Knitting the Fog Read online

  I stood outside their bedroom window, plotting away. The bedroom had two windows. There was an old wooden table between the windows, against the wall. I pushed the wooden table underneath one of the windows and climbed on top of it. Then I began jumping up and down trying to reach the window. As I jumped higher, I chanted, “I want to see Papá’s paloma, I want to see his white dove!”

  What I really wanted to see was if Papa’s dove fluttered its wings the way Omar’s did in my dreams. I wanted to see the exact moment when Papá released his paloma to be free. At the age of five, I never really understood why boys kept their doves caged in their pants. No wonder they get sick, I thought.

  But I couldn’t see anything. Mamá’s curtains were too thick to see into their bedroom. I stopped my chanting and sat on the ground instead. I began to cry realizing how the poor dove was going to suffer in there. I never saw it leave Papá’s cage.

  I was six when I committed my fourth sin.

  All my childhood memories came to me fresh and raw a few minutes before the ceremony. Doing my First Communion began to feel more like a trial: good versus evil. I was afraid to fail the test. Another of my many nicknames was diablita—little devil.

  Mamá was a social butterfly when she was younger. I remember the day she visited one of her best friends, Alba, who lived on the other side of town. Alba had a five-year-old daughter who loved to play with me. Her name was Ceci.

  Ceci and her mother lived alone in a large house that practically had a forest for a backyard. The house seemed empty and lonely, but was surrounded by tamarindo trees, mango trees, lemon trees, and orange trees. It was enormous.

  As soon as we got to Alba’s house, Mamá let go of my sweaty hand and instructed Ceci and me to play tag in the backyard.

  “Alba and I will watch you from here,” Mamá reassured me.

  They each sat on a hammock drinking their spiked lemonade.

  Before running into Ceci’s forest, I overheard Mamá tell Alba, “I have to be careful with my diablita. I don’t know where she gets it.”

  “She inherited it from you, mujer, who else?” responded Alba.

  Laughter shook their bodies while they sipped their lemonade. Their voices faded away as Ceci and I got lost in her backyard. We found the perfect spot to play pretend house behind some bushes. It was too hot to play tag like Mamá had told us.

  We played for hours. At least that’s what it seemed like because I really just wanted to be with Mamá and Alba.

  “Why can’t they make us a pitcher of sweet lemonade?” I asked Ceci.

  She didn’t respond, and I quickly got bored. At some point, I don’t know how it happened, but I heard Mamá shouting my name, and calling me other names. I was a pícara, a diablita, and a cerotuda—a little turd. I was the worst mischievous six-year-old girl alive, according to her.

  Mamá and Alba were far away from us.

  Did they see us? I thought. I had only been curious whether Ceci had a panito like mine, or a paloma like Omar in my dreams.

  Ceci got scared and nervously pulled her panties up and took off running to hide behind her mother’s skirt.

  I did the same and I ran behind her, tormented by the nonstop insults Mamá spat at me, one after the other.

  “Ichoca jodida, you dirty brat!”

  When I finally reached them, Mamá and Alba busted out laughing. I froze, not knowing what to say or do. I felt lost, like I was walking blindfolded on the surface of the moon.

  I was seven when I committed my fifth sin.

  Mamá began having serious talks with me when I turned seven.

  “No one has the right to touch your panito, do you hear me? If someone ever does, you let me know and I’ll take care of it. You understand, sompopito?”

  I promised Mamá that I would never let anyone touch my private parts. I guess she was preparing me to take care of myself because that was the same year she was forced to immigrate to the United States, leaving my sisters and me behind.

  When my sisters and I moved to Mamatoya’s house in 1985, we all shared her home with her children and grandkids. We all grew up together as if we were cousins. We called each other by our first names. We all played together on the street, inside the house, and in el potrero, the forest across from our house. We played everywhere and everything we could imagine: fútbol, hide-and-go-seek, tag, school, with the river’s clay, with fire, with water; we flew kites against the wind. I was seven and Mario was eleven years old, almost a teenager.

  One day while everyone was at school, I stayed home pretending to be sick because I hadn’t finished my homework. I was terrified of Profesor Freddy, my first grade teacher. He would hit students with a ruler for not turning in their homework.

  Before Mamá left, no teacher ever laid a hand on my sisters and me. No one dared.

  On that day, Mario didn’t go to school, either. Mamatoya and Tía Sandra were running errands in el mercado. I was home alone with him. It was rare to see the house empty. There was always someone there, but that morning, the house was completely still and silent.

  Since I wasn’t really sick, Mario and I decided to play bicycle tag inside the house. We couldn’t play outside because my school was a few yards away, literally across the bridge. I made the game more interesting by having him tag me while riding his bike. It was tough to maneuver the bike even though the house’s corridors were long and wide. Eventually, he got tired and told me that he wanted to play something else.

  “What do you want to play?” I asked.

  “Let’s pretend to be novios,” he said. Boyfriend and girlfriend.

  I didn’t think anything was wrong with his game until he wanted us to kiss on the lips. When he moved his face toward mine, I turned and kissed him on the cheek and ran to my room to hide. He didn’t come after me.

  At least I didn’t let him touch my panito, I thought to myself.

  We never spoke about it, like it never happened. At the age of seven, I had a boyfriend who happened to be my tío.

  I was almost eight years old when I committed my sixth sin.

  It had been almost a year since Mamá had left for El Norte. When we were in Mayuelas, I was free to roam like an abispa searching for the sweetest nectars in the tallest tamarindo and mango trees. I had complete freedom to spread my pollen on the dusty roads that led to the river; at the grassless school yard; at the mercado sipping on a twenty-five-cent banana milkshake; on the street playing electrizado, tag; at Tala’s molino, grinding the maíz for the tortillas; at the toma, wading in its muddy waters to cool off; at my second cousins’ who lived next door. These were all the places I could visit on my own when I was seven and a half.

  There was only one place I wasn’t allowed to visit or play in: the small hut between Tía Soila’s house and her brother Tío David’s house. Mamá forbade me to enter the hut, but she was no longer there to scold me if I disobeyed. When my great grandmother died, Tío David and Tía Soila inherited most of the land. They divided the land in half and built their homes next to each other. The hut was exactly in the middle between both houses. Mamatoya had married young and moved away to Tactic long ago.

  The abandoned hut was in the middle of the patio surrounded by mango, grapefruit, jocote, lemon, nances, granadilla, and tamarindo trees. It had been there since I was born, but I never dared to enter it because it was dark and isolated. People said that someone had died inside once. The only ones allowed in were Tío David’s children. He had five: two older daughters, Celia and Mery, who were about Sindy’s age; Carlos and Jorge, who were four and five years older than I; and Lesvia, the youngest, who was only three years old. She was known as “the accident.”

  While Mamá was gone, Sindy, Consuelo, and I began to spend more time with our second cousins in Mayuelas. We played at their house, and they often bathed with us in the river. Celia was eight years older than me. She had already celebrated her quinceañera. She gave me extra attention for being the youngest; she was kind.

  One day
, when we were coming back from the river, our clothes drenched, Celia asked if I wanted to change in the little hut. I didn’t want to go back home, even though it was practically next door. I wanted to spend more time with her. Celia was daring; she wasn’t afraid of anything. And I was also curious to go into the hut. I wanted to see what it looked and smelled like. I never dared to go in there alone, but with Celia, I felt bold and special.

  Sindy and Consuelo headed back to Tía Soila’s house to change; they were soaked and didn’t care to see the inside of the hut. I stayed behind with Celia. The hut was dark and thick with dust. It didn’t have electricity. Celia opened one of the back windows to let in some light. My eyes adapted quickly and I was able to see my surroundings. I remember everything being blurry like a discarded, unfocused photograph.

  “Here,” she said and handed me a clean shirt and some cut-off shorts that were long enough to cover my knees. I took off my wet clothes and changed in front of her. I gave her my back. She also undressed but didn’t turn around. I couldn’t help but notice her breasts; they were big. They looked like two tennis balls stuck on a fence. She was a beautiful girl and she knew it. She smiled at me and didn’t bother to cover herself like Mamá had done when I was four. I noticed her long, dark hair framing her tiny waist. Her body was slender and muscular just like Mamá’s. I blushed and looked away when she looked me in the eye. As soon as she was dressed, we went back outside, where my sisters and cousins were waiting for us. We were ready to play another round of electrizado. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t erase Celia’s breasts from my mind. I felt dirty.

  The next day, Celia invited me back to the hut. I didn’t have to say anything. I understood the look she had in her eyes. After sitting around for a couple of hours, chatting and doing practically nothing, everyone went their own way. Celia purposely stayed behind to talk to me. As soon as everyone was gone, we went into the muggy, dusty hut.

  We didn’t talk much. We simply sat in the dark. The heat and the quietness of the hut made Celia take off her shirt and her bra. I stood there like a statue with my big eyes fully dilated; I wanted to let as much light in. We were in the hut for only a few minutes, but it felt like months. I began shaking. Without saying a word, I took off running to Tía Soila’s house; I felt dirty and scared again.

  But I went back the next day. I couldn’t understand why I wanted more. Celia had inexplicably turned into a drug. We had a routine and this routine lasted a week. We had our own language to communicate: our eyes. All of us kids played together outdoors, but as soon as everyone parted ways, Celia and I stayed behind to enter the hut. I never took off my clothes for her.

  On the seventh and last day, she took off all her clothes and asked me to lie next to her on this tiny, dusty bed. I didn’t know what to say or do. I simply shook nervously. The hut was quiet and still. All the dust had settled. I did as I was told. I was fully dressed.

  We lay next to each other on the corner of the tiny bed. Within a few minutes of silence, she grabbed my hand and put it on her bare breast. The hut got even quieter. Slowly, small particles of dust began floating in the air and the walls began to creak.

  “Don’t worry,” she whispered, “the hut is settling.”

  I closed my eyes. In the darkness, behind the redness of my eyelids, I sensed a long prickly hair on her breast; I had the urge to pluck it, but I froze. I couldn’t stop trembling.

  We were face to face when I felt her left hand slide inside my pants. I quietly went insane with pleasure. I felt dirty and guilty simultaneously. I closed my eyes again and Mamá’s words came to me in a flash: “No one has the right to touch your panito. If someone ever does, you let me know and I’ll take care of it.”

  I couldn’t believe I had broken my promise to Mamá. I quickly got up, shook the dust off my clothes, and ran outside to find the rest of the clan. I felt my cheeks burning, but no one noticed. That was the very last time I entered the hut. I never told anyone, especially Mamá because I knew what she was capable of doing. Sometimes I would bump into Eufemia in the village and notice the scars Mamá had left on her face.

  As the days passed, Celia tried to invite me to the hut with her quiet eyes. I never went back, and we never spoke about it. It was true what Mamá had said about me: I was a dirty little girl, a diablita with two horns sticking out of my head and a tail between my legs. But the real diablita was Celia. She was older than me. Good thing Mayuelas’s heat became unbearable and my sisters and I moved back to Tactic. It was then that Mamatoya enrolled us in catechism classes. A few months later I was doing my confirmation.

  There I was, sitting on the pews, waiting for my turn to visit the confession booth for the first time. Padre Alfredo was young and very good looking. He always had a long line of young women wanting to confess their sins to him; I didn’t want to confess mine.

  I wasn’t sure which sins I was going to fess up to. The girl in front of me stepped out of the confessional booth. She seemed relieved. She walked over to me and knelt on the pew. She began to recite Our Fathers and an Ave Maria—a Hail Mary.

  I stood up and slowly walked to the booth. Padre Alfredo was inside the tiny box, sitting behind a rectangular, small window. I couldn’t see his face through the window screen. I immediately crossed myself as I knelt before him. I stood there for a few seconds trembling until Padre Alfredo finally asked in a soothing voice, “Do you have any sins to confess, hija?”

  During First Communion classes, one of the nuns had trained us to say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” or “I accuse myself of the following sins.” Both statements didn’t make sense to me at the time. Confessing my sins was not part of my plan. So I told him half the truth. “Padre Alfredo, please forgive me because I’m a sinner.” These words came out of me vibrating fast from my chest. I wasn’t sure where to start. I didn’t want Padre Alfredo to know my wicked ways. So I lied.

  From behind the confession booth’s little window I heard him ask again, “What are your sins, hija?”

  “I lie all the time. I have a dirty mouth.” And before he could interrupt me, I continued, “I have also seen and touched things that I’m not supposed to.”

  I could tell Padre Alfredo was tired. Twenty-five children were celebrating First Communion that day. He had already absolved twenty-four sinners before me. I was the last one, and he was tired and bored, openly yawning. He didn’t bother to ask me what kind of things I had touched or seen. He simply said, “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Recite three Hail Marys.”

  I did as I was told. I recited the three Hail Marys. Soon after, Padre Alfredo stepped out of the confession booth and invited all of us to line up to take the Communion wafer. I immediately got up and joined the line. I was one of the first ones.

  When Padre Alfredo put the wafer in my mouth, I promised myself to do three things: to never allow anyone else to touch my panito, to never look at a naked body again, and … the wafer melted in my mouth before I could think of a third promise.

  Tactic’s River

  Every Tuesday at three p.m., I had my routine. Well, better yet, my godmother’s maid was the one who had the routine. I would just observe her as she walked down the hill in front of Mamatoya’s house. Like a roly-poly, all curled up from my corner, I could see her through the veranda’s railing. From the darkness, I patiently waited until she crossed to the other side of the river and until she came back to the top of the hill. She never caught me spying on her.

  It was well known that my godmother was a wealthy woman in Tactic. She had two sons and one daughter, who she spoiled by buying her everything she wanted. Every Tuesday, their maid passed in front of Mamatoya’s house to the other side of the river with two to three bags of trash. Mamatoya had already forbidden me from going to the garbage dump, where the maid threw away all those little treasures I so desperately wanted.

  But every week, I found a way to escape Mamatoya’s scornful stare. I was an
agile and precocious eight-year-old. I would climb the wall of the dump like a professional rock climber, even though the cement wall was twice my height. Every time I jumped the wall I would land on the spongy, moldy surface of the trash dump. And somehow, I always felt an undeniable guilt. But at the age of eight and a half, that’s where I wanted to be, immersing myself in that penetrating smell.

  Carefully, I would squat in the waste so that no one could see me; it would be embarrassing to Mamatoya if anyone saw me. It was a fact that Mamá was away and that we were poor, but Mamatoya reminded us that we should always have dignity, and we should always be clean even though we were poor and needy.

  At the dump, I found little treasures that others discarded. And the most valuable keepsakes I found were always the ones my godmother’s sixteen-year-old daughter threw away. Every week there was something different: a bottle of scarlet-red nail polish, a gold-orange lipstick, a broken eyeliner, or a hair clip. I risked a good scolding or an ear pulling for those treasures.

  The aroma from the dump was sharp and pungent. We came to know the smell very well since we were next-door neighbors. That aroma impregnated my nose and hair, my skin. I swam through the waves of garbage finding toys to entertain myself.

  When the majority of the townspeople had voted to build the dump next to the river, Mamatoya and our neighbors protested to the local authorities, but it was all in vain. The dump was still built right next door to us. Other people who lived miles away argued that it needed to be built for the benefit of the river. I liked having the dump close to my house, two houses away to be exact. The garbage dump kept me away from the river.

  The river was the only thing that entertained me before the dump was built. I would make paper boats and let them float, sink, or disappear in the river. I gathered fresh clay from the river’s walls and created my own toys out of clay. I even fished in that river, but Mamatoya would never let us keep or cook the fish. I did everything in the river except swim in it. My friends didn’t swim in it either because the water was fresh from the mountains—it was freezing. The river was also known as río negro.