Candlelight Bridge, page 38
“So, to teach them survival, you’ll banish them from their home and family?”
“Who said ‘banish’? I’m entrusting them to their Chinese home, their Chinese family. They’ll hardly be alone: seven brothers and sisters together.”
“Don’t you mean eight?”
“Guy is too young to go.”
“You’ll separate him from the others?!”
“I’ll entrust him to his mother.”
“While you punish his mother by taking away all her other children!” Though she refrained from shouting, her breath blew hot in his face. Not like Kei Lun, more like his mother, the only woman who ever scared him. Either way, he half-expected fire to consume him.
“I’ll miss them too,” he said. “But I want to give them a better life, a better education.”
“A Chinese education you mean. What value is that in America?”
“Already Americans don’t value them,” he said. “They need to learn who they are.”
“And who do you think they are?”
“They’re not only Mexican. They’re also Chinese.”
“They’re American,” she said.
“This country will never let them be American.”
“This country won’t let you or me be American. Someday they can be, if you let them.”
“I can’t afford to give them here what I can give them there. What if this Depression continues ten more years? What if we lose the restaurants? We have ten mouths to feed.”
“When I was a girl, we often had nothing except each other, yet my parents never broke up the family, not by choice. Don’t pretend this is about money or education. You tortured that animal to prove how powerful you are. Now you want to torture me for the same reason.”
“That’s not why… But maybe if you had taught our children respect—”
“—You mean maybe if I was Chinese!”
“Why must you always fight me? Even Grace was more obedient.”
“How dare you bring up Grace!” she hissed. “I’ve been faithful through all the womanizing, the drinking, the bootlegging. You preyed on my brother, ruined my sister, brought death to this house. Still I stood by you. And I know you tried to kill Hope…”
“I did no such thing!” He realized he was the only one shouting. He grew aware of the wakefulness of the house, his children listening. She was making him lose control, something he’d fought his whole life not to do. He turned away and took deep breaths till he was able to lower his voice. “If I had the courage, I would have killed her, to spare her the life of a bastard. But I couldn’t. Don’t talk about my daughter when you’re the one who sent her away.”
“To protect her from you! God, you don’t even know what you are, do you?”
“What am I?”
“The devil.”
He laughed. “Then you’re the devil’s bride!”
He strode up to her, hating her more than he would’ve thought possible moments ago, now that he felt the full force of her hatred. He panted loathing into her face, nose-to-nose, conscious of his morning breath, hoping to offend. She didn’t flinch. He pinched one baby-chewed nipple between his fingers. Her eyes held his. He slapped the breast aside. “I’ve decided. The children go to China. But if you’re so sure I’m the devil, so sure you’re a saint among mothers, I won’t stop you from going with them.” He folded his arms. Let her argue with that.
Her face went blank. “To China? Me?”
“Yes, you.” He couldn’t lose. If she stayed, she must accept defeat. If she left, he’d be free of this ungrateful bitch.
She searched his face, and he saw realization sink in, that he was serious. She swayed, reached for the bed, and sat down hard. So, this was where Rose got her dramatics. She clasped her hands behind her head, set her elbows on her knees, and hunched over to inhale deep breaths.
He knelt before her, uncertain. “Candelita, are you okay?” Had he gone too far?
“I go where my children go. I choose China.” She lifted her head but didn’t look at him. Stared inward with a serene smile as if contemplating a pleasant dream. Then she went too far. She rose, pushed past him, and reached again for the wardrobe—as if she’d…forgotten him.
He stood, grabbed her shoulder, and threw her on the bed. She made no protest as he stood over her, ready to thrust inside her, to remind her that, whatever she thought had just happened, he made the decisions. She looked up at him, but her eyes told him that, no matter what he heaped inside her, of pain or pleasure, her tranquility would remain. Her smile wavered, but only as if she were underwater, a creature drifting far below him, under the house, under the desert, deep in a hidden aquifer where he couldn’t reach.
He did not fall on top of her, but onto the bed next to her, turned his back, and pulled the covers to his chin. He pretended to fall asleep as he listened to her rise a final time, dress, and cross the house. Only opened his eyes again when he heard the soft click of the back door.
He’d wanted her to accept her place as his wife, not choose banishment. Yet she wasn’t choosing banishment either, which only worked if the banished feared their fate. Her smile had looked more than calm. Expectant. Could it be she preferred to live thousands of miles away, across desert and ocean, in a place where she knew no one and didn’t speak the language, rather than stay with him? Could it be she was eager to leave?
And if he remained alone in America, while every last member of his family lived in his homeland, then just who was he banishing?
44. The Leaving
1934 – El Paso, Texas
Her final weeks in El Paso, Candelaria woke the children the same way each Sunday, to ensure they’d never forget. To create this kitchen brujeria, she started her day early and alone: set her mother’s clay pot on the stove, filled it with water, and lit the burner. She lowered a sweet mahogany cone of piloncillo into the water, then plucked two cinnamon sticks from a jar and floated them on top. It smelled like Christmas, which to her would always smell like Mata Flores, the first home she ever knew.
While she waited for the water to heat and the piloncillo’s cane sugar crystals to dissolve, she ground the coffee, pushing the grinder’s handle round and round to churn the dark roasted beans to dust. These were the last days of her Mexican life.
In China, they would drink tea. She loved teas, their bright but subtle tang that evaporated on her tongue like the past and set her brain tapping like the future. But she would miss the lingering bittersweetness of coffee, especially café de olla from Mamá’s earthen pot, which anchored the body to the present and the soul to home.
She poured in the grounds and stirred, sending fingers of coffee, sugar, and cinnamon through the house to tickle her children awake. She then slid the pot off the burner, covered it, and turned to warm a saucepan of milk for the little ones.
Next came the bag of bolillos, which she tumbled into a towel-lined bowl, an El Paso addition to Mamá’s tradition. She loved dipping the little rolls into her brew till the bread softened and soaked up coffee like a sponge. Sponges grew in the ocean. Would traveling across an ocean make her soft like a sponge, ready to absorb new things? Or would brittle pieces of her break off and sink, like a bolillo stirred too long in a cup of coffee?
A wiry arm grabbed her waist, plump lips loudly kissed her cheek, and a man’s hand shot around her to grab a bolillo.
She slapped his hand before it captured his prize.
His laughter exploded in her ear. An echo of Yankee, except lighter, more open.
“Wait for the coffee, Benny!”
Her grown son gave her a sly grin as she handed him the cheesecloth. He stretched it over her aluminum coffee pot, and she poured coffee from the Mexican clay pot into the American-made metal one, trapping the grounds in the cloth. She used to ladle coffee straight from the clay into the cups, which tasted better, but the little ones complained about the dregs. This way, she was the only one who complained—she never got used to the taste of the metal.
Celia appeared, kissed her mother’s upturned cheek, then lifted the saucepan of warm milk from the stove while Benny lifted the metal coffee pot. She then followed her brother down the line of chipped clay mugs on the table, and in tandem they poured the café and leche: more leche for the youngest, more café for the middle kids, café nada más for the eldest.
“Will we have café de olla in China, Mamá?” Celia asked.
“I’m not sure we’ll have coffee at all.”
Tommy snuck up beside Candelaria and whispered, “Let’s take some with us.”
“I’m not sure that’s legal,” she whispered back.
“I could smuggle it in my luggage.” He poked out his tongue.
“Don’t use that word.”
Tommy had changed since the coyote, still soft-spoken and studious but full of sly ideas, as if the creature’s bite had imparted its trickster ways. Or as if he needed to prove something. Or maybe he’d been this way all along and she’d mistaken his quiet nature for a timidity he never possessed. He slid the bowl of rolls off the counter and set them on the table.
“Good morning, Mamá,” Rose and Julia said in unison, then pecked her cheek and went to the icebox to fetch the eggs. Rose fussed at her little sister not to break the yolks, and Julia accepted her bossiness without complaint.
Celia set two mugs of milky coffee next to the stove for the two younger girls to sip while they fried the eggs. Then she handed a mug of darker brew to Candelaria, who had switched to chopping nopalitos. Celia laid a gentle hand over her mother’s, stilling the blade, then eased it from her hand, which shook unaccountably. “Let us serve you today, Mamá.”
Vivi took Candelaria’s other hand and led her to the table, just in time for Guy to run in and hurl himself into her lap. “¡Mamá-Mamá-Mamá!”
“No need to shout. I’m right here. What do you want?”
“¡Da me un beso!” He pointed at his cheek, demanding a kiss, and she obeyed.
Tears blurred her vision. Why? She was going with her children, who were her life. Or were they? She was leaving a man she didn’t love. Or did she? She was leaving a place that wasn’t home. Or was it?
She soaked a bolillo in her coffee till it softened to the point of mush, handed it to Guy to suck on, and thought: Mama, that word, at least, would be the same in Chinese…except the accent would change to tones. She knew a few polite Chinese phrases: Nei hou maa? (How are you?), Do ze (Thank you), Sik zo faan mei aa? (Have you eaten?). But soon the only people she could have a real conversation with would be the ones in this kitchen.
Yankee had offered many times to teach her Chinese, but she never felt the need in El Paso, where most everyone spoke English, Spanish, or both. Maybe she should take him up on it. They still had a month before leaving. Then he would travel with them, which would give them another month. Plus the month he planned to help them settle in his hometown.
If only they could find a way to resume speaking to each other.
Maybe she should apologize. He was in the wrong, but what good did it do to insist on that? He’d never understand. Did the devil know he was bad? Probably not.
As if her thoughts called him, he flung open the front door, burst into the kitchen, and launched into rapid-fire Chinese. Mary followed but offered no translation and avoided everyone’s eyes. Mary always opened the café; something must’ve happened. As Yankee’s rant went on, Benny and Celia, the only two fluent in Chinese, jumped to their feet. Benny dropped his bolillo in his coffee with a splash.
Alarmed, she looked out the front door, which Mary had left wide open. The restaurant didn’t appear to be on fire. She gave Guy a comforting bounce in her lap, but it was unnecessary. He chewed his coffee-soaked roll with lip-smacking pleasure, unaware the mood had changed.
Tommy and Vivi sat with rolls dangling above their mugs in suspense.
Rose and Julia, curious what the fuss was about, turned their backs on the frying pan till the butter started to burn. “Oh no-no-no!” Rose shrieked, uselessly flapping her arms till Julia rescued the spitting pan with a clatter.
Candelaria reached over to the stove and turned off the burner. “Enough! Someone tell me what’s going on.”
Benny swallowed. “Sam didn’t show up this morning—at either restaurant.”
Celia pulled out her father’s chair at the other end of the table. He sank into it and stared at the lines on his palms.
“I don’t understand,” Candelaria said. “Is Sam sick?”
The ever-stoic Mary explained, “The safes are empty. There’s no sign of a break-in. He took everything.”
Her first hopeful thought spilled out before she could stop it, “So we won’t go to China after all?” She covered her mouth.
Everyone turned to Yankee. Nobody breathed. He picked up the closest mug, gulped a mouthful of coffee, spit it back—he hated milk. Only then did he answer, “It’s more important than ever that you go to China, all of you, because most of our money is gone. We can’t afford for you to stay. As it is, I might have to sell one of the restaurants. Mamá, it’s up to you to take the children to China without me.”
This was more dire than she could’ve guessed. She often asked him, Are you sure the money won’t be safer in a bank? Every time, he reminded her of what happened in ’29 to all those “suckers” who trusted banks. He told her to leave money matters to him, so she did. No use crying over it now. All she said was, “You mean, you won’t come and help us get settled? You’ll send me alone? To a country where I’ve never been?”
“You won’t be alone. Benny and Celia will be with you. They speak plenty of Chinese. Even Mary speaks a little. They took that one trip with me, remember? They’ll be a big help until you get to Bok Nan, where my brother will take care of you till I can send money.”
She was only thirty-six and he expected her to lean on her kids like an old lady? Benny and Celia stood tall and brave, but their eyes popped round and white, a startled cartoon cat and surprised cartoon mouse. They weren’t ready to lead this family. She must rise to the occasion.
Yankee would easily recover without her. He was the unofficial mayor of El Paso’s Chinatown, a man with connections. Meanwhile, free of his unpredictable demands, she would lead the children—into the unknown. Why not? She was a Rivera.
She lifted her chin. “I’m their mother. I don’t go with them, they go with me. I’ll hold this family together until you come for us.”
She knew her words might give her children the impression she believed Yankee would come for them. She knew it might give Yankee the impression she would miss him. So be it. Sometimes family is a fiction, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Benny and Celia walked to her end of the table, stood behind her chair facing Yankee, and each laid a hand on her shoulder.
Yankee rolled his neck like a prize fighter. “I made that fucker everything he is, and this is how he repays me?” His head jerked to a halt as if struck, and he doubled over laughing. “I made him everything he is!” he repeated as if it were a revelation. He looked her up and down, and smirked, “Now we’ll see what I’ve made of you.”
She smirked back. One thing she knew: whatever she became next, it would only be what she made of herself.
***
Candelaria loved the jingle bells above the door at the West Orient Grocery, the way they echoed the playfulness of the family who owned it. Raising four sons had pulled Marcela down from the sky and Estefan up from the earth, leaving the Wu family in a jolly place between. Despite the bells’ inescapable good cheer, Estefan didn’t look up and see her come in. He was too preoccupied with an anxious customer.
He was explaining to a wide-eyed young Mexican wife that soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil were key ingredients to transform Chinese dishes into domestic bliss. Now and then, Candelaria ran across other Mexican women married to Celestials, yet they were few and far between, so she considered introducing herself. Then she remembered she wasn’t staying in El Paso long enough to make new friends. She doubted she’d meet any Mexicans at all where she was headed. But she was braver now than last time she moved far from home, and she dared hope she might make a new friend in China.
She drifted away from Estefan and his customer, down a narrow aisle, where she found distraction in a charming, blue-flowered tin of Oolong tea. She felt at home amid the shop’s aromatic cloud of salty fish and sharp ginger. Life with Yankee made these smells as familiar as the cumin, chiles, and oregano of her mother’s kitchen. But, to her, the shop smelled of Marcela. Unlike her, Marcela was born with a foot in two worlds and moved between them with more ease. She felt a forgotten yearning: her old wish to be more like her friend.
Marcela often visited China with her father and, with her eye for opportunity, she’d turned her travels into a business. That’s what brought Candelaria here. Marcela continued to cultivate the trust of border patrol and customs agents, and those efforts helped her provide specialized travel services. The lion’s share of her business consisted of booking passage for Chinese men, who lived in Mexico but sought to sail home via the convenient port of San Francisco. U.S. Customs required them to be bonded and escorted, to ensure they didn’t disappear into America. Marcela provided those services too, often escorting them personally.
Candelaria hoped her friend’s unique skills as a travel agent would come in handy for a Mexican woman trying to get to China with her half-Chinese children. Yet her guts twisted in knots as she prowled the aisles, anxious she might be asking too big a favor, that time had unraveled the invisible ties that once wove them together.
The West Orient Grocery wasn’t far from the International Café, and the Wongs and Wus still saw each other often. As Candelaria had foreseen, she and Marcela easily forgave each other eight years ago—within days of their misunderstanding in the courtyard.
