by Oscar Lewis
We both cried and after calming down, he said to me, “Is this what you went to school for? Is this why you became a shorthand stenographer? Just look at this dump of a room you have!”
I felt myself getting angry. Up to then, nobody had said anything like that to me about my house, where I was the boss and where I could move my few things from one side to another without being afraid of anyone, where María or Brígida or any other girl could talk to me without being embarrassed, where there was nobody to tell me I wasn’t different from the pigs. I had gotten to love my little house. “I am happy here, papá. Mario is very good. He doesn’t give me more because he can’t. But he is good.”
My father wanted me to go to Mexico City with him and he brought another doctor, who said I could travel. I thought it over. Mario was married to another, by church and civil law, and could not get a divorce. He had a son to support. Besides, Mario had begun again to insult me and to set his wife above me. “You can’t even compare with her! Her skin is very white and yours is dark. She gave me a child. That’s a woman!” Mario had said this to me when I refused to be his.
That is why I agreed to go with my papá. Mario stayed in Monterrey. I told him, “As soon as you arrange your transfer, I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll never let you down, you know that.” I returned to Mexico City by bus. My father wanted to take me to the Casa Grande, which meant facing Delila again. I didn’t want to have anything to do with her, so he took me to my aunt’s house. Mario began sending me letters right away. I still keep them for consolation—those words of tenderness and love.
Fifteen or twenty days later, Mario came to my aunt’s house. I was well by then. My father paid for my whole treatment, which included four transfusions, serums and injections. Mario said that he would pay back everything but I was already thinking that we should separate. I couldn’t give myself to him any more. When I would not go to Monterrey with him, he moved back to his mother’s house.
I know now that when I refused Mario, I lost the chance of my life to have a home and a family of my own. He was good to me from the start, he spoke up for me, defended me, gave me all he earned, consulted me in everything. But in my cursed pride and senselessness, I did not know how to value those things.
At my aunt’s, the battle started again, except that it was worse now because my uncle didn’t hold back foul words when he scolded me. The neighbors felt sorry for me but gossiped even worse than before. I had come back defeated.
I began to look for a job. From my friends, I learned that Jaime had gone up in the world and was still unmarried. He made a very good salary, but that meant nothing to me. I got a job working for Señor Ruiz in a used-car lot. He was very nice but I couldn’t stand the snickers and vulgarities of the mechanics and the manager when they got together in the office to play cards. All day at the office I had to put up a fight to make the men respect me. I stayed on because I couldn’t get another job. One good thing that resulted from this job was that I met Señor Ruiz’s aunt, who later befriended me when I needed help.
Meanwhile, there had been some changes in my family. My father had built a little house on a lot he had bought way out in El Dorado Colony. He had won two thousand pesos in the National Lottery and that was how he happened to have money to buy the land. He sold some of his pigs to get money to start building the house. It was the first property my father had ever owned and he was the only one among our friends and relatives who had achieved such a thing. But the house was not for us. Lupita and my half-sisters, Antonia and Marielena, were living there and taking care of my father’s animals. Tonia had two children but she did not live with Francisco, their father, because he had not been willing or able to set up a house for her. My father had supported her and the children ever since she had become Francisco’s common-law wife.
Marta now had three little daughters and had left her husband, Crispín, for good. When she moved back to the Casa Grande, our room was very crowded. Manuel and his four children were there, Roberto, my father, Delila and her son, and Marta with her three children. My father decided to move with Delila to a room on the Street of the Lost Child and to leave Marta in charge of the place in the Casa Grande.
Marta was depressed and I tried to encourage her. I would say, “Don’t be foolish, sister. You are right to leave Crispín. If he doesn’t meet his obligations, what do you want him for? Look, you are young, there is still time, but if you keep on having babies, you will be ruined. Study something, like dressmaking … it will only take a few months and then you could work without leaving the house. There is a training school around here, go see how much the registration fee is and let me know. I will pay for it. My aunt will take care of the girls while you are in school. Go, and let me know. There is still time.”
Marta kept quiet while I sat on the bed trying to convince her. She was on a bench near the door, with her eyes down, looking very pretty. But she was like a living statue. I wanted a glance, a gesture, something to let me know that my words had struck home. I wanted to see her smile, with zest for life, the way she had been with her gang when she was younger. I remember her straight white teeth and the dimples when she laughed, and how she walked with her arms entwined with her friends. But now there was no response to my concern for her. She was like an Oriental statue that breathed.
I tried to get her a job that would take her out of that environment. I wanted to show her that places existed where she would be treated decently and where she might find some responsible young man who would help her solve her family problem and educate her daughters. I absolutely refused for a long time to accept the fact that my sister belonged to the low cultural level of her surroundings.
But she was far from understanding the healthiness of my intentions. She twisted everything, and, it hurts me to say so, she considered me a whore or a crazy girl who got everything with her body. I didn’t even know until later that my sister, my dear little sister, thought of me in that way. When I was working, I did my best to take care of my appearance, to paint my lips and my nails, and to have my hair set once in a while. By being well groomed I was fighting to maintain my position and to keep people from humiliating me and lording it over me. But I didn’t dress up to please men! My sister couldn’t understand that. To her … I can laugh at it now … taking care of my appearance meant only that I was a loose woman.
I didn’t have the remotest idea then, that she preferred harsh criticism to my kind words, that she used personal slovenliness to protect her “morals,” severe clothing to preserve her religion, and economy of words to maintain the respect of her children. And she did all these things to keep the love and favoritism of my father. I speculated about her and tried to understand her, but couldn’t. I always ended up saying, “Oh, the poor thing, she never knew her mother.”
Marta paid no attention to my suggestion and agreed to look after Manuel’s children, although I know she didn’t love them. I moved in to help her. My father came every day at about seven o’clock to check on us and to leave Marta her daily expense money. With Manuel, Roberto and me working, it began well enough, but then Manuel refused to contribute and Roberto stayed away a lot. I could not eat the fried meat and food made with lard my sister served at home and, to escape her arguments, I ate dinner in cheap restaurants. That used up almost all the money I earned, so I, too, stopped contributing to the house.
Marta didn’t need my help, although it made her angry when I didn’t give her anything. I noticed, and, yes, it hurt me, that every day my father brought her soap, sugar, coffee, rice, tomatoes, oil, chocolate and so on, in addition to the ten pesos expense money. Then he gave her money for the movies three or four times a week, and shoes and clothing for the children or whatever she needed. She enjoyed his favor and all the liberty she wanted. Every day she took the children to one of the markets, or downtown to look in the store windows, and if she wanted something extra, she asked Roberto for money, for he was working in a factory then. On Sundays, she went with my aunt and unc
le to the Villa or to a park to eat tacos plazeros and drink pulque. Once in a while, I caught sight of Crispín around the Casa Grande. So I asked myself why I should help her. She had my father and brother on her side, she could go out whenever she wished, she could have relations with her husband, and didn’t have to worry about anything. And she had her children. I had only my work … and very little peace at home.
As the days passed, Marta and I had more differences. She had the bad habit of letting Trinidad, the youngest girl, go about without pants. Naturally, the child did her necessities on the floor or wherever she pleased. I kept telling Marta to put pants on Trini and to teach her where to go. Unhappily, my sister only became angry and would say that I thought I was high-class or a “pocha,” imitating the way of others. One day, I lost my temper when Trini moved her bowels on the floor near the stove where Marta was cooking. My sister kept on working, then picked up the baby and washed her at the sink.
I couldn’t contain myself. “Why don’t you teach her to sit on the chamber pot? This way you are making a pig out of her!”
“If you’re so fussy, move out! You don’t give a centavo into the house and yet you are so delicate. Why don’t you move to Lomas with the rich?”
That was my sister’s answer, no matter what I said. I tried to teach her to cover the garbage can and the cooked food, to protect them from rats, to keep the dirty laundry in a carton under the bed, instead of piled under the sink, to keep food away from the heat of the sun and the stove, so that it would not spoil, but she refused to learn. When I described Señor Santiago’s house or the way one of my friends lived, she would take offense and say I was looking down at the poor. She made fun of me to her friends and complained daily to my father, who always backed her up.
Marta didn’t like taking care of all the children and found a job in a paper-cup factory. She didn’t tell me she was going to work; on the first day, she left at seven in the morning and didn’t come back until seven at night. I stayed home with the children but worried all day about my sister, not knowing where she was.
I refused to take on the job of looking after the kids. I continued to work and my father hired a woman, who had two little ones of her own, to move in and take care of things. The house was noisier and more crowded than ever. Every night I had to take medicine for my nerves. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I would look around the dim room. The electricity had been cut off again and the candle barely lighted up the table and the children’s pale little faces over their coffee mugs, or my sister, her hair uncombed, her apron dirty and half falling, shouting at Concepción to clean up after Trini. “Hurry, you damned brat, clean your sister, if you know what is good for you!” It drove me out of my mind to see my sad-eyed niece leave her bread and coffee to wipe up the diarrhoeic mess on the floor.
Right after supper, everyone would go to bed. Marta in the big bed with her daughters; Mariquita, Conchita and I on my little bed; Alanes and Domingo and Roberto doubled over with cold on the floor; and now, the maid and her children, also on the floor. Night after night, this was the sad picture before my eyes. I tried to make it better, but by that time, I was almost afraid to speak up. They blamed me for everything, even if the stove wick was slow in lighting. Not only Marta and my father, but even Roberto said that I was the one who had brought the apple of discord into the house. They wanted me to move out but I wouldn’t give up trying to get them to live better. Besides, I was afraid to live alone. People would wonder about me and think the worst, and men would take advantage of my position.
To make matters worse, Mario, and later Jaime, drunk as always, came looking for me. One night, as I was leaving my aunt’s house, I saw Jaime coming toward the Casa Grande. I ran back to our courtyard. He saw me and ran, too, but, thank God, I got to our room before he did and locked myself in. Day after day, Jaime hung around, until I spoke to him and agreed to go out with him. He said he still loved me and wanted to marry me. I didn’t believe him, but took everything passively to avoid trouble, especially when he was drunk. Frankly, I was tired of my home and had not been eating well. He took me to restaurants and to the movies and gave me presents and as a result, I was able to save up some money.
Meanwhile, my brother Roberto advised me to use my money to buy a record player, saying I could make back more than it would cost by renting it out for dances and fiestas. And if I ever needed money, I could sell it or pawn it. I loved music and thought how nice it would be to have records of my own. One day, I was ill in bed, when Roberto came and said, “Sis, just think, I met a fellow who wants to sell a very good record player for four hundred pesos.”
“Really?” I must confess that I didn’t trust Roberto, but he was my brother and I loved him. I always thought he was the one who had suffered most because we lost our mother. I wanted to show that I had confidence in him, that I believed in his goodness, and that someone, at least, had faith in his character. In short, I gave him the money. He said he would be right back with the record player.
While I waited, my aunt came to be paid for washing my laundry. I told her what I had done and she got angry, saying I shouldn’t have given him a centavo, that I was tempting him, that I was a fool.
“But, Auntie, he is my brother. How is it possible that he would …”
Later, when I went crying to her because Roberto had not returned, my aunt and uncle scolded me some more. I told Angélica, my friend, and she, too, said, “Qué barbaridad! How could you be so foolish? Why did you hand over so much money?”
“But he is my brother!” I cried, not because of the money, but because he had betrayed my confidence. I found him drinking beer with a friend in a café near the Casa Grande. I was afraid to ask him for the money because I might embarrass him or hurt his feelings and make him angry.
“What happened?” was all I said.
“Nothing,” was all he answered.
I thought it would be better to have my aunt and uncle with me when I asked for the money, so I went to get them. By the time we returned to the café, my brother was gone. He didn’t come home for three days and I had plenty of time to cry. When I next saw him, I didn’t ask for an explanation, but said only, “You will pay it back, little by little.” Yes, he gave me ten or fifteen pesos every week, until he had paid about half of it.
He never apologized for what he did. He just explained that the record player wasn’t good and that he intended to give me back the money … he still had it in his pocket when I saw him in the café … but then some of his friends came along and he invited them all out to drink. “But I’ll pay you back, sister, don’t worry.”
I had such hopes that my brother would change! I thought that with advice and more support, with study … if only he would finish primary school! If only he would try! When I saw the reality of things it frightened me. I didn’t want to believe that he would never change.
The next blow came only two days after I got up from my sickbed, as thin as a toothpick. Marta and I were already asleep when Señora Luz, who sold tacos in the gateway of the Casa Grande, banged on the door and said the police were beating up Roberto. How terrible it is to be awakened that way! We jumped out of bed. Marta slept in her dress but I had to put on my old blue bathrobe, trembling and full of fear because I well knew what the police were capable of doing. I got the fright of my life to see Roberto stretched out on the ground with two policemen standing over him beating him barbarously. Their blows had made him vomit. He was bleeding from the nose and yelling curses at them, which only made them beat him harder.
I shouted, “No, Roberto, no, little brother, shut up, for you are making it worse.”
“Let him alone,” Marta said to the police. “Don’t be mean. Can’t you see he’s drunk?”
“Well, tell the bastard to be quiet or else …” and they kept beating him with their clubs. My God, I felt so helpless! I turned desperately, looking for help, screaming, “They are killing him! Stop them!”
Three of Roberto’s friends tried to
interfere; the crowd that had gathered also threatened to join in, but the policemen took out their guns and chased them away. When they saw that my brother couldn’t move any more, they ran. Marta and I were crying. People advised us to take Roberto to the Police Station to accuse the two policemen, so Marta went to get Trinidad, who was still nursing, and I got my coat. I took fifty pesos I had hidden away and went to look for a taxi. An ambulance arrived to take my brother and two of his friends who went along as witnesses, to the Police Station.
When we arrived, Roberto was in the infirmary, crying and complaining of terrible pains in his head, stomach and legs. He kept shouting insults at the police, making matters worse. I held my hand over his mouth … The doctor sent him to the hospital, and just as the ambulance was leaving, Manuel arrived, full of indignation at what had happened. He accompanied Roberto, while Marta and I stayed to try to get justice. Justice! We stayed there until five o’clock in the morning, accomplishing nothing and only wasting our time.
I was in despair. I had gotten nowhere with Marta, had spent my few centavos on Roberto, my father took the children back to Delila … I felt I would get ill if I didn’t escape his mean looks and hard words, his daily threats to throw me and Roberto into the street. I couldn’t stand it any more and decided to move.
My boss’s aunt, Señora Andrea, had an empty bedroom that she rented to me after I had told her my situation, with certain reservations, of course. She lived almost at the opposite edge of the city and I thought I could flee from those who were troubling me.