Yadira chose to withdraw and leave the discussion. "Max should have been here with me, to listen. Undoubtedly, the President is our ally, but that poisonous foreign First Lady is not," she thought. She walked around looking for her escort. She finally found him, engaged in deep conversation with the assistant to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs.
"Sometimes Max does not even know who to talk to... A humble assistant is of no relevance. Instead, Max should invest his time talking to the President and the Ministers,"
she thought.
The Calderón Guardia administration kept the promise to Yadira. First of all, he maintained the doors closed to further Jewish immigration. Calderón attacked them in his inauguration speech, making veiled references. At the same time, he insinuated his support to the law nationalizing trade:
To prevent unfair competition, commerce must be a business carried on by persons with deep roots in the country. Consequently, we should not allow the immigration of foreigners, except those committed exclusively to work in agriculture, to improve our industries, or to teach the arts and the sciences.
On May 28, 1940, Francisco Calderón Guardia, the older brother of the President and Secretary of State, informed the Secretary of Foreign Relations that "each request to come into our country, presented by a citizen of any European country, unable to demonstrate a 163
known occupation or without precise basis, is to be rejected from now on." The restrictive policy also included Black and Chinese people. On August 27, 1940, the Costa Rican Consul in Jamaica was informed that Linda Keer Clarke had requested a visa to enter Costa Rica. "I notified her of the legal prohibition currently existing for members of her race, to come into our country." Thus, her application was denied, even though she had lived in Costa Rica for more than twenty years. On June 20 of that same year, Francisco Calderón rejected the request presented in Puerto Armuelles, Panama, by Amasa A. Powell, "of black race." Then, on September 24, 1941, this same official sent a note to Enrique Pucci, Costa Rica's Consul in Colón, Panama, where he reminded the diplomat that:
"… the exact execution of the document circulated on March 13, 1940 and published on the Official Gazette on October 29 of that same year, which extends the prohibition referred to by the Law issued on May 22, 1897, to include not only those of Chinese nationality, but also members of any race, in such a way that, even if these have acquired the legal nationality of any of our American nations, by their mere physical appearance demonstrate they are originally Orientals."
Some time later, Calderón would ironically accuse former President Cortés of having allowed
"the largest Polish invasion of Costa Rica... 30 per cent of these entered the country using irregular procedures," and immediately ordered a study about "the Jewish problem." With this Indictment and responding to an interpolation presented by 120 "national merchants,"
including among them Yadira Dönning, the new government, under the Congressional leadership of Ricardo Toledo, established an Investigative Commission, unleashing the worst ever anti-Semitic campaign in the history of Costa Rica. The rationale to create such a Commission found a clear expression (although put in rather crude words), in the official newspaper, La Tribuna:
All countries, except ours, protect their commerce...(from unfair competition) of transhumant people, lacking roots in our society, wandering around the world with no other orientation than seeking riches wherever they are, completely unconcerned about the nation or its institutions, or the people they are living with. These undesirable people will leave the country without any previous notice or concern for the well-being of those that protected them, in order to put their tent wherever they find better conditions to fulfill their relentless dream of making money, money and more money.
At the same time, a caricature published in this newspaper complained that "the poor merchants do not receive any help, the Polish plague keeps feeding on them." A letter published some days later in this newspaper was titled "Devilish Synagogues in Costa Rica." The Government announced that, "all those Poles of more than 16 years old that have not yet presented themselves to the Congressional Investigative Commission, will be declared in revolt."
Calderónś position received the support of El Diario de Costa Rica, owned by Otilio Ulate, who would publish any and all anti-Jewish articles sent to him. On June 16, 1940, this newspaper's edition presented tendentious information about the Commission, with big headlines: "Most Poles living in the country do not have passports." On July 7 of that same 164
year an enormous headline covering about a quarter of the front page read: "Some Poles revolt against the Congressional Investigative Commission." On August 21, Calderón also received the support of Fascist groups such as the Costa Rican Patriotic Union. This organization had been attacked by the Jews because of its policies and answered using all kinds of strong personal epithets and accusations. Finally, the German Legation itself showed it was pleased with the new official policies, in an article published on its Informative Bulletin, perhaps written by Yadira, in which they demanded the expulsion
"from the country, of these teecks (sic)."
Max Gerffin was only partially satisfied. The new administration seemed to be much more firm than the previous one in its campaign against the Jews. Through the grapevine (in fact through José Flores) he had found out that the Commission's President, José María Llobet, was ready to order the expulsion of all the Jews.
The information received by the German diplomat was accurate. In March 1941, the Costa Rican Congress agreed to impose upon the Jewish community, as a condition to remain in the country, "not to work in commerce or agriculture, but only to engage in new industries not yet established in the country; as well as the expulsion of all the Poles one year after the end of the European war." The Commission also rejected the permanence in Costa Rica of several thousand German and Austrian Jews, currently in transit but that had purchased the Hacienda Tenorio. By rejecting the request presented by this group of Jews, the members of the Commission accused them of being "dishonest," and predicted that, if allowed to stay, these people would soon end up as merchants.
The anti-Semitic campaign of 1940 marked the peak of Nazism in Costa Rica. The US
Legation noted the advance of Nazism in the country, once France was defeated by Germany:
The French defeat has considerably debilitated our position in this country. A number of Costa Rican citizens, until now supporters of the Allies, have started to change their stances and now support Germany, not because they consider it is doing the right thing, but because they admire a nation capable of obtaining so many victories. The average Latino wants to be on the side of the winner and the pervasive mood here is that Germany will win the war.
Today I talked (Vice Consul Zweig) with five Frenchmen born in Costa Rica. All of them agreed with the fact that the series of German victories in Europe might induce the local German colony and their sympathizers to provoke disturbances in San José.
Concerning those Costa Ricans sympathizing with the Nazi cause, today I talked to (Minister Hornibrook), a man who said he did not trust his brother, although they jointly own a business, given his pro Nazi tendencies. His brother sends his children to the German school and he has been led to believe that a Nazi victory and the German control of Costa Rica will both be beneficial.
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But Max was not satisfied with just the expulsion of the Jews. He felt that, although Calderón promised further anti-Semitic legislation, his foreign policy was less pro-German.
Besides, there was something worrying him more than anything else, namely, Costa Rican policy regarding his country's ships. If the Calderón administration was to continue confiscating German boats, this would become a serious threat to his country's foreign policy and his own personal policies and stance were also very much at risk.
Since 1939, some German ships had been in custody at Puntarenas, the Costa Rican Pacific port. The detention occurred precisely during the transition period between the Cortés and the Calderón administrations. The crews had not been authorized to enter the country and the boats were prevented from leaving Puntarenas. Some German merchants had been trying to find a way to free the merchandise, but it was a slow and bureaucratic procedure.
Yadira herself had noted her ally was obsessed with those ships and, because of them, "he has lost sight of the significant victories won by the Reich."
Max started to distance himself from the new government and to his partner Yadira he insisted they must "adopt drastic measures." However, she had got all she wanted - the expulsion of the Jews. That was not an inconsequential achievement, given that no other Latin American country had adopted such Draconian measures. She was happy with the new president, "who dared to accomplish, in a few months, what Cortés was unable to do in four years." When Max complained to her, she felt discouraged. "How come you are now against the Doctor, after all he has done against the Poles?" she asked. "Dear Yadira, your personal commercial interests are one thing, whereas the international interests of Germany are something else," he answered. "If Calderón continues flirting with the gringos and the British, then he must fall; he must fall."
Yadira was disturbed. Max had become her "beloved Nazi;" she had fallen in love with him
"like a madwoman." But Max did not pay attention to her, ever since he had become friends with Pepe, the guy from the Secretary of Foreign Relations. When she complained about the fact that nowadays they almost never saw each other, Max argued he had to go out with the young man. "He is giving me a lot of crucial information concerning the Costa Rican government. Pepe is a strategic piece we must handle very carefully." However, Yadira was not fully convinced his "strategy" was only politically motivated.
But a romantic affair was absolutely unconceivable to her. "What may there be between two virile men?" she thought. She could not imagine it. Once she asked him what it was that Pepe knew so much about. "A lot. Yesterday he told me Calderón has decided to support the United States at the Conference in Havana and that the Government is going to seize our boats detained in Puntarenas. He is going to help me bring down the current government; it will fall down like a ripe mango and then Cortés will return to power." "And what will happen to the Poles?" she asked, uncomfortably. "We Nazis will have to take care of them personally. I will rather kill them than allow an alliance between Calderón and the damned gringos," he asserted, determined. "But Max,‖ she asked, ―how are you going to kill more than one thousand people?" "A few bombs thrown against the Synagogue will finish with most of them. The rest will run away to Panama," he said.
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Mrs. Dönning was not satisfied. "It is one thing to throw the Poles to the sea, but something quite different to blow them into pieces," she thought. "Why should we endanger the gains obtained, starting now a war that will not bring any benefits to the country?" Her curiosity, however, pointed to a different direction. "The only way to find out whether Pepe is a spy or 'something more,' is for me to talk with José, the clerk at the lady's clothing store," she thought. "José is a weird guy and he must know." Using as an excuse the need to make some adjustments to her new gala dress, she returned to The Fine Lady.
She found José busy arranging boxes on the high shelves of the store. She came closer and went straight to the point.
"José, there is something I must ask you about and please do not take it the wrong way,"
she said while looking him straight in the eyes.
"What will it be my lady? What can I do for you?" asked the astonished clerk.
"You are an international, fine and well-educated male. Well, you see, I have "a cousin"
that, according to the reports I have gotten, from time to time visits those bars located around El Paso de la Vaca. My informants have told me you also visit those places. I do not want to create a problem for you, or to harm you in any way. However, I must know if you have seen "my cousin" there. I suspect he has a forbidden relation with a boy from the Secretary of Foreign Relations," said Yadira, anguished.
"And who is your 'cousin', Yadira?" asked José, feeling now as cold as a piece of ice.
"If I tell you, do you swear you will not repeat it? Do you swear it in the name of the most sacred?" she insisted.
"I swear... if in turn you promise not to tell about myself."
"I promise. His name is Max Gerffin," confessed Yadira.
Susanita was paralyzed, unable to pretend anything. "Oh you big son of the thousand whores!" he shouted. Max had betrayed him with another man! Right at that moment the boy would have cut his veins, but for Yadiraś begging eyes. Otherwise, he would have shrouded himself in his own blood, in the midst of all those fancy dresses brought from Berlin, Paris and New York.
"He will pay for this. He will pay for this," thought Susanita, madly. "Yes, yes, I have seen him in those bars!" he answered, blinded by rage. While Yadira hurriedly left the store, the clerk started to cry. Once he recovered somehow, he asked permission to leave early that day and went straight to Max's apartment, to confront him.
He was not there. Overwhelmed by rage, Susanita decided to collect evidence about Max's new relationship and, like most vexed lovers, went through his lover's things. In the armoire, to his surprise he found part of the photographic collection, wrapped in the Nazi flag. There were hundreds of nude men with whom "Max squandered his semen, just like other men do with wine," he thought. But what called his attention the most were the
"local" photographs. In them, Susanita recognized many politicians and members of the high society, depicted in postures that would provoke the fall of Jericho's walls.
"But what is this mess?" he thought. Among the photos there were some recent ones of Pepe himself. "His buttocks are as loose as a Christmas tamale!" he screamed. Susanita put 167
in his bag the main photos of the Costa Rican men he knew, including those of Pepe. He chose those with titles that immediately called his attention: "Pepe Flores informs me about Ivonneś family in Belgium"; "Strategic Accesses to the Panama Canal"; and "A Nazi Party Plan to Overthrow President Calderón." "Max will not notice I have stolen these photos and documents. This degenerate has thousands of photos and papers, enough to fill a stadium."
While Susanita was stealing Max's photos and documents, Mrs. Dönning was running along Central Avenue, stunned, until she reached her store. "He is going to pay for this! He will pay for this!" she kept shouting.
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XIX
"Mother, you are shouting," replied Elena when Anita attacked her. The mother had finally realized Elena was having a romance with Carlos and ordered Elena to leave him; otherwise she would risk a major uproar and her expulsion from their community. ― Oy, a shkandal!” she kept shouting. Elena could not take it any more. She had been living with a constant lump in her throat since they left Poland.
Although Costa Rica was as patriarchal as Poland, in the European nation there was something one could not overlook, namely, the suspension of gender relations. Both mother and daughter had been left alone in Długosiodło, where they learned how masculinity and femininity ebbed and flowed like ocean tides. Thousands of years of patriarchal culture, for a little time, had been uprooted and left hanging in the air. Living alone and then leaving Poland had been like those suspensions Elena felt while on board the transatlantic ship.
Women increased their self-confidence and tasted independence's nectar. Perhaps, if the journey had not taken place, they could have maintained their customs for some thousands of years more.
"Do not tell me that a woman's place is at home; we have worked all our lives," Elena responded. The girl feared the road to freedom would become a dead end street. "Mother, now that the worst struggling years are behind us, the Jewish community has started to recreate odious differences between men and women. It is as if God had closed the sea He once opened to save us from the Egyptian slavery." Elena had a foreboding, that their transition to the New World allowed her to visualize a different way to build their lives, but that their fellow Jews were returning to their old customs. "Some have started to send the women back to their homes, after they helped the men establish their businesses," she said.
"Some others are beginning to identify themselves with the strong machismo prevailing in Latin American countries and believe independent women are a source of troubles," she added. The young girl felt that, if the heavens were to open, men would close them again.
"We used to have more control over our own lives. At least, mother, you handled the money. But ever since we came to the tropics, our father has taken possession of our bodies, of our minds, of our souls. I will not let him dominate me as he does with you. I did not leave the Middle Ages in Poland, to return to them here in Costa Rica. "
"But Elena, if during two thousand years they have treated us as their property, they have married us, sold us, flogged us, exploited us; how are you going to change all that? Ever since you met that woman painter on board the ship, a number of crazy ideas have taken hold of your head. Thank God she has already left this country!"
The mother was worried, fearing the consequences that would result if a woman took control of her own life. "If it is not the painter lady, then it is that man planting all those revolutionary ideas in your mind. Your father himself is now on your side! But you and I know Don David is a man of scandals, a good for nothing. He spends all his time surrounded by the worst kind of people. But you cannot follow his crooked example."
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Elena had the intuition her mother did not know what she was talking about. "Carlos is becoming orthodox. That is the last thing I need. Thus, do not blame him. My ideas about the woman's condition are my own," she said.
Anita did not know it, but while Carlos explored the labyrinthine world of the Talmud, searching for a rational alternative to his dogmatic religion, Elena for her part was traveling in an opposite direction. Religious discussions between the couple were fine until they reached the topic of women. From then on, an irritation took hold of Elena, just like what happened to Anita when social classes were debated. Around these topics Elena had a distasteful feeling, also shared by her mother, as if bundles of dirty clothes kept piling up in the sink.
"Do not tell me, Carlos that now you are going to bless God thrice a day, as the religion commands, thanking him for not having made you female." The young girl had reasons to suspect that Talmudic religion would work against her best interests. She had witnessed the iniquity characteristic of the shtetl. Women were not only excluded from voting, as it was the case in Costa Rica, but they could neither own property nor have access to education.
Her mother who herself had been a victim of these inequalities was now opposed to her, precisely vindicating those exclusions!
"How dare you tell me these are revolutionary ideas, mother? Is it not true that all the money you and I earned in Poland was invested in the Market's store and now everything is under my father's name? No, mother, do not tell me it has to be that way, because I shall not accept it," answered Elena. "You are willing to fight for the workers' revolution, so that men may reproduce this same patriarchal system under Socialism. Look what Stalin has done to the feminist struggles in Russia!"
The young girl's complaints, however, lacked a name. She was possessed by a legitimate anger against her community's attitudes. But until then she did not know whether or not there were others with similar stances in this country. Gloria, the woman that enraged Yadira when she bought her dress from David, would take Elena to her first lecture at the Feminist League. Gloria was married to a North American lawyer and realized that in the United States women enjoyed much more freedom than in Costa Rica. She gradually lost interest in fashion, in cosmetics and in becoming a typical housewife. During her visits to the United States, she attended the suffragist meetings and, particularly, Emma Goldman's lectures, a Jewish anarchist who deeply impressed her. She became convinced it was more important to own a checkbook than a beautiful dress paid by her husband. When she returned to San José, she started organizing women who thought alike.
Gloria decided to invite Elena one day when she was buying a piece of fabric and asked the young girl to tell her how women lived in her native Polish town. Once the girl detailed the customs, Gloria could not help exclaiming: "But things over there are as bad or worse than here!" The clerk's curiosity was stirred. "Is there a place where we women are not that screwed?" she wondered. "Well, Elena, there are some places better than others. But, why don't you come along with me to a feminist meeting? At least we can feel a bit better there."
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The meeting was held in the evening, in the conference room at the Buenaventura Corrales School, nearby the Ministry of Foreign Relations building. Some forty women had gathered, most of them teachers or public servants. The lecturer was Angela Acuña and she talked about the need to acquire the right to vote and to educate women. For the young immigrant this would be the first time she was united with other women, just to talk about women. Besides, the lecturer was a woman, not a man, as was always the case in the Jewish community.
During some meetings at the Israelite Center, the men talked about how wives were supposed to behave. "The Hebraic woman is the center of the home and there everything turns around her," asserted the lecturer, a dentist that boasted about his knowledge on moral and family matters. When Elena asked her mother why things had to be that way, Anita answered: "To make us feel dizzy and to prevent us from running away." Although her mother realized men talked about women, always for their own particular benefit, she did not dare take the next step. She feared more feminism would result in her two daughters remaining unmarried.
"I am afraid," said Elena to Gloria. "I feel just like when we Jews gather. We are always afraid someone is going to put a bomb in the place, or that they will throw stones at us," she added. "Do not worry," answered her friend. "They will not do it just yet, because currently they are concerned with you Jews. But once they leave you alone, they are going to take it against women."
The two of them timidly sat in the last row and did not utter a word until the lecture started.
Elena curiously studied the faces of other women attending the meeting. They came from different walks of life and were of all ages and sizes. What called her attention was the fact that most of them used little make-up and the usual overemphasis on femininity was not there. The group created a placid atmosphere of sisterhood.
The moment reminded her of some good times at Długosiodło, when the matrons gathered to cook. While they cut the chickens' necks, Jewish women laughed at male arrogance. "Do you know, Anita, said Dona Golcha, this bird's neck is larger than my husband's potz?"
"Well, in my case, answered Dona Miriam, it is not as small as that, but it is just as dead."
The other cooks split their sides laughing. Dona Charna, who at the moment was plucking a chick, told Rebecca she suffered a similar feeling when her husband ran away with the town's kurveh. "He did not leave me one single zloty to pay for my food," she explained.
For her part, the matchmaker was asking Dona Guita, a widower, if she would like to have a new husband. "I rather have a good salami," she answered. These meetings acquired the taste of feminine complicity and the sweet revenge of the underdogs; just what the mice feel when the cat is away. "This meeting is very much like our kitchen meetings in Poland,"
thought Elena.
A woman, a typical lawyer, simply dressed and wearing glasses, entered the conference room displaying an air of security. She winked at the "new ones" like Elena and Gloria and started lecturing. According to her, sexuality was under the influence of the excessive 171
power held by men, thanks to their greater economic resources. There was a rampant inequality in relationships, calling for a balance by means of women's empowerment.
The lawyer confessed she had learned her subordinated role since an early age, from the subtle messages and the little things taught by her parents. From the amount of food she got at the table (men always got more than the women), to the daily decision making process (men decided where to live, how to live, with whom to live). "Men always had priority,"
she added. In most cases, "they can count with the support of their own women to do so."
This last statement touched a soft spot in Elena's sentiments, when she realized her own mother played that game and put her outmost attention in satisfying the needs of the men in their home. When her father talked, even though he could be uttering the biggest nonsense in the universe, women were supposed to listen and to acquiesce. During those rare occasions when friends from the community were invited for dinner, men and women would meet separately, boys to talk the relevant events of the world, such as business and politics, whereas girls would only talk about children, the kitchen and fashion. Elena hated such patterns and did all she could to sit with the men, since "feminine" topics bored her.
Surprisingly enough, Anita would be the more upset by this. "They will say we are weird,"
she would tell Elena. In turn, the girl could not believe how submissive her mother had become in the tropics. "If you keep playing the victim, mother, please do not ask for my help when you need to beg your husband for some money," answered Elena.