Find Me in Havana

by Serena Burdick

  Watching the click beetles come out, sparking across the lawn, I think of the night when Mamá took Danita and me to El Jardin for milkshakes after a concert. I was fifteen years old and had just signed a contract with the Copacabana.

  Danita and I had been in a fight all day over who got to wear the dress with the taffeta rose. In the end, she got to because she was older, and I drank my frozen treat in grumpy silence, glaring at her the whole time.

  Later, in our beds, she had said, “Do you know how selfish you are?”

  “Me? You got to wear the dress.”

  “You never keep promises.”

  “Like what?”

  “You never gave me your white shoes. You said you’d give them to me, and then you didn’t.”

  “Geez, Danita, I was nine years old. And Mamá bought you your own pair.”

  “No, Estelita, she did not.” Danita sat up. “That’s exactly what I mean. You only notice the things you have, never what anyone else has. That dress—” she pointed to the mound of petal-pink organza I’d left on the floor “—I told Mamá I wanted that fabric, and do you know what she said? She said it was a better color on you.”

  “You can have the stupid dress. I don’t even like it. I wanted the one with the rose, and you got to wear it.”

  “Oh, you don’t get it.” Danita flopped back down and rolled over with her back to me.

  It was a stupid fight, but we were not fighting about dresses or forgotten shoes. I looked at the unflinching wall of my sister’s haloed back in the heavy moonlight and knew that she was right: I was selfish.

  I still am, I think, watching the beetles blink across the lawn. I want things that are bigger than my family, bigger than you or Mamá or my sisters.

  Despite our fight that night, I still convinced Danita to sneak out and collect beetles with me, our full-moon tradition, each beetle offering one wish. We could use some wishes now, I think, tempted to wake my sister so we can gather them together again.

  I don’t. Instead, I gather them myself—Estelita the Dream Collector—in a dusty jar I find under the kitchen sink, taking the beetles upstairs to show my sister.

  “Danita.” I shake her awake.

  “What?”

  I hold the jar up like a prize. “Click beetles.”

  “Estelita, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “We have to make a wish.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She rolls over with an arm over her head. No nostalgia, just annoyance.

  I set the jar on the bedside table and climb into bed.

  I am restless and wake early. Already, the sun boils the room. Sections of green paint pucker and swell like fat limes on the walls. Danita is still asleep beside me, and when I roll over, I see that the beetles are dead at the bottom of the glass.

  I get up quietly and go downstairs to dump them outside, their weightless husks fluttering to the ground. In the kitchen, I make coffee, packing the Moka pot with grinds as dark as earth. I pour the brew thick and hot over a spoonful of brown sugar, thinking I will never go back to Folgers. The one thing Americans do not know how to do is drink coffee. I take a sip, the nutty, rich flavor such a simple, human pleasure. I wish all pleasures were so simple.

  I have only slept a few hours. Exhaustion makes what comes later feel like a watery dream, impossible things floating in a disproportionate reality.

  No one else is awake to hear the jeep coming down the road. I am on the porch watching a pale disk of sunlight rise over the hills and wondering if Marco sent the telex to Ed, as I’d asked, when I see Mamá in the back of the jeep. I rush forward, down the stairs and across the yard. I struggle to open her door, my coffee still clutched in one hand, my robe slipping down my shoulder. The driver gets out, the same man who took her yesterday. “Señorita.” He opens the door and holds out an arm, and Mamá leans against him as she climbs down. I reach for Mamá who brushes me away as if I am a nuisance, which makes me smile. She thanks the soldier, who tips his hat at her like an old-fashioned beau bringing her home late from a dance.

  The man climbs back into the jeep and drives away, and Mamá looks at the coffee in my hand and says, “May I? I’ve had very little sleep.” I nod, hand it to her. She takes a small sip. “It’s cold.”

  “I’ll get you a hot cup.”

  She sits on the porch while I make another cup and bring it out to her steaming hot. We sit in silence, rays of soft, morning sunlight falling at our feet. The skin under Mamá’s eyes is swollen smooth, her lids heavy, lines deep as trenches stretching across her forehead. She wraps both hands around the mug and lifts the steam to her chin. “They took me to see your father.”

  With slow, careful breaths, she explains how she sat with him all night in a hospital with white walls and small windows. How a nurse offered her cold water but no food while my father lay unconscious in a twin bed with a thin blanket and no pillow. They had beaten him but left him to die on his own time. His face was bruised on one side, and his eyes were swollen shut. A woman in tan pants and a button-down shirt came to check his pulse and told Mamá he had asked for her yesterday and that it was a kindness of Señor Castro’s to allow her to say goodbye.

  “A kindness.” Mamá spits a stream of saliva at her feet, her disgust glistening in sunshine. “Batista is a coward. He did not lift a finger to save your father, or this country. I distrusted him from the start for good reason.” She pauses, takes a slow sip of coffee and then, “He killed men. Your papa. I watched the news and didn’t speak of it because I knew what my husband was doing. Batista had men shot in the head at gunpoint. He strung rebels up from lampposts and left them as an example to others. He is a horrible man, and your papa was part of it. We are all complicit, as far as I’m concerned.”

  I picture Papa on the porch the day Mamá and I left fifteen years ago, watching us climb into a cab, thin and strong and proud, his hands in his pockets, his chin up. I wonder if he’s gone bald, or if his dark hair has grayed, if he wears a beard or still has sandpaper cheeks dotted red from razor burn. It’s impossible to picture the man I knew as old or silent or beaten. It is easy to picture him in a firing squad. He was a father who related to his children by dominating them. I knew only to fear him, to wait in a cold sweat for either punishment or approval. I have no idea what it would have been like to know him as an adult.

  “Is he dead?” I ask quietly.

  “He wasn’t when I left, but he will be soon.” From her face I cannot tell how deep her sadness runs, just that the pain is fresh. It doesn’t matter how little she approved of what he did or how their views differed, a part of her still loves him.

  “Why did you leave Cuba?” I ask.

  Mamá’s gaze is straight ahead. “For you, and for myself. I didn’t want to be a part of what was going on here. I didn’t want to be the wife of a man who shot people in the streets. If I stayed away, I could forget what I was.”

  I reach for her hand. “You are not to blame for your husband’s actions.”

  “Neither are you,” she says, a small token, but one I take as forgiveness. I didn’t think she understood my guilt over what Alfonso did to you.

  We keep our eyes on the horizon, fingers entwined on my knee, coffee cooling in our cups. The sky stretches endlessly in front of us, clear blue and cloudless. But the air is smothering with humidity. I miss the dry heat of Los Angeles, the weightlessness of it. A flock of birds rise with a flutter of beating wings from the flamboyant tree that grows so close to the house that fern leaves fan the siding, and the long, brown tree pods litter the porch floor. I haven’t seen a flamboyant tree in bloom since I was a child, red petals lucent as fire. Danita and I used to make crowns from the petals, and when the pods dried out we used them as musical shakers. I kick a pod that lies at my feet, and it slides to the edge of the porch with a tinkle of sound. I will collect some for you and Josepha, I think, show you h
ow to move your hips to the rhythm.

  When the house wakes, Mamá is covered in children, big and little. Despite her Herculean reputation, we were all afraid she wasn’t coming back. There are hugs and wet kisses and questions she gives no-nonsense answers to, repeating her story, leaving out the description of their abuelo’s face. She doesn’t go to bed, but in the late afternoon, before the soldiers arrive, I find her asleep in the chair on the porch. The sun has shifted behind the house, and she sits in shadow, her head rolled to the side, the skin under her neck bunched up. She does not look peaceful. Her eyes flutter, and her lips contort. I think of waking her but don’t want to startle her.

  The rebels do that for me. The jeeps arrive fast and loud, all three of them, engines revving. Brakes screech, doors slam and Mamá’s eyes fly open.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  * * *

  Viva Batista!

  Mother,

  In the afternoon silence, before the jeeps arrive, I find you sitting on the bed you share with Danita, wearing your sister’s borrowed clothes, a cap-sleeved blouse and shorts, your untamed hair brushed out over the hollows of your neck. You have been crying. When you see me, you open an arm, and I crawl under it and lay my head against your shoulder, burrowing into your hair as the frizzy wisps tickle my face. You smell different, like the blue-flaking soap in the bathroom, like sea air and boiled beans. I touch the mole on the inside of your arm, a tiny polka dot on your cream-colored skin.

  “Are you sad because your papa died?” I ask.

  You squeeze me. “A little. I don’t know why. I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years, and he wasn’t a very nice man.”

  I think how my dad is not a nice man either, but I’ll probably be a little sad one day when he dies, too.

  “When are we going home?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are we ever going home?” A part of me doesn’t want to, another part does.

  “Of course. Soon, I hope.”

  “All of us?” I look up at you through a curtain of hair.

  A smile fills your face. “All of us, mi hija. I’ve sent a telex to Ed, and your grandmother spoke to the man who drove her to the hospital. I guess he’s someone important to Fidel Castro. He said he would speak to him about getting us home and reuniting your aunts with their husbands in Miami.”

  “Will Josepha and Auntie Danita come with us to LA, since she has no husband in Miami?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  I tuck my chin and drop my head to your shoulder wanting to lick your salty skin and push my fingers into the softness of your belly like I did when I was little and those things were acceptable. I want you to always be like this, simple, with messy hair and time to sit with me and do nothing.

  * * *

  Hours later, the jeeps roll up. I am in the closet with the door open waiting for Josepha, who went downstairs for a candle. The electricity is back on, but candles are more suitable lighting for confessing secret desires. I sit on the floor watching a fat, black ant march with unwavering certainty around my big toe and out the closet door. It’d be nice to feel that certain about anything, I think, the sound of screeching brakes sending me leaping to my feet. I hear doors slam and men’s voices and think of the gun in the boot. I haven’t been back into Grandfather Manuel’s closet to check if it’s real, but I can still feel the cool, hard shape against the bottom of my foot.

  Below me, I hear the front door open and heavy boots clomp down the hall. I creep to the top of the stairs and peer down. Lita looks out of her bedroom door, a scarf tied into a knot at the top of her head.

  Her eyes flit past me to the stairs. “They’re back?”

  I nod, and she pulls her head in, closes and locks the door. She and Enricua have been told to lock themselves in whenever the rebels come, and they have no desire to disobey.

  Pots clatter in the kitchen, and radio static comes from the living room. The front door has been left wide-open, and I see you walk through, alone, your face sapped of good intentions. And then I see a man leaning against the wall in the hallway. His back is to me, but I know it is Che from the curl of his hair and the easy manner with which he steps in front of you.

  Your face stiffens, and he laughs. “Not excited to see me?” In a swift motion, he pushes you against the wall, his hands on your hips, his mouth over yours. There is confidence in him, victory. He is a hero. You jerk your head to the side, and when he comes at you again you send a glob of spit flying into his face. He flinches. I’m afraid he is going to hit you or force his mouth on yours again, but all he does is lean toward you running the back of his hand slowly down the side of your face, the touch tender, like one might caress a tiny kitten or something very dear to them.

  You’ve gone rigid as a plank, flattening into the wall as if hoping it will swallow you. All you have to do is look up and you’d see me, but you keep your eyes angled to the floor. I think of Alfonso’s hand running up the inside of my thigh with a feeling of powerlessness. Why do they get away with it? Why do we do nothing? I slink backward, slowly, so the floor doesn’t creak, back into Grandfather Manuel’s room and head straight for the closet.

  I pull the gun from the boot. It’s heavier than I expect, solid black and terrifyingly real. I wonder where Josepha is and why she hasn’t come back with a candle. If she comes in now anything could happen. Or, I could make something happen on my own. I curl the edge of my finger over the trigger, the metal slippery. Uncle Duke would know how to shoot this thing. In his gunslinging movies he made it look easy. He never missed. The idea of not missing sends a shiver through me. I slide the gun back into the boot and pull Grandfather Manuel’s jacket from the closet. I put it on, button it up and adjust the bottom that hangs above my knees. It smells of stale cigarette smoke. I am tempted to take the gun out again but don’t.

  Downstairs the hallway is empty, the living room door wide-open. A song plays on the radio, ukuleles and maracas and a droning female voice. Male voices talk over the singer. From the kitchen I hear running water and can smell yucca croquettes frying in oil. I take a deep breath, my heart firing in my chest. I think of Josepha and the dare, of Che’s hand on your cheek, of Alfonso, and my father, and Señorita Perron, and the nuns, all of the ones in power over me. I want that kind of power.

  With a cry of “Viva Batista!” I charge into the room. I don’t see you or Auntie Danita or the rebels, I only see Josepha standing near the door staring with wide, startled eyes. I am pumped with adrenaline, reckless and out of control. I shout, “Viva Batista! Viva Batista! Viva Batista!” until a hand clamps over my mouth. My vision clouds with dust stirred up in sunlight. Through it, Che’s face looms, his eyes black kernels of rage, his ease and carelessness turned ruthless. There is a moment of stillness, as if he doesn’t know what to do with me. He has dealt with ferocious men and submissive women. I am neither. His nostrils flare, and I think he means to pull his hand away when I bite him, his fleshy palm salty on my tongue.

  My head cracks against the wood floor so hard my jaw rattles, and for a split second my vision goes black. Rough fingers are on me, ripping the jacket off, pulling up my skirt and drawing down my underwear. I try and clamp my knees together, but they are yanked open like springs. My scream is cut off as a hand slams over my mouth again, the fingers smelling of rubber. This time it means to suffocate.

  “Por favor, por favor, Señor! God have mercy, she is a child.” My grandmother kneels beside me, her hands in prayer. She rocks and begs, her voice shrill and contorted, and the frenzied hands suddenly stop.

  Che pulls away, snapped out of something, but not far enough. He stays kneeling over me, his hair falling into his face, his beard like a sharp tool pointed at the end of his chin. A man who knows how to use a sharp object. With calculated brutality, he wraps his fingers around my throat and squeezes. Our eyes meet. His are empty. Impersonal. Black holes in a body. He keeps
his hand there long enough for panic to set in. Bright spots float in front of my eyes. Someone screams for him to stop, either you or my grandmother, and he lets go, the air choking back into my lungs. Behind the floating spots, I see him stand with the disgust and satisfied proficiency of someone who has kicked a disobedient dog.

  He is finished with me.

  Powerful arms pull me up and into a lap: Grandmother Maria’s, her chest heaving as if she is the one whose breath was cut short. You drop to the floor beside both of us shaking and crying, your hands on my neck, my face, my shoulders. My throat stings like the rope burns we used to give each other at Villa Cabrini Academy, twisting the skin on each other’s arms until the person begged for mercy, red welts marking the spot for days.

  The room stills, and collectively we see Che reach for Josepha, a last attempt to assert his power, make up for his act of generosity with me. Or, perhaps, just pure, male brutality. A cry rises and dies in my throat. Auntie Danita cries out instead, a scream to split walls, and Che barks an order at Alipio, who wraps an arm around her as she lunges, her limbs grabbing air, her guttural howls like hot oil burning scars into our ears.

  Against the bulk of Che, Josepha is weak as dust. She tries to fight back, but he stops her with a single blow, her cheek splitting open, wide and red as a calendula bloom. Blood runs from her nose over her stunned, open mouth. Grandmother shoves me off her lap, but Che is in no mood for more pleading. He is scrupulous, but not fair. He drags Josepha from the room without a backward glance at the old woman crawling across the floor. The door slams, and Riel steps in front of it, his sunken cheeks unsmiling, his body stiff as any soldier’s despite his shocked and apologetic face. Grandmother begs on her knees for him to step aside, but he tilts his head in silence, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall. They have trained him well.