by Oscar Lewis
Roberto kept watching me from the door. I didn’t show that I was afraid or angry. He came over, giving me a shove that knocked me down, and pulled out the knife. At that moment I felt as though the delicate tissues of my heart were coming away little by little, causing a bitter liquid to drip down and kill me. But I got up off the ground, realizing that if I provoked him, he would finish what he wanted to do. So I left and went to Yolanda’s house.
In spite of everything, I had to admit that after we fought, Roberto would come over to me and say, “Little sister, did it hurt? Forgive me, yes? Please, little sister.” To which I would yell, “Get out of here, you damn black one. I wish you’d die! Beat it … you just wait until my papá comes!” And there I would be, rubbing my eyes, squealing with pain and rage.
After my father came home and Roberto got his beating, he would go to cry in the dark kitchen, sitting between the brazier and the dish closet, his hair hanging over his forehead, his nose filthy, one suspender of his overalls hanging down over his shoulder. He would sob for a long time, with nobody to comfort him. We wouldn’t notice when he left, but in a few minutes, people would start coming around to complain that Roberto had beaten a child or had done some other nasty thing.
Yet, in his own way, Roberto kept on trying to win the affection of everyone in the family. I remember one time when he came home with his windbreaker and pants pockets full of nuts. Two days before, he had gotten a terrific beating from my father “to pay” for something he had done. Everyone in the house was disgusted with him. I can still see him as he came home … in his gray overalls, his “miner’s” shoes scuffed, one shirt sleeve torn, his hair covered with dust. At that time, he seemed hateful to me, but now, as I think of it, how beautiful my brother was as he came in, holding out his jacket to Marta, Tonia and me, offering us the nuts. He divided them into piles, one for each of us, and even helped me shell mine. But I wasn’t taken in … I knew he would soon hit me again for one reason or another.
I remember one night very well, when Roberto was about fourteen. The room was dark, not even the votive light was lit, and I was lying in bed with my hands under my neck, thinking … wondering why my father had changed toward us. Roberto came in, spread out his sack and pillow on the floor at the foot of my father’s bed and lay down.
There was a dance going on in the courtyard and we could hear the words of a popular song. It went more or less like this: “The soul of my drum, because my drum does have a soul, says it lost its peace because it is black. And even though you don’t like people who are dark, they have white souls and their hearts are white.”
I don’t know whether Roberto was dreaming or was just drunk, but the lines aroused such emotion in him that he began to sob, louder and louder. He said reproachfully, “Yes, papacito, you don’t love me because I am dark, because my hide is black. That’s why none of you love me … but my soul is white!”
It hurt me to hear what he said. Actually, I had never paid attention to my brother’s color. I hated him for hitting me, but not because he was dark. I believe that Roberto very much wanted my father to comfort him, to embrace him, at that moment. My father reacted to his words, because he spoke gently and said, “Shhh … be quiet and go to sleep … go to sleep now, hear?”
One evening my father was sitting at the table, reading. It was past eight o’clock and he had already taken off the overalls which he wore over his trousers and shirt. He often kept large sums of money in his trouser pockets because he was a food buyer for the La Gloria restaurant. He wore the overalls to protect the money from the thieves that abound in the city markets. Marta was playing on the bedroom floor; Antonia and I were listening to a radio drama. We heard a knock on the door and Antonia opened it.
There was my brother, Manuel, holding the arm of a rather fat girl, who was wearing a purple dress and a blue sweater. She was not pretty for her features were dark and irregular, but her black hair was nicely curled. My brother was trying to get her to go in, pushing her ahead of him. Finally they entered and my father stood up to receive them. Manuel presented Paula and my father told her to sit down. She was nervous and sat down on what must have seemed to her “the bench of judgment.” Manuel remained standing while my father eyed him up and down.
“Papá, I spoke to you about Paula …”
My father said, “Yes.” Then he said to Paula, “What are you thinking of, girl? Do you believe that this tramp is going to take you out of your difficulties?” She didn’t answer. “Yes, girl, he is a bum who knows only how to play pool with his friends.”
My father then told Marta and me to go out to the courtyard. We obeyed like little lambs. The truth is that I was embarrassed by my father’s severity. He should not be scolding her like that. As we left I heard him say, “You are going to regret this a thousand and one times, girl, because this one is not a man.”
Outside in the courtyard I leaned against the wall. I felt sorry for Paula. I went to Señora Yolanda’s house and told her, “Imagine, Manuel brought home his novia.” She said, “So he is married already, eh?” I sat down. “Married?” I hadn’t understood. I began to feel proud, for now I could say I had a sister-in-law. That’s how my brother got “married.”
In school, I liked to be alone all the time. I used to think my classmates were either stuck-up or quarrelsome. I would stay in the classroom, drawing, sewing, or simply looking at the blackboard with the señorita sitting at her desk. If I went outside for recreation, I would sit off to one side where there weren’t so many girls to take a bite of my roll; or I would go up to the roof to look at my reflection in the water tanks.
I did not think I could ever be pretty. I felt inferior because I was small and thin. My skin was too dark, my eyes slightly slanted, my mouth too large, my teeth too crowded. I searched for some good feature. My nose was straight but big, my hair very thick and dark but would not take a curl. I wished I were lighter-skinned and plump like Marta, with dimples like hers. I dreamed of being blond. Staring at myself in the water I thought, “Consuelo, Consuelo, what a strange name. It doesn’t even sound like the name of a person. It sounds very thin, as though it were breaking.”
The caretaker usually brought me out of my dreams, taking me by the shoulder and saying, “What are you doing here? Don’t you know you can’t come up to the roof? Go play or I’ll take you to the principal.” Blushing with shame, I would go down and sit in the sun in the little garden. When the first bell rang for us to go back to our classrooms, I would wait for the others to get lined up, because otherwise they almost always pushed me. I let them push without protesting; I was afraid of them.
My sister Marta wasn’t afraid, of either girls or boys. She played with both. It made me furious to see her surrounded by boys, squatting with her legs apart, leaning on the ground with one hand, holding a marble in the other, calculating the distance. I used to embarrass her by making scenes when she was with her friends. Also, I didn’t like her wandering around with Roberto. They would both play hooky and come home with their clothes dirty and torn. Sometimes when I went out looking for her I would see her hanging on the rear bumper of a bus, taking a free ride.
There always was trouble between Marta and me, especially when I wanted to delouse her, or have her wash the dishes, or make her clean her face with a damp rag. And I could never, never, get her to sew. Trying to do this was the cause of big quarrels in which she would throw the iron at me or scratch my hands all over. Later, she would accuse me of having hit her and pulled her hair, and in a way she was right, though I don’t remember having dragged her “across the whole room and the courtyard,” as she told my father.
As soon as she felt the first blow from me, Marta would answer with kicks, bites, pinches, scratches, and whatever else she could. When I saw her like that, I laughed so much I lost my strength. I would feel my stomach stretch like a rubber band, and then all I could do was hold her hands so she couldn’t scratch me. When she didn’t succeed in hurting me or if I had locked her in
, she would throw herself on the floor and bang her head on the boards or against the wall. She would cry so much her face would get red and if one of my brothers saw her he would take it out on me without asking any questions.
La Chata, probably because she was tired of these scenes, did not mix in. She would begin to sing or simply go on making tortillas. I couldn’t do anything with Marta except complain to my father, and never with the result I expected. Instead of scolding her for stealing rides or playing only with boys, he would say to me, “Who are you to hit her?” Or, “Let her play with whomever she wants,” or, “The day I find out that you hit her, I’ll smash your face.” In spite of this I always wanted to correct my sister, and even more when she grew up.
As a matter of fact, I really didn’t know how to treat Marta. I saw her as a candy doll, dressed in blue, on a white cake, but in reality there was no sugar in her. Instead of being sweet, she was spoiled and selfish. I looked upon her tantrums as the caprices of a five-year-old, which she would get over when she grew up. I would think, “She doesn’t want to lend her doll, but she will when she is a little older … She doesn’t want to share her candy now, but later on she will.”
I remember once, during the days when my father would give us five or ten centavos for sweets, that Marta came back from the store holding a lot of candy in her skirt. I was standing in the doorway watching the others playing and she went into the room. When I turned to look for her, there was no one inside. I peeked under the bed and there she was eating the candy.
“Ay, just look at this one! Selfish! You hid so you wouldn’t have to share. Miser!”
Her mouth was so full of sweets she was hardly able to talk. “It’s none of your business. They’re mine!”
I laughed and let her finish the candy. But she did the same thing many other times. I tried to help her with her homework … once I spent a whole afternoon making a painting she needed for her teacher … another time, she had to hand in some sewing and I loaned her mine. Each time, she took it and acted as though she had done it herself. “Oh, well,” I said, “it doesn’t matter.” And I let it pass.
One afternoon when I was almost thirteen, I was in bed with terrible cramps. We had no help in the house at that time. When Roberto and Marta came in, laughing and playing, I asked my sister to make me some tea. She looked at me scornfully. “No! What for? Get up and do it yourself. All you do is lie around and want everything handed to you.”
“Damn kid,” I thought. “All right then, I’ll ask Roberto.”
“What about you, little brother? Won’t you make me some tea? My stomach hurts me so!”
“Me? No! What are you talking about?” They went out again and left me there, crying and holding my stomach. I waited a long time for my sister to grow out of her “caprice age,” but it got worse with time.
My half-sister Antonia annoyed me in the same way as Marta, because of her tomboyish games, I watched her and the others from Yolanda’s house, with my sewing or my notebook in my hand, or standing in our doorway because I didn’t want to leave my father alone. When they passed near me, I told them they looked like runaway horses or like men. Tonia only laughed, which would make me angry and I would complain to my father: “Look, papá, Tonia goes running through all the courtyards and her dress goes way up. Talk to her.” Sometimes my father would make her go in. Other times, without even lifting his eyes from the paper, he would say to me, “Yes, go on and play. I’ll talk to her right away.”
Tonia and her friends invited me to play, but I never would. Yolanda, too, encouraged me to play: “Go on, Consuelo, go and play. You act like an eighty-year-old woman, not a youngster of thirteen. You’ll be getting old right away, hombre!” But I thought of how their bodies moved as they ran, and thinking of my own body, I felt ashamed, afraid that my dress would fly up. Only once in a while, when I felt really gay, seeing everybody laughing, would I go out to play “eighteen.” When I began to run, I did it too stiffly and was almost always caught.
Many of the fights with Roberto were because I didn’t like to do anything in my house. “Wash the dishes, kid,” he would order me, and I would answer, “Wash them yourself, dope. Who are you to order me around.” But in the neighbors’ houses I would do all kinds of housework and take care of their children. I went home at dinner time or just before my father arrived. Then La Chata would say to me, “Light of the street, darkness of your own house,” because I helped others.
By that time I was in my sixth year at school and had a lot of homework. When I wanted to study, my brothers and sister would put on the radio or yell. Sometimes I went up on the roof to read, sitting on a box and using a rag for a sunshade. But even this didn’t work; La Chata or Antonia would come to hang clothes or Roberto would come up with a mouse tied by the tail and chase the animal from one roof to the other. This made me fly down.
Later that year Roberto ran away and joined the army and I had more peace. Until then, I would ask my friend, Señora Dolores, for permission to study in her house. Sometimes I would go to the library outside the Casa Grande or to one of the shops of the tenement. In a strange house, they wouldn’t bother me and I could study, which was really the thing I liked best. Then I would go home and refuse to do something they asked me to, and again I would hear, “Light of the street, darkness of your house.”
I liked school better than home too. I always got the good-conduct badge, and I almost always had first place (first row, first seat) in all grades. Sometimes I would lose this place and be put back three or five seats, but afterwards I would win it again. How proud I used to be when the teacher asked a question about something and I was one of those who raised their hands I
As for my teachers, I admired them, but I thought so little of myself that I never aspired to be like them. For me everything was impossible then. How could I ever become so pretty and well educated as they? How could I become worthy to get up before a group of girls and have them sit or stand at my command? No! Undoubtedly, this was not for me.
One of my teachers, Señorita Gloria, once told us something I never forgot. In sewing class a girl asked her if she had ever thought of getting married. The teacher blushed and said, “Yes, of course. All of us have to get married someday.” Felipa López, who was most daring, said, “Haven’t you ever been in love?” Señorita Gloria tried to smile and answered, “Love is a wonderful thing, but I’m not gullible. Love is like a star, it starts out brilliant and dies down. You should never believe young men who say, ‘I love you.’ You must be careful and not venture into the unknown. Many men He and one shouldn’t believe them.” I never forgot what she said. I think this is why I never let my boy friends deceive me, for when they say, “I love you,” within me I laugh at them and repeat, “Don’t believe it, don’t believe it.”
That year, when I was thirteen, I began to menstruate. It happened one day in school, frightening and embarrassing me terribly. My head ached and I had cramps all morning. María, a girl who sat next to me, told the teacher and we were both allowed to go to the bathroom. There I saw blood stains on my dress and underwear. María told me not to worry because it happened to all women and that it meant I was now a señorita. I was disappointed because I had always thought that when I became a señorita I would wear high heels, nice dresses and eyeglasses and would use lipstick. But there I was still in socks and school uniform! And later I noticed that everyone treated me the same as before, not even noticing that I was different.
The teacher sent me home, where I tried secretly to wash the stains from my clothing. My cramps were so bad I cried and had to tell Antonia. She was very nice to me and gave me camomile tea and lots of advice. I was worried that my brothers would find out but Antonia showed me how to take care of that too. When La Chata came back from the market, Tonia told her and she seemed happy about it, saying, “Ay, now we have a señorita in the house.” She was the one who told my father but he never said anything to me about it. Whenever I complained of cramps he had someone make m
e tea or he would send me to the doctor for an injection.
I don’t believe my father came to school a single time in all the years I spent in primary school. He knew nothing of the things that happened in school and he never asked. He signed my report cards and that was all. If there was a parents’ meeting he would say he couldn’t leave work to attend but he would give me the money or do whatever it was they wanted. When I completed the sixth grade I asked for a white dress for graduation. At first he refused but I finally got it. As usual, he bought it without me and I didn’t like it. It had a round collar and little embroidered roses. My schoolmates thought it was nice but it made me feel like an insignificant child on the day that meant so much to me.
I had begged my father to come to the graduation exercises, but he never appeared. I kept sticking my head over the balcony to see if he had come. Even when all the sixth graders and their parents were sitting at the table in the mess hall for the luncheon, I kept turning round to look for him. How awful I felt to see my classmates with their parents. Some of the fathers came in their work clothes but they were there anyway with their daughters. How much I wanted my father to appear by magic and be with me!
Before putting away my graduation papers, I showed them to my father. As always, he only glanced at them and said nothing. In the vecindad they asked, “Did you pass, Consuelo?” and, “What are you going to do now?” I could only say, “Who knows? I don’t know what my father wants me to study next.” But all my pride in my schoolwork had been dashed to the ground by my father.
And that was my life as a little girl—ignored when I would do well in school or when I would ask questions at home, or answered sharply by my family. This made me feel stupid or it made me think that they didn’t love me. But I never knew why.