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Opowiadania Sandry Cisneros poruszają problem
kryzysu ideologicznego amerykańskiego stylu
życia, prowadzącego do dehumanizacji relacji
międzyludzkich w wyniku konsumpcyjnego nastawienia
do dóbr materialnych. Równocześnie
jej opowiadania podejmują próbę ukazania pozytywów
kultury rodzimych mieszkańców Meksyku,
które mogą stanowić alternatywę dla negatywnych
zjawisk amerykańskiej obyczajowości.
Mimo, że akcja utworów Sandry Cisneros
rozgrywa się w odległej polskiemu czytelnikowi
grupie etnicznej, wartości moralne opisane w jej
prozie mają wymiar ogólnoludzki, a ich ciepłe
nostalgiczne piękno znajduje żywy oddźwięk
w naszej słowiańskiej wrażliwości. Zachęcam do
wykorzystania na lekcjach języka angielskiego zamieszczonych
poniżej opowiadań Sandry Cisneros,
również dlatego, że spojrzenie na Amerykę
oczami jej bohaterów może pozwolić młodemu
pokoleniu Polaków odbrązowić ciągle pokutującą
w naszym kraju wizję USA jako społeczno-obyczajowego
El Dorado.
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Opowiadania Sandry Cisneros
2 Mexican Movies
It’s the one with Pedro Armendariz in love with
his boss’s wife, only she’s nothing but trouble and
his problem is he’s just plain dumb. I like it when the
man starts undressing the lady because that’s when
Papa gives us the quarters and sends us to the lobby,
hurry, until they put their clothes back on.
In the lobby there are thick carpets, red red,
which if you drag your feet will make electricity.
And velvet curtains with yellow fringe like a general’s
shoulders. And a fat velvet rope across the
stairs that means you can’t go up there.
You can put a quarter in a machine in the ladies’
bathroom and get a plastic tic-tac-toe or pink lipstick
the color of sugar roses on birthday cakes. Or
you can go out and spend it at the candy counter
for a bag of churros, or a ham-and-cheese tarta, or
a box of jujubes. If you buy the jujubes, save the
box because when you’re finished you can blow
through it and it sounds just like a burro, which
is fun to do when the movie’s on because maybe
somebody will answer you with his jujube box until
Papa says quit it.
I like the Pedro Infante movies best. He always
sings riding a horse and wears a big sombrero and
never tears the dresses off the ladies, and the ladies
throw flowers from a balcony, and usually somebody
dies, but not Pedro Infante because he has to
sing the happy song at the end.
Because Kiki’s still little, he likes to run up and
down the aisles, up and down with the other kids,
like little horses, the way I used to, but now it’s my
job to make sure he doesn’t pick up the candy he
finds on the floor and put it in his mouth.
Sometimes somebody’s kid climbs up on the
stage, and there at the bottom of the screen’s a double
silhouette, which makes everyone laugh. And
sooner or later a baby starts crying so somebody
else can yell Que saquen a ese nino! But if it’s Kiki,
that means me because Papa doesn’t move when
he’s watching a movie and Mama sits with her legs
bunched beneath her like an accordion because
she’s afraid of rats.
Theaters smell like popcorn. We get to buy a box
with a clown tossing some up in the air and catching
it in his mouth with little bubbles saying NUTRI-
TIOUS and DELICIOUS. Me and Kiki like tossing popcorn
up in the air too and laughing when it misses
and hits us on the head, or grabbing big bunches
in our hands and squishing it into a tiny crumpled
pile that fits inside our mouth, and listening to how
it squeaks against our teeth, and biting the kernels
at the end and spitting them out at each other like
watermelon wars.
We like Mexican movies. Even if it’s one with too
much talking. We just roll ourselves up like a doughnut
and sleep, the armrest hard against our head until
Mama puts her sweater there. But then the movie
ends. The lights go on. Somebody picks us up – our
shoes and legs heavy and dangling like dead people
– carries us in the cold to the car that smells like ashtrays.
Black and white, black and white lights behind
our closed eyelids, until by now we’re awake but it’s
nice to go on pretending with our eyes shut because
here’s the best part. Mama and Papa lift us out of
the backseat and carry us upstairs to the third-floor
front where we live, take off our shoes and clothes,
and cover us, so when we wake up, it’s Sunday already,
and we’re in our beds and happy.
Glossary:
quarter – ćwierćdolarówka, moneta o nominale
25 centów
churros – ciastka smażone na głębokim oleju
jujubes – rodzaj cukierków
burro – kataloński osiołek
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