Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (46 page)

Late at night, Fulton Street was quiet, the shadows solid as walls. I walked on the side of the street closest to the playground, where the hurricane fence stretched tall and forbidding between me and the swings, slides, monkey bars. To my left, cars were snugly parked and locked for the night, but in some, people-shapes moved in wary anticipation. As I passed them, my heart beat faster than my feet could walk. I pressed close to the fence, eyes straight ahead but alert to unexpected movements. A low voice mumbled, “Hi, sweetheart,” another “Hey, baby,” and danger propelled me, almost lifted me off the sidewalk, but I wouldn't run, not unless chased. If I ran without provocation, they'd know how scared I was, so I walked—fast, but confident that I'd reach the door to our house, that I would have time to insert the key in the lock, turn it, push open the heavy door, and be inside before anyone could reach me.

Once safe, I leaned against the door and breathed until my backbone didn't tingle and my heart beat its normal rhythm, until my insides felt as composed as my face, wiped of its frightened expression, until my hands no longer trembled and my knees were stable. I unlocked the inside door and opened it to the dim hallway, where I listened for Mami's footsteps, for her disapproval at the end of the hall, for her dark, sad eyes heavy with disappointment and reproaches. But it was too late. She was asleep on the edge of her bed, feet still slippered, knees curled up, nylon nightgown bunched around her thighs. Her right arm was bent over her face to block out nightmares, while her left gripped the bar of Ciro's crib, where the baby slept in a tight lump.

I tiptoed past her door into the room with the bunk beds against one wall and the bed that Delsa and I shared against the
other. In the airless darkness I again felt the thrill of danger, only this time it wasn't fear of an unseen attacker. The memory of Ulvi's hands was like traces on my body, charged my skin with an energy I was certain anyone could see, could feel. When I crawled into bed next to my sister, she stirred, and it was natural that I should roll over and spoon into her the way I did with him. But she was my sister, and had I wakened her for a hug, she would have flailed and cursed and pushed me off the bed. I lay face up, arms alongside my body, took up as little space on the narrow bed as possible. The deep, even breath of my sisters and brothers was as soothing a sound as I ever heard, but it didn't lull me to sleep as it once had. I was too conscious of that other breath, miles away in the sparsely furnished apartment of my lover. My lover! Again I wanted to turn over and embrace the body next to me, but it was Delsa's. I hugged myself instead, closed my eyes, imagined my arms were his, that I was in the enormous pull-out bed with the black sheets, where reaching out for warmth was greeted with a moan of pleasure, not annoyance.

In the morning, Mami pointedly kept her eyes on me as I went to and from the bathroom, but she didn't ask where I'd been. When I set up the ironing board, she moved aside without a word. Her serenity was unnerving amid the chaos of making breakfast for my sisters and brothers and helping them get ready for school. “Watch the babies,” she pointed at Charlie and Cibi, who were trapped in the playpen. She walked Raymond and Franky to the door, waited there until they turned the corner, then returned to rescue Ciro from his crib, where he'd been whimpering for some time. I pressed my clothes and watched her out of the corner of my eyes, aware that her silence could explode into an argument at the slightest provocation. Her walk was a heavy shuffle across the linoleum. Three babies in two years had left her soft and fleshy, eyes permanently swollen from lack of sleep, features slack, as if her muscles didn't have the energy to animate her face. I averted my eyes from her exhausted figure, ashamed that I was adding to her burden.

I played with the babies, kept as far from Mami as the crowded kitchen permitted, then disappeared into the bedroom to change. When I came out, she was at the table with her morning cup of black coffee in front of her and Ciro on her lap.

“I'm going to work and then I have a rehearsal,” I said.

She looked up, pursed her lips, nodded. I was grateful for her silent censure, for another day in which she didn't confront me with her suspicions, and left the apartment with a sense of triumph, hollow, because she refused to fight.

Ulvi's opinion of Shoshana didn't keep me from seeing her whenever possible. There was no one, including him, with whom I felt more comfortable or had more fun. We met for lunch, visited museums, took long walks along Fifth Avenue, chatting about our love lives. Shoshana's relationship with Ali didn't last, but it wasn't mourned. No longer his student, she began an affair with Mr. Arthur Delmar, the Principles of Advertising professor.

“Why didn't you tell me,” Shoshana asked, “that sex with an older man is so much better?”

“I have no basis for comparison,” I reminded her.

“I wonder how old he is,” Shoshana mused. “Not as old as my father, I hope.”

Papi was older than Mami, who was thirty-seven. I hadn't seen Papi in seven years and had a hard time conjuring an image of him. Was he old and wrinkled? Did he have a pot belly? Did he wear glasses? Ulvi looked younger than Mami, but he wouldn't tell me his age. Arthur had gray hair, and we figured he was Ulvi's senior, but Shoshana wasn't about to ask him directly. “I don't want to know,” she said, with a flick of the wrist.

We had no illusions about a life with either Ulvi or Arthur. Even if Arthur proposed, Shoshana would never marry him, because he wasn't Jewish. “I have to think of the future of Israel,” she said seriously.

I didn't have a whole nation depending on my choice of
husband, but neither did I expect Ulvi to marry me. He was blunt when he said he didn't want to involve me in his life. “Why not?”

“It is complicated,” he responded, then kissed away my anxious frown. “Don't worry,” he said, “it is nothing for you to concern.” If I asked more questions, he silenced me with caresses. “I will never hurt you,” he assured me, and so far, he hadn't.

Ulvi insisted that our lives away from his bed be private, which led me to suspect secrets much worse than Jurgen's. One afternoon when he had to go to a meeting, he asked me to wait for him in his apartment. It was the first time I'd been in his place alone, and I decided to take advantage of it. If I found anything illegal or incriminating, I swore to leave and never come back. He was so fastidious that it took a long time to search the apartment, because I had to leave everything exactly as I found it. His belongings were put away in a precise order imposed on every shelf, drawer, cabinet. The black towels were folded in thirds lengthwise, then in thirds again, stacked so that no edges overlapped. There was nothing in between, behind, or under them. He wore no undershorts, but in spite of my first impression, did wear socks, which were paired and doubled into rows at the bottom of the dresser drawer. There wasn't a gun there, nor bags of marijuana, nor love letters. His shirts, pants, and jackets hung by color, each in their own section of the closet. There was no false wall or safe behind them. His shoes lined up on the floor, each with a cedar shoe tree inside. Nothing fell out when I tipped one after the other. He wore no jewelry, used an electric razor, didn't slap on aftershave. There were no drugs in the medicine chest, not so much as an aspirin. The kitchen cabinets held a set of china for four, white dishes with a black border. There were sixteen glasses, four each in descending sizes, adorned with playing cards showing the jack, queen, king, and ace. In the refrigerator were a few vegetables, a container of orange juice, butter, a few eggs. Other than the woman masturbating on the walls, there were no pictures anywhere, no prizes for his film, no clippings, no press releases. I found no credit card receipts, no savings passbooks, no checkbook.

Everything in the apartment was brand new, carefully selected so that it all matched. Expensive too. The towels were thick and fluffy. His clothes had designer labels, were made from fine materials like wool, silk, cashmere. His shoes were thin-soled, leather-lined, soft. On the top shelf of his closet was a set of suitcases, thick black leather with brass fittings closed with a combination lock embedded in the center. There was something in the largest suitcase, but I didn't open it, because it was too heavy for me to lift down.

Used to the chaos of my home in Brooklyn, Ulvi's apartment seemed sterile, its order sinister. It was so clean, so tidy; even the corners bore no traces of dust, crumbs, or stray pieces of thread. After I examined everything and found nothing to make me suspicious, I opened the leather couch into a bed and lay in it, thinking about what it meant. He was a man with no history, ageless, rich enough to live in a luxury apartment building two blocks from Bloomingdale's but not so wealthy as to spend lavishly. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but whenever I tried, he deflected my doubts with kisses. The only way to get him to talk, I decided, was to get out in public, where he couldn't distract me with his touch.

When he returned from his meeting, the first thing he did was to search inside the closet where the towels were kept. I wondered if I had missed something, but it was too late now. He didn't ask if I had riffled his things, but I had the feeling that he knew, although he didn't say a word. He never left me alone in the apartment again.

My cousin Alma lived with her mother and sister in an apartment on the second floor of Mami's house on Fulton Street. When they'd lived farther away, I spent more time with Alma, because we made it a point to get together for dinner every so often. Since I'd met Ulvi, however, my friendship with Shoshana had grown
stronger, while my relationship with Alma had cooled. There was more to talk about with Shoshana, without the danger that my secret life would get back to Mami.

Alma and I had spent hours talking about getting an apartment together. Our mothers made sure that wouldn't happen. My goal now was to have a place of my own, where I could come and go as I pleased. At twenty years of age, I argued, I was old enough to take care of myself. Mami insisted that the only way she'd let me go was on the arm of a man, preferably a legal husband. Alma, who was a year older, still lived at home, Mami pointed out. With Titi Ana and Mami backing each other up, neither Alma nor I had any chance of getting our way.

Shoshana argued that I was too considerate of Mami's wishes. To become a woman, she asserted, I must rebel against my mother. What she said made sense, and I went so far as to discuss it with Alma, who agreed with Shoshana. Still, I couldn't bring myself to defy Mami, just as Alma didn't oppose Titi Ana, and Shoshana didn't confront her own parents. Alma devoted herself to her work; to her sister, Corazón; to her books. Shoshana and I schemed, planned, dreamed, nurtured secrets. But none of us stood up to our mothers and said, “I'm leaving you. I can stand on my own. It's time for me to claim my life.”