by Oscar Lewis
It would have been a great luxury to be able to linger at the mirror to fix my hair or to put on make-up; I never could because of the sarcasm and ridicule of those in the room. My friends in the Casa Grande complained of their families in the same way. To this day, I look into the mirror hastily, as though I were doing something wrong. I also had to put up with remarks when I wanted to sing, or lie in a certain comfortable position or do anything that was not acceptable to my family.
Living in one room, one must go at the same rhythm as the others, willingly or unwillingly—there is no way except to follow the wishes of the strongest ones. After my father, Antonia had her way, then La Chata, then my brothers. The weaker ones could approve or disapprove, get angry or disgusted but could never express their opinions. For example, we all had to go to bed at the same time, when my father told us to. Even when we were grown up, he would say, “To bed! Tomorrow is a work day.” This might be as early as eight or nine o’clock, when we weren’t at all sleepy, but because my father had to get up early the next morning, the light had to be put out. Many times I wanted to draw or to read in the evening, but no sooner did I get started when, “To bed! Lights out!” and I was left with my drawing in my head or the story unfinished.
During the day it was Antonia who chose the radio programs we all had to listen to; in the evenings it was my father. We especially hated the Quiz Kids (los niños Catedráticos) because my father would say, “A child of eight and he knows so much … and you donkeys, you don’t want to study. Later you’ll be sorry.” When my father or Antonia were not at home, how we would fight over the radio!
If La Chata was in charge of the house, she lorded it over us in her own way. She made us wait in the courtyard until she finished cleaning and sometimes, due to the cold, I would have to go to the toilet. She would refuse to open the door and I would jump up and down yelling, for all the neighbors to hear, “Ay, La Chata, let me in. I have to go. I can’t stand it any longer.” Then she would get even by leaving the front door open so that the passers-by in the courtyard could see my feet under the door of the toilet. I would try to hide my feet and would beg her to please shut the front door. But she’d say, “Oh, who’s going to notice a kid.”
The toilet, with its half-door, gave us almost no privacy. It was so narrow that La Chata had to go in sidewise and leave the shutter ajar in order to sit down. Antonia would always crack some joke about the person using the toilet. If Manuel stayed in too long, as he usually did, she would say, “Cut it short or shall I bring you the scissors?” To me she’d say, “Are you still there? I thought you were already in San Lazaro.” San Lazaro is the exit of the city sewage system and she meant that I had fallen into the drainpipe. Other times I was the one who gave trouble. I would tease Roberto when he was in the toilet by opening the front door, saying the smell was too strong. He would shout angrily, “Close that door or you’ll see what happens.” But I would escape into the courtyard before he came out. Or when someone was in the toilet I would begin dancing in front of the door and yelling that I had to go in. I remember Manuel coming out holding his magazine or comics between his teeth, pulling up his pants, looking daggers at me. Antonia never came out until she was ready, no matter how much of a scandal was made, and often were the times when I had to chase everyone out of the room so that I could use the chamber pot.
Sometimes the jokes were rude. Antonia was constipated and suffered very much from gas. She tried to hold it but often she just laughed and said, “Why should I hold it in if it gives me stomach aches.” But if any of us went to the toilet for that reason she would joke about it, “How hoarse you are … you have a cough, pal.” And we might say, “And when you go on like a machine gun at night we can even see your blanket rising.” When we were little and someone made a noise my father would laugh and say, “Ay, who was that? It must have been a rat.” But later he would scold harshly and send the guilty one to the toilet. When he was not present, Manuel and Roberto would carry on by calling each other names like “slob” or “pig” and making each other blush for shame. If no one commented, we usually passed over a slip and paid no attention to it.
But these annoyances were insignificant compared to that of being scolded in the presence of everyone else. I often thought that if my father had berated me in private, I would not have minded so much. But everyone heard the awful things he said to me, even though they pretended not to, and it hurt and shamed me more. My sisters and brothers felt the same way. When one of us was scolded, the others felt equally punished. My father’s words would build up little by little, until they covered us and made us fall in a crisis of tears.
I began to stay away from my home as much as I could. While my father did not live with us I went to all the dances I wanted to, even against Roberto’s wishes. Manuel did not care very much what I did, but Roberto still watched me like a hawk. If I danced two or three consecutive dances with the same boy, he would say, “Don’t dance with him any more. I can’t stand him!” He would look at the boy fit to kill; they could tell just by looking at him that he was keeping an eye on me. If I didn’t obey, he would yank me out of my partner’s arms and drag me home. I would go back to the dance if I could, just to show him that he couldn’t order me around. But he would tell my father and I would be scolded. Even when I cried and promised not to go any more, as soon as the music began I couldn’t hold back. I would leave my coffee on the table and run to the dance.
Roberto’s friend, Pedro Ríos, who lived in the Casa Grande, had become my novio even before my father left us. Pedro was very nice and let pass all the bad times I gave him. One of the things he disliked most was for me to go to dances. But I went anyway, to get even with him for getting drunk. He would watch me, then take me out on the floor to talk to me while we danced.
“You’re just making a fool of me,” he said. “You do it because you know I love you, but if you keep it up we are going to have a real fight.”
“I’ll break up with you, before I quit dancing,” I’d say, and that was what finally happened.
At that time, the boys of the vecindad used to say, “The girls from Casa Grande are for us only,” and it was true. The stranger who tried to find a girl in the Casa Grande was to be pitied because the boys would fight him or give him trouble. Pedro and others from the gang said we girls should not dance nor talk to strangers, but I did not pay any attention. I would dance with any stranger as long as I liked him. That is how I met Diego Toral.
Diego was a fair-skinned young man, half reserved and half a joker. He dressed well. I had to find an excuse to stop going with Pedro to become Diego’s sweetheart, but Pedro did not give me any reason to break up. Since I liked Diego very much, I was the sweetheart of both of them. I used to see Diego only when I went dancing. If Pedro and Diego were both at a dance, I would leave. One day Diego asked me to meet him at a nearby school building. I had already told Pedro to wait for me at the same hour at the arcade on the side of the Street of the Tinsmiths. The building had two exits and Pedro was waiting for me at one while I, running, went to the garden at the other side to meet Diego. My heart was pounding furiously. “I came for just a few minutes, you know how my brothers are.” Diego was satisfied.
I returned to the arcade to see Pedro. He insisted that we walk toward the garden. I didn’t want to because Diego might still be there but, I do not know how to explain this, instead of being afraid I felt comfortable. I was laughing to myself at both of them.
I did not go very long with Diego, but he proposed to me. At that time marriage meant nothing to me; it did not even seem real. Diego said, “Wouldn’t you like to have a beautiful house with upholstered furniture?”
“Upholstered?” I did not know what that meant. He would describe his work to me, but while he talked I thought, “You think I believe you, huh? No, Sharpy. You can’t fool me! Don’t believe him, Consuelo, don’t believe him.” But then going back to sweetness, I would say, “Yes, I’d like it. It would be nice.” But inside,
I was laughing. I was distrustful of all of them. I do not know why. Probably because love was never my ideal.
My brother Roberto’s friends were my friends. But always, thanks to his influence and to the fact that I never liked mean, practical jokes, all of them respected me. Other gangs feared the boys from Casa Grande because they were bullies and trouble makers. I often heard about the Casa Grande gang having a fight with the gang from the Casa Verde or from the Street of the Potters. Those from Casa Grande used to get together at the arcade in such a large group that they interfered with traffic. They would sing or play, tell jokes, and fool around.
When there was a moon or stars, the “loafers” or the “lazy bastards,” as my father would call them, came together at the door of our house. They used to sing love songs if Pedro and I were on good terms; if not, songs of defiance or despair. For example, once when Pedro and I were extremely angry, they sang, “Hypocrite, simply a hypocrite. Perverse one, you deceived me; with your fatal line you poisoned me. And because you don’t love me, I’m going to die.” From my bed I delighted in listening to their wonderful voices and felt lullabyed, knowing that Pedro was there. I felt that all the songs were meant for me. But the neighbor women insulted them: “Lazy bums! Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Why don’t you take your noise some place else?”
Some time later, a family with a record player for rent, moved into Room No. 53. On the tenth of May, Mother’s Day, they played the mañanitas (birthday songs) for the mothers. It also became a custom to sing the mañanitas to the Virgin of Guadalupe at about four or five in the morning and to bring the priest to consecrate her every year. We girls and some of the neighbor women used to get up, well wrapped, because it is cold at that time of the day. Before beginning the mañanitas, the janitor would set off rockets.
The day that made me angry was St. John’s Day, June 24. At exactly two in the morning, the whistle from the public bathhouse blew. It was deafening. Everyone awoke. The older boys from the gang would go to swim at that hour; some of the girls would go swimming too, but I never went. Marta used to tell me that they gave away corn gruel, tamales, sweets and flowers and that they had swimming matches, in which my brother Roberto participated. The record player at the swimming pool played all day. They told me that they really lived it up, but I wondered how they looked, dancing in bathing suits. That was the reason I never went.
Later on, a new custom appeared. On the Saturday before Easter, they would throw water at each other, until they were soaked. It probably started with burning the effigies of Judas. That day, I was watching from the main roof, and saw some boys throw brick powder in a paper sack on the people below. The gang from the Street of the Potters was going around in a big circle in the street and suddenly someone threw a can of water at them. Others quickly came with cans and buckets of water and that’s how the custom started.
But the water throwing got out of hand and I hated it. They no longer had respect for anyone. In the Casa Grande, the boys began to soak the girls, too. Men and women chased each other with pails of water. Everyone was showered, even if they were dressed up and ready to go out, for that day is generally a day off. The girls were a horrid spectacle, their hair dripping water and their dresses stuck to their bodies. One could almost say they were nude. I looked on from the roof or from behind the door, half enjoying it and half angry.
I liked the Christmas celebration better and I did take part in that. On Christmas Eve all of us cleaned and adorned the courtyard. We watched to see that the kids from other courtyards did not pull down the decorations. Some brought wood from the roofs for the luminaries at night; a luminary is a small bonfire on the sidewalks, celebrating the coming of a holy day.
But after all that work, my father would not let me go out. I usually spent those nights crying. At midnight, the bath house whistle blew, the kids hit the telephone poles (these are made of iron and produce a sound similar to that of a bell), horns were blown insistently, bells tolled, and everyone hugged each other and said, “Merry Christmas!” I wanted to have a good time like the others, but by that hour our lights were out, we were all in bed and my father was watching to make sure that we did not go out.
I loved all things religious and never stopped attending the religious obligations I had taken on with such conformity and delight. I deposited my faith, my hope, in Him, in Him whose permission I asked for everything. To Him I offered all the sufferings and pleasures that fell to me in school, at work, or outside during the day. All through the afternoons and nights when I was left alone, I would offer Him everything and talk to Him and make Him promises. I have always fulfilled the First Commandment, Love God above all things, but I have never managed to fulfill the Second, Do not take the name of the Lord in vain. Unfortunately, I have found need to lie.
The first time I went into a church, it seemed to me as though I was entering the sacred precinct, that is, as if the doors of peace illuminated by pale rays of light were opening for me. My prayers always were that my brothers should not turn out bad, that He should make them change and pardon them, that He give me strength to go on. I had to help them develop, to study, to be very capable. In church, I felt insignificantly tiny. He represented everything there was for me, there at the altar. I almost always went alone to church and to the cemetery, always promising to be good and humble. “Do not permit pride to enter me,” was what I asked for myself. I wanted to be as humble and good as St. Francis of Assisi, but it didn’t turn out that way.
For years I didn’t stop asking my father to put me into a school for nuns. I tried for a long time, even up to the time I was eighteen years old. But what a disillusion it was when Yolanda and Señor Alfredo, her husband, told me that one had to pay a dowry in order to become a nun. They also told me about the sufferings one had to go through, but that didn’t make any difference to me. To sleep on a hard bed seemed to me to be a meritorious thing, a sacrifice, yes, but it was to serve Him who had suffered so much. I saw a movie at that time which showed the entire Passion of Christ, and I cried and cried and felt like shouting. If I had been there to be allowed to embrace the Lord and help Him with His crossi That memory will never be erased. The humility with which He suffered! My love for Him was greater than ever. When my brothers made me cry or my father scolded me or I was going through a bad moment of any kind, I would think, “If He who was divine suffered so much, why shouldn’t a poor human like me suffer? What does my suffering mean compared to His!” And I would feel resigned.
I didn’t learn the meaning of Mass until I was seventeen or eighteen years old. One afternoon I left the office with Lupe, a girl who worked with me. I was working for an accountant then. Lupe had received much more religious instruction than I and always went to Mass. She asked me if I did, and at first I said yes, but because she seemed like such a simple person, I dared ask her, “Listen, and what does the Mass mean?”
“Haven’t they told you?”
“No, never. When I go, I kneel when everybody kneels and get up when everybody gets up, and say what they say. But I don’t know why. Why do you have to get up or kneel with the bell?”
“Look, when they ring the bell—” And then I learned the grand significance of the Mass. When I least expected it, I had that deciphered for me.
I took part in my first religious pilgrimage when my uncle Ignacio and my aunt went on the newsboys’ union pilgrimage. We marched four abreast. Some carried flowers. Although they were very poor people, they kept in order. Some sang hallelujahs. I just kept looking straight ahead toward that distant point I was soon to feel so near. I was very happy to be there. The second time was much later when I graduated from commercial school, and all of us, dressed in cap and gown, set off for the Basilica to give thanks. Never, never did I lose hope that I would see Him.
Once, on Roberto’s Saint’s Day, Crispín paid for the rental of a record player to celebrate. At one point, Crispín and Marta pulled the chair out from under me as I was about to sit down. Of course, there w
ere people present and they laughed when I fell. I felt like dying of embarrassment and fury, but went right into the house without saying a word. There I was safe from the laughter because my father didn’t permit the doors to be open. He just gave the electric current to run the music.
A few minutes later I got even with Marta and Crispín. I emptied a pan of water on them from the roof while they were dancing. Marta couldn’t take the harmless joke and went in to tell my father, shouting, “Papá, look at what that Skinny did! Tell her not to start up with Crispín.”
I came down the stepladder, laughing, but once I saw my father my laughter was cut short. Before all the people, I got a slap and a scolding from him. “I’m sick and tired of supporting people who don’t deserve it.” My father hurt me very deeply, and I began thinking of how I would run away the following day. And that’s what I did. I got together the few clothes I had and went to Santitos’ house.
Santitos lived in a small stand built of scrap wood and heavy cardboard, in the little market of the Martínez Colonia. Her merchandise consisted of a few vegetables, candies and herbs which she kept on a board. At her place I was glad to eat plain nopal leaves roasted on the clay griddle, and to sleep on a dirt floor with just a piece of straw mat under me and some strips of bedspread covering me. The colony was on the outskirts of the city and we went to sleep to a kind of lullaby made by the croaking of toads and frogs. I would wake up with my whole back eaten by fleas, and I slept wrapped from head to foot for fear of the rats.