The German Girl

by Armando Lucas Correa

  Hannah

  1953–1958

  Things in Cuba change without warning. You go out into the street under a scorching sun, then the breeze pushes along a cloud, and everything gets transformed. You can be soaked in a second, even before you have time to open your umbrella. The rain comes lashing down, the wind buffets you, branches are snapped off, gardens flood. When the rain stops, a stifling vapor rises from the asphalt, all the smells mingle, paint has been washed from the housefronts, and terrified people run everywhere. In the end, you get used to it. They’re tropical downpours: you can’t fight them.

  I felt the first raindrop on the corner of Calle 23. I turned right into Avenida L, but by then, I was soaked to the skin. By the time I climbed the stairs to reach the Faculty of Pharmacy, the sun was shining again, and my blouse was starting to dry, but water still dripped from my hair.

  In the blink of an eye, dozens of students began rushing down the steps, pushing and shoving one another as if they were running away from something. I saw others perched on top of the Alma Mater sculpture, waving a flag in the air. They were shouting slogans I couldn’t make out because they became confused with the police sirens from patrol cars that had pulled up at the foot of the staircase.

  One girl next to me was so frightened that she clung to my arm, squeezing it without a word. She was crying, panic-stricken. We didn’t know whether to climb the stairs or to run off down Avenida San Lázaro and get away from the university.

  The shouts became deafening. Then there was the sound of something striking a piece of metal; it might have been a gunshot. We were petrified. A boy came down the stairs telling us to fling ourselves to the ground. We did, and I found myself facedown against the wet steps. I buried my face in my hands. All of a sudden, the girl next to me stood up and ran off down the staircase. I edged over as close as I could to the wall to avoid being trampled on, and then stayed as still as possible.

  “You can get up now,” said the boy, but I didn’t respond at once.

  I lay there a few seconds longer, but when I saw everything was calm again, I looked up and saw he was still there, with my books under his arm. He held out his hand to help me.

  “Up you go; I have to get to my classes.”

  Without looking at him, I leaned on him as I straightened my skirt and tried without success to clean my blouse.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” he asked. “I won’t give you your books until you tell me your name.”

  “Hannah,” I replied, but so quietly he didn’t hear me. He frowned, raised an eyebrow: he hadn’t understood, and insisted in a raised voice, “Ana? Your name is Ana? Are you in the Pharmacy Department?”

  Yet another one! I had to be forever explaining what I was called.

  “Yes, Ana, but pronounced like it begins with a J,” I said irritated. “And yes, I’m a pharmacy major.”

  “A pleasure, ‘Ana pronounced with a J.’ Now I have to run to my classes.”

  I saw him bound up the steps two at a time. When he reached the top, he paused between the columns of the building, turned, and shouted:

  “See you later, Ana-with-a-J!”

  Several professors did not come in that day. In one of the rooms, some scared students were whispering about tyrants and dictatorships, coups and revolution. I wasn’t frightened by anything happening around me. The university was in turmoil, but I wasn’t interested in finding out what the protests were about, and still less in taking part in something that had nothing to do with me.

  When it was time to leave class, I stayed behind for a while trying to do something about my blouse in the lavatory. But no use: it was completely ruined. When I finally left the building in a bad mood, I saw him again, leaning against the doorway.

  “You’re the boy from the staircase, aren’t you?” I asked without stopping, pretending I wasn’t really interested.

  “I didn’t tell you my name, Ana-with-a-J. That’s why I’m here. I’ve been standing in this doorway for an hour.”

  I smiled, thanked him again, and continued on my way down the stairs. He kept pace with me, observing me in silence. His presence didn’t bother me; I was more intrigued to know just how far he was going to follow me.

  The sky had cleared a little. Dark clouds were visible in the distance, at the far end of Avenida San Lázaro. I thought of saying that possibly it was raining a few blocks away, but I preferred not to talk nonsense just to make conversation. A few moments later, he decided to speak to me again.

  “My name is Julian. You see, it’s the J that unites us.”

  I didn’t think that was particularly funny. We reached the bottom of the stairs, and I still hadn’t said a word.

  “I study law.”

  I had no idea how he expected me to respond to that, so I stayed silent until we reached Calle 23, where I would turn left each day to head home. He had to go down Avenida L, so we said good-bye on the corner. Or, rather, he said good-bye, because all I managed to do was to shake his hand.

  “See you tomorrow, Ana-with-a-J,” I heard him say as he disappeared down the avenue.

  He was the first Cuban boy who had ever taken notice of me. And apparently even Julian refused to say my name properly. His hair was a bit long for my taste, with unruly curls that cascaded down his brow. He had a long, straight nose and thick lips. When he smiled, his eyes narrowed beneath a pair of thick black eyebrows. At last I had met a boy who was taller than me.

  But what struck me most about Julian were his hands. His fingers were very long and thick. Powerful hands. He was wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, no necktie, and his jacket slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. His shoes were scuffed and dirty, possibly because of the chaos we had been through a few hours earlier.

  Ever since we had arrived in Havana, I had never had the slightest interest in making friends in a place we still thought of as being temporary. But when I got home that day, I found myself still thinking of him. What most puzzled me was that whenever I remembered his face or his voice when he called me Ana-with-a-J, I caught myself smiling.

  Going to classes had been my escape. Now there was another reason to escape: to see “the boy with a J” again. The following day I arrived early at the department, but didn’t see him. I even waited at the entrance for a few minutes, until I was afraid I would be late for my class. Better to forget somebody who hadn’t even bothered to try to pronounce my name properly, I told myself. Just as I was about to enter, a few minutes before they would close the door to my class, I got a shock when I felt his hand on my arm. Before I knew what I was doing, I turned to Julian and found myself smiling.

  “I came because you didn’t tell me your family name, Ana-with-a-J.”

  I could feel myself blushing uncontrollably. Not because of what he had said to me, but out of fear that he would see how delighted I was.

  “Rosen,” I told him. “My family name is Rosen. But now I have to go, or they won’t let me into class.”

  I should have asked him his last name as well, but I was too nervous. When I left that afternoon, I was disappointed to find he wasn’t there. Nor the next day. A week went by, and the boy from the staircase did not appear again. Yet I continued thinking of him. Whenever I tried to study or sleep, I recalled his laugh or saw his curls and wanted to straighten them.

  But I didn’t see him again.

  When I finished my university studies, I talked with my mother about opening a pharmacy I could run myself. She wasn’t very enthusiastic about my project, because it implied a sense of permanence she was still refusing to accept, even though, after seventeen years, everything seemed to indicate we had no other choice. She discussed the matter with Señor Dannón, and he was the first to support me enthusiastically, especially as it would mean a new and stable source of income.

  We opened the Farmacia Rosen one cloudy Saturday in December. It was very close to our house, opposite the park with the flame trees. Mother wasn’t keen on the idea of opening a business o
n the weekend. She would have preferred a Monday, but for me, Mondays were too close to Tuesdays. When I didn’t back down, she decided not to come to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

  That was a time when I spent all day, and very often part of the night, preparing prescriptions in a world measured in grams and milliliters. I employed Hortensia’s sister Esperanza, who became the “face” of the pharmacy. Or of the “apothecary,” as she liked to call it. She was the one who attended customers behind the narrow counter. She was “good with people,” as they say, which was something supposedly not common among Cubans. She was extremely patient and listened indulgently to the locals’ complaints. Sometimes they came in not for medicine but simply to be listened to, and to relieve their woes by talking to that placid woman with candid eyes. Although she was much younger than Hortensia, they looked the same age. Esperanza didn’t pluck her eyebrows or wear lipstick: there was never a trace of makeup on a face that looked harsh and yet radiated goodness.

  Esperanza brought her son, Rafael, from middle school, and he started helping us with home deliveries. Rafael was tall and thin, with straight, dark hair, an aquiline nose, almond eyes, and an enormous mouth. He was as polite and respectful as his mother. Both of them lived in a state of constant agitation. On an island where most people belonged to the same religion, they had a different faith: they shared the sin of being different.

  That was the reason I could never understand why, although they lived in fear, both of them sometimes took the opportunity to slip “the word of God” into their consoling messages. “Our mission is to spread the word,” they would tell me. Fortunately, they never attempted to convert me. I was sure that Hortensia had told them I was a Polack, and that it was best to leave all Polacks in peace.

  I felt safe with Esperanza and Rafael, at a healthy distance from my mother’s increasing bitterness and pain. She had lost Papa, was trapped in a country she loathed, and had lost control of her son, Gustavo. She regarded the pharmacy as my attempt to be happy, and that was too much for her: she was certain that, for the Rosenthals, happiness would always prove unattainable. Premature death was an essential part of us. There was no point pretending anything else.

  Leaving home also implied risks. Ghosts could take me by surprise on any corner. That was why I put Esperanza at the counter: I knew that if I waited on the customers myself, at some moment or other, somebody like me would have appeared, recognized me, and tried to enter into a dialogue that until then I had managed to avoid.

  Rafael went with me to the warehouses to pick up any bulky packages. On the way, I tried not to establish visual contact with any passerby. If anyone came too close, or if there was a group of youngsters on a corner, I would lower my eyes. If I saw an old woman, I would cross to the opposite sidewalk. I was convinced I was bound to meet one of them somewhere. That was my greatest fear.

  One Tuesday we were walking down Calle I to Línea, when we came across a garden. I began to admire the roses growing on both sides of the main entrance. Looking up, I saw a modern-looking building that had ancient inscriptions over the door, inscriptions I had not seen for years but recognized immediately. Three girls dressed in white came out of the building. I was paralyzed: there was no doubt they had recognized me. Yet again, the ghosts had found a way to catch up with me. I began to perspire like mad.

  Rafael, who had no idea what was going on, held me up. I looked away, trying to ignore them, but when I glanced back, I saw ironic smiles on their faces—a look of perverse satisfaction. They had found me; there was no way I could hide. We were the same breed: refugees on an island. We had fled from the same thing, but there was no way out for us.

  Rafael looked at me, uncomprehending.

  “It’s the Polack church,” he told me, as if I didn’t know, and without realizing that, in fact, I would have preferred not to know.

  On our way back from the warehouse, we took another route. From that day on, for me, that street no longer existed.

  Most evenings, before we closed the pharmacy doors, Esperanza, Rafael, and I would sit down to chat for a while. We turned down the light to avoid anybody coming in and interrupting our conversations about the old grouch who lived above the store and counted out every pill he got in his prescription, or the woman who received her ampules and asked Rafael to inject them for her, or the man who each time he picked up medicine for his wife warned my employee he had absolutely no interest in hearing anything about God. Sometimes I stayed on my own for hours, watching the blades of the noisy fan go around and around. It hung so low that if I raised my arm, I almost brushed against it.

  Often in the evening, the three of us listened to music: Esperanza would search the radio dial for a station that played boleros. We delighted in songs about impossible loves, ships without destinations, abandonments, obsessions, sorrows, forgiveness, moons like dangling earrings, rustling palms, stolen embraces, and sleepless nights. These sung melodramas mingled with the sweet smell of the potions, camphor, menthol, ether, Vichy salts, and alcohol to reduce fever, which in those days was what sold the most.

  We would laugh together. Esperanza sang to the rhythm of the boleros as we rested after a long day. Then they would go home, while I had to go back to the dark Petit Trianon.

  Hortensia could not thank me enough for giving her sister and nephew work. She never could have understood that I was the one who was grateful. It would have been very hard for me to find employees I could trust for my pharmacy, which according to Mother was condemned to fail because it had been opened on a Saturday.

  A few years later, Gustavo began to study at law school and came back to sleep less often. We never dared ask him with whom or where he stayed, but we were afraid for him. According to Hortensia, a wave of violence had been unleashed on the streets of Havana, but after all we had been through in Berlin, nothing kept Mother and me awake at night. To me, the city was the same as ever: the invasive noise, heat, humidity, drizzle, and dust never changed.

  One night, after we had all gone to bed, Gustavo arrived home unexpectedly with his shirt torn. He was dirty and had been beaten up. Hortensia took him to her room so that we wouldn’t be scared, but we managed to see him from the half-open window of my bedroom. Mother did not flinch.

  After washing and changing, Gustavo went up to his own room and did not leave the house for a week. We had no idea if he was running away, if the police were searching for him to arrest him, or if he had been expelled from the university, where we continued to pay the fees punctually. Mother’s answer was always the same:

  “He’s an adult. He knows what he’s doing.”

  At the end of the week, he told us the news over dinner: a student leader had been murdered; the University of Havana was closed. I couldn’t help thinking of Julian at the foot of the staircase. “Ana-with-a-J,” I could hear quite clearly, and imagined him coming out of the Law School. Where did you go, Julian? Why didn’t you look for me again?

  The smell of the chicken fricassee Gustavo was wolfing down brought me back to the present. His voice full of passion, my brother was waving his arms about as he spoke of deaths, dictatorships, oppression, and inequality. Hortensia had placed a gauze bandage over his temple; I couldn’t stop looking at it as his face reddened with fury and impotence. Though he raised his voice, I responded in a whisper. He was growing desperate, trying futilely to stir me with his words. Hortensia came and went nervously, clearing away our plates, pouring water, and, finally, bringing in the dessert with a great sense of relief. She thought that meant dinner was coming to an end, that the argument would be over, and the two of us would go up to our rooms.

  At a certain moment, I saw a red blotch appear on Gustavo’s bandage. It started as a small dot that the others did not see; then it spread until a thin trickle of blood began to run down to his ear.

  I came to on the floor between Hortensia and Gustavo. He had a fresh bandage around his head, with no trace of blood. I felt warmth flowing back into my body. Hortensia was smiling. />
  “Up you go, my girl. Eat your pudding. Are you going to faint over a little drop of blood?”

  Mother had not moved from the table. I saw her slowly raising a spoonful of rice pudding with cinnamon to her mouth. As I stood up, she excused herself and went up to her room.

  My fainting had not alarmed her: what disturbed her was that Gustavo had involved Hortensia in a family conflict, and also that he might in some way be linked to that murder, whether on the side of the criminals or the victim. She found either option unacceptable, because she had made the decision to survive on the island without drawing attention to herself. After making so many sacrifices to erase the stain she had brought him into the world with, she now saw him mixed up in conflicts that could prove fatal for the Rosens.

  Gustavo could not understand how we could be so cold, not reacting to injustices in a country that he saw as his; how we could live so isolated from everything going on around us. He asked me why, but by then I did not have the energy to continue a dialogue that would not get us anywhere. I had a mother who could lose her mind overnight and a pharmacy to run, I kept telling myself endlessly.

  In his usual passionate way, Gustavo harangued me about social rights, tyrants, corrupt governments. I felt like saying to him, “What do you know about tyrannies?” but my brother was born with the need to confront power and to change the established order. The passion he put into his speech, his aggressive gestures, and the intensity of his voice left Hortensia and me in a state of panic. We felt that one day he might wake up, go out into the street in a fury, and organize a national revolt. He no longer believed in the laws or the order of a country that, in his opinion, was falling to pieces.

  “You were born in New York and are an American citizen. You can leave here without a problem,” I reminded him, trying to offer my brother an alternative. To him, this was like a slap in the face.

  “Not one of you understands me! Don’t you have any blood in your veins?” he shouted at me in exasperation, clutching his head in his hands.