The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein by J. Michael Orenduff Read Free Book Online Page B

about improving Albuquerque by organizing garden clubs, civic beautification drives, and ladies auxiliaries. What the ladies were auxiliary to I never knew.
    She taught me by word and deed the meaning of decorum and propriety. Despite her sober upbringing and somewhat rigid values, she was a warm and affectionate person, but it was Consuela who attended to the small things in the life of a child that contribute mightily to the man he becomes.
    She was an older sister and a second mother. She taught me Spanish the old-fashioned way, by talking to me in that tongue from the day I came home from the hospital. My mother taught her how to make leg of lamb with mint sauce and boeuf-en-croute , but at lunch, Consuela fed me caldillo, chile con carne, carne adovada, posole, and sopapillas . For vegetables we had frijoles, calabazitas, arroz con chile verde, flan de maiz mezclado, and verdolagas that she gathered wild. Her cooking molded my palate. I’m as likely today to go to a French, Italian, or Japanese restaurant as I am to take up skateboarding.
    We left my parents’ home the same year, she to get married, me to enroll as a freshman at the University.
    Emilio changed Consuela’s name from Saenz to Sanchez. A year later they had Ninfa who turned out to be an only child like me, and when she married and moved to California, it broke her mother’s heart. Consuela has lived since with two hopes, that Ninfa will give them a grandchild and that she will come back to live in New Mexico.
    Emilio came to the United States in 1953, twelve years old but concealing his youth in order to enter the Bracero Program.
    “I walked all day from San Diego de Alcalá to Chihuahua,” he had told me years ago. “I was surprised when I arrived, amigo . There were more people at the Trocadero than in my village.”
    “What was the Trocadero ?”
    “I don’t know from where comes this word, but it was a buildingnear the railroad station. There I stood in line with the others to see the Americans who would choose those to become Braceros .”
    He was sitting that day, as he always does, with his back perfectly straight, his shoulders squared, his head held high. Working for fifty years with a short-handled hoe gave him sinewy muscles and leathery skin, but it never broke his spirit nor bowed his head.
    “How did they choose?”
    “First you have…How do you say entrevista ?”
    “Interview.”
    “Yes. First, you have interview with one of the gringos.” He looked at me and smiled. “If he likes what you tell him, he send you to a second American. He takes your hand and rubs it to see if you have worked. I feel embarrassed by this gringo holding my hand, but everyone must do the same, so I do it. They like what I say and they like my hands because I work hard in my village, so I get a paper. The third gringo say for me to make my equi on the card, but I tell him I know how to write, and I write my name very carefully on the card. I am very proud to have this card.”
    “What happened after you got the card? How did you get to the U.S.?”
    “The next day, we ride in a cattle train to Ciudad Juarez. There we wait in a park for two days until the migras sign our papers. Then we walk across the bridge to El Paso. I remember, Huberto, when I show my card to the American on the El Paso side. He smile at me and move his arm to tell me keep walking. I think in my head that America let me come in, and it was the happiest day of my life.”
    He paused for a moment. “The Americans in the Trocadero never smile. But I always remember that guard on the bridge. After passing the bridge, they put us in the back of farm trucks and take us to a large building in a small village in New Mexico called Hatch. There they spray white powder on us to kill lice. I know I have no lice, but I say nothing. I just close my mouth and eyes and hold my nose because the spray is strong. They give us chile con carne to eat, and we sleep on the ground.”
    “The next