Guadalupe Nettel - Natural Histories - Stories

My aunt Claudine took me by the hand and led me to what would be my room, from then on. It was a tiny room on the roof terrace between the maid’s room where Isabel and Clemencia lived and the staircase leading down to the kitchen. In a hushed tone my aunt apologized for putting me in such an inhospitable place, but my coming had been a surprise and there were no free rooms in the house. I didn’t think it was so bad. I’d always been an observant child and I recognized the advantages of living in a structured house. It was the first time I had my own room, as space in my parents’ studio was divided only by folding screens and paper curtains. When she left me alone, I locked the door and drew the curtains. I moved my bed and took my clothing out of the suitcase and arranged it in the dresser drawers, as if moving in. While helping me pack, my mother had assured me that I would only stay at my aunt and uncle’s a little while, and so it didn’t make sense for me to bring all my belongings. “Maybe your father and I will reconcile,” I remember her saying, stammering like she always did. Still, I preferred to deal with this change as something definitive. That afternoon my cousins, a bit older than me, came up to say hi with a suspicious show of brotherliness I didn’t see again for months, and then went back to their respective activities until dinnertime. It was January, but no longer cold. In my memory, that weekend is like a peaceful haven. It surprised me that there existed a place where the only sounds of arguing voices came from soap operas, drifting out of the windows of the maid’s room.

I barely knew my aunt Claudine, and her husband even less. She was exactly what my mom called a “traditional woman,” that is, a lady, who didn’t wear jeans or hippie skirts or smoke marijuana or listen to music with English lyrics. She didn’t care about world order but she did about domestic order and her private club’s social events. Looking at her, I couldn’t help but be surprised by how different she was from my mom, who, in the words of my dad, was incapable of accomplishing more than one task per day, like grocery shopping and organizing her papers, who always burned the casserole, left the sheets in the washer to mold, and the keys in the door. In short, a disaster. But an incredibly tender disaster to which I was of course deeply attached. The few family reunions I’m able to remember always took place at Aunt Claudine’s house. According to Mom, they didn’t want to come to our studio because it disgusted them. When I came to their home my aunt and uncle received me with a mix of pity about the situation with my parents and apprehension about the way in which I’d been raised.

My aunt was a practical woman, and to make her life easier decided to have me switch schools that year. Instead of continuing to go to the elementary school in my neighborhood, I’d go to the American School with my cousins. My new school, like my new life, was divided into levels. The majority of the blond students, such as my cousins, studied in the American section of the school. I went to the dingier, Mexican part of the school where they spoke Spanish, whose classrooms were located not on the roof terrace but on the first floor — that is, in the darkest part of the building. Every morning on the school bus my cousins would sit in the back seat and kill time by picking on my classmates.

It’s true what my aunt Claudine told my father over the phone a few months later; I made no attempt to integrate. I could have contributed more to family conversations and gone more often to the Sunday cookouts attended by the other relatives who were also my own; I could have asked to join the club where the boys spent Saturday mornings. I could have made a friend, not of both of my cousins, but at least of one of them. Could have bothered to figure out which was the less unfriendly of the two. Instead, I remained almost always a recluse in my room, my eyes fixed on the cracks in the ceiling and my ears alert to the gossip the maid would tell her mother about her employers.

My room, halfway between the servant caste and the family members, perfectly represented my place in that realm. Though it was never said out loud, at dinnertime I could sense a general disapproval of my table manners. My aunt was always criticizing my cousins, the younger one especially, for talking with their mouths full and having their elbows on the table. To me, however, she didn’t say a word, and that only increased the animosity I felt from them. It was the main reason I began eating at different times. When I got home from school I’d go up to my room to do my homework and go down to the kitchen just as Isabel was about to put the leftovers in the fridge. I’d also wait until the dining room was empty before coming down, even though sometimes it wasn’t so easy resisting the aromas of food wafting up to the terrace. When they had all gone, I’d turn on the lights and make myself a sandwich and drink the hot chocolate Isabel would leave by the stove for me. I ate alone, like a ghost whose life unfolds alongside the living but is uninterrupted by them. I liked the silence and stillness of those moments. Now and again, as I slurped down my chocolate, I would find some trace of Isabel — a grocery list, a pamphlet from the Evangelical church, a soap opera digest. It was funny to see the papers, the girl’s clumsy handwriting, her orthographic indecision. After eating I’d wash my plate and utensils and go up to the maid’s bathroom which Isabel and her mother would leave full of steam and smelling of Nivea cream.

On Saturdays, while my cousins played tennis at the club, I’d go to the La Merced market with Isabel to do the shopping for the week. We’d take the bus that stopped a few blocks from the house and then another that took us down Vértiz Avenue. The market at La Merced was far more interesting than the little grocery on the same street as my parents’ studio, where I used to shop. What I most enjoyed about those outings with Isabel was riding the bus through the city and the characters who rode with us. People of every age and social class, all bumping around and into one another. Also different kinds of beggars, from crippled children to housewives with a venerable air about them. One time I even got to see a clown commit armed robbery; he threatened the driver while we all put our money into his accomplice’s bag. Isabel also liked doing the shopping. As soon as she left the house her spirits would lift and she’d talk with me about the things we saw. She’d haggle with the vendors with that same effective cheerfulness.

Of all the lives lived in that house, Clemencia’s was undoubtedly the most guarded. More so even than mine. She spoke to no one, avoided the members of the family, and if by chance she ran into one of my cousins on the back staircase, she wouldn’t say a word to him. Only at night could she be heard whispering with her daughter in their room. There were times, though, especially if she saw that I was sad or anxious, pacing the terrace as was my custom, when she’d offer me one of the cigarettes she smoked, unbeknownst to Isabel, a few feet away from the gas tanks. I never accepted but would remain by her side while she smoked. The smell of her unfiltered Delicados reminded me of my parents’ studio.

I don’t know if it was Isabel’s exquisite seasoning, the abundance of goodies in the kitchen, or that the sporadic snacking just wasn’t enough for me, but at my aunt’s house I became a food fanatic. It wasn’t only once in a while that I’d leave my room to get food, but several times a night I’d go down for a Coke, a packet of cookies, a yogurt with fruit. It didn’t matter how late it was. I remember perfectly how free I felt, to be moving about that house unseen, unheard, and I suspect that from those days came my habit of walking flush to the wall that I mentioned earlier.