A tale your grandmother wanted you to know but couldn't say

A tale your grandmother wanted you to know but couldn't say

                                                                

The sight of Juana running out of the telephone booth on a Saturday evening was now a familiar one to all of Tierra Caliente. Despite the sun bearing down heavy, a quick jump over a large stone and Juana was off. It amazed everyone. For a ten-year-old girl, she possessed a ferocious pace and an equally astounding agility.

The running joke in the community was to rechristen her as Gata for the same.

Abuelita! Abuelita!

Two ponytails bouncing on either side and Gata pranced upon the muddy beaten track that lead into a more ancient part of the village. Gata enjoyed the run.The breeze in her hair. The pleasant smell of corn being cooked in the wood-fired-three-stone stove.

It was a trimonthly exercise for Gata ever since she had been five, but only if she was lucky.

At times, Gata was kept waiting for months at a stretch for this particular run.

Ten minutes would take her to a small house made of mud and grass at the far end of a cornfield. Josefina Lopez was not her grandmother by blood but for Gata she was her own. Born some few years after the Mexican Revolution, Yaya had lived a humble benign life.

She often joked to anyone who would listen that she had entertained the Los Conquistadores at her house. It was in their memory that she had refused to replace the fence made of stone and the house. Living in the modern cemented house would be dishonorable on her part.

Yaya could hear Gata running towards her. The septuagenarian could however only manage to see a pink haze running towards her from across the compound. Gata on her part would scream louder as she would approach the door of the house.

Yaya was expecting her dear feline postwoman. Customary greetings followed. Gata was promptly served with sweet bread as she ran around Yaya in circles. Amidst the general laughter, Yaya would ask Gata questions. From how her parents were, how was the new school and how she kept her hair so neatly parted, Gata answered them with an enthusiasm only a ten-year-old could have.

Reminded of why she was there, Gata suddenly interjected her answers with

7 pm!

A brief moment passed by as the two ladies shared a smile. Yaya signalling left for the inside of the house to slip into something better suited for outdoors.

Refusing to live with Manuel and his wife, Yaya chose to remain in the village of her birth as her son and his family moved to Puerto San Jose. With the untimely death of Manuel and a family dispute later Yaya was lost to the world.

With a delineating eyesight and no one to look after her, Yaya had assumed that she would have to re-play her memories in her mind till the day the reel would stop spinning.

The reel spun fifteen years to one fine unsuspecting afternoon. A phone call from Uzbekistan brought a young girl to Yaya’s doorstep.

And Yaya back to the life.

That day as Yaya hurried to the community phone, she hadn’t expected to hear Miguel Angel, her grandson’s voice on the other end. The newest patriarch of the family had not heard from his Abuelita in years.

Yaya was thrilled.

Thrilled enough watch the telephone at the community booth become a hazy black lump over the years.

Just to hear her Miguel speak.

Perhaps it was the hardship of work in Urgench that made Miguel go to a telephone the first time he dialled to his Abuelita. Perhaps he missed his kin. Or perhaps it was a yearning for the love of the land that he had to remain bereft of. He made a promise of sending as many Pesos as his small business could spare.

And another promise. Of one call every three odd months from his savings. International calls were expensive.

Yaya never spoke much. In all the years in the village, Yaya had mostly kept to herself. Perhaps that is the only thing you can do when the world doesn’t want you to run along with it. But no one ever saw Yaya complain.

No one ever saw Yaya.

But every three months, for forty-five minutes, the community hotspot was treated to a peculiar sight. The sight of an old woman fumbling around a telephone becoming younger. Yaya laughed, cried and spoke with the ferocity of an underground reservoir finding an orifice to unleash an unbridled deluge of emotions.

In forty-five minutes, an old woman went from the hinterlands of Mexico to the far lands of Uzbekistan. In his voice, she tasted the delicacy of Palov, Dimlamas and Kebabs. Miguel showed Kyzyl Kum Desert and Itchan Kala to a delicate lady who would never be able to take a step out of her village.

Yaya went beyond the cornfields with his voice.

However. Yaya thanked Miguel for one very specific reason.

In those forty-five minutes, Yaya had a family. Yaya had a reason to look beyond her diminishing senses and a life that was slowly slipping from her. In forty-five minutes, Yaya could picture a home within the tatters of an old house and an equally withered life. She found Miguel to jolt her from her insipid reverie that was life.

Yaya found a reason to go on.

At the end of the phone call, Gata found Yaya smiling like the fierce sun that permeated through Tierra Caliente. Between the tears of joys that followed Yaya relinquished Gata of her duties as her postwoman. Of the technological advancements that were alien to her, Miguel would soon send her a small box that would keep them connected more frequently.

Yaya would now not have to step out of her house. She could now invite Miguel and make the hut a home.

As the beaming face of Yaya slowly trudged back up the beaten path, Gata was left with a bittersweet notion. Her happiness for Yaya took her to another overpowering thought. Carlos would call his mama at 4 pm the next day. Javier would call his Abuelo the next week. Her village was replete with such stories. Many of these beaten tracks led into houses which had a Yaya waiting for Gata to announce their phone call.

All the houses were the same. All the lives waiting to hear from their beloved had similar stories to tell. And all of them cried, laughed and talked in the same way. Gata did not understand why they lived so far away. The only thing that she knew was they deserved their forty-five minutes.

Gata would run as fast as she could to get them closer to their forty-five minutes.

And as all those faces turned to look like Yaya’s, Gata prayed that their Miguel would soon send them the box that gave them a reason to go on.