"Dear child,‖ said the seasoned uncle, ―remember that he is their friend and even buys clothes from them." She jumped at this: "Then that is the reason for this thing! That man is a complete and utter disgrace to our country. If I could, I would overthrow him. I will insist that my father leave this disgusting administration... Do you have any idea what these Jews are charging Jimenez? Or maybe he doesn't have to pay them?"
Don Alberto fulfilled his niece's desires. He became the main promoter of the anti Jewish campaign. Thanks to his dedication, numerous critiques and communiqués on immigration policies and the need to regulate against unfair commercial competition were published.
The Government, however, dismissed their claims and complaints; the Executive was a good friend of the Jews.
Uncle Alberto was finally able to meet Jimenez personally. He had agreed to talk without witnesses, according to the wishes of the commander in chief. They met in March of 1936, a few months before the end of his third and last administration. Smiling, the President accepted that he had indeed purchased clothes from Jewish merchants, and was very careful to let Don Alberto know what he had paid for every item bought, even showing him the receipts.
"I have had things made at the Feingenblatt tailors, the last but one receipt is this. My chauffeur picked up the merchandise on February 12 and I paid 150 colones. Then this is the most recent receipt, Don Alberto, for two pairs of khaki pants. I paid with a check dated March 4."
"Stop, stop," said Don Alberto, "I believe you. I believe you. You are embarrassing me, Don Ricardo, please."
But the Costa Rican leader was now on a roll and immediately launched his reply: "I am sorry, Don Alberto, but if we believe in free trade, both nationally and internationally, as you and I do, then you must realize how beneficial this kind of trade is. The merchandise is very inexpensive and they use selling techniques that European merchants consider improper. But this business is not actually improper because it is a legal and common procedure in banking. That is, the customer takes delivery of the goods and the seller receives payment by installments. It is just like what they do in the coffee haciendas and 117
the banana plantations. Don't your peons at the banana plantations receive credit in their own ´ comisariato´67?" asked Don Ricardo.
"Well, yes... they do," conceded Don Alberto.
"Then the Banana Company is doing exactly what these Jewish peddlers are doing,‖
continued Jimenez, ―do you not see it?"
"Yes, yes," said Don Alberto humbly.
"They do something that is good for their customers, they sell cheap and they get paid long term," concluded the President.
Don Alberto did not dare present any other arguments as if they were his own. "And what about those, Don Ricardo, that regard this issue as a matter of race and nationality? You know, for example, the current legislation of Argentina and the United States concerning the immigration of Jews."
"Yes, I know that, Don Alberto. But I am a full-blooded Liberal and Costa Rica is neither Argentina nor the United States. Freedom must always be our preferred choice. And besides, we are different here, you see? We still have plenty of land and Costa Rica is in great need of skilled, cultivated and laborers. I am able to seethe good side of the Jews, Don Alberto. After all, they are the people of Christ himself, and of a number of other men I admire profoundly such as Espinoza the philosopher; Heinrich Heine, the highest peak of the German lyric poetry; Disraeli, Queen Victoria's Prime Minister; Ballin, who invented the hamburger; Nordau the postwar German minister. Or Einstein, the mathematician."
"That miserable scoundrel, the stingy lawyer from Cartago has been bought by the low prices offered by the Poles," Don Alberto fumed as he hugged Don Ricardo in farewell.
Once outside the presidential house, he exploded in rage, trying too late now to react to the President's mastery of the situation. "Thank god we were alone...!" he thought. The most humiliating part of it all was being forced to thank the Chief for his discretion. "I swear to fight him and his despicable Jews!" he vowed. Unfortunately, and perhaps partly due to the irritation this even provoked in him, Don Alberto suffered a heart attack and died a few days later unable to fulfill his desires. His niece and political heir, Yadira, promised to carry his banner to the end. "Dear uncle", she sobbed as the first shovel of earth fell over his casket, "these miserable Poles are responsible for your death and they will pay for it."
That afternoon in the midst of her sorrow, Yadira held a meeting with other merchants.
"We will pressure the Government to fulfill my uncle's wish,‖ she said shedding an abundance of crocodile tears. He wanted a Christian Costa Rica where our merchandise can be respected and not offered for sale by installments but in cash, as our Lord Jesus Christ paid when He died for our sins on the cross."
67 Employee’s store within the haciendas
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Don Paco, a humorous Spaniard, reprimanded her: "But Yadira, our Lord Jesus spent three days hanging on the cross, surely Don Ricardo and his friends will argue that this in no way paying in cash."
"All right then,‖ she replied furiously, ―let us not discuss the banal...let us concentrate on what brings us here today."
The merchants all agreed to hire Pepino and Lelino Tacio, two lawyers to prepare their arguments and to organize the pressure needed to gain the approval of a Congressional Commission directed at prohibiting the Polish trade, but all this they did to no avail. The different commissions that were eventually created by Congress to study "the problem," as well as the officials from the Secretary of the Interior, all basically recommended charging patents to peddlers, and a special tax to compensate those paying rent or loans.
Yadira knew perfectly well that agreeing to the creation of taxes meant the official sanctioning of peddling. Thus this woman, together with tens of other importers, began following rather crooked paths. They took their complaints to the newspapers and then, directly, to the county municipalities. Their first attack was publicly accusing the Polish, Czech and Russian peddlers of being Communist propagandists. "Together with their cheap goods they are bringing into our country the ideology of social division."
Yadira herself conducted the attack. Disguised as a public clerk and accompanied by a male friend posing as her boyfriend (he actually was a journalist from the Anti-Semitic El Diario
de Costa Rica), she asked David to show her the dresses and the materials he sold. While he was taking these dresses from his bag, Yadira called the attention of the journalist to the colors of the fabrics.
"Look,‖ she whispered in his ear, ―look how much red caftan he has! They are probably going to make Communist flags with it."
"But milady,‖ said the journalist intrigued, "does the Communist flag have those large yellow ayote flowers?"
"Exactly," replied Yadira. "The ayote is the symbol of the party in Costa Rica."
However, the accusation of Communism still did not bring the population to their side, and so the merchants started a new campaign based around the supposed illegality of recent Jewish immigration. The Anti-Semitic press argued that Jews had come to Costa Rica under false promises, since they had committed themselves to till the land and not to be traders or industrialists. "We have been deceived," was the title of an editorial. Yadira would repeat this same phrase at the Soda Palace, a meeting center for traditional importers.
"The Poles always said they would work the land and instead they came to San José and are selling fabrics," she pointed out.
"Well, that is not a good argument, my dear lady," answered Alonso Queerillini, an Italian that owned the Almacén Centauro. "At first we Italians also came to engage in agriculture but we have also ended up as merchants."
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"But at least you did all you possibly could to advance the country's agriculture, whereas these Jews do not even try."
"Your accusation, replied the Italian, is not difficult to rebuke, Yadira. We must drop it."
Alonso reminded them that the Jews were admitted using an "open door" immigration policy. They were only required to show one thousand colones as a warrant that they would never become a burden on the state. Certainly, many of them wrote 'farmer' under
'occupation' on their residence permits, but this was probably just to please the immigration officials. Now we merchants are using this bias argument against their current occupation status, when it is easy for the Government to claim that one thousand colones was the sole official requirement requested from these Jews. Moreover, the President himself thought this requirement unnecessary. In most cases, relatives already living here and already full Costa Rican citizens backed these immigrants. These people paid the deposits required and signed declarations of trustworthiness."
"Debating the reasons for the immigration of these people is irrelevant and will lead us nowhere," continued Alonso. "We must force them to pay patents. This is the kernel of the issue."
The strategy proposed by Alonso soon became successful. A number of municipalities established tariffs on the peddlers. The municipal councils of La Unión (Tres Ríos), Cartago and Paraíso, charged 75, 50 and 40 colones per trimester, respectively. In Heredia the tariff was set at 50 colones and when a 400 colones tariff was proposed for the largest market, that of San José, the Secretary of the Interior intervened to forbid it.
The traditional importers also faced opposition in San José, where other merchant groups supported the Jews. Yadira proclaimed President Jimenez the sole advocate of the Jews in Costa Rica. For his part, Alonso thought this was a mistake. In his opinion, some old and new merchants were also profiting from this "Polish revolution."
Yadira would realize her mistake when she visited the Pay Less Warehouse and tried to get a contribution from Don Otto Odio, the owner, for the press campaign against "the Polish plague affecting our national commerce."
"We want to protect all the established businesses in San José from the scourge of this unfair competition; especially people like yourself who duly pay rent and patent charges,"
she rapped.
"Dona Yadira, you are putting me in a difficult position. Some of these Jews and peddlers are my customers. You know sales have dropped this year and they are selling my clothes in the countryside," answered Don Otto.
"But do you not realize that lending them merchandise will ruin us all, the Christian merchants? I have already lost many customers to them. How can I compete if they do not pay either rent or their employees?"
"Sincerely, I must say no, Dona Yadira. It is good for my business if they go about the countryside selling the merchandise I cannot sell here in San José. Perhaps you could do 120
like me. I am almost sure you have goods that do not sell. Why don't you give them to one of these Poles?"
"I cannot believe you are making such a proposition! How can you be a member of the Chamber of Commerce and betraying us at the same time like a new Judas?"
"And whom do you mean by "we" may I ask?"
"The Costa Rican Christians, of course. But it seems that religion is of no concern to you these days."
"I did not know we were talking about religion, Mrs. Dönning. I thought you were talking about business and profits."
"The war is going to be tough," Alonso said, when Yadira told him about this conversation.
"The pro Government press says that not all merchants are on our side. Some members of traditionally Anti-Semitic families engage in commercial affairs with Jews, and even boast that they have 'friendly' relations while we continue to demand nationalization," he added, angrily. "Among them are the big importers of the country, like Barzuna, Feoli, Yamuni, Saprissa, Carboni, Fiat, Maury, Terán and others."
"They are a pack of traitors," said Yadira, and notwithstanding a series of temporary setbacks, she and her allied merchants continued their attacks on the Government and their views slowly influenced Costa Rican body politic.
Given the continued stream of accusations leveled by Yadira about the illegal immigration of Poles, Ricardo Jimenez requested several investigations and established migratory controls.
The Jewish lobby answered this adverse campaign by paying for editorial spaces in the newspapers. They claimed, "We have been respectfully following the laws of this country and working honestly to provide important services for the poor." However, this was not enough to stop the attacks. The pressure from Yadiraś merchants continued unabated. A presidential decree required new revision to identification and migratory documents "for all Poles residing in Costa Rica." This revision was never completed, apparently, since the Government claimed that the immigration in question had been rather small, and was simply a matter of "a number of residents leaving temporarily and then returning to the country."
"Still,‖ said Yadira to her chums, ―we are now making progress."
She would blush angrily every time the official newspaper claimed "the opposition to the Jews comes from a small group of merchants resentful over the new competition they are being faced with." The common folk, argued the press, align themselves with Don Ricardo,
"but are largely in support of these peddlers with whom they identity; they are thankful for the services they provide." Once she had confronted her friend Gloria, Yadira realized that this was not a lie:
"Dear Dona Yadira," said Gloria entering the store, "I need to ask you a favor."
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"Sure, whatever it might be. What can I do for you?" Yadira asked, trying to look and sound like a saint.
"I wish you would stop this campaign against the Poles. I think you do not know how difficult their situation is and how much in need they are. I know several of them, and I may assure you that they are not Communists, as the newspapers claim."
"Surely they sent you here to intercede in their name. Are they selling you dresses at lower prices?"
"Do not be so ungrateful, Yadira. I thought you and I were friends and I never expected you would say such a nasty thing. If I have come to beg you on their behalf, it is simply because I know they are honest, harmless people."
"But they are hurting Costa Rica and we Costa Ricans must defend ourselves instead of handing all our commerce over to them."
"Who in the world has told you that our trade is in the hands of Costa Ricans? Your husband is not originally from Costa Rica and most merchants are Spaniards, Italians, Germans or Lebanese."
"Well, you are not exactly the national flag yourself, either. Are you not about to marry an American?"
"Yes, I certainly am, no thanks to you. You have never offered me credit from your store although I am supposed to be your friend and one of your good customers. You have always charged me four times the real price of the garments I buy."
With those words, Gloria left the store feeling dazzled. Her thoughts were confused, both about her former friend Yadira, and also about the things happening in the country.
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XIV
Carlos and Max had met at the agricultural community of Miraflores. They were kindred spirits who ended up in a distant country both running away from their homes. They both had terrible relationships with their fathers. Max's father educated him using an extremely strict and hard discipline, beyond even that which was commonly used in their country. He had endured a sentimental disappointment but was able to tear the boy away from his mother. "I want you to become a real man," he would say to the young Max, every time he forced the boy to undergo extreme military training.
Carlos was the son of yet another ferocious man. He endured a similar fate. One hot night in the valley of the Reventazón River, both men sat down to smoke a marihuana joint. The drug made the tropical loneliness bearable; each started pouring out his heart to the other about childhood and the reasons that had brought him to this strange land. Both men had been working in a failing agricultural colony; one helping to build a road, while the other struggled to harvest the land. But this business was going nowhere, and both men made a radical decision the next day. This was not the first time they chatted or smoked a joint together, but now the failure of the agricultural enterprise created a sort of community between these two men anxious to live better lives.
Carlos was the first to tell his story. Born in Baden, Germany, he was the seventh and last child of Peter, a Lutheran minister, and Mary, a simple housewife. His education was, in his own words, "cold and strict." His father lacked emotion and was extremely rigid. He showed no affection to his son, but tried to control all his movements instead. They prayed several times every day. All the children had to attend three daily meals, duly cleaned and properly dressed. No one was allowed to take any food before thanking God. The family met again in the evenings, before going to bed, to pray once more. If any of the children missed these prayers, their father would beat them. An even stricter control was exercised over his sisters. They were neither allowed to use foul language, nor to wear dresses opened below the neck. "My mother was quiet and also very religious." She worked all day long doing house chores, while her husband worked at the church. "I must confess that I hated that irrational religion where everything is based on rules and nothing gets analyzed," said Carlos.
His family started to have links with Costa Rica when his grandfather, Alfred Dönning, arrived in 1853 to establish an agricultural colony there. It would be called "The Angostura."
The colony produced coffee, cocoa and wood. Aboard the "Antoinette" (a brigantine capable of carrying about 100 passengers), Alfred Dönning left Bremen on October 24, 1853 and arrived in Greytown, Nicaragua, on December 14 of that same year. From there, he continued traveling by land and arrived in San José three weeks later. He worked the land very hard, but the lack of infrastructure and the terrible sanitary conditions forced his return to Germany within two years. Like many other Germans, he became infected with 123
yellow fever and suffered from " calenturas‖ 68 in this region, known as "the birthplace of tropical death." Luckily he did not die but made it safely to his homeland, where he married and begot eight children, Carlos's father among them.
Carlos's life was similar to that of many other sons of Lutheran ministers, but for a particular problem - the violence. Since a small boy, he would watch his mother and his elder brothers being victimized by the irate attacks and the strict discipline exercised by an authoritarian father. It was normal to reprimand children in Germany, but the level of violence in this house was uncommon. One day his father beat his mother unconscious simply because she visited the town without his permission. "The minister's wife cannot go around in the streets visiting strangers!" he shouted latching at her with the " chilillo." 69
Carlos was not exempted from these punishments. When he failed a math test, his father slapped him hard in the face, repeatedly, and then sent him to his room without food for 48
hours.
The family worked around this shared terror in different ways, some members pretended indifference, while others carefully noted every small change in their father's mood. Carlos followed this second path. He studied his father meticulously, in particular the "bad weather signals." When the minister was distracted, Carlos would use the mirrors to keep an eye on him. Warnings of an impending storms were a tense face, difficulty in breathing, lips too tightly shut. In any one or all of these scenarios, young Carlos would immediately launch
"first aid" and "preventive" actions.
"Father, would you like a cup of tea?" "Oh, your church really looks nice this week!" "Do you need me to run an errand, father?" Sometimes these interventions prevented a disaster.
At other times the forecast failed, and they all got wet.
The sensitivity required to study his father increased Carlos's obligations to the well being of his mother and siblings. He became a father substitute and the main support for the victims of this domestic warfare. Carlos had in his heart a profound sadness. Sometimes he considered himself the world's loneliest young man, burdened by an overwhelming sense of responsibility. He wanted to find someone with whom he could talk, reasonably, and not simply do things under orders or following conventions. During his youth he never found such a person. He dreamt of a less rigid and more rational religion, one that would explain and convince him instead of being an imposition. Such a religion was not practiced in his home.
His father, the minister, suffered from two manias. One consisted in the strict control of the body and the second was a profound hatred for Jews. About the first, he believed emotions were harmful and evil. He could not accept crying or laughing. He was even intolerant of eating and drinking in his presence. He placed mirrors on the walls of the corridors to make sure no one in his house would ever violate his rules. In this way he could exercise complete control, from facial expressions to preventing any excessive use of the toilet facilities.
68 Fever
69 Stick whip
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Carlos shared his father's second obsession. They both found Jewish conspiracies everywhere. After the German defeat in World War I, the minister blamed the Jews for betraying the homeland and for provoking defeat. He was a believer in the Dolchstoss von hinten, that is, the legend of the backstabbing. "The damned Juden, allied with the Marxists, betrayed us in order to establish a German Jewish republic which would then be the foundation of their quest for world domination."
One night, when Carlos was 12 years old, his father, Peter, returned home late. It was a cold and windy, the house squeaked as the cypress trees scratched the walls and the roof. The boy was in bed, it was already ten at night, and they were constantly under the patriarch's threat: "Everybody must be in bed at nine o'clock sharp, not one minute earlier, not one minute after."
The boy had been awake. The noise of the wind on the trees frightened him. He imagined gnomes, fairies and ghosts running from the cold forest and creeping under his bed. He felt relieved when his father came home, went into his room, and closed the door. Or rather, he tried to close the door because soon the wind slowly opened it. Minutes later, through one of the mirrors, young Carlos could see his father undressing, showing his behind. Mother was already lying in bed, shadows from the night lamplight caressing her face. The minister, Peter, removed all his clothes. Carlos had never seen him naked, much less
"naked with her." He turned, and the boy could see his erect penis, a gigantic tool compared to his still tender member.
He saw when his father took off the blanket from the bed and waited until his mother removed her own clothes. If contemplating his father naked had been a major impression, the impact was even greater when he saw his mother in the nude. Peter started kissing her breasts, large and round like exotic fruits, and she moaning. It was a disconcerting noise.
The young boy spy felt a new emotion, a combination of delight, disgust, anger, fear and excitement. He had never before seen his parents kissing and this was somehow an extreme shock. In fact, he had come to believe that his parents lived two lives, one in the mirror, and the other away from it. As we know, objects and people contemplated through reflections always seem so much more fascinating than in real life.
"I developed a passion for mirrors and medicine. I wanted to be a psychiatrist, but my father would never let me study this 'Jewish science.' Being a surgeon represented a way to study the body with the purpose of healing. I love to look at the flesh as it is, be it that of a man or a woman. I particularly like the female body, since I adore beautiful rounded breasts. While removing a tumor I feel cleansed, and at the same time I know I'm doing something useful and good."
Max thought that Carlos´ large hands must have touched many bodies. In reality, his patients, as well as those that later surrendered to his charms, were first enticed by his beauty. At 25, Carlos was an impressive man: eyes the color of avocado skin, his hair the golden shade of a ripe plantain, a fleshy symmetrical mouth like the sweetest of watermelons, and his smile as refreshing as orange juice on a glorious morning.
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"I want to eat this man," Max thought, but to get rid of such lusty thoughts, he asked, "And what about the mirrors?"
"Although we Lutherans do not practice a confessional religion, I must say I love them.
Mirrors are the doors to the soul. When I see my reflection in a mirror, the reflection seems to be the reality. It is more real. At least, the father and mother I watched making love in the mirror over many nights were more human than the parents I saw face to face each day.
When I meet people, I always first consider how he or she might look in my mirrors. If possible, I actually try to see them reflected in a mirror. Some look better than others. If someone appears uglier, or more dangerous than in real life, I run for my life."
At first, Carlos shared another of his father's fervors. "I had never seen a Jew at close quarters because in my community they were extremely rare. Early in the century, they had left for Prussia or Saxony and mostly dwelled in the cities, not in small towns like mine. In 1919, when my father told us that Kurt Eisner, a pacifist Jew and Bavarian prime minister and promoter of the Zionist cause had been killed, I experienced a profound satisfaction. It was one of the few occasions that I can remember when my father and I happily embraced, overwhelmed with joy.
"One less Jew!" we laughed in unison. The few times we shared something it was a common hate for the Jews. I believe my anti-Semitism has to do with wanting to have strong emotions. I was not interested in the Jews, what I wanted was to have a good relationship with my father... and if hate was the way to his heart, then I welcomed it."
"That same year a friend of my father's, Anton Drexler, created the German Workers' Party.
He invited my father to be part of the initial group. Peter received the identification card number 9 among the founders. The owner of card number 7 in the small group was a former corporal of the German army and an unemployed painter named Adolph Hitler."
"Congratulations for starting a movement directed at creating order in this country, Anto