When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [15]
Doña Mina looked at Mami and pursed her lips toward me. Mami seemed startled to see me. She took my half-full bowl of shelled peas and emptied them into hers.
“Negi, bring these upstairs. And while you’re there, check to see if Hector is up from his nap.”
I took the bowl and strolled away from them, hoping they’d keep talking about Rita, who I hoped was a puta, although Mami hadn’t used that word. But they both watched after me. I pretended not to care and bounced up the steps, the peas jiggling back and forth inside the bowl. Their voices fell into whispers then rose again in laughter. I felt so left out and angry, I wanted to stumble and spill the beans, but if I did, Mami would make me pick them up, one at a time, my knees scraping across the splintery floor.
The yard next door was decorated with gold-colored ribbons strung on tall bamboo stems. They waved in the breeze, and flashes of sun winked from within, like stars inside a yellow sky. Someone on the other side of the tall fence raised a bamboo stick with more ribbons attached to it, only these were wet and shimmered brighter than the ones already up. Smoke rose from the front of the yard, along with the delicious smell of oregano and garlic, rosemary, fennel, toasted annatto.
“What are those, Mami?” I asked one morning when the entire yard looked like a sea of yellow, rising and falling in bulbous waves.
“They’re pig’s guts,” she said without looking up from her darning.
“Yecchh!”
She laughed. “They’re used to make pork sausages. Our neighbors cook meat in spices and then they stuff them into the pig guts. We had some yesterday, remember?”
“But pig guts are full of ...”
“They wash the guts out carefully, and they hang them up to dry so that the sun cures them.”
It was hard to imagine that the delicious sausages I’d had just the day before were encased in the small intestines of a pig.
“What else was in those sausages?”
“The heart, the liver, chunks of meat, rice, spices, and some blood.”
“Blood!”
“To make them solid, so they don’t fall apart.”
“We eat blood?!”
“What do you think morcillas are made of?” she asked with a laugh.
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Okay.” She went back to her sewing.
Morcillas were one of my favorite treat foods. They were black sausages, which were roasted or fried. I especially liked the ones with tiny bits of hot peppers crushed into the meat. “All right, tell me.”
“I thought you didn’t want to know ...”
“Is it pig guts?”
“Yes. The outside.”
“What’s on the inside?”
“Little pieces of meat. Some rice. Spices.”
“And blood?”
“Mostly blood. Some people call it blood pudding.”
“Ay Dios mío, Mami, why do we have to eat that stuff?”
“Because once you kill the animal, it’s a sin to waste anything that can be eaten.... Besides, it tastes good.” She winced.
“Are you okay, Mami?”
“Yes. It’s just your baby sister or brother swimming around.”
“Can I feel it?”
She took my hand and placed it on her round belly, which rested on her thighs like a giant water balloon. I put my head to it, my hands on either side. A giant wave spread from one end of her belly to the other, and I heard water gurgling as the baby swam around in her private pool.
“Papi, what’s a sin?” I was collecting grass for the camels of the Three Magi, who were coming that night with presents for all the children. The only grass to be had in the barrio grew in the alley, along the edges of fences that kept chickens and scrawny dogs separated from one another.
“A sin is when you do something that makes God angry.”
“Like what?”
“Well, let’s see. There’s the first commandment, ‘Honor thy father and mother.’ ”
“What’s a commandment?”
“It’s actually commandments. God wrote ten of them so people would know what to do.”
“What do the others say?”
“Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you shouldn’t mention God except in prayers.”
“You can’t say ‘Ay Dios Mío’?”
“Not technically.”
“But everyone says it.”
“Very religious people