Carmen Boullosa - Leaving Tabasco

The doctor’s family preferred little loaves, almost the size of the buns with the sugared curlicue. The Vertizes, like the Ruizes, didn’t like loaves at all. For them they baked bread in the same shape as the buns with curlicues of sugar, but with two sharp points and the same size as our loaves.

All these special orders were set out on trays at the bakery, but with their destination unspecified. There was never any mixup; nobody ever took somebody else’s bread. Each family came by every day for its own order, and if they needed more they put in a request the previous evening.

Early one Sunday morning the phone rang. It was my uncle Gustavo. He told my grandmother that he would be coming to lunch that day. Grandma repeated everything he said, so that Dulce and I could know what he was telling her. He was bringing along his fiancée and her brother-in-law, to introduce them to us. China Jack, whom we’d met the previous year, was also coming. My uncle then asked Grandma to put me on the line.

“Delmira, my favorite niece, how are you?”

“Stop clowning, Uncle Gustavo. I’m your only niece.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite, my favorite little chick. I’ve a present for you and I’m bringing it over today. I can’t wait to give it to you. Want to see it?”

“Yes!”

“There! What does it look like?”

“How do I know?”

“What do you think it is?”

“A Barbie!”

“I’m not going to tell you. It’s a surprise.”

“Tell me!”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Hey, Gus, what are you doing awake so early?”

There was a burst of laughter at the other end of the phone. I remembered clearly that when he lived with us, before I started school, he used to wake up later than I did.

“I got up early because I can’t wait to bring you your present. Make yourself look pretty. I’m going to introduce you to a girl who — well, you never know, I could end up marrying. What do you think of that?”

“I think it’s horrible. You promised me you wouldn’t get married till after I did.”

“And who’s to say you won’t get married first?”

“I say so!”

There was more laughter.

“I’ll tell you a secret, but don’t breathe a word of it to anybody, Delmira. Your uncle Gus is a confirmed bachelor, a hopeless case where marriage is concerned. This girl I’m bringing today has some crazy idea of trapping your handsome uncle into marriage, but she’s not going to pull it off. I don’t want to be the bad guy, so I’m bringing her over so she can enjoy your grandmother’s cooking. She’ll eat like a queen. When she realizes I was pulling her leg, that I went out with her just to have somebody pretty to dance with and show off on my arm, she won’t be able to hate me, because at the bottom of her heart she’ll be grateful unto death for your grandma’s banquet. What do you say to that?”

“Sounds fine to me.”

“See you in a while.”

“Where are you?”

“In crummy old Villahermosa.”

“That’s quite a ways away.”

“Come on! You could have said that yesterday. We got here late last night from Mexico City after driving all day. Now we’re only six hours away. Ciao, bambina!”

He hung up. The household had already started up a whirl of activities in preparation for his visit. There would be no morning stroll for Dulce and me, even though it was Sunday. Grandma was sending her out to recruit more help.

“Bring back two of the cleanest girls you can find. Check out if Doña Luz’s niece, Chole, is still around. Tell her to come and help me. But fancy Gustavo deciding to come and visit on a Sunday! And without proper notice. Oh, the bread!” she shouted, and then added, “Oh my God, the bread! Hey, Delmira, run and order the bread. Make sure they listen to you. Order four big loaves. It doesn’t matter if it’s too much. Get going over there right now. And don’t come back without it. Go on, move it!”

The bells for seven o’clock Mass hadn’t started chiming yet. Mama was still fast asleep; it must have been around six-thirty. Grandma had already changed her slippers for some outdoor shoes and was carrying shopping bags in her hand.

“Get dressed and run over to the bakery, girl! If you have to pay extra for them, just pay it and don’t argue.”

She took off at speed, but I took my own time in going back to my bedroom. Without closing the door, I pulled my nightgown off over my head and then quickly wrapped my dress around me. Dulce had just finished fixing my hair, so I wouldn’t be going out disheveled. I washed my face and then heard Mama dragging her washbasin across the floor. I went to peep. Her door was shut, but in my imagination I saw her clearly just as if I were watching her — splashing water on her body in the way I’ve described to you and trying to catch it on her thighs and scoop it back up to retrace its path. I thought she would have the balcony door open and I was embarrassed to leave the house, but I recalled Grandma’s urgency and, indifferent to embarrassment, I stepped out into the street. The balcony door was shut. I breathed deeply. Firmly shut.

Without dawdling along the way, I soon got to the bakery. It still wasn’t open. I went around the side and knocked on the door there. Nobody answered. “Well,” I thought, “then I might as well go in.” I knocked on the door and I got the feeling that it wasn’t bolted, only shut to. It was a tiny door, sized for dwarves. So I went in, plunging into the semi-gloom. Luckily I halted, because one step ahead of me lay a sharp drop and a narrow stairway.

“You nearly had a nasty fall there,” I said aloud to myself. Then I added in a bold, singsong voice, “Hey-hey, halloooo! Anybody there?”

Nobody heard me. I listened to some noises coming up from below, something like a murmured conversation, but I couldn’t see anything beyond the first steps of the stairway. I went down, calling out to see if anybody would hear me before I got to the bottom. But still no answer. The basement was faintly lit by small, high windows, protected by bars, that gave onto the sidewalk. In front of the stairs was a sloping ramp that ended in another opening, considerably narrower than the tiny door upstairs. It led to a patio and a brick oven where the bread was baked. Through it poured a stream of heat and light. Off to the right everything was smothered in a cloud of dust.

Once again I called out. “My grandmother sent me to order four loaves of bread for today.”

“Who’s there?”

“Delmira. Delmira Ulloa.”

“How big do you want the loaves?”

I followed my ears toward the voice, since my eyes could not penetrate the cloud of flour, but once I’d entered the cloud things became apparent. The flour reflected the meager light of the basement like little mirrors, multiplying it. There, inside the cloud, everything was visible, although it seemed to be in slow motion and totally intangible.

I waved my hand in front of my face, but clearing some dust from my line of vision only returned me momentarily to the blinding darkness, until the cloud came back to my aid and suddenly I could see again. The fat man who’d asked me the questions was neither white nor Indian. His only ethnicity was flour. He was the first man of flour I’d ever seen. He was totally naked except for his white cotton underpants and an enormous handkerchief around his head, knotted behind, like the pirates illustrated in my books.

“Hey, you!” I said familiarly, because I wasn’t sure how to address him. “I don’t know how big the loaves should be. We pay two pesos a week for them.”

“I’m not talking about the price. I’m talking about the weight. What weight do you want?”

“About this size,” I replied, showing him with my hands the exact size I wanted.