“That’s right, the missus didn’t like the way the mister looked at Sherree’s mother, that’s right, so she pretended Sherree’s mom stole something,” a third put in.
Someone objected that Sherree’s mom really had stolen a necklace and she was a thief, but one girl said, “That’s dirty talk, about Sherree’s mom and the mister; you shouldn’t be saying stuff like that.”
“Well, it’s only the truth! It’s not saying that Sherree’s mom did something dirty, not like Mina’s mom, you know—”
A hand reached across and slapped the speaker. Before the fight could escalate, I snapped at them to be quiet.
“I’m not interested in what anyone’s mother thinks, says, or does—that’s her private business. I need to talk to Sherree’s grandmother. Will one of you show me where to find her?”
“They moved,” Sarina, the oldest, said.
“Where?” I asked.
They looked at each other, suddenly wary. In the world of illegal immigrants, detectives who ask questions about the family are never benign. Not even Peppy or the beat–up Skylark could make me seem less than an educated Anglo—and hence attached to authority.
After some dickering they agreed that I could talk to one of their mothers. Mina was nominated: she’d lived across the hall, and her mom had looked after Sherree when the baby died.
“What baby?”
“Sherree’s little sister,” a small girl who’d been silent before spoke up. “She coughed and coughed, and Se?ora Mercedes took her to the hospital; that was when—”
“Shut up!” The big girl with the long braid smacked her. “I told you you could play with us if you kept quiet—well, here you are blabbing your big mouth off, same as always.”
“I am not!” The little one howled. “And Mommy says you have to look after me anyway.”
“Mina!” I cut in, not sure which one I was addressing. “Let’s go talk to your mother and leave these two to sort out their problem.”
A girl with short curly hair looked at me. During the discussion she had hovered on the edge of the group, an outsider with the in crowd.
“I guess you can come up.” She wasn’t enthusiastic. “But my mom’s afraid of dogs; you can’t bring your dog inside.”
Half a dozen shrill voices promised to look after Peppy, but I thought it would be more prudent to return her to the car. Even a beautifully mannered dog can turn fractious with strangers, and childish strangers also couldn’t control her if she decided to follow me—or chase a cat across the street.
10 Found in Translation
“My mom doesn’t speak much English,” Mina warned me as she took me inside.
“Neither did mine.” I followed her up the narrow stairs, where the smell of old grease and mold vividly brought back the tenements of my own childhood. “We spoke Italian together.”
“My mom only speaks Arabic. And a little English. So you’ll have to talk to me unless you know Arabic.” As we climbed the stairs she took a fringed scarf out of her jeans pocket and tied it around her curls.
Mina’s mother—Mrs. Attar to me—received me in a living room that I also knew from my childhood. I used to sit in places like this when my mother took me with her on social calls in the neighborhood: overstuffed furniture encased in plastic, a large television draped in a piece of weaving from the Old Country, a thicket of family photos on top.
Mrs. Attar was a plump, worried woman who kept her daughter planted firmly next to her. Even so, she insisted on offering me hospitality, in this case a cup of thick sweet tea. Hers might be a seat of poverty, but her manners sure beat those in Oak Brook.
I drank the tea gratefully: the heat outside became overwhelming in the overstuffed room. After thanking her for the tea, and admiring the weaving on the television, I broached my subject. I hoped Mina would do an accurate job with the translation.
“I have some bad news about Nicola Aguinaldo. She ran away from prison last week. Did you know that? She died yesterday. Someone hurt her very badly when she was on her way to this apartment building, and I would like to learn who did that.”
“What? What you are saying?” Mrs. Attar demanded.
Mina snapped off a string of Arabic. Mrs. Attar dropped her hold on the girl and demanded information. Mina turned back to me to translate. That role was familiar to me as well. My mother’s English became fluent with time, but I could still remember those humiliating meetings with teachers or shopkeepers where I had to act as interpreter.
“The girls say you looked after Sherree when the baby was in the hospital. Was that after Nicola was sent to jail? I know the baby was sick before.”
When Mina translated, first for me and then for her mother, she said, “My mother doesn’t remember Sherree staying here.”
“But you remember, don’t you?” I said. “You agreed with your playmates when they brought it up.”