“The Velázquez family,” our guide said in English. “She’s not home. But the father’s mother stays with the baby. Maybe she’ll let you look.”
She called to the toddler, who was staring dumbstruck at Petra. Mother and child went on down the hall, the child looking back over its shoulder at us. We climbed to the second floor and knocked on the Velázquezes’ door. We could hear a baby wailing and a television blaring in Spanish. After a moment, we knocked again, and then heard a voice asking in Spanish who was there.
My cousin called back, also in Spanish, explaining our mission. Our grandmother’s old home, could we have a quick look? A suspicious silence on the other side while we were inspected through a peephole and then the sound of many locks scraping back and the rickety door being pulled open.
We were instantly inside the apartment. No foyer, or other formality, stood between us and the front room, where a sofa bed stood open. The baby, who was about ten months old, lay on it, still crying. An older sibling in front of the television turned to look at us. He shrieked and ran behind his grandmother.
My cousin stooped and began playing peekaboo with him. In another minute, he was laughing, trying to grab her spikes of yellow hair. The baby, struck by her brother’s laughter, stopped howling and pushed herself to a sitting position. In a second, she had scooted to the edge of the bed. I picked her up before she fell off and sat her on the floor. In the midst of the chaos the grandmother apparently decided that the easiest course was to let us take a quick look around.
I don’t know what Petra thought she’d find. Sixty years, and who knows how many families, lay between our grandparents and the current tenants.
My cousin looked in the four rooms quickly, saw the arrangements made to accommodate five children and three adults: sofa bed, bunk beds, air mattresses under the dining-room table, clotheslines hung with diapers and clothes, toys stacked under beds.
Wrinkling her forehead in puzzlement, Petra asked the grandmother where the family stored their other belongings. The older woman had been reasonably friendly until then. Now she frowned, and snapped off a volley of Spanish too complex for my primitive knowledge, except for “espías,” “narcóticos,” and “immigracíon,” which she kept repeating. My cousin stammered a few words. But, a moment later, we found ourselves on the far side of the door.
“What was that about?” Petra complained. “I just wanted to see where they kept the rest of their stuff.”
“Darling, that is all their stuff. When you started wanting to see storage places, she assumed you were with the INS or were an undercover cop hunting for drugs.”
“My building has storage bins in the basement where we can put our bigger things. I wanted to see theirs.”
“Why on earth? What business is it of yours?” I looked at her in astonishment. “Are you doing some kind of research for the campaign on drugs in Hispanic households?”
“Of course not! I . . . I thought maybe . . . Well, I wondered if—” Petra stammered, her cheeks beet red.
“Wondered what?” I demanded as she broke off.
She looked around the hall, at the tricycles and skateboards. “I thought maybe if people had more storage room they could clear out the hallways.” The last sentence came out in a rush.
“I see,” I said drily, giving her a little push toward the stairs. “How thoughtful of you. These buildings don’t have basements, at least not the way you understand basements. There’s a hole underneath the kitchen end to house the furnace.”
“What if there’s a tornado?”
“Fortunately, they’re not as common in Chicago as in Kansas, but I suppose you could wiggle under the building in an emergency.”
When we got outside, I pointed to the outside entrance to the furnace room and to the opening under the back stairs where you could huddle if you absolutely had to.
Back in the car, as I headed over to the Ryan to go to South Chicago, I said, “I don’t know what you really wanted back there, but don’t try it again on South Houston. My old house is smack in the heart of gang territory. We could get shot if anyone imagines we’re dissing them. We may get hassled just for being Anglo women nosing around the block. Okay?”
“Okay,” Petra muttered, picking at a loose thread on her jeans.
22
A SCARY SIDEWALK
WE RODE THE EXPRESSWAY SOUTH IN SILENCE. PETRA KEPT her head studiously turned to the window, looking at the old slag heaps and collapsing bungalows without comment.