The Memories of Ana Calderón (13 page)

Everyone in the barrio knew that Ana was staying at the home of Doña Hiroko Ogawa; everyone except Rodolfo. It was a neighborhood secret because no one doubted that he would fulfill his promise to kill her if ever he found her. So a network developed to shelter Ana while she convalesced.

No one seemed interested or concerned to know the identity of the child's father. What mattered, they said, was Ana's welfare, and afterwards that of the baby. Neighborhood people got together, putting out feelers to see where she could get a job and also where they could get a small place for her to live in. Doña Hiroko had already offered her home for that purpose, but everyone agreed that it was too close to the Calderón house.

Ana also worried about her future. As she regained her strength she thought most of the day and many times into the night about what she would do with her life. She went through a long period of confusion. This was followed by a depression that was so dense and so heavy that she was sure that her sadness would never disappear. She missed her sisters, but she especially thought of César. Her last recollection of him was seeing his body flying through the air and crashing against a wall.

Her thoughts of Octavio were disjointed and contradictory. At one moment she hated him for having abandoned her; at another she felt that perhaps she wasn't good enough for
him after all. Most times, Ana would lose herself in memories of the hill where she and Octavio had loved one another, and where everything had been golden and sweet smelling. These recollections would vanish, however, when she remembered his nervous evasions, his childish ways with Alejandra, and how he had hinted that there was something between them. Ana admitted that she was especially confused and devastated by his refusal to admit that he was the father of her child, even when he saw that Rodolfo had intended to kill her.

Most of the times Ana told herself that she hated Octavio, that she detested him for having betrayed her, and that never again would she want to be in his presence. This attitude seemed to strengthen her because, she told herself, it was the truth.

As Doña Hiroko prepared broths and aromatic rice for her nourishment, Ana's body healed and her thoughts began to find order. It was at that time that the note came. César, who missed Ana more than anyone else, disobeyed his father's command that none of them was ever to speak to Ana, even if they knew where she was.

One day, the boy slithered out the back door of his house, climbed over the chain-link fence, and dashed across the alley to the other side of Floral Drive. He ran up the back stairs of Doña Hiroko's house and rapped on the door. When she opened it she knew immediately who the boy was.

“Come in, César.”

“Gracias, Doña Hiroko. Can I see my sister? Please?”

“Yes. I'll get her for you. Sit there, please.”

César smiled at the woman's strange accent, but understanding every word, he did as she had asked. It took only a few seconds before the bedroom door was flung open and Ana emerged. She and César embraced, and she rubbed his head and his cheeks, making sure that it was really her brother and not her imagination. As she left the room, Doña Hiroko told them to sit down and to talk for as long as they wanted.

Ana was surprised that she felt so much joy. She had thought the bitterness that had flooded her insides during the past weeks would never leave her, and that when she would again see any of her family, she would reject them, hate them. She discovered, however, that it was only happiness that she was feeling as she looked at her brother's face.

They talked, he in his little boy way, she as a young
woman. Ana evaded asking about her father or about Alejandra. She asked only for her other sisters. When César answered all her questions, he said, “Ana, aren't you going to ask me about Tavo?”

She was jerked out of her happy feelings, and she felt afraid and nervous. “Why should I ask about him?”

“Because he's been very sad since…'Apá…since that terrible morning.”

When Ana sank into a long silence, the boy pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “He sends this to you, Ana. He wants you to read it and send him a note with me tonight.”

Ana took the paper in her hands, holding it as if it had been a poisonous snake. She seemed afraid of it, or of what was written on it. “Why didn't he bring it here himself, César?”

“I don't know. I think…well, I think he thinks you're mad at him.”

After a few minutes, she asked her brother to leave, explaining that she would read the note later. When César objected that he was supposed to bring her note with him, she calmed him down by telling him to return again the next night. The boy hesitated, thinking of the dangers involved, but he agreed.

When César left, Ana went to bed without reading the note. She tucked it still folded in a tight, small square under her pillow. But she wasn't able to sleep. It was as if the paper were burning through the pillow, singeing her hair, her scalp and her brains. After a few hours of glaring at the ceiling, she turned over and lit the small lamp by her bed. She pulled out the note and read it.

“Ana, please let me come to see you. I still love you, and I want you to love me. Tavo.”

The tight, child-like scribbling seemed to have leaped from the crumpled paper and into Ana's heart. She felt as if the room were spinning and that, had she not been lying down, she would have fallen. Her balance was gone and so was the evenness of her breathing. Her heart began to palpitate and she felt the blood in her head pounding, trying to break the veins that contained it.

When César returned the following night, Ana told him she was not ready to write the expected note, but that she wanted him to come as often as he could. Her brother visited
Ana almost every night. He didn't seem to mind the danger of his father finding out that he had disobeyed him. The boy's only worry was that Rodolfo might find out where Ana was staying. He also reminded her, almost every time he came, that Octavio was waiting for a response.

After a few days passed, Ana decided to respond to Octavio, but not by way of a note. She asked César to tell him to come and see her face to face because she had convinced herself that once that happened, all would be over between them. When Doña Hiroko opened the door the next night, Octavio stood in the doorway.

Ana did not feel nervous or agitated. On the contrary, she felt a calmness she had not experienced since she had discovered that she was attracted to Octavio. He, on the other hand, looked sheepish, contrite and nervous. Before he was invited to sit, he compulsively put his hands in and out of his pockets, and he shuffled unsteadily from one foot to the other. He seemed tongue-tied, unable to speak, and when they were alone, they were wrapped in a stiff silence.

He finally spoke, “Ana…forgive…”

She didn't allow him to finish. The expression on her face silenced him, and he couldn't go on with what he was saying. Ana remained quiet, so he tried again. “I was a coward, but I couldn't help it! Honest to God, he'd kill me if he knew…”

Octavio began to cry, but despite this, Ana still did not talk to him.

“Ana, please tell me what to do. I'll do anything you tell me. Look here,” he pulled a paper from his pocket and he unfolded it. “Look, do you know what this is? It's a license to get married. Yes! That's what it is! I went downtown yesterday and got it. Please, look at it!
Sí, sí!
Now all we have to do is go to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and have the priest marry us. After that we can go on with our lives as if this nightmare had never happened!”

Words were spilling from Octavio's mouth as if they had been liquid. He slurred them, cutting some of them off so that one ran into the other. When he finally sensed that Ana was believing him, he began to gain confidence in what he was saying. As he saw joy welling up in her eyes, Octavio knew that this was what she wanted to hear.

To his surprise, however, Ana turned away from him. “What about 'Apá? Did he just all of a sudden disappear?
Didn't you say a few moments ago that he would kill you if he knew? What about that, Tavo? What about the baby? You haven't said a word about that, have you?”

“All right!…Okay…I did say that…I mean about your father. And about the baby…well…it's hard for me to even think of that…because…” He ran out of words and sat with his head cupped in his hands. After a few moments, he recuperated, raising his face to Ana. He said, “But what about this paper? Doesn't it say anything to you? Ana, if I didn't mean to marry you, I wouldn't have bothered to get this license. It's just as good as any promise. Look! If your father doesn't want to accept us, well then, we'll just have to live without him. I mean it, Ana. Please, believe me!”

Octavio's words began to persuade Ana even though her mind couldn't explain his sudden change. A few minutes before, he had been racked with fear and insecurity; he was crying as if he had been a little boy. Now he had changed, she told herself, right before her eyes. On the other hand, there was the license, and this said a lot to her.

Ana agreed that she would marry him, and they decided that it would be that Saturday. Octavio promised to make the necessary arrangements at the church. She was in the fifth month of her pregnancy, and when she went to bed that night, she fell off to sleep almost immediately, knowing that by the following week her life would be normal again.

On the following evening, César brought me a note from Octavio explaining that he didn't want 'Apá to find out about our plans, and so he thought it would be better for him not to visit me. He said that Father Gutiérrez would marry us the following Saturday. He ended the note asking me to meet him in the church at four o'clock.

I was confused because I found it hard to understand why we needed to keep our plans a secret. I had expected that we would go up to my father and tell him about ourselves and our baby. When I spoke to César, just to see if he knew anything, I found out that Octavio had not said a word to anyone.

Still, I made myself wait for Saturday.

Ana spent the rest of the week thinking about her and Octavio's plans, but she couldn't get rid of a lingering sense of apprehension. She nevertheless decided to put her doubts aside and meet him as his note had asked. When Ana told Doña Hiroko that she was to be married, she thought she detected uncertainty mirrored in her face. But it was only momentary because then she smiled and said that it was good. She would, she told Ana, give her a new dress for the occasion, and she and her sons would invite them for dinner Saturday night to celebrate.

On Saturday Ana still wrestled with questions as to why Octavio would not come to accompany her to the church. Instead, he had asked her to go alone. She again repressed her doubts and dressed. Doña Hiroko told her that she was beautiful and that she would lend her one of her shawls with which to cover her head. When she offered one of her sons to keep her company on the short walk to the church, Ana explained that she preferred to be alone.

She arrived at the front steps of the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe a few minutes before four o'clock. When she entered the vestibule, it was dark, but she saw that the lights on the altar were lit. As she walked up the center aisle, the shallow echo of her footsteps bounced on the high vaulted ceiling and her eyes caught the rays of the sun coming through the brilliantly colored glass windows. She looked at the stations of the cross, and for a few seconds her eyes lingered on the figures of a mob jeering at Christ.

Ana went up to the altar rail. No one was there. She sat on the front pew and waited. The altar and its railing reminded her of the Shrine of Guadalupe, but she forced the image out of her mind by looking around her. Her eyes wandered restlessly as she looked at the white cloth on the altar and the tall candles, which were lit. She looked over to the side and saw the reflection of the chandeliers on the wine and water cruets. The book from which the gospel would be read was on the podium, and the missal was on the altar. As she listened to the ticking of the large clock in the choir loft, her concentration was suddenly interrupted by a hand tapping her shoulder. She flinched involuntarily as she looked up. It
was the priest.