Dominicana, page 4
Teresa’s feet cut the ground, her nostrils flare, prepared to hold Mamá back so I can make a run for it.
I bite the inside of my cheek and breathe in the fresh-mown grass, the scent of lilacs and manure, of decayed mangoes fallen from the tree. I listen beyond the arguing and music for the hummingbirds that flap flap flap their wings, for the gravel under Lenny’s feet, for Gabriel’s breath in my ear. At least I kissed him when I had the chance.
El Guardia honks again. He knows not to step out of his car when Mamá’s home. When she first caught his devil eyes on Teresa, she warned El Guardia, if he stuck it into her daughter she would chop off his dick. Everyone knows Mamá can carve a chicken blind.
C’mon, Ana, stand up for yourself.
Teresa pushes, although she knows my marriage agreement was sealed with hard liquor.
Leave her alone! Yohnny calls out to Teresa.
Bully me, and I transform into an ant. I’m not like Mamá and Teresa, who fight for every inch of land and man.
Yeah, leave her alone, Lenny says, and stands in front of me with his arms crossed high on his chest, knowing full well Teresa can flick him away with her pinkie.
Don’t worry, I say. We’ll all be together in New York one day. You’ll see.
And we’ll ride the subways? Yohnny chimes in.
And spickee inglis, Lenny says.
Over there you’ll have no one, Teresa says. No family. No one to protect you. She presses her forehead against mine, our sweat gluing us to each other.
Yohnny karate-kicks the air and splits us apart.
I’ll protect you, he says. I’ll fly there and kick whoever’s ass.
A man’s heart in a child’s body, that’s Yohnny.
I hold back from laughing, to not upset Mamá. She counts on me to follow through on this.
Stop it, Teresa. I don’t want to go to the beach, okay!
Teresa rolls her eyes and hugs me as if it’s the last time I’ll ever see her.
Mamá’s so proud of me. Finally I’ve accepted what she knows is the only answer for me.
Enough already. Mamá waves them away. Leave now. I’d rather Juan not see you hooligans being such a bad influence on Ana, Mamá says.
Lenny and Yohnny whoop and holler their way back to El Guardia’s car. They slide into the backseat through the open window and stick their arms out, waving good-bye.
You’re just like Papá, Teresa says, who lets Mamá boss him around.
But even she knows this marriage is bigger than me. Juan is the ticket for all of us to eventually go to America.
The sun bites hard into one side of my face. I try to think of the beach, of the way the waves crash against the rocks, the fun to be had. Of Gabriel and the keys he carries in his pocket. The way he traced my body, his eyes like fingers. I had memorized the ends of his tight curls, his skin an orange-brown glow, as if someone had lit a candle inside of him.
All morning, my father rocks on his chair and smokes his pipe. My mother pokes her head out the kitchen window checking on me, smiling and waving. All her hopes and dreams tie into me. And as if to show me my good fortune—to sit, do nothing in my new dress—she bosses Juanita and Betty to fetch some yucca and batata out back, to wash the sheets, to feed the chickens, and to mop the floors, muddied from yesterday’s thundershower.
You so lucky, they say. Unlike them, I’ve never fantasized about going to New York. They track every dollar bill mentioned in passing conversation and gossip about every American hair clip, pair of shoes, or dresses worn by girls in the area who tease men like Juan in exchange for gifts and opportunity. They all hope for a proper proposal to get to a place where even country girls like us become glamorous and rich.
If there was time Papá would’ve killed a goat and invited everyone in the area to celebrate my departure. Mamá would’ve piled the plátanos and chayote on one serving tray, yucca covered in red onions on another. Yohnny would’ve shared his brew of mamajuana to get everyone loose. The house would’ve been full with neighbors and family. One sip of mamajuana, and I’d be digging my feet into the dirt in my backyard to the beats of the drum and the scraping of the güira. And Gabriel would’ve tried to keep his distance out of respect for Juan. But Teresa would’ve made him dance with me.
What could a kid like Gabriel ever do for me?
And yet we would spin and spin around as if we could turn back time. Stop it somehow.
Oh, I want to be grateful for my fortune. But I don’t want to leave our house in Los Guayacanes painted the color of buttercups by my late grandfather, the only house for miles that has survived all the hurricanes. Our house, the one I share with my parents, Yohnny, Lenny, Teresa, Juanita, and Betty, where there is everything I know and can imagine, for all of my life.
When Juan arrives my dress is wrinkled. My hair a mess. All the makeup gone. I have dozed off in a sitting position, waiting because any minute now he’s to arrive. I wish Teresa would’ve stayed with me and not gone away with El Guardia. That she would’ve given me, at the very least, her blessing.
Juan drives his car over the grass, close to the entrance of our house. A film of dust covers it.
He’s here, he’s here, Mamá squawks, worse than the chickens.
In the daylight, Juan looks even more pale than I remember him. Mamá says that’s better for the children’s sake. Dark children suffer too much. She gives me a paper bag containing a botella for me and Juan to drink every morning so the babies come fast. A man can’t call himself a man if he doesn’t have children.
Juan is in a hurry to leave because he borrowed a car to fetch me.
My brother reserved a room for us, he says, in El Hotel Embajador for the honeymoon.
Is that so? Mamá lights up with every word about my future life.
The nicest hotel in the country, Juan continues.
The last time I was alone with a boy it was with Gabriel. Juan is a man. A head taller, twice as wide. Gray hairs around his ears, thinning around his forehead. Soft, pillowy hands and cheeks. Inevitably, we’ll be alone. My throat locks up, an emptiness fills my stomach.
To distract myself I run through the list my mother gave me before Juan’s arrival. Go to America. Clean his house, cook him dinner, clip his nails. Send Mamá money, learn from Juan, learn from the brothers. Study hard in school and become a professional. Learn English. Send for Mamá and Yohnny first, so they can work. Send for Lenny so he can enroll in school, and then for Papá and for Teresa and the baby if she is ever willing to leave El Guardia behind. I’ll demand what I need from Juan, for myself and my family. I will make myself indispensible.
Mamá talks to Juan as if I’m not here. She doesn’t know about Gabriel, who may still show up to the wedding and speak now or forever hold his peace although my life is no telenovela.
Don’t worry, señora, says Juan, boisterous as a cowboy. I’ll take good care of your daughter. His confidence is kind of charming. He obviously is capable of taking care of us all. He’s not a weak man. And his power is even more pronounced by the surrounding wilderness—overgrown trees and bushes impossible to tame.
My ears pick up the howl of the siren miles away, the occasional motorcycle, the hawks sweeping close enough for us to flinch. I look away from our yellow house, a flower planted on the greenest of earths. I imagine myself inside the skyscrapers, in the snow, under all the bright lights.
With Juan there are many firsts. He opens the car door for me to sit in the front, on the passenger side. I always have to sit in the back with Yohnny, Juanita, Lenny, Teresa, and Betty: cramped. Just this, I’m sure, impresses Mamá. Marrying Juan is like going to the moon. Up front, I have the best view of the road, of the world passing me by as Juan accelerates the car, switching gears.
We stop at the Ruiz restaurant, which sits right outside the city on our way to the hotel. Of course, everyone knows Juan there. The women especially. He doesn’t introduce me. He sits me at a table that reeks of Clorox. No tablecloths. No walls. Just a slab of cement on the ground and sheets of zinc held up by a few poles, to protect the few customers eating at the table or sitting at the makeshift bar if it rains. I wait. The lights make my hands and arms look green. The waitress serves me a morir soñando with a straw. I don’t have to share it with anybody. I sip the shake with my eyes lowered, and listen to the familiar song playing on the radio. I remember the time I danced to that song with my brother Yohnny after the chores were done and dinner had been eaten.
Juan carries over a tray with two pressed sandwiches. Behind him, El Cojo, a funny-looking man, limps toward us, his shirt off by one button.
So you’re the one, El Cojo says to me, then catches a fly with his index finger and thumb and flicks it to the floor as if wanting me to fear him.
So what do you think of the place?
I shrug. The restaurant?
You can call it that, El Cojo says.
Juan fake punches him and says, Don’t worry, parajita, one day, people’ll travel from all over to eat here. We’re gonna make it real nice, you and me.
Really? I say. I had never thought I would own a restaurant before.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, El Cojo says. You don’t even have the papers for the land yet.
I stay quiet and pick at the sandwich.
Money. Papers. Always the main subject.
El Cojo pulls out papers for us to sign. He studies the series of two-by-two photos of different women and picks one.
She looks like you, right? El Cojo squints his eyes, to reconsider the photo from arm’s distance.
Juan takes a look. I take a look.
It’s perfect, Juan agrees, comparing my face against the woman in the photograph.
I bite my tongue. Mamá’s right, men don’t know anything.
El Cojo stands up. All right then, I’ll be back.
He hobbles over behind the bar and acts as if all the work he has to do is one big favor, a real nuisance.
Juan takes a large bite of his sandwich. He catches all the drippings with his tongue. Eats quickly and voraciously. Mamá says you can read a man by the way he eats.
You not hungry?
Not really, I lie, too nervous to eat. The women at the counter stare at me or maybe at my lacy pink dress. They aren’t much older, but nothing seems new to them.
Juan takes my sandwich and eats it too. He could’ve insisted I eat, as Mamá does when we have guests over. Even when they say they aren’t hungry she sets a place at the table and makes them eat. And when their plate is empty she adds seconds, even if they claim to be full.
El Cojo returns and hands Juan a passport. Juan studies it. He looks through the papers. They shake hands and do small talk.
Congratulations, El Cojo says.
For what?
You’re married!
Was that it? No ceremony? No guests or cake or you may kiss the bride or do you take this man? All this fuss Mamá made for a new dress and no party to go to?
Can I see?
I reach for the large yellow envelope filled with papers.
The woman in the photograph is an older version of me: Ana Ruiz-Canción born 25 December 1946.
I’m now nineteen years old?
The Original Certificate of Marriage hereby certifies that on the thirty-first of December, 1964, at the courthouse of Santo Domingo, Juan Ruiz and Ana Canción were married by an illegible signature.
Airline tickets: Pan Am, SDQ to JFK. 1 January 1965.
We are to arrive to New York City early early so the officers will be too tired to notice that I’m not the girl in the photo.
Teresa would call it bad luck to travel on the first day of the year, because it’s like entering a room without going through a door.
By the restaurant’s exit sign, I see some girls huddled over one another, whispering and giggling. Surely about me. My flaming pink dress feels brighter, more vulgar. The white lace barely covers my chest. Juan stares at the curled ribbons in my hair as if I am a present to be undone.
We drive to the hotel. Juan turns on the radio. I have nothing to say. My dress hikes up when I sit in the car. He looks and tries not to look. His fingers shift gears inches away from my thigh. He reeks of rum and cigarettes. The brown paper bag Mamá gave me sits on my lap. Along with the botella, she packed an extra pair of underwear, a fragrant bar of jabón de cuaba, and a lipstick.
Ask Juan for new clothes. It’s his duty. Men don’t know their heads from their feet. Demand. Demand. Demand, she said.
At a stoplight he caresses my cheek. I try not to cringe. I don’t want to disrespect. His hand drops on my lap like a dead rat.
You’re too skinny, he says, that’s got to change.
I cringe. He taps my nose and says, Don’t worry. I’m a good man.
Always worry when someone says don’t worry: my father’s words.
He stops at a gas station and gets out of the car.
A panic enters my body. Worse than the day Lenny threw up tapeworms and his face turned red because some were caught in his throat. I thought he would die in front of me. Worse than the panic that entered me when I last saw Gabriel at the school and he had to save me from myself.
I’m all alone with Juan. And now I belong to him. In less than an hour, I’ve lost four years of my life. Ana Canción was fifteen. Ana Ruiz is nineteen. I clamp my legs together, ankles crossed, hands woven shut.
I check to see if the car door is locked. Two men are leaning back on crates against the wall outside of the tire shop that is now officially closed. It’s dark outside. Beyond the dim streetlamp over the gas tanks there is just black. If I run I might be able to find my way back home. But Juan returns, locks my door, and flicks on the overhead light inside the car to get a better look at me. His mustache is a shadow over his lips.
You’re so damn beautiful. You kill me, you know that?
He drives through the dark roads. We see only as far as the headlights. And far beyond, lights appear like fireflies.
La Capital? I ask.
He points, a real tourist guide. The house of Columbus is right over there. Have you been, Ana?
I have never visited the capital or any other part of the country besides San Pedro de Macorís.
He spews out names: the Fortress of Colón, the Ozama Fort. The greatest capital in the world: Santo Domingo, the heart of America, where it all started.
His talking overwhelms me. The honking of cars, the festive nighttime atmosphere, as if all the city is inside of a disco. Everyone’s celebrating.
Do you want me to take you?
His proud voice pleads for adoration and gratitude. So I say nothing. Nothing at all.
Juan pulls into El Hotel Embajador’s parking lot. I stick my head out of the window to get a better look, my eyes and mouth wide open. The fountains shoot water into the air. Flocks of flamingoes gather and disperse. Fancy cars line up in the parking lot.
You like it? Juan beams.
I step out of the car and spin around, taking in the shiny sequined dresses. Men in fitted suits, their hair greased and slicked back like movie stars. The large chandeliers, the buffed marble floors, the high ceilings, the arranged flowers, the lit-up pool, the air-conditioning, the cloth-covered sofas, the hundreds of people chatting, clinking glasses, smoking.
At the check-in counter, Juan orders champagne.
Send it to the room, he says to the bellboy. Fourth floor. There he goes with his charming confidence. All the world is there to serve him.
I hesitate before stepping into the elevator. He grips my hand and I close my eyes.
You better get used to it. There’s an elevator in our building.
Our building? He lifts me up over his shoulder and laughs. I hesitantly kick open the door of our room, huge with a double bed. Large windows overlook the pool. The chill from the air conditioner wraps around my neck. I’ve never been inside a room so cold. I’m afraid to look at his face. It’s all too much. Too much.
Someone’s at the door. Champagne arrives. Juan pops the cork. I jump back when it shoots across the room. He hands me a glass.
Drink the first one fast, he says.
I don’t drink.
It’ll help relax you.
I gulp it like medicine. It goes straight to my head. I press my nose on the windowpane and look below. Women linger at the edge of the pool in string bikinis, men chase after them.
Come here. Juan lies on the bed. His shoes are already discarded on the floor. His blazer hangs on the chair. In minutes he’s made himself at home as if he stays in hotels all the time. I pretend not to hear him, not to see his reflection off the window. I lean on it, the cold glass on my cheek.
He walks over, stands behind me. He unzips my dress. I’m not wearing a bra. Mamá says bras are to hold something up. I stand still, my back to him. He unties the ribbons from my hair, one by one, and lets them fall down my back. The hair around my neck makes me feel more protected, less cold.
He combs through it, his fingers catching inside the knots. He places his palm on my back, his hands clammy from holding the champagne bottle.
He slips the dress off my shoulders and it gathers around my ankles. He tries to get a look at my face. I resist. He pulls me toward him. I stiffen further, my stomach hard and tight.
Please don’t, I want to say. Let’s wait.
I see him see me, my naked body reflected on the window. He steps back for a better look.
What’s so funny? I say.
Everything about you is so new.
He sticks his hands under my armpits.
So new. So soft.
He presses his bulge against my back. I cry. He turns me around so I face him.
I want to go home. Please.
This is your home. Me and you are a family now. Don’t you see?
The crying comes faster and harder. It can’t be true. I have a family. I have a home.
I want to go home, I repeat, my voice smaller, broken.
Your parents were the ones who called me so I could take you away.
