Caramelo

by Sandra Cisneros

  —How much?!!! Father shouts into the receiver. —But I have seven sons!!! Think! Seven!!!

  Above the bed, la Virgen de Guadalupe keeps watch over Father from her gold frame, and beside her, in a plastic frame behind cracked glass, the black-and-white family portrait of our trip to Acapulco when we were little. The room is dark except for the blue light thrown from the television and the dim yellow light of a bedside lamp. Everything is in disorder. There are clothes, clean and dirty, cluttered here and there, the clean stacked in folded piles waiting to be put away, the dirty draped lazily on doorknobs and bedposts awaiting collection. On the floor a balled sock sits next to a mountain of magazines—Mexican comic books, ¡Alarma! tucked modestly in paper bags because Mother can’t stand the gory covers, ESTO sports newspapers, the glossy photo of a thick-thighed Mexican starlet on the back cover of a respectable news journal. Balls of crumpled Kleenex roam the hills and valleys of the blankets like stray sheep.

  —Yes, my friend. Thirty years thanks to God! Father continues bragging to some stranger on the other end of the line.

  Except for the bottles and vials of medicine on the bedside table, you’d never guess Father’s been sick. There’s Father’s last snack, a banana peel and an empty glass coated with milk. And, always within reach, “my toy,” Father’s remote control device for the TV.

  —Hi, mija, Father says in his baby voice when he hangs up. —How’s my pretty girl? How’s my little queen? How’s my niña bonita? Who loves you more than anyone in the world, my heaven?

  —You do, I say, sighing and leaning over to kiss his grizzled cheek. He smells like a jar of vitamins. Thank God the stink of death is gone.

  —Only one kiss? But you owe me more than one kiss. You owe me so many kisses. How many kisses do you calculate you owe me by now?

  —For crying out loud …

  —See how you are. How mean you are to your papa. You’re stingy with your kisses. Poor papa. When he’s in heaven then you’ll think of him. And then you’ll realize how much your papa loved you. Remember, no one loves you like your papa. You’ll never find anyone on this earth, no one, no one, no one who loves you like your papa. Ever. Who do you love more … your mama or me?

  —¡Papá!

  —Just joking, mija. Don’t get mad … Lalita, Father adds, whispering, —do you think you could buy your poor papa some cigarettes?

  Mother marches into the room with another stack of clean clothes.

  —No cigarettes. Ever! Doctor’s orders, Mother says. —Christ Almighty, this room stinks. Get in that tub, old man.

  —No, I don’t want to, Father says in the voice of a child. —Leave me in peace. I’m here nice and comfortable watching TV, not bothering anyone.

  —Listen to me, I’m talking to you. I said I’m talking to you!

  —Ay caray, I’m trying to watch television. Mija, please, Father says, suddenly interested in the show he was ignoring.

  —I said get in that tub. I can’t believe how stinky you’ve become in your old age. Honest to God, if your mother could see you now. Lala, you won’t believe it, but when I met your father he used to dress like un fanfarrón. Now look at him. How many days are you going to wear that T-shirt? This room smells like a cemetery. Do you hear me? When I finish mopping the kitchen you better be in that tub.

  Father stares mutely at the television, only coming to life once Mother marches to the kitchen.

  —Lala, he says, winking, —guess what I’ve gone and done?

  —I don’t even want to try to imagine.

  —I hired the mariachis. And I’m getting price quotes from bands that specialize in music from my time. For my party.

  Mother yells from the kitchen, —I already told you, I’m not going!

  —Tu mamá, Father says, shaking his head. —She has the ears of a bat. But guess what else? he says, lowering his voice. —I already found a photographer, and a really good price for the gold-lettered invitations. And I called a place that will give us a group discount on the tuxedos.

  —Tuxedos? Do you think the boys will go for that? They don’t even like to wear ties.

  —Of course they will. And you and your mother are going to wear formals. Ay, Lala, it’s like the party I always dreamed for your quince that I was never able to give you. We’re going to have a wonderful time.

  Again from the kitchen, —I already told you, I’m not going, do you hear me?

  Father goes on talking about “mi aniversario” as if Mother has nothing to do with it. How he wants to look for a tuxedo with tails and maybe even a top hat, because he remembers a friend from before the war who had one just like it. It’s as if Mother’s complaints only make Father more determined. He’s already phoned all his friends. El Reloj, el King Kong, el Indio, el Pelón, Cuco, el Capitán, el Juchiteco. All the friends Mother says are just like him.

  —Nothing but a big bunch of show-offs, Mother says to me while cooking Father’s favorite rice pudding. —Your father, I can’t stand him. His head is so fat he can kiss his behind. He makes me sick!

  —Well, then, why don’t you divorce him?

  —It’s too late. He needs me.

  It’s too late. She means, I need him, but she can’t say that, can she? No, never. It’s too late, I love you already.

  —¡Mija! Father shouts from the bedroom.

  —¿Mande? I say, running to his room like a subject being summoned by his pasha.

  —No, not you, Father says. —I meant your mother. Then he starts shouting again, —Zoila, Zoila! Come see the star from Till Death Do Us Part. She’s about to sing.

  —I don’t care about those stupid telenovelas, Mother shouts angrily. —I swear there’s no intelligent life around here.

  —Zoila, Zoila! Father continues shouting.

  —You see? He keeps yelling for rice pudding. A banana. Jell-O with some half-and-half. Pancakes. A cup of Mexican chocolate. That’s how it is, all day yelling for me over and over like a man drowning. Drives me nuts, Mother says, but there’s something in the way she says it, like she’s bragging. —Help me carry your Father’s supper over to his room.

  By the time we’ve set up his tray, Father’s already punched the mute button on the television remote and is on the phone talking long-distance. I know this because he always shouts when he talks to Mexico.

  —Of course, you can stay here, Father is yelling. —Sister, don’t insult me, I wouldn’t think of it. Yes, and Antonieta Araceli and her family too. You’re all welcome.

  —Like hell! Mother mutters. —The Hilton this ain’t. I’m sick of picking up after people my whole life. I’m retired, you hear me, retired!

  Father ignores her until he hangs up. Then he begins …

  —Zoila, don’t mortify me. After all those years we stayed with her in Mexico, how am I going to tell my sister she can’t stay here, how?

  —I’m sick and tired …

  —Sick and tired, Father parrots in his gothic English. —Disgusted!

  Then Father asks me for one of Mother’s nylon stockings. He has a migraine.

  Mother gathers up all the dirty clothes in a dirty towel and carries this bundle over to the washer. She slams and opens doors, cranks the button to start it up, and won’t look me in the eye.

  —Your father, he’s terrible, Mother says, close to tears. —I’ve had it.

  When I get back to the bedroom, Father is wearing the nylon stocking tied around his forehead, Apache style, eating his rice pudding in the blue light of the television.

  —Tu mamá, Father hisses without taking his eyes off the screen. —Es terrrrrrible.

  86.

  The Children and Grandchildren of Zoila and Inocencio Reyes Cordially Invite You to Celebrate Thirty Years of Marriage

  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 m
illion 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.

  The
n 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.