My mom’s life story in Pasado Imperfecto
Margoth’s friend Neti came by this evening during dinner. She and Margoth had been out and she stayed while Robin and I ate dinner and watched the ‘novela (as they call them here). Neti is a character. She is funny and direct and very crude and sort of reminds me of Olympia Dukakis’ character in “Steel Magnolias.” In fact, now that I think of it, there are a lot of Steel Magnolia references going on in this household. For instance, I found out when I first arrived that while Tito, Giovani and Rita are Margoth and the Sir’s children, there are two other men who work in the bakery at night who are his children from another woman. Margoth rarely talks to them, and I’ve noticed that Tito never talks to the Sir. I can’t blame Tito, the man is a sour pus, although Robin insists that he’s gotten better since I showed up. She thinks it has something to do with the extra income.
I can’t tell if the Sir doesn’t like Margoth or if they just have money arguments. Margoth cooked breakfast for me and Robin in the house kitchen this morning because I was late coming downstairs and decided to eat with Robin. I thought it would be easier than making her run between the bakery and the kitchen, even though she uses the stove in the bakery to cook everything. So, we were all sitting in there having a pleasant breakfast and Margoth brought us all a basket of bread. Usually just for me the basket has two normal breads and one toasted cookie bread. In this basket there were four normals, two toasteds, and one actual cookie. Since there were three of us eating, it seemed ok. But quite soon the Sir opened the casa door, stood in the doorway and glowered. Margoth goes, “Que!” and he shouted out something that I’m fairly sure was rude, but I can’t quite make out his Colombian accent yet. Margoth didn’t say anything and Sir turned around and left, and we were all quiet for a moment, I because I wasn’t sure what happened. Robin leaned over and patted Margoth’s arm and smiled a little, and then we all started talking again. It was a little depressing, and a little grotesque, the way many of the men here treat their wives.
Back to Neti, she’s a divorcee like a lot of Margoth’s friends. Neti is hilarious though. One of the first things she told me was that she wanted an old husband, 70 years old, who couldn’t do anything, especially in bed. She wanted an old man, definitely not a young one, someone who needed his diapers changed. I told her Robin should find her one in Honduras, and we could make a sign saying, Searching for an “Anciano”. Neti thought that was hilarious and started scheming on ways to make her photograph into a necklace Robin could wear whenever a Setento stopped to respond to the ad which Robin would wear as a T-Shirt. The Sir came down while we were laughing and everyone got quiet for a minute, then Neti made a joke about the Sir’s pajama’s which he always puts on exactly at 8:00. He went up to his room and his tv with the plate of food Margoth had made him, and somehow the conversation turned to me. I had been planning on heading up to my room as well since a wave of exhaustion had hit, but Neti kept asking questions about my family, and suddenly I was telling everyone how it came to be that I was born half American, half Guatemalan.
I began by saying that my mom had come to the U.S. for work, ended up living for a time with our church priest which is where she met my dad. I told how they had met and how dad had had to make up his mind fairly quickly to marry her, otherwise mom would have been back to work in a factory in Guatemala. When I got to the part where dad proposed and mom said yes, I finished with “and they’ve been married now for 33 (or so) years.” And the first thing Margoth said was, “and he is good to her?”
I’m not sure if there’s something here that makes men so bad to their wives, or if its just sort of a global problem. But it seems to me that I have never had a Latin relative or a friend or heard of a Latin man who has never cheated on his wife, hit his wife, had a mistress, fathered other children, or something of the sort. Well, no, I take that back. There is one. My murdered uncle. Estuardo. He loved his wife and children very much.
I can’t tell if the Sir doesn’t like Margoth or if they just have money arguments. Margoth cooked breakfast for me and Robin in the house kitchen this morning because I was late coming downstairs and decided to eat with Robin. I thought it would be easier than making her run between the bakery and the kitchen, even though she uses the stove in the bakery to cook everything. So, we were all sitting in there having a pleasant breakfast and Margoth brought us all a basket of bread. Usually just for me the basket has two normal breads and one toasted cookie bread. In this basket there were four normals, two toasteds, and one actual cookie. Since there were three of us eating, it seemed ok. But quite soon the Sir opened the casa door, stood in the doorway and glowered. Margoth goes, “Que!” and he shouted out something that I’m fairly sure was rude, but I can’t quite make out his Colombian accent yet. Margoth didn’t say anything and Sir turned around and left, and we were all quiet for a moment, I because I wasn’t sure what happened. Robin leaned over and patted Margoth’s arm and smiled a little, and then we all started talking again. It was a little depressing, and a little grotesque, the way many of the men here treat their wives.
Back to Neti, she’s a divorcee like a lot of Margoth’s friends. Neti is hilarious though. One of the first things she told me was that she wanted an old husband, 70 years old, who couldn’t do anything, especially in bed. She wanted an old man, definitely not a young one, someone who needed his diapers changed. I told her Robin should find her one in Honduras, and we could make a sign saying, Searching for an “Anciano”. Neti thought that was hilarious and started scheming on ways to make her photograph into a necklace Robin could wear whenever a Setento stopped to respond to the ad which Robin would wear as a T-Shirt. The Sir came down while we were laughing and everyone got quiet for a minute, then Neti made a joke about the Sir’s pajama’s which he always puts on exactly at 8:00. He went up to his room and his tv with the plate of food Margoth had made him, and somehow the conversation turned to me. I had been planning on heading up to my room as well since a wave of exhaustion had hit, but Neti kept asking questions about my family, and suddenly I was telling everyone how it came to be that I was born half American, half Guatemalan.
I began by saying that my mom had come to the U.S. for work, ended up living for a time with our church priest which is where she met my dad. I told how they had met and how dad had had to make up his mind fairly quickly to marry her, otherwise mom would have been back to work in a factory in Guatemala. When I got to the part where dad proposed and mom said yes, I finished with “and they’ve been married now for 33 (or so) years.” And the first thing Margoth said was, “and he is good to her?”
I’m not sure if there’s something here that makes men so bad to their wives, or if its just sort of a global problem. But it seems to me that I have never had a Latin relative or a friend or heard of a Latin man who has never cheated on his wife, hit his wife, had a mistress, fathered other children, or something of the sort. Well, no, I take that back. There is one. My murdered uncle. Estuardo. He loved his wife and children very much.
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