Del Marie

I had known that the poorer barrios of Panama City were bilingual and even trilingual but I had no idea to what extent until I got really involved with my grandmother’s schemes to keep some money in her possession even after she retired from working in Ancon Laundry. My treks for Mamí would take me further and further out into, what was then, the outlying areas like the new barrios of Rio Abajo, Pueblo Nuevo and the emerging barrio of Juan Diaz which had previously been almost virgin forest- a bush as we called these areas in those days. 

Then, there were the Yards. In the Santa Ana and Chorrillo barrios famous Yards or Patios, as they referred to some inner city neighborhoods, emerged such as Rochet Yard (Patio Rochet) and Pinel Yard (today called Patio Pinel).

I would appear as a first time visitor to some apartment or room to deliver and/or collect packages from ladies that only spoke to me in the Spanish language. Those visits to totally native Panamanian ladies and even the black French lady who sold delicious fried “Patty” would leave me wondering how it had been that my grandmother managed to enlist them in her Susú scheme since her vocabulary in Spanish may have totalled four words.

Del Marie was introduced to me intimately in the same manner that most all my Mamí’s “pardners” were. “You go up there on San Miguel Hill to number 245 on the second floor,” she would order me. “I am sure that you will find it. Take this package for me to this lady by the name of Del Marie. She would know what it is all about.” All I would ever say to my grandmother in such cases was, “Yes Mamí, right away!” And, off I would go.

On this trip when I found the lady I recognized her immediately since she turned out to be the industrious colored woman who sold fried “Patty” in a kiosk someone built for her at the corner of our “P” Street and Central Avenue.

Lady Del Marie spoke to me in a thick French accent and before I left she rewarded me with a bag full of her delicious patties. Now if you have never savoured real Westindian type “Patty” or empanadas, as they are called in Spanish, then you haven’t lived. And Del Marie’s were exceptionally delicious, flaky crust, slightly spicy meat or chicken filling laced with a sauce that was indescribable. And they were large enough to pass for a meal for any hungry school kid.

Miss Del Marie then said to me, “Chuni you take all those books there with you!” Now, books were things I treasured and I could not wait to get back with a cardboard box to cart them away. Previewing them a little on my way out, however, I discovered that they were all in the French language which, on second thought, gave me an incentive to perhaps learn a new language.

On my way back home I was recruited into a hot baseball game in the lot we usually called “red dirt lot” that lasted longer than I anticipated. It was more than an hour before I got back with the box to cart away the precious books I was hoping to be able to read while, at the same time, I planned to enlist this new Susú “pardner” as my private French teacher.

When I got back over to Del Marie’s one-room, however, I found the apartment emptied of furnishings and looking like it had been readied for someone to lock it up and get it ready for a new renter. I also met up with one annoyed French woman. “Where you been?” asked Del Marie, irritated as heck. She then ordered me to take the books and get going since she was leaving herself.

It was then that I realized that our new “pardner” would be leaving that same day for her homeland somewhere on the Island of Martinique never to return to Panama again. My only guess was that Del Marie’s turn on the Susú had come up and the money I had delivered to her, a small windfall, was her ticket out of Panama and back home. So, there I remained immersed in thought for a long time regretting the departure of the one Silver person I really admired- someone who was fluent in the French language.

The books given to me by Del Marie eventually came to take up space on the only book stand in my grandmother’s living room, but they provided me with precious moments as I would leaf through them trying to understand what they were all about.

This story continues.