I unfold the paper and begin reading. It is a poem written in a typewriter with typos and corrections but it’s obviously an original and I immediately recognize the signature.
“Desdicha”
No quisiera mirar con indiferencia
lo que la vida me ha dado de existencia
el sol, las estrellas y la luna
contemplan con piedad mi amargura
Amargura que siente el alma
al ver la basura de la vida
mezquindad e ignominia es una cosa….
y de barro esta hecha la especie humana.
Todo es dolor y agonía
interés, egoismo y miseria
el alma pura, se pierde
bajo el velo obscuro
del vicio, placer y desventura
Goces? Díganme quién es felíz
en este mundo, mundo turbulento?
El pobre, por ser tal es maltratado
y el rico, envidiado
solo hay una cosa que es muy cierta
y es que en aras de la muerte
el más vil se hace bueno
y el santo un “profeta.”
Que al extinguirse aquella vida
pide a Dios por piedad le tenga clemencia…
de la barbarie que hay en tierra
y de los que allí se quedan…
Porque la vida es un infierno
donde mucho sufre el hombre
y es ella que nos castiga
de los errors que nos ocaciona ella misma…
No quisiera mirar de esta forma…
lo que la vida me ha dado de existencia
el sol, las estrellas y la luna
contemplan con piedad mi amargura.”
“Misfortune”
I wouldn’t want to view with indifference
what life has given me for existence
the sun, stars and moon
contemplate with pity my bitterness
Bitterness that feels the soul
realizing the worthlessness of life
avarice and ignominy is one thing
and of mud is made the human species.
Everything is pain and agony
self interest, egotism and misery
a pure soul gets lost under the dark veil
of vice, pleasure and misadventure.
Joys? Tell me, who is really happy
in this sick, turbulent world?
The poor, for being such are mistreated
and the rich always envied
there is only one thing which is very certain
and that’s that in proximity to death
the most vile becomes good
and the saint, a “prophet.”
Who as his life becomes extinguished
begs God for pity and clemency
for the barbarity that is left behind
and for those who are left there….
Because life is infernal
and man suffers too much
incurring punishments due to errors
which life itself imposes on us…
I wouldn’t want to view with indifference
what life has given me for existence
the sun, stars and moon
contemplate with pity my bitterness.”
It’s a terrible poem, an indictment, a revenge on the harshness and cruelty of her life. I put it in my purse and dry my tears. She obviously wrote this poem when she was at her lowest, probably struggling with her illness as well as with her other pressures.
Reading it I remembered how she hated to see young indigenous children begging, suffering, struggling, working, and learning about the harshness of life from such a tender age. Her tragedy was that she couldn’t look away, she couldn’t get hard; injustices of this sort ate at her and riled her up. She would go home and weep, telling us to get involved when we were adults, to try to make a difference.
But nothing has changed in my country. I look around and still see hopelessness and misery all over the place. Young children are still working or begging in the streets. You help one and a thousand more come over; it’s a never ending cycle of poverty and despair. The sick, the elderly are all out there begging, accosting tourists, barely subsisting. High unemployment is the order of day and having a job is considered a great privilege.
But I’m not like her; I have learned to look away. In New York, a middle aged woman with ulcerated legs sat in the corner of my building all winter, and at first it broke my heart and I kept calling the police to help her, but after speaking to them a couple of times, I learned that nobody could haul her away to a hospital against her wishes because that would violate her civil rights, so I hardened my heart and stopped looking at her. I believe she was mentally ill because she would never even take money; she just wanted to stay out there torturing us, day after day and season after season under her thick, dirty blanket, and eventually we all got used to it and became immune.
~~~
We go to the Camacho market where I remember accompanying Ana on her occasional binges, and I see the same explosion of fruits, vegetables, meats and sweets, and can’t get over its diversity and color. The Indian vendors smile at me and beckon me to their side the way they once did with Ana. I’m the tourist now so everyone treats me differently. “Now you are a Gringa Americana,” quips Oscar, mischievously. “Whereas before, you were only a Gringa Boliviana.”
Gringa, the odious nickname girls at school had baptized me with from the beginning, and I hated it because it separated me from them and made me a foreigner in my own country. Gringa, was also the nickname my aunt used whenever she was high spirited and wanted to pamper me. And now I’m really a foreigner in my own country. I’m also a foreigner in America; my accent sets me apart and puts me at a distance from others. It’s the price I paid for emigrating and it’s a hefty one, because there is always an invisible line I can’t cross, and a culture I’ll never fully integrate no matter how hard I try or how many years I reside there.
America is an open and welcoming country, but I’m still the intruder there and the person without a country, and in moments of anger in the subways or at the stores, the truth comes out when they yell, “Go back where you belong.” I’m full of those sentiments when Oscar points out to a heavy set woman sitting on her stand, in a corner of the market.
“You remember her? That’s Miss Cleta, let’s go say hello to her.” And then I recall she was mother’s favorite vendor, and my heart skips a beat. She used to give us lots of things on credit and never tormented her for the money like the others. Mother would always pay her, but the fact that she was willing to wait indefinitely was priceless to her.
We get close and she smiles at my brother, and I notice she is missing all her front teeth and only has the sides, which is quite common in my country where the majority of people can’t afford dental care because it’s so expensive. Her face is puffier and older, but I remember her small, vivacious eyes and the long, thick braids she wore with such pride. My brother tells her who I am, and she squeezes my hand excitedly.
“Oh, how I loved your mother, mamacita. [“Little mother, an expression of affection.”] She must be in heaven.”
I feel a deep surge of emotion coming at me like a wave and press her callous, sweaty hands affectionately. She had been a life saver for us on many occasions and I had seen mother cry tears of gratitude. I want to tell this humble, beautiful woman so many things but I’m struggling not to cry and nothing is coming out.
“I used to leave everything to see her, I cried a lot when she died, I went to the funeral with a lot of people, and your brother knows that mamita.”
“She loved you a lot; I say drying my eyes. “All I ever heard was Miss Cleta this and Miss Cleta that when I was growing up.”
“I brought her soup at the end but she didn’t want to eat anymore and I used to put it in her mouth. She has suffered a lot, mamita, she must be in heaven now.”
She dries her tears with her sleeve and blows her
nose in her apron.
“How are your children?” asks Oscar, anxious to change the subject.
“All six are well thanks to my Diosito.” [“Little God.”]
Making up my mind to repay her for her past kindnesses in a very small way, I start picking up two big cheeses and fruit.
“But Vicky,” protests Oscar. “We haven’t brought any bags with us.”
“I don’t care. We’ll carry the groceries on our heads if we have to, but I’m doing a lot of shopping today.”
“Dios te bendiga mamita, yo te daré una bolsita,” [“God bless you little mother, I’ll give you a bag”] she says understanding my motives and wrapping the cheeses in white paper. I buy grapes, oranges, avocados, lettuce, tomatoes, bread and cold cuts. She gives us two brown bags and we fill them to the top. I pay her and tell her to keep the change. She beams at me and I leave the market with a happy heart. Oscar and I had always made fun of her in the past calling her “el Buddha del Mercado Camacho” [“The Buddha of Camacho Market”] because she sat there cross legged all day, and was a heavy, formidable woman. Mother would scold us, saying that Cleta had a heart of gold and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Now I see her with her eyes and realize how right she was to love her because there is nothing but good in this woman.
~~~
This afternoon we visit our old dwellings in the lower level of my aunt’s house, and I’m surprised to see that the walls outside our room still contain many of my original drawings, time and rain has faded them but the outlines are still there. Seeing that wall where I had drawn house after house for so many years brings back old longings vividly. Our room is now occupied by Angela, the maid, who has graciously consented to let us see it by giving us the key. I am shocked by the size of the room, I remember it being much bigger, but now I understand why mother was always running into furniture and banging her legs.
Angela has the room bare, there’s only a small bed and a tiny closet for her clothes and her awayo. The three of us had lived here for many years with two beds, furniture and a stove. Seeing the room brings back a million memories, the humidity of the room, the small window on the side that never let the sun in, and the swollen walls which caused mother so much grief and worry. I can still see her in a corner of the room with a kerchief on her head preparing our soups, and it seems that her spirit is still here, having inhabited the room eternally despite her disdain for it. I see my cat, Bello scurrying under her feet, and me sitting alone on my bed reading.
Long buried memories have stayed in my mind like prints of photographs taken long ago and I can touch them, feel them, in slow, painful sequence. I walk away with nostalgia for the past I had once detested and wanted buried forever. I touch the sink outside where we did our washing and drying, and can still smell the soap we had used. It had been a gray color and it had looked like a piece of cement but mother had sworn by it because it was cheap, took all the stains out and lasted a long time.
~~~
Next stop in our agenda is the old house in Pasos Kanki Street where we moved for the first time after we left my aunt’s house. On our way there, we stop at our old school and walk down the halls. Time has stood still here, nothing has changed, everything looks exactly the way I remember it, even the old courtyard where mother had sold her carrot candies.
We continue to our old apartment in Pasos Kanki and open the gate. The old tree that nearly killed me is still standing tall in a corner but the yard is empty, no more roosters or chickens to shrilly announce our arrival. With my heart in a knot, I knock on the door of our old room and an old woman answers.
“Sorry to disturb you,” says Oscar. “But we used to live here and my sister, who’s been away a long time, just wanted to see the room again. Would you mind giving us a few minutes?”
Exposing a mouth with no teeth, the old, hunchback woman smiles at us and opens the door a crack. Her gray hair is in disarray and she has a small cane for support.
“What?” she yells. “What?”
Oscar catches on right away and makes signs to open the door wider. She looks puzzled but complies and I take a quick peek noticing that the ceiling cloth still hasn’t been fixed.
“You’ve been very kind. I just needed to take one last look.”
“What?” she yells, as Oscar signals to forget about it and close the door.
We walk down to the river which is only a few blocks away, and Oscar keeps making fun of the old lady, repeating, “What?” “What?” till I have to tell him to stop.
“I see you haven’t changed.”
“What?” he yells.
“Forget it, Oscar; I’m not going to play this game with you.”
We get there in silence and I have tears in my eyes remembering mother’s struggles in the room we’ve just seen, the fights with Gustavo, the fear, impotence and anguish we felt all the time. And the river which had once seemed so enormous to me now looks like a shallow, smelly stream of dark water. Here we had dreamed we were in India, we had pretended the river was sacred and the burning of garbage incense to the gods. We had come here to dream and lick our wounds; it was hard to believe that this huge dump had once been our favorite hiding place.
Oscar says we have one more stop in this area before we go back to Aunt Sonia’s house.
“What, the hospital where Angel was born?”
“No. I want you to meet a very special person. She lives close to our old school, just around the corner in fact.”
Sensing what he is going to say, I tell him that now I’m in a position to bring him to America and that I want to start the papers right away.
“I would love to,” he says, hesitantly. “But it’s not going to be that easy.”
“Why not, don’t you want to go there?”
“More than anything but things have gotten complicated.”
“How is that?”
“The girl I want you to meet, she is my fiancée and we are going to get married.”
“Are you crazy? You’re only seventeen.”
“I love her.”
I press his hand hard. “Don’t tie yourself down like this, Oscar; if you do you’ll never get out of here. You can always send for her later. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life here, look what happened to mother. America is a wonderful country, let me give you this gift, it’s what I always wanted for our family.”
“I know,” he says lighting a cigarette. “But I can’t leave her, particularly now.”
“Why?”
He lowers his eyes. “She’s pregnant.”
I bury my face in my hands in horror. “Oh, no, oh, no, how old is she?”
“Nineteen, a little older than me, but wait till you meet her; you’re going to love her.”
“How far along is she?”
“Three months.”
I take a deep breath. “Marry her but come to America anyway, you can always send for her and the baby.”
“She would never allow it, she is very jealous and the only reason she’s giving us this time together is because she knows what it means to me. For years all she’s ever heard is my sister this and my sister that and she wouldn’t dream of denying me this time with you. You don’t know what I went through when mom died, it was horrible and she was a lifesaver, I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
“You mean you know her since you were fourteen?”
“Yes, and she gave me a home, a real home, you know Aunt Sonia could never really give you a home, she gave you a house but not a home, and I needed a home, Vicky, Silvia gave me that and I won’t turn my back on her. I want you to be happy for me. I want you to stand by me at the ceremony, it will be a very small affair but it will mean the world to me if you are there for me.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting into, Oscar, marriage is hard, you need time, and you need life experience. I had to do it for powerful reasons but you don’t have to, things are going to change for you now.”
“I love you and have al
ways admired you, but we are different you and I,” he says gently. “You have always asked a lot out of life, have never been satisfied with anything, but I’m not like that. All I ever wanted was someone to love me, a family, and a good job so I could provide well for my family. I don’t need to leave it all behind like you did. I love my country, imperfect as it is, and I know I can make a life for myself here. Silvia is the same; we want the same things, a family, a dog and a chance to grow old together. She is the ideal person for me, and I’m not going to give her up, Vicky, not for you, Aunt Sonia or anyone.”
I feel sick, cheated; it’s the death of another dream. I am destined to live without my family. I had so many plans for him, for us, and now it’s all over.
“How will you live? Do you have a job at least?”
“Not yet but I’ll be finished with my studies in a couple of years and should be getting a job soon. I’m going to get a degree on business administration. In the meantime, we are going to live with her parents. They have been very supportive throughout this whole thing. We didn’t plan on having a baby so soon but we are going to make the best of it.”
“And who is going to support you in the meantime?”
“I’m going to work at night tending bar. Her father already has a job lined up for me in his restaurant.”
“Oh, Oscar, is that the life you want? Have you learned nothing from mother? Do you want another life of penury and sacrifice?”
“It all depends what you consider penury and sacrifice. Mother suffered immensely because she was alone but we are going to have each other. I know this is a shock to you and I’m sorry,” he says firmly. “But I know that since we were little you always wanted the best for me, and this is the best for me. When we heard you were coming, we decided to rush the date so you could be present at the wedding because that means so much to me. We were going to get married on her birthday which is in October 23, but now we are going to do it before you leave. We already have the license, the church picked out and everything. I know you said you’re only going to stay two weeks, but I’m determined to keep you here at least for a month till we get married.”
I give him a hug remembering the scrawny kid I had left; he is now a man who has charted his own course, but it’s a great loss to me. On an emotional level I understand it, but on an intellectual one, I can’t get over the feeling that he is making a terrible mistake and fervently wish a new life wasn’t coming into the world. I sense he got into the relationship out of need and is confusing that with love.
Beyond the Snows of the Andes Page 48