Beyond the Snows of the Andes

by Beatrice Brusic

  Little Ricky is an easy going baby who likes to eat and drink all day long, and he takes long naps after lunch. His fat little face lights up at the sight of food, and I think of my brothers and me who often had to eat the same porridge day after day to quell the pangs of hunger. Little Ricky is a lucky baby who is going to grow up with all the advantages of life. If mother only knew that babies here get vegetables and meats from little containers, and that their formula comes from cans and it’s full of vitamins to help them grow big and strong. If she could see the disposable diapers Felicia buys in big boxes while she was forced to use old rags and wash them till they fell apart.

  Felicia calls me three times a day and I reassure her baby is still alive. She works in a nice, fancy office as an executive secretary, and according to my uncle makes more money than he does as a dental mechanic, a job, he says, he taught himself, because necessity is the mother of invention. I sit down to write mother a long letter and find my tears wetting the paper. I have not seen much of New York yet so I can not comment on the city but I’ve been to the supermarkets and stores with Felicia and couldn’t get over the diversity of fruits and vegetables. The fact that everything is out into the open, nothing is locked up in the stores for fear of theft, really amazes me, and I tell mother in my letters that I can’t wait for her to come here with my siblings some day, and experience this great country.

  ~~~

  “Life is so comfortable here,” I tell Felicia while we are out shopping one day. “And there seem to have stores for every pocket. They have Fifth Avenue for the rich and they have Alexander’s for the poor slobs like us. Nothing is impossible here. You want a jacket or a new coat and you just get it. At home it was a dream and you had to save for years. In addition there are no lines for everything, no revolutions, no limits, isn’t it grand to live here?”

  “We work like dogs,” she says, sharply. “There is no time for anything. We live slaves to the clock. Wait till you go to work and find that you are nothing but a rat struggling for survival out there.”

  “Then you don’t like it here?”

  “What’s there to like? Back home we have time to go home, eat lunch with our families and take a nap, we have time to visit each other, here you just work till you drop dead, period.”

  “Why did you come then?”

  “My brother, who’s always been very ambitious, brought me here against my will. I hated it from the beginning and was ready to go back, then I met your uncle, got pregnant and the rest is history.”

  I look at her in disbelief, and noticing my reaction, she pinches my cheek.

  “You’re dazzled now; wait till you live here a couple of years. Wait till you have to put up with the boss, fight the subways and nasty crowds, you’ll be singing a different tune.”

  “Would you go back if you could?”

  “In a minute,” she responds without hesitation. “But my son is an American citizen now. I have to wait till he grows up and chooses for himself where he wants to live.”

  I tell my uncle what she said when we go for a walk, and he says Felicia was always backwards, she doesn’t know when progress hits her in the face, and that’s one aspect of her personality he can’t abide. They have bought me boots and a new red jacket with a hood, and I delight in the heavy snow that comes up to my ankles. My uncle gets down and makes snow balls and starts throwing them at me. I reciprocate in kind and pretty soon we are both drenched in snow.

  “A fine example of maturity you give,” says Felicia watching us from the door. “Instead of helping me put away the groceries, you start playing games with her. I’m not your slave. I work hard all week and I don’t deserve this.”

  “I’m sorry, Licia. The snow was so soft and velvety we got carried away.”

  “What else is new,” she says with a scowl heading for her bedroom and slamming the door.

  My uncle lights up a cigarette. “She is so negative,” he says, disgustedly. “She lost the child in her a long time ago and resents anyone who still has that child in them. I hope I never lose the child in me as long as I live.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, feeling guilty. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble between you two.”

  “She’ll get over it,” he says pouring himself a drink. “Don’t pay any attention to her.”

  ~~~

  Weeks pass and the longing for my family show no signs of abating. I put up a front, but I feel helpless and confined. The beautiful white picture of peace and tranquility outside contributes greatly to my depression and I long to go out, but it’s too cold and Felicia has forbidden me to take out the baby. I spend my days watching television, listening to the soaps to get my ear used to the language. I immerse myself in the language hungrily, greedily, and accost my uncle and Felicia with questions the minute they walk through the door. I write down words I don’t understand and ask them for translation. Felicia laughs at me and says she sees no reason why I should learn the meaning of “abdicate” because I will never need to use it, but I’m unstoppable. I get hold of her dictionary and wear it out; it becomes my bible, my favorite means of communication.

  Luckily for me Felicia is a bilingual secretary and she has a Spanish-English dictionary, which I shamelessly appropriate. My uncle is sensitive to my need to learn and doesn’t mock me the way she does, telling me to keep forging ahead, but her English is better and she ends up helping me most of the time, somewhat grudgingly.

  “I never wanted to be a dental mechanic,” says my uncle giving me credit for learning “the big words.” “It’s something I had to learn to do to survive. I came here too old and had to take what was available, but you are seventeen years old, you have your whole life ahead of you. Hell, do learn the big words, listen to television till your ears fall off, but don’t settle for mediocrity like I did.”

  But I had no long term goals, all I wanted to do was learn the language, I longed to belong, to be able to go outside and converse with people. I sought Grandma Helen every change I got, and practiced shamelessly with her. She had a lot of patience and corrected my pronunciation, straining to understand my halting words. I took a pad with me and wrote what I wanted to say, and we began communicating that way till I made progress. Unfortunately, I got so carried away by my self imposed lessons, I forgot to change the baby as often as I needed to, and he developed mean rashes that took tons of Desitin to clear up, driving Felicia to distraction.

  “Oh, my poor baby, my poor baby,” she would wail, looking at the damage. “Look what he has to put up with.”

  I would apologize a thousand times over but she would get very unhappy with me and question her decision to bring me. She would tell my uncle I was inexperienced and lazy and that he had lied when he said I took care of my brothers, and he would counter that babies in Bolivia were made out of sturdier stock than the ones here who were so spoiled everything gave them rashes, and they would go at it for hours while I wanted to crawl under the carpet. He would eventually break down and give in to the pressure by threatening to send me back if I didn’t improve, and it would take weeks of excellent care to placate their anger.

  ~~~

  I’m thrilled to find out that Clarissa Ascamón, a dear figure from the past, is also living in New York at this time, and I’m able to confide my troubles to her. She insists I call her Aunt Clarissa, because she had known me all my life, and has always been a sympathetic and understanding person. Looking at her I remember how my aunt enjoyed making fun of her wrinkles, but to me she was always a youthful, wonderful person. She invites me to dinner every Sunday, which is my only day off, and we spend hours talking and taking long walks. I pay no attention to my uncle or Felicia who call her “the spinster” and seem to resent the genuine affection I feel for her.

  Clarissa doesn’t travel anymore because she is no longer free, and in her mature years seems to have dedicated her life to helping others. She has helped her brother, Jaime, who is Uncle Jorge’s best friend, adjust to a difficult divorce, and is now taking
care of her mother, Reina, [“Queen “] who is in her mid eighties, with a great deal of patience and selflessness.

  Aunt Clarissa has gotten older and seems frailer, but she still has that wonderful serenity about her. She is sickly by nature and has suffered from depression and chronic bronchitis her whole life, yet she is still a positive, compassionate person who gives people all the love, comfort and understanding she has never found. She understands the plight I find myself in perfectly, because she also feels trapped in her own life right now, mainly due to her gentle disposition and the fact that her older sister has assigned her the role of “caretaker” to their elderly mother, just because Aunt Clarissa never married or had children. She also knows my uncle’s volatile character very well, and has seen that he can shift from a happy mood to a foul one in seconds, catching everyone off guard.

  Aunt Clarissa’s brother has witnessed many scenes at the house, mainly because my uncle openly blames Felicia for the loss of his children, and when he gets drunk on Friday evenings; all his frustrations spill out, resulting in huge jealousy brawls from Felicia who tells him that if he misses his precious wife and children so much, he should go back to them and leave her the hell alone. Whereas Alicia, my uncle’s second wife was docile and quiet, Felicia screams her lungs out and provokes him till he hits her, sometimes giving her a nose bleed before the cops come amid lots of noise and fanfare, but ultimately no charges are ever pressed, and life resumes its fragile normalcy. Throughout the commotion, the baby sleeps undisturbed, filling me with amazement.

  “If this is marriage,” I tell Aunt Clarissa after the storms, “I want no part of it.”

  ~~~

  It’s the New Year, and watching the festivities on television, I think of mother, wondering if she is depressed because she hates the arrival of a New Year. She resents the mood of gaiety and renewal in the air because nothing ever changes for her from year to year, and she receives it with despair and anxiety. I recall with sadness that she didn’t always feel that way, she had started out welcoming the New Year like everyone else, even buying herself red panties to bring her good luck, but she had gradually lost all her superstitions and hope in the future. Aunt Sonia, in contrast, always receives the New Year with a big bash, usually at her house, with all her friends in attendance. My heart aches when I recall the many years I participated in the festivities while my mother sat alone and ignored downstairs.

  ~~~

  At last winter ends, giving way to a glorious spring. Anxious to get out of the house themselves, my uncle and Felicia take me for long rides on the weekends, finally showing me the city of my dreams. I can’t get over the enormous city, bridges and sky defiant buildings, I have seen only in movies. The Hudson River flowing gently down below adds to the magic of it all. Something in New York makes me want to reach for the stars; there is a powerful energy and ambition in the air, a feeling that anything is possible if you want it bad enough. Never have I experienced this fascination, this marvelous sense of self discovery. I feel an instant recognition, as though I had lived here before and had come back to reclaim the city. The vibrant beauty of the New York leaves me breathless and I fall hopelessly under its spell.

  “This is where I belong” I tell myself. “This is where I will live and die.”

  ~~~

  Felicia loves window shopping, and on occasional Saturdays when my uncle works overtime, she takes me to the malls of Long Island where we spend hours visiting stores, with her wistfully looking at the merchandise and moaning that she can’t afford to buy anything because my uncle never makes enough money. Her idol is her older brother, José Menendez, who has changed his name to “Joe Morris,” and has come from Bolivia to America by himself, starting out as an apprentice’s jeweler in the diamond district, and eventually becoming a dealer.

  “That’s ambition,” she tells me with obvious pride. “Not a jack of all trades and a master of none like your uncle.”

  Joe had brought her to America and had forced her to learn English quickly by refusing to speak to her in Spanish. She had hated him at the time, but now she knew he did it for her own good and was grateful.

  “When am I going to meet this Joe,” I asked, intrigued.

  “Oh, he lives in Westchester now and moves in different circles,” she says, blushing. “But when he turns up, I’ll make sure you meet him.”

  “I like to, he sounds like an interesting person.”

  “We owe him everything, you know.”

  “How is that?”

  “He brought me here, he brought your uncle here, they used to be best friends but don’t mention his name around your uncle now because he’s very jealous of him.”

  I suddenly remembered the friend mother used to love so much and affectionately nicknamed “Joselito,” like the little Spanish singer I adored. My uncle would bring him over to visit and mother would talk about him for days, saying he was handsome, smart and gentle, and would go far in life.

  Felicia runs her fingers over the beautiful bedspread on display at Fortunoff’s, enviously. “Can you imagine waking up with this?” she says, plopping herself down with the baby. “I would be in a good mood all day.”

  “What happened to break up their friendship?”

  “Your uncle repaid him by getting me pregnant, that’s what happened.”

  I say nothing and she continues. “I don’t know what they told you about me, but I was a virgin when I met your uncle. He took advantage of me. I was the victim in all of this, not his wife. My brother brought him to his country, opened up his home to him and trusted him like a brother. He had no business making love to me.”

  She makes herself look like an innocent victim of my uncle’s lust, but I don’t see it that way at all. I want to retort something but I hold my tongue. I feel sorry for Aunt Alicia and especially the children, because in my opinion, they are the true victims. They lost their father and entire stability for nothing, Felicia isn’t happy anyway, her idea of a perfect life is the one her friend Lynne enjoys, living in a posh house full of pretty things in Oyster Bay, and not having to work, that’s the big thing with Felicia because she hates to work.

  We sometimes visit Lynne on the weekends and she can hardly hide her envy. To her Lynne’s world is a perfect world of comfort, beauty and dreams, and she is always silent and morose driving back home.

  Lynne lives in a big house with a manicured lawn surrounded by abundant trees and gardens. The houses there are spread wide apart and she has two living rooms, a fireplace and thick carpeting on her floors.

  Lynne is a tall, attractive, bubbly blonde with a warm personality and lots of wit, in contrast with her quiet, nondescript husband who wears thick glasses and spends most of his time observing people and contributing very little to the conversation. Felicia says he is a top litigation attorney with a prestigious law firm in Manhattan, who saves all his energies and skills for the courtroom. Lynne has two sons, spread one year apart, and that’s something Felicia longs to have, two children, to grow up together.

  “Why don’t you?” I ask her when we have a moment alone together. “Are you crazy? We can’t even support one child, much less two.”

  Lynne mentions in passing that she is looking for a babysitter for the following weekend, and I immediately offer my services. They pick me up and drop me off and I get to spend the weekend at their house. When I open my envelope at home, I am thrilled to see fifty dollars, which seems an enormous amount of money to me when all I did was watch TV and put the children to bed. I immediately send the money to mother by registered mail, happy that I can finally send her something, but I’m very disheartened to get her reply weeks later begging me never to send her cash, even by registered mail, because the money has been stolen at the post office. The employees used a flash light to see the money, and mother provided proof by sending me back the envelope.

  I am crushed for her, she needs the money so desperately and they shamelessly took it. Mother had gone back to the post office to complai
n several times but her cries had fallen on deaf ears. The thieves protected each other by saying I never sent the money, and she received no satisfaction, not even an apology.

  Nothing brings back the reality of the country to me like miserable incidents like this, a person can’t even trust registered mail there because nothing is sacred; mother asks me to send her a money order next time and I tell her I will, but I have no idea when the next time will be, babysitting jobs like the one at Lynne’s house are few, and I have no contacts.

  I love mom’s letters but they also depress me, for they are always full of anger, defeat, sadness and bitterness. She confides that little Daisy is being difficult and keeps having toileting accidents, and that angry over the incident at the post office, she had hit her so hard with the palm of her hand, her palm had become imprinted in her tiny buttocks. After receiving news like this, it takes me days to get over my sadness, and feel unable to confide in anybody other than Aunt Clarissa, who has become my best friend and only support system. I have the sense to realize my good fortune in having found her, and secretly bless her every minute of my life.

  ~~~

  As the weather gets warmer, I am deliciously aware that in merely six months, I have accomplished a great deal. I go out with the baby in the carriage every day now, and I’m at last able to communicate with people, something that fills me with pride and hope for the future. The realization that I am no longer handicapped by the language fills me with joy. I have also discovered the library, a precious tool for my purposes, and begin spending an inordinate amount of time there with the baby. It feels so good to pick up a book in English and understand it with minimum references to the dictionary. I start taking out biographies; I want to learn about Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt and all the greats that transformed this country.

  I want to go to Ellis Island and see the museum of immigrants. I feel less like an alien creature and more like the millions of immigrants all over the world who have ventured into this distant land with nothing but hope in their hearts and have turned it into the greatest country in the world. If only mother had been one of those lucky people! She would have never suffered the horrors she had to suffer her entire life.