the hallway, careful not to trip like always on the worn-out Persian rug that runs down the middle, which, before being in our apartment, was in Grandma’s, where everyone tripped over it and swore at it too.
“Stupid rug, we’ve got to get rid of it one day.”
We advance, as serious as can be, and stop in front of Mama’s door with our special cake made of layers of wafer and vanilla cream.
I put the plate down on the floor.
The tiny candle lights the ceremony with a small, shaky glow that looks ready to go out at any moment. I’m small and shaky too. I’m not sure whether I should leave things as they are or blow it out for Mama, who’s out of breath?
I decide to help out because the flame looks like the little lights that flicker in cemeteries and makes strange shadows on the walls. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s just me who finds everything gloomy.
“Happy birthday.”
I blow and in the same breath whisper “Happy birthday” again; even with all my practice holding my breath, it feels like I don’t have much air in my lungs. I leave the gift there and walk backward, like shrimps do, so I can leave it without making a sound, without anyone noticing, a little at a time.