The Woman She Was

by Rosa Jordan

  Joe guessed that she was burnt out from worry about Liliana. The car would make a big difference, not in terms of finding Liliana, but in allowing Celia to move around enough to feel that she was doing something until the brat decided to come home. Girls might disappear in the States but not here. Although Liliana hadn’t mentioned having a boyfriend, he guessed she did. That was probably where she was and where she would stay, shacked up until their first lovers’ quarrel. Then she would head home, knowing she faced little if any disciplinary action—especially if she came back pregnant.

  He pulled up in front of the international terminal, a recent gift from the Canadian government. Its modernity reassured him in the same way Hotel Palco reassured him. First Worldness might be spotty on the island now but it was bound to spread. And he, Joe Lago, was going to be part of that spread. He glanced at his watch. “Ninety minutes. Plenty of time.”

  He reached across to squeeze Celia’s hand. “Don’t leave anything of value in the glove box overnight. In case the car gets broken into. Contact info for a mechanic is in there too, in case you have—” He almost said “an accident” but changed it to “mechanical problems.”

  He was just beginning to get thoroughly spooked by her silence, by the lack of anything that could properly be termed a response, when the hand that lay limp in his own suddenly tightened into a finger-snapping grip.

  “José, did Liliana say anything to you about wanting to go to the United States?”

  The way she said it reminded him of a woman who had once asked him if her husband was having an affair. Voice and eyes said that she already knew the answer and suspected he knew, that if he denied it she’d be sure he was lying and if he confirmed it, she would be devastated.

  Joe disentangled his hand from Celia’s and got out. “Yeah,” he said gruffly as he grabbed his bags from the back seat. “She did.”

  “Do you think she found a way to go?”

  “No. In fact, I’d be damned certain she didn’t.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because she didn’t have a clue how to go about it. No passport. No visa. No contacts. No money.”

  “If she had those things, do you think she would? Just go, without a goodbye?”

  Joe tightened his grip on his luggage. “Ask her that, Celia. When you find her.”

  He bent down and kissed her hard on the mouth, but quickly, not giving himself time to feel whether her response was one of receptiveness or rejection.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  CELIA did not know, returning from the airport, which made her most uncomfortable—driving the heavy old Chevrolet, so different from Luis’s tiny Fiat, or driving a car that belonged to José Lago. But by sunrise on Saturday morning, as she headed east on the Vía Blanca, she had adjusted. She could not deny that a car would make it easier to search for Liliana, nor could she deny that Liliana had been roaming at least as far as Varadero.

  She shied away from the thought of going to Varadero, as Luis had said in his note that he was going to put up notices there on Saturday and she did not want to risk running into him. Besides, Magdalena had said that even when they went there, they returned to the Jibacoa campismo at night. The campismo, then, was where she would start, and Saturday would be a good day. Besides the teens who hung out at campismos during their monthly week off, there were frequent school outings to the beach, so some students from Liliana’s school would likely be there.

  Celia felt that Liliana was near the water, although she had no idea why. Maybe it was the simple fact that Liliana loved the ocean. That was one reason why Magdalena’s mention of Liliana wanting to go to Miami had upset her so badly. However, the more Celia thought about it the more convinced she was that the conversation between Liliana and Magdalena had been in the nature of girlish fantasies like, “Don’t you wish we could go to Paris?” or “How about Canada? Wouldn’t you love to see snow?” The idea of going to Miami was merely a notion cast up by the thrill of meeting her infamous Tío Joe. Celia believed José was correct in saying that Liliana did not know how to go about it—which meant she had not seriously considered it.

  At least, Celia thought that was what she believed. What she knew for a fact was that Liliana had concealed thoughts and actions of which she would never have imagined her capable. Was a desire to leave Cuba really one of them?

  From Celia’s apartment, Playa Jibacoa’s Campismo El Abra was only an hour’s drive. Some of the cabañas were probably occupied with kids who had come the night before, but they were not up yet. The only person about was a gardener, grumbling as he bent down to pick up a gum wrapper. He straightened when he heard her footsteps crunching behind him on the leaf-strewn path.

  “Good morning.” Celia smiled. “You begin work early.”

  He acknowledged that it was early and asked if he could help. She showed the pictures of Liliana and asked if he had seen her recently.

  “Not since last week, but I know her. Likes horses, she does. Her and that girl, the one with orange hair. They often go over to my place.” He waved toward a cottage barely visible on a distant hillside. “My kids take them riding.”

  Celia smiled. “Liliana told me how much she enjoys that. She likes your family.”

  The man beamed. “Not a big family like when I grew up. Twelve we were. Me, I only got four. But four is enough, don’t you agree? The younger generation stops at two, one even. That’s better, I think. Times change. An island can only support so many.”

  Once the gardener told her that he hadn’t seen Liliana recently, Celia excused herself and headed for the cafetería. There she went through the ritual of passing around the flyer and listening politely to responses that told her nothing.

  On the way out of the dining room she stopped by the pool, a large one that she remembered from when it was new and she and her pre-university friends came here. She was standing there, staring into the still-empty pool and into her own past, when she heard her name shrieked in a high-pitched girl’s voice. “Dr. Cantú! Celia!”

  She looked up and saw that a school bus had pulled in. Teenagers were piling off and swarming toward pool and cafetería. She would have given years off her life to have that voice belong to Liliana. Of course it did not. Magdalena sprinted toward her.

  “Look!” Magdalena flashed ten red-nailed fingers in her face, each glistening with a tiny white heart. “Aren’t they wild? Everyone wanted to know how I did it, but I wouldn’t tell. It’s going to be my secret—mine and yours and Lili’s, okay?”

  A boy’s voice spoke from behind Celia. “I thought they grew like that naturally, Magdalena. Like your hair.” Celia turned and saw Danilo, who was pulling off his jeans to reveal a swimsuit underneath. He gave Celia a shy glance. “Heard anything from Liliana?”

  “No,” Celia said. “Have either of you?”

  They both shook their head. Magdalena said, “I phoned about a hundred people and asked on the bus too. Nobody has seen her since she left school Friday morning.”

  “Same here,” said Danilo. He started to walk away, then stopped and asked, “Does she know anybody with a boat?”

  “A boat? Where?” Celia asked blankly.

  “I don’t know.” He looked at Magdalena.

  “Not that I know of,” Celia replied nervously. “Why do you ask?”

  Danilo shrugged. “One of the guys said you”—he jerked his chin at Magdalena—“and her were talking about going out on somebody’s boat.”

  Magdalena coloured but answered straightforwardly. “It was just an idea. We thought we might find somebody who’d take us out.”

  “Do you know anybody who might?” Celia asked, trying to keep the alarm she felt from creeping into her voice.

  “No. It was just, if we ever met somebody, we’d ask, that’s all.”

  “Yeah,” Danilo said, giving Magdalena a look of barely concealed contempt. To Celia he said, “Chau, Doctora” and dove into the pool.

  “He doesn’t like me,” Magdalena said matte
r-of-factly.

  “Because sometimes Liliana goes with you to Varadero rather than coming here? Maybe he is jealous.”

  “Probably. Not of me but of the guys she meets there. Especially if she met one who had a boat.” She grinned. “Like a young Hemingway. But without the beard.”

  “Hm. Yes,” Celia replied noncommittally.

  “Lili said she has a friend, a friend of yours, I guess, in Santiago who operates big boats. If she ends up in med school in Santiago, maybe he’ll take us out.”

  “Maybe,” Celia agreed cautiously, not at all sure that Philip could authorize a joy ride on one of the ships he piloted into the harbour. She suspected that Magdalena was only trying to confirm that Liliana actually knew a ship’s captain.

  Someone from the other side of the pool called Magdalena’s name. “Gotta go,” she said abruptly. “Tell Lili to call me when she gets back.”

  Celia prowled the campismo grounds a while longer, questioning other students and staff. When she passed the pool again, Magdalena was executing a cannonball off the diving board, deliberately splashing a group of boys. Predictably, they yelled and grabbed her. Then, perhaps because Celia was watching, the boys released her. Their playfulness contrasted so sharply with Celia’s despair that it hardly seemed real.

  She was about to walk away when Magdalena shouted, “Dr. C! Wait!”

  “I thought of something,” Magdalena announced as she came paddling to the edge of the pool. “Where Lili might have gone.”

  Suddenly breathless with hope, Celia extended a hand and pulled Magdalena up onto the cement next to her.

  Magdalena’s eyes swept the group of young people in and around the pool in a way that caused Celia to think she was checking to see who might be watching—and would not have been displeased to discover that everyone was. However, only a few glanced their way, so Magdalena turned to Celia, whose full attention she had, and confided, “Once when we were hitching to Varadero a couple of Yanquis offered to take us to Playa Girón.” She giggled. “Why do Americans always want go to the Bay of Pigs? You’d think they’d want to avoid it.”

  “Did you go with them?”

  Magdalena shook her head. “Lili wanted to because she had never been. Plus the guys promised to rent snorkelling equipment for us. But”—she shrugged—“they were jerks. We decided to wait and hook up with some backpackers. They usually head for Trinidad. I’ve been both places,” she said proudly. “Trinidad is definitely more fun. It has beaches and discos.”

  “I have heard that,” Celia said weakly. “Do you know any, uh, backpackers?”

  “We met some in Playas del Este. Canadians, from Quebec. They wanted us to go to Trinidad with them. But when we said we didn’t have bus fare”—Magdalena’s mouth turned down at the corners—“they didn’t offer to buy tickets for us.”

  Celia picked up one of Magdalena’s hands and studied the scarlet fingernails with their painstakingly applied white hearts. “So what do you think, Magdalena? If Liliana met the right person, might she have gone to Trinidad? Or to Playa Girón?”

  “I didn’t think she would go without me. But she did go to Varadero by herself last Friday. I guess if she met somebody she liked, and he offered to pay her way . . .” The thin shoulders shrugged to indicate nonchalance, but Celia saw hurt in Magdalena’s eyes.

  She wished she could reassure the girl that nobody was more loyal than Liliana, that surely she had not intentionally walked out on friends and family. But how could Celia offer such reassurances? The alternative not to having done it deliberately was that someone had forced her to do it, a possibility that here in Cuba was simply inconceivable.

  • • •

  Leaving the campismo, Celia headed west on the beach road. A kilometre along, she parked in the shade of a sea grape tree and walked down to the beach. Small private cottages lined this section of Jibacoa beach. She walked not knowing which house, only that when she reached it, she would know: a place from another time, where she had been held and loved and strong because she gave all that to someone who gave it back to her. She wanted that intelligence at her command now, not his or hers but the force that both had become when they sat in this cottage, walked on this beach, talked and talked and talked of plans for a better Cuba, one where everyone would have enough and children, above all, would be safe.

  Celia stopped in front of a small bungalow built of natural stone and surrounded by twisted, wind-shaped trees. A woman with short brown curls like Celia’s own sat on the porch in a wooden rocking chair painted red. She watched Celia and rocked.

  Celia said, “Where is Fidel?”

  The woman rocked and watched her for a long time. Finally she said, “Fidel doesn’t come here anymore. I don’t think he’s been here in twenty-five years.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  LUIS squinted into mid-morning sun as he drove toward Varadero. Never in his life had he felt such blind fury.

  The rage had begun to build last night after José left for the airport. Alma kept nattering about how wonderful it was that he could go out and buy a car just like that, and how generous it was for him to leave it with Celia. Luis kept his annoyance to himself, knowing his mother needed to believe that the car was the magic carpet that would bring Liliana home. However, when she kept repeating the same things at breakfast he was tempted to tell her that the damned car was not endowed with magic powers, and José had never in his life done something for someone without a eye to what was in it for him. Luis didn’t have to think twice—in fact, he didn’t want to think once—about how his big-spender brother expected this little act of so-called generosity to be repaid.

  Besides, the car was irrelevant. In Luis’s opinion, the only thing that was going to bring about Liliana’s return was if a social worker, alerted to her walk on the wild side, caught sight of her and physically brought her home. But of course, what did a pile of Xeroxed notices, for which he had paid half a month’s salary, mean next to a canary-yellow convertible?

  He had arrived at Celia’s apartment as early as he dared, planning to wait until she appeared on the balcony with her morning coffee. He felt sure she would agree to go with him to Varadero to distribute the notices. They could talk on the way and get things sorted out. But that was not how it went because when he arrived she was already gone. At least the car was gone. Luis wasted fifteen minutes driving around the neighbourhood trying to discover whether she might have left it parked somewhere other than outside her own building. But he saw no sign of it so had headed for Varadero alone.

  On a whim, he decided to whip off the Vía Blanca at Playa Jibacoa to leave one of the posters at an all-inclusive resort there, plus one at the campismo where Liliana often spent weekends—or claimed she did.

  He was stopped at the gated entrance to SuperClub Saturno. He produced identification and waited an insultingly long time while the guard spoke to his supervisor on the phone. Then the guard had the temerity to ask exactly he wanted to see the head of security about. “That’s between your superior and myself,” Luis snapped and walked past the guard in a huff.

  A paunchy man wearing a badge that identified him as head of security for the resort met him just outside the ornate lobby door. Luis got the distinct impression that his intention was to conceal—although whether to conceal something in the hotel from him or to conceal him from guests who might be miffed to see a Cuban in their exclusive midst, he did not know. He treated the security boss the same way he had treated the guard, demanding to see the manager, then demanding to see him in private.

  In the manager’s office he produced a notice with Liliana pictures on it. After being assured that there was no one on the premises who looked anything like her, Luis instructed him to post it in the lobby. The manager appeared reluctant but muttered that he would take care of it.

  From SuperClub Saturno it was only three kilometres to the campismo. Being Saturday morning, the place was swarming with kids. No one was in the office so Luis walked to the cafetería, so
me distance away on the other side of the pool.

  Unlike the hotel, which had seemed like alien territory, the campismo was, or had once been, his turf. Disco music played at ear-splitting volume through giant amplifiers was different from what they had played on smaller speakers twenty years ago. But twenty years ago any one of the skinny boys performing attention-getting stunts off the diving board might have been him, with Celia one of the girls shrieking in the pool. Even more strongly than nostalgia, Luis felt pride. What a good thing the Revolution had done, creating rural camps like this for Cuban youth! One had only to see these healthy bodies and listen to their carefree laughter to know that.

  When he entered the cafeteria, he was stunned to see a notice about Liliana on the wall behind the cashier. The swell of pride in his chest popped like a balloon. “When was that posted?” he demanded with none of the preliminary courtesies the cashier’s smile said she expected.

  “About an hour ago. By her aunt,” the cashier stammered. “Do you know her?”

  “I am her fiancé. That is, her aunt’s fiancé.” The abruptness sprang from unbearable frustration. Had he not wasted time looking for the dammed car in Habana del Este he might have caught up to Celia here!

  “Number One or Number Two?” asked a girl’s voice behind him.

  Luis turned to see a truly revolting-looking teenager, orange hair smeared with some kind of goop that allowed it to be shaped into spikes. Her ears were punctured with more holes and dangling more baubles than he would have imagined possible. She fiddled at them with fingernails so pointed that they looked like claws.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you her aunt’s formerly dumped fiancé or the recently dumped one?”

  Luis had never in his entire forty years heard any Cuban teenager speak to an adult in such an insulting way. The girl’s tone of voice was shocking. What she said left him gasping like a fish. What in God’s name had Celia done? Come out to this campismo and here among a bunch of rowdy kids spilled every detail of their personal relationship? What could have impelled her to do such a thing?