Memories of the Summer Before
It was the hottest night of the summer. Abuelita opened my bedroom window when she noticed that the air-conditioning wasn’t working, but the August air offered me little relief. I peeled off my sheets, but quickly covered myself again when I realized how cold my sweat had made me. It was impossible for me to get comfortable: my nightgown was soaked, my thighs were pasted together with perspiration, and my teeth were chattering. A moth fluttered in through the window and landed on my forearm before I brushed it off. I was in no mood for receiving guests.
“Your great-great-grandmother was a gypsy,” Abuelita whispered as she tucked me in. The moonlight bisected her stone-cut face, illuminating her onyx eyes in the same eerie way a wolf’s eyes shine in the darkness---not that there are wolves in this part of California (or so I was told), but I’d seen them before in books. I knew nature from a distance. Abuelita plumped my pillow and smiled, “Yes, your great-great-grandmother knew how to ward off the ghosts.”
I shuddered. The ghosts had invaded my dreams again and like every other night, Abuelita came to sooth me. Ghosts were everywhere, nipping at my feet, hiding in my hair, clinging to my bed sheets when all the other children were lost in slumber. Sometimes I felt as if the ghosts were living inside of me like a nasty little virus that refused to go away.
But I forgot all about the ghosts the moment Abuelia mentioned my great-great-grandmother. I hugged my knees with all the excitement a twelve-year old can muster and asked the name of my great-great-grandmother.
“Fernanda,” Abuelita said, “Fernanda de España, Spain that is.”
I gulped. Fernanda was my name and I didn’t like the idea of sharing my name with anyone---living or dead, but especially not the dead. But perhaps the real reason I gulped was because, like everyone else on my mother’s side of the family, Fernanda was Spanish and could, therefore, speak Spanish---unlike me. My mother died when I was born and my father was constantly working, so I was raised by my father’s sister. It was only recently that my
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mother’s mother, my abuelita, came to live with me. Consequently, I never learned Spanish as a child, so I spoke it with a heavy English accent---a fact my cousins would never let me forget.
“So I was named after her?” I shifted nervously in my bed, rumpling the sheets Abuelita had just pulled tight. It didn’t feel right that I was named after a woman I never knew, who spoke a language different from my own. New friends and classmates often had trouble believing that I was part Spanish, despite my name. They usually squinted their eyes at me and cocked their heads like confused monkeys, as if staring at me long enough would magically bless me with the characteristics of a Spanish señorita. I scrutinized my grandmother for a moment, wishing I resembled her more so people would stop asking me if she was my nanny.
“Yes, you were named after her and you should be honored. Fernanda was beautiful, especially in comparison to her sisters. Don’t get me wrong---her sisters were lovely ladies, but even they seemed plain standing beside Fernanda. Her skin was golden like the sea at sunset. It was said that even the queen envied her complexion.”
I winced at that last comment. My skin was sallow and often the subject of ridicule by Cecilia Hernandez, a seventh-grader in my sixth grade English class. I knew the real reason Cecilia teased me was because she resented me. She passed all of her classes except for English the previous year and was consequently forced to repeat it. She read slower than anyone in the class and had atrocious handwriting, which our teacher, Ms. Mitchell, seemed to point out in front of everyone at least once a week. Meanwhile, I was Ms. Mitchell’s prize pupil. She often used my essays as examples of “rich vocabulary, excellent syntax, and overall impressive writing.” Cecilia usually criticized my work, claiming that my stories were boring and stupid. I tried not to take her comments personally.
“My great-grandmother knew the queen of Spain?” I asked, just trying to further the conversation. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep if Abuelita left, but if she babbled long enough, I would eventually drift off.
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Abuelita paused and yawned, covering her mouth with crab-like hands. “Hmmm...That I do not know for sure, but I would not doubt it if she did. Fernanda was just as well-mannered as any of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting and far more beautiful, I’m sure.”
“Even more beautiful than you, Abuelita?”
She blushed and nodded. “Far more beautiful,” she muttered and gazed out the window. “Have you seen the stars tonight, Fernanda?”
I shook my head almost subconsciously, not listening to what Abuelita said after that. Instead, I studied her lightly wrinkled face and the gray wisps of hair that brushed against her cheek. She was elegantly tired, like a porcelain doll that had just endured an afternoon at the playground. But Abuelita was not just tired by the long day as I thought then, but as I grew older, I realized that Abuelita was tired with life. She was tired of washing rich women’s clothes day after day---clothes she could never afford and, consequently, would never wear unless one of her clients gave her an old piece as an act of charity. She was tired of being so altruistic, of living her life for others when they didn’t appreciate it. She was tired of being hungry, of being poor. That’s what she resented the most---being poor. Abuelita had been upper-middle class back in Spain, but, as she was always in the habit of reminding me, money doesn’t stretch the same way in the United States. Sometimes I wondered how Abuelita mustered the stamina to survive on only a few dollars a day. I glanced at her again. Abuelita may not have been conventionally beautiful, endowed with the gifts of youth and movie star glamour, but her stamina alone made her ravishing.
“No,” Abuelita began again, turning away from the window, “Your great-grandmother was renowned throughout Spain for her radiant black hair and sparkling green eyes. By the age of fifteen, she had more suitors than all of her sisters combined. She had so many suitors in fact that her father held a contest to determine who her husband would be. Fernanda’s father took a dozen of her suitors to the grandest rose garden in Spain and had them fast for seven days and seven nights, then told them what they wree to do. The first man to find a thornless
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rose would win Fernanda’s hand in marriage. There were only three in the entire garden and even worse, they were tangled beneath thousands of spiny bushes. The men were only allowed to use their bare hands. Upon hearing this, half of the men returned to their comfortable homes in Madrid to sip Indian tea and watch dog fights. But the six men who remained decided to take the challenge. They would not allow their stomachs to interfere with the great hunger they were experiencing: the hunger they felt for Fernanda. Each man wanted her for his wife, but none so much as Carlos. Carlos came from a humble country family, but his full heart made him the wealthiest suitor of them all. He loved Fernanda and he couldn’t bear to see any of the other men with her, so he dove right into those rose bushes. Why, he nearlys tore his eyes out during the process, weaving in and out of spines. But he was the first. He brought the rose to Fernanda herself because he wanted Fernanda’s permission to marry, not her father’s. Of course, Fernanda agreed, so Carlos and she were married the following evening.”
“Mama,” I asked a she stopped to pour me a cup of milk, “where did you meet Papa?” My Abuelita handed me the milk and sighed. “I met your father one day while washing clothes at the river side. He came to water his horse when he noticed me scrubbing a petticoat. I still remember what I was wearing, too, because I was so embarrassed to be dressed in rages when I was cleaning fine velvet bodices and silk blouses. But your father didn’t seem to mind that my tunice was old and shabby. No, he spoke to me like I was a princess. Then I invited him to my parent’s home for supper and he gratefully accepted because he hadn’t had a real meal in so long and...”my Abuelita took a sip of milk. “Why am I telling you these things? I never finished telling you about your great-grandmother.” I was disappointed that she had stopped in the middle of the story about how she met my father, but I didn’t complain. My Abuelita was the only person who had the right to complain about anything. I glanced at her caused hands and wondered how they could still manage to be so soft. “Fernanda married Carlos by the seaside, where her father parked his wagon when the weather was fair. Naturally, all the gypsies came to the ceremony, bringing their fattest goats and ripest fruits as gifts. Fernanda’s father pulled
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out his guitar and played until the sun disappeared behind the mountain. That’s when Carlos and Fernanda left for their honeymoon.”
“Where did they go?”
“Nobody knows.”
“What do you mean ‘nobody knows’?”
“Carlos refused to tell anyone where they were going because he was afraid that someone would find them and steal Fernanda away from him.”
I took one last swig of milk and then put the empty cup on my nightstand. “Poor Carlos...”
My Abuelita raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
“It must be hard loving someone that everyone else wants.”
“You shouldn’t be so cynical at your age, Fernanda. It isn’t very becoming for a girl of only twelve years.” She patted me on the head and left the room.
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