New York, New York, Pavarotti and Liza Mineli
New York, New York, Pavarotti and Liza Mineli
When I arrived in New York, I felt it happened finally, and my heart had a big surprise, by the life I could feel inside the people, like all the world was there on the same time...
My spanish family from uncle Obidio Torneros who went to live there many yeas ago...
His grandaugther who I saw with her family, and so many different kind of things I had in that incomparable city.
Cida Torneros
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008.
Carmen and Obidio – I’m part of the plot
My granduncle was only 14 years old. He lived in a little village in the northeast of Spain, in poverty, but full of dreams. His biggest dream was to see his only sister again, who had emigrated to Brazil when he was 8. Everyday, while he took care of the small crops and watched over the goats and does, Obidio used to think of the day he would see Carmen again. He made plans, for all he wanted was to run away from such hard life. On the cold nights of Galicia in the beginning of the 20th century, the young boy felt happy when a letter arrived from Brazil. It was from Carmencita, his big sister, telling him about America, a promising sun-bathed continent. That is what he needed: sun and hope. But how could he travel so far without any money? His old tired folks couldn’t help him or wouldn’t let him go away – the only child that was still left to farm the land, raise and keep the animals protected, light the fireplace and look after them, after all, their daughter, in a moment of courage and light-headedness, had left to Rio de Janeiro on her own and without saying goodbye, with a ticket bought by her grandmother on her mother's side. Her accomplice in the escapade, she had nurtured the impulsiveness of the young girl who would meet a cousin, also an immigrant, in tropical lands.
The handsome young man would still grow up some more centimeters and feel enthusiastic throughout his life. The only thing he could not imagine was that his destiny would set him up, leading him to embark as a clandestine on a ship that was leaving the port of Vigo on a typically grey day, without any luggage or money, setting off on such a big adventure that his heart would beat fast, for he was leaping towards freedom and towards meeting his beloved sister again. Obidio travelled for hours in the cellar, among huge boxes, his eyes watery for the fear and regret he felt for having abandoned his parents, but with an interior consolation that one day he would be rich and would be able to visit them and support them, giving them a more dignified life with the money he would send from America. That was the word one would hear most frequently at the port. A ship was leaving full of immigrants to America. And Brazil, as far as he could see it, was America, where sweet Carmen was – the sister he had grabbed years before, sobbingly asking her not to leave him. He had kept in his memory many things said by his dear sister, who had promised to have him fetched, and who then, later, in her writing, would tell him how life was difficult in Brazil too, and would talk about her marriage, her first children, her struggles. My father Ulysses was the first of her children, born in 1922. She would always send some money to her parents and her brother. Once she sent an embroidered cloak for Virgen de los Remedios, the patron saint of her mother land, as a demonstration of faith. Yes. Obidio had faith he would soon meet Carmen.
The days passed by slowly and fear started shaking his soul. He was caught as a clandestine in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean – so nothing could be done about it – and he was told that as soon as they got to New York, he would be “sent to the lions” and to the world. The young man did not get it. So the America they were talking about was not the same as his sister's? Ok, then. From there, it should be close – he didn’t know the geography of the place well; he just wanted to see his family in Rio de Janeiro.
What happened then, he told me in 1967. That was when I met him. I was 17 then, and he was in his sixties. Sitting around the table in grandma Carmen’s kitchen, uncle Obidio, grandma Carmen and I would spend white nights going through all of the details of the story of this couple of siblings who had parted in the 1910s only to meet again in the 1960s. An intricate story. Throughout the years, there were many crises and letters that would come and go between New York and Rio de Janeiro. In the first ones, he would tell his sister how it was daunting to have arrived in the USA and not to speak their language. Later, he would tell her about his struggle to learn English, to get by as an assistant in restaurants, working as a waiter or a cook. And the world kept spinning… He would save dollars in order to get on a ship and go to Brazil whereas she had more and more children. Her offspring was getting bigger. She could hardly wait to see her brother again.
In 1929, the last of his letters told of his tragedy: he had lost everything he had saved over a decade during the economic depression, including the house where he lived. He was feeling disoriented and would see Americans jumping out of their windows, committing suicide due to financial despair. Carmen’s husband, my grandpa Antonio, asked her to write inviting him to come here no matter what. He could stay in their house, together with their boys in the city of Rio de Janeiro, where they would try to find a job for him anywhere. He wouldn't starve, Carmen wrote in one of the letters.
But the letter was returned with no reply. The address hadn’t been found, and the letter was back. Carmen and her husband, who then lived in the neighborhood of Urca, bought a little house in the suburbs and moved with their four boys (she would later have another four). Their communication was broken. Carmen and Obidio didn’t speak or write again, and one didn't even know if the other was dead or alive.
The world went round and round. He married an Italian woman and had a girl called Dolores Manuela. She grew up, got married, and many times tried to find her aunt by writing to the Spanish consulate in Rio. But Carmen hadn’t informed her new address to the official agency, so they lost touch.
In 1967, I had the idea of writing to their little village. Verín, Razzela village, in Orense, Galicia. I persuaded my grandmother, who would always tell me about her dream of meeting her brother again, to write a letter addressed to the post office there. Who knows, I could sense, maybe he would have been there and left his address in the USA?
My intuition was right. He indeed had visited the city where he had been born, after so many years. And he had asked everyone if anyone had heard of Carmen Torneros, the one who had emigrated to Brazil, his only and very much missed sister. Without an answer, he went back to New York, where he had worked and lived his whole life, now as a naturalized American citizen, the grandfather of three children and in his third marriage.
Before going back to America, now as the passenger of a modern airplane, Obidio had the idea of leaving a business card in the little post office of his little village. Some days after, the employees of that post office saw a letter arrive from Brazil. The envelope read (I had written it myself) “Para mi querido hermano Obidio Torneros, que vive en America, por favor, esta carta es para él, soy Carmen Torneros, vivo en Brasil”.
That was how it happened. In another chapter, I am going to talk about their reunion, their many reunions and our lives that then crossed.
Now I am looking forward to going to New York, where he invited me to go so many times, and where I have never actually been to. I was afraid of becoming an immigrant like my grandmother and him. It runs in the family, so I didn't want to take any chances. If I had been there when I was 18, I think I probably wouldn’t have returned to Brazil.
So I stayed here with my parents and my only brother. Now that my son is 30 years old, my father has passed away and my mother is really old and sick, I was once again invited, this time by a new love, to go to the city which welcomed my granduncle, making him a strong man, a real winner, despite the many tears he dropped alone in this place. I know I will feel very emotional when I get there. He won't be waiting for me at the airport, but his daughter will come and meet me. His grandchildren and great grandchildren live there, too. They are my own blood. I won’t see them all, because they live in distant cities, but Dolores will come from Oregon just to see me.
I will travel hiding myself in the “cellars” of my Spanish identity. I will travel feeling scared in the stumbling story of my ancestors. I will travel as a dreamer embraced in family love and write a new part of the history. I am going to see my America. Not one to give me a way to earn a living, but the one I will thank for the chances given to my uncle, just like I'm thankful to Brazil for the beautiful family my grandmother could start here.
An America where two espanholitos who loved each other so much sowed so much love... I know I am a fruit of their will to live, of their struggle for survival. I am the one they both asked for one day to write a book telling their story.
I am starting that book and I will have many things to tell… I am also a character in their story – I am part of the plot.
Maria Aparecida Torneros
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