Nilda (7 page)

She finished her picture feeling that she had completed a voyage all by herself, far away but in a place that she knew quite well. “At last,” she said. “All finished.” Sticking out her tongue, she thought, I'm not showing this to Mamá. She put her things away under the bed. Glancing in the mirror, she looked at herself with some interest. She was going out now; she wasn't so angry anymore.

N
ilda heard the bell ring as she walked into her classroom and sat down at her desk. The teacher, Miss Elizabeth Langhorn, was already there opening the supply cabinet. She was a short plumpish woman close to sixty years of age. Her thinning grey hair was cut short and done up in a tight permanent wave. She had a sallow complexion and small eyes surrounded by puffy skin. Because her voice had a loud sandpaper tone, the kids nicknamed her “Foghorn.” The loose-fitting dresses she wore were made of a crepe material, usually dark in color, and most of them had stains that years of dry cleaning had permanently set into the fabric. Her bosom caved in and her stomach extended out. She always wore low-heeled shoes in need of a shine.

Every day Miss Langhorn opened her supply closet first thing in the morning and closed it after milk-and-cookies time. She would reopen it after that for “emergencies only,” quickly locking it up again. “Don't tempt a thief,” she would say to the class in a knowing tone. “That's how it all starts; first it's just a pencil, then perhaps a fountain pen. It's all so easy, why not open somebody's purse? Oh, no! Start right from the beginning and you'll get into the habit of being honest. H-O-N-E-S-T-Y,” she said, spelling out the word. “Brave people they were, our forefathers, going into the unknown where man had never ventured. They were not going to permit the Indians to stop them. This nation was developed from a wild primitive forest into a civilized nation. Where would we all be today if not for brave people? We would have murder, thievery and no belief in God.”

It was always more or less the same speech that preceded the Pledge of Allegiance. Nilda remembered that yesterday it had
been a speech on Abraham Lincoln and the rights of slaves to become citizens.

Miss Langhorn picked up a piece of chalk and wrote the morning's assignment on the blackboard. On her desk sat the long, thick wooden ruler for all to see. Everyone knew that today someone would get rapped on the knuckles with that ruler. The lucky students only got threatened; however, real luck meant you didn't get caught. Miss Langhorn had a strict set of rules everyone in the class knew by heart. One of her most strict rules was that no Spanish was allowed in her classroom. Anybody caught speaking or even saying one word of Spanish had to put out both arms and clench his hands into fists. “None of that,” she would say, “if you are ever going to be good Americans. You will never amount to anything worthwhile unless you learn English. You'll stay just like your parents. Is that what you people want? Eh?” she would ask earnestly, waiting for an answer.

“No.”

“No, who?”

“No, Miss Langhorn.”

Nilda looked at the ruler on the desk, recalling that feeling she got when she had to hold her arms outstretched. She always shut her eyes because she knew she would run away or cry out if she saw the ruler coming down to strike her. She hated when the skin broke and the knuckles swelled; her hands stayed sore all day and hurt for a long time. This was especially upsetting to Nilda when she looked forward to working on her cutouts and drawings for her “box of things” at home.

Miss Langhorn had a high stool placed in the back of the classroom, off to one side, and a large white coneshaped cap made of cardboard. On this cardboard cap was written the word “dunce” in large black letters. Any student who refused to take the punishment had to wear the dunce cap. Nilda had worn the cap three times this term.

Students were hit for talking, lateness and coming into class unwashed. Sometimes it just depended on Miss Langhorn's mood.

“Well, class, are we ready to work hard this morning?”

“Yes, Miss Langhorn.”

She walked over to the side of the room and opened up some of the windows from the top, letting in the cold, crisp late-autumn air.

Nilda felt the cold breeze. Soon it's going to be winter, she thought. I hope it snows a whole lot.

“Now, let's see if we can be really good today, eh?” Miss Langhorn went on smiling. Her teeth were discolored from heavy smoking. “No need to use this,” she said, picking up her wooden ruler. “I have nothing to do with it. You are responsible for what happens and you bring it down upon yourselves. Good behavior and progress go hand in hand indeed. It all stems from the home. Why, I hear them on the Madison Avenue bus coming to work, and sometimes going home.… Yapity yap yap. How are they ever going to learn to speak English? When I was a child we could look up to our parents. Why, my father …”

A similar version of the same story concerning Miss Lang-horn's childhood had been told every day now, at least once a day, since the beginning of the school term.

“It was a happy family we had as children. At dinnertime we would all sit around the large, old oak table. Father would say grace.”

Nilda began to daydream. This year me and little Benji and the other kids are going to build a neat fortress of snow in Central Park, she was thinking.

“… a family of modest means but honest, hardworking. Mother had to make do with little or no servant help. Store-bought dresses were a luxury; Mother had to buy material herself and bring it to the seamstress,” she went on.

Maybe, Nilda thought, we could build an igloo house like I seen in them pictures about Eskimos.

“… we knew the value of a dollar. Nobody gave you anything free in those days. Father was a splendid man. He and Mother would …”

Miss Langhorn's voice was far, far away.

Nilda was bent over her English reader when she heard Miss Lang-horn say, “Milk-and-cookies time, children.” Her stomach turned. I hate milk-and-cookies time, damn! she thought. She finished writing out her name and heading in the assignment book:

Looking up to the front, she felt her stomach turn again. Every morning the small containers of milk were lined up on Miss Langhorn's desk. For three cents any student could buy one. Next to the milk, the teacher had set out a box of chocolate-covered graham crackers. Miss Langhorn sold these personally. They cost two cents apiece or three for a nickel.

“All right, children, let us line up.”

About half the class could afford to buy milk every morning. A much smaller percentage could afford to buy both milk and cookies. Very rarely did Nilda join the line for milk; most of the time she had no money at all. Every morning Nilda longed to have milk and one of those cookies.

“Here, Nilda, you can have one of mine,” Mildred, the girl who sat next to her, had offered once.

It was so delicious, she remembered. Another time Leo had given her money and she could buy both the milk and cookies. That was great! she recalled. All that sweet chocolatey taste on the outside, but when you bit the inside it was real good and crunchy, slowly melting in your mouth. A few times when she
had money for milk, Nilda tried to buy just the graham crackers but Miss Langhorn had said, “No, it's against school rules. You can buy the cookies only to have with your milk.” At the beginning, some of the kids would share their cookies, but now Miss Langhorn had set a class rule that no sharing or offering of milk and cookies was allowed.

As she did almost every morning, Nilda just sat and stared with the other children who weren't eating. They all waited for the milk break to be over, which took about twenty minutes. It seems to get longer all the time, thought Nilda. Someday I'm gonna come in and buy a whole nickel's worth of cookies. And when I grow up I'm gonna buy a whole box, sit down and eat them all up. If Miss Langhorn happens to come around and ask for a cookie—she'll be real old by then—I'll see her probably strolling down Central Park and I'll be sitting on a bench holding the box and eating. When she asks me for a cookie I'll say, “I'm sooooo sorry, my dear Miss Langhorn, but I don't think it's polite to ask. Do you? Eh?” I'll chew loud and make sure I smile at her.

The morning dragged on until Nilda heard the lunch bell. She was going home for lunch this term. After the experience at camp this past summer, she had convinced her mother to let her come home for lunch. She hated the free lunches given at school. “All that awful soup, Mamá. It tastes like water. The bread is hard, and the milk tastes funny, and you always get prunes for dessert. The food tastes just like at the camp. I know I'm gonna be sick. I just know it.”

It had taken a lot of talking, but at last her mother had agreed to let her come home. She, in turn, had also agreed to the condition that she eat whatever her mother could spare. “No complaining, Nilda,” her mother had said. “If you start with the bobería that you don't like this or you don't like that, you go right back to eat at school! ¡Se acabó! Understand?”

This whole week it had been chocolate pudding and tea with milk. At first she had been overjoyed at the idea of chocolate pudding for lunch. Her mother served it cold sometimes and hot sometimes, like cereal. But after several days, the thought of chocolate pudding again sent a feeling of disappointment right down to the bottom of her stomach. Oh well, it's still better than eating in this place, she thought, and headed for home.

To get home Nilda had to pass through the dark tunnels on Park Avenue. That was the worst part; even worse than the short lunch hour. It seemed that no sooner was she up the steps and in the apartment than she had to leave in order to arrive back at school before the late bell rang.

Nilda reached her corner of Park Avenue and 104th Street and looked carefully into the tunnels. There were three tunnels; one set in the middle for traffic, and one at either side for pedestrians. The tops curved into archways; inside each tunnel a single small bulb shone, giving off very little light. Nilda squinted her eyes as she stood at the entrance trying to see inside. Lately, some of the older children had come around at this time of day, asking for money, and she recalled how she got shoved around when she told them she had none.

“Don't be a sucketa, stupid,” her brother Paul had told her, “put your money in your shoe,” which is what she did whenever she had any.

Sometimes she walked through the middle tunnel when she felt she would run into trouble, but the large trucks and cars coming through frightened her. She saw the tunnel was empty and quickly stepped inside. People were coming in from the other side; they were adults, two men and a woman. They were talking in loud tones and Nilda heard their voices and footsteps echoing the length of the tunnel. When she was with a group of
friends they would all scream just to hear their voices echo. Sometimes when she was alone she would sing, enjoying the resonance of her voice as it filled the dark chamber; but she was afraid someone would hear her so she very rarely indulged herself. As she went past the middle of the tunnel, she side-stepped the puddles that filled up and seeped through the cracks and holes in the concrete. Holding her breath, she tried to avoid the smell of stagnant water and urine. At the other side, she stepped out and looked quickly to see if there was any traffic coming, and then, almost running, she went toward her building.

Nilda started to climb the first flight of steps leading up to the fourth floor where her apartment was. A strong odor of fried pork permeated the hallway and, as she moved up the steps, the odor got stronger. It was almost overwhelming. She could tell that the meat was spiced with garlic and herbs, just like her mother prepared pork chops. With it was mixed the scent of cooked rice. Nilda could smell the saffron, olives, and sausage that were mixed in the rice. Somebody's sure lucky, she thought. Her stomach growled and her mouth salivated as she climbed up the steps, and the mixed odors of the many flavors cooking went right through her. It must be somebody on our floor, she thought, and they're gonna have a party or something. Funny, I didn't hear nothing about it. She stood in front of her doorway and paused before opening the door. Stepping inside, she could still smell the food.

“Mami, are you cooking rice and porkchops?” she asked with disbelief, rushing toward the kitchen.

“Nilda?” her mother called.

She stepped into the kitchen and saw her mother's wide smile and the large cast-iron pot she used for making rice sitting on the stove puffing away. Her mother held a long fork in her hand and was standing over the frying pan. Nilda heard the pork sizzling in the hot oil.

“We hit the bolita, Nilda!” her mother said, jubilant. “Night before last I dreamed I looked in the sky and in the form of clouds was the número 305. So, yesterday morning I sent Paul on his way to school over to Jacinto's bodega and told him to leave my bet for número 305 combinación for the bolitero. I put thirty cents on it, and sure enough 530 came out! I was going to play it straight, but then I remembered that in my dream there was another small cloud and it was almost shaped like a C, so I said, okay, that means I have to bet combination! That way no matter how 305 came out as long as it was those three numbers I would make a hit. It was a message from heaven, Nilda. My prayers were answered.”

“Oh boy, Mamá, how much is that? A lotta money?”

“Enough to see us through for a little while. Come on, sit down and eat. I got chuletas and arroz con gandules.”

“It smells like a party, Mamá.”

“All right now, hurry up and wash so you won't be late for school.”

“Can I stay home to celebrate?”

“Never mind. You go back to school. You can celebrate at three.”