Plus there was the other thing that was getting under my skin: her shameless flirting with my brother, who clearly wasn’t hampered by any Celia-inspired guilt. Notoriously unscrupulous in matters of the crotch, Sancho was perched on the arm of the couch next to Vanessa, tight curls spilling into eyes that peered straight down the bottomless crevice of her cleavage. Since she was Mauricio’s daughter, not Aunt Celia’s, and therefore not a blood relative, I strongly suspected Sancho was trying to sleep with her. Never mind he was twenty-nine and she was seventeen, and that Sancho had been dating a Trini girl, Megan, who doted on him, for the past year. I thought of all the time I’d invested in small talk with poor old Megan, all those hours I’d never get back – always a waste of time getting to know anyone from Sancho’s ephemeral relationships.
Christmas was a month away, so parang music, Trinidad’s peppy tropical equivalent of carols, was playing on the radio, making us all grate our teeth at the atrociously pronounced and often nonsensical Spanish lyrics. And though the house was undecorated out of respect for Aunt Celia, any outsider who’d seen us all gathered together, the parang setting the seasonally jovial atmosphere, would’ve thought our family lunch was downright festive. But we could all sense the subtle tension. No one ranting about Venezuelan politics, no playful banter, none of Sancho’s inappropriate blue jokes or Aunt Milagros’s depressing stories from the Opus Dei charity – just stilted chitchat about nothing at all.
When everyone had eaten, Mamá announced that she was going to tidy up the kitchen. She found discussing money to be in poor taste, so I knew the whole issue of Aunt Celia’s, and now our debt, was painfully uncomfortable for her. That kitchen was her only escape.
My father walked to the centre of the living room, tacitly calling us all to order. He scanned the room. ‘Where are Sancho and Vanessa?’
Eyes skipped nervously from the ceiling to the floor to cuticles, all avoiding my father. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Vanessa and my brother flirting earlier.
A second later, Papá spotted them by the mango tree at the far end of our yard. Vanessa was backed up against the trunk, batting her eyelashes and tittering while Sancho regaled her with some presumably riveting tale. My father hollered for them to come inside, then, without further ado, our blackmail briefing began.
I said I wasn’t panicked about the whole thing, and I still wasn’t. But anxiety and panic aren’t one and the same, and now the anxiety was really kicking in. What were we going to be forced into doing? I’d never found myself in a position before where I had no choice – none whatsoever – but to obey someone’s orders on pain of death or deportation. It was surreal. It was scary.
Looking around, you could see that everyone felt the same. Features had hardened suddenly. Mouths were stark lines. Nails had been chewed clean off. Mauricio looked the worst out of everyone. Eyes red and unblinking, he looked like he hadn’t slept in years. I didn’t care. I blamed him for everything, even more than Aunt Celia. Why had he left her out on a limb doing deals with Ugly on her own when he’d always been the breadwinner in their household? I couldn’t understand it.
Aunt Milagros wasn’t too far behind Mauricio in terms of appearance. She looked like she’d forgotten a hairbrush even existed. Though she was only in her late forties, she’d let her herself go completely grey – ‘So those uncouth Trini men will stop harassing me in the streets!’ – and now her hair looked like a silver storm cloud electrified by lightning. I’d never seen curls stand on end before. It gave her a sort of Einstein look. The visit from Ugly that morning must’ve scared her senseless. I even thought I’d smelled the lingering stink of cigarette smoke on her paisley blouse when I’d kissed her hello earlier, evidence of a nerve-induced nicotine fix. Which was especially concerning given that Aunt Milagros wouldn’t even drink Coke because she said its origins lay in the ‘evils of the coca leaf’, far less indulge in a proven carcinogen for anxiety relief.
‘So,’ my father began, ‘Ugly and his colleague Román spoke with Mauricio, Milagros, Sancho and me this morning, as you all know. But not all of you know what was discussed. Essentially, we’ve been given the terms of our “deal” with Ugly, if you want to call it that. It’s the only option we have to clear Celia’s debt. We’re all going to be involved – even you girls.’ He gave the twins a nod. They were sitting side by side, mirror images in matching pink gym gear, ponytails streaming behind them, chewing their bottom lips.
Then Papá laid out the terms under which we’d all avoid having our throats cut and tongues pulled through the slit like neckties. (To stress the importance of us not going to the police or talking to anyone about our situation, Papá felt the need to quote Ugly word for word.) But first, my father explained how Ugly’s operation worked: Ugly brought illegal Venezuelan immigrants into the country for certain (extortionate) fees. He arranged the pick-ups in Venezuela and the drop-offs in various fishing villages in South Trinidad. As part of his ‘relocation packages’, he sorted housing, forged documentation, under-the-table employment, and whatever else was necessary for the migrants to start a whole new life, just like he’d done for Aunt Celia. It was a massive operation, presumably involving an extensive network of bribed government and police contacts, which, according to Ugly’s bragging, had allowed him to bring thousands of Venezuelans across the slim strip of ocean separating the South American continent from Trinidad.
And where would the Palacios family fit into all this?
‘Ugly will be using our homes as safe houses for the Venezuelans coming in.’ There was no missing the bitterness in Papá’s voice. ‘Families, people on their own, groups … however Ugly wants to configure things is up to him, but Román will be doing the drop-offs. We deal with him only, never Ugly. We just have to be standing by at all times to receive and accommodate whoever Román brings. We’ll be providing comfortable shelter and food, at our expense. They’ll stay for as long as necessary until Ugly is ready for them to be moved. Then Román will collect them again.’
‘And it’s all of us doing this? Every household?’ I asked.
My father nodded.
‘I, like, totally cannot believe this is happening,’ moaned Zulema, twisting the silky rope of her hair like it could turn back time to before we were living at Ugly’s mercy. ‘How long will we have to do it?’
‘For as long as Ugly feels it will take for Celia’s debt to be paid.’
‘But that could be years, Uncle Hector,’ said Ava. ‘What if he sends strangers into our houses for like a decade?’
‘We have no choice in any of this. Ugly is not a man to make empty threats, trust me. And Román is equally dangerous.’ He rubbed his neck and I knew he was remembering Román’s hand around it. A twinge of guilt tugged at me.
‘Whatever Ugly and Román want us to do,’ Papá continued, ‘we just have to suck it up and do it. There’s no alternative. Keep your heads down and we’ll all get through this.’
‘So we have no way out?’ Alejandra was incredulous.
‘No, none! NONE!’ Voice cracking, Mauricio clutched at his hair and threw his head back.
I scoffed. ‘Cool it, Scarlett O’Hara.’
Mauricio looked at me, bewildered. ‘Who?’
My father motioned impatiently for us both to shut up. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I know this is a mess, but at least Ugly has given us a way to work off the debt. Sooner or later this will all be over.’
‘But these are illegal people we’ll be sheltering!’ Aunt Milagros was wild-eyed, her silver curls demented in their disarray. ‘What if the police find out?’
We all turned at the sound of a hoarse laugh from my mother, standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘We are illegal, Milagros. ¿Se te olvidó?’
That shut everyone up. It was true. We were all criminals living in a country without permission, without the protection of the police or government. Snails without a shell, totally exposed.
‘Yasmin is right,’ said my father, after a long silence. �
�We’re in no position to judge anyone. We have to look at this like an opportunity to help our countrymen find a better life like we all did. We have to be positive. We are going to clear Celia’s debt, and we’ll be standing by our Venezuelan people. It’s our turn to be the Good Samaritan.’
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room. Nothing appealed to a pack of wayward Catholics like a Good Samaritan reference.
‘How will we know when people are coming?’ asked Vanessa.
‘I don’t know,’ said my father. ‘We have to be ready to receive them whenever.’
I looked around the living room. Our house was comfortable enough for my parents, Zulema and me, but even when Sancho had briefly lived with us when we first moved in, things had felt cramped. The couch was also a pull-out bed and there were a couple of unhung hammocks heaped in a corner of the porch, but that would only be enough if a few people stayed with us at a time. How many people would Ugly be sending our way? Would it be whole families, whole cargoes of people crammed into our home? I had so many questions but could see my father was stressed, even as he forced a smile. I stayed quiet. No use asking anything anyway, not when Papá had no control over any of it. Ugly was the one pulling the strings – Ugly and Román.
Papá resumed his pep talk. ‘For now, all we can do is wait until the first people are sent. Just remember, these are our people. They’re going to be desperate, frightened and alone. Let’s treat them with Palacios hospitality.’
Everyone nodded and mumbled that yes, of course, we would welcome them, but no one bought into my father’s spurious enthusiasm. How could we? Ugly could be sending anyone – drug dealers, thieves, murderers, rapists. There was no way of screening who’d be living with us, no way of knowing if we’d be safe in our own homes. A morose silence hung over us, a grey smog, until Mamá said she had a headache and was going to lie down. Then Aunt Milagros said she was going to her second Mass for the day, and Mauricio, maudlin as ever, said he’d go with her. The twins stayed behind, playing with Fidel in the garden while Zulema, Sancho and Vanessa took out the dusty Scrabble set, I guess for something to take their minds off Ugly. Seeing Sancho and Vanessa giggling and finding excuses to touch each other while an oblivious Zulema concentrated on her first batch of letters, I decided to call it a day. But as I was heading to my room, Papá pulled me into the kitchen.
‘I have something for you.’ He handed me a large brown envelope. ‘It belonged to Celia. Mauricio said he thought you should have it – Celia once told him you two used to talk about writing and books a lot.’
My throat tightened. I took the envelope and pulled out a fat sheaf of pages, all typed up in an old-fashioned font. I remembered the antique Underwood No. 5 typewriter Aunt Celia had inherited from my abuela when she died. I thought Aunt Celia had kept it as an ornament, not for actual writing. The several hundred pages held together with a large binder clip proved otherwise.
At the very top of the cover page was a title in capital letters: LOS AÑOS JODIDOS DE MI VIDA. That was Aunt Celia’s foul mouth all right.
I slid the pages back into the envelope and hugged it to my chest, a little piece of Aunt Celia in my arms.
‘Where’d Mauricio find this? Is it a memoir?’
‘It was in her desk drawer. Mauricio said it would be too painful to read anything she wrote so he hasn’t even looked at it. He guessed it might be a novel, but with a title like “The Fucked-up Years of My Life”, my money’s on it being a memoir. You read it and find out for us.’ He chuckled. ‘That Celia and her mouth. Your abuela used to make her gargle soapy water at least once a day, but that only made her swear even more, to prove a point.’
Papá and I stayed in the kitchen remembering some of Aunt Celia’s finer moments until I couldn’t stifle my curiosity any longer with the heft of Aunt Celia’s consciousness in black-and-white print weighing heavy in my arms. Whether it was a diary, a memoir, a novel, I didn’t care – I hadn’t realized how addicted I’d been to that signature Celia vitriol until her death had cut me off cold turkey, left me sick with withdrawal. So like Tony Montana burying his face into that iconic last-hurrah pile of blow, I couldn’t wait a second longer before diving headfirst into my final unexpected hit of Aunt Celia.
A TURD WON’T GROW TAIL FEATHERS (AND OTHER INSIGHTS)
I sat cross-legged on my bed, Aunt Celia’s manuscript in my hands. More than anticipation, I was mostly shocked that Aunt Celia had written this. Not once in the countless conversations we’d had about books and my writing had she ever mentioned that she was also a writer. Or at the very least, that she was writing something. It all made sense now that she’d been so kind in critiquing my work over the years. What else did I not know about the aunt I thought I’d been so close to? First the whole business with Ugly. Now this.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I’d get to hear her voice again on the page. Holding the manuscript, I imagined that I could feel the warmth of her hands still on the paper, pictured her sliding each sheet into the ancient typewriter, her red-lacquered fingernails clacking noisily across the keys. I exhaled and removed the binder clip, placed the cover page face down on the bed.
The first chapter was titled La Llegada Sagrada and contained the full account of Aunt Celia’s birth – her sacred arrival, as she’d not-so-humbly dubbed it – which had been family lore since as far back as I could remember, because when little Celia was born, she came out weighing exactly thirteen pounds and with a fully grown tooth. With the baby’s unlucky weight and precocious tooth, Abuela was convinced that Celia was destined to be the Anti-Christ, or at the very least, one of his minions. So she persuaded my abuelo to give Celia up to an orphanage run by nuns. As the story goes, Abuela changed her mind a month later and returned to the orphanage wracked with remorse to retrieve Celia, much to the nuns’ relief (turned out Celia was just as bitchy and loud-mouthed during her first month of life as when she was an adult).
It was no surprise that Aunt Celia’s memoir or autobiography or whatever it was should start off with her brief stint as an orphan, because as the manuscript went on to confirm, she’d never let my grandparents forget that they’d abandoned her:
I’m sitting there at family dinner number one hundred and fucking sixty-two for the year. As if I really need to see Tía Ramona’s moustache more than once a year at Christmas. The men are all outside, smoking cigars and drinking, swapping stories of who has the most mistresses, tugging on their ballsacks to see whose hangs the lowest, and I’m stuck in the kitchen with the women – Milagros plus all those musty old aunts and my mother, radiant with self-satisfaction at another dinner where she successfully made her sisters feel like big fat fucking failures in comparison to her. They’re flapping their gums and respective moustaches, everyone bragging about the usual bullshit, when I hear Tía Mabel telling Mamá she just wishes she could’ve had kids as well raised as us. ‘I’ve always been dedicated to my children,’ breathes Mamá, beaming and bashful.
‘Always dedicated, Mamá? You mean except in the case of a helpless infant who’s committed the blasphemy of being born with a tooth, of course.’ I couldn’t help myself. She’d fucking asked for it.
Mamá’s looking at me like she wishes she’d clothes-hangered my former foetal self long before she had a chance to squeeze me out with that unholy tooth.
‘Your mother is a good mother, Celia,’ whimpers Tía Mabel, the brownnoser.
‘Ha! A good mother who dumps her newborn with a bunch of sexually repressed religious fanatics who think they’re married to the protagonist of a two-thousand-year-old storybook? Good mother my ass. Tía, let me tell you something – you can call a turd a peacock, but it still won’t grow tail feathers.’
Mamá wouldn’t leave her room for two days after that, and I was banned from attending the next four family events. Win-win.
I kept reading voraciously. The writing was sharp, witty and merciless, just like Aunt Celia. And written in the present tense with a neatly craf
ted linear narrative, it read like an intimate diary, but one that was juicier than fiction. Only when a stack of pages were face down beside me and the stripes of light falling through the louvres were the hazy pink of sunset did I put the manuscript down, wanting to ration the rest of it as long as I could. It was strange, reading her writing. I was hooked, but at the same time, the more I read, the more I felt the hole in my chest widening – I hated that I couldn’t call Aunt Celia right then to tell her what I thought of her work.
The only way to ease the ache of that hole, a raw and ragged-edged wound newly opened by the discovery of her writing, was to keep reading.
In the wee hours of that morning, I finally forced myself to stop. I’d followed Aunt Celia from that dank orphanage to my abuelos’ rural ranch, and was now smack in the drama of her wild teenage years. I stopped myself there even though there was so much more to read, just a few more chapters until her debauched twenties, which I was already so fondly familiar with thanks to the many stories she’d told me. But I made myself resist the magnetism of the manuscript – this was my last fix of Celia so I had to eke it out.
I tucked the manuscript into my nightstand drawer, still thrumming with the energy surge from reading good writing, and I knew then how I’d keep Aunt Celia’s memory alive. I’d prove to her, dead or not, that all our conversations about reading, writing, books we loved, books we hated, authors we couldn’t live without, authors we thought could eat shit, all of that talk hadn’t been for nothing. If she could secretly pen a bona fide tome without ever making a single claim to being a writer, I had no excuse not to finish my own opus. I’d show Aunt Celia I could write.
The next morning I was charged, ready to put pen to paper. It was time to forge ahead with the novel draft. Before our departure from Caracas, I’d been working doggedly on it for nearly a year while grappling with the usual procrastination pitfalls – trawling social media, colour-coordinating my wardrobe, staring at my cuticles, Googling how to stop procrastinating – and I had only a few chapters left to write, along with a few plot holes to fill. But then came our upheaval to Trinidad and it was all too easy to put the book on the back burner. Now, though, Aunt Celia’s memoir had given me exactly the jolt of inspiration I needed to get back to the literary grindstone. There were her classic Celia-esque insights for starters:
One Year of Ugly Page 4