Next day, I went to work at the store and I forced myself to plan for Ismael’s first day of school, which was still a few weeks away. In the meantime, he stayed on the ranch with Franklin during the day while Amy and I looked after the store. As I did the work of sorting, ordering and taking stock of the inventory, I put the encounter with Octavio out of my mind. I fell into a kind of lull, telling myself that everything was just as it had been before I had bumped into him at the park.
Several days after the picnic, Alejandra faced Octavio. Her body was rigid; it seemed in conflict with the soft overstuffed sofa where she sat. She was glaring at him as he squatted on a small chair in front of her, elbows supported on his spread-out knees, his hands clutched together and his head hanging low. He was quiet now, but his words still echoed in Alejandra’s ears. Finally, she spoke.
“Maybe ’Apá was blind to it, Octavio, but I knew all along that you and Ana were messing around. You think this is big news for me, don’t you?”
Octavio didn’t answer her question. He seemed to be bracing himself for battle as he clenched and unclenched his fists. After a while, he covered his face with them.
“I suspected right away that she was pregnant. I’m the one who told ’Apá to check her out. I’ll bet you never thought of that, did you?”
He still did not speak, and his silence made Alejandra press him more. Her tone took on an air of triumph. “It’s been a long time, Octavio, and now you slither in here telling me that you’re the father of Ana’s kid. As if I didn’t know all along!”
Even though her voice grew huskier with each word it was controlled; it didn’t betray the rage that was thrashing her. She shifted her body forward, crouching slightly, trying to see his face. She could hear his hard breathing.
“Why, Octavio? Why are you telling me now?”
His head jerked up suddenly. His eyes were feverish and his skin had grown darker than usual. “Why? Because I want to be honest with…”
Alejandra sarcastically cut him off. “Honest! You? Don’t make me laugh! You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Stung by her words, Octavio reacted. “Okay! The hell with you! I’m telling you right now because I saw the kid the other day, do you hear me? I saw him and I want him! That’s all there is to it! I don’t have to explain anything more to you or to anybody else! He’s mine, and I want to keep him!”
Alejandra was stunned by the tone of Octavio’s words, but even more by what he was saying. His confession of fathering the boy was one thing; his intending to take possession of him was different.
She sprang to her feet, hovering over Octavio. She stood so close to him that he was forced to push his head back so that he could look at her face.
“What? You’re crazy! What’s got into you? You want him! I can’t believe what I’m hearing! All of a sudden! Why?”
He got to his feet, turning his back on Alejandra. His voice, even though tense, had calmed down. “I told you. I saw him, and I can’t stop thinking of him. The thought of him is driving me crazy. He’s my son, and even though I had never thought of him before, now I want him more than anything else. He’s going to be just like me. A man. And I want him to grow up with me.”
“Well, you can’t have him!” Alejandra was shouting now.
He spun around to face her. “No? Why not?”
“I’ll leave you Octavio! I swear I will!”
Unruffled and showing that he thought her words were an empty threat, he only scowled at her.
Alejandra retreated as she looked at his face, and she lowered her voice. “I won’t have someone’s else’s brat under the same roof with me!”
Octavio moved over and stood very close to Alejandra. The vein on his forehead was bulging, and his mouth was a menacing slit that grotesquely separated his chin from his nose. He spoke and his words seemed to come not from his lips but from somewhere else in the room.
“He’s my flesh and blood, and if you know what’s good for you!…”
“What, Octavio, what will you do to me? Come on, I’m waiting to see how you’re going to scare me into doing what you want!”
He turned away from Alejandra, apparently shaken by her challenge. He remained quiet for a long while and then, without turning to face her, he spoke. “You’ll take in the kid because Ana did what you’ve never been able to do. She had my baby. You—you’re dry, withered up, and you hate her for it. You hate her so much, Alejandra, that you can’t resist the chance of hurting her.”
Alejandra’s body suddenly seemed to have lost its strength and she plopped noisily back onto the sofa. When Octavio moved around to look at her he saw that her face was strangely cocked to one side. It was ashen-colored and her eyes were half closed. Like a mask, he thought, a cagey, suspicion-filled mask. He was so engrossed in what he was seeing that she surprised him when she spoke.
“What makes you think that Ana will give up her son just like that?” She raised her hand attempting to snap her fingers, and even though there was no sound, Octavio saw her gesture. When he didn’t answer, she added, “Ana will kill you first.”
He moved toward the front door and, placing his hand on the knob, he said, “We’ll see about that.”
Alejandra bolted out of her place and again began to shout. “You’ll grow tired of the boy. You don’t have what it takes to be a father.”
“Look who’s talking!” His mouth contorted into a mocking sneer.
In an attempt to keep him from leaving her, Alejandra said, “What about my sisters? They live here, too, you know. What makes you think they’ll accept the kid?”
“Because they will do anything you tell them to do, that’s why. And because they hate Ana, too. Your father taught them how to do it. Remember?”
Octavio turned away from Alejandra as he kicked open the screen door. He walked out of the house leaving behind only the shrill sound of squeaking hinges.
I was speaking to a customer when I looked up to see Octavio standing at the entrance. I closed my eyes hoping to resist the surge of blood rushing to my head, but I felt hot all over, and my hands became wet with perspiration. I forced myself to concentrate on what I was saying to the customer until she left. Then I spread my feet apart and placed my hands, palms down, on the counter. It gave me a sense of balance.
Octavio moved silently toward her as he looked around, making sure that no one else was present.
“Hello, again.”
Ana ignored his greeting. “Get it straight. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” Her voice was calm; she enunciated her words slowly and clearly so that they conveyed her restrained anger.
“You really know how to get to the point, don’t you? Okay! Fine! I’ll do the same thing…”
She didn’t allow Octavio to go on. “Please leave! Right now!”
“Get off your high horse, Ana! We’re not kids anymore, remember? You still act like you’re a queen or something. You’re just like the rest of us.”
Ana shifted her position and began moving from behind the counter in the direction of the office in the rear of the store.
Octavio took her by the arm. “Look, it’s simple. I’m not here to see you. I’m here because I want my son…”
Again Ana interrupted him. This time her eyes, wide open, reflected the unspoken fear that had crept into her heart when they had faced one another in the park. “You want your son! You want your son!” She repeated the phrase as if trying to understand words that had been spoken in a language foreign to her.
She slid back behind the counter, putting a barrier between Octavio and herself. She stared unabashedly at his face, and a thought flashed through her mind: she had once loved that face above all other things and people. Now it was the mask of the enemy. She swallowed a large gulp of saliva before she spoke.
“You can’t have him. Remember that you abandoned me and him. I don’t know why you’ve had this change of mind. All I know is that you gave up whatever part you had in Ismael a long time ag
o. You gave it up when you stood by watching my father beating me for what you…yes, you…and I had done. You gave it up when you left me waiting like a stupid fool at the church.”
Octavio didn’t interrupt Ana as words poured out of her mouth. But his jaw showed the tension that was gripping him, and his lips were pressed into a tight thin line. When he finally spoke, his face took on a scowl that reflected his turmoil.
“I didn’t come to be preached at! I came to tell you that you’ve got to understand that a boy needs a father, and for Ismael, that’s me. You’re only a woman and…”
“What? Excuse me! What are you saying?”
Ana’s outburst cut him off, leaving him startled and groping for words. Her voice was loud, menacing, and her face had turned dark brown.
“Look at me, Octavio! I know what you’re getting at, that I’m just a woman, and that without you I’m nothing. Right? That’s what you mean, don’t you?”
She pointed her stiff index finger, nearly grazing his nose. “Well, look at me, because you’re seeing a woman who did it on her own, with the help of these people who took pity on me.” She pointed to the rear of the store. “Where were you when we had to sell eggs, a dozen here and there, just to make ends meet? Where were you when I screamed for hours giving birth to my son? Answer me! Where were you? Gone! That’s where you were! And why? Because you’re a coward and a liar, that’s why!”
Octavio seemed to have been struck dumb; he could only glare at her as she pounded him with her words. Her chest was heaving with pent-up rage. She was reliving the threadbare life that had been made tolerable, even happy, only because of the shelter and protection given to her and Ismael by the Basts. Ana was flooded by repressed anger and hurt at having been cast out of her house by an unjust father who hated her because she had not been a son, and because she had allowed herself to love and receive nothing in return.
He finally regained a measure of balance, but instead of dealing with Ana’s words, Octavio chose to attack the Basts. “Ha! Those two old gabachos! What do they know of loving my son!”
“¡Ay, cabrón! You have no right to call them gabachos! They’ve been everything for Ismael. They’re his grandparents. Franklin is more than that; he’s my son’s father!”
By now Ana was screaming. She had not noticed that several customers had come in, and she didn’t see Amy rush out from the back office. Octavio, however, suddenly became aware of the presence of those people and he appeared to be intimidated by them. He backed away from Ana, but not before muttering so low that only she could hear, “He’s mine, and I’m getting him back. You just watch and see.”
Octavio left the store and Ana ran to the back office, sat down at the desk, and buried her face in her hands. As soon as the place emptied, Amy closed the front entrance and went to Ana. She saw that she wasn’t crying, but that her body was shaking.
“Don’t worry, Ana. There’s nothing he can do. Ismael is ours and there is no way on earth that man can pretend that he’s the father. There’s nothing—not a certificate, not a witness—that will prove it. You’ve got us who remember how you were thrown out of your house while he watched. If he was so concerned about his baby, why didn’t he speak up there and then? No, Ana, I don’t want you to be scared.”
Amy’s voice was calm and her words were spoken carefully, but her eyes betrayed her alarm. She had been able to catch a glimpse of Octavio’s face, and she was just as frightened as Ana, who continued with her face clutched in trembling hands.
“Let’s close up the place and go home. Franklin should know about this mess.”
Ana wasn’t able to speak, so she followed Amy’s instructions in silence. When they arrived at the ranch, the pick-up had not yet come to a stop before Ana leaped out of it and, without shutting the door of the truck, rushed into the house where she found Ismael at the table eating a cookie. He was so startled by Ana’s sudden appearance that he dropped the piece that was in his hand. She knelt down beside him to help pick up the crumbs, but when he came near her she took the boy in her arms. It was only then that she began to cry.
Franklin had been in the parlor, but rushed into the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. Amy took him by the arm, and together they disappeared into their bedroom. A while passed until Ismael moved slightly away from his mother. When he saw that she was crying, he wiped her face without speaking. The touch of his hands flooded Ana with serenity, and as she held her son at arms length, she told him, “I’m just a little tired, m’ijo. Come on, I’ll get you another cookie.”
That evening after Ismael had been put to bed, Ana, Franklin, and Amy talked until midnight. They pondered on the likelihood of Octavio’s threat to take the boy from them. Would he dare do such a thing, and if he did, how could he get away with it? They thought of calling the police to ask for help, but decided that it wouldn’t be of any use.
At the end of several hours, they came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do would be to take extra precautions with Ismael. They agreed that at no time would he be allowed out of the company of at least one of them. Ana figured out a plan to alert Ismael’s teachers against Octavio coming close to the boy when he was in school.
Once in her bedroom, when Ana put out the lights, she went over to her son’s bed, made sure the covers were right, and kissed his cheek. She went to bed, but she passed the night without sleeping.
Octavio stole Ismael. A thief, he intruded into our house, and he robbed me of my treasure. He let months pass so that I would be fooled into believing that I had been mistaken about him. In my stupidity, the man I had once loved now carried away the only thing that had given me happiness. Nothing could have transformed me, deformed me, as did the loss of Ismael: not my father’s hatred and rejection, not even Octavio’s cowardice and betrayal. With Ismael, Octavio Arce ran away with my soul. And in its place he left bitterness and hatred.
The door slid sideways on the track as its bars cast flickering shadows on the interior of the cell. A sturdy nudge by the female guard finally shut the door with a loud bang. Ana stared vacantly beyond the bars; her eyes were fixed on the opposite cell. She reached out, clutching a bar in each hand. Its steel felt cold and frozen. When she looked down at her body, she took in the drab, oversized prison dress that emphasized her thinness.
“Scuttlebutt says you plugged your old man, honey.”
Ana heard the voice of her cellmate, but she ignored it because her tongue refused to speak. Instead, she remained rigidly clinging to the bars, her back to the woman. Ana’s eyes closed hoping to dispel the nightmare.
“Oh, believe me, I understand. They can be bastards, can’t they?”
The woman’s voice was graveled by the effects of cigarettes and alcohol, but it had a soft lilt as she spoke, obviously attempting to convey her sentiments of compassion. Ana did not answer; she was lost in a world of hatred and confusion. Her ears began to pick up sounds that came to her from what had happened only a few weeks earlier. A vision of Franklin flashed in her mind, his pupils dilated with horror. She heard the awful words he stuttered, “He’s taken Ismael!”
Ana leaned her throbbing forehead against the cold bars. She felt a sob tearing at her insides as it made its way up, but the cry never made it to her throat and out of her mouth. It clung to her ribs and pounded at her back. She gasped for air to relieve the pain. It sounded like a sigh to her cellmate.
“No use wasting sighs on a son of a bitch, honey. Believe me, I know.”
Ana heard the woman, but couldn’t answer because she was breathing through her mouth as her chest heaved. Her mind flashed back, reliving what had happened. She saw herself as she grabbed the keys off the hook in the kitchen and dashed into Amy’s and Franklin’s bedroom. In the closet was kept the .22 calibre rifle used to kill rats and gophers. The weapon was in her hands before she knew it. Next, she was crashing through the front door and leaping onto the running board of the pick-up. The key went deep into the ignition and the motor cranked on. As
the vehicle careened into a U-turn, Ana’s last glimpse of Franklin and Amy was through a cloud of dust that shimmered in the light of the declining sun.
Now, in the cell, there was hardly anything Ana could remember of the trip between the ranch and the house on Humphrys Street. All she recalled was the prick of the wire gate on one hand and the weight of the rifle in the other one as she crashed into the yard. She remembered herself running up the stairs and pounding on the wooden screen door with the butt of the weapon.
“Octavio-o-o-o!”
In her memory, her voice sounded like the wail of a mad woman as she banged on the door over and again. Looking back, she remembered that she had turned and leapt from the porch and, facing the house, she again screeched out his name.
“Octavio-o-o-o! Alejandra-a-a! Give me back my son!”
She recalled that somewhere in the recesses of her mind she was aware of curious, frightened neighbors who peered through kitchen windows and from behind window shades. Her screaming went on, rising in pitch.
“Octavio-o-o-o! Come out and face me if you’re a man!”
Ana tapped her forehead against the bars as she envisioned Octavio’s image coming from behind the screen door; she heard its hinges squeak. He was dressed in an Army undershirt and rough khaki pants, and his face was gaunt, drained of color; its expression was menacing. She could see that his nerves were breaking.
“Shut up and get out of here!” That was all he said to Ana before turning his back.
“¡Cobarde!”
Ana’s voice rang out just before the rifle blast. Octavio was hurled against the screen door by the force of a bullet that penetrated his back. He crumpled onto the wooden floor of the porch, unconscious.
There was silence for a few moments, but then the quiet was ripped apart by shrill police sirens. Scanning spot lights gave an eerie glow to the night. There was commotion in the barrio. There was screaming, running, banging of doors, and finally there was Franklin, who had come in one of the patrol cars and who was taking the weapon from Ana’s inert hands. She felt his arms gripping her, holding her body steady, sensing that she was at the point of collapse.
The Memories of Ana Calderón Page 15