Slowly I am getting my house back to the way it was before the terrible flood almost two months ago. I am putting my framed pictures up. In a cardboard box I found today lots of stuff that was taken from our guest bathroom.Most of it is silver from the family that has been handed down from the end of the 19th century.
I know what every piece is but I am not sure that either of my two daughters or granddaughters will be interested in inheriting them.
There is a difference why these are a treasure for me. The folks who owned them were people I knew well, my abuelita Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena, my mother Filomena Cristeta de Irureta Goyena Hayward, my father George Waterhouse Hayward,and of course, yours truly Jorge Alejandro Waterhouse-Hayward.
Why am I writing about the silver? I had this urge to polish all of it as I used to do this with my mother and then with Rosemary. As you polish the silver you get those memories. Many of the silver articles were those that my mother used to use when preparing herself to go to work or to a party. I would watch her. She always complained about brushing her long hair and how unmanageable it was. She would tell me that when her grandmother brushed it would hurt and she would cry. Her grandmother Buenaventura Gálvez Puig would say, “To be a lady a woman must suffer pain.”
In the photograph there is a fork and a silver glass. These
were my grandmother’s from the private school she went to as a little girl. The little oval shaped piece was her sewing kit.
My father’s mate is on the top right and the facón (the
gaucho knife) given to me by my sailor companions when I left Buenos Aires are
both made of a lesser quality Argentine silver called Alpaca.I long for the visit of my granddaughter Rebecca who likes to sip mate with me. She is the only one.
Next to the knife is my Sterling Silver Mappin & Webb
birth spoon that was given to me by my Aunt Inez Barber. She wanted to be my
godmother but was denied as the arch-conservative Roman Catholics of the moment
said that was impossible as she was divorced. Her new husband, Alejandro Ariosa
was clean of marital husband and was my godfather and that is why my middle
name is Alejandro. The little spoon with the curved handle was my baby spoon.
There is a lovely round powder case given to my mother when she left the Aluminio School in Veracruz.
My most favourite silver piece is the round receptacle in the middle that was in my family since I can remember. When you open it there is a glass inside (that it never broke is a miracle) in which my mother put butter or jam for our afternoon tea.
All the above gives me the excuse to place here again that wonderful enumeration (an explanation of what that is can be found in the link below) by Alejo Carpentier from his short novel (novella) Concierto Barroco (same title in English)
Of silver the slender knives, the delicate forks; of silver the salvers with silver trees chased in the silver of the hollows for collecting the gravy of roasts; of silver the triple-tiered fruit trays of three round dishes crowned by silver pomegranates; of silver the wine flagons hammered by craftsmen in silver; of silver the fish platters, a porgy of silver lying plumply on a seaweed lattice, of silver the saltcellars, of silver the nutcrackers, of silver the goblets, of silver the teaspoons engraved with initials…All these were being born gradually, without haste – carefully, so that silver should not bump against silver – toward the glum, waiting penumbras of wooden cases, of slatted crates, of chests with stout locks, overseen by the master in his dressing gown, who made the silver ring from time to time when he urinated with stately stream, copious and percussive, well aimed into a silver chamber pot, the bottom decorated with a roguish sliver eye soon blinded by the foam which, reflecting the silver so intensely , ultimately seemed silvered itself…
Concierto Barroco, Alejo Carpentier (translated by Asa Zatz).
