Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (47 page)

We spent as little time at home as possible. Shoshana had Manhattan Community College, a job at a shoe store on 34th Street, and Arthur to keep her busy. I had Children's Theater International, the Advertising Checking Bureau, and Ulvi. Together, Shoshana and I had our dates.

Whether on the street or in a restaurant, Shoshana and I were often approached by men eager to take us out. Most of the time we accepted but followed strict rules for these unexpected dates. We only went to dinner at nice restaurants, never for drinks at a bar. We refused alcohol. We agreed on a curfew, and even if the men were fascinating, left when the time was up. We arrived together and left together. We never left the other one alone with a date. Most of the men were content to talk, but a few offered us
money for sex. In that event, Shoshana and I executed a dramatic exit. After the agreed-upon signal, we rose from the table as one and stalked out. Ninety percent of the time, the men were so stunned that they sat with their mouths open while other diners stared after us. Once, a man yelled obscenities as we walked out, which only confirmed our decision to get out of there fast as we could.

We didn't think what we were doing was wrong or that we were cheating on Arthur or Ulvi. They never took us anywhere, as if afraid to be seen with us. The strangers who escorted us to dinner were thrilled to have us by their side, brought us to elegant restaurants, urged us to order the most expensive entrees. We were, we knew, decoration, a line on their expense reports. But we didn't mind. Their conversation, which to their wives or girlfriends might have been stupefying, was fascinating to us, who'd never met an accountant from Peoria or a personnel director from Albuquerque.

The first thing we established about a date was where he lived. We preferred men from out of town, because there was no chance we'd see them again. Then we asked whether he was married, if there were children. If he lied, he only fooled himself. If he shared pictures of his wife and kids, stories about Little League games and school plays, we did his family a service by easing his loneliness and keeping him from actions he might later regret. We had nothing to lose, enjoyed a nice dinner with interesting conversation, and felt virtuous because we were saving a family while still being loyal to our boyfriends.

We learned to spot the boasters and posturers, whose lies and exaggerations added to our mirth the next day, when we traded impressions of the previous evening. As with my sisters and the men we danced with at clubs, the “stocking rippers” and “the octopuses,” Shoshana and I had code names for our dates.

First there were the “Groovies,” who tried to impress us with their hipness by using adolescent expressions as often as possible. Shoshana and I, both native speakers of other languages, were not as in tune with American slang as native English speakers. Most
of the time, a Groovy's use of slang was like another language to us, and we listened in awe of how idioms that sprang from our generation set us apart from them. Because we had learned English as a second language, Shoshana and I were obsessed with its proper usage. We spoke in schoolroom grammar, looked down on the second type, the “YKs,” who couldn't put a sentence together without adding “you know” between phrases. A Groovy patronized us, a YK was never specific, let sentences disintegrate into generalities. If we were feeling wicked that day, we prodded YKs to say more, until it was clear to him that no, we didn't know. Shoshana maintained that YKs were threatened by real ignorance, because by saying “you know,” they avoided a display of their own.

The third group, Daddies, were older men who, sometime during dinner, compared us to their daughters. “You remind me so much of Lindy,” one said to Shoshana, and she prompted him to describe Lindy. Before we knew it, we'd heard the story of his life, with details about in-laws, best friends, alimony payments, visitation rights. Daddies were the most likely to want to see us again, but another of our rules was no repeat dates. Groovies assumed we could find them a drug connection. YKs were the most likely to offer us money for sex.

Shoshana sometimes discussed our dates with Arthur. I kept them from Ulvi, who wasn't interested in my life. Our relationship was a bubble isolated from the rest of our existence, confined to the white walls of his tidy, one-room apartment.

Rehearsals for the new Japanese-inspired production for Children's Theater International were on evenings and weekends, while performances of
Babu
took two or three mornings a week. With the exception of Tom and me, most of the actors from the previous season of
Babu
had to be replaced due to other commitments. Allan had joined the Broadway cast of
Fiddler on the Roof,
so a new actor, Jaime, took his place in the repertory.
Like me, Jaime was Puerto Rican, but born in New York. We recognized the irony of two Puerto Ricans playing Indian royalty.

“There's something wrong with this,” Jaime complained. “We should be out there fighting for the rights of our people.”

Jaime was proud of his heritage, determined to do what he could to preserve Puerto Rican culture in New York. In El Barrio and the Bronx, in parts of Brooklyn, other young Puerto Ricans, some of them members of the Young Lords, campaigned to improve the lives of their
compatriotas.
My cousin Corazón was involved with a group in the Lower East Side that offered art and photography lessons to Puerto Rican high school students. My brother Hector and my sister Delsa were involved in youth organizations in our neighborhood.

My own social conscience was pathetically underdeveloped. I felt no obligation to “our people” in the abstract, felt, in fact, weighed down by duty to my people in the concrete: Mami, Tata, my ten sisters and brothers.

“That's a cop-out.” Jaime charged that I used my family as an excuse to avoid involvement in the Puerto Rican struggle. “And what's with the Indian dance?” he scolded. “We need to champion our art and theater. Let the Hindus worry about their own.”

My devotion to Indian dance, I argued, wasn't part of a conspiracy to promote their civilization over Puerto Rico's. My love of Indian classical dance and its music didn't extend to any other part of the subcontinent's culture. I didn't like curry or spicy foods, didn't dress in saris, didn't pray to Krishna, Shiva, or Ganesh, sneezed whenever incense burned near me.

“You don't get it,” Jaime argued, “if we lose Puerto Ricans to other cultures, we lose Puerto Rican culture.”

“What do you think happens to us here?” I contended. “Do you think we're as Puerto Rican in the U.S. as on the island?”

“More,” he argued. “We have to work at it here.”

I saw his point, but that didn't make me want to rush down to the nearest community center to dance the
plena.
Why should I be less Puerto Rican if I danced Bharata Natyam? Were ballet dancers on the island less Puerto Rican because their art originated
in France? What about pianists who performed Beethoven? Or people who read Nietzsche? It was useless to argue with him. Even if I won, Jaime's judgment of me, unsparing and consistent, made me question my loyalty to my people.

In spite of Jaime's accusations that they were a cop-out, I still defined “my” people as Tata, Mami, Delsa, Norma, Hector, Alicia, Edna, Raymond, Franky, Charlie, Cibi, Ciro. On the periphery there were also Papi, Don Carlos, Don Julio, La Muda, Tía Ana, Alma, Corazón, and the many aunts, uncles, and cousins in New York and back on the island.

For as long as I could remember, I'd been told that I was to set an example for my siblings. It was a tremendous burden, especially as the family grew, but I took the charge seriously, determined to show my sisters and brothers that we need not surrender to low expectations. To avoid the hot-tomato label, I dressed neatly but conservatively. I didn't smoke or drink. If I was in a situation where drugs were being shared, I walked away, so as not to confirm the stereotype of Puerto Ricans as drug abusers. There were enough alcoholics in my family for me to know that it wasn't fun, or pretty, and that whatever a drunk sought to abolish with liquor never went away.

The first Puerto Rican drug addict I met was Neftalí, who paid for it with his life. Maybe he felt good after he injected poison into his veins, just as Tata felt good when she drank beer. From where I stood, sober and straitlaced, the high wasn't worth the low, which for Tata, at least, came earlier every day.

The only people I knew who used drugs were American college students. They held smoky court in a corner of Manhattan Community College or hovered in disheveled groups in the streets of the Village near NYU and the rehearsal studio. They offered to “share” with me, but I refused. I had no desire to alter my consciousness, nor to escape reality. If I took even one “trip,” I'd never return. Stubbornly, I observed every second of my ungroovy life, felt every pang of pain, shouldered humiliation, succumbed to joy, leaped into passion.

Mami drilled into me that I had only one asset. I wasn't the
prettiest of her six daughters, or the strongest of her children, but I was, she often said, intelligent. It was the power of that intelligence that I trusted. If my one asset was to work for me, my brain needed to remain unfogged and focused. My clear-headed self-absorption kept me sober. It also convinced me that in spite of Jaime's censure, I could be of no help to “my” people until I helped myself.

Jaime and I were too professional to let the prickly relationship we had offstage affect our performance in the happily-ever-after world of children's theater. But we were never as close as I'd been to Allan, who had demanded less and accepted me as I was. With Allan gone from the cast, and to avoid Jaime's frequent rebukes, I drew closer to Tom, the only other actor left from the Broadway production. He was easy to be with, funny, a good actor, a lithe dancer. He made it clear from the beginning that his friendship with me was not as disinterested as Allan's and Bill's. When I told him I was involved with someone, however, he confessed that he was in love with a dancer. “But I had to try,” he said, with an impish grin.

For the new play,
A Box of Tears,
Robert De Mora, who'd also worked on
Babu,
designed a spectacular set and elaborate, clever costumes. I played a mermaid who disguised herself as a turtle and was caught in a net by a peasant fisherman. After a series of adventures, he became a prince and I a princess and we lived happily ever after. My mermaid costume was heavily sequined in emerald green and drew applause from the audience when I made my entrance. I wore a wig of long, green hair, made of a material so fine that it floated around me as I moved and gave the impression that we were under water. When I became a princess, my kimonos were traditional in design, my wig elaborately combed and decorated.

A consultant was brought in to show us how to move like Japanese people, including the proper way to bow. She also demonstrated how to put on the three layers of kimonos and gave me some tips on how to walk in the sebutan shoes without falling
over (very small steps). During performance, we wore Kabuki-style makeup. I arrived at the theater two hours before curtain to transform myself from Puerto Rican Indian classical dancer to Japanese mermaid. First I applied a thick white paste to my face, which obliterated my features. I then drew in the slanted eyes, straight eyebrows, bow lips in the photograph Kyoko gave me as a guide.

In one of the scenes, I was required to perform for the ocean king in my mermaid costume. Kyoko taught me how to sing “Sakura” in Japanese and choreographed a dance using fans to tell the story of how the fisherman caught the turtle/mermaid. After hearing me sing, Bill and Vera decided that I should just move my lips while Kyoko sang and played the koto.

I loved the play, the extravagant liberties De Mora took with costumes and set, the jokes we played on stage to break each other's concentration. My first words were spoken into a microphone offstage, while I was still a turtle in the hands of Tom as the fisherman. Rather than say my lines as Tom expected, I gurgled watery noises that were magnified through the whole theater. The first time I did that, Tom was disoriented, looked around as if the voice had come from heaven. In a later scene, as I performed my fan dance, Tom had his back to the audience. He often made goofy faces at me, while I struggled to maintain the dignity of a buddha.

My sisters and brothers couldn't come to my performances, because they took place during school hours, but I was enjoying myself so much that I wanted to share it with someone. Well aware that he preferred to keep our private lives private, I still urged Ulvi to come see me perform at the 92nd Street Y. The huge auditorium hummed with children bussed in from schools all over the city. It wasn't until I was putting on my makeup that I envisioned Ulvi in the audience surrounded by fidgety, chatty, precocious New York City schoolchildren. Naturally fastidious, he'd probably notice the pungent smell a roomful of children discharged. He'd frown at their shrill voices, at the way they ran down the aisle to claim a seat next to their best friends. With Ulvi in the audience,
it was difficult to concentrate, because I worried that the context for the performance would affect his enjoyment of it.