Read Online In the Name of Salome by Julia Álvarez - Free Book Online

his poem out loud, not telling him it was his, and he looked at me when I was done, and said, Not bad, Herminia, and I said, Not bad, Nísidas, and he said, Herminia, did I really write that? and I said, Nísidas you did not write that, and he said, I knew it, and I said, you did not write it but you recited it, and suddenly, which was not unusual when he had been drinking, my father began to sob, and I had to remind him of what he had often reminded me, tears are the ink of a poet. Do not waste them on crying.
    â€œI know, Herminia, I know,” Papá said. “And now, I won’t be wasting them anymore.” He held his flask upside down as if to water the garden, but it must have been empty, for only a few dark drops fell out. “I was born poeta. The other things were chance. But if you don’t do what you’re born to do, it destroys you. Come here, let me show you something.”
    He took me by the hand and led me through the house, past his two somber sisters in their dark dresses, rocking sadly in their rocking chairs, the black-veiled pictures on the wall, a votary candle burning by the portrait of his parents and his brother Lucas. So many of the people Papá loved had died that I could see why he would be feeling poorly about being alive.
    In the front parlor, Papá threw open the street shutters and pushed one of the rockers to one side. Spiders scurried away, and I saw the long, greasy tail of a rat as it dashed under the keepsake chest in a plume of dust. In their grief, the sisters had let the house go. There, scribbled on the wall in a child’s hand in black charcoal were faint words that were hard to make out. “What is it, Papá?” I asked.
    â€œYour father’s first poem—written when he was five years old!”
    Papá’s family had lived in this house from when we were still part of Spain the first time around. Even my great-grandfather’s birth cord was buried in the backyard. As for my father’s first poem, he told me the story. His grandmother, who was in fine health, had fallen sick suddenly one night after eating a guava pastel. The family sent for the famous Dr. Martínez, whose fame mostly derived from his having gone to school in Paris, a fact advertised on his shingle, Dr. Alfonso Martínez,
Paris Degree
, and in his numerous references to what the famous Bernard or the renowned Craveilhier had said about
le corps humain
.
    Dr. Martínez examined the patient and recommended a vomitivo, which the family prepared, and said he would be back tomorrow in the morning after the second bell at ten. That night Papá’s grandmother died. The next morning when Dr. Martínez arrived at the door, Papá’s family was in the bedroom, laying out the body. Dr. Martínez was led into the front parlor, where he found himself facing the young grandson, charcoal in hand, just putting the finishing touches on his first poem:
    Doctor Martínez
used his Paris degree
to kill my grandmother
with his expertise.
    â€œDid you get in trouble for writing on the wall?” I asked. I would have. Tía Ana would have smacked my hands the way she did her students’ hands when she caught them doing something naughty.
    Papá said he had not gotten punished, not at all. He had merely put into words what everyone else in the whole capital had been thinking. “Which is what a poet is supposed to do,” Papá said, eyeing me in that Ten Commandments way he had whengiving advice which I was meant to store away in the category of things my-father-once-said-which-I-will-never-forget. “A poet puts into words what everyone else is thinking and hasn’t the gumption or talent to say.” Then added unnecessarily, “Remember that.”
    I did remember it, but it was Papá who forgot. For as I learned to work my words better and better, I became more fearless, and Papá more fearful for me. Of course, no one knew. That