From the Outside Looking In
When I met my grandfather’s lover María Elena, she was old. My Abuelo Tito, too, was old. They had carried on an affair that spanned more than half a century and recently, with my grandmother having passed away, they had married.
María Elena seemed happy to meet me, but as I looked at the cramped apartment where she lived with my grandfather, at her frail body lying in a bed, I felt a wave of sadness. It all felt too late, too little.
I didn’t know what to say to her and so I smiled, kissed her cheek, and—after a short conversation about the weather in Buenos Aires and in Canada—left. She was tired and my father and the rest of the family were waiting to go for dinner.
After María Elena died, after my grandfather died, I learned that he had asked her to have five abortions.
This jolted me.
I’ve had five miscarriages: five unborn children, an entire family. When I discovered this about her, I wanted to speak with her. I knew what to say now. I knew what to ask her; but it was too late.
How did you feel? How did you endure it? Did you feel lonely? Did you ever hate Abuelo Tito for what he denied you? Did he comfort you afterwards? My husband and I comforted each other over our empty nest for days—each time, together as one. The physical pain, curled over the toilet as my uterus emptied everything, was mine alone. But he bore the emotional pain with me.
Did you cry as much as I did, for weeks and weeks, at random moments, at the gym, at the supermarket, at work?
Did you have anyone to bring you meals and chocolates, as I did with my friends? I never felt alone or lonely. I felt held and loved, no matter how miserable I was. I can only hope you had the same.
How did you live an entire life on the outside looking in, with no family of your own? How did you bear it?
I became desperate to know more about María Elena. I learned as much as I could from family in Argentina, and can now paint a picture of her, or at least draw a simple sketch. It’s the least I can do for her because of the metaphorical umbilical cord that connects us—in a very twisty way—to each other.
As a girl, María Elena had dreamt of having children and a loving husband but she didn’t marry. By her early 20s—this was in the 1940s—she felt she was too old for love.
She found solace in Sunday Mass and started attending church more and more often, at different times every day. She developed a kind of infatuation, a connection with Jesus, who had sacrificed his own life for us. She had also read the writings of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun in Mexico who, in the 1600s, was desperate for knowledge and found that becoming a nun was a way to escape from the burden of an arranged marriage.
María Elena’s parents couldn’t pay to provide a religious education, but a priest from their local church told them that some nuns in Buenos Aires, the capital city, would be willing to take her.
On a hot afternoon in 1949, María Elena and her family went to the train station. They shared tearful goodbyes, and though she was a bit anxious, she was mostly certain of what she was doing.
María Elena sat next to the window, trying to hold on to the image of her frail parents waving at her. The train soon started to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster as it left her hometown of San Juan behind.
Tears had been streaming down her cheeks for some time when a man, who was seated beside her, spoke.
“Are you going to Buenos Aires?” he asked.
She nodded shyly, feeling her cheeks grow warm under her tears. But she kept looking out the window, at scattered trees and bushes passing by.
The man was silent for a while and then started talking about Buenos Aires. He told María Elena about the famous Teatro Colón, where, he said, “the acoustics are the best in the whole wide world”; about the avenida 9 de Julio, one of the widest avenues in the world, full of trees with flowers: jacarandas, cherries, and more; he told her about all the parks.
He quite liked the botanical one, he said, which was close to his house.
Even though she kept staring out the window, he continued talking. He told her he had been living in Buenos Aires for a few years. His family owned one of the biggest businesses in San Juan but he was in charge of sending goods from Buenos Aires. He was lucky, he explained, that he could visit his family in San Juan often. The trip by train wasn’t too bad, he added.
A bit curious about this mysterious and chatty man, María Elena turned, finally, to face him. She had been expecting an older man. To her surprise, she saw a young, handsome man with blue eyes and a mischevious smile. She felt a wave of warmth run through her body, and goosebumps formed on her arms and legs. María Elena wasn’t bad looking herself, with her curly brown hair and rosy cheeks. She felt a vain impulse to touch her hair and play with it. At the same time, she felt she had to refrain from doing this. She was a young lady on her way to becoming a nun, after all. Would Sor Juana have done such a thing?
As she was thinking this, the young man smiled broadly and held out his hand, “Encantado. Me llamo Carlos,” he said.
Timidly, but happily, she replied, “Gracias. Yo soy María Elena.”
They continued talking all the way to Buenos Aires, a 24-hour journey, a full day and a full night; mostly he talked and she listened. But more and more she felt comfortable enough to participate in the conversation.
When they arrived in Buenos Aires, he offered to accompany her to her destination, the hostel run by nuns. A stranger to the city, she agreed.
When a nun opened the door and saw the two of them, she did not look pleased. But Carlos explained that he was a relative of María Elena’s. Though María Elena felt badly about the lie, she had become so comfortable with him already, she almost believed it. He left the nuns his phone number to reach him no matter the time of the day. He would be María Elena’s emergency contact and announced that he would be picking her up once a week to take her for a walk; “to catch up about the family,” he explained.
Even the nuns fell for his charm.
María Elena’s studies of the Bible were not going as smoothly as she had expected. She found herself thinking more and more about Carlos. Their warm friendship was gently transforming into something more.
One day, he sniffed her neck; another day, he stole a kiss from her; another day he held her hand and whispered in her ear as they walked around the botanical gardens. She noticed that they always went to walk in parks and away from busy streets. She thanked him for this; she missed her house, her family and her small-town life, and he seemed to understand this. (She would later learn that the real reason he stayed away from busy streets was because he was married; and he wanted to avoid running into acquaintances with María Elena by his side.)
Carlos became María Elena’s only friend in Buenos Aires; he became her best friend. She soon realized that she couldn’t resist his kisses and gentle but passionate touches. Their intimacy developed slowly. He was patient, given the social rules of the time and the fact that she was training to be a nun. It was one full year before they finally shared a bed.
The nuns were becoming frustrated by María Elena’s lack of commitment and understanding of the divine studies. But the truth is, the nuns in the hostel understood the situation before María Elena did. They all knew it was time for her to leave. Carlos found her another hostel where young ladies lived after first arriving in Buenos Aires; and he offered to pay for it. María Elena made friends at the hostel, which she soon realized was a home for young women such as herself, women who were each picked up by an older man in a car, taken to a restaurant far from the city, by the river, where they chatted and laughed and listened to tangos and sometimes danced, for hours on end. Everyone letting themselves—for a few hours—forget about the city and their real lives.
I’ve learned that all the men in my grandfather’s and grandmother’s families had lovers outside marriage. It was the macho thing to do, apparently; it made a man a man.
Though María Elena eventually learned that his real name was Tito, he would always be Carlos to her. She also learned about his wife, my Abuela Pancha, and how “Carlos” was forced to marry her because her family were the poor relations of his own family. She also learned about his children—my father, my aunt and my uncle—and the rest of his family. She learned everything about them, but she was not introduced to them until the end of her life.
When my Abuelo Tito had to travel to San Juan, she would go with him and stay at a different hotel than him and his family. She couldn’t go back to her family. They had wanted nothing to do with her ever since she left the nuns and took up with my grandfather.
When he would go out with his brothers to a café, he would arrive with María Elena earlier, to find a table for her. Later he would sit with his brothers, while María Elena watched them from a distance.
She would bring a magazine or a book, sometimes a little notebook where she liked to draw, to keep herself busy as she watched the men. Sometimes she would make portraits of Carlos and his brothers. Other times, she enjoyed drawing abstract things, doodling, but behind those lines there were images of the life she really wanted to have with Carlos.
Everyone knew about her, even my Abuela. She knew of all his lovers and she tolerated them because she had no choice. The truth is, my Abuela Pancha didn’t love my Abuelo Tito. Pancha was originally in love with his older brother. But their families had other plans for him; and so she married the younger brother.
Tito’s other lovers came and went but María Elena was a constant. The three of them, my Abuela Pancha, Abuelo Tito, and María Elena lived in this way, separate but together, for forty-five years.
Abuelo Tito visited María Elena as much as he could, after work, during lunch breaks, and on Sunday afternoons. Later in life, he would spend whole days with María Elena; but he always came home for dinner with my Abuela Pancha.
My Abuela died in 1995 and, one year later, Tito moved in with María Elena, and a few years after that, he married her.
María Elena had lived in many different places until Carlos was able to buy her an apartment. This is where I met her and where, finally, she lived as someone’s partner and wife, and, I feel now, as someone’s grandmother.
Photo graciously provided by Floris Christiaans from Unsplash.
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