Translated by Marvin Najarro
He wakes up, looks at the clock, it is twenty-two past four in the morning. He hugs the sheets and stretches out on his bed; he gets up and boils water to make coffee. He brushes his teeth, and while the water is boiling, Cecilio looks out of the window; a pitch-black darkness on the other side, soon to give way to dawn, reminds him of the last days of summer.
Soon it will be time to put away the summer clothes and begin to air the winter ones, which he will keep in bags, and to prevent them from catching bad smell he will add lavender stems and cypress leaves from the Christmas trees that people buy and throw away after three days.
He has also furnished his rented studio with the trash that people throw away in April he has furnished the studio he rents, and he has also afforded to change the decor every year. In the United States, what is trash for some is basic necessity for others. That’s how Cecilio, has been able to change the dishes, the cooking pots, the living room sofa, the window curtains and the frames for the family photos, which he cherishes. In the past the photos were sent to him by parcel, now he receives then by SMS on his cell phone and then he goes to the supermarket around the corner to print them.
In this way he has seen his family grow; he has many nephews and nieces. One of the things he most admired when he came to the country was that the gringos start having children when they are fully mature, and only have one or two children. He has never seen a couple with multiple children as is common in his country.
For the first years he was homesick, but as time went on, the nostalgia that overwhelmed him became a kind of warm memory that comes back from time to time. He would like to tell his mother that he is in love, that he is married, and that his partner is applying for papers for him so that he can finally visit her. It’s been twenty-three years since he left, but he is afraid she will reject him when she learns that his great love is a third-generation Pole who fell in love with his earth-colored skin.
Cecilio pours two cups of coffee, toasts two slices of bread and spreads them with pomegranate molasses, which he buys in a Turkish supermarket. With a kiss he wakes the Pole to breakfast while he prepares lunch for him to take to work.
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Ilka Oliva-Corado @ilkaolivacorado
