FRAMED LOVE

For those of us dead, time is like the puffs of smoke the leerie leaves when he passes walking. You can barely feel the hours; they remain floating in the air and become visible, like the dew draining in the windows in the early morning. The minutes lengthen, inaccurate, twisted like a candy wrapper. You have to untwist them, pull them from both ends if you want to savour the days that dissolve in the palate along with an old man’s words, like mine, that taste like oblivion.That’s why I cannot be sure exactly where I was or for how long. Being dead, it is difficult to place ourselves in space and not remember things; memory is viscous, as when the quince tie does not finish curdling. Despite everything, she does not fade, she is a solid memory; her smile, her voice, everything about her are carved into the fragments of my soul. She said my name with her innocent and sweet tone, and from my bowels sprouted the desire to cling with my nails to this world.

It is impossible to forget her tiny hands holding my portrait, her attentive gaze, deciphering the riddles of the past. Her brown hair glistened in the prying sun that had slipped through the window. The gold plate embedded in the bottom of the frame reflected in her green eyes, in her pale complexion. And so, with a barely perceptible halo of breath, she pronounced my name as if she were talking to herself.

—Don Ignacio de Guadalupe León. One, eight, four, four, four, one, nine, one, seven. -She whispered with the portrait so close to her face that the warm mist of her breath fogged the glass.

Hearing my name from the world of the living had a powerful effect; I felt as if someone had slapped me on the back to shake off all the dust that, year after year, death had piled on my shoulders. Just my name was enough, pronounced letter by letter by the voice of a seven-year-old girl, like a spell. I felt an energy pulling me from the fog to that moment and that place, as when a ship drops an anchor and can go no further, or as if I were being pushed into a chair bolted to the floor to watch a performance about to begin.

Once the tremor had passed, when the fog had dissipated, she appeared in front of me with her brown hair, a white dress, and shiny shoes, looking at every detail of my portrait: my bearded face, my cane. Then she returned it to the credenza to carefully arrange it exactly how she had found it. She left the room hopping and vanished down the corridor. I tried to follow her, but I couldn’t move. They say the dead forget how to do anything, so you have to learn everything all over again: how to talk, how to walk. I decided to practice a few small steps to follow her wherever she went. At first, it was not as easy as I expected.You need the same concentration as a circus juggler walking the rope, and then you have to think about putting a foot, well, first you have to think that you have feet, and then you have to think about putting one in front of the other, one-two.So I spent several days, unsure how many, walking step by step, looking for the girl in the corridors of that large house.

In the afternoons, I would see her fluttering past the first patio, like the pigeons in the square when a child on his bicycle scares them away. Other times, I would recognize her voice in the distance, telling stories or amidst laughter and shouts. I would walk as fast as I could following his trail, one-two, one-two, but whenever I entered the room from where the sound came, it was too late, she was gone. It seemed I was only following the echo of her existence.

I suppose it was Sunday when I finally knew who she was. I heard a knock at the door during those sleepy afternoon hours, and an exchange of voices purred from the hallway. I perceived a lady’s thick voice greeting another with propriety. “Doña Carmelita,” she said, “good afternoon”; “Doña Cuquita,” the other would reply in a more worn voice. The fragrances of all the spices of the cafe de olla, born in the kitchen, flooded the house’s corridors, the cinnamon, the anise, the toasted piloncillo. The aroma is one of the things that disgrace the dead’s lives, you crave everything but can’t taste anything. Then I heard the same hoarse voice, shouting from every corner.

—Rosarito! Rosarito! Excuse me, Doña Carmelita, this girl doesn’t answer me. Pina, go find your sister, tell her to come here.

—But I don’t know where she is.

—For God’s sake, Pina, look for her! She’s coming, Mrs. Carmelita, I don’t know where she is, excuse me, she was ready for your very early, but she’s coming, don’t worry, enjoy your coffee.

In life, I was not a man very interested in other people’s affairs, but the truth is that we dead people do not have much to do, and we have to look for some kind of occupation, so I decided to go out to meet the visitor. In the room, I found the figure of Doña Carmelita, seated on the edge of the armchair, drinking the family’s coffee pot recipe in a white ceramic cup with golden edges and flowers; she wore a black veil over her hair and a silver crucifix hanging on her chest; dressed in black from head to toe, long sleeves, stockings, and somewhat worn shoes.

—What are you getting into, girl? -This is Doña Carmelita; she will prepare you to receive Christ, your first communion. What do you say? -Doña Cuquita continued. Later, I discovered she was actually called Mama Cuca at home.

—It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doña Carmelita —said Rosarito in her tender voice.

The lady in black greeted her and told her to sit beside her. Rosarito obeyed without taking her eyes off the silver crucifix shining on the black satin. She spent the whole morning reading and answering questions. Doña Carmelita finally said goodbye, emphasizing the importance of starting Bible class at an early age. The final exchanges were full of that empty but necessary verbiage for society to function. Expressions such as “We are very grateful”, “Of course, we’ll see you next week”, “Say hello to your family”, and the repeated, but necessary “What do you say?” to “Come on then” and “Go with God”. It impresses me to know how many words are said in farewells, words that, perhaps for a girl, do not have great meanings.

“Go with God” is said politely to people who are saying goodbye, but not much happens if, when they are leaving, you say nothing to them, you do not have the power to decide who does or does not go with God in their way, but anyway you wish them something, to have a nice day, at least. In my time, I was a man of very few words. I was always more interested in doing things than saying them. My lady...how I miss her...my wife always joked that I talked more to my horse than people. “The things that Romulo would say if he could talk,” she used to say. Francisca was not lying; horses are often more interesting.

As soon as Doña Carmelita walked out the door, Rosarito took my portrait and asked Mamá Cuca about the bearded character that appeared there. That’s how I discovered she was my great-great-granddaughter and her father, my great-grandson. When you are alive, you don’t usually think about the many generations to come, you take care of your children and hopefully your grandchildren, but I must admit that meeting my great-great-granddaughter made my heart racing, of course, if I had one, because surely it has already been eaten by worms.

My relationship with Mamá Cuca is actually through my grandson Antonio, who married her. She is Rosarito’s grandmother, but she had forbidden all the children in the house from calling her grandmother. To her, a grandmother was a big lady who made hot chocolate in the mornings and did nothing else but go to church on Sundays. She didn’t want to become a lady who would go to her room to sleep immediately after dinner, clinging to one of her children or grandchildren. Mama Cuca felt that she still had all the energy of her youth, and that if she was constantly called grandmother, she might attract a curse or hasten an inevitable fate. Being a mother and not a grandmother at that moment complicated giving a response to Rosarito and referring to the hierarchical denominations of the family tree, as she was a non-grandmother whose descendants already spanned two more generations. Furthermore, Mamá Cuca and her daughter-in-law, Rosarito’s mother, shared the same name. That’s why people had to come up with a way to differentiate them, and for everybody, Mamá Cuca became Doña Cuca, and Rosarito’s mother was called Cuquita. For the children, there were two moms, their mom-mom and their Mama Cuca, well, three, if we count Cuquita’s mom, who also, given the emerging customs in the house, was called Mama Juanita.

He is your great-great-grandfather, that is, your father’s great-grandfather,” said Mamá Cuca, who, seeing that Rosarito’s green eyes were getting bigger and bigger, continued, “Your father’s father is your grandfather. Your daddy’s daddy is your grandfather. Your dad’s grandfather is your great-grandfather, and your grandfather’s grandfather is your great-great-grandfather. Your ”tatarabuelo“.

—tara-tata —she tried to pronounce it in a low voice.

—Ta-ta-ta-ra-abuelo. That’s what you call your grandfather’s grandfather.

—My grandfather?

—No, Papa Antonio is your grandfather, my husband, your father’s father. But he also had a father, that is, his grandfather and, for you, your great-grandfather.And your great-grandfather’s father is your great-great-grandfather, the one in the photo, Don Ignacio.

—So those are all my grandfathers.

—Oh, my child, the things you say! Well, yes, I guess it is true, they are all your grandfathers.

—He’s my grandfather.

—Yes, your great-great-grandfather.

—Can I show him Maria’s cake?

—And how are you going to show it to him?

—Well, I’ll take his portrait to the kitchen so he can see it.

—Oh, Rosarito. Yes, but please be careful not to break it.

—Come on, grandpa, let’s go to the kitchen. We made a chocolate cake for Maria because tomorrow is her saint’s day -and she took my portrait and ran down the hall.

From that moment on, we were inseparable. It was as if I were tied with a rope to that portrait; wherever it traveled, I went. Before going to bed, Rosarito would place it close to her on the bedside table. I watched her sleep, her brown curls spread out over the pillow. Sometimes, I would sit on her bed to watch her more closely and listen to her breathing. As soon as she opened her eyes, she wished me good morning and took me everywhere. If she went to the kitchen for hot chocolate, she would wrap the portrait with her arms, and I strolled behind her. Mama Juanita knitted her a fabric bag to take my portrait everywhere.

Juanita didn’t mind being called grandmother or mom; to avoid confusion, the children had decided to call both grandmothers “mama.” Well, the children didn’t really decide; it’s just a way of saying that it happened naturally. There was never a meeting or a vote on whether to call them grandmothers or moms; it simply happened organically.

My grandson Antonio was called Papa Antonio, but curiously, aside from Manuel, Rosarito’s father, there was only one other father, Antonio. Three mothers and two fathers in the house, the situation was uneven because Mama Juanita had been widowed for a long time. But children are very curious and inquisitive. Soon, they started identifying wrinkle-free versions of the people who lived in the house in other portraits until they came to one who wasn’t present. Without hesitation, they asked Mamá Juanita about that bearded man who appeared with her in all the photos. “He’s a man who was my husband and died,” she said. Mamá Juanita could have said that he was also the children’s grandfather, that he was their Papa Jacinto. Then, the trio of fathers would be complete. Papa Antonio, my grandson, Papa Jacinto, Juanita’s husband, and the children’s dad, Manuel, Antonio’s son. But it is undeniable that she felt lighter now that her husband was gone, and the last thing she wanted was to carry his memory around. She had had enough of his chronic drunkenness and his womanizing, so she didn’t plan on keeping his name alive for the rest of her life. Undesirable people lose the right to be mentioned by their name in conversations. If possible, she would never talk about him; she would exile him from every conversation and every memory she had. But sometimes you can’t have everything you want, so Mama Juanita talked about him occasionally when asked or when she wanted to tell something where he also appeared, even if only in passing. For a while, she referred to him as her husband, to avoid mentioning his name,because yes, she was married to him until death did them part, as God’s law commanded. That’s why soon Mamá Juanita started to feel the death of the unnameable as a divorce, as a contract that had ended, and in conversations with more trusted people, she referred to him as “the man she lived with.” It was with Doña Amparo and Doña Asunción, friends she had frequented for more than two decades, that she first referred to her ex-husband in that way, yes, ex, because now he was deceased and death had already divorced them. “Until death do us part,” the priest said, and that day had come long ago. They were having hot chocolate and, once they were comfortable, they dared to ask for the recipe for her renowned peanut brittle, a sweet snack enjoyed in the afternoons, because they said, no one had ever tasted anything like it.“The thing is" she finally said, “the man I lived with liked me to put a splash of sherry in the honey, that’s the secret.” Amparito and Chonita just looked at each other in silence while sipping their chocolate, keeping the deceased’s alcoholism silent as they had always done in front of Mama Juanita.

Revealed the ingredient that made their peanut brittle such an intoxicating delight, literally, both of them incorporated the secret into their next batch, obtaining a result, indeed, very addictive, although neither of them managed, according to their palate, a taste equal to what they remembered from the ones Mama Juanita made. The thing is, she didn’t tell the whole truth because that man she lived with demanded putting something stronger than sherry, like rum or whisky, or whatever, but the liquor could be clearly identified on the palate. “Don’t be stingy, Juana, be generous, put plenty,” he always complained. But Juanita felt embarrassed to tell it. Still, her friends were happy with the improved recipe of the peanut brittle, with which they were later praised, and that secret, the recipe of the man she lived with, had become gold that they wouldn’t share so easily.

The introduction that Mamá Juanita made to the children about the nameless figure in the photos was vague enough for them to lose interest in knowing who that man who used to be her husband and died was, and they didn’t ask any more questions.

Inside the bag that Rosarito carried everywhere on her shoulder, not only did my portrait travel. Sometimes, it had to share space with her doll Cristina, with a Little Lulu comic book, and frequently with some fruit, like oranges, figs, or even chocolate. We went from room to room around the large house, to the second patio, and to orchard, deep in the back. Sometimes we also went out. We strolled through the mainplaza,visited the ice cream parlor, the newsstand, and other establishments where my great-great-granddaughter had to run errands.

Sometimes, there wasn’t much movement, so I practiced my walking, that way, I would be able to accompany her everywhere she went. However, after a while, I discovered that I couldn’t stray too far from the portrait, as if, indeed, that invisible rope I felt tying me to it had only a few meters of cord.I had to stay behind if Rosarito did not carry my portrait in her bag. In the meantime, usually at night, I would put one foot in front of the other, slowly, step by step. What I didn’t know was that sometimes the living could hear me. How do my footsteps echo if I don’t even have shoes? I don’t know. One night, after everybody went to bed, I heard Rosarito’s voice talking to María. Startled, she asked if she was awake. María was only a few years older than Rosarito. She wasn’t the oldest of the five, but she was the sharpest. Knowing herself to be Rosarito’s older sister, she took her role very seriously and always looked out for her. She explained everything, took her everywhere, and even defended her from insects. María opened an eye when she heard Rosarito’s voice and confirmed with a guttural sound that she was, indeed, awake. She wasn’t, actually, at first, but woke up to see what was happening.

—I’m scared, I hear footsteps in the corridor, said Rosarito.

—It’s grandfather, he has to walk, otherwise his feet will stick to the floor. Go to sleep now.

—Grandpa?, grandpa?, can you stop walking? I can’t sleep,- I heard Rosarito say.

So I sat on the edge of her bed and said good night.