by Oscar Lewis
She was living with her mother when she accepted my papá’s offer to go and live in the Casa Grande. Her husband came after her but she threatened to call the police if he bothered her any more and because of his record he didn’t. But I heard that she met him in the market now and then and I wondered whether she was giving my father a cat for a hare by cheating on him. Lupita had told me that my papá couldn’t have children any more … that Marielena was his last child. So I would have given a lot to know whether or not my papá was able to beget a child with Delila, or whether it was really Luis’ baby. But I never told my papá any of the gossip, because, you know, doubt does more harm than disappointment.
So when I returned home, I found Delila was my father’s mistress, because though she didn’t want to admit it, that was what she really was. My papá was still free … he wasn’t tied down by any law, only by his own sentiments. If he had been different, he would have abandoned us a long time ago. But there he was, taking care of everybody, Consuelo, Delila and her son, Manuel’s four children, me and my two babies, Antonia and her little girl, Lupita and Marielena.
Manuel had gone to the United States and Delila was mad at him for taking along her brother Faustino. According to her, Manuel and his friend Alberto came to her house in the middle of the night and talked Faustino into going. She said, “My poor little brother! They dragged him off and now he has to search garbage pails for something to eat.” They had a hard time in Mexicali before they got across the border and there were days when they didn’t eat.
But once they were in the United States they were well off and even sent money home. It must be nice there! I imagine it is a country so civilized that even the people are different. Here, if there isn’t something in it for a person, no one will do you a favor. Or if someone does, when you least expect it, he demands repayment. Here, people have too much self-interest. Of course, there are good people too, but in Mexico one does not progress. We have freedom to do and undo as we please and we don’t exactly die of hunger, but it is like being in a stagnant pond … there is no way out, one cannot get ahead. From what I have seen in the movies and newspapers, it is not that way up north.
It has been one of my dreams to go to live in the United States, even if in a very humble little house. But because of my children I would be a little afraid, for I have heard that juvenile delinquency is a bit more advanced there and that the youth lacks respect for their elders. Instead of the parents shouting at the children, the children shout at the parents. And there, women can go out with any man and the husband doesn’t think it is bad. Here it is impossible for a woman to have a friendship with another man because her husband would beat her. And some say that the gringos want to come here and govern us, that the laws of the United States are stronger than our own laws. But I say it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect the little one to eat the big one or the younger son to have more power than the older one, isn’t that true?
Anyway, when Manuel and Faustino began sending money home, Delila stopped complaining about my brother. That’s the way Delila was, like her mother, very changeable and two-faced. If she was sore at someone, she’d take it out on the first person who came along. One minute she might talk to you very nicely, the next thing you knew, she would turn her back on you and chew you up alive.
From the start, Delila was angry because my father was helping me. She was envious of everything he gave to his children or to Lupita. Consuelo had warned me that Delila intended to drive us out. Delila sounded like a saint when she said she’d take care of her dead sister’s children so long as God gave her life, but according to Consuelo, she was just using the children to accomplish her evil purpose. Consuelo was already living with my aunt Guadalupe, and Roberto was only God knew where. Neither of them could stand the sight of Delila.
When Paula died, my sister had made the mistake of bringing a girl, Claudia, into the house to help with the work. Later, Consuelo wanted to throw her out because my father began to give her presents and it looked äs though he might make her his mistress. Claudia was still there when Delila came, but with both Consuelo and Delila jealous of her, the girl couldn’t stand it and left when her month was up.
Then Consuelo and Delila went after each other. Delila became pregnant and Consuelo hated her more than ever. My sister slept in the same room, and so she knew that my father was getting into Delila’s bed when the lights were out. She was beside herself with jealousy and anger and acted very badly. When she came home from work and saw Delila there, she would slam the door hard, so that everyone would notice.
She looked for trouble, right? and was expert in saying indirectas very directly. She would say to Mariquita, Manuel’s oldest girl, “Ay, how dirty everything is here!” or, “There is never anything to swallow in this house any more.” She suspected that Delila gave all the leftovers to her mother and complained that there was never anything for her to eat. If a slip or a pair of her panties was missing, she would calmly take one of Delila’s. That was her way of saying that Delila was stealing her clothes.
My father was very hurt by Consuelo’s nasty behavior and she even made him cry. They told me that once she yelled at him across the courtyard in front of the neighbors: “What kind of a father are you that you always take up with women!”
One evening, when my father was eating supper, my sister came in, slammed the door, and asked him for money for shoes. He couldn’t give her anything that day because he had a lot of expenses to pay. He said, “What are you working for? What do you do with your money anyway?”
Instead of answering his questions, she began to argue. “You don’t have money for your daughter, but you spend plenty on other women.”
He got angry and said, “I tried to educate my daughters so they could take care of themselves!”
Then she screamed at him. “Not every woman gets the kind of things you give Delila. You should acknowledge the children of your first wife before those of whatever tramp you take up with.”
“Shut your trap, you miserable girl! Get out of here and don’t come back. I don’t want to see you here again!”
“All right, I’m getting out,” she said. “But before I go I have one more thing to do.” That’s when she took down my father’s picture and threw it on the floor and danced on it, right before his eyes, yelling, “Cursed is the hour that I spent money on this!”
Since then my father can hardly look at her. When they told me what she did, I got angry with my sister too. She had no right to meddle in his affairs. If he was happy with that woman, what right did his daughter have to judge him? Later, Cosuelo said she was sick in the head, but I don’t think so. Whatever she did, she did consciously. She had always been touchy and her outbursts were caused by pure anger.
In contrast, I have always had the luck to make friends easily and I got along well with both Claudia and Delila. I figured it was none of my business if my father got into Delila’s bed, although I was ashamed to hear his intimacies. I couldn’t see anything because it was always so dark, but I could hear them talk. Once, when I couldn’t sleep, I heard him say he was going to get her another room because here he couldn’t do what he wanted freely. Later, I heard him go back to his own bed on the floor.
When Delila and I had a quarrel, it was usually over the children. Delila spoiled her son Geofredo and let kun do what he pleased. She was harder on Manuel’s children, hitting and cursing them when they got her angry, but also giving them too much liberty … out of pure disorderliness. Once, Manuel’s oldest boy, whom we called Skinny, was hitting Concepción. Delila and her mother were eating in the kitchen and didn’t pay any attention when I asked her to correct the boy.
Then Skinny pulled my little girl’s braids and made her cry, and I said, “Let her be, you damned brat!” That got Delila’s attention and she said angrily, “Don’t you dare call him names! If you don’t like it here, go tell your husband to set up a place of your own! Why do you stay here anyway?”
I said, “Beca
use this is my father’s house, not yours. You’re a fool if you think I’m going to let you scold me. Why don’t you yell at the children when they need it, not at me!” I was very angry. “And if you are so interested in me, go look for a house for me yourself.”
With that, I took my pillow and blanket and clothes and went to my aunt’s house. In the evening, just as I was spreading my bedding on the floor, my papá appeared.
“Pick up your things and come home,” he said. “Don’t pay any attention to Delila, I’m the one who gives orders in my house.”
“Yes, papá,” and I went back with him. Delila and I didn’t quarrel again for a long time, although she continued to begrudge every centavo my father gave me. He gave me money for food but often, at night, my papá told me to sit down and eat with him or he would send out for pozole or some cheese that I liked. That would get Delila even angrier. She would say, “Why can’t she eat beans like the rest of us?” To me, she sometimes would say, “Your father gives you money for food, but here I am feeding you,” or, “Do you expect us to believe that the father of your children is not also giving you expense money? You are quite astute, aren’t you?”
Difficult as she was, Delila took care of my babies, while I went back to my job in the ice-cream factory. I worked from nine o’clock in the morning until nine at night for only four pesos a day. I really did it to get out of the house. My boss would send me out to buy meat for her dinner and that is how I met Felipe, the butcher, once again.
I had known Felipe before I became Crispín’s novia. All of the girls of my gang would hang around the butcher shop because Felipe was so good-looking and nice. Once, he locked me in the refrigerator with him and wouldn’t let me out until I let him kiss me. Right off, he asked me to be his novia and to go away with him. He said he would send his older brother to ask my papá for me. Although I liked him a lot, even more than Crispín, I said no, because I was so young.
Felipe recognized me right away and we talked. Then one day, a boy brought me a note from him asking me to call at such and such an hour. I did and he invited me to meet him at the Frontón between eight and nine that evening. It cost me a lot of work to get out of the house that night but I went because I liked him. He respected me and didn’t give me the line about going to a hotel. We saw each other two or three times a week, until one night he didn’t show up.
I felt hurt and bawled him out on the telephone, hanging up before he had a chance to explain. When I called back to say I was sorry, he hung up on me. I missed him very much so I apologized to him. Then he told me what the father of my children never told me: he didn’t want me to work, he would support me and my children, his ideal was to live with me and to set up an apartment. He didn’t ask me to run off with him or to go from one hotel to another. And he thought it wouldn’t be right to make love in front of the children. He was just the opposite of Crispín.
Felipe had a car and we would drive to a different part of the city so as not to be seen. When I went with him during the day I took my children with me. I told him that if he thought I would abandon them for him, he was mistaken, but he said that he’d never expect such a thing.
Somehow my papá found out I was seeing someone, so I asked him what he thought. He said I was mistaken if I expected any man to accept the responsibility of my children and that I should not think of putting another in their father’s place, because they would surely suffer.
I was afraid, very much afraid, of becoming pregnant again, but because I really loved Felipe, I went with him to a hotel. I was not sure he wouldn’t just “do me the favor” and then leave me with the “profits.” Lots of men only make a fool of a woman and don’t care what happens to her. That’s why everyone respected my papá. He had a great sense of responsibility, which they say he got from his father. Neither of them abandoned their children.
I became pregnant so easily, my friends always said I wouldn’t even make a good prostitute. But Felipe and I were together only twice, and I had nothing to worry about. After the second time, Felipe began to give me seven pesos a day for expenses, so that I wouldn’t have to work or go back to Crispín. I didn’t want to see Crispín any more. I liked Felipe’s way of doing it … quickly and without wasting time … much better than Crispín’s excesses. If Crispín had left me then, instead of later, I would be living with Felipe now. By that time, Felipe was my god!
It wasn’t that he gave me what Crispín didn’t, but rather that he made me want to live happily again. For a long time I had been depressed; I didn’t go out, avoided my friends and no longer cared what I looked like. At night I would cry, and call for my mother … my thoughts were of death. Felipe changed all that. He needed me and gave me back my interest in life.
He had been deceived by another woman and was tired of fooling around. He wanted to settle down and be a good father to my children. But I was still distrustful, and because of my fears, everything went wrong. Instead of breaking with Crispín forever, I didn’t tell him the truth and let him in when he came around to the Casa Grande every two weeks.
It was not that I cared for Crispín any more. I really began to hate him, because if it hadn’t been for him I might have been happy with Felipe. Whenever Crispín and I were together we would fight. He had heard from his spies that I was seeing a butcher, but I denied it. I could hold my head high. I was sure no one knew which butcher it was because we were careful not to be seen. But I lost Felipe anyway, for one day Crispín and I were coming along the Street of the Potters, fighting as usual. I didn’t think that Felipe would be in the butcher shop at that hour, but when we turned the corner, there he was and we walked right by him.
I felt my legs buckle. I was so ashamed that I knew I could never again look him in the face. He would surely think that I was the kind to go with two men at the same time, and that I was giving his money to my husband. I knew what men were like when they saw that a woman was deceiving them. That’s why I didn’t ever speak to him again. I gave him no explanation and preferred not to see him, rather than have him say I was no good.
He had treated me so well and that was the way I paid him back! I couldn’t lift my head; it was my love and shame that made me withdraw from him. Losing him was the most painful thing that has happened to me, the thing I regret most … and it was Crispín’s fault.
How could I tell Crispín that the affection I once felt for him had turned to loathing? He began to come around for me again, but I avoided him. I got a job in a skirt factory for forty pesos a week, but I couldn’t get along on that so I looked for another. Consuelo was working in an accountant’s office and once she sent my aunt to tell them she was sick. My aunt, who was always looking out for me, asked if they had any work for me and so I got a job there for fifty pesos a week, answering the telephone.
I had to get the bus on the corner across the street from the butcher shop, and I saw Felipe every day. I wanted to embrace him and speak to him but my shame stopped me. When our eyes met, I saw that he still cared for me, but I’d get on the bus just the same. I had gone with him only two or three months but I couldn’t get him out of my mind.
Crispín kept going after me. The moment he’d start to move toward me, I prayed to the saints that he wouldn’t touch me.
“All you ever think of is intercourse,” I would say.
“And who did you go to bed with that you don’t?” he would answer.
He aroused me, but I could usually control myself. When I did go to a hotel with him and he pawed me in his gross manner, I would imagine I was with Felipe. With him I would have done it in any position he wanted. I would even have taken off all my clothes! But with Crispín I refused because he made me feel like an alley cat.
Crispín was always suspicious of my boss when I worked. When I had the job in the office, he would say, “Only you and that accountant know what happens on those couches,” or, “God knows how many times you’ve gone to bed with that lawyer.” He’d say, “You certainly don’t have any difficulty f
inding jobs. I suppose you want me to believe that you and Señor Miguel don’t have your fun in the storeroom?” And when I worked in a shop: “Why shouldn’t you speak well of Señor Santos? After all, he pays you for your favors, doesn’t he?” It got so I couldn’t work because he was always marrying me off to the bosses. The truth is, that on every job the boss or the employees did go after me. Here, there is no respect for the woman who works.
While I worked I had money to buy clothes for the girls and myself, and we looked more presentable. I used lipstick again and had a permanent wave. I wore a sweater or a coat instead of a shawl and my shoes were never torn. I felt like a queen compared to the way I was dressed when I lived with Crispín. I met my mother-in-law in the market and she looked surprised at my neatness. I could see she thought I was running around with someone. She and my sisters-in-law had considered me a slob and they hardly ever went out with me. But then I had only three cotton dresses, even when I was pregnant, and I had to keep my sandals together with string. Crispín wanted me to satisfy him sexually but he never gave me money to buy clothes or lipstick. All he would say was that he had no money. My papá helped me by sending an apron to keep my dresses clean, and empty flour bags for the babies’ diapers.
Crispín would sometimes meet me after work and take me home. One day he didn’t come as he had promised, and so I went home alone. The next evening he bawled me out for not waiting. He knew he hadn’t come for me, but he scolded me all the way home on the bus. I kept quiet, for fear that he would hit me. No matter what he said, I kept my mouth shut.
“I’m talking to you,” he said. But I didn’t answer. When we got off the bus, it looked as though he was going to start something on the street. I said to myself, “If he hits me, I’m going to hit him back.”
When we reached the school, across the street from the Casa Grande, he slapped me and then I really showed my claws. I was carrying my lunch plate and jar and dropped them, along with my purse. My coat fell in the mud. I yelled, “Don’t hit me, you miserable wretch!” And I scratched and hit him so fast, he was taken by surprise. I didn’t expect that of myself either!