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11

MAMA CONCHA

My first and perhaps only memories of my grandmotherMama Concha were of the vast fields where we lived on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Our properties were close enough that I could walk to my grandparents’ house. My house wasn’t big, but the land where it was built appeared to me back then to be long and wide. My parents and especially my grandfather, who came to live with us after Mama Concha died, loved to plant vegetable gardens, fruit trees and small parcels of corn and sugar cane. We also had chickens, goats and dozens of rab- bits. I would always follow my grandfather around whenever he worked in the garden, fed the animals or when he slaughtered a chicken or rabbit for supper. I was about four years old when my father began to help with the slaughtering. I began to real- ize that my little grandfather, who once had hands like bear paws, was finding it more difficult to keep the animals from squirming free. Whenever a chicken or rabbit escaped the chop- ping block, he would get mad and start yelling a bunch of bad words that would bring my father out to calm him down. My grandfather was already very old, and he spent his days reliving his memories. In the evenings, as the sun set and the air was refreshed by a gentle breeze, I would see him sitting under one of the quince trees. Here he would tell me stories about my grandmother. He cried a lot because he missed her, and he

C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 4 . A r t e P b l i c o P r e s s .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

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would say that he couldn’t live without her. This always fright- ened me because I didn’t want to lose my grandfather, too.

From what I remember about Mama Concha, I would always see her picking fruit or carrying fruit up to the house or preparing it for mealtime. She had a special way with grandfa- ther’s strawberries. I got to help her harvest them, filling a basket for the whole family. I felt proud to be able to help my grandmother, and I insisted on carrying the basket which would be so full of big, juicy red berries that I couldn’t see in front of me. So I walked sideways with my eyes fixed steadily on the path. My grandmother followed patiently behind, right up until I lifted the basket up onto the kitchen table. She made me wash my hands before picking out the best strawberries, which was hard to do because they all looked so scrumptious. I washed them and put them in a big bowl. She would bring out a knife, cutting board and mortar. She placed a dozen or so strawberries on the cutting board, removed the stems and tips, then cut them into four pieces. She did this with all but the last dozen berries, which she cut into halves for her strawberry broth. She placed the mortar into a large dish. With both hands she scooped up a pile of freshly cut strawberries and piled them into the hollow of the mortar, where she crushed them with a stone pestle. When she was finished she added the sugar.

“Go fetch a spoon and try some.” The crushed strawberries tasted sweet and fresh. Then she

placed three bananas on the cutting board, cut them into half- inch pieces and added them to the crushed strawberries.

“Let’s see if you like bananas.” I opened my mouth wide and grandmother fed me the

strawberries with a small piece of banana floating in the red juice.

“I like them, Grandmother!”

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She returned with a round piece of bread in the middle of a small dish. She smothered the bread with the strawberry-banana puree and topped it off with whipped cream.

“There, love. You learn to appreciate strawberries after the work you put into them.”

I hugged Mama Concha, who pulled me onto her lap and curled me up between her breasts. That was my favorite place, sitting on her lap and breathing in the scent of my grandmother.

That’s how I remember her: big and strong. I breathed her strength. I was sure that Mama Concha was a powerful woman because everyone in the family paid attention to her and obeyed whatever she said. Even Grandfather knew not to argue with her. That’s why he would sometimes wander off, afraid that Concha was getting riled up about something. My most vivid memory that to this day I relive in my dreams is picturing her amid the big fruit trees in the garden. Grandfather had planted pomegranate trees, guava, apricot and plum trees. There were also two large avocado trees that were growing in the garden naturally. I loved my grandmother. And though I didn’t realize it then, I learned a great deal from her wisdom.

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Mama Concha wore the fragrance of the fruits she harvest- ed and prepared. If she picked guavas, which have a very strong aroma, it stayed with her for a long time.

“Guava is a big sumptuous fruit!” She held two handfuls up to my nose. “Fragrance is a passion, my child.” She picked out a big guava and cleaned it on her apron. She

rolled it around in her fingers. “Look at the peel. It’s a soft smooth green. Smell the sweet-

ness that invites you to cut it open like this.”

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Grandmother sliced the guava in two. “Notice the pink color of the flesh, so light and appealing

like a soft perfume, inviting you to savor its sweetness, slowly, unlike a crunchy apple that you have to bite into firmly. No. Not like that, Child. The guava is delicate. You eat it slowly, ten- derly.”

She told me this because the guavas were so good that she didn’t want me to eat too many and end up with a stomachache. Grandmother made jam with the guavas and gave some to the whole family and her neighborhood friends.

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Grandmother had big apricot trees. She liked to sit on a bench under her favorite one, and I would often sit with her to keep her company. We cuddled up close together. I hugged her and breathed deeply, assured that she emanated a wonderful fra- grance of love. I told her so, which brought a big smile to her face that warmed my heart. Often we just sat in silence.

“Listen to the stillness.” Little by little I learned to listen for silence. For the most

part I didn’t hear anything, but I imagined an empty quiet space where I drifted into tranquil slumber beside my grandmother.

The apricots were big, of an orangey yellow color. Grandmother picked the ripe ones and filled a basket that she set down between us.

“Look at the lovely color. This one has just ripened.” She wiped it on her apron, and with her thick fingers she

split it open into halves. “Notice the pit, how dark it is, the apricot’s seed. Be careful

not to eat it by mistake. We enjoy the fruit so much that we sometimes forget that it has a pit. If we don’t pay attention, we could choke on it. This little pit is the seed, the heart and womb

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of the tree, and it can grow up big just like one of these enor- mous trees. Just remember that it can hurt you if you don’t respect it when you eat the fruit. Now look at the color of the flesh.”

I realized that it was almost the same color as the skin. Grandmother raised the apricot to my mouth for me to taste it. She smiled when she saw the look of surprise on my face.

“It’s so sweet, Mama Concha.” “Well, of course! Mama Concha picks only the best for her

handsome little boy.” I felt very comfortable at her feet, snuggled up against her

legs or holding on to her apron. I was safe there, under her favorite tree, listening to the birds, watching the dog, the cat, all the hens and the goats. You could see the rabbit cages from where we were sitting.

I could tell that everyone loved Grandmother very much because neighbors would often come to visit her, or relatives who lived far away would travel to see her. They, too, would sit with her on her bench. At her feet I would look up at these friends and relatives who seemed to laugh a lot together or sometimes cried with her. I remember that in the mornings for breakfast Mama Concha gave me toast with apricot jam. She thought that apricot jam was the easiest to spread, but I pre- ferred the jams with pieces of fruit in them. They were the sweetest, and she didn’t mind if I left the little pieces on the table or dropped them on the floor.

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“This plot of land is our place in the world. We take only what we need. There’s no need to ask for more than our share.”

There were other trees on their land that also produced fruit, but none that I liked as much as her favorite apricot tree. Mama

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Concha knew which fruits I liked but made me try them all. One was the sapodilla plum, which grew on gigantic trees. Those were the biggest trees on my grandparents’ property. I think that many of the trees had been there for a long time, planted years and years before. My grandmother used to explain that the trees, the gardens and all the work that my fam- ily put into it—all that effort—is what made the land sacred.

“Ancient, this place is ancient. It’s our part of the world, our share of the land to do God’s work.”

The sapodilla plum has green skin and an inside that’s as white as snow, my grandmother told me. I don’t think that she ever really saw snow except for the distant mountain tops that received a white covering every winter. I would wake up one morning and the mountain tops were white. In the mornings I went looking for Grandmother in the kitchen where she pre- pared coffee for Grandfather and my parents. On those first days of winter Mama Concha would scoop me up in her arms and take me outside where she’d point toward the mountains.

“Look at the snow, white, white on the mountains. It must be so clean and cold up there, and pretty.”

I wanted so much to see the snow up close, to touch and feel it with my hands. It was Mama Concha who had showed it to me for the first time. She held me against her chest and, with her finger, she traced the snow line along the distant mountains.

The sapodilla plum meant it was winter. In our warm cozy kitchen, Grandmother was eating a sapodilla and nut jam that I didn’t much care for.

“Have a little bit more of the jam, child. Learn to appreciate all that God has given us.”

My grandparents really liked the sapodilla jam. They served it to all the old folks around Simons, because I think they were the only ones who would eat the stuff. It’s that the sapodilla plum was the only fruit that I feared. I remember once when

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three of Mama Concha’s friends came to pick up a few baskets of sapodillas that she had set aside for them. The women sat at the kitchen table where I was taking the smallest of bites of my bread with sapodilla jam. Mama Concha served them coffee and also some of the jam with bread. The women started talk- ing about how they were going to use the sapodillas.

“We don’t make jams like you do, Concha.” “Concha, you’ll make a jam out of any fruit.” They all laughed. “You know what we do with the sapodilla plums you give

us? We use them for a skin ointment to reduce brown patches and to fight infections. And another use is for sore thighs and aching bones.”

“It’s good for rheumatism,” another friend added. “And you know we’re going to send our grandchildren out

to collect more when we start using the seeds. We’ll take as many as you can give us, Concha.”

“If you wish, you can take them all. Pick the ones from the ground first, and then you can take them off the tree. But be very careful because it’s an enormous tree. And come as soon as you can because the fallen ones will begin to rot.”

“Thank you, Concha,” said the eldest. “We’ll start this week with the soporific and the sedative that we prepare every year. We’ll make more than last year because we were sold out before the end of the year.”

“We’ve got to prepare more sedative because it helps the nerves, and it’s good for calming tiresome kids, and for insom- niacs.”

“But be careful, as the seeds can be poisonous, depending on how you prepare them,” Mama Concha warned.

“Not to worry, Concha, we know very well how to prepare these medications, as well as the poison. It’s good for killing

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rats and moles, and larger animals. Not to worry, Concha. We are much obliged for the use of your fruit.”

“Well, thanks to all of you for using up the sapodilla plums, because when they begin to rot they bring swarms of flies. That’s why Eutimio wants to cut those trees down. I won’t let him, though. When I’m dead he can do whatever he wishes with all of this.

Mama Concha noticed the look of fright in my expression. When I heard that the seeds were poisonous and that she was going to die, I was done with eating sapodilla jam.

“No, Grandson, I’m not going to die tomorrow.” “Of course not. Your grandmother will live for many years.” The eldest got up from the table. “We’ve got to be going, Concha. We’re going to go see

Lidia, your neighbor, the one who lives in the last house on the street. She has an uncle who suffers from insomnia. They called and asked us to come over this afternoon.”

My grandmother’s friends left, and all was quiet in the kitchen as I sat at the table with still half a slice of bread and jam in my hand. Grandmother made me a hot tea.

“Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.” I didn’t want any. “It’s not the same tea that the ladies were drinking,” Mama

Concha assured me with a little smile. Later on I went outside to see the sapodilla tree that now

had a mysterious meaning for me. I stood beneath the immense tree and it beckoned for me to climb it, right to the very top. But I couldn’t reach even the lowest branches.

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The pomegranate trees were at the back of the property. It wasn’t far, but Mama Concha was taking her time. She brought

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a basket, and I was carrying a wooden chair for her. It was hard to carry because it was almost as big as I was. A few times I had to just drag it. I carried it against my chest, on my back and on my head like a crown. The pomegranate trees weren’t very big. There were about six of them that produced a pile of fruit. Grandmother pointed to the tree where she wanted me to put the chair. I set it up, and she sat down.

“Fill the basket for me, Grandson. Make sure that they’re bigger than apples. And look at the skin. It should be firm and tight like a dried animal hide.”

I didn’t quite understand what she meant, but I held the pomegranates and asked her:

“Is this a good one? Should I pick it?” I don’t think that Grandmother really saw the pomegranates

I was showing her, but she always answered back. “Yes, yes. Make sure it has little whiskers around the bot-

tom.” I liked how red it was, and pink in places. A lot of them had

both colors. It wasn’t easy to pluck them off. I pulled and twist- ed each one until the fruit detached from the branch. Sometimes the branch would break and I would fall to the ground, branch in hand.

“Gracious, be careful with that tree.” I sat by her side to see which pomegranate she was choos-

ing from the basket. Grandmother would lift one up, look it over, squeeze it and, with all her might, plunge her finger tips into the bottom. Then, by rotating her hands in opposite direc- tions, she would tear the fruit in two, which popped like a small gunshot. I was left with my mouth gaping at how strong she was. I tried to do the same, but my hands got tired from trying to break the skin with my fingers.

One afternoon my grandmother and I went to pick pome- granates to make a kind of syrup, like a jam and juice. This time

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she didn’t make me bring a chair, but instead an old blanket. We filled two big bags and then sat down to eat. Again she split them in two with her fingers, handing me a half piece.

“Look at how the insides of the pomegranate are so well organized. So many thin little bags of red seeds, like rubies filled with red juice.”

Grandmother tore off some more pieces of pomegranate for me.

“Now you can enjoy eating one ruby at a time or bite into fifty juicy rubies all at once.”

First I started separating the seeds until I had a little pile of them that I could savor one by one. Then when I ate them by the handful, the juice ran out from the corners of my mouth, staining the white T-shirt I was wearing. Grandmother noticed how I had dripped juice down the front of my shirt and laughed.

“It looks like you’re wearing a bib!” She burst out laughing. Never before had I seen her laugh

so hard that her whole body shook. I felt that laughter in my heart, and it filled me with happiness. I stared at my hands and T-shirt all covered in red. I looked up at Grandmother and shared in her laughter. She was so happy that I couldn’t help but feel the same way. She put her arm around me, and I noticed how her flabby skin hung down. By those days Grandmother had begun to swell up in her arms, legs and waist. While I observed how big my laughing grandmother was, my mother came running over.

“What happened? How did you cut yourself?” Then she realized that it wasn’t blood but rather the crimson

juice of the pomegranate rubies we were devouring. She pulled me up by the arm and dragged me off toward the house.

“Concha! Would you just look at this child!” “Now calm down, Juanita. It’s not the fault of my handsome

boy who I love so much. Just leave him to me.”

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“You should be resting. Not out here eating pomegranates!” “Oh, but you’re wrong, Juanita. What time I have left I want

to spend with my grandchildren.” My mother took me straight to the bathtub to clean me up.

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The next time that I saw Mama Concha was under a white light that shone down on a tree. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from except that it was from way up high. She was wearing a pretty dress, a thin black fabric with a pattern of lit- tle white flowers woven tightly together. A gold necklace adorned her thick neck. I saw that she was watching me from behind little branches of white flowers that made a crown for her head and danced before her smiling face. My Mama Concha looked very pretty underneath that shower of light and snow- white flowers. Radiant shafts of light from the heavens glorified her like a queen. She was an angel, my queen of heavenly angels. I walked toward her. I couldn’t make out all of her face, but I knew that it was Grandmother underneath that tree of cas- cading white flowers and brilliant light that formed a transparent veil, a protective barrier that I couldn’t cross at that moment. I am certain that she saw me walking toward her. With my outstretched hand I gently parted the veil of light and flow- ers. In that warm and tender glow where millions of flowers danced and floated to the ground, ashen petals the color of her hair, that’s where I found my Mama Concha, who took me into her arms and kissed me. Together we laughed in a celebration of transparent whiteness, intense and vivid light that sheltered us under the tree.

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Weeks went by, then months. Little by little I noticed that Mama Concha wasn’t getting out as often as before. I would wait for her on the little bench under the nearest apricot tree, but she never came out to talk about the trees or eat any fruit. I found myself wondering why she needed so much rest. One day when I was coming home from school I saw that there were two cars parked in front of the house. I went and sat on the steps of the little porch that faced the dirt road. I could hear my mother talking with neighbors and with some people who spoke English. My mother could make herself understood in English, unlike my father, who could barely say “thank you” or “good morning.” I could hear them but I didn’t understand what they were saying about Mama Concha. I got up and moved away from the door because they were coming out. I recognized Dr. Walland and the nurse who worked in his office. They said hello to me and then drove off in their cars. That was the first time it dawned on me that something was wrong with Grandmother.

After Dr. Walland’s visit, who was also my doctor, my aunt and uncle took Grandmother to see him, and then they took her to the hospital, and she stayed there for four days. When she came back home she asked my mother to let her go outside to sit under the apricot tree that was nearest the house. Mama Concha wanted to have her body warmed by the sun. We were so happy to see her at peace outside instead of lying in bed. Before going to school I went by her room to see her, but she was in the kitchen with Grandfather. They were talking in hushed voices. I hadn’t seen them together like that in a long time. They both hugged me and blessed me. That morning I ran to school and I saw that the trees didn’t seem quite as big as before. In a year or two I would be able to reach the lowest branches.

In the following days Mama Concha struggled to get out of bed to come outside with me. She could sit for an hour or so

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under the apricot tree. I looked after her, ready to run inside to get Mother if my grandmother didn’t feel well. We talked about the weather, the sky, the sun and clouds, and the warm caress of the afternoon breeze. I liked it when all of a sudden she raised her hand.

“Silence. Just listen to it!” I snuggled in behind her big arms, which Mother said were

very swollen, and I made an enormous effort to remain quiet so that I could hear every possible sound that inhabited the space that Grandmother and I were sharing. We stayed like that for a long while, not even blinking, until I could hear the beating of her heart. And I’m sure that she could hear mine. Our two hearts beat as one, and I knew that she was taking in my energy and spirit to find strength.

“Juanita, children are the source of strength and energy for the family.”

In her arms I understood what she was trying to say to my mother. I pulled my head away from her chest and for the first time I saw tears welled up in her eyes. She quickly pulled me back against her bosom and held me tight, trying to hide her sobbing. I had to accept that Mama Concha was sick, and I real- ized that she needed my help. She depended on my strength, energy and spirit to go on living.

In the mornings I would go to her room to see how she was doing, but her neighborhood friends wouldn’t let me disturb her if she was still sleeping. I would go back to see her after school. Sometimes she’d accompany me outside, but she could no longer stroll among the trees, not even to her favorite apricot tree. Mother started taking her out in a wheelchair, one that Dr. Walland had brought over. One afternoon Mother allowed me to take her outside, but barely twenty minutes had passed before she got tired and asked me to bring her back to the house.

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“Mama Concha, tomorrow after school I’ll take you to see all the trees, the gardens and the vegetable patch that Grandfather planted.”

“We’ll see if I can, my dear child. Let your mother know. I’ll wait for you tomorrow afternoon.”

I pushed her inside using the ramp that my father and grand- father had built. She wasn’t as heavy as I thought she would be. Holding the door open for us, Mother had overheard my plan to take Mama Concha out to see the trees.

“We’ll see how your grandmother feels tomorrow. If she’s well enough, you can take her just past the apricot tree.”

“Yes, one tree at a time. I’m not sure if I can handle visiting all of them at once.” Mama Concha chuckled. Mother took her back to her room. As I was leaving, the neighbors came in, Grandmother’s friends. I stepped off to the side so that they wouldn’t see me. They walked in without greeting anyone and went straight to Grandmother’s room.

“Juanita, we’re here to help Concha with her bath,” one of her friends announced in a loud voice.

“We’ve brought something for the pain,” the oldest of them yelled out.

Grandmother spent a whole week resting before she was able to come outside with me to see the trees and Grandfather’s little corn fields. He had cleaned off the path that we always took. Grandfather came with us this time, and he pushed the wheelchair. I felt proud to be walking with Mama Concha and Papa Timo, and I could tell that they really enjoyed that after- noon under the pomegranate trees, the ones farthest from the house. We had no trouble making it to the edge of the grove because Papa Timo had done such a good job leveling the path that went around the whole property. When we finished our walk, we left Mama Concha with Mother, who took her back to her room with the help of a few friends. Before she went in,

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Grandmother gave me a kiss and a blessing. From inside she raised her hand toward me and made her fingers dance a little goodbye.

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Three weeks passed without any more visits with Mama Concha. Mother wouldn’t let me see her. It was always the wrong time. Now Grandfather was constantly going to her room. My brothers and sisters came to see her. Aunts and uncles would come to visit, then leave in tears. Dr. Walland came every three days, and the nurse came when he couldn’t be there. He was a really good doctor, the only one who would treat patients from the barrio. He and the nurse talked a lot with Mother. They gave her instructions about how to administer Grandmother’s medicine, and how to slow the hemorrhaging.

One morning Mother and two friends were in Mama Concha’s room and, when one of them went out to the kitchen, the door was left open. No one realized that I had come in and hid myself in a corner where I could see what they were doing to Grandmother. Mama Concha was lying on her back, her head turned away from me. Mother swiftly pulled long cloths out from between Mama Concha’s legs and tossed them into a bucket. The cloths were white and warm with steam, but they were soaked in places with a dark crimson, like the ruby red juice of a burst pomegranate.

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