“No, I can’t do that,” said Nilda emphatically. “Besides, I’m getting paid to mind it.”
“How much?”
“A whole quarter.”
“Nilda, stop telling everybody we got money, stupid,” said Paul, nudging Nilda.
“Let me see it,” said one of the boys.
“I don’t have to show it to you, man. I got the money.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Show him, Paul, go on.” Paul gave Nilda a look of exasperation, reached in his pocket and held the shiny coin up. “See!” said Nilda.
“I didn’t see,” said a boy in back.
“Don’t jive me. I already showed you it and I’m not gonna show it again.”
“Let me in,” they heard a voice say. It was Frankie. Paul opened the back door.
“I want to sit in front, Nilda. Move to the back.”
“I will not, Frankie. I was here first and I’m minding the car for Jimmy.”
“Who said?”
“It’s true, Frankie,” said Paul. “Now leave her alone and sit in back.” He looked at Frankie, exercising his authority as the older of the two boys. Frankie slipped in back, leaning against Nilda with his elbow.
“Ouch!” she said. “Don’t give him one penny of our quarter, Paul.”
“What quarter?” asked Frankie.
Oh boy, thought Nilda, I can’t do anything right sometimes.
“Paul, what quarter?”
“Jimmy gave Nilda and me a quarter to mind the car for him.”
“You gonna split it with me, too!”
“Jimmy didn’t say nothing about that.”
“Aw, man, come on,” Frankie went on arguing.
Nilda looked up and saw her mother, Victor and Jimmy all coming toward the car. Jimmy had on brand-new clothes. Like he’s going to a party, thought Nilda. Victor was wearing his same old suit and Mamá had on her good dress and shoes.
Jimmy came over, leading the way. “Okay, come on out now; we have to go. Paul, give me the key.” The group of children surrounding the car backed away as the adults approached them. Nilda opened the door and jumped out. Frankie and Paul followed.
“Can I come along, Mamá?”
“No, you stay, Nilda. We’ll be back soon.”
“Hey, Jimmy, can I have some of that quarter that you gave Paul and Nilda?”
“Sure, Frankie,” said Jimmy, turning on the motor.
“He didn’t even mind the car. It’s not fair,” Nilda protested. The three adults were seated in the car, talking to one another and no one answered her.
“So long. See you kids later,” said Jimmy as the car pulled out and disappeared.
Paul turned to go to the candy store. He said, “Now I’m gonna get change. Nilda, you get five cents and Frankie, you get five cents.”
“Hey, that means you get fifteen cents!” cried Nilda.
Paul said, “That’s right, Nilda. You were gonna get twelve cents and me thirteen cents, but your big mouth just cost you a whole seven cents.”
Nilda looked at him angrily, but said nothing because she knew Paul was right.
October 1941
Nilda followed along as Leo and her mother walked on ahead. They had gone early in the evening to see a man who knew something about her brother Jimmy. It had been weeks now since her mother had heard from him. No one knew where Jimmy was or what he was doing. Recently they had heard that he was wanted by the police.
Leo had accompanied her mother because her stepfather was still in the hospital. Her mother, Leo and the man had spent a long time talking, mostly in whispers. Nilda had overheard phrases like “he’s hooked on drugs mainlining … could be a seller and a user … tecatos the police are after the gang.…” and other confused talk. She knew it had to do with Jimmy and the police, but exactly what she could not completely understand. Several times, Nilda had been sent down for treats to the corner candy store. That was the best part, she thought.
The man lived on East 126th Street and Nilda began to get tired as she thought of the long walk home. It was a warm night and Nilda began to play her sidewalk game. She loved to play that game, especially on different streets where the sidewalks were new to her. It was a game of discovery in which she uncovered many worlds of wonder. The diagonal, horizontal and vertical cracks in the sidewalks became dividing regions, stimulating her imagination. The different shapes of the worn-out surfaces of concrete and asphalt developed before her eyes into dragons, animals, oceans and planets of the universe. She continued looking for new and wonderful worlds that lay hidden underneath the concrete.
Nilda was completely absorbed when she saw tiny red dots all about the size of a dime. She bent down to examine the shiny surface and as she touched the dot with her shoe, it spread. It’s liquid, like paint or something, she thought. As she walked on, the sidewalk was covered with these dots of shiny liquid leading somewhere. Intrigued, she traced the dots as she would a number picture puzzle, trying to connect them so that she could solve this new mystery. The red dots led Nilda to a doorway and beyond, into a pool of glistening red liquid inside the hallway of a building. “Ay, ayyyy,” someone moaned. Nilda heard heavy breathing. She went in farther and heard the moan again above her. Looking up and into a corner, she saw a man clutching his stomach. His light blue shirt was streaked with crimson and his hands were drenched in blood. His face twisted in pain, he looked at Nilda, his dark eyes pleading for help. Whimpering, he rocked his head, and his black hair, wet with sweat, fell down over his forehead.
Nilda felt her own stomach turn cold as ice. Running out of the building to find her mother and Leo, she saw them coming toward her. “Mamá, there’s a man. He’s all full of blood, in that building in there.” Her voice was shaking. Swiftly they went past her into the hallway.
“Oh my God, Virgen María Madre de Dios, he’s been stabbed.”
Nilda could hear her mother screaming. Leo was out in a second.
“Police! Police! Help! ¡Ayuda! Somebody’s been hurt,” Leo was shouting. He ran into a bar next door. People began to open windows and gather about.
“He’s been hurt, poor man, we need help, ¡bendito! ¡Se muere! He’s bleeding very badly,” her mother went on, pleading for help.
The superintendent of the building came out, and by this time many people were shouting and asking questions.
Nilda waited outside in front of the building. Two small boys came by. They looked at her. “Hey, what happened, man?” they asked.
“Somebody got stabbed, I think in the stomach, and he’s bleeding all over.” She pointed to the blood on the sidewalk. People had stepped in it, leaving red shoe-prints.
“Does he live here?” asked one of the boys.
“I don’t know. I don’t live here myself. I was just walking by and I saw—”
“Hey, maybe I know him,” interrupted the other boy. “Let me see.”
They tried to get in the hallway but the entrance was crowded with people. Nilda watched them disappear into the crowd of adults as she waited nervously for the sight of her mother or Leo who were inside the building. She heard the siren sound and a patrol car pulled up, followed by a white ambulance.
“Okay, break it up. Come on now, step aside, break it up. Stretcher coming through.”
After a few minutes, Nilda heaved a sigh of relief as she saw her mother first, and then Leo, step out into the street. The wounded man was carried out on the stretcher and taken away in the ambulance. Slowly people began to disappear and the street got quiet again. Her mother and Leo exchanged good-byes with some of the people who lived in the building. “Muchas gracias por todo.”
“De nada.”
“Adiós.”
“Hasta luego.”
Nilda walked alongside her mother and looked back at the sidewalk which was still streaked and blotted with blood. The red was beginning to bury itself in the concrete. The rain will wash it away, she thought.
They decided to turn into one of the s
treets leading to the Madison Avenue bus. “After that we better ride back,” said Leo. The street they came to was noisy and crowded with people. Most of the shops and bars on the street were open and brightly lit, busy with activity. Nilda saw groups of women, some standing against the tenements and in front of the shops, others sitting on the stoops of the buildings. As they walked past the women, Nilda saw that some were very young, with cheeks painted bright red, crimson lips and false flowers pinned in their hair.
“Hey, good looking! Want a good time?” said a young girl who had come forward, almost blocking the way.
Some others followed saying, “Daddy, leave Mamá and relax with me.”
Nilda looked at them and realized they were talking to Leo. Calling out to him, yelling endearments.
“You’re a sweet Papá and it don’t cost much. Vámonos adentro, come inside for a minute, lemme talk to you.” They were beckoning him to come with them. Some had sweet voices, others almost commanding.
“Come on now! Papi dulce, right in here in this building you’ll have the best time of your life!”
Nilda stared in amazement at the very young ones who seemed about the same age as the older girls on her block.
“Ten dollars the whole night and a good bed.”
“Bueno. Five for me and everything nice and clean.”
Some of the women outstretched their arms with sweeping gestures, as if to gather Leo and take him away. Calling out different prices and conditions to him, they completely ignored Nilda and her mother. The same sense of urgency in the voices somehow reminded Nilda of the Marketa on Park Avenue. The sounds were familiar, like the sounds of the vendors calling out, promising to give the people the cheapest but best product, outbidding each other for a sale. Both Leo and her mother had remained completely silent during the entire promenade. Once out of the block, her mother said, “What a shame and a pity, they are so young, bendito.”
“I thought one could be no more than fourteen,” said Leo.
“What are those women doing?” Nilda waited for an answer. “Leo, what did they want?”
After a pause her mother said, “They are salesladies, that’s all. They wanted us to come in and buy some of the products.”
“What kind of products? I didn’t hear them mention no products. Weren’t they talking to Leo?” She saw Leo and her mother exchange glances. “Are they bad, Mamá?”
“No, they’re not bad, Nilda, las pobrecitas, just unfortunate.”
“What do you mean unfortunate? What is that?”
“Some of them don’t have parents or a family to care for them and so they have to do certain things in order to live and eat, that’s all.”
“What things?”
“¡Ay, Nilda! Things! That’s all.”
“Tell me what things?”
“Ya basta, Nilda. Now I told you and that’s all!”
Nilda looked sulkily at them. Why doesn’t she tell me? I know what things. She always does that, like I’m a baby or something. Boy! she said to herself. She knew better than to pursue it any further or to try to ask Leo.
The three of them walked quickly down the street and onto the avenue. The Madison Avenue bus was speeding toward them. They got to the bus stop in time and got inside. It was quite late by now and Nilda was very sleepy. As the bus began to move on downtown, her eyelids grew heavy. She looked around her at the people on the bus. They were all mostly dark, Puerto Rican and black people. Pressing her head against Leo’s arm and closing her eyes, she thought, Before the white people start getting on, we’ll be long gone off the bus.
Early November 1941
“Nilda, you have to go this morning to the welfare food station with Sophie. I have to get ready to go see your papá in the hospital.”
Nilda’s stepfather had been home, had a relapse and had returned to the hospital about a week ago. “Can I open the food when we get back home?”
“Let Sophie do it and you can help her put things away, okay?”
Nilda made a face. “All right,” she said.
Sophie had been living with them for a week, arriving the day after her stepfather had taken ill again. There had been a timid knock on the door and Frankie had opened it up.
“There’s some lady here to see Mamá,” he said.
Nilda went to see who it was and there stood a tall young woman with a suitcase by her side. “Hello, you wanna see my mother?” asked Nilda.
“Does Jimmy live here? Is this his house?” she asked.
“Yeah, this is his house, but he don’t live here. He’s gone someplace else. He’s—”
“Who is it?” Nilda heard her mother’s voice and turned to see the look of surprise and then shock on her mother’s face. “Yes?” her mother asked.
“Does Jimmy live here? Are you Jimmy’s mother?”
“Yes, I am. You want to come inside?”
The young woman shyly picked up her suitcase and walked in. She looked at the older woman and burst into tears. Putting her hand over her face, she said, “I’m sorry but I have no place to go. My mother put me out. She won’t let me stay there any longer. I’m pregnant. I’m gonna have Jimmy’s baby!”
Victor walked out of the bedroom and stood there looking at Sophie and his mother. “Hi, Sophie,” he said.
“You know this girl?” her mother asked.
“Yes, she’s Jimmy’s girl from 102nd Street.”
Nodding her head and half-closing her eyes, Nilda’s mother said, “Dios mío. All right. Sophie? That’s your name? Come on in, Sophie, over to the kitchen. You want some tea, ¿sí?” She turned to look at the children who, by now, were absolutely fascinated by the turn of events. “That’s enough. Now go on about what you were doing. I’m going to talk to Sophie.”
“Somebody raped that girl?” Aunt Delia asked Victor.
“No!”
“Then what happened? What’s she doing here? She looks pregnant. She’s got a suitcase!”
Victor bent over to talk in Aunt Delia’s ear, trying not to shout so that they could not hear him in the kitchen. Nilda watched as Aunt Delia sucked her gums and looked at Victor incredulously.
“Is she Spanish? Puerto Rican?”
“Russian parents but she was born here.”
“What? She what?” the old lady asked.
“No, she’s not. She’s American.”
“Well,” the old woman said, shrugging her shoulders, “it happens all the time in the newspapers.” Victor turned and went back into the bedroom. Aunt Delia looked around her and, seeing that no one was going to listen, walked away with her newspapers tucked under her arm.
Sophie had moved in that night, sharing a room with Frankie and Nilda, and had been living there since. No one knew where Jimmy was.
Nilda resented Sophie. “Try not to fight with her,” she heard her mother say. “She’s older and you have to show her respeto.”
“I don’t like her sometimes, Mamá; she can be mean.”
“You have to try to make an effort because she’s a guest and after all you live here. Esta es tu casa.”
“She calls me brat and ugly. She always finds something I do wrong. She says I eat too much and I’m too spoiled and that if I had her mother I’d really learn how to behave and …”
“She’s probably teasing you and you take it too seriously.”
“Does she have to … is she gonna stay here all the time? With us?”
“Right now she does; she has no place to go. Pobre infeliz, she’s pregnant and maybe she’s a little nervous.”
“All right, Mamá,” she said, putting her arms around her mother’s waist, giving her a big hug.
Returning the hug, her mother rocked her and stroked her hair. “I love you,” her mother said.
“When is Papá coming home, Mamá?”
“¿Quién sabe?. Soon, I hope. I don’t know how much longer we can hold out without his working.”
Nilda walked along with Sophie and held her hand tightly. Now and then she
would give her hand a squeeze. When she thought Sophie wasn’t looking, Nilda would turn her head slightly to glance at Sophie’s swollen belly. Every once in a while Sophie would slow down and stop, bringing her hand around to rub the small of her back, arching and pulling her shoulders back. Her belly would thrust upward, looking even larger. Nilda wondered if Jimmy knew about Sophie and if they were going to get married and have a wedding. Her mother had warned Nilda not to ask anything, so she said nothing. Sophie’s mother must be real mean to throw her out, she thought. She remembered a part of the conversation that she had overheard between her own mother and Sophie.
“My mother don’t like Puerto Ricans. She warned me to keep away from that spic Jimmy. Now she told me she no longer has got a daughter, that her daughter is dead.” Nilda had heard her mother mumble an answer, and then Sophie crying.
It was a long walk to the welfare food station. They went past rows of tenements and crossed many streets. She had walked this route with her mother time and time again, going to pick up surplus food early in the morning. She never knew what they would give in the big shopping bag. Usually it was mostly canned goods, cereal and flour. Sometimes they gave clothes and shoes that were very ugly and didn’t fit right. Once they gave canned dessert, big cans of plums. Nilda closed her eyes wishing that today they would give something good. Like those good red cherries, sweet and syrupy, that come in a glass bottle.
It was a warm day, the last spell of Indian summer, and she was thirsty and tired when they got to the food station. There was a long line of people already waiting and they took their places at the end of the line. “Do you think we’ll get something good?” she asked Sophie.
The young woman looked down at Nilda, shrugged and turned away. Nilda felt uneasy. Sophie had been very quiet and moody this morning and she did not quite know how to approach her. They waited and waited. She knew it was going to be a long time before their turn would come.
As they approached the counter Sophie looked down at Nilda. “We are going to get ice cream today,” she said in a quiet voice.
Nilda couldn’t believe her ears. Almost afraid to ask, she did. “What flavor?”
Nilda Page 4