Here I am, a flower girl at Finita’s wedding.
I am smiling at the camera, but I much preferred to climb trees and outrun the boys than to dress up like a pretty little girl.
I am reminded of a passage from my book House without Doors, that was published, so far, only in Hebrew translation as בית ללא דלתות - it is a fictionalized memoir, told in the voice of a twelve year old called Mira:
(it explains, perhaps, why I have always been reluctant to speak Spanish)
(...)
I hate birthday parties because I have to kiss the ladies and chat politely with them, when I can’t even tell one old lady from the other and that makes it even more embarrassing to go and kiss them. Most of all I hate to kiss the ladies who only speak Spanish, even though they all know Papiamentu well enough. These are ladies from the island’s Jewish families, who have lived most of their lives in Venezuela or Panama or some other country in Latin America. Some of these ladies had become Catholic while they were living in those Catholic countries, like my friend Mariana’s parents. Mami says that was because they would not be accepted in the Good Society, if they had remained Jewish. Although Mami had gone to a Catholic school when they lived in Cuba, I am glad that my grandparents had never converted and so I do not have to go to Mass every Sunday, like my friend Mariana.
The devout Catholic ladies definitely are the most proper of all the ladies at the parties. They are the most concerned about how little girls should behave. All the other girls come up to kiss them, graciously carrying on long conversations in Spanish. These girls know how to smile and be charming and say the right things to please the ladies. They have 'grasia' - that is what girls are supposed to have.
Photo of me as a flower girl at Finita’s wedding, 1952? - probably taken by Fred Fischer
I never know what to say to these ladies and I do not speak Spanish, even though I hear it all the time when Mami talks with her mother and father. For some reason, I just do not like that language, perhaps it is because of those ladies with their strict rules and gracious manners. "Mira is shy," the ladies say about me. They have a comment for everyone. I guess I do not have what it takes to be a girl.
Once, when I was little, I had to be part of a fashion show, with all those same little girls who have 'grasia'. I was only three years old - it was before my brother was born. We had to go to the Chobolobo Club, and walk in front of a lot of people, wearing a pretty dress and all those people would be looking at me. But at the first rehearsal, I was so embarrassed, I ran away crying. Mami found me sitting on a merry-go-round that was in the yard, turning and turning and turning until I was dizzy. Like in a bad dream. (,,,)