Caramelo Read online

  Tikis, who is always complaining about how much work he has to do, who never sits down and eats with the rest of us, because he’s too busy washing Father’s new station wagon for extra money, or polishing Father’s shoes the way only Tikis can polish them, or making a chart with how many pesos there are to dollars, and finds an excuse to run off and eat somewhere alone, comes back from wherever he’s been hiding with his empty glass and plate. Everyone else has gone to their rooms to sleep after eating. Except for me and Tikis.

  —How come the Grandmother always locks the door when she goes in there? I ask, pointing to the Grandmother and Little Grandfather’s room.

  —Beats me.

  I lie on my belly and peek under the door.

  —Get up, Lala, before someone sees you!

  But when I don’t get up, Tikis lies down on his belly and peeks too. The Grandmother’s chanclas stop in front of the windows, the metal venetian blinds shutting their metal eyes, and then the curtains screeching shut, chanclas slap-slapping over to the walnut-wood armoire, a key turning, the armoire doors creaking open, drawers opening and closing. The feet of the Grandmother, fat little tamales shuffling over to the overstuffed velvet chair and the chair’s springs groaning under her weight. The legs crossing themselves at the thick ankles. Then the best part; the Grandmother who cannot sing, singing! It’s hard not to laugh. Singing in a high parrot voice and humming.

  —What she got locked in the ropero? I ask, —Money? A treasure? Maybe a skeleton even?

  —Who knows? But I betcha anything I’m gonna find out.

  —Honest?

  —When Grandfather goes to his shop and the Grandmother runs to church. Watch. I’m going in there.

  —Nuh-uh!

  —Yup! You want to help? Maybe if you’re nice, I’ll let you.

  —Really? Please, Tikis. Please, please, pleeeease!

  —But you gotta promise not to tell, big-mouth. Promise? Honest, hope to God you don’t lie, step on your mother’s eye?

  —I promise, honest-honest!

  It’s true. I can’t keep a secret. Before the end of the day all the brothers find out and want to help us too. It’s Rafa, same as always, who takes over. It’s because of that year he went to Mexican military school. That’s why Rafa likes ordering us about. He studied ordering.

  —Toto, to the kitchen. Ask Oralia to make you something to eat. Lolo, you stay on the balcony and watch over the courtyard. Memo, your job is to keep the cousins busy, start a game of Turista. Tikis, your post is the rooftop, keep an eye down the street. If anyone comes to the gate, just start whistling. And make sure you whistle good and loud!

  Tikis whines, —I always get stuck doing the dirty work. Why do I have to stay up on the roof when this was my idea?

  —Because I’m in command, Captain Tikis. That’s why. And that’s an order. Ito comes with me. No one is to leave their position until I say. Any more questions, men? You stay here, Lala … naw, on second thought, you’re better off with us. If we leave you alone, you’re liable to squeal.

  The Little Grandfather has already gone back to his tlapalería for the afternoon. Finally, the Grandmother leaves the house with her purse full of coins for the candles she is going to light at la basílica, her good silk rebozo looped around her shoulders and her fancy crystal rosary in her pocket. She shouts commands to everyone she sees even as she crosses the threshold, the door-within-the-gate clanging behind her. Rafa, Ito, and me move into our positions.

  Ito swings me up on his back and carries me piggyback. I must be holding on to his neck too tight. —Hey, what’s the matter, you turning chicken, Lala?

  —Uh-uh. I like this a whole lot better than playing mata rile rile ron, don’t you?

  —Shh! You guys keep quiet unless I say you can talk, Rafa says. —Is that clear, donkey-private Lala?

  —Yes, sir! I say. I’ve already been demoted twice this summer, from a skunky-private to a monkey-private, and then to a donkey-private. So far there is nothing lower than a donkey-private.

  We have to be extra careful Oralia doesn’t see us. The Grandparents’ bedroom is across the breakfast room, just beyond the kitchen. When Oralia goes up the back staircase to the roof, her footsteps clink-clanging on the metal spiral stairs, it’s our chance. Rafa leads, then Ito gallops off with me bouncing on his back like a sack of rice. As soon as we get inside, Rafa shuts the bedroom door behind us, and Ito slides me off his back. On a hook behind the door, the Grandfather’s tired pajamas smelling of cough medicine and cigars.

  I’ve only seen the Grandmother and Grandfather’s room from the doorway. The Grandmother always chases us out. She says we break things, she says things are always missing when we come to visit. Even here, inside the bedroom, you can smell the smell of the house on Destiny Street, a smell like meat frying. Rafa won’t let us switch on the light, and with the venetian blinds closed it’s spooky, the air heavy and full of ghosts.

  The bed high and fat like a big loaf of bread, so white and clean I’m afraid to touch it. Nubby bedspread, white pillowcases and sheets starched and ironed and edged with crocheted lace. On top of the pillows, more pillows, the Mexican kind with doves and flowers and sayings embroidered on them.

  —What do they say? I whisper.

  —Amor de mi vida, Ito whispers. —Sólo tú. Eres mi destino. Amor eterno—Narciso y Soledad.*

  The room full of things that make you itch, that make you want to sneeze from just looking at them. On top of the bedside tables, wobbly lamps in ivory silk shades ribboned and scalloped with lace like a girl’s underwear. Tortoiseshell hair combs and hairpins, hairbrush with a nest of the Grandmother’s curly gray hairs.

  —Don’t touch any-thing! Rafa says, touching everything.

  All the furniture in the room dark and gloomy. Up on the tall dresser, a Santo Niño de Atocha is staring at me, his scary eyes following me around the room. Don’t touch, he seems to say. Under a glass bell, a pretty gold clock with pink roses tick-tick-ticking. Above the bed a Palm Sunday cross, la Virgen de Guadalupe, and a rosary on the wall. Crocheted doilies everywhere, even on the big television set with the cabinet doors. A music box that plays a sad waltz when I open it—plunk, plunk, plunk.

  —I said don’t touch anything!

  An ashtray with a scorpion frozen in the glass. A jar filled with buttons. A brown photograph of the Little Grandfather when he was young, wearing a striped suit, sitting on a bench, leaning on someone who’s been cut out. A framed paper with curly handwriting and gold seals.

  —What’s it say, what’s it say? Read it, Rafa.

  —En la facultad que me concede … el Presidente de la República confiere a Narciso Reyes … En testimonio de lo cual se le … Dado en la Ciudad de México … en el año de nuestro Señor … A whole lot of fancy words just to say Grandfather was loyal to the Mexican government during the war.

  Holy Communion photo of Aunty Light-Skin when she was a little girl, her mouth a heart, her hands clasped like Saint Theresa, the brothers standing next to her holding long candles with ribbons. An oval baby photo of Father, his eyes like little houses even then, sausage legs stuffed into old-fashioned leather boots, on his head a big fluted sunflower hat. The Grandfather’s newspapers folded neatly on his nightstand. A clay bowl full of coins. A teacup where the Grandfather sleeps his teeth. Inside the bedside drawers, the Grandfather’s tubes of cigars. On the Grandmother’s side, a thick pile of fotonovelas and a box of chocolates with all the candies half-bitten.

  —Want one? Ito says laughing.

  —Never!

  We look everywhere, even under the cushions of the overstuffed chair, but can’t find a key to the walnut-wood armoire. Are we hot or are we cold?

  —Look what I found, Ito says, crawling out from under the bed with pieces from our Lego blocks, our best double-issue Archie comic book, and my missing jump rope.

  —Holy cow! How’d this stuff get here?

  —Bet I know! Ito says, slapping the dust from his hair. —That b
ig snitch Antonieta Araceli. Who else?

  Before we can find the key, Tikis starts whistling his alarm whistle. We run around like the Three Blind Mice, until Rafa calms down and orders us to be still.

  I try to jerk the door open, but Rafa holds it shut. He opens the door a crack, then pushes us all back in.

  —Oralia’s at the sink. Hold on, he says. Tikis’ whistles sounding more and more urgent. We can hear the green iron gate downstairs creaking open and clanging shut. Pretty soon the Grandfather’s footsteps will be climbing up the stairs and crossing over the balcony on the other side of the venetian blinds. I feel like crying, but if I say this, Rafa for sure will make up something worse than a donkey-private.

  Again Rafa opens the door.

  —We can’t wait anymore, he whispers. —Men, we’re going to have to make a run for it.

  When Oralia turns to the stove he shoves Ito out first, then me, and then slinks out, shutting the door quietly behind him. The Little Grandfather is just lifting his foot onto the first step when we come colliding downstairs into the courtyard.

  —Mi general, Rafa says, saluting.

  —Coronel Rafael, are my troops ready for inspection? the Grandfather asks.

  —Sí, mi general.

  —Well, then, coronel, call in my troops.

  From a fuzzy string around his neck, Rafa pulls out a metal whistle and lets out a screech loud enough to call in the whole neighborhood. From all corners of the house, rooftop, courtyard, bedrooms and stairs, from nooks under stairwells, from the apartments in front and the apartments in back, from hiding places in pantry and closets, thirteen kids come pouring out into the courtyard and form a straight line from short to tall. We stand as stiff as possible, our eyes straight ahead, and salute.

  The Grandfather struts up and down.

  —Captain Elvis, where are your shoes?

  —I didn’t have time to put them on, mi general.

  —Next time, you make time to put them on. And you there, Lieutenant Toto, quit scratching like a dog. Be dignified. We are not dogs! Remember, you’re a Reyes and a soldier. Coronela Antonieta Araceli, there will be no slouching in my army, do you hear! Private Lala, what are you smirking about? We can’t have you grinning like a clown, this isn’t the circus, is it? Corporal Aristotle, you will not kick your fellow soldiers when in formation, understood? Coronel Rafael, are these all my troops?

  —They are, mi general.

  —And how have they behaved?

  —Like true soldiers, mi general. You’d be proud.

  —Well done, well done, the Little Grandfather says. —That’s what I like to hear. And now … He starts fishing in his pockets. —And now … the Little Grandfather says, tossing heavy Mexican coins in the air, —Who loves Grandfather?

  And with that, everyone who has been standing like a statue suddenly is leaping and scrambling, coins dancing on the tiles, shouting under the rain of copper and silver, yelling, —Me! Me! Me!

  * Mexican pillows embroidered with Mexican piropos, sugary as any chuchuluco. Siempre Te Amaré, I’ll Always Love You. Qué Bonito Amor, What a Pretty Love. Suspiro Por Ti, I Sigh For You. Mi Vida Eres Tú, My Life Is You. Or the ever popular Mi Vida, My Life.

  12.

  The Little Mornings

  —Don’t laugh so hard, the Grandmother scolds.

  —You’ll swallow your tongue. Watch, see if I’m wrong. Don’t you know whenever you laugh this hard, you’ll also cry as hard later the same day?

  —Does that mean if we cry hard first thing in the morning, we’ll laugh just as hard before we go to sleep?

  I ask and ask, but the Grandmother won’t answer.

  The Grandmother is too busy supervising the tables and chairs being carried out to the courtyard. She’s ordered the hi-fi placed on the other side of the living room and turned around to face the courtyard windows. The entire dining room has been replastered and repainted for the occasion. For weeks workmen have trooped in and out, leaving a trail of white footprints from the dining room, across the covered balcony, down the stairs, and over the courtyard tiles to the green iron gates. The Grandmother has scolded them daily; first for being such cochinos, and finally for being lazy and slow. Only yesterday, wearing newspaper hats and speckled work clothes, did they finish their work, just in time for tonight’s party.

  But now that they’re gone, it’s the grandchildren she shouts at for being everywhere they’re not supposed to be; playing army hospital in her larder, spitting at passersby from the rooftop, running outside the gates and into the street.

  —Barbarians! Never, never-never-never step outside the courtyard gates! You could be stolen and have your ear cut off by kidnappers. How would you like that? Don’t laugh, it happens every day. You could be hit by a car and worn on the bumper like a necktie! Someone could put out your eye, and then what, eh? Answer!

  —Sí.

  —Yes, what?

  —¿Gracias?

  —How many times do I have to tell you? You’re to say, “Sí, Abuela.”

  It’s Father’s birthday. All week the Grandmother has been marketing for everything herself because she can’t trust the servant girl Oralia to buy the freshest ingredients for Father’s favorite meal—turkey in the Grandmother’s mole sauce.

  When the Grandmother goes to the market, she samples from each vendor, pinching, and poking, and pocketing their wares. She makes believe she doesn’t hear them cursing when she walks away without buying anything. The Grandmother couldn’t care less. It’s mijo’s birthday.

  This year, because there are already so many people in the house, only a few guests have been invited, some of Father’s boyhood friends—his compadre from Juchitán they call Juchiteco, or Hoo-chi, only I hear it as Coo-chi, like the word in Spanish for “knife” almost.

  Throughout the house, the Grandmother shouts her orders from the balcony overlooking the courtyard, above the laundry fluttering on the rooftop, from the apartment upstairs rear where she and the Little Grandfather sleep, from Aunty Light-Skin and Antonieta Araceli’s rooms below, to the two front apartments facing the street where both tenants have been let go this summer so that her three sons and their families can visit all at once. Imagine the sacrifice. The Grandparents aren’t rich after all. —There’s just the rents, and Narciso’s pension, and the little earnings from his tlapalería, which is hardly anything, to tell the truth. But what’s money compared to family? the Grandmother insists. —Renters come and go, but my sons are my sons.

  Every year Father’s birthday is celebrated in Mexico City and never in Chicago, because Father’s birthday falls in the summer. That’s why on the mornings of Father’s birth we wake to “The Little Mornings,” and not “Happy Birthday to You.” The Awful Grandmother makes sure to personally shake everyone awake and assemble them to serenade Father while he is still in bed. Every year a record of Pedro Infante singing “Las Mañanitas” booms throughout the house, across the courtyard, through the front and back apartments, upstairs and down, beyond the roof where Oralia lives, to the grimy mechanic’s pit next door, above the high walls capped with broken glass, over to the neighbor’s rooftop chickens, across the street to la Muñeca’s house and the Doctor Arteaga’s office three houses over, and down Misterios to the Grandfather’s tlapalería shop, beyond the sooty walls of la basílica, to the dusty little derby of a hill behind it called Tepeyac. Everyone, everyone in La Villa, even the rooster, wakes to Pedro Infante’s dark and velvety voice serenading the little morning of Father’s birth. Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el rey David, a las muchachas bonitas, se las cantamos aquí …

  Because he was made to wake up early every day of his childhood, Father is terribly sleepy. There is nothing he likes better than to sleep late. Especially on his birthday.

  And so, everyone else is already dressed and ready to greet the morning of his birth with a song. —Despierta, mi bien, despierta … But this means everyone. The Awful Grandmother, the Little Grandfather, Aunty Light-Skin and cou
sin Antonieta Araceli, the girl Oralia, exhausted from having to cook and clean for eighteen more people than usual, and even Amparo the washerwoman and her beautiful daughter, Candelaria.

  Everyone else who can be forced to pay their respects—the cousins, the aunts and uncles, my six brothers—all parade into our bedroom while we are still asleep under the sheets, our crusty eyes blinking, our breath sour, our hair crooked as brooms—my mama, my father, and me, because I forgot to tell you, I sleep in their room too when we are in Mexico, sometimes on the rollaway cot across from them and sometimes in the same bed.

  —You all behave like ranch people, the Grandmother scolds after the birthday singing is done with. —Shame on you, she says to me. —Don’t you think you’re big enough to sleep alone now?

  But who would want to sleep alone? Who on earth would ever want to sleep alone unless they had to, little or big?

  It’s embarrassing to be sung to and then yelled at all before breakfast while you are still in your scalloped T-shirt and flowered underwear. Is Mother embarrassed too? We’re pinned to the bed, unable to get up until everyone has congratulated Father on his birthday.

  —¡Felicidades! Happinesses!

  —Yes, thank you, says Father, blinking. His chin is gray with stubble, his T-shirt not quite white enough, Mother thinks, and why did he have to wear that one with the hole?

  —Guess what I’ve saved just for you, mijo! The nata from today’s milk! Would you rather get dressed and come and have breakfast, or shall I bring you a tray?

  —Thank you, Mamá. I’ll get dressed. Thank you all. Thank you, many thanks.

  Then, after what seems like a very long while of the Grandmother nodding and supervising everyone’s well wishes, they all file out.

  Mother leaps up and looks at herself in the dresser mirror.

  —I look awful, she says, brushing her hair furiously.

  She does look terrible, her hair sticking up like it’s on fire, but no one says, —Oh, no, you don’t look terrible at all, and this only makes her feel worse.