Mami picked us up after choir practice. La Nena and I got into the car. I sat in the back as usual. Mami asked us to sing the last song we had learned. I sat up straight, looked at La Nena in the rearview mirror and we sang together, “Nigra sum sed formosa, filiae Jerusalem. I deo delexit me Rex…”
Meri was the director of the Coro de Niños de Puerto Rico. I had auditioned for the children’s choir at San Ignacio School one month prior. I knew about the choir from my sister who sang with them. The choir started out only for girls. But now, boys were allowed. Mami thought that perhaps I could join. Papi wasn’t very happy because it was a girly thing to do. I didn’t mind.
I liked singing to Güicho at night. He slept in the room next to me and he would ask me to sing la canción loca when he was nervous and couldn’t sleep. I sang the crazy song softly so as not to bother anybody. It was in my made-up English, and it made as much sense as my talking GI Joe-Astronaut. I sang, “NASA Ketchup Nixon Viet Cong, Coca Cola Cadillac Hoover Dam.” It put us both to sleep.
Mami had taken me to the audition on an early afternoon. We walked down the school’s open-air corridor. Mami put her hand on my head, turned it toward a door, and pushed me inside. The blast from the air conditioner hit me like an iceberg.
We entered a large rectangular activities room with windows with closed Miami blinds that were covered with a thick plastic sheet that expanded and contracted with the blasts from the air conditioner.
Meri sat in front of an upright piano that was flush against the wall. Her hands were on the piano keys, but her body was turned towards a raised platform where three rows of children in their school uniforms stood at attention.
The children were grouped according to their voices. There were three groups of different heights and ages: soprano, alto, and bass. They sang a song in harmony and in English. I enjoyed the warmth of the music against the cold air of the air conditioning. But I could barely make out the words.
As if sensing my confusion, Meri briefly turned to me and said, ““Oh Shenandoah” is a traditional song. It’s the American version of “En mi Viejo San Juan.” It tells the story of a young man who goes away for a long time. He misses his wife terribly. To see her again, he must cross the mighty Missouri River. One of the longest and widest rivers in the US.”
She turned back to face the children in the choir. “To sing with emotion, imagine you’ve left home, and to get back you must cross an overflowing river that stands in your way.”
I tried to think what she meant. I imagined what it would be like to leave Puerto Rico and travel far away. How would it feel to be all alone in a foreign land without Mami and Papi? Without Güicho and La Nena? I thought of Tita, our nanny, and her husband who went missing in Vietnam.
I looked up at Mami and she squinted back at me, smiling. We sat down on classroom chairs close to the door and waited for the end of the rehearsal.
A yellow sheet with fancy handwriting and strange drawings lay on the table next to us. It caught my eye. Mami said the black and white bubbles with long and short flags attached to them were notes. She called it a sheet of music. I could tell that the words under the notes were in English.
In school, all our classes were in English, except for Spanish class. And Sister Grace (with the face of a mace) made sure we learned the language. In class, we sang “Pollito chicken, gallina hen, lápiz pencil y pluma pen.” We read aloud about Dick, Jane, and Spot their dog. Sister Grace’s ruler would come down hard on our knuckles if we didn’t read correctly. She was as scary as the Mother Superior who sang from the shadows in The Sound of Music.
Sister Grace helped me to memorize words in English. But Tita had been my best teacher. Every night, Tita would bring out a new deck of index cards with a word on one side and its definition on the other. We would sit on my bed, and I would repeat the words, turning them over until I knew them by heart. Each night, she taught me a list of ten.
Tita spoke English because her husband was born in the Bronx. They met during one of his visits to the Island, and they married. Now, she told me, he was missing from the war in Vietnam. She showed me pictures of her husband, in uniform, standing with Alexander, her son.
Tita’s husband was a tall and thin man. I could barely make out his face in the faded photograph. He had her complexion, trigueño.
Alexander lived with his grandmother on the other side of the Island, in Ponce, because Tita couldn’t care for him and for us at the same time. Alexander was darker but the same age as Güicho, my little brother. I knew Tita missed Alexander terribly. But she pretended nothing was wrong.
“His eyes were blue when he was born. Everybody’s eyes are blue when we’re born,” Tita said. I looked closer at Alexander’s face in the picture. “And then they change.” It was difficult to see the color of Alexander’s almond shaped eyes. He smiled at the camera and held on tight to his father’s hand. “Blue is English for Azul.” I never forgot Tita’s English lessons.
The music had become very loud during the audition, and I read the lyrics on the sheet of music, seeing images in my mind’s eye.
“Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Away you rolling river. Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Away, I’m bound away, ‘cross the wide Missouri.”
I pictured Tita’s husband. In my imagination, he wore his uniform and carried an M-16 automatic rifle and a helmet, similar to my Christmas gifts that year.
The machine gun was my best toy of all time, after the talking GI Joe Astronaut, that is. The gun looked real. It had a lever you pulled back. Then you pulled the trigger, and out came the sound of the bullets. Rat-tat-tat-tat music to my ears.
“Oh Shenandoah” was a different kind of song. Softer, deeper, and sadder. Moving slowly, powerfully, through the air.
I then pictured Puerto Rico’s longest river, El Río la Plata in the town of Toa Baja, overflowing during the rainy season. Every year, it would flood Papi’s factory, which stood on its banks.
Tita’s husband stood on my imaginary riverbank. He looked at Tita and Alexander, who stood next to me, on the other side of La Plata. The rushing chocolate river threatened to take all of us down, together with the tall chimney that was all that was left of an old sugar mill.
After practice, I stood for the audition. The children left the classroom and Meri hung back. She spoke to Mami and then she pulled me aside. She took her guitar and said, “repeat after me,” and she played notes one after the other: “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do.” I quickly caught on and sang them back to her.
Meri’s dark eyes smiled behind thick glasses. She bobbed her head up and down. Abundant locks of wavy, jet black hair made a wimple around her face. I thought of María in The Sound of Music.
She scrambled the notes, “Sol, Do, La, Fa, Mi, Do, Re; Sol, Do, La, Fa, Mi, Ti, Do.” I sang them back to her without a hitch. I had seen the movie in the Paramount movie theatre a few years back and I still remembered the songs.
The Sound of Music was about another family during a war. Captain Von Trapp was a soldier, and Papi had been a Captain when he was younger. When we drove by the Officers’ Club on El Escambrón Beach, he would tell us about his weekends training and sleeping in the barracks of the Army Reserves.
Mami was military strict, but she hated the US army. She couldn’t stand it when we played war in the house. She locked herself in her walk-in closet, with her typewriter to do her assignments for the University. When our war games got out of control, she’d come out of her room, a screaming Seargent, running after me with masking-tape and a pair of scissors with golden handles. She’d catch me, tear a piece of the tape, and glue it to my mouth.
“Go up to your room and wait for your Papá to get back home.”
Papi didn’t use Captain Von Trapp’s or Sister Grace’s instruments of discipline. He punished us with a thin, black, leather belt. He’d say, “This will hurt me more than you.” I wanted to believe him, but my eyes said differently.
“Stop crying.”
I did as he commanded, and I kneeled in front of my bed, in a nightmarish version of the game Simon Says.
“Put your hands in front of you, not behind you.”
I put my trembling hands on the bed, shut my eyes tight, and clenched my teeth.
“Take it like a little man.”
Papi’s voice was firm but soft. I had only heard him sing once. It was to the tune of a TV jingle for Tropicana orange juice.
After the audition, Meri put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a soft rub. Life in the Coro de Niños de Puerto Rico promised to be very different from life at home. Meri seemed to be very forgiving. She dressed in a simple frock, buttoned all the way up to her neck. She was the only person, after my brother, who ever asked me to sing.
I walked back to Mami with a spring in my step.
“Bring him around next week for practice, he has a good ear.”
A month later, we sang Nigra sum for Mami in her car. She had picked us up from choir practice. We drove home.
When we were ready for dinner, Tita brought us downstairs and into the formal dining room.
A massive table occupied the center of the room. Four side chairs with cane seating and two armchairs surrounded it. All the furniture sat on a Persian rug as big as the room. The armchairs were larger and heavier than the side chairs and decorated with plush red velvet cushions.
Papi sat at the head of the table. I was on one side: Güicho next to me. Mami and La Nena were across from us on the other side. Usually, the armchair at the far end of the table remained empty. Sometimes, I asked permission to sit there and Papi allowed it. This time, though, I sat on my assigned seat. I ate quietly and listened to Mami and Papi talk about their day.
Papi spoke first. “I don’t approve, honey. Noti needs to learn how to compete and survive. He must be brought up like a little man.”
The soft light from the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling illuminated us, as well as the double doors that opened to the far end of the property. They had thin wood jalousies that let in the natural light from the outside. The doors were always closed.
Papi turned to me and asked, “Do you want to spend your day singing girly songs?”
Behind him, two identical walnut carved pier mirrors stood next to heavy wooden doors leading to the library.
He turned back to Mami. “Noti’s seven and he should be playing sports outside, in the sun: tennis, swimming, baseball, football. Not singing silly songs in air-conditioned rooms. How about the Boy Scouts or Judo?”
A long antique sideboard that once belonged to one of Mami’s dead aunts leaned quietly against the wall, listening.
“The Boy Scouts? Are you serious?” Mami took a breath as if she were preparing for a solo. “Before he sings “Oh Say Can You See,” he will learn “La Borinqueña.”
The only words to our national anthem that I knew by heart were the funny words that Columbus said when he landed on our beaches. “Fo, Fo, Fo…”
Above the old sideboard, hung a large oil painting of a port city in the Middle East. It depicted an abandoned sailboat run aground. Patiently waiting for the tide to come in.
“Besides, dear, you know that Pablo Casals supports Meri. He’s helped her with the choir.” Mami turned to La Nena and corrected how she held her fork.
“I like Don Pablo. He swore not to play the cello until democracy was restored in Spain.” Mami glared at Güicho who was slouching, and she jerked her chin up and down at him. Güicho straightened up.
“It’s true that he broke his promise when he came to the Island, but who could blame him? Plus, he’s related to Papá, so…”
Papi opened his eyes wide and hit the table with his fist, making the silver cups and the porcelain dishes rattle and bounce.
To be fair, Papi didn’t hit the dining table very hard, but the long top was supported by a single thick pedestal that made the ends wobbly and unstable.
To be fair, Papi didn’t hit the dining table very hard, but the long top was supported by a single thick pedestal that made the ends wobbly and unstable.
Papi was very proud of his Spanish and Catholic heritage. He often told me that we came from old Spanish stock and from Extremadura, the land of the Conquistadors. His grandfather had died when he was a boy during the Spanish Civil War. He referred to both with sadness and pride.
“Don’t bring up that godless Spanish Republican.”
Mami fired back, “Those Republicans you hate so much produced some of the best poetry in the Spanish language.” She tapped the table with her fork, like a pencil. “We’re studying Federico García Lorca in my classes at University now.”
“Well, all I can say is that thanks to El Generalísimo nobody is blowing up buildings in Spain. We could use somebody like him now that the Independentistas are setting bombs all around the capital.” We all knew that Franco was the Generalísimo, and he was getting old. Papi was worried for him, for the future of Spain, and for our future. “How somebody can be a man and write queer pato poems is beyond me.”
Mami went mute. She gave him the evil eye.
Papi dug himself deeper. I could see him starting to struggle. He turned red in the face. He lowered his tone of voice. “And, by the way, honey, you’re totally wrong about Casals. Estás tocando el violón. He’s both a Communist and an Atheist.”
He turned to look at me and noticed my elbows. “Get your wings off the table, please.” I obeyed.
“And I don’t want Noti, or La Nena for that matter, growing up around people with those values. He’ll grow up a singing sissy.”
A heavy silence followed.
“¡Pum, cayó la Piedra!”
During our long road trips aross the Island, we would play a game. Mami would say “¡Pum!”, and we had to keep silent as long as possible. If we made the slightest sound, we lost the game. We all played the game, but I suspected that Mami and Papi enjoyed it more than we did. After all, it was just a ruse to keep us quiet. La Nena, Güicho and I hit each other to try to make one of us squeal. That made the game more interesting.
I had met Casals in Meri’s choir that afternoon. I thought he was just a music teacher. He seemed old and very grumpy but with a very nice young wife. Mrs. Casals sat quietly in the corner while he directed us. We learned “Nigra sum sed formosa,” a song he had composed for Meri. It made Mami very happy when La Nena and I sang it to her in the car, after she picked us up from choir practice.
Now, I listened to the hum of the central air conditioning and the echoing silverware on the porcelain dishes. I tried to keep my mouth shut by writing my initials on the sweating silver goblets. “Pum cayó la Piedra.” I lost the game again. I was always the one to squeal.
“Meri taught us to sing a song by Casals: “Nigra sum sed formosa.”” I looked at Papi. “It’s from the Bible. Do you want to hear it?”
Mami smiled at me and was about to speak when Papi turned toward me and thundered back. Nigra sum. Do you even know what that means, Noti? Nigra sum is Latin for ‘I’m a black girl,’ for heaven’s sake. And, who gave you permission to speak anyway? Los niños hablan cuando las gallinas mean.”
The old saying reminded me of my trips to Ponce to visit my grandparents. They had laying hens in their backyard, and a colorful rooster named Abelardo. The saying must have been true. I never saw hens peeing. It made me chuckle.
Papi was upset. “Wipe that smirk off your face! In fact, it’s to the Boy Scouts with you!”
“Dear!” Mami interrupted.
But she didn’t understand that Papi’s threat was not a threat to me. I loved the Boy Scouts. I especially loved their uniforms, their colored badges and scarves, and their different ranks named after animals: Cub Scout, Eagle Scout.
Tomás had told me about his overnight excursions to the mountains with his Scout Leaders. He also told me that they sang songs around the campfire.
I pictured myself going on Boy Scout trips with Tomás and singing another song for them, one that Tita had taught me. She knew it by heart. Tita had a good ear, and a musical whistle to accompany her deep voice.
It was a sad song about a little Indian boy who was sitting on the branch of a tree when his mother cried out to him. He was startled and fell to the ground, breaking his neck. The strange thing was that, as she cuddled him, her son turned into a beautiful bird. He flew away singing Chogüí, Chogüí, Chogüí. He was happy to leave his mother behind.
Mami rang the silver bell and Tita picked up the dishes. The bell put an end to the conversation, and we were allowed to leave the dining room. I put the embroidered linen napkin on the table and shuffled upstairs. Mami and Papi cried out after me in unison. “Stop dragging your feet!” At least they agreed on something.
Güicho followed me upstairs also making noise with his feet. We changed into our pjs and went to bed in our rooms separated by French double doors. We left them open because we were afraid of the dark.
I always fell asleep quickly, but it took Güicho a little more time. I soon heard him fidgeting in his room. “Could you sing la canción loca?”
I wasn’t in the mood. I asked him how about a different song?
He said, “yes, sure.”
I thought about it, and I remembered a scene from The Sound of Music. The Von Trapps sang in a concert hall filled with evil Nazis who were waiting to put the Captain away in prison. María taught the children to sing “So Long Farewell” as a ruse to give the family time to escape. I sang the song for Güicho.
“I’m glad to go I cannot tell a lie, I flit I float, I fleetly flee, I fly.”
I thought of an imaginary boy turning into a sissy bird, a duck waddling, chickens peeing, and eagles singing in the night of the forest. A soldier waved at me from a strange land on the other side of a wide muddy river. A warm hand patted me on the head and gently pushed me across.
I sang, “So long, farewell, aufwiedersehn, goodbye…, goodbye…, goodbye…”
We fell asleep.