Dominicana, page 8
But does he pay you?
Well, no, but—
Tell him you want a job. You need to make your own money. You can’t just stay home waiting. You learn English yet?
It’s not that easy.
Don’t forget to tell Juan to send us some money. Your father sprained his hand and the doctor’s bill set us back. Well, you know how it is. Every little bit helps.
Wait, Papá what? Is he there? Can I—
Send Yohnny and Lenny some clothes when someone heads here. And deodorant and toothpaste for me. Teresa can use a bra.
Aló? Aló?
Aló? Ana? Tell him … Aló?
Oh, how I miss home, but who can I tell in person without so much static?
I open Antonio’s pretty pink bag. Clearly a present for his wife. Or me? Why not me? Even a good man like Antonio has a dog’s tail. In the bag, a small red box, heart shaped with ruffled fabric. Inside, four pieces of chocolate, thimble shaped. I put an entire piece in my mouth. I don’t bite into it but hold it in my mouth, full and sweet.
I eat another chocolate thimble from the box. A burst of red cherry juice runs down my hand, onto my fingers. I suck them. My heart races. Tell him, tell him, Mamá says, as if it’s so easy to talk to Juan. Of course I want to work. To learn English and have a closet full of clothes. I wrap the last piece in foil paper and toss it far back in the freezer. Carefully, I flatten the box and put it inside the plastic bag, inside the cabinet under the sink, filled with things I’d found while cleaning. Women things that don’t belong to me. Like the makeup I try on and take off before Juan comes home.
Juan arrives late and skips dinner. He’s drunk, and from the way his eyes weigh down his face, it’s clear he’s had a bad day.
Come here, he says, pants already on the floor, shirt unbuttoned.
I stand behind a chair, by now skilled at keeping my distance, knowing just how long it takes him to give up and how long before he will fall asleep. When he reaches for me, I edge around the coffee table, hoping he’ll trip over himself. The last time I did that, I was the one to trip and bruise my leg.
But this time he manages to grab my hand and drags me into the bedroom. I know when not to fight, to allow things to happen so that time speeds up.
I sit on the bed, a pillow on my lap, legs crossed at my knees and ankles. I want to put the dinner away in the fridge before the roaches get to it.
Look at me.
But not even through my eyes will I allow him to enter.
I just wish he would say to me that I’m beautiful, whisper in my ear that I’m his only little bird and mean it. That he would cover the bed with flowers and look at me like a man in love, like Gabriel looked at me as if my curves were a riddle. I bite my bottom lip, hold back tears, and don’t look at Juan because if I look I will only see his large pores, thick dark facial hair poking out of his chin and nose.
I place my hands over his sour breath.
And he charges at me, spreads my legs apart, grabs and pulls my breasts.
I clamp, as if through sheer force I can break his manhood in half. The more I tighten my muscles around him, the harder he thrusts. The harder he thrusts, the easier it becomes for him to enter. My thighs shake, my blood rushes to my sex. I want to die. Finish me, finish me already! I gyrate my hips. A wave of warmth comes to my cheeks. My insides contract in such a way that I fear I have urinated all over him. I cover my eyes with embarrassment. I try to push him off, but his hips push harder and deeper against me. He grabs my legs and pulls them over his shoulders, and again waves ripple over me, this time harder, faster. My eyes—my core—well up.
Yes, he whispers in my ear. Just like that, ay, Caridad. Cum with me. Cum.
He caresses my back, my arms, my legs, and his touch generates a shiver up and around me. Sweat trickles from his forehead onto my face. He buries his head between the pillows. His fingers are tangled in my hair, gently tugging at me, intensifying the unexpected sense of satisfaction.
Caridad. I’m relieved to finally hear the name spoken so out in the open. She is the breath who calls our house, whose makeup I found and stored in the bathroom cabinet.
When Juan is finished, I wrap the bedsheets around myself, ashamed. The soreness between my legs throbs, hungers, hurts. He lies on his stomach, his naked body a sleeping boar’s. I stare at my reflection, at my flushed face, my hands still trembling. Something has happened to my body. Something inexplicable.
The day the breath stops calling, Juan asks César to join him to stand on line for a night shift at the Plaza Hotel, where Caridad now works. Yonkers Raceway shut down for a few days after the workers went on strike over wages.
César, although tired from his shift at the factory, can’t ever say no to Juan so he throws on an extra sweater and they head downtown.
Caridad will hook us up, Juan says.
The same woman who almost cut your dick off when she found out about Ana? César says and shakes his head at the other men in the line, fresh-off-the-plane men in too-short pants exposing their ankles.
Why did I let you talk me into this?
Remember when that was us? Juan says. Hungry motherfuckers.
Caridad exits the side door and sees Juan and César on the line and waves them in. The other men sneer at them, unaware that for years Juan has been warming Caridad’s bed.
I thought you guys were too good for the line, she says, now that you’re big men in New York.
I wanted to see you, Juan says into her ear.
César, tell your brother, I don’t mess with married men.
Can you believe her? She’s the one who’s married! Hypocrite.
Calm down, brother, maybe this was a bad idea.
Don’t say I didn’t try, Juan yells to Caridad, and walks away toward the rush-hour traffic and the droves of people getting out of work. The sky is already turning purple. The cold stings.
César can barely keep up with Juan, who is speeding down to the subway station, his face red, his teeth clenched. They ride the train in silence. Once they arrive to Washington Heights, Juan heads straight to the only gringo bar. It’s Juan’s type of bar, dark and quiet. Not like the Irish bar where fights break out, or like the black bar, where the music is too loud.
The bouncer at the door lets Juan inside but holds César back.
What the fuck, says César, pointing to Juan. Thas mi brotha.
Look, man, I don’t want trouble. The bouncer turns his back on César.
Brotha. Mi brotha! This is not the first time a gringo won’t let the darker-skinned César inside a bar. But this time, the bouncer also grabs Juan by the elbow and escorts him outside the bar.
Coño, carajo! Juan’s arms flail, searching for something to punch. He turns deep red like a TV cartoon whose head blows up, and just like that Juan punches César on the side of his face and knocks him out, on the sidewalk.
The stink of old urine, the weeds bursting through the cracks, the sting from the cut on his hand when César tries to break his fall. This he will not let Juan forget later.
People stare as if César had been the one looking for trouble.
Don’t you ever ask me for anything ever again! César yells out to Juan.
Finally, after two and a half months of living in Juan’s apartment, I’ve found a place for everything in our home. Even César has a designated corner for all his things. Although he hasn’t come around lately. Maybe he found some woman. Maybe he got into a fight with Juan. It would explain why Juan has been so quick to anger.
I brush my hair away from my face, tie it into a large bun, and start to clean. I pour water on the floor, scrub the wood with a sponge by hand. As I fill the bucket, I laugh at how Mamá used to give me trouble when I missed a spot. I scrub the floors, satisfied, lost in the scent of pine soap in water. When the doorbell rings, my heart jumps to my throat.
I need to get in to check a leak! the super yells through the door.
Under no circumstances, even if the super knocks, am I to open the door when Juan isn’t home. If it’s so important, they’ll come back.
The super rings again, this time pressing on the buzzer until my ears burn.
Maybe it’s an emergency. I crack open the door, with the chain still attached, and look. The super’s face, bright pink, full of red freckles, the same color of his hair. His pants, weighed down by his tool belt.
Miss, can I come in? We have a problem.
No problema.
Sí, problem. He urgently points to himself, then to the inside of the apartment.
I unlatch the chain.
On seeing the bucket, filled with soapy water, he picks it up and yells, in the same way he scolds his two granddaughters who run around the building on weekends.
No! No! No! Don’t do this! He shakes his head and lifts his hands in the air.
I’m not stupid, I say in Spanish. What’s wrong with cleaning the floor? Then I give him a piece of paper and I put a pen in his short, square-tipped fingers. Worker’s hands.
No water on floor. Water leaks downstairs.
Once the super is gone, I take the worn, black leather-bound Spanish-English dictionary from the shelf.
* * *
When Juan comes home from his many errands, I show him the super’s note.
I don’t mean to get us into trouble, but how am I supposed to get rid of the dirt? I have to use water.
Did he see the bucket?
Of course, I was cleaning when he walked in.
Goddammit. This is the hospital’s building. There are lists of people waiting to be tenants. Do you know what I had to do to get us on that list so we can live in a good building with decent people?
My mind races. No, I don’t know.
But I only opened the door thinking it was a real emergency. I don’t think he’ll give us trouble. He seems like a nice man.
What do you mean he’s a nice man?
The phone rings.
Leave it, he says.
What if it’s Mamá?
Ana, you people are driving me crazy.
The phone continues to ring. Mamá has to go a great distance to call, I say.
He grabs the phone away from me, then clutches a fistful of my hair and jerks my head back so I look into his eyes.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—
His fist is directed at my face. I cringe. His face turns beet red, and it’s as if he has been waiting all day to find something to hit, to hurt, to yell at. Instead, he flings me to the sofa. I slip from under him and jump on his back, and my fingers press on his eyeballs. Blinded, Juan swings his body around. I hold on like a tick. He trips over the coffee table, catches himself with his hands against the wall. I let go and run to the bathroom. But before I close the door he grabs me by the waist and carries me like a football, my legs kicking, my arms punching. He throws me on the bed.
Stay calm, a real woman knows how to manage a man, Mamá said.
Better to play dead than fight back.
Only a clever woman could make a man go from el burro to el subway.
A dutiful wife will be rewarded in time.
A well-placed rock in a river changes the current.
Juan grips my neck, his heavy weight over me making it even harder to breathe. No sound comes out of my mouth. I wish for the phone to ring again, for someone to knock on the door. My eyes blur, the room starts to spin, my body convulses, then nothing, a peace, an end.
I wake up to Juan slapping my face, calling me. His voice is distant, Ana, Ana. Then it booms into my ear, Ana, wake up. Please, wake up.
When I cough, when I open my eyes, he collapses on the bed and cries without stopping.
Go to hell! I cry with him.
After a few minutes, Juan disappears into the kitchen and serves himself his own dinner. Sits at the kitchen table, eats, smacking his lips after each bite. When he eats he shoves it in, past the tongue into the throat without even tasting.
What if I make a dramatic exit—arms open wide, one big leap out the window? How will he react then? Blame himself? Will Juan go to jail?
Then Juan washes his own dish and places it on the rack—his way of apologizing—but leaves all the pots uncovered. A bitter apology, if it is one.
The worst is over. Soon Juan will change his clothes to work at the raceway. In forty-five minutes his friend will give him a ride to Yonkers.
I go to wash socks. I scrub and scrub, not looking in the mirror, afraid to see whether Juan’s hand bruised my cheek.
Ana?
Juan appears at the door. He’s wearing the Mexican sombrero we hung up on the wall for decoration. Beyond pathetic.
Come here, pajarita.
His arms are raised, extended. His lips turn at the ends as if asking for forgiveness. In the softest of broken voices he sings:
Ese lunar que tienes,
cielito lindo
Junto a la boca,
I shake my head. A song won’t fix us. No matter how beautiful his voice.
Ay, ay, ay, ay, canta y no llores
Just go away. Go.
Cielito lindo los corazones
He inches toward me and presses my head against his chest.
I’ll come straight home tonight so we can be together.
He lifts my face and gently kisses my forehead.
After, I see that there are no marks on my face, nothing. Only a small cut on my bottom lip. Some redness around my neck.
The next day Juan comes home early from work. He finds me sitting quietly at the table.
I talked to the super, he says.
I look away. I’m not ready for him. Not yet.
You don’t have to worry, Ana. There isn’t much water damage, just a spot to cover on the ceiling downstairs.
One of my hands hugs the side of my bruised neck. I look out the window. It’s still light out. For the first time in a long time, the people who gather to speak about the dead politician are gone. Only the police remain. Every day, a woman in a red hat places fresh flowers at the entrance so people won’t forget what has happened to Mr. X. A lover? His wife, Betty? Mrs. X?
Ana X. I repeat in my head as Juan talks and talks.
The floors aren’t concrete like back home, Juan says. These floors are like a basket: you pour water and it goes right through. Understand me?
He clumsily pours a glass of whiskey for himself. Good. He hasn’t asked me to do it. Or about dinner. Good, because wife isn’t planning to serve him. Today, I don’t care if he throws me out the window.
Before you moved in, we had mice. Did you know that? They live between the floor and the walls. But you keep everything so nice, just like your mother said you would.
Juan taps on the floor with the heels of his shoes.
You hear that? It’s hollow. Every time we move, the man who lives below hears us. When I first came to New York, I couldn’t sleep because the people upstairs stampeded from one side of the apartment to the other. It drove me mad. So I searched and searched for a top floor.
Juan hands me a gift bag. When I don’t reach for it he takes out a small black box.
Open it.
I don’t want him to touch my hand, or my shoulder. Right then I decide I will leave him. If I stay he’ll kill me. Tomorrow, Juan won’t find me sitting at the table like a caged bird. At La Bodeguita I heard that a bus leaves daily from the terminal on 179th to JFK airport. Just twelve blocks away. Then a three-hour plane ride to Santo Domingo.
Your mother told me, You’ll never meet another girl like Ana. She’s got a heart the size of a watermelon. And you blushed. It was pitch-black out, but your cheeks—I saw they were red. Do you remember?
No, it had been too dark for Juan to even see the whites of my eyes, let alone the pink in my cheeks.
Juan laughs. He grabs my arm with unusual gentleness. He caresses my face. I focus on what I will take with me. The fifteen dollars inside the doll isn’t enough. There’s the envelope in Juan’s safe; he has yet to put Antonio’s money in the bank. I know the combination, which he’d given to me in case something happened to him.
From the moment I saw you, Ana, I knew you were the one for me. Open it!
I shake the black box and hear the clink inside. He takes the box and opens it. He holds up a pair of gold earrings with a translucent, tear-shaped stone: amber. I hold them. I decide to give them to Teresa, who dreams of princes on horses whisking her away to a castle but who has failed in Mamá’s eyes for choosing a man with her heart.
You love me, Ana? Juan asks.
I bite my tongue and tuck in my lips. I focus on the tear-shaped stones. I clamp my legs together. I wish him dead.
Tell me you’re happy with me.
My chest rips open, a fountain, tears soak through the sleeves of my sweater. My voice, an alarm, reaches far and wide. I want to go home, I say repeatedly. I wrap my arms around myself because I tremble like a boiling pot.
Goddammit! Juan slams his hands on the table, raises his fist to punch the wall, but holds himself back. He grabs his coat and stomps out, slamming the door behind him.
It’s already dark outside. The apartment dark too. I have yet to turn on the lamps. I finger the stones, unclasp the earrings and try them on. I shake my head, catching my reflection on the television screen, lit up by moonlight. On this last night in New York City, I will clean all the windows and mirrors, finish mending Juan’s shirts and ironing the rest of the clean laundry.
If I leave Juan and return home, this is the way Mamá will prepare for my arrival. On the table she’ll have laid out a plastic slipper, my father’s leather belt, a sack of uncooked rice, a ream from a tree, the fly swatter, and a wire hanger. Two buckets filled with water and a brand-new bar of soap. Everyone will attend my judgment. She’ll make me choose from instruments and I will refuse. She’ll spread the rice on the floor and say, Kneel. I’ll kneel without protest to keep her from getting angrier. Either way, she won’t get any satisfaction. I had the audacity to throw away all her hard work. I killed her hope. She’ll crucify me by making me lift buckets full of water while kneeling on a bed of rice. And I’ll withstand the burn in my muscles and the ache in my knees. I’ll reverse time and go back to the way things were before we even knew of the Ruiz brothers. My stony face will make her hit my back, my legs, my arms with a slipper, or belt, or hanger. And with each strike, she’ll get angrier at herself, make her fear she’s gone too far like the day Yohnny almost died from one of her beatings. She won’t let me die. She’ll just hit me enough for me to remember what she’s capable of. And after, Teresa and Yohnny will take me down from the cross and rub me with aloe and Tiger Balm and press packed ice where my skin swells and say how happy they are that I am home and ask if I’ve brought them anything from America. And through my fever, I will overhear neighbors say, Ana’s ugly for the photo; the girl should learn how actions have consequences. What a pity, and with such a bright future ahead of her in New York.
