I wake up in the dark, curled on my side in a tight ball on the floor. Rain sputters against the window, and every now and then I hear the swish of a passing car. A thin, sour liquid rises from somewhere deep in my stomach as I pull myself onto my knees. I spit onto the rug, pull my vomit-stained dress over my head and crawl to my bed in my underwear, collapsing onto the covers with my boots hanging off the edge.
The next time when I wake, the dismal gray light of dawn floats through my window. I sit up, but a blinding pain shoots through my temples and pushes me back down. I keep very still. Gingerly, I reach into my underwear waistband for your note, but it’s gone. I pull myself out of bed with my ears ringing as blood pounds through my head. I search the floor, but there is only the rug over wooden planks with cracks too small for a note to slide in undetected. Holding one cool hand to my temple, I creep to Señorita Perron’s door. She is snoring open-mouthed, her feet on the floor, knees bent, back flat on the mattress. Stealing in, I drop down on my knees and search her floor until I see a little, white square winking under the bed. I reach for it and stand unsteadily. Holding it tight against my chest, I tiptoe back to my room.
Even though I don’t have a clock, the light through the window convinces me it is too early for you to come yet. I’m dying to lie back down and stop this throbbing, but I am afraid if I oversleep I’ll miss you. I force myself into a clean pair of underwear, socks and a freshly ironed school dress. I have to at least look like I’m going to school.
In the bathroom, I wash the vomit from my hair in the sink, brush out the wet strands and secure them at the back of my pounding head with a barrette, every movement slow and painful. Señorita Perron’s snores come in steady grunts as I pass her door and make my silent way to the kitchen. At first, I think the two plates of cold tortillas and beans on the counter have been left from last night. They can’t be breakfast. Why would Chara have come so early? She’s never here before seven. I look at the clock. 10:12. I stare at it, my mind slowing like a machine running down its gears, the heavy gray sky a deceiver of time.
My legs are rubbery and weak as I rush to the living room window. No taxi waits outside. I don’t cry or scream, just slide to the floor and bow my head to my knees. My stomach twists, and my raw throat burns. I have lost you. Lost my chance to leave. Thick wedges of sadness slam into me, the weight so devastating I cannot imagine rising off the floor ever again. I regret thinking for one moment I wouldn’t go with you. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into the empty room. If only I hadn’t gotten mad and gone into Señorita Perron’s room. If only I wasn’t so stubborn. “I’m sorry,” I whisper again, but you are gone, and there is no one to hear me.
Chapter Fourteen
* * *
Disguised
Daughter,
Dominica thought it would be best to warn you, but it was Miguel who slipped you the note. Until this moment, I had thought it was a good idea, but now it’s eight thirty in the morning, and you are nowhere in sight. I stare at Chu Chu’s house, the windows like the watchful eyes of a great beast holding you in its belly. I want to break every one of them. Why haven’t you come out?
Minutes tick by. I hardly slept all night, and now I’m jittery from too much coffee. I glance at the back of the taxi driver’s head, a smooth, bald circle stamped amidst tufts of black hair. He taps his hands on the wheel, the engine running, the windshield wipers making a smacking noise every time they hit bottom. I feel as if I am about to hit bottom. I was certain of getting you out of here, but with every minute lost my confidence slips. Maybe you don’t want to come home? Your father is generous when he wants to be and good at giving people what they want as long as it suits him. Maybe he has given you exactly what you want?
What do you want, Nina? Why don’t I know your desires and dreams? I look at the immovable front door, the wood carved in deep, swirling grooves, and contemplate barging in and screaming down that cold-tiled hall for you. If Chu Chu found the note, why doesn’t he come out to meet me? He could have one of his bully friends haul me back to the airport and force me on a plane without you. I press my hands to my hot cheeks. Why is he doing this? To get back at me for running away all those years ago? I want to tell him he’s won, he’s done it, he’s punished me, now give me back my daughter!
The day I left him rushes back at me, a day very much like this with indecisive weather, rain coming and going in bursts. I didn’t plan on leaving that day. Something snapped when I stood at the front door watching Chu Chu cuff his sleeves and pull on his coat. It was early morning, just like now, and we’d had our papaya and coffee, and he was headed off to the recording studio, leaving me to my boredom. I hadn’t been on stage since I told Monte Proser I was pregnant. He’d congratulated me and said he was sorry to lose the act, but that I’d make a wonderful mother.
Mother, not singer. At the time, it never occurred to me I would have to choose.
For the longest time, I thought Chu Chu was letting me settle in, get my bearings, but the night he came home after a sold-out performance, radiant and boastful, it occurred to me that he might not have any intention of letting me sing again.
He tried to embrace me where I stood by the bed, sliding down the strap of my nightgown, but I pushed him away and threw my hands on my hips. “When will you book me a gig?”
“Book you a gig?” He stepped back, a look of surprise on his face.
“Did you forget...I am a singer?” I rapped my chest, and Chu Chu smiled and reached for me, his hands running over my fleshy bottom.
“Of course not, my little nightingale. You will sing for me and Nina.”
I shoved him away again. “Is that what you think? You get to sing for the world, and I sing for you? I have been singing since I was child, on the radio, on stage. I will not give that up for you or Nina.”
The air changed. Chu Chu looked offended and arrogant. “Estelita, you will not sing outside of the home. You are married now, with a child to look after.” His tone was reasonable, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.
“That means my career is over? I can’t sing because I am a mother and wife? That is ridiculous! We never discussed this. You said I would sing here.”
“That was before we were married.”
I stomped my foot, my anger ignited. “You want me stuck at home having babies so I don’t outshine you!” I shouted into his face. I expected him to hit me, put me in my place like my father did with my mother. I almost wanted him to. After five months of pacing the house in a restless stupor, I was looking for any excuse to leave. If you cried, the nurse tended you. If we were hungry, the cook made dinner. What was I supposed to do? “Chu Chu, you promised I would sing. You promised!”
Chu Chu did not get angry. He turned his back on me and calmly headed toward the bathroom. “Things are different now. A wife does not parade herself on stage for other men to gawk at. There is nothing more to discuss.”
In that moment, whatever love I had for him slithered away so fast it made me wonder how true it could have been. I would not be my mother. I would not stay home birthing babies and lose the very thing that defined me: my voice.
It was a year before I found the courage to leave. By the time Chu Chu leaned in that January morning with his full, charming mouth over mine, I couldn’t breathe. He had sucked the air out of me. I was suffocating. When the door shut behind him, I stared at the back of the door thinking I might never inhale again. When I did, the gasp propelled me up the stairs where I grabbed a wad of money I kept in my underwear drawer—Chu Chu was generous with money—shoved it into my purse and stormed into your nursery. I plucked you from the floor where you sat playing with a stack of brightly colored blocks. I told Rosita, who was folding baby clothes into your drawers, that I was taking you for a walk.
“You will need a sweater for her, Señorita,” she said, handing me the green knit sweater of yours I still have. I went straight to th
e bus stop, lifted you out of the stroller and stepped onto the bus leaving the empty, black-topped baby carriage on the sidewalk looking like a small, abandoned hearse. Not until the plane tickets were bought and we were taxiing down the runway did I take a full breath.
In the end, it was quite easy. Chu Chu never tried to get you back. Three months after we settled in LA with your Grandmother Maria, he sent divorce papers.
So, why now, Chu Chu?
By nine thirty you have not come out of the house, and I am crawling out of my skin. I have no idea what to do. I tell the driver to go. He asks where, and I say anywhere, just drive around. I can’t bear the idea of heading back to the motel, and I’ve already paid him a ridiculous amount of money to drive us to Real de Catorce. Money I am sure he won’t give back just because my plans have changed.
We drive down a side street, past thick-walled residential houses and a tiny grocery store advertising dried beans, corn and rice by the kilo handwritten on a cardboard sign. I crack open the window and let the rainwater splash onto my arm. Watching the drops pearl over my bare skin reminds me of standing in my yard in Cuba with Danita, our heads tilted to the sky, our mouths open to catch the rain on our tongues.
I miss my sister. We write to each other monthly, discussing our children and husbands, but none of it is real. Envy makes us exaggerate the best aspects of our lives and gloss over the bad. This year we started sending telexes, they’re faster than telegrams but still expensive so we limit them. Lately, hers have contained references to the local uprisings and mass demonstrations against President Batista, student protests and the University of Havana shutting down. She’s careful not to take any political viewpoint and keeps the messages informal and breezy.
Last week, I had every intention of telling her that Chu Chu kidnapped you, but I ended up telling her about the new movie contract with Duke, adding that you were doing well in school and Alfonso had booked a juggling gig in Palm Springs where we’d be spending Christmas. I thought about taking back my lie even as the ticker tape spit it out but didn’t. Not that it matters. My sister and I stopped confiding in each other a long time ago. It crushed her when Monte Proser asked me to sing at the Copa all those years ago and not her. I don’t think she’s forgiven Mamá and me for leaving her behind, despite the fact that she has a husband she loves, children and her own career singing at Teatro Nacional de Cuba. How can I admit to her that my success has landed me three failed marriages and now the kidnapping of my child? Singing and acting might be the only thing I can do right.
I feel a dull ache in my chest where the memory of my sister lives, the child she used to be, my best friend. I miss her in the way that I miss the familiar little girl you used to be, Nina. I don’t know how to mother you with your budding breasts and lengthening limbs, with your opinions and judgmental looks. I don’t even know if you’ve started menstruating yet. I never spoke to my mother about those sorts of things. I learned from my sisters, but I didn’t give you any sisters to learn from. I wonder what challenges you’ve met alone, without asking anything of me.
“Señorita? You still want me to drive?” The driver looks at me through the rearview mirror, his eyes separate from his body in that reflective rectangle. His questioning look annoys me. This whole goddamn city annoys me. I am not going back to that motel, and I am not leaving here without you.
“Take me back to Yautepec Street.”
I adjust my wig, push up my glasses and check my watch. It’s almost ten thirty. I am envisioning breaking a window and climbing through to find you when we turn down the street and there you are, walking with your schoolbag hanging down your arm.
“Slow down,” I order, rolling down my window as rain pelts my fake glasses, which are already so scratched I can hardly see out of them. We take the corner, and you are only a few feet away, the back of your head invisible under the black umbrella you hold in one hand. “Stop.” The car halts with brakes squealing. Your burly, unshakable chaperone is beside you, but I don’t care. I fling open the door and scream your name as you and the woman turn, your faces startled. I have forgotten about my disguise, and when you don’t move I panic that you don’t want to come with me until there is a shift of recognition in your face and you spring forward, your bag sliding from your arm to the ground. The woman makes a clumsy attempt to grab you, but you fling your umbrella and she trips over it as you reach the curb and leap into the car. I stretch across you, slamming the door shut as I shout at the driver “Ándale!” and we swerve into the street. Twisting around, I watch from the rear window as the woman steps into the street with a raised fist, the umbrella blowing away behind her.
“Nina.” I reach for you, tears springing to my eyes, but you flatten against the door like a caged animal, bewildered and frightened. I imagined us laughing and crying and holding onto each other, and I wonder if it’s the disguise that has frightened you, which is stupid, you are not a child, and yet I yank off the wig and glasses. But you just curl away from me, sobbing with your head pressed up against the door.
I probably should fight your resistance, hold you even if you don’t want me to, but your rejection burns, and I slide to the other side of the seat and fix my gaze out the window. The taxi driver turns up the radio—a folk ensemble playing ranchera—and speeds through the streets. I wriggle out of my costume to the tight-fitting navy dress I wear underneath. Bunching up the skirt and blouse, I shove them under my seat with the wig and glasses and sit back as you suddenly reach over and wrap your fingers around mine, turning to bury your weeping face in my lap.
“Oh, Nina, my sweet girl.” I brush the hair off your neck and stroke your back, sorry I didn’t hold you first. “It’s going to be all right, now.” I watch as the traffic slows down and worry about how fast that woman will get word to Chu Chu.
Fast, it turns out.
Before we are anywhere near the city border, the music on the radio is interrupted by an announcer in a resonant, dramatic tone saying that the famous singer Chu Chu Martinez’s daughter, Nina, nine years old, has been kidnapped by an old woman in a taxi cab. Anyone with information is to go directly to the police.
You bolt up, looking at me with frightened, red-rimmed eyes, and I cup your chin in my hand. “Well, they got that wrong, didn’t they? You are certainly not nine, and I’m no old woman.”
At that moment, the car lurches to a stop, and my shoulder slams into the back of the driver’s seat.
“Out.” The driver’s voice is low, serious.
I don’t move. “I paid you good money to drive us out of the city.”
The man doesn’t look at me. All I can see is the back of his head as he white-knuckles the steering wheel. “Chu Chu Martinez is a rich man, and rich men are connected with powerful men, and powerful men are dangerous men. You never said anything about kidnapping. You are lucky I don’t drive straight to the police.”
“It’s not kidnapping. She’s my daughter, and I’m taking her home. I need you to get us out of the city. If it’s money you want, I’ll wire you more as soon as we get back to Los Angeles.”
The man glances out his window, a nervous twitch in his neck. “You are no match for these men. Why would I risk my life? For money? And that is if you get home? No. Out.”
He reaches over the seat for the back door handle and swings the door open. “Go. I want no trouble.”
We climb out, and I slam the door as the car jumps forward and leaves us standing in the street. You are speechless, your face ghastly white as if you might be sick. A car honks at us, and I take your hand and move onto the sidewalk. It is thick with people. The drizzle has stopped, but the sky is still overcast, and the smells of trash and spiced foods and body odor swell in my nostrils. I don’t bother telling you that we’ll be all right. I don’t know that we will be. I don’t have enough pesos for another taxi. A bus would be cheap, but all I see are trams, and they won’t get us out of the city.
<
br /> I hurry you along looking for a bus stop, the street pulsing with heat. Bodies gather like flies around a pushcart selling tacos and enchiladas, the smell mouthwatering. All I want is to sit with you under a palm tree and eat a decent meal, I think, painfully aware that you haven’t spoken a word to me. I weave around a woman who bats away her clinging child, making the boy drop his taco. He wails so loud it drowns out the mariachi music blasting from a cantina’s open door. I clasp a hand over one ear just as I spot a policeman coming toward us, his movements slow and deliberate, his eyes scanning each person he passes. Ducking behind the woman, I tug you across the street and stand stock-still in front of a perfumery pretending to gaze at the etched-glass bottles, the atomizers like tiny balloons. Your hand is sweaty in mine. When I look at you, you don’t turn your head but keep your eyes on the crystal bottles. I want so much to know what you are thinking, but more than that I want to get us out of here. Slanting my eyes over my left shoulder, I see the policeman moving away down the opposite street at the same time as I spot a cab coming toward us. To hell with the money, I think, moving into the street and hailing it with a wild arm gesture.
I help you into the back and situate myself up front with an easy smile at the driver who is a young man with long limbs and fingers that curl like tentacles around the steering wheel.
“Where to?” he asks.
“Tula, gracias, Señor.” It’s the only town outside of the city I remember. Chu Chu took me there to see the Tollán ruins when we first moved here.
“That’s a long way. It’ll cost you. Much cheaper to take a bus.”
I don’t tell him we really need to get to Real de Catorce, which is over three hundred miles away and will cost far more than Tula. “I’m here on vacation with my daughter from Los Angeles and buses don’t suit us. Money is no object.”
Find Me in Havana Page 10