How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (16)

Yes, it’s true. Incredible.

On the floor! On a yoga mat!

The lady told her that the mat is very comfortable. That in many parts of the world, people sleep on the floor and how good sleeping on the floor will be for Tita’s back. Can you believe it? Even when la vieja has another room with a good bed. She doesn’t care that Tita is old like her. It’s true she looks good for her age. But to make a human being sleep on the floor? No. And what is Tita going to do? She needs the money.

Of course, if I am desperate I would do like Tita. But I hope at this stage of my life, I am never so desperate.

Tita is a saint. She works for this lady in the night and does not complain because she prefers to give her daughter the medicine that makes her sleep for ten hours and go to work. That way Cecilia doesn’t see that Tita is gone.

So this week, and until Tita doesn’t have to do this terrible job, all of us in the building take turns with Cecilia. Tita’s apartment is downstairs. Her apartment shares a wall with Lulú. This is good because we use the walkie-talkie. If Cecilia wakes up we can run to see if she is OK. Cecilia is not developed in the brain, so she’s like a baby and can’t walk—but she’s forty years old. Most nights Tita says she is calm, but sometimes she wakes up scared, so we listen just in case. She usually gives no problem, but a few days ago when it was my turn, Cecilia woke up screaming, full of terror. And ay, Dios mío, when I arrived, Cecilia was screaming so loud, one hand covering the ear, one arm waving up and down and up and down, the hand hitting the mattress. The neighbors came of their apartments. The feathers from inside the pillows were everywhere. The plant, the soil was on the floor. Everything around was broken.

My neighbor Glendaliz said, I’m calling the ambulance.

Let’s call the police, a tall flaco said. Because you know that’s what our new neighbors do now. Any little noise and they call the policía.

No, wait, I said. Nothing good comes from calling the police. They can report Tita and social services can take Cecilia.

In America the authorities do many things that don’t make sense to me.

I’ve known Cecilia almost all of her life, so I was not afraid of her. The others were afraid because Cecilia does this thing with her eyes where she looks up and around, and her scream—it’s not a scream, it’s like Eeeeeeeeeee!—like an ice pick stabbing in the ears. I sat next to her and, really fast, I grabbed her with all the strength in my body. I trapped her arms inside mine and I held her fuerte, fuerte and I did a sound like Huuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm. She could feel the hum in my body against her body. You know how the engine feels under the legs when you sit all the way in the back of the bus. Huummmmmmmmm.

And she stopped moving back and forth. She got calm. When you have children—oh, that’s right, you don’t want children. Well, I knew what to do because I did it when Fernando was a baby. It works like magic. Cecilia went to sleep.

After, I told everybody to leave—because some people were looking at Cecilia like she was a show. I was alone in the apartment. It was so small. Dique a one-bedroom, but really it was two rooms. Tita took the bedroom and has Cecilia sleeping in the living room. It’s one of those salas where one wall has the kitchen and the other wall has the sofa bed. I tell you, very small. So small that if you sit on the sofa bed, you can touch the stove. That’s where Cecilia sleeps. Why do they make apartments like this? I don’t understand why anybody would not want a wall to separate the kitchen grease from the furniture. It’s obviously an apartment for someone that does not cook, that does not prepare food; they put two or three things together and say dinner is ready. They only boil water for the tea or an egg.

The window looks to a brick wall, so I can imagine it’s very dark during the day. How can people live without light? Qué tristeza.

It’s like living in a closet. Pobrecita Tita lives in a closet.

I could have gone back to my apartment and sleep, but I stayed with Cecilia because I was awake. So I cleaned. Nobody wants to come home to a mess. I didn’t want Tita to see all the broken glass and feathers. I tried to wash away the smell of Band-Aid and humidity that gives me the náusea, because like you know I’m very sensitive to smell. But Tita can’t help it. All those years working in the hospital, all the bottles of sanitizer and antiseptic she brought home.

So I opened the windows to refresh the air and emptied out the fridge. Wiped clean the crusted bottle tops. Cleaned all the shelves, scraped the frost off the freezer walls. She had only been in the apartment a few weeks, but already the freezer had frost. I scrubbed the oxidación off the sink. I boiled canela and naranja peel so the apartment smelled like un postre. And between us, after I was done, it was a different apartment. No offense to Tita. I mopped the floors two times.

Yes, I don’t mind to clean. To do it every day for money, I don’t know. I can think about that. We can talk about the possibilities.

But what I was saying is that I waited for Tita to arrive sitting on a hard chair. It was so uncomfortable, a torture really, looking to the brick wall outside the window. The only light was a horrible fluorescent bulb in the ceiling.

What kind of life is this? She lives in el closet and the rent more than what she used to pay. She works every minute she’s not taking care of her daughter.

At least in my apartment I have a view from the living room window. On a clear day, I swear to you, I can see the George Washington Bridge. To have a view in Manhattan is not nothing. Even when I can’t go anywhere, because to leave the apartment is to lose money, I look to the big things of New York—it’s very beautiful. All these buildings, trees. The way the sky changes color. The way the trees have different seasons. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live inside, encerrá, in the winter especially, with nowhere to go, looking to a brick wall, with no space to move. It hurts me. I feel sad for Tita, but also for me because her story makes me think one can’t predict what will happen in life.