The night of the reading at UC-Irvine, I could only guess what she must have been thinking. The Cross Cultural Center was packed and the overflow of students sat so close to the small platform we called a stage I was afraid they would not allow the writers to breathe. The discomfort of the room, of sitting on the floor, and perhaps the difference in material between Lorna Dee Cervantes’ “Para un revolucionario” or her “For the Young White Man Who Asked How I, an Intelligent, Well Read Person, Could Believe in the War Between Races” and Portillo Trambley’s more conventional work made the students restless. She began by reading a passage I don’t quite remember now but the obvious distinction in style and material was evident. A few students rose and stretched while others slumped on their chairs. I had only hoped that the audience would settle somewhat when suddenly Portillo Trambley, perhaps sensing the restlessness, began to recite a memorized monologue, stretching her arms dramatically, staring straight at us as if she spoke to us individually, and then burst into a song. The audience became enraptured by the confident cadence in her voice and the conviction of her words. It was a remarkable performance because Portillo Trambley was a professional first and foremost. After all, she was quite experienced in being a one-woman show. Looking back almost twenty-five years later, Portillo Trambley knew her audience, knew this audience well. And on that evening I’d like to think she could not have been loved more.
Helena María Viramontes
Cornell University
2004
NOTES
Bruce-Novoa, Juan. Chicano Authors: Inquiry by Interview. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1980.
Herrera-Sobek, Maria. Beyond Stereotypes: The Critical Analysis of Chicana Literature. Binghamton, NY: Bilingual Press, 1985.
Portillo-Trambley, Estela. Rain of Scorpions. Berkeley, CA: Tonatiuh International, 1975.
———. Trini. Binghamton, N. Y.: Bilingual Press, 1986.
Olsen, Tillie. Silences. New York: The Feminist Press, 2003.
Rebolledo, Tey Diana. Women Singing in the Snow. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1995.
Rodriguez, Juan in A Decade in Chicano Literature 1970-79. Santa Barbara, CA: Editorial La Causa, 1982.
Yarbro-Bejanaro, Yvonne in Viramontes, Helena María, The Moths and Other Stories. Houston: Arte Publico, 1985.
She was walking among tombstones when she saw him following her. The world was gold this October, leaves fluttering to the ground like substances of fancies, liquescent in a search among tombstones. She knew who he was, a gringo painter who had come to live among the Mexicans in Valverde. What on earth did he want? Only one way to find out. She turned and waited for him to catch up with her. Even now, he smelled of turpentine. He stood smiling down at her as he asked, “Waiting for me?”
His Spanish was soft and musical, almost like a native. She asked simply, “What do you want?”
“To paint you.”
Why her? she wondered. With all the young and pretty girls around. She did not answer, but as they crossed Alameda, he asked again, “Will you pose for me?”
“Why?”
“I’ve watched you planting, behind your house. You know that broken hill behind your place? That’s where I want to paint you.”
Her eyes were full of pagan lights. She realized she had been the subject of his curiosity for some time. She bit her lip in thought, then she looked to the level of his eyes and with a little laugh agreed, “Why not?”
* * *
The canvas was finished. The background was done in red and yellow browns with great subtleties of shades, with infinite degree of line. The figure of Trini on canvas was painted into the light, almost as if it had appeared out of the depth of rocks and earth. The whole body was a movement of strength, sustained, yet free. There was something mystical about her eyes, dark, looking to the level of the living, yet seeing beyond. The hair flew loose and long with the wind. The most amazing thing in the painting were the feet, bare, brown, seeming to grow out of the earth itself.
“Now, tell me, Trini, isn’t that you?” Chale was behind her, his voice full of excitement. Yes, thought Trini, it is me. What I am inside. How did he know? He’s only painted me, not known me. She had seen many women like herself, who had crossed a river illegally into the United States. So many brown women faceless in the world. Yet, here she was. Only she, a life etched in an unpoised moment, in a fragment of continuous change, all spelled out to its very beginning and all the beginnings to follow.
“Chale.”
“Yes?”
“It is me.”
Matilda, heavy with child, stopped halfway up the slope. They were where the giant palos blancos stood, heavy with white flowers, air sweet with the smell of orange blossoms. From the top of the hill, Trini turned to look at her mother, half-sensing something wrong. Matilda was swaying unsteadily on her feet.
“Mamá?”
Matilda closed her eyes for a second and bit her lip, but quickly shook her head. “I climbed the hill too fast. Go, catch up with the little ones.”
On the other side, Buti and Lupita were digging under trees that shone like glass. Deep in the marrow of the soil, by the side of the hill, pochote grew. Trini turned to her mother again, but Matilda gestured her away. “Go on, I’ll rest right here.”
The mother sat down on a heap of stones, leaning her head against a tree; at that moment a flurry of wind rained white blossoms on her. Trini watched her, breathing free.
“Trini,” called out Lupita, “Come help.”
Trini hesitated, looking at Matilda surrounded by fallen blossoms, a fairy ring of whiteness, plotted, pieced, by chance and wind. She’ll be alright, thought Trini, turning and making her way down the side of the slope where her brother and sister piled white bulbs on the grass. She sat down to help them dig, the scent of secret moist earth heavy in her nostrils. They took turns using their one spade to break the greenness, digging bulbs with tiny tendrils of hanging root. There was full concentration on this effort until Trini looked up to see Matilda coming down the slope to join them. She was beside them now. “Here, I’ll dig.”
The mother took her billowing skirt, making a knot in front around the knees, sitting on the ground, her long, thick braids touching moist spring grass. She helped the children scoop the rich brown earth. Holding the spade, Matilda sat back every so often to rest, eyes closed, one hand against her arched back. Then she took a small knife from her apron pocket, cutting into the heart of a bulb, gripping it, fingers pressing in rhythmic strokes, softening the pulp. She raised the softened pochote over her face, her pink tongue catching the sweet milk; she bit into the fruit. “Good . . .”
She softened some pochotes for the children, her bare