Category: Memories (Page 6 of 11)

I don’t know where Granny got this tiny bottle of violet perfume or how long she’d had it before she gave it to me. I know I was very young when I got it; five, six, seven? And I know that I immediately fell in love with it. It had the most wonderful scent I had ever smelled, a mixture of flowers and baby powder, and even today, 35 years later, it still smells quite nicely. I also loved the little bottle, about as long as my little finger is now, because Granny had given it to me, and I loved Granny, oh so much.
For years and years I kept the little bottle with me, never using it because I did not want to waste a drop of its essence. At home, at the apartment where I grew up, I kept it in a shelf in my bathroom (I had appropriated the half-bathroom, by the kitchen, and nobody else really used it). One day, I can’t remember what year or how old I was, my sister Gabriela got into my perfume and used a bunch – it’s not just evaporation that has made it half empty. I was incredibly mad, as you can imagine.
I am not sure if I brought this little bottle with me when I first came to America, or if Gladys brought it here at some point after that, but I know it’s been with me at least since college. For the last eight years, however, it’s been hiding in a box in the garage – together with other mementos that struggle to be linked to memories. I found it a couple of days ago, I expected it to smell horribly, but it’s still nice. Mika liked it, and the story that came with it. And I… well, it brings back memories of Granny and Gladys, of childhood and love, and that’s always bittersweet.
I’d like to keep the little bottle on my desk, smell it from time to time, but here it runs the risk of being emptied by a naughty child, so it’ll have to go back into hiding, for some more years at least. And then one day I’ll find it, and remember again.

It is just an incense holder. Simple, in good taste. There is some engraving in the back, mostly erased, “industria argentina”. Perhaps it’s silver.
It used to reside in the top drawer of the sideboard in Gladys’ and Granny’s apartment. There was a box of long incense sticks, and some incense cones as well. Perhaps those were in the second drawer, with the fancy candles and tablecloths – my memory for some things is not that good. I played with them, as I played with everything, but very occasionally. Perhaps they were too delicate, perhaps not so much fun. We might have lit them once or twice, early on I think, but my memories of incense come from later, Berkeley, the Middle East (though less). I know that the cone ones were too beautiful to burn.
I have the incense burner now. I also have the silver plated silverware that was used for special occasions. Did it date from Granny’s wedding? My dad may know. The silverware needs to be polished, it has lost some of its luster, its plating. I used it years ago (Gladys had given me half of the service for 12) at dinner parties, but now it seems too heavy, too important. Las cosas están para usarlas, of course, but, but, but… sometimes you can’t.
That silverware also resided in the top drawer of the sideboard. Above there was the mirror, which made the very small dining room seem much larger. All special occasions for the Lacabe family were celebrated in that dining room – which could only seat 6 – or was it 8? There was a card table in the living room, perhaps we used it too.

They weren’t dinners, of course, other than asados I don’t think I went to a dinner party until I started having them myself. Instead, we celebrated with masas finas and sánguches de miga. The masas are bite-size pastries, sweet and delicious, also extremely expensive. The sandwiches are made with extremely thin crustless bread, they are often triples, with a slice of bread in the middle. Ham and cheese are the most common ones, I liked cheese alone.
When Gladys died, a couple of years ago, we emptied out her house. It breaks my heart to think of it, but at the time it gave me something to do amidst fits of crying, the same tears that I cannot stop now as I think of her. Thinking of Gladys’ house bare is painful, even if a few of her belongings are now in my house. Because for me those belongings help the memories, and the memories are so pleasant and so painful. Because they are no more.

As I mentioned, I brought home some other things. One was this doll – I don’t know its history at all. It used to stand on the shelf in the hallway, where the phone was located. Underneath was a cloth bench, I have some vague notion that it was a piano bench, though it doesn’t look like the ones I’ve seen. It was white and golden, I think. It opened up and inside there were old magazines. The book about Estudiantes winning the Copa Libertadores – which, by the way, they won once again.
Above was a carved mirror. It came with the bedroom set my grandparents bought for Gladys when she was in her twenties. It was a quality set. I slept on her bed throughout the 70’s, her closet was in the service room. Somewhere in time the closet lost its bottom. We gave it to the portera. My father was sad. I don’t remember what we did with the mirror.
This little metal shell was probably on the table which resided next to Granny’s couch. It became Gladys’ couch after Granny died, though I think I took it over when I went to live with her at thirteen. At least I remember sitting there a lot. During the time Granny was alive, Gladys sat on a rocking chair with a harsh down pillow. I sat on another rocking chair, padded on the bottom and the back. I think it had flowers. There was a card table between the three chairs, where we ate and, of course, played cards. The shell is now on my desk. It opens up, there is a plastic shell inside. I have not the slightest idea what it is. But it was Granny’s and Gladys’ and that is enough.


The clock, the table clock of course, not the grandfather’s clock beloved by all, was on the sideboard I mentioned above. I brought it to America in my hand luggage. It’s broken now, I’d love to have it fixed sometime. Though I wonder if the familiar sound would be too painful. Then again, you get used to everything.



The two candle holders above were also on the sideboard. I played a lot with them. They are now on my bookcase. The picture is that of my grandfather Ramón, who died years before I was born. I don’t remember where it was before.
I took this wooden painting from the wall above the door between the kitchen and the living room. I don’t think it was there during my childhood. It’s now on my kitchen wall.
These three needlepoint flowers were, indeed, next to the living room-kitchen door. They were my present to Granny. I saw them in a little store between my apartment and my English school and I knew we had to give them to Granny. We bought them one by one, over a year or two. I think they liked them. They are now in my bedroom. I didn’t think they would fit – they are on the wall near my picture of Guernica, but I like seeing them from my bed. They warm me.
These three clay plaques were in Granny’s bedroom. The top one is the picture of her mother. Then there is a poem about a sister (from my uncle Kent?) and then one about a Mother. They are now in my bedroom as well.
I have other things I took from their house, mostly plates and tea cups, all in a suitcase. I have no space for them. Nothing has much value, it’s all old and scratched, and I’m not sure what to do with it. But it was theirs and it’s mine. Was there ever a difference?
What I wonder now, at this moment it came to my mind, is what happened to the acrostic I gave Granny, perhaps for her last birthday. Was it still there, in that white document box? I remember writing it on paper that looked like parchment paper.
So this is it for now. Objects and memories. I wonder if my children will ever feel like this, will look at the hangings that we’ve had for almost twenty years and think of us. Or will they destroy everything we have before they reach adulthood.

I started learning English when I was in preschool. The institute was almost next door to my school, the Escuela Kennedy. Between the two buildings was the church that my grandmother used to go to, a couple of blocks from her house. The priest, at the time, was Padre Montes. I have a very vague image of him, I think he wore glasses. I think he was the priest who baptized me. My grandmother took me to that church without my parents knowing, my father, being protestant, was of course against my being baptized catholic. I followed his religion as a child – I was *very* religious as a child, and later, when I was 11 or 12, I asked to be baptized int he Methodist church to which we belonged. They wouldn’t do it as I already had been baptized as a Christian.
Padre Montes later became the main priest at the La Plata Cathedral, later he became a bishop. He has been accused of having a close relationship with the military. One of the accusations is that he refused to give information about the whereabouts of the small daughter of disappeared people to her grandparents – saying that the girl was fine with the family who had her. It’s weird to think that my grandmother, who was possibly the nicest, “goodest” (I wish that was a word) person who ever lived, took spiritual advise from that person.
In any case, I went to the English institute next door to the church. I don’t remember much about it, other that it was an immersion program and that I learned very, very little. I remember watching a slide show with the story of a red hen, and not understanding a word of it. My parents wanted me to learn English as that was the language of my grandmother. My father spoke it fluently, but just as with my children, he was unable to pass it on to us.
Given that experience, I’ve become very skeptical about the ability of children to learn English in a school environment, at least when they are young and have no reinforcement at home. That said, I’d put my kids in Spanish classes if there were any nearby. Isn’t that ironic? I struggled to learn English in Argentina, and now the situation is reversed for my kids.
What is interesting is that I also didn’t learn any English when I lived with my grandmother and aunt as an almost four-year-old. I’m pretty sure that they communicated with each other only in English. Despite living in Argentina for over sixty years, Granny never learned Spanish that well. But I still managed to not learn any English during those three months.
I started taking more formal English lessons when I was 8. I don’t remember the name of the institute, though perhaps it will come to me at some point, but it was a couple of blocks from my house. I went there for four years, always with the same teacher, whose name, of course, I don’t remember either. I don’t think I liked her very much. I also failed to learn much English during that time – though perhaps what I learned was a good basis for advancing relatively quickly once I came to America. It was British English, of course, though at such elementary level it doesn’t make that much of a difference. I did learn the word “rubber” for “eraser”, which is somewhat funny given its meaning in American English.
My next exposure to English came when I came to America. I started school and was put in ESL (English as a Second Language) 1, but I quickly made it to the group of advanced readers. There were kids from several Latin American countries in that class, though I only remember Cecilia and Brenda, from El Salvador – but there were also kids from other countries, being 1982 many were from Iran. Of those I remember Dahlia (who might have gone to the US via Spain) and Cyrus (who had some relationship with Germany). I could only speak with them in English, and my English skills advanced pretty quickly. By the time I finished I could have basic conversations in this language.
I returned to Argentina, to live with my aunt Gladys, about nine month after I left it. Once back in La Plata I started English lessons at the Instituto Británico, which was at the time the premier English-teaching institution in my city. It also was just a few blocks from my aunt’s apartment. I learned quite a bit of English during that year and a half – though perhaps it was less due to the lessons and more to the practice I got talking with Gladys (though I don’t really remember much of that). I had problems understanding the spoken British English, however – and it would be after several years of living in America and watching PBS that I became comfortable with their pronunciations.
I did learn one specific new word in English, however: verger – one of the stories we read was about a verger who was fired from his job because he couldn’t read, so he opened a shop and then more and became a very successful businessman. The “punchline” was that at the end of the book someone remarked at how amazing it was he could do so well without being able to read, and what he could have accomplished if he knew how to. The ex-verger responds: I know exactly what I’d be, a verger at so and so church. I like the story, not just for the end, but because pretty much nobody in America knows what a verger is. It was fun, specially at the beginning of living here, when my English was quite deficient, to know a word that even my teachers did not. Of course, with the years I realized that I knew many words in English that people, even my husband, did not know. English, it turns out, is about 60% Latin – for that reason its quite easy to “anglicize” Latin-derived Spanish words. Some of these words are either obscure or just not used a lot in English, so people don’t really know what they mean. This may be a reason why I’m so good at scrabble, and always beat my husband.
My next stage in learning English came when I returned to America about a year and a half after leaving. They gave me a placement exam and I didn’t do that well – mostly because I didn’t know the meaning of the word “still” (I knew “yet”). Placement exams are quite stupid.
They put me on ESL 3, but I knew I wanted to be in 4 – so when I had my first writing assignment, a self-portrait, I worked really hard at it. It payed, as they transferred me.
I made several friends in my class that year (we were together for two periods of ESL 4 and one of ESL History), they were from Iran (of course), Poland, Mexico, Brazil and Germany. We /had/ to speak in English as we didn’t have another language in common. I think that helped me learn English more than the class.
What helped me the most, however, was reading the Encyclopedia Britannica. At that time my father worked selling encyclopedias – and he bought one set for us. I had always been interested in history, so I decided to start from the beginning and read everything in the encyclopedia that had to do with the subject. I started with the ramapithecus, which at that time was considered a possible early ancestor, and finished with Assyrians or so. Reading the encyclopedia wasn’t difficult – as I said 60% of English comes from Latin, and probably even more of the dry language of encyclopedias is Latin-derived. But of course, reading it exposed me to all types of new words, and my English increased exponentially. Unfortunately, my grammar never caught up to my vocabulary.
And that’s it, the history of my English learning. The saddest part about it is that as I learned English, I lost my Spanish. It became less idiomatic, more forced and my facility with words went away. As a child I had wanted to be a writer, but having lost Spanish and never having really perfected English, I was left without a language. I experimented using both, but alas, probably the greatest obstacle is that I am not a storyteller.

Her name was Rosalía. I think. I can’t be sure, but in my memory she will always be Rosalía. She was blond, with curls. Perhaps not particularly smart, the worst in the class? She sat next to me throughout the year. I don’t think we really became friends, though. Perhaps the problem was that she lived far away, in Barrio Jardín. Or perhaps the problem was that she was poor. Even now, thirty four years later that’s what I remember of her. My six-year-old assumption that she was poor – because she lived in Barrio Jardín and someone must have said it was a poor neighborhood. I went to her house once, for her birthday party. It was not a fancy house, but not so different from other houses closer to the centro. I remember that we played a game called palitos (little sticks). I don’t remember how the game went.
First grade finished and she did not come back for second grade. I never saw her again.
Why do I remember her?

My teacher for first grade (and second) was called Ana María Guerrini de De Battista. She was young, pretty, married. I remember writing down her name on my notebook, but that would have been in second grade. She was a good teacher, kind and patient. A segunda mamá, second mom – when I was little, at least, that’s how teachers were seen in Argentina. I don’t remember much about her, but when I think of her I feel warm inside. Perhaps it’s just the smile in her picture, it seems sincere.
I heard, some years ago, that she died. I just googled her name and I found her orbituary. She died in 2003, had two children and apparently many friends, for what I can see in the paper. It saddens me, of course.

There were five first-grade classes at my school, the Escuela Normal Nacional No 2 “Dardo Rocha”. Before school started we had to take a placement test and I apparently did not do very well, as they assigned me to 1o E. I looked at my test years later and, beyond being able to pronounce “Nabucodonosor” and cut straight, I didn’t do that badly. I would, in time, of course, show that I wasn’t the burrita my placement implied – but I was offended and humiliated at the time. Perhaps I still am.

For some reason I will never understand, the textbook for first grade (whose name I don’t remember after all these years) was out of print when I entered elementary school. I remember my parents’ efforts to find one. They finally were able to buy a used book, but it was already all written up. I was jealous of the kids that had new books.

The Escuela Normal Nacional No 2, or “Normal 2”, as we all called it, was, as the name implies, a “national” school, depending directly from the federal Ministry of Education. There were also provincial schools and private schools. National schools had the best reputation and you needed some pull to get in. In my case, my aunt Gladys had taught English at the high school part of the school for many years and was friend with the school principal. Once a sibling was in, the others were as well, but you needed to know someone to start. I wonder how Rosalia was able to get in.

The Normal 2 operated in what I believe had been a huge warehouse. It had two “pavilions”, huge buildings with classrooms opening to a large central court (covered). Between them there was another building, long and narrow, which hosted the classrooms for 6th and 7th grade. To one side of this building was the flag pole, to the other the “gymnasium”, really just an open court. There were three more wooden buildings beyond the second pavilion. There were patios here and there, a field that served for sports, and another paved area with store selling snacks and another selling school supplies. I am sure I’m forgetting something (like the lab? where was the lab?).
My first grade class was off the first pavilion.

Throughout my “career” at the Normal 2 (and I went there for 7 years), I had to carry several notebooks: the cuaderno único or main notebook, where all the real work went in. The cuaderno borrador, or practice notebook. The cuaderno de avisos, or notification notebook. And then there were the notebooks for the other classes. I also had to carry my reading book. With time, notebooks and books became very heavy, in particular given that backpacks did not arrive to Argentina until years later and we then used briefcases to carry our books. Calluses grew on my fingers and my mom would joke that I carried “rocks” to school.

We went to school from 1 PM to 5 PM. We had 5 class periods, separated by one long 15 minute break and three short 5 minute breaks, so in reality, we only had three and a half hours of instruction a day. And yet, my education in Argentina was so superior to the one I got in the States.
In addition to regular classes, we had (during school time) classes on Music, Drawing, P.E., Crafts and “Optional Activities”, the latter changed from time to time.

I learned to read and write in first grade. At that time, at least, children started first grade without knowing anything about letters. We started by making palotes, straight lines on paper. From there we moved to the letter “a” and later to “m” and so forth. We learned to read and write in cursive, print would not come until 3rd grade.

I have gotten back in touch with some of my school mates from back then through Facebook. Karina and Julieta, specifically. There was also María Marta, the two Silvinas, Ricardo (the troublemaker), Sandra, Adolfo and so many others. Most stayed in the Normal until 7th grade. Some dropped out, transferring to “easier” schools. Ricardo, Alejandro, Monica, Juan Jose. Should I write their last name, so they can find this post if they search for their names and thus find me, or is it a violation of their privacy?