My 86-year-old landlady lived upstairs, and I rented the first floor, all of it, until she fell and broke her hip. Ten days later she returned from the hospital, complete with a new hip, to occupy here on the first floor, a room with its own street entrance. The room was built as the first residence in what is now colonia San Antonio to house the caretaker of the church. Up until two days before my landlady took residence in it, flat on her back, it had been my office, constituting some 25% of my living space.
Two weeks ago, working in my now former office, I heard a sustained sound that I took to be a young girl moaning, complaining about something towards the entrance to our alley. The noise from our little window onto 20 de enero sometimes travels up between our alley's high walls. I didn't pay it any mind.
Twenty minutes later, brushing my teeth in the bathroom, which is farther away from the street, I realized that the sound, remarkably like the vocalization of a cat, was louder, not softer as it should have been.
Like a flash (ok, like a 66-year-old flash) I was out on the patio and up the ridiculously narrow spiral staircase. Leaving my toothbrush on the parapet outside her apartment door, I went in to find my landlady, La Señora, in distress on the floor, but not in acute pain as long as she stayed still. After calling Cruz Roja, I jokingly reprimanded her, "Why didn't you call out, 'David. David,' instead of making cat noises?"
The prolonged evacuation once complete, the rest of my day was typically quiet. At bedtime, realizing that my toothbrush wasn't in its place, I reflected for a moment, went upstairs in the dark and found it where I had left it, on the brick wall outside of La Señora's apartment door.
That very same day, in response to a phone tree I had started, B, my landlady's caretaker, who had been absent for two years, reappeared on the scene. In a Mexican hospital the patient must be accompanied by a private caregiver at all times. B took charge of that, taking the night shift herself.
B with her mother, sister and kids, had been attending La Señora since I moved in here, 12 years ago, coming by every day or two to check on her and run errands. But two years ago, after some altercation all visits from B and her family ended.
At that moment of her abandonment, I took over: making visits to the grocery store in front of the church, pharmacies, paying her bills... She held out the same carrot to me as she had to B, promising me the house, or a part of it, when she was gone; promising me the title now with her retaining a right of occupancy. I didn't believe her. I did what I did for her out of compassion... affection even.
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La Señora and I had our own preserve, a corner of the past, here in this old, run-down house on a dead-end alley behind the church. When we spoke, she upstairs, I below in the patio garden, there was an air of magical-realism, of a land that time forgot.
There in the afternoon shade or in the growing shadows of an early evening, more often than not, I would entertain her by telling her a story, usually containing both a moral and a joke. It was very romantic in the old sense of the word.
B's taking charge of the hospital scene was fine, but she also wanted to take charge of the house. Her presence in our quiet preserve was like a bull in a china shop. A brutal, unintelligent woman, she clearly saw me as a threat to her control. And I suppose as the caretaker of the place and La Señora's housemate for the last 12 years, I may have been.
B thought that the house was already hers, and in La Señora's absence, after I had yielded my office, tried to get me to sign a rental contract with her on it as the property owner, getting abusive when I refused.
When she told me that I could no longer use the patio, I protested, "But the plants are mine."
After I pleaded with her not to, B had her boyfriend cut the bougainvillea branches that had abundantly overgrown and shaded the roof of the office, transforming a luxuriantly flowered space into an ugly, bare concrete and brick second-floor patio, and significantly heating the room below.
She, or her boyfriend, broke the float arm of the first-floor water tank. And left the tank massively overflowing for two nights. I did notice some wetness on the patio in the morning, but it wasn't until the afternoon of the third day that the street water pressure, often absent during the day, gained enough force early enough to overflow the tank before nightfall. When I pointed the cascade out to B, without even pausing her transit of the patio to address me, she flippantly announced, "The plumber is coming tomorrow."
I went up and rigged a cord to hold the valve in the off position, wondering which is true and which is worse: they didn't know how to make the temporary repair; they didn't think about it; they thought about it, but couldn't be bothered?
I could go on for a while itemizing how things around here have changed for the worse, but you get the idea.
When La Señora did arrive home, I, having been pushed aside by B's dominance, gave her only a brief welcome. The next day, the first of May, I was summoned by B for an audience. With no thank you for my saving her life, nor acknowledgement of my voluntarily vacating 25% of my living space, my landlady greeted me by angrily demanding May's rent (20% of which she had already been paid by mid-April). When I suggested that we needed to renegotiate the rent: "I don't have as much space as I did in April, so I don't want to pay as much rent as I did in April," La Señora exploded, threatening to evict me.
When I explained to her that eviction in Mexico is a very long process, she laughed derisively, with B cackling along in victorious glee at having poisoned the old lady against me, telling her "I told you so."
***
Four days ago, last Saturday, two recently revealed grand-nephews from Queretaro visited and gave their great-aunt some money to remedy her post-hospital financial straits. The brothers, who are sympathetic to my point of view but don't want to wade too far into the fray, told me to expect a visit from a lawyer. Thus informed, I actually looked forward to making my case to a reasonable person, no matter whose side he is on. Last night I got my chance.
The young man knocked at my door around 8pm. I invited him into what is now a crowded living room, especially with my bicycle in it (I also gave up my bodega).
He: We have a situation.
Me: I voluntarily gave up my office.
He: If you are not out in 10 days, we will start legal proceedings.
Me: Start the legal proceedings.
He: How long do you need to vacate?
Me: The end of June.
He: That's fine.
Sloppily discarded bougainvillea branches *
It turns out that he is not representing La Señora, but a party, who seeing commercial potential, wants to buy the house and grant her the right of occupancy. It must be a long-term plan. Once he discovered that I was amenable to leaving, the lawyer told me that I could stay, at least a while, past June.
As my landlady's primary caregiver for 12 years and the only in-house witness to this whacky, post-hospital scenario, I had been rather desperately trying to convey, to any interested party, my conviction that these two women cannot manage this house alone. After speaking with the lawyer last night, I am relieved to know that they won't be trying to.
My mother had a narcissistic personality disorder: "What are you doing for me?" Off in her own selfish world, so does my landlady.
This past week has been one to remember. On top of having my childhood emotional traumas triggered, my home greatly discombobulated, and B waging psychological warfare against me I had to devise another way for the cat to come and go by himself, his "door" having been a hole in the office wall.
A cracked window corner becomes Felini's new cat door. (The glass is not sharp.) *
But now, assured of her position and my cooperation, B is calmer, and I, more used to her presence, am also taking things easier. Then, with my furniture finding its place in a more strategic configuration, the horrible feeling of having just moved into a trailer is vanishing. And with money not an issue, at least for now...
The image of a caterpillar turning to mush inside a cocoon comes to mind. Let's hope a butterfly emerges.
Last night around 9pm the electricity went off. After 20 seconds of blackness, the lights came back on. Just in case, I got my candles ready. Then, still shirtless, exiting into the night I brought a candle and some matches next door. Lightly knocking on the thin metal door, when B opened it, I wordlessly passed her the matches and candle. Holding them up for La Señora to see, she said, "Look what David brought," and then to me, "Gracias."
My good friend Veronica told me, before La Señora broke her hip, that I should move out of here. She's usually right about such things. Except for the patio garden, there is nothing pretty about it.
Maybe you know of a cheap place for rent? maybe somewhere in the country?
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