The Meditations of Manuel de la Vega

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to Jason Wirth for his stalwart encouragement and support of this project, and the inspiration of his example and work. I am greatly indebted to Kenneth Williford, for the time he has taken to read this manuscript, for his thoughtful comments and insights, and also for the instruction and inspiration that his work continues to be for me. My thanks to Lawrence Bartlett, who’s been such a good sport about reading a book that’s not of his field, taking time from his busy schedule to act as “guinea pig” so I could test out the “general reader.” Likewise to Duncan Alderson for his reading and generous advice. My thanks to Meagan Simpson, acquisitions editor, for her faith and persistence in the face of various obstacles. And to my husband Domingo, whose patient, loving care for me and the children we could not do without. ← ix | x →

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MANUEL

My life has changed in certain ways since my death, but in other ways it goes on as before. As before, I lead a solitary existence, roaming about a house that is usually empty, its owners having long since departed to pursue busy lives far from Santiago. I have been left behind. That’s alright; I’ve grown used to it. There was a time when the world had beckoned me, too—glittering with promise. I had been more than ambitious, more than capable. As a teenager in New York, I was better read than anyone I knew by a long shot—I understood concepts in their depth and could expound upon them eloquently. I cared about culture, about refinement—even as a high school kid working evenings as a bus boy, I quickly rose to waiter and then head waiter, having learned French, how to dress and comport myself with rich people, and the delicate art of serving, putting much older career servers to shame. All the important diners asked for me by name—me, a seventeen-year-old immigrant kid from the hills of the Dominican Republic! I was meant for better things. My family did not understand that. They thought I was just stuck up, that I didn’t want to pitch in with them. But this world is not a friendly place for a sensitive, reflective soul; it is for the crass, simple-minded, and domineering. I thought the subtle sophistication of my speech and manners would get me recognition, make me useful in a special way. I thought I was smart enough to get to the ← 1 | 2 → truth at the bottom of things, and that this would be a good thing. I did not last very long.