Nilda

Nilda had said good-bye to her mother at Grand Central Station and, now on board the train, she wondered what life would be like away from her family and the Barrio. The train was headed for Upstate New York, not New Jersey as she had told Petra. This was the first time she had ever been without her family and out of her neighborhood on her own. She looked around and up and down the train car and saw a bunch of kids, none of whom she recognized. The nuns sat in pairs, staring straight ahead and not speaking.
Slowly, then rapidly, the city began to fade from view as Nilda looked out the window. First, the Park Avenue Market began to disappear and she looked back at 110th Street where she went shopping with her mother almost every day; then all the buildings, tenements, streetlights and traffic faded from view. Panic seized her and she swallowed, fighting a strong urge to cry as she longed to go back home that very second.
She saw large sections of trees and grass interspersed with small houses. Once in a while a group of cows behind barbed wire would come into view. “Look, cows!” “Wow, those are real cows!” some of the kids cried out. Nilda strained her neck, trying to get a good view of the animals as the train whizzed by. Once they saw some horses. The ride took them past many little houses, most painted white, some with picket fences surrounded by trees and grass. There were no tall buildings at all. Small white churches with pointed steeples. Large barns and weather vanes. Neat patches of grass and flowers. It reminded her of the movies. Like the Andy Hardy pictures, she almost said out loud. In those movies Mickey Rooney and his whole family were always so happy. They lived in a whole house all for themselves. She started thinking about all those houses that so swiftly passed by the train window. Families and kids, problems that always had happy endings. A whole mess of happiness, she thought, just laid out there before my eyes. It didn’t seem real, yet here was the proof because people really lived in those little houses. Recalling a part of the movie where Mickey Rooney goes to his father the judge for advice, Nilda smiled, losing herself in the happy plot of the story.
“Don’t pick your nose,” snapped a nun. “You’ll get worms.” Nilda looked around her as if she had just awakened. “You! You! I’m talking to you.” She realized that the nun was pointing to her and she could feel the embarrassment spreading all over her face as everyone laughed.
At the train depot they all boarded several buses and after a short ride arrived at their destination. The children were all lined up in different groups according to sex and age. Nilda stood in line with the rest of the girls in her group. She looked about her and saw several ugly grey buildings skirted by water. The day was gloomy, adding to the bleakness of the place, which looked like an abandoned factory.
The children stood about in their assigned groups as the nuns and brothers cautioned them to silence. Other children. were walking about near the buildings; obviously there were some campers here already. Nilda thought, They don’t look so happy to me. Someone blew a whistle. “All right now, let’s march!” said a brother, waving his arm and pointing toward one of the buildings. He wore rimless glasses and his red hair was slicked down.
“Let’s follow Brother Sean, everyone,” said one of the nuns. There was a dank smell coming from the water. Nilda noticed a thin layer of oily film covering the water near the shoreline. She walked along with the other children toward one of the build ings. The gritty sand under her feet stank of oil.
They were led into a very large room with long wooden tables and benches. Everywhere Nilda looked there was a crucifix or a holy statue. Each group was assigned a table to sit at. A nervous chatter was beginning among the children. A large red faced nun walked up and clapped her hands vigorously. “Silence, silence now, children. Let me introduce Father Shaw. He will explain everything you want to know. Now,” she looked at the group seriously, “I expect complete quiet and your undivided attention when Father Shaw speaks.” With that she stepped aside and an even larger red-faced priest with a pinkish bald head began to speak.
“Thank you, sister.” He paused, looking at the rows of tables and benches filled with children, and said, “Now, I want to see all those lucky faces. Why lucky? I can tell you why! You have been fortunate enough to leave the hot city behind. How many kids do you know that can leave the city? We intend to have a good time, of course. But every one of us is obligated to show our Savior Jesus Christ our thanks by living, behaving and thinking like good Catholics. Not just at Mass. Here we carry it through every moment. Now, how many of you have made your First Communion?”
Most of the children eagerly picked up their hands. Nilda put her hands on her lap. Although she would be ten years old in a couple of months, she had never received Communion. “Well, that’s wonderful!” Father Shaw said. “For those children who have not received Communion yet, we will have a special religious instruction group every day. They will have a chance to catch up on Catechism.” His smile faded. “Rules are to be obeyed here. We deal with no nonsense. Let me warn everyone, especially the smart alecks, that any kind of misbehavior will be dealt with so that it doesn’t happen a second time.” Nilda thought of her stepfather’s constant blasphemy and his many arguments with her mother, as he attacked the Catholic Church. I wish I could tell Papá, she thought. He might just convince Mamá to let me go back home right now, even before I have to open my suitcase.
In that same large room with the long wooden tables and bench es, campers were fed their meals. Supper that night consisted of first, a clear soup, which was so tasteless that it took Nilda a while to recognize the flavor-it was chicken-then the main course, a sausage pie. The meat was wrapped in a soft dough having the consistency of oatmeal; it was served with creamed beets and grits, bread spread with jam and a glass of powdered milk. Dessert was stewed plums and prunes in a heavy syrup. Nilda was not very hungry.
One of the sisters walked up and down between the tables, watching the children. “Here we eat what’s put on our plates. We don’t waste food. That’s a sin! There are many less fortunate children who go hungry in Europe and all over the world.” Nilda felt a sharp poke in her left shoulder blade. The nun was standing behind her. “You can do better than that, now.” Before she could turn around to look, the nun had walked over to another girl. “Eat what you have on your plate, young lady, because that’s all you get until breakfast. I don’t want to hear that anybody’s hungry tonight.” Looking down at her food, Nilda put some of it on her fork and shoved it into her mouth. She tried not to think, as she chewed, of her mother and the good-tasting food she had at home.
The same large room that was used as the dining room and meeting hall was also used as a classroom. Nilda sat at one of the tables and daydreamed that she was back home. She missed her familiar world of noise, heat and crowds, and she missed her family most of all. All the nuns, priests and brothers were very white and had blue or light brown eyes. Only among the children were there dark faces. She wondered if Puerto Ricans were ever allowed to be nuns, fathers or brothers.
“I hope we can work real hard, children,” said the short nun, “so that when you return home you will be able to receive Holy Communion and make your families happy and proud.” She walked around stiffly, stopping to ask the children if they had understood what she had said. She got very little response from anyone.
Papá wouldn’t be proud. He would have a fit, thought Nilda, with a feeling of affection and warmth for her stepfather.
That night she looked around at the enormous dormitory with the many rows of army cots set side by side. The chalky taste of the milk of magnesia was still fresh in her mouth, making her feel nauseous.
The lights had been turned out already. She could hear a lot of quiet crying and whimpering. She started to think of home. Why am I here? Did Mamá know about this place?