While Mario was away at his cousin’s, I visited Imperio every day.
“The idea must have hit Ernesto like lightning, no?” I said as Imperio made café the way she liked it, using one of Mario’s old socks for a filter. “Because right after he signed his name at the bottom of each form, one for his Graciela and one for each of his sons, he went home, packed her up, and the kids too, and walked them, in daylight, back to her father’s house.”
“Dios Santo, in daylight,” Imperio said. I couldn’t help noticing the little smile that curved her lips.
Imperio had not been at her window that day; it would have been unseemly considering that none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Mario. But I saw it all and, sad as she was, Imperio insisted on details.
“Tell me, Caridad, what was she wearing? What does a woman wear for such an occasion?”
*
IT HAD BEEN QUITE A SPECTACLE. The sidewalk was lined with people as if a parade was going by. Graciela walked in front, dressed in black and white, the colors of a nun. But on Graciela it looked obscene, a black skirt and a white blouse that showed every curve. And with a child holding each hand. They walked slowly, Manolito smiling at the neighbors and waving hello. He was just a little boy then, maybe two or three years old. Ernestico, a year older and more aware of the situation, kept his eyes downcast. Graciela continued to look forward, like a magnificent lioness carved into the bow of a sinking ship. Ernesto walked behind with the suitcases; the shadow from his hat covered his eyes. People shook their heads sadly as they watched their beloved professor walk by in disgrace.
Ernesto had always been a proud and proper man who kept his dignity in spite of doing a woman’s job. Year after year he worked hard to earn the respect of his cynical and disrespectful students, only to end up like this. What was Graciela thinking? All her life people had been mistrustful of her, and now she had handed them her head on a silver platter. Only out of respect for Ernesto did they refrain from hurling insults and covering her with spit. But talk they did, as soon as the family was out of earshot. They even suggested that Graciela might be pregnant with Pepe’s baby.
“I guess we’ll know the truth when we see the baby’s green eyes,” someone whispered.
Once again her parents’ house was surrounded by a curious mob; not as many as on her wedding day, but once again she was the center of attention, the cause for concern. And once again she walked through them without saying a word and on to the front door, which opened just wide enough for her and the children to walk in and then closed behind her.
This time Ernesto did not follow her in but turned to face the gossiping crowd. They grew suddenly quiet, as they used to whenever he had turned away from the chalkboard to stare down a disruptive student. They shrank back under his unwavering gaze. Slowly at first, then more uniformly, they all began to disperse, allowing Ernesto to walk uninterrupted to the school, where he sat at his desk one last time and wrote his letter of resignation. This letter he read aloud at a rally commemorating José Martí the following Friday.
All the students were lined up in their uniforms. They sang the national hymn. Then a little girl recited “Los Zapaticos de Rosa,” but she was no Graciela Altamira (everyone said so). And it wasn’t so much that the little girl, whose name was Haydee Moreno, was untalented. It was just that even the youngest students knew all about Graciela. They knew what was happening between Profesor de la Cruz and his wife. They were so curious to find how he was going to handle this enormous scandal that they hardly paid attention to Haydee’s poetic efforts.
What the students and the rest of the faculty were not expecting was Ernesto’s brief and painless resignation. There was no emotion in his voice, not a crack or a quiver. It took only seconds for him to read it all. After that he went home and began the long wait for the visa, which would eventually be delivered, no doubt, by the very same man who had ruined his life.
*
GRACIELA ALTAMIRA VANISHED FROM SIGHT after the door to her parents’ house closed that day. When that door closed, so did the door to our hearts.
One afternoon Ernestico showed up at my house with a message from his mother. Imagínate! Graciela wanted me to convince the girls to come to her mother’s house to get our nails done.
“Tell your mother I will see her soon” was all I had the heart to say. But I knew I wouldn’t. I couldn’t! No one was going to go. Not me, Imperio, Cuca, Azucena, or anyone else. Not anymore. What had once just been a shabby and run- down part of town was now actually considered very dangerous. Things were going on there that no one could understand. That was the official reason. Truth is, not one of us could afford to be seen in the company of the woman who had betrayed our beloved Profesor Ernesto de la Cruz.
Palmagria set a very high price on a woman’s fidelity. Infidelity for women was not tolerated. Mujeriegos—skirtchasers—were another story. Men could do whatever they wanted. It was what it was. For women it was the most shameful of acts. Even more than murder, I think. When there’s a crime of passion, one person is dead, remembered only by their loved ones, and the other one vanishes to a faraway prison, never to be heard of again. But people who got caught cheating stayed around, and every time they were seen, their disgrace was remembered, discussed, used as an example.
“I don’t want people saying that we knew, that we covered for her. Por Dios, she could bring us down to her level.”
What Imperio was saying took my breath away. It hadn’t even occurred to me. I had always been above reproach, and intended to stay that way.
“Distance,” I said. “Time and distance. Discreetly.”
In order not to arouse suspicion, we let a few days go by before we found someone else to do our nails. But it was never the same again, never those same precise half- moons. Eventually, little by little, we stopped having our nails done at all. What for? There were no restaurants to go to. Parties were few and weddings less fancy. Even nail polish had become scarce and hard to come by. At first we hoarded the little bottles as if they were filled with liquid gold, but eventually they dried up. All the color started to drain out of Palmagria as well, to be replaced with a dull, military gray that made even the copious palm trees our town was known for look dull.
Imagínate! The next time I saw Graciela Altamira de la Cruz, we were across from each other, separated by a fast- moving conveyor belt at a toy factory in Union City, New Jersey. I was not happy to see her. Not happy at all. But I couldn’t turn my back on her, a woman alone in New Jersey with two mouths to feed and not a penny to her name. How would that look?
chapter six
Imperio
After everything I’ve done for her since she arrived in Union City, she’s still holding on to that shit that happened with Mario back in Palmagria all those years ago. I see how she still looks at Mario, like he’s the devil. I told her back in Palmagria, and if I have to, I’ll tell her again: Por Dios, Graciela, Mario was drunk!
I did what I could, and if that’s not good enough for her, then to hell with her. I never told Caridad, but I went to Graciela’s house right after I put Mario on the train to Pilón. I put my own reputation at risk by going to her house and she wouldn’t even let me in the door. I could see her mother standing behind her, in the back of the house, toward the kitchen. Graciela just stood there, looking at me without blinking. She didn’t seem one bit sorry for what she’d done to Ernesto. Instead she looked like she was angry at me. What a bitch.
“Graciela, you can’t blame a drunk man for saying something stupid,” I said. “That’s what drunk men do, everyone knows that.”
She remained silent. Not that I expected her to forget the whole thing at that very moment. But I thought we could at least talk.
“Let me in,” I said. I was getting uncomfortable standing there. Someone might see me. She must have noticed, I could see something in her eye begin to give. Then her mother came up, almost running, and before Graciela had a chance to say anything to me, la vieja
slammed the door in my face. In my face!
I stood on the sidewalk con la boca abierta, with my mouth hanging open. After that day I didn’t see Graciela very much. There was really no reason for me to go to that part of town. It was then that rumors started about Graciela saying Mario had ruined her life. Not that it was that much of a life to begin with, but she certainly didn’t make things any better putting los cuernos on Ernesto de la Cruz, and with Pepe Medina Ynclán, of all people. She never said yes or no to the rumors, so naturally everyone in Palmagria to this day still believes that they were true. How could we ever trust her again if we didn’t know what really happened? Caridad and me, we couldn’t just come right out and ask her. That wasn’t our way.
Now, in New Jersey, she acts like nothing happened. Like crossing from one country to another has baptized her new again. As if I can’t remember who she really is and what she did. As if I couldn’t see right through her.
In the van Leticia protected her, I could tell. I have eyes, I have ears. She let us say whatever we wanted to Raquel or Berta. But whenever we tried to get anything out of Graciela, suddenly she’d screech, “Niiiiñas,” and change the subject.
All Leticia cared about was money. She knew that if we pushed Graciela too far she wouldn’t ride the van to work anymore. That Leticia had dollar signs in her eyes. She raised our fees again, and for what, I wondered—the sheer pleasure of riding in that smelly yellow van like prisoners being taken to court? The least she could do, if she was going to charge more, was make sure Chano cleaned the inside every once in a while—I was sick of the smell—and fix the radio and get the upholstery repaired. We’d been sitting on exposed springs far too long. I’d torn several of my skirts. And do you think Leticia offered to replace them, or even an apology for the pig smell? No.
“Be careful with the springs” was all she said, as if I was a careless idiot, as if I had torn my skirts on purpose. As if I liked wearing mended clothes.
Before Graciela arrived, things were different. We were used to doing things in a particular way. For example, we took turns sitting in the front seat. And then one day, when it was her turn, Graciela decided to offer it to Berta.
“You take it, Berta,” she said.
Caridad looked at me with that look I knew only too well. The look that says, “Imagínate!”
I just shrugged and got in back, as always. Contrary to what people have said about me, I’m not always in the mood for a fight. Some days I just look the other way, and that’s what I chose to do that day.
“Ay, gracias, cariño,” Berta said, and plopped her fat ass in the front seat. The following week it happened again. And once again Berta accepted. So what could the rest of us do? Raquel was the next to offer Berta the front seat when it was her turn.
I bit my tongue for as long as I could. I even had the decency to take Graciela aside and have a few words with her. During our break, not in front of the others. I’m no savage.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” I said. And she knew exactly what I was talking about.
“I don’t like to ride in the front,” she said. “The way Leticia drives, I get nauseous.”
“Well, then, why didn’t you offer it to all of us?”
“Because Berta is the oldest,” Graciela said, as if this was the most logical of answers.
“Well, you’re just complicating everything.”
“I think you’re being childish,” Graciela said.
“De veras, Graciela?” I asked. “Because I think it’s you who is being childish. Everything functioned fine until you came.”
“On my day I do what I want with my seat, you do whatever you want with yours. I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Graciela said, and she left me standing there speechless. Speechless! Because, por Dios, it wasn’t that simple. I wasn’t doing it for myself, but for Caridad. Caridad loved the front seat and always looked forward to her turn. But Graciela had left us no choice. What were we going to do, be the only ones?
So I gave up my turn. The next day Caridad finally gave in. She offered Berta the front seat. But she wasn’t happy about it. For a couple of days afterward she didn’t speak a word to anyone. She sat in back quietly while the rest of us discussed the telenovela. For almost a week Caridad didn’t say a word.
Now Berta crawls into the front seat every day, both on the way to work and on the way home. She rides up there in the front like she’s the Queen of the Parade, always rubbing her legs and complaining. I thought it would only be that one time, maybe twice, but it was forever. The front seat, thanks to Graciela, now belonged to Berta, and the rest of us rode in the back like cattle. So you can imagine how we felt when Leticia raised the fee. Not only were we stuck in the back with torn upholstery and no radio, but we paid more for the privilege.
I didn’t feel so bad for myself as I did for Caridad. Por Dios, if anyone had a right to get whatever she wanted in this country, it was Caridad. After all she had to endure. She escaped from Cuba in a boat in the middle of the night. In my eyes that woman was and always will be a hero.
“It was just awful,” she told me. “We drove through the night with our headlights turned off. And now I wonder if that was smart at all, but no one seemed to really know what they were doing. I can understand that we didn’t want to attract attention, but what attracts more attention than a dark car on a dark road? But you know me, I didn’t say anything. All I could do was follow Salud and hang on to my little Celeste. Imagínate, we sneaked out of our country like thieves in the night.”
Every time Caridad tells me that story I just want to weep, or hit somebody.
*
I REMEMBER NOT LONG AFTER Caridad escaped, I saw a woman in the neighborhood wearing a blouse that looked just like one of Caridad’s favorites. It was orange with little pink flowers, and I remembered the first day Caridad had worn it, to Cuca Soto’s bridal shower, and how happy and pretty she’d looked that day. So I followed the woman, keeping a safe distance, my eyes on the flowered pattern as it moved through the crowded streets of Palmagria.
After Caridad left, I had watched her house be ransacked, looted. The officials had not properly sealed it, and strangers came in and took whatever they wanted. I knew that whoever the woman was, she had to be one of them, a looter, a thief. That she’d gone into Caridad’s closet and taken that blouse before the house was boarded up. As I followed the woman, the distance between us became less and less, until I could practically smell her perfume. I could even see the indentation the strap of her brassiere made across her back.
It was Graciela.
I hadn’t seen her since Ernesto sent her back to her parents’ house like damaged goods. I followed her a little while longer, my blood boiling. And then I stopped and let her go on, because what I really wanted to do was reach out and rip that blouse right off of her. And I just couldn’t do that. Dios mío, what would people say if they saw us rolling around on the sidewalk like a couple of one- eyed cats? Sometimes with Graciela you just had to let her go.
“You know what it felt like after you left?” I said to Caridad one day, after we were reunited in exile. “Like you had committed suicide.”
“It felt the same to me,” Caridad said. “Except I was still alive.”
I remember the morning she left clearly. She had left the jar with the mentholated cigarettes on the front porch of my house. When I saw it, I knew she was gone. One of the best things about the United States is that we now smoke Kool cigarettes. We don’t have to mentholate our own cigarettes anymore.
*
YES, I THINK if anybody has a right to sit wherever she wants in that van, or anywhere else in this country, it’s Caridad. But she was stuck in the back with the rest of us just because of Graciela.
“Cari,” I said one day. “You know what I was thinking about? I was thinking about that beautiful blouse of yours, the orange one with the little pink flowers. Whatever happened to that blouse? I loved that blouse.”
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Caridad got a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she was searching her mind for every blouse she’d ever owned. Graciela remained quiet and turned her face to the window, as if she wasn’t even remotely interested in anything I had to say.
“Which blouse?”
“You know, the one you wore to Cuca Soto’s bridal shower? Orange with pink flowers, little flowers, and pearl buttons up the front.”
Graciela continued looking out the window. I could see her face reflected in the glass.
“Was it like the one Esmeralda wore the day she went to visit the man she thought might be her father?” Leticia asked. Always with the telenovelas. I mean, I like them and I watch them, but with Leticia it’s a sickness.
“No, por Dios, this was much nicer. You remember, Graciela, don’t you? It had little pearl buttons down the front?” I met Graciela’s eyes in the glass. She couldn’t avoid me.
Graciela turned and looked right at me. I could tell she was hating every moment. She was so close I could feel the fire in her eyes.
“Oh, yes, that old blouse,” Caridad said. “What made you think of that?”
“I always liked it, and I wondered what ever happened to it,” I said, keeping a watchful eye on Graciela. I had her cornered and I knew it.
“Oh, I think I left it behind with all my other things. I told you, we didn’t even bring a change of underwear to this country.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, turning almost completely to face Graciela.
Graciela took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“You gave me that blouse,” she said.
Caridad turned to look at her.
“I did?”
“Yes,” Graciela said, “after Celeste was born.”
“Imagínate. I think I did. You remember, Imperio, how I always used to give my old clothes to Graciela?”
Graciela was looking out the window again. She couldn’t deny that we gave her our old things. She couldn’t deny that even after she was married, we were better off than she was. But the most annoying part of it was that Graciela wouldn’t always accept our kindness. Most of the time she’d look at perfectly good items and reject them, as if our sense of style just wasn’t good enough for her. I’ll bet she jumped at the chance to own that blouse.
Tomorrow They Will Kiss Page 9