by Arturo Islas
Angie had painted the rooms brilliant colors to annoy Felix’s sisters, knowing that Jesus Maria and Eduviges disapproved of her and thought her a “lower class Mexican.” She had also chosen the colors for their names: Perico Tropical and Sangrita del Rey. Felix agreed to buy the paint because he could refuse her nothing and because he knew that she would keep her word and paint the rooms without anyone’s help. Her daughters had long since despaired of teaching Angie the good taste they learned in their home economics classes at school.
“But Mother, the colors are too bright.” Yerma, her older and more prudish daughter, was shocked as she walked in the door after school.
“I dun’t care,” Angie said in her best English. “I dun’t like white rooms. They give me the suzie creeps.”
“The what?”
“Joo know, the suzie creeps.” When Yerma figurea out that her mother had combined current slang with a French dessert, she was too amused to insist on a subdued version of the colors already drying on the walls. From then on, anything white they disliked gave them all the “suzie creeps.” And Yerma, who secretly loved white, painted her own room a lighter version of the tropical parrot in the living room.
Angie and Lena walked through that room, then the purple dining room, and into the bright yellow kitchen to set the table for the next morning. Felix heard them getting ready for bed and fell asleep. Lena and Angie now slept in the same room, he and JoEl in the back porch they had walled in with cinder blocks, and Yerma in the front bedroom on the double bed where all but she had been conceived. Berto slept on the living room sofa. When JoEl was ten Felix bought him a bed of his own, but until then they had slept together.
From the time he was very young, JoEl had dreamed vividly. He had often come to his parents’ bed and stayed there until at dawn he fell asleep out of fatigue, his terror diminished by the light and the warmth of his mother and father on either side of him. When his son’s dreams were very bad, Felix learned not to ask him about them. Instead, he allowed JoEl to weep away his terror while he and Angie took turns rocking him. At first they had attempted to exorcise JoEl’s demons by asking him to describe them, but they saw that this made him even more frightened and inconsolable. Gradually they arrived at the better solution, but it was difficult because his fear was monstrous in relation to his size and frightened them. The first time he awakened the household with his screams, Angie wept out of frustration because he could not tell her what he saw.
“JoEl, what’s the matter? What is it? Tell me.” It was clear that JoEl, eyes open, did not see her, and the more she begged him to name his monsters the louder he screamed.
He did name them once when he was just learning to speak. The week before, Yerma and Lena had been teaching him the words for bugs in Spanish and English. JoEl was fascinated by the sugar ants that created roadways in the kitchen every summer, and which Angie could never bring herself to poison. They had begun crawling over his legs as he sat on the floor observing them, and only Yerma saw that he was hypnotized by fear and not curiosity. She could tell by the color of his face, pale yellow with a blue cast under the eyes, which was also its color during his nightmares. She brushed the ants from his legs, saying their diminutive Spanish name, “Hormiguitas, hormiguitas, JoEl,” and tickling him at the base of his spine in an attempt to make him laugh. He neither laughed nor cried, but the natural color returned to his face.
“Moleecas” he had said, “moleecas.”
Yerma smiled. “Not moleecas. Hor-mi-gui-tas.” She kissed him.
“Moleecas” he had repeated seriously.
Sitting up in bed in the desert night, frantically brushing over his legs and arms in rigid, measured gestures that awed the family as they stood around him, JoEl screamed, “Moleecas.”
Watching him, Felix’s heart broke with the knowledge that his son was a poet. He motioned Angie not to touch him until the gestures stopped and the eyes lost their unearthly sheen. He then lifted JoEl from the cot with great tenderness and took him to their bed.
As the three of them slept more frequently together, Felix lost his passion for Angie, and he would wake during the night cradling JoEl on his side of the bed. His protective feelings for the child perplexed and disoriented him because they seemed stronger than his desire for his wife. In the beginning, Angie paid no attention and was touched deeply by Felix’s love for their son. Slowly, without intending it, she stifled her own desires and lay awake watching her husband and son in their timeless embrace. In the summer the crickets kept her company and in the winter she listened to the wind.
Finally, she set up the cot for herself in Lena’s room, helped Yerma move their double bed into the front room when she started high school, and never disturbed Felix again. “He’s a good man,” she confessed to her priest in Spanish. “I have my children, my house, enough to eat. What more do I need?” The priest said nothing.
She remained thin and small with the beautiful arms of a medieval madonna, but she forgot to dye her hair at times and laughed with the irony of the sexually deprived. Her own desire for Felix cooled and, loving both her husband and son, she knew her son’s strength and sided with her husband whenever they quarreled.
* * *
Felix ordered another beer as a North American ballad the children liked to sing began playing on the jukebox. Yerma, Lena, and JoEl had good voices and serenaded him and Angie often, though lately JoEl had stopped joining in.
He and his son began to quarrel after JoEl had been in school for two years. “Leave me alone,” JoEl had said to him one evening when Felix tried to see what he was reading. “Can’t I have any privacy in this house?” The whole idea was preposterous to Felix, as he was not prepared to believe that his youngest child could understand the full meaning of those words in English or Spanish. The more Felix hounded him, the more JoEl retreated into his private world of books. Felix knew he was wrong to be envious of that world, but he could not help himself.
“JoEl, you read too much. You’re going to ruin your eyes. Let’s go for a ride.” He had just bought a new Chevrolet. JoEl did not look up from his book.
Their fights wounded Angie most of all, and Felix saw how careful she was not to intrude. She watched them, however, ready to spring between him and JoEl when Felix’s frustration led him to begin undoing his belt. After those occasions, when he and Angie sat alone in the kitchen, she attempted to soothe him by talking to him quietly. She told him that she hid from JoEl’s laughter when the belt buckle struck him. Only later, when she heard the boy crying to himself, was she reassured that they had not lost him. She understood that a father’s pride did not allow him to apologize to his son, but couldn’t he allow JoEl some freedom to do what he wanted?
“What freedom?” Felix asked her in Spanish. “Freedom to turn into a delinquent or to become a selfish little brat? He belongs to a family and he must learn to share. I know what they’re teaching kids in those schools. How to disobey parents and how to act like grownups when they’re only children. And they also teach them to be ashamed of where they come from.”
Angie defended JoEl by reminding Felix that he was only eleven years old, very intelligent, and most of the time a good son. But even while defending him, Angie agreed with Felix about the schools. Unlike Berto and the girls, JoEl did not come to her for comfort. He disdained it from all of them, and she attributed his distance to the ideas he was learning from the younger Anglo teachers. When JoEl taunted her sarcastically for putting up with Felix’s injustices, she did not understand what he was doing. They did not seem injustices to her but simply the rights of a husband and father. Her duty was to suffer from his arbitrary nature so that she might enjoy greater glory in heaven. JoEl scorned her for doing her duty. Felix noticed how icily JoEl looked at Angie after he had berated her for spending her household money in foolish ways.
“Don’t look at your mother like that.”
“I can look at her any way I want.”
“Don’t talk back to me.”
“Why?”
JoEl’s most effective tactic was silence. Wordlessly, he let Angie know that she deserved the pain she endured and that she was no better than a worm for letting Felix take advantage of her goodness.
“You have no respect for us,” she said to him in self-defense. “Malcriado, muchacho malcriado.”
“Well, you brought me up,” JoEl answered.
At this point if he was present, Felix undid his belt. “Don’t talk to your mother like that.”
But when the family was happy, the house sang and the sofa played music. Lena, who had perfect pitch, discovered that if you sat on it in a certain way, it played two notes. These they incorporated into the background music for their songs. Felix and JoEl laughed together in the old ways and the others became infected with their joy. After the evening meal, they sang for their parents the songs they learned in school. Angie understood that they were patriotic North American songs and praised and kissed her children even if she did not like the music.
Berto was a perfect audience because he liked everything they did. JoEl told them stories and riddles he had read or made up, or sometimes he recited poems which they pretended to understand. He made them feel sad and Angie would look at him and wonder what was to become of her youngest child. As he grew older and turned more to himself, her fears grew with him. Sadness stuck to JoEl like the smell of garlic, she said to Felix. There was no remedy. Neither lemon nor baking soda could reach his pain and she contemplated it while preparing the evening meal. This time of day—twilight—was the most melancholy time of the day to her. The aroma of the rice made her think of JoEl’s poems. Felix watched her stir it as he hugged her from behind.
* * *
An old romantic Mexican ballad was playing on the jukebox now and reminded Felix of the days when he was courting Angie. As usual, the singer was suffering from love and Felix smiled at the sentimentality of the lyrics. “Ay, Papa, how can you listen to such corny music?” the children asked him at home. He was not ashamed to admit that he loved all music. He and Angie had danced to this song shortly before and after they were married. After three beers, he sang along.
“Hey, Felix,” asked the bartender, “what does it mean?”
“You wouldn’t understand, you stupid gringo,” he said. To himself he thought how only a Mexican song could mix sadness and laughter like that so that one could cry and sing at the same time. Another beer came sliding down the counter toward him.
* * *
Felix and Angie had met at school. They were among the first large group of Mexicans (or, as their teachers referred to them, “first generation Americans”) to graduate from the town’s high school. He was an average student with an undisciplined talent for music and literature that was discovered too late by a teacher who liked his sense of humor. She recommended that he be allowed to take college preparation courses but was told by the head counselor that it was too late for him to enroll. She knew that it was not but did not argue, seeing that Felix’s family circumstances would keep him from continuing his education. His family, though proud of him, expected him to find a job right away. His sisters were anxious to see him begin fulfilling his duty as family breadwinner, for their father had died when they first crossed the border and Mama Chona had suffered much to keep them all together. Jesus Maria and Eduviges were tired of the menial work they took on which interfered with their studies.
The week after he received his diploma, he announced to the family his intention to marry Angie. Only his youngest sister Mema shared his happiness and embraced him. His brothers were still too young to care very much one way or another. They had no desire to attend schools of any kind after their grammar school experiences and were looking forward to the day they could find jobs that would allow them to earn the money to buy a car.
Before she left the kitchen where they were all seated for lunch, Jesus Maria said to him, “How could you do this to us? After all the sacrifices we’ve made for you? Now you’re going to marry that India and leave the burden of this household to us.” Jesus Maria had light skin and anyone darker she considered an “Indian.” She said she did not understand how Angie had even gotten through school. Obviously she belonged to that loathsome group of Indians who were herded through the system, taught to add at least since they refused to learn any language properly, and then let loose among decent people who must put up with their ignorance. Jesus Maria knew that her family was better than such illiterates and she would prove it by going on to college.
“Don’t worry, Jessie, I’ll still help. You’ll see, we’ll work things out.” He tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away and left the room. Felix faced his mother now. Mama Chona had remained silent throughout her children’s quarrel.
“Come here, son,” she said to him in her refined Spanish. “Let me kiss you.” He had not expected her to assent so readily. She stood up and continued to tell him that she wished his father were alive so that he could give Felix the family blessing. She, God forgive her, could not.
Felix watched his mother walk away from him, a small despair beginning to impinge on his love for Angie. “I don’t need your blessing, Mamá,” he said in English, knowing she understood. “With or without it, I’m going to marry her.”
And he did, five years later, after he had gotten the job at the factory and all but Mema and Miguel Grande were graduated from high school. Yerma and Lena were born in the first two years of their marriage, Berto a year later and JoEl two years after him.
Mama Chona forgave Felix for marrying beneath him when she saw her granddaughter, for whom she would have felt unrestrained affection had Yerma’s skin been lighter. Angie learned quickly not to be hurt by her mother-in-law’s snobbery, but she did not like it when Mama Chona held Yerma in her arms and called her a little Indian. “Don’t worry about it,” Felix said to her. “It’s just the pot calling the kettle black.”
When Yerma was eight years old she began taking piano lessons from Mrs. Ramos, the wife of a wealthy boot manufacturer. She was a good pupil and her talent was recognized by all who heard her play on the old piano Tia Cuca had given them when she moved out to the desert on the other side of the mountain. When Mrs. Ramos raised her fee from fifty cents to two dollars an hour, Angie, who saved money for the lessons out of the household budget, was unable to afford the increase. She did not want to ask Felix for it because she knew he did not have it, so Yerma no longer made the weekly climb up the hill to the rich peoples’ part of town. She began practicing on her own with a devotion that ignored how badly out of tune their piano was, and she relied on Lena’s ear to tell her how it should sound. They commented on its steady decline. “Pretty soon, Yerma, we can transpose everything down a whole tone. I can’t wait, my ears are killing me.”
One afternoon, Angie took Yerma up to the Ramos mansion. They were met at the back door by one of the kitchen servants who led them to the music room on the ground floor. Angie, who had never been to the house because she was too ashamed of her clothes to attend the biannual recitals in the living room upstairs, almost lost her nerve in the face of so many beautiful things. She had not dreamed of such furniture, and she calculated that her entire house could fit easily into this lower level. “What beauty,” she said out loud to Yerma.
They waited outside the music room in an alcove with windows looking out onto a garden filled with flowers. Angie could not believe they were real. “Imagine,” she said, “in this desert.” Yerma was afraid her mother would ask permission to touch them and was about to insist that they go home and not bother Mrs. Ramos, when her mother’s attention focused upon the sofa. It was the most comfortable Angie had ever known, of a pale orchid color, and she dared not lean back for fear of sinking too far and disappearing altogether. Later, she said to Felix that in the Ramos mansion, everyone sat on clouds. Yerma was embarrassed by her mother’s reactions and remained silent. She did not want Angie to plead with Mrs. Ramos for anything because she was afraid her t
eacher would then dislike her. At the same time, she did not want to hurt her mother’s feelings by denying her the chance to bargain for the lessons. But she wished that her mother would behave differently, as one did in church, with respect and a certain lack of enthusiasm.
After all the students finished their lessons, Yerma and Angie were admitted to the music room. There were three pianos in it, two uprights and a baby grand. The students were allowed to play the magnificent full grand piano upstairs during dress rehearsals and recitals, and so four times a year Yerma lovingly touched the most beautiful object she had ever seen.
“Señora Ramos, I am Yerma’s mother,” Angie began confidently in Spanish. She counted on the inspiration she had prayed for to give her the necessary words, but instead there followed a long silence that made Yerma want to cry.
Mrs. Ramos responded kindly, “How happy I am to meet you, Señora Angel.” To Yerma she expressed her happiness at seeing her again. “I’ve missed you,” she said warmly.
Angie, encouraged, continued in Spanish. “Señora, my daughter has practiced every day and plays well. Please listen to her.”
“Of course.”
Yerma sat down quickly and played a simplified version of Chopin’s “Minute Waltz” which she had mastered on her own. When she finished, Angie asked Mrs. Ramos what she thought.
“Thank you very much, Yerma, you played that very well. I’m glad you have been practicing. Please wait outside for a few minutes, I want to talk to your mother.” Mrs. Ramos spoke in Spanish out of courtesy to Angie.
Afterward, Yerma told Felix that these were the most difficult moments for her. She felt ashamed yet happy that Mrs. Ramos had praised her technique, since she knew her to be a good teacher who meant what she said. A few minutes later Angie emerged from the music room, took her arm, and led her out of the house. As they walked down the hill her mother told her that she would begin her lessons again the following week, and they hurried home to give the good news to the rest of the family.