Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

Teresa, con amor Part 4: Pepito

Illustrated by Philippe Bureau

There was not one single room left undecorated. Everywhere in sight, there was white and pink bugambilias and even the curtains had been switched to silky white fabric, the one you could see through, which let the light pass through slightly pale. My old room––the one once filled with toys from all over the world, porcelain dolls with big blond curls and deep green eyes, the type of eyes one was not used to see around here––and my small boudoir, which once was filled with powders and creams and make-up, were both empty.

June 16th, 1940 was the day of my wedding.

Mother had spent a big part of her savings for my wedding. I tried to convince her not to, to save it for something else. After all, Pepito’s family could more than afford the wedding. But she would not hear about it. The big backyard was covered with parasols for the after-party, and the soft tones of the guitar being tuned could be heard through the half-opened window.

I am not sure how Pepito managed to calm mother down and let me get dressed alone, but he had always been good at calming down people. I let myself fall in love with him, slowly and profoundly, a calming lull that wrapped me safely and healed my poor young heart.

After President Cardenas made a deal with the rebels and redistributed most of the Haciendas in Merida, not only did my family lose their lands, but they also had to watch them slowly turn into ruins. Badly managed by people who, unfortunately, had no knowledge whatsoever of how to run an Hacienda, Merida went from a major city to a total chaos. In a way, I am happy Pedrito didn’t live to see what the rebellion cost his city. His poor heart wouldn’t have had survived.

Pepito and I decided to move right after the wedding, to start over elsewhere. His medical degree could be of no help to the ruin that was my family’s business, and I had too many ghosts following me around that big old house that used to be home. Ciudad de México was booming, being the new cosmopolitan city filled with philosophers, painters and musicians. We moved there September 8th, 1940, and  Pepito opened a small clinic there.

We lived alone for quite a while, and in spite of mother’s cries of pity by letter––“ya nunca seré abuela, ¿por qué me torturas así niña?”––we were happy by ourselves. In 1956 I had the twins, José Bernardo and Bernardo José (clever, right?) and in-coming were Teresita, then Manuel Ignacio, and finally, little baby María José.

We decided to move to Cuernavaca, Morelos, to live in a bigger house.

I didn’t return to my childhood home until Pepito died. We had his funeral in Merida, Yucatan April 8th, 1993.