Broken Paradise

by Cecilia Samartin

  “I thought I should tell you, so you could stop worrying about me,” Marta added.

  And so you don’t have to worry about me telling Mami and Papi any more, I thought.

  We were almost arriving to school and I held on to her arm for a moment. “Marta, please don’t do this again. It’ll be so much harder when we go back….”

  “What makes you think we’re going back.”

  “I heard they’re trying to get rid of Castro and…” I stopped myself. “I just know it, I feel it inside.”

  Marta shook her head and rolled her eyes, “Don’t fool yourself, Nora.”

  Jeremy looked startled to hear my question, and he turned the same rosy color he had when talking to Cindy. He tapped his pencil on the desk. “Let’s see, it’s kind of like…Well it sort of depends how you mean…or…” Then he turned to me boldly. “Why do you need to know this?”

  “My sister broke up with a boy who said she is a prude. I don’t know what it means, but she should not be with him and I have to be careful for her because I can’t tell my parents because they might send her away and…”

  “Wait a minute…What happened with your sister and this boy?” Jeremy looked serious, and although I had forgiven him for his attraction to Cindy and decided that a trusting friendship with him would be better than nothing, the way he stroked his beard and nodded his head made me reconsider how I felt about him all over again.

  “I don’t know what happened. She is not supposed to have a boyfriend.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Almost fifteen.”

  “It seems to me…Why isn’t she supposed to have a boyfriend?”

  “She is too young. She has not even introduced the boy to my parents.”

  Jeremy’s eyebrow’s lifted. It seemed as if there were many things he wanted to say.

  I inched closer to him and lowered my voice. “In Cuba a man and woman are not ever alone until they get married.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It is true. Everywhere they go before, they are chaperoned to make sure.”

  “To make sure of what?”

  “That nothing bad happens between them.”

  “Oh, man,” Jeremy said, shaking his head in amazement. “I never knew that that stuff still went on.”

  “If a woman is caught alone with a man who is not her brother or father, people will think she is bad, like a prostitute and then no man will marry her.”

  Jeremy almost jumped in his seat at the word prostitute. “I can see why you’re so worried about Marta then.”

  I nodded, glad that he’d understood. “So what does it mean…prude?”

  Jeremy readjusted himself in his seat and faced me, his eyes sincere and open, but once again there was a smile lurking. “Before I tell you, would you answer a question for me?”

  I nodded, eager to get on with our lesson.

  “Do your parents know about our meetings?” While he waited for my answer his eyes positively sparkled. He seemed to enjoy the dilemma he’d created for me.

  I tore my eyes away from his. My hands were hot as I fumbled with my books. “It’s different for us.”

  “Why? I’m not your father or your brother, am I?”

  I felt as though he was playing with me, using his knowledge of my attraction for his amusement and it maddened me. “You are the teacher and I am the student. Your words.”

  “I remember them.”

  “And,” I looked him straight in the eye this time, unconcerned with whether my face was on fire or not. “You are not how Eddie is with Marta.”

  “You mean I’m not your boyfriend. How do you say boyfriend in Spanish again?”

  “You know how.” I felt flustered.

  “Tell me anyway. I like how you say it.”

  “Novio.”

  He said the word to himself several times, perfectly imitating my accent and not removing his eyes from my face.

  “So are you going to tell me what it means this word? Prude?”

  His eyes fell away from my face, and he cleared his throat while searching for something amongst his papers. “Well it’s…Let’s just say it’s the opposite of a prostitute.”

  I heard him calling my name a few days later when I was walking home from school. He ran to catch up with me, his long legs and arms pumping like an athlete’s. I rarely saw him outside of the classroom, and he was panting slightly and squinted in the bright sunlight. He was so different from any boy I’d known in Cuba. I’d have to find a way to describe him better in my next letter to Alicia.

  “Nora,” he said, laughing a little and shaking his head so that his curls bounced and bobbed. “I thought I’d have to call you tonight, and I don’t have your phone number.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Jeremy grabbed my arm. “I got my assignment. I’ll be going to Peru in a few weeks, but I have to leave immediately for the training.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Peace Corps. Remember I told you?” Jeremy spoke with such enthusiasm and delight that it looked as though his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

  I smiled and congratulated him and said all the things I knew I had to say to make him believe I was happy. I couldn’t let him see that with this news he was taking away the only thing that made getting up in the morning and going to school worthwhile. How could he know that I’d come to depend on him in the way that I’d depended on Ángel de la Guarda during the early months of the revolution? He was my sanctuary. And now, once again, there were no more sanctuaries.

  “I’m going to miss working with you…and seeing you…” He was still smiling and looking into my eyes. My sadness intensified. I was at the airport leaving my country all over again and there was a deep pain in the pit of my stomach that left me fluttering and vulnerable and lost.

  Jeremy cocked his head to one side as he did when he didn’t understand my English or Spanish, depending on who was teaching who. His smile faded and he seemed to be a little lost as well. He placed an awkward hand on my shoulder and left it there so the warmth penetrated through three layers of clothing and stamped my shoulder with his touch. “Thank you for being such a good teacher,” he said.

  I was about to thank him too, when she swept down upon us. Cindy, with her turbulence of blonde hair, her yellow smile, and exceptional energy. She circled Jeremy prodding and touching him repeatedly so he had to remove his arm from my shoulder.

  “Hey, that’s great news. I just found out,” she said, and Jeremy smiled and turned that amazing shade of red. “Come and tell me all about where you’re going.” She pulled possessively on his arm. As always, I was invisible to her.

  They were already across the street and Jeremy kept turning around and waving while Cindy jumped all over him, like the aggressive cheerleader she was.

  “I’ll look for you when I get back,” he called out, holding Cindy at bay, causing her to freeze for a moment.

  “How long will that be?” I called back.

  “Two years, give or take a few weeks.”

  I smiled and waved. We’d be back in Cuba by then. I’d be walking on the beach and attending chaperoned dances by the dozen. Abuela would buy me dresses that accentuated a figure beginning to fill out quite nicely. Not as dramatically as Alicia’s, but soft and feminine just the same.

  I wrapped my coat around me tighter and wondered if the Peace Corps ever sent people to Cuba. I should’ve asked Jeremy this before when I had a chance. I should’ve suggested that he consider going to Cuba when he talked to me about joining months ago, but I didn’t like talking about the possibility that he would leave, and it was too late to worry about this now.

  I’d never see him again. Of this I was certain.

  14

  IT WAS HARD TO BELIEVE WE HAD BEEN AWAY FROM OUR COUNTRY for almost two years. In some ways, the time had gone by quickly in our struggle to adjust. In others, it felt as if we’d been gone for decades and I feared, that in spite of my promise,
I was forgetting how to be Cuban. Even my English was getting better, and although I still had an accent, I was completely fluent. Marta and I almost always conversed in English now, but when we argued or confided our most secret feelings, we switched back to Spanish.

  We’d saved enough money to move out of our one-bedroom apartment and into a two-bedroom house complete with a little yard in front and back that Mami wanted to transform into a beautiful garden even though she’d never touched earth in all her life. She was true to her word and the garden of our little house flourished. Almost every afternoon when I came home from school I’d find her digging the flower beds, pulling out weeds, pouring in plant food, or selecting roses for the table. She was happiest when gardening, but it was disturbing for me to see her hunched over in the dirt with a handkerchief tied around her head and her face smudged. She’d long foregone the habit of dressing well even if she was staying home and adopted her own version of American casual: a stretched polyester pantsuit, the church lady had given her when we first arrived, and tattered house slippers. This was something a respectable Cuban woman would never have done, but Mami happily waved her gardening tools at passers-by without the slightest concern for her appearance. And if it was Mrs. Miller, the little old lady who lived next door and who reminded Mami of Abuela, she’d find a perfect rose to give her as well.

  I liked Mrs. Miller too. She always told me I was an elegant young lady and too smart for the crazy boys of today. Perhaps she’d seen Marta walking home with different boys who’d disappear the minute they turned the corner, whereas I was always alone. Or maybe she just said those nice things because I put her newspaper on her porch when it landed out on the grass, as I knew she had arthritis in her knees and going down the front steps was difficult. Whatever the reason, I felt good in her company and found the smell of soap and baby powder that lingered about her comforting, and the slow deliberate way she planned all of her movements, like opening her purse for a cough drop.

  The cold autumn winds warmed steadily through spring and, if not for the dryness in the air, by summer I could almost imagine I was in the tropics again. Mami was especially proud of the way her roses were coming along, but one afternoon when I arrived from school, she wasn’t in the yard, although her gardening tools were scattered on the ground and a bag of topsoil had fallen over making a tremendous mess on the steps. The front door was open and when I entered I heard Mami’s low mournful wails, and Mrs. Miller’s frail voice trying to console her. I threw my books down and ran into the kitchen to find Mami with her head on the table and Mrs. Miller stroking her back with a trembling hand.

  “Your daughter’s here, Regina,” Mrs. Miller said, obviously relieved to be sharing this burden. But Mami didn’t look up. She simply stopped sobbing and became very still.

  My heart froze with fear. “What happened?”

  Mrs. Miller reached for a yellow paper from the table to give me, but Mami snatched it back. “I don’t want you to see this. Your Tío Carlos is gone. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Gone?”

  “Dead. He’s dead.” Mami’s eyes challenged me to keep my distance. She was lying, I knew she was. How could Tío Carlos be dead? He was younger than Papi. Handsome and smart and strong. He’d never been sick a day in his life. Why would Mami make up such a thing?

  I took a step closer. “Let me see the letter.”

  She clutched the envelope tight in her hand and shook her head.

  “Mami. You can’t protect us from everything. We’re not little girls anymore. Please.”

  She dropped her head and began to sob silently once again. Without looking at me, her hand released the yellow paper on the table. It was a telegram and the Spanish words read, “Carlos Alejandro García died—stop. Executed by firing squad—stop. A traitor to the Revolution—stop.”

  A trembling pain overtook me. I sat next to Mami and felt Mrs. Miller’s hand on my back this time. I read the telegram over and over. Executed by firing squad. I saw his sweet smile, and the way he played his guitar, taking requests while relaxing on Tía María’s porch. Executed by firing squad. He was never angry, and even when he and Papi argued about politics, he maintained a hint of a smile and he’d end the exchange with a friendly slap on Papi’s back. Executed by firing squad. Alicia was his princess. His eyes lit up whenever she came in the room, and he used to tell her to stop growing so fast, that he wasn’t ready for a big girl yet. Executed by firing squad. Alicia, oh my God, Alicia. I still hadn’t heard from her, and by now I feared that I never would. How could she find the strength to live? Tía Nina could never survive it.

  Mrs. Miller sat down at the table beside us. “What’s wrong, dear?” Poor Mrs. Miller. The telegram was in Spanish and Mami and I had been talking in Spanish too. She had no idea what was going on.

  Saying the words out loud made it real in a way that burned through my soul, a branding of hatred and pain that I knew would never go away.

  “They killed my Tío Carlos. They murdered him, because he stood up for what he believed in, because he had the courage to speak against injustice, because he loved his country, our country. They stood him up against a wall and shot him like a dog because they knew that as long as he lived, their lies would be discovered. They murdered him because he was too strong for them.”

  Mrs. Miller gasped. She may have expected a death in the family, but nothing like this. The fine trembling in her hands grew more pronounced, and her touch was jittery and warm on my arm. “Oh my. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  She made us tea and we sat silently in the darkening kitchen for some time. Marta should’ve come home an hour ago, and Papi would be home soon. I knew this was Mami’s primary concern now.

  At last, we walked Mrs. Miller to the door and thanked her for her help. Then we turned on one light and waited in the living room.

  The phone rang. It was Marta asking if she could stay for dinner at Debbie’s house. “You need to come home,” Mami said.

  “No, you need to come. Something’s happened and we need you here. I can’t tell you over the phone.”

  We heard Papi’s car in the drive and looked at each other knowing the worst was yet to come, wishing we could do anything to spare him this pain.

  He saw us sitting in the semidarkness waiting for him with swollen eyes. Mami stood up, the telegram in her pocket. Her lips began to tremble. “José, something has happened.”

  He drops his briefcase to the floor, and together they walk to their bedroom. The door closes and with a pillow pressed to my belly, I wait. I hear his scream in the very core of my soul, in a place where the worst of humanity can be imagined and where the idea of hell was conceived. My own sobs explode from the back of my throat and I can’t stop them and I almost stop breathing in the pillow when I realize I’ve been suffocating myself in an effort to stop crying.

  I hear him again, “Dear God, oh Dear Blessed Mother…Not Carlitos…please God…not my brother…”

  I want to go in and help comfort him, but I know Papi will only allow Mami to see him like this. For everyone else, he must be strong and in control. I must respect this.

  Then Marta comes through the front door ready to offer excuses for her lateness. I tell her what’s happened, and her face twists in agony. She hears Papi scream from the bedroom, drops her bag, and runs to their bedroom.

  “Marta, you can’t go in,” I say, running after her. I grab her arm, but she wrenches it free and bursts through the bedroom door. Papi is lying on their bed in his suit, his knees up to his chest, sobbing as Mami strokes his hair, talking softly with a gentle strength we only see when he is unable to be strong.

  Marta throws herself on the bed and curls up next to him with her arm around his shoulder. He doesn’t seem to notice her at first, but then his hand comes around and touches her cheek. Mami sees me standing in the doorway and motions for me to enter too.

  “We need to pray,” she whispers, but only Mami and I are able to say the words of the Our Father
without sobbing.

  “Tell your father what you said to Mrs. Miller today,” my mother says. And so I try to remember and to make it sound eloquent and real, but I stumble a bit so eager to make it somehow better.

  As I talk of Tío Carlos’s courage and strength, Papi gazes up at me innocent as a child and nods slowly. He takes my hand and presses it to his lips. “Thank you, Nora.”

  After a few weeks, we stopped speaking of Tío Carlos’s death. It was like talking about the air that we breathed, or the ground beneath our feet. It was always with us, and the sadness we felt pushed us deeper into the American way of life. Even I had to give in a little and concede that my dream of returning home was fading past the point of recognition. But, sometimes as I walked to and from school the realization of what was happening came upon me like the sudden rainstorms of the tropics. I used to love the rain and the way it washed the world clean. But these storms were of a different sort. They were filled with the tears I was too tired to shed myself, and they fell upon soil I could no longer feel beneath my feet. But the more I sunk into my cautious understanding of survival, the more Marta seemed to bloom. She flourished in this strange weather, and I watched her unfold as though she were not my sister, that little girl that scuttled after me and Alicia in my other life. She was changing as surely as if she’d shed her old skin and slipped into the pale freckled hide of the americanas who were her friends.

  Sometimes when she talked about her friends and the boys she liked, I felt a deep sorrow in the pit of my stomach. But at least with Marta I wasn’t forced to pretend, and I scowled fiercely at her.

  “You’re such a drip, Nora,” she’d say with her crisp American pronunciation that was a marvel to my slow tongue.

  I’d answer her in Spanish. “I’m not what you say. I keep my real heart safe. I don’t give it away so easily like you do.”