The Tide Comes Back: A Life in Short Stories

By Xlibris US

The Tide Comes Back is a collection of short stories. It contains salient episodes of the authors early life in Iquitos (Peru), a city in the Amazon rain forest, and of her later travels abroad. As she describes in Part I her days as a boarder in an all-girls Catholic high school, her summers at a farmhouse near the grand river, and her closeness with her mother prior to her death, the uniqueness of the town comes alive. An interesting mixture of rusticity and sophistication, Iquitos in the 1950s was still encapsulated in the remnants of the earlier rubber boom which gave the place an elegant European fl avor. Th e stories in Part II narrate tidbits of culture shock experienced first during the authors stay in London, and later as she encountered the New York City culture and attempted to establish a bicultural identity in the city where she has now lived for four decades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499036749

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Copyright © 2014 by Martha Lequerica-Sternberg.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2014910582

ISBN:         Hardcover         978-1-4990-3675-6

         Softcover         978-1-4990-3676-3

         eBook         978-1-4990-3674-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 07/22/2014

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Contents

Preface

Part I

Home

High School in the Tropics

La Chacra or Taste of the Jungle

My Walks with Mother

Glimpses of a Tropical Town

Dad on the Amazon and the Danube

PART II

Abroad

Dad and the Danube (Part II)

A View from a London Bedsitter

Dumbfounded

Some Enchanted Evening

Acknowledgments

To my

mother Pilar,

and to my father Cesar —

both of whom initiated my journey.

And to David and Paula, who later joined in

and helped me sustain it.

Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Preface

It might be related to getting older, having more time available, or feeling more relaxed in the day-to-day; and it can be perhaps something universally felt on and off, but mostly ignored. I am referring to flashes of the past we experience while in the present moment, unaccounted, unforeseen.

Out of the blue, associations are formed, recollections are made impromptu without effort or preparation, almost like a familiar but forgotten guest who shows up uninvited to give us some sense of continuity with our past. It’s hard to tell the whys or whats, but they occur. And it’s safe to say we all experience sudden flashes from the forgotten past that surge in unexpected moments.

Reminiscing interrupts our present awareness. I find these intrusions welcome and often endearing. At random, it occurs that people, faces, objects or landscapes, and sometimes smells from an earlier life come surging without notice, flooding our consciousness and implanting themselves in the present uninvited—yet always well-received and often treasured. Some clinicians or students of the self would name these as bits of nostalgia and see it linked to depression or foreboding. But although it is nostalgic in the sense that the past is brought forward, these surges do not bring painful or uneasy feelings or much of a desire to recreate the past and live back there. Rather, they bring a sense of reassurance, a reaffirmation about the continuity of our lives as we move forward.

It’s a strange feeling to describe yet—I am sure—quite common. One is crossing a street, driving along a road, or settling down to sleep when, suddenly, a myriad of perceptions, thoughts, or experiences crowd our here and now. An old, vivid forgotten image pierces our present awareness like the tide that, having recessed into the sea of memory, returns back to today’s shore, powerful and suggestive. I am often bewildered but never put off about their occurrence.

For instance, it happened one summer while vacationing at the beach town we went to yearly for the season. I had just looked at a window shop display in an antique store showing lovely old-fashioned children’s clothes, all vintage or antique. I looked at them with relish, observing their detail, wondering at their prices and enjoying their craftsmanship. Then, as I began to walk away toward my errands, while crossing the street, I saw in a quick flash across my mind the embroidered yellow dress of my childhood, one adorned with stitches called wasps’nests in Spanish. I saw it so vividly that I had to stop to recount its tenderness and sadness.

I might have been five years old and much attached to Dad. But he was often absent from the home, and eventually, my parents separated. I keep a picture of the two of us: the little girl sitting on his lap, wearing my nice yellow dress with a big ribbon in my hair but also with a sad smile, one anticipating a farewell. Dad looks somber too, and we both look pale, a bit yellowed by distress.

The beauty of these images resides in the feelings they evoke and might take over for a while, breaking the predictable pattern of the day. In fact, I had scheduled a trip to the supermarket, the stationary store, and other places; but I had not indeed scheduled a sojourn into recollections of my childhood dress, its memory, and the associations that came with it. What a nice gift.

Another time I would be getting ready to sleep, already in bed and settled in, when suddenly, out of nowhere, I would see Charo’s face peeking into my awareness. Charo F. was my friend some decades back, a younger friend I have not seen for almost a lifetime. Why Charo now? Nothing has preceded or given forewarning signs for this recollection. It just appeared clearly in my mind, forcing me to place my full attention on Charo, at times lingering for a day or two as the tide in the ocean, receding and returning to the shore, back and forth. What is it then? A believer in telepathy would say: Somewhere, somehow Charo is thinking of you too, and the power of her thoughts has transcended the miles separating the north where you are from the south continent (where she is). Or she is perhaps ill, in an accident, suffering from loneliness or grief, or perhaps elated by a happy occurrence. On occasions like this, I feel compelled to jot down the day and time I had the flash of remembrance to keep a record for the day and the time in the future when I would meet with her. Because we shall meet again. Isn’t that so? How could I ever leave this earth without seeing that noble face with the spectacles, the ironic smile, the vibrant smile? What has become of you, my companion of the paseos we took arm-in-arm around the Plaza de Armas in Canete, the small town south of Lima, Peru? There, I taught high school history and philosophy in my early twenties right after finishing my universities studies.

We would meet after dinner on most weekly evenings and would pace around the plaza confiding, laughing, gossiping, -just being alone together in the crowd. Charo was the youngest of three sisters born and raised in the area. She was a jewel in a haystack. Although I should have made friends more appropriately with her older sister Margo, my contemporary, or with Esther, the middle one, it was Charo with whom I was compatible and attuned. She was four years my junior and probably had just finished high school and held a clerical job of sorts in a small office. But she was bright, loyal, and had a sense of humor. We would seek each other out, forming alliances above and beyond the rest. We would chaperone each other if a guy surfaced who was interested in one of us. We were two peas in a pod for the whole year I taught in Canete.

And then, after I left, my wanderings inside the country and abroad took me away from that small town; and I have never been back to reclaim the friendship, the nice encounters, the sparkling moments of our youth shared together. Where would she be now, I wonder, forty years or so later?

At other times, the tide returns back following a specific call. It happens when prompted by a melodic tune, a piece of classical music or a romantic song, perhaps a phrase identified as uttered first by someone. When I hear Liszt’s Love Lost melody, I always associate it with Mom and her longings for romantic love thwarted with the collapse of her marriage. When I hear the phrase it’s a no-brainer, I instinctively recall the person and time when I first heard the expression and liked it. As I capture the image of a fawn in a picture card, I think of the movie Bambi and the feelings evoked at the time I saw the movie as a young girl. On these occasions the wave returning back has a different nuance and quality. It is intimately linked to an event that occurred previously. So the presence of one in the here and now brings the other from the forlorn past.

Other surges from the past come and go—sometimes entertaining, at other times inflicting pain, and sometimes neutrally implanting themselves into our flow of existence. Perception of the here and now blends with memory of the past and with imagination, our third dimension, which form altogether the rich tapestry from which art, literature, and the whole of creativity emerges.

The stories presented in the following pages are gathered from a web of memories that had receded through the years into some strange oblivion, and then reemerged to be relived and permanently imprinted in the written page.

Part I contains early memories of my growing up in a remote town, unrenowned but distinctive. Within its environment of tropical riches and its sophisticated social element, my experiences were also flavored by an unusual home environment, a first-rate high school education, and my encounters with the jungle habitat during my summer visits to Aunt Manuela’s farm over the Amazon River.

Part II recollects my reflections and experiences as a young woman traveling abroad and then settling in New York City, where I have remained since the 1970s. Occurrences of culture shock and necessary adaptation are recounted as I lived in London, the Big Apple, and Florida. While at times discordant with my earlier background, these experiences have enhanced my world perspective and broadened my understanding of other cultures and their peoples as I integrated them into my current life.

M. Lequerica-Sternberg

Part I

Home

High School in the Tropics

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Gymnastic Class, Colegio Sagrado Corazon

It’s junior year in our all-girls Catholic school Colegio Sagrado Corazon (Sacred Heart) located at the center of my hometown at the heart of the Peruvian jungle.

As we streamed out of class for a short break, someone says:

Did you see what happened in gym class today?

You mean Angelioni kept calling so and so to do the same exercise over and over?

Did you see how she was flirting with him?

Yeah, wait until the nuns catch her

Run by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, my school was the hub of women’s education in the large Amazonian region. It offered not only an excellent academic curriculum for the elementary and secondary levels, but an industrial/vocational section and a pedagogical division training prospective teachers for grades 1 to 6.

The school was staffed by an all female faculty, secular and religious. Only one male teacher, a priest, taught us religion. To our dismay and much excitement, we had the unusual arrival of two male gym teachers early in our junior year.

Young and good-looking, they caused a stir bordering on agitation. Suddenly, the regularity of our daily lives was turned upside down by their presence and the atmosphere they created.

Who do you think is the better looking of the two?

Where are they from?

Ah, yes. One is from Lima, but they say the other is from Cuzco.

"He looks a bit like he could be a ‘serrano’ (from the Andean region). Yeah, but a good-looking one."

Everything about them—real or imaginary—was dissected, gossiped about, invented, or fantasized. Two of our classmates who shared the same name but were very different in personality and class status were rumored to be having fleeting romances with them. The two pairs were seen strolling on the boardwalk along the river at dusk before dinner. How daring, and how romantic. Other tales spun around their lives and pursuits.

Angeloni and Cabral did not stay long; perhaps a semester. And we never saw any male teachers in our school after they left.

I, more an observer than a participant, was detached from the hoopla caused by their arrival. And almost four decades later, I was pleasantly surprised when I bumped into one of the gym teachers at a meeting at Montclair State University in New Jersey where I was teaching psychology. Now a middle-aged man, Cabral greeted me as he met my husband and eight-year-old daughter. We caught up with news of the "chicas" (my classmates) back at home and of his gym partner. We also reminisced about their arrival and presence in that unusual year in our all-girls school accustomed only to female faculty and religious teachers. We chatted a bit, exchanged phone numbers, and pledged to keep in touch. Alas, we never did.

The girls in our school grew up amidst the contrast offered between the natural and the social environment surrounding us. The physical setting was the unpolished and primitive jungle habitat around a great river, the Amazon. On the other hand, the social was sophisticated and cosmopolitan due to the waves of immigrants who had arrived from European countries at the heyday of the exploitation of rubber early in the twentieth century. Our schooling reflected the town’s social environment and preference for the Western world. There was a kind disregard for our physical environment, the varied plant/medicinal world, and the indigenous peoples living in the margins of the city. That’s the way it was.

The school occupied a whole block and was housed in a large two-floor edifice. The early grades were assigned to the main floor. The secondary rooms perched on the second belonged to us, the senoritas. Unlike the younger girls, we did not need a large patio for running and cavorting. Rather, we enjoyed the long halls hugged by a balcony from which we peered down as we strolled arm-in-arm whispering:

I really couldn’t wait to be upstairs with the grown girls, said a freshman.

Yeah, but at times, I miss the running and shrieking, the hide-and-seek games.

I know, that’s because you are so immature, said the pretentious girlfriend.

The school contained a small chapel. Next to it was an off limits area that housed the convent or lodging for nuns (mostly teachers) and sisters (in charge of domestic duties)—about thirty in total. Beyond, a section called the internado (boarding section) served as the quarters for the students from high school, vocational, and pedagogical sections who lived on the premises. Our living quarters included a spacious dining room, the kitchen, a large recreational patio, and an imposing study hall with oversized windows where we spent two hours every evening reviewing our assignments.

I had become a boarder in the third week of my freshman year in high school following my mother’s sudden death. After her accident, I was left on my own. Being an only child with my parents separated and without close relatives, my father, who had started another family, entrusted me to the care of the nuns. Their boarding section had been designated for out-of-town girls, or others like myself with some unusual circumstance.

Adjusting to the shock of my new situation and enveloped in the aloneness of Mother’s absence, I welcomed my inclusion in a protective environment. It provided food, schooling, adult supervision, and interaction with peers all at once. I became one of five internas attending our freshman class of twenty-four students.

The Faculty

All our teachers had excellent credentials. The nuns were either from Spain