When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [16]
“We’re not religious, right?”
“We don’t go to church, but we believe in God.”
“Is it a sin not to go to church?”
“If you’re a Catholic.”
“Are we Catholic?”
“Yes. But not very good ones.”
I finished collecting grass for the camels, while Papi told me more about the commandments. We never got through all ten, because I kept interrupting him for explanations of what murder was, and what adultery meant.
Mami moaned through the night. I worried that if she kept it up, the Three Magi wouldn’t come with presents. But in the morning our shoes were filled with nuts and candy, and each one of us had a small gift wrapped in green paper tied with ribbon. Later in the day, Papi played with us outside while, through the open windows, we heard Mami’s screams and the midwife’s gentle urgings. By the next day we had a new baby sister, whom we named Alicia.
After Alicia was born, Papi came around more often. When he visited, on weekends, and sometimes weekdays after work, he played with us, read the comics aloud, or took us for walks. At first he and Mami didn’t talk much. As soon as she saw him come up the alley, she would pick up a basket of mending, or scrub the pots, or reorganize the canned goods on the shelves of the kitchen area. Papi would lift his hat when he came to the door, like the men who sometimes showed up on Sunday mornings selling religious magazines. She’d just ignore him and go on with her work and wouldn’t even ask him in. Papi would stand on the threshold and call us to put on our shoes and he’d take us out for a piragua, or to come out to the steps and he’d tell us a story. Mami would pretend he wasn’t even there. But little by little, he won her over. We’d come back with a half-melted tamarind piragua for her. Or he’d bring the newspaper and, instead of taking it with him, he’d leave it for her on the table. Once, I looked up from my place on the steps and she was sitting at the top, elbows on knees, face cupped in her hands, listening to Papi recite a poem he’d written.
One day he came after dinner and she’d saved some food for him. When he stood at the door she told him to come in and sit down. She served him a plateful of rice and beans and fried up a pork chop or two. He ate without looking directly at her if she came close to put down a knife and fork, or to fill his water glass, or to hand him another napkin because the first one was crumpled.
Afterwards they talked out on the steps long after we’d all been sent to bed. It was too far from my bed for me to hear what they said, and they spoke softly. But just listening to their voices made me happy. The rise and fall of their words sounded like a promise, and I strained to hear them over the crack of cars backfiring, dogs barking, and the blaring jukeboxes of bars on the street a few houses from ours. I concentrated on their rhythmic murmurs coming from the steps, and that sound, isolated from all others, soothed and lulled me to sleep.
We returned to Macún in a rickety truck, our furniture and cooking utensils tied to the sides, our clothes and bedding bundled into cushions. As we bounced along the rutted road, I fidgeted, grazed by low branches from ceiba and flamboyán trees, breathing the dust of the highway, the exhaust, and the gritty dirt that flew in all directions and coated my skin, my hair, my teeth. I was taken over by a soft giant that filled my chest and head, its too large heart pounding against my ribs as we lurched up and down the dirt road toward the pebbly hill where our house gleamed in the afternoon sun.
I wanted to jump out of the truck and run, run down the hills dipping into sandy valleys in front of familiar houses bordered with passion fruit and morning glory. To climb the rocky hills at the peak of which our neighbors’ porches rose even higher, their balustrades festooned with potted plants, the zinc overhangs sparkling in the midday sun. To climb the grassy mound behind Uncle Cándido’s house and grab a pink pomarrosa from the scraggly trees that were forbidden to everyone but family members. To crunch