The pork leg was cooked indoors and all the windows were closed, lest the wonderful aroma escape and proclaim our find. No neighbor could be trusted. You could never be sure about who had aspirations to join the party, and the fear and the greed for power motivated many to point their finger at friends they’d known all their lives. And it wasn’t just neighbors. Children denounced parents, and parents denounced children. Everyone had a heartbreaking story to tell about a child who’d turned his own parent in for a crime against the state, often considered less horrendous than Papi’s delectable purchase on the black market.
The aroma of pork skin sizzling with lemon and garlic almost brought tears to our eyes and fear of being caught didn’t dampen our delight. On the contrary, this was our secret way of snubbing the party and all its informants. With each delicious bite of pork we were declaring our hatred for Castro and the communist party, a private gastronomic counterrevolution.
Alicia and I sat together on the porch, savoring our few pieces. (One leg of pork didn’t go very far.) All of our conversations of late had been clouded by our inevitable separation. Alicia’s parents wouldn’t be applying for visas because Tío Carlos was convinced that the present circumstances were only temporary, and Castro would soon be ousted. Many agreed with him, but Papi considered Tío Carlos to be as stubborn as he always was and too proud to admit that the man he’d once supported into office had ruined our lives.
“Maybe the visas will never come,” Alicia said, as she mopped up every last bit of pork juice with a stale crust of bread. “And even if they do, you don’t have to go, Nora. You’re already fifteen. You can say you want to stay here and live with me and my parents.” She offered this possibility even though we both knew it was inconceivable that I should do anything but go with my family. I nodded glumly and watched the fireflies dance and flicker.
We remained out on the porch after we’d finished our meals and wondered if this might be the last time we would be together at Tía María’s house. Lately I’d been wondering if everything I did was my last time: my last time walking around the corner with Marta to buy a loaf of bread or an ice cream; my last time waking up to the sound of Beba singing in the kitchen, and banging plates and dishes around as she did when she wanted us to wake up; my last time standing outside on the balcony waiting for the sun to go down, so I could see the city glow pastel pink in the twilight.
But how could I measure a week without Sundays at Tía María’s house? It was as central to our existence as the rising and setting of the sun. No matter what happened during the week, there was always dinner at Tía María’s house on Sunday. Our difficulties would be sorted out, the harsher edges of life softened by the laughter and music on the porch, and the promise of a delicious brazo gitano to come after dinner.
And how could I live without Alicia nearby? She was my mirror, my inverse self. She had secrets of mine in her heart that I could never share with anybody else. And living any place other than Cuba was tantamount to saying I was going to go live on the moon. How could people survive in a place where it was cold; where the tropical breezes didn’t warm your soul on a daily basis? How could people live in a place that was so enormous? Cuba was small and cozy. Like my bedroom, I knew where everything was. The United States, spanning three thousand miles across an entire continent, would be like sleeping in an auditorium, my tiny bed miniscule and insignificant in the corner. This I could not imagine. Even less could I imagine speaking English, even though I’d studied it in school. It seemed right that this strange and complicated language with its thick “th” sound and irreverent vowels should come from an icy place where everybody was shivering and hurrying to get somewhere.
We spoke very little about our impending separation, almost not at all, as if fearing that talking about it would somehow make it happen. Perhaps Beba was right. Better to talk about the strong Americans and their hatred of communism and about a thousand planes buzzing over our heads like a swarm of angry bees aiming their stingers at the capped and bearded head of that man. Better not to talk about anything at all.
10
“TAKE ME WITH YOU,” BEBA CRIED, KNEELING ON THE FLOOR AT Mami’s feet. Mami was sprawled on the couch weeping with the same agony Tía Nina had unleashed earlier. Marta and I were speechless and numb at the sight of Mami and Beba in such condition. We couldn’t comprehend the reality that, with our visas granted, we’d be leaving our home very soon.
Papi stood apart from us, hands stuffed in the pockets of his linen trousers as his black shoes tapped out an erratic rhythm on the tile floor. He was somewhere else, way ahead of us and unable to offer any consolation to the wailing women before him.
He walked to the center of the room and spoke only to Mami. “Beba isn’t the only one who won’t be leaving, Regina.” The wailing stopped and silence spread over us like death.
Mami straightened up and wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. “José, what are you saying?”
For a moment Papi couldn’t speak.
“For God’s sake, tell me!”
“Regina, calm down. There’s a solution for this, I’m…”
“What is it?” she screamed and she sprung up from the couch to lunge at Papi.
Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders and eased her back down to the couch. “My visa will be granted shortly, I’m sure.”
“Your visa wasn’t with ours?”
“No, but it’ll come.”
Mami stood up again, clear-minded and chipper. “Then we’ll wait until it comes, and we’ll all go together. That’s what we’ll do,” she said in her most reasonable voice. Her solution sounded logical enough and perhaps while we waited for Papi’s visa, Beba’s would come too, and if we waited longer still, the government would change again and we wouldn’t have to go at all.
We patted Beba on the back and told her, with voices trembling, that it was going to be all right, but she stayed on the floor quietly weeping, her face covered by her hands. Beba never gave her grief up easily, and she wasn’t prone to hysterics. My dread returned at once.
Papi took slow steps to the window and gazed out at the glittering Caribbean in the distance. He kept his hands in his pockets, but I saw them ball up into fists and expand the linen. He walked back and spoke strong and clear. “You have to leave with the girls as soon as possible. If you lose these visas, you’ll lose your chance forever.”
“But it could be years, José. We might be separated for years.”
Papi was silent. A fine mist of perspiration glistening on his forehead. “It won’t be years. Don’t you see?” He turned to Marta and I, attempting a smile that looked more like a half-hearted grimace. “This is their ploy to make us stay. They think you won’t go without me. But it won’t work. You three will be on that plane if it kills me. And if my visa doesn’t come, I’ll swim to Miami if I have to. I promise.”
Mami collapsed on the couch once again. “You can keep your promises to yourself. This is too much for me to bear.”
Beba collected herself and retreated to the kitchen without another word.
We were scheduled to leave in a week, which was the same as saying tomorrow, in an hour, this very second you’ll walk out the door and leave the life you know forever. There were no elaborate preparations for our departure, no packing to be done because we were only allowed to take one change of clothes, no pictures or books or jewelry or anything that might remind us of the home we were leaving behind. We simply floated about the rooms of our apartment like ghosts wandering through a museum of belongings that were no longer ours. Our heartache settled like fine dust on every stick of furniture, every corner of tile. It blew, like a silent storm out of the windows and blended with the moisture of the sea that seemed to be weeping with us. We took pictures with our hearts and minds, and the little time we had expanded into an eternity of tomorrows we would never have. I found myself gazing at the Caribbean in the distance for hours at a time trying to make up for a lifetime of lost memories.
/>
Mami and Papi were more inseparable than usual, and Mami cried constantly while Papi held her. When her head was on his shoulder so she couldn’t see his face, he looked like his big heart was rotting and shriveling up into a small dry raisin. I tried to interpret the despair I saw in his eyes, for I knew better than to ask directly. Did it mean we’d never see him again? That he couldn’t bear being apart from us? Was he keeping a secret too dangerous or painful to share?
Marta and I stood around the apartment, too weak from the shock of what was happening to do anything else. We hovered about Beba who’d regained her composure, but her strength was no longer warm and familiar; it was cold and resigned. She stopped singing and telling stories. Her pure white clothes appeared crumpled and occasionally stained. We sat together in the kitchen with no food to prepare and waited for the days to pass and the world to end.
Alicia and I were together at Varadero beach two days before we left. Even here where the breeze had always floated light and fragrant through our childhood dreams and scattered our fears into the brilliant sky, the air felt heavy and difficult to breathe. I could feel the sun pulsating angrily as it looked down upon its favorite island falling into ruin.
Alicia’s parents had still refused to apply for visas, certain that the political climate would change. Although I didn’t dare say anything, I secretly believed that they were right. Why should we leave our home because of the capriciousness of one man? It seemed like an incredible overreaction to leave our lives, our families, everything that made us who we were, when so many other proud Cubans were willing to wait and pray for change. Wasn’t that the most reasonable thing to do? Hadn’t Papi and Mami and the sisters at El Ángel de la Guarda always told us to be patient? Didn’t the Bible say that patience was a virtue? Why were we willing to abandon our home when there was still hope?
All of these questions I longed to ask, but dared not when I saw the anguish in Mami and Papi’s eyes. I didn’t want Mami to go weak and crazy like Tía Nina had when Tío Carlos went away. I knew that it was better to remain silent and hold my breath and pray that things wouldn’t get any worse.
Alicia and I sat on the white soft sand, resting our eyes on the turquoise blueness spread out before us, allowing the tepid water to moisten and tickle our toes.
“We learned to swim together here,” Alicia said, still staring out at the sea. “Remember the day Abuelo made us swim to the platform?”
The platform was still out there bobbing peacefully, unaware of the grand role it had played in training generations of swimmers in our family and other families as well, no doubt.
“As I remember, you were the one who learned how to swim. I learned how to sink to the bottom like a big rock.” I laughed at the memory, but I wanted to cry.
“You were brave, Nora. You tried even though you were afraid.”
“I was definitely afraid.”
“How about now? Are you afraid?”
I buried my toes in the soft sand and studied the thick drips of sand and water that spilled over my feet like hot fudge. “Yes, but I don’t feel like I did when I was little. I just feel this frozen kind of sadness that doesn’t let me cry.”
Alicia nodded in the way that let me know she knew exactly what I meant. “It doesn’t seem real. We’ve grown up together our whole lives. How can we just keep growing up apart?”
“Maybe we won’t. Everybody says this can’t last much longer. I think we’ll only be gone a short while.”
We lay back and gazed up at the palms, sweeping the sky as they had since we were little girls and before that…forever as they do.
“Can you see God today?” I asked, and Alicia took hold of my hand and the warmth of her love and sadness filled me like the sun overhead.
“Oh yes,” she whispered. “He’s looking right down on us at this very moment.”
“And what did you ask him?”
“Well, you know I can’t tell you that, Nora,” she said and we both smiled through our tears.
José Martí Airport was a confusing throng of young soldiers with enormous guns slung about their bodies as they surveyed anxious and miserable people of all ages running around with their one mostly empty suitcase, bawling like babies as they hugged family members they might not see for years, if ever again. Children looked up at the adults with wide eyes, curious about this sudden reversal of roles.
“Don’t cry,” we heard an irritated soldier instruct a woman old enough to be his grandmother. “If you cry like that, it means you’re against the revolution, and that’s a crime, or haven’t you heard?”
The old woman wiped her eyes under her glasses with her handkerchief and turned away from the soldier, her bottom lip trembling. “Cabrón,” she muttered as she walked past us.
The four of us waited against the wall as Abuelo went to check on the status of our flight. Mami was a zombie, which was quite a change from her usual hysteria, but I preferred her hysteria to this death mask. Papi whispered into her ear and she nodded as she listened, blinking slowly like a child who’s learning the rules for hide and seek. I imagine he told her what he’d been telling her all week, that everything was going to be fine, that we’d be together soon, and that nothing could keep our family apart.
Arrangements had already been made for our arrival in Miami, where we were to stay with friends until we reunited with Papi. The longest he’d wait for his visa was one year, and if it didn’t come, he’d start looking for other ways to get out. There were many reports of people who were stowing away on boats and planes. And the United States was accepting anyone from Cuba, with or without a legal visa. It seemed a reasonable plan; a year wasn’t so long. But Papi might as well have been talking to the wall that Mami leaned on.
She mumbled what she’d been saying for two weeks. “I can’t believe this is happening to us.”
As I looked at Papi, tall and strong, his eyes bright with emotion, I had no doubt our separation would be a brief one, but what would we do until then? At fifteen, I was already taller than Mami, and when I took her hand she let her head drop on my shoulder. “You have to help me, Nora,” she said in a voice weakened by pain. “I need your help to get through this.”
“I’ll help you, Mami, don’t worry,” I said, trying to sound strong, although I too wanted to break down and weep like everyone else. I wanted Papi and Mami to take me in their arms like they did when I was a little girl and tell me it was all a bad dream and that things would be fine in the morning. I’d wake and see the light streaming through my window. I’d smell the coffee brewing, and I’d hear Beba singing merrily from the kitchen in her beautiful golden voice.
“We’re planning a trip to the beach,” my mother calls brightly. “Get up before we lose half the day.”
“I’ll get up right now,” I want to call back, but I can’t because I’m leaning against a gray wall with her head on my shoulder, holding an empty suitcase and wearing three pairs of underwear.
“I’ll help you too, Mami,” Marta said as she took the suitcase from me.
“You see, Regina? You have two wonderful daughters to help you be strong. And I’ll be there soon.”
“I don’t think we should go,” Mami said. But the strength had gone out of her argument, and it was only a hollow whisper.
Abuelo was weaving his way swiftly through the crowd. His face twitched when he neared, and his desperation swept over us like a furious wave. We were no longer sad and contemplative, but energized with the need to get on with it: this business of saying good-bye, to our home, to Papi, to everything we were.
Abuelo was so nervous he could hardly speak. Since sweet calm Abuelo was never nervous, the pit of my stomach fell to my feet. Everything was falling down around me, but I still wanted to stay with all my heart.
He pressed Papi’s shoulder. “The plane is boarding.”
Papi looked at his watch. “They shouldn’t be boarding for another hour, Papá.”
“Look at this place. Does it look like any
one knows what they’re doing? This is a mad house, and I’m telling you that your plane is boarding now!” Abuelo never yelled, but he did so now and his face assumed a tightness that pulled the corners of his mouth down taut.
Mami straightened to attention and her eyes cleared. She shook herself. “We can’t miss the plane, you heard what he said,” she snapped, looking straight ahead. We almost ran behind her and Abuelo to keep up.
We arrived at the gate out of breath, with our hearts in our throats as we joined the end of the line trailing through the door out to the plane that reflected the tropical sun like Beba’s pot and pans after she polished them. A middle-aged lady in front of us wept as a female official inspected her suitcase. The official took great pleasure in ripping the photographs she found, one by one, and tossing them on to the floor. She had a full mouth and wide-set almond eyes. She would’ve been considered very pretty if not for the sneer that cut across her face.
“Get in line right there,” Abuelo commanded, unmoved by the scene before us. “Give me your visas.” Papi handed him the three visas and stood with Abuelo outside the rope.
We looked at the flight number on the board. This was not our flight, but we got in line anyway when we saw the look on Abuelo’s face. He wasn’t confused at all. He knew exactly what he was doing.
When it was our turn to give the clerk our tickets, Abuelo stood close to him and passed him our visas so that his body blocked what he was doing, but I saw him slip several dollars into the front flap of one of our passports and remembered that Abuelo had money invested in an American bank account.
The clerk examined the passports and visas, then glared at Papi. “Sir,” he said. “Didn’t you read the sign? Passengers boarding the plane must stand inside the rope.”
Broken Paradise Page 9