Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border
My blog entry about the weirdness of Pablo, our portero, must have telepathically spooked him — after I wrote it, I didn’t hear from him for awhile. He didn’t buzz me. I never even saw him at his post.
Then this week arrived. A few days ago: BZZZZZ!
“Can I come in to water the plants?”
…
“Portero” means doorman in Spanish. A lot of middle-class apartment buildings here have one, or they’re supposed to. (Sometimes apartment owners are too busy squabbling amongst themselves to hire anyone.)
We had a portero named Vicente when we first moved in. He had bleached blond hair and a surly expression. Sometimes he wouldn’t show up for work. Or he’d leave for the day and forget to turn off his radio, so we’d come home to find cumbia and merengue blaring in the empty vestibule. The weird thing was, even though he obviously didn’t care about the job, no one wanted to fire him. I’d tell my landlady, “Vicente didn’t show up today,” and she’d sigh and grouse about how they needed to get rid of him.
Finally, a few weeks ago Vicente got canned. And we got a new portero: Pablo.
Pablo shows up to work. He cleans the floors — a portero prerequisite — and he’s usually downstairs at his post. But he’s… odd. He rings my bell for weird reasons. Once he rang to tell me I had a visitor, but it ended up being for another apartment. He rang my buzzer a few minutes later to tell me sorry, he got mixed up.
A few days ago, I’d just gotten out of the shower and — BZZZ! — there he was, standing on the other side of the peephole. I grabbed my robe and answered the door.
“Can I come in?” he said.
I should mention here that Pablo is a short guy, probably just over five feet. He has huge brown eyes and a quizzical expression that always make him look like either a deer in headlights, or like he’s not quite sure what he’s looking at, like maybe you’re an alien with green gunk spewing out of your nose.
I asked him, “Why do you need to come in?” and he gave me the alien-gunk expression.
“I need to clean the glass,” he said.
“What glass?”
“The glass above the entrance to the building.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand, why do you need to come in?” Me still in my robe.
“To clean the glass.”
I finally figured out that he needed to access the glass through my apartment, but I said sorry, I’m in my robe and about to leave anyway. He looked confused and then disappeared.
The next morning, while I was having coffee: BZZZ!
“Did I leave una franela around here somewhere?” He was referring to the striped cleaning cloths that overrun Mexico City.
“Umm…. no….” He gave me the deer-in-headlights look so I rambled on. “Maybe on the terraza? Dejame checar.”
Sure enough, the little cloth lay on our porch. No idea how it got there. I returned it to him and he smiled, and then disappeared again.
If I was a more cynical woman, I might be a little worried. Why in the hell is this guy ringing my buzzer so much? How did a random flannel cloth end up on my porch? What’s wrong with him? Actually, I think he’s just a little slow. He is trying really hard and I’m sure being a portero doesn’t pay very well. Our first portero in Polanco slept in a tiny stucco box on the other side of the front gate, barely containing a twin bed and a TV.
Just to be sure, though, I’m gonna keep an eye on this Pablo guy.