Flight to Freedom

by Ana Veciana-Suarez

  Friday, 12th of January

  Abuelo Tony is back in the hospital. I think he is very sick, but no one tells us children about why he is there. Please, dear God, take care of my abuelito. I love him so much.

  Saturday, 13th of January

  I thought of my friend Ofelia in Cuba a lot today. When I was home, I used to walk down the block to her house almost every day, and together we would listen to the radio and pretend we were singing into a microphone. We would dance with each other, too, trying to learn new steps, and if one of us stepped on the other’s toes, we would collapse in a chair, laughing. Can we remain friends even if our families do not agree on politics? Will I ever see her again?

  Papi insists we won’t be here long. On New Year’s Day, when we went to Tío Pablo’s after mass, he said, “Año Nuevo en La Habana.” Well, it is thirteen days into the New Year, and we are not in Havana at all. When we do return, I would like to come visit Miami. I am beginning to like it here. I know the teachers and they know me. I have friends. I have even grown used to the language.

  Besides, we got a black-and-white television set from Efraín’s boss because Mr. F.’s family bought a new one. Now we don’t have to go to my uncle’s house to watch our shows.

  Tuesday, 16th of January

  The call finally went through to Cuba. It was late last night, but Mami woke everyone up so that we could talk to my grandparents. They sounded as if they were talking through water. I didn’t get to say much except “I love you.” Pepito was not there. No one knows where he is stationed now, and this worries Mami even more.

  Papi says Abuelo Tony is getting better, but if he truly is, why can’t I visit him at the hospital?

  Thursday, 18th of January

  Ileana gets home about an hour late each afternoon. I am sure she is not taking the school bus and is instead riding with Tommy. No one has noticed because our schedules are all mixed up with Abuelo in the hospital. Ileana’s absence means that I have to prepare Ana Mari her snack and help her with homework. We usually eat rice pudding Mami has made or cream cheese with guava shells. I also clean whatever room Mami has told me we should clean. The living room was scheduled for today, so I dusted the coffee table and I shook those heavy cushions from the old sofa over and over again until I felt my arms about to fall off. (One of Papi’s coworkers at the hospital gave us the sofa. It’s in pretty good shape, though it is an ugly green color, like split pea soup.) I also swept and mopped the terrazzo floor.

  It’s not fair that I’m doing all the work alone, but if I tell Mami, Ileana will get in trouble. Ileana said that if I loved her, I would be a good little sister and keep my mouth shut. When she said this, she pinched her lips together. I don’t know what to do, but if she makes me help her with the laundry folding on Saturday, I’m going to tell. She should have to do all the folding.

  Saturday, 20th of January

  Abuelo returned home again from the hospital, and we went to visit him at Tío Pablo’s. He looks awful. Like a skeleton. His eyes are sunken into his cheeks. His skin is the color of chalk, and he has bruises all over his arms. He said the bruises happen when the nurses try to put in the intravenous medicines and supplements. I’m glad I wasn’t at the hospital to see all that butchering.

  Abuela María was busy all afternoon making lentil soup. She will fatten him up in no time because she is the best cook in the family. When we were in the kitchen and she was chopping up the potatoes and the chunks of ham, she was crying very softly. I hugged her hard. Now I’m a whole head taller than she is. I am growing, that’s true, but I also think she is shrinking down while Abuelo is shrinking sideways. Ana Mari said that our grandparents look like gnomes, these little people in the picture books she likes to read. When we got home, she showed me. She’s right, except Abuela and Abuelo don’t have the funny noses or the warts.

  Later

  I know I shouldn’t have gone, but Ileana talked me into it. Together we snuck out and met Tommy at the corner, then we drove several blocks to a party given by a brother and sister whose parents were out of town. It was very noisy, and many of Ileana’s friends were drinking beer. She introduced me to a boy who is in the tenth grade. He seemed very nice and was—thank goodness—taller than I was. We talked for a while, but when he found out I went to Citrus Grove Junior High, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. It took me a while after that to find Ileana. She was in the backyard talking. When she spotted me, she leaned over to Tommy and I could tell they started having an argument. On the drive home we didn’t talk to each other. Now I’m too wound up to go to sleep.

  Sunday, 21st of January

  Ana Mari has taught Ileana and me a new American song in English. It goes like this: “This land is your land, this land is my land / From California to the New York island, / From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, / This land was made for you and me.”

  We sang it together for Abuelo Tony, and we sounded very good, almost like the Supremes. It made him smile from ear to ear. It also made me remember all those times he and Abuela baby-sat us back in Cuba. With the radio music on, I would stand on his shoes and we would waltz around the living room, round and round until I got dizzy. Sometimes he would go so fast that I would have to hold hard to his belt buckle. He also taught Ileana how to cha-cha and mambo because he said every self-respecting Cuban should know how to dance. It’s in our blood, our music, he said. Tonight I will pray just for him. Usually I pray for Pepito because I figure he needs it most, but I think Pepito can wait a night or two. I pray to La Virgencita del Cobre because Mami says that Jesus cannot ever turn down a request from his mother. So, Mother in heaven, please take care of my grandfather.

  At mass this morning I almost fell asleep. Ileana kept elbowing me to stay awake. Mami is now worried that I am coming down with a flu. If she only knew! I won’t even tell Jane, and you can bet I won’t go out again. It is too risky.

  Monday, 22nd of January

  Mami always says that life is full of surprises and, dear friend, she is absolutely right. The person I least expected to see again came into homeroom this morning during the public announcements. At first I thought it was odd how much the new student looked like the girl I had left behind in the special country school. But as soon as she turned around to walk to the empty seat in front of me, I knew it was her. I immediately shouted her name: “Alina!”

  She was so happy to see me. You should have seen the relief on her face, and I know why. I still remember what it was like to not know anybody in school. It is so awful to be a stranger, to not recognize any hallway or classroom or teacher. It is even worse not to understand what others are saying to you. Of course, it is getting a little better now because there are more Cubans in school. A few teachers speak Spanish, too. Still, that sense of not belonging anywhere is terrible.

  The other day Tío Pablo said he hears Spanish in a lot more places now, especially where he and Papi work. He also said that every week four thousand people arrive from the island on the Freedom Flights, that airplane ride we took to come to Miami. Some move north, but many stay here. And even those who move somewhere else eventually return to Miami because they do not like the cold weather. Mami’s cousin lived in a place called Buffalo for five years and just moved back last month. She hated the snow. I think I would like the snow—at least for a day or two.

  Alina and I share the same homeroom and lunch period, but we do not have any classes together. I was still able to show her around. I could tell she was very nervous, but I told her that’s exactly how I felt for a long time. Not anymore, though. We talked a little about some of the other girls who were with us in the country school. Neither of us liked any of them too much. She also told me that Ofelia now attends a special school on the outskirts of the capital and that her parents are planning to send Ofelia and her older brother to Russia to study. Poor Ofelia!

  Alina says the best thing about leaving Cuba is knowing that nobody will call her Granito anymore! She made me promis
e I would never bring that up. Alina came here with her brother, who is in the sixth grade, and her mother. Her parents got divorced because her father became a big Communist and wanted her mother to do the same, but she refused. Alina’s grandparents live here, too. She loves her grandparents but misses her father. They plan to write each other every week. I didn’t dare tell her about Pepito and how we hardly ever hear from him. Why make her suffer more?

  Tuesday, 23rd of January

  Starting today we are supposed to go to Tío Pablo’s house after school so that Abuela María can watch us there. Mami will fetch us when she returns from work. It will be interesting to find out what excuse Ileana will use to explain her tardiness. I tried to tell her she’s going to get into trouble by allowing Tommy to bring her home and sneaking out to those parties, but she pinched my arm and told me to mind my own business.

  Thursday, 25th of January

  My English is improving day by day. I now have a part in a short play we will perform in class. I speak only a few lines, but I feel proud to have been chosen. At lunchtime Alina and Jane help me memorize my part. At home I practice my lines in front of the mirror. Everyone has noticed how my English is getting better, but sometimes I wonder if that means I will forget Spanish. If I know both languages equally, in what language will I think? How will I dream? How will I pray? Already I know the names for certain things in English but not in Spanish. I’ve learned them in school and have to ask Papi or Mami to translate the word into Spanish.

  Friday, 26th of January

  When Abuela María asked Ileana why she has been late all this week, Ileana said she is helping with props and painting scenery for a spring play at school. I am sure she is lying. I think Abuela is suspicious, too, because she narrowed her eyes at Ileana and reminded her that the devil knows more for being old than for being a devil. Ileana should be careful.

  Every afternoon just before the sun sets, Ana Mari and I take Abuelo Tony for a walk. He’s as slow as a snail but he needs to exercise, so we try to be patient. Along the way he tells us the names of the trees, flowers, and bushes we see, so now I know all about the ixoras, royal poincianas, gumbo-limbos, banyans, impatiens, jacarandas, and floss-silk trees. He said that when he was young, he wanted to work with plants, but his parents made him study medicine because his father was a country doctor. He liked medicine, but now that he is old, he wishes he had paid attention to his dreams. He asked if we were interested in a particular subject in school. Neither Ana Mari nor I have any favorites, though I think I am good in mathematics. Follow your heart, he told us, because that will make you happier.

  Monday, 29th of January

  I did not mess up any of my lines during the performance in English class. Not once. But I did feel my face getting red when I spoke in front of all my classmates. I wish Mami and Papi could have seen me.

  Tuesday, 30th of January

  Jane showed me a letter from her grandparents. They again invited me on their summer car trip when they tour the state of Florida. I told Papi about it again, but he waved me away. “We’ll be back in Havana by summer,” he said. I turned to Mami, but she refused to even consider it. I think I will have to work very hard to convince them. But I must! It would be so exciting to visit different cities and see the rest of this state.

  Thursday, 1st of February

  Something big is going on in the world because Abuelo and Abuela are glued to the radio. They listen to a show in Spanish called La Voz del Pueblo, “The Voice of the People.” Ileana explained to me that horrible things are happening in the war in Vietnam. Tommy and some older boys who are in the local university want to plan a march to protest the war. She wants to join Tommy and wave placards just like the college students we see on TV. Ileana is really asking for trouble now.

  Saturday, 3rd of February

  Trouble found us. More tomorrow.

  Sunday, 4th of February

  It was bound to happen. Mami caught us sneaking back into the house. She was waiting for us in the living room, smoking a cigarette. I have never ever seen her smoke. She must have been horribly nervous. As soon as we walked in, she flicked on the lights and stubbed the cigarette in an ashtray. I thought I was going to faint when I saw her face. She yanked me by the hair into her bedroom and went back to the living room to scream at Ileana. The racket woke up Ana Mari, who, as usual, began to cry. When Mami had finished hollering, she made us sit in the kitchen and tell her where we were and what we had done. Ileana went first, and she swore that she was the one responsible for taking me. She insisted I not be punished. That was nice of her. Truth is, I went because I wanted to, even though I had been reminding myself these past days that going to those parties would only bring us grief. Part of me knew the danger, but another part of me liked the attention from the boys—as long as I didn’t tell them I was in eighth grade! Mami told Ileana she should be ashamed of herself for leading me down the wrong path, and she made us promise we would not try anything like this again. She said she won’t tell Papi. “If he finds out, it would be like a knife through his heart,” she explained. Thank goodness he was away for the weekend on one of his training missions. Dealing with him would have been twice as difficult.

  She still punished us. I cannot talk on the phone for a week. Neither can Ileana, and she must also stop seeing Tommy on the sly. I hope this will not ruin my chances to take the car trip with Jane and her grandparents. Now I don’t dare bring it up until Mami calms down.

  “You come from a good family,” she told my sister. “You are not a tramp or a nobody. You cannot meet men anywhere they want to and at any time. If a young man wants to court you, he must do so the correct way.”

  She then lectured us about a girl’s virtue being the most important quality she can give her husband. Los americanos, she said, give virtue away as if it were no big deal.

  Monday, 5th of February

  We received two letters from Pepito today. One was dated in August, a few days after we had left, and it was older than the one we got before Christmas. I don’t understand why this one took so long to get to us. The second letter was dated in December. They were both short, and his handwriting was very difficult to make out. In the first letter, he writes about how he is building strong muscles because he is getting lots of physical exercise. He has also made new friends and is playing second base and batting third in the lineup. (We don’t know what baseball team this could be, but Papi figures it might be from Pepito’s own platoon.) He asks Ileana to save him any magazine stories about Elvis Presley and the Beatles. He sounds just like Pepito. But in the second letter, a whole section is blacked out in pen. Papi said that is what the Cuban government censors do if a letter writer reveals something that makes the government look bad. I wonder what that could be. Maybe something awful has happened to Pepito. Maybe they are feeding him food with worms and making him do horrible things. The other parts of the letter we can read fine, but he doesn’t sound as upbeat as in the one from August. He writes that he misses us and is sorry that he will not see us for a long time. “I fear that Ana Mari will forget what my face looks like.” That’s what he wrote. “I will not forget her or her laughter. Does she still laugh like a hyena?” (Ana Mari did not like this part of the letter, but what Pepito writes is true. She does have a funny laugh.)

  As I listened to the letter being read aloud, I felt my eyes grow hot. I looked over at Mami, but she was not crying. She was staring straight ahead with a hard face, her chin jutting out. The rest of the night she was very absentminded. She even burned the chicken in the oven, and we had to pull the toasty skin off and eat the rest because we can’t afford to throw food away. The chicken was hard and rubbery.

  Tuesday, 6th of February

  A group of teenage boys threw eggs at Alina’s firstfloor apartment. They scared her grandparents, mother, and little brother half to death. “Go back where you came from!” they shouted. And they also screamed, “Spics!”

  Alina has no idea who these boys might be.
She is certain they do not live in her apartment building. The incident upset her mother tremendously. She and her grandmother had to clean the egg goo that came through the window screen, and it stained the sofa.

  Alina’s mother now makes sure the windows are closed at all times, which turns the inside of the apartment into a furnace. The family must go around in their underwear and sit in front of the fans to keep cool. Alina says it is impossible to concentrate on homework. She dreams of moving to New York or to Chicago because she has read that it snows there a lot and that no one is ever hot. I feel sorry for Alina, but I do not know what to do.

  Wednesday, 7th of February

  Mami still works at the shoe factory and Tía Carmen at that laundry place, but now they have new night jobs. Abuela helps them. They are sewing pearls and sequins on sweaters and are paid by the piece. A man delivers the sweaters in one big box, and the sequins and pearls in another. He is a friend of Efraín’s boss at the craft store, and he allows them to work from home, which is why they took the job. At first Papi didn’t want Mami to do it because it would mean more time away from us girls, but she assured him that she would work only after dinner and after we had finished our homework.