by Marie Arana
As it was, I was in thrall to the ghosts of Minna’s past. I told my mother I was going to her house to sew, to cook, to talk about ballet, but what I really did there was listen. Her stories would never disappoint me. In the cabaret where she had danced, she told me, the Nazis came for their revels, demanding a single performance from her every night. “I was beautiful then,” she made a point of saying, “dark and different; that’s why they came.” She told me about a body stocking of sheerest silk, how she would trail long skeins of perfumed chiffon and dance barefoot, hair coiled down her spine. A scarf masked the lower half of her face. Her eyes were rimmed black as an Egyptian’s. “It was fascina-a-a-tion!” she rasped at me in her deep, husky voice, and I could imagine her silk-hung pulchritude shivering the night, filling the monsters with desire.
“I’m going to Erika’s,” I said to my mother. “If that’s all right with you.”
“What for?” Mother asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Her mother is teaching me a dance. You know, she was a ballerina once.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. What’s the music you’re dancing to?”
“‘It Was Fascination,’” I replied, and hummed a few bars.
“Oh, I know that tune,” Mother said. “It was popular during the war. Fine. Go right ahead.” I left her chirping the song.
Minna and Erika never asked about my father. They had no curiosity about him whatsoever. When he pulled up in a taxi with his suitcases bulging with gifts, they understood they would see me less for a while. Minna was more interested in my mother, asking me questions I could not answer. What had she done during the war?
One day when Papi had been on a long assignment in the interior of Peru, Minna parted the bushes and saw my mother on her knees in our yard. Mother’s hair was tied back in a cotton bandanna; sweat dripped from her chin to the soil; she was jabbing the earth with a spade. Minna watched her work for a while, then stepped to the fence to ask, “Everything okay?” Mother looked up, startled. “You’re digging so hard in one place there,” she commented in her thick German accent. “Is something wrong? Are you all right?”
As it happened, things were not right at all. My father had not written in months. Bills were stacked in a kitchen drawer, unpaid.
“I’m fine,” said Mother, pulling herself to her feet and dusting her knees. “Thank you very much.” But when she came in and recounted that brief exchange, quizzing me about what in God’s name I’d been spilling to the neighbors, I deduced that Minna’s powers did in fact go beyond normal. She’d seen into my mother’s heart.
I LEARNED MANY things from Erika and Minna, but chief among them was that I was no foreigner. I did not have the requisite distance, the emotional remove. There was much about me that may have looked different, felt different, but I was deeply and indelibly American, from this hemisphere, taught Americanness from infancy, ready to defend it with my soul.
“How can you eat that gummy stuff they call bread here,” Erika said to me, piquing me with her arrogance.
“Get off it, Erika. It’s not as bad as you say.”
“It’s awful! You should taste German bread. They have so many kinds there: black, white, rye, egg, salty, sweet, big loaves with seeds on top, flaky little rolls that melt in your mouth. It’s real bread. Not like here.”
I recalled the street vendors in Peru, with their mounds of fragrant bread: hard golden crusts, feathery soft centers, baked fresh and brought to your door. But I defended the supermarket variety.
“You can’t possibly like it!” Erika argued. “You’re not even from here!”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “I’m an American from way back. My great-great-great-great-grandfather was born here! One of my ancestors was a president!”
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “Then why are you living in that dump?”
I could have lived in a palace, and Erika would have said it wasn’t as good as the German kind. Everything German was better. The chocolate was deeper. The milk was creamier. The sausages more savory. The dresses more elegant. The homes cozier. Soaps, shoes, perfume. There was no material commodity in all these United States of America that could compare with its counterpart in Frankfurt.
We argued this as we trudged to and from school, dodging the neighborhood boys. “German dolls are prettiest!” she would shout. “German Christmases are fanciest!” “German underwear’s most comfortable!” and a bank of boys’ arms flew up as we passed, in rigid Nazi salutes. George was among them, grinning at me, slicing the air at Erika—a rosy-cheeked American boy.
“Lay off!” I’d bark. “Stop that! She’s my friend!” And they’d laugh themselves red in the face.
But I had my own battles to fight in those early 1960s. I could no sooner stand criticism of the United States than I could stand ill to be said of Peru. The truth was that I was getting it on both sides. Peruvians who came to visit forgot I was also a gringa, launching verbal salvos about Estadounidenses who chanced by on the streets: “They’re gawky, aren’t they! Clowns! And dull-witted! Cross an idiot with a bully and what do you get? Un norteamericano!”
Americans, on the other hand, would forget I was Peruvian, disparaging my roots to my face. “Latin Americans are a poor, indolent people,” my teacher droned to the class, “beset by ignorance and disease.” All I could do was stare at his mouth, at the spittle that danced on his lips.
“I’d rather have a Nih-gro maid than a Mexican,” a suburbanite said to her dashboard. Her daughter and I sat in the backseat, listening to her well-lacquered head. “At least you can trust the black girls. The Mexicans steal you blind.”
If there were other hybrids in Summit, they were too subtle for us. We did not know them. Erika, I discovered eventually, was as different from me as anyone I had ever met. Her foreignness had seemed familiar, but a true sisterhood did not exist for us. She was German. There was no two-ness in her. The British father had given her his face but not a smidgen more. When she came to the United States from Germany, she came as an immigrant, in a straight voyage from A to B. I, on the other hand, was an American twice over; I had the palsy of a double soul.
WE HADN’T HEARD from Papi in such a long time that I began to wonder if I’d been wrong about their marriage being indestructible, if it was possible that he had forgotten us entirely. The checks he usually sent signed in advance to Mother had not come for the third month in a row. The bill drawer was overflowing now, and, at Vassar, Vicki needed to buy books. George was outgrowing his clothes. There was the question of my ballet lessons. Mother went out and got herself a job.
It was work that my father would never have approved of, had he been around to have any say. She walked into a dress shop on Springfield Avenue and asked if any positions were available. The woman behind the counter hired her on the spot. She was to begin the following week as the most junior of three salesladies. On her first day, I strolled by after school to look in the window. She was sweeping the floors.
It was at about this time, when I was thirteen years old, that Abuelita suddenly reappeared in our lives. She flew into New York’s Idlewild Airport on a September day with Tío Víctor and Rosita, his new bride. Abuelita was accompanying them on their honeymoon. They taxied to Manhattan, checked into the Biltmore Hotel. When Tío Víctor called and said they were there, I made my way on a Saturday morning and rapped on her room door, listening for the click of her shoes. When I saw her, I buried my face in her hair.
“Ay, Marisita,” she said, after she’d held me at arm’s length and taken a good, long look. “You’re so big.” She straightened her dress, reached for her gloves. “Come, let’s go and have breakfast together.” We headed downstairs, alone.
We walked several blocks of Forty-eighth Street with our elbows entwined before I realized that I was towering over my grandmother. She ticked down the concrete in her high-polish, sling-back Chanel shoes, looking about nervously, clutching an alligator purse. “Ugly city,” she said. “So much unhappiness. No es un Paris
.” Nothing like Paris, no.
I laughed at that. It had never occurred to me that New York could be anything but enchanting just as it was. I loved its gray glass, its whirligig humanity, its surly ruckus. I’d been commuting to the city since before my twelfth birthday. At first I’d go from school to the train to the Hoboken tubes, to Thirty-third Street and then take a bus up Eighth Avenue. Eventually I took the bus all the way from New Jersey to Port Authority, which was the simpler way to go, and then I’d walk uptown, swinging my ballet bag over one shoulder. I had begged Mother to let me study ballet and voice in New York. It was not her idea. But when she saw how resourceful I was in calling up studios, inquiring about fees, scheduling auditions, she supported me. The first few times, she went with me, but when she saw that I was the one doing the navigating, she decided I could commute alone. New York may well have looked daunting to my grandmother, but it was a city that knew my feet. I said so. She threw me a wary glance.
We took a table in a bustling coffee shop. After the waiter had listened to our order, after I had translated all her desires, Abuelita turned to me and unfurled a napkin into her lap. One of her well-defined eyebrows was arched high, in the direction of the waiter. “Así que eres coqueta, Marisi,” she said. So, I see you’re a flirt.
I was nothing of the kind, I insisted. I had simply read food off a menu to the man.
“You smiled,” she said.
“Sí. I was polite. I smiled. That’s what people—”
“Young ladies do not smile at waiters,” she said with finality. “Someone should be teaching you that.”
There was no point arguing it with her. I let the subject go.
“Vicki is at university,” she started, placing her wrists on the table carefully. “Quién sabe where Georgie is. Your father is off on some project. And your mother and I, for some reason, can’t have a civil conversation. I want this time alone with you, Marisi,” she said. “I have something to say.” Her face churned briefly, then sank with gravity. She looked up, swallowing me with her eyes.
“This has nothing to do with how I feel about your mother,” she began, uttering words I cannot forget. “It has nothing to do with how she feels about me. It has little to do with our discomforts, one way or the other. It has everything to do with love.” She stopped there, allowing the waiter to plink plates on the table, defying me to smile my gratitude, holding me with her gaze.
“Love,” she said it again, once he was gone. El amor. “You know by now, mi’jita, how different some countries can be. The ways we live, the things we do, what we believe. But there’s one thing that stays the same. That one thing, Marisi, is love.”
I wagged my head like a perfect little jackass, thinking she was referring to her fondness for me, ready to tell her that I loved her, too. “I’m speaking, of course,” she said, “about your mother and father.
“How long,” she asked, “has it been since you’ve seen him, Marisi?” It had been months since I’d seen Papi; I didn’t know how many. “That is precisely what I mean,” she said. “Not because he doesn’t love you, you know. This is not between you and him. I’m talking about something else.”
She paused, set down her fork, and continued. “Please don’t say to me that your mother is not with your father because that is how married people in this country behave. Even I know a few things about the yanquis. If they’re in love, they’re together. They make it a point to be together. Punto. That is all. For years I’ve tried to understand this about your mother, until I realized there was nothing to understand. Love does not slice differently depending on nationality. It’s always one and the same.”
I had nothing to say. I chewed on my toast, wondering where this conversation would go. She launched ahead without any encouragement from me. “We have something in common, your mother and I. When I married your grandfather, I knew nothing about the Aranas. They were a mystery to me. In many ways they still are. A foreign land. You know, I’ve always suspected there is good reason why your abuelito is the way he is. Something that explains why he’s so taciturn, so unwilling to deal with people, so removed from the rest of the world. But in the end, his little peculiarities don’t really matter. My life isn’t particularly easy, but I gave my life over to one man, and the strength of our family is my reward. When men are left to their own devices, Marisi—I don’t care whether they’re from Piccadilly or the Ucayali—when women are not at men’s sides, things fall apart. Other women worm in. Other opportunities unfold. It’s only natural. I wonder sometimes if your mother understands this. If she cares about it at all. Why does she insist on living in one place, if her husband is someplace else? Does she want an end to this marriage? Is that what she wants?”
I was staggered by what she was saying to me. This was a real-life conversation, and she was talking about taboos freely, in a way I’d heard only Erika’s mother do. She was looking at me expectantly, as if I were a full-grown woman with important opinions to share. I struggled to find the words to respond to her. “She’s happy here, Abuelita. This is her country. She likes that we go to school here, that we’re learning to be like her.” Two pallid eggs stared up from my plate.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her shoulders were limp in her dress. “I want you to do something for me, Marisita. I want you to tell your mother that if she loves your father, she will make an effort to be with him. Tell her this: Living apart will not solve their differences. It will only make them grow. Love cannot possibly survive with a hemisphere in between.
“I want you to do something more, one more thing. When you tell her that, don’t say that I asked you to say it. That will add confusion, muddle my meaning. I want this message to reach her in its simplest possible form.”
That evening, Mother came to the Biltmore Hotel to call on Abuelita. She was exhausted from spending days on her feet—I could see that in her swollen ankles—but she did not tell Abuelita about the dress shop. They conversed stiffly in Spanish: how much we’d grown, how well we were doing in school. It was an awkward truce of sorts. The next morning, my grandmother visited Summit. She toured my mother’s garden, circled the flower beds, insisted she couldn’t stay. “Your home is pleasant, Marie,” she said, reaching for her daughter-in-law’s hands and squeezing them into her own. Muy acogedor. “I can see why you love your country.” Then she left me to say the rest.
FOR DAYS I wondered how to relay my grandmother’s message to Mother. I was not good at diplomacy. In those days of my prodigality, the mouth outran the head, blurting substituted for frankness, too often I went too far. I worried that I would reveal my source or—at the very least—provoke renewed hostilities between the women I most admired. How to counsel a grown-up about love?
Love seemed to have so little to do with it. Although my father said he cared for this country, he seemed to be an utter misfit in it, just as Mother had been a misfit in his. The question, as far as I could tell, was one of logistics. But of love? It seemed a wheel-work so remote, so abstract, that I could not even imagine the contours of the machine.
If she loves your father, she will make an effort to be with him. That meant one thing only: If there was love between my mother and father, we would all be living in Peru. Could love be so dictatorial, so unilateral as all that?
I decided to wait and watch until the right moment for my delivery of the secret dispatch. But days passed, then weeks and months, and the hugger-mugger never got done. It wasn’t because I was avoiding the mission; it was because a ray of deductive reasoning had lit my brain.
The evidence appeared—as I have since learned important things do—in a small way. My father came home that fall, lavishing us with gifts, beaming on our accomplishments, registering our adolescent habits with alarm. His first week home was the easiest. The bills all got paid. Mother arranged for a vacation from the dress shop, and the two of them took to the kitchen to turn out criollo feasts. By the second week, she was back at work, and he was angry that his wife was waiting o
n other women in such a common establishment. The indignity of it. The insult. No woman in his family had ever had to do that. Never mind that she liked having her own money, that she was savoring the freedoms it gave her. He was plunking the Johnnie Walker on the table, cursing America’s crudeness, prowling the house like a jaguar in a cage. By the second month, they were bickering about new bills, about Peruvian versus American mores, about how each of them misused the other language’s preterite past. By the third month, Papi’s bags were packed. Before winter was hard upon us, a bitter wind would blow him out the door again.
He’d be back. The cycle was nothing new. It had happened the year Castro took Cuba. It had happened the spring a spy plane was shot down over Russia. It had happened the autumn of the first Catholic President. It had happened the summer East Germany built a wall. It had happened just after we watched our chief executive’s head explode into the streets of Dallas.
But the evidence, as I say, was in the details. I was looking for love with a grandmother’s charge on my shoulders, and it was finally in still, small voices that I found it. I heard it in the mornings when he came home, in the everyday pitter-patter on the other side of my wall. At dawn, when my parents were alone in their room, when the world had not encroached with its borders and geographies and biases and resentments, they would talk for hours. It was a light chatter, filled with dreams and amusements and a mutual concern about us. Mother would tell of her life, Papi would tell about his, and each would listen to the other, with little exclamations of delight. There was nothing earthshaking about this. They were stark polarities, my parents: irrepressibly different, adamantly themselves, but ardently, irrefutably in love. Abuelita had not been right about them. She hadn’t had any experience by which to judge their hard-won union. I didn’t have to tell them they should live together. They were who they were—nonconformists, independent. Doing fine with a hemisphere in between.