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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781566892841 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Coffee House Press |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Lexile: | 790L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Remedios
La Curandera (curandera, n.f. healer)
Remedios, la curandera, stands at the edge of the sea. The old healer is weary, a result, in part, of the countless times she has cocked her head in the direction of someone's story. Remedios knows the town's stories. Just as the sea, as their witness, knows them, too.
Remedios looks out over the deep. Tucked under an arm is the swordfish beak that is one of her prized possessions. She has owned it for countless years. Usually she keeps the sword in her hut, on her altar, la mesa santa. Not today. Today she has brought the sword to the sea because it signifies the waters and the mighty fish that live there. She has brought it because el pico de pez espada helps her find those who have drowned.
Today Remedios awaits the one blue wave that will bring a corpse to shore. The body we wait for, she thinks, the sea will yield up. Today. Tomorrow. The sea cannot be rushed. The others wring their hands, hold their breaths on the far side of the crag, at the place where the river joins the sea. But not Remedios. El pico has led her to this spot, and it is here she'll keep her vigil.
Gathering her long dark skirt between her legs, Remedios squats on the shore. She lays el pico across her lap. Around her neck is the cord from which her medicine pouch hangs. The pouch rests directly over her heart and contains the secret talismans that fortify and empower her. Remedios spreads a palm over the little pouch, then reaches for the line of foamy brine rippling toward her. In the biting honesty of salt, the sea makes her secrets known to those who care to listen. She touches a finger to her tongue and the stories come.
The sea remembers. So it is the sea retells.
CHAPTER 2Candelario Marroquín
El Ensaladero (ensaladero, n. m. salad-maker)
On the day after his promotion to salad-maker, Candelario Marroquín painted the door of his house a robin's egg blue. The color blue was an obsession for him. Since his youth he had found comfort in the special blueness of new mornings. The azure stars that edged Our Lady's mantle inspired him almost always to pray. And the glinting cobalt of the sea produced in him such excitement that he was forced at times to turn his back on it. "When it comes to blue," his wife Chayo said, "who can understand him?" She was away when he began to paint the door. She had taken a basketful of paper flowers to the beach in hopes of selling them to tourists.
Candelario worked at his door in an act of quiet celebration. Each stroke of the brush soothed him and left him more at peace. Now that he had advanced from a mere waiter to the salad-maker, he would wear the cummerbund and the stiff bow tie. His small, thick body would look distinguished and important in the room where so many dined. Salary and tips would increase too. In the years since they had married, Candelario and Chayo had worked hard and earned little. It was the way of life here in Santiago. When he lived behind the mountain range that stretched all the way to Mexico City, Candelario had tended the bulls that later would be sent to fight. His work had been brutal, but there was always enough to eat and, most times, enough pesos left over for a glass or two of pulque in the cantina.
Since marrying he had become a much more serious man. At Chayo's insistence he had given up the bulls for a more tranquil life. He did not drink anymore, for the pesos he made at the restaurant would not allow such indulgence. Chayo, too, felt the weight of life's difficulties. The tourists were sometimes so clever at bargaining that she could never count on much from the sale of her bouquets. But all that was in the past. Now that he was the salad-maker, their lot was sure to improve.
It was a good day for painting. The sun was high and there was hardly a breeze. Candelario Marroquín stepped back to admire his handiwork. The enamel had taken smoothly to the metal door. At the top, where the paint was nearly dry, the door reflected the brightness of the morning. I can thank the patrón for this, he thought. Don Gustavo del Norte owned the restaurant in which Candelario worked. Don Gustavo was a large man, soft-muscled but surprisingly quick in manner. He had opened his establishment not long after moving to Santiago. Five months before, he had left Guadalajara, where he had lived for many years. There he had owned a glass factory in the nearby village of Tlaquepaque. Candelario Marroquín had never been so far away and could not himself imagine a village spilling over with tiny shops, all dependent on the whims of tourists. He had asked Hortencio, the wine steward, about this. Hortencio had worked for don Gustavo in the glass factory, and he knew about merchants and about the ways of a city like Guadalajara.
"Why did Don Gustavo leave one business for another?" Candelario asked. "Doesn't Don Gustavo know more about glass making than about food?"
Hortencio had not answered either question. Instead, he had shrugged his shoulders and continued to polish the silver cup that dangled from the chain he wore around his neck.
Candelario squatted to paint the bottom third of the door. It was not for him to question the patrón's motives. Don Gustavo was a man of clever ideas. It was his most recent belief that the tourists of Santiago deserved other things to eat than tacos and enchiladas. Just last week he had told Candelario that he would offer something different, feature some specialty for which the restaurant might become known. He had settled on the Caesar salad. Don Gustavo himself had instructed Candelario on how to make it. "For a perfect Caesar," the patrón said, "the correct bowl is essential." He had brought just the one from Guadalajara. It was wide at the base and lacquered black with squat, bowed sides. "You must prepare this salad with a flair," don Gustavo said. Candelario Marroquín had taken to this requirement. Secretly, he was proud of his ways in the bullring. Now he would transfer his bravura to the salad cart.
"We have anchovies," Candelario said as he finished up the painting. He mimicked don Gustavo's instructions, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell of the paint. "Then comes the mustard, then the lemons." The sun now struck the door with an intensity that made him squint. "We have the eggs and then the romaine." Candelario Marroquín pictured his cart: the narrow side-racks holding bottles and small shakers, the bottom shelf stacked high with plates, on the rims of which were stenciled delicate birds the color of his door.
Candelario propped his brush in the paint can and sat on the ground, his back against the wall of the house. He wiped his forehead with the back of a hand and glanced down the dry riverbed that fronted the house and led all the way to the sea. In the dry season the arroyo was used as a road, and now Chayo strode up it on her way back from the beach. Chayo's sister, Marta, came along too. Marta was fifteen, four years younger than Chayo; each had the same dark mole, high on the cheekbone under the left eye. Candelario Marroquín noted that Marta's pregnancy was not yet visible and he was glad of it. When her condition became apparent, there would be more than enough time for the town to talk.
That Chayo and he were childless he was certain the town already discussed. It perturbed him to think that his and Chayo's names could lie on the lips of so many. He often asked himself if it were pity that people felt for them. "Poor Chayo," he imagined people saying. "In these two years there could have been two babies." Candelario Marroquín bristled at the thought. He had no use for people's pity. He himself felt divided about his wife's condition. He knew that while having sons would show him to be the man he truly was, more mouths for him to feed would be a considerable burden.
Now Chayo and Marta approached Candelario. When she saw the blue door, Chayo rolled her eyes. "It's not surprising," she said.
Candelario said nothing, but he was pleased nonetheless at his wife's observation. The three went to sit under the lime tree growing at the edge of the yard, for they could not enter the house until the paint dried on the door handle.
"I sold all my flowers today," Chayo said, tucking her skirt neatly under her legs. "One tourist wanted my basket, so I sold that too."
"She made sixteen thousand pesos," Marta said.
"It is a fortunate day," Candelario replied, a wave of contentment washing over him. Of late it seemed that his life had turned around. Things were going right again. "We will buy more paint with the money. Now I can paint the inside of the house." Candelario and Chayo's house had only one room and one window. Their marriage bed sat under the window, one side against the wall. The furniture had belonged to Chayo's mother. "When I'm gone, I wish you to have it," she had said.
"In a few days the doctor will be in town," Marta said. She smoothed her dress over her belly. "If I'm to put an end to my situation, it must be done soon. Time is running out."
What's this? Candelario asked himself. He usually paid no attention to the women when they talked. It was his observation that, in one way or another, women always spoke of life or death. Candelario Marroquín preferred more practical subjects. Today, however, he paid close attention to what the two said.
"I don't know if it's the right thing," Chayo said.
"It's right," Marta replied. Although young, she had a determination and intensity of manner rare among the girls of Santiago. "It's right because Roberto did this when I did not want it." She struck her belly with a clenched fist. "If I have this child, I will hate it for all my life. I will hate this child like I hate Roberto."
Chayo said, "Have the child. Tía Fina will help you raise it." Marta lived with tía Fina, the women's aunt, in a rooming house in Santiago.
"Tía Fina can't do it. With her heart like it is, she can't look after children. Besides, I don't want to have a baby. I want to see the doctor when he comes. El doctor is the only one to help me."
Chayo said, "I have heard of infection, of death, resulting from what you want."
"El doctor comes from Guadalajara. He has learned many things in the city. He will not harm me."
"If you do this, you will harm your soul," Chayo said.
Marta wrenched a handful of grass from the ground. "Perhaps souls can be mended," she said, allowing the grass blades to slip like rain through her fingers.
Chayo shook her head. "Padre Mario will condemn this."
"El cura cannot see into my heart. It is not for him to judge."
For a moment the two fell silent and Candelario thought that the subject was closed and that it was Marta's straightforwardness that had ended the conversation, but then Chayo asked, "What about Remedios? Surely la curandera could tell you what to do."
Marta turned her gaze up the arroyo. "I don't need the healer. I know best what's good for me."
"And the doctor?" Chayo asked. "How much does he charge?"
"One hundred thousand pesos," Marta said. "I have money saved, but I still need more. If I made enough, I'd pay for this myself." Marta cleaned rooms in the best hotel in town.
Candelario creased a lime leaf in half and let its essence escape. He rubbed the leaf's edge against his fingers dotted blue with paint. One hundred thousand pesos. If tips were good, it would take him weeks to earn that amount.
"Are you sure of the cost?" Chayo asked.
"As sure as I can be," Marta said. "Luz told me." Luz worked in the hotel with Marta. She lived in the same rooming house where Marta and her aunt lived.
"Yo soy el ensaladero," Candelario Marroquín said. "Have the child. Chayo and I will take it." He had not known that he would say this. Where had the idea come from? Could he take it back?
"Cande," Marta said, her face going soft. She looked over at her sister whose eyes had widened and who was staring at Candelario. Marta turned to look at him too. "Cande, are you sure?"
Candelario Marroquín squared his shoulders to show a little earnestness. "Now that I'm the salad-maker, we will have money to raise your child." What else could he say? He had made the offer, and it is a man's duty to honor what he says. He did not question his own decisions, no matter how hastily they were made. With the bulls, a moment of uncertainty could get you a sharp horn in the side. He looked at his wife but detected in her face only a slight pallor that caused the mole under her eye to appear darker.
Marta lightly touched her sister's shoulder. "Chayo, will you really do this for me?"
"Cande says so, therefore it will be done."
Marta said, "I will hate the child less if you raise it."
* * *
Some months later, very late at night, Candelario Marroquín arrived home from work. He placed his cummerbund and bow tie on the dresser and, because he was not sleepy, he opened the front door and stood there, looking out. Across the arroyo the little houses that stood in a row appeared like chalky bundles in the moonlight. The odor of wood smoke left behind from the day's labors drifted in, and Candelario savored this sign of his neighbors' industriousness.
"I had a dream," Chayo said from their bed. She had been asleep when Candelario came in, but now she was propped up against the wall, her legs drawn up against her chest. Her long hair hung loose and fell like a dark mantilla over the tucks and gathers in her nightgown. She told him of the dream from which he'd awakened her.
She stood at the edge of the sea. Rhythmically the waves reached her, wetting first her toes, and then her ankles and finally her calves. She looked out to sea and tossed a sapphire-tinted flower onto each new cresting wave. She dreamed of watching her paper blossoms ride out to meet the sharp line of the horizon.
"Do you think it was a bad dream, Cande?" she asked.
"How can it be," he replied, "when there was so much blue in it?" After a time, as the two lay nestled in bed, Candelario whispered, "Don Gustavo will have important guests tomorrow. The doctor will come, the one with the clinic, the one from Guadalajara." A cool breeze entered through the window and Chayo pulled their blanket more securely around them. "The doctor and his wife are friends of don Gustavo. He is eager to impress them."
Chayo was silent for a bit, but then she said, "He is the one Marta would have gone to. He is the one who helps the women."
Candelario had had some time to think how their life would change once Marta's baby arrived. Over the months a new thought had come to him. Could the presence of the child induce Chayo's womb to yield him up a son? He would love Marta's child for that. He knew without question that he would. In a moment of clarity, he allowed himself to look ahead. He pictured himself, in some hazy future time, the head of a family of many sons. He imagined his children eyeing with admiration his cummerbund and bow tie. Candelario sighed contentedly. "I am a fortunate man," he said. "We do not need the doctor's help." Chayo's body stiffened and she turned away and he blamed the gesture on the coolness in the room. "I'll make the Caesar for them," he added. "It'll bring a good tip."
"And if they don't like the salad?" Chayo asked. "What will happen then?"
"You must not worry," he said. "If they are hard to please, I will enlighten them as I always do with the fussy ones." In the months that he'd been salad-maker, Candelario had received some complaints about the salad, but always he had managed to ease misunderstandings. No need to involve the patrón in this, he'd thought. Candelario explained to the guests that this was don Gustavo's Caesar and as such it was special and very different. Candelario himself knew how different the salad was: all those greens coated with mustard and beaten egg. On one occasion he had tasted the dish and vowed never to again. How can people eat this? he had asked himself. But then, who was he to question the foods the rich enjoyed? Didn't they eat mashed potatoes and that concoction named yogurt? Candelario gave a little shudder at the thought.
Chayo said, "The doctor and his wife. They are rich. They will drink imported wine. Hortencio's tip will be greater than yours."
"It is not important," Candelario said. "I only wish for my share." He turned and pressed himself against his wife's back, taking in the musky fragrance that was always caught in her hair.
On the following evening Candelario Marroquín watched as the visitors were seated by don Gustavo himself at a table with the best view of the sea. Candelario stood off to the side and waited for the snap of the patrón's fingers. When he was called to service, he rolled his cart toward the guests. "Good evening," he said to the couple. He laid linen napkins across each of their laps. Don Gustavo hovered behind the doctor, a middle-aged man whose large belly kept him at a slight angle from the table. The doctor's wife was thin and very tanned; there were thick gold bracelets around her
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Place Where the Sea Remembers"
by .
Copyright © 1993 Sandra Benítez.
Excerpted by permission of COFFEE HOUSE PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Reading Group Guide
1. Really interesting discussion question about theBook that will get you talking?
2. Another really interesting discussion question about a certainBook that will get you talking?
3. A Place Where the Sea Remembers begins with one family's story and weaves itself through the village of Santiago and around the lifes of the many people who live there. As the novel unfolds, a landscape takes shape at once simple and complex. Yet so much happens behind the scenes -- does this add to the storytelling? Create a mood? How does Benitez show the complexity of life through the details of everyday living?
4. Remedios is the Spanish word for remedies. Remedios is also the name of one of the book's main characters. She is intricately woven into the book and the life of almost every character in Santiago. She is a wise woman -- the soothing, calm center which counteracts many of the characters' tragedies. Why does she choose to live apart from the town? How does Remedios counsel a remedy to those who trudge up the hill for healing and preservation? What remedies does she herself seek? What does this character represent for you?
5. InA Place Where the Sea Remembers, the characters are confronted with many feminist issues: rape, abortion, single parenthood, and too much machismo. How is the "woman's lot" illustrated in the book? Discuss how class plays a part in both how a woman behaves and is treated. In particular, compare Chayo's life to Esperanza's -- the life of dona Lina, Rafael's mother, to the doctor's wife.
6. In Mexico, indigenous spirituality and the Catholic Church are often at odds with one another. Still, many people choose to practiceboth. How does Benitez illustrate the difference between the two, and how are both important to the Mexican culture? Is it possible to find a balance between them?
7. The stroke of fate is a recurrent theme ofA Place Where the Sea Remembers. How does fate show itself to all the characters and play a part in their stories? What choices do these characters make as a result of what fate has given them?
8. Death is a recurrent theme of the book. In the case of the fisherman, it is only after the loss of his wife that Cesar is forced to emotionally connect with his son. Why does it take the death of the woman in the family before Cesar reaches out to Beto and becomes, truly, his father and nurturer? And what of the death of Richard, Marta's son? Is this death ascribed to fate or would you say it is retribution for Marta's revenge against her sister?
9. The sea is the central metaphor inA Place Where the Sea Remembers. It is a witness to all the characters' stories. How does the sea influence Remedios' life? How do the elements of earth, fire, water, and air sustain her? How do they sustain you?
10. Tragedy affects the lives of almost every character in the book. Discuss the nature of tragedy and how tragedy is something we grow from. Are the book's characters transformed by tragedy? How so?
11. Remedios says "It is stories that save us." Do you agree with her assertion? How does storytelling restore and preserve a people and their culture?
Introduction
- A Place Where the Sea Remembers begins with one family's story and weaves itself through the village of Santiago and around the lifes of the many people who live there. As the novel unfolds, a landscape takes shape at once simple and complex. Yet so much happens behind the scenes — does this add to the storytelling? Create a mood? How does Benitez show the complexity of life through the details of everyday living?
- Remedios is the Spanish word for remedies. Remedios is also the name of one of the book's main characters. She is intricately woven into the book and the life of almost every character in Santiago. She is a wise woman — the soothing, calm center which counteracts many of the characters' tragedies. Why does she choose to live apart from the town? How does Remedios counsel a remedy to those who trudge up the hill for healing and preservation? What remedies does she herself seek? What does this character represent for you?
- InA Place Where the Sea Remembers, the characters are confronted with many feminist issues: rape, abortion, single parenthood, and too much machismo. How is the "woman's lot" illustrated in the book? Discuss how class plays a part in both how a woman behaves and is treated. In particular, compare Chayo's life to Esperanza's — the life of dona Lina, Rafael's mother, to the doctor's wife.
- In Mexico, indigenous spirituality and the Catholic Church are often at odds with one another. Still, many people choose to practice both. How does Benitez illustrate the difference between the two, and how are both important tothe Mexican culture? Is it possible to find a balance between them?
- The stroke of fate is a recurrent theme ofA Place Where the Sea Remembers. How does fate show itself to all the characters and play a part in their stories? What choices do these characters make as a result of what fate has given them?
- Death is a recurrent theme of the book. In the case of the fisherman, it is only after the loss of his wife that Cesar is forced to emotionally connect with his son. Why does it take the death of the woman in the family before Cesar reaches out to Beto and becomes, truly, his father and nurturer? And what of the death of Richard, Marta's son? Is this death ascribed to fate or would you say it is retribution for Marta's revenge against her sister?
- The sea is the central metaphor inA Place Where the Sea Remembers. It is a witness to all the characters' stories. How does the sea influence Remedios' life? How do the elements of earth, fire, water, and air sustain her? How do they sustain you?
- Tragedy affects the lives of almost every character in the book. Discuss the nature of tragedy and how tragedy is something we grow from. Are the book's characters transformed by tragedy? How so?
- Remedios says "It is stories that save us." Do you agree with her assertion? How does storytelling restore and preserve a people and their culture?
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The Portable Steinbeck, Edited by Pascal Covici, Jr.
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The Stories of Eva Luna, Isabel Allende
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Triumph and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People, Ramon Eduardo Ruiz
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All poems of Pablo Neruda
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Sandra Benitez
"I spent my life moving between the Latin American culture of my Puerto Rican mother and the Anglo-American culture of my father. I was born on March 26, 1941 in Washington, D.C., one of a pair of identical twins. My sister died only a month after our birth. A year later my parents and I moved to Mexico where another sister was born. My childhood and early adulthood were spent in Mexico and El Salvador. When I think of those years, the images that come to me are awash in the color saffron: the Spanish language, the permeable scent of cedar and leather, the shimmering heat, the color of the women in the household, the stories they told, the lives they shared.
"In Latin America, I learned that life is frail and most always capricious, that people find joy in the midst of insurmountable obstacles, that in the end, it is hope that saves us.
"When I became a teenager, I was sent to live for three years on my paternal grandparents' farm in Northeastern Missouri, and this is where I attended high school. I was the first Latina the people there had ever known. Those years live for me in a pale blue light: the thin sheen the setting sun casts on the snow banks, the color of my father's eyes, the doleful bawl a cow makes when it has lost its calf, the back-breaking work that is the farmer's lot.
"In Missouri, I learned that life is what you make it, and that satisfaction comes with a job well done, that in the end, it is steadfastness that saves us."
"I received my undergraduate and master's degrees from Northeast Missouri State University. Over the years I have been an English, Spanish, and Literature teacher at both high school and university levels. I have been a translator, and I have worked in the international division of a major training corporation. I have traveled extensively throughout Latin America. Since 1980, I have been a fiction writer and a creative writing teacher. I have two grown sons and I live with my husband in Minnesota."
"I came to writing late. I was thirty-nine before I gathered enough courage to begin. When I hear other writers talk about writing, I'm amazed by those who say they always knew they had to write. When I was a girl, I never wished to do it. Being a writer was something magical I never dreamed I could attain. But while growing up, I frequently had a book in my lap — and so I was linked even then to writing and to the spell that stories cast. I didn't know a writing life was lying in store for me. I had to live and grow before I caught the faint call. Since heeding the call, I've worked hard at being faithful to it, for writing is an act of faith. We must keep faith each day with our writing if we want to be called writers.
"Since I've been writing I've searched what's in my heart and its from that core that I write and not from what seems marketable. I am a Latina American. In my heart are stored the stories of my Latin American and Missourian heritage — of a childhood lived in Mexico and El Salvador. When I write, I have to suppress the knowledge that mainstream America often ignores the stories of 'the other America.' Over the years, I've learned to write from the heart, to persevere despite the setbacks of a host of rejections.
"In the end, I've learned these things about writing: its never too late to begin; we know all we need to know in order to do it; persistence and tenacity will take us all the way. There are angels on our shoulders, be still to catch their whisperings."
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