Isabel Allende is teaching me Spanish.
Isabel Allende is teaching me Spanish. So is Mario Vargas Llosa. All the greats. They can be your teachers, too. All you need are their books, a dictionary, and Anki flashcards.
I thought the better I knew Spanish, the more equipped I’d be to speak to my Grandma Eva, and especially her mom and dad, Josefa and Antonio, who never learned English, in my dreams. I mean, just supposing it would ever come to that. They’re no longer on earth, but perhaps deep sleep will be our medium. I realize this is an odds game.
Well. I had The Dream. Antonio and Josefa, my great-grandparents, were dark figures, flitting about in the back rooms of this rustic house. They were unreachable. It was in Oakland. There was a lot of hay.
Grandma Eva was busy at work, at the kitchen table which was covered in a red checkered tablecloth. On the table were buckets of water.
Mira, Abuelita. Hablo castellano ahora, como tú, I said.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering with this,” she said. “You’re in America.”
She hasn’t changed.
