Читать книгу Stolen Identity - Carmen María Montiel - Страница 9

He is walking toward me. I can see him through the bars. His face is familiar and I am happy to see him. He is shaking a baby bottle. My mouth melts… uhm! It is my favorite, Toddy (Venezuela’s chocolate milk by excellence). He is whistling. As he gets closer, he stops whistling and starts singing “Muñequita linda” and he has this beautiful bright white smile. The sound is familiar to me and I am soothed by it. I am on my back and cannot stand up. I am so happy to see him. It is a new day. He looks clean and smells like he always does… fresh. This is all familiar to me. He must have been getting my first bottle of the day, my favorite!

My dad is wearing his silk burgundy robe and his slippers. He looks like a king. His face is of pure love when he sees me. I get the bottle with my hand as he says, “Buenos días.” He smiles while looking at me and then disappears from my eyesight.

This is my first memory of life with my dad, whom I loved so much. I always felt safe with him. I must have been a baby since I was in my crib and could not stand up.

He is the reason I trusted men and never thought anything bad could come from them, because I expected all men to be like him.

There are many memories of my first years. They come to mind like flashes, always the same, always surrounded by family starting in Maracaibo.

Maracaibo is the oil region in Venezuela.

Maracuchos are proud people. We are called “regionalists,” people that like and defend their region.

The country is named for the houses or palafitos in the nation’s biggest lake, Lago de Maracaibo, which is the oldest lake on earth. The palafitos are in the water. When Américo Vespucio saw them, he called us “Little Venice.” That is why my country’s name is Venezuela… Little Venice.

Maracaibo is flat and of course is hot all year around, much like Houston in the summer time. My mother used to look through the window in the morning while having breakfast and say, “Today is going to be hot.” Like there was any difference. What she meant was “hotter.” She said that whenever the trees did not move at all, that meant there was no breeze, a hotterthan- usual day. For her that was a killer. She is from Altamira, Barinas, an Andean town located where the Cordillera Andina starts. The Cordillera Andina is the longest mountain chain in the world and extends all the way down to Argentina, across Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Chile.

Back then, school was all day. We went in the morning, came back home for lunch, then returned for the rest of the day.

Our favorite was when Mom could not pick us up for lunch and uncle David, my father’s older brother who never got married and had no kids, was sent to get us.

The instructions from my mother were the same every time: “David, please no ice cream before getting home. Remember, they will not eat their lunch.”

But as a rule, as soon as we got in his car: “Ice cream, kids?”

It was paradise. My uncle David always had little wooden spoons in his pocket, because ice cream for him only tasted good with them.

“David, again? Really? They are not going to eat lunch,” my mother said as soon as she found out we did indeed have ice cream. It was impossible to hide.

“But I am hungry. I will eat,” he used to say.

I was the smallest of the “yours, mine and ours” pack. My parents were divorced and remarried, each bringing children from the previous marriage, and then having my sister and me. At that time, we were as modern as can be, for not too many people were divorced and remarried then. That was the modern family of today. We were the Brady Bunch before they ever existed!

I felt like I was living among giants, all of these grown people around, surrounding me. My older sister (from my mother) and the boys (one from my mother and the rest from my dad) were teenagers. My house was always full with family, friends and their friends. And they all wanted to hug me and hold me and carry me.

I imagine I must have been cute and irresistible… hahahaha! They all wanted my kisses.

I kissed and kissed until I got tired, then I would say, “That is it, no more kisses. I ran out.”

“You must have more,” they would say.

“I have to make them.”

“Well, go make them.”

And I went and made more kisses.

The table was the best in our house, especially for dinnertime. At lunchtime it was fast; everybody had to get back to school and Dad to work. However, we all managed to squeeze in a nap. That was the time life was relaxed and beautiful.

But dinnertime was so much fun! The table was full with all the kids and my parents. My mother only allowed us to have a soda at lunchtime and only one, but not for dinner. For dinner, she would make a nutritious drink. That could be chicha, avena (made with oats) Toddy, milk or a fruit shake.

The problem was when the drink was a favorite one! Ah… Chicha! Venezuela’s rice drink. Or… Toddy!

The pitcher was full in the middle of the table. The boys looked at it like beasts watching their prey. Laura, my older sister, so beautiful, skinny, elegant, and the two little girls could not care less about it.

The boys wanted to drink the whole pitcher.

“I will serve everybody,” Perucho said.

“No. I will do it,” David insisted.

“Whoever said first that is the one that is serving!” my mother said.

Perucho started to pour in every glass, just about half way full, but when he got to his, he almost spilled it over the top.

“That is such bad manners,” Mom said. “You don’t do that. I will not allow that at this table. You serve up to two fingers from the top.”

They were always the smart ones.

One night it was time for chicha. I could see the boys’ faces; they were almost jumping at the pitcher.

“Perucho, remember we were told two fingers from the top.”

As David started to serve, Perucho said: “Let’s measure with my fingers!”

My dear and beautiful brother has the fattest fingers in the world. Nobody was complaining, but when it was time for his glass to be filled, he chose the fingers of my sister, María Eugenia, to measure his glass. She has the thinnest fingers of all of us. We were crying of laughter!

“Perucho, voz si soz vivo!” David said. (“Perucho, you are a smart ass”).

Those were our fights!

We grew up with the Americans that lived at the oil camps. That was fun for my brothers; they always went to the camps to meet girls.

In my house, my siblings’ friends came to dance, play board games, talk and laugh. Just as it was years later when we, the two little ones, were teenagers, our house was a clubhouse always full of people. My father preferred to have an “open house” where everybody was at home and he knew what we were doing to not knowing where we were. He was a fun-loving dad that all of our friends loved and he was proud of the “Montiel Club,” which is what our friends called our home.

I was so little that I used to walk between my father’s legs every morning on our way to breakfast. I do not know how he managed to walk and not fall, but he did. It was one of the things I hated about growing up, not being able to do that anymore. I could not fit within his legs.

My older sister wore some fun stuff in the ‘70s! The day she graduated from high school everybody that arrived at her party was greeted with a shower from a bucket of water. My God! I have never seen women so mad! The boys, as usual, did not care.

Fake eyelashes were on their cheeks and partial wigs were falling off. I used to look up to my sister. I was five years old when she graduated from high school. She went off to college and moved to Caracas. A hole was in my heart; I missed her so.

She used to fool people, telling them the youngest two of us were her daughters. That lasted for many years. Not anymore! She loved to see the expression on people’s faces when she said with her baby face that she had a daughter.

She was full of energy. I will never forget the day man landed on the moon because of her. She ran all around the house excited, screaming, “Come, come see it!”… “Man on the moon, man on the moon!”

She gathered everybody around the TV set to watch the first steps on the moon. I ran too and watched, but was too little to understand what was going on. I was then four and a half years old. Later in my life I understood. I had watched history in the making. While too little to appreciate what was happening at the time, it has become one of my most valuable memories.

In 1994, as an anchorwoman for Telemundo, I was invited to the dinner celebration for the 25th anniversary of the day man first walked on the moon at the Astrodome in Houston. There, I met astronaut Neil Armstrong! My past became present, and I landed on the moon the moment we shook hands.

Without knowing, I have always been walking in many of mankind’s first steps.