Miraflores, with my aunts and uncles. This came about after one of the times we ran away; in the course of the reconciliation, my mother managed to get my papa to allow me, when Saturday classes were over, to go directly from La Salle to Aunt Lala and Uncle Juan’s. I went back home on Mondays, after the morning classes. That day and a half a week, in Miraflores, far from his prying eyes, living the normal life of other youngsters my age, became the most important thing in my life, the objective fondly imagined all week long, and that Saturday afternoon and Sunday in Miraflores an experience that filled me with courage and happy images, enabling me to resist the horrendous five remaining days.
I couldn’t go to Miraflores every weekend, only when I got the grades E (excellent) or O (highest in class) on my report card. If my grades were D (unsatisfactory) or M (bad), I had to go back home to spend the weekend shut up inside. And then there were, besides, the punishments that I received for some other reason, and which, once my father discovered that what I hoped for most in the world was to spend those weekends a long way away from him, consisted of: “This week you’re not going to Miraflores.” For the most part, though, the years 1948 and 1949 and the summer of 1950 were divided up for me like this: Mondays to Fridays in La Magdalena or in La Perla, then Saturdays and Sundays in the Diego Ferré barrio of Miraflores.
A barrio was a parallel family, a group of youngsters of the same age with whom one talked of sports or played soccer —fútbol— or a version of it on a smaller scale —fulbito . With whom one went swimming at the pool and bodysurfing at the beaches of Miraflores—the Club Regatas or La Herradura—and took walks around the park after eleven o’clock Mass, went to the matinee at the Leuro or Ricardo Palma movie theater, and finally went for a stroll through the Salazar gardens. And with whom, as one grew older, one learned to smoke, dance, and make girls fall in love—the ones who, little by little, got permission from their families to come stand in the doorways of the houses to talk to the boys and organize, on Saturday nights, parties in which, dancing a bolero—preferably “Me gustas,” by Leo Marino—the boys fell for the girls and announced to them that they were templados (in love). The girls would say, “I’m going to think it over,” or “All right,” or “I don’t want to have a boyfriend yet because my mama won’t let me.” If the answer was “All right,” one now had a girlfriend. One could dance cheek to cheek with her at parties, go to the Sunday matinee together, and kiss each other in the dark. And also, walk hand in hand after having an ice cream at the Crem Rica on the Avenida Larco, and ask her to go with you to see the sun set on the ocean from the Salazar gardens while you made a wish. Aunt Lala and Uncle Juan lived in a little white two-story house, in the heart of one of the most famous districts in Miraflores, and Nancy and Gladys belonged to the youngest generation of the barrio , which also had its old-timers, who were fifteen, eighteen, or twenty years old, and thanks to my cousins I joined it. I owe all my good memories between the ages of eleven and fourteen to my barrio . It was called the Happy Barrio at one time, but it changed its name when the newspapers began to call the Jirón Huatica de La Victoria (the street where the prostitutes were) by that name, and it became the Diego Ferré or the Colón barrio , because our main hangout was at the intersection of those two streets.
Gladys and I had our birthdays on the same day, and Aunt Lala and Uncle Juan gave a party with boys and girls of the barrio on March 28, 1948. I remember my surprise when I came in and saw that there were couples dancing and that my two cousins also knew how to dance. And that the birthday party was being held not to play games but to put records on, to hear music, and to
I couldn’t go to Miraflores every weekend, only when I got the grades E (excellent) or O (highest in class) on my report card. If my grades were D (unsatisfactory) or M (bad), I had to go back home to spend the weekend shut up inside. And then there were, besides, the punishments that I received for some other reason, and which, once my father discovered that what I hoped for most in the world was to spend those weekends a long way away from him, consisted of: “This week you’re not going to Miraflores.” For the most part, though, the years 1948 and 1949 and the summer of 1950 were divided up for me like this: Mondays to Fridays in La Magdalena or in La Perla, then Saturdays and Sundays in the Diego Ferré barrio of Miraflores.
A barrio was a parallel family, a group of youngsters of the same age with whom one talked of sports or played soccer —fútbol— or a version of it on a smaller scale —fulbito . With whom one went swimming at the pool and bodysurfing at the beaches of Miraflores—the Club Regatas or La Herradura—and took walks around the park after eleven o’clock Mass, went to the matinee at the Leuro or Ricardo Palma movie theater, and finally went for a stroll through the Salazar gardens. And with whom, as one grew older, one learned to smoke, dance, and make girls fall in love—the ones who, little by little, got permission from their families to come stand in the doorways of the houses to talk to the boys and organize, on Saturday nights, parties in which, dancing a bolero—preferably “Me gustas,” by Leo Marino—the boys fell for the girls and announced to them that they were templados (in love). The girls would say, “I’m going to think it over,” or “All right,” or “I don’t want to have a boyfriend yet because my mama won’t let me.” If the answer was “All right,” one now had a girlfriend. One could dance cheek to cheek with her at parties, go to the Sunday matinee together, and kiss each other in the dark. And also, walk hand in hand after having an ice cream at the Crem Rica on the Avenida Larco, and ask her to go with you to see the sun set on the ocean from the Salazar gardens while you made a wish. Aunt Lala and Uncle Juan lived in a little white two-story house, in the heart of one of the most famous districts in Miraflores, and Nancy and Gladys belonged to the youngest generation of the barrio , which also had its old-timers, who were fifteen, eighteen, or twenty years old, and thanks to my cousins I joined it. I owe all my good memories between the ages of eleven and fourteen to my barrio . It was called the Happy Barrio at one time, but it changed its name when the newspapers began to call the Jirón Huatica de La Victoria (the street where the prostitutes were) by that name, and it became the Diego Ferré or the Colón barrio , because our main hangout was at the intersection of those two streets.
Gladys and I had our birthdays on the same day, and Aunt Lala and Uncle Juan gave a party with boys and girls of the barrio on March 28, 1948. I remember my surprise when I came in and saw that there were couples dancing and that my two cousins also knew how to dance. And that the birthday party was being held not to play games but to put records on, to hear music, and to
Similar Books
