Beyond the Snows of the Andes

by Beatrice Brusic

  Beyond the Snows of the Andes

  A Memoir by Beatrice Brusic

  Beyond the Snows of the Andes

  By Beatrice Brusic

  Published by Beatrice Brusic at CreateSpace

  Published by Beatrice Brusic at Amazon.com

  Published by Beatrice Brusic at Smashwords

  Copyright 2011 Beatrice Brusic

  I dedicate this book t o the memory of my mother, with all my love, admiration and respect

  To the memory of my Uncle Humberto, the most decent person I ever met

  To the memory of my Aunt Yola, with enormous gratitude and love for changing my life forever

  To my brother, Jaime, for enduring and developing into the wonderful person that he is

  To my younger siblings, Carlos and Rossio, who missed out on knowing their heroic mother

  To Bill for his painstaking editing of the manuscript

  And most importantly, to the memory of Frank McCourt, who inspired me and gave me the courage to write this book.

  PREFACE

  Bolivia, as most people probably know by now due to the election of Evo Morales, our first Indian president, is the poorest country in South America. Evo has put Bolivia on the map, because before he was elected not many people even knew where Bolivia was. I would have to constantly clarify that it wasn’t the capital of Libya; that it wasn’t located in some obscure forsaken place in Africa, but rather in an obscure, forsaken corner of South America. The altitude would ring a bell with some people and they would ask me if it was near Tibet. I would tell them La Paz is the highest capital in the world besides Tibet and yes we are near the equator because the sun can actually burn the scalp there if we indulge in it too much.

  I grew up in La Paz, Bolivia, where the culture is largely dominated by the indigenous population which outnumbers the white race by ten to one. It was a primitive, exotic place to visit but a difficult place to grow up in. I remember always being afraid, never knowing what new storm each day would bring, what new strike, blockage or revolution would be on the way.

  We were poor but we never went hungry; mother would work extremely hard to feed us, but we suffered from a different kind of deprivation which brings me to the next point now that you are about to embark on another journey of a miserable childhood. Why should you take the plunge when so many stories of miserable childhoods have already been written? The reality is that a happy childhood does not teach endurance, character or depth. A quiet lake has its charm but it will never equal the splendor of a roaring ocean. The Hindus say that suffering is essential for the development of the soul, that iron is forged by fire, and my miserable childhood gave me an appreciation for the beauty and brevity of life I may never have known otherwise.

  I’m also writing the story because books literally saved my life since I was a child and I want to give something back. I’m audacious enough to think I have something interesting and original to contribute, something that has been germinating in me all my life; and the time has come to drift back into the past, reopen the door of that world that’s been closed for so long and hope you will take the journey with me.

  C hapter One

  Something wakes me up and I open my eyes. I’m ten years old and see mom knitting with a dim light overhead. It is dawn and she has thrown an old blanket over her shoulders and is wearing lots of layers over her nightgown. Her right eyelid has fallen down the way it does when she is exhausted but her fingers keep moving rapidly.

  “Go back to sleep,” she whispers. “I’ll shut the light in a minute.”

  “But it’s so late and you look so tired…”

  “Hush up. I have to finish these sweaters or we won’t eat tomorrow. Be careful not to wake your brother and don’t move around like you have ants in your pants or something.”

  I smile at her and she reciprocates with that sad smile of hers and blows me a kiss. I cuddle under the covers and touch my brother’s chest at the bottom of the bed. He feels warm and cozy and I rest my foot there, right under his chin till I fall asleep again.

  ~~~

  “What time did you finally go to sleep, ma?” I ask the next morning when she gives us our usual breakfast of hot porridge. I pray she forgets the odious cod liver oil she shoves down our throats religiously every morning, but she doesn’t; the big spoon with the thick, green liquid is coming inexorably at us because she has convinced herself that a spoon of cod liver oil cures all the ills of the world and that is the reason we are healthy and I’ve gotten so tall. Amid lots of tears and revulsion we swallow the drink never failing to heave and sweat with her standing guard over us to make sure we don’t miss a drop of her precious tonic.

  “Stop grimacing,” she snaps. “I’m not giving you poison. This stuff is worth its weight in gold. I wish my mother had cared enough to give it to me when I was growing up.”

  I stuff the porridge in my mouth desperate to get rid of its taste but it’s impossible. I taste the cod liver oil with every bite and I know I’ll be repeating it hours later.

  “What time did you go to sleep?” I ask again wiping my mouth with my hand, fighting an overwhelming desire to throw up. I know I have to keep this down or she’ll force me to swallow two big spoons in punishment.

  “I went to bed late Vicky, lost track of the time. And you were talking in your sleep again; talk, talk, talk like a parrot. You should learn from your brother, he sleeps like an angel and never talks gibberish in his sleep.”

  “Can you show us what you did?” asks my five year old brother, Oscar, dabbing his eyes, still heavy from sleep.

  She pulls two sweaters with figures of hand carved rabbits holding a ball on each side of the sweaters, and we touch the little furry figures delighting in their softness.

  “When are you going to do something like that for us?” asks Oscar, innocently.

  “At the rate I’m going when I hit the lottery, son.”

  Oscar presses the sweaters to his face and she quickly takes them away with a frown.

  “We can’t make them dirty; it’s hard enough selling them when they are spotless. If they see saliva stains on them they will never buy them. People are always looking for an excuse to pay less and we mustn’t give it to them.

  Oscar looks disappointed but he obeys her quickly going to play with his “cachina” [small ball].

  This morning we’ll go to see Seňora Gotia who is mom’s biggest client and owns a children’s store in the center of town. Seňora Gotia is a tough, robust, middle aged businesswoman with thick glasses, red hair and a very short haircut that mother says reflects the severity of her character. She has two children and a very meek husband, but the store is her life and she is always shortchanging mother, claiming that the people who buy her clothes find them beautiful but impractical; stressing that her figurine carvings don’t wash well and necessitate quick replacements - a lie in mother’s eyes because she has tested and retested her merchandise and nothing ever shrinks or fades if washed properly with cold water.

  Yet despite her greed, mother feels Seňora Gotia has a compassionate heart and is always giving us advances. Today we get lucky, she has sold some of mom’s dresses and we get paid in full. Mom is happy, she tells me we’ll stop at Mercado Camacho [“Camacho Market”] and we’ll purchase meat and potatoes for lunch. She loves to eat beef, especially the fat parts, and we haven’t eaten beef in a long time.

  We come down from Avenida Lazárnaga and head straight to Mercado Camacho, located about six blocks away from our home. It’s drizzling and we don’t have an umbrella but mother says it doesn’t matter, a little rain never hurt anyone and it’s good for the skin.

  The rain wets our faces and she squeezes my hand with del
ight. I already know we’re going to have a special day, she’s going to be in a good mood all day and not even this dreary day that usually puts her in a bad mood because of the dampness in our room, is going to spoil it.

  I can’t wait to get to Mercado Camacho because maybe she’ll buy me some chocolates too. I always know how to get around her when she’s in a good mood, and even though she hates to buy me sweets for fear they will ruin my teeth the way they ruined hers, I know she will give in and I will hide them under my pillow to savor them by myself after lunch.

  When she’s happy like this she doesn’t remind me that she lost most of her teeth by the time she was thirty due to malnutrition as a child, and that I don’t want to go through life wearing dentures because they make you look like a rabbit and are bad for the soul.

  ~~~

  Oscar made the beds, cleaned the room and boiled water on the kerosene stove, and she tells him he’s a great little person because he has the initiative and intelligence of a grown man. She fills his face with kisses and starts cooking our lunch. She puts on the radio and her favorite tangos are coming on. She begins singing in a loud voice and I follow suit.

  “Must you always compete with me for everything?” she scolds gently. “Can’t I even enjoy my favorite songs?” I know she’s teasing so I continue singing.

  “Honest Vicky,” she says covering her ears. “Never become a singer when you grow up because you would starve to death. You’re tone deaf my girl. You couldn’t carry a tune if your life depended on it.”

  “I know that ma,” I say acting hurt and she strokes my hair.

  “Keep singing; don’t let your crazy mother stop you. We can not all sound like “Libertad Lamarque,” [“an Argentinian singer and dancer famous for her powerful voice”]. I’m not great either but I must say I’m a lot better than you.”

  I want to say something but she stops me with her finger in her mouth and pauses to listen.

  “That’s Carlos Gardel,” she says raising the volume. “And he’s the heart and soul of Argentina. There will never be another Carlos Gardel.”

  “What happened to him, ma?”

  “He died young, in a plane crash.”

  “Why?” asks Oscar.

  “Because life is like that, son, and he was only a shooting star, they come along once in a lifetime, they blaze across the sky and fade away very quickly.”

  “I want to be a shooting star.”

  “That’s predestined son,” she says, running a hand over his curly, unruly hair. “Only God knows what the future holds for you.”

  “What’s predestined?”

  “Never mind, go wash your face so we can eat or you’re going to die young like Gardel.”

  She looks sad now and gets very quiet. The song ends and she has tears in her eyes.

  “When I was a young girl, Gardel was very famous,” she sighs. “He brought me back memories of my youth when I had a small waist and a head full of dreams.”

  She starts frying the steaks and turns to me, “My hair was blonder than yours and it came down to my waist like a mantle, look how dark it got now, that will happen to you too, you won’t stay blonde forever. Your hair used to be only white fuzz when you were a baby. They thought you were an albino baby because of your hair color and look at it now, it’s a dirty blonde.”

  I can’t imagine her as a blonde; she has dark hair, dark eyebrows and enormous blue eyes the color of the sky. I can’t imagine her with a tiny waist either, now she has no waist and a round belly thanks to us. The smells of the meat are driving us crazy and we wish she would stop talking already so we could eat.

  My cat “Bello” [“beautiful”] is rubbing himself against my leg and irritating me to no end. I know he wants a piece of my steak but I’m so hungry now I don’t think I will give it to him. Sometimes when he makes a pest of himself like this I regret having discovered him in the backpack of the milk woman five years ago when he was so tiny he fit into my hand.

  We eat and I take pity on him and give him a big piece of meat. He purrs with contentment next to me on bed while I read my book and eat my chocolates. Mother is taking a nap and Oscar is outside playing with his friends. I’m reading “Les Miserables” and have never been happier in my life.

  I think this book is the greatest in the world and Victor Hugo the biggest genius. I love Jean Valjean but the one that really conquers my heart is Cosette, the little waif I identify with. Tonight I’ll discuss passages with mother taking advantage of her good mood and perhaps get her to tell me more stories. She has tons of stories stored in her head and relates them to us from memory while she knits.

  ~~~

  Oscar is sleeping now and the room is quiet so I ask her why she didn’t call me Cosette like the heroine of Les Miserables, why she had to call me Nelly María Virginia and she says:

  “Mother of God, there you go again after I explained to you for the hundredth time that Nelly was a vain attempt to placate your horrible grandmother whose namesake was Nelly. I wanted to ingratiate myself to that miserable woman, and would have done anything to save my marriage. I named you María after myself because all babies should be named after their mothers, and Virginia because that’s the name I really liked since I was a little girl.”

  I don’t like any of my names and I want to call myself Cosette but I’m stuck with Vicky, which everybody calls me and can’t wait to grow up so I can change it to Cosette.

  Mother laughs at me and tells me that Cosette Morales doesn’t go, that you have to have a French last name to go with that name or I’ll be the laughing stock of the school. I tell her that the daughter of Aunt Sonia’s maid is called “Jenny Quispe” and she says that an Indian name should have an Indian last name but what can one expect when our current president, Victor Paz Estenssoro, made them believe they could do anything.

  She hates our president with a passion and calls him “el mono” [“the monkey”] because he has vivacious eyes, big teeth and enormous ears. She says Paz Estenssoro ruined the country by arbitrarily appropriating lands and tin mines to give them away to Indians who knew nothing about farming or mines, and that he’s a communist who only looks out for the indigenous population and not poor white people like us.

  He changed Bolivia forever by founding the Revolutionary Nationalistic Movement [“MNR”] in 1942, long before I was born, and the biggest winners of his reforms are the “Barsolas,” the peasant, mixed bred Indian women who now bear arms and belong to militant syndicates.

  “I bet you he’ll go down as a great president because he gave Indians the right to vote and he nationalized our mines, but people don’t know the blood he shed to instill his reforms, and they don’t know about the assassinations and torture,” she says with her eyes flashing.

  I want to know more about the assassinations and torture but I don’t want to get her riled up. It’s getting late now and my eyes are closing. She turns off the light and says “Barriga llena, corazón contento,” [“full belly, happy heart”] today we had a good day, who knows what tomorrow will bring?”

  I pray we get more days like this so we can all go to sleep at the same time, and mom can go to bed with a peaceful feeling. Outside the rain is gently beating against the window and my cat is curled up on top of my head with his paws on my face.

  ~~~

  Today is Sunday and it’s time to go to my aunt’s house for lunch. I look forward to these visits all week, counting the days till the next time because after a delicious lunch, I will get money for the movies. Mom pulls out a blue dress with long sleeves she washed and ironed the day before, and tells me to be careful not to get it dirty because we are not millionaires and soap is expensive.

  “No te saques el vientre de mal aňo,” [“don’t eat like there’s no tomorrow”] she says pulling the dress passed my knees while I keep trying to pull it back above the knee with the belt so it can look the way most girls wear their dresses. I hate the long dresses she makes me wear because I think they make me look like an
old lady and want to cry but she doesn’t care.

  “Tu no eres una vataclana,” [“you’re not a showgirl”] she tells me, “and I don’t give a damn about fashion. Behave like the young lady you are and don’t stuff your face like you just came out of a concentration camp. My sister wastes no time criticizing me so let’s not give her more ammunition.”

  I go upstairs holding my tears and wishing I could cut the hem of the dress before my older cousin Ramiro, who needs no excuses to make fun of me, increases my mortification.

  Uncle Roberto whom I lovingly call “Uncle Berto” opens the door and pretends to be mad at me for being late, saying in a gruff voice that they have eaten all the food and there will be no money for the movies, but noticing the fear in my eyes he pats me on the head and says he was only joking because Sundays wouldn’t be Sundays without me.

  He’s a short, stocky man with salt and pepper hair, brown eyes, an angular face and a strong jaw. He has olive skin and a big behind which has earned him the nickname of “the goat” because of the way his suit jackets stand out in the back when he walks. Today we’re having asparagus soup and salmon with mashed potatoes. Aunt Sonia has made ice cream out of whipped evaporated milk, sugar, lemon and eggs, and there are grapes and apples for the taking.

  Forgetting mother’s recommendations I eat a lot, especially because my fifteen year old cousin Ramiro is out with his friends, and there is nobody to make me feel self conscious about every bite I take. My eight year cousin, Carlos, is sitting next to me and pinching my arm playfully “Dromedaria” [“Dromedary”] he says sticking out his jaw and pushing his lips forward.

  Dromedary is his favorite nickname for me and we are very close. He has large, deep brown eyes, an angular face like his father and an enormous head, which makes him the butt of all jokes, especially from his older brother, Ramiro, who delights in teasing and calling him “Cabezón.” [“Big Head”].

  My aunt seems happy and relaxed without Ramiro too, and she invites me to come up for lunch again on Wednesday, which fills me with joy. She looks the same way she looked the first time I saw her five years ago when I came up the steep, narrow staircase to her apartment clutching mother’s hand, and she bent down to look at me saying that I was very pretty and how come mother had never sent her pictures of me, and mother replied that there was never any money to eat never mind pictures.