American Chica_ Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana [55]
“Being a yanqui does not make you better,” Tía Chaba sniffed, once she’d gotten over the scare of losing me to the streets. “The norteamericanos have nothing over us.”
“A motley race,” my abuelito added in English, dipping his toast into his tea.
The days that followed were punctuated by remonstrance and retaliation. I stomped upstairs, took out my grandmother’s pinking shears, and lopped off one side of my hair. There was a flurry of dismay when I leaned over the banister and presented my edited conk, but nothing like the breast-beating admissions and apologies I thought I so richly deserved.
“You know, her mother has never taken her to church, never taught her her prayers,” I heard my grandmother say to my aunts one morning, as I lurked unseen on the stairwell. “Can you believe it? What kind of mother is that?”
I couldn’t hear my aunts’ responses, but my grandmother’s voice was high-pitched, loud, and I could hear every word. “The woman is so willful. Doesn’t she realize she has an obligation to teach a child? If children don’t have proper religious educations, how can they hope to be anything other than monkeys in Manú? Have you taken a good look at that girl? Is that how gringo children are? Wild?”
That afternoon, my Tía Eloísa draped a black lace mantilla over my shorn hair and drew me into the household chapel on the second floor. It was a tiny niche with a carved altar, a towering plaster image of the Virgin Mary, and a small crucifix. A wood Jesus draped languidly from the cross. Two beautifully carved candles with miniature illustrations of flying angels stood unlit on each side. “I want you to repeat after me,” my tía said in a husky whisper, pulling me down on my knees. “Ave Maria, madre de Dios—”
“Mother of God?” I said. “Where is she? I didn’t know God had a mother,” I said.
“She was at the foot of the cross when Jesus Christ died,” my aunt went on, “kneeling before him, the way we’re kneeling right now. Let’s pray to her, Marisi. She listens to children. She’ll listen to you.”
“Did she listen to him?” I pointed up at the dead Christ.
“Of course she did, Marisita.”
“Well, it didn’t do him any good.” My aunt’s little eyes widened, and then her neck swiveled so that her powdered face turned up and shone white with light from the ceiling. She crossed herself, stood, and left.
I decided to stage a hunger strike. Folding my arms across my chest at the lunch table, I refused every dish that was set before me: papa a la huancaína, sopa con albahaca y fideos, arroz verde con pollo, delicia de chirimoya. All my favorites trooped by and lined up one by one, untouched. The grown-ups carried on, nodding and munching and savoring the delights with little sighs of pleasure.
“You’re not hungry, Marisi?” my grandmother said, dispatching a glimmering morsel of sweet chirimoya. “How very unusual.”
“Why don’t you go off and play, Marisita?” said Tío Víctor, just back from Peru’s interior and unaware of my state of siege.
“She will sit there until she finishes,” said Tía Chaba, and flashed me a gimlet eye.
The conversation droned on, analyzing everything from El Presidente’s war against the communists to the Chinese chifa with the best wontons. One by one, the adults dabbed their chins with ecru linen, excused themselves, and trotted off to siesta. Finally, there were only three of us around the table—Abuelito, Chaba, and I. Camped before me: a regiment of porcelain.
“Malraux’s Espoir is far superior to anything Camus has written,” Tía Chaba was saying, citing endless twists and turns that congealed in the air and floated past in dry wisps. “More alive, more potent, more true, don’t you think?” She was trying to engage my grandfather, who was chewing thoughtfully and studying his plate.
“We don’t disagree, mi hija,” he replied finally, “but I’m clearly willing to give L’Homme révolté more credit than you are.” He smoothed the damask under his hands.
He looked from her to me to her again. “It seems you’ve lost your audience, Chabela. No use wasting yourself, no?” He smiled sweetly. And then,