Dominicana, page 16
No more Cuban travel.
Colonel Francisco Caamaño says, U.S. go home. Fighting continues.
Forty-three die in San Salvador earthquake.
Too much. Why don’t they have anything good to say?
I pick up the telephone to see if it’s working. No Mamá. Not even the breath. I should be relieved Caridad no longer calls. Does Juan call her often from Dominican Republic?
I blast the radio. César has changed the usual station so rock music now shouts through the speakers. I can’t get no, satisfaction! Sister Lucía says that listening to English music is a good way to learn the language. I jump onto the sofa and dance, shake my head and hips, scream, Ay con gue no satifason! I play air guitar, bang on drums, wave my guitar, leap from the coffee table to the sofa, shaking my fists in the air.
Bang! Bang! Bang! When the song finishes and commercials come on, I turn off the radio and hear a banging from below. I press my ear to the floor. The neighbor’s broomstick.
So sorry, Mr. O’Brien! Don’t worry, okay? English lesson over! I say through the floor cracks at the man who has a missing finger and wears war clothes. I will make extra lunch to share with him. So many people living all alone in the city. I bet no one is visiting him.
I pick up the phone and dial Caridad’s number I had copied in my notebook. It rings and rings. Then finally, Hello. Hello. She listens. I breathe.
My dear Caridad,
The days are long in Santo Domingo. I smoke cigars to make the wait bearable. I’m exhausted. Everything’s damp. The humidity, a bitch. I press the pen lightly or else I puncture the paper. We take turns staying up to watch the front door of the house. Ramón makes me hold a gun while we guard. All of it makes me nervous. The dog especially. Ramón insists on having a dog. It barks incessantly and I’m not kidding you, it hates me. Yesterday, while everyone slept, in the pitch dark, only a candle to keep me company, I heard a whimper, like a kitten, but it was a boy, trapped in a web of wire Ramón installed all around our property. He was trying to climb over. Wires, broken bottles, nothing keeps anyone from climbing into our backyard and trying to break in. Poor kid. Starving kid. Lost kid. The dog was going to eat him if I didn’t go out there, so I shot the dog. Fucking dog. He just kept barking. The kid’s hair turned white.
I don’t remember your smell. Send me something with your smell on it? Soon I’ll come home. This war can’t go on for too much longer. Remember when I visited you in your bed and everything was so easy. I have so many regrets. We should have had more courage, you and I.
I love you,
Juancho
While César works, I take long walks around the neighborhood. I go into Woolworth and study all the bottles of lotions and hair products. Write down the names and the ingredients so I can later look up the translations. I want to join the people sitting at the counter. The smell of pancakes, hot dogs, and sweet syrup is tempting, but the man behind the counter looks at me as if he doesn’t want me there. So much of the city belongs to other people. Not wanting trouble, I leave.
I go by the park near the river and watch the children play. I look into the restaurants on Broadway and watch how carefully the waiters carry large trays filled with elaborate dishes, moving like dancers in the crowded rooms.
I stop in front of a redbrick building that occupies an entire block. A purple-haired woman carrying a parrot on her shoulder. She tosses a candy wrapper on the floor. Then I throw it in the trash for her. I notice someone wearing large sunglasses and rollers under a scarf. She enters the building across the street. The determined walk—Marisela?
Marisela! I call out. The traffic light is red and the cars won’t give me a break. Marisela! I recognize the pink pants. She enters the building. I follow her in. But she’s no longer in the lobby. I watch the numbers on the elevator go, 2, 3, 4, 5. It stops at 5. The lobby reeks of urine. The walls are in the midst of being replastered. The lamp is missing a bulb. Maybe she’s visiting someone. This can’t be her building. Her sanctuary. Not the Marisela I know.
I should’ve gone home. No one knows where I am. The building doesn’t feel safe. What if it isn’t her? But I can’t stop myself. For weeks I’ve been waiting, hoping to see her. I want to punch her, kiss her, hug her. Ask her.
I get on the elevator, and press the number 5. A roach the size of my thumb accompanies me, along with the smell of dead rat. The long and narrow hallway on the fifth floor has countless doors on either side, each marked with a letter of the alphabet. Each door has its own sound, music, voices, barks. The twitching lights overhead create a disorienting strobe effect. I press my ear on each door, for a clue, for her voice. But even if I find her, what will I say? My body tenses up, my lips clamp. I order my feet to run. Run! Down the stairs, through the lobby, and back home. But I can’t move. I wait.
A door opens and a girl with a bag of trash heads out. She seems a few years older than me, with tube socks up to her knees, staring right at me. Her hair wrapped tight around her head in a dubi. I must’ve scared her, because she yells into the apartment, Marisela!
My eyes burning into the girl’s slippers, the hem of her frilly dress.
Are you her sister? I ask. She looks like her, except younger.
Do I know you?
Who’s at the door? Marisela yells.
Tongue-tied, I freeze in position and stare.
You a crazy person? the girl asks.
Marisela appears at the door without her face, sweaty and disheveled. She pushes her sister aside, it’s as if a ghost stands before me.
Ana? You have no business being here.
I glance into her apartment, cluttered with boxes and large black garbage bags. It reminds me of the mess I found in Juan’s apartment when I first arrived. But Marisela? I expected more from her.
But who is she? I hear the sister ask.
No one, no one at all.
My heart pounds, throat locks. I find my feet and run down the hall holding my belly, praying the elevator will be waiting. The door is heavy and sticky. I pull hard. I stomp on the elevator floor, my arms crossed high on my chest in disgust.
I am no one. No one!
The ache in my chest is unbearable. My breath short. My strength gone. Every step home, an effort. In this city nothing is what it appears to be. No one is to be trusted. Juan has always said this. Mamá has always said this. What a fool I’ve been to think Marisela’s fancy clothes were honest. What a liar. A thief!
I cross the street to Broadway toward my building where Bob opens the door with warm arms, where the lamps are not broken and the floors are mopped clean.
That night, when César arrives, I’m curled up in bed, with the last of the sun making a thin stripe on the bedsheets.
César rushes to me.
Are you okay?
I have cried for most of the day. My eyes are pink and glassy, my hair in knots from tossing and turning.
Dinner’s on the stove, I say from under the pillow that covers my face. I don’t want him to see me all blotchy and puffed up. The bean soup is oversalted from all the tears.
César takes off his shoes and lies on the bed with me. He spoons me from behind and combs my hair back. I don’t cringe.
Tell me everything, he says in a high-pitched voice as if he knows that what I need is my sister, Teresa.
I welcome his warmth. I want to grab his arm and tuck it into me, to pull him closer and fall asleep with his body the same way I used to do with my sister on those nights Mamá would beat us both and send us to bed. Instead, I flip my body toward him, grab his hand, and stare into his eyes.
I’m all alone in New York, I say. I don’t have any friends. No one to trust.
You have me. Have I not been here for you?
But you belong to Juan. If you had to choose, you would choose him. Tell me I’m wrong.
César thinks about it.
You called me a vividora. Is that really what you think?
Why won’t you just admit you stole Juan’s money?
I did it because of Marisela, I say, and burst out into tears.
Wait. Wait. Don’t cry.
Now you’ll tell Juan I’m a thief. You’ve already taken his side.
That’s not true, Ana.
Please, don’t lie to me like everybody else does. I know about Caridad. I know Juan only married me so Ramón and all you brothers can build on our land.
Who told you about Caridad?
You see, you see. You’re probably her friend and sit with her and laugh at how stupid I am. You’re all so calculating. Only thinking business and money.
But Ramón is only trying to help your father. It has nothing to do with you.
Maybe you’re the stupid one.
I take the pillow and pound César with it.
Wait, wait, I didn’t do anything.
César jumps off the bed. I throw the pillow at him, then another one. He dodges them. I look around for something else to throw.
Believe me, you don’t have to worry about Caridad. I mean Juan won’t ever love her like he loves you. She’s Puerto Rican.
What are you saying? All your brothers have married Puerto Ricans!
I pick up the radio and aim at him.
No, not the radio! he says, and widens his eyes and fake-smiles.
I hate you.
We can get the money back from Marisela, I swear. I know where she works.
Of course you do!
He sits back on the bed. He gives me a tissue from the box I keep on the nightstand.
Why don’t you splash some water on your face and sit at the table with me while I eat, he says. Please.
I just want to go back home, I say, and really mean it.
I’ll always choose you, he says, I swear, I will.
Like all men who don’t want to see a woman cry, César lies. But hearing it does bring me comfort.
Juan’s out of breath, over the phone. From the moment Juan arrived to Dominican Republic he tells me, he’s been hustling to keep up. Juan’s needed someone to draw up the title to his land, but he’s no longer Dominican enough to work the maze of authorities who would happily look the other way for a fee. Even his brother Ramón, who remained in Dominican Republic to stay on top of things, can’t find a way to bring down the absurd asking price to make securing a title worth it.
At night, Juan locks himself in the house, because he says only fools get involved with the guns being given out on the streets to fight Reid Cabral’s firepower. With the United States behind him, a democratic election is doomed. No one can be trusted. Not even family, he says.
For years Juan and his brothers have sent money to Dominican Republic to invest in land, the restaurant, and the building above it with enough apartments for each brother. They all plan to return one day and live in them or give an apartment to one of their children. With money like a leaky faucet, Ramón is the one trusted to manage the money in the Ruiz bank account. Otherwise, one digs into the savings—ten dollars here, twenty dollars there—to resolve a problem, then another. Ramón is the serious brother, who always asks for everything in writing, who logs the purchase of every nail, can of paint, roll of toilet paper. For a good number of years Juan, Hector, and César have all worked two, even three jobs, sending a percentage back home so Ramón can lay the cement, add the walls, install some windows. But while in Dominican Republic with Ramón, to secure their investments, Juan understood something was wrong. Between Juan, César, and Hector, who make frantic phone calls in disbelief, I learn that Ramón has done the unforgivable.
At first Juan finds everything as expected. The restaurant has a proper bathroom, three walls, and a rooftop built strong enough to support two more floors for four two-bedroom apartments. The engineer and Ramón meet with Juan, and they share all the drawings for the larger project. The engineer says that Rome wasn’t built overnight and that they could build one floor at a time.
Then on the morning the banks are finally open after being shut down for security reasons during the insurrection, Juan says to Ramón, I want to go to the bank to see our account.
It’ll be a nightmare, says Ramón, with everyone rushing to pull out their money. People are scared. But we mustn’t be scared. The United States won’t let Dominican Republic collapse. It needs us.
Juan insists, Give me the information and I’ll look through our paperwork. What if something happens to you, Ramón? My name should also be on there.
They won’t let you in without me.
So come with me.
I can’t, Dolores has me doing errands. She’s been too afraid to even go to the supermarket, so she gave me a shopping list.
So drop me off at the bank. While I stand on line, you can do the errands and then meet me after.
You don’t trust me? You’re insulting me, Juanito. Be careful where you step.
Ramón stands up and hovers over Juan. This is how he resembles their father, with a face that smacks you with a look.
Juan stands up though his eyes only meet Ramón’s shoulders. Juan’s body is twice as wide. They’re alone in the house and both have been locked up inside for too long.
No disrespect, brother. I just want to see everything with my own eyes.
Have I ever steered you wrong? All I do is think about you. Make sure you succeed in this shit of life. Wasn’t it me who told you to marry Ana? You were wasting your time with stupid women who were just trouble for you. If it wasn’t for me—
Don’t start, Juan says, holding his fists close to his sides. I want to go to the bank.
And then he grabs the glass on the coffee table and throws it against the wall. It shatters everywhere in tiny pieces that sparkle in the morning light all over the ceramic floor.
Unlike Juan, Ramón never loses his cool. He leaves the house and without telling anyone goes on a long trip to the other side of the island. Not even his wife, Dolores, who he fell for the moment he saw her scratching the sole of her foot on Calle Vicioso, knew where he went.
That’s when Juan learns there’s no money in the bank. Ramón has made a bad investment elsewhere. No money to start the first apartments over the restaurant. No money for Papá’s land.
I listen, wishing I could change channels.
Poor husband. First husband thinks younger brother stole his money, which was really taken by wife after so-called friend stole it. Now husband is betrayed by older trusted brother. So when wife asks husband if he’s had time to visit in-laws, husband inhales and says, Ana, please, I’m doing the best I can, I understand.
Mamá says it’s better to know the enemy and his price. The United States backed Trujillo and now backs Reid Cabral. Even if they don’t fully agree, the U.S. knows they can be bought.
Marisela knew my price. When I needed a true friend, she called me her sister. When I needed a role model, she flashed her clothing and her smile, told me I should do this and that. Always full of advice. When I was most afraid of Juan, she fed my own sob story back to me.
So when César comes home after work I decide to set my own price.
Were you really serious about me selling food to your friends?
Hello to you too.
He sits on a chair at the table, ready for me to serve him dinner. Because he isn’t taking me seriously, I sit on the place mat, facing him, one foot on each of his thighs. I grab him by the collar with my two hands and make him look me in the eyes.
What’s with you, Ana? He’s dying to laugh.
What is life, César? Why am I here? Why do we suffer?
César’s not like Yohnny, who can talk for hours and hours and together we would fall into a hole of questions.
Ana, can I eat first?
Don’t give me Juan’s sure-one-day talk, I say. I want to make some money so I can take care of myself, bring my family to New York. C’mon, are you going to help me or not?
César digs his hand in his front pocket and pulls out a train token.
You’ll need this token to get on the train. Start with food for thirty customers. Better to sell out than to bring too much.
I hold the golden token with a Y cut out, the size of a quarter, that can take me to the beach, to the Statue of Liberty, to anywhere in New York City.
Now, can I eat in peace?
After dinner he gives me step-by-step directions to his factory in the clothing district. I write them in neat handwriting in my notebook, already full of new English words.
Just remember, always act as if you know where you’re going so no one will mess with you. Chin up and no eye contact.
He places a map on the table.
The city’s an island. Rivers on both sides. It’s a grid. Streets go up and down, avenues east to west. Remember, country girl, if you get lost, just follow the sun.
The first day I travel downtown to sell food, the sun makes the sidewalk glisten. Sweat beads pearl on my chest and forehead. I carry a tote full of fried pastelitos stuffed with ground meat and raisins, wrapped in tin foil. César says I can sell them for ten cents each. I’ve made fifty pastelitos. I quickly calculate my profit, factoring in travel and ingredients: over a hundred dollars in two months.
The hot weather keeps the pastelitos warm. César told me to wait outside of his building at noon sharp, ready to grab the lunch crowd before they find something else to eat in the thirty-minute break.
I walk quickly toward the subway. I put the token in the turnstile and think ahead to the elevator I will take. To the downtown platform. To the stop on 28th and Seventh. Then the four blocks up to 32nd to César’s jobsite, a tall skinny building next to two wide ones—the Oven, he calls the factory, with a smell of fabric and worker sweat that can easily kill a person.
I stand outside. People rush past me, pushing carts crammed with colorful dresses covered in plastic. Men yell out of trucks, load and unload boxes, some of which might eventually end up on sale at El Basement. Cars honk. I don’t know where to stand and stay out of the way.
César grabs me before I even see him. Behind him stands a pack of men, all with lint in their hair and beards, all taking in deep breaths of fresh air as if they’ve come out of a cave.
