2

Lorenzo became friends with Don Silvestre, the projectionist at the Eden, who allowed him to stay in the projection booth, candy box and all. At intermission he would run out quickly to sell. “Candy, gum, chocolates, candied peanuts,” he’d yell up and down the aisles as he slipped between the rows of seats. When the lights went out, he returned to the booth, and the backstitching sound of the projector was his lullaby. Florencia stopped worrying about the content of the movies: Lorenzo had followed the story lines at first, but another interest soon caught his attention. When Don Silvestre rewound the film in the booth, the water went back into the jug, the storm returned to the sky, the rose became a bud, the arrow sprang back to the bow, and Lorenzo spent his time racking his brain trying to figure out if humans could go back to being children.

The neighborhood ragamuffins barely got into the lobby, tickets in hand, before they buzzed around the candy counter, enticed by the honey eyes of thirteen-year-old Emilia, her breath smelling of licorice, her lips redder than the chewy red candies, and her waist sylphlike. Florencia sent her back to the garden plot, saying, “The Eden isn’t for you. You’d better stay at home and take care of your little brothers and sister.” With Emilia’s absence, some of the boys disappeared, but others weren’t concerned. Lorenzo noticed that they also found his mother desirable. Oh, my sweet, my Florencia, with your body of blooming petals!

One of the parasites ventured to say, “Tell me what time you close, so I can walk you home.”

Florencia answered sternly, “My son is the gentleman who accompanies me.”

Lorenzo pestered Don Silvestre with questions: “What is light? What material is film made of? What are camera lenses like?” These were mysteries that the good projectionist had never thought about, even in his wildest dreams. One afternoon the reel broke on Don Silvestre, and Lorenzo cut it, pasted it, and started it running again. “Who would know what time is?” he harassed the projectionist.

“I think your teacher at school must know,” Don Silvestre answered.

Florencia was more explicit: “To me time is a measurement, a stopwatch. It’s ungraspable; it moves; it doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“I want to know if it’s air, if it’s space. What the heck is it, Mama?”

Her son’s intensity scared her. She perceived his anguish and thought, My son will never be happy. She had to shake him, lighten him up, train him to be less serious.

“Pretty bubbles, so rich and fine
Such seductive shades and kinds
Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles of love
Bubbles that burst with your touch
That burst like an oh so fragile illusion!”

Florencia spun her children around, singing:

“These dreams are seagulls
That travel to the most remote beaches
Sprinkling the fleecy waves
With their feathers that widen the sea.”

Although all four of them whirled around her and danced with one another—with Santi sometimes in her arms and sometimes in Emilia’s—those sessions were meant for Lorenzo. His arm around his mother’s waist, he also danced his own sweet illusions of a love gone by: “Mama, don’t you love my father anymore?”

“Of course I do, silly one. Why wouldn’t I love him?”

“Because of the pretty bubbles that burst.”

“That’s a song, son, not reality.”

“Then what is reality, Mama?”

“Ay, son, reality is everything we see and touch with our hands.”

“And what we can’t see but is still there, is that also reality?”

“Of course.”

“But what about the invisible, what you and I only feel, is that reality?”

“Yes, that too.”

“And what’s in my heart is a reality?”

“Of course, Lorenzo, it’s your reality, even though you don’t share it with anyone.”

One afternoon when he was very young, Lorenzo rushed into his mother’s arms after Don Joaquín had scolded her. He wouldn’t let go. He didn’t want to sleep in his own bed. He slept next to her, his head on her pillow. “This child understands everything,” Florencia told Dona Trini the next day. From that moment on, Florencia never attempted to return him to his place among his brothers and sisters.

Joaquín de Tena noticed the strong bond. “Listen, Flor, it’s time for that little boy to let go of your apron strings.”

If Florencia had realized how much she influenced her son’s life, she would have limited her empire, but she was a fiery woman, certain that she would always have him by her side. They established not only a mother-son relationship but a complicity that she would never have with Joaquín.

At times Florencia became impatient. There was no way to satisfy her eldest son’s questions. “Lorenzo, time is an illusion.” Was it really?

Then the boy would ask, “What is an illusion?”

Florencia would respond, “It’s a dream.”

“What is a dream?”

“It’s a phenomenon that happens in our brains while we sleep.”

“Then I have already had an illusion.”

“Yes, and you’ve also had nightmares and woken up crying, and now let’s go to the yard; it’s time to feed the chickens.”

Lorenzo would have liked to be bigger, to embrace her and never let her out of his grasp.

Don Joaquin de Tena was not the head of the family, either at the small farm or at his sister’s house, but there was nevertheless a dignity in his countenance, something calm between his brows and his sunken eye sockets. Don Joaquín would never hurt anyone; even Lorenzo perceived that. He would withdraw first. He was not involved in life. He would never throw himself into the struggle. He had nothing in common with the rooster in the yard, neither its ferocity nor its retort to the other roosters.

Florencia, on the other hand, was a fighting cock. And Lorenzo would be too; of course he would. He wanted nothing to do with that well-ironed dandy who showed up on Sundays.

 

 

The worst thing Florencia could have done to her five children was to die. One night a black butterfly flew into her bedroom, and within ten minutes Florencia was no longer breathing. That’s what Dona Trini told Lorenzo. Without understanding, the children went in to see her lying on the bed, her hair loosely spread across the white pillow, her hands folded, and a sad black rosary in her fingers. They had never seen her pray. She appeared to be asleep, a smile on her lips. Stunned, Lorenzo begged her to wake up. They took him out of the room. No one cried. That night, Amado and Trini lit the candles, and a monotonous praying pierced the children’s ears. At dawn, still not understanding, Lorenzo went out to pace back and forth between the stable and the vegetable garden. Dona Trini yelled through the trees, “Lorenzo, come have breakfast.” The boy didn’t come. “Lorenzo, come eat lunch.” “Lorenzo come have a snack.”

Amado went to look for him. Who knows what he saw in the boy’s eyes, but he came back without him. “It’s best to leave him alone,” he told the neighbor. Finally Lorenzo showed up in the kitchen, and Dona Trini put a bowl of soup on the table without a word.

At eight o’clock on Monday morning, all five children traveled in a cab from Coyoacán to the heart of Mexico City. One suitcase held all their clothes.

They never saw Trini or Amado ever again.

 

 

Lorenzo heard Dona Cayetana order Tila, the cook, “Take the orphans up and show them their bedrooms—the two girls together, the two little ones together, and the biggest one at the very top, in the attic.” From that day on, their aunt, Aunt Tana, would refer to them as the orphans, as if they had no father either. In truth, they didn’t. They would greet Don Joaquín once a day, kissing his hand, but he remained as distant as always.

“Get ready. You’re going to school tomorrow,” ordered Aunt Tana. “Thanks to my cousin Carito Escandón, I was able to get the Marist order to accept you.”

The torture of it all wasn’t the building, or the multitude of children in the patio at recess, or the priests, or the supervisors, or the old desks, or the dirty latrines; the hellish part was Aunt Tana’s, “Hurry up; run, run.” She had instructed Tila to put four glasses of milk on the windowsill that faced the street, each glass covered with a sweet roll, and the children were supposed to eat on the run, with one foot out the door. “Outside, go ahead, outside. Run you’ll be late.” At the last minute she grabbed Santiago by the collar. “Not you. You stay here.” Astounded, Juan and Leticia left, sweet rolls in their hands. By the third day, Lorenzo threw his into a sewer. He would never be able to accept anything from that woman.

Too proud, Lorenzo and Emilia never asked what had become of the small farm, the animals, Amado, Dona Trini, Coyoacan. Once, Emilia went up to Lorenzo’s attic room to ask him timidly, “How do you think my little donkey is?”

“I don’t know anything about that donkey,” Lorenzo answered angrily.

Emilia cried all the tears she had not cried since her mother’s death. Then they heard Aunt Tana’s sharp voice order the older orphans to come downstairs to recite the daily rosary, since they were the only ones missing.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jeeeeeesus …” Aunt Tana’s singsong voice always ended on a questioning note so that the small community at 177 calle Lucerna could respond. There were Tila, two other servant girls, Don Joaquin and his five orphans, and Don Manuel, Aunt Tana’s tall and almost nonexistent husband, whom she dominated completely. Any guest invited for tea was immediately required to join in the rosary ritual. Even Mr. Buckley, a North American banker, was privy to this custom among good Mexican families, where the servants were the equals of their employers when they stood before the Virgin of Guadalupe and an ivory crucifix. Mr. Buckley’s importance in the house on Lucerna was quite obvious as Dona Tana ordered the five children to greet him at the door and say in unison, “Welcome, welcome, Mr. Buckley.” Such ceremony was humiliating to Lorenzo; nonetheless, he watched Mr. Buckley closely to determine what it was that made him so unique.

Dona Cayetana, her husband, and her brother spoke French at the table “à cause des domestiques.” Lorenzo and Emilia were the only ones who were privileged enough to sit with the adults. “I’ll never learn French,” Emilia screamed, covering her ears one noontime before she left the table. “French gags me. I prefer English.”

“Little girl, don’t make tacos out of your food.”

“That’s how my mother taught me.”

“You’re going to have to get rid of that nasty habit. Anyone who sits at my table must have good manners. Emilia, why don’t you bow your head when the Host is raised?”

“Why should I hide my face if I want to know what’s going on?”

“It’s time for you all to start catechism classes. Your mother educated you like savages.”

Emilia defied her: “Don’t you mess with my mother, because I won’t be responsible for what might happen.” One time Emilia got into the lotus position on the living-room rug, remembering how she used to sit on the floor with her mother.

Tana yelled at her. “What’s wrong with you? Do you think you’re a dog? No decent young lady sits cross-legged on the floor!” Cayetana’s perpetually arched eyebrow was a condemnation of her nieces’ and nephews’ manners.

“Give French a try,” advised Tila in the kitchen. “You’ll see how happy it’ll make the senora.”

The priests at school were French. The prefects came from France. Tana and Carito ran into the father superior, Mon pere Laville, in Casa Armand, the most exclusive store, choosing brocade for his chasuble from a sumptuous spread of fabrics, because he distrusted the taste of the embroidery nuns. “I select it personally,” he boasted.

Emilia’s graceful figure would soon disappear from the house. A determined Dona Tana, with the help of a charity raffle among her friends at the order of San Vicente, was able to purchase her a one-way ticket to San Antonio, Texas, where Tana’s cousin, Almudena de Tena, would oversee the girl’s nursing studies. “Pull your hair up, Emilia. Only maids wear it down to go out in public.” Emilia’s hair was an impertinence, similar in color to El Arete, and on the streets it ignited stares. Pedestrians and drivers jeered and whistled, impressed by the smallness of her waist, her long legs, her breasts like two apples. “Hey there, cutie-pie!” Intolerable, a de Tena at the mercy of these brazen ragamuffins. So when Emilia expressed an interest in nursing, Dona Cayetana Escandón de Tena remembered Almudena, in Houston, who was married to a doctor.

Emilia left with a tiny suitcase, her hair loose and hanging to her waist. With the secret hope of succeeding in America, she was happy to leave the detested house but sad to abandon her brothers and sister. She determined at least to send for Santiago, who needed her the most. He could work in a bank like Mr. Buckley. “Sure, I’ll be glad to help the little fellow out once he’s over here,” the banker had said on one occasion.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus …”

But for the orphans, Florencia, with flowers growing from her head, was the one to revere—much more than the Virgin Mary.

“Brother, when you throw a rock into the air and it moves in a straight line in front of you, why does it fall to the ground?” asked Juan.

“It doesn’t move in a straight line. It makes a parabola and then falls,” answered Lorenzo.

“Why does it fall?”

“Because of gravity, everything falls.”

“Gravity is the most important force on Earth? If we remove all the other forces, does gravity stay?”

“I suppose so.”

“But how does the rock move in the air? Does it spin?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“When you do, will you tell me?”

“Sure, Juan.”

“What is all this foolish talk?” interrupted Tana. “From what I’ve been told, Juan, you seem to care a lot about rocks—playing war in the streets with a band of hoodlums. Your time would be better spent teaching that little sister of yours something useful, since she watches you with those big eyes. Come on, let’s get to those multiplication tables.”

Both brothers knew them by heart, which infuriated Leticia, who covered her ears charmingly with her dimpled hands.

“When your daughters outgrow their dresses, give them to me for Leticia,” Aunt Tana said to Carito Escandón on the telephone. “You see what a cute shape she has.”

Leticia had grown as slender as Emilia, but was more independent, more self-assured, better adapted to the circumstances. Affable, she spun like a colorful top. She would affectionately hug the adults who would allow it. She was fair-skinned, with wavy hair and big green eyes. Cayetana would boast, “Thank God that one takes after us.”

Lorenzo also fell under his younger sister’s spell. The girl followed him everywhere. Crossing her arms like a sergeant, at mealtime she would inquire, “Have you washed your hands, Lorenzo? I know you only wash them when you first wake up.” One morning Lorenzo heard someone whistling, and he felt as if a bird had flown right into his chest. He suddenly saw his mother in Leticia.

Tana’s recrimination sprung out like a black cat: “Girls don’t whistle!”

“Ay, Aunt, don’t be mean. Get me a canary. We need a canary in the house, Auntie!” She sang. She made everyone laugh. She was the only one to throw her arms around her aunt’s neck, and to everyone’s astonishment, Tana would hug her back.

Within a week Tila brought in a canary along with the heads of lettuce and the veal roast. “They sold it to me real cheap at the market.”

Juan, the second boy, had a mysterious life that Dona Cayetana distrusted. She didn’t like him. One night, after she accused him of stealing three silver ashtrays, Juan dared to dance a frenetic dance in the semidarkness of the hallway. His moving body reflected on the walls like shadow play. He sang in response:

“Damned witch,
whom all will decry;
outrageous witch,
soon you will putrefy.”

At times Lorenzo would ask himself who Juan really was, what he did. He got good grades at school, but he never expected any reward. Maybe he rewarded himself, but how? He went out into the streets alone. None of his brothers and sisters shared his solitude, and now that Emilia was gone, Lorenzo would run upstairs and shut himself in his room. “Don’t bother him,” his aunt would say. “He has to study.” Outside, on the way to school, Lorenzo visualized Juan walking back and forth just as he did, in the same solitary trance, attempting to find his mother, who was also looking for him among one of the hurried figures on the street, and she would bend down right now and hug him. Sometimes, in his desperation, Lorenzo would even hide in wait for his father’s silhouette, complete with cane and hat, and he’d imagine his voice saying, Come on, let’s go home. But the elegant man would pass right by him, the reality was not broken, and the young de Tena would choose another possible father from among the pedestrians. No one ever spoke to him. Sometimes the dogs followed him for a while and then ran off to another destination. Did that happen to his brother? Do you feel alone, Juan? he wondered. What do you do when you’re alone? Where do you go? Neither one was the same boy he’d been before, and each, remaining silent, attempted to prove his self-sufficiency to the other.

Lorenzo was concerned about Juan, but he never said anything. What would become of them? What did their future hold? The innocent little Santiago followed Don Joaquin like a lapdog and accompanied him right up to the door of the taxi when he left for the Ritz. At night, when he saw him return, Santiago would ask, “Father, do you want your slippers?”

The boy wouldn’t leave his father’s side. As Don Joaquin prepared his toilette, Santiago would hand him his shirt, the hand mirror, his suspenders, his cuff links, the small plate with half a lemon, which he used to smooth his gray hair. Then Santiago would inspect his head to make sure no minuscule piece of citrus had marred the alignment of each scrupulously arranged hair. Don Joaquin was going bald. “Here, here, Father! Wook! Wet me get it off!” The child would follow him downstairs and keep him company during breakfast. He even filled in for Tila, who was busy straightening the bedrooms.

Within a year Don Joaquin declared, “I have my own valet de chambre.” The only thing he had taught the child was to count his handkerchiefs and his blue monogrammed shirts that had been embroidered by the nuns, and to read “J. de T,” with the de in lowercase letters and more legible than the J and the T. Santiago could also pronounce the brand name of the French shirt collars—Doucet, Jeune et Fils. In the evening, the boy recognized the sound of the car motor that brought his father back, and he would run to the door.

“Already wagging your tail?” Don Joaquín would ask, amused.

At night the boy would kiss his father’s hand, and Don Joaquín would bless him. The other children didn’t appear.