Read Online The Moths and Other Stories by Helena María Viramontes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Helena María Viramontes
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seed then, she could not give him something she had not yet created. This drove Tomás crazy and I would tell her, tell her, âIt is evil to make him suffer,â and your mother would say, âI canât help it if heloves me.â He asked me to watch over your mother, that Tomás.
âJesús mÃo, but it gets cold in here. My body begins to freeze at the feet and by morning I am a snow cone. Thank you for the blanket, Martita. Now where wasâ¦oh. Many weeks pass. One late nightâdid I tell you that we shared a bed, your mother and I? Well, one late night I hear tapping on the window. I think itâs Tomás coming to get her and I act as if nothing awakes me. Your mother slips out from between the sheets like a snake shedding its skin. She opens the window and they exchange whispers. It is a man all right, but not Tomás.
âGod have mercy on my soul, child, but you are a good Martita who must know the truth or else youâll never be at peace and this is why I hope I am not wrong in telling you.
âThe man waited outside while your mother felt around the dark room for her robe. I burst out in loud whispers asking her where she is going and who is that man. âIâll return,â is all she answers. After a long while I am awakened by a cold weight smelling of soft dirt and grass. It was her, breathing as if she had run for miles. Tomás returned about three months after, and I, though years paint coats of vagueness on memories, will never forget the look on Tomásâ face when your mother greeted him on the porch with a small belly. They got married a few days later.
âDo you hear the crickets? Our mother warned us against killing crickets because they are the souls of condemned people. Do you hear their wailing, Martita? They conduct the mass of the dead only at night. You will say a rosary with me tonight, wonât you?â
The Cariboo Cafe
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The Cariboo Cafe
I
They arrived in the secrecy of night, as displaced people often do, stopping over for a week, a month, eventually staying a lifetime. The plan was simple. Mother would work, too, until they saved enough to move into a finer future where the toilet was oneâs own and the children neednât be frightened. In the meantime, they played in the back alleys, among the broken glass, wise to the ways of the streets. Rule one: never talk to strangers, not even the neighbor who paced up and down the hallways talking to himself. Rule two: the police, or âpolieâ as Sonyaâs popi pronounced the word, was La Migra in disguise and thus should always be avoided. Rule three: keep your key with you at all timesâthe four walls of the apartment were the only protection against the streets until Popi returned home.
Sonya considered her key a guardian saint and she wore it around her neck as such until this afternoon. Gone was the string with the big knot. Gone was the key. She hadnât noticed its disappearance until she picked up Macky from Mrs. Avilaâs house and walked home. She remembered playing with it as Amá walked her to school. But lunch break came, and Lalo wrestled her down so that he could see her underwear, and it probably fell somewhere between the iron rings and sandbox. Sitting on the front steps of the apartment building, she considered how to explain the missing key without having to reveal what Lalo had seen, for she wasnât quite sure which offense carried the worse penalty.
She watched people piling in and spilling out of the buses, watched an old man asleep on the bus bench across the street. He resembled a crumbled ball of paper, huddled up in the security of a tattered coat. She became aware of theirmutual loneliness and she rested her head against her knees, blackened by the soot of the playground asphalt.
The old man eventually awoke, yawned like a lionâs roar, unfolded his limbs and staggered to the alley where he urinated between two trash
âJesús mÃo, but it gets cold in here. My body begins to freeze at the feet and by morning I am a snow cone. Thank you for the blanket, Martita. Now where wasâ¦oh. Many weeks pass. One late nightâdid I tell you that we shared a bed, your mother and I? Well, one late night I hear tapping on the window. I think itâs Tomás coming to get her and I act as if nothing awakes me. Your mother slips out from between the sheets like a snake shedding its skin. She opens the window and they exchange whispers. It is a man all right, but not Tomás.
âGod have mercy on my soul, child, but you are a good Martita who must know the truth or else youâll never be at peace and this is why I hope I am not wrong in telling you.
âThe man waited outside while your mother felt around the dark room for her robe. I burst out in loud whispers asking her where she is going and who is that man. âIâll return,â is all she answers. After a long while I am awakened by a cold weight smelling of soft dirt and grass. It was her, breathing as if she had run for miles. Tomás returned about three months after, and I, though years paint coats of vagueness on memories, will never forget the look on Tomásâ face when your mother greeted him on the porch with a small belly. They got married a few days later.
âDo you hear the crickets? Our mother warned us against killing crickets because they are the souls of condemned people. Do you hear their wailing, Martita? They conduct the mass of the dead only at night. You will say a rosary with me tonight, wonât you?â
The Cariboo Cafe
Â
The Cariboo Cafe
I
They arrived in the secrecy of night, as displaced people often do, stopping over for a week, a month, eventually staying a lifetime. The plan was simple. Mother would work, too, until they saved enough to move into a finer future where the toilet was oneâs own and the children neednât be frightened. In the meantime, they played in the back alleys, among the broken glass, wise to the ways of the streets. Rule one: never talk to strangers, not even the neighbor who paced up and down the hallways talking to himself. Rule two: the police, or âpolieâ as Sonyaâs popi pronounced the word, was La Migra in disguise and thus should always be avoided. Rule three: keep your key with you at all timesâthe four walls of the apartment were the only protection against the streets until Popi returned home.
Sonya considered her key a guardian saint and she wore it around her neck as such until this afternoon. Gone was the string with the big knot. Gone was the key. She hadnât noticed its disappearance until she picked up Macky from Mrs. Avilaâs house and walked home. She remembered playing with it as Amá walked her to school. But lunch break came, and Lalo wrestled her down so that he could see her underwear, and it probably fell somewhere between the iron rings and sandbox. Sitting on the front steps of the apartment building, she considered how to explain the missing key without having to reveal what Lalo had seen, for she wasnât quite sure which offense carried the worse penalty.
She watched people piling in and spilling out of the buses, watched an old man asleep on the bus bench across the street. He resembled a crumbled ball of paper, huddled up in the security of a tattered coat. She became aware of theirmutual loneliness and she rested her head against her knees, blackened by the soot of the playground asphalt.
The old man eventually awoke, yawned like a lionâs roar, unfolded his limbs and staggered to the alley where he urinated between two trash
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