Catalina devoted herself to looking after Alma. She fed and washed her, changed her sheets every day, and treated the terrible bedsores that slowly ate away at her body. Strangely, as she withered, her hair began to regain its former brilliance.
I go up on my own to Great-grandmother’s room, which smells of disinfectant. The gray bedcover, drawn up over the mattress with its broken springs, still seems to hold some of her presence. I sit on a corner of it and can sense her, the pain of her last years while she was lying here in endless silence.
Aunt Hannah keeps a lock of Alma’s hair in a black wooden chest together with their most precious jewels. It’s a Rosenthal family relic. I also see there a faded leather notebook, and the small blue box my aunt has never opened, keeping the promise she made on the ship a long time ago.
Catalina comes in and puts an arm around my shoulders.
“That’s all we have of Viera’s. It’s her family photo album and some letters her mother wrote when she left her in Havana with her uncle. She must have had a feeling they would never meet again,” Catalina says, and then falls silent.
“Alma was a good woman,” she goes on after a while, as if to reassure me. “I was the one who told her that her son and Viera had died in a plane crash. However much you hate your son, death is always a blow, my child. Another tomb in the cemetery without a body.”
According to Catalina, Great-grandmother had not really been alive for a long time but did not know how to let herself go, although she knew it was time to join her husband and son.
“If you don’t have faith and are not willing to forgive, if you don’t believe in anything, there’s no way that your body and soul will leave together. I haven’t got long left. The day I’m struck down, I’ll let myself go, and that will be it! What’s the point of all that suffering?”
Catalina is a wise old woman.
Great-grandmother’s final days were terrible: she couldn’t breathe well or swallow. Catalina sat at her bedside in an armchair, and spent both day and night whispering in her ear:
“You can go now, Alma. Everything is all right. Don’t suffer anymore.”
Catalina tells me that one morning when she woke up, she saw that Great-grandmother Alma had stopped breathing and that her heart was no longer beating. Catalina closed her eyes, and ventured to make the sign of the cross over her cold, gray face before giving her a farewell kiss.
I understand now why my aunt says that nobody in our family dies: it’s more that we let ourselves go; we decide when it’s time to leave. That makes me think of Dad. Maybe he, too, once trapped, let himself die under the rubble.
Hannah
1985–2014
Every day now when I open my bedroom window and see the leafy trees that protect me from the aggressive morning sun, I discover I am still alive and still on this island where my parents brought me against my will. My mind starts to travel at a speed my memory cannot keep up with. My thoughts fly more quickly than my ability to capture them. I don’t remember what I dream. I don’t remember what I think.
My nights are disturbed. I can’t find peace. I wake up with a start without knowing why. I’m no longer in our apartment in the center of Berlin; I can’t see the tulips from the living room. The St. Louis has been relegated so far from my mind, it’s impossible for me to summon up the smells from on board.
The years in Havana have become confused. Sometimes I think Hortensia is about to come into my room or that I’m going with Eulogio to a bookshop in the city. The pharmacy, Esperanza, my walks with Julian, the arrival of Gustavo, Louis’s birth. All these are jumbled together. I can see Gustavo as a boy alongside me at the same time as I see Louis saying good-bye.
He’s the only one who could possibly be saved.
After finishing his university studies, Louis started work at the Center for Physics Education Research. When he arrived home from the office, he shut himself in his room to read. He devoured whatever book he came across. Anything and everything passed through his hands: studies on sugar production, a treatise on algebra, the theory of relativity, or the complete works of Stendhal. He read every page with great concentration.
He spoke very little but had a special relationship with Catalina. She knew what he needed without his even having to ask. He would give me a kiss on the forehead whenever he was leaving the house or had returned. That was enough for me.
He spent his weekends at the cinema. He didn’t have to talk to anyone there; he was the eternal observer.
After he went to New York, he would call us once a month to tell us he had deposited money for us, but then gradually his calls became infrequent. When we learned what had happened in Manhattan that terrible September Tuesday, we guessed we wouldn’t hear from him for a while. But the gap grew too long, and so I decided to write to the office of our trust account manager. One morning years later, I got a telephone call: Louis was dead. As simple as that.
The pain knocked me flat, even though we had in fact lost him a long time before.
“Don’t cry twice over the same corpse,” said Catalina. “His leaving had already prepared us for this.”
I know: we’re all condemned to a premature death.
On one of those nights when it’s so hot you cannot sleep, I had a bath with essence of violet. To refresh myself and to have Louis close to me. I fell asleep in less than an hour.
I opened my eyes and could see him walking along the streets of New York, between parallel lines of skyscrapers. He was a tiny dot in the huge city. Everything was silent: you could not hear the noise of the cars, the rapid footsteps of the passersby, or the wind. There was no one around, and I could see him in the distance, seated on a cold, dark corner. I could hear his labored breathing and thought, He is ready for what is about to happen.
All of a sudden, the sun was obscured. An explosion. Then, shortly after, another one; and then the city was slowly engulfed.
I ran toward him through the gloom and found him sleeping like a baby. He was my little boy once more. I closed my eyes and could smell his fragrance. I opened them again and there he was, my babe in arms. I started to sing him a lullaby: “Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt.” “When the morning is near, I will wake you, my dear.”
“Let’s go and look for the sun together,” I whispered to him in Spanish. I wasn’t in Berlin, or New York, or Havana.
That fateful day, I ceased to exist, until I learned that Louis had a daughter.
A lawyer got in touch with me from New York, wanting to know if I was interested in a lawsuit to claim my part of the account set up by my father for the Rosenthals. That man, who was hoping to profit from a claim I was never going to make, had given me a precious gift: there was a Rosen, Anna—someone who had come into the world without the burden of the Rosenthals.
We couldn’t believe it: Catalina jumped for joy and hugged me. That day was the first time I ever saw her cry. Louis not only had a wife but also a daughter who bore his name. They were his heirs. After a tragedy, you often get good news, the wise Catalina assured me.
I laughed when Catalina told me that we Rosens came into this world bearing a cross. I tried to explain that this was impossible, especially when it involved the Rosenthals.
In our house, violet water was strongly associated with Louis. From the instant I learned there was a new Rosenthal, his daughter, I began using a few of its purple drops on my gray hair each day. Then it always remained with me.
I was about to turn eighty-seven, the age when one should begin to say good-bye. I thought I should get in touch with Anna, the only trace our family would leave in this world. It would have been unjust toward my parents if I had concealed her legacy. You need to know where you come from. You need to know how to make peace with the past.
By now, all I had left was a single debt, a single desire yet to be fulfilled: to open the little indigo-blue box with Leo.
The last time I had blown out a birthday candle had been on board the St. Louis. So
long ago. The moment to celebrate had arrived.
Anna
2014
Dad grew up very close to Aunt Hannah and Catalina. They both dedicated themselves to making him an independent man and also, maybe without wanting to, a loner.
“The deaths of Gustavo and Viera did not affect your father too badly, because he was only nine at the time,” my aunt tells me. “What did distress him was to see them lower the almost weightless body of his grandmother into her grave at the cemetery. To Louis, his parents had simply left one day and never come back. That was enough for him. But this time it was a corpse, the first he had seen, in a box, which they were going to bury.”
My father lived between two languages. English became the one he spoke at home, and Spanish the one he used for school, which he didn’t like. Aunt Hannah decided he wouldn’t need German. He studied nuclear physics, and shortly before he graduated, Aunt Hannah went with him to the US Interests Office in Havana, near the Malecón. She took with her Gustavo’s birth certificate to apply for American citizenship for his son, Louis.
“It was your father who finally had the chance to free himself from the stigma of the Rosenthals,” she said.
Aunt Hannah herself felt she had to stay in Cuba with her mother’s remains, to have her own bones lie alongside hers, so that the country would pay for not allowing her husband to enter. But however much she explains the reasons why she didn’t go live in New York, I can’t understand.
When he reached his new country, Dad took over what is now our New York apartment and reactivated the trust accounts Great-grandfather Max had set up.
There is no sign of his presence in his room or anywhere else in this house. Those of Aunt Hannah and Great-grandmother Alma are too strong for any trace of him to survive.
There are no family photographs here, either. The only snapshot my aunt has is the blurred, yellowing image where she appears seated on her mother’s lap: the photo her father kept until the day he let himself die in lands overrun by the Ogres. We are the ones who now have all the other images, from her years in Berlin or on the St. Louis.
I feel exhausted, so I go to find Diego. He promised we would go swim at the Malecón. At least, he was going to have a swim: I don’t dare plunge into those dark waters where violent waves come crashing against the seawall. At this time of day, the shore, with its reefs and sea urchins, is where all the neighborhood kids hang out. At first, I think the smell of rotting fish, seaweed, and urine will make me nauseous, but I’m surprised a few minutes later to realize I’ve forgotten it. Diego dives into the rough waters. It seems as though he’s drowning: his head goes under, and he struggles to return to the surface, but then he laughs and plays with the other boys in the water.
When I point my camera at him, he leaps and smiles in the midst of the crazy waves.
When he comes back to the wall, I see he’s limping. I take another shot of him, and he poses with his injured leg raised. The sole of his right foot is full of sea urchin spikes. He sits beside me, and I patiently start pulling out the black needles one by one. He bears the pain without a murmur, although tears well up in his eyes. He smiles again, puffing out his chest and baring his teeth, as if to say, “This is nothing, I’ve seen worse!”
After I remove all the spikes, he dives back into the sea. The sun is setting on the horizon, and my thoughts fly elsewhere. I want to take as many pictures of him as I can back to New York. A cloud hides the sun, and for a few minutes we are in shadow.
I put down my camera and suddenly feel overwhelmed. I can’t stop thinking of Diego and this family—my family—which I am only now discovering. I am a Rosenthal! It’s too late to go back now.
As we walk home, Diego is upset. He knows Mom and I are leaving in a few days. Soon classes will start, and maybe we’ll write to each other. I have to convince Mom to come back to Cuba. Now that we’ve met Aunt Hannah, I don’t think we’ll be able to just abandon her. We are the only family she has.
Diego talks endlessly about his plans to leave the country. He doesn’t want to be like his uncles and aunts, forever worried their house will fall down, living bitter, hopeless lives. One catastrophe per family is enough. Maybe he’ll find his father in the United States, or I could help him find him. Maybe he’s in Miami, where there are lots of Cubans; maybe he will feel sorry for his son and take him in. Diego says that in the blink of an eye he could be in the North. He talks all the time about leaving, not about us being separated.
It’s time to get some rest; tomorrow’s another day.
Before we return to New York, Mom wants us to visit the cemetery again to say good-bye. Just the two of us go, and the taxi leaves us near the chapel. Mom doesn’t enter, but stands outside for a few moments, closes her eyes, and takes deep breaths.
I don’t want to read headstones, either, or to admire angels frozen in marble, or to see weeping people. Here are all the pungent smells again!
We can see the family mausoleum in the distance. Mom realizes that Aunt Hannah has had the inscription on the pediment changed. It now reads in Spanish “Rosenthal Family,” and under that, what the name means in German, “Rose Valley.” She has returned to her essence. She is no longer a Rosen but has become what she always was: her father’s daughter.
The headstones are there, with their inscriptions. My great-grandparents Alma and Max, my grandfather Gustavo, Dad’s, and—my aunt’s! Hannah Rosenthal, 1927–2014. When we see this, our only reaction is to clasp each other’s hands. Aunt Hannah must have decided this will be her last year. And, as we know by now, in our family we don’t die but let ourselves go.
Mom doesn’t want me to worry, so she tries to pretend this discovery of ours is not important. But I can’t help noticing a look of terror on her face that I have never seen before. She tries to lessen the tension:
“I’m sure she’ll change the date. At her age, you think you already have one foot in the grave. Don’t worry, Aunt Hannah will be around for some time yet.”
Catalina’s withered flowers are still there, as well as the stones Mom put on each of the headstones apart from Aunt Hannah’s. She offers another stone to each of our dead relatives. She pauses in front of Aunt Hannah’s headstone, probably thinking she’ll leave one there, too, but then decides not to. She knows what I know: Aunt Hannah has already made up her mind, and nobody can make her change it. She slips the stone back in her bag.
As we walk back to our taxi, the sun beats down on this white sea of marble, blinding us. I think my aunt has reached an age she never dreamed she would, in a country where she never thought she would stay. She prefers to go back to her rose valley.
We return home and start preparing the birthday celebration. Catalina and I are going to bake a cake for my aunt. I beat the eggs until they become frothy and rise so much they almost overflow the china bowl. The flour gradually makes the froth thicker. A spoonful of oil, a pinch of salt, grease the tin, and into the oven with it! Before that, though, I sprinkle it with vanilla, and the air becomes sweet and warm. My first cake!
Next, I make the icing. The white froth rises; I sweeten it until it thickens. A few drops of lemon juice, salt, and cinnamon powder. The icing covers the cake, turning it into a lopsided snowball: my gift to Aunt Hannah.
Mom is astonished and says we must bake a cake together every year.
The birthday girl has been watching us the whole time with that lovely smile of hers. She radiates a gentle sense of peace that I have never seen before. To know that we are leaving the island, that the possibility denied to her and her mother from the day they disembarked from the St. Louis is open to us, is enough to make her happy.
Catalina sits in an armchair for a rest, and falls asleep. Whenever she gets the chance, she settles down anywhere she can, closes her eyes—and we have to shake her to wake her up. She hears less and less. There must be such a symphony of sounds inside her head that she cannot make out clearly what is going on outside.
“It’s old age, there’s no
thing to be done,” she says with a brief smile, and then gets up to do something—anything—to keep busy.
Mom thinks Aunt Hannah and Catalina need someone to help them. She talks about them both as though they were family. They are.
Aunt Hannah asks us to celebrate her birthday at dusk: the hour when the captain of the St. Louis appeared in her cabin with a postcard for her that we now have. Her twelfth birthday. What followed was a long life in this place where she never felt at home. For her, the years in Cuba are the least important. Her real life took place in Berlin and on board the St. Louis. Most of the rest has been a nightmare.
Catalina found a half-burned candle in a kitchen drawer and has stuck it in the center of the white sponge cake. I go out in search of Diego and invite him in to taste my first cake.
We switch off the dining room lights, and Mom lights the candle. First we sing in English, because of me, although my birthday has already come and gone. My aunt insists, and we do it to please her. I close my eyes and make a wish. What I most want at this moment is to be able to come back to Havana.
We light the candle again, this time for Aunt Hannah. Catalina sings a Spanish version of the song I have never heard before: “Congratulations on your birthday, Hannah, may you be happy and joyful, many years of peace and harmony to you, happy, happy birthday . . .”
Moved, Aunt Hannah leans over the cake, closes her eyes, and makes a secret wish. There’s a lengthy pause, and then she blows at the candle, but her weak breath does not put out the flame. In the end she snuffs it out with her fingers, smiles at all of us, and gives me a big hug.
When I go to bed that night, I find on my pillow a small bottle of violet water and a note written in big, shaky writing: “For my girl.”
Hannah and Anna
Havana, Tuesday, May 24, 2014
Anna
The German Girl Page 27