Feliz Cumpleanos, Papi!

Federico Efrain Marrero: 

1) As a resident in neurosurgery at the Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, FL; circa 1962.  After two foreign medical degrees (in France and in Cuba)--under eminent professors--he had to prove himself, yet again, when we arrived in the States in 1960.
2) Papi and I at a party in the summer of 1963.  Oh, the shifts we wore in those days--
3) As an extern (intern)  at the University of Paris School of Medicine; in a respiratory diseases rotation at the Hopital Laennec.  "Epi" (as he was known) is just left of center in the top row--wearing a black sweater (and a big smile :-)!  My mother--Ana "Panni" Raab--is standing in the third row--to the left of the black-caped nurse (and almost right behind the great professor ;-).  This picture was definitely taken between Nov. 1, 1936 and Dec. 31, 1936 (for that was when my father served his rotation).  Unless I can find evidence to the contrary, this must have been when they met.

My collection of digitized pictures is small (so I always have to recycle).  Nonetheless, I always aim to say something new.

Writing-wise, this year?  Ummm...how about, Cirujia?  I have to switch to Spanish, now.  In any language, though:  Papi always took care of me...and he always will.  Feliz Cumpleanos, Papi!

LA LOQUITA DEL ZIG-ZAG: CIRUJIA!

POR NININA MAMEYEZ

            “Ven aquí, Ninina”  Rosita Torre De Viento me estaba extendiendo un dedito gordo, tratando de que yo la acompañe en el solar cerca de mi casa en La Nueva Ventana.  Acababa de escampar; el terreno estaba muy mojado.  “VEN”! casi chillo.

            Pensé.  “No quiero hacerlo, Rosita.”

            “Y por que NO?” me pregunto, haciendo pucheros. 

            “Por—porque…”  Me estaba poniendo más y más nerviosa.

            “Cobarde!  COBARDE!” empezó a chillar Rosita.  Echo una carcajada atrás de la otra: “Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha HA!”

            La miré de reojos.  Me estaba poniendo más y más brava.  “Quien tu crees que tu eres?”  Salté de la acera; tropecé con una piedra; me caí, boca arriba, en el fango.  Y empecé a llorar: “Waaaaah!  Waaaaah!  Waaaaah!”

            Rosita estaba casi doblada, carcajeando, mas y mas alto: “HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAA…”  Casi se cayó, estaba chillando tan alto. 

            La miré a través de mis lágrimas; sollocé: “Rosita, no me puedes ayudar?  NO ME PUEDES AYUDAR?”

            “No hay nada que puedo hacer,” gruño casi como un buey.  De repente, se apareció su hermano, Adalberto.

            “Qué paso aquí?  Por qué esta Ninina en el fango?” nos preguntó.

            “No supo saltar de la acera, Adalberto.”  Y se empezó a reír, otra vez.

            Adalberto me miro.  Estaba al punto de ayudarme, cuando Rosita dijo: “No te embarres, Adalberto.  Sabes como se pone mami…; de todos modos, porque estas aquí?”

            “Mami me mando a recogerte.  Tenemos que ir de compras.”

            “Bueno...”  Me hizo una mueca, y dijo, “Vamonos,” halando a su hermano de la mano.  “Oow,” pude oír al pobre Adalberto.  Rosita se viro una última vez, y se empezó a reír otra vez: “Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha HA!”

            Yo me estaba levantando del fango; había parado de llorar; y casi ni sollozaba más, tampoco.  Pero sentí detrás de mi muslo derecho: estaba rojo.  Sangre.  Empecé a llorar otra vez: “WAAAAAH!”

            Esta vez me oyó El Chino.  Vino corriendo.  Mami y La Linda habían salido de compras; La Golondrina estaba visitando a su sobrino.  El estaba en cargo de supervisarme, pero había estado lavando al Olsmobil, y no me había oído.

            “NININA!  QUE TE PASO?”  Me encontró sentada en el medio del fango; llorando; aguantando a mi pierna derecha; tocando a la sangre con mis deditos.

            “NINA!  Que es eso?”  Cuando se dio cuenta, me recogió en sus brazos, y se lanzó para la casa.  “Doctol?  Doctol?  La niña se hirió!”

            Papi nos oyó desde la biblioteca, y vino corriendo.

            “NININA!  QUE TE PASO?”  El Chino me había entregado a Papi.

            “AY, PAPI!  Rosita…Rosita…”  Estaba sollozando.

“Que te hizo?  (Se puso bravo.)  Cuantas veces no te he dicho que no debes de jugar con esa (pensó antes de decir nada mas) chica?”

Empecé a llorar otra vez, hasta mas fuerte: “WAAAAAAAH!”

            “Shh!  Shh” acaricio a mi cara.  (Me vio mirando a mi pierna.)  Pero que es esto?  SANGRE?  Déjame examinarte!  Chino, tráeme el alcol y algodón, por favor.”

            “Oh, NOO!” Ahora si que empecé a llorar.

            Papi y El Chino me acostaron boca arriba encima de la mesa de examen en la esquina de la biblioteca.  Papi me limpio a la herida con mucho cuidado.  Horrorizada, al principio, me estaba calmando mas y mas, porque Papi es un muy buen doctor.

            “Hmm,” me examino cuando la herida estaba limpia.  “Ninina, parece que tienes a un poco de fango debajo de la piel.  Tendremos que ir al Doctor Seso.”

            “OH, NOOOO!”

            “Pero a ti te gusta el Doctor Seso.”

            “Qu-que me va a hacer?”

            Papi guiño.  “Tu veras; no te va a doler nada.”

            Nos metimos en la maquina, y El Chino nos llevo a la oficina del Doctor Seso.  La secretaria del doctor nos dejo entrar a Papi y a mí.

            “Ninina!  Como estas?  Hmm, que paso?”  Examino a la herida.  El y papi se miraron; estuvieron de acuerdo.  “Si.”  (Mirándome a mí.)  “Ninina, vas a dormir por un ratico.”

            “QUE?  No tengo sueno!”

            “Pues, si.”  El y papi me acostaron en su mesa de examen.  “Te voy a (me miro de reojos, porque sabe que a mi no me gustan las inyecciones) dar una pequeña…”

            “OH, NOOOOO!”

            Papi me miro; me imploro.  “Aguántate, niña.  No va a doler.”  Se sonrió.

            Mirándolo a el todo el tiempo, deje que el Doctor Seso me inyecte.  No se que paso después, porque me quede rendida.  Cuando me desperté, lo único que vi fue a un pequeño vendaje detrás de mi rodilla derecha.  Como papi me había dicho, nada me dolió.

            Sonriéndome, salté de la mesa de examen.  Bese a papi, y le di un abrazo al Doctor Seso.  Todos nos sonreímos una vez más antes de que El Chino nos devolvió a la casa en el Olsmobil.  El se estaba sonriendo, también.

            “Ten cuidado con chicas como Rosita en el futuro, me entiendes, m’ija?” me dijo papi cuando estábamos sentados en su biblioteca.

            “AY, PAPI!  Me acabo de dar cuenta…”

            “…de que, Ninina?”

            “De que hoy tuve a una cirugía!”  Me sonreí, y me reí.  Pero no a carcajadas.

            Y la próxima vez que vi a Rosita, chillando como siempre, y a Adalberto corriendo detrás de ella, los huí.

Es propiedad de Georgina Marrero, 2008                          861 palabras

           

I shall not fear (for I am glad): Welcome, Pope Francis!

Bienvenido, Padre Santo, nuestro nuevo Papa:  el Papa Francisco!

Yes, I am glad--no, I should not fear.  The little girl in me did, however, when I was eight years old:

My Fear, My Fear, My Maximum Fear

 

By Georgina Marrero

When I was eight, I was put into a Catechism class at Saints Peter and Paul Church.  It was especially weird for me, since I had been baptized at age four, just so that Castro wouldn’t send me—an “unwashed child”—to Russia.  All I remember was the Chinese priest, my mother peering out over her darkened bifocals, and the big party afterward.

So here I was, four years later, in a different country, getting ready to undergo—endure, perhaps? —The Second Sacrament.  I knew by then that my parents weren’t terribly big on religion:  I’d been baptized “just because,” and now, again, I’d be receiving my First Communion, “just because.”

At least this time I was the “right” age.

I think the priests were Jesuits.

The class was…ok.  I was much more of a follower, then, always trying to fit in.  The Catechism books were cute—I think they were in Spanish.  We recited a lot.

Two things, however, were of paramount importance:  the dress; and the confession of my sins before I took Holy Communion for the first time.

Already chubby, we managed to find me a dress.  I still have it.  It has a cute raised design on the front.

The confession, however, terrified me more than finding that dress.  I still remember shaking before I approached the priest.  What would I say?

I don’t remember, but I got through it.

The wafer, however:  to swallow that wafer whole.  Could I chew it, I wondered.  Was it a mortal sin to chew it?

I think I swallowed it whole, thinking, worrying about it the whole time.

Once, and only once:  for that was my fear, my fear, my maximum fear.

And I daresay it still is.          (288 words)

Written at a Spiritual Autobiography Workshop, 10/16/05

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And here is what I wrote about 10/16/78 (when Pope John Paul II ascended to the Papacy):

News didn’t travel as fast then, but I’m sure we heard the news while we were at school that day:  Habemus papam.  We have a Pope:  Karol Wojtyla.

A Polish Pope?  I remember asking myself.  Everyone was shocked—not just the Italians.  I’m sure our little group at school discussed it.

Then I returned home to Cambridge and probably listened to the TV coverage.  I may have been young – 24 at the time – but not that young that it didn’t sink in.

A Polish Pope.  What would it mean?

I hadn’t really paid much attention to Popes, especially as a young child.  After all, I was baptized at age four so that Castro wouldn’t send me to Russia, along with other “unwashed” children.  My equally hybrid parents didn’t think of it, until then.

But they then rushed to include me as a little, yet significant, “aside” in the more “normal” baptism of my godparents’ recently arrived daughter.

And, when we arrived in the States, I duly went to Catechism and celebrated my First Communion when I was eight.  I still remember being terrified before my first – and only – Confession.

I also remember that the Pope at the time was a rotund man named John XXIII.  Hard to forget, for me:  XXIII.  23.  My number.

The date was May 12, 1963.  The Pope passed away just under four weeks later, on June 3, 1963.  I’d been born during Pius The Twelfth’s Papacy, but Pope John had been both my Baptism and First Communion Pope.  So now, who?

I remember Paul VI as a slender, serious-looking, serious scholar of religion.  As I sporadically attended Mass, especially when I was directed to while I attended summer camp, I also, only sporadically, paid attention to him.  But whenever I did, I gave him my full respect.

When he passed away and John Paul I ascended to the Throne of St. Peter, I was about to begin my second year as bilingual tutor at the Fitch School.  Thirty-three days later - September 28 - was a Thursday.  We must have heard the news of the new Pope’s sudden demise while at school that day, too.

What was going on?  I probably figured he had been infirm.  Was the Vatican aware of his condition?  I’m asking myself that, now, on the heels of learning about the conspiracy theories.

The school was abuzz.  I’m sure I sat in on many a discussion between, especially, Mrs. O’Brien and Mrs. McMenimen.

            But here we were.  The Conclave of Cardinals had reconvened, and a Pole named Karol Wojtyla had been named the new Pontiff.  I remember the coverage about how to pronounce—let alone, spell—his name.  John Paul II soon became much easier to handle.

            What would it mean?  We quickly found out.  The new Pope visited his homeland.  Solidarity.  Lech Walesa.  President Reagan:  “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”  I visited my aunt and uncle in a free Romania.

            I now paid attention, albeit at a respectful distance.

            Pope John Paul II ascended to the Papacy when I had just turned twenty-four.  Twenty-six plus years later, he’s gone.  He will have been the Pope of my youth to early middle age.

            Although I have never formally confessed, nor taken Communion, since my First Communion, there is a bond I have never been able to loosen.  I remember only The Lord’s Prayer, so I have to mumble along whenever I attend Mass, mimicking others.  And yet…

            …  I could not help not taking note of the date – October 16, 1978 – when Karol Wojtyla became Pope.

            And I could not help remembering where – and with whom – I was.  With some lovely Irish ladies who were probably providing this hybrid with nourishment I wasn’t even aware I was imbibing.

--From "October 16, 1978"

WOW!!!  I didn't realize it til just now:  October 16, 27 years apart?  Well, I wrote the latter in April of 2005.

And here we are:  March 13, 2013.

Pope Francis asked us to pray for him.  There is no fear, now (though I continue to be a lapsed Catholic:  an "Ecumenical," as CNN's Erin Burnett so gracefully phrased it).  There is, however, hope.

God bless you, Your Holiness.  Please pray for us.

And I Love Them...

 Ana Raab Marrero (Panni), ca. 1968-1970.

Federico Efrain Marrero (Pepi), ca. 1962-1963.

Panni and me, Nov. 1961.

 Pepi and me, Summer 1963.

 Hopital Laennec (now closed):  where Panni and Pepi met.

Group Photo, Rotation in Chest Diseases, Hopital Laennec, 11/1-12/31/36:  when Panni and Pepi met (if not before?).

I've posted this before.  Nonetheless, this New Year's Eve it's what I want to share.  "And I Love Them"--the piece that gave this blog its name--I altered the title from The Beatles (but the moment I finished that piece I knew it was about my parents).  Here, however, is the first version of Panni's and Pepi's story:  "Panni's and Pepi's Paris."  And, of course, I love them--

PANNI’S AND PEPI’S PARIS

BY GEORGINA MARRERO

            For me, Paris is synonymous with the two most important persons in my life:  my parents.  Anna “Panni” Raab met Federico Efrain “Pepi” Marrero in a medical school class at the University of Paris’ Faculty of Medicine sometime in the mid-1930’s.  At the time, people “group” dated, or so my mother told me, so I’m not quite sure when they began to formally date.  By 1940, though, they knew each other well enough that my father either sent for or went to pick my mother up in the South of France, they traveled via Orleans to Lyon, and married in the mayor’s office there on December 31, 1940.

My parents’ stories about their years in Paris shaped me.  Their stories about forty francs being the equivalent of one American dollar; about a paper cone’s full of French fries costing four to five francs (and that was dinner).  About students gathering in the Luxembourg Gardens:  I have pictures of them doing just so.  About Henri Bergson giving lectures that were so packed that the best my mother could hope for was to strain to hear through the open door.  About how he presented himself as a Jew before the Nazis when they occupied Paris.

Those were very difficult times.  My mother defended her thesis eight days before the Occupation.  And then she fled to Vichy France.  As for my father:  well, with a middle name like Efrain, his professor, Clovis Vincent, wanted to keep a close eye on him.  It just so happened Vincent was a great French patriot, decorated during the First World War.  So he ingeniously gathered all his residents together to serve at the Pitie Hospital under the auspices of his “Neurosurgical Wartime Service.”

            One of the residents, a man named Rabinowitz, escaped at least several times from detention camps, and eventually made his way to Canada.

For the record, when Princess Diana was rushed to the Pitie and Salpetriere Hospitals after her fatal car crash, my mother’s comment was:  “That’s the best place to treat head injuries.”  No two ways about it:  my mother would have known.

My mother’s strength may have ebbed and flowed, but her stories never wavered.  After her death, I had the good fortune to speak with one of her best friends, a fashion designer named Kati Cohn, who filled in many gaps.  According to Kati, the Hungarians went to France to study, she said, because they were “freer” there. They were not held back…  just because they were Jewish.

Young, carefree, (perhaps?) in love – and she never studied, according to Kati.  Panni joined Kati and her crowd at the cafes every afternoon.  When did she study, we both mused out loud.  She graduated, though, producing a thesis on Nietzsche and Psychiatry.  And, oh, yes:  she once cooked a veal steak on the back of an iron!

As for Pepi, he studied very hard, yet found time to play ball with his fellow Cuban classmates.  He also cooked chicken and rice:  hard for me to believe, later on.  He had to wash his own clothes, and, at one point, had to do with very little money, for someone had stolen his stipend.  I guess that’s when those French fries came in handy.

My father’s passion was neuropathology, so he hit pay dirt when a very eminent Spaniard fled to Paris during the Spanish Civil War.  This man, Don Pio del Rio Hortega, guided my father’s thesis.  My father dedicated it to him.

Did they have fun?  They all had fun, according to Kati. 

            In the midst of all the storm clouds brewing, yes, they did.

They were young, carefree, and – perhaps – falling in love.

If the following is not an example of young love, then I don’t know what is:  According to my mother, she once stumbled into Vincent’s operating room, tripping over wires, and whatnot.  The Great Man – a big, hulking French peasant – turned, glowered, and asked Panni:  “Mademoiselle, what are you doing here?”

“I’m searching for Monsieur Marrero,” my mother responded.  She proudly continued, “He’s supposed to be operating.” 

Monsieur Vincent tersely replied, “Go to the sub-basement.  You’ll find Monsieur Marrero there.”  Sure enough, my father was operating…  on bedsores. 

As a teenager, I went to Paris, where I spent time with my mother’s cousin and his wife, who’d been made to wear the Star of David during the Occupation.  Their daughter’s married to a devout Roman Catholic. 

A little later on that summer, my mother came to join me.  I’d wanted to go running off to Scotland to do who knows what after finishing my language course in Tours.  In a panic, my father had sent her over.

Still highly energetic, my mother marched me up and down the streets of Paris, pointing out this, that, everything.  She took me to the oldest restaurant (Le Procope), and the cheapest (Le Bouillon Chartier), where a waiter taught me how to eat an artichoke.

            A rebellious child of the times, all I did was fuss, fret, protest, and complain…  all the way to the Folies Bergere.  Even then, however, I sensed the enormous bond my mother had with her lifelong best friend and her Cuban husband, a bon vivant who’d married the peppy little Frenchwoman, never again giving a second thought to the medical career that had brought him to Paris in the first place, as it had my father.

After she passed away, I braved a cold, damp Paris holiday season to visit with our relatives.  I also spent many wonderful hours with her best friend’s now widowed husband.  He’d known Efrain for even more years than he’d known Anita.  I returned once more, four months before 9/11, when I got to see him for the last time.

I’m bound to return to Paris, and to enjoy The City of Lights more and more in my own right.  However, for me, this beautiful, carefree, romantic city will always be…  Panni’s and Pepi’s Paris.

Copyright, 2005 by Georgina Marrero      992 words     First-time worldwide serial rights

Para Panni y Pepi--Mami y Papi--siempre!

12/31/40