In memory of my parents.

Forget Me Not

Immortality. God promised us eternal life. Of course, some take it too literally, forgetting He also said: In Heaven.

But that’s what Uncle Petro wanted. He said that to me the summer I spent a few days at their house. One morning, Petro, Nina and I were in their kitchen having breakfast – all squashed together.

It was a very small kitchen, with only enough room for the stove, a big sink, and the little table pushed against the wall because it wouldn’t fit otherwise. The icebox was on the patio just outside the door. Sunlight bounced off its wooden surface and into the kitchen, and as tree branches moved with the breeze, little sun droplets skipped from here to there over the blue and white tile floor. They were hypnotizing to watch, and a good excuse for fiddling with my oatmeal, instead of eating it.

Uncle Petro knew I didn’t like oatmeal. And so did Nina. But as most adults, she thought it was good for me. Petro watched me as I drew circles on the oatmeal with my spoon. He winked at me, then quietly left the table. He returned with a piece of toasted bread and orange marmalade for me, and taking the oatmeal for himself. Auntie had her back to us, but I know she saw it. She was born with an eye in the back of her head.

“I always know what’s going on,” she said to me one day, narrowing her eyes to make the point. “You see, even when I sleep, the eye behind my head stays open.”

That was very scary. And I know she noticed the oatmeal switch because she never fixed it for me again.

Petro sat at end of the table and a little sideways, resting his shoulder on the wall. His salt and pepper hair, thinning on top, was standing on end that morning as if he had slept on it wrong. He called it mattress hair. His small frame looked even smaller when he slouched.

“I want to live forever,” he said, a big smile stretched his moon face to a shine. And as he brought the coffee cup to his mouth, he hid a smirk behind it and sort of peeked at me over the rim.

A disbelieving grin formed slowly beneath my milk and marmalade moustache. “How?” I asked.

“Magic, I can do magic,” he said, slurping his coffee.

Auntie Nina was washing dishes and still with her back to us, she shook her head from side to side. I knew she heard it, although she said nothing.

How could he live forever and ever, I wondered. I was only six at the time, and even then, I knew it would take a lot more than magic. Forever, meant at least one hundred and fifty years. By then, most of us normal people would have been dead, and who would take care of him?

“Death means finito, finished, all gone.” Auntie Nina, his older sister, finally turned around. She splashed dishwater all over the place.

The way she twisted her apron around her fingers, made it clear she was upset. She told him straight out: “Don’t you talk nonsense to the girl, Petro.”

Petro looked at her; his eyes traveled back in my direction, then he lowered his gaze. He wasn’t smiling any more.

Nina was the nicest relative I recall. Despite a rough exterior like a ripe melon, she was gentle and sweet inside. I never knew her real name. We called her Nina. She and Uncle Petro were Grandpa’s sister and brother. I still remember her in that little kitchen of hers, holding the edge of her apron with both hands, twirling it around her fingers as she spoke, and tilting her head slightly to one side. Her dark hair pulled away from her face and tied into a granny knot on the back of her head. Her eyes were the color of midnight, and they sparkled when she smiled. The rest of her was round and plump. She had small teeth with little spaces in between. I remember thinking they looked so silly because her mouth was so big.


My family and I visited her house as often as we could. It was a long train ride from home, and then followed by a bumpy bus ride that took forever, or so it seemed to me. After leaving the bus, we walked many blocks logging around a change of clothes for all of us kids, in addition to whatever food offering Mom would bring. She knew Nina always cooked for an army, but Mom wouldn’t be caught dead coming to visit empty handed.

“And don’t you start asking for food when we get there,” she’d said, “I don’t want Nina to think we came in starved to death.”

I’d look at her out of the corner of my eye. We had left our home early in the morning and by the time we got there, it was almost noon. Breakfast was long gone, and yes, I was starving to death. But I knew I wouldn’t have to ask; Nina always offered.


Nina’s was a happy old house in an even older Buenos Aires neighborhood. It was built on a corner lot and surrounded by a six-foot brick wall covered by honeysuckle. The structure itself followed an L-shape and all the rooms faced the red and white tile patio where a jacaranda tree grew right in the middle in a square patch of dirt edged by red brick wedges. The jacaranda’s roots had grown beyond proportion, and had started to crack the tiles. For as long as I can remember, I heard Auntie Nina say: “We’ve got to kill that tree; it’ll take over the house one of these days.”

Then she’d lean back on her wicker rocker, as if the thought alone could fix the problem. But it never did. That jacaranda was there for years, and every year they lost another tile. In the summertime, when it was in bloom, I used to like sweeping the little purple petals that fell on the ground and pretend I was Cinderella. Mom wished I could pretend at home as well, but sweeping at Auntie Nina’s was special; at home, it was work.

I used to like it there in the early morning – skipping around that patio still nursing my toasted bread. It was easy to know who was awake, as one by one the louver double doors would start to open into the patio. Soon someone would step out: "Bon giorno, bambina. Up already eh?”

“Just playing,” I’d say.

Auntie Nina’s was the place to go on New Year’s Eve. The whole lot of us would show up. My family, uncles and aunts and their kids, Grandma, Grandpa, oh… about one hundred of us, I’d say. And she would cook up a storm. The whole place was redolent of wine, pasta and roasted lamb. I remember us kids running all over that patio, playing hide and seek, or jumping rope while the cooking smells made our stomachs growl. But no amount of begging trips to the kitchen ever got us a taste. So we’d lower our heads and go back to play, and on the way out of the kitchen, somebody’s mamma, didn’t necessarily have to be our own, would say: “Now don’t you scuff those white shoes!” It was just something to say – an obligatory maternal interjection, because it sure didn’t make any difference.

Auntie Nina, along with as many women as could possibly fit inside that tiny kitchen, would busy themselves preparing for the New Year’s feast. They were all cramped in there so tightly, the kitchen looked like the old subway train after working hours.

One of them, usually Cousin Emilia, would take charge of the salad, a couple of them would fix the hors-d'oeuvres, which was nothing but a fancy name for little bites of things, some of which I couldn’t pronounce and most I hated to eat, except for the black olives – I ate those by the pound. And there was a special etiquette for eating hors-d’oeuvres: Adults picked them up with toothpicks; making sure their pinky was pointed upward, as if they were holding a wine glass. And children got their hands slapped when they were caught using their fingers.

Auntie Nina always cooked the main course, and for the New Year, it was linguini with clam sauce. Some of my older cousins fixed dessert, and the rest of them just stood around and gossiped about the men while holding on to kitchen towels pretending to be of help and fanning the heat off their red, sweaty faces.

The men sat around the patio under the purple jacaranda smoking their pipes and cigarettes, and savoring a little pre-dinner vermouth. I didn’t know much about vermouth back then, except women couldn’t drink it while standing up. Uncle Marco, Nina’s husband, said it was because if they started out sitting down, no one would notice when they fell. And I really can’t say what the men talked about, although they probably gossiped about the women. But I noticed something interesting, though I never dared to mention: When women gossiped, they looked silly, but men made it sound important. And every time a kid approached, one of them would say something ceremoniously stupid like: “Go wash your hands,” when it wasn’t near suppertime.

But when we were called to the table, no matter who did the calling, we paid the adults due creed. And we had better bolt because they wouldn’t call twice.


The dining room was the first room into the L-shaped house, and right across from the kitchen. In those days, kitchens were commonly built separate from the house. It was fun when it rained, as one of us would have to wait by the dinning room door – umbrella in hand, waiting to rescue Auntie Nina when she came out of the kitchen carrying a steaming tray of food.

After the New Year’s party was over, no one ever went home. Sleeping there was a whole lot of fun if you were a kid. Adults I thought were rather hard to please and should have traveled with their own mattresses. But not us; we slept anywhere. The house was divided equally and fairly in proportion to the needs of those who stayed: women and children slept in three of the available rooms, and it was everyone’s hope that the men all got along, because there was only one room left for them all.

The bathroom too was built separate from the house. And it presented its own set of problems. Especially in the middle of the night when one had to answer an urgent nature call.

And when you peeked through the louvers and saw that the patio was awfully dark, and the moon barely stroked the honeysuckle with a hint of blue, and the dim street lights cast spooky shadows on the ground, and the bathroom was way, way out there – about ten feet away, or so, I’d say – then you had to ask yourself: ‘can I hold it till morning?’ and if the answer was no, then you had to wake up Mom.

And that was a whole lot of trouble because Mom then had to climb over Auntie Beatrice, and that woke her up, and she in turn woke up Cousin Julio who scratched his head and yelled: “What’s going on?”

“Shhh… I’ve got to pee,” I whispered.

Mom corrected me: “You’ve got to urinate,” while searching for her shoes in the dark.

The terminology went over my head, but what I really wanted to understand, was what made it so important for her to find her shoes when my bladder was about to burst!

“Who has to uterate,” Cousin Gina groaned from her spot by the wall.

“Sarah has to pee,” Julio announced, loudly.

A “Shsssss!” Chorus blasted from various dark corners of the room.


The rampant urge spread like a contagious disease. Now every kid had to go. And finally, after tripping over each other in a frantic search for our shoes, a number of us filed out of there in the dark, under the moonlight, dancing in circles with our legs crossed, while patiently waiting our turn to the bathroom. Our mothers were busy wasting valuable oxygen trying to hush our chatter when who should wobble out of the room but Auntie Nina: "Ah que sciagura! What a disaster! Don’t you people take care of business before going to bed?”

Julio was sly. He went by the jacaranda tree, and was back to sleep in record time.


Right above the kitchen, and separate from the rest of the house was Uncle Petro’s room. It was a single room. I remember the wooden steps leading up to it because the chipped blue paint showed what had been white and later green underneath.

I was sitting on the steps one morning, while waiting for him to come out. I was never allowed up there.

“That’s your uncle’s room,” Auntie Nina said. “And you leave it alone.”

I never asked why, I simply did what I was told. So I sat there and waited for him to come out.

He had promised to show me his nickel trick right after breakfast. He must have done it a hundred times since I was born, but we both always pretended it was the first. He’d put out both hands tightly fisted.

“Which hand has the nickel?” he’d ask.

“This one.” And I’d slap one of them.

“No! Try again.”

He’d go at it repeatedly until he could sense my frustration. Everyone hits the odds occasionally, but I never could, not with him. He was the best magician in the world. But actually, I knew how the trick ended, and that was what made me anxious. Eventually, he’d reach behind my ear, and there’s where he found the nickel every time.

“It’s yours, go buy yourself a chocolate.”

Nine times out of ten, that’s how the nickel was spent. I can still remember running to the corner store and propping my chin on the counter’s edge: “I want a nickel chocolate, please.”


Finally, it was time for New Year’s Eve dinner. Uncle Marco sat at the head of the table. Though he was Nina’s husband, he was related to us all in a couple of different ways. I found that out one day while accidentally eve’s dropping, and heard it said that he was also her cousin and the reason why their marriage was not blessed by the Church and consequently, I overheard, it was as bad as living in sin. But no one ever said what that sin would be. Adults spoke about it in hushed tones. They’d narrow their eyes and say things like: “It’s the children I’m sorry for.”

“Why? What did the children do?”

“Never mind,” Mamma snapped. “When grownups talk, children make themselves scarce.”

And so we did. The problem was that we had heard enough between their whispers to go into a dark and lonely corner and invent the dirt.

Now that sin, whatever it was, should have been a good enough reason for Nina and Marco to wish for immortality, I thought, knowing what eternity had in store for them. But it didn’t seem to worry them at all. They were a jolly couple, and always smiled despite the fact that their fate in hell was sealed.

Nina sat beside him to one side of the table. He was always served first and we all watched and drooled as the steamy linguini with clam sauce filled his plate.

After getting his portion, he’d then tell Nina to get the kids' first. And so we got our serving while the grownups drooled.

When all the plates were filled, everyone waited for Nina to sit down. Uncle Marco would wave his hand in circles and say: "Mangia, mangia! Eat!”

And after having stood on ceremony, everyone dug in like a pack of wolves after a winter’s famine.

Petro never joined us for New Year’s Eve dinners, and after a while, his absence was accepted, if not expected.

Close to midnight, nothing but crumbs left on the table, and somewhere between the last drop of espresso and that glass of champagne to toast the New Year, some obscure relative I didn’t know even then and who liked to tell jokes, was presented with a wooden crate to stand on. Then he would tell his jokes; the grownups laughed and the kids skedaddled looking for something interesting to do like chasing fireflies up the jacaranda.

Not me, though. I stayed and sat on Auntie Nina’s lap. They had all moved their chairs around to get a good view of the showman. Auntie’s chair was by the big double doors, and the breeze on my face was better than that champagne the grownup were savoring (Nina always let me dip my finger in it – a very good reason for seeking her lap).

Her big body felt like a quilted pillow. "Bonna note bambina – Good night little girl,” she’d say as she tapped my shoulder lightly with her broad fingers and swayed back and forth, then back, and then forth, again. As soon as I rested my head on her bosom, my eyes began to close 'cause it’d been a long day and I was tired, 'cause she was soft, my belly was full, and I didn’t understand the jokes. The muffled sound of chatter and laughter echoed in my ears as I gave in to slumber.


Uncle Petro usually came in late, poked his head inside the dinning room, and after exchanging polite greetings with everyone, he normally headed upstairs to his room. He liked playing cards in his favorite café with his friends, and would be at it for hours. And because he always arrived late, and I was barely awake when he did, I never noticed he staggered. All I ever noticed was his moon face and that big smile.

He liked the grape a little too much; I came to know that many years later. He was never included in our family gatherings – never told he could, or couldn’t be there, but maybe, sensing what people thought they could hide, he felt excluded.

On that particular night though, when he poked his head into the dinning room to say his usual hello and good night, Uncle Marco asked him to come in.

He turned around, his right arm hanging over the back of the café chair, and faced Petro who was standing just outside the double louver doors.

“Come join us, Petro, we’re about to cut the fruitcake.”

Petro stayed put. The night was dark behind him, but his gaze glimmered as the light from the room fell on his face. He smiled, raising his tired eyes to Nina.

She gazed at him and smiled back: “Come on, Petro, join us; it’s the New Year.”

Petro walked slowly into the room. His humble presence was felt by all as he approached that dinner table for the first time in as long as I could remember.

“Someone get him a chair,” Marco gestured toward the wall where the extra chairs were lined up.

Cousin Emilia brought one close to the table for him.

Petro’s head hung low as he smiled and nodded a thank you.

I jumped from Nina’s lap and run to his side. See, I knew I had a nickel behind my ear ready for him to find. On cue, he put an arm around me, fiddled behind my head, and as I knew he would, he found a nickel.

“Now tomorrow you go get your chocolate,” he slurred, “if it’s okay with your mom,” and then smiled that thick lipped, loving smile of his as he looked at me with his eyes half mast, and a gaze clouded by wine. A little nondescript shadow went past his face.

I didn’t understand. I smiled.

And that was my last recollection of him. Petro died shortly after that night. He died in his sleep and alone in his room above the kitchen, drunk.


Immortality. Everyone thought it was the grape speaking through Petro. But in his simple way, when he spoke to me that morning at breakfast time, when I was barely six, I believe he hoped that I’d listen beyond his words. He had gazed at me over the rim of his coffee cup, and his gaze said to me: "Ricordare il mio nome -- Remember my name."

THE END

All rights reserved. This work is registered to its author, Carmen Ruggero. No portion of this book may be reproduced or distributed without the author's permission.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.12.2009

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