A Place Where the Sea Remembers

“What else could he say? He had made the offer, and it is a man’s duty to honor what he says. He did not question his own decisions, no matter how hastily they were made.”

When Candelario offers to take Marta’s child, he does so spontaneously, without consulting his wife. And once the decision has been made, he has no choice but to adhere to it. It speaks to a certain patriarchy in the culture that the husband can make decisions that affect both partners, and that those decisions, by virtue of his gender, must be permanent.

“But that was all behind him. After his trip to the capital, his life would be changed.”

After Fulgencio the photographer takes a picture of a celebrity without his customary mask, he is convinced he can sell it for a large sum of money. Fulgencio’s fantasy embodies the aspirations of most of Santiago’s residents. Candelario dreams of a better job; Marta dreams of a new life in El Paso; Rafael and Esperanza dream of love. Dreams sustain those with the most difficult lives, promising them that the struggle is only temporary.

“She had allowed herself only months with the child, and now the child would fill her years. In the future, there would be no days without the child.”

In a society that values family and children, Marta is an outlier. She has dreams beyond motherhood. She views a child as no more than an interference. In this sense, she defies cultural expectations—a difficult thing to do, especially given familial and societal pressures. In a place that can seem too traditional and even morally antiquated to contemporary sensibilities, Marta remains the most modern and independent woman.

“Because he [Rafael] possessed the knowledge to do it, he believed it was his duty to teach her. But it ran deeper than this: he would do it because there was a graveness about her that reminded him of himself.”

Rafael agrees to teach Inés how to read and write because he believes it is his duty to both teach and uplift. Rafael sees himself not only as a teacher but also as a social justice warrior. He doesn’t appreciate his mother’s condescension toward Inés, and helping her become literate is a subtle act of defiance against doña Lina.

“[T]here was about her a domesticity that told of a husband and children, and of a sweet intimacy that came with both, and which was like a prize being kept from Rafael.”

When Rafael visits the home of a truant student, his brief glimpse of the boy’s mother evokes images of everything he lacks: a wife and a family. Despite the family’s abject poverty, Rafael sees beyond the neglected neighborhood to what he assumes must be emotional bliss.

“‘I’m happy that times are good,’ Rafael said, ‘but a boy’s education is very important.’”

Rafael urges the boy’s mother to send him back to school, even though he knows that the family’s income depends on him fishing with his father. As a teacher, Rafael is obligated to advocate for education at all costs, but doing so in the face of economic reality makes him feel “pompous.” His words lack conviction, and he says them almost robotically, out of duty.

“Girls like that often take advantage.”

When Inés miscarries in doña Lina’s home, she believes her son is the father. Rafael is mortified; Inés is barely older than his students, but doña Lina reserves her scorn not for her son but for Inés. She knows her son is lonely, and she could forgive him for impregnating a minor because it would be the girl’s fault for seducing him. Even women in this society can be guilty of misogyny.

“[H]e had possessed a humble house, the companionship of a woman, good and true, and, above all, three sons on whom he’d rested much of his hopes for the future.”

As César focuses on what he’s grateful for, he prioritizes his three sons above all else. In his mind a daughter would be a detriment because she couldn’t fish as well as a boy and therefore couldn’t provide for the family. Like the culture into which he is born, César sees gender roles in very rigid and limited terms.

“Fishing gave a man the time to think in silence.”

César is accustomed to solitude. He is not a man who shares his feelings with his peers. In his world a man must be self-sufficient, and that means coping with hardship alone. Only when his grief over the death of his wife and sons becomes too great to bear does he allow himself to show vulnerability in front of his remaining son, Beto. Ironically, this open display of emotion brings father and son closer than any amount of silent endurance.

“There was silence, because in silence there was more respect than in any words that they could say.”

When César visits Chayo for flowers for his roadside shrine, he goes outside for air. Candelario stands beside him. They exchange very few words. Candelario understands that, in light of César’s terrible loss, there is nothing he can say to comfort him; given the male code of stoicism, both men value the silence. Outward displays of condolence would be unhelpful and inappropriate.

“The sea listens and remembers. So it is the sea preserves.”

In the perpetual cycles of nature, life begins, ends, and begins again. The one thing that preserves life even after death is memory. Remedios’s mysticism allows her to hear the stories of those souls lost at sea and to remember them. As the repository of those stories, the burden is heavy, but she accepts it as a healer’s duty.

“All his life, he had turned away from grief and confrontation. Now, misery was waiting in his pocket and there was no running from it.”

Justo the birdman remembers the fight between his neighbor, Marta, and her sister, Chayo. Family arguments make him uncomfortable, which is why he left his own family in Guadalajara years before. He discovers, however, that he cannot run from confrontation forever, and, years later, he faces it once again in the form of an unread telegram.

“To don Justo it was as if the past had dropped away and he were seeing himself when he was young.”

Don Justo is an old man with many regrets, and reminiscence is one of his few coping mechanisms. Remembering his youth allows him to see his life in simpler terms before any of the mistakes that damaged his relationship with his daughter. Memory is a balm that preserves the love that once existed between them.

“Don Justo felt the pain of his past and he would not have it. No. He simply could not have it.”

Memory can soothe, but it can also inflame. After the death of his first wife, don Justo’s second wife refused to allow his children into their new home, and he accepted this condition. The memory of his daughter Justina’s face is burned into his mind, and he must live with it until he dies or until Justina forgives him. Despite nearly 10 years of sobriety, memories like this cause him to drink again.

“She was alone in the world and childless, something not surprising for a defiled woman such as she was.”

Esperanza was 17 when she was raped by her employer, and she still bears the shame and guilt 18 years later. She understands the bitter irony that, as a midwife, she delivers babies and witnesses the joy of motherhood, but she cannot experience that joy herself. Like Marta, she is the victim of a culture that sees women not as the victim of sexual assault but as the guilty party.

“She called this out over her shoulder, hurrying away from the pull of Rafael’s eyes, from the pull of his thinning har and the little bald spot, like a tonsure, on the top of his head.”

Esperanza resists her attraction to Rafael, believing she is not worthy of his love or of her own happiness. The shame she has carried for her entire adult life has convinced her that no man will want damaged goods; but she is also honest enough that she cannot enter into a relationship with him based on secrets. She is torn between the truth of her past and the ramifications of that truth.

“Doña Lina’s face lit up and for a moment Esperanza saw beyond the woman’s egoism. She saw the need that mothered it, and she asked herself, what kind of misery might doña Lina have experienced to turn her vision so entirely upon herself.”

At the mere mention of a vacation, doña Lina’s expression changes from her usual despair to happiness, if only briefly. She is not an easy patient. She complains, she is ungrateful and paranoid, and yet Esperanza still possesses the empathy to see past the complaining to the suffering underneath. She glimpses a window into doña Lina’s soul, and she sees not a difficult patient but a human being in pain.

“Years later, when she recalled this moment, she could not say what it was that unlocked her. Perhaps it was the wine they’d had at dinner, perhaps it was simply that, in the end, she knew fate was urging her toward a final test.” 

Esperanza’s belief in fate plays a major role in her decision to accept Rafael into her life. After resisting him for so long, she decides to let fate make the decision. Esperanza, with her superstitions and her traditional healing practices, is rooted firmly in Santiago’s cultural customs and rituals. While the “modern” healer, the abortion doctor, only visits occasionally, Esperanza is the steady hand of medicine among her people, and she is more tied to their cultural history than to modern medical techniques, although she keeps those techniques in reserve when necessary.

“‘There are certain authorities working in this country,’ he said. ‘If you tell, I’ll call for them and they will not believe you. In this country, they lock away whores like you.’”

Esperanza tells Rafael the story of her rape and explains why she has been silent for all these years. If she reports the crime, she will be blamed. In this society, a victim of rape is a “whore,” and the perpetrators go unpunished. Esperanza, at 17, had no power in this situation, and whether or not the threat is true, she believes it absolutely. She carries the label of whore with her until she finally unburdens herself to Rafael.

“Chayo had wailed when she heard the perils lying before her son. She wailed at the fate that had given her Marta for a sister.” 

After Chayo’s son Tonito has a severe allergic reaction to an ant bite, the doctors inform her and Candelario that any future ant bites or bee stings could be fatal. Although Tonito survived the initial reaction, his parents will have to monitor him constantly. For Chayo, the curse of el brujo is still intact, and for that she can never forgive her sister. In Chayo’s world, the realities of fate and dark magic transcend family bonds.

“She remembers the old woman she now is and how the elements sustain her. Soy la que sabe, she thinks. Because I remember, I am she who knows.” 

As Remedios invokes the element of air, she spirit-walks to the stars, where her ancestors reside. They implore her to “always remember.” As progress threatens to wipe away the past, Remedios is the last stronghold of ancient knowledge. Only by remembering history and tradition is knowledge passed on and sustained.

“Chayo took the fortune and for an instant she considered reading it, but then she crumpled it up and threw it down. ‘These fortunes are absurd,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe in things like that.’” 

Chayo sacrifices her relationship with her sister because of a curse, yet she doesn’t believe in don Justo’s fortunes. Although they are both superstitions, Chayo endows the curse with far more weight because it came from Marta, whom Chayo still loves despite her anger. Don Justo is barely an acquaintance, and so his “magic” has no emotional significance.

“Up and down its length, the arroyo was a mud hole. A stench came from it that, when the wind was right, made living here difficult.” 

Benitez never states what causes the foul odor, but it foreshadows impending death. When the arroyo fills with water and becomes a raging torrent, it sweeps Marta’s son Richard away. The odor may be caused by toxins in the groundwater. When Chayo suggests that the local government should take care of it, Santos is derisively skeptical that the government will ever do anything for the people. He echoes the plight of poor people everywhere, whose neighborhoods are often dumping grounds for industrial waste.