Getting Used to Winter

In Maracaibo, the Moras used to complain about the heat. Andres, the father, used to say that he could fry an egg on the roof of his car. Gabriela, the mother, used to carry a small fan in her handbag, and their two children, Camila and Luis, used to spend every weekend in the swimming pool at their grandparents' house. When Andres was offered a job as an engineer in Winnipeg, in the middle of Canada, they all agreed that a little cold weather would make a pleasant change.

They arrived in November. On their first morning, the radio announced that it was minus twenty-four, and minus thirty-five with the wind. Luis, who was eleven, thought it was a joke. Then he opened the front door. The air hurt his face, the inside of his nose froze, and he closed the door again so quickly that the whole house shook. "We are never going to get used to this," he said. Nobody disagreed.

The first weeks were difficult. They were not used to wearing so many layers, and getting dressed to go outside took longer than the trips themselves. Gabriela could not get used to the darkness, which arrived at half past four in the afternoon. Andres kept forgetting to plug in the car's engine heater at night, so it refused to start on three mornings in a row. And everyone complained, constantly, about everything.

Their neighbor, Mrs. Kowalski, was a retired nurse of about seventy who walked her dog every morning whatever the temperature. One day she found Andres in the driveway, staring sadly at his frozen car. Instead of sympathizing, she laughed. "You're doing it wrong," she told him. "You can't fight winter here. You have to join it." The following Saturday, she arrived at their door with four pairs of old ice skates that had belonged to her children.

The nearest outdoor rink was in a park at the end of their street. The first afternoon was a disaster. Gabriela spent more time sitting on the ice than standing on it, and Andres crashed into a boy of about six, who helped him up very politely. But Camila, who was fourteen and had spent years doing ballet, was skating in circles within an hour. By the end of December, Luis had joined a children's hockey team, and he was getting used to falling over without crying.

Slowly, without anyone noticing exactly when, the complaining stopped. They got used to checking the temperature before getting dressed. They learned that minus ten was a pleasant day for a walk, and that the snow made a different sound under your boots when it was really cold. Gabriela discovered that the long, dark evenings were perfect for cooking arepas and inviting the neighbors round. Mrs. Kowalski became a regular visitor, and she was soon used to eating three arepas at a time.

In February, the family drove to a festival by the river, where people walked and skated along a trail of ice that stretched for kilometers. There were huge snow sculptures, music, hot drinks and a kind of sweet made by pouring warm maple syrup onto the snow and rolling it around a stick. Andres stood by the frozen river, eating his third one, and realized that he was happy.

When spring finally came in April, the snow melted into gray puddles and the whole city seemed to breathe out. Camila admitted that she would miss the rink. Luis asked whether his hockey team could practice all year. Gabriela, who used to dream of warm beaches, found herself looking at the weather forecast for the following November with something close to excitement.

That summer, the Moras flew back to Venezuela to visit their family. On the second day, sitting in the heat of his parents' garden, Andres wiped his forehead and said, without thinking, "I'm not used to this anymore." Everyone laughed, and his mother asked what had happened to her son. Andres smiled. He thought of Mrs. Kowalski, the frozen river and his children's red faces on the ice. They had come to Canada for a better job and a safer future. Somewhere along the way, they had also found a home.