TAMALES CON AMOR
It was the tamales
that I remembered most of all. The spicy chili pork stuffed into the
steamed masa wrapped in corn husk crept back into my memory with the insistence of a classic song from Mexico: “Me gusta tu, y nada mas que tu.”
Aside from the tamales, there were the chili rellenos, whole green peppers from Hatch that were lovingly dipped in a tempura batter. Then there was the menudo, in and of itself a meal, quite different from the Philippine menudo because it was beef tripe and hominy grits swimming in a tomato- sauce infused sea of “caldo”, a soup. A slice of lime brought a tangy finish to this heavenly concoction, a true child of Mexico. And then, for dessert, there were the tamales of a different sort made of corn masa which harbored the richness of almonds and honey, like the Greek baklava, but with corn dough.
I remember that evening that we had wine and coffee. That afternoon snack rolled on into the evening and became supper.
I wasted no time in saying “yes”. Playing the piano had always given me joy; to share that with another human being, especially one who was in bereavement of a lost partner, was a no-brainer. I needed to do it.
Juana gave me a smile, a sad twinkle in her eye.
“It makes me sad, let’s just put it that way,” said Rosa. “I had a ready audience, however badly I played.”
She did not follow that up with the obvious corollary: her audience had gone.
“And Eileen and Susan, how are they?” asked Pepe.
“They come to visit me sometimes with the kids,” Rosa replied. “It’s been hard for them too, but they have their own families now. But enough about them,” she cut to the quick. “I prepared merienda.”
And that was when she brought us to the table laid out with the repast she must have prepared for the better part of the day.
“You prepared all this?” exclaimed Juana. Pepe shook his
head slightly, as if in disbelief. I looked on in gustatory anticipation. Mexican
culture looked back at me in a medley of tamales,
rellenos and menudos.
“You didn’t have to!”Juana continued with her obvious surprise.
“Oh but I wanted to!” said Rosa. “Takes my mind off things. I want Manny to taste my tamales.”
“That I shall,” I replied. “Thank you, Rosa. I’m sure they’re divine.”
“That’s Joe, my husband,” Rosa spoke to me. She must have seen me glance with curiosity at the framed photographs. “Those are my two girls. Susan is the one with the husband and two children. Eileen is in New York.”
When I was seated at the piano, the three of them seated at some remove on the comfortable sofa, I turned to Rosa and asked: “Is there any song you would want to hear, Rosa?”
She gave me a look that seemed on the verge of tears: “Can you play Noche de Ronda? That was Joe’s favorite. It was our theme song.”
I knew the song quite well. Being Latinos in sentiment and inclination if not in appearance, Filipinos of a certain age in my country knew and sang this song. The song was written by the same composer who composed “Granada” Agustin Lara. It starts off like this:
Noche de Ronda
Que triste pasas
Que triste cruzas
Por mi balcón
Roughly
translated it means:
Night of the
guard’s watch,
How sadly you
pass
How sadly you
cross
By my balcony
The main
verse starts with the “moon” and ends
with “tears”, so you would be correct
in thinking it a sad, bittersweet song in
¾ time written by a Mexican composer, whose full Spanish appellation, if you
must know, was Ángel Agustín María Carlos Fausto Mariano Alfonso del Sagrado Corazón
de Jesús Lara y Aguirre del Pino.
Pepe gave me a quick look, and said: “I have a request,
Manny. Can you play “The Entertainer’?
“Will you have some café con leche before you
go, Manny, Pepe, Juana?” asked Rosa hopefully, even pleadingly. Pepe and Juana
demurred, but I said:” Sure, I will have that and some of the tamales de mandorlas.”
“How beautiful this evening is,” remarked Juana.
“I agree,” said Pepe. “Someone had the Star lit
tonight.”
“Thank you Manny for a lovely evening,” Rosa
said to me as she gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. “I hope we can have another
evening like this someday.”
“I hope so too,” I replied sincerely.
There is always another time, is it? I thought. And then again…
Many years later, having been away from El Paso
for a while, and happening to pass that way again, I once again saw Pepe and
Juana.
“It’s October! We’re going to the Albuquerque
International Balloon Festival”, Juana beamed.
“We always go every year,” added Pepe. “Are you
going?”
“Maybe,” I said. Actually I had made my own
plans to go, but I would be including a side trip to Santa Fe and Taos, New
Mexico. I had rented my own car and booked my own hotels. Pepe and Juana would
insist that I go with them, but I didn’t want to inconvenience them with my
company. It was their trip together, as man and wife still in love with each
other, still serving in church, despite their advancing age, and now renting an
apartment. They had sold their longtime home where they had raised their kids till they were of age to have families of their own..
“It was too large for the two of us,” confided
Juana. I agreed. I had been to their house.
“And Rosa, how is she?” I asked.
“She sold her house too and is now renting, ”
replied Pepe. “She felt too lonely in that lovely house. Her kids don’t want to
live there anymore.”
“And the piano?” I asked.
“She donated it to Goodwill,” said Juana. “She tried to play again, after your
visit, but it was too hard for her. Too many memories, too many ghosts, she
said.”