Let Their Spirits Dance

by Stella Pope Duarte

  Rothberg ·

  It was pretty scary this morning. I slipped into a pair of Priscilla’s shoes. They were in the closet, way in the back. They looked like they were a pair of white sandals I used to wear. Instead, I put on these soft, white leather shoes, flats with small, satin-embroidered oval openings just over the toes, very feminine. Priscilla bought them when she was coming to terms with herself as a woman. What surprises me is that the shoes fit me. Priscilla wears at least one size smaller. Now I’m worried my feet are shrinking, or maybe I’ve lost so much weight it’s affected my feet. Everyone says the divorce has been good for me. I look sexy again. I can feel my hip bones, something I was forgetting I owned. My shoulders are taking form, the bones curving into smooth muscles, and my legs are getting skinnier than I want them to get. But my feet? I wear Priscilla’s shoes to school that day just to prove to myself that I can. It’s strange to walk around in somebody else’s shoes, it makes you wonder if you could ever live out that person’s life, or if you would want to. I think of my mother’s shoes and the things she’s walked through, of Ray’s, Paul’s, of Jesse’s, and El Santo Niño’s sandals. I’m imagining walking in Priscilla’s white leather shoes all the way to the Vietnam Wall. Isn’t white the color of mourning in Vietnam? Crazy thoughts come into your head when you’re wearing somebody else’s shoes.

  • “THERE’S A BONA FIDE REASON for everything in the world,” says Brandon. He’s talking to Juan, and making himself feel good because his “Word of the Day” is bona fide, and he’s just used it in a sentence. Most of the classroom is packed away, bulletin boards are blank, construction paper is neatly stockpiled on the shelves, pencil marks in textbooks have been erased, and tomorrow the children will scrub their desks. The usual hustle and bustle of putting things away for summer vacation has started. New shoes the children wore in September have long been outgrown, the squeaky leather now a sagging gray.

  A few people told me they liked my shoes, Priscilla’s shoes, actually. “Cute, feminine. Are they comfortable?” asked Vicki. “Sure, if you consider I wear an eight and these are a size seven.” I’m still wondering how they fit in the first place, when I get a call over the classroom intercom.

  “Your Mom called, Mrs. Alvarez,” Clara announces. “She wants you to call her at lunchtime.” Clara’s voice sounds matter-of-fact, but I know she’s dying to know what this is all about. My mother never calls the school.

  “Is it an emergency?”

  “No.” she says. “It’s about a letter.”

  “A letter? Never mind, I’ll call her later.”

  “What letter, Mrs. Alvarez?” asks Julissa.

  “Oh, I don’t know, sweetheart, probably something she got from an office or a doctor. My mother gets confused sometimes and needs a little help.”

  Lorena’s washing off paintbrushes at the sink. Her plastic apron is streaked with colors that look like an outlandish finger painting.

  “Just like Clara to announce everything to the world,” she says. “All she had to say was that it wasn’t an emergency.”

  “Can you imagine? Half the school will know about the letter by lunchtime. Is there anything we can do about her?”

  “Clara’s been transferred from two other schools. They couldn’t do anything about her either, outside of taping her mouth shut. Three’s the charm, though, Mrs. Alvarez, the buck might stop here.”

  By lunchtime Priscilla’s shoes are feeling tighter. My toes are starting to bulge out of the satin oval openings. Stupid of me to think I could wear them all day. Clara is standing at the front desk talking to Shirley when I walk in at lunch.

  “Did you call your mom, Teresa?” Clara asks.

  “Not yet. This is the first time I’ve had a break all day.” She’s standing next to Shirley with a box of envelopes in her hands.

  “Mail-out?” I ask.

  “End-of-the-year stuff,” says Shirley. “By the way Teresa, I hate to break the news to you but Mr. H. is thinking of vacating your room and Mrs. Allen’s for the new developmental first grades. Both of you would be moved to the next building.”

  “Getting back at me for not working on the stupid CRTs, is he? I told him we just revamped them last summer, and now they’re district scratch paper.”

  “We’re just running out of room,” she says.

  Shirley’s hair is dark gray, almost blue in some places. She looks like Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show, minus the apron. Shirley should be in a kitchen making cookies for the neighborhood kids, not at Jimenez Elementary trying to keep Clara busy. The only thing Clara wants to stay busy with is other people’s business. She’s got a perpetual smile on her face and eyes that invite you to spill your guts. When you’re having a bad hair day, it’s all you can do not to come in and confess to everything you’ve ever done, including the time you sneaked out expensive bond paper from the office for your personal use.

  “He can’t make Mrs. Allen do anything. Annie Get Your Guns is her best friend.”

  Clara’s eyes light up. “Annie’s so vocal!”

  Shirley shoots a look at her. “Just finish the mail-out, Clara.”

  I walk into the workroom and place a call home. On the other end, my mother explains that she has a letter from the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C. She’s reading the return address.

  “Veterans Admin…something…Veterans of Four Wars.”

  “It’s probably Veterans of Foreign Wars, Mom, there’s only been two world wars, unless I’ve lost count.”

  “Do they know I want to get to the Vietnam Wall, mija?”

  “No, Mom, they don’t. I can’t imagine what this is all about. Who is the letter for?”

  “For me, mija, it’s addressed to me.”

  “Did you tell the lady who answered the phone here at school about the letter?”

  “Ay, mija, she’s a busybody. She wouldn’t stop asking me questions, la metichi.”

  “OK, Mom, don’t worry. Is Paul there, or Cisco?”

  “No one.”

  “Just leave the letter for me, and I’ll read it after school.”

  As I say the last words, Clara walks in to use the paper cutter.

  “I thought you were doing a mail-out.”

  “I have to get these sheets cut into halves for the PTO meeting tonight. Did you find out what the letter is about?”

  “What letter?”

  “I thought this was about a letter?”

  “Oh, you mean the one from Social Security?”

  “Is that all it is?”

  “Yep.” Disappointed, Clara walks out with a few sheets cut in half.

  “Not very many parents coming tonight.”

  “I just remembered the PTO meeting is tomorrow night.”

  “Right.”

  • BY THE TIME I walk into Mom’s after school, I’m holding Priscilla’s shoes in one hand. Maybe my feet grew from morning to afternoon, or maybe I found out that no matter how hard I try I’ll never be able to fit into Priscilla’s shoes. Why would I want to?

  “You should have worn nylons, mija. You’re not supposed to wear dress shoes without nylons. You’ll sweat and ruin the shoes. Priscilla won’t want them back now.”

  “I don’t like nylons. It’s too hot to wear them, besides I don’t care if Priscilla ever wears these shoes or not. Serves her right for leaving them here.”

  “I’ll get her another pair if she gets mad.”

  “Mom, who cares! You’re always trying to save us from getting mad at each other. Priscilla will do what she wants no matter what you do.” My mother’s got rice boiling on the stove and meat simmering in gravy with potatoes. She finishes stirring the pan of meat.

  “Look on top of your dresser, mija, the letter is in there.”

  I dump Priscilla’s shoes into a corner of the bedroom, cursing them for starting blisters on my feet. I pick up the letter with the insignia of the Veterans Administration. What do they want now? Paul’s not a veteran, so it’s not about that. It’s not f
or Cisco, he’s already signed up for the Selective Service. I want to tear the letter open, and at the same time I want to rip it into shreds. How dare they send us a letter! They have the life of one Ramirez. Isn’t that enough?

  I’m waving the letter in one hand, standing barefoot in the bedroom, slipping out of my blouse and skirt. I hear the stump of Mom’s cane coming up to the bedroom door. She’s looking at me in my underwear, angling her head for balance. She peers at me like she’s looking over the edge of a blanket.

  “You’re getting too skinny, Teresa. I remember when I was that size, and it wasn’t just your father who was after me either. There were a few others.”

  “Then why did you choose my dad?”

  She ignores my question. “What’s in the letter?” She sits on the edge of the bed. I put the letter up to the light coming in from the window, and notice space between the edge of the letter inside it and the end of the envelope. I tear open the end of the envelope that’s free of the letter.

  May 23, 1997

  Dear Mrs. Ramirez,

  In reviewing the records pertaining to your son Sgt. Jesse A. Ramirez, it has come to our attention that an alteration of the money granted to you on August 25, 1968 for your son’s untimely death in South Vietnam is currently under investigation by this office. We apologize for any distress this notification may cause you and hope to resolve these concerns as quickly as possible. Please contact our office at your earliest convenience.

  Sincerely,

  Kenneth J. Rothberg

  Accounting Specialist, Veterans Administration

  “Another letter of apology? These fuckers can never get enough.”

  “Don’t cuss, mija.”

  “What do you want me to say? I can’t make heads or tails of what this means. They’re experts at twisting the truth.”

  “What truth? Something about Jesse?”

  My heart is racing and my hands are suddenly ice cold. “Yes, something about Jesse—but I don’t know what it means. What time is it?”

  “It’s after four o’clock. Why?”

  “There’s a number here for me to call in D.C. but it’s a three-hour difference. The office is closed by now. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “What do they want with my son?” My mother is already in tears.

  “Mom, don’t cry, this bastard Rothberg probably made a mistake, like they always do. I’ll find out tomorrow.”

  “The meat, mija!”

  I run to the stove in my underwear, grabbing an old T-shirt on my way out. I’m just in time to turn off the pan with the meat and potatoes as the last bit of gravy is disappearing and the meat is starting to burn. I race back into the bedroom and my mother is sitting with the letter in her hand staring at Jesse’s name. Under my breath I’m cursing the pain in my feet, red blisters on each little toe from wearing Priscilla’s shoes.

  El Niño Comes Through ·

  I need a tlachisqui, a bona fide seer, to use Brandon’s word. If Don Florencío were alive I’d run and ask him if what’s happening now is part of Jesse coming back to us in a new form. What does it mean, this whole mistake, turned inside out. I’m wearing seamed edges on the outside instead of the inside. There’s a surface I haven’t seen yet, a rough, invisible something coming into focus. Don Florencío would probably nod his head and say, “The soul can’t be rushed, mijita. It’s not like plunging headlong into a river. It all starts with listening.”

  Did the listening start with the explosion in my dream, or with the voices my mother heard at Christmas? Were the voices only the chirping of birds nesting on the pine branches of the evergreens? Not in winter, when all the birds are gone, the sound so close to my mother’s ear, it woke her up. And Cholo barking, yet crouching low, afraid. Of what? Does belief start with asking questions? I believe in the hereafter? I believe in Heaven and Hell. I’m a good Catholic daughter, brought up in the tradition of punishment and reward, of chains rattling on the limbs of tattered souls struggling in Purgatory. How do you chain up a soul anyway? How can a soul be destroyed in fire? It has to be symbols, everything is symbolic. We’re floating in universal parallels like Michael says, touching other realities we know nothing about. It’s standing in my way, whatever it is, eager to show me—what?

  My phone call to D.C. is part of it all. It is shocking. Rothberg lives up to his name. He sounds stuffy to me, white-collar all the way, and so does his voice over the phone. I place the call at lunchtime. My mother is sitting on a chair, listening to every word, the letter still in her hand.

  “Er, Mrs. Ramirez?”

  “No, this is her daughter. I don’t think my eighty-year-old mother would be up to answering your questions.”

  “Your name, ma’am?”

  “Is this an inquisition? It’s Teresa Alvarez, soon to be Ramirez again.”

  “I see…this is rather difficult to explain, somewhat a bit of a problem…not for you in any way, Ms. Alvarez. It’s the U.S. government that’s blundered.”

  “Wow, that’s news!”

  “When your mother received the money given to her as part of your brother’s death in 1968, she didn’t receive the full amount. Perhaps you recall, Ms. Alvarez, that your brother’s body was originally sent to an incorrect address?”

  “Don’t remind me!”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they said back then, too.”

  “The family, Ms. Alvarez, of the veteran where the body was initially sent, received half your brother’s money, namely five thousand dollars. Amazing, I realize, but it was done. Your brother’s name and this other veteran’s name were the same except for the middle initial. Your brother’s was A and his was R. We have addressed this issue with the veteran, who is now in one of our hospital facilities, and he states he has no knowledge of the money.”

  “Of course he won’t admit anything! Why should he? Did the government think Jesse was a twin? The address was different, for God’s sake! How could all of you be so stupid?”

  “Don’t cuss, mija,” Mom says.

  “What does all this mean?”

  “Are you sitting down, Ms. Alvarez?”

  “I wasn’t sitting down when we were told my brother was killed. Just give it to me, Mr. Rothberg.”

  “The government now owes your mother in excess of ninety thousand dollars. Interest compounded annually brings the exact amount to $92,401.”

  The phone drops out of my hand, as if a bolt of lightning had run through it.

  “What!” yells my mother. “What is it?” She is on her feet without her cane.

  “Mom, how would you like to go to the Wall? You’ve got the money now! God knows you’ve got the money, ninety-two thousand dollars!”

  “How?” My mother’s eyes open wide. She has managed to straighten her back up so she is almost eye-to-eye with me.

  “They made a mistake, Mom! Remember when Jesse was sent to the wrong address? They paid that family half the money and didn’t give you the ten thousand dollars they owed. Now they owe you five thousand dollars plus all the interest! They’ve been our bank all these years, and we didn’t even know it!”

  “El Santo Niño! La Virgen! I told you God would find a way! I’m telling Irene.” She hobbles toward the door.

  “Wait, your cane!” I’m holding her cane and grabbing for the phone receiver on the floor.

  “Hello…hello?”

  “Ms. Alvarez…are you there?”

  “Listen, I can’t explain, I gotta run after my mom. When will the check come?”

  “You’ll receive it within a week.”

  Mom is heading down the alley yelling for Irene. I run after her and put her cane in her hand. I race up to Irene’s back door while my mother is still calling for her at the top of her lungs.

  Irene opens the door slowly, then throws it open all the way, fear coming over her face as she sees my mother walking down the alley yelling, “Irene, Irene, comadre!”

  “What’s wrong with
your Mom, Teresa? Did somebody die?”

  “Yeah, years ago.” I’m smiling, and Irene is totally confused.

  “El gobierno, Irene, el gobierno made a mistake on my mijito’s money. They owe us…tell her, Teresa…tell her how much!” My mother is out of breath, gasping.

  “Ninety-two thousand dollars!”

  “Dios mio!”

  “Cree lo,” I say, using Irene’s own words. “Believe it!”

  “Ay mi Virgencita.” She reaches for the medallion on its gold chain and kisses the image.

  “Let’s go pack, mija,” says Mom. “See? El Santo Niño told me the truth at Christmas.”

  • I SWEAR I’LL NEVER doubt El Santo Niño or lifting up San Francisco’s head in Magdalena, or marching behind the banner of La Virgen with its magical image of roses, or anything that has to do with crazy things I don’t understand. I say this to myself, then start forgetting all about it as reality hits and the trip to D.C. starts to take shape. Mom wants Jesse’s friends to go, Willy, Gates, and Chris. She wants Manuel to go so he can take care of the money. Who could do it better? She doesn’t trust Paul with the money, and none of us would be able to get past him to get our hands on it anyway. She wants everything to be figured out all at once, and us to be on the road. Irene, of course, is coming. I try to explain to her about my job and that I have one more week at school, the divorce is pending, the sale of the house is on my back, and if that’s not enough, there’s a court date for the assault charges in five days.

  “Mom, I can’t go right now,” I tell her. “In three weeks…yes, wait three weeks, everything should be clear.”

  “No!” Mom is unmovable. There’s a feverish energy that takes over her, a scurrying I’ve never seen before.

  “Mom, what are you in a hurry for?”

  “I have to get there, mija…la manda. I don’t want to end up like the Robles brother.”

  “Three weeks, Mom. That’s nothing!”

  “I’ll be dead in three weeks!”

  “No, you won’t! Don’t threaten me with that. You’re so selfish! People can’t put everything on hold just for you.”

  “Stay then, Teresa,” she says coolly. “Stay if that will make you feel better. Priscilla and Paul can go with me, Jesse’s friends, Manuel, Irene.”