The Memories of Ana Calderón Read online

  Rodolfo, clenching his teeth, forced himself to let a minute pass before he turned to Alejandra. He shuddered, however, when he caught the glimmer of tears on her face. He crept close to her, and as he took her hand, he realized that it was cold and that she was trembling.

  “’Apá, I’m afraid!” He had not counted on anyone being afraid. Rodolfo paused, apprehensive, feeling the air siphoning out of his stomach. Suddenly he turned to Octavio. “You’ll have to do it.” Then, looking at the girls, he whispered, “Come here!” He took Zulma and Rosalva by the hand, pulling them close to him. “You’ll have to stick with Tavo. Don’t be afraid. You saw how easy it was for Ana. All you kids have to do is follow her. Remember, she’s behind the tree waiting for you. Ready?”

  Three heads wagged in affirmation. Rodolfo took the hands he was holding and pressed them, one each into Octavio’s hands. He knew that the boy was also scared, but that he wouldn’t lose his nerve. “Quietly and slowly, Tavo. Remember all the times you’ve had to go to the toilet at this time and nothing has ever happened. Think that I’ll be coming right after you and that you’ll be safe.”

  Holding hands, the three children cautiously inched their way toward the outhouse. Everything seemed to be going right until the noise of clanking tin tore at the silence. One of the children had stumbled on a plate. There was stirring, and someone grumbled, “Damn kid! Watch where you’re going!” Rodolfo, holding his breath, caught sight of the three forms vanishing behind the outhouse. Then there was silence.

  Again forcing himself to let time slip by, Rodolfo took Jasmín into his arms. He was unable to know if she was asleep or unconscious. His heart sank, however, when his fingers and forearms felt that her small body had become so thin and frail that it weighed hardly anything. Shocked, he cradled his daughter against his body as he felt the bones of her rib cage dig into his flesh. He had known for days that his daughter was ill, but it wasn’t until that moment that he realized how close she was to death.

  These sensations instantly diffused the fear that had been building up inside of Rodolfo. The few seconds that had elapsed between the moment he had taken Jasmín in his arms and his understanding of her condition forced him to become acutely aware of only one thing, and that was that he had to take his child to where she could be helped. He moved swiftly to his feet and began to make his way toward the outhouse. Alejandra followed him nervously.

  Without thinking, he cast away all the precautions he had mapped out for himself; he didn’t even bother to crouch or to step carefully and quietly. He was indifferent to whatever he might step on causing a commotion, or what he might trip on, or that he might awaken this or that other person. At that moment Rodolfo was aware of only one thing: that if anyone blocked his way, he would kill that person. Nothing, he realized, could stop him from taking this child as well as the other ones out of that camp of wretchedness and degradation.

  No one noticed the man holding the skinny child in his arms. Rodolfo and Alejandra made it to the outhouse and beyond to the oak tree, where the others were waiting for them. Without speaking, he led his brood, walking away from the ranch toward the road leading to Hermosillo. The night became less dark as time passed, but the dust churned up by their feet began to make everyone cough.

  “’Apá, where are we going. I’m tired.”

  “We’re almost there. Just a little bit more.”

  Finally, they turned a bend in the road and came up to a battered Model-T truck. The driver jumped out from his seat and approached Rodolfo. They spoke for a while, apparently haggling, almost arguing in a low tone of voice. Ana now understood what her father’s whisperings over past days had meant. It had all been part of a plan to get them away from Rancho la Concepción.

  The stranger looked at the children who stood in a circle around him. “¡Vámonos!”

  Rodolfo laid Jasmín on the front seat of the cab, then the men helped the rest of the children onto the rear end of the truck. The driver, Reyes Soto, told them to hang on tight because they were going a long way, and that when they woke up the next day, they would be on the other side of the border in a town called Nogales.

  Their names were Harry and Opal Carney, and it was the first time we had ever seen people like them. They looked different and we couldn’t understand their language, but they were kind to us when they saw that Jasmín was sick. They even got a doctor for her, but it was too late. My sister died a little bit after we arrived in Nogales.

  When we had crossed the border, Reyes stopped at a gas station while we went to the toilet. Everyone except Jasmín. I think it was then that Reyes became frightened because when we returned, he said that we had to get help for her right away. He turned to a frame house across the street from the station and told us to wait a minute while he went for help. In the meantime, my father took Jasmín out of the truck and ran after Reyes. The rest of us followed him. When a tall, thin, white lady came to the door, we were all standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her.

  She looked surprised when she opened the door, but she was friendly because, instead of telling us to go away, she stepped out onto the porch and spoke to the driver. Reyes was a pocho, so he could speak her language. But that wasn’t necessary because her eyes landed on Jasmín almost immediately. The lady went over to my father and led him into the house. From where I was standing I could see a man, just as white and almost as thin as she was. There was a kid, too, who looked a few years older than me.

  While my father was in the house, the rest of us sat on the steps not saying anything. The lady came out in a few minutes, and with her hands and eyes invited us into her kitchen where she sat us around a table. She was warming soup that she first took to Jasmín in another room. Then she returned and served us each a bowl.

  Before eating, we looked at each other not knowing what to do. We were just a little bit scared because we couldn’t see where our father was. But we were so hungry that soon we forgot that we were frightened and began to eat. We had never tasted that kind of soup before, and we all thought that it was delicious.

  Then we saw the boy run in the front door with another man behind him, and we noticed that he carried a small suitcase in his hand. We saw that he, too, disappeared into the same room where we knew Jasmín and our father were. It wasn’t long before my father stepped out of the room and we could tell that our sister had died because he leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. I left the table and went to stand by his side, but he seemed not to notice me. I reached out to put my hand on his arm, and even though he moved away from me abruptly, I stood looking at the wall for a long time wishing that I could tell ’Apá that inside of me I knew what he was feeling.

  We buried Jasmín in a plot of ground in the cemetery outside of town. Harry and Opal Carney collected enough money from their neighbors and from several churches to buy the grave and a coffin. All of this happened so fast that none of us were able to understand, and it was Reyes Soto who explained to us that there was no special reason why those people were helping us, except that they just wanted to help us.

  Immediately after Jasmín’s death, Señora Carney contacted all her women friends and neighbors and got them to come to her house for a meeting. She invited us children to come and sit in the front parlor as the ladies squeezed into it. None of us knew what they were saying, but I recall that we weren’t afraid because their eyes were kind and they smiled at us when they asked one of us to sit nearby. We were amazed at how they spoke in soft tones as they passed small cups of tea to one another.

  Soon after their meeting, the women went up and down the streets until they collected clothes for us to wear at our sister’s funeral. We knew that the dresses and things we got were used, but they looked almost new. Tavo got a nice suit, and even though the legs were too long, its brown tweed color made his skin look better than ever. The rest of us, even César, got things to wear, including shoes. Mr. Carney lent my father a hat and a black jacket to wear over his overalls .

 
; When it was time to bury Jasmín, the Carney family and all their neighbors accompanied us to the church where a priest named Father O’Dawd said mass. I was surprised that everyone went with us because, even then, I knew that they had a different religion. From the church, everyone walked behind the priest and the coffin to the cemetery.

  Before we arrived, Pilar pulled at my hand and said, “I think the box is too small. What will happen when Jasmín grows more?” When I told her, “Our sister isn’t going to grow anymore,” Pilar began to cry. I put my arm around her as we walked because I didn’t know what to say.

  Summer was ending by then and there was a cold wind blowing in our direction; it came from the desert. As our procession entered the cemetery, I looked up to see the eucalyptus trees that surrounded the grounds. They were swaying in the breeze, making a hissing and rustling sound. The sky was so gray that I told myself that soon it would begin to rain.

  When we arrived, the priest motioned to my father and us children to come close to him. Then he waved his arms, telling us to form a half circle behind him. As we got near to him, we saw that a hole had already been dug. The sight of this startled us so much that we instinctively drew away from the place. None of us had ever seen such a deep pit, not even the one in which our mother had been buried. I looked at my father and saw that his face was like a wooden mask. His mouth was tightly sealed and his mustache drooped downward, hanging limply on his chin. His eyes looked tiny, flinty; he seemed filled with rage and pain.

  Father O’Dawd finished the prayers and handed my father a small crucifix that had been taped to Jasmín’s coffin. He took it from the priest without saying a word and put the cross into his hip pocket. Then the priest came close to the rest of us, saying something that we couldn’t understand. But when he realized this, he turned to Señora Carney and said the same thing to her. She followed his instruction by placing her hand on the coffin, and as if it had been a signal, two men began to lower the box into the deep hole.

  The twins suddenly let out a howl so shrill and loud that everyone seemed jolted out of their place; our bodies flinched without thinking. The girls’ weeping intensified with each second, growing more and more disconcerting. Their mouths were wide open, and no one, not my father or me or Señora Carney, could convince them to stop their wailing.

  Pilar and Cruz wrapped their arms around me and cried, their small bodies shaking uncontrollably. I could see that everyone was deeply touched by my sisters’ grief because men and women began to pull out handkerchiefs, even though no one had known Jasmín. I looked up to my father and saw that he had turned away, hiding his face.

  I was the only one who didn’t cry because I didn’t feel like it. I was happy for Jasmín. I felt joy that she would not live to be worn out like the women we left behind in the Río Yaqui desert, nor would she ever commit a sin that would cause her heart to break, as had happened to the woman at the Shrine. Down deep I was glad that my sister would not be like our mother, who had died screaming from pain caused by something that slowly grew in her head. Instead of feeling sorrow, I wondered if Jasmín had ever had dreams like those that I used to have, even at her age. I told myself that if she did have those hopes, at least now she would not see them crushed, as I had seen mine destroyed when I realized that I was like all other women, and that I would never be loved by my father because I wasn’t a boy.

  I returned to Nogales about fifteen years ago. I went to the Carney family house only to find that it had been torn down and that in its place a small county library had been built. I visited the cemetery that used to be on the outskirts of town and discovered that it was now surrounded by houses and factories. I spent a long time walking through the grounds, reading the headstones and plaques until I found the place where Jasmín was buried. The wooden marker placed by the Carney family was collapsing and the writing on it was no longer legible. Before leaving the city, I ordered a new marble headstone. I had it erected to mark the place where Jasmín, still a little girl, had lain for so many years.”

  Reyes Soto was born and raised in East Los Angeles, where he had lived all his life. He had only gone as far as the eighth grade in school, but he was able to make a good living because he could do just about anything with his hands. He could paint a house, fix its plumbing, tape a couple of wires together so that a light bulb would go on, replace or repair broken auto parts, and weld pieces of metal together so efficiently that they would stay in place, never again to split apart.

  Reyes’ main business was scouring East Los Angeles junk yards to retrieve salvageable parts and sometimes entire engines. He repaired and overhauled those things, and when he had a truckload of water and gas pumps, engine blocks, axles, pistons and rods, he headed south of the border. The huge Sonora ranch spreads were his usual markets because there he had built up a solid reputation for his goods. Whatever parts Reyes Soto sold, he stood by. The ranchers, whose tractors and irrigating equipment were in constant need of repair, knew that whatever they purchased from him worked.

  On return trips, Reyes sometimes gave one or two riders a lift up north of the border. He didn’t do this for money; the only thing he asked from passengers was to chip in for gas, and for what they bought to eat on the road. It was on one of these trips that Reyes came in contact with Rodolfo Calderón. It had happened indirectly through the words of a campesino who had told him of the family and of a sick child.

  In the beginning, Reyes had hesitated because he realized that they were probably running away from the patrón of Rancho la Concepción. Reyes understood the situation, but the fact that it was only one man with his hands full of kids did something to Reyes. He wanted to help.

  He agreed to ferry them north, but only as far as the Arizona side of Nogales. With Jasmín’s death, however, he became personally involved with Rodolfo and the children, and Reyes began to have doubts about leaving them behind. He had been, after all, the one who had taken the risk of running up to the Carney house looking for help. It had been he who had translated for Rodolfo and who had contacted the priest who immediately went to work with the Carneys to scrape up money and clothing for the family.

  Reyes began to think that if he left them in Nogales, the Calderón family would have no other alternative except to head east to the cotton fields of Texas, or toward Colorado to the beet harvesting. He concluded that if that happened, more than likely the rest of the children would die off one by one, just like Jasmín.

  After the funeral, Rodolfo and Reyes stood in front of the Carney house. Reyes, his head hanging low and his hands plunged into his pockets, was distractedly tapping the tip of his boot against the front tire of his truck.

  “Look, Señor Calderón. I never do this, and I wouldn’t except for the kids. Why don’t you come to Los Angeles with me? Things are real tough, but I know that you’ll be able to make a living for them. There’s a school where I know they can go.”

  Reyes spoke with a lilting, up and down rhythm. The Spanish he spoke was interlaced with English words, as well as with expressions that were a combination of English and Spanish. Some of it escaped Rodolfo, but most of it was clear to him. His face, which up to that moment had been cast in sadness, lit up for a moment.

  “That city is on the coast, isn’t it? I’m a fisherman, you know.”

  Letting out a shrill, whistling sound between his tongue and teeth, Reyes said, “Look, ese, you got it all wrong. I’m talking of East Los Angeles and, believe me, there ain’t no fishing there!” He emphasized the word East as if trying to engrave it on the other man’s mind. However, when Reyes saw confusion and disappointment on Rodolfo’s face, he continued speaking. “You have strong hands, Señor Calderón. I know you’d be good with a hammer, or a screwdriver, or with a pick and shovel, wouldn’t you?” Reyes was very close to Rodolfo’s face as he spoke. His eyes reflected his emotion; his fear that the other children would also die.

  “Sí, Reyes.”

  “Just call me Ray. All my friends do.”

  R
odolfo’s voice was soft as he answered, disregarding the nickname. “Reyes, let’s go thank Mr. & Mrs. Carney.”

  The whole group walked up to the front door. This time it was Rodolfo who knocked at the door. Again Mrs. Carney appeared and, smiling, asked everyone to come in. Her husband and son were standing in the middle of the parlor.

  “Reyes, please tell this family how grateful I and my children are for all their kindness and for helping us. Without them and their friends, we would have been lost. Tell them, please, that one day we’ll be in a position to thank them as we should. For right now…”

  “Hey, Rudy, just a second! I can translate just so much at a time.” Reyes interrupted Rodolfo, using the nickname that would cause him much irritation later on. Reyes turned to the Carneys and paraphrased Rodolfo’s sentiments. He added also that the family was coming with him all the way to Los Angeles and that they would begin the trip immediately.

  This time Rodolfo broke in while Reyes spoke. “Tell them that I and my kids have one last favor to ask them. Would they please take flowers to Jasmín’s grave on her birthday? It’s the fifth of December.”

  When they understood what had been asked of them, all three Carneys nodded their head in affirmation.

  Once in the truck, Reyes sat for a long time without speaking and without moving, as if listening to a voice. A few minutes passed before he said, “Rudy, we’re going to do this right. I don’t want the Migra to come sniffing around my porch later on. You got the kids’ papers on you?”

  “Papers? What kind of papers?”

  “Anything! A birth certificate, or something like that to prove that they’re yours.”