Paquita flitted through the South Bronx barrio inquiring about other people’s health and regaling everyone with her latest misfortunes. None of her friends or acquaintances believed her capable of a dark thought and much less of an improper act.
“Doña Paquita is such a nice person,” they whispered among themselves. “She even took in that orphan who doesn’t talk, and her husband is always working and never takes her anywhere. And she’s always ill, the poor thing.”
Paquita rejected the indulgences of others with a sneer. Since her menopause, she avoided sex, which she considered a depravity. The only repository of tenderness and care was her own body, constantly flattered by the pleasures of hypochondria. She visited doctors as frequently as a pious old woman goes to Mass. The more arcane the illness diagnosed, the more serious it appeared, the more satisfied she felt. If someone had the misfortune of commenting favorably on her apparent physical well-being, she tended to respond, clucking with annoyance. “Oh, you’re mistaken, my friend. Appearances can fool you. On the outside I seem well, but only God knows the misfortunes I carry inside,” and she sighed deeply.
She was unable to wash dishes or do the laundry because she developed a skin allergy to detergents. When avoiding detergents did not relieve the itching and swelling of her hands, astute doctors identified her illness as a sensitivity to the waters of New York.
Since her asthma lacked the characteristic wheezing that denoted bronchial constriction, the doctors determined that it was precipitated by emotional distress. This diagnosis elicited great pleasure from the patient, who was convinced of the dark powers of emotional upsets to reduce her days on earth.
She was beset by mysterious pains in her chest, attacks of morbid nervousness if someone or something upset her, sudden vertigo when least expected, and all types of intestinal ailments. She constantly entertained friends and relatives with her latest afflictions. Yet the multiple ailments never stopped her from card playing, buying Irish lottery tickets, and playing the numbers. She went weekly to the Puerto Rico Theater on 138th Street, took the subway to the Park Avenue market, visited friends in Spanish Harlem, and spent hours in the local bodega conversing with the patrons who gathered there. Her multiple afflictions compelled her to travel to Puerto Rico frequently; the benign climate of the island made her feel better. After all, she was not allergic to the waters there.
On one of her many protracted trips to the island, Paquita left Blanca in the care of a chubby lady who had a small mongrel dog and a husband. The lady was very nice to the girl. On Blanca’s first day of school, she plaited her black hair tightly, powdered her face with talcum, and took her by the hand to P.S. 34 on Brook Avenue.
Still holding the little girl by the hand, she spoke to the principal, a large man with a brightly buckled belt. The lady signed a number of papers, and Blanca found herself sitting in front of a blond woman with a perpetual smile. The woman demonstrated how Blanca should hold the pencil and mark some drawings in a thick booklet of pulpy paper. Blanca had never held a pencil before, and she scratched her head nervously. She did not understand a thing, but in order to please the strange woman and not show her ignorance, she assumed her most knowledgeable face and with awkward lines marked all the drawings in the booklet. This seemed to have delighted the strange woman no end, because she constantly nodded her head and smiled so widely her mouth seemed to devour her nose, eyes, and forehead. Blanca stared at her apprehensively.
When Blanca entered her first classroom, the happy illusions she had entertained about school disappeared. She flinched at its aura of decay. The teacher smiled brightly and led her to a small chair where Blanca was surrounded by rag dolls with lusterless eyes. The teacher spoke to her in the strange language Blanca had heard many times, her voice so loud and gesticulating so violently Blanca thought she was a madwoman. When she sat on the assigned chair, Blanca felt a painful squeeze in her arm. She reared up like a cobra. A boy giggled behind her, flapping his dirty hands in the air. She cried all day.
During that year in a class for the mentally retarded, Blanca drew pumpkins in October, colored pine trees in December, and cut out white bunnies in April.
She also picked up some English.
When Blanca was able to communicate in English, school authorities no longer considered her retarded and placed her in a classroom for children without the deficiency of not knowing the English language. Her first grade teacher was a black-haired woman with fiery eyes. She had long crimson nails, which seemed to Blanca like the claws of a bird of prey. Her disdain for the children was only surpassed by the terror the pupils felt for her. When Blanca mispronounced a difficult word during reading lessons, extra motivation to get it right was imparted by a strong pull on her braid or collar. When the teacher sought some variety, she dug her nails into Blanca’s arm or rapped her knuckles with an ever-present ruler. Before turning around to write on the chalkboard, she warned the children that she had two eyes behind her head. She saw everything that happened while her head was turned, she said. Blanca had no idea what effect this revelation had on her classmates, but it terrified her to think that those hairy eyes, always open like caverns, stared at her pitilessly. She dared not stir in her seat.
By the time Blanca made it to the fourth grade, she was not only at the top of her class, but what was even more exciting, she had fallen in love with Ralph.
No one knew whether Ralph was an anglicized sobriquet for Rafael or Reinaldo. It was a certainty, though, that Ralph was the unvanquished holder of the title of Don Juan for the fourth grade. At thirteen, Ralph was an experienced older man despite his retention in a couple of grades during his checkered elementary school career. His handsome features and continuous hunt for females made him irresistible to girls who derided the childish boys their own age. They ignored the fact that Ralph could not read well, and that his genius was limited to disseminating his charm among grammar-school girls and some older ones at the junior high school on 142nd. None resented having to share him. It was a tacit pact. If they wanted to go steady with Ralph—and they all wanted to—they must accept the briefest of relationships. After all, such a specimen could not be found every day, and fortunate were those who enjoyed his attentions even if for a week at the most. Ralph was an equal-opportunity lover. He dispensed his liberal affections on Puerto Rican, Irish, Black, and Italian girls, and even on Bonnie, the Quaker.
Blanca, who looked at him with the eyes of a sick cow, went steady with Ralph for a week. Unfortunately, because it was the week of Washington’s birthday, it was only four days long. Later, when Barbara’s turn came up during a week of five whole days, Blanca felt a little stab of jealousy, but she still conferred on Ralph the bovine looks usually reserved for photographs of Elvis Presley.
School girls eyed Ralph constantly as he strutted in his tight pants, a plastic comb protruding from his back pocket. They would not deign to glance at the immature boys who hated and envied him. Rumors were rife to the effect that Ralph practiced French kissing, despite the fact that none of his girlfriends admitted to having indulged in that singular pleasure. Yet, the charge was repeated so many times it became an accepted truth.
Blanca’s four-day turn with the hero of her fantasies slipped away before she knew it. She consoled herself with Luis, a boy her age who read well and had a cute birthmark on his upper lip. Walking her home one day, Luis was agitated, darting glances from side-to-side.
“What did you get in the math test?” Blanca asked.
“B.”
“Mrs. Kaufman was in a bad mood today. Did you see how she rolled her eyes to the ceiling when Aurora dropped her social studies book on the floor? And she scolded me because I came in from recess sweaty and red in the face,” she chattered on.
Luis looked into each building they passed.
“She said that no wonder I got asthma attacks. That I shouldn’t be skipping rope because then they might have to take me to the emergency room, and that it was inconsiderate of me not to think of the problem this would cause others. Did you see how she wagged her finger at me and called me irresponsible?” Blanca inquired.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? Cat got your tongue?”
Suddenly, Luis grabbed her arm and said, “Let’s kiss.”
Blanca flinched and stared at his birthmark. “Oh, I don’t know,” she stammered.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “It’s real good.”
Unable to speak coherently, he squeezed her elbow. When he tried to say something, he failed to find the necessary words of persuasion. But her presence was essential to fulfill his daring plan, so he pressed on. He would convince her no matter what it took.
“What’s the matter, you never kissed a guy?”
Blanca had only experienced kisses vicariously, observing teenage couples hidden in hallways or behind the guardhouse at the park. But she nodded and let him drag her into a building. After all, she had been Ralph’s girl, and no one had to know they had only held hands once.
Luis explored the dark hallway quickly. He pulled her behind the stairwell strewn with empty beer bottles and dense with the stench of urine. Blanca’s hands were sweaty, cold and sticky. She had no idea how to proceed, where to put her arms, how to make her nose disappear. In the movies, she noticed that the heroine dreamily closed her eyes just before the hero kissed her. Blanca clenched her eyes like fists while she pressed her books against her chest. The mingled odor of urine and beer hit her in the stomach, just as Luis gave her a quick peck on the lips. The abrupt peck seared her lips. She opened her eyes to the sight of Luis, mouth twisted, pulling nervously at his collar. He seemed in pain. She ran away from him and the awful smell of urine.
A kiss should offer a pleasure as great as licking a chocolate ice-cream ball plopped on a sugar cone. A kiss should feel as good as patting a puppy. She had always imagined it that way, tasty and soft. But that cold, tasteless buss? Really! It seemed quite stupid to her. But no, maybe not, she began to reflect. In the movies the heroine closes her eyes, the hero rubs his lips against hers, and they remain pasted together for a very long time. The heroine always seems on the verge of fainting, and the hero prepared to kiss her forever. That was it! Stupid Luis should have rubbed his lips against hers for a very long time. For ages and ages. Oh, God, but with that stink of urine, she might not have been able to stand it. Maybe behind the guardhouse at the park. But she could not suggest anything like that to him. He was the one who had to think about those things while she pretended she was an innocent damsel. Blanca’s mental analysis served no useful purpose. By unexpressed agreement, Luis and Blanca never spoke of the episode again, nor did they consider themselves a couple after the crushing disappointment in the stairwell. Thinking about Luis’ brief peck and comparing it to the passionate kisses in Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, she was sure William Holden felt like a furry puppy when he tasted Jennifer Jones’ comet of chocolate ice cream—Blanca went home. She sucked in the smells that floated from the bakery downstairs. The aroma of kidney beans bubbling on the stove filtered through the apartment, and she felt hungry. There was nothing in the refrigerator. She poked in her coat pocket and found a coin. Enough to buy a corn muffin at the bakery. But Paquita had been cooking. That meant she would be home soon. Blanca decided to wait. Soon she heard the door slam.
“Your blessing.”
“May God bless you,” Paquita mumbled as she put a bag of groceries on the dinette table. She removed her coat.
“Blanca, take the garbage out on the way to the laundromat. And hurry, you know Tomás is waiting.”
Blanca rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She took a shopping bag stuffed with garbage to the basement where the super burned it in an enormous coal boiler. Tentatively, she went down the wooden stairs, feeling the edge of each step with the tips of her shoes. At the bottom, she took a few steps, hand held up in the air, until she felt a long chain. She pulled on it and a bare light bulb went on. The basement was musty with the smell of coal, ashes, mice dung, and rotting food. Rats scuttled away from the sudden light, and she released the garbage bag as if it were red hot, pulled on the light chain, and ran up the stairs. In the hall, she twirled in the light, happy to have survived another incursion into the rat-infested basement.
She strained under Salvador’s old sailor canvas sack full of dirty laundry and lugged it two blocks to the laundromat. Once the clothes were in the machine, she sprinkled them with powdered detergent, inserted coins in the slots, and shoved them in.
In the canvas sack she had stashed two empty soda bottles found in a garbage can on the street. She ran to the corner of 138th and crossed the street to a dilapidated little store where a wizened old man exchanged bottles for used magazines and comic books. Sitting in the hot rumbling laundromat, she read the juiciest stories in True Confessions and raced through Little Lulu. Her grandmother objected to her wasting any time reading at home when she had so many errands to run and chores to do.
As soon as Blanca returned to the apartment, Paquita handed her a heavy basket of food and rushed her out again. Blanca spilled into the night, a cold wind slicing into the skin of her face and bare hands as she walked ten blocks to a tall, wrought-iron fence. She climbed to the spiked spear points, careful not to drop the basket. The wind grazed her bare legs. The basket redolent of rice, beans, and stewed beef made her mouth water. She held the basket to her chest with one hand, and when she had slung a leg over the fence, taking care not to stab herself with a spear, she transferred the basket to the other hand. She eased herself down until the food was safe in Tomás’ hands.
Half a lung had been removed from her uncle Tomás in the sanatorium for TB patients. The Catholic hospital, administered by nuns, served spartan food that lacked the seasonings, sauces, and rice Tomás enjoyed. Hospital meat, tasteless and of ambiguous color, was not even salted. Orderlies handed patients tiny packets of salt and pepper to use according to their taste. Tomás complained about the food on one of Paquita’s visits, and from then on she sent Blanca every day after dark to feed her son because “the food eaten by those Americans tastes like seaweed, and that’s why it’s not nutritional,” she would say. Tomás had observed that in the evenings, right after nightfall, the nuns retreated to their prayers. With this information at hand, Paquita scheduled food deliveries after dark to avoid detection.
Blanca stared at St. Francis of Assisi standing stonily in the garden, certain that he frowned at her in disapproval, while Tomás ate in the darkness and Blanca hovered over the fence waiting for the empty basket.
She always returned late, tired and famished. One night she climbed the creaking stairs of her building and unwittingly disturbed a drunk who lay sleeping in the shadows of the first landing. Furious for being abruptly awakened, he went after her, stumbling up the stairs like a wounded bull.
His fingers were like windmill vanes attacking the air. His old black hat and gnarled fingers were taken in by Blanca’s frightened eyes. The rest of his body was buried under a dark, filthy coat. Blanca ran up, holding the food basket close to her body. She tripped and almost fell into the man’s claws. The drunk’s breath, heavy with alcohol and vomit, drove her on. Her chest ached when she reached her apartment. She banged on the door and looked back just in time to see the drunk stumble down the stairs. Trembling, she told her grandmother about the drunken pursuer. Paquita smacked her on the head.
“Shut up already. I’m sick and tired of your stupid stories. There’s some food on the stove. Eat it and go to bed. I got enough problems on my mind.”
That night, Blanca feared that, as soon as sleep swept her away, grimy fingers would wrap themselves around her neck and she would never escape. She forced herself to think about other things. So much had happened that day. She thought hard about skipping rope during recess. She tried to concentrate on Mrs. Kaufman, Ralph, even Luis and her first kiss under the stairwell. But her thoughts raced on without control. She thought of the drunk chasing her up the stairs, which made her think, inexplicably, about dark spirits. And that was what she hated thinking about most of all. When her grandmother forced her to a seance, Blanca feared she would disappear in a world of frightening beings. It was always the same pit in her stomach, the same fear.
A medium, eyes dark and glossy as coals, spins her hands in concentric circles over a bowl of water which sparkles in the glow of tapered candles. Then she closes her eyes, palms flat on the table, and sits still as a statue. Votaries, mostly women, gather somberly around the candle-lit table and mumble unintelligible prayers. Blanca’s pupils dilate when she takes in the shadowy faces with their clenched eyes as they plead vehemently for the realization of something that Blanca knows for certain will be horrible. When the medium speaks with a voice thick as engine oil, it always comes as a terrible surprise.
Just as the earth rumbles a warning beneath the surface of the sea before a tremor is felt, the medium splits her lips far apart and moans. Blanca sees her uvula swing like a bell clapper. Her eyes are like dark suns. She speaks in a deep baritone, her words like fingernails scraping glass. The medium caws, a white dint appearing at either side of her nose. Holy water slops out of the bowl, guttering candles contort as if in agony. A shadow swoops down. The spirit speaks.
Blanca slams her eyes shut to escape the assault. The voice crushes against the wall of her heart. She clamps her eyes more tightly, damming the flood she knows will swallow her. Pure terror, blind terror, nameless terror. Another voice screeches next to her. The spirit approaches. Or maybe another spirit has surfaced, railing against his sentence in Purgatory. It is the hour of her ruin, the final hour when the voices of tortured spirits rage against unrealized destinies, aborted lives, violent deaths. Blanca is certain she will die this moment, her flesh torn to bits by demented spirits.
She does not breathe. Suddenly she sucks in a mouthful of air. An icy current grazes the hem of her skirt. Silence stills the voices. The medium gasps and collapses like a rag doll.
A light comes on. Paquita and the others plunk coins and dollar bills into a large crystal bowl and file out. Blanca’s knees feel glutinous when she steps out into the night with her grandmother. She is always relieved to have escaped the tortured spirits once more. But she never sleeps after a seance. She sees spirits in every shadow. Invisible fingers jiggle the window pane with every gust of wind.
On one such night, she felt her bladder swell uncomfortably, but she was too frightened to cross the dark hall to the toilet. At dawn she fell asleep and dreamed of a porcelain bed pot on which she sat and sighed contentedly.
The next morning, a pungent odor awakened Paquita’s suspicions, and she uncovered the amber stain Blanca had carefully hidden under her blanket. When the girl returned from school, Paquita waited red-faced, pale eyes flashing behind her lenses.
The instrument selected for the occasion was a thick leather belt with a gold-colored buckle in the shape of a large S. She made Blanca strip and tied her arms behind her back with a woolen scarf. She wrapped the belt around her fists and the buckle dangled in the air. “Get over here,” Paquita said. And the girl stepped toward the shadowy line of pain. Then with intense, almost joyous vigor, Paquita beat her with the heavy buckle, turning the girl around so as to render an even beating.
“Take this, you swine, you filthy bitch. I should stick a stopper into your thing. Take this. Smell, smell the pee, you pig, and see how you like it.”
She grabbed Blanca by the hair and rubbed her face into the soiled sheet. Having rested a bit, she beat her again, not sparing shoulders, head, back, until the shiny S was emblazoned in welts and blood all over her body. A thick silence punctuated the hard blows and Paquita’s gasps when she brought the belt down. Blanca knew that crying would prolong the beating, so she stilled the ache behind her eyes and waited. When Paquita tired, she grabbed the girl by the hair again, shook her several times and shoved her into a corner. She raised a fist, triumphantly clasping a handful of hair like a winner’s trophy. She then kicked the girl and walked away with a final threat.
“Next time you pee in bed, you’ll see how I fix you up. I’m getting a cork and I’m stuffing it into your thing. You’ll see, you filthy pig.”