Bilingual Press / Editorial Bilinge

LA tortillera
Author(s): Ibis Gmez-Vega
Source: Bilingual Review / La Revista Bilinge, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September - December 2000),
pp. 306-314
Published by: Bilingual Press / Editorial Bilinge
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25745724 .
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La tortillera
Ibis Gomez-Vega*

played through the loud music coming from the radio, but nothing could drown the
sound of our voices yelling through a ball game. La pelota was our game, played in the
middle of the streetwith car doors and distinctive torn sidewalk patches for bases. Home
base was usually somebody's handkerchief, if thewind wasn't blowing, and once I took off
my underwear in themiddle of the street sowe could play.
"It's not like there s something to see," El Gordo
said under his breath but loud
so
one
in
I
could
hear
him.
I
lifted
skirt
up my
enough
quick motion. Stunned, the boys
were. I didn't care.
the
like
little
giggled,
boys they
"You re too much," Berta Miriam
said, her favoritewords, which she never explained.
The boys didnt say much, but they spent the whole game trying to look up my skirt,
which wouldn't stay down anyway. Still, we had a game and a good one too. I hit a long
one that made Edilberto run two blocks up our street.
was
By the time he got back, I
on my undies,
one
to
for
of
about
them
any
say something stupid
my
waiting
standing
on my own underwear, but no one did.
standing
"jMarimacha!" my mother snarled every time she saw me hanging out with the boys,
but the girls didnt play pelota, so what choice did I have? Lucky forme, I could hit the
ball farther than most boys, and I was also good at catching. It didnt take the boys too

We

me on their teams,
to
we all knew each other
long
figure out theywanted
especially since
from birth. In San Antonio, where I grew up, boys and girls lived together but functioned
we lived
even
same schools,
separately,
though
only blocks from each other, went to the
and knew all the same people. Some of our cousins even married each other, although that
had not happened in my family yet, but people were beginning to whisper about my
cousin Laurita and Edilberto s sister,Elena, which iswhat started thiswhole mess in the
first place.
The guys and I played pelota around the block from my house, on Edilberto s street,
as far away from my parents as I could
possibly get without getting in trouble. I got in
so
went
if
I
trouble
far away that they couldn't find me, but I also got in trouble if I played
in
front
of
house where they could see me doing it.Actually catching me in the
my
pelota
act of
so I knew
corner from
them
made
playing
really angry,
enough to play around the
we
on
street.
in
street
house
Edilberto's
when
One
and
time,
my
my
played
papi caught
me, he started undoing his belt as soon as he turned the corner. I had just hit a long one
and El Gordo's boys were scrambling all over the street to catch the ball when I saw him
coming at me and acting as ifhe was going to kill me. I ran the bases, though, in spite of
him, and got by the catcher to score another run before running nonstop from home base
tomy house.

IbisGomez-Vega is the authorof a novel, SendMy RootsRain (AuntLute Press, 1991), aswell as

short stories
and

and

the literatures

on ethnic American
scholarly articles
of other ethnic groups at Northern

literature.

She

teaches

Latino/Latina

Illinois University.

306

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literature

307

La tortillera

"Tu padre es un comemierda," El Gordo told me. His real name was Armando, but
or El Gordo, because he was fat. El Gordo was still
everybody either called him 'Mando
we
that
couldn't
finish
the
angry
game. "That last run was a beauty," he reminded me.
so. The guys talked about it as if
said
theywould never see anything like it
Everybody
again, and they always ended the conversation by cursing my father out. He should have

justwatched, they said, like their own fatherswatched, instead of acting like a comemier
da, which iswhat they always called him, and even though they couldn't finish the game,
me. It was my comemierda father's fault, not mine, so that's
they didn't hold it against
when we moved the games to Edilberto s street.
I didn't mind their calling my father a comemierda, because I called him thatmyself.
He was angry most of the time, and half the time I had no idea why I was getting pun
ished. I did however mind El Gordo s sudden loyalty to me. Years ago, when we were all
little and I made it clear I would play with them and not the girls, El Gordo was the one
who complained themost, even afterEdilberto said he should cut it out. He called me a
marimacha, which was what my mother called me anyway, so what else was new, and I
didn't even know thenwhat thatmeant.

a bunch of idiots," Edilberto said.We were all

"They're all
nodding in agreement
when he added, "Look at Elenita," and we knew. Edilberto's sister,Elena, had lefthome,
run offwith my cousin, Laura, and now
were
disappeared. People
saying that she had
were.
nobody knew where they
"Se fueron pal Norte," I told them, which iswhat people were talking about doing
now that la revolucion had turned communist, and
everybody in San Antonio wanted to
as
as
as
was a com
out
if
of
Cuba
get
they hadn't known that Fidel
they could,
quickly
munist from day one.
That's the thing about Cubans that I just can t figure out. They complain about every
even when the
as some of
thing,
things they complained about in the firstplace get fixed,
them did when

el comandante Fidel Castro first started fixing up Batista's mess, like the
was
women"
"dirty
everybody
always complaining about. Fidel put them in schools to
teach them something so theywouldn't walk the streets, but then people complained that
he was putting his nose in everybody's business, and he made them even angrier when the
"family law" came out. That's when the whole country decided to move out, no matter
what, because Fidel was going to take the children away from their parents, which I did
n't thinkwas such a bad idea anyway, as long as I got sent somewhere where I could play
the boys without getting in trouble. Almost everybody's parents were in a
panic, though, because the law spelled things out for them.Men had to do their share of
thework in the home; if they didn't, theirwives could take them to court, and I could just
man to land in
imagine my father being the first Cuban
jail for refusal to put down the
pelota with

toilet seat or pick up his own mess.

the grown-ups argued about the new laws, the kids listened. Nothing they
While
said had anything to do with what the law really said, but in Cuba people never actually
hear what is being said. Mostly, they hear something like what is said, and then they

embellish itwith some nonsense of their own. By the time everybody got his or her own
version of the point in, the original point was something very different thanwhat it start
ed out to be, so it didn't make any difference thatwe all listened to Fidel's speeches and
talked about them. The street version of the speech iswhat most people really heard, and

that'swhat they really argued about while they complained about how they had been lied
to by "El Caballo," their favorite name for Fidel because he was so strong, like a horse,

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308

Ibis Gomez-Vega

and even when he posed during the speeches he looked like a horse, with his mane up
and resoplando.
The kids liked the horse name because it seemed a little disrespectful, except that peo
mean
disrespect by it.At first,right after the revolution when Fidel first
ple really didn't
we
out
looked up to him with pride and affection.We
liked the long
lives,
changed
even
we didnt know what thewords meant because Fidel,
the
half
time
speeches,
though
for all his army green and military boots, loved words. Some of thewords he used we had
never heard before.
During the arguments caused by the speeches, people always screamed
that Fidel was a communist because of the things he said and thewords he used to say
them, but they still listened, compelled by the words, which sounded so good most of
them couldn't believe them. Even the ones who hated him compared him toMarti, our
was a
we all lovedMarti, the sincere man from
poet-warrior, which
good thing because
even
ever heard Marti
non
the land of the palm trees,
though nobody
speak for hours,
like
Fidel
did.
stop,
For us kids, the speeches were either a nuisance or a reason to get out of the grown
we knew that
ups' way. Although
anybody who could speak for three hours without
even to get a drink had to be
we didnt like the idea of hav
stopping
something different,
our favorite television or radio shows
El
Caballo with yet another one
ing
pre-empted by
of his rambling speeches, which wouldn't have been any skin off our noses ifwe hadn't

to listen because everywhere we went we could hear his voice

thundering out
of the houses, through open windows. The whole country came to a stand still and
watched him on television or listened on the radio.
been made

the whole family got together, the parents and grandparents, mostly to
watched
Fidel on television and told us over and over to "shut up; why don't
complain, they
as if any one of us cared one whiff about El Caballo's words. Then, the arguments
you?"
would start as soon as he finished because everyone had his own version of the speech and
what itmeant, even though they had just heard him saying it.Nobody ever knew exacdy
Even when

what his words meant, but everybody agreed that they could only mean trouble, especially
when the argument switched to calculating what los americanos would do this time about
this particular speech, as if the americans could have anything to say about whatever Fidel
was
saying.They didn't, of course, but the general consensus was that los americanos would
attack Cuba before Castro could finishwriting his next speech and things would then
become something other than what theywere, which apparently were not good because
everybody was talking about getting out of the country before things got anyworse.
"You think they left?"Edilberto asked me, ready to believe me. I nodded. Once, at
Laurita's house, my Aunt Clara slapped her right in front of me, which scared me half to

death, but Laurita didn't even cry. She just turned around and headed for the bedroom,
where I found her later,plotting something, and she said one of these days shewould leave
that "hoya de grillos," which iswhat she called her parents' house, definitely not a
good
thing to say. I asked Laurita where shewould go.

haya caridad," she said, and I thought then, as I did until recently, that she
a
talking about woman, Caridad, because it's the same thing.As it turned out, shewas
a
talking about way of behaving she said Cubans knew nothing about. That's what I told
Edilberto the day after Elenita disappeared to calm him down. He was really
depressed,
"Donde

was

and I didn't know what to do for him when he got thatway. Edilberto blamed his parents,
who were too strict,but we had no idea what in theworld had
happened because nobody
ever told us kids
anything.

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309

La tortillera

Elenita and Laurita didn't say very much of anything, either,which made us all very
We were fed up with secrets by this point because everybody in the country seemed
angry.
to have plenty and we couldn't figure any of them out. Secrets had become a way of life in
Cuba since before the revolution when people were going around whispering because
nobody wanted to get caught by Batistas secret police and be made to talk. Itwas better
to know nothing, everybody said, even ifyou really did know
nothing. After the revolu
tion, the habit of whispering and keeping secrets got even worse because everybody was
afraid of the communists, afraid ofwhat could happen, even ifno one we knew had been
arrested.Most of us kids figured that the stories about arrestswere all made up, things the
grown ups said to keep us in line, and it probably worked because itwas getting harder
and harder to know anything, no matter how old we got and how much we thought we
knew. After Elenita and Laurita disappeared, we were all dumbfounded, shocked to find
that people could be erased, just like that, but the reason forwhatever happened went right
over our heads. One
day we just got up to find that shewasn't there, and her own moth
er said shewas dead.
"jTortillera!," my mother said when I asked her about Laurita, which only gave her
another excuse to scream at me, "y tu, procura no salirme asi, cabrona, hija 'e puta!" but it
meant nothing to me. The guys didnt know either.When
El Gordo heard the women
who were gossiping in his kitchen, he picked up the same word, "tortillera."When
he
us in the street that
we knew he had
day,
something to tell because he had that look
joined
he gets, as if he's about to burst, and everybody, Chucho, Tito, Cuco, Felito, his nasty
cousin Max, who put a cat in starch once and hung him up to dry until we finally found
him and beat the crap out of him, not the cat, and even his older sisterMiriam, who knew
even part of our group, rode our bikes all theway up the hill
reallywell and wasn't
to the Parque Central, huffing and puffing, just to be away from our parents sowe could
figure it out.

Elenita

a
as soon as we all
stopped.We had
"They said she's tortillera,"El Gordo volunteered
all heard theword, sowe let him have it.
"We know that, berraco," I told him because I knew he didn't like thatword.
"You don't have to get nasty," he said, almost hurt, which surprised me. El Gordo
said a berraco was a castrated bull, and he did sort of look like a bull when he turned red

with

anger.

"A tortilla is just an omelet, eggs with fried potatoes," Cuco explained.
"Some people like to put onions and even petits pois in their tortillas,"Max added as
if anybody cared. Ever since that thing with the cat we could barely tolerate him.
we didn't know what to do
Everybody knew Max would hurt you for the hell of it, and
with that kind of mean.
"I like mine simple, fried potatoes rolled in the eggs and cooked flat, on both sides,
likemy mother makes them," said El Gordo.
"I like itwhen the eggs drip," Cuco jumped in eagerly, and we could tell he was get
ting hungry.

to change the subject. Itwasn't time to eat

"Maybe I should ask Graciela," I said, just
or dinner could make us cry.The
yet, and we all knew that getting hungry before lunch
we hated about the revolution was that food disappeared. We couldn't just run
one
thing
all over town to find Chicho el Cojo pushing his beefsteak sandwich cart and leaning to
was rationed and bread
one of his
one side because
disap
legs worked right.Meat
only
cut
lost his
off
almost
because
the
every day, so Chicho
electricity got
peared, mostly

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Ibis Gomez-Vega

lost the one thingwe could stuffourselves with between meals. Lately,
had been walking around town talking to himself, and we went hungry until we
could rush home forwhat little our mothers could put on the table. Just thinking about a
steak sandwich was making my mouth water.
was the secretary at my
"jQue Graciela ni Graciela!" El Gordo exclaimed. Graciela
fathers company, and she knew everything. El Gordo was just jealous I had someone I
could talk to, but he didnt like that she favored me.
"Miriam has a girlfriend!"Max chanted. If he hadn't been Felito's cousin, we would
have dunk that boy in a pot of starch and hung him out to dry a long time ago.
a
"Everybody knows Miriam has girlfriend, four eyes," Edilberto told him. Edilberto
business and we

Chicho

didnt like him either.

"That's what makes her a tortillera too,"Max said, and I popped him one. Felito came
between us and sent his four-eyed cousin running in the opposite direction.
"Get away from us,"Miriam
told him, even thoughMax was her cousin.
so
"You're
stupid!"Max complained, but he said itwalking away. He couldn't take all

of us at one time, so he left,butMax was treacherous, the kind of guy who would jump
you when you least expected it and make you eat dirt or grass. I made a mental note to
keep my eyes open, just in case.
"You think that idiot is right?" Edilberto

with likinggirls?"

asked. "You think it has something to do

"I guess," I said. "That's what my mother sayswhen Nieves's daughter walks by."
"The fat one?" El Gordo asked. "She likeswomen too?"
one my mothers been
"Maybe," I told him, "but its the skinny
talking about."
"Elenita sleeps with women?" Edilberto asked, puzzled. "She never even played
we
pelota!" he said, amazed. El Gordo elbowed me, and
pushed and shoved each other
until everybody told us to quit that.We didnt know much, but itwas generally accepted
that there had to be some connection between playing pelota as a child and likingwomen
when you finally grew up, which iswhy my mother kept warning me I would grow up to
be just like Laurita, la tortillera, which wasn't such a bad thing because I really liked
Laurita and Elenita too, no matter what theywere.
"Fm going to look this up," Miriam volunteered. She was not as clever as my best
friend, Berta Miriam, but shewas pretty clever in her own right, sowe all sort ofwatched
asMiriam

leaned her bike against the bench and walked over to the library, across from
the park. "Come on!" she demanded, and I joined her.Miriam
could always get me to go
with her, but I didnt like the library anymore because my third-grade teacher worked
there now. She was my last love, before Graciela. I spent all third grade dreaming about
her piel canela and the scent of her body that smelled like nothing I had ever smelled
before, but I was very careful never to let on that I could smell her.
In the third grade, I learned that women have a personal scent.My teacher's scent
came from roses and
was the
on
powder and sweat, and it
only time I smelled it
anybody.
Itwas just hers, but if I closed my eyes and thought about it I could remember it,no mat

terwhere I was, and it

a
always brought big silly grin tomy face, the scent of Iris, that still
lingered inmy head. I loved her and the smell of her, but now that I was in Pre I was too
old for that.The only problem was that, every time I saw her, I melted all over again, and
here I was in search of a dictionary headed for the librarywhere sheworked.
"Maestra," I said as soon as I saw her. She was on her way out of the building, prob
ably going home to lunch. She smiled with her whole face when she saw us, winked. I

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La tortillera
smelled her, and I was in third grade all over again. The little butterflies who lived inmy
stomach fluttered, and the rhythm of theirwings charged through my body like a magic
wave ofwarmth thatmade my knees weak and the skin around my
lips tingle.
she said, hugging us. I was so embarrassed I couldn't speak. Just
"My twoMiriams,"
me blush, butMiriam was all business.
looking at her beautiful brown face made
"We came to look up a word," she said.
"jAy, que bueno!" La Maestra exclaimed. "Which one?" Miriam and I looked at each
other, but neither one of us knew if itwas safe to tell her.
"<:Una mala palabra?" La Maestra whispered conspiratorially, but we didn't know the
answer to that either.

"We don t know," I finally admitted. "We keep hearing people say it, and always in a
bad way, but we don't know what itmeans."
"Its probably a bad word," Miriam admitted.
reminded us, always the teacher.
"Words aren't bad," La Maestra
"But people almost spitwhen they say this,"Miriam explained.
continued. "Its not theword. Its theway people use it."
"That's just it,"La Maestra
We nodded agreement.
"This one must bring theworst out in them,"Miriam
said, and La Maestra kept look
us
as
were
us
at
to
if
she
tell
her.
"It's
'tortillera'."
ing
expecting
as if shewas
going to laugh but then
"jAy, chicas!" La Maestra exclaimed. She looked
she checked herself and just stood there looking very surprised.
Ves?" Miriam
stared at me as if somehow I had been responsible for this blunder.
"<;
La Maestra
examined her shoes for a while, took a deep breath, looked around the room
to figure out who heard us, and then she looked at both of us again.
"Lets go sit somewhere," she said as she slipped her arm over my shoulder.We point
ed at the guys who were stillwaiting, probably wondering why we were wasting our time
with La Maestra
instead of going in to check theword, and we walked in their direction.
La Maestra knew the guys because she had been our teacher in the third grade, and
it didn't matter thatwe were all now in high school. She was still our teacher, and I was
n't the only one who once had a crush on her. El Gordo, who always liked the same women
I liked, even cried at night for her. I knew because Felito told me, which he wasn't sup
one day.
posed to, but I got it out of him after I punched him out
our
names
one
one. She never called
out
she
called
"Edilberto, Armando, Felito,"
by
us
our nicknames. In class, when she called out Federico's name, we all looked at each
by
other.We didn't even know thatwas his name, even though we must have heard the teach
ers call him by his real name all these years.We just called him "Pico," because of his nose,
which was big, like some bird's pico.
said. She
"Miriam and Miriam
tellme you're trying to define a word," La Maestra
had thiswicked smile I remembered from days when she passed out quizzes. The boys
looked at the ground, kicked dirt, looked away. I told her about Elenita, but I was begin
a little bit like a traitor because I was
all over again, and
liking La Maestra
ning to feel
here I was

supposed

to be in love with Graciela.

said and walked around the bikes to sit on the bench.

"Las desaparecidas," La Maestra
Little strings, like in a harp, were getting pulled inmy stomach, and I was falling in love
all over again.
"Las chismosas andan diciendo que Elenita es una tortillera,"Edilberto explained. His
were
filled with tears, but theywere just staying there, inside, almost about to fall but
eyes

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312

Ibis Gomez-Vega

not falling. People inCuba always say that boys don't cry, somost of them do their best not
to cry,even when you beat them, so I had never seen Edilberto cry. "<;Que quere decir eso?"
was before, and she had on
La Maestra
thought about it. She wasn't smiling, like she
her bad news face, as ifwe had all flunked something. "The way they say it," she said soft
that some
ly,choosing her words carefully, "it sounds awful."We agreed. I told La Maestra
even
seen
it
it.
them
do
when
Nieves's
I knew because I had
spitwhen they said
people
daughter walked by.
"Her name isNieves too; you know."We didn't know. She justwalked across the street
from my house every day, to visit her mother, who never talked to anybody, but nobody
ever talked toNieves's daughter. La Maestra knew her, but she probably knew everybody
because she worked in the library and she used to help her father behind the counter in
his pharmacy, and here I was getting all distracted in my very own daydream thinking
about La Maestra years ago standing behind the counter with her trencitas and her short
skirtwhen Edilberto s tears popped out of his eyes.My daydream came to a screeching
halt because El Gordo couldn't stop staring at him, as ifhe had just seen something trag
ic, something really awful.
"But you cant let the sound of thatword make your mind up for you," La Maestra
said. "Mira Edilberto," she said. "You know your sister, <;don'tyou?"
"Claro," Edilberto nodded and blew his nose on home base.
"So how can you think anything bad about her?"
"I dont," Edilberto whispered. He was about to cry again. "I just want to know what
itmeans."

"

not before she looked around to make

'Tortillera'," La Maestra
explained, but
that nobody else could hear her, "is just a word people use to define women who

sure
love

women."

"Like 'pato'," El Gordo suggested, andMiriam pushed him so hard he almost fell off
his bike.
"
'Pato' is used formen," La Maestra
told him, "but its used for the same reason. If
you think about it, these are not bad words. A tortilla is nothing more than eggs with
potatoes."

"And green peas," El Gordo added. La Maestra

smiled at El Gordo, and he froze
because he still had it bad for her. His little eyes were about to pop out of his face.

"Some people like it like that," she said, "but the point is that theword has nothing
to do with what these people do. They're just in love with someone of the same sex.The
words, 'tortillera,' pato,' even 'maricon,' dont make these people bad."
said. "That's what they really are." La Maestra
"Lovers," Miriam
just looked at her
and smiled.Miriam was older thanwe were, so she knew a few things.
"What am I supposed to think?" Edilberto asked, tears rolling down his cheek even
though he tried to hold them in.
"Think about your sister, estupido," Miriam

with all of us.

told him. She was clearly losing patience

"You know her," La Maestra

told him. "You shouldn't let other people's gossip make
you think less of her."
took his hands in hers, drew
"My mother says she's dead," he whispered. La Maestra
him to her. El Gordo froze. He was probably hoping he could be in Edilberto's shoes
because nobody ever held El Gordo's hands like that, but La Maestra
just drew Edilberto
to her and
nose
him
hard.
When
she
let
him
his
off her breasts, I
get
hugged
finally

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La tortillera
thought El Gordo would pass out. Edilberto's face was looking like thewater works were
about to break out again, so El Gordo put his big butt on the seat and started riding
around us with his eyes to the ground as ifhe were checking the street for potholes, which
everyone knew they had. He didn't even have to say, let's go, butMiriam did.
"Come on," she said, "or we'll get in trouble," and the whole bunch of us sort of
little by little like one big human flower losing its petals
slipped away from La Maestra
one

at a time.

La Maestra wiped the tears from her eyes as shewatched the kids ride away in silence.
Itwas getting harder and harder to stop crying, and she didn't even know why. Elenita had
been her student, just like Edilberto, El Gordo, and the other kids were, and she was the
kind of teacher who stuck her nose in all her students' business to see what she could do
about it.Most of the time, their problems could be solved with a kind word, a push in the
never got from their parents,
they got from
right direction. The kind of thing her students
her, even as she screamed at them for not memorizing their assignments or wasting her
time with the god-awful screeching they offered instead of music, but the students still
came to her because their parents were either too busy or too unconcerned about their
children's lives to be the least bit acquainted with their fears. In her many years of teach
a sort of advisor who nurtured with kindness even as she
ing, this had become her role,
to
screamed
get their attention. Elenita's troubles, however, had frustrated her deepest
instinct to get involved, to fix her students' lives as she fixed their lousy sense of rhythm

or their
on themusic theywere
inability to concentrate
playing.
Elenita had been one of her best students, a pianist with an exquisite sense of timing
and the passion to match, and maybe itwas her passion that should be blamed for the
mess she found herself in because, once Elenita fell in love,
nothing could keep her from
tried telling her that she should keep it quiet, keep
thewoman she wanted. La Maestra
her love and, most of all, the name of her lover to herself until she could move away,maybe

schools were. La Maestra never for a second doubted that

even travel
and
scholarships
play with the best musicians, and maybe
now
no
most
that
the
revolution
kind
that
could
the
of
abroad,
longer expect
thing
people
and the chaos that followed had changed everything. Elenita, however, couldn't check her
toHabana

where the best music

Elenita would win

was the kind of girl who lived

told herself
passion. She
big and openly, and La Maestra
that she was either very foolish or very innocent.
"No tiene malicia," La Maestra whispered to herself now that she thought about her
student, and she couldn't help but smile. Elenita didn't know enough to lie, to hide her
love for a woman in her most secret place. Instead, she rushed home filled with passion,
a hairbrush and wailed loudly
glowing with love, and told her mother, who beat her with
in customary fashion tomourn her daughter's behavior. The neighborhood women heard
themother screaming, wailing, and joined in.Even women who didn't know the ungrate
ful daughter joined in, though theywere simply passing through the neighborhood on
theirway to themeat market where themeat rations were sold. They gathered in the liv
room and over-flowed into the sidewalk, where they stood and commented, an
ing
ill-intentioned Greek chorus, on how quickly the country's moral fiber was unraveling,
disintegrating before their very eyes since the revolution.
now that she was
"So much for keeping it quiet," La Maestra
thought to herself
to think about
over
even
not
been
able
she
had
it
all
about
really
again,
though
thinking
to Elenita and whoever the girlwas. La Maestra
would
do
of
what
it
else
because
anything
knew from having seen itbefore that, once Elenita's mother calmed down, shewould sim

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314

Ibis Gomez-Vega

nor
ply deal with her daughter's decision with silence. She would neither acknowledge it
sure
rest
her
Elenita
lived
it
but
the
of
she
would
make
for
about
life,
that,
again,
speak
with the shame of her silence, just likeNieves had done and so many others. She would
n't care about the misery that this kind of treatment created. Once the silence began, it
would go on forever, to spite her. Even ifElenita could find a way to live at home and
squeeze a love life out of stolen moments, shewould always be miserable. Her mother and
the people around her would see to that, and these days the housing shortage would keep
a
own. Even she, as old as shewas now and with
people like her from getting home of her
a
at
home.
of
her
still
lived
own,
job
"What was that girl thinking?" she wondered, but she also had to smile at the girls
courage. Elenita shocked the Cuban Greek chorus and her own mother when she told
them that they could not run her life.La Maestra heard from one of her friends' mother
that Elenita didn't even shed a tear but packed instead what little she could carry and got
on the bus with another
one said where
were
going, but she told them
girl. Neither
they
shewas headed forwhatever the end of the bus linewould be. Clearly, neither themoth
an outcome. Itwas
er nor the
women had
gossiping, curious
expected such
simply unheard
a
of that girl would just pack up and leave.
"Look at Nieves's daughter," they said to each other, which was exactly the problem

as Elenita saw it. She had spent the better part of her life
own aware
strugglingwith her
come to recognize
ness ofwhat itmeant to be Nieves's daughter,
after
she
had
especially
that Nieves's crime was no different from her own. She too had fallen in love with a
but the wagging tongues had won, beaten her into submission; she walked
a marked woman whom
no one
town
through
everybody pitied and whispered about, but
even addressed
name. Elenita
out
her
her
directly by
surprised her often when she called
name on the street and walked beside her on her way to her mother's home. Nieves never

woman,

to say as shewalked, head down, wrapped in a sweater and herself. Elenita told
herself then that shewould never end up an outcast. She would leave first, even if itmeant
that she must turn her back on her family.
on the bus and follow
When Elenita left,La Maestra
thought that she too should get
her to see what she could do, but lacking a home of her own with which to offer shelter,
La Maestra waited, torn. If she could only say, "mi casa es tu casa," like her father had said
so many times to his friends, she could have
perhaps kept Elenita from leaving until she
had much

could have offered safety, something most kids lacked; instead,

Elenita left, and La Maestra knew that her brilliant student would have very few choices
wherever shewent. Even inHabana,
if that'swhere the bus took her, Elenita would need
finished

school. She

a
place to live, job, something to live for.
"She has love," La Maestra
reminded herself as she covered her eyes with her spread
hands. "Itwould have to do."
a

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