Los Angeles, 1949–1951
Discoveries
We returned home at the end of the summer, and I still hadn’t learned anything new about my mother. Doña Antonia promised to ask around, but without the surnames of the owner of the hacienda, she had nothing to go on. She didn’t remember anyone called Adalberto or Verónica.
I settled back into my usual routine at the beauty shop. Marie wanted me to take over as manager. She was tired, she said. She had to slow down.
“I really can’t,” I told her. “Maybe in a couple of years, when Lexie’s in college.”
“She’s not a baby,” snapped Marie.
Marie had changed, and I knew why. Her son, Bobby, who had been stationed in the Pacific, came home traumatized. At least he came home alive, I thought, but still, I felt sorry for her. She’d been a wreck while he was away, and now that he was back, she was still a wreck—short-tempered, bleary-eyed, given to crying jags.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Gabi has her driver’s license now. Maybe she can take her sisters to school in the Ford, and I can take the trolley. We’ll work something out.” In the end, though, I didn’t take the trolley. I bought myself a new Chevy.
“Thank you, Mara,” she whispered. “Shell shock is awful...and now Rick...well, he just can’t face what’s happened to Bobby. He’s started drinking. I just can’t...can’t take any more. I’m sorry I was cross.”
I handed her a Kleenex.
“Tell you what,” she said, sniffing back the tears. “You can have my best customer, Lucille Carver. She’ll talk to you for hours about the movies.”
She stumbled over to the row of big black dryers lined up against the wall, their hoods bent over chairs like kindly, protective giants. They were resting now, but during our busiest hours their roar could split your eardrums. She slumped down under one of them and stared into space.
That Sunday afternoon, the girls and I piled into my new Chevy and drove downtown to the Rialto cinema, where they were showing Doña Perfecta, starring Dolores del Río.
“Tía Lola!” squealed Lexie when she saw her on-screen.
After the show, I took the girls to dinner at Mario’s—a real treat for them because we almost never ate out. In spite of the money I’d inherited from Tía Emi, I was frugal. After all, I still had to educate the younger girls, and besides, I thought we might have a wedding in our future. Lolly’s boyfriend, John, had gotten his degree in electrical engineering and was already making good money working for Westinghouse, and Lolly was teaching—not in the lily-white school Tía Emi had envisioned, but in a barrio she herself had chosen. She was happy, she said. Those were the kids who needed her most, and she was making a difference in their lives. But she didn’t know how long she’d continue, because she and John were planning to get married. My God, I thought, in a few years I might be a grandmother!
“Wow,” said Lolly, biting into her pizza. “Tía Lola still has it!”
“Has what?” asked Lupe.
“It. You know, pizzazz, sex appeal.”
“No, she doesn’t,” retorted Lupe. “She’s old!”
“She’s only forty-seven,” I said. “Two years older than me.”
“Exactly!” mumbled Lupe. “Old!”
But Lupe was wrong. Lola looked wonderful…and yes, sexy. Perfect skin, smooth and taut. She was gorgeous, even queenly, as Doña Perfecta, in her mantilla and brocade dresses.
“I read she got thirty-five thousand pesos for this film,” piped up Gabi. “She and María Félix are the highest paid actresses in Mexico!”
I sighed. “Eat your pizza.”
The shop was closed on Sundays and Mondays, which gave me time to tackle a task I’d put off for over a year: going through Tía Emi’s things. She’d left her sewing machine, fabrics, and pattern books to Gabi, but her workspace was still piled high with boxes of costume jewelry, photos, even newspaper clippings, which was surprising, given that she could hardly read.
“Probably most of that junk can just be thrown out,” said Gabi as we sorted through it. “Who needs a bunch of mismatched earrings and crumbling newspapers from thirty years ago? And by the way, I’m happy to drive Lex and Lupe to school, and I’ll be very careful. Don’t worry about it.”
I kissed her on the cheek.
We pulled down each of Tía Emi’s precious boxes one by one. Gabi was right. Most of Tía Emi’s stuff was rubbish. We threw away nearly all of it. Some of the photos were interesting though: me as a little girl at Don Francisco’s house, me in my school uniform standing in the plaza where I learned what play meant, Gabe and me at our wedding. I had no idea who had taken those photographs. One in particular caught my eye: a group of men and women, all mestizo or Indian, lined up in two rows. I stared hard at the image. It was faded and frayed, and at first, I didn’t recognize anyone, but then, I made out a familiar face. Tía Emi as a young woman, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old!
I turned the photo over. The names of all the people in the photo were listed in two lines, apparently in the same order in which they appeared. The old-fashioned handwriting was hard to decipher, but I finally made out Mª Emilia. There were no last names. At the top of the photo, a line read: “Household servants of the hacienda of Don Adalberto Morales y Pardo.”
My heart skipped a beat. Adalberto Morales y Pardo. Now I knew the name of the hacienda owner.
I’d seen other photos like this in the archives in Mexico. Large landowners often had their staffs photographed so that if one of the domestics disappeared with a piece of the household silver or some other valuable, the hacendado could prove that the thief was his retainer. I squinted at the names again. The one next to María Emilia was crossed out. I could just make out an M at the beginning and the tail of another letter that extended below the line. Mª Angélica? Mª Alejandra? Maya? Maruja? I turned the photo over and stared at the girl standing beside my aunt. She was young, maybe fifteen or sixteen. She looked a little like Tía Emi, but I couldn’t be sure.
None of the other photos was of particular interest, but a newspaper article, dated December 28, 1910, caught my attention. Like the photo, it was faded and faint, but with some effort, I was able to decipher most of it. “On Wednesday, December 28, the estate of Don Adalberto Morales y Pardo, in the area of Canatlán, was destroyed in a fire in which the whole family perished. Arson is suspected. Witnesses testify that peons and household servants from the estate fled the grounds...” I gasped. Now I knew not only the name of the landholder, but also the location of his property!
By then, telephone service existed between Mexico City and Los Angeles, but making a long-distance phone call was complicated—you couldn’t just dial a number, like now—and astronomically expensive. I opted for a telegram instead.
Mrs. Carver hardly batted an eyelash when Marie explained to her that I would be taking over as manager.
“I’d like Miss Mara to be your hairdresser,” she said, as though she were doing Mrs. Carver a big favor. “I’ll be working fewer hours from now on. I have to... I have a lot of responsibilities at home.”
“I understand,” said Mrs. Carver. “No one came out of the war unscathed.” She squeezed Marie’s hand. “You’ve been a good friend for over fifteen years,” she said. “I’m sure Miss Mara and I will get along just fine.”
She sat down in my chair. For a moment, she was silent, but then, she launched into a description of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring the incredibly handsome Marlon Brando. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”
After a while, Marie came over to make sure everything was going smoothly.
“Listen,” Mrs. Carver said to her, “isn’t it weird that they changed that famous sign in the hills from Hollywoodland to Hollywood? The Los Angeles City Council decided to make it official because this area has been called Hollywood for ages.”
“I guess so,” said Marie. “Frankly, I don’t care one way or the other.”
Mrs. Carver was pensive for a moment.
“To be honest, neither do I,” she said finally. Then she settled back into her chair and began to leaf through Star World.
The following week, Lola telegraphed me that her mother had heard of the Morales y Pardo family, although she didn’t know them personally. She believed that the owner, his wife, and their children had all died in a fire, but there might be relatives. She’d ask around.
I wrote a letter thanking her. Now there was nothing to do but wait.