Candlelight Bridge, page 23
Only one thing mattered now. “Mamá, if I die, please take care of my baby.”
“Mija, you won’t die. I had Miguel when I was only two years older than you are now, and I lived to have four more.”
Four more? She unleashed a wail that surely reached beyond Segundo Barrio to cross the border. In response, her mother hummed a lullaby in time with the rocking of the rebozo across her middle. Mamá’s shawl had held all her children at one time or another, and now it carried Candelaria again—across the desert, through the red door, to the dirt floor of the home they’d left behind, where she hid from the pain for a time.
Upon returning to her body, she said, “Where’s Yankee?”
“I sent him away. Men are no good at a time like this.”
She had a good idea where he was: at Mr. Yee’s with his putas. She didn’t tell Mamá.
She never accused him of unfaithfulness. She had tried to catch him in a lie, by expressing doubts in herself, “Soon you won’t want me anymore, now that I’m big and fat.”
He’d pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her, tapping long fingers atop her belly like a drum. “You’re more beautiful than ever, round with our son”—he was certain it was a son. “Haven’t I shown you again and again?”
It was true, the larger she grew, the more attentive he grew: bringing flowers, pressing lips to her belly to tell stories to the baby, cooking to fulfill her cravings for odd combinations like Chinese tea and Mexican capirotada. He laughed when she put sugar in green tea. She laughed when he added candied ginger to bread pudding. They laughed together. Their lovemaking gave her more pleasure than she’d hoped. Often, she ached for it, even when he came home from Mr. Yee’s sweating sour whiskey and sweet perfume.
Sam obliged himself to tell her every time Yankee went to that brothel, shaking his head at his friend’s ill judgment, acting as if he expected gratitude for the information. She was only thankful her husband didn’t perform entire sex acts in front of his chatty friend.
Yankee often had his way with her before he went to Mr. Yee’s, as if to mark his territory before leaving, often doing things that shamed her. He sometimes put his pito in places on her body where it didn’t belong. One time he insisted she treat him like a baby, rocking him and calling him mijo while he suckled her breasts. How could he do such ungodly things to her and still come home smelling like the musk of others? Was this natural?
She alternately feared and hoped to discover they weren’t really husband and wife since a justice of the peace had married them, not a priest. In the six months after that, Yankee became both hero and villain, surprising her with acts of tenderness followed by pure meanness. He abandoned her to hours of silence so lonely that his bellowing afterward came as a relief. He accused her of being lazy, her parents of eating all their money, her six-year-old sister of having no common sense. Candelaria once chuckled at his Spanish and he charged at her, snarling, teeth bared, hands like claws. When she screamed, he rolled his eyes, “Don’t be silly, I’m only teasing.” He said she was too sensitive because her parents spoiled her. Did they?
Or did she marry a bad man? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Too late now.
He declared he planted his son in her that first night, as if this proved his virility, and promised to father many more. He never beat her, thank God, but he might kill her yet with his appetite. If not this time, then the next. How many times could she survive this?
The next pain mounted till she screamed, “Please, God, let me faint!”
God ignored her.
The baby held fast. She understood how it felt: not wanting to leave home. But what if it suffocated? “Mamá, if you must, call a doctor to cut the baby out. I don’t care what happens to me.” The moment she said it, she knew she didn’t mean it. It seemed unfair a stranger she’d never met might survive at her expense.
“Your baby will be fine,” Mamá said. “You’ve only been pushing for five hours.”
Seemed like fifty.
Mamá reached into the bowl for the wet cloth, wrung it out, and laid it across her forehead. The ice melted, the water turned lukewarm, but it didn’t matter. Only the movement mattered: her mother’s hands withdrawing and returning, driving away death, calling forth life.
An hour later, The Queen of Heaven ripped her in two with her hairpin, blood poured from the gash, and The Stranger emerged, a gory sacrifice. Her mother scrubbed him with fresh steaming rags, declaring, “Cleanliness is the luxury of the poor.” He disagreed, bawling so loudly it was clear he inherited Yankee’s lungs. Mamá wrapped the infant in a blue blanket with hand-stitched bees—a gift from Isabel and Benito—and placed him in her arms.
She gazed into his big black eyes while her mother soothed her changuito where he’d torn her open, patting it with a wet poultice of leaves, herbs, and red caliche.
She looked down at the muddy concoction in alarm. “Isn’t that dirty, Mamá?”
“No. Humans and animals carry disease, but our mother, the earth, is a healer.”
“I thought Mary was our mother.”
“Sí, claro. But before she gave birth to our Lord, Mother Earth gave birth to her.”
“Isn’t that blasphemy?”
“Pfft! Blasphemy is for men, who don’t carry life inside them. What do you think ‘dust to dust’ means? But let’s keep that between us—and your daughters when you have them.”
“Must I do this again?”
“Unless your husband loses interest. But his hunger’s too big for that, don’t you think?”
She snorted. “How do you know?”
“I’m your mother. Also, every morning you walk the way your father did when he was breaking horses.”
She chuckled, stopping when she felt her skin split again.
Her mother touched her arm. “Careful. You need rest.” She cupped The Stranger’s tiny head. “I’ll tell this one’s father the same, or he’ll answer to me—I don’t care if he says it’s not my business. He’s kind to help us, but he doesn’t own us.”
Did Mamá only say that because she feared the opposite was true? Had he used this baby to buy them all?
For now, they were free, two women with nothing to excuse or explain. Together they taught The Stranger to suck her nipple and laughed when the greedy boy refused to let go. He tugged at something deeper in her than her husband ever did, though he looked twice as foreign.
“Isn’t he different from any baby you’ve seen?” she said.
“It’s true. I’ve never seen anyone like him.”
“Is he ugly or beautiful, do you think?”
Mamá tilted her head. “It’s hard to tell when they first come out. Their heads always look like mashed fruit. But beautiful, I think.”
“Will looking unusual be good luck or bad?”
“Good, I’m sure. This child is two in one. His face will open the door to a new world.”
“Or close the door to an old one.”
“No importa,” Mamá shrugged. “There’s no going back now.”
True. Candelaria often imagined returning to Mata Flores, but when she pictured walking up to their old casita, she was a giantess who no longer fit through the tiny door.
***
She couldn’t believe Mamá had left her nine-month-old son with Papá so she could midwife Candelaria through ten hours of labor—though in the early stages he did run Salvador crying down the street for Mamá to feed. Already Candelaria couldn’t imagine being parted from her little Stranger for one minute. She grew impatient waiting for Mamá to fetch the others to the bungalow to meet him.
The tiny bedroom felt crowded with the addition of Papá, Grace, and tiny Tío Salvador, yet a hole opened inside her. Not everyone was here. She blinked away tears, lifted The Stranger and said, “Look what I made, Papá.”
He took one look at her son, then his eyes sought hers and, in one swift wink, told her she remained his little girl. She was glad. Someone should hold onto her childhood.
“Can I hold him?” Grace asked.
Papá directed her to first sit in the oak rocker (a gift from Marcela and her husband, a young Chinese merchant in Juárez). Then he tucked the baby in her arms. “Careful with his head!”
“I know how, Papá!” Grace insisted, indignant.
He hovered over her, forehead wrinkled, studying the baby’s face. “He looks like Lalo.”
As if those words summoned him, her little brother appeared after all. All his old pranks gleamed in The Stranger’s eyes. Her mother was holding tiny Tío Salvador but leaned down to press her nose to The Stranger’s head, inhaling his newborn scent, like a stream after fresh rain. She suspected Mamá thought not only of Lalo but also Miguel. A chill shook Candelaria. What if her son grew up and ran away? What if he were killed? How had Mamá survived such horrors?
Her father laid a finger in The Stranger’s palm, and the baby gripped it as he sang:
Naranja dulce, limón partido.
Da me un abrazo que yo te pido.
Sweet orange, sliced lemon too.
Give me the hug I ask of you.
Lalo used to love that silly rhyme.
“Look!” Grace said. “He’s making sour lips. He wants a lemon.”
Her family’s laughter multiplied against the close walls and ceiling. Whenever Lalo was around, everybody laughed. If she named the baby Lalo, maybe she could keep this laughter close. But her husband wouldn’t like it. Lalo was short for Eduardo, her father’s name, and Yankee made it clear: she belonged to him now.
***
Candelaria woke to the familiar fumble, shove, and rattle of the front door, tight on one side, loose on the other, no matter how often Yankee and Papá planed, sanded, and argued over it. Yankee teetered into the bedroom, lit by the sepia sunrise that snuck past the shades he bought at The Popular. He’d rejected Mamá’s homemade curtains, sewn from discarded pink tutus she found behind a dance studio: “No. Our home will look like a whorehouse.” Now his gaze fell on Mamá dozing in the rocker, one hand on the baby’s cradle, also from The Popular.
His sway told her he was drunk. She wanted to warn him not to wake the baby, but he’d grown fond of yelling, Don’t tell me what to do! Her chest tightened as he grinned at her, finger to lips, and rocked the cradle, jostling both The Stranger and her mother awake.
The Stranger’s cries were impressive.
Mamá gave Yankee a grudging smile. “Your son says, ‘Good morning.’”
He reached into the cradle and lifted The Stranger, whose tiny cries cut through her. She pushed herself up, ready to jump to her feet and snatch the baby away before Yankee dropped him. To her surprise, he put a protective hand under the infant’s head and cuddled him to his chest, as tender as Papá with his own babies. She fell back onto the bed, scolding herself for overreacting. The Stranger continued to cry, till Yankee’s voice exploded:
“I knew I would have a son!”
The Stranger’s wide-open mouth snapped shut, stunned to silence.
“You would have a son?” Mamá folded her arms. “Who do you th—”
Candelaria cut her off, “Proud new baba, did you also know what you would name your son?”
“Bing Sam,” he blurted as if he’d spent his many hours at Mr. Yee’s making this decision.
“What does it mean?” Mamá sounded genuinely curious.
He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to tell her. Then he said. “Bing Sam means something like shining forest. But, for me, it’s just the name of my…brother from China who passed away.”
Mamá nodded understanding. But, although Candelaria sympathized with honoring a lost brother, she didn’t want to erase the blessing her mother had bestowed when she predicted this baby wouldn’t be rejected as different but accepted as something new. A true American.
She said, “Will you also give our son an American name, for luck in America?”
“I don’t believe in luck. A man makes his own luck.”
“But your American name—Yankee—it has made you friends, no?”
He pushed out his lower lip. “True. And these Americans will never pronounce his name right. So, Wong Bing Sam, what is your American name?”
Yankee gazed into his son’s eyes, while she studied his. How different he was from the first Chinese man she’d met. Benito’s voice could be as big and commanding as her husband’s. But where Yankee unsettled people with unpredictable moods that swung from charm to bluster, Benito relaxed those around him with the easy ebb and flow of his humor and strength.
She knew the name she wanted, but she pretended to deliberate: “Bing Sam, Bing Sam…Ben Sam? Ben? What about Ben?”
“Yes, very American… Or Benny! That’s how Americans do it.”
“Ben-nee, like Yan-kee! Perfect.” She gave him her brightest smile.
“Welcome to America, Benny!” Yankee declared.
Mamá gave her a tender look, a look that recalled not only their dear friend but also the last time their family was whole: the journey across the desert to Benito’s home, before the border. Tears threatened, prompting her to turn from her mother to her husband. He was chuckling into his son’s solemn face, his own face boyish with wonder.
Yankee never spoke of his mother, who must love him, as any mother loved a son. Unless she was bad, like La Llorona, the ghost who drowned her children in sorrow and revenge. This possibility roused in her an instinct to protect her husband. If she could always remember him as he was at this moment, face filled with both fatherly adoration and boyish innocence, maybe she could fall in love with him yet. She was only fifteen. Surely it wasn’t too late.
26. Partners
1914 - El Paso, Texas
“Gon bui!” Yankee shouted. He and Estefan Wu raised their small white cups, slammed them into the table, and tossed baak zau into open mouths. They downed the clear liquid in one gulp, rolled their shoulders, and roared, as if this weren’t a toast but a contest to impress their young tea-sipping wives. Waa, how rice wine opened the sinuses!
He pressed a hot cheek to the wall’s cool white tiles, trying to keep his café from tilting, He must maintain control. This after-hours dinner with Candelaria’s friends was turning into more than a casual visit.
Yankee’s new restaurant on South Oregon Street straddled a world neither here nor there: shiny white tiles to convince white customers his place was clean, red-and-gold decor to remind Chinese customers of home, and hand-painted salt and pepper shakers Candelaria had bought at the mercado—to please Mexican customers while maintaining his Chinese color scheme.
“You see?” she’d said. “Little red chiles and gold corns!”
He called it the International Café.
Tonight, it smelled the part. The chow mein he’d made for the day’s customers now collided with the chicken mole he made for their after-hours guests: his wife’s half-Chinese/half-Mexican friend, Marcela, and her Chinese husband, who went by the improbable name of Estefan. Though they mostly looked Chinese, the couple from Juárez mostly spoke Spanish. He didn’t mind. His Spanish was improving, and he felt smart for choosing a wife who spoke a language so useful in his new world.
At first, Estefan’s self-important lecture on the import business made Yankee want to join the ancestors. “Salt is the key to make Overseas Chinese feel like they never left home: salty dried fish, salty dried plums, salty-sweet lychee…” He alternately chopped the air with one hand and trapped Marcela’s hand with the other, slapping it for emphasis every time he bragged about his troubles (endless paperwork, unreliable employees, bribes), smoothing her fingers whenever he confided the rewards (helping his fellow Chinese, shameless markups, bribes).
At first, Marcela hung on his words, portrait of an adoring wife, dabbing her mouth with a napkin in a way that suggested hidden appetites. Yet her eyes followed Candelaria’s every move as the younger girl popped up and down to heat tortillas, serve seconds, clear dishes, pour tea, wipe spills. A warm current flowed between the two girls, leaving the men in the cold. Estefan didn’t seem to notice, just played quacking duck to his wife’s floating swan, tittering at his own jokes, forcing Yankee to laugh in self-defense, until…
Marcela gave a sudden, single clap, startling him out of a daze. “Candelita, your dinner was more delicious than anything my mother makes!”
Both women grinned as if this were a private joke. Candelaria’s grin revealed two dimples on one side, none on the other. He’d never noticed this imperfection before. Why? Did she reserve the extra dimple for Marcela? “I can’t take credit for dinner. Yankee made it.”
Marcela turned to him, eyes round and shiny as new pennies. “Pollo en mole? But you make it better than a Mexican!”
He bobbed his head in humility. “Candelaria taught me. Our son gives her no rest, so I often cook. But she made the tortillas, an art I’ll never master.”
“If you pay your wife any more compliments, I’ll suspect you don’t like her.” She winked at Candelaria.
Was she mocking him?
Estefan railed on about his business problems: “It’s hard to find partners in America. Chinese customers on your side of the border are eager for our products, but Americans make it hard for new Chinese business to enter the country.”
Yankee grew wary, sure the man was about to ask for money.
Instead, Marcela chose that moment to announce her father recently opened a new Juárez hotel for wealthy travelers—American, European, and Mexican. “He also specializes in Chinese travelers who wish to keep their travels secret.”
Yankee sighed loudly at the illogical change of subject, convinced women should never try to talk business.
She failed to pick up the hint. “It’s not safe for Chinese travelers to show their faces in Chihuahua, not with Pancho Villa as governor.”
Estefan shook his head. “It’s not safe for any of us.”
