Chapter 9
Celia knew what to do for Grandma Teresa’s fever. She peeled the pith of their last lemon and took a pinch of powdered ginger, boiling them in a pot of water—exactly as her mother had done when she’d gotten sick as a child.
After she took the cup of tea to Teresa, who lay shivering and coughing in bed, she returned to the kitchen and searched for ingredients to make dinner. They had only part of a lemon, an onion, and a can of beans to eat.
With André gone to work, Celia didn’t feel that she should leave Teresa for an hour-long trip to the grocery store. Instead, with a teacup in hand, she walked to the apartment next door, practicing the words, “May I please borrow a cup of rice?”
No one answered, so she walked up the stairs to where the Spanish-speaking family lived. André liked to watch soccer with the father, and the mother had once borrowed an egg from Teresa, so Celia felt comfortable asking them for a small favor.
The sound of the television blared from inside, which meant they must have been home, and sure enough, their pretty, nineteen-year-old daughter, Sofia, answered the door right away, giggling, but she stopped short when she saw Celia. Her eyes darted toward the other side of the apartment before returning to Celia’s face, her eyes wide and startled.
Celia held up her teacup. “May I please borrow a cup of rice?”
Sofia ran a hand through her silky long hair and glanced once more toward the television, blushing. “Sure.”
Celia didn’t know what to make of the girl’s embarrassment. Was her family out of food also? Perhaps her parents had the same illness. “I can . . . ask another—” She couldn’t remember the word for neighbor.
“No. It’s fine.” Sofia took the cup and walked a few steps toward the tiny kitchen, an exact copy of Teresa’s place downstairs—one big room with a kitchen on one side and a small living room on the other. The bedroom and bathroom were just down the hall behind the kitchen.
“Are you certain?” Celia asked, stepping onto the carpeted floor, expecting to see the girl’s mother sick on the sofa, but as she looked toward the sound of the television, she saw André. He lay sprawled across their couch, watching some kind of American sports game.
She thought he was at work. Why was he here, alone with a teenage girl in the apartment upstairs? Celia’s hands rose to her hips. How long had he been coming here? She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but she knew how he’d acted back on the island. She’d hoped things would be different here, that on the days and nights when he left her alone, he remained faithful to her. Had she been too naïve?
Many Cape Verdean women accepted this sort of behavior from their husbands as a given. For generations, they had turned their heads and walked away, pretending it never happened.
André glanced over and noticed her, suddenly sitting up straighter on the couch. “Celia! What are you doing here?”
Celia’s mouth felt too dry to speak, but the Creole tumbled out, rough and angry. “You told me you were working at the nursing home tonight.” He was even wearing the scrubs the nursing home provided for his uniform. “You’re over three hours late.” Time was much more important now that they lived in America, and André still hadn’t grasped that concept. In the five months since they arrived in America, he had already lost his job as a dishwasher and the construction job, mostly because he didn’t show up on time. Now, it seemed, he was going to lose this one. If he hadn’t already.
Sofia came back from the kitchen and handed Celia the cup of rice without looking her in the eye.
Celia glared instead at her lying husband. “Thank you,” she snapped with an insincerity that could have rivaled any American-born English-speaker.
André stood up from the couch, his teeth gritted and his shoulders tight. She could sense his anger simmering as he followed her out of the apartment, closing the door behind them. “I lost the job.” His mouth formed an angry line, as if she had done something wrong in finding him there.
“How long ago?”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets, reminding her of a little boy who’d been caught skipping school. “A few days.” Then the muscles in his neck flexed, and he stared daggers at her. “Don’t nag me about it. I’ll find another job. I just need a break.”
Learning to work in America had been a harder adjustment for him than it had been for her. In Fogo, he’d been the boss of the café his father gave him. He’d set his own hours, coming and going as he pleased. Now, he had to start at the bottom, working with people who didn’t speak his language and didn’t understand his background. No one here knew how great a soccer player he was, at least not until the season started again in May.
She embraced him, trying to be nonjudgmental, like most of the wives on Fogo. “It’s not like we need the money. We have everything we need.”
André pushed her away and headed down the stairs to their apartment. “But we’re living with Grandma. We were supposed to be on our own by now.”
“I don’t think she minds.”
“I mind,” he shouted, and his narrowed eyes told her that was the end of the discussion. “It’s impossible to focus on my soccer career when I’m living with two faultfinding women.”
Celia held a finger over her lips. She followed him into the apartment and began to rinse the rice while she spoke in a whisper. “The only reason Teresa moved to North Carolina from Boston was to make more money to help us immigrate. Now she’s all alone here, and we owe it to her to stay. She’s getting older. You should have seen her today. She’s so sick, she let me polish all of the furniture and wash the windows while she slept in the—”
“Did she pay us any more for it?” He shouted loud enough for the neighbors to hear.
She kept her voice quiet as her hands began to shake. “I’m just trying to say that it’s a good thing that we’re living with your grandmother.” Couldn’t he see that? A lot of people in Fogo lived with their grandparents, or the grandparents lived with them. “Without us, she’d be completely alone, and I don’t think she minds if you stay home during the day.”
“So, you want me to be the housewife? At least at the nursing home, I got paid for mopping floors and cleaning toilets.” He walked from one wall of the little apartment to the other, pacing like a caged lion.
“I didn’t mean you had to stay home and clean.” Celia steadied herself against the kitchen island and uttered a silent prayer that she could say the right thing. “You can train for soccer if you want. You’ll find no judgment from me.”
He stopped his pacing and stared at her for a long moment, a lion on the hunt with one eyebrow cocked. “No judgment? Why do you say that? Who’s judging me?”
“No one.” Her voice quavered.
“It’s Grandma, isn’t it?” He stepped closer, coming around the island. “Tell me,” he growled, grabbing hold of her arm and squeezing tight. “She thinks I’m no good.” She could feel the bruise forming.
Grandma Teresa would have to be delirious not to hear all this from behind her bedroom door. “Of course not. You’re her grandson. She only has good things to say about you.”
“Then why did you say people are judging me? Who have you been talking to?” With one hand still gripping her arm, he raised his other hand as if to strike her. “Tell me.”
She cringed, pulling away from him. “No one.”
His grip tightened, his nails digging into her skin. “Tell me who it is!”
“You misunderstood me, André. No one has said anything but good about you.”
“Liar,” he shouted, and then he slapped her across the side of her face, throwing her neck to the side with a painful twist. “Tell me the truth.”
The taste of blood filled her mouth as he struck her again, this time hitting her on the temple. Dark spots burst in her vision and her body sagged, the dark edges of unconsciousness scratching its way in. “Tell me!”
“Stop it,” she cried, struggling to twist free from his grasp and protecting her face with her free arm.
It was happening. To her. Her husband was beating her. It seemed more like a nightmare than reality.
Something Manny had said many years before sprang to her mind. Only cowards hit women. A real man uses his mind to persuade, instead of his fists. She should have waited for Manny, and if it hadn’t been for André and his lies, she would have.
Celia’s anger exploded out in words. “Isn’t it bad enough you can’t keep a job and you’re hanging out with the teenage girl upstairs? Do you have to become a wife-beater too?” Her cheek throbbed with pain.
He tightened his grip and yanked her upward until her face was inches from his. “You’ve got a lot to learn if you think two slaps make me a wife-beater.”
She wondered what Teresa must think, hearing this from her sick bed.
Celia pulled away from him, and he released her, letting her fall to the linoleum. The way he watched her, shaking his head, made her feel like a child, who had thrown a tantrum, and was now being disciplined. Only he was the one in the wrong, not her. She knew a few women back home who tolerated their husbands spending time with other women, but everyone she knew drew the line at violence. Wife beating was a crime. As soon as he left, she would have Teresa help her call the police.
She crawled backwards, like a crab, keeping her focus on his fists.
He laughed, watching her scramble away from him. “My mother was right. I shouldn’t have married the daughter of a crazy woman.” With that, he turned and left the apartment.
“My mother’s not crazy anymore,” she shouted after him. “It was temporary, brought on by stress.”
She heard the scuffle of his footsteps walking on the cement sidewalk out front and then climbing the stairs to the next floor, where he was probably returning to watch his sports game with his teenage girlfriend.
She knew exactly what she would do if she still lived on Fogo. Run to her mother’s house and stay there.
But here, André and his grandma were her only support, her only companions. She could call the police, but she would have to keep living here. Without Teresa, she wouldn’t know how to communicate with the grocer or her neighbors or the bus driver. She wouldn’t even have a job.
Her face stung, but the rest of her was okay…physically. She picked herself up off the floor, shut the door, and locked it, as if that might prevent André from ever coming back. She leaned against the door for a moment, panting and scared, her salty tears stinging the abrasions on her cheeks. Although she hoped he would never hit her again, she had the feeling this wasn’t the end. Now that the floodgate was open, it would be hard to ever shut it.
Teresa hobbled out from her bedroom, holding onto the sides of the wall for support. She squinted into the bright light, looking Celia up and down. “Better put some ice on your cheek. I’ll be surprised if that doesn’t bruise.” She clucked her tongue and sighed.
Celia stood still. “Can you help me call the police?”
Teresa moved toward her, leaning on the kitchen island. “That would only make things worse. Do you want André deported?” She spoke as if Celia were an ignorant child, unacquainted with the ways of the world.
Celia’s mouth went dry. She hadn’t thought about deportation. After all they’d sacrificed to get here, one call to the police could end everything.
Since Celia still stood with her hand on the doorknob, Teresa went to the freezer, removed some ice cubes and wrapped them in a towel, as she continued to reassure her. “He’s not normally like this. It’s just the stress of adjusting to life here. Let me give you some advice. Do what the Bible says. Agree with him quickly. Don’t try to argue.” She placed the ice pack gently against the side of Celia’s face. “I’m sure your mother would have told you the same thing had she been sane when you married.”
There was that implication again—that Celia was somehow deficient because her mother had gone sick in the head. But Celia was sure that her mother, even in her crazy days, wouldn’t have excused André for beating her, no matter if he would be deported or not.
Teresa kissed her cheek, lifting the hair from her face to inspect her wounds. “Remind me in the morning. I have some makeup you can use to hide the bruises.”
Celia leaned against the door, smarting both from André’s violence and Teresa’s reaction. Still, she wanted to show respect to the woman who had done so much for her. “Thank you, Teresa,” she said. “I don’t know what we would do without you.” At the same time, she was forming a plan of her own—a plan to learn English and leave this place.